Nos engenhos coloniais eram geralmente as mulheres que trabalhavam na moagem da cana, porque será que os senhores preferiam que as mulheres realizavam esse tipo de serviço?

In the plantations, male and female slaves were both responsible for all the planting, harvesting and cleaning of the fields under extremely harsh and inhumane conditions. The harvesting was carried out by broad curved machetes and afterwards the ripe sugar canes were loaded into carts and taken to the sugar cane mills erected in the plantation estates to be processed into sugar and its derivatives.

In the sugar cane mills, during the harvesting periods work was 24 hours none stop to meet up with supply deadlines as most of the machinery used were slow and inefficient.

In contrast to what happened in the plantation fields, the slave masters preferred female slaves working in the sugar cane mills. Theirs was a particularly hazardous and life-threatening responsibility as it involved pushing the sugar cane stalks into wooden and metal rollers to crush and extract the sugar cane juice and also operating the sugar cane broiler.

This preference was because:

For economic reasons, though the slaves were bought, the human value of the slaves was never considered. The value of the end product was highly priced. Human slave life was easily replaced by the masters. And since working the sugar mills was a highly hazardous activity lives were frequently lost as the mill rollers were know to have crushed to death and maimed many slaves. In most parts of the world where African slaves were used, female slaves were sold at a cheaper value than their male counterparts. Therefore it stands to reason that the slaves masters would prefer the female slaves regarded as "cheaper replacements" Since work in the mills had to work 24 hours none stop, the environment had to be washed, swept frequently and kept clean to sustain a minimum level of cleaness and higiene. Female slaves were considered ideal for this as well.