In Lesley's time, and I am afraid long after, the slaves were grossly underfed.
“'Tis sad,” he writes, “to see the mean shifts to which these poor creatures are reduced. You'll see them daily about twelve o'clock when they turn in from work scraping the dunghills at every gentleman's door” (I do like that touch) “for bones which they break extremely small, boil and eat the broth.” He adds that he hardly cares to speak of their sufferings because of the regard he had for their masters. And then he goes on to do so. He says that the most trivial error was punished with a terrible whipping, “I have seen some of them treated in that cruel manner for no other reason but to satisfy the brutish pleasure of an overseer.... I have seen their bodies in a Gore of Blood, the Skin torn off their backs with the cruel Whip, beaten, Pepper and Salt rubbed on the Wounds and a large stick of Sealing Wax dropped leisurely upon them. It is no wonder if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures incline them to rebel; at the same time it must be confessed they are very perverse, which is owing to the many disadvantages they lie under, and the bad example they daily see.”
A man had a right to kill his slave or mutilate him if he ran away, but a man who killed a slave out of “Wilfulness, Wantonness, or Bloody mindedness,” was to suffer three months' imprisonment and pay £50 to the owner of the slave. It was merely a question of value, the slave was not considered. If a servant killed a slave he was to get thirty-nine lashes on the bare back, and serve the owner of the slave after his time with his master had expired four years. That is to say, he had to pay for the loss of the slave's services. Indeed the negro's life in those days was by no means safeguarded, for if a man killed by night a slave found out “of his owner's grounds, road, or common path, such person was not to be subject to any damage or action for the same.” That is to say, the wandering slave was a danger to the community, and might be killed on suspicion as might some beast of prey. There was a law, too, that all slaves' houses should be searched once a fortnight for “Clubs, Wooden Swords, and mischievious Weapons.” Any found were to be burnt. Stolen goods were also to be sought, and “Flesh not honestly come by”; for slaves were forbidden to have meat in their possession. The punishment was death, and in the slave book of Rose Hall after this law had fallen into desuetude there is an entry under Monday, 28th September 1824: “Killed a steer named 'Porter' in consequence of his leg being broken, sunk him in the sea to prevent the negroes from eating it, and having the like accidents occur.” It does seem hard so to waste the good meat that the negroes craved, poor things, as children nowadays crave sugar. For a negro does not regard meat as food even now. It is a treat, a luxury.
In Kingston and other towns the notice ran, “No person whatever shall fire any small arms after eight at night unless upon alarm of insurrection which is to be by the Discharge of Four Muskets or small arms distinctly.” The whole atmosphere was one of fear. No negro or mulatto was permitted to row in any wherry or canoe without at least one white man, and all boats of every description had to be chained up and their oars and sails safely disposed, and so important was this rule considered that any master of a craft who broke it was fined £10. There was a punishment of four years' imprisonment for stealing or taking away any craft, and it is clear this had reference not to its value but to the assistance such craft might be to the common enemy.
A negro slave striking any person except in defence of his master's property—observe he had none of his own—was for the first offence to be severely whipt, for the second to be severely whipt, have his or her nose slit and face burnt in some place, and for the third it was left to two Justices or three freeholders to inflict “Death or whatever punishment they shall think fit.”
When slaves were first introduced the master seems to have had absolute power of life and death, and indeed long after, when it was beginning to dawn on the ruling race that the black man had some rights, it was still difficult to punish a cruel master, because no black man's evidence could be received against a white man. This rule, too, sometimes worked both ways.
There was once an overseer who was cruelly unjust to the book-keeper under him. As we have seen, the underlings subsisted very largely on salt food. This overseer, disliking his book-keeper, decreed that his salt fish should be exposed to the hot sun until it was rotten and then cooked and offered to him in the usual way. The young man protested, and the overseer declared he had fish out of the same barrel and found nothing wrong with it. Finally the exasperated book-keeper came up to the house and in desperation shot his tormentor. But he was never brought to justice, because there were only slaves present and no white man could be convicted on the testimony of a slave.