To Be A Slave: Analysis To Be a Slave is an assortment of passages and journals from the slaves that served their masters during the Civil War era. At the beginning, typical life and daily hardships that occur on the plantation are depicted. The conditions that are described are horrible, even for animals to live in. The slaves are forced to sleep on straw mats, and even then they were lucky. Most of the time, slaves barely even saw wooden floors much less walk on them. The harsh beatings the slaves endured were enough to make a man welcome death. A man named Northup, known as Platt on the plantation, tried to make life