nothing delights a negro so much as
riding or driving, particularly when he has a whole team under his
control. He takes his wagon for a load of corn to feed the hogs, sits
on the edge of the shaft as he tosses the cobs to the grunting
multitude, whom he addresses in the most intimate terms; in short,
everything is done leisurely, after his own fashion.

In these grazing states, as they may very properly be called, the
negroes are well fed; they refuse beef and mutton, and will have nothing
but pork; and are, without exception, the fattest and most saucy fellows
I ever met with in a state of bondage; and such may be said generally to
be the case with all the negroes in the eastern states which I have
mentioned. The rice grounds in South Carolina are unhealthy, but the
slaves are very kindly treated. But the facts speak for themselves.
When the negro works in a gang with the whip over him, he may be
overworked and ill-treated; but when he is not regularly watched, he
will take very good care that the work he performs shall not injure his
constitution.

It has been asserted, and generally credited, that in the eastern states
negroes are regularly bred up like the cattle for the western market.
That the Virginians, and the inhabitants of the other eastern slave
states, do sell negroes which are taken to the west, there is no doubt;
but that the negroes are bred expressly for that purpose, is, as regards
the majority of the proprietors, far from the fact: it is the effect of
circumstances, over which they have had no control. Virginia, when
first settled, was one of the richest states, but, by continually
cropping the land without manuring it, and that for nearly two hundred
years, the major portion of many valuable estates has become barren, and
the land is no longer under cultivation; in consequence of this, the
negroes, (increasing so rapidly as they do in that country.) so far from
being profitable, have become a serious task upon their masters, who
have to rear and maintain, without having any employment to give them.
The small portion of the estates under cultivation will subsist only a
certain portion of the negroes; the remainder must, therefore, be
disposed of, or they would eat their master out of his home. That the
slaves are not willingly disposed of by many of the proprietors I am
certain, particularly when it is known, that they are purchased for the
west. I know of many instances of this, and wins info