fear in every word they speak. If, in their master's
kitchen, they let slip an expression of discontent, or a wish for
freedom, it is often reported to the master or mistress by the
children of the family who may be playing about: severe flogging is
often the consequence.

I have already said that it is forbidden by law to teach colored
persons to read or write. A few well-disposed white young persons, of
the families to which the slaves belonged, have ventured to teach
them, but they dare not let it be known they have done so.

The proprietors get new land cleared in this way. They first 'dead' a
piece of ground in the woods adjoining the plantation: by 'deading' is
meant killing the trees, by cutting a nick all round each, quite
through the bark. Out of this ground each colored person has a piece
as large as he can tend after his other work is done; the women have
pieces in like manner. The slave works at night, cutting down the
timber and clearing the ground; after it is cleared, he has it for his
own use for two or three years, as may be agreed on. As these new
clearings lie between the woods and the old cultivated land, the
squirrels and raccoons first come at the crops on them, and thus those
on the planter's land are saved from much waste. When the negro has
had the land for the specified time, and it has become fit for the
plough, the master takes it, and he is removed to another new piece.
It is no uncommon thing for the land to be taken from him before the
time is out, if it has sooner become fit for the plough. When the crop
is gathered, the master comes to see how much there is of it; he then
gives the negro an order to sell that quantity; without that order, no
storekeeper dare buy it. The slave lays out the money in something
tidy to go to meeting in, and something to take to his wife.

The evidence of a black man, or of ever so many black men, stands for
nothing against that of one white; in consequence of it the free
negroes are liable to great cruelties. They have had their dwellings
entered, their bedding and furniture destroyed, and themselves, their
wives and children, beaten; some have even been taken, with their
wives, into the woods, and tied up, flogged, and left there. There is
nothing which a white man may not do against a black one, if he only
takes care that no other white man can give evidence against him.

A law has lately been passed in New Orleans prohibiting any free
colored person f