 Chapter 4 of My Bondage and My Freedom A General Survey of the Slave Plantation Isolation of Lloyd's Plantation, Public Opinion There, No Protection to the Slave Absolute Power of the Overseer, Natural and Artificial Charms of the Place Business-like Appearance, Superstition about the Burial Ground Great Ideas of Colonel Lloyd, Etiquette among Slaves The Comic Slave Doctor, Praying and Flogging, Old Master Losing Its Terrors His Business, Character of Aunt Katie, Sufferings from Hunger Old Master's Home, Jargon of the Plantation, Guinea Slaves Master Daniel, Family of Colonel Lloyd, Family of Captain Anthony His Social Position, Notions of Rankin's Station It is generally supposed that slavery in the state of Maryland exists in its mildest form and that it is totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities which mark and characterize the slave system in the southern and southwestern states of the American Union The argument in favor of this opinion is the contiguity of the free states and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral, religious and humane sentiment of the free states I'm not about to refute this argument so far as it relates to slavery in that state generally On the contrary, I'm willing to admit that to this general point, the argument is well grounded Public opinion is indeed an unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave drivers whenever and wherever it can reach them But there are certain secluded and out of the way places, even in the state of Maryland seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public sentiment where slavery wrapped in its own congenial midnight darkness can and does develop all its malign and shocking characteristics where it can be indecent without shame, cruel without shuttering and murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure Just such a secluded dark and out of the way place is the home plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd on the eastern shore of Maryland It is far away from all the great thoroughfares and is proximate to no town or village There is neither a school house nor a town house in its neighborhood The school house is unnecessary for there are no children to go to school The children and grandchildren of Colonel Lloyd were taught in the house by a private tutor a Mr. Page, a tall gaunt sapling of a man who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole year The overseers children go off somewhere to school and they therefore bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad to embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place Not even the mechanics through whom there is an occasional outburst of honest and telling indignation at cruelty and wrong on other plantations are white men on this plantation Its whole public is made up of and divided into three classes slaveholders, slaves and overseers Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers and coopers are slaves Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted as it is and ready as it ever is to side with the strong against the weak, the rich against the poor is trusted or permitted within its secluded precincts Whether with a view of guarding against the escape of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact that every leaf and grain of the produce of this plantation and those of the neighboring farms belonging to Colonel Lloyd are transported to Baltimore in Colonel Lloyd's own vessels Every man and boy on board of which except the captain are owned by him In return everything brought to the plantation comes through the same channel, thus even the glimmering and unsteady light of trade which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence is excluded from this tabooed spot Nearly all of the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the home plantation of Colonel Lloyd belong to him and those which do not are owned by personal friends of his as deeply interested in maintaining the slave system in all its rigor as Colonel Lloyd himself Some of his neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he, the Skinners, the Peakers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans and the Gypsons are in the same boat, being slave-holding neighbors they may have strengthened each other in their iron rule They are in intimate terms and their interests and tastes are identical Public opinion in such a quarter the reader will see is not likely to be very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty On the contrary it must increase and intensify his wrongs Public opinion seldom differs very widely from public practice to be a restraint upon cruelty and vice Public opinion must emanate from a humane and virtuous community To know such humane and virtuous community is Colonel Lloyd's plantation exposed That plantation is a little nation of its own having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs The laws and institutions of this state apparently touch it nowhere The troubles arising here are not settled by the civil power of this state The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner The criminal is always dumb, the overseer attends to all sides of a case There are no conflicting rights of property for all the people are owned by one man And they can themselves own no property, religion and politics are alike excluded One class of the population is too high to be reached by the preacher and the other class is too low to be cared for by the preacher The poor have the gospel preached to them in this neighborhood only when they are able to pay for it The slaves having no money get no gospel The politician keeps away because the people have no votes and the preacher keeps away because the people have no money The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor and to dispense with religion altogether In its isolation, seclusion and self-reliant independence, Colonel Lloyd's plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the Middle Ages in Europe Grim, cold and unapproachable by all genial influences from communities without, there it stands, full 300 years behind the age in all that relates to humanity and morals This however is not the only view that the place presents, civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be, though separated from the rest of the world Though public opinion as I have said seldom gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain, though the whole place is stamped with its own peculiar iron-like individuality And though crimes high-handed and atrocious may there be committed with almost as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship It is nevertheless altogether too outward-seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of life, activity and spirit, and presents a very favorable contrast to the indolent monotony and langer of Takahoe Keene, as was my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not long in adapting myself to this, my new home A man's troubles are always half-disposed of when he finds endurance his only remedy I found myself here, there was no getting away and what remained for me but to make the best of it Here were plenty of children to play with and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age and boys older The little tendrils of affection so rudely and treacherously broken from around that darling objects of my grandmother's hut gradually began to extend and to entwine about the new objects by which I now found myself surrounded There was a windmill, always a commanding object to a child's eye on long point, a tract of land dividing miles river from the Y, a mile or more from my old master's house There was a creek to swim in at the bottom of an open flat space of twenty acres or more called the Long Green, a very beautiful playground for the children In the river a short distance from the shore lying quietly at anchor with her small boat dancing at her stern was a large sloop, the Sally Lloyd called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the Colonel The sloop in the mill were wondrous things full of thoughts and ideas a child cannot well look at such objects without thinking Then here were a great many houses, human habitations full of the mysteries of life at every stage of it There was the little red house up the road occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer a little nearer to my old master's stood up very long, rough, low building literally alive with slaves of all ages, conditions and sizes This was called the Long Quarter, perched upon a hill across the Long Green was a very tall, dilapidated old brick building, the architectural dimensions of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose, now occupied by slaves in a similar manner to the Long Quarter Besides these there were numerous other slave houses and huts scattered around in the neighborhood every nook and corner of which was completely occupied Old master's house, a long brick building, plain but substantial stood in the center of the plantation life and constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Colonel Lloyd Besides these dwellings there were barns, stables, storehouses and tobacco houses, blacksmith's shops, wheelwright's shops, Cooper's shops, all objects of interest but above all there stood the grandest building my eyes had then ever beheld called by everyone on the plantation the Great House This was occupied by Colonel Lloyd and his family, they occupied it, I enjoyed it The Great House was surrounded by numerous and variously shaped outbuildings, there were kitchens, wash houses, dairies, summer house, green houses, hen houses, turkey houses, pigeon houses and arbors of many sizes and devices all neatly painted and all together interspersed with grand old trees ornamental and primitive which afforded delightful shade in summer and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty The Great House itself was a large white wooden building with wings on three sides of it, in front a large portico extending the entire length of the building and supported by a long range of columns gave to the whole establishment an air of a solemn grandeur It was a treat to my young and gradually opening mind to behold this elaborate exhibition of wealth, power and vanity, the carriage entrance to the house was a large gate more than a quarter of a mile distant from it, the intermediate space was a beautiful lawn very neatly trimmed and watched with the greatest care It was dotted thickly over with delightful trees, shrubbery and flowers, the road or lane from the gate to the Great House was richly paved with white pebbles from the beach and in its course formed a complete circle around the beautiful lawn Carriages going in and retiring from the Great House made the circuit of the lawn and their passengers were permitted to behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty Outside this select enclosure were parks where, as about the residences of the English nobility, rabbits, deer and other wild game might be seen peering and playing about with none to molest them or make them afraid The tops of the stately poplars were often covered with the red-winged blackbirds making all nature vocal with the joyous life and beauty of their wild warbling notes These all belonged to me as well as to Colonel Edward Lloyd and for a time I greatly enjoyed them A short distance from the Great House were the stately mansions of the dead, a place of somber aspect, vast tombs, embowered beneath the weeping willow and the fir tree told of the antiquities of the Lloyd family as well as of their wealth Superstition was rife among the slaves about this family burying ground, strange sights had been seen there by some of the older slaves, shrouded ghosts riding on great black horses had been seen to enter, balls of fire had been seen to fly there at midnight and hoared sounds had been repeatedly heard Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those go to hell who die slaveholders and they often fancy such persons wishing themselves back again to wield the lash Tales of sights and sounds, strange and terrible connected with the huge black tombs were a very great security to the grounds about them for few of the slaves felt like approaching them even in the daytime It was a dark gloomy and forbidding place and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of the sleeping dust there deposited rained with the blessed in the realms of eternal peace The business of 20 or 30 farms was transacted at this called by way of eminence Great House Farm. These farms all belong to Colonel Lloyd as did also the slaves upon them. Each farm was under the management of an overseer as I have said of the overseer of the home plantation so I may say of the overseers on the smaller ones They stand