I have endeavored to
hire, black or white, but am not yet supplied." As to provisions, the
slaves were given fish from Washington's Potomac fishery while the supply
lasted, "meat, fat and other things ... now and then," and of meal "as
much as they can eat without waste, and no more." The housing and clothing
appear to have been adequate. The "father of his country" displayed little
tenderness for his slaves. He was doubtless just, so far as a business-like
absentee master could be; but his only generosity to them seems to have
been the provision in his will for their manumission after the death of his
wife.
[Footnote 27: Marion G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_( Boston, 1891), p.
36.]
Lesser men felt the same stresses in plantation management. An owner of
ninety-six slaves told Olmsted that such was the trouble and annoyance
his negroes caused him, in spite of his having an overseer, and such the
loneliness of his isolated life, that he was torn between a desire to sell
out at once and a temptation to hold on for a while in the expectation of
higher prices. At the home of another Virginian, Olmsted wrote: "During
three hours or more in which I was in company with the proprietor I do
not think there were ten consecutive minutes uninterrupted by some of the
slaves requiring his personal direction or assistance.
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