Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

Slave Life in Georgia 69
witnessed this, and even been forced to hold them down. The poor women were
dreadfully hard worked. I have known them to be taken in travail when in the
field, and immediately after their trouble was over, compelled to return to work.
One of these women I well remember. She was as white as Ellen Craft: that is,
she might have passed for a white person without much fear of detection. There
were, however, it seems, but very few births on Jepsey James' plantation, the
female slaves being over-driven and over-worked.
Several instances of cruelty occurred whilst I was there, of which I will relate
one or two.
Thomas James, Jep's second son, had cast his eyes on a handsome young negro
girl, to whom he made dishonest overtures. She would not submit to him, and
finding he could not overcome her, he swore he would be revenged. One night
he called her out of the jin-house, and then bade me and two or three more, strip
her naked; which we did. He then made us throw her
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down on her face, in front of the door, and hold her whilst he flogged her--the
brute--with the bull-whip, cutting great gashes of flesh out of her person, at
every blow, from five to six inches long. The poor unfortunate girl screamed
most awfully all the time, and writhed under our strong arms, rendering it
necessary for us to use our united strength to hold her down. He flogged her for
half an hour, until he nearly killed her, and then left her, to crawl away to her
cabin.
Poor girl! How my heart bled for her!
Another time John James, another of Jep's sons, and a married man, sought the
wife of a slave named Abram. In order to gain access more easily to the man's
cabin, he set a tree on fire, and then sent Abram to watch the fence, lest it
should catch and burn down. Abram suspected John James' design upon his
wife, and that this was a mere pretext to get rid of him for a while. His cabin
was a full mile from the spot he had to watch, but he felt so uneasy about home,
that instead of stopping at the fire, he ran to and from the fence to his hut. The
consequence was that the fence--which was of solid wood--took fire, and burnt
for the distance of three quarters of a mile. I mention this circumstance,
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24.03.2006