attempted to put the creatures to profitable use. Zombies were disastrous as a tool in warfare, and though there was a trade in zombie prostitution, it was hardly a widespread practice. Given the high cost of importing and maintaining slaves from Africa, it was inevitable that some enterprising individuals would attempt to use zombies as manual labor.
Most people were not crazy enough to attempt working alongside a zombie in any capacity; that is, until 1807, when Calvin Moore created a simple and effective zombie muzzle. Getting the muzzle on the zombie wasn’t exactly easy, but once it was fastened in place, it rendered a zombie virtually harmless. Following the mass production of Moore’s muzzle, there was a zombie slavery boom.
Zombie slaves were used for a variety of tasks. They were chained to posts amongst crops to serve as scarecrows, and chained to perimeter fences to deter the escape of human slaves. They were fastened to yokes and used to till and plow fields, to pull carts and wagons, and used to turn grinding wheels in mills. Zombies could not be whipped or given orders, but by placing human bait in front of them, they would struggle forward indefinitely, no matter the weight placed against them. In fact, zombie slaves were so ideal that many plantation owners would intentionally zombinate their African slaves to make them easier to control. This practice was illegal and generally frowned upon by the public, but the law was rarely ever enforced.
Regardless of the effectiveness of Moore’s muzzle, with so many zombies near so many humans day in and day out, accidents had to happen. Muzzles would break, or a zombie claw mark might lead to zombination. In 1820, a faulty muzzle accident struck the North Carolina farm of Tom Hunter. All of the farm’s twenty-one residents were either devoured or zombinated, and four other humans died after the zombies spread from the farm—it was the worst in a long line of similar accidents. Following the tragedy, North Carolina passed a “deficiency law” requiring plantation and farm owners to have two living slaves for every undead one. Over the course of the next few years, other states followed North Carolina’s example, adopting their own variations of deficiency laws (South Carolina required only one human slave for every five zombie slaves).
Pictoral accompanying an article about zombie labor from the Virginia Farmer’s Gazette , May 1844.
By the mid-1800s, zombie slavery had become a way of life in the South. Northern zombie slavery abolitionists saw the practice not only as unsavory and embarrassing to the American character, but also dangerous. The First Cleanse in 1751 had removed a massive number of zombies from the colonies, and though the number of undead had increased during the tumult of the Revolutionary War, the overall numbers had still remained lower than what they had been prior to the cleanse. Now southern plantations had systematically increased the number dras tically. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,443,321. Of that, 5,600,142 were slaves: 3,953,760 human, 1,646,382 zombie.
HYBRID SLAVES
In 1845, a hybrid named Porter Wallace was arrested in Georgia when his family discovered what he was, after Wallace perplexingly survived being impaled on a wooden beam during a silo explosion. Instead of being terminated by flame or firing squad, as was the general practice, Wallace was purchased as a slave by William Alme, a cotton plantation owner. Presumably picking cotton seemed an acceptable alternative to Wallace when compared with being burnt alive.
In general, hybrids were not very desirable as slaves, seen as too intelligent and temperamental (i.e., dangerous) compared with their predictable zombie brethren. Slavery versus death was a choice given to many captured hybrids, but unlike zombies, hybrids would eventually seek to escape. Zombies could also be starved for incredibly long periods of time, often over a year, before they
Most people were not crazy enough to attempt working alongside a zombie in any capacity; that is, until 1807, when Calvin Moore created a simple and effective zombie muzzle. Getting the muzzle on the zombie wasn’t exactly easy, but once it was fastened in place, it rendered a zombie virtually harmless. Following the mass production of Moore’s muzzle, there was a zombie slavery boom.
Zombie slaves were used for a variety of tasks. They were chained to posts amongst crops to serve as scarecrows, and chained to perimeter fences to deter the escape of human slaves. They were fastened to yokes and used to till and plow fields, to pull carts and wagons, and used to turn grinding wheels in mills. Zombies could not be whipped or given orders, but by placing human bait in front of them, they would struggle forward indefinitely, no matter the weight placed against them. In fact, zombie slaves were so ideal that many plantation owners would intentionally zombinate their African slaves to make them easier to control. This practice was illegal and generally frowned upon by the public, but the law was rarely ever enforced.
Regardless of the effectiveness of Moore’s muzzle, with so many zombies near so many humans day in and day out, accidents had to happen. Muzzles would break, or a zombie claw mark might lead to zombination. In 1820, a faulty muzzle accident struck the North Carolina farm of Tom Hunter. All of the farm’s twenty-one residents were either devoured or zombinated, and four other humans died after the zombies spread from the farm—it was the worst in a long line of similar accidents. Following the tragedy, North Carolina passed a “deficiency law” requiring plantation and farm owners to have two living slaves for every undead one. Over the course of the next few years, other states followed North Carolina’s example, adopting their own variations of deficiency laws (South Carolina required only one human slave for every five zombie slaves).
Pictoral accompanying an article about zombie labor from the Virginia Farmer’s Gazette , May 1844.
By the mid-1800s, zombie slavery had become a way of life in the South. Northern zombie slavery abolitionists saw the practice not only as unsavory and embarrassing to the American character, but also dangerous. The First Cleanse in 1751 had removed a massive number of zombies from the colonies, and though the number of undead had increased during the tumult of the Revolutionary War, the overall numbers had still remained lower than what they had been prior to the cleanse. Now southern plantations had systematically increased the number dras tically. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,443,321. Of that, 5,600,142 were slaves: 3,953,760 human, 1,646,382 zombie.
HYBRID SLAVES
In 1845, a hybrid named Porter Wallace was arrested in Georgia when his family discovered what he was, after Wallace perplexingly survived being impaled on a wooden beam during a silo explosion. Instead of being terminated by flame or firing squad, as was the general practice, Wallace was purchased as a slave by William Alme, a cotton plantation owner. Presumably picking cotton seemed an acceptable alternative to Wallace when compared with being burnt alive.
In general, hybrids were not very desirable as slaves, seen as too intelligent and temperamental (i.e., dangerous) compared with their predictable zombie brethren. Slavery versus death was a choice given to many captured hybrids, but unlike zombies, hybrids would eventually seek to escape. Zombies could also be starved for incredibly long periods of time, often over a year, before they
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