FROM William Thomson’s 1842 memoir, A Tradesman’s Travels in the United States and Canada, in the Years 1840, 1841, and 1842:

I took particular notice how masters treated the old slaves after they were unable to work in the fields. Their laws provide that they shall be fed and clothed; but I found that a better feeling than necessity prompted the planters to minister to the wants of their aged servants. They have their houses, blankets, shoes, clothing, and their allowance of corn, the same as prime hands. I knew some of them that had been toddling about for twenty years after they were unable to work. Many of these old hands keep themselves in tobacco, molasses, etc., by feeding a pig, or raising a few chickens. To feed them, they will cultivate a little patch of ground, but as frequently steal corn from “Massa” for this purpose; and, after all, if the planter’s family want to buy any of their eggs or chickens, they will not sell them to them one cent cheaper than the regular market price. These old hands are a sort of privileged persons, and are never abused or neglected.

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