Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd's PlantationEARLY REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY--PRESENTIMENT OF ONE DAY BEING AFREEMAN--COMBAT BETWEEN AN OVERSEER AND A SLAVEWOMAN--THEADVANTAGES OF RESISTANCE--ALLOWANCE DAY ON THE HOME PLANTATION--THE SINGING OF SLAVES--AN EXPLANATION--THE SLAVES FOOD ANDCLOTHING--NAKED CHILDREN--LIFE IN THE QUARTER--DEPRIVATION OFSLEEP--NURSING CHILDREN CARRIED TO THE FIELD--DESCRIPTION OF THECOWSKIN--THE ASH-CAKE--MANNER OF MAKING IT--THE DINNER HOUR--THECONTRAST.
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 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 every body; and that he made _white_ people to be masters and mistresses, and _black_ people to be slaves. This did not satisfy me, nor lessen my interest in the subject. I was told, too, 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 <70>notions of goodness. It was not good to let old master cut the flesh off Esther, 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, viz: 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--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 boyish wanderings led me; and though I was, at that time, <71 EARLY REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY>quite ignorant of the existence of the free states, I distinctly remember being, _even then_, most strongly impressed with the idea of being a freeman some day. This cheering 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 Tuckahoe, 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 _rencontres_ between overseers and slaves, but Ihad always been out of the way at the times and places of their occurrence. My plays and 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 Col. Lloyd's plantation. One of the first which I saw, and which greatly agitated me, was the whipping of a woman belonging to Col. Lloyd, named Nelly. The offense alleged against Nelly, was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole catalogue of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves, viz: "impudence." This may mean almost anything, or nothing at all, just according to the caprice of the master or overseer, 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 at all; in not answering; in the expression of countenance; in the motion of the head; in the gait, manner and bearing of the slave. In the case under consideration, I can easily believe that, according to all slaveholding standards, here was a genuine instance of impudence.
