SLAVE NARRATIVES

My name is Louisa Adams. I was born in Rockingham, Richmond County, North Carolina. I was eight years old when the Yankees came through. I belonged to Master Tom A. Covington, Sir. My mother was named Easter, and my father was named Jacob. We were all Covingtons. No Sir, I don't know where my mother and father came from. Soloman was brother number one, then Luke, Josh, Stephen, Asbury. My sisters were Jane, Frances, Wincy, and I was next. I remember my grandmother. She was named Lovie Wall. They brought her here from the same place. My aunts were named, one was named Nicey, and one was named Jane. I picked feed for the white folks. They sent many of the children to work at the salt mines, where we went to get salt. My brother Soloman was sent to the salt mines. Luke looked after the sheep. He knocked down china berries for them. Dad and Mom had their own gardens and hogs. We had to walk around at night to survive. We were so hungry we had to steal or perish. This trait seems to have been passed down from the days of slavery. Sometimes I think this might be true. Our food was poor. Master worked us hard and gave us nothing. We had to use what we made in the garden to eat. We also ate our hogs. Our clothes were bad, and our beds were inadequate. We went barefoot most of the time. What I mean by that is, we had shoes part of the time. We got one pair of shoes a year. When they wore out, we went barefoot. Sometimes we tied them up with strings, and they were so ragged the tracks looked like bird tracks where we walked in the road. We lived in log houses daubed with mud. They called them the slave houses. My old dad partly raised his children on game. He caught rabbits, raccoons, and possums. We would work all day and hunt at night. We had no holidays. They didn’t give us any fun as far as I know. I could eat anything I could get. I tell you the truth, slave time was slave time for us. My brother wore his shoes out and had none all through the winter. His feet cracked open and bled so badly you could track him by the blood. When the Yankees came through, he got shoes.

I was married in Rockingham. I don't remember when Mr. Jimmie Covington, a preacher, a white man, married us. I married James Adams, who lived on a plantation near Rockingham. I had a nice blue wedding dress. My husband was dressed in lighter clothes, if I remember correctly. It's been a long time since then.

I really remember my Master Tom Covington and his wife, Emma. That old man was just something else. He would take what we made and give us a little allowance, which he would hand out to my[Pg 4] dad after we produced it. My father went to Steven Covington, Master Tom's brother, and told him about it, and his brother Stephen made him give our meat back to us.

My wife was kind to me, but Tom was the troublemaker. It was a pretty large plantation. I don't know how many slaves were on it, but there were a lot. There were two overseers. One was named Bob Covington and the other Charles Covington. They were Black men. I rode with them; sometimes, I rode with them in the carriage. The carriage had seats that folded up. Bob was the overseer in the field, and Charles was the carriage driver. The whole plantation was fenced in, meaning all the fields, with rails that were ten feet long. We drew water with a sweep and pail. The well was in the yard. The mules for the slaves were in town; there were none on the plantation. They kept them in town; they woke us up when the rooster crowed, and we started working as soon as we could see to swing a hoe.

Lawd, you better not be caught with a book in your hand. If you were, you were in trouble. They didn't allow that. I can read a little, but I can't write. I went to school after slavery and learned to read. We only went to school for three or four weeks a year and learned to read.

There was no church on the plantation, and we were[Pg 5] not allowed to have prayer meetings. No parties, no candy pulls, no dances, not at all. I remember going one time to the white people's church, but no baptizing that I recall. Lord have mercy, ha! ha! No. The patrol was on the property at night. You couldn’t travel without a pass.

We caught a few possums. I rubbed ointment on my dad's back after he got beaten so badly that his skin was torn up. He still had to keep working. When we got home at night, we cooked our dinners, ate, and then went to bed. If the fire was out or if any chores needed to be done around the house, we had to work on Sundays. They didn't give us Christmas or any other holidays. We had corn shuckings. I heard them talking about splitting the corn pile right in half. One person would stand on one side, another on the other side, and see who could shuck more. They had brandy at the corn shucking, and I heard Sam talking about getting drunk.

I remember a woman dying. Her name was Caroline Covington. I didn't go to the funeral. But you know they had a little cart pulled by horses to take her to the grave, just a one-horse wagon, just slipped her in there.

Yes, I remember a field song. It was "Oh! come let us go where pleasure never dies. Great fountain gone over." That's one of them. We had a good doctor when we got sick. He came[Pg 6] to see us. The slaves used herbs they found in the woods. That's what I do now, Sir. I have some herbs right in my kitchen now.

When the Yankees came through, I didn’t know anything about them until they showed up. It was like they popped up out of nowhere. One of the slaves was at his master's house, and he said, “The Yankees are in Cheraw, S. C. and the Yankees are in town.” It didn’t bother me at all. I wasn’t afraid of the Yankees. I remember they went to Miss Emma's house, went into the smokehouse, and dumped every barrel of molasses right onto the floor and scattered the cracklings everywhere. I went there and picked some up. Miss Emma was my mistress. They killed the chickens and hogs, and even old Jeff the dog; they shot him right in the throat. I remember how his mouth flew open when they shot him. One of them went into the potato bank, and we kids wanted to go out there. Mother wouldn’t let us. She was scared of them.

Abraham Lincoln freed us with the help of God. Slavery depended on who you were with. If you were with someone who was good and had some feelings for you, it was manageable, yeah, pretty manageable.

We left the plantation as soon as the surrender happened. We took off right away. We headed towards Fayetteville, North Carolina. We climbed over fences and were completely worn out[Pg 7] with sore feet. We had some meat, cornmeal, a tray, and my mom had a tin pan. One night we came across an old house; someone had laid down wheat straw inside. We stayed there, and the next morning, we made our way back home. Not to the master’s place, but to a white woman named Peggy McClinton on her plantation. We stayed there for quite a while. The Yankees took everything they could, but they didn’t give us anything to eat. They gave some of the women shoes.

I think Mr. Roosevelt is a great guy and he does everything he can for us.

I was born before the war. I was about eight years old when the Yankee men came through.

My mom and dad, Hattie and Jim Jeffries, belonged to Mr. Frank Jeffries. Mr. Frank came from Mississippi, but when I was born, he and Mrs. Mary Jane were living down here near Louisburg in North Carolina, where they had a big plantation and I don’t know how many Black people. Mr. Frank was good to his Black people, except he never gave them enough to eat. He worked them hard on half rations, but he didn’t believe in constantly beating or selling them.

My dad worked at the stables; he was a good horseman, but my mom worked at the big house helping Miss Mary Jane. Mom worked in the weaving room. I can picture her now sitting at the weaving machine, hearing the pedals going plop, plop as she pressed them with her feet. She was a great weaver. I hung around the big house too, picking up chips, sweeping the yard, and doing other chores like that. Miss Mary Jane was quick as a whip-poor-will. She had black eyes that snapped and saw everything. She could turn her head so fast that she'd catch you every time you tried to sneak a lump of sugar. I liked Mr. Frank better than I did Miss Mary Jane. All us little kids called him Big Daddy. Every time he went to Raleigh, he brought us back some candy. He went to Raleigh about twice a year. Raleigh was quite a distance from the plantations—almost sixty miles. It always took Mr. Frank three days to make the trip: one day to go, one day to stay in town, and one day to come back. Then he always got home at night. Except when he rode a horse instead of taking the carriage, then sometimes he got home by sundown.

Marse Frank didn’t go to the war. He was too old. So when the Yankees came through, they found him at home. When Marse Frank saw the blue coats coming down the road, he ran and got his gun. The Yankees were on horseback. I’ve never seen so many men. They were as thick as hornets coming down the road in a cloud of dust. They came up to the house and tied the horses to the palings; they were all around the yard. When they saw Marse Frank standing on the porch with the gun aimed at them, they got mad. By the time Marse Frank shot once, a bully Yankee grabbed the gun away and told Marse Frank to put his hands up. Then they tied his hands and pushed him down on the floor beside the house and told him that if he moved an inch, they would shoot him. Then they went into the house.

I was scared nearly to death, but I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife, and when the Yankees weren't looking, I tried to cut the rope and set Marse Frank free. But one of those blue devils saw me and came running. He said:

'What are you doing, you little brat! You stinky little alligator bait!' He snatched the knife from my hand and told me to stick out my tongue, that he was going to cut it off. I screamed and ran behind the house.

Some of the Yankees were in the smokehouse getting the meat, some[Pg 11] of them were at the stables getting the horses, and some of them were in the house getting the silver and other things. I saw them put the big silver pitcher and teapot in a bag. Then they took the knives and forks and all the candlesticks and platters off the sideboard. They went into the parlor and got the gold clock that belonged to Miss Mary Jane’s grandmother. Then they took all the jewelry out of Miss Mary Jane's box.

They approached Miss Mary Jane, and while she stared at them with her piercing black eyes, they took the rings off her fingers; then they grabbed her gold bracelet; they even snatched the ruby earrings out of her ears and the gold comb out of her hair.

I had stopped peeking in the window and was standing beside the house when the Yankees came out into the yard with all the things they were taking away. Marse Frank was still sitting on the porch floor with his hands tied and couldn't do anything. About that time, I spotted the beehives in the side yard. There was a whole line of hives. As small as I was, I had an idea. I ran and got a long stick and turned over every one of those hives. Then I stirred up the bees with that stick until they were so angry I could smell the venom. And bees! You’ve never seen so many bees. They swarmed all over the place. They dove into those Yankees like bullets, each one angrier than the last. They landed on the horses until it looked like they were alive with pests. The horses broke their bridles, tore down the fences, and took off down the road. But their escape was nothing compared to what those Yankees did. They burst out cursing, but what did a bee care about curse words! They landed on those blue coats, and every time they landed, they stuck in their poisonous stings. The Yankees forgot all about the meat and things they had stolen; they took off down the road running, passing the horses. The bees were right after them in a long line. They’d zoom and zip, and zoom and zip, and every time they zipped, a Yankee would yell.

When they had left, Miss Mary Jane untied Master Frank. Then they took all the silver, meat, and things the Yankees had left behind and buried it so that if they came back, they couldn't find it.

Den day called ma an' said:

'Ida Lee, if you hadn't turned over those beehives, the Yankees would have taken almost everything good we had. We want to give you something to keep so you'll always remember this day and how you drove the Yankees away.'

Den Mis' Mary Jane took a simple gold ring off her finger and put it on mine. And I've been wearing it ever since.

HW: great short sketch [Pg 14]

I was born in Craven County seventy-eight years ago. My dad was named Andrew Bryant and my mom was named Harriet. My brothers were John Franklin, Alfred, and Andrew. I didn't have any sisters. I guess we’re what you’d call a general mix since I’m part Native American, part white, and part black.

My mom was with Tom Edward Gaskin, and she wasn’t given enough food. The cook took care of the babies while she prepared meals, so the mothers could work in the fields, and all the mothers did was drop the babies off at the kitchen door on their way to the fields. I heard my mom say that they went to work without having breakfast, and that when she put her baby in the kitchen, she’d stop by the slop bucket and drink the leftover scraps from a long-handled gourd.

De slave driver was as cruel as he could be, and the slaves endured terrible beatings.

The young master kind of wanted my mom, but she told him no, so he threw a wood knot and hit her on the head with it. These white men who had kids with black women were called 'Carpet Gitters.' My father's father was one of them.[Pg 15]

Yes ma'am, I've mixed a lot because my mom's grandma was a Cherokee Indian.

I don't know anything about the war, since master took us to Cedar Falls, near Durham, and that's where we became free.

I remember that the Ku Klux used to go to the Free Issues houses, take everything from the families, and beat up the old folks. Then they would dance with the pretty yellow girls and go to bed with them. That’s what the Ku Klux was, a group of cruel men trying to have a good time.

I’ve worked pretty hard during my life and I did my courting on a steer and cart hauling wood to town to sell. He was hauling wood too on his wagon, and he’d beat me to town so he could help me off the wagon. I guess that was as good a way as any.

I try to be a good Christian, but I’m really frustrated with these young upstart Black people who dance in the church. They claim that they’re just having a good time and that the Bible doesn’t forbid it, but I know dancing when I see it.

[HW: Unnumbered] [Pg 17]

Yes, I was born a slave. I belonged to Mr. T. C. McIlhenny, who had a large rice plantation called "Eagles Nest" in Brunswick County. It was a big place. He had a lot of slaves, and he was a good man. My mother and father passed away when I was fourteen. My father died in February 1865, and my mother died from pneumonia in November 1865. My older sister looked after me.

Interviewer: "Can you read and write?"

Joseph: "Oh yeah, I can write a bit. I can make my marks. I can write my name. No, I can't read. I never went to school a single day in my life. I just 'picked up' what I know."

I don't remember much about the time of slavery. I was fourteen when I gained my freedom. After I was free, we lived between 8th and 9th on Chestnut. We rented a place from Dan O'Connor, a real estate agent, and paid him $5 a month in rent. I've been married twice. The first time, I was married by Mr. Ed Taylor, a magistrate in Southport, Brunswick County. I was with my first wife for twenty years and eight months before she passed away. I remarried when I was seventy-five years old. I was with my second wife for just a few years before she died.

I was on the police force for a year and a half. I was elected on April 6, 1895. Mr. McIlhenny was an old man back then, and I used to go visit him.[Pg 18]

I worked as a dock worker for Mr. Alexander Sprunt for sixty years.

Joseph is currently buying his house at 1113 Rankin Street. He rents out part of it for $8.50 a month to help cover the cost. He lives in one room.

NOTE: Joseph's health isn’t great, making the information unclear and inconsistent.

[Pg 20]

My name is Mary Anderson. I was born on a plantation near Franklinton, Wake County, NC, on May 10, 1851. I was a slave owned by Sam Brodie, who owned the plantation here. My owner's name was Evaline. My father's name was Alfred Brodie and my mother's name was Bertha Brodie.

We had good food, plenty of warm, homemade clothes, and comfortable houses. The slave houses were called the quarters, and the house where the master lived was called the great house. Our houses each had two rooms, while the master’s house had twelve rooms. Both the slave and white folks’ buildings were located in a large grove, one mile square, filled with oak and hickory nut trees. The master’s house was exactly one mile from the main Louisburg Road, and there was a wide avenue leading through the plantation and grove to the master’s house. The house faced east along the avenue, and when you traveled down the avenue from the main road, you went directly west.[Pg 21]

The plantation was very large, with about two hundred acres of cleared land that was farmed every year. There was a pond on the property, and in the winter, ice was collected for summer use and stored in an ice house built in the grove where the other buildings were. A large hole about ten feet deep was dug in the ground; the ice was placed in that hole and covered. [HW: *]

A big building was constructed over it. At the top of the ground, there was an entrance door and steps leading down to the bottom of the hole. Other items besides ice were kept there. There was a distillery on the property, and barrels of brandy were stored in the ice house, along with pickles, preserves, and cider.

Many of the things we used were made right here. There was a grist mill, a tannery, a shoe shop, a blacksmith shop, and looms for weaving cloth.

There were about one hundred sixty-two slaves on the plantation, and every Sunday morning, all the children had to be bathed, dressed, and their hair combed. They were then taken down to the master's house for breakfast. It was a rule that all the little Black children ate at the big house every Sunday morning so that the master and mistress could watch them eat and identify which ones were sickly and needed medical attention.

The slave children all held a mussel shell in their hands to eat with. The food was served on large trays, and the children gathered around and ate, using their mussel shells as spoons to scoop up their food. Those who refused to eat or were unwell had to return to the big house for their meals and medicine until they recovered.

Marster had a big apple orchard in the lowlands by the Tar River, and up on higher ground, closer to the plantation house, there was a large plum orchard on one side of the road and an orchard of peaches, cherries, quinces, and[Pg 22] grapes on the other side. We picked the quinces in August to use for preserving. Marster and missus thought it was important to give the slaves plenty of fruit, especially the children.

Marster had three kids, one boy named Dallas and two girls, Bettie and Carrie. He wouldn't let slave children call his children "marster" and "missus" unless they said "little marster" or "little missus." He had four white overseers, but they weren't allowed to whip any slaves. If whipping was necessary, he always said he would do it himself. He didn't believe in whipping, so when a slave became too unruly for him to handle, he sold them.

Marster didn’t argue with anyone, and missus wouldn’t talk sharply to a slave, but both missus and marster taught slaves to be obedient in a calm and gentle way. The slaves were taught to take off their hats and bonnets before entering the house and to bow and say, ‘Good morning Marster Sam and Missus Evaline.’ Some of the little Black kids would go down to the big house and ask when it was going to rain, and when marster or missus walked in the grove, the little Black children would follow them like a group of kids. Some of the slave children wanted to stay with them in the big house all the time. They didn’t know any better, of course, and seemed to love marster and missus just as much as they loved their own mom and dad. Marster and missus always used gentle ways to get the children out of their way when they were bothering them, and the way the children loved and trusted them was a beautiful sight to see.[Pg 23]

Patterollers weren’t allowed on the property unless they came peacefully, and I never saw them whip any slaves on the master’s land. Slaves were taken away in two-horse wagons to be sold. I saw several loads leave. They were the troublemakers. Sometimes he would bring back slaves; once, he brought back two boys and three girls from the slave market.

Sunday was a great day on the plantation. Everyone got biscuits on Sundays. The enslaved women went to the master for their Sunday allowance of flour. All the children had breakfast at the big house, and the master and mistress handed out fruit to everyone. The enslaved people looked forward to Sunday as they worked through the week. It was a wonderful day. They received good treatment from the master and his entire family.

We were allowed to have prayer meetings at our homes, and we also attended the white people's church.

They didn't teach any of us to read or write. Books and papers were off-limits. The master's kids and the slave kids played together. I went around with the baby girl, Carrie, visiting other plantations. She showed me how to speak softly and behave in social situations. My interactions with white people and the lessons I learned while I was a slave are why I talk like them.

Bettie Brodie married Dr. Webb from Boylan, Virginia. Carrie married Mr. Joe Green from Franklin County. He was a wealthy Southern plantation owner.[Pg 24]

The war started, and there were stories about battles and freedom. The news spread from plantation to plantation, and while the enslaved people acted normally and some even more polite than usual, they were praying for freedom. Then one day, I heard something that sounded like thunder, and the mistress and master began to walk around and act strangely. The grown enslaved people were whispering to each other. Sometimes they gathered in small groups in the grove. The next day, I heard it again, boom, boom, boom. I went and asked the mistress, "Is it going to rain?" She said, "Mary, go to the ice house and bring me some pickles and preserves." I went and got them. She ate a little and gave me some. Then she said, "You run along and play." In a day or two, everyone on the plantation seemed upset, and the master and mistress were crying. The master ordered all the enslaved people to come to the big house at nine o'clock. Nobody was working, and enslaved people were walking around the grove in every direction. At nine o'clock, all the enslaved people gathered at the big house, and the master and mistress came out on the porch and stood side by side. You could hear a pin drop; everything was so quiet. Then the master said, "Good morning," and the mistress said, "Good morning, children." They were both crying. Then the master said, "Men, women, and children, you are free. You are no longer my slaves. The Yankees will soon be here."

The master and mistress then went into the house, got two large armchairs, placed them on the porch facing the avenue, and sat down side by side, watching. [Pg 25]

In about an hour, a huge black cloud appeared down the avenue from the main road. It was the Union soldiers; they finally filled the mile-long avenue stretching from the master’s house to the main Louisburg road and spread out over the mile-square grove. The mounted soldiers got off their horses, and the foot soldiers stacked their shining rifles and began to build fires and cook. They called out to the enslaved people, saying, 'You are free.' The formerly enslaved were whooping and laughing, acting like they were on top of the world. Union soldiers shook hands with the Black people, calling them Sam, Dinah, and Sarah, asking them questions. They broke down the door to the smokehouse and took all the hams. They went to the ice house and grabbed several barrels of brandy; it was quite a scene. The formerly enslaved and Union soldiers cooked and ate together. The soldiers encouraged them to join in; they were free. The master and mistress sat on the porch, looking very humble, and no Union soldier disturbed anything in the big house. The formerly enslaved were incredibly excited. The soldiers stayed there, cooking, eating, drinking, and playing music until nightfall. Then a bugle began to sound, and you’ve never seen such a scramble to get on horses and line up. In just a few minutes, they started to march, leaving the grove, which quickly grew silent like a graveyard. They took the master’s horses and cattle with them and joined the main army, camping just across Cypress Creek, a mile and a half from my master’s place on the Louisburg Road.

When they left the country, a lot of the slaves went with them, and soon there were no slaves belonging to the master left. They wandered around for a year from place to place, being fed and working[Pg 26] most of the time on some other slave owner's plantation and becoming more homesick every day.

The second year after the surrender, our master and mistress got in their carriage and set out to find all the Black people they had ever owned. Some who left with the Yankees were never heard from again. When master and mistress found any of their former people, they would say, "Well, come on back home." My father and mother, two uncles, and their families moved back. Lorenza Brodie and John Brodie, along with their families, also returned. Several young men and women who once belonged to him came back too. Some were so happy to return that they cried because life had been really tough for a while, and they were hungry. When they arrived back, master would say, "Well, you've come back home, have you?" and the Black people would reply, "Yes, master." Most of them continued to call him master and her mistress, just like before the surrender, and coming back home was the greatest joy of all.

We stayed with the master and mistress and went to their church, the Maple Springs Baptist church, until they died.

Since the surrender, I married James Anderson. We have four kids: one son and three daughters.

I believe slavery was very beneficial for my mother, father, me, and the rest of the family, and I have nothing but good things to say about my old master and mistress. However, I can only speak for those whose experiences I have known during slavery and afterward. For myself and them, I will repeat, slavery was very beneficial.

De fust master that I remember was Mr. Cute Williams, and he was a good master, but me and my mom and some of the rest of them were sold to Doctor McKay Vaden, who was not good to us.

Doctor Vaden owned a decent-sized plantation, but he only had eight slaves. We had wooden houses, but we didn't have much food or clothing. We wore shoes with wooden soles in the winter and no shoes in the summer. We didn't have much fun, just candy pulls about once a year. We didn't grow any sugar cane, but the master bought one barrel of molasses for candy every year.

You know there was a big slave market in Smithfield back in the day, there was also a jail and a whipping post. I remember a man named Rough something or other, who bought forty or fifty slaves at a time and took them to Richmond to resell. He had four big black horses hitched to a cart, and behind this cart, he chained the slaves, and they had to walk or trot all the way to Richmond. The little ones Mr. Rough would throw up in the cart, and off they’d go north. They said there was one day in Smithfield when three hundred slaves were sold on the block. People came from far and wide, even from New Orleans, for those slave sales. They said that way before I was born, they used to strip those blacks completely naked and run them across the square so the buyers could see that they weren't scarred or deformed.

While I could remember they'd sell the mothers away from the babies, and there wasn't any crying about it where the master wouldn't know about it either. Why? Well, they'd get beaten black and blue, that's why.

Was I ever beaten badly? No ma'am, I wasn't.

(Here the daughter, a graduate of Cornell University, who was in the room listening came forward. "Open your shirt, mom, and let the lady judge for herself." The old lady's eyes flashed as she sat bolt upright. She seemed embarrassed, but the daughter took off the shirt, revealing the back and shoulders which were marked as if branded with a braided cowhide whip. There was no doubt about that at all.)

"I was whipped in public," she said flatly, "for breaking dishes and being slow. I was at Mrs. Carrington's place, and it was just before the end of the war. I was in[Pg 30] the kitchen washing dishes when I dropped one. The lady called Mr. Blount King, a patrolman, and he gave me the beating you see the marks of on me. My old mistress found out and came to get me."

A friend of the interviewer who was there said, "That must have been awful, to say the least."

"You're not aware of anything," the old man said angrily. "Alex Heath, a slave, was beaten to death right here in Smithfield. He had stolen something, they say, regardless he was sentenced to death, and the people in charge decided to beat him to death. They gave him a hundred lashes for nine mornings, and on the ninth morning, he died."

"My uncle Daniel Sanders was beaten until he had cuts and gashes, and he was supposed to be beaten to death like Alex was, but one day after they had beaten him and thrown him back in jail without a shirt, he broke out and ran away. He went down into the river swamp, and the blowflies settled on his injuries while he was unconscious when a white man found him and took him home with him. He died two or three months later, but he never could get his body straight or walk without a stick; he could only drag himself."

"I guess I don’t know who my dad was, maybe just someone from the black community on the plantation. My dad and mom just[Pg 31] got married, but I don’t know when. You know they don’t let no little runty black have no kids. No way, they treat them like they do the male hog so they can’t have any little runty kids."

"Some of the masters were good, and some of them were bad. I was glad to be free and I left the moment I found out that I was free. I have no complaints at all. Some of the white people were slaves too, to get to the United States, and I guess we blacks aren't any better."

I was eighteen years old in 1875, but I wanted to get married, so I said I was nineteen. I wish I could remember some of the good old days when I was with my wife in Orange County, playing with my brothers and other kids who were enslaved.

I was owned by Mr. Franklin Davis, and my madam was Mrs. Bettie Davis. My brother and I used to scratch and rub her feet; you know how older people like having their feet attended to. My brother and I would argue over who got to rub her feet. She would laugh and tell us not to fight because she loved us both. Sometimes, she let me sleep at her feet at night. She was very kind to all the slaves. Her daughter Sallie taught me my ABCs using Webster's Blue Back Spelling Book. When I learned to spell B-a-k-e-r, Baker, I thought that was impressive. The next word I was proud to spell was s-h-a-d-y, shady, followed by l-a-d-y, lady. I would spell them out loud as I collected chips in the yard to build a fire. My missus Bettie gave me a blue back spelling book.[Pg 34]

My father was named James Mason, and he was part of the James Mason family from Chapel Hill. My mother, my four brothers, and I were also linked to the same man, and we lived in the town. I've never lived on a farm or plantation in my life. I don't know anything about farming. All my relatives have passed away, and I can't find any of the master's family if they are still alive. The master's family included two boys and two girls—Willie, Frank, Lucy, and Sallie. The master was a merchant who sold general goods. I remember eating a lot of brown sugar and candy at his store.

My mom was a cook. They gave us a lot of privileges, and we were one big happy family with plenty to eat and wear, comfortable places to sleep, and nothing to stress about. They were Presbyterians, and we slaves went to Sunday school and services at their church. There were about twelve slaves on the property. The houses for slaves were located just a little way back from the master's house on the same property. The Black and white kids played together, and there was hardly any difference in how a slave child and a white child were treated. I have religious books they gave me. Besides the books, they taught me manners of the time and also how to show courtesy and respect to my superiors until it became second nature, making it perfectly normal for me to be polite.[Pg 35]

The first time I heard about the Yankees was when I was in my master's yard picking up scraps, and they came by, took my little brother, and put him on a horse's back, then rode off with him into town. I ran and told my mom about it. They rode my brother around the town for a bit, having fun with him, and then brought him back. My brother said he enjoyed the ride and was happy with the blue jackets, as the Yankee soldiers were called.

We had hidden all the silver and valuables, and the Yankees didn't find them, but they went into the master's store and took what they wanted. They gave my father a box of hardtack and a lot of meat. Father was a Christian and quoted one of the Commandments when they gave him things they had stolen from others. 'You shall not steal,' he said, and he expressed that he didn’t appreciate receiving stolen goods.[Pg 36]

I traveled with white people in both parts of the country, north and south, after the Civil War. I kept traveling with them and continued my education. They taught me to recite, and I earned money by reciting on many of the trips. Since the surrender, I've traveled in the north for various charitable African American societies and institutions, and people seemed very interested in the recitation I performed called "When Malinda Sings."

