Another slave, Asberry Parker, did escape, and traveling by night hiding by day, reached safety in Canada where he worked and saved until he became wealthy. After the war, when he could safely return to the United States, he moved to Ironton, Ohio, where he made his home for the rest of his life. He belonged in his days of slavery, to a Williams family, in Carter County, Kentucky.
Another slave, George McVodie, belonging to the Poage family, of Boyd Co., escaped and went to Canada, no [TR: missing word?] as to whether he ever came back later.
A sister of George Davis was sold to a planter in Louisiana where she lived until 1877, when she returned to Boyd County as a free woman.
As negroes, in slavery days, were regarded as beasts of burden not much interest was taken in the welfare of their souls. Some kind hearted masters would allow them the privilege of meeting in religious service, where some one of their race in spite of the conditions of the times, could read and explain the Bible, would preach. Other masters would not allow this to be done. A negro would become, in character much like the family who owned him, i.e., an honest, moral and kindly master would have slaves of like qualities, while a cruel, dishonest master would usually affect his slaves so that they would be tricky and unreliable.
Where the master did not personally supervise his slaves and left them to the mercies of a hired "over-seer," their lot was usually much worse, as these task-masters were almost always tyranical and were not restrained by a sense of ownership from abusing the helpless creatures under their authority as were the master's, whose money was invested in them.
On one occasion, a young negro saw his own sister stripped naked and unmercifully whipped by one of these over-seers. He gathered up all of his small belongings and tied them in a bundle and securing a club of wood, laid in wait for the cruel 'boss' until dark, when he killed him with the club. He then escaped, via the "Underground Railroad."
One thing he was careful to do, was to avoid all telegraph poles, as that he thought the wires could detect and betray him, the telegraph was a mystery to his ignorant mind. He succeeded in making his way to Canada and freedom where he stayed until after the war, when it was safe to return.
The slave trade of importing slaves into the United States, being forbidden after about 1820, cut off the supply to such an extent that strong, healthy negroes became very high in price. Many Kentucky slave owners raised slaves for this market just as we today raise live stock on our farms.
Only the strong healthy slave women were allowed to have children, and often were not allowed to mate with their own husbands, but were bred like live stock to some male negro who was kept for that purpose because of his strong phisique, which the master wished to reproduce, in order to get a good price for his progeny, just like horses, cattle, dogs and other animals are managed today in order to improve the stock. Often the father of a comely black woman's child, would be the master himself, who would heartlessly sell his own offspring to some other master, without regard for his welfare.
Many of the aristocratic women of the master class, to keep from the burdensome task of caring for their own children, and to assure themselves a life of leisure would delegate to one of the negro slave women the care of their own children.