iness. The next year, during the cold months, I
had several two-horse teams under my care, with which we used to haul
brick, boards, and other articles from the wharf into the city, and
cotton, rice, corn, and wood from the country. This gave me an
extensive acquaintance with merchants, mechanics and planters. I had
slaves under my control some portions of every year when at the south.
All the brick-yards, except one, on which I was engaged, were
connected either with a corn field, potatoe patch, rice field, cotton
field, tan-works, or with a wood lot. My business, usually, was to
take charge of the brick-making department. At those jobs I have
sometimes taken in charge both the field and brick-yard hands. I have
been on the plantations in South Carolina, but have never been an
overseer of slaves in that state, as has been said in the public
papers.

I think the above facts and explanations are necessary to be connected
with the account I may give of slavery, that the reader may have some
knowledge of my acquaintance with _practical_ slavery: for many
mechanics and merchants who go to the South, and stay there for years,
know but little of the dark side of slavery. My account of slavery
will apply to _field hands_, who compose much the largest portion of
the black population, (probably nine-tenths,) and not to those who are
kept for kitchen maids, nurses, waiters, &c., about the houses of the
planters and public hotels, where persons from the north obtain most
of their knowledge of the evils of slavery. I will now proceed to take
up specific points.

THE LABOR OF THE SLAVES

Males and females work together promiscuously on all the plantations.
On many plantations _tasks_ are given them. The best working hands can
have some leisure time; but the feeble and unskilful ones, together
with slender females, have indeed a hard time of it, and very often
answer for non-performance of tasks at the _whipping-posts_. None who
worked with me had tasks at any time. The rule was to work them from
sun to sun. But when I was burning brick, they were obliged to take
turns, and _sit up all night_ about every other night, and work all
day. On one plantation, where I spent a few weeks, the slaves were
called up to work long before daylight, when business pressed, and
worked until late at night; and sometimes some of them _all night_. A
large portion of the slaves are owned by masters who keep them on
purpose to hire out--and they usual