yard for punishment to inflicting it themselves.
It saved them trouble, they said, and possibly a slight
wear and tear of feeling. For this service the
owner was charged a certain sum for each slave, and
the earnings of the traders from this source formed
a very large part of the profits of his business.
The yard I was in had a regular whipping post to which
they tied the slave, and gave him “nine-and-thirty,”
as it was called, meaning thirty-nine lashes as hard
as they could lay it on. Men were stripped of
their shirts in preparation for the whipping, and
women had to take off their dresses from the shoulders
to the waist. These whippings were not so severe
as when the slaves were stripped entirely of their
clothes, as was generally the case on the plantations
where slaves were owned by the dozen. I saw many
cases of whipping while I was in the yard. Sometimes
I was so frightened that I trembled violently, for
I had never seen anything like it before.
* * * *
*
Sold in the market.
I was only in the yard a short time before I was bought
by one George Reid who lived in Richmond. He
had no wife, but an old lady kept house for him and
his three sons. At this time he had a place in
the postoffice, but soon after I came there he lost
it. He then moved into the country upon a farm
of about one thousand acres, enclosed by a cedar hedge.
The house was a plain frame structure upon a stone
basement and contained four rooms. It was surrounded
with shrubbery, and was a pleasant country seat.
But I did not like it here. I grieved continually
about my mother. It came to me, more and more
plainly, that I would never see her again. Young
and lonely as I was, I could not help crying, oftentimes
for hours together. It was hard to get used to
being away from my mother. I remember well “Aunt
Sylvia,” who was the cook in the Reid household.
She was very kind to me and always spoke consolingly
to me, especially if I had been blue, and had had
one of my fits of crying. At these times she
would always bake me an ash cake for supper, saying
to me; “My child, don’t cry; ‘Aunt
Sylvia’ will look after you.” This
ash cake was made of corn meal and water, a little
salt to make it palatable, and was baked by putting
it between cabbage leaves and covering it with hot
ashes. A sweeter or more delicious cake one could
not desire, and it was common upon the tables of all
the Virginia farmers. I always considered it
a great treat to get one of these cakes from “Aunt
Sylvia.”
The appellations of “aunt” and “uncle”
for the older slaves were not only common among the
blacks, but the whites also addressed them in the
same way.
* * * *
*
