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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, garnished the ground in all directions; and three or four ferocious-looking dogs, roused by the sound of the wagon-wheels, came tearing out, and were with difficulty restrained from lay- ing hold of Tom and his companions, by the effort of the ragged servants who came after them. “Ye see what ye’d get!” said Legree, caressing the dogs with grim satisfaction, and turning to Tom and his companions. “Ye see what ye’d get, if ye try to run off. These yer dogs has been raised to track niggers; and they’d jest as soon chaw one on ye up as eat their supper. So, mind yerself! How now, Sambo!” he said, to a ragged fellow, without any brim to his hat, who was offi- cious in his attentions. “How have things been going?” “Fust rate, Mas’r.” “Quimbo,” said Legree to another, who was making zealous demonstrations to attract his attention, “ye minded what I telled ye?” “Guess I did, didn’t I?” These two colored men were the two principal hands on the plantation. Le- gree had trained them in savageness and brutality as systematically as he had his bull-dogs; and, by long practice in hardness and cruelty, brought their whole na- ture to about the same range of capacities. It is a common remark, and one that is thought to militate strongly against the character of the race, that the negro over- seer is always more tyrannical and cruel than the white one. This is simply saying that the negro mind has been more crushed and debased than the white. It is no |