between the slave and all civil constitutions there were his law and is implicitly obeyed The Colonel at this time was reputed to be and he apparently was very rich. His slaves alone were an immense fortune. These small and great could not have been fewer than 1000 in number and those scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to the Georgia traders There was no apparent diminution in the number of his human stock. The home plantation merely grown at a removal of the young increase or human crop then proceeded as lively as ever. Horseshoeing, cart mending, plow repairing, coopering, grinding and weaving for all the neighboring farms were performed here and slaves were employed in all these branches Uncle Tony was the blacksmith, Uncle Harry was the cartwright, Uncle Abel was the shoemaker and all these had hands to assist them in their several departments These mechanics were called uncles by all the younger slaves not because they really sustained that relationship to any but according to plantation etiquette as a mark of respect due from the younger to the older slaves Strange and even ridiculous as it may seem among a people so uncultivated and with so many stern trials to look in the face there is not to be found among any people a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders than they maintain I set this down as partly constitutional with my race and partly conventional there is no better material in the world for making a gentleman than is furnished in the African He shows to others and exacts for himself all the tokens of respect which he is compelled to manifest toward his master A young slave must approach the company of the older with hat in hand and will be tied him if he fails to acknowledge a favor of any sort with the accustomed tanky etc So uniformly are good manners enforced among slaves that I can easily detect a bogus fugitive by his manners Among other slave notabilities of the plantation was one called by everybody uncle Isaac copper It is seldom that a slave gets a surname from anybody in Maryland and so completely has the south shape the manners of the north in this respect that even abolitionists make very little of the surname of a negro The only improvement on the bills, jacks, gyms and neds of the south observable here is that William John James Edward are substituted It goes against the grain to treat and address a negro precisely as they would treat and address a white man But once in a while in slavery as in the free states by some extraordinary circumstance the negro has a surname fastened to him and holds it against all conventionalities This was the case with uncle Isaac copper when the uncle was dropped he generally had the prefix doctor in its stead he was our doctor of medicine and doctor of divinity as well Where he took his degree I am unable to say for he was not very communicative to inferiors and I was emphatically such being but a boy seven or eight years old He was too well established in his profession to permit questions as to his native skill or his attainments One qualification he undoubtedly had he was a confirmed cripple and he could neither work nor would he bring anything if offered for sale in the market The old man though lame was no sluggard he was a man that made his crutches do him good service He was always on the alert looking up the sick and all such as were supposed to need his counsel Is remedial prescriptions embrace for articles for diseases of the body epsom salts and castor oil for those of the soul the Lord's prayer and hickory switches I was not long at Colonel Lloyd's before I was placed under the care of Dr. Isaac copper I was sent to him with 20 or 30 other children to learn the Lord's prayer I found the old gentleman seated on a huge three-legged oak and stool armed with several large hickory switches and from his position he could reach lame as he was any boy in the room After standing a while to learn what was expected of us the old gentleman in any other than a devotional tone commanded us to kneel down This done he commenced telling us to say everything he said our father this we repeated after him with promptness and uniformity who are in heaven was less promptly and uniformly repeated And the old gentleman paused in the prayer to give us a short lecture upon the consequences of inattention both immediate and future and especially those more immediate About these he was absolutely certain for he held in his right hand the means of bringing all his predictions and warnings to pass on he proceeded with the prayer and we with our thick tongues and unskilled ears followed him to the best of our ability This however was not sufficient to please the old gentleman everybody in the south wants the privilege of whipping somebody else Uncle Isaac shared the common passion of his country and therefore seldom found any means of keeping his disciples in order short of flogging Say everything I say and bang would come the switch on some poor boy's undivocional head what you looking at there stop that pushing and down again would come the lash The whip is all in all it is supposed to secure obedience to the slave holder and is held as a sovereign remedy among the slaves themselves for every form of disobedience temple or spiritual Slaves as well as slave holders use it with an unsparing hand our devotions at Uncle Isaac's combined too much of the tragic and comic to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view And it is due to truth to say I was often a truant when the time for attending the praying and flogging of Dr. Isaac Copper came on The windmill under the care of Mr. Kenny a kind hearted old Englishman was to me a source of infinite interest and pleasure The old man always seemed pleased when he saw a troop of darky little urchins with their toe linen shirts fluttering in the breeze approaching to view and admire the whirling wings of his wondrous machine From the mill we could see other objects of deep interest these were the vessels from St. Michael's on their way to Baltimore it was a source of much amusement to view the flowing sails and complicated rigging As the little crafts dashed by and to speculate upon Baltimore as to the kind and quality of the place with so many sources of interest around me the reader may be prepared to learn that I began to think very highly of Colonel L's plantation It was just a place to my voyage taste there were fish to be caught in the creek if one only had a hook in line and crabs clams and oysters were to be caught by waiting digging and raking for them Here was a field for industry and enterprise strongly inviting and the reader may be assured that I entered upon it with spirit Even the much dreaded old master whose merciless fiat had brought me from Takahoe gradually to my mind parted with his terrors strange enough his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me nor of my coming Instead of leaping out and devouring me he scarcely seemed conscious of my presence The fact is he was occupied with matters more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me he probably thought as little of my advent as he would have thought of the addition of a single pig to his stock As the chief butler on Colonel Lloyd's plantation his duties were numerous and perplexing in almost all important matters he answered in Colonel Lloyd's stead the overseers of all the farms were in some sort under him and received the law from his mouth The Colonel himself seldom addressed an overseer or allowed an overseer to address him Old master carried the keys of all the storehouses measured out the allowance for each slave at the end of every month Superintendent the storing of all goods brought to the plantation dealt out the raw material to all the handicraftsmen Shipped the grain, tobacco and all saleable produce of the plantation to market and have the general oversight of the Cooper's shop, Wheelwright's shop, Blacksmith's shop and Shoemaker's shop Besides the care of these he often had business for the plantation which required him to be absent two and three days That's largely employed he had little time and perhaps as little disposition to interfere with the children individually What he was to Colonel Lloyd he made Aunt Katie to him when he had anything to say or do about us it was said or done in a wholesale manner Disposing of us in classes or sizes leaving all minor details to Aunt Katie a person of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression Aunt Katie was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within the margin of power granted to her no matter how broad that authority might be Ambitious ill tempered and cruel she found in her present position an ample feel for the exercise of her ill omen qualities She had a strong hold on old master she was considered a first rate cook and she really was very industrious She was therefore greatly favored by old master and as one mark of his favorite she was the only mother who was permitted to retain her children around her Even to these children she was often fiendish in her brutality She pursued her son Phil one day in my presence with a huge butcher knife and dealt a blow with its edge which left a shocking gash on his arm near the wrist For this old master did sharply rebuke her and threatened that if she ever should do the like again he would take the skin off her back Cruel however as Aunt Katie was to her own children at times she was not destitute of maternal feeling as I often had occasion to know in the bitter pinches of hunger I had to endure Differing from the practice of Colonel Lloyd old master instead of allowing so much for each slave committed the allowance for all to the care of Aunt Katie to be divided after cooking it amongst us The allowance consisting of course cornmeal was not very abundant indeed it was very slender and then passing through Aunt Katie's hands it was made more slender still for some of us William Phil and Jerry were her children and it is not to accuse her too severely to allege that she was often guilty of starving myself and the other children while she was literally cramming her own Wanted food was my chief trouble the first summer at my old masters oysters and clams would do very well with an occasional supply of bread but they soon failed in the absence of bread I speak but the simple truth when I say I've often been so pinched with hunger that I fought with the dog old net for the smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table and have been glad when I won a single crumb in the combat Many times have I followed with eager step the waiting girl when she went out to shake the tablecloth to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats The water in which meat had been bored was as eagerly sought for by me it was a great thing to get the privilege of dipping a piece of bread in such water and the skin taken from rusty bacon was a positive luxury Nevertheless I sometimes got full meals and kind words from sympathizing old slaves who knew my sufferings and received the comforting assurance that I should be a man someday Nevermind honey better day coming was even then a solace of cheering consolation to me in my troubles nor were all the kind words I received from slaves I had a friend in the parlor as well and one to whom I shall be glad to do justice before I had finished this part of my story I was not long at old masters before I learned that his surname was Anthony and that he was generally called Captain Anthony a title which he probably acquired by sailing a craft in the Chesapeake Bay Colonel Lloyd slaves never called Captain Anthony old master but always Captain Anthony And me they called Captain Anthony fed there is not probably in the whole South the plantation where the English language is more imperfectly spoken than on Colonel Lloyd's It is a mixture of Guinea and everything else you please at the time of which I am now writing there were slaves there who had been brought from the coast of Africa they never use the S in indication of the possessive case Captain Anthony Tom Lloyd Bill Aunt Rose Harry means Captain Anthony's Tom Lloyd's Bill et cetera who you them long to means whom do you belong to who them got any peachy Means have you got any peaches I could scarcely understand them when I first went among them so broken was their speech and I'm persuaded that I could not have been dropped anywhere on the globe where I could reap less in the way of knowledge from my immediate associates than on this plantation Even mass Daniel by his association with his father slaves have measurably adopted their dialect and their ideas so far as they had ideas to be adopted The equality of nature is strongly asserted in childhood and childhood requires children for associates color makes no difference with a child are