To this we may add that the slaves are social beings, and that during the day, silence is generally enforced by the whip of the overseer or driver.[3] When they return at night, their pent up social feelings will seek vent, it is a law of nature, and though the body may be greatly worn with toil, this law cannot be wholly stifled.  Sharers of the same woes, they are drawn together by strong affinities, and seek the society and sympathy of their fellows; even “tired nature” will joyfully forego for a time needful rest, to minister to a want of its being equally permanent and imperative as the want of sleep, and as much more profound, as the yearnings of the higher nature surpass the instincts of its animal appendage.

[Footnote 3:  We do not mean that they are not suffered to speak, but, that, as conversation would be a hindrance to labour, they are generally permitted to indulge in it but little.]

All these things make drafts upon time.  To show how much of the slave’s time, which is absolutely indispensable for rest and sleep, is necessarily spent in various labors after his return from the field at night, we subjoin a few testimonies.

Mr. CORNELIUS JOHNSON, Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in the years 1837 and 38, says: 

“On all the plantations where I was acquainted, the slaves were kept in the field till dark; after which, those who had to grind their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend to other family affairs of their own and of their master, such as bringing water, washing, clothes, &c. &c., and be in the field as soon as it was sufficiently light to commence work in the morning.”

Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, of Quincy, Illinois, who has spent several years in the south western slave states, says: 

“Their time, after full dark until four o’clock in the morning is their own; this fact alone would seem to say they have sufficient rest, but there are other things to be considered; much of their making, mending and washing of clothes, preparing and cooking food, hauling and chopping wood, fixing and preparing tools, and a variety of little nameless jobs must be done between those hours.”

PHILEMON BLISS, Esq. of Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 5, gives the following testimony: 

“After having finished their field labors, they are occupied till nine or ten o’clock in doing chores, such as grinding corn, (as all the corn in the vicinity is ground by hand,) chopping wood, taking care of horses, mules, &c., and a thousand things necessary to be done on a large plantation.  If any extra job is to be done, it must not hinder the ‘niggers’ from their work, but must be done in the night.”

W.C.  GILDERSLEEVE, Esq., a native of Georgia, an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Wilkes-barre, Pa. says: 

“The corn is ground in a handmill by the slave after his task is done—­generally there is but one mill on the plantation, and as but one can grind at a time, the mill is going sometimes very late at night.”