Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 4

by United States. Work Projects Administration

Transcriber's Notes:

[TR: The interview headers presented here contain all information included in the original, but may have been rearranged for readability. Also, some ages and addresses have been drawn from blocks of information on subsequent interview pages. Names in brackets were drawn from text of interviews.]

[TR: Some interviews were date-stamped; these dates have been added to interview headers in brackets. Where part of date could not be determined — has been substituted. These dates do not appear to represent actual interview dates, rather dates completed interviews were received or perhaps transcription dates.]

[TR: In general, typographical errors have been left in place to match the original images. In the case where later editors have hand-written corrections, simple typographical errors have been silently corrected.]

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PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
GEORGIA TELFAIR, Age 74
Box 131, R.F.D. #2
Athens, Ga.
Written by:
Miss Grace McCune
Athens, Ga.
Edited by:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens, Ga.
and
Mrs. Leila Harris
Augusta, Ga.
[Date Stamp: APR 29 1938]

"Yes chile, I'll be glad to tell you de story of my life, I can't tell you much 'bout slav'ry 'cause I wuz jus' six months old when freedom come, but I has heared quite a lot, and I will tell you all I kin 'member 'bout everythin." Said old "Aunt" Georgia Telfair, who lives with her son to whom her devotion is quite evident. Both "Aunt" Georgia and the little home show the excellent care that is given them.

"My pa," she said, "wuz Pleasant Jones, an' he b'longed to Marse Young L.G. Harris. Dey lived at de Harris place out on Dearing Street. Hit wuz all woods out dar den, an' not a bit lak Dearing Street looks now.

"Rachel wuz my ma's name. Us don' know what her las' name wuz 'cause she wuz sold off when she wuz too little to 'member. Dr. Riddin' (Redding) bought her an' his fambly always jus' called her Rachel Riddin'. De Riddin' place wuz whar Hancock Avenue is now, but it wuz all in woods 'roun' dar, jus' lak de place whar my pa wuz. Atter dey wuz married ma had to stay on wid de Riddin' fambly an' her chilluns b'longed to de Riddin's 'cause dey owned her. Miss Maxey Riddin' wuz my brudder's young Missus, an' I wuz give to her sister, Miss Lula Riddin', for to be her own maid, but us didn't git to wuk for 'em none 'cause it wuz jus' at dis time all de slaves got sot free. Atter dat my pa tuk us all wid him an' went to farm on de old Widderspoon (Witherspoon) place.

"It wuz 'way off in de woods. Pa cut down trees an' built us a log cabin. He made de chimbly out of sticks an' red mud, an' put iron bars crost de fireplace to hang pots on for to bile our vittuls an' made ovens for de bakin'. De bes' way to cook 'tatoes wuz to roas' 'em in de ashes wid de jackets on. Dey ain' nothin' better tastin' dan ash-roasted 'tatoes wid good home-made butter to eat wid 'em. An 'us had de butter, 'cause us kep' two good cows. Ma had her chickens an' tukkeys an' us raised plenty of hogs, so we nebber wuz widout meat. Our reg'lar Sunday breakfas' wuz fish what pa cotch out of de crick. I used to git tired out of fish den, but a mess of fresh crick fish would sho' be jus' right now.

"Us always kep' a good gyardan full of beans, corn, onions, peas an' 'taters, an' dey warn't nobody could beat us at raisin' lots of greens, 'specially turnips an' colla'd greens. Us saved heaps of dry peas an' beans, an' dried lots of peaches an' apples to cook in winter. When de wind wuz a howlin an' de groun' all kivvered wid snow, ma would make dried fruit puffs for us, dat sho' did hit de spot.

"When I wuz 'bout eight years old, dey sont me to school. I had to walk from Epps Bridge Road to Knox School. Dey calls it Knox Institute now. I toted my blue back speller in one han' and my dinner bucket in de other. Us wore homespun dresses wid bonnets to match. De bonnets wuz all made in one piece an' had drawstrings on de back to make 'em fit, an' slats in de brims to make 'em stiff an' straight. Our dresses wuz made long to keep our legs warm. I don't see, for to save me, how dey keeps dese young-uns from freezin' now since dey let 'em go 'roun' mos' naked.

"Our brush arbor church wuz nigh whar Brooklyn Mount Pleasant Church is now, an' us went to Sunday School dar evvy Sunday. It warn't much of a church for looks, 'cause it wuz made out of poles stuck in de groun' an' de roof wuz jus' pine limbs an' brush, but dere sho' wuz some good meetin's in dat old brush church, an' lots of souls foun' de way to de heb'enly home right dar.

"Our reg'lar preacher wuz a colored man named Morrison, but Mr. Cobb preached to us lots of times. He wuz a white gemman, an' he say he could a sot all night an' lissen long as us sung dem old songs. Some of 'em I done clar forgot, but de one I lak bes' goes sorter lak dis:

'I want to be an angel
An' wid de angels stan'
A crown upon my forehead
And a harp widin my han'.'

"Another tune wuz 'Roll, Jordan Roll.' Little chillun wuz larnt to sing, 'How Sweetly do de Time Fly, When I Please my Mother,' an' us chillun sho' would do our best a singin' dat little old song, so Preacher Cobb would praise us.

"When I jined de church dere wuz 35 of us baptized de same day in de crick back of de church. While Preacher Brown wuz a baptizin' us, a big crowd wuz standin' on de bank a shoutin' an' singin', 'Dis is de healin' Water,' an', 'Makin' for de Promise Lan! Some of 'em wuz a prayin' too. Atter de baptizin' wuz done dey had a big dinner on de groun's for de new members, but us didn't see no jugs dat day. Jus' had plenty of good somethin' t'eat.

"When us warn't in school, me an' my brudder wukked in de fiel' wid pa. In cotton plantin' time, pa fixed up de rows an' us drap de seeds in 'em. Nex' day us would rake dirt over 'em wid wooden rakes. Pa made de rakes hisse'f. Dey had short wooden teef jus' right for to kivver de seed. Folkses buys what dey uses now an' don't take up no time makin' nothin' lak dat.

"In dem days 'roun' de house an' in de fiel' boys jus' wo' one piece of clo'es. It wuz jus' a long shirt. Dey didn't know nothin' else den, but I sho' would lak to see you try to make boys go 'roun' lookin' lak dat now.

"Dey hired me out to Mr. Jack Weir's fambly when I wuz 'bout fo'teen years old to do washin', ironin', an' cleanin' up de house, an' I wukked for 'em 'til I married. Dey lemme eat all I wanted dere at de house an' paid me in old clo'es, middlin' meat, sirup, 'tatoes, an' wheat flour, but I never did git no money for pay. Not nary a cent.

"Us wukked mighty hard, but us had good times too. De bigges' fun us had wuz at candy pullin's. Ma cooked de candy in de wash pot out in de yard. Fust she poured in some home-made sirup, an' put in a heap of brown sugar from de old sirup barrel an' den she biled it down to whar if you drapped a little of it in cold water it got hard quick. It wuz ready den to be poured out in greasy plates an' pans. Us greased our han's wid lard to keep de candy from stickin' to 'em, an' soon as it got cool enough de couples would start pullin' candy an' singin'. Dat's mighty happy music, when you is singin' an' pullin' candy wid yo' bes' feller. When de candy got too stiff an' hard to pull no mo', us started eatin', an' it sho' would evermo' git away from dar in a hurry. You ain't nebber seed no dancin', what is dancin', lessen you has watched a crowd dance atter dey et de candy what dey done been pullin'.

"Quiltin's wuz a heap of fun. Sometimes two or three famblies had a quiltin' together. Folkses would quilt some an' den dey passed 'roun' de toddy. Some would be cookin' while de others wuz a quiltin' an' den when supper wuz ready dey all stopped to eat. Dem colla'd greens wid cornpone an' plenty or gingercakes an' fruit puffs an' big ole pots of coffee wuz mighty fine eatin's to us den.

"An' dere warn't nothin' lackin' when us had cornshuckin's. A gen'ral of de cornshuckin' wuz appointed to lead off in de fun. He sot up on top of de big pile of corn an' hysted de song. He would git 'em started off singin' somethin' lak, 'Sallie is a Good Gal,' an' evvybody kept time shuckin' an' a singin'. De gen'ral kept singin' faster an' faster, an' shucks wuz jus' flyin'. When pa started passin' de jug 'roun' dem Niggers sho' nuff begun to sing loud an' fas' an' you wuz 'bliged for to 'low Sallie mus' be a Good Gal, de way de shucks wuz comin' off of dat corn so fas'. Dey kep' it up 'til de corn wuz all shucked, an' ma hollered, 'Supper ready!' Den dey made tracks for de kitchen, an' dey didn't stop eatin' an' drinkin' dat hot coffee long as dey could swallow. Ain't nobody fed 'em no better backbones, an' spareribs, turnip greens, 'tato pies, an' sich lak dan my ma set out for 'em. Old time ways lak dat is done gone for good now. Folkses ain't lak dey used to be. Dey's all done got greedy an' don't keer 'bout doin' nothin' for nobody else no more.

"Ma combed our hair wid a Jim Crow comb, or cyard, as some folkses called 'em. If our hair wuz bad nappy she put some cotton in de comb to keep it from pullin' so bad, 'cause it wuz awful hard to comb.

"Evvybody tried to raise plenty of gourds, 'cause dey wuz so handy to use for dippers den. Water wuz toted from de spring an' kept in piggins. Don't spec' you ebber did see a piggin. Dats a wooden bucket wid wire hoops 'roun' it to keep it from leakin'. De wash place wuz nex' to de spring. Pa fixed us up a big old stump whar us had to battle de clo'es wid a battlin' stick. It tuk a sight of battlin' to git de dirt out sometimes.

"If you turned a chunk over in de fire, bad luck wuz sho' to come to you. If a dog howled a certain way at night, or if a scritch owl come in de night, death wuz on de way to you, an' you always had to be keerful so maybe bad spirits would leave you alone.

"Pa built us a new kitchen, jus' lak what de white folkses had dem days. It sot out in de back yard, a little piece of a way from our house. He made it out of logs an' put a big old chimbly wid a big fireplace at one end. Benches wuz built 'roun' de sides for seats. Dere warn't no floor in it, but jus' dirt floor. Dat wuz one gran' kitchen an' us wuz mighty proud of it. [HW: p.4]

"My w'ite folkses begged me not to leave 'em, when I told 'em I wuz gwine to marry Joe Telfair. I'd done been wukkin' for 'em nigh on to six years, an' wuz mos' twenty years old. Dey gimme my weddin' clo'es, an' when I seed dem clo'es I wuz one proud Nigger, 'cause dey wuz jus' lak I wanted. De nightgown wuz made out of white bleachin' an' had lots of tucks an' ruffles an' it even had puff sleeves. Sho' 'nough it did! De petticoat had ruffles an' puffs plum up to de wais' ban'. Dere wuz a cosset kiver dat wuz cut to fit an' all fancy wid tucks an' trimmin', an' de drawers, dey sho' wuz pretty, jus' full of ruffles an' tucks 'roun' de legs. My dress wuz a cream buntin', lak what dey calls serge dese days. It had a pretty lace front what my ma bought from one of de Moss ladies. When I got all dressed up I wuz one mo' gran' lookin' bride.

"Us got married in de new kitchen an' it wuz plum full, 'cause ma had done axed 76 folkses to de weddin'. Some of 'em wuz Joe's folkses, an' us had eight waiters: four gals, an' four boys. De same Preacher Brown what baptized me, married us an' den us had a big supper. My Missus, Lula Weir, had done baked a great big pretty cake for me an' it tasted jus' as good as it looked. Atter us et all us could, one of de waiters called de sets for us to dance de res' of de night. An' sich dancin' as us did have! Folkses don't know how to dance dat good no mo'. Dat wuz sho' nuff happy dancin'. Yes Ma'am, I ain't nebber gonna forgit what a gran' weddin' us had.

"Next day us moved right here an' I done been here ever since. Dis place b'longed to Joe's gran'ma, an' she willed it to him. Us had 15 chillun, but ain't but five of 'em livin' now, an' Joe he's been daid for years. Us always made a good livin' on de farm, an' still raises mos' of what us needs, but I done got so po'ly I can't wuk no more.

"I'se still tryin' to live right an' walk de narrow way, so as I kin go to Heb'en when I dies. I'se gwine to pray for you an' ax de Lawd to bless you, for you has been so good an' patient wid me, an' I'se sho' thankful my son sont you to see me. You done helped me to feel lots better. Good-bye, an' God bless you, an' please Ma'am, come back to see me again."

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PLANTATION LIFE
CORDELIA THOMAS, Age 80
130 Berry Street
Athens, Ga.
Written by:
Grace McCune [HW: (white)]
Athens
Edited by:
Sarah H. Hall
Athens
Leila Harris
Augusta
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7

A long, hot walk over rough, hilly roads brought the visitor to Cordelia's place just after the noon hour of a sweltering July day, and the shade of the tall water oaks near the little cabin was a most welcome sight. The house stood only a few feet from a spur of railroad track but the small yard was enclosed by a luxurious green hedge. Roses predominated among the many varieties of flowers in evidence on the otherwise drab premises.

A dilapidated porch across the front of the residence had no roof and the floorboards were so badly rotted that it did not seem quite safe to walk from the steps to the front door where Cordelia stood waiting. "Come right in, Missy," she invited, "but be keerful not to fall through dat old porch floor." The tall, thin Negress was clad in a faded but scrupulously clean blue dress, a white apron, and a snowy headcloth crowned by a shabby black hat. Black brogans completed her costume. Cordelia led the way to the rear of a narrow hall. "Us will be cooler back here," she explained. Sunlight poured through gaping holes in the roof, and the coarse brown wrapping paper pasted on the walls was splattered and streaked by rain. The open door of Cordelia's bedroom revealed a wooden bed, a marble-topped bureau, and a washstand of the Victorian period. A rocker, two straight chairs, a small table, and a trunk completed the furnishings of the room and left but little space for its occupant to move about.

"I'se jus' a mite tired," Cordelia stated, "'cause I jus' got back from de courthouse whar dem welfare 'omans done gimme a sack o' flour and some other bundles what I ain't opened up yit, but I knows dey's got somepin in 'em to holp me, 'cause dem folks is sho' been mighty good to me since my rheumatiz is been so bad I couldn't wuk enough to make a livin'. De doctor, he say I got de blood presser. I don't rightly know jus' what dat is, but it looks lak somepin's a-pressin' right down in my haid 'til I feels right foolish, so I reckon he's right 'bout it a-bein de blood presser. When I gits down on my knees it takes a long time for me to git straight up on my feet again. De Lord, He's done been wid me all dese years, and old Cordelia's goin' to keep right on kneelin' 'fore Him and praisin' Him often 'til He 'cides de time has come for her to go home to Heben.

"I was borned on Marse Andrew Jackson's plantation down in 'Conee (Oconee) County, twixt here and High Shoals. Marse Andy, he owned my Mammy, and she was named Em'ly Jackson. Bob Lowe was my Daddy, and he b'longed to Marse Ike Lowe. The Lowe plantation was nigh whar Marse Andy's was, down der in 'Conee County. 'Cause neither one of deir marsters wouldn't sell one of 'em to de other marster, Mammy had to stay on de Jackson plantation and Daddy was kept right on wukin' on de Lowe place atter dey had done got married. Marse Bob, he give Daddy a ticket what let him go to see Mammy evvy Wednesday and Sadday night, and dem patterollers couldn't bother him long as he kept dat ticket. When dey did find a slave off his marster's plantation widout no ticket, it was jus' too bad, for dat meant a beatin' what most kilt him. Mammy said dey didn't never git my Daddy, 'cause he allus had his ticket to show.

"I don't ricollect much 'bout days 'fore de big war ended 'cause I was so little den, but many's de time I heared Mammy and Daddy and de other old folks tell 'bout dem times. Us chillun had de bestes' time of anybody dem days, 'cause dey didn't 'low us to do nothin' but jus' eat all us could and play de rest of de time. I don't know how it was on other places, but dat was de way us was raised on our old marster's plantation.

"De cracks of de log cabins whar de slaves lived was chinked wid red mud to keep out de cold and rain. Dere warn't no glass in de windows, dey jus' had plank shutters what dey fastened shut at night. Thin slide blocks kivvered de peepholes in de rough plank doors. Dey had to have dem peepholes so as dey could see who was at de door 'fore dey opened up. Dem old stack chimblies what was made out of sticks and red clay, was all time gittin' on fire. Dem old home-made beds had high posties and us called 'em 'teesters.' To take de place of springs, what hadn't never been seen 'round dar in dem days, dey wove heavy cords lengthways and crostways. Over dem cords dey laid a flat mat wove out of white oak splints and on dat dey put de homespun bed ticks stuffed wid wheat straw. Dey could have right good pillows if dey was a mind to pick de scrap cotton and fix it up, but dere warn't many of 'em keered dat much 'bout no pillows.