you a child with wants tastes and pursuits common to children not put on but natural then were you black as Ebony you would be welcome to the child of alabaster whiteness The law of compensation holds here as well as elsewhere mass Daniel could not associate with ignorance without sharing its shade and he could not give his black playmates his company without giving them his intelligence as well Without knowing this or caring about it at the time I for some cause or other spent much of my time with mass Daniel and preference to spending it with most of the other boys Mass Daniel was the youngest son of Colonel Lloyd his older brothers were Edward and Murray both grown up and fine looking men Edward was especially esteemed by the children and by me among the rest not that he ever said anything to us or for us which could be called especially kind It was enough for us that he never looked nor acted scornfully toward us there were also three sisters all married one to Edward Winder a second to Edward Nicholson a third to Mr. Lounds the family of old master consisted of two sons Andrew and Richard his daughter Lucretia and her newly married husband Captain Alde this was the house family the kitchen family consisted of Aunt Katie on Esther and ten or a dozen children most of them older than myself Captain Anthony was not considered a rich slave holder but was pretty well off in the world he owned about thirty head of slaves and three farms in Takahoe the most valuable part of his property was the slaves of whom he could afford to sell one every year this crop therefore brought him seven or eight hundred dollars a year besides as The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Colonel Lloyd's plantation our family never visited the great house and the Lloyd's never came to our home equal non intercourse was observed between Captain Anthony's family and that of Mr. Sevier the overseer such kind reader was the community and such the place in which my earliest the most lasting impressions of slavery and of slave life where it received of which impressions you will learn more in the coming chapters of this book end of chapter four chapter five of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this liberal box recording as in the public domain gradual initiation into the mysteries of slavery growing acquaintance with all master his character evils of unrestrained passion apparent tenderness all master a man of trouble custom of muttering to himself necessity of being aware of his words the supposed obtuse of slave children brutal outrage drunken over seer slaveholders impatience wisdom of appealing to superiors the slaveholders wrath bad as that of the overseer a base and selfish attempt to break up a courtship a harrowing scene although my old master Captain Anthony gave me at first as the reader will have already seen very little attention and although that little was of a remarkably mild and gentle description a few months only were sufficient to convince me that mildness and gentleness were not the prevailing or governing traits of his character these excellent qualities were displayed only occasionally he could when it suited him appear to be literally insensible to the claims of humanity when appealed to by the helpless against an aggressor and he could himself commit outrageous deep dark and nameless yet he was not by nature worse than other men had he been brought up in a free state surrounded by the just restraints of free society restraints which aren't necessary to the freedom of all its members alike and equally Captain Anthony might have been as humane a man and every way as respectable as many who now opposed the slave system certainly as humane and respectable as art members of society generally the slave holder as well as the slave is the victim of the slave system a man's character greatly takes its hue and shape from the form and color of things about him under the whole heavens there is no relation more unfavorable to the development of honorable character than that sustained by the slave holder to the slave reason is imprisoned here and passions run wild like the fires of the prairie once lighted they are at the mercy of every wind and must burn till they have consumed all that is combustible within their remorseless grasp Captain Anthony could be kind and at times he even showed an affectionate disposition could the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand as he sometimes did patting me on the head speaking to me in soft caressing tones and calling me his little Indian boy he would have deemed him a kind old man and really almost bodily but the pleasant moods of a slave holder are remarkably brittle they are easily snapped they neither come often nor remain long his temper is subjected to perpetual trials but since these trials are never born patiently they add nothing to his natural stock of patience old master very early impressed me with the idea that he was an unhappy man even to my child's eye he wore a troubled and at times a haggard aspect his strange movements excited my curiosity and awakened my compassion he seldom walked alone without muttering to himself and he occasionally stormed about as if defying an army of invisible foes he would do this that and the other he'd be burned if he did not was the usual form of his threats most of his leisure was spent in walking cursing and gesticulating like one possessed by a demon most evidently he was a wretched man at war with his own soul and with all the world around him to be overheard by the children disturbed him very little he made no more of our presence than of that of the ducks and geese which he met on the green he little thought that the little black urchins around him could see through those vocal crevices the very secrets of his heart slaveholders ever underrate the intelligence with which they have to grapple I really understood the old man's mutterings attitudes and gestures about as well as he did himself but slaveholders never encouraged that kind of communication with the slaves by which they might learn to measure the depths of his knowledge ignorance is a high virtue in a human chattel and as the master studies to keep the slave ignorant the slave is cunning enough to make the master think he succeeds the slave fully appreciates the saying where ignorance is bliss to his folly to be wise when all masters gestures were violent ending with a threatening shake of the head and a sharp snap of his middle finger and thumb I deemed it wise to keep at a respectable distance from him for at such times trifling fault stood in his eyes as momentous offenses napping both the power and the disposition the victim had only to be near him to catch the punishment deserved or undeserved one of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelty and wickedness of slavery and the heartlessness of my old master was the refusal of the latter to enter pose his authority to protect and shield a young woman who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his over seer in Takahoe this over seer a mister plumber was a man like most of his class little better than a human brute and in addition to his general profligacy and repulsive coarseness the creature was a miserable drunkard he was probably employed by my old master less on account of the excellence of his services than for the cheap rate at which they could be obtained he was not fit to have the management of a drove of mules in a fit of drunken madness he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old masters for protection this young woman was the daughter of Millie and own aunt of mine the poor girl on arriving at our house presented a pitiable appearance she had left in haste and without preparation and probably without the knowledge of mister plumber she had traveled twelve miles barefooted bare necked and bareheaded her neck and shoulders were covered with scars newly made and not content with marring her neck and shoulders with the cow hide the cowardly brute had dealt her a blow on the head with a hickory club which cut a horrible gash and left her face literally covered with blood in this condition the poor young woman came down to implore protection at the hands of my old master I expected to see him boil over with rage at the revolting deed and to hear him fill the air with curses upon the brutal plumber but I was disappointed he sternly told her in an angry tone he believed she deserved every bit of it and if she did not go home instantly he would himself take the remaining skin from her neck and back thus was the poor girl compelled to return without redress and perhaps to receive an additional flogging for daring to appeal to old master against the overseer old master seemed furious at the thought of being troubled by such complaints I did not at that time understand the philosophy of his treatment of my cousin it was stern unnatural violent had the man know bowels of compassion was he dead to all sense of humanity no I think I now understand it this treatment is a part of the system rather than a part of the man were slaveholders to listen to complaints of this sort against the overseers the luxury of owning large numbers of slaves would be impossible it would do away with the office of overseer entirely or in other words it would convert the master himself into an overseer it would occasion great loss of time and labor leaving the overseer in feathers and without the necessary power to secure obedience to his orders a privilege so dangerous as that of appeal is therefore strictly prohibited and anyone exercising it runs a fearful hazard nevertheless when a slave has nerve enough to exercise it and both the approaches his master with a well founded complaint against an overseer though he may be repulsed and may even have that of which he complains repeated at the time and though he may be beaten by his master as well as by the overseer for his temerity in the end the policy of complaining is generally been dictated by the relaxed rigor of the overseers treatment the latter becomes more careful and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter it is with this final result in view rather than with any expectation of immediate good that the outraged slave is induced to meet his master with a complaint the overseer very naturally dislikes to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints and either upon this consideration or upon advice and warning privately given him by his employers he generally modifies the rigor of his rule after an outbreak of the con to which I have been referring how so ever the slave holder may allow himself to act toward his slave and whatever cruelty he may deem it wise for example sake or for the gratification of his humor to inflict he cannot in the absence of all provocation look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a defenseless slave woman when he drives her from his presence without redress or the hope of redress he acts generally from motives of policy rather than from a hardened nature or from innate brutality yet let but his own temper be stirred his own passions get loose and the slave owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty he will convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless and vastly more to be dreaded than that of the underling overseer what may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer is now done with a will the man who now wields the lash is irresponsible he may if he pleases cripple or kill without fear of consequences except in so far as it may concern profit or loss to a man of violent temper as my old master was this was but a very slender and inefficient restraint I have seen him in a tempest of passion such as I have just described a passion into which entered all the bitter ingredients of pride hatred envy jealousy and the thirst for revenge the circumstances which I am about to narrate and which gave rise to this fearful tempest of passion are not singular nor isolated in slave life but are common in every slave holding community in which I have lived they are incidental to the relation of master and slave and exist in all sections of slave holding countries the reader will have noticed that in enumerating the names of the slaves who lived with my old master Esther is mentioned this was a young woman who possessed that which is ever a curse to the slave girl namely personal beauty she was tall well formed and made a fine appearance the daughters of Colonel Lloyd could scarcely surpass her in personal charms Esther was courted by Ned Roberts and he was as fine looking a young man as she was a woman he was the son of a favorite slave of Colonel Lloyd some slave holders would have been glad to promote the marriage of two such persons but for some reason or other my old master took it upon