Why did slaves stay with their owners?

Answer 1

There were a range of reasons, from those slaves who were watched so closely and punished so severely if they attempted to run away that they dared not try to leave, to those who stayed because they were happy enough where they were, or out of a sense of personal loyalty, and many reasons between those extremes. Where they were was often their lifelong home. Extended family was there, friends, perhaps a wife and young children, making the security of certain sustenance and shelter preferable to the unknowns beyond. Most slaves were, by law, uneducated, and so were not able to find work other than manual labor, and did not have an education which informed them of opportunities that might exist or places that might be better. Some slaves were allowed considerable autonomy to practice a skilled trade, such as bricklaying or carpentry, and some lenient masters allowed slaves to hire themselves out for wages when their labor was not required on the masters property. Some of these may have been saving to buy their own freedom, or that of family members. People's lives, and their motivations, including those of slaves, were every bit as complex as those of people today. There were other obstacles. In many localities where there were many slaves the slaveowners took turns riding local roads at night as a watch for any absconding slaves from the area. There were slavecatchers who made a living tracking down runaways and returning them. There was a lot of prejudice. At the end of the war, when slaves were freed, many did leave the plantations, just because they could, and they wanted to see something of the world. But their fate was not always a happy one. Without skills or education, they drifted to larger towns, and there competed with one another for unskilled laboring jobs, and often lived worse than they had on the plantation, with only the comfort of knowing they were starving as free men.

Answer 2

they didnt they were free at the end end but it was still like owning them