_Cruel treatment on Whitfield's farm--Exposure of the children--Mode
of extorting extra labor--Neglect of the sick--Strange medicine
used--Death of our second child._
My first impressions when I arrived on the Deacon's farm, were that he
was far more like what the people call the devil, than he was like a
deacon. Not many days after my arrival there, I heard the Deacon tell
one of the slave girls, that he had bought her for a wife for his boy
Stephen, which office he compelled her fully to perform against her
will. This he enforced by a threat. At first the poor girl neglected
to do this, having no sort of affection for the man--but she was
finally forced to it by an application of the driver's lash, as
threatened by the Deacon.
The next thing I observed was that he made the slave driver strip his
own wife, and flog her for not doing just as her master had ordered.
He had a white overseer, and a colored man for a driver, whose
business it was to watch and drive the slaves in the field, and do the
flogging according to the orders of the overseer.
Next a mulatto girl who waited about the house, on her mistress,
displeased her, for which the Deacon stripped and tied her up. He then
handed me the lash and ordered me to put it on--but I told him I never
had done the like, and hoped he would not compel me to do it. He then
informed me that I was to be his overseer, and that he had bought me
for that purpose. He was paying a man eight hundred dollars a year to
oversee, and he believed I was competent to do the same business, and
if I would do it up right he would put nothing harder on me to do; and
if I knew not how to flog a slave, he would set me an example by which
I might be governed. He then commenced on this poor girl, and gave her
two hundred lashes before he had her untied.
After giving her fifty lashes, he stopped and lectured her a while,
asking her if she thought that she could obey her mistress, &c. She
promised to do all in her power to please him and her mistress, if he
would have mercy on her. But this plea was all vain. He commenced on
her again; and this flogging was carried on in the most inhuman manner
until she had received two hundred stripes on her naked quivering
flesh, tied up and exposed to the public gaze of all. And this was the
example that I was to copy after.
He then compelled me to wash her back off with strong salt brine,
before she was untied, which was so revolting to my feelings, that I
could not refrain from shedding tears.
For some cause he never called on me again to flog a slave. I presume
he saw that I was not savage enough. The above were about the first
items of the Deacon's conduct which struck me with peculiar disgust.
After having enjoyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty for
a season, to be dragged into that horrible place with my family, to
linger out my existence without the aid of religious societies, or the
light of revelation, was more than I could endure. I really felt as if
I had got into one of the darkest corners of the earth. I thought I
was almost out of humanity's reach, and should never again have the
pleasure of hearing the gospel sound, as I could see no way by which I
could extricate myself; yet I never omitted to pray for deliverance. I
had faith to believe that the Lord could see our wrongs and hear our
cries.
I was not used quite as bad as the regular field hands, as the greater
part of my time was spent working about the house; and my wife was the
cook.
This country was full of pine timber, and every slave had to prepare a
light wood torch, over night, made of pine knots, to meet the overseer
with, before daylight in the morning. Each person had to have his
torch lit, and come with it in his hand to the gin house, before the
overseer and driver, so as to be ready to go to the cotton field by
the time they could see to pick out cotton. These lights looked
beautiful at a distance.
The object of blowing the horn for them two hours before day, was,
that they should get their bite to eat, before they went to the field,
that they need not stop to eat but once during the day. Another object
was, to do up their flogging which had been omitted over night. I have
often heard the sound of the slave driver's lash on the backs, of the
slaves and their heart-rending shrieks, which were enough to melt the
heart of humanity, even among the most barbarous nations of the
earth.
But the Deacon would keep no overseer on his plantation, who neglected
to perform this every morning. I have heard him say that he was no
better pleased than when he could hear the overseer's loud complaining
voice, long before daylight in the morning, and the sound of the
driver's lash among the toiling slaves.
This was a very warm climate, abounding with musquitoes, galinippers
and other insects which were exceedingly annoying to the poor slaves
by night and day, at their quarters and in the field. But more
especially to their helpless little children, which they had to carry
with them to the cotton fields, where they had to set on the damp
ground alone from morning till night, exposed to the scorching rays of
the sun, liable to be bitten by poisonous rattle snakes which are
plenty in that section of the country, or to be devoured by large
alligators, which are often seen creeping through the cotton fields
going from swamp to swamp seeking their prey.
The cotton planters generally, never allow a slave mother time to go
to the house, or quarter during the day to nurse her child; hence they
have to carry them to the cotton fields and tie them in the shade of a
tree, or in clusters of high weeds about in the fields, where they can
go to them at noon, when they are allowed to stop work for one half
hour. This is the reason why so very few slave children are raised on
these cotton plantations, the mothers have no time to take care of
them--and they are often found dead in the field and in the quarter
for want of the care of their mothers. But I never was eye witness to
a case of this kind but have heard many narrated by my slave brothers
and sisters, some of which occurred on the deacon's plantation.
Their plan of getting large quantities of cotton picked is not only to
extort it from them by the lash, but hold out an inducement and
deceive them by giving small prizes. For example; the overseer will
offer something worth one or two dollars to any slave who will pick
out the most cotton in one day, dividing the hands off in three
classes and offering a prize to the one who will pick out the most
cotton in each of the classes. By this means they are all interested
in trying to get the prize.
After making them try it over several times and weighing what cotton
they pick every night, the overseer can tell just how much every hand
can pick. He then gives the present to those that pick the most
cotton, and then if they do not pick just as much afterward they are
flogged.
I have known the slaves to be so much fatigued from labor that they
could scarcely get to their lodging places from the field at night.
And then they would have to prepare something to eat before they could
lie down to rest. Their corn they had to grind on a hand mill for
bread stuff, or pound it in a mortar; and by the time they would get
their suppers it would be midnight; then they would herd down all
together and take but two or three hours rest, before the overseer's
horn called them up again to prepare for the field.
At the time of sickness among slaves they had but very little
attention. The master was to be the judge of their sickness, but never
had studied the medical profession. He always pronounced a slave who
said he was sick, a liar and a hypocrite; said there was nothing the
matter, and he only wanted to keep from work.
His remedy was most generally strong red pepper tea, boiled till it
was red. He would make them drink a pint cup full of it at one dose.
If he should not get better very soon after it, the dose was repeated.
If that should not accomplish the object for which it was given, or
have the desired effect, a pot or kettle was then put over the fire
with a large quantity of chimney soot, which was boiled down until it
was as strong as the juice of tobacco, and the poor sick slave was
compelled to drink a quart of it.
This would operate on the system like salts, or castor oil. But if the
slave should not be very ill, he would rather work as long as he could
stand up, than to take this dreadful medicine.
If it should be a very valuable slave, sometimes a physician was sent
for and something done to save him. But no special aid is afforded the
suffering slave even in the last trying hour, when he is called to
grapple with the grim monster death. He has no Bible, no family altar,
no minister to address to him the consolations of the gospel, before
he launches into the spirit world. As to the burial of slaves, but
very little more care is taken of their dead bodies than if they were
dumb beasts.
My wife was very sick while we were both living with the Deacon. We
expected every day would be her last. While she was sick, we lost our
second child, and I was compelled to dig my own child's grave and bury
it myself without even a box to put it in.