“In the grain-growing part of the south, the slaves, as it relates to food, fare tolerably well; but in the cotton, and rice-growing, and sugar-making portion, some of them fare badly.  I have been on plantations where, from the appearance of the slaves, I should judge they were half-starved.  They receive their allowance very commonly on Sunday morning.  They are left to cook it as they please, and when they please.  Many slaveholders rarely give their slaves meat, and very few give them more food than will keep them in a working condition.  They rarely ever have a change of food.  I have never known an instance of slaves on plantations being furnished either with sugar, butter, cheese, or milk.”

WORK.

“If the slaves on plantations were well fed and clothed, and had the stimulus of wages, they could perhaps in general perform their tasks without injury.  The horn is blown soon after the dawn of day, when all the hands destined for the field must be ‘on the march!’ If the field is far from their huts, they take their breakfast with them.  They toil till about ten o’clock, when they eat it.  They then continue their toil till the sun is set.

“A neighbor of mine, who has been an overseer in Alabama, informs me, that there they ascertain how much labor a slave can perform in a day, in the following manner.  When they commence a new cotton field, the overseer takes his watch, and marks how long it takes them to hoe one row, and then lays out the task accordingly.  My neighbor also informs me, that the slaves in Alabama are worked very hard; that the lash is almost universally applied at the close of the day, if they fail to perform their task in the cotton-picking season.  You will see them, with their baskets of cotton, slowly bending their way to the cotton house, where each one’s basket is weighed.  They have no means of knowing accurately, in the course of the day, how they make progress; so that they are in suspense, until their basket is weighed.  Here comes the mother, with her children; she does not know whether herself, or children, or all of them, must take the lash; they cannot weigh the cotton themselves—­the whole must be trusted to the overseer.  While the weighing goes on, all is still.  So many pounds short, cries the overseer, and takes up his whip, exclaiming, ’Step this way, you d—­n lazy scoundrel, or bitch.’  The poor slave begs, and promises, but to no purpose.  The lash is applied until the overseer is satisfied.  Sometimes the whipping is deferred until the weighing is all over.  I have said that all must be trusted to the overseer.  If he owes any one a grudge, or wishes to enjoy the fiendish pleasure of whipping a little, (for some overseers really delight in it,) they have only to tell a falsehood relative to the weight of their basket; they can then have a pretext to gratify their diabolical disposition; and from the character of overseers, I have no doubt that it