"
Weston wrote: "Fighting, particularly amongst women, and obscene or abusive
language, is to be always rigorously punished."
"Punishment must never be cruel or abusive," wrote Acklen, closely followed
by Fowler, "for it is absolutely mean and unmanly to whip a negro from mere
passion and malice, and any man who can do so is utterly unfit to have
control of negroes; and if ever any of my negroes are cruelly or inhumanly
treated, bruised, maimed or otherwise injured, the overseer will be
promptly discharged and his salary withheld." Weston recommended the lapse
of a day between the discovery of an offense and the punishment, and he
restricted the overseer's power in general to fifteen lashes. He continued:
"Confinement (not in the stocks) is to be preferred to whipping; but the
stoppage of Saturday's allowance, and doing whole task on Saturday, will
suffice to prevent ordinary offenses. Special care must be taken to prevent
any indecency in punishing women. No driver or other negro is to be allowed
to punish any person in any way except by order of the overseer and in his
presence." And again: "Every person should be made perfectly to understand
what they are punished for, and should be made to perceive that they are
not punished in anger or through caprice.
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