Quote

"All could not be relied on. Mighty power of the torturing lash" (55.)

This passage is a very meaningful one. Even though all of the slaves were all in it together and faced the same horrible future day in and day out, but that didn't matter to some slaves. There were certain slaves that if they had to pick between a fellow slave or even a family member or their master or any other white person for that matter, they would pick the white person without even thinking about it. These slaves are constantly trying to cover themselves, even at the risk of other slaves around them, who are going through the same thing as them. In today's world, we might call these slaves backstabbers or tattle tales, but during their situation, it was more like survival of the fittest, and if you had to tell on another slave, so be it, at least you saved yourself from a week of misery as well as got on your masters better side. There were cases that fathers would even tell on their own daughters or sons if it saved them a trip to the whipping post. It is amazing how the threat of the lash will cause certain slaves to totally obey and cause others pain.
I liked this quote because it just showed how much power the masters really had over the slaves. If they slaves just took one second and all came and worked together, they could have possibly revvolted and became free, but that one whip caused enough control over certain slaves that that could never happen.