him to break up the growing intimacy between Esther and Edward he strictly ordered her to quit the company of said Roberts telling her that he would punish her severely if he ever found her again in Edwards company this unnatural and heartless order was of course broken a woman's love is not to be annihilated by the peremptory command of anyone whose breath is in his nostrils it was impossible to keep Edward and Esther apart meet they would and meet they did that old master been a man of honor and purity his motives in this matter might have been viewed more favorably as it was his motives were as abhorrent as his methods were foolish and contemptible it was too evident that he was not concerned for the girl's welfare it is one of the damning characteristics of the slave system that it robs its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life the fear of God and the hope of heaven are found sufficient to sustain many slave women amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot but this side of God and heaven a slave woman is at the mercy of the power Caprice and passion of her owner slavery provides no means for the honorable continuance of the race marriage as imposing obligations on the parties to it has no existence here except in such hearts as are pure and higher than the standard morality around them it is one of the constellations of my life that I know of many honorable instances of persons who maintain their honor where all around was corrupt Esther was evidently much attached to Edward and a poor as she had reason to do the tyrannical and base behavior of old master Edward was young and fine looking and he loved and courted her he might have been her husband in the high sense just alluded to but who and what was this old master his attentions were plainly brutal and selfish and it was as natural that Esther should love him as that she should love Edward of Horde and circumvented as he was old master having the power very easily took revenge I happen to see this exhibition of his rage and cruelty toward Esther the time selected was singular it was early in the morning when all besides was still and before any of the family in the house or kitchen had left their beds I saw a few of the shocking preliminaries for the cruel work have begun before I awoke I was probably awakened by the shrieks and piteous cries of poor Esther my sleeping place was on the floor of a little rough closet which opened into the kitchen and through the cracks of its unplanned boards I could distinctly see and hear what was going on without being seen by old master Esther's wrists were firmly tied and the twisted rope was fastened to a strong staple in a heavy wooden joist above near the fireplace here she stood on a bench her arms tightly drawn over her breast her back and shoulders were bare to the waist behind her stood old master with cow skin in hand preparing his barbarous work with all manner of harsh course and tantalizing epithets the screams of his victim were most piercing he was cruelly deliberate and protracted the torture as one who was delighted with the scene again and again he drew the hateful whip through his hand adjusting it with a view of dealing the most pain giving blow poor Esther had never yet been severely whipped and her shoulders were plump and tender each blow vigorously laid on brought screams as well as blood have mercy oh have mercy she cried I won't do so no more but her piercing cries seemed only to increase his fury his answers to them are too coarse and blasphemous to be produced here the whole scene with all its attendance was revolting and shocking to the last degree and when the motives of this brutal castigation are considered language has no power to convey a just sense of its awful criminality after laying on some thirty or forty stripes old master untied his suffering victim and let her get down she could scarcely stand when untied from my heart I pitied her and child though I was the outrage kindled in me a feeling far from peaceful but I was hushed terrified stunned and could do nothing and the fate of Esther might be mine next the scene here described was often repeated in the case of poor Esther and her life as I knew it was one of wretchedness end of chapter five chapter six of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this LibriVox recording is in the public domain treatment of slaves on Lloyd's plantation the author's early reflections on slavery presentiment of one day being a free man combat between an overseer and a slave woman the advantages of resistance allowance day on the home plantation the singing of slaves an explanation the slaves food and clothing naked children life in the quarter deprivation of sleep nursing children carried to the field description of the cow skin the ash cake manner of making it the dinner hour the contrast the heart-rending incidents related in the foregoing chapter led me thus early to inquire into the nature and history of slavery why am I a slave why are some people slaves and others masters was there ever a time when this was not so how did the relation commence these were the perplexing questions which began now to claim my thoughts and to exercise the weak powers of my mind for I was still but a child and knew less than children of the same age in the free states as my questions concerning these things were only put to children a little older and little better informed than myself I was not rapid in reaching a solid footing by some means I learned from these inquiries that God up in the sky made everybody and that he made white people to be masters and mistresses and black people to be slaves this did not satisfy me nor less than my interest in the subject I was told to that God was good and that he knew what was best for me and best for everybody this was less satisfactory than the first statement because it came point blank against all my notions of goodness it was not good to let old master cut the flesh off ester and make her cry so besides how did people know that God made black people to be slaves did they go up in the sky and learn it or did he come down and tell them so all was dark here it was some relief to my hard notions of the goodness of God that although he made white men to be slaveholders he did not make them to be bad slaveholders and that in due time he would punish the bad slaveholders that he would when they died send them to the bad place where they would be burnt up nevertheless I could not reconcile the relation of slavery with my crude notions of goodness then too I found that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory of slavery on both sides and in the middle I knew of blacks who were not slaves I knew of whites who were not slaveholders and I knew of persons who were nearly white who were slaves color therefore was a very unsatisfactory basis for slavery once however engaged in the inquiry I was not very long in finding out the true solution of the matter it was not color but crime not God but man that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery nor was I long in finding out another important truth these what man can make man can unmake the appalling darkness faded away and I was master of the subject there were slaves here direct from Guinea and there were many who could say that their fathers and mothers were stolen from Africa they were forced from their homes and compelled to serve as slaves this to me was knowledge but it was a kind of knowledge which filled me with a burning hatred of slavery increased my suffering and left me without the means of breaking away from my bondage yet it was knowledge quite worth possessing I could not have been more than seven or eight years old when I began to make this subject my study it was with me in the woods and fields along the shore of the river and wherever my boys wanderings led me and though I was at that time quite ignorant of the existence of the free states I distinctly remember being even then most strongly impressed with the idea of being a free man someday this jeering assurance was an inborn dream of my human nature a constant menace to slavery and one which all the powers of slavery were unable to silence or extinguish up to the time of the brutal flogging of my aunt Esther for she was my own aunt and the horrid plight in which I had seen my cousin from Takahoe who had been so badly beaten by the cruel Mr. Plummer my attention had not been called especially to the gross features of slavery I had of course heard of whippings and of savage recontra between over seers and slaves but I had always been out of the way at the times and places of their occurrence my plays in sports most of the time took me from the corn and tobacco fields where the great body of the hands were at work and where scenes of cruelty were enacted and witnessed but after the whipping of aunt Esther I saw many cases of the same shocking nature not only in my master's house but on Colonel Lloyd's plantation one of the first which I saw and which greatly agitated me was the whipping of a woman belonging to Colonel Lord named Nellie the offense alleged against Nellie was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole catalog of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves these impudence this may mean almost anything or nothing at all just according to the caprice of the master or over seer at the moment but whatever it is or is not if it gets the name of impudence the party charged with it is sure of a flogging this offense may be committed in various ways in the tone of an answer in answering it all in not answering in the expression of countenance in the motion of the head in the gate manner and bearing of the slave in the case under consideration I can easily believe that according to all slave holding standards here was a genuine instance of impudence in Nellie there were all the necessary conditions for committing the offense she was a bright malata the recognized wife of a favorite hand on board Colonel Lloyd's loop and the mother of five sprightly children she was a vigorous and spirited woman and one of the most likely on the plantation to be guilty of impudence my attention was called to the scene by the noise curses and screams that proceeded from it and ongoing a little in that direction I came upon the parties engaged in the skirmish Mr. Severe the over seer had hold of Nellie when I caught sight of them he was endeavoring to drag her toward a tree which endeavor Nellie was sternly resisting but to no purpose except to retard the progress of the over seers plans Nellie as I have said was the mother of five children three of them were present and though quite small from seven to ten years old I should think they gallantly came to their mother's defense and gave the over seer an excellent pelting with stones one of the little fellows ran up sees the over seer by the leg and bit him but the monster was too busily engaged with Nellie to pay any attention to the assaults of the children there were numerous bloody marks and Mr. Severe's face when I first saw him and they increased as the struggle went on the imprints of Nellie's fingers were visible and I was glad to see them amidst the wild screams of the children let my mammy go let my mammy go their escape from between the teeth of the bullet headed over seer a few bitter curses mingled with threats that he would teach the damned bitch how to give a white man impudence there is no doubt that Nellie felt herself superior in some respects to the slaves around her she was a wife and a mother her husband was a valued and favored slave besides he was one of the first hands on board of the sloop and the sloop hands since they had to represent the plantation abroad were generally treated tenderly the over seer never was allowed to whip Harry why then should he be allowed to whip Harry's wife thoughts of this kind no doubt influenced her but for whatever reason she nobly resisted and unlike most of the slaves seemed determined to make her whipping cost Mr. Severe as much as possible the blood on his and her face attested her skill as well as her courage and dexterity and using her nails maddened by her resistance I expected to see Mr. Severe level her to the ground by a stunning blow but no like a savage bulldog which he resembled both in temper and appearance he maintained his grip and steadily dragged his victim toward the tree disregarding alike her blows and the cries of the children for their mother's release he would doubtless have knocked her down with his hickory stick but that such act might have cost him his place it is often deemed advisable to knock a man slave down in order to tie him but it is considered cowardly and inexcusable in an over seer thus to deal with a woman he is expected to tie her up and to give her what is called