"You could hear of some mean slave owners taking switches and beating
their niggers nearly to death. But I never heard of my old master
doing that. Slaves would run away and it would be a year or two before
they would be caught. Sometimes they would take him and strip him
naked and whip him till he wasn't able to stand for running away. But
I never heard of nothing like that happening with Asa Brown. But he
sometimes would sell a hand or buy one sometimes. He'd take a nigger
in exchange for a debt and rent him out.