The first school I attended was after the war ended. It was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and was taught by a white woman from Philadelphia. We stayed in Chapel Hill for only a few years after the war when we moved to Raleigh, which has been my home ever since. I got most of my education in Raleigh under Dr. H. M. Tupper[1], who taught at the second Baptist Church on Blount Street. Miss Mary Lathrop, a Black teacher from Philadelphia, was an assistant in Dr. Tupper's School. After that, I went to Shaw Collegiate Institute, which is now Shaw University.

I married Aaron Stallings from Warrenton, North Carolina while I was at Shaw. He passed away, and I married Rev. Matthews Anngady from Monrovia, on the west coast of Africa, Liberia, who was the Pastor of the First Church. I assisted him in his work there, continued studying various authors, and took part in lecturing and reciting. After my husband, Rev. Matthews Anngady, died, I dedicated much of my time to charity work. While on a lecture tour in Massachusetts to promote this aspect of support for the Black community in Richmond, VA, I experienced the most memorable event of my life when I met Quango Hennadonah Perceriah, an Abyssinian Prince who was traveling and giving lectures about the customs and habits of his country. Our shared interests led to a quick friendship, and when it was time to part ways—he returning to New York City and I back to Richmond—he asked me to keep in touch. I agreed, and after a year of correspondence, our friendship blossomed into love, leading to his proposal, which I accepted. We got married in Raleigh by Rev. J. J. Worlds, the pastor of the First Baptist Church, for people of color.

P. T. Barnum had recruited my husband as a boy, bringing him from Abyssinia to America, where he educated him and later sent him back home. However, he didn’t stay long and returned to America again. He was a Catholic here, and they honored him with the priesthood, but after he married me, he lost that position and joined the Episcopal Church instead. After our wedding, we decided to go on a long lecture tour. He had been a leader in his own country and was a prince. We based our lectures on the customs of his people and his experiences. I could sing and play the guitar, violin, and piano, but I didn’t know his native language. He started teaching me, and as soon as I could sing the song How Firm a Foundation in his language, it went like this:

[Pg 38]We traveled and gave lectures in both the north and the south, and while we had to work hard, our lives were filled with happiness and contentment. I traveled and lectured as Princess Quango Hennadonah Perceriah, wife of the Abyssinian Prince. I often performed the poem written by the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar When Malinda Performs, much to the delight of our audiences.

The following stories about African life were shared with me by my husband Quango Hennadonah Perceriah, and he also discussed them in his lectures on African customs while touring the United States.

The religion of the Bakuba tribe in Abyssinia was mostly Pagan, as the locals strongly believed in witchcraft, sorcery, myths, and superstitions. The witch doctor had complete control over the tribe's members, and when his reputation for bringing rain, abundant crops, or success in hunting was on the line, the tribes would gather. Those the witch doctor accused of causing these issues through witchcraft were quickly condemned and executed.

The people gathered together at the sound of drums. The witch doctor, dressed in the most terrifying outfit imaginable, with his body painted and wearing necklaces made of poisonous snake bones, as well as the claws of fierce animals like lions and leopards, and the teeth of man-eating crocodiles, sat in[Pg 39] the center of a gathering surrounded by tribe members. In his hand, he held a gourd filled with beads, pellets, or small stones. He started his rituals by shaking the gourd, shouting, and making strange sounds and odd movements. After a while, as he neared exhaustion, his face twisted in pain, signaling the beginning of the end for some unfortunate individual. He squirmed and turned in various directions, his eyes locked in a fixed stare as if waiting for something, when suddenly he would focus on someone in the tribe and point directly at them. The chosen victim was immediately grabbed and tied up, the doctor's gaze never leaving him until it was done. If one victim satisfied his anxious frenzy, the ordeal was over, but if his heightened emotions demanded more, he continued to scream until a second victim was found. He had these men killed to justify himself to his tribe for his inability to bring rain, plentiful harvests, and success.

The witch doctor who acted as the judge seemed to have complete control over the minds of the tribespeople, and no one questioned his rulings. The individuals accepted their fate and were taken away to be executed while they moaned and said goodbye to their friends in a sorrowful tribal manner. Sometimes, they were placed on a boat, taken out to the middle of a river, and there dismembered with blades of grass,[Pg 40] their limbs first being thrown into the river for the crocodiles. Typically, a drink containing an opiate was given to the victim to numb the pain, but often this step was skipped. The victims were frequently cut apart at the trial site with knives, and their limbs tossed out for the vultures that almost constantly circle the huts and kraals of the tribal communities in Africa.

In some cases, people who were condemned were burned at the stake. This method of execution was carried out during certain religious dances or celebrations dedicated to their pagan gods, intending to atone for and drive away the evil spirits that caused diseases among the people. During these events, the victims faced brutal torture, being burned slowly while the other tribe members danced around them in a frenzy of religious zeal, calling out to their gods while the victim screamed in agony as death approached. Young girls, women, boys, and men were often accused of witchcraft. One way they determined whether the accused was innocent or guilty was by making them drink a liquid poison from several toxic plants. If they could drink it and survive, they were deemed innocent; if they died, they were considered guilty. In most cases, death was nearly instantaneous. Some were able to vomit the poison and survive.

The Bakubas sometimes practiced cannibalism, and[Pg 41] my husband told me about a Bakuba girl who ate her own mother. One time, a snake bit a man, and he immediately called the witch doctor. The snake was venomous, and the man who was bitten was in severe pain. The witch doctor made a lot of noise and performed several chants, but the man only got worse. The witch doctor then claimed that the man's wife had caused the snake to bite him through witchcraft and that she should be punished for it. The locals quickly gathered at the witch doctor's command, and the woman was executed without delay. Ultimately, the man who was bitten by the snake died, but the witch doctor had shifted the blame for his failure to help the man onto his wife, who was beheaded. The witch doctor had justified his actions, and the matter was considered settled.

The tribe governed by a King operates under two or more absolute rules. The King’s word is law, and he has the authority to sentence any subject to death at any time without a trial. If he becomes angry or offended with any of his wives, a nod and a word to his bodyguard mean the woman is taken away for execution. Everyone in the tribe is subject to the King’s will, except for the witch doctor. Executions of a different nature than the ones mentioned are common. For general crimes, the condemned individual is placed in a chair resembling the electric chairs used in American prisons for executions. They are then tightly secured to the chair with straps. A pole[Pg 42] made from a green sapling is firmly planted in the ground nearby. A strap is placed around the victim’s neck under the chin. The sapling is then bent over, and the other end of the strap is tied to the end of the sapling pole. This action stretches the neck to its full length and keeps the head upright. Drums are sometimes played loudly to muffle the cries of those about to be executed. The executioner, known as the headsman, then approaches the chair from behind. When he gets there, he steps to the side of the victim and, using a large, sharp, long knife, decapitates the criminal. The bodies of men executed in this way are buried in shallow graves about two feet deep to receive their remains.

The ordinary members of the savage tribes strongly believe in the supernatural powers of the witch doctor, and his decisions are never questioned. Not even the tribe's King speaks out against him. The witch doctor is smart enough not to condemn anyone from the King's household or anyone who holds a prominent position in the King's service. After an execution, things quiet down within a few hours, and the incident quickly fades from memory. The African Negroes’ attitude towards the entire situation seems to be instinctive, and as long as he is safe, he does not show much concern for his fellow man. His instincts are more animal-like in nature.

The men in the African tribes have very little respect for women, yet they expect numerous courtesies from their wives, often beating them mercilessly if they feel disrespected. The men hunt and go to war with other tribes, while the women do all the labor. A warrior, when not hunting or fighting, spends a lot of time sleeping and smoking almost nonstop during his waking hours. Girls are purchased from their parents as children in exchange for a number of cows, goats, and other goods. The King can take any woman from the tribe, whether she is married or single, to be his wife. The parents of young girls who are chosen by the King feel honored and kneel to thank him for taking their daughter.

The prince of a tribe is born a headsman, and as soon as he can handle a knife, he is expected to carry out the task of beheading criminals sentenced to death by the King for various offenses. People condemned by the witch doctor for witchcraft are executed by dismemberment or fire, as mentioned above.

My husband was a cannibal executioner and carried out this job of beheading people when he was a boy. After being civilized in America, this part of his early life weighed so heavily on his mind that it contributed to his insanity. By tradition, a prince was born an executioner, and it was mandatory for him to execute criminals. He died in a psychiatric ward of the New Jersey State Hospital.

[Pg 44]

[Pg 45]

I should be able to share something because I was twelve years old when they had the surrender right here in Raleigh. If I live to see this coming December, I will be eighty-five years old. I was born on December 18, 1852.

I belonged to Jackson May of Nash County. I was born on the plantation near the Tar River. Jackson May didn't get married until I was a grown girl. He owned a lot of slaves; there were eighty on the plantation before the surrender. He married Miss Becky Wilder, the sister of Sam Wilder. The Wilders lived on a neighboring plantation to where I was born.

Jackson May had so many enslaved people that he let Billy Williams, who owned a nearby plantation, have some of them. Master Jackson raised my father and bought my mother. My mother was named Louisa May, and my father was named Louis May. My mother had six children, four boys and two girls. The boys were Richard, Farro, Caesar, and Fenner. The girls were Rose and Jane. Jane, that’s me.

We lived in log cabins with stick and dirt chimneys. They called them the slave houses. We had chicken feather beds to sleep on, and the houses were warm and comfortable. We had plenty of blankets and feather pillows.

My grandmother on my mom's side told me a lot of stories about ghosts and how people ran from them. She told me about slaves who had been killed by their masters coming back and haunting them. Old Miss Penny Williams, before Jackson May bought my mother, treated some of the slaves really badly. She died and then came back and nearly scared the slaves to death. Grandmother told all us kids that she saw her and recognized her after she had died and come back.

John May, a slave, was beaten to death by Bill Stone and Oliver May. Oliver May was Junius May's son. Junius May was Jackson May's uncle. John May came back and troubled both of them. They could hardly sleep after that. They said they could hear him screaming and groaning almost all the time. These white men would groan in their sleep and tell John to go away. They would say, "Go away, John, please go away." The other slaves were afraid of them because John’s ghost troubled them so much.

I worked on the farm, cutting corn stalks and taking care of cattle during slavery time. Sometimes I swept the yards. I never got any money for my work, and we didn't have any clothes. My brothers caught possums, raccoons, and things like that, and we[Pg 47] cooked them in our homes. We didn't have any parties, but we had quilting gatherings. We went to the white folks' church, Peach Tree Church, six miles from the plantation, and Poplar Springs Church seven miles away. Both were missionary Baptist Churches.

There were no overseers on Jackson May's plantation. He wouldn't have a single one. Billy Williams didn't have any either. They had Black slave foremen.

After working all day, there was a job of cotton to be picked and spun by them. This was two ounces of cotton. Some of the slaves ran away from Bill Williams when Master Jackson May let him have them to work. They ran away and came home. Aunt Chaney ran away and so did my mother. Master Jackson May kept them hidden because he said they were not treated right. He wouldn’t let them go back anymore.[Pg 48]

I never saw an adult slave being beaten or in chains, and I never witnessed a slave being sold. Jackson May wouldn't sell a slave because he thought it was wrong. He kept them all together. He had eighty of them. He would let other white people have them to work for them sometimes, but he wouldn't sell any of them.

If they caught a slave with a book, you knew it meant a beating, but the white kids sometimes taught slaves in secret. Old man Jake Rice, a slave who belonged to John Rice in Nash County, was taught by Old John Rice's son until he had quite a bit of learning.

We didn't have a prayer meeting at the master's plantation or anywhere else. The master wouldn't allow that.

When I was a child, we played the games of three-handed reels, 'Old Gray Goose', 'All Little Gal, All Little Gal, All Little Gal remember me'. We held hands and ran around as we sang this song.

We sang 'Old Dan Tucker.' Get out of the way, old Dan Tucker, Sixteen horses in one stable, one jumped out and scratched his belly and so on.

Dr. Mann, Dr. Sid Harris, Dr. Fee Mann, and Dr. Mathias took care of us when we were sick. Mom and the other adults grew herbs that they gave us too. Kids took a lot of salts.

Jackson May was too wealthy to go to war. Billy Williams didn't go either; he was too rich too, I guess. I remember when they said Blacks had to be free. The newspapers said if they couldn't gain freedom through good people, it would come through bloodshed. They fought and kept on fighting for a long time.[Pg 49] Then the Yankees came.

I heard them beat the drum. The master told us we were free, but mother and father stayed with the master. He promised them something, but he gave them nothing. When the crop was harvested, they left.

Father and mother went to Hench Stallings plantation and stayed there for a year. Then they moved to Jim Webb's farm. I don't remember how long they stayed there, but it was around two years. They moved around among the white folks until they died. They never owned any property. They have been dead for about thirty years.

I married Sidney Arrington. He has been dead for six years as of last September.

I can't do any kind of work. My arm is really weak.

I know slavery was a terrible thing. I don't need to think about it. Abraham Lincoln was the first of us to be free; I believe he was a man of God. I think Roosevelt is an okay man. I belong to the Pentecostal Holiness Church.

AC

[Pg 51]

I was born on a plantation near Fayetteville, N.C., and I belonged to J. B. Smith. His wife was named Henrietta. He owned about thirty slaves. When a slave wasn't useful, they were put on the auction block in Fayetteville and sold.

My father was named Romeo Harden and my mother was named Alice Smith. The small cabin where I was born is still standing.

There were seven kids in the master's family: four girls and two boys. The girls were named Ellen, Ida, Mary, and Elizabeth. The boys were called Harry, Norman, and Marse George. Marse George went to war. My mother had four daughters. Their names were Mary, Kate, Hannah, and me, Sarah Louise. I'm the only one still alive, and I wouldn't be if I hadn't spent most of my life in white people's homes, where they took care of me. I respected myself, and they respected me.

My first days of slavery were tough. I slept on a thin mat on the floor of the cabin, and as soon as I was able to work at all, I was put to milking cows.

I have seen the patrols chasing after men and have seen guys they had whipped. The slave block was right in the middle of Fayetteville Street, where Ramsey and Gillespie Street met near Cool Springs Street. The silk mill was just down from the slave market. I saw the silkworms that produced the silk and watched as they gathered the cocoons and spun the silk.

They hanged people in the middle of Ramsey Street. They set up a gallows and executed the men right at noon.

I once ran away from the plantation to go with some white kids to see a man get hanged.

The only boats I remember on the Cape Fear were the Governor Worth, The Hurt, The Iser, and The North State. Oh! Lord yes, I remember the stagecoach. I ran many times to deliver the mail when they came by! They would blow a horn before they arrived, and you had to be on time because they couldn’t wait. There was one stage each way every day, one going up and one going down.

Mr. George Lander had the first Tombstone Marble yard in Fayetteville on Hay Street at the Flat Iron place. Lander was from Scotland. They gave me a pot,[Pg 53], a scarf, and his sister gave me some shells. I still have all the things they gave me. My wife, Henrietta Smith, was Mr. Lander's sister. I worked for the Landers part of the time. They were hard-working white folks, honest, and God-fearing people. The things they gave me were brought from overseas.

I can remember when there was no hospital in Fayetteville. There was a small place near the depot with a board shack where they operated on people. I stood outside once and saw the doctors take a man's leg off. Dr. McDuffy was the one who did the surgery. He lived on Hay Street near the Silk Mill.

When one of the white folks passed away, they sent slaves around to the homes of their friends and neighbors with a large sheet of paper that had a piece of black crepe pinned to the top. The friends would sign it or make a cross mark on it. The funerals were held at their homes, and friends and neighbors stood on the porch and inside the house while the services took place. The bodies were taken to the grave after the services in a black hearse pulled by black horses. If they didn’t have black horses to pull the hearse, they would go borrow some. The colored people[Pg 54] washed and prepared the dead bodies. My grandmother was one of those who did this. Her name was Sarah McDonald. She belonged to Capt. George McDonald. She had fifteen children and lived to be one hundred and ten years old. She died in Fayetteville from pneumonia. She was in Raleigh taking care of the Briggs family, Mrs. F. H. Briggs' family. She was on her way back to Fayetteville when she got caught in a rainstorm in Sanford while changing trains. The train for Fayetteville had already left since the train for Sanford was late, so she stayed wet all night. The next day she went home, caught pneumonia, and passed away. She was great at curing rheumatism; she did it with herbs. She grew hops and other herbs and helped many people recover from this disease.

She was called Black Mammy because she wet-nursed so many white children. During slavery, she took care of all the babies born on her master's plantation and continued to do so after the war as long as she had kids.

Grandfather was named Isaac Fuller. Mrs. Mary Ann Fuller, Kate Fuller, and Mr. Will Fuller, who was a lawyer on Wall Street, New York, are some of their white relatives. The Fullers were born in Fayetteville. One of the slaves, Dick McAlister, worked hard, saved a small fortune, and left it[Pg 55] to Mr. Will Fuller. People thought the slave should have left it to his sister, but he chose to leave it to Mr. Will. Mr. Fuller gives part of it to the ex-slave's sister each year. Mr. Will always helped the Black community when he could. He was kind to Dick, and Dick McAlister gave him all his belongings when he passed away.

The Yankees marched through Fayetteville wearing big blue coats with capes. Many were on horseback, and there were thousands of infantry soldiers. It took them several days to pass through the town. The Southern soldiers fell back, and within a few hours, the Yankees occupied the town. They broke into the smokehouse at Marstar's, taking the meat, cornmeal, and other supplies. Grandmother begged the Yankees, but it didn’t make any difference. They took whatever they wanted. They said that if they had to come back, they would take the babies from their cribs. They told us we were all free. The Black people started visiting each other in the cabins, and they got so excited that they began to shout and pray. I thought they were all acting crazy.

We stayed right with the boss. He had a town house and a large house on the plantation. I went to the town house to work, but my mother and grandmother stayed on[Pg 56] the plantation. My mother died there, and the white folks buried her. My father stuck around and helped run the farm until he died. My uncle, Elic Smith, and his family stayed too. After a few years, my grandparents left the plantation and moved to a small place that Mrs. Mary Ann Fuller gave them. My grandmother and grandfather died there.

I was thirty years old when I got married. I wore my wife’s graduation dress for the ceremony. The wedding took place in a white church, and I married James Henry Harris. White people took me there and gave me away. Miss Mary Smith was the one who gave me away. Most of the guests at the wedding were white.

My husband was a firefighter on the Cape Fear riverboats and he was also a black man working for white families. We had two kids, but both of them died when they were young. My husband and I spent a lot of our time with white families, and when he was on his runs, I would sleep in their homes. Often, the children of those families would sleep with me. We both tried to live up to the standards of decency and honesty and to be worthy of the trust placed in us by the white families.

My husband was finally offered a job with a shipping company in Delaware, and we moved there. He was a fireman on the freighter Wilmington. He worked there for three years before he drowned. After his death, I married David Augustus and immediately returned to North Carolina to be with my family, and we have been here ever since. I am a member of several African American lodges and serve on the Committee for the North Carolina Colored State Fair.

There are only a few of the old white people who have always treated me well still around, but I am still working with their kids, among whom I have some really dear friends. I was about eight years old when Sherman's Army passed through. I guess I'm around eighty years old now.

AC

[Pg 59]

I was born in the year 1852, on July 27. I was born in Granville County and sold to a slave trader when I was ten years old, then taken to Southwest Georgia. I belonged to Samuel Howard. His daughter took me to Kinston, North Carolina, and I stayed there until I was sold. She married a man named Bill Brown, and her name was Julia Howard Brown. My father's name was Paul Howard, and my mother's name was Chollie Howard. My former mistress was named Polly Howard.

John Richard Keine from Danville, Virginia, bought me and sent me to a plantation in Georgia. We only had a white overseer there. He, his wife, and their kids lived on the plantation. We stayed in slave quarters. Slaves were brought in and sent there in chains. Some were chained together by the legs, others by the arms. They referred to the leg chains as shackles. I've lived a difficult life. I've seen mothers sold away from their babies and other children, and they were crying when she left. I've seen husbands sold from their wives and wives sold from their husbands.

Abraham Lincoln came through once, but none of us knew who he was. He was just the raggediest man you ever saw.[Pg 60] The white kids and I saw him by the railroad. We were sitting and waiting to see him. He said he was looking for his people and that he had lost everything he had. They gave him something to eat and some tobacco to chew, and he moved on. Soon we heard he was in the White House, and then we knew who it was that came through. We realized then it was Abraham Lincoln.

We kids stole eggs and sold them during slavery. Some of the white men bought them. They were Irishmen and wouldn’t snitch on us. Their names were Mulligan, Flanagan, and Dugan. They wore nice clothes and were funny guys. They called guns flutes.

Boss told us Abraham Lincoln was dead and we were still slaves. Our boss bought black cloth and made us wear it for mourning for Abraham Lincoln and told us that there would not be freedom. We stayed there another year after freedom. A lot of the Black folks knew nothing except what the missus and master told us. What they said was just the same as if the Lord had spoken to us.

Just after the surrender, a Black woman who was rebellious was chopping cotton at our plantation in Georgia. John Woodfox was the main overseer, and his son-in-law was also an overseer. They had a Black man they called a driver. The driver told the overseer that the woman was acting out. The overseer approached her, took the hoe from her, and hit her. The[Pg 61] blow killed her. He was reported to the Freedman's Bureau. They came, punished the overseer, and put him in jail. They decided not to kill him but made him provide support for the children of the deceased woman. There were a hundred or more Black workers in the field when this murder occurred.

We finally found out we were free and left. They let me stay with Miss Julia Brown. I was hired by her. She lived in Dooley County, Georgia. Next, I worked with Mrs. Dunbar after staying with Mrs. Brown for four years. Her name was Mrs. Winnie Dunbar, and she moved to Columbia, South Carolina, taking me with her. I stayed with her for about four years. This was the end of my maiden life. I married Isaac Austin from Richmond County, Georgia. He was originally from Warrenton County, and he took me from his home in Richmond County, Georgia, to Warrenton, and then from Warrenton to Raleigh. I had two brothers and thirteen sisters. I did general housework and helped raise children during slavery and right after the war. After that, you had to rely on yourself to care for the children. You had to doctor and take care of them yourself. You just had to depend on yourself.

Dey had 320 acres of cleared fields in Georgia and then the rice fields; I just don't know how many acres. I've seen jails for slaves. They had a basement jail in Georgia and a guard at the openings in it.[Pg 62]

No, no! You better not get caught trying to do something with a book. They would punish you with a stick or a switch. The slaves had secret prayer meetings with pots turned upside down to muffle the sound of singing. We sang a song, "I'm glad salvation's free." Once they heard us, the next morning they took us and whipped us badly. They would ask, "Are you free? What were you singing about freedom?" While the Black people were being beaten, they said, "Pray, master, pray."

The doctor would sometimes visit us when we were sick, but not afterward. People just had to take care of their own health. Sometimes, a person would take their patient and wait by the road where the doctor passed by, so when he came along, he would see them. The doctor rode in a small carriage pulled by a horse. He had a specific route, one doctor for two areas.

When the white folks were preparing to go to war, they held big dinners and gave speeches. They talked about what they were going to do to Sherman and Grant. Many men like Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln came through the South in rags and attended some of these meetings, and ate the dinners. When the white folks found out, there were some sick people. Sometimes we got two days off for Christmas and two days off for July. When the Black people were freed, they didn’t know where to go or what to do. It was hard, but it’s been hard ever since. From what the white folks, master and mistress told us, we thought Lincoln was terrible. From what my mother and father told me, I thought he was all right. I believe Roosevelt was put in by God to do the right things.

EH

Yes, I belonged to Marse Henry Allen from Wilson County, and we always grew tobacco. Marse Henry was good to us, so we had a lot of prayer meetings and corn shuckings and things like that.

I remember the big meetings we'd have in the summer and the great singing when we'd be singing the sinners through. We'd stay nearly all night to help a sinner come through, and maybe the week after the meeting, he'd steal one of his master's pigs. Yeah, I've had a tough time.

You know, kid, there’s no point in trusting anyone; they’ll just trick you every time. I remember once a patroller told me that if I gave him a belt I found, he’d let me go see my girl that night, but when he caught me that night, he beat me up. I told Marse Henry about him too, so Marse Henry took the belt away from him and gave me a possum for it. That possum was really good too, baked in the ashes just the way I like it.

I’ve only heard Marse Henry curse once, and that was when some gentlemen came to the house and said there was a war between the North and the South. He then said, 'Let those damn yellow-bellied Yankees come on, and we’ll show them hell and send them hopping back to the North in a hurry.'[Pg 65]

We haven't seen any Yankees except for a few hunting Rebels. They talk tough to us and one of them says that we Black people are the reason for the war. 'Sir,' I say, 'people who want a war can always find a reason.' He kicks me in the butt for that, so I quiet down.

I stayed with Marse Henry until he died, then I moved to Wilson. I've worked everywhere, tobacco warehouses and all that. I'm about to get my old age pension soon, and then the county won't have to support me anymore, that is if they have been supporting me with three dollars a month.

LE

[Pg 67]

I was born the last year of the surrender, and of course I don't remember seeing any Yankee soldiers, but I know a lot from what my mother and father told me. I have neuritis and have been unable to work for a year, and for seven years I couldn't do much.

My mother was named Teeny McIntire and my father William McIntire. Mom belonged to Bryant Newkirk in Duplin County. Dad belonged to someone else; I don’t know who.

Dey said they worked from sunrise to sunset, and Dad said they beat him so badly he ran away a lot of times. They said the patrollers came to where they were having prayer meetings and beat them.

Mammy said sometimes they were fed well and other times they almost starved. They got biscuits once a week on Sunday. They said they went to the white folks' church. They said the preachers told them they had to obey their missus and master. My mammy said she didn't go to any dances because she was disabled. Some of the help, a Black woman, stole something when she was hungry. She blamed it on my mother, and missus made my mother wear trousers for a year to[Pg 68] punish her.

Mammy said they gave the slaves on the plantation one day for Christmas and that New Year’s was when they sold and hired them out. All the slaves were scared because they didn’t know who would have to go off to be sold or work in a strange place. Dad told me about living in the woods and how they caught him. I remember his owner’s name then; it was Stanley. He ran away so many times they sold him several times. Dad said one time they caught him and nearly beat him to death, and just as soon as he got better and had a good chance, he ran away again.

Mammy said when the Yankees came through she was afraid of them. The Yankees told her not to be afraid of them. They asked her, 'Do they treat you right?' Mammy said 'Yes sir,' because the old missus was standing there, and she was afraid not to say yes. After the war, the first year after the surrender, they moved to James Alderman's place in Duplin County and stayed there until I was a grown girl.

Then we moved to Goldsboro. My father was a carpenter, and he found plenty of work there. That's what he did in Goldsboro. We moved from Goldsboro to Raleigh, and we have lived here ever since. We came here around the year of the earthquake, and my mother died right here in Raleigh the year of the earthquake. Some of the things my mother told me about slavery have completely slipped my mind. They just come and go.[Pg 69]

I remember my dad telling me about stretching vines across roads and paths to trip the patrollers off their horses when they were trying to catch slaves. My mom and dad told me that the master and mistress didn’t allow any of the slaves to have a book in their house. If they caught a slave with a book, they would whip them. They were careful not to let them learn to read and write.

Dey sold my sister Lucy and my brother Fred during slavery, and I’ve never seen them in my life. Mom would cry when she told me about it. She never saw them again. I just couldn't stand to hear her talk about it without crying. They were taken to Richmond and sold by the old master when they were kids.

We tried to get some news about my brother and sister. Mom kept asking about them as long as she lived, and I had hoped that I could hear from them. They’ve been gone for a long time, I suppose, and I guess there’s no point in expecting to see them again. Slavery was terrible, and Mr. Lincoln did a great thing when he freed the Black people. I can’t express how much I love Roosevelt. He has saved so many lives. I think he has saved mine. I want to meet him in person. I truly love him, and I feel I could express that better to him face to face.