in southern parlance a genteel flogging without any very great outlay of strength or skill I watched with palpitating interest the course of the preliminary struggle and was saddened by every new advantage gained over her by the Ruffian there were times when she seemed likely to get the better of the brute but he finally overpowered her and succeeded in getting his rope around her arms and infirmly tying her to the tree at which he had been aiming this done in Nellie was at the mercy of his merciless lash and now what followed I have no heart to describe the cowardly creature made good his every threat and wielded the lash with all the hot zest of furious revenge the cries of the woman while undergoing the terrible inflection were mingled with those of the children sounds which I hope the reader may never be called upon to hear when Nellie was untied her back was covered with blood the red stripes were all over her shoulders she was whipped severely whipped but she was not subdued for she continued to denounce the over seer and to call him every vile name he had bruised her flesh but had left her invincible spirit undaunted such floggings are seldom repeated by the same over seer they prefer to whip those who are most easily whipped the old doctrine that submission is the best cure for outrage and wrong does not hold good on the slave plantation he is whipped oftenest who is whipped easiest and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against the over seer although he may have many heart strikes at the first becomes in the end a free man even though he sustained the formal relation of a slave you can shoot me but you can't whip me set a slave to Rigby Hopkins and the result was that he was neither whipped nor shot if the latter had been his fate it would have been less deplorable than the living and lingering death to which cowardly and slavish souls are subjected I do not know that Mr. Severe ever undertook to whip Nellie again he probably never did for it was not long after his attempt to subdue her that he was taken sick and died the wretched man died as he had lived unrepentant and it was said with how much truth I know not that in the very last hours of his life his ruling passion showed itself and that when wrestling with death he was uttering horrid oaths and flourishing the cow skin as though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless slave one thing is certain that when he was in health it was enough to chill the blood and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear Mr. Severe talk nature or his cruel habits had given to his face an expression of unusual savageness even for a slave driver tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short in nearly every sentence that escaped their compressed grading was commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity his presence made the field alike the field of blood and of blasphemy hated for his cruelty despised for his cowardice his death was deployed by no one outside his own house if indeed it was deployed there it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of providence never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier curses Mr. Severe's place was promptly taken by Mr. Hopkins and the change was quite a relief he being a very different man he was in all respects a better man than his predecessor as good as any man can be and yet be an overseer his course was characterized by no extraordinary cruelty and when he whipped the slave as he sometimes did he seemed to take no special pleasure in it but on the contrary acted as though he felt it to be a mean business Mr. Hopkins stayed but a short time his place much to the regret of the slaves generally was taken by Mr. Gore of whom more will be said hereafter it is enough for the president to say that he was no improvement on Mr. Severe except that he was less noisy and less profane I've already referred to the business like aspect of Colonel Lloyd's plantation this business like appearance was much increased on the two days at the end of each month when the slaves from the different farms came to get their monthly allowance of meal and meat these were gala days for the slaves and there was much rivalry among them as to who should be elected to go up to the great house farm for the allowance and indeed to attend to any business at this for them the capital the beauty and grandeur of the place its numerous slave population and the fact that Harry Peter and Jake the sailors of this loop almost always kept privately little trinkets which they bought at Baltimore to sell made it a privilege to come to the great house farm being selected to for this office was deemed a high honor it was taken as a proof of confidence in favor but probably the chief motive of the competitors for the place was a desire to break the dole monotony of the field and to get beyond the over seers eye and lash once on the road with an ox team and seated on the tongue of his cart with no overseer to look after him the slave was comparatively free and if thoughtful he had time to think slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work a silent slave is not like by masters or overseers make a noise make a noise and bear a hand are the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst them this may account for the almost constant singing heard in the southern states there was generally more or less singing among the teamsters as it was one means of letting the overseer ignore where they were and that they were moving on with the work but on the law and state those who visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy while on their way they would make the dental woods for miles around reverberate with their wild notes these were not always married because they were wild on the contrary they were mostly of a plaintive cast and told a tale of grief and sorrow in the most boisterous outburst of rapturous sentiment there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy I've never heard any songs like those anywhere since I left slavery except when in Ireland there I heard the same wailing notes and was much affected by them it was during the famine of 1845 six in all the songs of the slaves there was ever some expression in praise of the great house farm something which would flatter the pride of the owner and possibly draw a favorable glance from him I'm going away to the great house farm oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah my old master is a good old master oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah this they would sing with other words of their own improvising jargon to others but full of meaning to themselves I've sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly spiritual minded men and women with the soul crushing and death dealing character of slavery than the reading of whole volumes of its mere physical cruelties they speak to the heart and to the soul of the thoughtful I cannot better express my sense of them now than ten years ago when in sketching my life I thus spoke of this feature of my plantation experience I did not when a slave understand the deep meanings of those rude and apparently incoherent songs I was myself within the circle so that I neither saw it nor heard as those without might see and hear they told the tale which was then all together beyond my feeble comprehension they were tones loud long and deep breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish every tone was a testimony against slavery and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains the hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirits and filled my heart with ineffable sadness the mirror recurrence even now afflicts my spirit and while I am writing these lines my tears are falling to those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery I can never get rid of that conception those songs still follow me to deepen my hatred of slavery and quicken my sympathies for my brethren and bonds if anyone wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul killing power of slavery let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation and on allowance they place himself in the deep pine woods and there let him in silence thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul and if he is not thus impressed it will only be because there is no flesh in his obdurate heart the remark is not unfrequently made that slaves are the most contented and happy labors in the world they dance and sing and make all manner of joyful noises so they do but it is a great mistake to suppose them happy because they sing the songs of the slave represent the sorrows rather than the joys of his heart and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears such as the constitution of the human mind that when pressed to extremes it often avails itself of the most opposite methods extremes meet in mind as in matter when the slaves on board of the pearl were overtaken, arrested and carried to prison their hopes for freedom blasted as they marched and changed they sang and found as Emily Edmondson tells us a melancholy relief in singing the singing of a man cast away on a desolate island might be as appropriately considered an evidence of his contentment and happiness as the singing of a slave sorrow and desolation have their songs as well as joy and peace slaves sing more to make themselves happy than to express their happiness it is the boast of slaveholders that their slaves enjoy more of the physical comforts of life than the presentry of any country in the world my experience contradicts this the men and the women slaves on Colonel Lloyd's farm received as their monthly allowance of food 8 pounds of pickled pork or their equivalent in fish the pork was often tainted and the fish was of the poorest quality herrings which would bring very little if offered for sale in any northern market with their pork or fish they had one Bush Love Indian meal unbolted of which quite 15% was fit only to feed pigs with this one pint of salt was given and this was the entire monthly allowance of a full grown slave working constantly in the open field for morning until night every day in the month except Sunday and living on a fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day and less than a peck of cornmeal per week there is no kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion than the field work of a slave so much for the slaves allowance of food now for his raiment the yearly allowance of clothing for the slaves on this plantation consisted of two tow linen shirts such linen as the courses crash towels are made of one pair of trousers of the same material for a summer and a pair of trousers and a jacket of woolen most slasely put together for winter one pair of yarn stockings and one pair of shoes of the courses description the slaves entire apparel could not have cost more than eight dollars per year the allowance of food and clothing for the little children was committed to their mothers or to the older slave women having the care of them children who were unable to work in the field had neither shoes stockings jackets nor trousers given them their clothing consisted of two course tow linen shirts already described per year and when these failed them as they often did they went naked until the next allowance day blocks of little children from five to ten years old might be seen on Colonel Lloyd's plantation as destitute of clothing as a neat little heathen on the west coast of Africa and this not merely during the summer months but during the frosty weather of March the little girls were no better off than the boys all were nearly in a state of nudity as to beds to sleep on they were known to none of the field hands nothing but a coarse blanket not so good as those used in the north to cover horses was given them and this only to the men and women the children stuck themselves in holes and corners about the quarters often in the corner of the huge chimneys with their feet in the ashes to keep them warm the wanted beds however was not considered a very great privation time to sleep was of far greater importance for when the day's work is done most of the slaves have their washing mending and cooking to do and having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing such things very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in necessary preparations for the duties of the coming day the sleeping apartments if they may be called such have little regard to comfort or decency old and young male and female married and single drop down upon the common clay floor each covering up with his or her blanket the only protection they have from cold or exposure the night however is shortened at both ends the slaves work often as long as they can see and are late in cooking