"The horn was blown at sunrise; the coloured people had then to march before the overseer to the field, He on horseback. We had to work, even in long, summer days, till twelve o'clock, before we tasted a morsel; men, women, and children all being served alike. At noon the cart appeared with our breakfast. It was in large trays, and was set on the ground. There was bread, of which a piece was cut off for each person; then there was small hominy boiled, (that is, Indian corn, ground in the hand-mill) and besides this, two herrings for each of the men and women, and one for each of the children." 

"Our drink was the water in the ditches, whatever might be its state; if the ditches were dry, water was brought to us by boys. The salt fish made us always thirsty, but no other drink than water was ever allowed. However thirsty a slave may be,he is not allowed to leave his employment for a moment to get water; he can only have it when the hands in working have reached the ditch at the end of the rows. The overseer stood with his watch in his hand, to give us just an hour; when he said "rise," we had to rise and go to work again. The women who had children laid them down by the hedge-row, and gave them straws and other trifles to play with: here they were in danger from snakes. I have seen a large snake found coiled round the neck and face of a child, when its mother went to suckle it at dinner time. The hands work in a line, by the side of each other; the overseer puts the swiftest hands in the fore row, and all must keep up with them. One black man is kept on purpose to whip the others in the field; if he does not flog with sufficient severity, he is flogged himself: he whips severely, to keep the whip from his own back. If a man has a wife in the same field with himself; he chooses a row by the side of hers, that with extreme labour he may, if possible, help her."

"But he will not be in the same field if he can help it; for with his hardest labour, he often cannot save her from being flogged, and he is obliged to stand by and see it; he is always liable to see her taken home at night, stripped naked, and whipped before all the men. On the estate I am speaking of, those women who had sucking children suffered much from their breasts becoming full of milk, the infants being left at home; they therefore could not keep up with the other hands: I seen the overseer beat them with raw hide, so that blood and milk flew mingled from their breasts. A woman who gives offence in the field, and is large in the family way, is compelled to lie down over a hole made to receive her, and is then flogged with the whip, or beaten with a paddle, which has holes in it; at every hole comes a blister. One of my sisters was so severely punished in this way, that labour was brought on, and the child was born in the field. This very overseer, Mr. Brooks, killed in this manner a girl named Mary: her father and mother were in the field at the time. He also killed a boy about twelve years old. He had no punishment, or even trial, for either."27-29

"I was eight months in the field. My master, Mr. Sawyer, agreed to allow me eight dollars a month, while so employed, towards buying myself: it will be seen he did not give me even that. When I first went to work in the corn field, I had paid him 230 dollars towards this third buying of my freedom. I told him one night, I could not stand his field work any longer; he asked, why; I said I was almost starved to death, and had long been unaccustomed to this severe labour. He wanted to know why I could not stand it as well as the rest. I told him, he knew well I had not been used to it for a long time; that his overseer was the worst that had ever been on the plantation, and that I could not stand it. He said he would direct Mr. Brooks to give each of us a pint of meal or corn every evening, which we might bake, and which would serve us next morning, till our breakfast came at noon. The black people were much rejoiced that I got this additional allowance for them. But I was not satisfied; I wanted liberty." 31