"Slaves didn't do no cookin' on our place 'cause Marster fed evvybody up at de big house. Missy, I ain't never gwine to forgit dat big old fireplace up dar. Dey piled whole sticks of cord wood on it at one time, wid little sticks crossways under 'em and, let me tell you, dat was a fire what would cook anything and evvything. De pots hung on swingin' racks, and dere was big ovens, little ovens, long-handled fryin' pans, and heavy iron skillets wid tight, thick lids. It sho' was a sight de way us chillun used to make 'way wid dem ash-roasted 'taters and dat good, fresh butter. Us chillun had to eat supper early 'cause all chillun had to be in bed 'fore dark. It warn't lak dese days. Why Missy, chilluns now stays up 'most all night runnin' 'round dese parts.

"Marster was sho' good 'bout seein' dat his Niggers had plenty to eat and wear. For supper us et our bread and milk wid wooden spoons out of wooden bowls, but for dinner dey give us veg'ables, corn pone, and 'taters. Marster raised all de sorts of veg'ables what dey knowed anything 'bout in dem days, and he had big old fields of wheat, rye, oats, and corn, 'cause he 'lowed dat stock had to eat same as folkses. Dere was lots of chickens, turkeys, cows, hogs, sheep, and some goats on dat plantation so as dere would allus be plenty of meat for evvybody.

"Our Marster evermore did raise de cotton—lots of it to sell, and plenty for clothes for all de folkses, white and black, what lived on his place. All de cloth was home-made 'cept de calico for de best Sunday dresses. Chillun had to spin de thread and deir mammies wove de cloth. 'Fore de end of de war, whilst I was still so little I had to stand on a box to reach de spinnin' wheel good, I could spin six reels a day.

"Chillun was happy when hog-killin' time come. Us warn't 'lowed to help none, 'cept to fetch in de wood to keep de pot bilin' whar de lard was cookin'. Our Mist'ess allus had de lard rendered in de bigges' washpot, what dey sot on rocks in de fireplace. Us didn't mind gittin' de wood for dat, 'cause when dem cracklin's got done, dey let us have all us could eat and, jus' let me tell you, Missy, you ain't never had nothin' good 'less you has et a warm skin cracklin' wid a little salt. One time when dey was renderin' lard, all us chillun was crowdin' 'round close as us could git to see which one could git a cracklin' fust. Mist'ess told us to stand back 'fore somebody got burnt; den Mammy said she was gwine to take de hides off our backs 'bout gittin' so close to dat fire, and 'bout dat time somebody 'hind me gimme a quick push; and in de fire I went. Marster grabbed me 'most time I hit dem red coals, but one hand and arm was burnt so bad I had to wear it in a sling for a long time. Den Marster laid down de law and told us what he would do if he cotch us chillun hangin' 'round de fire whar dey was cookin' lard again.

"Folkses said our Marster must have a powerful sweet tooth on account of he kept so many bee hives. When bees swarmed folkses rung bells and beat on tin pans to git 'em settled. Veils was tied over deir haids to keep de bees from gittin' to deir faces when dey went to rob de hives. Chillun warn't never 'lowed to be nowhar nigh durin' dat job. One day I sneaked out and got up close to see how dey done it, and dem bees got all over me. Dey stung me so bad I couldn't see for days and days. Marster, he jus' fussed and said dat gal, Cordelia, she was allus whar she didn't b'long. Missy, I ain't never wanted to fool wid no more bees, and I don't even lak honey no more.

"Slaves all went to church wid deir white folkses 'cause dere warn't no Nigger churches dem days. All de preachin' was done by white preachers. Churches warn't nigh and convenient dem days lak dey is now and dey was such a fur piece from de plantations dat most of de folkses stayed all day, and dem meetin' days was big days den. De cooks was told to fix de bestes' dinners dey could git up, and chillun was made to know dey had better mind what dey was 'bout when dey was in de meetin' house or it was gwine to be made mighty hot for 'em when dey got back home. Dat was one thing our Marster didn't 'low no foolin' 'bout. His Niggers had to be-have deyselfs at de meetin' house. 'Long 'bout August when craps was laid by, dey had brush arbor meetin's. White folks brought deir slaves and all of 'em listened to a white preacher from Watkinsville named Mr. Calvin Johnson. Dere was lots of prayin' and shoutin' at dem old brush arbor 'vival meetin's.

"Dey had campmeetin's too. De old Freeman place was whar dey had some of dem fust campmeetin's, and Hillsboro, Mars Hill, and Bethabara was some of de other places whar Marster tuk us to campmeetin's. Missy, you jus' don't know nothin' 'bout 'citement if you ain't never been to one of dem old-time campmeetin's. When folkses would git 'ligion dey would holler and shout a-testifyin' for de Lord. Atter de meetin' dey dammed up de crick and let it git deep enough for de baptizin'. Dey dipped de white folkses fust, and den de Niggers. You could hear 'em singin' a mile away dem old songs lak: On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand,—Roll, Jordan Roll,—All God's Chilluns is a-goin' Home, and—Whar de Livin' Waters Flow. I jus' can't 'member half of dem good old songs 'cause my mem'ry ain't good as it used to be." Here Cordelia paused. She seemed oblivious to all around her for several minutes, and then she suddenly smiled. "Lordy, Missy," she began, "if I could jus' call back dem days wid our good old Marster to look atter us and see dat us had what us needed to eat and wear and a good comf'table cabin to live in, wouldn't dis be a happy old 'oman? Lots of de other old folks would lak it too, 'cause our white folkses day sho' did take good keer of deir slaves.

"Did you ever hear of dem logrollin's? On our place dey spent 'bout two whole days cookin' and gittin' ready. Marster axed evvybody from fur and nigh, and dey allus come 'cause dey knowed he was gwine to give 'em a good old time. De way dey rolled dem logs was a sight, and de more good corn liquor Marster passed 'round, de faster dem logs rolled. Come night-time, Marster had a big bonfire built up and sot lots of pitchpine torches 'round so as dere would be plenty of light for 'em to see how to eat dat fine supper what had done been sot out for 'em. Atter supper, dey danced nigh all de rest of de night. Mammy used to tell us 'bout de frolics next day, 'cause us chillun was made to go to bed at sundown. Come day, go day, no matter what might happen, growin' chillun had to be in bed at deir reg'lar time, but Mammy never forgot to tell us all 'bout de good times next day.

"Mammy said dem cornshuckin's meant jus' as much fun and jollification as wuk. Dey gathered Marster's big corn crap and 'ranged it in long, high piles, and sometimes it tuk sev'ral days for dem cornshuckers to git it all shucked, but evvybody stayed right dar on de job 'til it was finished. At night, dey wukked by de light of big fires and torches, den dey had de big supper and started dancin'. Dey stopped so often to swig dat corn liquor Marster pervided for 'em dat 'fore midnight folkses started fallin' out and drappin' down in de middle of de dance ring. De others would git 'em by de heels and drag 'em off to one side 'til dey come to and was ready to drink more liquor and dance again. Dat was de way dey went on de rest of de night.

"Corpses! Buryin's! Graveyards! Why, Miss, dere warn't nigh so many folkses a-dyin' all de time dem days as dere is now. Folkses lived right and was tuk better keer of and dere warn't so much reason for 'em to die out den. When somebody did die, folkses come from miles and miles around to de buryin'. Dey give de slaves de same sort of funerals de white folkses had. De corpses was washed good all over wid hot water and home-made soap, den dey was dressed and laid out on de coolin' boards 'til de cyarpenter man had time to make up de coffins. Lordy, Missy, ain't you never seed no coolin' board? I 'spects dey is all gone now though. Dey looked a good deal lak ironin' boards, only dey had laigs to stand on. Lots of times dey didn't dress de corpses, but jus' wropped 'em in windin' sheets. Dem home-made, pine coffins didn't look so bad atter dey got 'em painted up and lined nice. Dey driv de wagon what had de corpse on it right slow to de graveyard. De preacher talked a little and prayed; den atter de mourners had done sung somepin on de order of Harps [HW: Hark?] From De Tomb, dey shovelled in de dirt over de coffin whilst de preacher said comfortin' words to de fambly of de daid. Evvy plantation had its own graveyard wid a fence around it, and dere was a place in it for de slaves 'nigh whar deir white folks was buried.

"Honey, didn't you never hear tell of Dr. Frank Jackson? He was sho' a grand doctor. Dr. Jackson made up his own medicines and toted 'em 'round wid him all de time. He was close kin to our Marse Andy Jackson's fambly. All dem Jacksons down in 'Conee was good white folks.

"Us stayed on wid Old Marster for a little while atter de war was over, and den right away Mammy died and Daddy hired me out to Mrs. Sidney Rives (Reaves?). I 'spects one reason she was so mighty good to me was 'cause I was so little den. I was nigh grown when I left her to wuk for Dr. Palmer's fambly. All his chillun was little den and I was deir nuss. One of de best of his chillun was little Miss Eunice. She is done growed to be a school teacher and dey tells me she is still a-teachin'. It warn't long atter my Daddy died dat I left de Palmers and started wukkin' for Mr. Dock Dorsey's fambly. If dere ever was a good Christian 'oman in dis here old world it was Miss Sallie Dorsey, Mr. Dock Dorsey's wife. She had been Miss Sallie Chappell 'fore she married Mr. Dorsey. Miss Sallie tried to git evvybody what stayed 'round her to live right too, and she wanted all her help to go to church reg'lar. If Miss Sallie and Marse Dock Dorsey was livin' now, dey would pervide for Old 'Delia jus' lak dey used to do. All deir chillun was nice. Miss Fannie and Miss Sue, dey was extra good gals, but somehow I jus' can't call back de names of dem other ones now. Dey all had to be good wid de sort of mammy and daddy dey had. Miss Sallie, she was sick a long time 'fore she died, and dey let me wait on her. Missy, I tell you de gospel truth, I sho' did love dat 'oman. Not long 'fore she passed on to Heben, she told her husband dat atter she was gone, she wanted him to marry up wid her cousin, Miss Hargrove, so as he would have somebody to help him raise up her chillun, and he done 'zactly what she axed him to. All of my own white folkses has done died out, and Old 'Delia won't be here much longer. One of de Thorntons here—I forgits which one—married up wid my young Mist'ess, Rebecca Jackson. Her gal got married up wid Dr. Jago, a horse-doctor. A insurance man named Mr. Speer married into de Jackson fambly too. He moved his fambly from here to de mountains on account of his son's health, and I jus' los' track of 'em den.

"Lordy, Chile! What you want to know 'bout my weddin' for, nowhow? Dere ain't never gwine to be no more weddin's lak dey had back dere in dem times 'cause folkses thinks dey got to have too much nowadays. When folkses got married den dey was a-thinkin' 'bout makin' sho' 'nough homes for deyselfs, and gittin' married meant somepin sort of holy. Mammy said dat most times when slaves got married dey jus' jumped backwards over a broomstick whilst deir Marster watched and den he pernounced dat dey was man and wife. Now dey is got to go to de courthouse and pay out good money for a license and den go git a preacher or somebody lak a jestice jedge to say de marriage words over 'em.

"Me and Solomon Thomas had to go buy us a license too, but us didn't mind 'bout 'puttin out 'dat money cause us was so much in love. I wore a pretty white dress and a breakfast shawl, and atter us had done went to de preacher man's house and got married, us come right on here to dis very house what had b'longed to Solomon's daddy 'fore it was Solomon's. Us built two more rooms on de house, but all de time Solomon lived us tried to keep de place lookin' a good deal lak it was de day us got married.

"Atter Solomon died, I sold off most of de land to de railroad for de right of way for dat dere track what you sees out dere, and it sho' has made plenty of wuk for me to keep dat soot what dem engines is all time a-spittin' out cleaned off my things in de house. It draps down through dem big holes overhead, and I can't git hold of no money to have de roof patched up.

"Me and Solomon, us had 11 chillun, but dey is all daid out but three. One of my boys is in Baltimore and another boy lives in Louisiana somewhar. My gal, Delia, she stays over in de Newtown part of Athens here. She would love to help her old Mammy, but my Delia's got chillun of her own and she can't git nothin' to do 'cept a little washin' for de white folkses, and she ain't able to pervide what her own household needs to eat. Dem boys of mine is done got so fur off dey's done forgot all 'bout deir old Mammy.

"When us fust got married, Solomon wukked at Mr. Orr's cotton house, and he stayed dere a long time 'fore he went to wuk for Mr. Moss and Mr. Levy. All dem white folks was good to me and Solomon. I kept on wukkin' for de Dorseys 'til us had so many chillun I had to stay home and look atter 'em. Solomon got sick and he lay dere sufferin' a long, long time, but Mr. Moss and Mr. Levy seed dat he didn't want for nothin'. Even atter Solomon died dem good white mens kept on comin' out now and den to see if me and Solomon's chillun had what us needed.

"Solomon, my Solomon, he went out of dis here world, in dat dere room whar you sees dat old bed, and dat is perzactly whar I wants to be when de Blessed Lord lays his hands on me and tells me to come on Home to Glory. I wants to be toted out of dat room, through dis hall and on out to de graveyard jus' lak my man was. I knows dat evvything would be done nice jus' lak I wants it if Mr. Moss and Mr. Levy was a-livin' 'cause dey was both Masons, and members of de Masons is all done swore a oath to look atter deir own folkses. Dey said Solomon and his fambly was lak deir own folkses, Mr. Moss and Mr. Levy did. Most of de folkses, both white and black, dat I has knowed and loved has done gone on over de Jordan, out of dis world of trouble, and it will be happy days for all of us when us meets again in de place 'of many mansions' whar dere won't be nothin' for none of us to pester ourselfs 'bout no more.

"All of my life, I'se had a great desire to travel, jus' to go evvywhar, but atter all dese years of busy livin' I 'spects all de trav'lin' I'll ever do will be on de road to Glory. Dat will be good enough for me 'cause I got so many more of 'em I loves over dar dan is left here."

As the visitor passed out of earshot of Cordelia's cabin the last words she heard from the old Negress were: "Good-bye again, Missy. Talkin' to you has been a heap of consolation to me."

---

[HW: Dist-2
Ex Slave #105]
Alberta Minor
Re-search Worker
FOLKLORE
EX-SLAVE—IKE THOMAS
Heidt Bridges Farm near Rio Georgia
Interviewed
September 4, 1936
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

[TR: This interview contained many handwritten edits; where text was transposed or meaning was significantly changed, it has been noted.]

Ike Thomas was born near Monticello in Jasper County on the Thomas plantation. His mother and father were sold when he was a little boy, and "Missus" Thomas, in picking her house boy, took Ike to raise for a carriage boy. She picked her little niggers by the way they wore their hats. If they set them on the back of their heads, they grew up to be "high-minded", but if they pulled them over their eyes, they'd grow up to be "sneaky and steal".

Mrs. Thomas let him sleep on a trundle bed pulled out at night and put under her bed in the day and fed him under the table. She'd put a piece of meat in a biscuit and hand it down to him and warned him if they had company not to holler when he was thru so he'd touch her on the knee but his mouth was so big and he'd eat so fast that he "jes kep' on teching her on the knee."

During the war, when they got word the Yankees were coming, Mrs. Thomas would hide her "little niggers" sometimes in the wardrobe back of her clothes, sometimes between the mattresses, or sometimes in the cane brakes. After the Yankees left, she'd ring a bell and they would know they could come out of hiding. (When they first heard the slaves were free, they didn't believe it so they just stayed on with their "white folks".) [HW: Transpose to page 3.]

If the negroes were mean or ran away, they would be chased by hounds and brought back for punishment.

When still a young man, Ike ran away with a negro couple coming in a buggy to Blanton Mill near Griffin and worked for Mr. William Blanton until he died. After he had been here a while, he got married. His wife's people had the wedding supper and party. He was a fiddler so had to fiddle most all night then the next day his "white folks" gave him the food for the wedding dinner that he had at his own house.

Ike says every seven [HW: 7] years the locusts come and its sure to be a short crop that "God sends all sorts of cusses" (curses) sometimes its the worms that eat the cotton or the corn or the bugs that eat the wheat. He doesn't believe in "hants" or "conjurin'". It seems Sid Scott was a "mean nigger", [HW: and] everyone was afraid of [HW: him]. He was cut in two by the saw mill and after his funeral whenever anyone pass his house at night that could hear his "hant" going "rat-a-tat-tat-bang, bang, bang" like feet running.

