No galleys had bathrooms: all - crew and slaves - had to wait till they got ashore to have a scrub. It may have been possible for a hose to be attached to a hand pump so people could be hosed down, but that is not a bath is it.
One might also sit on a stool or chair for the sponge bath, or use the tub as a medicinal foot bath. If used by an enslaved woman, it may have been used outdoors or in the kitchen. In some households she might have been allowed to bathe in her room.
Medicinal herbs were also used by the slave community to regulate menstrual cycles and assist in births. Their gender-specific knowledge and cultural practices resisted dominant cultural norms.
Georgia Giwbs (a former slave) said that the process of making the lye to create the soap included slowly mixing water with oak wood ashes to create an oak ash lye to begin the task of laundry. In some other instances, women made their lye soap via animal skin as opposed to ashes.
For bed-clothing, they give them only a blanket once in four or five years; and they are obliged to wear this till it falls in pieces. If the slaves require other clothes, they must buy them out of their own little savings.
Sixteen to eighteen hours of work was the norm on most West Indian plantations, and during the season of sugarcane harvest, most slaves only got four hours of sleep.
Basic garment of female slaves consisted of a one-piece frock or slip of coarse "Negro Cloth." Cotton dresses, sunbonnets, and undergarments were made from handwoven cloth for summer and winter. Annual clothing distributions included brogan shoes, palmetto hats, turbans, and handkerchiefs.
It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there…a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while someone else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees using nothing but hands…to hold the food.”
The First Shower
We begin our journey with our ancestors who lived in caves and huts that they built from natural resources. All those centuries ago, the only powerful source of water was waterfalls. Ancient tribal people would simply stand under the falling water to clean themselves.
The first soap made was a greasy goop with unpleasant smell produced from cooking animal fat with an alkali called “lye” derived from woody ashes.
Abortions and contraceptives were also seen as a means for enslaved women to exercise agency over their bodies by allowing the women to control their ability to be impregnated. The peacock flower and the cotton root were plants that could be used as abortifacients.
Free feminine hygiene products (tampons, sanitary napkins, menstrual sponges, menstrual cups, etc) are available to female inmates upon request. All correctional or detention facilities must have a policy for provision of a necessary number of hygiene products for female inmates and detainees.
Perhaps prehistoric women did not have their period as often as nowadays. In times of lack of food, during pregnancy and the lengthy period of breast feeding, they didn't get bleeding. As sanitary towels they could have used supple bags of leather or linen, possibly filled with moss or any other absorbing material.
An accountable daily ritual of bathing can be traced to the ancient Indians. They used elaborate practices for personal hygiene with three daily baths and washing. These are recorded in the works called grihya sutras which date back to 500 BCE and are in practice today in some communities.
Once in the New World, enslaved people were usually still made to sleep in tight quarters, sometimes on the bare floor, and they struggled to snatch any sleep at all while chained together in the coffle.
Washerwomen agitated the clothes by hand, stirring them in the water or scrubbing them with laundry bats, flat wooden paddles with ridges. Once cleaned, the clothes would be rinsed in separate water.
Rags and nappies (1700s)
First forward to the 18th century and most women would simply use old clothing or just normal baby nappies as menstrual rags. For women who did not have enough rags, they would use sheepskin and line it with cotton. They would boil them clean after every use.
By the 16th century, urban bathhouses started to disappear as Europe was ravaged by plague, smallpox, and syphilis, and as theories of contagion became more widely discussed in medical circles.
Before the mid-nineteenth century, Americans seldom bathed for personal cleanliness. Many considered bathing to be unhealthy, believing it removed a “protective” layer of oil and dirt and exposed the body to unclean water and dangerous “miasmas,” or diseased air.
Typically, slaves received three meals by day with no more than four or five types of staple food: cornmeal or manioc flour, and meat (dried or fresh). The provision of vegetables and fruits was irregular and conditioned to seasonal availability.
Alcohol as a Weapon of Degradation and Exploitation
Intoxication of slaves was promoted during harvest and holidays through the provision of large quantities of cheap, concentrated alcohol.
In the Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, “Aunt Tildy” Collins describes having her hair prepared for Sunday school by her mother and grandmother, who would use a “jimcrow” to comb their hair before threading it with fabric (or sometimes with cotton) or plaiting it, both techniques ...
While some enslavers provided their enslaved populations with clothes on an as-needed basis, the most common practice was to provide clothing twice a year, coinciding with the seasonal duties of their laborers.
Broadly speaking, enslaved laborers on plantations employed water for three purposes: washing, cooking, and drinking. Surface water, including rivers and ponds, was used for washing clothes and bathing. Leather and wooden buckets, barrels, and jars transported ground or surface water for use and, in some cases, sale.