ht more of
than he did of the overseer. Uncle Esau was more cruel than was any
white man master ever had on his plantation. Many of the slaves used to
run away from him into the woods. I have known some of the negroes to
run away from the cruel treatment of Uncle Esau, and to stay off eight
or ten months. They were so afraid of him that they used to say that
they would rather see the devil than to see him; they were glad when he
died. But while so much was said of Uncle Esau, which was also true of
many other negro drivers, the overseers themselves were not guiltless of
cruelty to the defenceless slaves.

I have said that most of the family from which mother came had trades of
some kind; but she had to take her chance in the field with those who
had to weather the storm. But my readers are not to think that those
whom I have spoken of as having trades were free from punishment, for
they were not; some of them had more trouble than had the field hands.
At times the overseer, who was a white man, would go to the shop of the
blacksmith, or carpenter, and would pick a quarrel with him, so as to
get an opportunity to punish him. He would say to the negro, "Oh, ye
think yourself as good as ye master, ye--" Of course he knew what the
overseer was after, so he was afraid to speak; the overseer, hearing no
answer, would turn to him and cry out, "ye so big ye can't speak to me,
ye--," and then the conflict would begin, and he would give that man
such a punishment as would disable him for two or three months. The
merciless overseer would say to him, "Ye think because ye have a trade
ye are as good as ye master, ye--; but I will show ye that ye are
nothing but a nigger."

I said that my father had two wives and fifteen children: four boys and
three girls by the first, and six boys and two girls by the second wife.
Of course he did not marry his wives as they do now, as it was not
allowed among the slaves, but he took them as his wives by mutual
agreement. He had my mother after the death of his first wife. I am the
third son of his second wife.

My readers would very naturally like to know whether some of the slaves
did not have more than one woman. I answer, they had; for as they had no
law to bind them to one woman, they could have as many as they pleased
by mutual agreement. But notwithstanding, they had a sense of the moral
law, for many of them felt that it was right to have but one woman; they
had different opinions about