Today as I watched from the window of my house, I saw one of my white overseers almost beat a slave man to death. The overseer beat the slave in one of his gangs (and for quite a good reason) because he tripped while working on draining the marshlands for the sugar canes (I like to grow sugar more than cotton because cotton ruins the soil quicker than anything I've ever grown) and completely made a mess of everything. He knocked over another slave, who knocked over another slave, and it was just a huge train reaction. It broke up the entire gang. I thought "That stupid animal! I might as well hire animals, because they can't be any more incompetent than these slaves I received." If the slaves weren't still reproducing the Southern economy, as we know it, would be gone because congress made a ban against the importation and exportation of slaves from Africa in 1808. I wish we could use the immigrants instead of blacks, but they don't come down here often. Besides, they want to be paid, and that would cut into our profit. .
This weekend I have to leave to go to the North. One of my slaves recently escaped, but thanks to the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, he was caught and will now go to trial. Thank the Lord they took the fugitive's right to a jury trial. Instead, the state has a special commissioner to handle these cases. He is paid five dollars if the fugitive is released (which won't happen) and ten dollars if the slave is sent away with the claimant. I had better win, why would they ever set a black fugitive free.
While I am gone, I am leaving my wife in charge of the plantation. My wife is incredible; she is generous, intelligent, and has a certain charm that you don't find often, especially in northern women. My wife, Cecilia has taught my four children to read and write. We send them to a private academy, but she learned to read at home because she was poor growing up, so she thought it was to be that way for our children.
