Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

Slave Life in Georgia 34
24.03.2006
made with soap. He was afterwards compelled to take a young woman named
Hannah, as a wife, and to abandon his former one. By Hannah he had a good
many children, but after he had been with her about eight years, he was sold
away from her and their children, to one Robert Ware, of De Cator Town, in De
Calb County, Georgia, about ten miles from Stevens' place.
It is all very well for Mrs. Tyler to say that families are not often separated. I
know better than that, and so does she.
On one occasion, Jack's wife (Hannah) could not get her task of spinning cotton
done. Stevens called her up, and after swearing at and abusing
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her, made her strip stark naked, and then forced her to hug the shed post; that is,
to clasp it round. He then made her husband go round and hold her hands, whilst
he flogged her with the cowhide some seventy or eighty lashes, after which he
turned her loose. She was about twenty-five years old.
On another occasion he cruelly flogged her and another slave woman named
Mimey. It was one Sunday morning, and they were down at the spring washing
their clothes. They quarrelled, and master hearing their noise came running
down. He made them strip off all their garments, and sent me for the cow-hide,
with which he beat them till he could not wag his arm any longer, they crying
out all the time.
Amongst us we had a negro named Primus. His father and mother had been
stolen right from Africa. They both belonged to a Methodist minister, the
Reverend Mr. Woods, who lived on Fishing-Creek, about three miles from
Stevens'. He had bought them off a slave-ship, directly they were landed. The
vessel had come into the port of Savannah. The father was from Golah. The
woman came from the Coast of Guinea. Woods owned a great many negroes.
He was a cotton
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planter as well as a preacher, but folks used to say his cotton was worth more
than his sermons. When Primus was about twenty-four, he was sold to Stevens
for six hundred dollars. Stevens bought him of Woods, about two years after he
had purchased me. Doctor Woods was a tall, pleasant looking man, and was
said to treat his slaves kindly. Primus had never known what cruel usage was,