d about her overseer she replied, "Dere
wus a overseer, but I disremember his name."

Most of these old ex-slaves' recollections had to do with the
"Patterolas", as the Patrol was called. One of them said about the
Patrol, "Oh yes, ma'm, I seed da Patterolas, but I never heard no song
about 'em. Dey wus all white mens. Jus' like now you want to go off your
Marster's place to another man's place, you had to get a pass from your
boss man. If you didn't have dat pass, de Patterolas would whip you."

A woman who lived on the Roof plantation said, "I worked under four
overseers, one of 'em was mean, and he had a big deep voice. When the
niggers was at the feed lot, the place where they carried the dinner
they brought to the fields, he would hardly give 'em time to eat before
he hollered out, 'Git up and go back to work!'"

She also said that Mars. Thomas, the red-haired young master, was mean
about slaves over-staying pass time. "If they want off and stayed too
long, when they came back, he'd strip them stark, mother nekked, tie 'em
to a tree, and whip 'em good. But old Marster, he didn't believe in
whipping. It was different when the boys took possession after he died."

Very few slaves ran away, but when they did the master hunted them with
dogs.

When Carrie Lewis, who belonged to Captain Ward, was asked if the slaves
were ever whipped on their plantation, she replied, "No ma'm, de Marster
say to de overseer, 'If you whup dem, I whup you.' No ma'm, he wouldn't
keep a overseer dat wus mean to us--Cap'n Ward wus good to us. He
wouldn't let de little ones call him 'Marster', dey had to call him and
de Missus, 'Grampa' and 'Gramma'. My folks didn't mistreat de slaves.
I'd be better off now if it wus dem times now."

We asked Ellen Campbell, a Richmond County slave if her master was good
to her and she replied, "I'll say fer Mr. William Eve--he de bes' white
man anywhere round here on any dese plantachuns. Dey all own slaves.
Sometimes de overseer whup 'em--make 'em strip off dey shirt and whup
'em on de bare skin. My boss had a white overseer and two colored men
dey call drivers. If dey didn't done right dey dus whup 'em and turn 'em
loose."

It was said that those who refused to take whippings were generally
negroes of African royal blood, or their descendants.

Edward Glenn of the Clinton Brown plantation in Forsythe County, Ga.,
said, "My father would not take a whipping. He would die before he would
take a whippi