One night when Ike was coming home from "fiddlin'" at a white folks party, he had to pass Scott's house. Now they kept the cotton seed in half of the house and the other half was empty. When Ike got close, he made a racket and sure enough the noise started. "The moon was about an hour up" and he saw these funny white things run out from under the house and scatter. It scared him at first but he looked and looked and saw they were sheep that [HW: having] found a hole into the cotton seed would go in at night to eat.

Before the war the negroes had a big celebration on the 4th of July, a big barbecue, ball game, wrestling matches, lots of music and singing. They had to have a pass from their Masters to attend and pay to get in. The "patta-roll" came by to see your pass and if you didn't have one, they'd whip you and send you home. [HW: When the Negroes first heard that they were free, they didn't believe it so they just stayed on with their white folks.]

After he came to Blanton's, the Negroes could come and go as they pleased for they were free. Ike has been a member of several "Societies" but something has always happened to the President and Secretary or they ran off with the money so now he just has a sick and accident policy.

Ike will be 94 years old next month. His hair is white, his eyes blurred with age, but he's quite active tho' he does walk with a stick.

---

[HW: Dist 1
Ex-Slave #107]
JANE MICKENS TOOMBS OF WASHINGTON-WILKES
Age approx. 82
by
Minnie Branham Stonestreet
Washington-Wilkes
GEORGIA
[Date Stamp: JAN 26 1937]
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

A story of happiness and contentment on a big plantation where there were "a heap of us slaves" is told by Jane Mickens Toombs who said she was "five er six years ole when de Wah come on (1860), or maby a lit'le ol'er."

She is a bright old woman, well and spry despite the fact she "wuz conjured onst when I wuz young an' dat lef' me lame an' dis eye plum' out an' de t'other bad."

When asked about the conjuring she said: "No'm, I don't 'zackly know how t'wuz, but enyhow somebody whut knowed how ter 'wu'k roots' got me lame on dis side, an' my eye out, jess kase I wuz a decent, nice lookin' gal, an' went on 'tendin' ter my business an' payin' dem no mind. Dat's de way dey done in dem days, jess jealous of nice colored niggers. Yassum, I wuz sick fer nigh on ter two years an' de doctuhs never knowed what ailed me. Dey done everything dey could, but I wuz conjured an' dey couldn't hep' me. A doctuh-man frum up yander in New Yalk cum down here ter see his folks, an' he tried to kure [HW: cyore] me, but doctuhs kain't [HW: kaan't] kure [HW: cyore] conjured folks, so I had ter lay an' suffer 'til de conjure wore out. Dem whut done dat knowed dey done me wrong, but I kep' trustin' in my Lawd, an' now dey's gone an' I'se er stumblin' roun' yit. No mam, I never knowed jess whut dey done ter me, but hit wuz bad, I kin tell yer dat, hit might nigh kilt me."

Aunt Jane was born on the Gullatt Plantation on the line of Wilkes and Lincoln counties. Her Mother was Liza Gullatt and her father John Mickens who belonged to Mr. Augustus McMekin. "Yassum, my Pa wuz John 'Mickens an' his Marster bought him in Alabamy. All de slaves whut belonged to de McMekins called dey selves 'Mickens. I wuz one of fifteen chillun an' cum er long in betweenst de oldest 'uns an' de youngest sum'ers. I wuz named fer my Mistess Jane Gullatt whut died. Young Marse George Gullatt choosed me out, dough, an' I'd er been his'en ef Freedom hadn't er come. You know dat's de way dey use ter do back in slavery time, de young Mistesses an' Marsters choosed out de little niggers dey wanted fer their'n."

This is another case where the father and mother belonged to different families. The father had a pass to go and come as he pleased, although his family lived a little distance away. Jane said her father's master would have bought her mother if the War hadn't come on and they were set free.

Jane told of the log cabins in the Quarters where all the negroes lived. She said they were all in a row "wid er street in de front, er wide street all set thick wid white mulberry trees fer ter mak' shade fer de chillun ter play in." They never had any punishment only [HW: except] switchings by their Mistess, and that was not often. They played dolls, "us had home-made rag dolls, nice 'uns, an' we'd git dem long grass plumes (Pampas grass) an' mak' dolls out'n dem too. Us played all day long every day. My Mistess' chillun wuz all growed up so jess us little niggers played tergether.

"My Mother spun an' wove de cloth, an' dyed hit, but our Mistess made our clothes. My Grandma, Nancy, wuz de cook an' she fed all de little 'uns in de big ole kitchen whut sot out in de yard. She had a tray she put our victuals on an Uh, Uh, whut good things we had ter eat, an' er plenty of everything! Us et jess whut our white folks had, dey didn't mak' no difference in us when hit cum ter eatin'. My Grandaddy looked atter de meat, he done everything 'bout dat, an' he sho' knowed how ter fix it, too.

"De fust thing I recollects is bein' round in de kitchen when dey wuz makin' ginger cakes an' my Mistess givin' me de pan she made 'em in fer me ter sop hit out. Dey ain't nothin' whut smells good lak' de cookin' in dem days, I kain't smell no victuals lak' dat now. Everything wuz cooked on a big ole open fire place in one end of de kitchen. Dem good ole days done gone now. Folkes done got wiser an' wickeder—dey ain't lak' dey use ter be."

At Christmas Santa Claus found his way to the Quarters on the Gollatt plantation and each little slave had candy, apples, and "sich good things as dat." Aunt Jane gave a glowing description of the preparation for the Christmas season: "Lawdy, how de folks wu'ked gittin' ready fer Chris'mus, fer three er fo' days dey stayed in de kitchen er cookin' an' er bakin'—daye wuz de bes' light bread—great big loaves baked on de fire place, an' cakes an' mo' good ginger cakes. Dey wuz plenty cooked up to las' er long time. An' another thing, dare want no cookin' on Sunday, no mam, no wu'k of no kind. My Mistess had de cook cookin' all day Fridays an' Saddays so when Sunday come dare wuz hot coffee made an' dat wuz all, everything else wuz cooked up an' cold. Everybody went to Church, de grown folks white and black, went to de preachin' an' den all de little niggers wuz called in an de Bible read an' 'splained ter dem.

"Dare wuz preachin' down in de Quarters, but dat wuz at night an' wuz led by de colored preachers. I recollects one night dare wuz a service gwine on in one of de cabins an' all us wuz dare an' ole Uncle Alex Frazier wuz up a linin' off a hymn 'bout

'Broad is de road dat leads ter Death
An' there an' here we travel.'

when in come some mens atter a colored feller whut had stole some sheep an' hogs. Dey kotch 'im, but sho broke up de meetin'. In de hot summer time Uncle George Gullatt use ter preach ter de slaves out under de trees. Uncle George waz a kind of er preacher.

"My Pa didn't 'low his chillun ter go 'roun'. No'm, he kep' us home keerful lak. Young folks in dem days didn't go all over de country lak dey does now, dey stayed at home, an' little chillun wuz kep' back an' dey didn' know no badness lak de chillun do terday. Us never even heared de ole folks talk nothin' whut we oughtn't ter hear. Us jess played an' stayed in a child's place. When we wuz sick de white folks seed dat we wuz 'tended to. Dey use ter mak Jerusalem Oak candy an' give us. Dey took de leaves of dat bush an' boiled 'em an' den use dat water dey wuz boiled in an' put sugar 'nough in hit ter mak candy. An dey used plenty of turpentine on us too—plenty ov hit, an' I believes in dat terday, hit's er good medicine."

When asked about the War, Aunt Jane said she didn't remember much about it. "But dare's one thing 'bout hit I sho' does 'member, an' dat's my young Mistess Beckie's husband, Mr. Frazier, being off fightin' in de Wah, an' she gittin' er letter frum him sayin' he wuz comin' home sich an' sich er day. She wuz so happy she had all de grown slaves wu'kin' gittin' ready fer him. Den dey brung her er letter sayin' he had been kilt, an' she wuz in de yard when she read hit an' if dey hadn't er kotch her she'd ov fell. I 'members de women takin' her in de house an' gittin' her ter bed. She wuz so up sot an' took hit so hard. Dem wuz sho' hard times an' sad 'uns too. 'Course I wuz too small ter know much whut wuz gwine on, but I could tell hit wuz bad frum de way de older folks looked.

"I recollects when dey say Freedom had cum. Dare wuz a speakin' fer de slaves up here in town in Barnett's Grove. Dat mornin' Ole Miss sont all de oldes' niggers to de speakin' an' kep' us little 'uns dat day. She kep' us busy sweepin' de yards an' sich as dat. An' she cooked our dinner an' give hit to us herself. I 'members de grown folks leavin' early dat mornin' in a great big waggin.

"A while after de Wah, Pa took us over to de McMekins place an' we lived dare fer a long time. He died an' lef' us an' den us had ter do de bes' we could. Col. Tolbert hired me fer ter nuss his chillun an' I went over ter his place ter live."

Aunt Jane said she isn't superstitious, but likes to see the new moon clear and bow to it for good luck. She said it is better to show it a piece of money, but as she doesn't always have money handy, she "jess bows to hit nice an' polite". She keeps up with the weather by her rheumatism and the cat: "Ef I has de reumatics I knows hit's gwine ter rain, an' when de cat comes 'round an' sets washin' her face, look fer rain, kase hit's er comin'. I've heared folks say dat hit's bad luck ter stump yo' lef' foot, but I don't know boud dat. But I tell yer, when I meets er cat I allus turns er round 'fore I goes on, dat turns de bad luck er way."

When 19 years of age Jane married Albert Toombs. He belonged to the Toombs family of Wilkes county. Aunt Jane said Albert brought her many gifts while he was courting: "He warnt much on bringin' candy an' nothin' lak dat ter eat, but he brung me shawls an' shoes—sumpin' I could wear." They had four children, but only one is living.

"When I wuz a growin' up", said Aunt Jane, "folks had ter wu'k." She worked on the farm, spun, wove, "done seamster wu'k" and knitted stockings, sox and gloves. She said she carded too, "an' in dem times ef a nigger wanted ter git de kinks out'n dey hair, dey combed hit wid de cards. Now dey puts all kinds ov grease on hit, an' buy straightenin' combs. Sumpin' dat costs money, dat's all dey is, old fashion cards'll straighten hair jess as well as all dis high smellin' stuff dey sells now."

Aunt Jane likes to tell of those days of long ago. Her memory is excellent and she talks well. She says she is living out her Miss Jane's time. "Yassum, my Miss Jane died when she wuz so young, I specks I jess livin' out her days kase I named fer her. But I does miss dem good ole days whut's gone. I'se hungry fer de sight ov a spinnin' wheel—does you know whare's one? Things don't look lak' dey use ter, an' as fer whut we has ter eat, dare ain't no victuals ever smelled an' et as good as dem what dey use ter have on de plantation when I wuz a comin' on. Yassum, folkes has got wiser an' know mo' dan dey did, but dey is wickeder—dey kills now 'stid er conjurin' lak' dey did me."

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[HW: Dist. 7
Ex-slave #108]
District 7
Adella S. Dixon
PHIL TOWNS
OLD SLAVE STORY
[Date Stamp: — 8 1937]

[TR: This interview contained many handwritten edits; where text was transposed, meaning was significantly changed, or the edit could not be clearly read, it has been noted.]

On June 25, 1824, a son was born to Washington and Clara Towns who resided in Richmond, Virginia. This was the fourth child in a family which finally numbered thirteen. Phil, as he was called, does not recall many incidents on this estate as the family moved when he was in his teens. His grandfather and grandmother were brought here from Africa and their description of the cruel treatment they received is his most vivid recollection. His grandmother, Hannah, lived to be 129 years of age.

Mr. George Towns, called "Governor" by all of his slaves as well as his intimate friends, moved to Georgia and settled at Reynolds in Taylor County. Here he purchased a huge tract of land—1350 acres—and built his new home upon this level area on the Flint River. The "big house," a large unpainted structure which housed a family of eighteen, was in the midst of a grove of trees near the highway that formed one of the divisions of the plantation. It was again divided by a local railway nearly a mile from the rear of the house. Eighty-eight slaves were housed in the "quarters" which were on each side of the highway a little below the planter's home.

These "quarters" differed from those found in the surrounding territory as the size of the houses varied with the number in the family. The interiors were nicely furnished and in most instances the families were able to secure any furniture they desired. Feather mattresses, trundle beds and cribs were common and in families where there were many children, large fireplaces—some as many as eight feet wide—were provided so that every one might be [TR: 'able to keep' crossed out] comfortable in winter. A variety of cooking utensils were given and large numbers of waffle irons, etc., then considered luxuries, were found here.

To consider only the general plan of operation, this plantation was no different from the average one in pre-civil war days but there was a phase of the life here which made it a most unusual home. "Governor" was so exceptionally kind to his slaves that they were known as "Gov. Towns' free negroes" to those on the neighboring farms. He never separated families, neither did he strike a slave except on rare occasions. Two things which might provoke his anger to this extent, were: to be told a lie, and to find that a person had allowed some one to take advantage of him. They were never given passes but obtained verbal consent to go where they wished and always remained as long as they chose.

Phil Towns' father worked in the field and his mother did light work in the house, such as assisting in spinning. Mothers of three or more children were not compelled to work, as the master felt that their children needed care. From early childhood boys and girls were given excellent training. A boy who robbed a bird's nest or a girl who frolicked in a boisterous manner was severely reprimanded. Separate bedrooms for the two sexes were maintained until they married. The girls passed thru two stages—childhood, and at sixteen they became "gals". Three years later they might marry if they chose but the husband had to be older—at least 21. Courtships differed from those of today because there were certain hours for visiting and even though the girl might accompany her sweetheart away from home she had to be back at that hour. They had no clocks but a "time mark" was set by the sun. A young man was not allowed to give his girl any form of gift, and the efforts of some girls to secretly receive gifts which they claimed to have "found", were in vain, for these were taken from them. After the proposal, the procedure was practically the same as is observed today. The consent of the parent and the master was necessary. Marriages were mostly held at night and no pains were spared to make them occasions to be remembered and cherished. Beautiful clothes—her own selections—were given the bride, and friends usually gave gifts for the house. These celebrations, attended by visitors from many plantations, and always by the Towns family, ended in gay "frolics" with cakes, wine, etc., for refreshments.

During the first year of married life the couple remained with the bride's mother who instructed her in the household arts. Disputes between the newlyweds were not tolerated and punishment by the parents was the result of "nagging". At the end of a year, another log cabin was added to the quarters and the couple began housekeeping. The moral code was exceedingly high; the penalty for offenders—married or single, white or colored—was to be banished from the group entirely. Thus illegitimate children were rare enough to be a novelty.

Young Phil was in his teens when he began his first job—coach driver for "Gov." Towns. This was just before they moved to Georgia. He traveled with him wherever he went, and as the Gov. purchased a plantation in Talbot County, (the house still stands), and a home in Macon, (the site of Mt. De Sales Academy), a great deal of his time was spent on the road. Phil never did any other work except to occasionally assist in sweeping the large yard. The other members of this group split rails, did field work, spinning, tailoring and any of the many things that had to be done. Each person might choose the type of work he liked best.

Opportunities to make cash money were plentiful. Some made baskets and did hand work which was sold and the money given the maker. A man or woman who paid Gov. Towns $150.00 might hire himself to the Gov. for a year. When this was done he was paid cash for all the work he did and many were able to clear several hundred dollars in a year. In addition to this opportunity for earning money, every adult had an acre of ground which he might cultivate as he chose. Any money made from the sale of this produce was his own.

Recreation was not considered important so no provision was made in the regular routine. It was, however, possible to obtain "time off" at frequent intervals and these might be termed irregular vacation periods. Evening entertainment at which square dancing was the main attraction, were common. Quill music, from a homemade harmonica, was played when banjoes were not available. These instruments were made by binding with cane five to ten reeds of graduated lengths. A hole was cut in the upper end of each and the music obtained by blowing up and down the scale. Guests came from all neighboring farms and engaged in the "Green Corn" dance which was similar to what is now called Buck dancing. Near the end of such a hilarious evening, the guests were served with persimmon beer and ginger cakes,—then considered delicacies.

"Gov." Towns was interested in assisting any one [HW: wanting to learn]. [TR: Original reads 'desirous of learning.'] The little girls who expressed the desire to become "ladies" were kept in the "big house" and very carefully trained. The tastes of these few were developed to the extent that they excelled the ordinary "quarter" children and were the envy of the group at social affairs.

