Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/160

 horses, and cows, says Mr. Coor, were all burned under the inspection of a white man. Had they been buried, the negroes would have dug them up in the night to eat them through hunger. It was generally said to be done to prevent the negroes from eating them, lest it should breed distempers.

On the subject of their clothing, there is the same variation as to quantity as in their food. It depends on the disposition and circumstances of their masters. The largest allowance in the evidence is that which is mentioned by Dr. Harrison. The men, he says, at Christmas, are allowed two frocks, and two pair of Osnaburgh trowsers, and the women two coats and two shifts apiece. Some also have two handkerchiefs for the head. They have no other clothes than these, except they get them by their own extra labor. Woolrich and Coor agree, that as far as their experience went, the masters did not expend for the clothing of their slaves more than half a crown or three shillings a year; and Cook says that they are in general but very indifferently clothed, and that one-half of them go almost naked in the field.

With respect to their houses and lodging, the accounts of the three following gentlemen will suffice:

Mr. Woolrich states their houses to be small, square huts, built with poles, and thatched at the top and sides with a kind of bamboo, and built by the slaves themselves. He describes them as lying in the middle of these huts before a small fire, but to have no bedding. Some, he says, obtain a board or mat to lie on before the fire. A few of the head-slaves have cabins of boards raised from the floor, but no bedding, except some, who have a coarse blanket. The Rev. Mr. Rees, in describing their houses nearly in the same manner, observes that their furniture consists of stools and benches, that they had no beds or bedding in the houses he was in, but that some of them slept on the ground, and others on a board raised from it. Some of the new slaves, says Dr. Harrison, have a few blankets, but it is not the general practice: for in general they have no bedding at all.

Of the property of the field-slaves, the next article to be considered, the following testimony will give a sufficient illustration:

Many field-slaves, says Mr. Woolrich, have it not in their power to earn any thing, exclusive of their master's work. Some few raise fowls, and some few pigs, and sell them, but their number is very few. Mr. Dalrymple does not say that slaves never become possessed of much property, but he never knew an instance of it, nor can he conceive how they can have time for it. The Dean of Middleham observes, that the quantity of ground allowed to field-slaves for raising provisions does not admit of their frequently possessing any considerable property. It is not likely they can spare much of their produce for sale. Sometimes they possess a pig, and two or three fowls, and if they have also a few plantain trees, these may be the means of supplying them with knives, iron pots, and such other conveniences as their masters do not allow them. The greatest property Mr. M. Terry ever knew a field-slave to possess was two pigs, and a little poultry. A field-slave has not the means ot getting much property. Mr. J. Terry has known the field-slaves so poor as