For of all
slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the
worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and
cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a
religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists.
Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, and in the same
neighborhood lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were members and
ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church. Mr. Weeden owned, among
others, a woman slave, whose name I have forgotten. This woman's
back, for weeks, was kept literally raw, made so by the lash of this
merciless, _religious_ wretch. He used to hire hands. His maxim was,
Behave well or behave ill, it is the duty of a master occasionally to
whip a slave, to remind him of his master's authority. Such was his
theory, and such his practice.
Mr. Hopkins was even worse than Mr. Weeden. His chief boast was his
ability to manage slaves. The peculiar feature of his government was
that of whipping slaves in advance of deserving it. He always managed to
have one or more of his slaves to whip every Monday morning. He did this
to alarm their fears, and strike terror into those who escaped. His
plan was to whip for the smallest offences, to prevent the commission
of large ones. Mr. Hopkins could always find some excuse for whipping
a slave. It would astonish one, unaccustomed to a slaveholding life, to
see with what wonderful ease a slaveholder can find things, of which to
make occasion to whip a slave.
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