Digressing here just a little, we can discover what would be the wealth of one of the first families of Virginia, who as fire-eaters made such boasts afterwards. The one thousand acres could then be bought for $15,000, as they may be now; sixty slaves, at an average of $500, some being old and decrepit and others young, would be worth $30,000; stock and farming implements, say, $5,000. Total, $50,000. It is interesting to know what the capital of one of those great men who talked so much at the time of the war would be.
The slave whose fortunes we are following was made a teamster and given a six-horse team to make one trip per week with a large canvas-covered waggon to Fredericksburg and home again. He sold the grain and brought the money home to his master at the end of every trip. On setting out on his journey he was always given fifteen bushels of oats for his six horses on the trip. The jealous overseer, trying to find a pretext to whip the new slave, stole two bags of oats from his load before he set out. This he did two weeks in succession. The consequence was that the horses came home on the second trip looking somewhat gaunt and not quite up to the mark.
Next morning after returning he was awakened by the overseer, carrying a big whip and some ropes, and ordered to go with him to his master. Arriving at the master’s house, the overseer charged him with having sold the oats and starved the team.
The accused protested his innocence, and established it beyond doubt. “A black girl has told me,” he said, “where the overseer has hidden the oats, over the back part of the granary, between the ceiling and the outside boards.” His master at once forbade the whipping, and told him to go and find the trap, which he did straightway.
He always asserted that while his master was at home he got on well enough, for he was a kindly-disposed man. But in an evil day for the poor slave the master went away “to the Springs” for his health, ordering him to continue teaming, and instructing him to hand the money to a near neighbor, not to the foreman.
As soon as the overseer returned he, however, demanded the cash, but the man refused, and paid it over according to his master’s orders.
Then the overseer took the slave off the road and put him ploughing with a three-horse team. After he had ploughed a few days, he came to him one day on horseback, just after dinner, carrying a bundle of gads. On riding up to him he dismounted, and ordered him to “haul off.” For the first time in his life this poor slave asserted his manhood, and refused, declaring that “he had done nothing, and would not be whipped.” At this juncture the overseer pulled out a pistol, and placed it to the breast of the slave, who looked the overseer steadily in the eye, and said, “That’s the death I want to die, and not be killed by inches, as you have killed many hereabout.”
It was too much even for the brutal overseer, who remounted and threatened he “would have satisfaction from him before sundown, if it cost him his life”; and so rode away, leaving him to go on with his ploughing.
The overseer returned at nightfall with his brother and brother-in-law, and ropes enough “to tie down a horse,” as the old ex-slave expressed it, and a big whip. “Now, haul off, will you?” and the overseer made an effort to catch his victim, who dropped his reins and bolted from the plough handles for the woods, with the three in full chase after him. He was too fleet for them, however, and gained the shelter of the woods. For three weeks he hung about the neighborhood, fed by the other slaves, and waiting for his master to come home. Then the overseer
