The sun radiates a harsh blistering heat upon your plantation as it rises high into the sky. The air is thick with humidity of a hot summer day and there is no relief from the oppressive heat. There is little breeze today to combat the harshness of the hot sun. All around you can hear the sounds of insects buzzing loudly through the dense vegetation that surrounds your farm, as if threatening to encroach upon the many rows of cotton that cross your vast field. You make a note to have some of your boys prune the vegetation bordering your territory later. For now you focus on another task. As always, you look out over your land, surveying your fields of endless rows of thick cotton plants waving gently against the warm air, and across the distance you see several of your negro slaves laboring at work on a section of the field that requires harvesting. Your eyes scan over each one, noting their condition, their health, their appearance; like your pappy said to you when you were about knee-high, a nigger is only as good as his master's hand in discipline. And so far, all your slaves have done well with few exceptions such as those you will be addressing this morning.

You take off your hat and wipe the sweat off your brow with your forearm, looking past them to where the slaves reside. A row of numerous cabins that house the quarters of all the negroes living on your property stands not too distant from where you are. The structures are made of rough hewn logs covered by crude shingles and tar roof tiles. These houses serve as homes for the hundreds of enslaved blacks who live on your land. They live here because they belong to you, they are your property. You smile, thinking back fondly to how much money you have made over the years selling the crops produced by these slaves' labor. This has become a profitable venture and it gives you great satisfaction to be so successful as a plantation owner. It also provides you with a great deal of pleasure every time one of these lesser races attempts to rebel against your authority, you always jump at the chance to make an example out of the ones who refuse to submit to your rule, punishing them harshly to show the others what happens when you are crossed. You are especially pleased that today you do indeed find it necessary to administer a severe punishment to an insubordination few among the slaves.

Today there are four such bucks in need of discipline of which you are going to decide how they shall meet their fate in front of the quarters, close to where they perform the hard manual labor under the supervision of the overseers and drivers. Your overseers has already brought the four down to the main area of the housing quarters and now awaits your arrival for judgement. Also present are the slaves who are to become the reluctant audience to the spectacle you are about to force upon them. When you arrive some of them seem afraid, unsure of what is about to happen to their fellow slaves, some appear indifferent to any event unfolding before them, desensitized through years of abuse and harshness of slave labor. But most of the slaves are eager to witness the punishment and anticipation fills them as they watch you approach. The area is a large dirt field open to the sky above, and in the middle of this expanse is a flat large tree stump on which the punishments will take place.

Next to the stump stands two of your other employees, a pair of overseers whose job it is to maintain order within the confines of the slaves' living areas and ensure that each slave works hard in the fields in accordance with your expectations. Both white men share your sentiment about these blacks, that they're nothing but property, born into slavery with no rights to life or liberty and as such should work without complaint for their freedom or death. Each of the four black males are chained together with heavy iron collars around their necks. Their wrists have been shackled behind their backs and a chain connected from each ankle ensures that they cannot run away. The overseers greet you as you approach them.

Due to the sweltering heat, each of them wear white collared shirts with the sleeves balled up to expose their arms, each wear light brown trousers held up by suspenders.

Each have holsters which hold their leathery whips on their belts, used to deliver corporal punishment.

"Well," your lips form a thin smile as you greet your men, "I reckon' we got ourselves a few moon crickets who chirped a bit too loudly."

Your first overseer, a tall blond man named George, looks amused by your comment. The second, shorter and much fatter dark haired man name Jim, laughs heartily and motions a fat sausage-like finger toward the four bound slaves as they stand there and sweat in the hot sun, "You ain't kidding Mr. Turner sir! These here niggers ain't worth a hair on a dog's ass. All of them good for nothing pieces of shit." He grins, showing a mouth full of broken yellowed teeth. Then a scowl passes across his ugly face and he leans toward the slaves as if ready to lunge at them. His tone changes, taking on a menacing edge of anger and aggression, as if this display of aggression and contempt toward the enslaved men were something normal for him. These four have caused many problems for the man in the past and each in their own separate ways.