Sunday was a day of Reverence and all adults were required to attend religious services. The trip was usually made in wagons, oxcarts, etc., although the young women of the big house rode handsome saddle horses. At each church there was placed a stepping block by which they descended from their steeds. White and colored worshipped at the same church, constructed with a partition separating the two parts of the congregation but not extending to the pulpit. Professions of faith were accepted at the same altar while Baptismal services ware held at a local creek and all candidates were baptized on the same day. Regular clothing was worn at this service. Children were not allowed to attend church, and christenings were not common. Small boys, reared entirely apart from strict religious observances, used to slip away and shoot marbles on Sunday.

The health problem was not acute as these people were provided with everything necessary for a contented mind and a robust body. [TR: original line: The health problem was not a very acute one as these people were provided with everything conducive to a contented mind which plays a large part in maintaining a robust body.] However, a Doctor who lived nearby cared for the sick. Two fees were set—the larger one being charged if the patient recovered. Home remedies were used for minor ills—catnip tea for thrash, tea from Samson Snakeroot for cramps, redwood and dogwood bark tea [HW: and horehound candy] for worms, [HW: many] root teas used [HW: medicinally] by this generation. Peach brandy was given to anyone suspected of having pneumonia,—if the patient coughed, it was certain that he was a victim of the disease.

In these days, a mother named her children by a name [TR: unreadable] during pregnancy. [TR: original line: In these days, it was always thought best for the mother to name her children if the proper name for the babe was theoretically revealed to her during pregnancy.] If another name was given the child, the correct one would be so firmly implanted in his subconscious mind that he would never be able to resist the impulse to turn his head when that name was called. The seventh child was always thought to be exceptionally lucky, and [TR: unreadable HW replaces 'the bond of affection between the parents and this child was greater']. This belief persists today in many localities.

Every family was given a weekly supply of food but this was more for convenience than anything else as they were free to eat anything their appetites called for. They killed chickens, ate vegetables, meats, etc. at any time. The presence of guests at the "quarters" roused Mrs. Towns to activity and she always helped to prepare the menu. One of her favorite items was chicken—prepared four different ways, in pie, in stew, fried, and baked. She gave full directions for the preparation of these delicacies to unskilled cooks. Pound cake was another favorite and she insisted that a pound of butter and a dozen eggs be used in each cake. When the meal was nearly ready, she usually made a trip to the cabin to see if it had been well prepared. The hostess could always tell without any comment whether she had satisfied her mistress, for if she had, a serving was carried back to the big house. Fishing was a form of remunerative recreation enjoyed by all. Everyone usually went on Saturday afternoon, but if only a few made the trip, the catch was shared by all.

Sewing was no easy job as there were few small women among the servants. The cloth made at home, was plentiful, however, and sufficient clothing was made for all. Some persons preferred making their own clothes and this privilege was granted; otherwise they were made in a common sewing room. Ten yards was the average amount of cloth in a dress, homespun and gingham, the usual materials. The men wore suits of osnaburg and jeans. This was dyed to more durable colors through the use of [HW: with] indigo [HW: (blue)] and a dye made from railroad bark (brown).

Phil believes that the screeching of an owl, the bellowing of a cow, and the howling of a dog after dark are signs of death because the [HW: immediate] death of a human being is revealed to animals, which [TR: illegible. 'in turn'?] warn humans. Though we may find some way to rid ourselves of the fear of the warning—the death will occur just the same.

On nearly all plantations there were some slaves who, trying to escape work, hid themselves in the woods. [TR: original line: On nearly all plantations there were some slaves who did not wish to work, consequently, for this, or similar reasons, hid themselves in the woods.] They smuggled food to their hiding place by night, and remained away [HW: lost] in some instances, many months. Their belief in witchcraft caused them to resort to most ridiculous means of avoiding discovery. Phil told the story of a man who visited a conjurer to obtain a "hand" for which he paid fifty dollars in gold. The symbol was a hickory stick which he used whenever he was being chased, and in this manner warded off his pursuers. The one difficulty in this procedure was having to "set up" at a fork or cross roads. Often the fugitive had to run quite a distance to reach such a spot, but when the stick was so placed human beings and even bloodhounds lost his trail. With this assistance, he was able to remain in the woods as long as he liked.

Snakes ware frequent visitor in the cabins of the "quarters". One morning while Betty, a cook, was confined to bed, she sent for Mrs. Towns to tell her that a snake had lain across her chest during the previous night and had tried to get under the cover where her young baby lay asleep. Mrs. Towns was skeptical about the size and activities of the reptile but sent for several men to search the house. They had given up the search when one chanced to glance above the sick woman's bed and there lay the reptile on a shelf. The bed was roped and moved to another part of the room and preparations made to shoot him. Quilts were piled high on the bed so that the noise of the gun would not frighten the baby. When all was ready Mrs. Towns asked the old man with the gun—

"Daddy Luke, can you kill the snake?"

"Yessum, mistress," he replied.

"Daddy Luke, can you kill the snake?"

"Yessum, mistress."

"Daddy Luke, can you kill the snake?"

"Yessum, mistress."

"Shoot!!"

He took careful aim and fired. The huge reptile rolled to the floor.

When the men returned to the yard to work near the woodpile, the mate was discovered by one of the dogs that barked until a log was moved and the second snake killed.

[HW: In those days] small snakes were not feared and for several years it was customary for women to carry a tiny green snake in their bosoms. This fad was discontinued when one of the women was severely injured through a bite on her chest.

Phil remembers when the stars fell in 1833. "They came down like rain," he said. When asked why he failed to keep some, he replied that he was afraid to touch them even after they became black.

[TR: The following paragraphs contain many crossouts replaced by unreadable handwritten edits, and will be indicated by: 'deleted words' replaced by ??.]

Freedom was discussed on the plantation [TR: ??] for many years before the Civil War began. As contented as [TR: 'they' replaced by ??] were [TR: 'there was something to look forward to when they thought of' replaced by ??] being absolutely free. An ex-slave's description of the real cause of the Civil War, deserves a place here. It seems that Lincoln had sent several messages to Davis requesting that he free the slaves. No favorable response was received. Lincoln had a conference with Mr. Davis and to this meeting he carried a Bible and a gun. He tried in vain to convince Davis that he was wrong according to the Bible, so he finally threw the two upon the table and asked Davis to take his choice. He chose the gun. Lincoln grasped the Bible and rushed home. Thus Davis began the war but Lincoln had God on his side and so he ended it.

One of Gov. Towns' sons went to the army and Phil was sent to care for him while he was there; an aristocratic man never went to the war without his valet. His [HW: Phil's] duty was to cook for him, keep his clothes clean, and to bring the body home if he was killed. Poor soldiers were either buried [HW: where they fell] or left lying on the field for vultures to consume. Food was not so plentiful in the [TR: 'army' replaced by ??] and their diet of flapjacks and canned goods was varied only by coffee and whiskey given when off duty. All cooking was done between two battles or during the lull in a battle. John Towns was soon sent back home as they [HW: the officers] felt he was too [TR: 'valuable a Southerner' crossed out] important to be killed in battle, and his services were needed at home.

Near the close of the war, Sherman made a visit to this vicinity. As was his usual habit, he had [TR: 'obtained' replaced by 'learned'?] the reputation of Gov. Towns before he arrived. He found conditions so ideal [TR: 'that not one thing was touched' replaced by ??]. He talked with [HW: slaves and owners, he] went [TR: 'gaily' deleted] on his way. Phil was so impressed by Sherman that he followed him and camped with the Yankees about where Central City Park is now. He thought that anything a Yankee said was true. [HW: When] One [HW: of them] gave him a knife and told him to go and cut the first man he met, he followed instructions even though he knew the man. [HW: Later] Realizing how foolishly he had acted, he readily apologized and explained why. [HW: The Yankee soldiers robbed beehives barehanded and were never stung, they] seemed to fear nothing but lizards. Never having seen such reptiles they would run in terror at the sight of one. The Confederates never discovered this.

After the close of the war they [HW: federal soldiers] were stationed in the towns to keep order. Union flags were placed everywhere, and a Southerner was accused of not respecting the flag if he even passed under one without bowing. Penalties for this offense were, to be hung up by the thumbs, to carry greasy [HW: greased] poles for a certain time, and numerous other punishments which caused a deal of discomfort to the victims but sent the soldiers and ex-slaves into peals of laughter. The sight of a Yankee soldier sent a Confederate one into hysteria.

[HW: Phil says his fellow] slaves laughed when told they were free, but Gov. Towns was almost indifferent. His slaves, he said, were always practically free, so a little legal form did not [TR: 'add' replaced by ??] much to them. Nearly every one remained there and worked for wages.

For the past thirty-five years, Phil Towns has been almost totally disabled. Long life seems no novelty to him for he says everyone used to live longer when they honored their elders more. He has eighty-four relatives in Virginia—all older than he, but states that friends who have visited there say he looks more aged than any of them. His great desire is to return to Virginia, as he believes he will be able to find the familiar landmarks in spite of the changes that have taken place.

Mr. Alex Block, of Macon, makes no charges for the old shack in which Phil lives; his food furnished by the Department of Public Welfare is supplemented by interested friends.

---

PLANTATION LIFE
NEAL UPSON, Age 81
450 4th Street
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Miss Grace McCune [HW: (White)]
Athens
Edited by:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7
Augusta, Ga.
August 5, 1938

Alternate rain and sunshine had continued for about 10 days and the ditches half filled with water, slippery banks of red clay, and the swollen river necessitating a detour, added to the various difficulties that beset the interviewer as she trudged through East Athens in search of Neal Upson's shabby, three-room, frame house. A magnificent water oak shaded the vine-covered porch where a rocking chair and swing offered a comfortable place to rest.

"Good mornin', Miss," was the smiling greeting of the aged Negro man who answered a knock on the front door. "How is you? Won't you come in? I would ax you to have a cheer on the porch, but I has to stay in de house cause de light hurts my eyes." He had hastily removed a battered old felt hat, several sizes too large for him, and as he shuffled down the hall his hair appeared almost white as it framed his black face. His clean, but faded blue overalls and shirt were patched in several places and heavy brogans completed his costume. The day was hot and humid and he carefully placed two chairs where they would have the advantage of any breeze that might find its way through the open hallway.

"Miss, I'se mighty glad you come today," he began, "cause I does git so lonesome here by myself. My old 'oman wuks up to de court'ouse, cookin' for de folkses in jail, and it's allus late when she gits back home. 'Scuse me for puttin' my old hat back on, but dese old eyes jus' can't stand de light even here in the hall, less I shades 'em."

When asked to tell the story of his life, he chuckled. "Lawsy, Missy," he said. "Does you mean dat you is willin' to set here and listen to old Neal talk? 'Tain't many folkses what wants to hear us old Niggers talk no more. I jus' loves to think back on dem days 'cause dem was happy times, so much better'n times is now. Folkses was better den. Dey was allus ready to holp one another, but jus' look how dey is now!

"I was borned on Marster Frank Upson's place down in Oglethorpe County, nigh Lexin'ton, Georgy. Marster had a plantation, but us never lived dar for us stayed at de home place what never had more'n 'bout 80 acres of land 'round it. Us never had to be trottin' to de sto' evvy time us started to cook, 'cause what warn't raised on de home place, Marster had 'em raise out on de big plantation. Evvything us needed t'eat and wear was growed on Marse Frank's land.

"Harold and Jane Upson was my Daddy and Mammy; only folkses jus' called Daddy 'Hal.' Both of 'em was raised right der on de Upson place whar dey played together whilst dey was chillun. Mammy said she had washed and sewed for Daddy ever since she was big enough, and when dey got grown dey jus' up and got married. I was deir only boy and I was de baby chile, but dey had four gals older'n me. Dey was: Cordelia, Anna, Parthene, and Ella. Ella was named for Marse Frank's onliest chile, little Miss Ellen, and our little Miss was sho a good little chile.

"Daddy made de shoes for all de slaves on de plantation and Mammy was called de house 'oman. She done de cookin' up at de big 'ouse, and made de cloth for her own fambly's clothes, and she was so smart us allus had plenty t'eat and wear. I was little and stayed wid Mammy up at de big 'ouse and jus' played all over it and all de folkses up der petted me. Aunt Tama was a old slave too old to wuk. She was all de time cookin' gingerbread and hidin' it in a little trunk what sot by de fireplace in her room. When us chillun was good Aunt Tama give us gingerbread, but if us didn't mind what she said, us didn't git none. Aunt Tama had de rheumatiz and walked wid a stick and I could git in dat trunk jus' 'bout anytime I wanted to. I sho' did git 'bout evvything dem other chillun had, swappin' Aunt Tama's gingerbread. When our white folkses went off, Aunt Tama toted de keys, and she evermore did make dem Niggers stand 'round. Marse Frank jus' laughed when dey made complaints 'bout her.

"In summertime dey cooked peas and other veg'tables for us chillun in a washpot out in de yard in de shade, and us et out of de pot wid our wooden spoons. Dey jus' give us wooden bowls full of bread and milk for supper.

"Marse Frank said he wanted 'em to larn me how to wait on de white folkses' table up at de big 'ouse, and dey started me off wid de job of fannin' de flies away. Mist'ess Serena, Marse Frank's wife, made me a white coat to wear in de dinin' room. Missy, dat little old white coat made me git de onliest whuppin' Marse Frank ever did give me." Here old Neal paused for a hearty laugh. "Us had comp'ny for dinner dat day and I felt so big showin' off 'fore 'em in dat white coat dat I jus' couldn't make dat turkey wing fan do right. Dem turkey wings was fastened on long handles and atter Marster had done warned me a time or two to mind what I was 'bout, the old turkey wing went down in de gravy bowl and when I jerked it out it splattered all over de preacher's best Sunday suit. Marse Frank got up and tuk me right out to de kitchen and when he got through brushin' me off I never did have no more trouble wid dem turkey wings.

"Evvybody cooked on open fireplaces dem days. Dey had swingin' racks what dey called cranes to hang de pots on for bilin'. Dere was ovens for bakin' and de heavy iron skillets had long handles. One of dem old skillets was so big dat Mammy could cook 30 biscuits in it at one time. I allus did love biscuits, and I would go out in de yard and trade Aunt Tama's gingerbread to de other chilluns for deir sheer of biscuits. Den dey would be skeered to eat de gingerbread 'cause I told 'em I'd tell on 'em. Aunt Tama thought dey was sick and told Marse Frank de chilluns warn't eatin' nothin'. He axed 'em what was de matter and dey told him dey had done traded all deir bread to me. Marse Frank den axed me if I warn't gittin' enough t'eat, 'cause he 'lowed dere was enough dar for all. Den Aunt Tama had to go and tell on me. She said I was wuss dan a hog atter biscuits, so our good Marster ordered her to see dat li'l Neal had enough t'eat.

"I ain't never gwine to forgit dat whuppin' my own daddy give me. He had jus' sharpened up a fine new axe for hisself, and I traded it off to a white boy named Roar what lived nigh us when I seed him out tryin' to cut wood wid a sorry old dull axe. I sold him my daddy's fine new axe for 5 biscuits. When he found out 'bout dat, he 'lowed he was gwine to give me somepin to make me think 'fore I done any more tradin' of his things. Mist'eas, let me tell you, dat beatin' he give me evermore was a-layin' on of de rod.

"One day Miss Serena put me in de cherry tree to pick cherries for her, and she told me not to eat none 'til I finished; den I could have all I wanted, but I didn't mind her and I et so many cherries I got sick and fell out of de tree. Mist'ess was skeered, but Marse Frank said: 'It's good enough for him, 'cause he didn't mind.'

"Mammy never did give me but one whuppin' neither. Daddy was gwine to de circus and I jus' cut up 'bout it 'cause I wanted to go so bad. Mist'ess give me some cake and I hushed long as I was eatin', but soon as de last cake crumb was swallowed I started bawlin' again. She give me a stick of candy and soon as I et dat I was squallin' wuss dan ever. Mammy told Mist'ess den det she knowed how to quiet me and she retch under de bed for a shoe. When she had done finished layin' dat shoe on me and put it back whar she got it, I was sho willin' to shet my mouth and let 'em all go to de circus widout no more racket from me.

