A most brutal and inhuman case of whipping and murdering negroes was
done by the driver on J. R.’s plantation, about forty miles from
Natchez, in November, 1848. I will give the fiendish monster’s account
of it in his own blasphemous language, while boasting of the deed to
another driver. He said, “G--d d--n my soul, if I didn’t whip a woman
last week until she childed right on the ground while I was whipping
her; and a few days before I whipped another woman till I thought she
was dead, but she revived a little and I told the niggers to carry her
in the hut. The next day she sent for me, and when I went in she told
me that she was going to die, and that I had killed her. I told her I
was G--d d--n glad of it, and I was d--n sorry I hadn’t done it for
her yesterday; and she died that night.” Yet this is all legalized,
“moderate correction;” and doubtless will be considered as an “isolated
case.”
The driver’s duty on a plantation is to see that the negroes are at
work, and to do this he usually follows them into the field, and
exercises a general supervision over their labor. His equipments are a
heavy knife, a revolver pistol, and a large whip, the lash of which is
about seven feet long. While in the field, if the negro does not work
rapidly, or if he violates the rules of the plantation, this lash comes
down upon him with a power and force that cuts through his clothes and
tears his skin and flesh in shreds. These blows will often be repeated
by a peculiar swing of the lash from right to left, every one of which
will cut a hole where it hits like a scoop with a gouge.