You give them all a quick glance and think that maybe today might actually bring some measure of resolution. At least for these four bucks anyway. You glance briefly at the fourth and lowest ranked slave, Thomas. Youngest of the other three slaves, he still has the youthful energy that young slaves possess to work hard among the cotton fields, he could serve as a hard working laborer and field worker for many years before getting too old. At fourteen years old he is only a year or two younger than the usual age for slaves to begin working the fields. But you like to start the more unruly boy slaves early as a form of punishment. You can see the boy hasn't yet learned much discipline nor patience for farm work and labor under duress. Although he harnesses extreme contempt for your overseers, he looks at you with trepidation. Thomas seems almost to be trembling, unable to even meet your gaze. You look away from the boy and to the next slave closest to him. You look upon Isaac, a twenty year old slave who functioned as a housekeeper in your colonial southern home. He appeared quite beautiful to you when you purchased him from a fellow slaveowner. But as the years went on he became surly and lazy. During his life as a house slave he garnered an air of superiority that he felt he had over the slaves that work in the fields.

He even felt that he was more intelligent than you, being so bold as to disguise himself as a woman and infiltrate the kitchen where the other women cooks served and prepared meals for you and your family, he stole food from the kitchen pantry and ate his fill of sweet butter cake. And now, he stands on his bare feet in the cruel burning sunlight, sweat pouring off his brow, and chained to his fellow slaves whom he felt superior to. You smile inwardly to yourself at this thought. Next to Issac and Thomas is Jacob.

Jacob is older by several years, already thirty years of age. In contrast to the youth of the others; you've found him to be somewhat docile, content with his lot and accepting of the harsh conditions of his existence. Perhaps because he is more patient than the others, Jacob is not nearly so loud and insolent. Yet despite this, he intervened to stop the beating of another slave after seeing how badly the man's back was injured.

He grabbed the overseer's whip from the slaver and tried to talk him into stopping the lashings. The overseer turned around and beat Jacob instead, Jacob accepted the beating in the other slave's place. As noble as he thought he was being, the fact that he grabbed the overseer's whip is an act of defiance that absolutely cannot be tolerated lest the other slaves begin to get ideas. Jacob may seem less belligerent and disrespectful than the others, but that does not mean that he isn't dangerous as well, just quiet. His defiance is subtle, sneaky like any other nigger slave trying to get away with something.

Lastly, and most defiant of the four is Toby. Toby has never been afraid of punishment and the many criss-cross marked scars on his back show it. Layers upon layers of scar tissue mark the lines of whip strokes that landed across the broad back of the black man. Toby has earned his reputation as one of the most troublesome slaves. It will require some special measures to break down the uncooperative slave's rebellious attitude. A line had been crossed when he nearly killed a fellow slave for speaking ill of him. Toby neither has the right nor the authority to kill your property, he himself is your property.

You will not have your property damaged without your consent, had Toby murdered his fellow mouthy slave then you would have lost the money you spent buying him. Then you would have had to lynch Toby, costing you doubly so with the loss of two able bodied slaves. It is important to find a punishment that will have a lasting effect on Toby. You think you have just the right punishment to inflict on all four of these jungle bunnies today.

It is a form of punishment that you have adopted from the Caribbeans, they call it "Buck Breaking". You've discussed the concept to both Jim and George yesterday, explaining how you plan to make the punishment public, to humiliate the four in front of the slaves and send a message to every single one of those black bastards that you are their master and you don't take kindly to insolence or rebellion. This way you will keep their spirits low. In your eyes these slaves are nothing but property and subhuman animals, animals that need to be disciplined to remind these monkeys who owns them.

You stare at the four slaves in contemplation as they face you, their dark skin glistening with sweat from the heat of the day. You know exactly what to do as you watch them steel themselves for this moment of reckoning. You address your two overseers and say "Are y'all ready to git started?"

The overseers nod their heads eagerly. Jim and George grin with satisfaction.

"That's what I like to hear," your voice rises a few decibels and a small smile crosses your lips as you turn to the four slaves. It's time to choose which buck you're going to break first. You point at one of the four slaves and say "Boys, bring me that nigger over there." The two overseers move to obey.