LE

[Pg 71]

My mom was Hannah Murry and as far as I know, I don’t have a father, although I guess he was from the plantation stock. I was born in Virginia, as you might say to my master Mr. S. L. Allen.

We moved when I was little to Durham County where we struggled. We didn't have much to eat or wear. He had a hundred slaves and I guess five hundred acres of land. He made us work hard, even the little ones included.

One night I lay down on the straw mattress with my mom, and the next morning I woke up and she was gone. When I asked about her, I found out that a buyer had come the night before and wanted to purchase a woman. They had taken my mom without waking me up. I've always felt grateful in a way that I was asleep.

Dey used to tie me to a tree and beat me until the blood ran down my back. I don’t remember anything I did; I just remember the beatings. Some of the others were beaten worse than I was, and I used to scream that I was surely dying.[Pg 72]

Yes, I saw the Yankees go by, but they don't bother us at all, because they know that behind every bush there's likely a Confederate soldier aiming a gun.

I wasn't happy about the surrender because I don't understand it, and the Allens keep pushing me on and beat me worse than ever.

I think I was twelve when my mom came to the house and asked Ms. Allen to let me spend the week with her. Ms. Allen can't say no because my mom might go to the carpetbaggers, so she lets me stay for the week. My mom laughs on Sunday when I mention going back. Nope, I stayed with my mom, and I haven't seen Ms. Allen since.

AC

A (circled)

[Pg 74]

I belonged to Mr. Bob Lumsford here in Smithfield from the time I was born. My mom was named Candice, and my dad's name was Seth. My brothers were Rufus, William, and George, and my sisters were Mary and Laura.

I'm reminded of the days when, as a kid, I played marbles and hide and seek. There weren't many games back then, because nobody really had time for them. The adults had dances and sometimes corn shucking, and the little ones would tap their feet at the dances and help with shucking the corn. At Christmas, we had a big dinner, and from then through New Year’s Day, we feasted, danced, and sang. The first one who said "Christmas gift" to anyone else got a gift, so of course we all tried to catch the master.

On the night before the first day of January, we had a dance that lasted all night. At midnight, when the New Year arrived, the master made a speech and we were happy that he thanked us for our year's work and said that we were good, smart slaves.

Marster worked his fields from dawn to dusk, and his thirteen adult slaves had to tend to about three hundred acres of land. Of course, they mostly planted corn, peas, and vegetables.

I can remember when I was small, that the slaves were whipped for disobeying, and I can think of several times I got in trouble. I was doing housework at the time, and one of the silver knives got misplaced. They accused me of misplacing it on purpose, so I got the worst beating I ever had. I was beaten until my skin was broken here and there.

We kids had some time to go swimming, and we did; we also fished, and at night we sometimes hunted possums and raccoons. Old Uncle Jeems had some hounds that would chase possums or raccoons, and he used to take us boys along with him.

I remember once the hounds found a trail and they treed the raccoon. Uncle Jeems sent Joe, who was bigger than I was, up the tree to catch the raccoon, and he warned him that raccoons can fight back. Joe didn't pay much attention; he was so happy to have the chance to catch the raccoon. But when he caught that raccoon, he couldn't let go, and from the way he yelled, you would think he never wanted to catch a raccoon. When Joe Barbour was buried here last winter, the raccoon marks were still clear on his arms and hands, and there was a long scar on his face.

I remember once a woman from New York looking at him and almost fainting. "I guess," she said, "that[Pg 76] is what the brutal slave owner or driver did to him."

Yes, ma'am, I know when the Yankees came to Smithfield. They came with the beating of drums and the waving of flags. They said that our governor was here making a speech, but he left before they arrived. Anyway, we lived away from the main march route, so we haven't been bothered much except by "scootin' parties," as my old lady calls them.

They are the darndest you’ve ever seen; they won’t eat any pork except hams and shoulders, and they go to the smokehouse and get them without permission. They have what they call ramrods for their guns, and they knock the chickens on the head with those. I heard them say that there’s no point in wasting gunpowder on those chickens.

They went around the neighborhood stealing and killing livestock. I heard about them catching a pig, cutting off its hams, and leaving it there alive. They found all the things we had hidden, and while I don't think they are witches, I believe they have a way of finding things, and some of the slaves told them where the master had hidden those items.

Yeah, I guess I was happy to be free because I know that I won't wake up one morning to find that my mom or some of my family has been sold. I left the day I heard about the surrender, and I did pretty well too, although I know some who aren't doing so great. [Pg 77]

I never learned to read and write, and I know now that I never will. I can't even write a letter to Raleigh about my husband's pension.

I remember the days when my mom wore a blue handkerchief around her head and cooked in the big house. Sometimes she'd sneak me a cookie or a cobbler and some fruit. She had her own little garden and a few chickens, and we would have been happy except that we were scared of being sold.

I'm glad that slavery is over because now Black people have a chance to live and learn alongside white people. They may never be as good as white people, but they can learn to live and enjoy life more.

Speakin' about the Ku Klux, they didn't do anything but scare me back in '69, but if we had some now, I think that some of these young Black people who have forgotten what their mothers told them would do better.

MH:EH

[Pg 79]

I think I was born in McDowell County, because that’s where my mom, Edith, lived. She was with Mr. Jefferson Mitchel there, and my dad was with Mr. Jordan in Avery County, or so he said.

'Before the war, I didn’t know much except that we lived on a big plantation and that my mom worked hard, but was treated pretty well.

We had our little log cabin off to one side, and my mom had sixteen kids. As soon as they turned three, the master sold them until we were left with the last four she had with her during the war. I was the oldest of these four; then there was Henry and then the twins, Liza and Charlie.

One of the first things I remember is my dad waking me up in the middle of the night, dressing me in the dark, always telling me to be quiet. One of the twins cried out a bit, and my dad put his hand over its mouth to hush it. [Pg 80]

After we were dressed, he went outside and looked around for a minute, then he came back and got us. We sneaked out of the house and down the woods path, dad carrying one of the twins and holding me by the hand, while mom carried the other two.

I figure that I will always remember that walk, with the bushes brushing against my legs, the wind sighing in the trees, and the hoot owls and whippoorwills calling to each other from the big trees. I was half asleep and scared stiff, but after a little while we passed the plum thicket and there were the mules and wagon.

Dar am er quilt in de bottom o' de wagon, an' on dis dey lays we kids. An' pappy an' mammy gets on de board across de front an' drives off down de road.

I was tired, but I was scared too, so as we rode along, I listened to Dad and Mom talk. Dad was telling Mom about the Yankees coming to their plantation, burning the corn cribs, the smokehouses, and destroying everything. He said in a low voice that they had taken Master Jordan to the Rip Raps near Norfolk, and that he stole the mules and wagon and escaped.

We were scared of the Yankees to begin with, but the more we think about running away from our masters, the more afraid we get of the Rebs. Anyway, Dad says we are going to join the Yankees.

We traveled all night and hid in the woods all day for a long time, but after a while, we got to Doctor Dillard's place in Chowan County. I guess we stayed there several days.

De Yankees have taken this place, so we stay over and have a lot of fun dancing and such while we're there. The Yankees tell Dad to head for New Bern and that he will be taken care of there, so off to New Bern we go.

When we get to New Bern, the Yankees take the mules and wagon, they tell Dad something, and he puts us on a long white boat called Ocean Waves, and off to Roanoke we go.

Later I learned that most of the refuges[2] are set up in James City, near New Bern, but there's a pretty good crowd on Roanoke. There was also an old Indian witch woman that I remember.

Atter a few days, the Ocean Waves comes back and takes all over to New Bern. My dad was a shoemaker, so he makes Yankee boots, and we get along pretty well.

I was raised in New Bern and I lived there until forty years ago when my husband and I moved to Raleigh. Even though he's been dead a long time, I've lived here since then, and even though I'm eighty-one years old, I can still outwork my daughter and the rest of these young folks.

[Pg 83]

My mom, Ferbie, and her brother Darson belonged to Mr. David Hinnant in Edgecombe County until young Master Charlie got married. Then they were drawn and sent with him down here to Wendell. The old Hinnant home is still standing there to this day.

Master Charlie and Missus Mary were good to the hundred slaves who belonged to them. They provided them with nice houses, enough food, decent clothes, and lots of fun. They had corn shuckings, barn dances, prayer meetings, and other gatherings throughout the year, and from Christmas until the second day of January, they enjoyed a holiday with roast oxen, pigs, turkey, and all the other fixings. From Saturday to Monday, the slaves had time off, and they had their Sunday clothes, which were nice. The master always gave them a paper so the patrollers wouldn't catch them.

They went up the river to other plantations for dances and all those things, and they were really fond of singing songs. That's what they did after they got to their cabins at the end of the day. The adults sang while someone played the banjo. Their favorite songs were "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and "Play on Your Harp, Little David." The kids used to play Hide and Seek and Leap Frog, and everyone was happy.

They had time off to hunt and fish, and they had their own chickens, pigs, watermelons, and gardens. The fruits from the big orchard and the honey from the hives were eaten at home, and the slaves ate as well as their master did. They had a lot of bee hives, and my mom said that she had to tell the bees when Miss Mary died. She said she was crying so hard that she could hardly tell them, and that they hummed like they were mourning too.

My mom married my dad there, and she says that the preacher from the Methodist Church officiated, that she wore Miss Mary's wedding dress, all in white lace, and that my dad wore Mr. Charlie's wedding suit with a flower in the buttonhole. They had a big dance after the supper they had, and Mr. Charlie danced the first set with my mom.

I just thought of a story I heard my mom tell about the Issue Freedmen of Edgecombe County when she was a little girl. She said that the Issue Freedmen were mixed with the white folks, and of course that made them free. Sometimes they stayed on the plantation, but a lot of them, along with blacks who had run away from their masters, dug caves in the woods, and there they lived and raised their families. They didn't wear many clothes, and what they had to eat and to wear, they took from the white folks. Mom said she used to go to the spring for[Pg 85] water, and those old Issue Freedmen up in the woods would yell at her, "Don’t muddy that spring, little girl." That scared her a lot.

Dem issue frees to this day shows both sides. The white folks won’t accept them and the blacks don’t want them but will have to deal with them anyway.

My uncle was raised in a cave and survived on stolen food and berries. My cousin ran away because his master was cruel to him, but they put bloodhounds on his trail and caught him. After he recovered from the beating they gave him, they sold him.

I heard old lady Prissie Jones, who died at the age of 103 last winter, talk about the masters. She said that when their slaves ran away, they would set the bloodhounds on their trail, and when they caught them, they would cut off their heads with swords.

Ole lady Prissie talked about slaves who had nothing to eat and no clothes except a little piece of homespun, but my mom, who died four months ago at the age of 106, said that she didn't know anything about that kind of stuff.

When the Yankees came, they came burning and stealing, and Master Charlie carried his valuables to my mom's cabin, but they found them. They had a money rod, and they’d find all the stuff no matter where it was.[Pg 86] My mom said that all the slaves cried when the Yankees came, and that most of them stayed a long time after the war. My mom plowed and did that kind of work all during slavery, but she did it because she wanted to, not because they made her.

All the slaves hate the Yankees, and when the Southern soldiers came by late at night, all the Black people got out of bed, holding their torches high as they marched behind the soldiers, all of them singing, "We'll Hang Abe Lincoln on the Sour Apple Tree." Yes ma'am, they were sorry that they were free, and they had no reason to be glad, because they were happier back then than now.

I heard my mom talk about how the Black people would sing while they picked cotton, but you haven't heard any of that now. Back then, they didn't have to worry about anything; now they have to study so much that they're not happy enough to sing anymore.

"Do you know the reason for the war?" Aunt Alice went to a cupboard and came back holding a book. "Well, here’s the reason, this Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the cause of it all; and it's the biggest lie that’s ever been given to the public."

I think I was about nine years old at the time of the surrender, but we weren't happy, and we stayed there until my parents died. My dad was named Green, and my mom was named Molly, and we belonged to Mr. Joe Edwards, Mr. Marion Gully, and Mr. Hilliard Beckwith, since the missus married all of them. There were twenty-one other slaves, and we got beaten every once in a while.

When they told us that the Yankees were coming, we were also told that if we didn't behave, we'd be shot; and we believed it. We would have behaved anyway because we had nice wooden houses, good food, and shoes. We had Saturday and Sunday off and we were happy.

De missus, she raised the black babies so the mothers could work. I remember the times when she rocked me to sleep and put me to bed in her own bed. I was happy then as I think back on it, until those Yankees came.

They came on a Tuesday; they started by burning the cotton house and killing most of the chickens and pigs. After a while, they found the cellar and drank brandy until they got wobbly in the legs. After that, they went up on the front porch and called for my mistress. When she came to the door, they told her that they were going into the house to check things out. My mistress objected, since the old master was away at war, but that didn’t help. They cursed her scandalously and dared her to speak. They robbed the house, taking their knives and ripping open mattresses, pillows, and everything looking for valuables, and the old mistress didn’t dare to say a word.

They camped there in the grove for two days, the officers taking over the house and the lady leaving home to stay at a neighbor's house. They made me stay there in the house with them to bring their brandy from the cellar and to make them some mint julep. Well, on the second night, the worst storm I’ve ever seen hit. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the house shook and rattled like an earthquake had struck it.

Dem Yankees weren’t supposed to be superstitious, but let me tell you, they were pretty scared that night; and I heard a Captain say that the witches were out. After a while, lightning struck the Catawba tree over by the side of the house and the soldiers camped around there marched off to the barns, slave cabins, and other places where they[Pg 90] felt safer than in that spot. The next morning, those Yankees moved out of there and they didn't come back for anything.

We weren't happy about the surrender, and we cursed old Abraham Lincoln all over the place. We were warned about the downsides of not having any education, but come on, we don't need any book learning with old master to look after us.

My mom and dad stayed there for the rest of their lives, and I stayed until I was sixteen. The Ku Klux Klan came after me then about fighting with a white boy. That night I slipped into the woods, and the next day I went to Raleigh. I got a job there, and ever since then I’ve been working for myself, but now I can’t work and I wish you would apply for my old-age pension for me.

I went back to the old plantation as long as my dad, mom, and the master and mistress were alive. Sometimes, when I get the chance, I go back now. Of course, the slave cabins are gone, everybody is dead, and there’s nothing familiar except the bent Catawba tree; but it reminds me of the happy days.

N. C.[Pg 92]

My name is John C. Bectom. I was born on October 7, 1862, near Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina. My father's name was Simon Bectom. He was 86 years old when he passed away in 1910 in Fayetteville, NC. My mother's name was Harriet Bectom. She died on May 23, 1907, at the age of seventy. My brothers were named Ed, Kato, and Willie. I was the third of the boys. My sisters were Lucy, Anne, and Alice. My father originally belonged to Robert Wooten from Craven County, NC. Then he was sold by the Wootens to the Bectoms of Wayne County, near Goldsboro, the county seat. My mother first belonged to the McNeills of Cumberland County. Miss Mary McNeill married a McFadden, and her parents gave my mother to Miss Mary. In time, Miss Mary's daughter married Ezekial King, and my mother was then given to her by Miss Mary McFadden, her mother. Miss Lizzie McFadden became a King. My grandmother was named Lucy Murphy. She belonged to the Murpheys. All the slaves were given to the children of the family as they married.

My mom and dad shared stories about how they were treated in different places. When my grandma was with the Murpheys, they made her get up and start burning logs in new fields before sunrise. They also had her plow, just like the men on the plantation. They worked in the fields until it was dark before heading back to the house. They weren't allowed to go to any dances or parties unless they sneaked out without anyone knowing. They also had candy pullings sometimes. While they were there, the patterollers would come by. Sometimes, the patterollers would whip anyone they caught there, anyone they could grab, unless they had a pass.

They fed us really well. The food was cooked properly. They gave the slaves an acre of land to plant, and they could sell the crops and keep the money. The work on this land was done on moonlit nights and holidays. Sometimes slaves would steal the master's chickens or a pig and sneak off to another plantation to have it cooked. We had plenty of clothes and got one pair of shoes a year. You had to take care of them because you only received one pair annually. They were given out at Christmas every year. The clothes were made on the plantation.

There were corn mills and rice mills on the plantation, along with threshing machines. The plantation covered around 300 acres of farmland. The property stretched for three miles.[Pg 94] My master lived in a beautiful house that took a year to build. It had about 16 rooms in it. We slaves called it the great house. Some of the slaves escaped and eventually made it to Ohio. There was no jail on the plantation. Sometimes the overseer would whip us.

The Kings had no supervisors. King would hit his slaves with a stick. I remember watching him do this just as clearly as I can see that house over there. He ended up going blind. An owl scratched his face while he was trying to catch it, and his face got so messed up that he went to Philadelphia for treatment, but they couldn't help him. Eventually, he lost his sight completely. I've seen him hit his slaves even after he was blind. I remember it well. He used a stick. He was the most sensitive man you ever saw. He ran a store. Even after he went blind, you could hand him a piece of money and he could tell you what it was.

There were no churches on the plantation, but prayer meetings were held in the quarters. Slaves weren't allowed to attend the white people's church unless they were coach drivers or something like that. No way, not in that community. They taught the slaves the Bible. The master's children went to private school. Us little Black kids took care of the babies in the cradles and other young children. While the white kids studied their lessons, I studied with them. When they wrote in the sand, I wrote in the sand too. It was the white children, not the master or mistress, who got me started learning to read and write.

We had corn shuckings, candy pulls, dances, and prayer meetings. We went to camp meetings on Camp Meeting days in August when the crops were finished. We played games like high jump, where we’d jump over a pole held by two people, wrestling, leapfrog, and jumping. We sang songs like "Go Tell Aunt Patsy." "Some folks say a Black won't steal; I caught six in my cornfield." "Run, Black, run, the patroller's gonna catch you. Run, Black, run like you did the other day."

When slaves got sick, the master took care of them. He gave them blue mass and castor oil. Dr. McDuffy also treated us. Dr. McSwain vaccinated us for smallpox. My sister died from it. When the slaves died, the master buried them. They dug a grave with a tomb in it. I don’t see any of them now. The slaves were buried in a plain box.

The masters married the slaves without any paperwork. All they did was say to Jane and Frank, [Pg 96] 'Frank, I now pronounce you and Jane husband and wife.' But the woman didn’t take her husband’s last name; she kept the name of the family that owned her.

I remember seeing the Yankees near Fayetteville. They fired a bomb at Wheeler's Cavalry, and it landed close to me, burying itself in the ground. Wheeler's Cavalry arrived first and ransacked the place. They took all the valuables they could find and burned the covered bridge over the Cape Fear River. But when the Yankees got there, they had a pontoon bridge to cross on, along with all those supply wagons and such. When they passed our place, it was in the morning. They nearly scared me to death. They went right by our door, Sherman's army. They began passing, so the white folks said, at 9 o'clock in the morning. By 9 o'clock at night, they were still passing our door on foot. They said about two hundred and fifty thousand of them passed by. Some set up camp in my master's old field. A Yankee caught one of my master's pigs and cut off a hindquarter, gave it to me, and told me to take it to my mother. I was so small I couldn’t carry it, so I dragged it to her. I called her when I got within shouting distance of the house, and she came to get it. The Yankees called us Johnnie, Dinah, Bill, and other silly names. They beat their drums and sang songs. One of the Yankees sang 'Rock a Bye Baby.' At that time, Jeff Davis money was everywhere. My mother had about $1000 worth. It was so common it was nicknamed Jeff Davis shucks. My mother had bought a pair of shoes and put them in a chest. A Yankee came and took the shoes and wore them, leaving his behind. They told us we were free. Sometimes my master would get cruel to the slaves if they acted like they were free.

Mat Holmes, a slave, was wearing a ball and chain as punishment for trying to escape. Master Ezekial King put it on him. He slept in bed with me while wearing that ball and chain. The cuff had dug into his leg; it was really swollen. This was right after the Yankees came through. It was March, the 9th of March, when the Yankees arrived. Mat Holmes had run away with the ball and chain on and was hiding in the woods then. He stayed with us at night until August. Then my mother took him to the Yankee garrison in Fayetteville. A Yankee officer took him to a blacksmith shop and had the ball and chain cut off his leg. The masters would tell the slaves they had to work, that they weren't free and still belonged to them, but one would drop out and leave, then another. Very little work was done on the farm, and[Pg 98] eventually, most of the slaves figured out they were free.

Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest people to ever live. He was the reason we slaves became free. There’s no doubt about that. I didn’t think much of Jeff Davis. He tried to keep us in slavery. I believe slavery was a wrong and unjust practice. Our right is to live rightly and follow the teachings of the Bible, treating our fellow humans with respect. To do this, I feel we should belong to some religious organization and live as rightly as we can.

The overseers and patterollers during slavery were referred to as poor white trash by the slaves.

On the plantations, not everyone, but some of the slave owners would have certain enslaved women set aside for their personal use. Sometimes, children with very light skin would be born to them. I have seen many of these children. Sometimes, people would say the child belonged to the overseer, and other times it would be said to belong to the master.

[Pg 100]

Being told that Laura Bell was an elderly Black woman from the days of slavery, I went right away to the small two-room shack with its caved-in roof and wobbly steps. As I got closer to the shack, I saw that the storm had really messed up the chaney-berry tree in her yard, with broken branches scattered all over the ground, which was an inch deep in trash and water.

The porch was filled with old planks and large tubs and barrels of stagnant water. There was only space for one chair, and in that sat a tall Black woman dressed in burlap bags, holding a small white, flea-bitten dog in her lap that growled ominously.

When I got to the gate, which creaked on a rusty hinge, she invited me in, and the men from the Carolina Power and Light Company, who were working nearby, laughed as I stepped over the branches and trash and finally managed to place one foot on the porch and the other on the ground.

"I was born in Mount Airy the year before the Yankees arrived, as the fourth of five kids. My mom and dad, Minerva Jane and Wesley, worked for Mr. Mack Strickland, and we lived on his large property near Mount Airy.[Pg 101]"

"Mr. Mack was good to us, they said. He gave us enough to eat and plenty of time to weave clothes for us to wear. I’ve heard mom talk about the corn shuckings and dances they had and about some beatings too."

"Marse Mack's overseer, I don't know his name, was going to whip my mom once, and my dad, since he never showed any affection toward her, stepped in and took the beating for her. After that, they went out on Saturdays and Sundays and to all the social events until they got married."

"I've heard her talk about how he asked Marse Mack if he could court my mother and after Marse Mack said he could, he asked her to marry him."

"She tells him that she will, and he had them married by the pastor the next time he comes through that area."

"I grew up on the farm and when I was twelve years old, I met Thomas Bell. My parents said I was too young to date, so I had to see him here and there for several years, I think until I was fifteen."

"He asked me to marry him while he was down by the creek fishing, and I said yes. But when he tried to kiss me, I told him that there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, so he has to wait until we get married.[Pg 102]"

"We ran away the next Saturday and were married by a Justice of the Peace in Mount Airy."

"Love isn't what it used to be, not by a long shot," the old woman reflected, "Because there aren't many people who love all the time. We moved to Raleigh forty years ago, and Tom has been dead several years now. We only had one child, but it was stillborn."

"Kids aren’t raised to be as clean as we were. I know the house isn’t that clean, but I don’t really feel like doing anything. I just visited someone about seven blocks up the street this morning, and now I don’t feel like cleaning up at all."

I ended the interview early, so I missed out on more details, since the smell was really unpleasant and I was getting tired of standing in one place.

"Thanks for coming," she called, and her dog growled again.

I really remember the Yankees in their blue uniforms with brass buttons. I was too young to work, but I played outside with my oldest sister, Katie. She’s been gone for a long time. My mother belonged to an old man named John Griffith, and I belonged to him too. His plantation was down here in Auburn, Wake County. My father was named Edmund Rand, and he belonged to Mr. Nat Rand, who lived in Auburn. The plantations weren't far apart. There were about twenty-five slaves on the plantation where my mother and I stayed.

Marse John used to take me on his knee and sing, 'Here is the hammer, Shing ding. Give me the Hammer, shing ding.' Master loved the black kids on his plantation. When the war ended, my father came and lived with us at Marse John's plantation. Master John Griffith named me Emmy. My grandfather on my father's side was named Harden Rand, and my grandmother was named Mason Rand. My grandfather on my mother's side was named Antny Griffiths, and my grandmother was named Nellie.[Pg 105]

Our food was plentiful and well-cooked. Master provided good meals for his workers. We had plenty of homemade dresses and received shoes once a year on Christmas Eve. I remember it clearly. We had Christmas holidays and stockings filled with candy and peanuts. Sometimes we got ginger snaps for Christmas, which my grandmother baked. She was a great cook. My mother’s employer was Miss Jetsy Griffith and my father’s employer was Lucy Rand. They were both very kind women. You know I’m old. I can remember all those good white folks. They gave us Fourth of July holidays. They went to town that day. They wore, let me tell you what they wore, dotted blouses and white pants. It was a big day for everyone, the Fourth of July. They started singing in Auburn and continued until they reached Raleigh. Auburn is nine miles from Raleigh. There was a lot of lemonade. They made light bread in large ovens and had cheese to eat with it. Some said just going to get lemonade and cheese was worth it.

In the winter, we had a lot of possums to eat and quite a few rabbits too. At Christmas time, the men hunted and caught plenty of game. We grilled it by the fire. I remember seeing my mother and grandmother swinging rabbits[Pg 106] in front of the fire to cook them. They would keep turning them until they were done. They hung some up in the chimney to dry them out so they could keep them for a long time, and that's why I won't eat a rabbit today. No way! I won't eat a rabbit. I saw them handle them so much it turned me off from eating them.

I don't know how much land Master John owned, but, Honey, that was quite a plantation. It stretched from Auburn to the Neuse River. Yes, it did, because I was down there during corn-hilling season and we fished at noon in the Neuse River. Master John had overseers. There were six of them. They rode horses over the fields, but I don't remember their names.

I never saw a slave getting beaten, but they were punished on the plantation, and I heard the adults talking about it. My uncles Nat and Bert Griffiths were both whipped. Uncle Nat wouldn't follow his wife's rules, so she had him punished. They whipped Uncle Bert because he drank so much. He loved his alcohol, got really drunk, acted out, and then they punished him. You could buy plenty of whiskey back then. It’s not like it is now. No, sir, it isn't. Whiskey sold for ten cents a quart. Almost everyone drank it, but you hardly ever saw a man drunk. Slaves weren't punished for drinking. Their masters gave them whiskey, but they were punished for getting drunk. There was a jail, a sort of stockade made of logs, on the farm to put slaves in when they wouldn't behave. I never saw any slave put on the block and sold, but I saw Aunt Helen Rand crying because her master Nat Rand sold her son, Fab Rand.

No sir, no reading and writing. You had to work. Ha! You let your master or mistress catch you with a book. That was a strict rule that no learning was to be taught. I can't read or write. If it wasn't for my mother, I don't know what would have become of me. We had prayer meetings at the slave quarters. I remember it well. We turned over pots inside the house at the door to keep master and mistress from hearing the singing and praying. Master and his family lived in the big house, and the slave quarters were about two hundred yards away behind the big house. They were arranged in rows. When the war ended, we all stayed with the Griffiths and Rands families until they died, except my father and me. He left, and I left. I’ve been in Raleigh for forty-five years. I married Mack Blalock in Raleigh. He has been dead for seven years.[Pg 108]

My mother had two boys, Anthony and Wesley. She had four girls, Katie, Gracie, Mary Ella, and Emma. I had three children, two are still living. They both live in Raleigh.

