Africans and African descendants tried to address or rather resist their daily problems of slavery. Resistance to slavery originated in British North America as soon as the first slaves arrived in the Chesapeake in the early 17th century. The most widely shared act of resistance was the attempt to claim a certain degree of freedom against an establishment that considered people fundamentally as property. Perhaps the most common forms of resistance have been those that take place in the workplace. Ultimately, slavery was about forced labor, and slaves struggled daily to express the position of their labor. Over the years, ordinary rights have developed in most production sectors. These tolls dictated working habits, the distribution of rations, general rules of conduct, etc. If slave masters increased workloads, provided insufficient rations, or punished slaves too harshly, slaves showed their unhappiness by slowing down work, feigning illness, breaking tools, or damaging production. These are their daily forms of resistance, and there was little that angry slave masters could do to stop them without jeopardizing more common production disruptions. In this way, slaves often negotiated the basic terms of their daily routine. Of course, masters would also benefit from these negotiations, as satisfied slaves worked harder, increasing production and efficiency. Another common method of slave resistance was theft. Slaves stole fruits, vegetables, livestock, tobacco, liquor, and money from their owners. Theft of goods was particularly common and was corrected for several reasons. Slave rations were often sadly poor in providing the nutrition and calories needed to sustain... middle of paper... satiated, whether during war or as revenge for rebellion. Another 13 slaves were hanged, along with 3 free African Americans. If the measure of a revolt's success was the defeat of slavery, then none of these rebellions were successful. Slave rebellions in foreign America and in the United States never achieved such great success; the importance of the uprising cannot be overstated. The continuing threat of physical violence was that slavery would never go unrestricted. Many slaves lived as slaves but before they had a free life they ended up being kidnapped by slave masters and entered into the slave trade or auctions, where they ended up being sold numerous times. Solomon Northrup in the movie 12 Years a Slave is a good example of how some free men became slaves and their problems in trying to cope and resist without losing their lives in the meantime..