orite
agricultural products for personal consumption. These particular crops
needed little cultivation once they were planted and such as was
necessary could easily be done on Saturday afternoons, when the slave
was at leisure.

Historians have reminded us that in most of the Southern States there
was a tendency for the more energetic of the slaves to work for pay
during their idle hours and thus eventually secure a sufficient
surplus to buy their own freedom. In Kentucky such cases were very
rare. Most Negroes seem to have been content with their condition in
such bondage as existed in the State. There were many cases in which a
Negro refused to purchase his freedom although he had the necessary
amount of money. George Brown, the famous Negro author of
_Recollections of an Ex-slave_, published in the _Winchester
Democrat_, has given us some experiences which testify to the feeling
existing between master and slave. In 1857 his mistress was offered
$2,100 for George, but when talking the matter over with him she found
that he had serious objections to the prospective purchaser. She
showed an interest in Brown's welfare by refusing to sell him. In
later years when freedom was within his grasp for the asking, Brown
"bought himself" for $1,000 because, as he says in his own words, it
was not honorable for him to "swindle his young mistress out of her
slave." Such was the example of a Kentucky slave who purchased his own
freedom, not for his own benefit, but for that of his mistress.

Another factor entered into this question. In the later years, once a
slave secured his liberty, he was immediately required to leave the
State and if such a one had lived all his life in Kentucky, he would
naturally hesitate to depart into an unknown region. Many of the
slaves did earn considerable money by cobbling shoes, cutting wood,
and making brooms, but most of them showed little tendency to save
their earnings for any future deliverance from bondage. They were more
concerned then--as they often are even yet--with the pleasures of the
day. More often they were to be found wasting their spare change on
whisky, a problem which grew greater for the master with passing
years.

In addition to the regular Saturday afternoon and Sunday off every
week the slaves were given several other holidays throughout the year,
the most extensive being at Christmas time. At Easter they were
allowed two or three days rest and when an election was being