The day he was to sell the children from their mother he would tell that mother to go to some other place to do some work and in their absence he would sell the children. It was the same when he would sell a man's wife, he also sent him to another job and when he returned his wife would be gone. The master only said "don't worry you can get another one".

John's master, in allowing his slaves to marry, was much more liberal than most slave owners, who allowed their slaves no such liberty. As a rule negro men were not allowed to marry at all, any attempt to mate with the negro women brought swift, sure horrible punishment and the species were propagated by selected make negroes, who were kept for that purpose, the owners of this provileged negro, charged a fee of one out of every four of his offspring for his services. (Misspellings verbatim as written)