Prior to the Civil War and emancipation, plantation owners in Fort Bend commonly used enslaved people for agricultural and domestic labor. By 1855, Texas had 105,186 enslaved people, including 1,746 in Fort Bend County. Enslaved men here tended cotton, corn, and lesser crops, managed and slaughtered livestock, cut wood for sale and plantation use, mended fences, and drove wagons and carriages. Enslaved women served as maids, cooks, laundresses, seamstresses, housekeepers, and caregivers for children, and both men and women participated in the cotton harvest. Fort Bend County's economic success rested substantially on their labor. Lamar's enslaved people arrived here in July 1853 to work with Jane Long's enslaved people to produce that year's cotton and corn crops. Those known to have lived here were Lawrence, Wesley, Frederick, Ralph, William, Frank, Fanny, Lucy, Charlotte, Dilcey, Frances, Martha, Reuben, and Rachel.