SOURCE: “The Driver's Lash,” in Many Thousands Gone: The Ex-Slaves' Account of Their Bondage and Freedom, E. J. Brill, 1963, pp. 62-70.

In the following excerpt, Nichols analyzes several first-hand accounts of the physical systems of control of slaves, particularly that of punishment.

“No more driver's lash for me, No more, no more, No more driver's lash for me, Many thousand gone.” 

Holidays, gifts, opportunities to work for wages, religious training, the hope of freedom all served to make slaves more contented and controllable. But to a considerable extent the master depended on physical controls: the driver's or overseer's whip, the patrols and the law. To be sure the slaves were not without means of bringing their masters to terms either. They resisted, pretended illness, loafed, petitioned, ran off to the woods (on “strike”), mutilated themselves, or ran away forever. These are, however, aspects of slave behavior which will...