and mending for the coming day and at the first gray streak of morning they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn more slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault neither age nor sex finds any favor the overseer stands at the quarter door armed with stick and cow skin ready to whip any who may be a few minutes behind time when the horn is blown there is a rush for the door and the hindermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer young mothers who worked in the field were allowed an hour about 10 o'clock in the morning to go home to nurse their children sometimes they were compelled to take their children with them and to leave them in the corner of the fences to prevent loss of time in nursing them the overseer generally rides about the field on horseback a cow skin and a hickory stick are his constant companions the cow skin is a kind of whip seldom seen in the northern states it is made entirely of untanned but dried ox hide and is about as hard as a piece of well-seasoned live oak it is made of various sizes but the usual length is about three feet the part held in the hand is nearly an inch in thickness and from the extreme end of the butt or handle the cow skin tapers its whole length to a point this makes it quite elastic and springy a blow with it on the hardest back will gash the flesh and make the blood start cow skins are painted red blue and green and are the favorite slave whip I think this whip worse than the cat a nine tails it condenses the whole strength of the arm to a single point and comes with a spring that makes the air whistle it is a terrible instrument and is so handy that the overseer can always have it on his person and ready for use the temptation to use it is ever strong and an overseer can if disposed always have cause for using it with him it is literally a word and a blow and in most cases the blow comes first as a general rule slaves do not come to the quarters for either breakfast or dinner but take their ash cake with them and eat it in the field this was so on the home plantation probably because the distance from the quarter to the field was sometimes two and even three miles the dinner of the slaves consisted of a huge piece of ash cake and a small piece of pork or two salt herrings not having ovens nor any suitable cooking utensils the slaves mix their meal with a little water do such thickness that a spoon would stand direct in it and after the wood had burned away to coals and ashes they replaced the dough between oak leaves and lay it carefully in the ashes completely covering it hence the bread is called ash cake the surface of this peculiar bread is covered with ashes to the depth of a 16th part of an inch and the ashes certainly do not make it very grateful to the teeth nor render it very palatable the brand or course part of the meal is baked with the fine and bright scales run through the bread this bread with its ashes and brand would disgust and choke a northern man but it is quite like by the slaves they eat it with avidity and are more concerned about the quantity than about the quality they are far too scantily provided for and are work too steadily to be much concerned for the quality of their food the few minutes allowed them at dinner time after partaking of their course repast are variously spent some lie down on the turning road and go to sleep others draw together and talk and others are at work with needle and thread mending their tattered garments sometimes you may hear a wild horse laugh arise from a circle and often a song soon however the overseer comes dashing through the field tumble up tumble up and to work work is the cry and now from 12 o'clock midday till dark the human cattle are in motion wielding their clumsy hose hurried on by no hope of reward no sense of gratitude no love of children no prospect of bettering their condition nothing saved the dread and terror of the slave drivers lash so goes one day and so comes and goes another but let us now leave the rough usage of the field where vulgar coarseness and brutal cruelty spread themselves and flourish rank as weeds in the tropics where a vile wretch in the shape of a man rides walks or struts about dean blows and leaving gashes on broken spirited men and helpless women for $30 per month a business so horrible hardening and disgraceful that rather than engage in it a decent man would blow his own brains out and let the reader view with me the equally wicked but less repulsive aspects of slave life where pride and pomp grow luxuriously at ease where the toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and sin this is the great house it is the home of the Lloyds some idea of its splendor has already been given and it is here that we shall find that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of poverty and physical wretchedness that we have just now been contemplating but there is this difference in the two extremes these that in the case of the slave the miseries and hardships of his lot are imposed by others and in the master's case they are imposed by himself the slave is his subject subjected by others the slave holder is a subject but he is the author of his own subjection there is more truth in the saying that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave than many who utter it suppose the self executing laws of eternal justice follow close on the heels of the evil doer here as well as elsewhere making escape from all its penalties impossible but let others philosophize it is my province here to relate and describe only allowing myself a word or two occasionally to assist the reader in the proper understanding of the facts narrated end of chapter 6 chapter 7 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this slipper box recording is in the public domain life in the great house comforts and luxuries the laboratory expenditure house servants men servants and maid servants appearances slave aristocracy stable and carriage house boundless hospitality fragrance of rich dishes the deceptive character of slavery slaves seem happy slaves and slave holders alike wretched fretful discontent of slave holders fault finding old Barney his profession whipping humiliating spectacle case exceptional William Wilkes suppose son of Colonel Lloyd curious incident slaves prefer rich masters to poor ones the close fisted stingeness that fed the poor slave on course cornmeal and tainted meat that clothed him in crashy to linen and heard him on to toil through the field in all weathers with wind and rain beating through his tattered garments that scarcely gave even the young slave mother time to nurse her hungry infant in the fence corner holy vanishes on approaching the sacred precincts of the great house the home of the Lloyds there the scriptural phrase finds an exact illustration the highly favored inmates of this mansion are literally arrayed in purple and fine linen and fair sumptuously every day the table groans under the heavy and blood bought luxuries gathered with pains taking care at home and abroad fields forest rivers and seas are made tributary here immense wealth and its lavish expenditure fill the great house with all that can please the eye or tempt the taste here appetite not food is the great desideratum fish flesh and foul are here in profusion chickens of all breeds ducks of all kinds wild and tame the common and the huge muscovite guinea fowls turkeys geese and pee fowls are in there several pens fat and fatting for the destined vortex the graceful swan the mongrels the black-necked wild goose partridges quails pheasants and pigeons choice waterfowl with all their strange varieties are caught in this huge family net beef veal mutton and venison of the most select kinds and quality roll bounteously to this grand consumer the teeming riches of the Chesapeake Bay its rock perch drums crocus trout oysters crabs and terrapin are drawn hither to adorn the glittering table of the great house the dairy too probably the finest on the eastern shore of Maryland supplied by cattle of the best English stock imported for the purpose pours its rich donations of fragrant cheese golden butter and delicious cream to heighten the attraction of the gorgeous unending round of feasting nor are the fruits of the earth forgotten or neglected the fertile garden many acres in size constituting a separate establishment distinct from the common farm with its scientific gardener imported from Scotland a Mr. McDermott with four men under his direction was not behind either in the abundance or in the delicacy of its contributions to the same full board the tender asparagus the succulents celery and the delicate cauliflower eggplants beets lettuce parsnips peas and French beans early and late radishes cantaloupes melons of all kinds the fruits and flowers of all climbs and of all descriptions from the hearty apple of the north to the lemon and orange of the south culminated at this point Baltimore gathered figs raisins almonds and juicy grapes from Spain wines and brandy's from France tees of various flavor from China and rich aromatic coffee from Java all conspired to swell the tide of high life where pride and indolence rolled and lounged in magnificence and satiety behind the tall backed and elaborately rock chairs stand the servants men and maidens fifteen in number discriminately selected not only with a view to their industry and faithfulness but with special regard to their personal appearance their graceful agility and captivating address some of these are armed with fans and our fanning reviving breezes toward the overheated browse of the alabaster ladies others watch with eager eye and with fun like step anticipate and supply wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced by word or sign these servants constituted a sort of black aristocracy on Colonel Lloyd's plantation they resemble the field hands and nothing except in color and in this they held the advantage of a velvet like glossiness rich and beautiful the hair to show the same advantage the delicate colored made rustled in the scarcely worn silk of a young mistress while the servant men were equally well attired from the overflowing wardrobe of their young masters so that in dress as well as in form and feature in manner and speech in tastes and habits the distance between these favorite few and the sorrow and hunger smitten multitudes of the quarter and the field was immense and this is seldom passed over let us now glance at the stables and the carriage house and we shall find the same evidences of pride and luxurious extravagance here are three splendid coaches soft within and lustrous without here to our gigs fatens barouches solkeys and slaves here are saddles and harnesses beautifully wrought and silver mounted kept with every care in the stable you will find kept only for pleasure full 35 horses of the most approved blood for speed and beauty there are two men here constantly employed in taking care of these horses one of these men must be always in the stable to answer every call from the great house over the way from the stable is a house built expressly for the hounds a pack of 25 or 30 whose fair would have made glad the heart of a dozen slaves horses and hounds are not the only consumers of the slaves toil there was practiced at the Lord's a hospitality which would have astonished and charmed any health seeking northern divine or merchant who might have chance to share it viewed from his own table and not from the field the colonel was a model of generous hospitality his house was literally a hotel for weeks during the summer months at these times especially the air was rated with the rich fumes of baking boiling roasting and boiling the odors I shared with the winds but the meats were under a more stringent monopoly except that occasionally I got a cake in mass Daniel in mass Daniel I had a friend at court from whom I learned many things which my eager curiosity was excited to know I always knew when company was expected and who they were although I was an outsider being the property not of Colonel Lloyd but of a servant of the wealthy Colonel on these occasions all that pride taste and money could do to dazzle and charm was done who could say that the servants of Colonel Lloyd were not well-clied and cared for after witnessing one of his magnificent entertainments who could say that they did not seem to glory in being the slaves of such a master who but a fanatic could get up any sympathy for persons whose every movement was agile easy and graceful and who events the consciousness of high superiority who would ever venture to suspect that Colonel Lloyd was subject to the troubles of ordinary mortals master and slave seem alike in their glory here can it all be seeming alas it may only be a sham at last this immense wealth this