Historical voices

Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but, feed and clothe him well—work him moderately—surround him with physical comfort—and dreams of freedom intrude.

The freedom from bodily torture and unceasing labor, had given my mind an increased sensibility, and imparted to it greater activity.

I was about as hard to please by a master, as a master is by slave.

I was no longer the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey’s, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my shoulders.

We knew that if, by extraordinary exertion, a large quantity of work was done in one day, the fact, becoming known to the master, might lead him to require the same amount every day.

The reverend slaveholder could always find something of this sort, to justify him in using the lash several times during the week.

No matter what were the imperfections of the implement broken, or the natural liabilities for breaking, the slave can be whipped for carelessness.

To allow a slave to escape punishment, who has impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges, preferred against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great dereliction of duty.

Then, he is guilty of impudence, one of the greatest crimes in the social catalogue of southern society.

A mere look, word, or motion, a mistake, accident, or want of power, are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time.

A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will hatch up a dozen a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these shall be of a punishable description.

The man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished to observe how many foggable offenses there are in the slaveholder’s catalogue of crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the slave least intends it.

He seemed to wish to assure them, that his tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners, and his pity for them, did not reach to the blacks who tilled his fields.

The back of his slave-woman will, in the judgment, be the swiftest witness against him.

Religious slaveholders, like religious persecutors, are ever extreme in their malice and violence.

Exceptions there may be, but this is true of religious slaveholders, as a class.

I have found them, almost invariably, the vilest, meanest and basest of their class.

For all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst.

Were I again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, next to that calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slaveholder, the greatest that could befall me.

It is the sober, thinking slave who is dangerous, and needs the vigilance of his master, to keep him a slave.

When a slave is drunk, the slaveholder has no fear that he will plan an insurrection; no fear that he will escape to the north.

It was about as well to be a slave to master, as to be a slave to rum and whisky.

All the license allowed, appears to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their temporary freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work, as they were to leave it.

It is plain, that everything like rational enjoyment among the slaves, is frowned upon; and only those wild and low sports, peculiar to semi-civilized people, are encouraged.