It is the boast of slaveholders, that their slaves enjoy more of
the physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country
in the world. My experience contradicts this. The men and the
women slaves on Col. Lloyd's farm, received, as their monthly
<78>allowance of food, eight pounds of pickled pork, or their
equivalent in fish. The pork was often tainted, and the fish was
of the poorest quality--herrings, which would bring very little
if offered for sale in any northern market. With their pork or
fish, they had one bushel of Indian meal--unbolted--of which
quite fifteen per cent was fit only to feed pigs. With this, one
pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance
of a full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from
morning until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and
living on a fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per
day, and less than a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no
kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of
food to prevent physical exhaustion, than the field-work of a
slave.
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