This article helps the reader to understand how often slaves were beaten and how bad the beatings were. Slaves were mainly whipped for poor labor production, if they weren't considered to be fast enough by their masters. There were other types of punishments other than whipping like putting slaves' heads under water, or humiliating them by making them wear women's clothing, but the most used form of punishment was the whip. This article focuses on events that happened specifically on the Barrow plantation; how he ran his place and about his diary of whippings. Barrow truly felt he was not being cruel just trying to get his slaves to work to what he felt was their full potential.
Questions on the reading:
1. Do you feel that whippings made the slaves work harder? It seems like the obvious answer would be yes, but Barrow seems to think that they never worked up to their full potential.
2. What other methods of punishment could have been used back in the 1840s that the general population today wouldn't consider cruel?
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