were worked as hard as they would bear, from daybreak
until 9 or 10 o’clock at night. They were
called directly from their bunks in the morning to
their work, without a morsel of food until noon, when
they took their breakfast and dinner, consisting of
bacon and corn bread. The quantity of meat was
not one tenth of what the same number of northern
laborers usually have at a meal. They were allowed
but fifteen minutes to take this meal, at the expiration
of this time the horn was blown. The rigor with
which they enforce punctuality to its call, may be
imagined from the fact, that a little boy only nine
years old was whipped so severely by the driver, that
in many places the whip cut through his clothes (which
were of cotton,) for tardiness of not over three minutes.
They then worked without intermission until 9 or 10
at night; after which they prepared and ate their
second meal, as scanty as the first. An aged slave,
who was remarkable for his industry and fidelity,
was working with all his might on the threshing floor;
amidst the clatter of the shelling and winnowing machines
the master spoke to him, but he did not hear; he presently
gave him several severe cuts with the raw hide, saying,
at the same time, ’damn you, if you cannot hear
I’ll see if you can feel.’ One morning
the master rose from breakfast and whipped most cruelly,
with a raw hide, a nice girl who was waiting on the
table, for not opening a
west window when he
had told her to open an east one. The number
of slaves was only forty, and yet the lash was in
constant use. The bodies of all of them were literally
covered with old scars.
“Not one of the slaves attended church on the
Sabbath. The social relations were scarcely recognised
among them, and they lived in a state of promiscuous
concubinage. The master said he took pains to
breed from his best stock—the whiter the
progeny the higher they would sell for house servants.
When asked by Mr. C. if he did not fear his slaves
would run away if he whipped them so much, he replied,
they know too well what they must suffer if they are
taken—and then said, ’I’ll
tell you how I treat my runaway niggers. I had
a big nigger that ran away the second time; as soon
as I got track of him I took three good fellows and
went in pursuit, and found him in the night, some
miles distant, in a corn-house; we took him and ironed
him hand and foot, and carted him home. The next
morning we tied him to a tree, and whipped him until
there was not a sound place on his back. I then
tied his ankles and hoisted him up to a limb—feet
up and head down—we then whipped him, until
the damned nigger smoked so that I thought he would
take fire and burn up. We then took him down;
and to make sure that he should not run away the third
time, I run my knife in back of the ankles, and cut
off the large cords,—and then I ought
to have put some lead into the wounds, but I forgot
it’
“The truth of the above is from unquestionable
authority; and you may publish or suppress it, as
shall best subserve the cause of God and humanity.”