was a field hand, and never was sold, but her parents were once.

Mr. Crough who, as I have said had owned this plantation on which mother
lived, had sold the plantation to Col. Dick Singleton, with mother's
parents on it, before she was born.

Most of the family from which mother came, had trades of some kind; some
were carpenters, some were blacksmiths, some house servants, and others
were made drivers over the other negroes. Of course the negro drivers
would be under a white man, who was called the overseer. Sometimes the
negro drivers were a great deal worse to their fellow negroes than were
the white men.

Mother had an uncle by the name of Esau, whom master thought 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