There is a practice prevalent among the planters, of letting a negro off from severe and long-continued punishment on account of the intercession of some white person, who pleads in his behalf, that he believes the negro will behave better, that he promises well, and he believes he will keep his promise, &c.  The planters sometimes get tired of punishing a negro, and, wanting his services in the field, they get some white person to come, and, in the presence of the slave, intercede for him.  At one time a negro, named Charles, was confined in the stocks in the building where I was at work, and had been severely whipped several times.  He begged me to intercede for him and try to get him released.  I told him I would; and when his master came in to whip him again, I went up to him and told him I had been talking with Charles, and he had promised to behave better, &c., and requested him not to punish him any more, but to let him go.  He then said to Charles, “As Mr. Caulkins has been pleading for you, I will let you go on his account;” and accordingly released him.

Women are generally shown some little indulgence for three or four weeks previous to childbirth; they are at such times not often punished if they do not finish the task assigned them; it is, in some cases, passed over with a severe reprimand, and sometimes without any notice being taken of it.  They ate generally allowed four weeks after the birth of a child, before they are compelled to go into the field, they then take the child with them, attended sometimes by a little girl or boy, from the age of four to six, to take care of it while the mother is at work.  When there is no child that can be spared, or not young enough for this service, the mother, after nursing, lays it under a tree, or by the side of a fence, and goes to her task, returning at stated intervals to nurse it.  While I was on this plantation, a little negro girl, six years of age, destroyed the life of a child about two months old, which was left in her care.  It seems this little nurse, so called, got tired of her charge and the labor of carrying it to the quarters at night, the mother being obliged to work as long as she could see.  One evening she nursed the infant at sunset as usual, and sent it to the quarters.  The little girl, on her way home, had to cross a run or brook, which led down into the swamp; when she came to the brook she followed it into the swamp, then took the infant and plunged it head foremost into the water and mud, where it stuck fast; she there left it and went to the negro quarters.  When the mother came in from the field, she asked the girl where the child was; she told her she had brought it home, but did not know where it was; the overseer was immediately informed, search was made, and it was found as above stated, and dead.  The little girl was shut up in the barn, and confined there two or three weeks, when a speculator came along and bought her for two hundred dollars.