them to tell the
overseer's wife, when they got in that way, and he would put them upon
the land to work.
This same planter had a female slave who was a member of the Methodist
Church; for a slave she was intelligent and conscientious. He proposed
a criminal intercourse with her. She would not comply. He left her and
sent for the overseer, and told him to have her flogged. It was done.
Not long after, he renewed his proposal. She again refused. She was
again whipped. He then told her why she had been twice flogged, and
told her he intended to whip her till she should yield. The girl,
seeing that her case was hopeless, her back smarting with the
scourging she had received, and dreading a repetition, gave herself up
to be the victim of his brutal lusts.
One of the slaves on another plantation, gave birth to a child which
lived but two or three weeks. After its death the planter called the
woman to him, and asked her how she came to let the child die; said it
was all owing to her carelessness, and that he meant to flog her for
it. She told, him with all the feeling of a mother, the circumstances
of its death. But her story availed her nothing against the savage
brutality of her master. She was severely whipped. A healthy child
four months old was then considered worth $100 in North Carolina.
The foregoing facts were related to me by white persons of character
and respectability. The following fact was related to me on a
plantation where I have spent considerable time and where the
punishment was inflicted. I have no doubt of its truth. A slave ran
away from his master, and got as far as Newbern. He took provisions
that lasted him a week; but having eaten all, he went to a house to
get something to satisfy his hunger. A white man suspecting him to be
a runaway, demanded his pass; as he had none he was seized and put in
Newbern jail. He was there advertised, his description given, &c. His
master saw the advertisement and sent for him; when he was brought
back, his wrists were tied together and drawn over his knees. A stick
was then passed over his arms and under his knees, and he secured in
this manner, his trowsers were then stripped down, and he turned over
on his side, and severely beaten with the paddle, then turned over and
severely beaten on the other side, and then turned back again, and
tortured by another bruising and beating. He was afterwards kept in
the stocks a week, and whipped every morning.
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