We had big dinners and suppers at log rollings and corn shuckings back in the days of slavery, ha! ha! Plenty of corn liquor for everyone, both white and black. Everyone helped themselves. Dr. Tom Busbee, a good old white man, took care of us when we got sick, and he could make you well pretty quickly because he was kind and cared about you. He was a compassionate man. Of course, we used herbs. I’ll tell you what I took. Scurry grass and chana balls were for worms. Scurry grass really helped get things moving. They gave us wintergreen to cleanse our blood. We slaves and a lot of the white folks drank sassafras tea instead of coffee. We sweetened it with brown sugar, honey, or molasses, whatever we had on hand. I think slavery was actually a pretty good thing. Plenty to eat and wear.

When you get a tooth pulled now, it costs two dollars, right? Well, back in slavery days, I had a tooth that was bothering me. My mother said, "Emma, take this egg and go down to Doctor Busbee, give it to him, and get your[Pg 109] tooth pulled." I gave him one egg. He took it and pulled my tooth. Try that now if you want and see what happens. Yes, slavery was a pretty good thing.

HW notes [Pg 111]

As told by Uncle David Blount, formerly of Beaufort County, who didn’t know his age. “De Marster” he refers to was Major Wm. A. Blount, who owned plantations in several parts of North Carolina.

Yes ma'am, the days on the plantation were the happy days. The master made us work through the week, but on Saturdays we used to go swimming in the river and do a lot of other things that we liked to do.

We didn't mind the work too much because the ground was soft like ashes and the master let us take breaks when we got tired. We planted potatoes in the uplands and corn in the lowlands next to the river. It was on the Cape Fear, and on hot days when we were pulling the fodder, we'd all stop working around three o'clock in the afternoon and go swimming. After we got out of the water, we would work harder than ever, and the master was good to us because we did work and we did what he asked us.

I remember once the master had an overseer who was meaner than the meanest person you could imagine. He usually hired good overseers, and often he let some enslaved men take on the overseer's role. Well, this overseer would beat some of the young boys until blood ran down to their heels, and he told the rest of us that if we said anything about it, he would kill us. We didn’t dare ask the master to get rid of him, so this continued for a long time.[Pg 112]

It was freezing one day, and this overseer had a group of us clearing new land. One boy asked if he could warm himself by the brush pile. The overseer said no, and after a while, the boy got a chill. The overseer didn't care, but that night, the boy got really sick. The next morning, the master called the doctor, and the doctor said the boy had pneumonia. He told them to take off the boy's shirt and rub him down with some tar, turpentine, and kerosene, and when they started to take the shirt off, they found that it was stuck.

Dey had to grease the shirt to get it off because the blood from where the overseer beat him had stuck the shirt tightly to the skin. The master was in the room and he asked the boy what happened, and the boy told him.

De marster kinda goes pale, and he says to me, 'Will you go and ask the overseer to stop here for a minute, please?'

When the overseer comes up the steps, he asks a bit sassily, 'What do you want?'

De marster says, 'Pack your things and get off my property as quickly as you can, you annoying pest.'

The overseer talks back to the master a bit more, and then I see the master lose his temper for the first time. He doesn't say a word, but he walks over, grabs the overseer by the shoulder, and puts his boot hard against the seat of his pants, sending him, all hunched over, out into the yard[Pg 113] with a look on his face. He collapses like an umbrella for a minute, then pulls himself together and limps out of that yard, and we never saw him again.

No ma'am, there wasn't any marrying on the plantation back then, and since one old woman raised all the kids, my brother Johnnie and I never knew who our parents were. Johnnie was just a little guy when the war ended, but I was there for most of the things that happened on the plantation for quite a while.

One time, I forgot the year, some white men came down the river on a boat and they came into the fields and talked to a group of us. They said that our masters weren't treating us right. They told us that we should be paid for our work, and that we shouldn't have to have passes to go anywhere. They also said that we should be allowed to carry guns if we wanted to. They said too that sometime our masters were going to kill us all.

I laugh at them, but some of those foolish blacks listen to them; and it seems that these men gave the blacks some guns after I left and promised to bring them some more next week.

I find out the next day about this and I go and tell the master. He kind of laughs and scratches his head, "Those people are headed for trouble, Dave," he says to me, "and I want you to help me."

I say, 'Yes sir, master.'

An' he goes on, 'You'll find out when the rest of the[Pg 114] guys come, Dave, and let me know.'

When the men bring back the guns, I tell the master, and I also tell him that they want to hold a meeting.

'All right,' he says and laughs, 'they can have the meeting. You tell them, Dave, that I said they can meet on Tuesday night in the packing house.'

Ch Tuesday evening he sends them all off to the low grounds but me, and he tells me to nail up the shutters to the pack house and to nail them up tight.

I like how he tells me to do, and that night the Black folks marched in and snuck their guns in too. I'm lying up in the loft and I hear them say that after the meeting they're going to go up to the big house and kill the whole family.

I get out of the window and run to the house to tell the master. Then, the master, the young master, and I go outside, and as fast as lightning, I slam the pack house door and lock it. Then the master yells at them, "I've got men and guns out here," he yells, "and if you don't throw those guns out of the hole up there in the loft, and throw every single one out, I'm going to set fire to that pack house."

De blacks 'liberate for a few minutes and then they throw the guns out. I know how many they have, so I count until they throw them all out, then I gather up the guns and I tote them off to the big house.[Pg 115]

Well sir, we keep those people shut up for about a week on limited food; and by the end of that time, they're fixed for good. When they come out, they have three overseers instead of one, and the rules are stricter than ever before; and then the master goes off to the war.

I think I was about fifteen or sixteen then; and the master took me along as his personal servant and bodyguard while he left the rest of the people in the fields to work really hard while I laughed at those Yankees.

Jim belonged to Mr. Harley, who lived in New Hanover County during the war. In fact, he was young Master Harley's slave; so when young Master Tom went to the war, Jim went along too.

Dey were at Manassas, they tell me, when Master Tom got killed, and the orders were not to take any bodies off the field right then.

Course old master down near Wilmington, don't know about young Master Tom, but one night they hear Jim shouting at the gate. They run out; and Jim has brought Master Tom's body all that long way home so that he can be buried in the family burial ground.

De massa frees Jim that night; but he stays on for a while after the war, and until the day he died, he hated[Pg 116] the Yankees for killing Massa Tom. In fact, we all hated the Yankees, especially after we heard about starving that first winter. I tried to make a living for me and Johnnie, but it was tough; then I came to Raleigh and I got along better. After I got settled, I brought Johnnie, and so we did pretty well.

Dat's all I can tell you now, Miss, but if you'll come back sometime I'll tell you the rest of the stories.

Shortly after the interview mentioned above, Uncle Dave, who was rapidly declining, was taken to the County Home, where he died. He was buried on May 4th, 1937, with the rest of the story left untold.

I was born on May 2, 1837, in Warren County to Washington and Delisia Bobbit. Our master was named Richard Bobbit, but we all call him Massa Dick.

Massa Dick isn't good to us, and on my arm here, just above the elbow, there's a big scar to this day from when he beat me with a cowhide. He hasn't beaten me for anything except that I’m black. I've had a lot of those beatings, mostly because I wouldn’t obey his orders, and I've seen slaves beaten almost to death.

I was married once before the war with the broomstick ceremony, like all the other slaves were, but they sold my wife away before we had been married a year and then the war came.

I had one brother, Henry, who was working for the city, and one sister named Deliah. She has been dead for many years now.

Massa Dick owned a huge plantation and over a hundred slaves, and we worked on barely enough food and were almost naked. We never went swimming or hunting or anything, and we didn’t have any fun unless we ran away to find it. Even when we sang, we had to turn over a pot in front of the door to muffle the noise.[Pg 119]

I knew some poor white trash; our overseer was one, and the sham shams[3] were really about the same. We had no use for any of them, and we certainly didn't care whether they had any use for us or not.

De Ku Kluxes haven't done anything for us because there aren't many in our neighborhood. You see, the Yankees haven't come through here, and we're scared of them anyway. The white folks said that the Yankees would kill us if they caught us.

I didn't know anything about the Yankees or the surrender, so I stayed for several months after the war was over. Then I came to Raleigh and went to work for the city. I worked for the city for almost fifty years, I guess, and just recently I retired.

I've been sick for about four months now, on the second day of May. On the day when I turned a hundred years old, I wasn't able to get to the city lot, but I received a lot of presents.

Dis 'oman am my third lawful wife. I married her three years ago.[4]

I was born in Warrenton, Warren County, in 1850. My father's name was Washington, after General Washington, and my mother's name was Diasia, after a woman in a story. We, along with about forty or fifty other slaves, belonged to Mr. Richard Bobbitt, and we worked his four hundred acres of land for him. I only had one brother named Clay, after Henry Clay, which shows how Master Dick voted, and Delilah, which shows that the old mistress read the Bible.

We farmed, growing tobacco, cotton, corn, wheat, and potatoes. Master Dick had a whole bunch of fine horses, and our Sunday job was to take care of them and clean around the house. Yes ma'am, we worked seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset six days, and from seven until three or four on a Sunday.

We didn’t have many gatherings or prayer meetings because the noise bothered the elderly lady who was kind of sickly. When we did have something, we’d set up a big wash pot in front of the door to muffle the noise, so people in the yard couldn’t hear it. The patrollers[Pg 122] would get you if you left the property without a pass, and they said they’d beat you badly. I saw a guy they had beaten once, and he had scars all over his body that were as big as my fingers.

I got one beating that I remember, and it was just an average one. The master told me to pick the cotton, and I sat down in the middle and didn’t work at all. The overseer came and whipped me with a cotton stalk; he was a lot meaner to the Black people than Master Dick was. I saw some Black people who got beaten badly, but I’ve never had a bad beating.

We lived in log houses with sand floors and stick and dirt chimneys, and we weren't allowed to have any garden, chickens, or pigs. We had no way of making money, and the fun was just okay. We had to steal the rabbits we ate from other people's boxes on some other plantation because the owner wouldn’t let us have any of our own, and we didn’t have time to hunt or fish.

Now talking about something that we’d get in trouble for, that was for having a pencil and a piece of paper or a slate. If you just looked like you wanted to learn to read or write, you’d get punished.

There were two women of color who lived near us, and they were called "free issues," but they were really witches. I never actually saw them do anything, but I heard a lot about them putting spells on people, and I saw tracks where they had ridden Massa Dick's horses. Every morning, the horses' manes and tails would be all twisted and knotted up. I know they did that because I saw it with my own eyes. They treated a lot of people, and our folks never had a doctor for anything that happened.

You were asking about the slave sales, and I want to tell you that I have seen some real sales, and I've seen black people, whole groups of them, going to Richmond to be sold. They were mostly chained because they were new to the boss, and he didn’t know what to expect. I’ve seen some real sales in Warrenton too, and the mothers would be sold away from their children, and there would be a lot of crying and mourning about it. I tell you, people aren’t like they used to be, especially black people. It used to be when a black person cried, they would scream and groan and holler, and their whole body would rock, and that’s how they sometimes reacted at the sales.

Speaking of ghosts: I've seen a lot of things, but the worst that ever happened was about twenty years ago when a ghostly hand struck me on the side of the head. I bet that hand weighed a hundred pounds and it was as cold as ice. I haven't been able to work for seven days and nights, and I still can't turn my head far to the left as you can see.

I think the funniest thing about our plantation was the marriages. A couple would get married just by saying they were, but it couldn't last longer than five years. That was so if one of them got too weak to have kids, the other one could get himself another wife or husband.

I remember the day really well when the Yankees came. Mr. Dick was pacing the floor and cursing Sherman for taking his slaves away. All of the slaves left, of course, and I walked all the way to Raleigh to find out if I was really free, and I couldn't understand half of it.

Well, the first year I slept in people's woodsheds and barns and in the woods or anywhere else I could find. I worked here and there, but people just gave me something to eat, and my clothes were in tatters before spring came.

You ask me what I think of Master Lincoln? Well, I think that he was doing the worst thing he could by setting all those foolish Black people free when they had no place to go and nothing to eat. Who helped us then? It wasn’t the Yankees; it was the white folks who were left with their crops in the fields and were robbed by those Yankees too. My old master, for example, was robbed of his fine horses and his feed and all that liquor he made himself, plus his money and silver.

Slavery was a good thing back then, but the world just got better and outgrew it.

EH

[Pg 126]

I was born in Union County, South Carolina, on the plantation of Doctor Bogan, who owned both my mother Issia and my father Edwin. There were six of us kids: Clara, Lula, Joe, Tux, Mack, and me.

I don't remember much about the days of slavery except that my white folks were good to us. There were a lot of slaves, maybe a hundred and fifty. I remember that we worked hard, but we had plenty to eat and wear, even if we did wear wooden shoes.

I can barely remember before the war that I saw a lot of roosters fighting in pits and a lot of horse racing. When the master won, he would treat us black folks to a big dinner or a dance, but if he lost, oh!

My dad was given to the doctor when the doctor was married, and they really loved each other. One day, the master came in and said that the Yankees were trying to take his slaves away from him, but that they were going to face serious trouble doing it. When he[Pg 127] said that, he started to pace the floor. 'I'm going to leave your wife in your care, Edwin,' he said.

But, with all due respect for your wife, sir, she's a Yankee too, and I’d rather go with you to the war. Please, sir, let me go with you to fight those Yankees.

At first, the master refuses, then he says, 'All right.' So off they go to the war, the master on a big horse, and my dad on a strong mule along with the blankets and supplies.

Dey tells me that the old master got shot one night, and that Dad grabs the gun before it hits the ground and lets the Yankees have it.

I remember that those were tough times for South Carolina. We gave all the food to the soldiers, and the missus, even though she has some Yankee relatives in the war, learns to eat cabbage, squash, and berries.

I remember that on the day of the surrender, at least the day we heard about it, a Yankee shows up and asks to see my wife. I'm shaking, I'm so scared, but I gather myself and tell him that my wife doesn't want to see any blue coat.

He grins and tells me to get lost, and then my wife comes out and, I swear, she hugs that annoying Yank. After a while, I figure out that he’s her brother, but at first, I didn’t see any reason for her to be crying and saying "thank God" over and over. [Pg 128]

Well sir, the master and my dad who had gone off looking healthy and riding fine animals come back walking and they looked sick. The master is as white as cotton, and I swear, if my dad, who was as black as sin, isn't looking pale too.

After a few years, I went to work in Spartanburg as a houseboy, then I got a job with the Southern Railroad and went to Charlotte to night-watch the tracks.

I stayed there for eighteen years, but one night I killed a white homeless guy who was trying to rob me of my gold watch and chain, and they gave me eighteen months. I've been here for six already. He was a white guy, just a kid, and I feel bad about it, but I came here anyway.

I heard an old woman in Charlotte talking once about witchcraft during slavery times, down in Mecklenburg County. She was around ninety, so I guess she knows. She said that if anyone wanted to be a witch, they would draw a circle on the ground right at the edge of dark and get inside the circle and squat down.

Dar he had to sit and talk to the devil, and he must say, 'I want nothing to do with religion, and I want you to make me a witch.' After that day he must boil a black cat, a bat, and a bunch of herbs and drink the soup; then he was really a witch.[Pg 129]

When you wanted to put a curse on someone, she said that you could take that stuff, just a little bit of it, and put it under that person's doorstep and they'd get sick.

You could go through the keyhole or down the chimney or through the gaps in a log house, and you could ride a person just like riding a horse. That person can keep you out of his house by placing a broom in front of the door and putting a pin cushion full of pins next to the bedroom door, if he feels like it.

Dat puson can kill you too, by drawing your picture and shooting it in the head or the heart too.

Dar's a lot of ways to tell fortunes that she told me, but I’ve forgotten now except for coffee grounds and a few others. You can't do it without knowing how; it really takes some skill.

I’ve been living in these back barns for fifteen years. I built this little shelter to cook under. They cut me off from the WPA because they said I was too old to work. They told us older folks we don’t need to put down our walking sticks to get work because they just weren’t going to hire us.

Well, I had some tomatoes cooked without any grease for my breakfast. I had a loaf of bread yesterday, but I ate it. I haven't gotten any check from the old age pension and I have nothing to eat, and I am hungry. I just look to God. I sat down by the road thinking about how to turn and what to do to get a meal, when you came along. I thank you for this dime. I guess God made you give it to me.

I was glad to take you to my place to share my story. This shelter, an old tobacco barn, is better than no home at all. I'm a man on my own, and I enjoy living out here if I could just get enough to eat.

Well, the big show is coming to town. It's the Devil's work. Yes, sir, it's the Devil's work. Why, those show folks can make snakes and make them crawl too. There was one in Watson Field on the edge of Raleigh not long ago, and he made snakes and made them crawl too. All shows are the Devil's work.

I never did anything for myself in my entire life. I always worked for the Rebels. I stuck with them. I guess I didn't have the sense to do anything else.

One time a Rebel saw a Yankee with one eye, one leg, and one arm. The Yankee was begging. The Rebel went up to him and gave him a quarter. Then he stepped back and just stood there looking at the Yankee. After a while, he went back and gave him another quarter, then another. Finally, he said, "You take this whole dollar. You are the first Yankee I’ve ever seen who is just to my liking, so take all this, just take the whole dollar; you’re just what I like."

I belonged to Billy Boone during the time of slavery. He was a preacher. He lived on and owned a plantation in Northampton County. The plantation was near some woods. The closest river to the place was the Roanoke. My old mistress's name was Nancy. When my old master died, I stayed with first one child and then another because he told me just before he died to stay with any of them I wanted to. All those old folks are gone now.[Pg 133]

Blacks had to endure a lot during slavery, facing tough conditions most of the time with barely enough food and minimal clothing. Our homes were made of logs and covered with wooden slabs. They were split from tree trunks about 3 to 8 feet long. The chimneys were made of sticks and mud, then coated with clay mud on top. The cracks in the slave houses were also filled with mud.

We worked from sunrise to sunset. If we had a fire in cold weather while we were working, the master or the overseer would come and put it out. We ate frozen meat and bread many times in cold weather. After the day's work in the fields was done, we had to pick the seeds from cotton until we had two ounces of lint or spin two ounces of cotton on a spinning wheel. I spun cotton on a spinning wheel. That's how people got clothes during slavery.

I can't read or write, but they taught us how to count. They taught us to count like this. 'Ought is an' ought, and a number is a number, all for the white man and nothing for the black.' Haven't you heard people count that way?

They sold slaves just like people sell horses now. I saw a lot of slaves sold on the auction block. They would strip them completely naked. A black person who was scarred or beaten and had welts was considered a bad slave and didn’t fetch much of a price. If his body wasn’t scarred, [Pg 134] he brought a good price. I saw many slaves whipped and I was whipped myself. They whipped me with a cat o’ nine tails. It had nine lashes on it. Some of the slaves were whipped with a cabin paddle. They had forty holes in them and when you were strapped to a barrel, they hit your bare skin with the paddle and every place there was a hole in the paddle, it drew a blister. When the whipping with the paddle was over, they took the cat o’ nine tails and burst the blisters. By this time, blood would sometimes be running down their heels. Then the next thing was a wash in salt water strong enough to float an egg. Slaves were punished this way for attempting to run away and such.

If you went out without a pass, they would definitely catch you. The patrollers were always on the lookout for you. They would come to the house at night to check who was there. If you were out of line, they would put you in your place.

Sam Joyner, a slave, belonged to his master. He was running from the patrollers and fell into an old well. The patroller went after his master. His master told them to get Sam out and whip him as much as they wanted to. They pulled him out of the well, and he was all wet and muddy. Sam started taking off his shoes, then he took off his pants and got into his shirt tail. His master said, `[Pg 135]` "What are you taking off your clothes for, Sam?" Sam replied, "Master, you know you can’t whip me with all these wet clothes on." Then Sam took off running. He ran so fast he nearly flew. The patrollers got on their horses and chased him, but they couldn't catch him. He got away. His master took Sam's clothes and brought them to the house. Sam slipped in the next morning, put his clothes on, and his master said nothing more about it.

I was a big kid when the Yankees came through. I was driving a two-mule team and doing other work on the farm. I drove a two-horse wagon when they took slaves to market. I went to a lot of different places.

My master was a preacher, Billy Boone. He bought and sold enslaved people. He had fifty or more. He worked the adult enslaved people in two groups. My father's name was Isham Boone and my mother's was Sarah Boone. Master Boone whipped with a cobbing paddle and a cat o' nine tails, and used a salt bath, and that was enough. Many others whipped that way too.

Marster had one son named Solomon and two daughters, Elsie and Alice. My mother had four children, three boys and one girl. The boys were named Sam, Walter, and Andrew, that's me, and the girl was Cherry.

My father had several children because he had several women besides my mother. Mollie and Lila Lassiter, two[Pg 136] sisters, were also his partners. These women were given to him and no other man was allowed to have anything to do with them. Mollie and Lila both had children by him. Their names were Jim, Mollie, Liza, Rosa, Pete, and I can't remember any more of them.

De Yankees took just what they wanted and nothing stopped them, because the surrender had come. Before the surrender, the slave owners started to scatter the slaves around from place to place to keep the Yankees from getting them. If the Yankees took one place, the nearby slaves were moved to a place further away.

All I did was for the Rebels. I was with them, and I just did what I was told. I was scared of the Yankees because the Rebels told us that the Yankees would kill us. They told us that the Yankees would drill holes in our shoulders and make us work on carts. They told us we would be treated a lot worse than they were treating us. Well, the Yankees came, but they treated us well. Then a story went around that the master would have to give the slaves a mule, a year's worth of food, and some land, about forty acres, but that wasn't true. They never did give us anything. When the war ended and we were told we were free, we stayed with the master because we had nothing and nowhere[Pg 137] to go.

We moved around from farm to farm. Mom passed away and Dad married Maria Edwards after the surrender. He didn't live with any of his other slave wives that I know of.

I have worked as a laborer on the farm most of the time since the surrender, and my dad worked most of the time as a laborer too, but he had gardens and patches almost everywhere he worked. I worked in New York City for fifteen years with Crawford and Banhay in show business. I advertised for them. I wore a white suit, white shirt, and white straw hat, and tan shoes. I had to look sharp. I had to have my shoes shined twice a day. I lived at 18 Manilla Lane, New York City. It’s located between McDougall Street and 6th Avenue. I married Clara Taylor in New York City. We had two children. The oldest one lives in New York, while the other passed away and is buried in Raleigh.

In slavery times, they kept you down and you had to work; now I can’t work, and I’m still down. Not allowed to work and still down. It’s all tough, slavery and freedom, both bad when you can’t eat. The old bees make the honeycomb, the young bees make the honey, Black people grow the cotton and corn, and the white folks get the money. This was the situation during slavery and it’s still the case now. Black people do most of the hard work on the farms now, and white folks still get the money that Black people’s labor produces.

LE

My master's name was Jonas Bost. He owned a hotel in Newton, North Carolina. My mother and grandmother were both part of the Bost family. My old master had two large plantations, one about three miles from Newton and another four miles away. It took a lot of people to keep the work going on both of them. The women had to work in the hotel and in the big house in town. Old Missus was a good woman. She never let the master buy or sell any slaves. There was never an overseer on the whole plantation. The oldest man always looked after the others. We lived better than the people on the other plantations.

Lord child, I remember when I was about ten years old, the speculators would come through Newton with groups of slaves. They always stayed at our place. The poor souls nearly froze to death. They would always arrive at the end of December so the slaves would be ready for sale on the first day of January. Many times, I saw four or five of them chained together. They never had enough clothes on to keep warm. The women only wore a thin dress, a petticoat, and one piece of underwear. I’ve seen ice balls hanging from the bottoms of their dresses as they ran, just like sheep in a pasture before they get sheared. They never wore shoes. Just ran along on the ground, all covered in ice. The speculators would ride on horses and drive the poor slaves. When they got cold, they made them run until they were warm again.

The speculators stayed at the hotel and put the Black people in the quarters just like herds of hogs. All through the night, I could hear them mourning and praying. I didn't think the Lord would allow people to live who were so cruel. The gates were always locked, and there was a guard outside to shoot anyone who tried to escape. Lord, those slaves looked just like flocks of turkeys running along in front of those horses.

I remember when they put them up for sale. The ones between 18 and 30 always sell for the most. The auctioneer stands back and calls them out as they stand on the block. I can hear his voice for as long as I live.

If the person they were going to sell was a young Black man, this is what he would say: "Now gentlemen and fellow citizens, here’s a strong Black man. He’s as tough as a mule. Good for any kind of work and he never causes any trouble. How much am I offered for him?" And then the sale would begin, and the man would be sold to the highest bidder.

If they put up a young Black woman, the auctioneer calls out: "Here's a young Black woman, how much am I offered[Pg 141] for her?" The poor thing stands on the block, shivering and shaking, nearly frozen to death. When they sold many of the poor mothers, they begged the buyers to sell them with their husbands, but the buyer only takes what he wants. So maybe the poor thing never sees her husband again.

Ole' Massa always made sure we had enough to eat. Of course, it wasn't anything fancy—just cornbread, milk, fatty meat, and molasses—but the Lord knows that was a lot more than what other poor black people got. Some of them had really awful masters.

Us poor Black people were never allowed to learn anything. The only reading they ever experienced was when they were taken through the big Bible. The Master said that keeps the slaves in their place. There was one Black boy in Newton who was incredibly smart. He learned to read and write. He took other kids out into the fields and taught them about the Bible, but they forgot it before the next Sunday.

Then the patrols keep a close eye on the poor Black people so they have no chance to do anything or go anywhere. They're just like police officers, but worse. Because they never let Black people go anywhere without a pass from their master. If you weren't in your proper place when the patrols arrived, they would whip you until you were black and blue. The women received 15 lashes and the men 30. That’s just for being out without a pass. If a Black person did something worse, they were taken to jail and put in the whipping post. There were two holes cut for the arms to stretch up in the air and a block to put your feet in, then they whipped you with a cowhide whip. And the clothes sure never got any of those lashes.

I remember how they killed a black man by whipping him with a bullwhip. Many poor black people were nearly killed with the bullwhip, but this one died. He was a stubborn man and didn't work as hard as his master thought he should. He had been lashed many times before. So they took him to the whipping post, stripped him of his clothes, and then the man stood back and whipped him. His back was cut to pieces, with the cuts about half an inch apart. After they whipped him, they tied him down and put salt on his wounds. Then, after he lay in the sun for a while, they whipped him again. But when they were done, he was dead.

Plenty of the women of color have kids with white men. She knows better than to not do what he says. There wasn't much of that until the men from South Carolina came here, settled, and brought slaves. Then they took those very children who shared their own blood and made slaves out of them. If the Missus found out, she would raise a revolution. But she rarely finds out. The white men aren’t going to say anything, and the Black women were always scared to speak up. So they just keep hoping things won't always be this way.

I remember how the driver, the guy who did most of[Pg 143] the whipping, used to whip some of the Black people. He would tie their hands together and then put their hands down over their knees, then take a stick and place it between their hands and knees. Then he would grab them and hit them first on one side and then on the other.

We Black people never had the chance to go to Sunday School or church. White folks were scared of us getting any religion or education, but I think something inside just told us about God and that there was a better place after this life. We would sneak away to have prayer meetings. Sometimes the patrollers would catch us and beat us up, but that didn’t stop us from trying. I remember one old song we used to sing when we gathered in the woods behind the barn. My mother would sing and pray to the Lord to free us from slavery. She always said she was thankful she was never sold away from her children, and that our master wasn’t as mean as some of the others. But the old song went something like this:

Then the other part was just like that except it said 'father'[Pg 144] instead of 'mother', and then 'sister' and then 'brother'.

