Thompson had an interesting theory on the reason why slaves did not respond well to over-the-top punishments; he believed that slaves’ productivity would decrease due to their energy going towards resisting. The people who were forced into slavery understood that by responding to being whipped or beaten by working harder, their over-seers would assume it was alright to do so because the slave’s work quality would improve. He saw how many over-seers would give unjust or extreme punishments for things like not bringing enough firewood, even if it was as much as they could lift, or beating a slave for being only a couple minutes past curfew.

Families were separated, slaves were beaten almost incessantly, and no one could do anything about it. Even the slave children weren’t free from this. If any child wanted to beat slaves, the slave children were the ones who got the job. Many mothers would come home and find their children’s backs mangled, and they couldn’t do anything to protect their children.

However, just like the carrot and the stick, which is a metaphor for using a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behavior; some slave owners (but not very many) learned that beating their slaves resulted in the opposite effect they wanted. Instead of slaves working harder to avoid harsh punishment, the slaves would become rebellious and maybe even run away. The slave masters who learned this lesson would rather provide them some freedom and not deliver any unexplained beatings. (And then this would make the slaves more complaint and hard-working) By treating them with a bit of humanity, a benevolent master would make a slave feel less like livestock and more like part of the team.

While Thomson never told himself how slaves should be treated, it was incredibly obvious that he thought no one should be physically abused or enslaved at all. Thompson wasn’t against whites in general. He was just against the improper use of sanctions when being applied to slaves.