36 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



poor whites. The slaves were not numerous and were owned by 

 not more than a score of families in the county. They were 

 mostly house-servants; probably not as many as two hundred 

 were regular field-hands. Probably not five hundred in all were 

 owned in the county, partly for the reason that the table-land 

 of the region, being all near the Ohio and the Licking rivers, 

 was so deeply indented by the drainage channels that it was 

 not suited for large plantations ; but mainly for the reason that 

 slaves readily escaped to the free country. What negroes there 

 were belonged to a good class. The greater number of them 

 were from families which had been owned by the ancestors of 

 their masters in Virginia. In my grandfather's household and 

 those of his children, who were grouped about him, there were 

 some two dozen of these blacks, mostly pretty decent and 

 fairly industrious people. They were well cared for; none of 

 them were ever sold, though there was the common threat that 

 "if you don't behave, you will be sold South." One of the com 

 monest bits of instruction my grandfather gave me was to re- 

 member "that my people had in a century never bought or sold 

 a slave except to keep families together." By that he meant that 

 a gentleman of his station should not run any risk of appearing 

 as a "negro-trader," the last word of opprobrium to be slung at 

 a man. So far as I can remember, this rule was well kept and 

 social ostracism was likely to be visited on any one who was 

 fairly suspected of buying or selling slaves for profit. This state 

 of opinion was, I believe, very general among the better class 

 of slave-owners in Kentucky. When negroes were sold, it was 

 because they were vicious and intractable. Yet there were 

 exceptions to this high-minded humor. 



There is a common opinion that the slaves of the Southern 

 households were subjected in various ways to brutal treatment. 

 Such, in my experience, was not the case. Though the custom 

 of using the whip on white children was common enough, I 

 never saw a negro deliberately punished in that way until 1862, 

 when, in military service, I stayed a night at the house of a 



