fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

Charles Ball: Slave Testimony (1858)For forty years, Charles Ball toiled as a slave in Maryland, SouthCarolina, and Georgia, and, according to his autobiography,managed to escape twice. In the following selection, he describes theregimen on a tobacco plantation.In Maryland and Virginia, although the slaves are treated withso much rigour, and oftimes with so much cruelty, I have seeninstances of the greatest tenderness of feeling on the part oftheir owners. 1, myself, had three masters in Maryland, andI cannot say now, even after having resided so many yearsin a state where slavery is not tolerated, that either of them(except the last, who sold me to the Georgians, and was anunfeeling man,) used me worse than they had a moral rightto do, regarding me merely as an article of property, and notentitled to any rights as a man, political or civil. My mistresses,in Maryland, were all good women; and the mistress of mywife, in whose kitchen I spent my Sundays and many of mynights, for several years, was a lady of most benevolent andkindly feelings. She was a true friend to me, and I shall alwaysvenerate her memory....If the proprietors of the soil in Maryland and Virginia, wereskillful cultivators-had their lands in good condition-and keptno more slaves on each estate, than would be sufficient to workthe soil in a proper manner. and kept up the repairs of the placethecondition of the coloured people would not be, by anymeans, a comparatively unhappy one. I am convinced, that innine cases in ten, the hardships and suffering of the colouredpopulation of lower Virginia, are attributable to the povertyand distress of its owners. In many instances, an estate scarcelyyields enough to feed and clothe the slaves in a comfortablemanner, without allowing any thing for the support of themaster and family; but it is obvious, that the family mustfirst be supported, and the slaves must be content with thesurplus-and this, on A poor, old, worn out tobacco plantation,is often very small, and wholly inadequate to the comfortablesustenance of the hands, and they are called. There, in manyplaces, nothing is allowed to the poor Negro, but his peck ofcorn per week, without the sauce of a salt herring, or even alittle salt itself...The general features of slavery are the same every where; butthe unrest rigour of the system, is only to be met with, on thecotton plantations of Carolina and Georgia, or in the rice fieldswhich skirt the deep swamps and morasses of the southernrivers. In the tobacco fields of Maryland and Virginia, greatcruelties are practiced-not so frequently by the owners, asby the overseers of the slaves; but yet, the tasks are not soexcessive as in the cotton region, nor is the press of labour soincessant throughout the year. It is true, that from the periodwhen the tobacco plants are set in the field, there is no restingtime until it is housed; but it is planted out about the 9th ofMay, and must be cut and taken out of the field before the frostcomes. After it is hung and dried, the labor of stripping andpreparing it for the hogshead in leaf, or of manufacturing itinto twist, is comparatively a work of leisure and ease. Besides,on almost every plantation the hands are able to completethe work of preparing the tobacco by January, and sometimesearlier; so that the winter months, form some sort of respitefrom the cold of the year. The people are obliged, it is true, tooccupy themselves in cutting wood for the house, building andrepairing fences, and in clearing new land, to raise the tobaccoplants for the next year; but as there is usually time enough,and to spare, for the completion of all this work, before theseason arrives for setting the plants in the field; the men areseldom flogged much, unless they are very lazy or negligent,and the women are allowed to remain in the house, in the verycold, snowy, or rainy weather....In Maryland I never knew a mistress or a young mistress, whowould not listen to the complaints of the slaves. It is true, wewere always obliged to approach the door of the mansion, withour hats in our hands, and the most subdued and beseechinglanguage in our mouths-but, in return, we generally receivedwords of kindness, and very often a redress of our grievances;though I have known very great ladies, who would never grantany request from the plantation hands, but always refilledthem and their petitions to their master, under a pretence, thatthey could not meddle with things that did not belong to thehouse. The mistresses of the great families, generally gavemild language to the slaves; though they sometimes sent forthe overseer and have them severely flogged; but I have neverheard any mistress, in either Maryland or Virginia, indulgein the low, vulgar and profane vituperations, of which I wasmyself the object, in Georgia. for many years, whenever Icame into the presence of my mistress. Flogging-though oftensevere and excruciating in Maryland, is not practiced withthe order, regularity and system to which it is often reducedin the South. On the Potomac, if a slave gives offence, heis generally chastised on the spot, in the field where he isat work, as the overseer always carried a whip-sometimes atwisted cow-hide sometimes a kind of horse-whip, and veryoften a simple hickory switch or gad, cut in the adjoiningwoods. For stealing meat, or other provisions, or for any of thehigher offences, the slaves are stripped, tied up by the handssometimes by the thumbs-and whipped at the quarter-butmany times, on a large tobacco plantation, there is no morethan one of these regular whippings in a week while on others,where the master happens to be a bad man, or a drunkard-theback of the unhappy Maryland slaves, is seamed with scarsfrom his neck to his hips.288 fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007