Manuel Pereira, page 139 by Francis Colburn Adams
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ith labor, without paying any respect to a poor white man's feelings," continued the mate, addressing himself to his second, as they sat upon the companion, waiting for the Captain to come on board and give further orders.
Never were words spoken with more truth. The negro is reduced to the lowest and worst restrictions, even by those who are considered wealthy planters and good masters. We say nothing of those whose abuse of their negroes by starvation and punishment forms the theme of complaint among slaveholders themselves. His food is not only the coarsest that can, be procured, but inadequate to support the system for the amount of labor required. Recourse to other means becomes necessary. This is supplied by giving the slave his task, which, so far as our observation extends, is quite sufficient for any common, laborer's day's-work. This done, his master is served; and as an act of kindness, (which Sambo is taught to appreciate as such,) he is allowed to work on his own little cultivated patch to raise a few things, which mass'r (in many cases) very condescendingly sells in the market, and returns those little comforts, which are so much appreciated by slaves on a plantation-tea, molasses, coffee, and tobacco-and now and then a little wet of whiskey. This is the allowance of a good man doing a good week's work, and getting two pounds of bacon and a peck of corn as his compensation. But, in grateful consideration, his good master allows him to work nights and Sundays to maintain himself. In this way was "Bob's bale of cotton" raised, which that anxious child of popular favor, the editor of the "Savannah Morning News," so struggled to herald to the world as something magnificent on the part of the Southern slave-masters. At best, it was but a speck. If the many extra hours of toil that poor Bob had spent, and the hours of night that he had watched and nursed his plants, were taken into account, there would be a dark picture connected with "Bob's bale of cotton," which the editor forgot to disclose.