was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three
farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the
care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a
miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always
went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut
and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be
enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not
mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required
extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was
a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times
seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been
awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own
aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked
back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no
prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its
bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and
where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip
her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until
overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.
I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition.
I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it
whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such
outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It
struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance
to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most
terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with
which I beheld it.

This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old
master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one
night,--where or for what I do not know,--and happened to be absent
when my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go
out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in
company with a young man, who was paying attention to her belonging to
Colonel Lloyd. The young man's name was Ned Roberts, generally called
Lloyd's Ned. Why master was so careful of her, may be safely left to
conjecture. She was a woman of noble form, and of graceful proportio