ng. The Marster thought so much of him, he made young
Marster Clinton promise he would never sell him or put a stripe on him.
Once, when he wanted to punish him, he give him a horse and bridle and
fifty dollars. 'Go on off somewhere and get somebody to buy you.' My
father stayed away a month. One day he come home, he had been off about
100 miles. He brought with him a man who wanted to buy him. Marster put
the man up for the night, fed his horse, and father went on out to
mother. Next day when the man made him a price on father, Marster said,
'I was just foolin'. I wouldn't sell him for nothing. I was trying to
punish him. He is true and honest, but he won't take a whipping.'

"Sometimes a slave was treated so bad by his owners he was glad if they
put him up to be sold. If he was a bad man, they handcuffed him, put him
on a stand, like for preachings and auctioned him off to the highest
bidder.

"When runaway slave was brought back they was punished. Once in Alabama
I saw a woman stripped naked, laid over a stump in a field with her head
hangin' down on one side, her feet on the other, and tied to the stump.
Then they whipped her hard, and you could hear her hollering far off,
'Oh, Lawd a'musay! Lawd a-musay!'."

Another punishment Edward said, was called the "Gameron Stick",
(sometimes called the Gamlin stick, or Spanish Buck). The slave's arms
were bound around the bent knees and fastened to a stick run beneath
them. This was called the "Spanish Buck" punishment. They stripped the
slave, who was unable to stand up, and rolled him on one side and
whipped him till the blood came. They called the whip the "cowhide".
Slaves were whipped for small things, such as forgetting orders or
spilling food.

OVERSEERS

The most important person in the disciplining of negro slaves was the
overseer. However, he occupied an unfortunate position socially. He was
not regarded as the equal of the owner's family, and was not allowed to
mix socially with the slaves. His was a hard lot, and consequently this
position was generally filled by men of inferior grade. However, he was
supposed to have an education so that he could handle the finances of
the plantation accurately, and to be possessed of a good moral character
in order to enforce the regulations. On most Georgia plantations
overseers were given a house near the slave quarters. In some instances
he lived in the house with the plantation owner. The average pay for
overseers w