n, women, and children must be whipped alike on their bare backs, it being an honor to whip them over their clothing. Some of the slaves have to lie down on their stomachs, flat on the ground, and stretched out so as to keep the skin tight for the lash. If they move they receive more lashes. When the slave holder expects to give his slave five hundred lashes, he gives him about half at a time; then washes him down with salt and water, and gives him the remainder of what he is to have. The poor slave is whipped till the blood runs down to the earth. Then he must work all day, cold or hot, from weeks end to weeks end.Slaves have one pair of shoes for the year; if these become worn out in two months, they get no more that year, but must go barefooted the rest of the year, through cold and heat. The shoes are very poor ones, made by one of the slaves, and do not last more than two or three months. They get one pair of stockings for the year. They have one suit of clothes for the year. This is very poor, and made by the slaves themselves on the plantation. It will not last more than three months, and then the slave gets no more from the slave holder, if he go naked. This suit consists of one shirt, one pair of pants, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes, and no vest at all. The slave has a hat given to him once in two years.No beds are given to the slaves to sleep on; if they have any they found it themselves. A physician in Alabama wrote in the Southern Cultivator in 1850: One of the most prolific sources of disease among Negroes is the condition of there houses.... Small, low, tight and filthy; there houses can be but laboratories of disease. (Rogers 8)Every Saturday night , the slaves receive two pounds of bacon, and one peck and a half of corn meal, to last the men through the week. The women have one half pound of meat, and one peck of corn meal. The children, one half peck of each. When this mere food is gone they hav...
