If some Negroes were commanded not to commit adultery, such a prohibition did not extend to the slave women forced to have illicit relations with masters who sold their mulatto offspring as goods and chattels.

If the bondmen were taught not to steal the aim was to protect the supplies of the local plantation.

Few masters raised any serious objection to the act of their half-starved slaves who at night crossed over to some neighboring plantation to secure food.

Many white men made it their business to dispose of property stolen by Negroes.
In the strait in which most slaves were, they had to lie for protection.

Living in an environment where the actions of almost any colored man were suspected as insurrectionary, Negroes were frequently called upon to tell what they knew and were sometimes forced to say what they did not know.