ad attempted to
relieve her of the task which had been assigned her, but exhausted
nature, and the selfishness induced by their own miserable situation,
did not permit them to finish it and the overseer, on examination, found
that the week's work of the woman, was still deficient. After breakfast,
he ordered her to be tied up to the limb of a tree, by means of a rope
fastened round her wrists, so as to leave her feet about six inches from
the ground. She begged him to let her down for she was very sick.

"Very well!" he exclaimed with a sneer and a laugh,--"I shall bleed you
then, and take out some of your Virginia blood. You are too proud a miss
for Alabama."

He struck her a few blows. Swinging thus by her arms, she succeeded in
placing one of her feet against the body of the tree, and thus partly
supported herself, and relieved in some degree the painful weight upon
her wrists. He threw down his whip--took a rail from the garden fence,
ordered her feet to be tied together, and thrust the rail between them.
He then ordered one of the hands to sit upon it. Her back at this time
was bare, but the strings of the only garment which she wore passed over
her shoulders and prevented the full force of the whip from acting on
her flesh. These he cut off with his pen-knife, and thus left her
entirely naked. He struck her only two blows, for the second one cut
open her side and abdomen with a frightful gash. Unable to look on any
longer in silence, I entreated him to stop, as I feared he had killed
her. The overseer looked at the wound--dropped his whip, and ordered her
to be untied. She was carried into the house in a state of
insensibility, and died in three days after.

During the whole season of picking cotton, the whip was frequently and
severely plied. In his seasons of intoxication, the overseer made no
distinction between the stout man and the feeble and delicate woman--the
sick and the well. Women in a far advanced state of pregnancy were
driven out to the cotton field. At other times he seemed to have some
consideration; and to manifest something like humanity. Our hands did
not suffer for food--they had a good supply of ham and corn-meal, while
on Flincher's plantation the slaves had meat but once a year, at
Christmas.

Near the commencement of the weeding season of 1835, I was ordered to
whip a young woman, a light mustee, for not performing her task. I told
the overseer that she was sick. He said he did not care