gilded splendor this profusion of luxury this exemption from toil this life of ease the sea of plenty I what of it all are the pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors far from it the poor slave on his hard pine plank but scantily covered with his thin blanket sleeps more soundly than the feverish philop jewelry who reclines upon his feather bed and downy pillow food to the indolent lounger is poison not sustenance lurking beneath all their dishes are invisible spirits of evil ready to feed the self-deluded gormandisers with aches pains fears temper uncontrolled passions dyspepsia rheumatism lumbago and gout and of these the Lloyd's got their full share to the pampered love of ease there is no resting place what is pleasant today is repulsive tomorrow what is soft now is hard at another time what is sweet in the morning is bitter in the evening neither to the wicked nor to the idler is there any solid peace trouble like the restless sea I had excellent opportunities of witnessing the restless discontent and the capricious irritation of the Lloyd's my fondness for horses not peculiar to me more than to other boys attracted me much of the time to the stables this establishment was especially under the care of old and young Barney father and son old Barney was a fine-looking old man of a brownish complexion who was quite portly and were a dignified aspect for a slave he was evidently much devoted to his profession and held his office an honorable one he was a farrier as well as an osler he could bleed remove lampers from the mouths of the horses and was well instructed in horse medicines no one on the farm knew so well as old Barney what to do with a sick horse but his gifts and requirements were of little advantage to him his office was by no means an enviable one he often got presents but he got stripes as well for nothing was Colonel Lloyd more unreasonable and exacting than in respect to the management of his pleasure horses any supposed inattention to these animals were sure to be visited with the grading punishment his horses and dogs were better than his men their beds must be softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle no excuse could shield old Barney if the Colonel only suspected something wrong about his horses and consequently he was often punished when faultless it was absolutely painful to listen to the many unreasonable and fretful scoldings poured out at the stable by Colonel Lloyd his sons and sons-in-law of the latter he had three Mr. Nicholson Winder and Lowndes these all lived at the great house a portion of the year and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased which was by no means unfrequently a horse was seldom brought out of the stable to which no objection could be raised there was dust in his hair there was a twist in his reins his mane did not lie straight he had not been properly grained his head did not look well his foretap was not combed out his fedlocks had not been properly trimmed something was always wrong listening to complaints however groundless Barney must stand had in hand lip sealed never answering a word he must make no reply no explanation the judgment of the master must be deemed infallible for his power is absolute and irresponsible in a free state a master thus complaining without cause of his also might be told sir I'm sorry I cannot please you but since I've done the best I can your remedy is to dismiss me here however the Osler must stand listen and tremble one of the most heart-saddening and humiliating scenes I ever witnessed was the whipping of old Barney by Colonel Lloyd himself here were two men both advanced in years there were the silvery locks of Colonel Lloyd and there was the Baldwin toilet warrant brow of old Barney master and slave superior and inferior here but equals at the bar of God and in the common course of events they must both soon meet in another world in a world where all distinctions except those based on obedience and disobedience are blotted out forever uncover your head said the imperious master he was obeyed take off your jacket you old rascal and off came Barney's jacket down on your knees down knelt the old man his shoulders bare his bald head glistening in the sun and his aged knees on the cold damp ground in this humble and debasing attitude the master that master to whom he had given the best years and the best strength of his life came forward and laid on 30 lashes with his horse whip the old man brought patiently to the last answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders and a grown I cannot think that Colonel Lloyd succeeded in marring the flesh of old Barney very seriously for the whip was a light writing whip but the spectacle of an aged man a husband and a father humbly kneeling before a worm of the dust surprised and shocked me at the time and since I've grown old enough to think on the wickedness of slavery few facts have been of more value to me than this to which I have grown old I was a witness it reveals slavery in its true color and in its maturity of repulsive hatefulness I owe it to truth however to say that this was the first in the last time I ever saw old Barney or any other slave compelled to kneel to receive a whipping I saw at this table another incident which I will relate as it is illustrative of a phase of slavery to which I've already referred in another connection besides two other coachman Colonel Lloyd owned one named William who strangely enough was often called by his surname Wilkes by white and colored people on the home plantation Wilkes was a very fine looking man he was about as white as anybody on the plantation and in manliness of form and comeliness of features he bore a very striking resemblance to Mr. Murray Lloyd it was whispered and pretty generally admitted as a fact that William Wilkes was a son of Colonel Lloyd by a highly favored slave woman who was still on the plantation there were many reasons for believing this whisper not only in William's appearance but in the undeniable freedom which he enjoyed over all others and his apparent consciousness of being something more than a slave to his master it was notorious too that William had a deadly enemy in Murray Lloyd whom he so much resembled and that the latter greatly worried his father with importunities to sell William indeed he gave his father no rest until he did sell him to Austin Wold Folk the great slave trader at that time before selling him however Mr. L tried what giving William a whipping would do toward making things smooth but this was a failure it was a compromise and defeated itself for immediately after the inflection the heart-sickened Colonel attuned to William for the abuse by giving him a gold watch and chain another fact some are curious is that though sold to the remorseless Wold Folk taken in irons to Baltimore and cast into prison with a view to being driven to the south William by some means always a mystery to me outbid all his purchasers paid for himself and now resides in Baltimore a free man is there not room to suspect that as the gold watch was presented to atone for the ripping a purse of gold was given him by the same hand with which to effect his purchase as an atonement for the indignity involved in selling his own flesh and blood all the circumstances of William on the great house farm show him to have occupied a different position from the other slaves and certainly there is nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to amalgamation to forbid the supposition that William Wilkes was the son of Edward Lloyd practical amalgamation is common in every neighborhood where I have been in slavery Colonel Lloyd was not in the way of knowing much of the real opinions and feelings of his slaves respecting him the distance between him and them was far too great to admit of such knowledge his slaves were so numerous that he did not know them when he saw them nor indeed did all his slaves know him in this respect he was inconveniently rich it is reported to him that while riding along the road one day he met a colored man and addressed him in the usual way of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the south well boy who do you belong to to Colonel Lloyd replied the slave where does the colonel treat you well no sir was the ready reply what does he work you too hard yes sir well don't he give enough to eat yes sir he gives me enough such as it is the colonel after ascertaining where the slave belonged wrote on the slave also went on about his business not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master he thought said and heard nothing more of the matter until two or three weeks afterwards the poor man was then informed by his over sear that for having found fought with his master he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader he was immediately chained and handcuffed and thus without a moment's warning he was snatched away and forever sundered from his family and friends by hand more unrelenting than that of death this is the penalty of telling the simple truth in answer to a series of plain questions it is partly in consequence of such facts that slaves when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters almost invariably say they are contented and that their masters are kind slaveholders have been known to send spies among their slaves to ascertain if possible their views and feelings in regard to their condition the frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maximum that a still tongue makes a wise head they suppress the truth rather than take the consequence of telling it and in so doing they prove themselves a part of the human family if they have anything to say their master it is generally something in his favor especially when speaking to strangers I was frequently asked while a slave if I had a kind master and I do not remember ever to have given a negative reply nor did I when pursuing this course consider myself as uttering what was utterly false for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up by slaveholders around us however slaves are like other people and imbibe similar prejudices they are up to think their condition better than that of others many under the influence of this prejudice think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves and this too in some cases when the very reverse is true indeed it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative kindness of their masters each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of others at the very same time they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately it was so on our plantation when Colonel Lloyd slaves met those of Jacob Jepsen they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters Colonel Lloyd slaves contending that he was the richest and Mr. Jepsen slaves that he was the smartest man of the two Colonel Lloyd slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepsen Mr. Jepsen slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd these quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties those that beat were supposed to have gained the point at issue they seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves to be a slave was thought to be bad enough but to be a poor man slave was deemed a disgrace indeed End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 8 of Chapter of Horrors Austin Gore, a sketch of his character, overseers as a class their peculiar characteristics the marked individuality of Austin Gore his sense of duty, how he whipped, murder of poor Denby, how it occurred, sensation, how Gore made peace with Colonel Lloyd the murder unpunished, another dreadful murder narrated, no laws for the protection of slaves can be enforced in the southern states as I have already intimated elsewhere the slaves on Colonel Lloyd's plantation whose hard lot under Mr. Severe the reader has already noticed and deployed were not permitted to enjoy the comparatively moderate rule of Mr. Hopkins the latter was succeeded by a very different man the name of the new overseer was Austin Gore upon this individual I would fix particular attention for under his rule there was more suffering from violence and bloodshed than had according to the older slaves ever been experienced before on this plantation I confess I hardly know how to bring this man fitly before the reader he was it is true an overseer and possessed to a large extent the peculiar characteristics of his class yet to call him merely an overseer would not give the reader a fair notion of the man I speak of overseers as a class they are such they are as distinct from the slave holding gentry of the south as are the fish women of Paris and the coal heavers of London distinct from other members of society they constitute a separate fraternity at the south not less