[George] was a general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a . . . narrow-minded, tyrannical master. What does the author of this excerpt reveal about the living conditions of enslaved people?
Enslaved people often received favorable treatment.
Enslaved workers were considered to be property, not people.
Enslaved people had a small amount of control over their lives.
Enslaved workers were treated better in factories than in the fields

Enslaved workers were considered to be property, not people.

As you can see in the second sentence, in the eyes of the law, he was not a man but a thing.

They were also a subject to a narrow minded and a tryannical master.

after the civil war, and with the termination of slavery, the south was faced with a big problem; what was supposed to happen and how they were supposed to deal with the freedom and the rights that black people and freed slaves had gained as a result of the north defeating the south and forcing the end of slavery. first, most, if not all, of the workforce of the south came from slaves and they did not have an option to replace the loss of said workforce. second, particularly in the south, people were convinced that black people were lesser, less intelligent, less capable and less smart than whites. this posed a huge problem for them. also, southerners were faced with another issue; freed slaves now had a say in how their lives would be lived and the right to politically choose the way they would be governed. people in the south did not want to accept this, none of this and this opposition and the conflicts that arose from it, not to mention the afereffects of the war, forced the congress of the time to enact and enforce the reconstruction plans that had been proposed by president andrew johnson.