so blue and
moist that it is as heavy as dough; yet the best of it when cut
and roasted, tastes almost like warm white bread, at least it
then seemed to us so. This corn is also the only provender for
all their animals, be it horses, oxen, cows, hogs, or fowls,
which generally run in the woods to get their food, but are fed
a little of this, mornings and evenings during the winter when
there is little to be had in the woods; though they are not fed
too much, for the wretchedness, if not cruelty, of such living,
affects both man and beast. This is said not without reason, for
a master having a sick servant, and there are many so, and
observing from his declining condition, he would finally die, and
that there was no probability of his enjoying any more service
from him, made him, sick and languishing as he was, dig his own
grave, in which he was to be laid a few days afterwards, in order
not to busy any of the others with it, they having their hands
full in attending to the tobacco.--Jasper Danckaerts' _Original
Narratives of Early American History_, 1679-1680, p. 133.

Observations of Campbell in 1745-1746

The Negroes live as easily as in any other Part of America, and
at set Times have a pretty deal of Liberty in their Quarters, as
they are called. The Argument of the Reasonableness and Legality,
according to Nature, of the Slave-Trade, has been so well handled
on the Negative Side of the Question, that there remains little
for an Author to say on that Head; and that Captives taken in
War, are the Property of the Captor, as to Life and Person, as
was the Custom amongst the Spartans; who, like the Americans,
perpetuated a Race of Slaves, by marrying them to one another, I
think, has been fully disprov'd: But allowing some Justice in,
or, at least, a great deal of Necessity for, making Slaves of
this sable Part of the Species; surely, I think, Christianity,
Gratitude, or, at least, good Policy, is concerned in using them
well, and in abridging them, instead of giving them
Encouragement, of several brutal and scandalous Customs, that are
too much practised: Such as giving them a Number of Wives, or, in
short, setting them up for Stallions to a whole Neighborhood;
when it has been prov'd, I think, unexceptionably, that Polygamy
rather destr