All the white males had the privilege of whipping any slave at any time. Colonel Lloyd’s Great Farm House was located in Talbot County, Maryland near Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis and was the center of all the overseers and many other farms in that area. It was a very beautiful place, everything was new, and the gardens the stables were the best in the all the towns. The slaves would fight each other to tell who had the best master and the winner was thought to be the same as his master, the greatest.
“They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves”
They would rather be with a rich white man who beat them then a poor white man who beat them. Old Barney and Young Barney had a horrible job taking care of the horses. If the Colonel, his sons, nephews, or his son-in-laws thought the horses were not kept to perfection; either feeling the horses didn’t eat enough, kept their head high enough, weren’t brushed, were too hot or too cold, or too fast or too slow, then Old Barney who was over 60 years old would be beaten on his head even for his son’s accounts. Even if it wasn’t true! They had no right to speak out on their behalf or out of term to a white man. They had to stand, look down and tremble with fear.
When Colonel Lloyd met one of his slaves on the road one day, he asked the slave who he had neither met and tricked the slave to telling him how he felt about his life and condition on the plantation. They had never seen one another since Colonel Lloyd had over a thousand slaves. The slave spoke freely and honestly. The Colonel asked questions about his slave’s food, and his life. The slave was honest saying the Master was not a good one but that he had been given enough food. The next day the slave was never seen again. Rumors say he was chained from wrist to neck and sent to Georgia where he was treated worse than ever. (Darian Smith, Eric Smith)
So the slaves learned that they couldn’t speak the truth about their lives or their master’s brutality. This was a means of survival on the plantation and in the South where slavery flourished. (Daria Takharu)
