at I knew anything about, as it occasioned
a separation between my mother and the only two children she then had, and
my father, to a distance of about two hundred miles. But this separation
did not continue long; my father being a valuable slave, my master was
glad to purchase him.

About this time, I began to feel another evil of slavery--I mean the want
of parental care and attention. My parents were not able to give any
attention to their children during the day. I often suffered much from
_hunger_ and other similar causes. To estimate the sad state of a slave
child, you must look at it as a helpless human being thrown upon the world
without the benefit of its natural guardians. It is thrown into the world
without a social circle to flee to for hope, shelter, comfort, or
instruction. The social circle, with all its heaven-ordained blessings, is
of the utmost importance to the _tender child_; but of this, the slave
child, however tender and delicate, is robbed.

There is another source of evil to slave children, which I cannot forbear
to mention here, as one which early embittered my life,--I mean the
tyranny of the master's children. My master had two sons, about the ages
and sizes of my older brother and myself. We were not only required to
recognise these young sirs as our young masters, but _they_ felt
themselves to be such; and, in consequence of this feeling, they sought to
treat us with the same air of authority that their father did the older
slaves.

Another evil of slavery that I felt severely about this time, was the
tyranny and abuse of the overseers. These men seem to look with an evil
eye upon children. I was once visiting a menagerie, and being struck with
the fact, that the lion was comparatively indifferent to every one around
his cage, while he eyed with peculiar keenness a little boy I had; the
keeper informed me that such was always the case. Such is true of those
human beings in the slave states, called overseers. They seem to take
pleasure in torturing the children of slaves, long before they are large
enough to be put at the hoe, and consequently under the whip.

We had an overseer, named Blackstone; he was an extremely cruel man to the
working hands. He always carried a long hickory whip, a kind of pole. He
kept three or four of these in order, that he might not at any time be
without one.

I once found one of these hickories lying in the yard, and supposing that
he had thrown it away, I