Then they sing sometimes:

I don't remember much about the war. There wasn't much fighting in Newton—just a skirmish or two. Most people got everything ready to flee when the Yankee soldiers came through town. This was towards the end of the war. Of course, the Black people understood what the fighting was all about, but they didn't dare say anything. The man who owned the slaves was already furious, and if the Black people said anything, they would get shot right then and there. The soldiers told us after the war that we would get food, clothes, and wages from our masters or we could leave. But very few ever received anything. Our old master said he wasn’t going to pay us anything; of course, his money was worthless, but he wouldn't pay us even if it had value.

Then the Ku Klux Klan came along. They were really dangerous. They wore long robes that touched the ground. They rode horses through the town at night, and if they found a Black man trying to assert himself or have a little something of his own, they would nearly beat him to death, gag him, and leave him to fend for himself. Sometimes they would put sticks on top of their tall hoods and attach an extra head with scary eyes and a big mouth, then they would raise it high in the air to scare the poor Black people to death.

They had another thing they called the 'Donkey Devil' that was just as bad. They would take the skin of a donkey, get inside it, and chase after the poor Black people. Oh, those were terrible times, really terrible times. I know people think the books tell the truth, but they sure don't. Us poor Black folks had to endure it all.

Then, after the war was over, we were too scared to move. Just like turtles after emancipation, we just stuck our heads out to see how things were. My mom stayed with Marse Jonah for about a year after freedom, then old Solomon Hall made her an offer. Old man Hall was a good man, if there ever was one. He freed all of his slaves about two years before emancipation and left them money in his will when he died. But when he died, his sons and daughters didn’t give anything to the poor Black folks. My mother went to live on the property belonging to Solomon Hall's nephew. All six of her children went with her. My mother cooked for the white folks, and the children worked the fields. When the first year was up, we kids got the first money we had ever earned in our lives. My mother was really happy.

We’ve lived here for over four years. When I was about twenty, I married a girl from West Virginia, but she only lived for about a year. I stayed down there for a year or so and then met Mamie. We came here and both went to work at the same place. We bought this little piece of land about forty-two years ago for $125. We had to buy the lumber to build the house bit by bit, but we eventually finished it. It's been a good home for us and the kids. We have two daughters and one adopted son. Both girls are good cooks. One of them lives in New Jersey and works in a big hotel. She and her husband visit us about once a year. The other one is in Philadelphia. They both do well. But the adopted boy is part white. We took him in when he was small and did the best we could for him. He never liked to socialize with Black people. I remember one time when he was a small child, I took him to town, and the conductor told me to put him at the front of the streetcar because he thought I was just taking care of him and that he was a white boy. We sent him to school until he finished. Then he joined the Navy. I haven't seen him in several years. The last letter I got from him said he hasn’t spoken to a Black girl since he got there. This made me angry, so I took his insurance policy and cashed it. I didn't want anything to do with him if he denies his own race.

Very few Black people ever get anywhere; they don’t have any education. I knew one Black man who became a police officer in Salisbury once, and he was a good one, too. When my next birthday comes in December, I will be eighty-eight years old. That is, if the Lord lets me live, and I sure hope He does.

Great story about Abraham Lincoln [Pg 148]

My name is Mary Wallace Bowe. I was nine years old at the time of the surrender.

My mom and dad, Susan and Lillman Graves, originally belonged to Mr. Fountain and Mrs. Fanny Tuberville, but Mr. Fountain sold me, my mom, and my brother George to Mrs. Fanny's sister, Mrs. Virginia Graves. Mrs. Virginia's husband was Mr. Doctor Graves. They lived on the old Elijah Graves estate not far from Mr. Fountain's plantation here in Durham County, and Mrs. Virginia and Mrs. Fanny saw each other almost every day.

I was young when Mr. Fountain and Mr. Doctor went off to war, but I remember it. I remember it because Miss Fanny stood on the porch, smiling and waving at Mr. Fountain until he rounded the curve in the road; then she collapsed to the floor like she was dead. I thought she was dead until Miss Virginia splashed some water on her face, and she opened her eyes.

The next day, Miss Virginia took me and Mom and we all went over to stay with Miss Fanny because she was scared, so they'd have company for each other. Mom waited on Miss Virginia and helped Surella Tuberville, Miss Fanny's housemaid, sweep and make the beds and other chores. I was little, but Mom made me work. I shook out the rugs, brought in the firewood, and ran around waiting on Miss Virginia and Miss Fanny, doing things like carrying their basket of keys, bringing their shawls, and stuff like that. They were always talking about the people fighting and what they would do if the Yankees came.[Pg 149]

Every time they talked, Miss Fanny would sit there twisting her hands and say, "What are we going to do, Sister, what are we going to do?"

Mis' Virginia tries to calm down Mis' Fanny. She says, "Don't you worry, Honey, I'll take care of those Yankees when they come." Then she sets her mouth. When she does that, I run and hide behind Mis' Fanny's chair because I've seen Mis' Virginia set her mouth before, and I knew she meant business.

I didn’t have enough sense to be scared then because I had never seen any Yankee soldiers, but it wasn’t long before I was scared. The Yankees came one morning, and, oh my, how they did make a scene. When they rode up to the gate and came stomping to the house, Mrs. Fanny started to cry. “Say something, Sister, say something,” she told Mrs. Virginia.

Mis' Virginia hasn’t cried at all. When she saw those Yankees coming over the hill, she ran around and gathered all the jewelry. She took off the rings and pins she and Mis' Fanny were wearing and took everything out of the jewelry box and gave it to Pappy. "Hide them, Lillmam," she told Pappy, "hide them somewhere those thieves won't find them."

Pappy wore high-top boots. He just stuffed all that jewelry right down in them boots, then strutted around those Yankees laughing to himself. They cursed when they couldn’t find any jewelry at all. They didn't find any silver either because us blacks helped Miss Fanny and Miss Virginia hide it. We carried it all down to the cotton gin house and hid it in the[Pg 150] loose cotton piled on the floor. When they couldn’t find anything, a big soldier went up to Miss Virginia, who was standing in the hall. He looked at her and said, “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”

Mis' Virginia hasn't blinked yet. She told him, "If I were going to be scared, I'd be scared of something. I'm definitely not scared of some ugly, boastful Yankee."

The man turned red and said, "If you don’t tell me where you hid that silver, I’m going to scare you."

Mis' Virginia's chin lifted higher. She fixed her gaze on that soldier until he looked away. Then she told him that some people had come and taken the silver, that they had carried it off. She didn’t mention that it was us black folks who had taken it down to the cotton gin house.

Back in the day, there were peddlers traveling around the country selling various items. They carried large packs on their backs filled with everything from needles and thimbles to bedspreads and frying pans. One day, a peddler stopped at Miss Fanny's house. He was the ugliest man I had ever seen. He was tall and skinny with black whiskers and bushy black hair, and his curious eyes were set deep in his head. They were dark and looked like a dog's eyes after you’ve hit it. He sat down on the porch and opened his pack, and since it was so hot and he looked so tired, Miss Fanny offered him a cool drink of milk that had been sitting in the spring house. While Miss Fanny looked at the items in the pack and made purchases, the man kept up a constant conversation. He asked her how many Black people they had, how many men they had fighting on the Confederate side, and what she would do if the Black people were set free. Then he asked her if she knew Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

'About that time, Miss Virginia came to the door and heard what he said. She flared up like a fire and told that peddler that they didn't want to know anything about Mr. Lincoln; that they knew too much already, and that his name wasn’t allowed in that house. Then she said he wasn’t nothing but a black devil messing in other folks' business, and that she’d shoot him on sight if she had half a chance.

The man laughed. "Maybe he ain't so bad," he told her. Then he packed his bag and walked down the road, and Miss Virginia watched him until he disappeared around the bend.

Two or three weeks later, Miss Fanny received a letter. The letter was from that peddler. He told her that he was Abraham Lincoln himself, that he was traveling across the country as a spy, and he thanked her for the rest on her shady porch and the cool glass of milk she gave him.

When that letter arrived, Miss Virginia got so furious that she had us burn all the things Miss Fanny had bought from Mr. Lincoln on the ash pile. Then she had Dad rake up the ashes and throw them in the creek.

[Pg 153]

I was just a little kid when the war was over and I don't remember much to tell you. Mostly what I know I heard my mom talk about it.

We belonged to John Neal from Person County. I don’t know who my dad was, but my mom was named Rosseta and her mom’s name before her was also Rosseta. I had one sister named Jenny and one brother named Ben.

The master was nice to us, in a way, but he didn’t allow any kind of fun, so when we had a meeting, we had to do it in secret. We'd set a wash pot outside the door, and that would catch the noise so the master never knew anything about it.

On Sundays we went to church at the same place as the white folks. The white folks rode while the black folks walked, but even though we wore wooden-bottomed shoes, we were proud and mostly happy. We had nice clothes and food and not much abuse. I don’t know the number of slaves; I was too young.

My mom said that slavery was a lot worse before I could remember. She told me how some of the slaves had their babies in the fields like the cows did, and she said that before the babies were born, they tied the moms down on their faces if they had to whip her to keep from harming the baby.

She said that there were ghosts and some witches back then, but I don't know anything about those things.

No. I can't tell you my age, but I will tell you that everyone who lives on this block is either my child or grandchild. I can't tell you exactly how many there are, but I will tell you that my youngest child's baby is fourteen years old, and she's got fourteen kids, one each year just like I had until I had sixteen.

I’ve belonged to the church since I was a baby, and I tell them every day that they certainly will miss me when I’m gone.

[Pg 156]

I was born in Georgia eighty years ago, the son of Jim and Henretta Burnett and the slave of Marse William Joyner.

I worked on the farm during slavery times, among the cotton, corn, and sugar cane. The work wasn't too hard, and we had plenty of time to have fun and get into mischief; that’s why Master William needed to have so many patrollers on the property.

Marse William had almost three hundred slaves, and he employed seven patrolmen to keep everything running smoothly. The slaves didn’t run away. No sir, they didn’t; they know a good thing when they see it and weren’t leaving it behind either. The only trouble was that they were wild about having a good time, and they’d gamble or lose their money.

The patrols would watch all the paths leading from the plantation, and when they caught a black person leaving, they would beat him and send him home. As I mentioned, the patrols monitored all the main paths, but there were several small paths that ran through the woods that no one was watching because they didn't know those paths existed.[Pg 157]

On moonlit nights, you could hear a lot of voices, and when you peek over the dyke, there's a group of people playing craps and betting everything they’ve stolen from the plantation. Sometimes a pretty girl or a heavyset girl would be there, but mostly it would just be men.

There was a river near the plantation, and we Black folks swam there every Saturday and fished a lot too. We caught a big load of fish every week, which really helped save on rations. That’s what Master William said, and he believed in having a good time too.

We had square dances that lasted all night on holidays, and we had a Christmas tree and an Easter egg hunt and all that, because Master William wanted to make us a civilized group of Black people.

Marse William never hit any of us a single time until the day we heard that the Yankees were coming. One big Black man jumps up and shouts, 'Thank God for the Yankees'.

Marse yells back, "Damn the Yankees," and he knocks big Mose right out the door. Nobody else wanted to get slapped, so everyone got out of there quickly and nobody else dared to mention Yankees to the master.

Eben saw the Yankees coming, but Mose didn't tell the master about it. When Master William was caught between two of those big, tough Yankees, he cursed them as hard as he could. They took him away and put him in jail in Atlanta, where they kept him for a long time.[Pg 158]

After the surrender, we left there and moved to Star, South Carolina, where I still work around the farm. I stayed there until fifty years ago when I married Roberta Thomas and we moved to Raleigh. We have five kids and we’re really proud of them, but since I had the stroke, we’ve been doing poorly, and I’m hoping to get my old age pension.

EH

I don't remember much about the soldiers and the fighting in the war because I was only about six years old at the surrender, but I do remember how Marse Jordan Moss shot Leonard Allen, one of his slaves. I've never forgotten that.

My mom and dad, Silo and Fanny Moss, belonged to Mr. Jordan and Mrs. Sally Moss. They had about three hundred people working for them, and most of them worked in the cotton fields.

Marse Jordan was tough on his people. He worked them overtime and didn’t give them enough to eat. They didn’t have good clothes either, and their shoes were made of wood. He had about a dozen people who didn’t do anything else but make wooden shoes for the other slaves. The children didn’t have any shoes at all; they went barefoot in the snow and ice just like it was summer. I never had any shoes on my feet until I was over ten years old, and that was after the Yankees had set us free.

I was scared of Marse Jordan, and all the grown men were too, except for Leonard and Burrus Allen. Those guys weren’t afraid of anything. If the devil himself had come and waved a stick at them, they would have hit him back. Leonard was a big, strong guy; he was the biggest man I ever saw, and Burrus was almost as big, and they hated Marse Jordan like poison.

I was kind of scared of Miss Polly too. When Master Jordan wasn’t around, she was sweet and kind, but when he was there, she was a yes, sir, yes, sir, woman. Everything he told her to do, she did. He made her slap Mammy one time because when she passed him his coffee, she spilled some in the saucer. Miss Sally slapped Mammy lightly, but Master Jordan said, “Hit her, Sally, hit the black woman like she deserves to be hit.” Then Miss Sally pulled her hand back and hit Mammy in the face—pow—then she went back to her place at the table and acted like she was eating her breakfast. Then when Master Jordan left, she came into the kitchen and put her arms around Mammy and cried, and Mammy patted her on the back, and she cried too. I loved Miss Sally when Master Jordan wasn’t around.

Marse Jordan's two sons went off to war; they went all dressed up in their fighting clothes. Young Marse Jordan was just like Miss Sally, but Marse Gregory was like Marse Jordan, even down to the tough way he walked. Young Marse Jordan never returned from the war, but it would take more than a bullet to kill Marse Gregory; he was too mean to die anyway because the devil didn’t want him and the Lord wouldn’t have him.

One day, Marse Gregory came home on his furlough. He thought he looked pretty with his sword clanking and his boots shining. He was a colonel, lieutenant, or something. He was strutting around the yard showing off when Leonard Allen said under his breath, "Look at that damn soldier. He's fighting to keep us Black people from being free."

'Bout that time, Marse Jordan showed up. He looked at Leonard and said, 'What are you mumbling about?'

Dat big Leonard wasn't scared. He said, I say, 'Look at that damn soldier. He's fighting to keep us from being free.'[Pg 162]

Marse Jordan's face started to swell. It turned so red that it looked like the blood was about to burst out. He turned to Pappy and told him to go bring him the shotgun. When Pappy came back, Miss Sally was with him. Tears were streaming down her face. She ran up to Marse Jordan and grabbed his arm. Old Marse pushed her away and took the gun from Pappy. He aimed it at Leonard and told him to pull his shirt open. Leonard opened his shirt and stood there, big as a black giant, sneering at Old Marse.

Den Mis' Sally ran up again and stood between that gun and Leonard.

Ole Master yelled at Dad and told him to get that woman out of the way, but nobody moved to touch Miss Sally, and she didn’t move either; she just stood there facing Ole Master. Then Ole Master lowered the gun. He reached over and slapped Miss Sally down, then picked up the gun and shot a hole in Leonard's chest as big as your fist. Then he picked up Miss Sally and carried her into the house. But I was so scared that I ran and hid in the stable loft, and even with my eyes shut, I could see Leonard lying on the ground with that bloody hole in his chest and that sneer on his dark mouth.

After that, Leonard's brother Burrus hated Old Marse like he was a snake, then one night he ran away. Mammy said he ran away to avoid killing Old Marse. Anyway, when Old Marse found out he was gone, he took a group of guys and set out to find him. All day long they trudged through the woods, and when night came, they lit fat pine torches and kept looking, but they couldn’t find Burrus. The next day, Old Marse went down to the county jail and got the bloodhounds. He brought home a whole bunch of them, yelping and pulling at the ropes, but when he set them loose, they didn’t find Burrus because he had greased the bottoms of his feet with snuff and hog lard so the dogs couldn’t pick up the scent. Old Marse then told all the guys that if anyone hid and fed Burrus on the sly, he would shoot them just like he shot Leonard. Then he went every day and searched the cabins; he even looked under the houses.

One day during the week, Miss Sally was feeding the chickens when she heard something in the blackberry bushes behind the chicken coop. Instead of going around the house, she went inside and looked through the crack. There was Burrus lying down in the bushes. He was nearly starving because he hadn't eaten anything since he had run away.

Miss Sally whispered and told him to stay still, that she was going to slip him something to eat. She went back to the house and made some more cornmeal dough for the chickens, and under the dough, she put some bread and meat. When she crossed the yard, she ran into Mr. Jordan. He took the pan of dough and said he was going to feed the chickens. My mom said that Miss Sally showed no fear; she just smiled at Old Master and patted his arm, then while she talked, she took the pan and headed to the chicken house, but Old Master followed her. When they got to the hen house, Old Master's puppy started sniffing around. Soon he began to bark; he made such a fuss that Old Master went to see what was wrong. Then he found Burrus lying in the poke bushes.

Ole Marse dragged Burrus out and drove him to the house. When[Pg 164] Miss Sally saw him take out his braided whip, she ran upstairs and jumped into bed, covering her head with a pillow.

Dey took Burrus to the whipping post. They stripped off his shirt, then they put his head and hands through the holes in the top, and tied his feet to the bottom. Then, Old Master took the whip. That lash hissed like cold water on a red-hot iron when it came through the air, and every time it hit Burrus, it left a streak of blood. By the time Old Master finished, Burrus's back looked like a piece of raw beef.

Dey laid Burrus face down on a plank then they poured turpentine in all those cut places. It burned like fire but that guy didn’t know anything about it because he had passed out from pain. But, all his life that black man carried those scars on his back.

When the war ended, Miss Sally came to Mammy and said, "Fanny, I'm so glad you're free. You can go now and you'll never have to be a slave again."

But Mammy didn't have any idea of leaving Miss Sally. She put her arms around her and called her Baby, telling her she was going to stay with her for as long as she lived. And she did stay with her. Mammy and I both stayed with Miss Sally until she died.

The number of black ex-slaves is quickly decreasing, but here and there among the pre-Civil War families of the South, you can still find a few of these colorful old characters. Three miles north of Bethania, the second oldest settlement of the "Unitas Fratrum" in Wachovia, is the 1500-acre Jones plantation. It has been owned by the same family for several generations, descendants of Abraham Conrad. Conrad's daughter, Julia, married a well-known doctor, Dr. Beverly Jones, whose family lived in the old homestead during the Civil War.

Here, in 1856, a black girl named Betty was born to a slave mother. Here, today, under the kind protection of the same Jones family, surrounded by her sons and her grandsons, Betty still lives in her little weathered cottage. Surrounding her house are lilacs, althea, and flowering trees that soften the stark outlines of the unpainted outbuildings. A diverse collection of old-fashioned plants and flowers fills the neatly swept yard. A friendly German shepherd puppy wakes up from his nap on the sunny porch to greet visitors excitedly. In response to our knock, a gentle voice calls, "Come in." The door opens directly into a small, low-ceilinged room almost filled with two double beds. These beds are noticeably clean and covered with homemade crocheted spreads. Wide bands of handmade insertion decorate the stiffly starched pillow slips. Against the wall is a simple oak dresser. Even though the day is warm, two-foot logs burn on the age-worn andirons of the wide brick fireplace. From the shelf above hangs a leather bag of[Pg 167] "spills" made from twisted newspapers.

In a low, split-bottom chair, her achy old feet resting on the warm brick hearth, sits Aunt Betty Cofer. Her frail body bends under the weight of eighty years, but her bright eyes and sharp mind are those of a woman thirty years younger. A blue-checked mob cap covers her grizzled hair. Her tiny frame, dressed in a mix of undergarments, a dress, and sweaters, is topped off with a clean white apron. Although she is a bit shy around her unusual white visitors, her natural dignity, gentle courtesy, and complete composure show that she has long been around "quality folks."

Her speech clearly indicates a lack of the typical heavy Southern dialect and expressions. "Yes, ma'am, yes, sir, come in. Pull up a chair by the fire. You'll have to excuse me. I can't move around much because my feet and legs give me trouble, but I have good eyes, good ears, and all my own teeth. I've never had a bad tooth in my head. Yes, ma'am, I'm 81, almost 82. The master wrote my age down in his book where he kept the names of all his Black folks. My mother belonged to Dr. Jones, but my father belonged to Master Israel Lash over there. (Pointing northwest.) The kids always went with their mothers, so I belonged to the Joneses.

Muh and Pappy could visit each other sometimes, but they never lived together until after we got our freedom. Yeah, we were happy. We had plenty to eat. The Master and old Miss Julia (Dr. Jones' wife, the matriarch of the whole plantation) were pretty strict, but they were good to us. Folks on some of the other plantations weren't so lucky. Some of them had overseers, mean and cruel men. On one plantation, the field workers had to rush to the[Pg 168] end of the row by eleven o'clock lunch time because when the cooks brought their meals, they had to stop right where they were and eat, and the sun was really hot out in those fields. They only had ash cakes (cornbread baked in ashes) with no salt and molasses for lunch, but we had beans, grits, salt, and sometimes meat.

I was fortunate. Miss Ella, the daughter of the first Beverly Jones, was a little girl when I was born, and she took me under her wing. We played together and grew up together. I took care of her, and most of the time, I slept on the floor in her room. My mom was a cook, and when I got old enough, I helped set the table in the big dining room. Then I'd put on a clean white apron and bring in the food, standing behind Miss Ella’s chair. She would take a piece of something from her plate and hand it back to me over her shoulder. I’d grab it and run outside to eat. Afterward, I'd wipe my mouth and go back to stand behind Miss Ella again, hoping to get another snack.

Yes, there were a lot of hands on the plantation. I remember them all, and I can name most of them. The men were Mac, Curley, William, Sanford, Lewis, Henry, Ed, Sylvester, Hamp, and Juke. The women were Nellie, two Lucys, Martha, Nervie, Jane, Laura, Fannie, Lizzie, Cassie, Tensie, Lindy, and Mary Jane. Most of the women worked in the house. There were always two washwomen, a cook, some help for her, two sewing women, a house girl, and some who did all the weaving and spinning. The men worked in the fields and around the yard. One was the stable boss and took care of all the horses and mules. We grew our own[Pg 169] flax, cotton, and wool, spun the thread, wove the cloth, and made all the clothes. Yes, we made the men's shirts, pants, and coats. One woman knitted all the stockings for both the white folks and the colored folks. I remember she had one finger all twisted and stiff from holding her knitting needles. We wove the cotton and linen for sheets, pillowcases, and table covers. We also made wool blankets. I used to help the girl who did the weaving; when she took the cloth off the loom, she would give me the 'thrums' (the ends of thread left over). I tied them all together with tiny little knots and got some scraps from the sewing room, and I made some quilt tops. Some of them were really pretty too! (Pride of workmanship was evident by a toss of Betty's head.)

All our spinning wheels, flax wheels, and looms were handmade by a wheelwright, Mr. Noah Westmoreland. He lived over there. (A thumb indicates north.) Those old wheels are still in the family. I have one of the flax wheels. Miss Ella gave it to me as a gift. Leather was tanned, and shoes were made on the property. Of course, the workers mostly went barefoot in warm weather, including white children. We had our own mill to grind the wheat and corn, and we raised all our meat. We made our own candles from tallow and beeswax. I expect some of the old candle molds are over at "the house" now. We wove our own candle wicks too. I never saw a match until I was a grown woman. We made our fire with flint and punk (rotten wood). Yes, I was taught to cook, clean, and sew. I learned to make men's pants and coats. The first coat I made, Miss Julia told me to rip the collar off, and by the time I picked out all the tiny stitches and sewed it back together, I could set a collar right! I can do it[Pg 170] today, too!

Miss Julia made all the clothes herself for both men and women. I bet her big shears, patterns, and old cutting table are over at the house now. Miss Julia cut out all the clothes, and then the colored girls sewed them up, but she checked them all, and they better be sewn correctly! Miss Julia ran the whole plantation. She took care of the sick people and sent the doctor (Dr. Jones) to treat them, and she held the keys to the storerooms and pantries.

HW Yes, ma'am, I’m somewhat educated. My mom taught me my ABCs and numbers, and when I was fifteen, I went to school in the log church built by the Moravians. They let the Black community use it for their school and church. (This log house is still standing near Bethania). Our teacher was a white man, Mr. Fulk. He had one eye; he lost the other one in the war. We didn’t have any Black teachers then because they weren’t educated. We attended school for four months a year. I went through the fifth reader, the 'North Carolina Reader.' I can do a little math and read some, but I can't write much because my fingers are all stiffened up. Miss Julia used to read the Bible to us and taught us about right and wrong, and my mom showed me all she could, as did the other Black folks. Mostly, they were kind to each other.

No, I don't know much about spells and charms. Of course, most of the older people believed in them. One Black man used to make charms, little bags filled with strange items. He called them 'jacks' and sold them to Black folks and some white folks too.[Pg 171]

Yes, ma'am, I saw some slaves taken away from the plantation, four men and two women, both with little babies. The traders got them. Sold them down to Mobile, Alabama. One was my dad's sister. We never heard from her again. I saw a promising young man sold for $1500. That was my Uncle Ike. Mr. Jonathan Spease bought him and kept him for the rest of his life.

Yes, we saw Yankee soldiers. (Stoneman's Cavalry in 1865.) They marched by and stopped at the house. I wasn't scared because they were all talking, laughing, and friendly, but they sure were hungry. They dumped the wet clothes out of the big wash pot in the yard and filled it with water. Then they broke into the smokehouse, grabbed a bunch of hams, boiled them in the pot, and ate them right there in the yard. The women cooked a lot of cornbread for them and made coffee too. Our master had a barrel of liquor set aside, and the Yankees smashed the top and filled their canteens. There wasn't a drop left after that. When we heard the soldiers coming, our boys turned the horses loose in the woods. The Yankees said they needed them and would burn the house down if we didn’t get them. So our boys whistled for the horses, and the soldiers carried them all off. They also took old Jennie the mule but left little Jack. After the soldiers were gone, the stable boss said, "If old Jennie ever gets loose, no one on earth can catch her unless she wants to. She'll be back!" Sure enough, in a couple of days, she came home by herself, and we worked the farm just with her and little Jack.

Some of the Black folks followed the Union soldiers away. Five or six of our guys went. Two of them traveled as far as Yadkinville but came back. The rest of them kept going, and we never heard from them again.

Sure, when we were freed, Dad came to get Mom and me. We stayed around here. Where could we go? These were our people, and I couldn't go far from Miss Ella. We moved out near Rural Hall (about 5 miles from Bethania), and Dad farmed, but I worked at the family place a lot. When I was about twenty-four, Marse R. J. Reynolds came from Virginia and set up a tobacco factory. He brought some workers with him. One was a promising young guy named Cofer from Patrick County, Virginia. I liked him, and we got married and moved back here to my folks (the Jones family). We started to buy our little place and raise a family. I had four kids, but two are gone. I have grandkids and great-grandkids close by. This is home for us. When we talk about the old home place (the Jones residence, now about a hundred years old), we just call it 'the house' because it’s the only house that matters to us. The rest of the family was all great people and kind to me, but I loved Miss Ella more than anyone or anything else in the world. She was the best friend I ever had. If I ever needed anything, I just asked her, and she would give it to me or find it somehow. Once, when Cofer was seriously ill, his sister came from East Liverpool, Ohio, to see him. I went to Miss Ella to borrow some money. She didn’t have any change, but she just took a ten-dollar bill from her purse and said, 'Here you go, Betty, take what you need and bring me back what’s left.'