"De fust school I went to was in a little one-room 'ouse in our white folkses' back yard. Us had a white teacher and all he larnt slave chillun was jus' plain readin' and writin'. I had to pass Dr. Willingham's office lots and he was all de time pesterin' me 'bout spellin'. One day he stopped me and axed me if I could spell 'bumble bee widout its tail,' and he said dat when I larnt to spell it, he would gimme some candy. Mr. Sanders, at Lexin'ton, gimme a dime onct. It was de fust money I ever had. I was plumb rich and I never let my Daddy have no peace 'til he fetched me to town to do my tradin'. I was all sot to buy myself a hat, a sto-bought suit of clothes, and some shoes what warn't brogans, but Missy, I wound up wid a gingercake and a nickel's wuth of candy. I used to cry and holler evvy time Miss Serena went off and left me. Whenever I seed 'em gittin' out de carriage to hitch it up, I started beggin' to go. Sometimes she laughed and said; 'All right Neal.' But when she said, 'No Neal,' I snuck out and hid under de high-up carrigge seat and went along jus' de same. Mist'ess allus found me 'fore us got back home, but she jus' laughed and said: 'Well, Neal's my little nigger anyhow.'

"Dem old cord beds was a sight to look at, but dey slept good. Us cyarded lint cotton into bats for mattresses and put 'em in a tick what us tacked so it wouldn't git lumpy. Us never seed no iron springs dem days. Dem cords, criss-crossed from one side of de bed to de other, was our springs and us had keys to tighten 'em wid. If us didn't tighten 'em evvy few days dem beds was apt to fall down wid us. De cheers was homemade too and de easiest-settin' ones had bottoms made out of rye splits. Dem oak-split cheers was all right, and sometimes us used cane to bottom de cheers but evvybody laked to set in dem cheers what had bottoms wove out of rye splits.

"Marster had one of dem old cotton gins what didn't have no engines. It was wuked by mules. Dem old mules was hitched to a long pole what dey pulled 'round and 'round to make de gin do its wuk. Dey had some gins in dem days what had treadmills for de mules to walk in. Dem old treadmills looked sorter lak stairs, but most of 'em was turned by long poles what de mules pulled. You had to feed de cotton by hand to dem old gins and you sho had to be keerful or you was gwine to lose a hand and maybe a arm. You had to jump in dem old cotton presses and tread de cotton down by hand. It tuk most all day long to gin two bales of cotton and if dere was three bales to be ginned us had to wuk most all night to finish up.

"Dey mixed wool wid de lint cotton to spin thread to make cloth for our winter clothes. Mammy wove a lot of dat cloth and de clothes made out of it sho would keep out de cold. Most of our stockin's and socks was knit at home, but now and den somebody would git hold of a sto-bought pair for Sunday-go-to-meetin' wear.

"Colored folkses went to church wid deir own white folkses and sot in de gallery. One Sunday us was all settin' in dat church listenin' to de white preacher, Mr. Hansford, tellin' how de old debbil was gwine to git dem what didn't do right." Here Neal burst into uncontrollable laughter. His sides shook and tears ran down his face. Finally he began his story again: "Missy, I jus' got to tell you 'bout dat day in de meetin' 'ouse. A Nigger had done run off from his marster and was hidin' out from one place to another. At night he would go steal his somepin t'eat. He had done stole some chickens and had 'em wid him up in de church steeple whar he was hidin' dat day. When daytime come he went off to sleep lak Niggers will do when dey ain't got to hustle, and when he woke up Preacher Hansford was tellin' 'em 'bout de debbil was gwine to git de sinners. Right den a old rooster what he had stole up and crowed so loud it seemed lak Gabriel's trumpet on Judment Day. Dat runaway Nigger was skeered 'cause he knowed dey was gwine to find him sho, but he warn't skeered nuffin' compared to dem Niggers settin' in de gallery. Dey jus' knowed dat was de voice of de debbil what had done come atter 'em. Dem Niggers never stopped prayin' and testifyin' to de Lord, 'til de white folkses had done got dat runaway slave and de rooster out of de steeple. His marster was der and tuk him home and give him a good, sound thrashin'.

"Slaves was 'lowed to have prayermeetin' on Chuesday (Tuesday) and Friday 'round at de diffunt plantations whar deir marsters didn't keer, and dere warn't many what objected. De good marsters all give deir slaves prayermeetin' passes on dem nights so de patterollers wouldn't git 'em and beat 'em up for bein' off deir marster's lands. Dey 'most nigh kilt some slaves what dey cotch out when dey didn't have no pass. White preachers done de talkin' at de meetin'houses, but at dem Chuesday and Friday night prayermeetin's, it was all done by Niggers. I was too little to 'member much 'bout dem meetin's, but my older sisters used to talk lots 'bout 'em long atter de war had brung our freedom. Dere warn't many slaves what could read, so dey jus' talked 'bout what dey had done heared de white preachers say on Sunday. One of de fav'rite texties was de third chapter of John, and most of 'em jus' 'membered a line or two from dat. Missy, from what folkses said 'bout dem meetin's, dere was sho a lot of good prayin' and testifyin', 'cause so many sinners repented and was saved. Sometimes at dem Sunday meetin's at de white folkses' church dey would have two or three preachers de same dey. De fust one would give de text and preach for at least a hour, den another one would give a text and do his preachin', and 'bout dat time another one would rise up and say dat dem fust two brudders had done preached enough to save 3,000 souls, but dat he was gwine to try to double dat number. Den he would do his preachin' and atter dat one of dem others would git up and say: 'Brudders and Sisters, us is all here for de same and only purpose—dat of savin' souls. Dese other good brudders is done preached, talked, and prayed, and let the gap down; now I'm gwine to raise it. Us is gwine to git 'ligion enough to take us straight through dem pearly gates. Now, let us sing whilst us gives de new brudders and sisters de right hand of fellowship. One of dem old songs went sort of lak dis:

'Must I be born to die
And lay dis body down?'

"When dey had done finished all de verses and choruses of dat dey started:

'Amazin' Grace, How sweet de sound
Dat saved a wretch lak me.'

"'Fore dey stopped dey usually got 'round to singin':

'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye,
To Canaan's fair and happy land
Whar my possessions lie.'

"Dey could keep dat up for hours and it was sho' good singin', for dat's one thing Niggers was born to do—to sing when dey gits 'ligion.

"When old Aunt Flora come up and wanted to jine de church she told 'bout how she had done seed de Hebenly light and changed her way of livin'. Folkses testified den 'bout de goodness of de Lord and His many blessin's what He give to saints and sinners, but dey is done stopped givin' Him much thanks any more. Dem days, dey 'zamined folkses 'fore dey let 'em jine up wid de church. When dey started 'zaminin' Aunt Flora, de preacher axed her: 'Is you done been borned again and does you believe dat Jesus Christ done died to save sinners?' Aunt Flora she started to cry; and she said: 'Lordy, Is He daid? Us didn't know dat. If my old man had done 'scribed for de paper lak I told him to, us would have knowed when Jesus died?" Neal giggled. "Missy," he said, "ain't dat jus' lak one of dem old-time Niggers? Dey jus' tuk dat for ign'ance and let her come on into de church.

"Dem days it was de custom for marsters to hire out what slaves dey had dat warn't needed to wuk on deir own land, so our marster hired out two of my sisters. Sis' Anna hired to a fambly 'bout 16 miles from our place. She didn't lak it dar so she run away and I found her hid out in our 'tater 'ouse. One day when us was playin' she called to me right low and soft lak and told me she was hongry and for me to git her somepin t'eat but not to tell nobody she was dar. She said she had been dar widout nothin' t'eat for several days. She was skeered Marster might whup her. She looked so thin and bad I thought she was gwine to die, so I told Mammy. Her and Marster went and brung Anna to de 'ouse and fed her. Dat pore chile was starved most to death. Marster kept her at home for 3 weeks and fed her up good, den he carried her back and told dem folkses what had hired her dat dey had better treat Anna good and see dat she had plenty t'eat. Marster was drivin' a fast hoss dat day, but bless your heart, Anna beat him back home dat day. She cried and tuk on so, beggin' him not to take her back dar no more dat he told her she could stay home. My other sister stayed on whar she was hired out 'til de war was over and dey give us our freedom.

"Daddy had done hid all Old Marster's hosses when de yankees got to our plantation. Two of de ridin' hosses was in de smokehouse and another good trotter was in de hen 'ouse. Old Jake was a slave what warn't right bright. He slep' in de kitchen, and he knowed whar Daddy had hid dem hosses, but dat was all he knowed. Marster had give Daddy his money to hide too, and he tuk some of de plasterin' off de wall in Marster's room and put de box of money inside de wall. Den he fixed dat plasterin' back so nice you couldn't tell it had ever been tore off. De night dem yankees come, Daddy had gone out to de wuk 'ouse to git some pegs to fix somepin (us didn't have no nails dem days). When de yankees rid up to de kitchen door and found Old Jake right by hisself, dat pore old fool was skeered so bad he jus' started right off babblin' 'bout two hosses in de smoke'ouse and one in de hen 'ouse, but he was tremblin' so he couldn't talk plain. Old Marster heared de fuss dey made and he come down to de kitchen to see what was de matter. De yankees den ordered Marster to git 'em his hosses. Marster called Daddy and told him to git de hosses, but Daddy, he played foolish lak and stalled 'round lak he didn't have good sense. Dem sojers raved and fussed all night long 'bout dem hosses, but dey never thought 'bout lookin' in de smoke'ouse and hen 'ouse for 'em and 'bout daybreak dey left widout takin' nothin'. Marster said he was sho proud of my Daddy for savin' dem good hosses for him.

[TR: 'Horses saved' written in margin.]

"Marster had a long pocketbook what fastened at one end wid a ring. One day when he went to git out some money he dropped a roll of bills dat he never seed, but Daddy picked it up and handed it back to him right away. Now my Daddy could have kept dat money jus' as easy, but he was a 'ceptional man and believed evvbody ought to do right.

"Aunt Tama's old man, Uncle Griff, come to live wid her on our place atter de war was over. 'Fore den he had belonged to a man named Colquitt.[HW: !!] Marster pervided a home for him and Aunt Tama 'til dey was both daid. When dey was buildin' de fust colored Methodist church in dat section Uncle Griff give a whole hundred dollars to de buildin' fund. Now it tuk a heap of scrimpin' for him to save dat much money 'cause he never had made over $10 a month. Aunt Tama had done gone to Glory a long time when Uncle Griff died. Atter dey buried him dey come back and was 'rangin' de things in his little cabin. When dey moved dat little trunk what Aunt Tama used to keep gingerbread in, dey found jus' lots of money in it. Marster tuk keer of dat money 'til he found Uncle Griff's own sister and den he give it all to her.

"One time Marster missed some of his money and he didn't want to 'cuse nobody, so he 'cided he would find out who had done de debbilment. He put a big rooster in a coop wid his haid stickin' out. Den he called all de Niggers up to de yard and told 'em somebody had been stealin' his money, and dat evvybody must git in line and march 'round dat coop and tetch it. He said dat when de guilty ones tetched it de old rooster would crow. Evvybody tetched it 'cept one old man and his wife; dey jus' wouldn't come nigh dat coop whar dat rooster was a-lookin' at evvybody out of his little red eyes. Marster had dat old man and 'oman sarched and found all de money what had been stole.

"Mammy died about a year atter de war, and I never will forgit how Mist'ess cried and said: 'Neal, your mammy is done gone, and I don't know what I'll do widout her.' Not long atter dat, Daddy bid for de contract to carry de mail and he got de place, but it made de white folkses mighty mad, 'cause some white folkses had put in bids for dat contract. Dey 'lowed dat Daddy better not never start out wid dat mail, 'cause if he did he was gwine to be sorry. Marster begged Daddy not to risk it and told him if he would stay dar wid him he would let him have a plantation for as long as he lived, and so us stayed on dar 'til Daddy died, and a long time atter dat us kept on wukin' for Old Marster.

"White folkses owned us back in de days 'fore de war but our own white folkses was mighty good to deir slaves. Dey had to larn us 'bedience fust, how to live right, and how to treat evvybody else right; but de best thing dey larned us was how to do useful wuk. De onliest time I 'member stealin' anything 'cept Aunt Tama's gingerbread was one time when I went to town wid Daddy in de buggy. When us started back home a man got in de seat wid Daddy and I had to ride down in de back of de buggy whar Daddy had hid a jug of liquor. I could hear it slushin' 'round and so I got to wantin' to know how it tasted. I pulled out de corncob stopper and tuk one taste. It was so good I jus' kep' on tastin' 'til I passed out, and didn't know when us got home or nuffin else 'til I waked up in my own bed next day. Daddy give me a tannin' what I didn't forgit for a long time, but dat was de wussest drunk I ever was. Lord, but I did love to follow my Daddy.

"Folkses warn't sick much in dem days lak dey is now, but now us don't eat strong victuals no more. Us raked out hot ashes den and cooked good old ashcakes what was a heap better for us dan dis bread us buys from de stores now. Marster fed us plenty ashcake, fresh meat, and ash roasted 'taters, and dere warn't nobody what could out wuk us.

"A death was somepin what didn't happen often on our plantation, but when somebody did die folkses would go from miles and miles around to set up and pray all night to comfort de fambly of de daid. Dey never made up de coffins 'til atter somebody died. Den dey measured de corpse and made de coffin to fit de body. Dem coffins was lined wid black calico and painted wid lampblack on de outside. Sometimes dey kivvered de outside wid black calico lak de linin'. Coffins for white folkses was jus' lak what dey had made up for deir slaves, and dey was all buried in de same graveyard on deir own plantations.

"When de war was over dey closed de little one-room school what our good Marster had kept in his back yard for his slaves, but out young Miss Ellen larnt my sister right on 'til she got whar she could teach school. Daddy fixed up a room onto our house for her school and she soon had it full of chillun. Dey made me study too, and I sho did hate to have to go to school to my own aister for she evermore did take evvy chance to lay dat stick on me, but I s'pects she had a right tough time wid me. When time come 'round to celebrate school commencement, I was one proud little Nigger 'cause I never had been so dressed up in my life before. I had on a red waist, white pants, and a good pair of shoes; but de grandest thing of all 'bout dat outfit was dat Daddy let me wear his watch. Evvybody come for dat celebration. Dere was over 300 folks at dat big dinner, and us had lots of barbecue and all sorts of good things t'eat. Old Marster was dar, and when I stood up 'fore all dem folks and said my little speech widout missin' a word, Marster sho did laugh and clap his hands. He called me over to whar he was settin' and said: 'I knowed you could larn if you wanted to.' Best of all, he give me a whole dollar. [TR: 'for reciting a speech' written in margin.] I was rich den, plumb rich. One of my sisters couldn't larn nothin'. De only letters she could ever say was 'G-O-D.' No matter what you axed her to spell she allus said 'G-O-D.' She was a good field hand though and a good 'oman and she lived to be more dan 90 years old.

"Now, talkin' 'bout frolickin', us really used to dance. What I means, is sho 'nough old-time break-downs. Sometimes us didn't have no music 'cept jus' beatin' time on tin pans and buckets but most times Old Elice Hudson played his fiddle for us, and it had to be tuned again atter evvy set us danced. He never knowed but one tune and he played dat over and over. Sometimes dere was 10 or 15 couples on de floor at de same time and us didn't think nothin' of dancin' all night long. Us had plenty of old corn juice for refreshment, and atter Elice had two or three cups of dat juice, he could git 'Turkey in de Straw' out of dat fiddle lak nobody's business.

"One time a houseboy from another plantation wanted to come to one of our Saddy night dances, so his marster told him to shine his boots for Sunday and fix his hoss for de night and den he could git off for de frolic. Abraham shined his marster's boots 'till he could see hisself in 'em, and dey looked so grand he was tempted to try 'em on. Dey was a little tight but he thought he could wear 'em, and he wanted to show hisself off in 'em at de dance. Dey warn't so easy to walk in and he was 'fraid he might git 'em scratched up walkin' through de fields, so he snuck his Marster's hoss out and rode to de dance. When Abraham rid up dar in dem shiny boots, he got all de gals' 'tention. None of 'em wanted to dance wid de other Niggers. Dat Abraham was sho sruttin' 'til somebody run in and told him his hoss had done broke its neck. He had tied it to a limb and sho 'nough, some way, dat hoss had done got tangled up and hung its own self. Abraham begged de other Nigger boys to help him take de deid hoss home, but he had done tuk deir gals and he didn't git no help. He had to walk 12 long miles home in dem tight shoes. De sun had done riz up when he got dar and it warn't long 'fore his Marster was callin': 'Abraham, bring, me my boots.' Dat Nigger would holler out: 'Yas sah! I'se a-comin'. But dem boots wouldn't come off 'cause his foots had done swelled up in 'em. His marster kept on callin' and when Abraham seed he couldn't put it off no longer, he jus' cut dem boots off his foots and went in and told what he had done. His marster was awful mad and said he was a good mind to take de hide off Abraham's back. 'Go git my hoss quick, Nigger, 'fore I most kills you,' he yelled. Den Abraham told him: 'Marster I knows you is gwine to kill me now, but your hoss is done daid.' Den pore Abraham had to out and tell de whole story and his marster got to laughin' so 'bout how he tuk all de gals away from de other boys and how dem boots hurt him dat it looked lak he never would stop. When he finally did stop laughin' and shakin' his sides he said: 'Dat's all right Abraham. Don't never let nobody beat your time wid de gals.' And dat's all he ever said to Abraham 'bout it.

