As one eyewitness testified before Parliament in 1791, they had not so much room as a man in his coffin. Once in the Americas, the surviving slaves were sold at a market very similar to the way cattle would be sold. After purchase, slave owners would often brand their new possession on the cheeks, again, just as they would do with cattle. The lives of slaves were dominated by work and terror, but mostly work. Slaves did all types of work, from housework to skilled crafts work, and some even worked as sailors, but the majority of them worked as agricultural laborers. In the Caribbean and Brazil, most of them planted, harvested, and processed sugar, working ten months out of the year, dawn until dusk. The worst part of this job, which is saying something, because there were many bad parts, was fertilizing the sugar cane.