I always did what I could for her and stood by her—except for one time. That was when we were little girls going together to get the mail. It was hot and dusty, and we stopped to cool off and wade in the creek. We heard a horse trotting and looked[Pg 173] up, and there was Mr. riding by with his whip and looking at us. "Get home, you two, and I’ll deal with you," he said, and we took off! But this time I let Miss Ella go to the house alone, and I sneaked around to Granny’s cabin and hid. I was afraid I’d get in trouble! Another time, Miss Ella went to town and told me to keep the fire going while she was away. I fell asleep by the hearth, and the fire went out, so when Miss Ella came home, the room was cold. She was really angry. She said she never hit me before, but she sure felt like it then.

Yeah, I've been here quite a while. I've lived to see three generations of my white folks come and go, and they're the best people on earth. There used to be a regular burial ground for the plantation workers. The Black kids used to play there, but I always played with the white kids. (This explains Aunt Betty's kind demeanor and way of speaking.) Three of the old log cabins (slave cabins) are still standing. One of them was the 'boys cabin.' (house for boys and unmarried men) They have walls a foot thick and are being used as storage rooms now. After we were freed, we buried our loved ones around our little churches, but some of the old grounds have been plowed under and turned into pastures because the Black folks didn’t get any deeds to them. It won’t be long before I go too, but I plan to lie near my old home and my family.

Yeah, I remember Marse Israel Lash, my Pappy's master. He was a short, stocky guy, really cheerful and friendly. He was smart and genuinely nice too, because all his Black folks loved him. He worked at the bank, and when the Yankees came, instead of shutting the door against them like the others did, he welcomed them. (Betty's nodding head, big smile, and open hands[Pg 174] vividly mimic the banker's greeting.) So the Yankees took over the bank but gave it back to him as his own, and he kept it, but there was a lot of bad feeling since he never gave people their money back from the old bank. (This might explain why the branch of the Cape Fear Bank in Salem closed and why Israel Lash started his own bank, the First National Bank of Salem, in 1866.)

I saw General Robert E. Lee, too. After the war, he came with some friends to a meeting at Five Forks Baptist Church. All the white folks gathered around and shook his hand, and I peeked between their legs and got a good look at him. But he didn't have any whiskers; he was smooth-faced! (Pictures of General Lee all show him with a beard and mustache.)

Miss Ella died two years ago. I was sick in the hospital when the doctor came to tell me. I couldn’t go to her funeral. I really missed her. (Poignant grief moistens Betty’s eyes and thickens her voice). There was never anyone like her. Miss Kate and young Miss Julia still live at 'the house' with their brother, Marse Lucian (all children of the first Beverly Jones and 'old Miss Julia'), but it doesn’t feel right with Miss Ella gone. Life feels different somehow, even though there are plenty of my young white folks and my own relatives living around, and they’re really good to me. But Miss Ella's gone!

"Good day, Ma'am. Feel free to come by anytime. You’re always welcome. I’m really happy to have visitors since I can’t get out much." A cheerful little curtsy accompanies Betty's friendly farewell.[Pg 175]

Although she has been free for 71 years, a property owner for half of that time, and now respected as the leader of a clan of self-reliant, dignified black citizens, she is still fundamentally a "Jones black," and all the esteemed descendants of her beloved Marse Beverly and Miss Julia will be her "own folks" for as long as she lives.

When the interviewer first visited Uncle John, he was busy cutting hay for a white family nearby, swinging the scythe with the energy of a young man. Later in the afternoon, he was found sitting on the steps of his granddaughter's house after a dinner that definitely included onions and was followed by something stronger than water.

"I was born on March 1, 1852, in Orange County. My mom was named Phillis Fenn, and she was from Virginia. I never had a dad and didn't want one, and I didn't have any brothers or sisters either."

"We longed for Doctor Jim Leathers, and the only beating I ever got was for fighting with young Miss Agnes, who was probably around my age. It was just a little beating, but I remember it well."

"We worked in the fields, and I carried water for the six or seven people who worked there. And we just worked at a steady pace. We had plenty to eat and plenty to wear, though we did go barefoot most of the year. The master was really good to us though." [Pg 178]

"I remember that the first I heard of the Yankees was when young master came in and said, 'Lord pa, the Yankees are in Raleigh.'"

"That evening, I was drawing water when suddenly I looked up the road, and the air was filled with Yankees. I had never seen so many men, horses, and mules in my life. The band was playing, the soldiers were shouting, and the horses were prancing proudly. I did what all the other slaves did; I ran for the woods."

"After the surrender, we moved to a place near Dix Hill here in Raleigh, and my mom married a Coggin, that's where I get my name. All of us former slaves moved there and farmed."

"Many years after that old Master Jim came to visit his former slaves, we had a big dinner in his honor. That night he died, and before he died, his mind seemed to wander, thinking he was back in the days of slavery and that after a long journey he was returning home. It was truly sad, and we really hated it."

"Yeah, honey, we got along fine after the war. You know that Black people didn't have much sense back then, but now they do. Look at these seven kids here—they're my great-grandchildren, and they have way more sense than I do right now."

EH

I was born in Union County to Sarah and Henderson Tomberlin. My mother was owned by Mr. Moses Coverson, and my dad was owned by Mr. Jackie Tom Tomberlin. I stayed with my mom, of course, and Master Moses was kind to me. They weren't very kind to my mom because they made her work from sunrise to sunset in the hot summer, and she didn’t have any fun at all. She plowed with two oxen, and if you’ve ever been around a steer, you know what frustrating things they are.

De overseer, whose name I've completely forgotten, was poor white trash and he was meaner than the meanest black. Anyway, I was too little to do much work, so I played a lot and I had a great time.

My mom passed away when I was really young, and the lady of the house kept me indoors. She spoiled me, and I think I got a little too pampered. You know that back then, Black people never got to eat biscuits, but she always gave me one at every meal, and that’s how I became interested in helping out at the table.

I wasn't old enough to know much, but I remember how the family hid all the valuables before the Yankees came, and that Master Moses hurt his back picking up the big brass andirons, and they said that was the cause of his death a little while later. Anyway, the andirons were saved, and there wasn't any trouble with the Yankees who came our way, and they didn't hurt anyone there.

Dey killed all the things they could eat and stole the rest of the feed. They made one black boy draw water for their horses all day and night. The Yankees were harsh about cursing, but the Southern soldiers were just as bad. Wheeler's Cavalry was the meanest of them all, I think.

The Ku Klux Klan was really cruel, but they focused their anger on the Freedmen. I don't know why they did this except that they didn't want any Black people supporting them now that slavery is over. They did a lot of beating and driving people out of the country, but I think the Carpetbagger's rule was mostly to blame for it.

I married Daniel Coverson, a slave on the same plantation I was on, and forty years ago we moved to Raleigh. We had a tough time, but I'm glad that he and I are free and don't belong to two different families.

AC

No ma'am, Mistress, I don’t want to ride in any car, thank you. I've walked these three miles from Zebulon, and walking is what has kept me going all these years.

Yes, I'm a bachelor and I was born on June 11, 1845, in Person County. My dad was named Ed and my mom was named Sally. There were ten of us kids: Morris, Dallas, Stephen, Jerry, Florence, Polly, Lena, Phillis, Caroline, and me. Mr. Starling Oakley of Person County, near Roxboro, was my master, and as long as he and the old mistress were alive, I went back to see them.

He was really good to the good black people and kind of strict with the bad ones. But he only had me whipped two or three times. You’ve heard about these sit-down strikes lately, but they aren't the first ones. Once, when I was about four or five years old, too little to work in the fields, my master had me and some other kids working to pull weeds around the house. Well, I made a speech and told them let’s not work at all, so we sprawled out on the grass under the apple tree. After a while, old master found us there, and when he discovered that I was the ringleader, he gave me a little whipping.

It was a large plantation, about 1,200 acres of land, I guess, and he had around seventy or eighty slaves to work the cotton, corn, tobacco, wheat, and vegetables. The big house was something to see, but the slave cabins were just log huts with sand floors and stick-and-dirt chimneys. We were allowed to have a small patch of garden stuff in the back but no chickens or pigs. The only way we had to make money was by picking berries and selling them. We didn't have much time to do that since we worked from sunrise to sunset six days a week.

De master fed us as well as he knew how, but it was mainly on bread, meat, and vegetables.

I remember several slave sales where they sold the dad or the mom away from the kids, and that was a sad time. They led them up one at a time and asked them questions, and there weren't many who were chained, only the bad ones, and sometimes when they were traveling it was necessary to chain a new group.

I’ve seen black people get beaten until they bled, and I’ve seen plenty more with big scars from beatings, but those were the severe ones. You were punished based on what you did back then. A mild punishment was thirty-nine or forty lashes, while a serious punishment was a full hundred; most people[Pg 185] can’t endure a real beating.

From all this, you might think we didn’t have any good times, but we had our corn shuckings, candy pulls, and things like that. We didn't feel like hunting much, but I did go on a few fox hunts with the master. I used to go fishing too, but I haven't been since 1873, I guess. We sometimes went to neighborhood events if we behaved, but if we didn’t and didn’t get a pass, the patter-rollers would definitely get us. When they were done whipping a Black man, he knew he’d been whipped for sure.

De slave weddings in that country were sort of like this: the man asked the master for the woman and he just told them to step over the broom and that was how they got married back then; the poor white folks did it the same way.

At the start of the war, the white folks tried to keep us blacks from knowing about it, but the news somehow got around, and there was some talk of getting away from the master's family and getting rich. The plans didn’t amount to anything, and so the Yankees came down.

I remember really well when the Yankees came through our land. They stole everything they could find, and I remember what the old master said. He said, "Everyone who wants to work for me get in the field to pull that forty acres of fodder, and all those who don't, get up the road with those damned Yankees." Well, we all left.[Pg 186]

Dat winter was tough, all the black people nearly starved to death, and we still hadn't seen anything of the forty acres of land and the mule that the Yankees promised us either. After a while, we had to go to our old masters and ask them for bread to keep us alive.

The Klu Klux Klan just came up out of nowhere, but the Yankees put a stop to that by imprisoning so many of them. They say that’s what the State Prison was built for.

I never believed in witches and I don't think much of ghosts, but I've seen a few things in my life that I can't explain, like the thing with the red eyes that mocked me one night; but honestly, I don't put much faith in those things. I've worked my land, taken care of it year after year, lived on my own, and I haven't been hurt yet, but I've never ridden in a car, and I've only got one tooth left.

B. N.

My name is Hannah Crasson. I was born on John William Walton's plantation, 4 miles from Garner and 13 miles from Raleigh, NC, in Wake County. I turned 84 on the 2nd day of last March. I belonged to Mr. John William Walton during the time of slavery. My mistress was named Miss Martha.

My father was named Frank Walton. My mother was named Flora Walton. Grandma was 104 years old when she died. She passed away at the old plantation. My brothers were Johnnie and Lang. My sisters were Adeline, Violet, Mary, Sarah, Ellen, and Annie. Four of us are still alive: Ellen, Mary, Sarah, and me.

The old boss was good to us. I was talking about him the other night. He didn't hit us and he said he didn't want anyone else to hit us. Just like I tell you; he was never cruel to us. One of his sons was cruel to us. We had plenty to eat, we really did, plenty to eat. We also had nice houses to live in. Grandma had a large room to herself, and we had one too. Dad stayed home with mom. They worked their fields by moonlight and worked for the white folks during the day.

They sold what they produced. The master bought it and paid for it. My dad made a barrel of rice every year.[Pg 189]

Mr. Bell Allen owned slaves too. He had a lot of Black people. His plantation was 5 miles from ours. We went to church at the white people's church. When Mr. Bell Allen saw us coming, he would say, 'There come John Walton's free Black people.'

Our master wouldn't sell his slaves. He gave them to his children when they got married. I swept yards, churned butter, and fed the chickens. In the evening, I would go fishing with my mistress. We ate collards, peas, cornbread, milk, and rice. We had biscuits and butter twice a week. I thought the best thing I ever ate was butter spread on a biscuit. We had a corn mill and a flour mill on the plantation. There were about 24 slaves on the place. They made brandy on the plantation, and the master gave all his slaves some for their own use.

My grandmother and mother made our clothes. They were called homespun. They made the shoes on the plantation too. I wasn't married until after the surrender. I didn't wear the finest clothes in the world, but I had nice outfits. My wedding dress was made of cream silk, styled like a princess gown with pink and cream bows. I wore a pair of store-bought morocco shoes. My husband was dressed in a store-bought suit, the coat was styled like a peacock tail. He had on a velvet vest and a white collar and tie. Someone stole the vest after that.

One of our master’s daughters was really mean. Sometimes[Pg 190] she would go out and go off on us, but the old master didn’t want us punished.

Our great grandmother was named Granny Flora. They stole her from Africa with a red pocket handkerchief. Old man John William took my great grandmother. The people in New England were scared of us black folks. They were afraid we would rise up against them, so they pushed us down South. Lord, why didn't they let us stay where we were? There wouldn't have been so many half-white blacks, but the old master was to blame for that.

We never saw any slaves being sold. They took them away to sell them. The slaves traveled in large groups. Parents were sold away from their children. Children were sold from their parents on the plantations near us. When we went to church, we sat in a section away from the white people. The slaves never ran away from the master because he was good to them, but they did run away from other plantations.

Yes, we saw the patterollers, we called them poor white trash, we also called patterollers poor white pecks. They had ropes around their necks. They came to our house one night when we were singing and praying. It was just before the surrender. They were hired by the slave owner. My dad told us to show them the brandy our master gave us, then they went on their way, because they knew John Walton was particular about his slaves. They gave us Christmas and other holidays. Then the men would go to see their wives. Some of the men's wives belonged to other masters on other plantations. We had corn shuckings at night, and candy pullings. Sometimes we had quiltings and dances.

One of the slaves, my aunt, she was a royal slave. She could dance around with a glass of water on her head without spilling any. She really knew how to carry herself. I always loved seeing her come to church. She really knew how to carry herself.

My oldest sister Violet died during slavery. She was ten years old when she passed away. Her uncles were her pallbearers. Uncle Hyman and Uncle Handy carried her to the graveyard. If I'm not mistaken, my dad made her coffin. There was no singing. There were only seven family members there, and that was it. They didn’t have a funeral. There were no white people present.

They baptized people in streams and ponds.

We rode on corn stalks, bent down small pine trees, and pretended they were horses. We also played prison base. Black and white kids played together, yes, there were white kids and Black kids. We played at night, but we had to go to bed at a certain time. That was nine o'clock. HW:

The boss man took care of us when we were sick. He got doctors for us. I had typhoid fever. All my hair fell out. They called it "miltent fever." Dr. Thomas Banks treated me. He’s been dead for a long time. Oh! I don’t know how long he’s been gone. Almost all of my white folks were found dead. Mr. John died outside.[Pg 192]

Walton died in bed. Master Joe Walton died sitting under a tree by the path. Miss Hancey died in bed.

I remember the day the war started. My master called my father and my two uncles, Handy and Hyman. They were heading back to the fields to work in the afternoon. He said, "Come here, boys," which was our young master, Ben Walton, saying, "Come here, boys. I have something to tell you." Uncle Hyman replied, "I can't. I have to go to work." He said, "Come here and sit down, I have something to tell you."

The Black people came to him and sat down. He told them, "There’s a war going on between the North and the South. If the North wins, you’ll be as free as I am. If the South wins, you’ll be a slave for the rest of your life."

Mr. Joe Walton said when he went to war that they could eat breakfast at home, go and defeat the North, and be back for dinner. He left, and it was four long years before he came back for dinner. The table was definitely set for him for a long time. A lot of the white folks said there wouldn’t be much war; they could defeat them so easily. Many of them never returned for dinner. I was afraid of the Yankees because my Missus told us the Yankees were going to kill every black person in the South. I clung to my mom when they came through.[Pg 193]

I thought Abraham Lincoln was the Medicine man, with a grip in his hand, because he said every born man must be free.

I didn't think much of Jeff Davis. I thank God for setting us free. He influenced Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers. We are grateful to the Great Master who inspired Lincoln and the Yankees. They say Booker Washington was great, but I don't know.

The white people didn't let us have anything to do with books. You better not get caught trying to learn to read. Our master was tougher on that than on anything else. You better not be caught with a book. They read the Bible and told us to obey our master because the Bible said to obey your master.

The first band I ever heard play was the Yankees. They were playing a song. 'I am tired of seeing the homespun dresses the southern women wear.'

I think Mr. Roosevelt is a great man. Just what we need.

_{[TR: HW circled "I"]}[Pg 195]

My mom's name was Jane and my dad's name was Richard. They worked for Lawyer R. J. Lewis in Raleigh, where Peace Institute is today. Mom said that the white people were good to them and provided them with good food and clothes. She was the cook, and for thirty years after the war, she cooked at Peace.

Before the Yankees came, Mr. Lewis said that he dreamed the yard was full of them and he was deaf. When they did come, he acted deaf so he wouldn't have to talk to them. He was so proud.

Mammy said that she didn't care about being free because she had a good home, but after all, slavery wasn't the right thing for America.

I didn't have anything back during slavery, and I don't have anything now. The only work I can do is a little bit in the garden. They say I'm too old to work, so charity gives me a little something to get by each week. For my weekly allowance of food, let me show you what I get—it’s quite something. Here it is: ½ peck of cornmeal, 2 lbs of oatmeal, 2 lbs of dry skim milk, and 1 lb of meat. This is what I get for my weekly allowance. I can’t do much work, but the white folks give me meals for washing the woodwork in their houses, the ones in Hayes's Bottom. I do the little work I can for him. He gives me meals for the work I do. Charity gives me about 80 cents worth of food each week.

I was seven years old when the Yankees came through. All the Black folks except me and the white folks ran to the woods. I didn't have the sense to run, so I stayed on the porch while they passed by. One of them pointed his gun at me. I remember it like it was yesterday. Yes, I saw the Yankees and I remember the clothes they wore. They were blue, and their coats had capes and large brass buttons. The Black folks and white folks were scared of them. The old house[Pg 198] where they passed by, and me on the porch, is still standing, yes sir, and they are living in it now. It belongs to Ralph Crowder, and he has a guy named Edward, a Black man, living there now. The house is on the other side of Swift Creek, right at Rands Mill. I belonged to old man William Crowder during slavery, Tom Crowder's dad. Ralph is Tom's son. My missus was named Miss Melvina and if I live to be a hundred years old, I will never forget those white folks. Yes, they were really good to us. We had good food, good clothes, and a good place to sleep.

My mother died before the war, but Miss Melvina was so good to us that we didn't notice much of a difference. Mother was the first person I remember seeing dead. When she passed away, Miss Melvina, the master's wife, gathered us kids and said, 'Kids, your mother is dead, but you can eat anything in this kitchen, just don’t take anything without permission. If you do, you’ll soon be stealing things.' I had four brothers and one sister, and none of us ever got into trouble for stealing. She taught us to respect other people's belongings.

My father's name was Waddy Crowder. My mother's name was Neelie Crowder. Grandpa was named Jacob Crowder and grandma was named Sylvia Crowder. I know them just as well as if it was yesterday.[Pg 199]

Never went to school a day in my life. I can't read or write. They wouldn't allow slaves to have books, no sirree, they wouldn't. We went with the white folks to church; they were good to us, that's the truth. There aren't many people who know about those good times. They had a lot of big dinners, and when the white folks were done, I would go up and eat as much as I wanted.

I remember chopping cotton on Clabber Branch when I was a little boy before the surrender. When the surrender happened, I didn't like it. Daddy and the others didn't like it because after the surrender they had to pay the master for meat and other things. Before that, they didn't have anything to do but work. There were eight slaves on the place during slavery. Clabber Branch ran into Swift Creek. Lord have mercy, I caught many fish in that branch. I also piled brush in the winter. Birds would go in the brush to roost. Then we went bird-blinding. We had torches made of lightwood splinters and brushes in our hands; we hit the piles of brush after we got around them. When the birds came out, we would kill them. There were a lot of birds back then. We killed them at night in the sage fields[5] where broom grass was thick. Those were the good times. No times like that now. We killed robins, doves, partridges, and[Pg 200] other kinds of birds. There aren't such large flocks of birds now. We grilled them over the coals of fire and fried them in frying pans, and sometimes we had a bird stew with all the birds we wanted. The stew was the best of all. There aren't any stews like that now. We put flour in the stew, made it into pastry first, and we called it slick. When we cooked chicken with it, we called it chicken slick.

There were no overseers on our plantation. Master wouldn't let you have any money on Sunday. He wouldn't trade on Sunday. He wouldn't deal with money matters on Monday, but besides those two days, if you went to him, he would take care of you. He was a good old man. That's the truth.

The Ku Klux would definitely come after you. If they found you out of your place, they would deal with you. I can't recall much about the Freedman's Bureau, but the Ku Klux Klan was something all black people were afraid of. That's right, they would come for you. Exactly. Ha! Ha! That's right.

I’ve never seen a slave get whipped, no way, I’ve never seen a slave sold. I’ve seen the speculators do it. I’ve seen the patrollers, but they never whipped my dad. They chased him once, but they couldn’t catch him. Master Crowder always gave my dad a pass when he asked for it.[Pg 201]

I believe old master and old missus went straight to Heaven, yes, I really believe that. That's the truth. Yes, my Lord, I would love to see them right now. There's only one of the old group still living, and that’s Miss Cora. She lives right here in Raleigh.

We used to have candy pulls, and I ate more ash cakes than anyone. We made ash cakes from meal. We had dances in the winter and other activities. I played marbles and ran and jumped when I was a kid. They gave us sassafras tea sweetened to have with bread. It was really good. My father never remarried. He settled down after the war and farmed for his old master, and all of us kids stayed. We didn’t want to leave, and I would be with them right now if they were still alive.

I got married when I was 21 years old and moved into a little house on the plantation. The house is still there now, the house where I lived back then. I saw it the other day when I went out there to clean off my wife's grave. I married Lula Hatcher. She died about ten years ago. I married her in Georgia. I stayed there for a long time until my wife's brother, Wiley Clemmons, went to Georgia to run turpentine and took me with him. I stayed there until he died; then Mr. Tom Crowder went after him, brought him back home, and buried him at the old home place. He is buried right there at the Crowder place.[Pg 202]

I have worked with some of the Crowders for most of my life, and I miss those people when one of them dies. They always gave my dad outside patches, and he did well with it. He cleared seven acres, and do you know how he fenced it? With nothing but brush. And hogs and cows didn’t go in there either. We had plenty of game to eat. The master allowed my dad to hunt with a gun, and he killed a lot of rabbits, squirrels, and game. We trapped birds and caught rabbits in boxes. Dad caught possums and raccoons with dogs. One of my brothers is living in Garner, N.C. I am four years older than he is. From what little judgment I have, I thought quite highly of Abraham Lincoln, but I have to say the truth, Mr. Roosevelt has done a lot of good. That's the truth. I like him.

AC

My name is Adeline Crump, and I am 73 years old. My husband's name was James Crump. My mother's name was Marie Cotton, and my father's name was Cotton. My mother belonged to the Faucetts; Rich Faucett was her master. My father belonged to the Cottons; Wright Cotton was his master. My maiden name was Cotton. My parents said they were treated well and that they cared for their white folks. They provided them with patches, dressed them fairly well, and made sure they had enough to eat. The work hours were long. Almost everyone worked long hours back then, but they said they weren't mistreated at all. When they got sick, the master called a doctor if they were seriously ill.

They were allowed holidays for Christmas and during break time, and they could hunt possums and raccoons at night and catch rabbits in the bushes. They also trapped birds using traps made from splinters split from pine wood.

Mother and father had no education. They wouldn’t let us learn to read or write. The master was particular about that. I can’t read or write. My parents told me many stories about the patrollers and the Ku Klux. A Black person had to have a pass when visiting, or if they were caught, they were beaten. The Ku Klux[Pg 205] made Black people believe they could drink from a well full of water. They hid rubber things under their clothes and had a rubber pipe leading to a bucket of water. The water bag held the water—they didn’t actually drink it. I suppose you’ve heard people talk about drinking so much water.

Marster didn't have any overseers to take care of his slaves. He handled that himself with the help of some of his male slaves. Sometimes he made them foremen, and my mother and father said they all got along really well. The Black folks went to the white folks' church and held prayer meetings in their homes.

Mother lived at the edge of the master’s yard. After the surrender following the war, they stayed on the plantation and lived on the master’s land. They built log houses after the war because the master allowed all his former slaves to remain on his plantation. My mother had twenty-one children. She had twins five times. I was a twin, and Emaline was my sister. She passed away about thirty years ago, leaving behind 11 children. I only had four children. All my family is gone; I am the only one left.

Marster's plantation was about six miles from Merry Oaks in Chatham County. We moved to Merry Oaks when I was fourteen years old. I got married at seventeen. I've lived in North Carolina my whole life. A long time ago, we moved to Raleigh from Merry Oaks. My husband passed away here seventeen years ago. After he died, I worked washing and ironing for white folks until I was no longer able to work. I haven't worked in four years. Charity doesn't help me at all. My children give me what they can.

Slavery was a terrible thing because, from what my parents told me, not all slaves had the same experience. Some had it good, and some had it bad. I don’t know enough about Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Roosevelt to discuss them. No, I’m not sure what to say. I really hope you will stop asking me so many questions because I’ve forgotten a lot of what my parents told me.

HW: "picture"

I think I was born in Davidson County on Mr. Whitman Smith's plantation, my mom's master.

My dad was named Tom, and he belonged to Mr. Ben Murry first and later to Mr. Jimmy Crump. Dad was named after his young master. They lived in Randolph, the county next to Davidson, where my mom and the rest of the kids, Alt, George, Harriet, Sarah, Mary, and the baby, lived.

Both of the masters were good to us, and there was plenty to eat and wear, and quite a few celebrations. None of the dozen or so of us ever got a beating because we didn't deserve one; in fact, there wasn't even a cowhide whip anywhere on the place. We worked in the fields from sunrise to sunset most of the time, but we had a couple of hours at dinner to swim or lie on the banks of the little creek and rest. Around sunset, the master let us go swimming again if we wanted to.[Pg 209]

De master let us have some chickens, a piglet, a garden, and a potato patch, and we had time off to work on them. In season, we canned our own fruits for the winter, so we learned not to depend so much on the master’s hands.

My dad was a fiddler, and he sometimes played for the dances at the Crossroads, a small village near the master's place. Anyone who wasn't mean could go, but the mean ones couldn't, and the rest of us had to have a pass to keep the patrollers from getting us.

Yes ma'am, we had our fun at the dances, corn shuckings, candy pulls, and gatherings, and we served the master better by having our fun.

I’ve seen a bunch of slaves sold many times, and I never saw any chains on anyone. They just stood them on the table in front of the post office at Cross Roads and sold them to the one who bid the highest.

We heard a rumor about some slaves being beaten to death, but I never saw a slave get a single blow. Of course, after the war, I saw the Ku Klux Klan attacking Black people.

Dar wus no marryin' on de plantation; if a Black man wants a woman, he has to buy her or get his master's permission, then they are married.

When one of the slaves was sick, he had a doctor as fast as lightning, and when he died, he was set up for one night. The master would give the mourners a drink of wine maybe, and they’d mourn, and shout, and sing all night long, while the corpse was laid out on the cooling board, which reminds me of a story.

Once we were gathered with a Black man, before the war, and it was a hot night. The wine was flowing, and the mourners were sitting in front of the door eating watermelons while the deceased lay on the cooling board. Suddenly, one of the Black men looks back inside at the door, and the dead man is sitting up on the cooling board looking right at him. The man who sees this shouts, and all the others who had been wishing that the dead man could enjoy the wine and watermelons are now sorry he has come back.