"When my sister got married, us sho did have a grand time. Us cooked a pig whole wid a shiny red apple in its mouth and set it right in de middle of de long table what us had built out in de yard. Us had evvything good to go wid dat pig, and atter dat supper, us danced all night long. My sister never had seed dat man but one time 'fore she married him.

"My Daddy and his cousin Jim swore wid one another dat if one died 'fore de other dat de one what was left would look atter de daid one's fambly and see dat none of de chillun was bound out to wuk for nobody. It warn't long atter dis dat Daddy died. I was jus' fourteen, and was wukin' for a brick mason larnin' dat trade. Daddy had done been sick a while, and one night de fambly woke me up and said he was dyin'. I run fast as I could for a doctor but Daddy was done daid when I got back. Us buried him right side of Mammy in de old graveyard. It was most a year atter dat 'fore us had de funeral sermon preached. Dat was de way folkses done den. Now Mammy and Daddy was both gone, but old Marster said us chillun could live dar long as us wanted to. I went on back to wuk, 'cause I was crazy to be as good a mason as my Daddy was. In Lexin'ton dere is a rock wall still standin' 'round a whole square what Daddy built in slavery time. Long as he lived he blowed his bugle evvy mornin' to wake up all de folkses on Marse Frank's plantation. He never failed to blow dat bugle at break of day 'cep on Sundays, and evvybody on dat place 'pended on him to wake 'em up.

"I was jus' a-wukin' away one day when Cousin Jim sent for me to go to town wid him. Missy, dat man brung ne right here to Athens to de old courthouse and bound me out to a white man. He done dat very thing atter swearin' to my Daddy he wouldn't never let dat happen. I didn't want to wuk dat way, so I run away and went back home to wuk. De sheriff come and got me and said I had to go back whar I was bound out or go to jail. Pretty soon I runned away again and went to Atlanta, and dey never bothered me 'bout dat no more.

"De onliest time I ever got 'rested was once when I come to town to see 'bout gittin' somebody to pick cotton for me and jus' as I got to a certain Nigger's house de police come in and caught 'em in a crap game. Mr. McCune, de policeman, said I would have to go 'long wid de others to jail, but he would help me atter us got der and he did. He 'ranged it so I could hurry back home.

"'Bout de best times us had in de plantation days was de corn shuckin's, log rollin's and syrup cookin's. Us allus finished up dem syrup cookin's wid a candy pullin'.

"Atter he had all his corn gathered and put in big long piles, Marster 'vited de folkses from all 'round dem parts. Dat was de way it was done; evvybody holped de others git de corn shucked. Nobody thought of hirin' folkses and payin' out cash money for extra wuk lak dat. Dey 'lected a gen'ral to lead off de singin' and atter he got 'em to keepin' time wid de singin' de little brown jug was passed 'round. When it had gone de rounds a time or two, it was a sight to see how fast dem Niggers could keep time to dat singin'. Dey could do all sorts of double time den when dey had swigged enough liquor. When de corn was all shucked dey feasted and den drunk more liquor and danced as long as dey could stand up. De logrollin's and candy pullin's ended de same way. Dey was sho grand good times.

"I farmed wid de white folkses for 32 years and never had no trouble wid nobody. Us allus settled up fair and square and in crop time dey never bothered to come 'round to see what Neal was doin', 'cause dey knowed dis Nigger was wukin' all right. Dey was all mighty good to me. Atter I got so old I couldn't run a farm no more I wuked in de white folkses' gyardens and tended deir flowers. I had done been wukin' out Mrs. Steve Upson's flowers and when she 'come to pay, she axed what my name was. When I told her it was Neal Upson she wanted to know how I got de Upson name. I told her Mr. Frank Upson had done give it to me when I was his slave. She called to Mr. Steve and dey lak to have talked me to death, for my Marse Frank and Mr. Steve's daddy was close kinfolkses.

"Atter dat I wuked deir flowers long as I was able to walk way off up to deir place, but old Neal can't wuk no more. Mr. Steve and his folkses comes to see me sometimes and I'se allus powerful glad to see 'em.

"I used to wuk some for Miss Mary Bacon. She is a mighty good 'oman and she knowed my Daddy and our good Old Marster. Miss Mary would talk to me 'bout dem old days and she allus said: 'Neal, let's pray,' 'fore I left. Miss Mary never did git married. She's one of dem solitary ladies.

"Now, Missy, how come you wants to know 'bout my weddin'? I done been married two times, but it was de fust time dat was de sho 'nough 'citin' one. I courted dat gal for a long, long time while I was too skeered to ax her Daddy for her. I went to see her evvy Sunday jus' 'termined to ax him for her 'fore I left, and I would stay late atter supper, but jus' couldn't git up nerve enough to do it. One Sunday I promised myself I would ax him if it kilt me, so I went over to his house early dat mornin' and told Lida, dat was my sweetheart's name—I says to her: 'I sho is gwine to ax him today.' Well, dinnertime come, suppertime come, and I was gittin' shaky in my jints when her Daddy went to feed his hogs and I went along wid him. Missy, dis is de way I finally did ax him for his gal. He said he was goin' to have some fine meat come winter. I axed him if it would be enough for all of his fambly, and he said: 'How come you ax dat, boy?' Den I jus' got a tight hold on dat old hog pen and said: 'Well, Sir, I jus' thought if you didn't have enough for all of 'em, I could take Lida.' I felt myself goin' down. He started laughin' fit to kill. 'Boy,' he says, 'Is you tryin' to ax for Lida? If so, I don't keer 'cause she's got to git married sometime.' I was so happy I left him right den and run back to tell Lida dat he said it was all right.

"Us didn't have no big weddin'. Lida had on a new calico dress and I wore new jeans pants. Marster heared us was gittin' married dat day and he sont his new buggy wid a message for us to come right dar to him. I told Lida us better go, so us got in dat buggy and driv off, and de rest of de folkses followed in de wagon. Marster met us in front of old Salem Church. He had de church open and Preacher John Gibson waitin' der to marry us. Us warn't 'spectin' no church weddin', but Marster said dat Neal had to git married right. He never did forgit his Niggers. Lida she's done been daid a long time, and I'se married again, but dat warn't lak de fust time."

By now, Neal was evidently tired out but as the interviewer prepared to leave, Neal said: "Missy, I'se sho got somepin to tell my old 'oman when she gits home. She don't lak to leave me here by myself. I wish dere was somebody for me to talk to evvyday, for I'se had sich a good time today. I don't s'pect it's gwine to be long 'fore old Neal goes to be wid dem I done been tellin' you 'bout, so don't wait too long to come back to see me again."

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[HW: Georgia]
PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
JOHN F. VAN HOOK, Age 76
Newton Bridge Road
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Mrs. Sadie B. Hornsby
Area 6
Athens
Edited by:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens
and
John N. Booth
Area Supervisor of
Federal Writers'
Project—Areas 6 & 7,
Augusta, Ga.
Dec. 1, 1938

John F. Van Hook was a short, stout man with a shining bald pate, a fringe of kinky gray hair, kindly eyes, and a white mustache of the Lord Chamberlain variety. His shabby work clothes were clean and carefully mended, and he leaned on a cane for support.

John was looking for the "Farm Bureau Office," but he agreed to return for an interview after he had transacted his business. When he reappeared a short time later and settled down in a comfortable chair he gave the story of his early life with apparent enjoyment.

In language remarkably free of dialect, John began by telling his full name and added that he was well known in Georgia and the whole country. "Until I retired," he remarked, "I taught school in North Carolina, and in Hall, Jackson, and Rabun Counties, in Georgia. I am farming now about five miles from Athens in the Sandy Creek district. I was born in 1862 in Macon County, North Carolina, on the George Seller's plantation, which borders the Little Tennessee River.

"I don't know anything much, first hand, about the war period, as I was quite a child when that ended, but I can tell you all about the days of Reconstruction. What I know about the things that took place during the war was told me by my mother and other old people.

"My father was Bas Van Hook and he married Mary Angel, my mother. Mother was born on Marse Dillard Love's plantation, and when his daughter, Miss Jenny, married Marse Thomas Angel's son, Marse Dillard gave Mother to Miss Jenny and when Little Miss Jenny Angel was born, Mother was her nurse. Marse Thomas and Miss Jenny Angel died, and Mother stayed right there keeping house for Little Miss Jenny and looking after her. Mother had more sense than all the rest of the slaves put together, and she even did Little Miss Jenny's shopping.

"My father was the only darkey Old Man Isaac Van Hook owned, and he did anything that came to hand: he was a good carpenter and mechanic and helped the Van Hooks to build mills, and he made the shoes for that settlement. Thomas Aaron, George, James, Claude, and Washington were my five brothers, and my sisters were Zelia, Elizabeth, and Candace. Why, Miss, the only thing I can remember right off hand that we children done was fight and frolic like youngsters will do when they get together. With time to put my mind on it, I would probably recollect our games and songs, if we had any.

"Our quarters was on a large farm on Sugar Fork River. The houses were what you would call log huts and they were scattered about promiscuously, no regular lay-out, just built wherever they happened to find a good spring convenient. There was never but one room to a hut, and they wern't particular about how many darkies they put in a room.

"White folks had fine four-poster beds with a frame built around the top of the bed, and over the frame hung pretty, ruffled white curtains and a similar ruffled curtain was around the bottom of the bed; the curtains made pretty ornaments. Slaves had beds of this general kind, but they warn't quite as pretty and fine. Corded springs were the go then. The beds used by most of the slaves in that day and time were called 'Georgia beds,' and these were made by boring two holes in the cabin wall, and two in the floor, and side pieces were run from the holes in the wall to the posts and fastened; then planks were nailed around the sides and foot, box-fashion, to hold in the straw that we used for mattresses; over this pretty white sheets and plenty of quilts was spreaded. Yes, mam, there was always plenty of good warm cover in those days. Of course, it was home-made, all of it.

"My grandfather was a blacksmith and farmhand owned by Old Man Dillard Love. According to my earliest recollection my grandmother Van Hook was dead and I have no memories about her. My great, great grandmother, Sarah Angel, looked after slave children while their mothers were at work. She was a free woman, but she had belonged to Marse Tommy Angel and Miss Jenny Angel; they were brother and sister. The way Granny Sarah happened to be free was; one of the women in the Angel family died and left a little baby soon after one of Granny's babies was born, and so she was loaned to that family as wet nurse for the little orphan baby. They gave her her freedom and took her into their home, because they did not want her sleeping in slave quarters while she was nursing the white child. In that settlement, it was considered a disgrace for a white child to feed at the breast of a slave woman, but it was all right if the darkey was a free woman. After she got too old to do regular work, Granny Sarah used to glean after the reapers in the field to get wheat for her bread. She had been a favored slave and allowed to do pretty much as she pleased, and after she was a free woman the white folks continued to look after her every need, but she loved to do for herself as long as she was able to be up and about.

"What did we have to eat then? Why, most everything; ash cakes was a mighty go then. Cornbread dough was made into little pones and placed on the hot rocks close to the fire to dry out a little, then hot ashes were raked out to the front of the fireplace and piled over the ash cakes. When thoroughly done they were taken out and the ashes washed off; they were just like cake to us children then. We ate lots of home-made lye hominy, beans, peas, and all kinds of greens, cooked with fat meat. The biggest, and maybe the best thing in the way of vegetables that we had then was the white-head cabbage; they grew large up there in Carolina where I lived. There was just one big garden to feed all the folks on that farm.

"Marse George had a good 'possum dog that he let his slaves use at night. They would start off hunting about 10 o'clock. Darkies knew that the best place to hunt for 'possums was in a persimmon tree. If they couldn't shake him out, they would cut the tree down, but the most fun was when we found the 'possum in a hollow log. Some of the hunters would get at one end of the log, and the others would guard the other end, and they would build a fire to smoke the 'possum out. Sometimes when they had to pull him out, they would find the 'possum in such a tight place that most of his hair would be rubbed off before they could get him out. Darkies hunted rabbits, squirrels, coons, all kinds of birds, and 'specially they was fond of going after wild turkeys. Another great sport was hunting deer in the nearby mountains. I managed to get a shot at one once. Marse George was right good about letting his darkies hunt and fish at night to get meat for themselves. Oh! Sure, there were lots of fish and they caught plenty of 'em in the Little Tennessee and Sugar Fork Rivers and in the numerous creeks that were close by. Red horse, suckers, and salmon are the kinds of fish I remember best. They were cooked in various ways in skillets, spiders, and ovens on the big open fireplace.

"Now, about the clothes we wore in the days of the war, I couldn't rightly say, but my Mother said we had good comfortable garments. In the summer weather, boys and men wore plain cotton shirts and jeans pants. The home-made linsey-woolsy shirts that we wore over our cotton shirts, and the wool pants that we wore in winter, were good and warm; they had brogan shoes in winter too. Folks wore the same clothes on Sundays as through the week, but they had to be sure that they were nice and clean on Sundays. Dresses for the women folks were made out of cotton checks, and they had sunbonnets too.

"Marse George Sellars, him that married Miss Ca'line Angel, was my real master. They had four children, Bud, Mount, Elizabeth, and, and er; I just can't bring to recollect the name of their other girl. They lived in a two-story frame house that was surrounded by an oak grove on the road leading from Franklin, North Carolina, to Clayton, Georgia. Hard Sellars was the carriage driver, and while I am sure Marse George must have had an overseer, I don't remember ever hearing anybody say his name.

"Really, Miss, I couldn't say just how big that plantation was, but I am sure there must have been at least four or five hundred acres in it. One mighty peculiar thing about his slaves was that Marse George never had more than 99 slaves at one time; every time he bought one to try to make it an even hundred, a slave died. This happened so often, I was told, that he stopped trying to keep a hundred or more, and held on to his 99 slaves, and long as he did that, there warn't any more deaths than births among his slaves. His slaves had to be in the fields when the sun rose, and there they had to work steady until the sun went down. Oh! Yes, mam, Marse Tommy Angel was mighty mean to his slaves, but Miss Jenny, his sister, was good as could be; that is the reason she gave my mother to her sister, Miss Ca'line Sellars; because she thought Marse Tommy was too hard on her.

"I heard some talk as to how after the slaves had worked hard in the field all day and come to the house at night, they were whipped for mighty small offenses. Marse George would have them tied hand and foot over a barrel and would beat them with a cowhide, or cat-o'-nine tails lash. They had a jail in Franklin as far back as I can recollect. Old Big Andy Angel's white folks had him put in jail a heap of times, because he was a rogue and stole everything he could get his hands on. Nearly everybody was afraid of him; he was a great big double jointed man, and was black as the ace of spades. No, mam, I never saw any slaves sold, but my father's mother and his sister were sold on the block. The white folks that bought 'em took them away. After the war was over my father tried to locate 'em, but never once did he get on the right track of 'em.

"Oh! Why, my white folks took a great deal of pains teaching their slaves how to read and write. My father could read, but he never learned to write, and it was from our white folks that I learned to read and write. Slaves read the Bible more than anything else. There were no churches for slaves on Marse George's plantation, so we all went to the white folks' church, about two miles away; it was called Clarke's Chapel. Sometimes we went to church at Cross Roads; that was about the same distance across Sugar Fork River. My mother was baptized in that Sugar Fork River by a white preacher, but that is the reason I joined the Baptist church, because my mother was a Baptist, and I was so crazy about her, and am 'til yet.

"There were no funeral parlors in those days. They just funeralized the dead in their own homes, took them to the graveyard in a painted home-made coffin that was lined with thin bleaching made in the loom on the plantation, and buried them in a grave that didn't have any bricks or cement about it. That brings to my memory those songs they sung at funerals. One of them started off something like this, I Don't Want You to Grieve After Me. My mother used to tell me that when she was baptized they sung, You Shall Wear a Lily-White Robe. Whenever I get to studying about her it seems to me I can hear my mother singing that song again. She did love it so much.

