"No slave or free person of color shall in the streets or
alleys, fight, quarrel, riot, or otherwise, act in a disorderly
manner, under the penalty of chastisement by any officer of the
city, not exceeding 25 lashes, and in all cases of conviction
before the Recorder's Court, he or she shall be punished by
whipping, not exceeding 75 lashes.
"No slave or free person of color, shall be allowed to keep a
shop or shops for the sale of beer, cake, fruit, soda water, or
any similar articles on their own account or for the benefit
of any other person whomsoever. Any slave or slaves, or free
person of color, found keeping a shop and selling, bartering,
or trading in any way, shall be taken up and punished by
whipping, with not more than 30 lashes for each and every
offense, and shall stand committed until the officer's fees
are paid."
Most of the slaves interviewed were too young during the slavery period
to have experienced any of the more cruel punishments, though some
remembered hearing tales of brutal beatings. Most of the punishments
inflicted were mild chastisements or restrictions.
Susie Brown, who was a slave on the Evans' plantation on Little River in
Columbia, said, "My Marster wus good to me, good as he could be--only
thing he whup me fer wus usin' snuff. And when he go to whup me, Mistis
beg him to stop, and he only gib me a lick or two. And if Mistis try to
whup me, he make her stop. No, dey didn't had to do much whuppin'. Dey
wus good to de hand." When asked about her overseer she replied, "Dere
wus a overseer, but I disremember his name."
Most of these old ex-slaves' recollections had to do with the
"Patterolas", as the Patrol was called. One of them said about the
Patrol, "Oh yes, ma'm, I seed da Patterolas, but I never heard no song
about 'em. Dey wus all white mens. Jus' like now you want to go off your
Marster's place to another man's place, you had to get a pass from your
boss man. If you didn't have dat pass, de Patterolas would whip you."
A woman who lived on the Roof plantation said, "I worked under four
overseers, one of 'em was mean, and he had a big deep voice. When the
niggers was at the feed lot, the place where they carried the dinner
they brought to the fields, he would hardly give 'em time to eat before
he hollered out, 'Git up and go back to work!'"
She also said that Mars. Thomas, the red-haired young master, was mean
about slaves over-staying pass time. "If they want off and stayed too
long, when they came back, he'd strip them stark, mother nekked, tie 'em
to a tree, and whip 'em good. But old Marster, he didn't believe in
whipping. It was different when the boys took possession after he died."
Very few slaves ran away, but when they did the master hunted them with
dogs.
When Carrie Lewis, who belonged to Captain Ward, was asked if the slaves
were ever whipped on their plantation, she replied, "No ma'm, de Marster
say to de overseer, 'If you whup dem, I whup you.' No ma'm, he wouldn't
keep a overseer dat wus mean to us--Cap'n Ward wus good to us. He
wouldn't let de little ones call him 'Marster', dey had to call him and
de Missus, 'Grampa' and 'Gramma'. My folks didn't mistreat de slaves.
I'd be better off now if it wus dem times now."
We asked Ellen Campbell, a Richmond County slave if her master was good
to her and she replied, "I'll say fer Mr. William Eve--he de bes' white
man anywhere round here on any dese plantachuns. Dey all own slaves.
Sometimes de overseer whup 'em--make 'em strip off dey shirt and whup
'em on de bare skin. My boss had a white overseer and two colored men
dey call drivers. If dey didn't done right dey dus whup 'em and turn 'em
loose."
It was said that those who refused to take whippings were generally
negroes of African royal blood, or their descendants.
Edward Glenn of the Clinton Brown plantation in Forsythe County, Ga.,
said, "My father would not take a whipping. He would die before he would
take a whipping. The Marster thought so much of him, he made young
Marster Clinton promise he would never sell him or put a stripe on him.
Once, when he wanted to punish him, he give him a horse and bridle and
fifty dollars. 'Go on off somewhere and get somebody to buy you.' My
father stayed away a month. One day he come home, he had been off about
100 miles. He brought with him a man who wanted to buy him. Marster put
the man up for the night, fed his horse, and father went on out to
mother. Next day when the man made him a price on father, Marster said,
'I was just foolin'. I wouldn't sell him for nothing. I was trying to
punish him. He is true and honest, but he won't take a whipping.'
"Sometimes a slave was treated so bad by his owners he was glad if they
put him up to be sold. If he was a bad man, they handcuffed him, put him
on a stand, like for preachings and auctioned him off to the highest
bidder.
"When runaway slave was brought back they was punished. Once in Alabama
I saw a woman stripped naked, laid over a stump in a field with her head
hangin' down on one side, her feet on the other, and tied to the stump.
Then they whipped her hard, and you could hear her hollering far off,
'Oh, Lawd a'musay! Lawd a-musay!'."
Another punishment Edward said, was called the "Gameron Stick",
(sometimes called the Gamlin stick, or Spanish Buck). The slave's arms
were bound around the bent knees and fastened to a stick run beneath
them. This was called the "Spanish Buck" punishment. They stripped the
slave, who was unable to stand up, and rolled him on one side and
whipped him till the blood came. They called the whip the "cowhide".
Slaves were whipped for small things, such as forgetting orders or
spilling food.