They don't take the time to say it does, because they have gone to the big house. The master is brave, so he comes to see, and he says that it is only restrictions of the muscles.

De next morning, as usual, they put the man in a pine box made by another slave and they carry him from the cabin to the master's burial ground at the cedars; and the slaves bury him while the master and his family watch.

I don't know much about the Yankees because there weren't any except the skirt-chasing parties that came our way.

After the war, we stayed on for four or five years[Pg 211], maybe, and I went to school for two weeks. The teacher was Mr. Edmund Knights from the North.

I served four years and ten months of an eight to twelve year sentence for killing a man. This man and a whole gang of us were at his house gambling. I had stopped drinking about a month before that, but they insisted I join in, but I refused. After a while, he poured some on me and I cursed at him, then he cursed back at me, and he said he was going to kill me, and he followed me down the road. I turned around and shot him.

That’s all of my story except that I have seen a whole lot of ghosts, and I know that they come in white and black, and that they take the shape of dogs, men, and everything else you can think of.

LE

I was born at Evan's Ferry in Lee or Chatham County, and I belonged to Mr. Davis Abernathy and his wife Miss Vick. My dad was named Ridge, and my mom was named Marthy. My brothers were Stokes and Tucker, and my sisters were Lula and Liddy Ann. There were nine of us in total, but some of them were sold, and some of them were dead.

De Abernathy's weren't good to us; we got very little to eat, nothing to wear, and a lot of beatings. They didn't have many slaves, maybe seven or eight. In fact, they were poor white trash trying to get rich, so they made us work.

They work us from dawn till dusk, and sometimes we only get one meal a day. The master says that hungry Black people are good, but full Black people have the devil in them. And we're not allowed to go anywhere at night, that is, if they knew about it. I've seen times when Black people from all around the neighborhood would gather and have a good time, but if they heard the patrollers coming on horseback, they would run. Gambling was the thing back then, but many times they couldn't find anything to bet. [Pg 214]

I carried water, since that’s all I was strong enough to do, and let me tell you that when the war was over, I didn’t have a single strand of hair on my head because the wooden buckets I carried on it wore it completely off.

When we got hungry and could find a pig, a calf, or a chicken, it didn’t matter who it used to belong to—it belonged to us. We grew a lot of sugarcane and ate brown sugar. It's funny that the little bit they gave us was what they now call wholesome food, and it sure made us strong, healthy folks.

My mom had more determination than any girl I know today. She worked a stubborn little donkey that was just as hungry as she was, and he was a real menace. Mom was a little brown woman, tough as nails, and she didn’t care one bit about that donkey. She used to take him out at noon and head for home, and that donkey would hunch up his back and act like he wasn’t going to let her ride him home. Mom would insist that she would, and a battle would ensue. He’d throw her off, but she’d get back on, and once she won the fight, he would race home like a scalded dog.

When we heard that the Yankees were coming, we were scared because Mr. Abernathy told us they’d skin us alive. I remember it was the end of April or the beginning of May when they arrived, and I had started for the cane field with a bucket of water on my head, but when I saw the Yankees approaching, I dropped the bucket and ran.

De folks there 'bouts burned the bridge across the river, but the Yankees brought a rope bridge with them, so they crossed anyway.

Dem Yankees took everything they saw, even our food that we had cooked for supper. Our food was cornmeal, onions, red pepper, salt, and grease, if we had any grease. They killed all the cows, pigs, chickens, and stole all the horses and mules.

We were glad to be free, and let me tell you, we really let the old master have it before we left there; then we came to Raleigh. I've always been a farmer and I've done pretty well. I like the white folks and they like me, but I’ll tell you, ma'am, I’d rather be black any day than be like my old white folks were.

M. A. H.
L. E.

I was born on the plantation of Mr. John Hayes in Orange County ninety-eight years ago. Several of the kids had been sold before the speculator came and bought my mom, dad, and us three kids. The speculator was named Bebus and he lived in Henderson, but he planned to sell us in the tobacco country.

We passed through Raleigh, and the first thing I remember well was going by the paper mill on Crabtree. We traveled on to Granville County along the Granville Tobacco path until a preacher named Whitfield bought us. He lived near the Granville and Franklin County line, on the Granville side.

Preacher Whitfield, being a preacher, was supposed to be good, but he didn’t feed or clothe his slaves properly, and he beat them badly. I’ve seen him whip my mother until all her clothes came off. He’d pin her down on a barrel and beat the blood out of her. There was a noticeable difference in his beatings compared to the neighbors. The folks around there would whip in the backyard, but Master Whitfield had the barrel brought into his parlor for the beating.[Pg 218]

We hadn't had any gatherings, but we went to church on Sunday and they preached to us that we'd go to hell alive if we disrespected our white folks.

Speaking about clothes, I was completely naked until I was fourteen years old. I was like that when I hit puberty. Mr. Whitfield didn’t mind, but after that, my mom told him that I needed to have some clothes.

Marse Whitfield never paid for us, so we were finally sold to Miss Fanny Long in Franklin County. That woman was the devil if there ever was one. When I was little, I picked fruit, fanned flies off the table with a peafowl fan, and took care of the little slave children. In the last two or three years, I worked in the fields, but at Miss Long's, I worked in the tobacco factory.

Yes ma'am, she had a tobacco factory where tobacco was stemmed, rolled, and packed in cases for selling. They said that she got rich from selling chewing tobacco.

We were at Miss Long's when war was declared; before that, she had been pretty good, but now she's a devil. Her son was called to the war, and he won't go. They come and arrest him, then his mom tries to bail him out, but that doesn't work.

De officers say that he is yellow and that they're going to shoot his head off and use it for a soap gourd. The Yankees shot him down here at Bentonville and Mrs. Long went after the body. The Confederates have the body, but they won't let her have it for love or money. They laugh and tell her how yellow he is and they bury him in a ditch like a dog.

Mis' Long has been bad enough before, but after her son died, she said she was going to fight until she dropped dead. The next day, she shoved the shotgun into Mammy's back and said she was going to shoot her dead. Mammy smiled and told her she was ready to go. Mis' Long turned on me and told me to go to the peach tree and cut her ten limbs about a yard long; I did that, and after she tied them in a bundle, she wore them out on me with a hundred licks. Let me tell you, there were pieces of those peach tree switches sticking all in my bloody back when she was done.

Atter that, Miss Long hasn't done anything but beat us and fight until she's really worn out.

The Yankee captain came to our place and told us that the land was going to be divided up among the slaves, and each of them would also get a mule and a house.

I don't know how it happened, but just before the end of the war, we arrived at Moses Mordicia's place, just up the hill from here. He was cruel as well; he'd get drunk and beat Black people all day long, on and off. He'd keep them tied up for so long too, sometimes from sunrise until dark.

Mr. Mordicia had his yellow women in one section for themselves, and these women belonged to the Mordicia men, their friends, and the overseers. When a baby was born in that section[Pg 220], they would send it over to the black section at birth. They say that some of these girl babies grew up and after returning to the yellow section had more children with their own father or brother. The Thompsons came from that group, and they say that many of them are halfwits for the reason I just told you. Those yellow women were quite pretentious too; they thought they were better than the black ones.

Has you ever wondered why the yellow women these days are meaner than the black ones about the men? Well, that's the reason for it; their mommas raised them to think about the white men.

When the Yankees came, they came and freed us. The woods were full of Rebs who had deserted, but the Yankees killed some of them.

Some kind of corporation divided up the land, but I’ve never heard of the slaves getting any of it.

I got married before the war to Joshua Curtis. I loved him too, which is more than most people can honestly say. I always craved a home and enough to eat, but freedom didn’t give us anything but pickled horse meat and stale crackers, and not nearly enough of that.

Josh doesn’t really care about having a home, but through this land corporation, I bought these fifteen acres on credit. I chopped down the big trees that were all over these fields, milled the wood, and sold it. Then I plowed up the fields and planted them. Josh did help build the house and he worked a bit too.[Pg 221]

All this time I had nineteen kids and Josh died, but I kept going and the fifteen who are gone grew up to be almost adults, every one of them.

Right after the war, northern preachers came around with a little book for marrying slaves, and I saw one of them marry my dad and mom. After this, they tried to find their fourteen oldest kids who had been sold away, but they only managed to find three of them.

But you want to know how I got by. I'll never forget my first bale of cotton and how I sold it. I was so proud of that bale of cotton, and after I had it ginned, I set out with it on my steer cart for Raleigh. The white people hated the black people back then, especially the black people who were making something, so I didn’t dare ask anyone where the market was.

I thought I could find the place on my own, but I rode all day and had to take my cotton home with me that night because I couldn’t find anywhere to sell it. But that night I thought it over and the next day I went back and asked a policeman about the market. Lo and behold, I found it on Blount Street, and I had passed by it several times the day before.

I did a lot of work at night too, all my sewing and stuff, and the piece of land near the house over there never got any work done except at night. I finally paid for the land. Some of my kids were born in the field too. When I was at the house, we had a grandma and I blew into a bottle to make the labor[Pg 222] quick and easy.

Dis young generation ain't worth shucks. Fifteen years ago I hired a big guy to help me with the shrubs and before noon he passed out on me. You know about noon in July, it gets really hot. The young generation with their schools and divorces isn’t going to get anything out of life. It was better when people just lived together. Their laziness gets them into trouble and their novels make them bad husbands and wives too.

EH

In July 1934, the census taker visited the home of Unka Challilee Dalton and found the soft-spoken old man sitting on the porch of his multi-room house, just a few hundred feet south of the dirt road known as Ayersville Road because it branches off from the paved highway to Mayodan at Anderson Scales' store, which is not far from Unka Challilee's place. His dark skin was evident from his face, even his lips were dark, but his hair was turning white. He was lounging back while the white pillowcases from his bed were drying on a chair. The census taker learned that his granddaughter took care of him. Unka Challilee said, "I’ve gotten to where I’m good for nothing. I was taking a nap sleeping (at) 1 AM. Those merry-go-rounds keep making such a racket all night, such a racket all night, I can’t sleep." This noise was from "The Red Wolfe Medicine Troop of Players and Wheels" near Anderson Scales' store at the junction of the Mayodan and Ayersville roads.

In 1937, at his son’s home, Unka Challilie, who was ninety-three, explained why he felt worthless. "I was the cleanup guy at the mill in Mayodan until three[Pg 224] years ago. I got too shaky to be around the machinery. I was afraid I’d fall and get hurt."

I came to Madison forty-five years ago, bought an acre of land, and built a house on it where I raised my eleven children. My wife was Ellen Irving from Reidsville. We had a cow, pigs, chickens, and a vegetable garden to supplement the money I earned at the mill.

Nome I never learned to read and write. Once I thought maybe I'd get some learning but after I got married, I didn't think I would.

My old master was Master Lee Dalton, and I stayed on his plantation until forty-five years ago when I came to Madison. His place was back there near Mt. Herman Church. No, we slaves didn't learn any letters, but sometimes the young mistress would read the Bible to us. They were pretty good to us, but sometimes I would catch a whipping. I was a hoe boy and plowman. My mother's name was Silvia Dalton and my father's name was Peter Dalton. They belonged to Master Lee, and his wife was Miss Matilda Steeples (Staples). Master Lee lived on Beaver Island Creek at the John Hampton Price place. Mr. Price bought it. He married Miss Mollie Dalton, Master Lee's daughter. There's an old graveyard there where lots of Daltons are buried, but no colored folks. They're buried to the side of Stoneville[Pg 225] with no white folks at all buried there. The old Daltons were buried on the Old Jimmy Scales plantation. They bought it, and little John Price, who runs a tobacco warehouse in Madison, owns it now. (1937) His tenant is Master Walt Hill, and it's five miles from Madison. I know where the old Deatherage graveyard is too, up near Stoneville where some Daltons are buried. Old Master Lee's mother was a Deatherage.

Ole Marse was good to us, and I stayed on his plantation and farmed until I came to Madison. The Yankees, they didn’t give us anything, so we kind of had to rely on old Marse.

For eighteen years, I can remember the Methodist Church here in Madison. I wasn't converted under the Holiness preaching of James Foust but during the revival of Reverend William Scales. William didn't have much education. His wife was Mittie Scales, and her mother was Chlocy Scales, sister to Tommie Scales, the shoemaker, who passed away last summer (July 1936). William just wanted so much to preach, and Mittie supported him. I've been a class leader, a steward, and a trustee in the church. It's St. Stephen's, and the new brick church was built in 1925, and Mr. John Wilson's son wrote a piece about it in the paper. The first church was down there across the street from Jim Foust's "tabernacle." [Pg 226] But the first colored church in Madison was a Union church over there by the Presbyterian graveyard where the Gyartuh factory is now. And Jane Richardson was the leader.

Yeah, I had to move in with my son, Frank Dalton, because I had no other choice. Frank married Mattie Cardwell. Do you remember Mary Mann? She married Anderson Cardwell. They've both passed away a long time ago. They're buried right here in Mayodan, where Mr. Bollin's house is and where those new bungalows are, too. A lot of Black people are buried there along with the slaves of Old Miss Nancy (Watkins) Webster until the Mayo Mills came along and they built Mayodan at the Mayo Falls. That's where my daughter-in-law's family is buried.

My kids—Frank, one died in West Virginia; Cora married Henry Cardwell; Hattie married Roy Current and they live in Winston; Della married Arthur Adkins, and Joe, and George and Perry and Nathaniel Dalton, and.

Yes, my daughter-in-law has the information about the brick church, the ones who started it, and she'll make it available for you to get easily when you come back for it.

Nome, at Marse Lee Dalton's place, we slaves never went to church. But young Miss would read the Bible to us sometimes.

[Pg 227]Here in the five-room, white-painted cottage of his son, Frank, Unka Challilie is well taken care of by his daughter-in-law, Mattie. A front porch faces the Mayodan hard road, just a few doors from the "coppubration line." A well-made arch highlights the entrance to the front walk, with a climbing rose thriving on it. The well-kept grass and flowers along the edges show Mattie's care. To the right is the vegetable garden, which is invaded by several large Dominicker chickens. A kudzu vine provides shade from the hot western sun. Unka Challilie sits on the front porch and nods to his friends; or back in the kitchen, he sits watching Mattie iron after finishing his breakfast. Several hens come onto the back porch and lay their eggs in the boxes there. One hen is "uh settin" for fried chicken later! A walnut tree, "uh white wawnut," sways with its long dangly green blooms as the leaves are just half grown in early May. Well-dressed, clean, polite, and comforted by his faith, but very "trimbly" even with his sturdy walking stick, Unka Challilie often dozes off his "no countness" with "uh napuh sleepin" while the hustle and bustle of traffic and tourists stir the rose climbing over the entrance arch. An ex-slave who started with nothing that the Yankees gave him, who lived on his old master's place until he was forty-eight, who worked at the Mayo Mills until he became too "trimbly" to be around the machinery, who raised eleven children on an acre of red Rockingham County hillside, faces the next chapter of his life with plenty to eat, wear, and enough time to take a nap. [Pg 228]

I’m named after my dad’s old master down in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Of course, I don’t know anything about the war because I wasn’t born yet. I do remember seeing the old big house door; maybe you want me to tell you how it looked?

It was a large white two-story house at the end of a magnolia lane and sitting in a big flat field. Behind the big house were the old slave cabins where my family used to live.

Dey said that the food was good to them, but that sometimes in the morning they just have biscuits and cornbread for breakfast.

I started to tell you about the Joe Moe deal.

You might not know this, but the prisoners here don’t get as down when visitors come on visiting days, and the mail arrives regularly. We're always finding ways to have a little fun, so someone starts up the Joe Moe.

You can see that when a new person of color arrives, he feels scared and down. Someone goes to cheer him up and asks him if he wouldn't rather be here than dead.[Pg 231] You see, he's feeling really low at that moment, so maybe he says he’d rather be dead; then this guy who is trying to cheer him up tells him that, okay, he definitely will die because he’s got the bad luck on him.

Several days later, this new black guy finds a little rag stuffed between the bed and mattress, and he asks what it is. Someone tells him it's the Joe Moe, and they say the only way he can get rid of the curse is to pass the bag onto someone else. Everyone except him knows about it, so the Joe Moe keeps coming back until a new person arrives and learns the joke.

Talking about ghosts, I want to tell you that the air is full of them. There's a strip on the ground about four feet high that is lighter on the darkest night because it can't get dark down there. Get down and crawl, and you'll see a million legs of every kind, and if you listen, you'll hear a little groaning, and then you'll have gone through a warm spot.

B. N.

My full name is Harriet Ann Daves, but I prefer to be called Harriet Ann. When my mother was alive, I didn't want to respond unless she called me Harriet Ann. I was born on June 6, 1856. Milton Waddell, my mother's master, was my father, and he never denied me to anyone.

My mother was a slave, but she was white. I don’t know who my mother’s father was. My mother’s name was Mary Collins. She said her father was an Indian. My mother’s mother was Mary Jane Collins, and she was white—maybe partly Indian. My grandfather was an old man named William D. Waddell, a white man. I was born in Virginia near Orange Courthouse. The Waddells moved to Lexington, Missouri, after I was born. I guess some of the family wouldn’t like it if they knew I was sharing this. We had good food and a nice place to live. I was just a child, but I remember being treated kindly. I remember the surrender very clearly. When the surrender happened, my grandfather came to my mother and told her, ‘Well, you are as free as I am.’ That was William D. Waddell. He was one of the important people among the white folks.[Pg 234]

My white grandmother wanted my mom to completely hand me over to her. She insisted she had more right to me than my Indian grandmother and claimed she could provide me with more education and care. My mom refused to let me go, and my grandmother cried. Eventually, my mom gave me to my Indian grandmother. Later, I returned to my mom.

While we were in Missouri, some of my father's relatives, a white girl, invited me to come up to the main house. I had long curls and was considered pretty. The girl said, "What a pretty child," and kissed me. Then she made a comment that my father, my white father who was present, didn't like. He told her I was his child and that I was just as good as she was. I remember this incident very clearly.

My mom had two kids with the same white man, my dad. The other one was a girl. She passed away in California. My dad never married. He loved my mom and said that if he couldn't marry Mary, he didn't want to marry anyone at all. Dad said he didn't want any other woman. He was good to me and would give me anything I asked for. Mom would make me ask him for things for her. She said it was no problem for me to ask him for things she couldn't get unless I asked him. When the surrender happened, my mom told my dad she was tired of living that way and that if she couldn't be his legal wife, she didn't want to be anything to him, so she left and went to Leavenworth, Kansas. She died there in 1935. I don't know where my dad is, whether he’s alive or dead, or what happened to him.

I can read and write well. They didn’t teach us to read and write during the slavery days. I went to a school started by the Yankees after the surrender.

I went with my mom to Leavenworth, Kansas. She enrolled me in school in Flat, Nebraska. That's where I met my husband. My first husband was Elisha Williams; I left school in Flat and married him. He took me to Raleigh. He was born and raised in Wake County. We lived together for about a year before he passed away on July 1st, 1872. We had one child, but sadly that child died in infancy.

I married Rufus H. Daves for the second time in 1875. He was basically a white man. He wouldn’t even be mistaken for a mulatto. He used to belong to the Haywoods. He died in 1931 in Raleigh.[Pg 236]

I think Abraham Lincoln was a great, thoughtful guy; my mom admired him a lot, but he left us with nothing to eat or live on. I don't think Mr. Roosevelt is either really great or really bad—just an average guy.

AC

I was born in Warren County to Mataldia and Jordan Davis. There were twenty-two of us kids, and naturally, Master Sam Davis liked my mom and dad. He owned two hundred and seventy slaves and three, four, or five farms.

Marster was good to us; he gave us plenty to eat and wear, and he was good and kind in his talking. I wasn't big enough to do much besides mind the chickens and things like that.

I don't remember much about the Yankees coming except seeing them, and that they gave my dad a new blue overcoat that I slept on once or twice. I know that the Yankees were good to the black people, but they weren’t so good to the old folks. They did destroy almost everything, though.

I can't remember, but I've heard my mom talk about dances, corn shucking, wrestling matches, candy pullings, and stuff like that the slaves had back in the day.[Pg 239]

My dad told me about the cockfights in the big pits at Warrenton and how, when the roosters got killed, the owner would often give the dead bird to him. I've also heard him talk about the horse races and about Master Sam's fine horses.

I know that the master and missus were good people because my mom and dad insisted on staying right after the war, and so they died and were buried there on Master Sam's property.

I worked in the Dupont Powder plant during World War II, but I was discharged because I had an acid injury.

Yessum, I'll tell you the only real old tale that I know and that is the story about——Jack.

Once there was a white man in Beaufort County who owned a Black man named Jack. This man owned a boat and he was always going boating, day and night. He taught Jack how to steer and often would fall asleep, leaving Jack at the wheel, with instructions to always steer by the seven stars.[Pg 240]

One night, as Jack was steering for his master to sleep, Jack suddenly fell asleep too. When he woke up, it was just at the crack of dawn, so there were no stars out.

Jack ran to the master yelling, "Please, sir, master, hang up some more stars, I've already passed seven of them."

Once Jack and the devil got into a dispute about who could throw a rock the farthest. The devil said that he could throw a rock so far that it wouldn't come down for three days.

Iffen you can throw a rock farther than that, says the devil, I'll give you your freedom.

De weak guy throws a rock up and it stays in the air for three days. When it finally comes down, Jack picks it up and says, "Good Lord, move the stars and the moon because there's a rock coming to heaven."

De debil says, 'If you can do that then you can beat me because I can't throw a rock a mile to heaven.'

AC

Yes, I remember the Yankees coming to Raleigh. I don't know much about those times because I was so young, but I definitely remember the Yankees in their blue uniforms, their horses, and so on. I'll be 78 years old on the 8th of this coming September, and I've heard my mother and father talk a lot about the time of slavery. We belonged to T. R. Debnam at Eagle Rock, Wake County. His wife was named Priscilla Debnam. My father's name was Daniel Debnam and my mother's name was Liza Debnam. My master had several plantations and a lot of slaves. I don’t know how many, but I know he had them. He fed us well; we had a decent place to sleep. We had woven clothes, enough to keep us warm. He treated me just like I was his own child. I didn’t know the difference. Master and Missus never hit me a single time in their lives. My mother was the house girl. My father managed things around the house and sometimes worked in the fields. Our houses were in the master’s yard. The slave quarters were in the yard of the big house. I don't remember going to church until after the surrender.

I remember the corn shuckings, but I don't recall the Christmas or Fourth of July holidays. There was a lot of whiskey at the corn shuckings and plenty of good food to eat.[Pg 243]

I heard my dad talk about patterollers, but I don't know what they were. He said he had to have a pass to visit anywhere, or they would beat him if they could catch him. Sometimes they couldn't catch a Black person they were after. Yeah, they taught us to say dad and mom back then.

I remember the raccoon and possum hunts and the rabbits we caught in the trees. I remember hunting birds at night with thorn brush. When bird hunting, we chased them at night with lights made from big splinters. We visited grass patches, briars, and vines along the creeks and low ground where they roosted, and we blinded them and killed them when they came out. We cooked them on coals, and I remember making a stew and having dumplings with it. We'd disturb the birds in their roosting spots, and when they came out blinded by the light, we hit them and killed them with the thorn brush we carried in our hands.

Marster had a grandson, the son of Alonza Hodge and Arabella Hodge, about my age, and I spent most of my time with him. When Alonza Hodge bought his son anything, he bought it for me too. He treated us the same. He got each of us a pony. We could ride well when we were little. He let us follow him around. He let us go hunting for squirrels with him. When he shot and killed a squirrel, he allowed us to race to see who could get it first, while he laughed at us.[Pg 244]

I didn't sleep in the big house. I stayed with this white boy until bedtime, then my mom came and got me and took me home. When the master wanted us boys to go with him, he'd say, "Let's go, boys," and we would follow him. We were like brothers. I ate with him at the table. Whatever they ate, I ate. He made the house girl wait on me just like he and his son were waited on.

My father stayed with the master until he passed away when he was 63, and I was 21; we both remained there. My white friend’s name was Richard Hodge. I stayed there until I got married. When I turned 25, I married Ida Rawlson. Richard Hodge became a doctor, but he died young, just before my wedding.

They taught me how to read and write. After the surrender, I went to a free school. Whenever I didn’t know a word, I went to the old master, and he would tell me.

During my whole life, no one can question my morals. I was raised by my white parents to not lie, steal, or do anything immoral. I've lived a clean life. There's nothing that can be held against me.

I remember the Yankees, sure, and some things they did. Well, I remember the big yellow turkey they couldn't catch. It got up and flew, and they shot it and killed it. They went down to the master’s store and broke the top off a barrel of molasses, and after they did that, I grabbed a tin bucket, filled it with molasses, and started to the [Pg 245] house. Then they pushed me into the molasses. I set the bucket down and hit a Yankee on the leg with a dogwood stick. He tried to hit me back. The Yankees gathered around him, made him leave me alone, gave me my bucket of molasses, and I took it on to the house. They went down to the lot, let all the horses loose, and took two of the big mules, Kentucky mules, and carried them off. One of the mules would chew through every line you tied him with, and the other couldn't be ridden. So the next morning after the Yankees took them, they both came back home with pieces of lines on them. The mules had names; one was named Bill and the other Charles. You could ride old Charles, but you couldn't ride old Bill. He would throw you off as soon as you got on him.

After I got married at 25, I lived there for ten years, right there; but old master had died and mistress had died. I stayed with his son Nathaniel; his wife was named Drusilla.

I had five brothers: Richard, Daniel, Rogene, Lorenzo, and Lumus, along with me. There wasn't enough room for all of us, so I left. After I left there, I moved to Raleigh. The first company I worked for here was George Marsh Company, then W. A. Myatt Company, and no one else. I worked with the Myatt Company for twenty-six years until I got shot.

It was around 12:30 PM. I was heading home for dinner on December 20, 1935. As I was[Pg 246] passing Patterson's Alley and entering Lenoir Street near the Black park in the 500 block, something hit me. I looked around and heard a shot. The bullet struck me before I heard the gun go off. When I was hit, I looked back and heard it. Capt. Bruce Pool from the Raleigh Police Department had shot at a thief who had broken into an A&P store, and the bullet hit me. It hit me in my left thigh, just above the knee. It went through my thigh, a .38 caliber bullet, and lodged under the skin on the other side. I didn't fall but stood on one foot while blood ran from the wound. A car came by about half an hour later; they stopped and took me to St. Agnes Hospital. It wasn't a police car. I stayed there for a week. They removed the bullet, and then I had to go to the hospital every day for a month. I haven't been able to work at all since then. I was employed at W. A. Myatt Company when I got shot. My leg hurts now and swells up. I can't stand on it much. I'm unable to work a full day. The city paid me $200 and covered my hospital bill.

Abraham Lincoln was a good guy. I believe slavery was wrong because birds and other creatures are free, and humans should have the same right.

Franklin Roosevelt is an amazing man. People would have gone hungry if he hadn't helped them.

I was born in Orange County sometime in the fifties.

Mis Polly White Cain and Mr. Doctor Cain were my white folks. Mr. Cain's plantation was next to Mr. Paul Cameron's land. Mr. Cain owned so many Black people that he didn’t recognize his own slaves when he met them on the road. Sometimes, he would stop them and say, "Whose slaves are you?" They'd respond, "We're Mr. Cain's slaves." Then he would say, "I'm Mr. Cain," and drive on.

Marse Cain treated his Black workers well. He didn’t whip them like some owners did, but if they acted up, he sold them. They knew this, so they respected him. One day, Grandpa talked back to Miss Polly White, and she told him that if he didn’t behave, she would put him in her pocket. Grandpa was a big man, and I asked him how Miss Polly could do that. He said she meant that she would sell him and keep the money for herself. He never talked back to Miss Polly again.