marked than is the fraternity of Park Lane bullies in New York they have been arranged and classified by that great law of attraction which determines the spheres and affinities of men which ordains that men whose malign and brutal propensities predominate over their moral and intellectual endowments shall naturally fall into those employments which promise the largest gratification to those predominating instincts or propensities the office of overseer takes this raw material of vulgarity and brutality and stamps it as a distinct class of southern society but in this class as in all other classes there are characters of marked individuality even while they bear a general resemblance to the mass Mr. Gore was one of those to whom a general characterization would do no manner of justice he wasn't overseer but he was something more with the malign and tyrannical qualities of an overseer he combined something of the lawful master he had the artfulness and the mean ambition of his class but he was wholly free from the disgusting swagger and noisy bravado of his fraternity there was an easy air of independence about him a calm self-possession and a sternness of glance which might well daunt hearts less timid than those of poor slaves accustomed from childhood and through life to cower before a driver's lash the home plantation of Colonel Lloyd afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership which he possessed in such an eminent degree Mr. Gore was one of those overseers who could torture the slightest word or look into impudence he had the nerve not only to resent but to punish promptly and severely he never allowed himself to be answered back by a slave in this he was as lordly and as imperious as Colonel Edward Lloyd himself acting always up to the maximum practically maintained by slaveholders that it is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash without fault than that the master or the overseer should seem to have been wrong in the presence of the slave everything must be absolute here guilty or not guilty it is enough to be accused to be sure of a flogging the very presence of this man Gore was painful and I shunned him as I would have shunned a rattlesnake his piercing black eyes and sharp shrill voice ever awakened sensations of terror among the slaves for so young a man I describe him as he was 25 or 30 years ago Mr. Gore was singularly reserved and grave in the presence of slaves he indulged in no jokes said no funny things and kept his own counsels other overseers how brutal so ever they might be were at times inclined to gain favor with the slaves by indulging a little pleasantry but Gore was never known to be guilty of any such weakness he was always the cold distant unapproachable overseer of Colonel Edward Lloyd's plantation and needed no higher pleasure than was involved in a faithful discharge of the duties of his office when he whipped he seemed to do so from a sense of duty and feared no consequences what Hopkins did reluctantly Gore did with alacrity there was a stern will an iron like reality about this Gore which would have easily made him the chief of a band of pirates had his environments been favorable to such a course of life all the coolness savage barbarity and freedom from all restraint which are necessary in the character of a pirate chief centered I think in this man Gore among many other deeds of shocking cruelty which he perpetrated while I was at Mr. Lloyd's was the murder of a young colored man named Denby he was sometimes called Bill Denby or Denby I write from sound and the sounds on Lloyd's plantation are not very certain I knew him well he was a powerful young man full of animal spirits and so far as I know he was among the most valuable of Colonel Lloyd's slaves in something I know not what he offended this Mr. Austin Gore and in accordance with the custom of the latter he undertook to flog him he gave Denby but few stripes the letter broke away from him and plunged into the creek and standing there to the depth of his neck in water he refused to come out at the order of the overseer where upon for this refusal Gore shot him dead it is said that Gore gave Denby three calls telling him that if he did not obey the last call he would shoot him when the third call was given Denby stood his ground firmly and this raised the question in the minds of the by standing slaves will he dare to shoot Mr. Gore without further parlay and without making any further effort to induce Denby to come out of the water raised his gun deliberately to his face to deadly aim at his standing victim and in an instant poor Denby was numbered with the dead his mangled body sank out of sight and only his warm red blood marked the place where he had stood this devilish outrage this fiendish murder produced as it was well calculated to do a tremendous sensation a thrill of horror flashed through every soul on the plantation if I may accept the guilty wretch who had committed the hell black deed while the slaves generally were panic struck and howling with alarm the murderer himself was calm and collected and appeared as though nothing unusual had happened the atrocity roused my old master and he spoke out in reprobation of it but the whole thing proved to be less than a nine days wonder both Colonel Lloyd and my old master or Rain Gore for his cruelty in the matter but this amounted to nothing his reply or explanation as I remember to have heard it at the time was that the extraordinary expedient was demanded by necessity that Denby had become unmanageable but he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves and that without some such prompt measure as that to which he had resorted were adopted there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation the very convenient covert for all manner of cruelty and outrage that cowardly alarm cried that the slaves would take the place was pleaded in extenuation of this revolting crime just as it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones he argued that if one slave refused to be corrected and was allowed to escape with his life when he had been told that he should lose it if he persisted in his course the other slaves would soon copy his example the result of which would be the freedom of the slaves and the enslavement of the whites of every reason to believe that Mr. Gore's defense or explanation was deemed satisfactory at least to Colonel Lloyd he was continued in his office on the plantation his fame as an overseer went abroad and his hard crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation the murder was committed in the presence of slaves and they of course could neither institute a suit nor testify against the murderer his bare word would go further in a court of law than the united testimony of ten thousand black witnesses all that Mr. Gore had to do was to make his peace with Colonel Lloyd this done in the guilty perpetrator of one of the most foul murders goes unwipped of justice and uncensored by the community in which he lives Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's Talbot County when I left Maryland if he is still alive he probably yet resides there and I have no reason to doubt that he is now as highly esteemed and as greatly respected as though his guilty soul had never been stained within us in blood I'm well aware that what I have now written will by some be blended as false and malicious it will be denied not only that such a thing ever did transpire as I have now narrated but that such a thing could happen in Maryland I can only say believe it or not that I have said nothing but the literal truth gain say it who may I speak advisedly when I say this that killing a slave or any colored person in Talbot County Maryland is not treated as a crime either by the courts or the community Mr. Thomas Landman ship carpenter of St. Michael's killed two slaves one of whom he butchered with a hatchet by knocking his brains out he used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed I've heard him do so laughingly saying among other things that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company and that when others would do as much as he had done we should be believed of the damned niggers as an evidence of the reckless disregard of human life where the life is that of a slave I may state the notorious fact that the wife of Mr. Giles Hicks who lived but a short distance from Colonel Lloyds with her own hands murdered my wife's cousin a young girl between 15 and 16 years of age mutilating her person in a most shocking manner the atrocious woman in the paroxysm of her wrath not content with murdering her victim literally mangled her face and broke her breastbone wild however and infuriated as she was she took the precaution to cause the slave girl to be buried but the facts of the case coming abroad very speedily led to the disinterment of the remains of the murdered slave girl a coroner's jury was assembled who decided that the girl had come to her death by severe beating it was ascertained that the offense for which the girl was thus hurried out of the world was this she had been set that night and several preceding nights to mind Mrs. Hicks's baby and having fallen into a sound sleep the baby cried waking Mrs. Hicks but not the slave girl Mrs. Hicks becoming infuriated at the girl's tardiness after calling her several times jumped from her bed and seized a piece of firewood from the fireplace and then as she lay fast asleep she deliberately pounded in her skull and breastbone and thus ended her life I will not say that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community it did produce a sensation but incredible to tell the moral sense of the community was blunted to entirely by the ordinary nature of slavery horrors to bring the murderers to punishment a warrant was issued for her arrest but for some reason or other that warrant was never served thus did Mrs. Hicks not only escape, condone, punishment but even the pain and mortification of being arraigned before a court of justice whilst I am detailing the bloody deeds that took place during my stay on Colonel Lloyd's plantation I will briefly narrate another dark transaction which occurred about the same time as the murder of Denby by Mr. Gore on the side of the River Y opposite from Colonel Lloyd's there lived a Mr. Beale Bondley a wealthy slaveholder in the direction of his land and near the shore there was an excellent oyster fishing ground and to this some of the slaves of Colonel Lloyd occasionally resorted in their little canoes at night with a view to make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food by the oysters that they could easily get there this Mr. Bondley took it into his head to regard as a trespass and while an old man belonging to Colonel Lloyd was engaged in catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of that creek to satisfy his hunger the villainous Mr. Bondley lying in ambush without the slightest ceremony discharged the contents of his musket into the back and shoulders of the poor old man as good fortune would have it the shot did not prove mortal and Mr. Bondley came over the next day to see Colonel Lloyd whether to pay him for his property or to justify himself for what he had done I know not but this I can say the cruel and dastardly transaction was speedily hushed up there was very little said about it at all and nothing was publicly done which looked like the application of the principle of justice to the man whom chance only saved from being an actual murderer one of the commonest things to which my ears early became accustomed on Colonel Lloyd's plantation and elsewhere in Maryland was that it was worth but half a cent to kill a nigger and a half a cent to bury him and the facts of my experience go far to justify the practical truth of this strange proverb laws for the protection of the lives of the slaves are as they must needs be utterly incapable of being enforced where the very parties who are nominally protected are not permitted to give evidence in courts of law against the only class of persons from whom abuse outrage and murder might be reasonably apprehended well I heard of numerous murders committed by slaveholders on the eastern shore of Maryland I never knew a solitary instance in which a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave the usual pretext for killing a slave is that the slave has offered resistance should a slave when assaulted but raise his hand in self-defense the white assaulting party is fully justified by Southern or Maryland public opinion in shooting the slave down sometimes this is done simply because it is alleged that the slave has been saucy but here I leave this phase of the society of my early childhood and will relieve the kind reader of these heart-sickening details End of Chapter 8