"No, mam, there didn't none of the darkies on Marse George Sellar's place run away to the North, but some on Marse Tommy Angel's place ran to the West. They told me that when Little Charles Angel started out to run away a bird flew in front of him and led him all the way to the West. Understand me, I am not saying that is strictly so, but that is what I heard old folks say, when I was young. When darkies wanted to get news to their girls or wives on other plantations and didn't want Marse George to know about it, they would wait for a dark night and would tie rags on their feet to keep from making any noise that the paterollers might hear, for if they were caught out without a pass, that was something else. Paterollers would go out in squads at night and whip any darkies they caught out that could not show passes. Adam Angel was a great big man, weighing about 200 pounds, and he slipped out one night without a pass. When the paterollers found him, he was at his girl's place where they were out in the front yard stewing lard for the white folks. They knew he didn't belong on that plantation, so they asked him to show his pass. Adam didn't have one with him, and he told them so. They made a dive for him, and then, quick as a flash, he turned over that pot of boiling lard, and while they were getting the hot grease off of them he got away and came back to his cabin. If they had caught Adam, he would have needed some of that spilt grease on him after the beating they would have give him. Darkies used to stretch ropes and grapevines across the road where they knew paterollers would be riding; then they would run down the road in front of them, and when they got to the rope or vine they would jump over it and watch the horses stumble and throw the paterollers to the ground. That was a favorite sport of slaves.

"After the darkies got in from the field at night, ate their supper, and finished up the chores for the day, on nights when the moon shone bright the men would work in their own cotton patches that Marse George allowed them; the women used their own time to wash, iron, patch, and get ready for the next day, and if they had time they helped the men in their cotton patches. They worked straight on through Saturdays, same as any other day, but the young folks would get together on Saturday nights and have little parties.

"How did they spend Sundays? Why, they went to church on Sunday and visited around, holding prayermeetings at one another's cabins. Now, Christmas morning! Yes, mam, that was a powerful time with the darkies, if they didn't have nothing but a little sweet cake, which was nothing more than gingerbread. However, Marse George did have plenty of good things to eat at that time, such as fresh pork and wild turkeys, and we were allowed to have a biscuit on that day. How we did frolic and cut up at Christmas! Marse George didn't make much special to do on New Year's Day as far as holiday was concerned; work was the primary object, especially in connection with slaves.

"Oh-oo-h! Everybody had cornshuckings. The man designated to act as the general would stick a peacock tail feather in his hat and call all the men together and give his orders. He would stand in the center of the corn pile, start the singing, and keep things lively for them. Now and then he would pass around the jug. They sang a great deal during cornshuckings, but I have forgotten the words to those songs. Great excitement was expressed whenever a man found a red ear of corn, for that counted 20 points, a speckled ear was 10 points and a blue ear 5 points, toward a special extra big swig of liquor whenever a person had as many as 100 points. After the work was finished they had a big feast spread on long tables in the yard, and dram flowed plentiful, then they played ball, tussled, ran races, and did anything they knew how to amuse themselves.

"Now, Ladies," John said, "please excuse me. I left my wife at home real sick, and I just must hurry to the drug store and get some flaxseed so I can make a poultice for her." As he made a hasty departure, he agreed to complete the story later at his home, and gave careful directions for finding the place.

---

A month later, two visitors called on John at his small, unpainted house in the center of a hillside cotton patch.

A tall, thin Negress appeared in the doorway. "Yes, mam, John Van Hook lives here. He's down in the field with his hoe, digging 'taters." She leaned from the porch and called, "Daddy, Daddy! Somebody wants to see you." Asked if John was her father, she answered "No, mam, he is my husband. I started calling him Daddy when our child was little, so I've been calling him that ever since. My name is Laney."

The walls of the room into which John invited his callers were crudely plestered with newspapers and the small space was crowded with furniture of various kinds and periods. The ladder-back chairs he designated for his guests were beautiful. "They are plantation-made," he explained, "and we've had 'em a mighty long time." On a reading table a pencil and tablet with a half-written page lay beside a large glass lamp. Newspapers and books covered several other tables. A freshly whitewashed hearth and mantel were crowned by an old-fashioned clock, and at the end of the room a short flight of steps led to the dining room, built on a higher floor level.

"Now, let's see! Where was I?," John began. "Oh, yes, we were talking about cornshuckings, when I had to leave your office. Well, I haven't had much time to study about those cornshucking songs to get all the words down right, but the name of one was General Religh Hoe, and there was another one that was called, Have a Jolly Crowd, and a Little Jolly Johnny.

"Now you needn't to expect me to know much about cotton pickings, for you know I have already told you I was raised in North Carolina, and we were too far up in the mountains for cotton growing, but I have lived in a cotton growing country for forty-odd years.

"As to parties and frolics, I guess I could have kept those things in mind, but when I realized that being on the go every night I could get off, week in and week out, was turning my mind and heart away from useful living, I tried to put those things out of my life and to train myself to be content with right living and the more serious things of life, and that's why I can't remember more of the things about our frolics that took place as I was growing up. About all I remember about the dances was when we danced the cotillion at regular old country break-downs. Folks valued their dances very highly then, and to be able to perform them well was a great accomplishment. Turkey in the Straw is about the oldest dance tune I can remember. Next to that is Taint Gonna Rain No More, but the tune as well as words to that were far different from the modern song by that name. Rabbit Hair was another favorite song, and there were dozens of others that I just never tried to remember until you asked me about them.

"My father lived in Caswell County and he used to tell us how hard it was for him to get up in the morning after being out most of the night frolicking. He said their overseer couldn't talk plain, and would call them long before crack of dawn, and it sounded like he was saying, 'Ike and a bike, Ike and a bike.' What he meant was, 'Out and about! Out and about!'

"Marriage in those days was looked upon as something very solemn, and it was mighty seldom that anybody ever heard of a married couple trying to get separated. Now it's different. When a preacher married a couple, you didn't see any hard liquor around, but just a little light wine to liven up the wedding feast. If they were married by a justice of the peace, look out, there was plenty of wine and," here his voice was almost awe-stricken, "even whiskey too."

Laney interrupted at this stage of the story with, "My mother said they used to make up a new broom and when the couple jumped over it, they was married. Then they gave the broom to the couple to use keeping house." John was evidently embarrassed. "Laney," he said, "that was never confirmed. It was just hearsay, as far as you know, and I wouldn't tell things like that.

"The first colored man I ever heard preach was old man Johnny McDowell. He married Angeline Pennon and William Scruggs, uncle to Ollie Scruggs, who lives in Athens now. After the wedding they were all dancing around the yard having a big time and enjoying the wine and feast, and old man McDowell, sitting there watching them, looked real thoughtful and sad; suddenly he said: 'They don't behave like they knew what's been done here today. Two people have been joined together for life. No matter what comes, or what happens, these two people must stand by each other, through everything, as long as they both shall live.' Never before had I had such thoughts at a wedding. They had always just been times for big eats, dancing, frolicking, and lots of jokes, and some of them pretty rough jokes, perhaps. What he said got me to thinking, and I have never been careless minded at a wedding since that day. Brother McDowell preached at Clarke's Chapel, about five miles south of Franklin, North Ca'lina, on the road leading from England to Georgia; that road ran right through the Van Hook place."

Again Laney interrupted her husband. "My mother said they even had infare dinners the next day after the wedding. The infare dinners were just for the families of the bride and groom, and the bride had a special dress for that occasion that she called her infare dress. The friends of both parties were there at the big feast on the wedding day, but not at the infare dinner."

"And there was no such a thing as child marriages heard of in those days," John was speaking again. "At least none of the brides were under 15 or 16 years old. Now you can read about child brides not more than 10 years old, 'most ever' time you pick up a paper.

"I don't remember much, about what I played until I got to be about 10 years old. I was a terrible little fellow to imitate things. Old man Tommy Angel built mills, and I built myself a little toy mill down on the branch that led to Sugar Fork River. There was plenty of nice soapstone there that was so soft you could cut it with a pocket knife and could dress it off with a plane for a nice smooth finish. I shaped two pieces of soapstone to look like round millstones and set me up a little mill that worked just fine.

"We run pretty white sand through it and called that our meal and flour. My white folks would come down to the branch and watch me run the little toy mill. I used to make toy rifles and pistols and all sorts of nice playthings out of that soapstone. I wish I had a piece of that good old soapstone from around Franklin, so I could carve some toys like I used to play with for my boy."

"We caught real salmon in the mountain streams," John remarked. "They weighed from 3 to 25 pounds, and kind of favored a jack fish, only jack fishes have duck bills, and these salmon had saw teeth. They were powerful jumpers and when you hooked one you had a fight on your hands to get it to the bank no matter whether it weighed 3 or 25 pounds. The gamest of all the fish in those mountain streams were red horses. When I was about 9 or 10 years old I took my brother's fish gig and went off down to the river. I saw what looked like the shadow of a stick in the clear water and when I thrust the gig at it I found mighty quick I had gigged a red horse. I did my best to land it but it was too strong for me and pulled loose from my gig and darted out into deep water. I ran fast as I could up the river bank to the horseshoe bend where a flat bottom boat belonging to our family was tied. I got in that boat and chased that fish 'til I got him. It weighed 6 pounds and was 2 feet and 6 inches long. There was plenty of excitement created around that plantation when the news got around that a boy, as little as I was then, had landed such a big old fighting fish."

"Suckers were plentiful and easy to catch but they did not give you the battle that a salmon or a red horse could put up and that was what it took to make fishing fun. We had canoes, but we used a plain old flat boat, a good deal like a small ferry boat, most of the time. There was about the same difference in a canoe and a flat boat that there is in a nice passenger automobile and a truck."

When asked if he remembered any of the tunes and words of the songs he sang as a child, John was silent for a few moments and then began to sing:

"A frog went courtin'
And he did ride
Uh hunh
With a sword and pistol
By his side
Uh hunh.

"Old uncle Rat laughed,
Shook his old fat side;
He thought his niece
Was going to be the bride.
Uh hunh, uh hunh

"Where shall the wedding be?
Uh hunh
Where shall the wedding be?
Uh hunh

"Way down yonder
In a hollow gum tree.
Uh hunh, un hunh, uh hunh.

"Who shall the waiters be?
Uh hunh
Granddaddy Louse and a
Black-eyed flea.
Uh hunh, uh hunh, uh hunh."

Laney reminded him of a song he used to sing when their child was a baby. "It is hard for me to formulate its words in my mind. I just cannot seem to get them," he answered, "but I thought of this one the other night and promised myself I would sing it for you sometime. It's Old Granny Mistletoe.

"Old Granny Mistletoe,
Lyin' in the bed,
Out the window
She poked her head.

"She says, 'Old Man,
The gray goose's gone,
And I think I heard her holler,
King-cant-you-O, King-cant-you-O!'

"The old fox stepped around,
A mighty fast step.
He hung the old gray goose
Up by the neck.

"Her wings went flip-flop
Over her back,
And her legs hung down.
Ding-downy-O, ding-downy-O.

"The old fox marched
On to his den.
Out come his young ones,
Some nine or ten.

"Now we will have
Some-supper-O, some-summer-O.
Now we will have
Some-supper-O, some-supper-O."

"The only riddle I remember is the one about: 'What goes around the house, and just makes one track?' I believe they said it was a wheelbarrow. Mighty few people in that settlement believed in such things as charms. They were too intelligent for that sort of thing.

"Old man Dillard Love didn't know half of his slaves. They were called 'Love's free niggers.' Some of the white folks in that settlement would get after their niggers and say 'who do you think you are, you must think you are one of Dillard Love's free niggers the way you act.' Then the slave was led to the whipping post and brushed down, and his marster would tell him, 'now you see who is boss.'

"Marse Dillard often met a darkey in the road, he would stop and inquire of him, 'Who's nigger is you?' The darkey would say 'Boss I'se your nigger.' If Marse Dillard was feeling good he would give the darkey a present. Heaps of times he gave them as much as five dollars, 'cording to how good he was feeling. He treated his darkies mighty good.

"My grandfather belonged to Marse Dillard Love, and when the war was declared he was too old to go. Marse George Sellars went and was wounded. You know all about the blanket rolls they carried over their shoulders. Well, that bullet that hit him had to go all the way through that roll that had I don't know how many folds, and its force was just about spent by the time it got to his shoulder; that was why it didn't kill him, otherwise it would have gone through him. The bullet was extracted, but it left him with a lame shoulder.

"Our Mr. Tommy Angel went to the war, and he got so much experience shooting at the Yankees that he could shoot at a target all day long, and then cover all the bullet holes he made with the palm of one hand. Mr. Tommy was at home when the Yankees come though.

"Folks around our settlement put their darkies on all their good mules and horses, and loaded them down with food and valuables, then sent them to the nearby mountains and caves to hide until the soldiers were gone. Mr. Angel himself told me later that lots of the folks who came around pilfering after the war, warn't northerners at all, but men from just anywhere, who had fought in the war and came back home to find all they had was gone, and they had to live some way.

"One day my father and another servant were laughing fit to kill at a greedy little calf that had caught his head in the feed basket. They thought it was just too funny. About that time a Yankee, in his blue uniform coming down the road, took the notion the men were laughing at him. 'What are you laughing at?' he said, and at that they lit out to run. The man called my father and made him come back, 'cause he was the one laughing so hard. Father thought the Yankee vas going to shoot him before he could make him understand they were just laughing at the calf.

"When the war was over, Mr. Love called his slaves together and told them they had been set free. He explained everything to them very carefully, and told them he would make farming arrangements for all that wanted to stay on there with him. Lots of the darkies left after they heard about folks getting rich working on the railroads in Tennessee and about the high wages that were being paid on those big plantations in Mississippi. Some of those labor agents were powerful smart about stretching the truth, but those folks that believed them and left home found out that it's pretty much the same the world over, as far as folks and human nature is concerned. Those that had even average common sense got along comfortable and all right in Tennessee and Mississippi, and those that suffered out there were the sort that are so stupid they would starve in the middle of a good apple pie. My brother that went with the others to Tennessee never came back, and we never saw him again.

"My father did not want me to leave our home at Franklin, North Carolina, and come to Georgia, for he had been told Georgia people were awful mean. There was a tale told us about the Mr. Oglethorpe, who settled Georgia, bringing over folks from the jails of England to settle in Georgia and it was said they became the ruling class of the State. Anyway, I came on just the same, and pretty soon I married a Georgia girl, and have found the people who live here are all right."

Laney eagerly took advantage of the pause that followed to tell of her mother's owner. "Mother said that he was an old, old man and would set in his big armchair 'most all day. When he heard good news from the soldiers he would drum his fingers on his chair and pat his feet, whilst he tried to sing, 'Te Deum, Te Deum. Good news today! We won today!' Whenever he heard the southern armies were losing, he would lie around moaning and crying out loud. Nobody could comfort him then."

John was delighted to talk about religion. "Yes, mam, after the war, darkies used to meet at each others' houses for religious services until they got churches of their own. Those meetings were little more than just prayermeetings. Our white folks were powerful careful to teach their slaves how to do the right thing, and long after we were free Mr. Tommy would give long talks at our meetings. We loved to listen to him and have him interested in us, for we had never been treated mean like heaps of the slaves in that neighborhood had.

"One white man in our county needed the help of the Lord. His name was Boney Ridley and he just couldn't keep away from liquor. He was an uncle of that famous preacher and poet, Mr. Caleb Ridley. One day when Mr. Boney had been drinking hard and kind of out of his head, he was stretched out on the ground in a sort of stupor. He opened his eyes and looked at the buzzards circling low over him and said, sort of sick and fretful-like, 'Git on off, buzzards; I ain't dead yet.'"

"The Reverend Doctor George Truett was a fine boy and he has grown into a splendid man. He is one of God's chosen ones. I well remember the first time I heard him speak. I was a janitor at the State Normal School when he was a pupil there in 1887. I still think he is about the greatest orator I ever listened to. In those days, back in 1887, I always made it convenient to be doing something around the school room when time came for him to recite or to be on a debate. After he left that school he went on to the Seminary at Louisville and he has become known throughout this country as a great Christian.

"I started teaching in old field schools with no education but just what our white folks had taught me. They taught me to read and write, and I must say I really was a mighty apt person, and took advantage of every opportunity that came my way to learn. You know, teaching is a mighty good way to learn. After I had been teaching for some time I went back to school, but most of my knowledge was gotten by studying what books and papers I could get hold of and by watching folks who were really educated; by listening carefully to them, I found I could often learn a good deal that way."

Laney could be quiet no longer. "My husband," she said, "is a self-made man. His educated brother, Claude, that graduated from Maryville School in Tennessee, says that he cannot cope with my husband."

John smiled indulgently and continued: "We were in sad and woeful want after the war. Once I asked my father why he let us go so hungry and ragged, and he answered: 'How can we help it? Why, even the white folks don't have enough to eat and wear now.'