I was kept at the big house to wait on Miss Polly, to carry her basket of keys and things like that. Whenever she saw a child down in the quarters that she wanted to raise, she would take them up to the big house and train them. I was meant to be a housemaid. The day she took me, my mom cried because she knew I would never be allowed to live in the cabin with her again. Miss Polly was big and plump, and she made us Black people behave, and we had to stay clean. My dresses[Pg 249] and aprons were starched stiff. I had a clean apron every day. We had white sheets on the beds, and we Black people had plenty to eat too, even ham. When Miss Polly went for a ride, she took me in the carriage with her. The driver sat way up high while Miss Polly and I sat way down low. There were two horses with shiny harnesses. I carried Miss Polly's bag and bundles, and if she dropped her handkerchief, I picked it up. I loved Miss Polly and loved staying at the big house.

I was about waist high when the soldiers gathered. I went with Miss Polly down to the muster field where they were marching. I can see their feet now as they stamped them up and down, saying, "hep, hep." When they were all set to go and fight, the women prepared a big dinner. Aunt Charity and Pete cooked for two or three days for Miss Polly. The table was piled with chicken, ham, pork, barbecue, lamb, and all sorts of pies, cakes, and other things, but nobody ate much. Miss Polly and the ladies started crying. The food got cold. I was so sad that I went to the corner and cried too. The men were all wearing their new soldier uniforms, and they didn’t eat anything either. Young Master Jim went up and put his arm around Miss Polly, his mom, but that made her cry even harder. Master Jim was in the cavalry. He rode a big horse, and my Uncle Dave went with him to the field as his bodyguard. He had a horse too, so if Master Jim's horse got shot, there would be another one for him to ride. Miss Polly had another son, but he was too drunk to hold a gun. He stayed drunk.

The first cannon I heard scared me nearly to death. We could hear them going boom, boom. I thought it was thunder, then[Pg 250] Miss Polly said, 'Listen, Sarah, hear those cannons? They’re killing our men.' Then she started to cry.

I ran into the kitchen where Aunt Charity was cooking and told her that Miss Polly was crying. She said, "She isn't crying because the Yankees are killing the men; she's crying because she's scared we're going to be set free." Then I got angry and told her Miss Polly wasn't like that.

I remember when Wheelers Cavalry came through. They were Confederates, but they were just as mean as the Yankees. They stole everything they could find and killed a lot of Black people. They came around checking things out. They asked the Black people if they wanted to be free. If they said yes, then they shot them down, but if they said no, they left them alone. They took three of my uncles out into the woods and shot their faces off.

I remember the first time the Yankees came. They came galloping down the road, jumping over the fences, trampling the rose bushes, and messing up the flower beds. They stomped all over the house, in the kitchen, pantries, smokehouse, and everywhere, but they didn’t find much because almost everything had been hidden. I was sitting on the steps when a big Yankee approached. He was wearing a cap, and his eyes looked mean.

'Where did they hide the gold and silver, Black?' he yelled at me.

I was scared and my hands were ashy, but I told him I didn’t know anything; that if anyone hid stuff, they did it while I was asleep.[Pg 251]

'Go ask that old white-headed devil,' he said to me.

I got angry because he was talking about Miss Polly, so I didn't say anything. I just sat there. Then he pushed me off the step and said if I didn't dance, he was going to shoot my toes off. As scared as I was, I definitely shuffled a bit. Then he gave me five dollars and told me to go buy some treats, but that piece of paper was no good. It was just a worthless note like all that war money; you couldn't spend it.

Dat Yankee kept calling Miss Polly a white-headed devil and said she had ransacked everything until there was nothing left, but he had his men haul away meat, flour, pigs, and chickens. After that, Miss Polly became really stingy with the food, and they didn't have any more ham.

When the war was over, the Yankees were everywhere telling the black people what to do. They told them they were free, that they didn’t have to work for the white folks anymore. My family all left Marse Cain and moved into houses that the Yankees built. They were like poor white folks' houses, little shacks made of sticks and mud with stick and mud chimneys. They weren’t like Marse Cain's cabins, which were planked and warm; they were full of cracks, and there were no lamps or oil. All the light came from the lightwood knots burning in the fireplace.

One day my mom came to the big house to get me. I didn't want to go; I wanted to stay with Miss Polly. I started to cry, and Mom grabbed hold of me. I clung to Miss Polly so tightly that I tore her skirt's binding loose, and her skirt fell down around[Pg 252] her feet.

'Let her stay with me,' Miss Polly said to Mammy.

But Mom shook her head. "You took her away from me and didn't pay any attention to my crying, so now I’m taking her back home. We're free now, Miss Polly, we’re not going to be slaves to anyone anymore." She pulled me away. I can picture how Miss Polly looked now. She didn't say anything, but she stared hard at Mom and her face was pale.

Mom took me to the stick-and-mud house that the Yankees had given her. It was smoky and dark because there weren't any windows. We didn't have any sheets or towels, so when I cried and said I didn't want to live in a Yankee house, Mom punished me and made me go to bed. I lay on the straw mattress looking up through the cracks in the roof. I could see the stars, and the sky shining through the cracks looked like long blue splinters stretched across the rafters. I lay there and cried because I wanted to go back to Miss Polly.

I was never hungry until we were free and the Yankees fed us. We didn’t have anything to eat except hardtack and mediocre meat. I had never seen such meat. It was thin and tough with a thick skin. You could boil it all day and all night and it wouldn’t cook through; I wouldn’t eat it. I thought it was mule meat; mules that had been shot on the battlefield and then dried. I still believe it was mule meat.

One day, my brother and I were looking for acorns in the woods. We found something that looked like a grave. I told Dave there was something buried in that mound. We got the hoe and started digging. There was a box with eleven hams in that grave. Somebody had hidden it from the Yankees and forgot where they buried it. We covered it back up because if we took it home during the day, the Yankees and Black people would take it away from us. So when night came, we sneaked out and carried the hams to the house and hid them in the attic.

Dem was bad days. I'd rather have been a slave than hired out like I was, because I wasn't any field hand; I was a maid, trained to serve the ladies. Even then, I was hungry most of the time and had to keep fighting off those Yankee men. Those Yankees were mean people.

We've come a long way since those times. I've lived about ninety years and I've seen and heard a lot. My family doesn't want me to talk about slavery; they say it's a shame that Black people were ever enslaved. But, while for most Black folks freedom is the best thing, there are still some Black people who should be slaves now. These are the ones who have completely forgotten the Lord; those who are always arguing and fighting and sneaking into white people's houses at night, they ought to be slaves. They should have an Old Master with a whip to make them come when he says come, and go when he says go, until they learn to live properly.

I look back now and think. I've never forgotten those slavery days, and I've never forgotten Miss Polly and my white starched aprons.

My name is Charles W. Dickens. I live at 1115 East Lenoir Street, Raleigh, North Carolina, Wake County. I was born on August 16, 1861, the year the war started. My mother's name was Ferebee Dickens. My father's name was John Dickens. I had nine siblings. My brothers were named Allen, Douglas, my name, Jake, Johnnie, and Jonas. The girls were Katie, Matilda Francis, and Emily Dickens.

My grandmother was named Charity Dickens. My grandfather was Dudley T. Dickens. I don’t know where they came from. No, I don’t think I do. My mother belonged to Washington Scarborough, and so did we kids. My father belonged to Obediah Dickens, and his wife was named Silvia Dickens. They allowed my mother to use my father’s last name after they got married.

We lived in log cabins and had bunks in them. The master passed away, but I remember the missus was really good to us. We had decent food, and as far as I know, she treated us well in every way. We had good clothes made from loom-woven fabric. My father lived in Franklin County, and my mother lived in Wake County. I remember hearing my father talk about walking a long way to see us.[Pg 256] There were about a dozen slaves on the plantation. There were no hired overseers. The missus managed everything herself. I heard my father talk about the patrollers, but I never saw any. He said he couldn’t leave the plantation without some kind of permission.

No, sir, the white people didn’t teach us to read and write. My parents, no sir, they didn’t have any books at all. We attended the white folks' church. My father made slats and crafted baskets to sell. He said his master allowed him to keep all the money he made from selling his creations. He learned a trade. He was a carpenter. One of the young masters got after my father, he told me, and he hid under the house to avoid getting beaten. When the missus came home, she wouldn’t let the young master hit him. She just wouldn’t allow it.

I remember the Yankees coming through. When my mom heard they were coming, she took us kids and brought us down into an old field, and after that, she brought us back to the house. The lady lived in a two-story house. We lived in a little log house in front of her place. My mom had a shoulder of meat that she hid under a mattress in the house. When the Yankees left, she looked for it; they had stolen the meat and taken off. Yes, they stole from us slaves. The road the Yankees were traveling was as crowded with them as your fingers. I remember their blue uniforms, their blue caps. The chickens they were carrying on their horses were cawing. They were driving cows, hogs, and other stuff. Yes sir, they came first. The barns and fields were on one side of the road they were traveling on, and the houses were on the other. After many Yankees had passed, they put a bodyguard at the door of the big house and didn’t let anyone go in there. I looked down at the Yankees and spat at them. My mom pulled me back and said, 'Come back here, child, they will kill you.'

They took the horses from the plantation and the meat from the mistress' smokehouse and buried it. My uncle, Louis Scarborough, stayed with the horses. He’s still alive and over a hundred years old. He lives down at Moores Mill in Wake County, near Youngsville. Before the surrender, one of the boys got into a fight with my uncle, one of the Scarborough boys. My uncle threw him down. The young Master Scarborough jumped up, got his knife, and cut my uncle's insides out, so my uncle had to carry them to the house in his hands. About a year after the war, my father took us to Franklin County. He transported us in a steer cart. That's about all I remember about the war.

Abraham Lincoln was the man who set us free. I believe he was a truly great man. He did so much for the Black community, but what he achieved was meant to happen through a higher power. I don't think slavery was right.[Pg 258]

I believe Mr. Roosevelt is a great man, one of the best presidents in the world. I voted for him, and I would vote for him again. He has done a lot for the people, and he’s still doing it. He really cares about them. Yes, sir, he definitely has a lot of compassion for the people.

MM

My name is Margaret E. Dickens and I was born on June 5, 1861. My mother was free-born; her name was Mary Ann Hews, but my mother was Black. I don’t remember anything about Master and Mistress. My father was named Henry Byrd. Here’s some of my father’s writing. My mother’s father was dark-skinned. He had no protection. If he did any work for a white man and the white man didn’t like it, he could take him and beat him. My father was like a stray dog.

My name was Margaret E. Byrd before I got married. Here’s some of my father’s writing—“Margaret Elvira Byrd, the daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Byrd, was born on June 5, 1861.” My grandfather, my mother’s father, was a cabinetmaker. He made coffins, tables, and furniture. If he made something that didn’t satisfy the customer, he would beat him up and kick him around before letting him go. I was told this. My father was a carpenter. He built houses.

I can read and write. My dad could read and write. My mom could read, but she couldn't write very much.

I heard my mother say that when she found out the Yankees were coming, she had a brand new quilt that my father owned before he married her. It was a woolen woven quilt. She took it off and hid it. The Yankees took whatever they wanted but didn’t find it. At the time, we were living in Raleigh, in the same place we are now. The old house has been torn down, but some of the wood is in this very house. I can show you part of the old house now. My mother used to walk by this place when she was a girl, and she told me she never expected to live here. She was twenty years younger than my father. My mother lived here most of the time, except for the twenty-four years she spent in the North. She passed away in 1916. My father bought the land in 1848 from a man named Henry Morgan. Here is the deed.[6]

When we left Raleigh and headed North, our first stop was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was with my first husband, Samuel E. Reynolds, who was a preacher with his own church. The East winds were so strong and cold that we couldn't handle it; it was too chilly for us. Then we went to Providence, Rhode Island, and from there to Elmira, New York. After that, we moved on to Brooklyn, New York, where he preached in the State of New York. Eventually, we made our way back South, and he passed away right here in this house. I really like the North, [Pg 262] but nothing compares to home, which is the South. Also, I don't have as many white relatives up North. I don't like being called Auntie by anyone unless they acknowledge being related to me. I wasn't naive when I went to the North, and it didn't change me. I was raised to respect everyone, and I try to keep that up. Some things in the North are good; I enjoy them, but I prefer the South. Yes, I guess I like the South more. I married Charles W. Dickens in 1920. He’s my second husband.

I inherited this place from my dad, Henry Byrd. I really appreciate well water. There’s my well, right out in the yard. This well was dug when they were building the first house here. I believe in having your own home, so I’ve held on to mine, and I’m going to keep trying to hold on to it.

My name is Squire Dowd, and I was born on April 3, 1855. My mother's name was Jennie Dowd. My father's name was Elias Kennedy. My mother passed away in Georgia at the age of 70, and my father died in Moore County at the age of 82. I attended his funeral. My sister and her husband took my mother to Georgia when her husband went there to work in turpentine. My mother's husband had already died. She married a man named Stewart. It was nearly impossible to keep track of your father during the time of slavery. It was a tough situation. There were few legal marriages. When a young man from one plantation courted a young girl on another plantation, the master would marry them, often without even knowing what he was saying.

My master was General W. D. Dowd. He lived three miles from Carthage, in Moore County, North Carolina. He owned fifty slaves. The conditions were good. I had only ten years of experience, but it was a positive experience. No one is foolish enough to buy slaves just to harm them. I have never seen a true slave owner mistreat their slaves. Abuse was carried out by patterollers and overseers.[Pg 265]

I have a traditional view of slavery. I taught school for four years and have been in the ministry for fifty years. I was ordained as a Christian minister in 1885. I lived in Moore County until 1889, then I moved to Raleigh. I have strong feelings about this. I don't like when people think of slaves as being no better than dogs; I find that unacceptable. It gives people a skewed understanding of slavery. Take John Bectom, a well-built, healthy friend of mine who is 75 years old. If we had been treated the way some claim, these strong, healthy Black individuals wouldn't be walking around in the South today. The prominent Black leaders we have now would never have emerged.

The places we lived in were called cabins. The Black people who were hardworking had nice, well-kept homes; and it’s still that way now. The hardworking members of the Black community live well; those who are lazy live in run-down places that smell bad and are filthy.

Prayer meetings took place at night in the slaves' cabins. On Sundays, we attended the white people's church. We sat in a restricted area, at the back of the church or in the balcony.

We had a great time at corn huskings. There was a lot of good food to eat, and plenty of whiskey and brandy to drink. These huskings took place at night. We had a blast, and I never saw a fight at a corn husking in my life. If we could catch the master after the husking[Pg 266] was done, we, the blacks, would put him in a chair, carry him around, shout, and take him into the parlor, set him down, and comb his hair. We called the old master "master." We referred to his wife as "missus." When the white children grew up, we called them Mars. John, Miss Mary, and so on.

We had some money. We made baskets. On moonlit nights and holidays, we cleared land; the owner gave us what we earned from the land. We had money.

The Black people also provided support to deserters during the war, and they paid us for it. I took what I could, like sugar. I wasn’t old enough to steal for the deserters. I was a house boy. I stole honey. I didn’t realize I was free until five years after the war. I couldn’t understand my freedom. Many of us just stayed put. If we hadn’t been taken advantage of right after the war by carpetbaggers, our community would have been, well—better off by now, because they turned us against our former masters, who had everything while we had nothing. The Freedmen's Bureau helped us a bit, but in the end, we had to return to the plantation just to survive.

We had days off for elections, Christmas, New Year, and other holidays. Back when we were enslaved, we got a week or more for Christmas. The holidays stretched from Christmas Eve to just after New Year's. Sometimes we got passes. If our master[Pg 267] wouldn’t give them to us, the white boys we played with would help us out. We played games like tag, jumping, wrestling, and marbles. We played just for fun, not for money. The plantation was 500 acres big. We did a lot of hunting, and we sold the fur from the animals we caught to make some money. We were also allowed to raise a few chickens and pigs, which we could sell if we wanted.

The white people rode to church while the Black people walked, just like many of the poor white folks did. We saw the poor white folks as our equals. They interacted with us and helped us envy our masters. They viewed our masters the same way we did.

Negro women having children with their masters was common. My relatives on my mother's side, who are Kellys, are of mixed race. They have some white ancestry. We, the Black community, and many of the white people dislike that this situation exists. It's enough to say that seeing is believing. There have been and still are many mixed-race individuals in our community.

I was dressed well. Our clothes were made on looms. Shoes were made on the plantation too. There were also distilleries on the plantation. When they told me I was free, I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t realize it until many years later when a man gave a speech at Carthage,[Pg 268] telling us we were free.

I didn't like the Yankees. We were scared of them. We had to be taught to love the Yankees and to understand that they freed us and were our allies. I feel that Abraham Lincoln was like a father to us. We see him that way because he liberated us. The Freedmen's Bureau and carpetbaggers made us envy our former masters and the white folks. The Ku Klux Klan stepped in when we tried to assert our rights, and we didn’t know how to respond. The Klan targeted the carpetbaggers and the Black people who supported them.

It was understood that white people couldn't teach Black individuals during slavery, but many white people did teach them. The children of white families made us study. I could read and write by the time the war started. They made me go through books, usually a blue-back spelling book, as punishment for the bad things I did. My Missus, a young lady about 16 years old, taught a Sunday School class for Black boys and girls. This Sunday School was held at a different time than the one for white people. Sometimes older men and women attended these classes. I remember once they asked Uncle Ben Pearson who the meekest man was. He replied, 'Moses.' 'Who was the wisest man?' 'Solomon.' Then they asked him, 'Who was the strongest man?' He said, 'They say Bill[Pg 269] Medlin is the strongest, but Tom Shaw gives him a run for his money.' They were respected men in the community. Medlin was white; Shaw was Black.

I don't like how they've ruined our songs with classical music. I enjoy songs like 'Roll Jordan Roll,' 'Old Ship of Zion,' and 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot.' Classical singers just make them worse.

There was no point in us going to town on Saturday afternoon to get our supplies, so we worked on Saturday afternoons. When we got sick, the doctors treated us. Dr. J. D. Shaw, Dr. Bruce, and Dr. Turner. They were the first doctors I ever heard of. They treated both white people and Black people on my master's plantation.

I married Anna Matthews in August 1881. We have one daughter named Ella. She married George Cheatam from Henderson, N.C. A magistrate, Mr. Pitt Cameron, officiated our wedding. It was a simple ceremony on Saturday night with about six of my friends in attendance.

My approach to life is to let go of the bad and focus on the good in it. This is my motto.

B. N.

I don’t exactly know my age, but I remember when the Yankees came through Wake County. I was a little girl and was so scared that I ran and hid under the bed. The Yankees stopped at the plantation and along the road to take a break. I remember I had diphtheria and a Yankee doctor came and treated my throat. They had to pull me out from under the bed so he could help me.

One Yankee would come along and give us something, and then another would come right after and take it. That’s how it was. One gave my mom a mule, and when they were gone, she sold it. A Yankee gave my mom a ham, and another came right behind him and took it away from her. There sure was a long line of those Yankees. I can remember seeing them march by like it was yesterday. I wasn’t old enough to work, but I remember them. I don’t know exactly, but I was about five years old when the surrender happened.

My name before I married was Fannie Sessoms and my mother's name was Della Sessoms. We were owned by Dr. Isaac Sessoms and our mistress was named Hanna. My father's name was Perry Vick, named after his master who was also named Perry Vick. My mistress died during the war and my master never remarried.

I don't remember much about her, but my mother told me she was a good woman and she loved her. The master was really good to us and didn't let patrollers whip us at all. The slave houses were warm, and actually, they were good houses that didn't leak either.

I don’t remember much about my grandparents, just a little that my mom told me. Grandma belonged to the Sessoms and Dr. Isaac Sessoms was my mother’s father. My mom told me that. Look at that picture, sir; you can’t tell her apart from a white woman. That’s my mom’s picture. She was as white as you, with long hair and a face like a white woman. She’s been gone for about twenty years. My mom said that we all did well, but of course, we wore homemade clothes and wooden-soled shoes.

We went to the white people's church at Red Oak and Rocky Mount Missionary Baptist Churches. We were allowed to have prayer meetings at the slave quarters two or three times a week. I remember going to church around the last year of the war with my mother. I had an apple with me, and I got hungry and wanted to eat it during the service, but my mother just looked at me and touched my arm; that was enough. I didn't eat the apple. I remember how badly I wanted to eat it. I don't remember much about that sermon; I guess I was focused on the apple too much.

Marster had about twenty slaves, and my mother said they had always been allowed to go to church and have prayer meetings before I was born. Marster had both white and Black overseers, but he wouldn’t let any of them be too harsh with his slaves. He would call an overseer out for being rough at the wrong time. Charles Sessoms was one of Marster's Black[Pg 273] overseers. He belonged to Marster, and my mother said Marster always listened to what Charles said. They said Marster had always favored him even before he made him overseer. One day, Charles Sessoms suddenly dropped dead, and my mother found him. She called Marster Sessoms, and he came and just cried. My mother said by the time Marster got there, he was definitely dead; Marster just boohooed and went to the house, not wanting to look at him again until they started to take him to the grave. Everyone on the plantation went to his burial and funeral, along with some people from the neighboring plantation that joined ours.

I don't remember much about my wife, but I do remember one time when she chased me while I was coming home from the big house, and she said, "I'm going to catch you, now I’ve caught you." The way she teased me made me love her. When she passed away, my mother told me about her being gone and took me to her burial. The next day, I wanted to go and bring her back. I told my mother I wanted her to come home and eat. My mother cried and picked me up in her arms, saying, "Sweetheart, your wife will never eat here again." I was so young I didn’t understand.

Dr. Sessoms and Dr. Drake, who married his daughter, took care of us when we were sick. Dr. Joe Drake married the master's only daughter, Harriet, and his only son, David, died in Mississippi. He had a plantation there.

I've only been married once. I got married forty years ago to Sidney Dunn. I had one child, but she's passed away.[Pg 274]

From what I know about slavery and what my mother told me, I can't say it was a bad thing. Sir, I want to tell the truth and I can't say it's bad because my mother said she had a great time as a slave, and I know I had a good time and was treated well.

LE

I was born here in Wake County eighty-seven years ago. My family, along with about six others, belonged to Miss Betsy Lassiter, who was really good to us, although she definitely knew that kids need a little discipline now and then.

My dad was named Isaac, my mom was named Liza, and my sisters were named Lucy, Candice, and Harriet. There was one boy who died before I can remember, and I don’t know his name.

We didn’t play any games or sing any songs, but we had fruit to eat and a lot of watermelons to eat in the season.

I saw several slave sales on the block in front of the Raleigh Courthouse, and you can't imagine how these things stuck in my mind. Many times I saw mothers sold away from their little babies, and there was nothing anyone could do about it, as you know.

De patrols were something that I was scared of. I only know two of them, Mr. Billy Allen Dunn and Mr. Jim Ray, and I've heard some scandalous things that they did. They say that they beat some of the Black people scandalously.[Pg 277]

When they heard that the Yankees were on their way here, they told us that the Yankees eat little Black children, and we definitely stayed hidden.

I just saw some people looking for something to eat, and I heard that they took everything they came across. A lot of it they threw away, and later they got hungry too.

One of them tried to tell us that our white folks stole us from our country and brought us here, but since then I found out that the Yankees stole us themselves, and then they sold us to our white folks.

At the end of the war, my dad and mom brought us to Raleigh, where I've been living ever since. We were doing alright, and the Yankees sent us some teachers, but most of us were so busy running around trying to make a living that we didn't have any time for school.

I think it was better that the slaves were freed, but I still love my white people, and they love me.

My dad, Dempsey, my mom, Rachel, my brothers and sisters, and I all belonged to Mr. Peterson Dunn of Neuse, here in Wake County. There were five of us kids: Allen, Charles, Corina, Madora, and me, all born before the war.

My mom was the cook, and as far back as I can remember, I was a house girl. I fanned flies off the table and did a lot of little things for Mrs. Betsy, Mr. Peterson's wife. My dad worked on the farm, which was probably a big plantation with two hundred or more black workers.

I remember when the news came that war was declared, how Miss Betsy cried and prayed, and how Master Peter argued and paced the floor cursing the Yankees.

De war comes on just the same and some of the men slaves were sent to Roanoke to help build the fort. Yes ma'am, the war comes to the great house and to the slave cabins just alike.

The big house was large and whitewashed, with green shutters and the slave cabins were made of slabs with plank floors. We had plenty to eat and enough to wear, and we were happy. We had our fun and we had our troubles, like little spankings when we weren't good, but that wasn't often.[Pg 280]

Atter so long a time, the rich people tried to hire, or make the poor white trash go in their place, but some of them won't go. They are treated so badly that some of them decide to join the Ku Klux Klan and go live in the woods. When we start to take the eggs or come from the spring house with the butter and milk, they grab us and take the food for themselves.

Dis goes on for a long time, and finally one day in the spring, I sit on the porch and hear a roar. I was responsible for the goslings those days, so I say to the missus, "I think I better get to the goslings because I hear it thundering."

'That ain't thunder, black, that's the cannon,' she says.

'What canon?' I asked.

'Why do they fight with the cannon?' she says.

Well, that evening I was out rounding up the goslings when I heard music. I looked up the road and saw flags, and just then the Yankees showed up, killing as they went. They killed the geese, the ducks, the chickens, pigs, and everything. They went to the house and took all the meat, the flour, and everything they could get their hands on.

When they go to the kitchen where mom is cooking, she curses them out and chases them out of her kitchen. They are definitely a rough crowd.

I will never forget how Miss Betsy cried when the news of the surrender came. She didn't say anything, but Mr. Peter made a speech saying that he didn’t have to sell any of us, that he didn’t mistreat any of us, and that nobody had ever run away from him. Then he told us that anyone who wanted to could stay on for wages.

Well, we stayed for two years, even though my dad died the year after the surrender, then we moved to Mr. Peter's other place at Wake Forest. After that, we moved back to Neuse.

Hit was in the little Baptist church at Neuse where I first saw big black Jim Dunn, and I fell in love with him then, I guess. He said that he loved me then too, but it was three Sundays before he asked to walk me home.

We walked that mile home in front of my mom, and I was so happy that I didn't even think it was half a mile. We had cornbread and turnips for dinner, and it was night before he went home. Mom wouldn’t let me walk with him to the gate. I knew that, so I just sat there on the porch and said goodnight.

He came every Sunday for a year and finally proposed. I had told Mom that I thought I should be allowed to walk to the gate with Jim, and she said it was fine as long as she was sitting there on the porch watching.

That Sunday night, I walked with Jim to the gate and stood under the honeysuckles that smelled so sweet. I heard the big old bullfrogs croaking by the river and the whip-poor-wills calling in the woods. There was a big yellow[Pg 282] moon, and I think Jim really loved me. Anyway, he said so and asked me to marry him while he squeezed my hand.

I told him I'd think it over, and I did, and the next Sunday I told him that I'd have him.

He hasn't kissed me yet, but next Sunday he asks my mom for me. She says that she'll need to have a talk with me and let him know.

Well, all that week she talked to me, telling me how serious getting married is and that it lasts a really long time.

I tell her that I know it but that I am ready to try it and that I intend to make a go of it, anyway.

On Sunday night, Mom tells Jim that he can have me, and you should've seen that black boy smile. He comes over to me without saying a word, picks me up out of that chair, and right there in the moonlight, he kisses me right in front of my mom, who is crying.

De next Sunday we were married in the Baptist church at Neuse. I had a new white dress, though times were hard.