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Mr. Gore was proud, ambitious, and persevering.He was artful, cruel, and obdurate. He was just theman for such a place, and it was just the place forsuch a man. It afforded scope for the full exerciseof all his powers, and he seemed to be perfectlyat home in it. He was one of those who could torturethe slightest look, word, or gesture, on the part ofthe slave, into impudence, and would treat it accordingly. There must be no answering back to him;no explanation was allowed a slave, showing himselfto have been wrongfully accused. Mr. Gore actedfully up to the maxim laid down by slaveholders,-"It is better that a dozen slaves should suffer under thelash, than that the overseer should be convicted, inthe presence of the slaves, of having been at fault."No matter how innocent a slave might be--it availedhim nothing, when accused by Mr. Gore of anymisdemeanor. To be accused was to be convicted,and to be convicted was to be punished; the onealways following the other with immutable certainty.To escape punishment was to escape accusation; andfew slaves had the fortune to do either, under theoverseership of Mr. Gore. He was just proud enoughto demand the most debasing homage of the slave,and quite servile enough to crouch, himself, at thefeet of the master. He was ambitious enough to becontented with nothing short of the highest rankof overseers, and persevering enough to reach theheight of his ambition. He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough tobe insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience.He was, of all the overseers, the most dreaded bythe slaves. His presence was painful; his eye flashedconfusion; and seldom was his sharp, shrill voiceheard, without producing horror and trembling intheir ranks.
Mr. Gore was a grave man, and, though a youngman, he indulged in no jokes, said no funny words,seldom smiled. His words were in perfect keepingwith his looks, and his looks were in perfect keepingwith his words. Overseers will sometimes indulge ina witty word, even with the slaves; not so with Mr.Gore. He spoke but to command, and commandedbut to be obeyed; he dealt sparingly with his words,and bountifully with his whip, never using theformer where the latter would answer as well. Whenhe whipped, he seemed to do so from a sense ofduty, and feared no consequences. He did nothingreluctantly, no matter how disagreeable; always at hispost, never inconsistent. He never promised but tofulfil. He was, in a word, a man of the most inflexible firmness and stone-like coolness.
His savage barbarity was equalled only by the consummate coolness with which he committed thegrossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves underhis charge. Mr. Gore once undertook to whip one ofColonel Lloyd's slaves, by the name of Demby. Hehad given Demby but few stripes, when, to get ridof the scourging, he ran and plunged himself into acreek, and stood there at the depth of his shoulders,refusing to come out. Mr. Gore told him that hewould give him three calls, and that, if he did notcome out at the third call, he would shoot him.The first call was given. Demby made no response,but stood his ground. The second and third callswere given with the same result. Mr. Gore then,without consultation or deliberation with any one,not even giving Demby an additional call, raisedhis musket to his face, taking deadly aim at hisstanding victim, and in an instant poor Demby wasno more. His mangled body sank out of sight, andblood and brains marked the water where he hadstood.
A thrill of horror flashed through every soul uponthe plantation, excepting Mr. Gore. He aloneseemed cool and collected. He was asked by ColonelLloyd and my old master, why he resorted to thisextraordinary expedient. His reply was, (as well asI can remember,) that Demby had become unmanageable. He was setting a dangerous example to theother slaves,--one which, if suffered to pass withoutsome such demonstration on his part, would finallylead to the total subversion of all rule and orderupon the plantation. He argued that if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, theother slaves would soon copy the example; the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves,and the enslavement of the whites. Mr. Gore's defence was satisfactory. He was continued in his station as overseer upon the home plantation. Hisfame as an overseer went abroad. His horrid crimewas not even submitted to judicial investigation. Itwas committed in the presence of slaves, and they ofcourse could neither institute a suit, nor testifyagainst him; and thus the guilty perpetrator of one ofthe bloodiest and most foul murders goes unwhippedof justice, and uncensured by the community inwhich he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot county, Maryland, when I left there; and if heis still alive, he very probably lives there now; and ifso, he is now, as he was then, as highly esteemedand as much respected as though his guilty soulhad not been stained with his brother's blood.
I speak advisedly when I say this,--that killinga slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county,Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by thecourts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, ofSt. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom hekilled with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. Heused to boast of the commission of the awful andbloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly,saying, among other things, that he was the onlybenefactor of his country in the company, and thatwhen others would do as much as he had done, weshould be relieved of "the d----d niggers."
The wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living but a shortdistance from where I used to live, murdered mywife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the mosthorrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbonewith a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a fewhours afterward. She was immediately buried, buthad not been in her untimely grave but a few hoursbefore she was taken up and examined by the coroner, who decided that she had come to her deathby severe beating. The offence for which this girlwas thus murdered was this:--She had been setthat night to mind Mrs. Hicks's baby, and during thenight she fell asleep, and the baby cried. She, havinglost her rest for several nights previous, did not hearthe crying. They were both in the room with Mrs.Hicks. Mrs. Hicks, finding the girl slow to move,jumped from her bed, seized an oak stick of woodby the fireplace, and with it broke the girl's noseand breastbone, and thus ended her life. I will notsay that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It did produce sensation,but not enough to bring the murderess to punishment. There was a warrant issued for her arrest,but it was never served. Thus she escaped not onlypunishment, but even the pain of being arraignedbefore a court for her horrid crime.
Whilst I am detailing bloody deeds which tookplace during my stay on Colonel Lloyd's plantation,I will briefly narrate another, which occurred aboutthe same time as the murder of Demby by Mr.Gore.
Colonel Lloyd's slaves were in the habit of spending a part of their nights and Sundays in fishing foroysters, and in this way made up the deficiency oftheir scanty allowance. An old man belonging toColonel Lloyd, while thus engaged, happened to getbeyond the limits of Colonel Lloyd's, and on thepremises of Mr. Beal Bondly. At this trespass, Mr.Bondly took offence, and with his musket camedown to the shore, and blew its deadly contentsinto the poor old man.
Mr. Bondly came over to see Colonel Lloyd thenext day, whether to pay him for his property, orto justify himself in what he had done, I know not.At any rate, this whole fiendish transaction was soonhushed up. There was very little said about it at all,and nothing done. It was a common saying, evenamong little white boys, that it was worth a halfcent to kill a "nigger," and a half-cent to bury one.
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