SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 289 



upon a magazine of gun powder, the explosion of which 

 they were in constant fear and dread of, masters and 

 their families, and overseers, those cruel negro-whipping 

 tyrants, lay down at night with feelings of the most quiet 

 and perfect security — their persons and property un- 

 guarded by bolt or bar, policeman or soldier, and not one 

 in a hundred ever thinks of sleeping with gun or pistol 

 in the room : and if he did, what would be the use where 

 doors and windows are all open, and all the slaves upon 

 the plantation as free and unconfined as master and over- 

 seer, and yet the latter sleep as free from fear as I do in 

 my own house. 



I visited a plantation in Mississippi, upon which there 

 are more than one hundred slaves in charge of an over- 

 seer, who, with the exception of a young physician 

 boarder, are the only whites on the place ; and two of the 

 nearest plantations upon which there are more negroes 

 than upon this, are each in charge of a single overseer, 

 and another by a widow, so that, in that neighborhood, I 

 presume that there are more than fifty able-bodied ne- 

 groes to each white man. And this overseer, who is noted 

 for his ability to make negroes labor, and undoubtedly 

 uses the lash all that is needed, has so little fear of being 

 blown up in this great bug-bear magazine of powder, that 

 he lives here almost alone among the slaves, and never 

 carried a pistol or kept fire arms in his room in his life. 



A writer from whom I have quoted largely, speaking 

 of a temporary residence upon the banks of Lake Con- 

 cordia, in Louisiana, says, what I also know from per- 

 sonal observation, that in this neighborhood, the slaves 

 outnumber the whites nearly an hundred to one. There 

 is no guard or patrol on duty ; the slaves are at liberty as 

 soon as the day's work is finished; the door of the cot- 

 tage I occupy has neither lock nor bolt ; my room contains 

 many valuables; yet I never felt safer in my life, for I 

 have known this neighborhood nearly twenty years; al- 

 ways containing near the same number of slaves under 

 the charge of overseers, yet peace, plenty, quiet and com- 

 fort, have had an uninterrupted reign — ^for experience 



