their
necks, or clogs riveted upon their wrists or ancles. Some have bells
put upon them, hung upon a sort of frame to an iron collar. Some
masters fly into a rage at trifles and knock down their negroes with
their fists, or with the first thing that they can get hold of. The
whiplash-knots, or rawhide, have sometimes by a reckless stroke
reached round to the front of the body and cut through to the bowels.
One slaveholder with whom I lived, whipped one of his slaves one day,
as many, I should think, as one hundred lashes, and then turned the
_butt-end_ and went to beating him over the head and ears, and truly I
was amazed that the slave was not killed on the spot. Not a few
slaveholders whip their slaves to death, and then say that they died
under a "moderate correction." I wonder that ten are not killed where
one is! Were they not much hardier than the whites many more of them
must die than do. One young mulatto man, with whom I was well
acquainted, was killed by his master in his yard with _impunity_. I
boarded at the same time near the place where this glaring murder was
committed, and knew the master well. He had a plantation, on which he
enacted, almost daily, cruel barbarities, some of them, I was
informed, more terrific, if possible, than death itself. Little notice
was taken of this murder, and it all passed off without any action
being taken against the murderer. The masters used to try to make me
whip their negroes. They said I could not get along with them without
flogging them--but I found I could get along better with them by
coaxing and encouraging them than by beating and flogging them. I had
not a heart to beat and kick about those beings; although I had not
grace in my heart the three first years I was there, yet I sympathised
with the slaves. I never was guilty of having but one whipped, and he
was whipped but eight or nine blows. The circumstances were as
follows: Several negroes were put under my care, one spring, _who were
fresh from Congo and Guinea_. I could not understand them, neither
could they me, in one word I spoke. I therefore pointed to them to go
to work; all obeyed me willingly but one--he refused. I told the
driver that he must tie him up and whip him. After he had tied him, by
the help of some others, we struck him eight or nine blows, and he
yielded. I told the driver not to strike him another blow. We untied
him, and he went to work, and continued faithful all the time he was
with