"Eleven years ago I rented a little farm from. Mr. Jasper Thompson, in Jackson County. After the boll-weevil got bad I came to the other side of the river yonder, where I stayed 7 years. By this time most of the children by my first two wives had grown up and gone off up north. My first wife's children were Robert, Ella, the twins, Julius and Julia Anne, (who died soon after they were grown-up), and Charlie, and Dan. Robert is in Philadelphia, Ella in Cincinnati, and Dan is dead.

"Fred, George, and Johnny, my second wife's children are all living, but are scattered in far-off places.

"Everybody was powerful sorry to hear about Lincoln's assassination. At that time Jefferson Davis was considered the greatest man that ever lived, but the effect of Lincoln's life and deeds will live on forever. His life grows greater in reputation with the years and his wisdom more apparent.

"As long as we were their property our masters were mighty careful to have us doctored up right when there was the least sign of sickness. There was always some old woman too old for field work that nursed the sick on the big plantations, but the marsters sent for regular doctors mighty quick if the patient seemed much sick.

"After the war we were slower to call in doctors because we had no money, and that's how I lost my good right eye. If I had gone to the doctor when it first got hurt it would have been all right now. When we didn't have money we used to pay the doctor with corn, fodder, wheat, chickens, pork, or anything we had that he wanted.

"We learned to use lots of herbs and other home-made remedies during the war when medicine was scarce at the stores, and some old folks still use these simple teas and poultices. Comfrey was a herb used much for poultices on risings, boils, and the like, and tea made from it is said to be soothing to the nerves. Garlic tea was much used for worms, but it was also counted a good pneumonia remedy, and garlic poultices helped folks to breathe when they had grippe or pneumonia. Boneset tea was for colds. Goldenrod was used leaf, stem, blossom, and all in various ways, chiefly for fever and coughs. Black snake root was a good cure for childbed fever, and it saved the life of my second wife after her last child was born. Slippery ellum was used for poultices to heal burns, bruises, and any abrasions, and we gargled slippery ellum tea to heal sore throats, but red oak bark tea was our best sore throat remedy. For indigestion and shortness of the breath we chewed calamus root or drank tea made from it. In fact, we still think it is mighty useful for those purposes. It was a long time after the war before there were any darkies with enough medical education to practice as doctors. Dr. Doyle in Gainesville was the first colored physician that I ever saw.

"The world seems to be gradually drifting the wrong way, and it won't get any better 'til all people put their belief—and I mean by that—simple faith, in the Bible. What they like of it they are in the habit of quoting, but they distort it and try to make it appear to mean whatever will suit their wicked convenience. They have got to take the whole Bible and live by it, and they must remember they cannot leave out those wise old laws of the Old Testament that God gave for men everywhere to live by."

Laney had quietly left the room, but as the visitors were taking their departure she returned with a small package. "This," she explained, "is some calamus root that I raised and dried myself, and I hope it comes in handy whenever you ladies need something for the indigestion."

"Next time you come, I hope to have more songs remembered and written down for you," promised John.

---

PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
ADDIE VINSON, Age 86
653 Dearing Street
Athens, Georgia
Written By:
Mrs. Sadie B. Hornsby
Athens, Georgia
Edited By:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens, Georgia
and
John N. Booth
WPA Residency No. 6 & 7
August 23, 1938

Perched on an embankment high above the street level is the four-room frame cottage where Addie Vinson lives with her daughter. The visitor scrambled up the steep incline to the vine covered porch, and a rap on the front door brought prompt response. "Who dat?" asked a very black woman, who suddenly appeared in the hall. "What you want?... Yassum, dis here's Addie, but dey calls me Mammy, 'cause I'se so old. I s'pects I'se most nigh a hunnert and eight years old."

The old Negress is very short and stout. Her dark blue calico dress was striped with lines of tiny polka dots, and had been lengthened by a band of light blue outing flannel with a darker blue stripe, let in just below the waist line. Her high-topped black shoes were worn over grey cotton hose, and the stocking cap that partially concealed her white hair was crowned by a panama hat that flopped down on all sides except where the brim was fastened up across the front with two conspicuous "safety-first" pins. Addie's eyesight is poor, and she claims it was "plum ruint by de St. Vitus's dance," from which she has suffered for many years. She readily agreed to tell of her early life, and her eyes brightened as she began: "Lawsy, Missy! Is dat what you come 'ere for? Oh, dem good old days! I was thinkin' 'bout Old Miss jus' t'other day.

"I was borned down in Oconee County on Marse Ike Vinson's place. Old Miss was Marse Ike's mother. My Mammy and Pappy was Peter and 'Nerva Vinson and dey was both field hands. Marse Ike buyed my Pappy from Marse Sam Brightwell. Me and Bill, Willis, Maze, Harrison, Easter, and Sue was all de chillun my Mammy and Pappy had. Dere warn't but four of us big enough to wuk when Marse Ike married Miss Ann Hayes and dey tuk Mammy wid 'em to dey new home in town. I stayed dar on de plantation and done lots of little jobs lak waitin' on table; totin' Old Miss' breakfast to her in her room evvy mornin', and I holped 'tend to de grainery. Dey says now dat folkses is livin' in dat old grainery house.

"Dat was a be-yootiful place, wid woods, cricks, and fields spread out most as fur as you could see. De slave quarters would'a reached from here to Milledge Avenue. Us lived in a one-room log cabin what had a chimbly made out of sticks and mud. Dem homemade beds what us slep' on had big old high posties wid a great big knob on de top of each post. Our matt'esses was coarse home-wove cloth stuffed wid field straw. You know I laked dem matt'esses 'cause when de chinches got too bad you could shake out dat straw and burn it, den scald de tick and fill it wid fresh straw, and rest in peace again. You can't never git de chinches out of dese cotton matt'esses us has to sleep on now days. Pillows? What you talkin' 'bout? You know Niggers never had no pillows dem days, leaseways us never had none. Us did have plenty of kivver dough. Folkses was all time a-piecin' quilts and having quiltin's. All dat sort of wuk was done at night.

"Pappy's Ma and Pa was Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Jacob. Day was field hands, and dey b'longed to Marse Obe Jackson. Grandma Lucy and Grandpa Toney Murrah was owned by Marse Billy Murrah. Marse Billy was a preacher what sho could come down wid de gospel at church. Grandma Lucy was his cook. Miss Sadie LeSeur got Grandma Lucy and tuk her to Columbus, Georgy, and us never seed our grandma no more. Miss Sadie had been one of de Vinson gals. She tuk our Aunt Haley 'long too to wait on her when she started out for Europe, and 'fore dey got crost de water, Aunt Haley, she died on de boat. Miss Sarah, she had a time keepin' dem boatsmens from th'owing Aunt Haley to de sharks. She is buried in de old country somewhar.

"Now Missy, how was Nigger chillun gwine to git holt of money in slavery time? Old Marse, he give us plenty of somepin t'eat and all de clothes us needed, but he sho kep' his money for his own self.

"Now 'bout dat somepin t'eat. Sho dat! Us had plenty of dem good old collards, turnips, and dem sort of oatments, and dar was allus a good chunk of meat to bile wid 'em. Marse Ike, he kep' plenty of evvy sort of meat folkses knowed about dem days. He had his own beef cattle, lots of sheep, and he killed more'n a hunnert hogs evvy year. Dey tells me dat old bench dey used to lay de meat out on to cut it up is standin' dar yet.

"'Possums? Lawd, dey was plentiful, and dat ain't all dere was on dat plantation. One time a slave man was 'possum huntin' and, as he was runnin' 'round in de bresh, he looked up and dar was a b'ar standin' right up on his hind laigs grinnin' and ready to eat dat Nigger up. Oh, good gracious, how dat Nigger did run! Dey fetched in 'possums in piles, and dere was lots of rabbits, fixes, and coons. Dem coon, fox and 'possum hounds sho knowed deir business. Lawsy, I kin jus' smell one of dem good old 'possums roastin' right now, atter all dese years. You parbiled de 'possum fust, and den roasted him in a heavy iron skillet what had a big old thick lid. Jus' 'fore de 'possum got done, you peeled ash-roasted 'taters and put 'em all 'round da 'possum so as day would soak up some of dat good old gravy, and would git good and brown. Is you ever et any good old ashcake? You wropped de raw hoecake in cabbage or collard leafs and roasted 'em in de ashes. When dey got done, you had somepin fit for a king to eat.

"De kitchen was sot off a piece from de big house, and our white folkses wouldn't eat deir supper 'fore time to light de lamps to save your life; den I had to stan' 'hind Old Miss' cheer and fan her wid a turkey-feather fan to keep de flies off. No matter how rich folkses was dem days dere warn't no screens in de houses.

"I never will forgit pore old Aunt Mary; she was our cook, and she had to be tapped evvy now and den 'cause she had de drapsy so bad. Aunt Mary's old man was Uncle Harris, and I 'members how he used to go fishin' at night. De udder slaves went fishin' too. Many's de time I'se seed my Mammy come back from Barber's Crick wid a string of fish draggin' from her shoulders down to de ground. Me, I laked milk more'n anything else. You jus' oughta seed dat place at milkin' time. Dere was a heap of cows a fightin', chillun hollerin', and sich a bedlam as you can't think up. Dat old plantation was a grand place for chillun, in summertime 'specially, 'cause dere was so many branches and cricks close by what us chillun could hop in and cool off.

"Chillun didn't wear nothin' but cotton slips in summer, but de winter clothes was good and warm. Under our heavy winter dresses us wore quilted underskirts dat was sho nice and warm. Sunday clothes? Yes Mar'm, us allus had nice clothes for Sunday. Dey made up our summertime Sunday dresses out of a thin cloth called Sunday-parade. Dey was made spenser fashion, wid ruffles 'round de neck and waist. Our ruffled petticoats was all starched and ironed stiff and slick, and us jus' knowed our long pantalettes, wid deir scalloped ruffles, was mighty fine. Some of de 'omans would wuk fancy eyelets what dey punched in de scallops wid locust thorns. Dem pantalettes was buttoned on to our drawers. Our Sunday dresses for winter was made out of linsey-woolsey cloth. White ladies wore hoopskirts wid deir dresses, and dey looked lak fairy queens. Boys wore plain shirts in summer, but in winter dey had warmer shirts and quilted pants. Dey would put two pair of britches togedder and quilt 'em up so you couldn't tell what sort of cloth dey was made out of. Dem pants was called suggins.

"All de Niggers went barfoots in summer, but in winter us all wore brogans. Old Miss had a shoe shop in de cellar under de big house, and when dem two white 'omans dat she hired to make our shoes come, us knowed wintertime was nigh. Dem 'omans would stay 'til day had made up shoes enough to last us all winter long, den dey would go on to de next place what dey s'pected to make shoes.

"Marse Ike Vinson was sho good to his Niggers. He was de hanger, 'cept he never hung nobody. Him and Miss Ann had six chillun. Dey was Miss Lucy, Miss Myrt, Miss Sarah, Miss Nettie, Marse Charlie, and Marse Tom. Marse Ike's ma, Old Miss, wouldn't move to town wid him and Miss Ann; she stayed on in de big house on de plantation. To tell de truf I done forgot Old Miss' name. De overseer and his wife was Mr. Edmond and Miss Betsey, and dey moved up to de big house wid old Miss atter Marse Ike and Miss Ann moved to town. Stiles Vinson was de carriage driver, and he fotched Marse Ike out to de plantation evvy day. Lord! Gracious alive! It would take a week to walk all over dat plantation. Dere was more'n a thousand acres in it and, countin' all de chillun, dere was mighty nigh a hunnert slaves.

"Long 'fore day, dat overseer blowed a bugle to wake up de Niggers. You could hear it far as High Shoals, and us lived dis side of Watkinsville. Heaps of folkses all over dat part of de country got up by dat old bugle. I will never forgit one time when de overseer said to us chillun, 'You fellows go to do field and fetch some corn tops.' Mandy said: 'He ain't talkin' to us 'cause us ain't fellows and I ain't gwine.' Bless your sweet life, I runned and got dem corn tops, 'cause I didn't want no beatin'. Dem udder 'chillun got deir footses most cut off wid dem switches whan dat overseer got to wuk to sho 'em dey had to obey him. Dat overseer sho did wuk de Niggers hard; he driv' 'em all de time. Dey had to go to de field long 'fore sunup, and it was way atter sundown 'fore dey could stop dat field wuk. Den dey had to hustle to finish deir night wuk in time for supper, or go to bed widout it.

[HW sidenote: Beating]

"You know dey whupped Niggers den. Atter dey had done wukked hard in de fields all day long, de beatin' started up, and he allus had somepin in mind to beat 'em about. When dey beat my Aunt Sallie she would fight back, and once when Uncle Randall said somepin he hadn't oughta, dat overseer beat him so bad he couldn't wuk for a week. He had to be grez all over evvy day wid hoalin' ointment for a long time 'fore dem gashes got well.

"Rita and Retta was de Nigger 'omans what put pizen in some collards what dey give Aunt Vira and her baby to eat. She had been laughin' at a man 'cause his coattail was a-flappin' so funny whilst he was dancin', and dem two Jezebels thought she was makin' fun of dem. At de graveyard, 'fore dey buried her, dey cut her open and found her heart was all decayed. De overseer driv dem 'omans clear off de plantation, and Marster, he was mighty mad. He said he had done lost 'bout $2,000. If he had kotched dem 'omans he woulda hung 'em, cause he was de hanger. In 'bout two weeks dat overseer left dar, and Old Marse had to git him anudder man to take his place.

"Sho! Dere was a jail for slaves and a hangin' place right in front of de jail, but none of Old Marster's Niggers warn't never put in no jailhouse. Oh God! Yes, dey sold slaves. My own granddaddy was made to git up on dat block, and dey sold him. One time I seed Old Marse buy four boys." At this point the narrative ceased when Addie suddenly remembered that she must stop to get supper for the daughter, who would soon be returning from work.

The visitor called early in the morning of the following day, and found Addie bent over her washtubs in the back yard. "Have dat cheer," was the greeting as the old Negress lifted a dripping hand to point out a chair under the spreading branches of a huge oak tree, "You knows you don't want to hear no more 'bout dat old stuff," she said, "and anyhow, is you gittin' paid for doin' dis?" When the visitor admitted that these interviews were part of her salaried work, Addie quickly asked: "What is you gwine to give me?"

When the last piece of wash had been hung on the line and Addie had turned a large lard can upside down for a stool, she settled down and began to talk freely.

"No Ma'm, dey didn't low Niggers to larn how to read and write. I had to go wid de white chillun to deir school on Hog Mountain road evvy day to wait on 'em. I toted water for 'em kep' de fire goin', and done all sorts of little jobs lak dat. Miss Martha, de overseer's daughter, tried to larn me to read and write, but I wouldn't take it in.

"No Ma'm dere warn't no churches for Niggers in slavery time, so slaves had to go to deir white folkses churches. Us went to church at Betty Berry (Bethabara) and Mars Hill. When time come for de sermon to de Niggers, sometimes de white folkses would leave and den again dey would stay, but dat overseer, he was dar all de time. Old man Isaac Vandiver, a Nigger preacher what couldn't read a word in de Bible, would git up in dat pulpit and talk from his heart. You know dere's heaps of folkses what's got dat sort of 'ligion—it's deep in deir hearts. De Reverend Freeman was de white folkses' preacher. I laked him best, for what he said allus sounded good to me.

"At funerals us used to sing Hark From De Tomb A Doleful Sound. I never went to no funerals, but Old Marster's and Aunt Nira's, 'fore de end of de war.

"When Old Marster went off to de war, he had all his slaves go to de musterin' ground to see him leave. He was captain of his company from Oconee County, and 'fore he left he had de mens in dat company bury deir silver and gold, deir watches, rings, and jus' anything dey wanted to keep, on Hog Mountain. Ha lef' a guard to watch de hidin' place so as dey would have somepin when dey come back home, den dey marched back to de musterin' ground dat was twixt de Hopkins' plantation and Old Marster's place. Uncle Solomon went along to de war to tote Marster's gun, cook for him, and sich lak. It warn't long 'fore old Marse was kilt in dat war, and Uncle Solomon fetches him back in a coffin. All de slaves dat went to de buryin' jus' trembled when guns was fired over Old Marster's grave. Dat was done to show dat Old Marster had been a powerful high-up man in de army.

"Good Gracious! Dere didn't nary a Nigger go off from our place to de North, 'cause us was skeered of dem Yankees. Dere was a white slave-trader named McRaleigh what used to come to Old Marster's plantation to buy up Niggers to take 'em to de Mississippi bottoms. When us seed him comin' us lit out for de woods. He got Aunt Rachel; you could hear her hollerin' a mile down de road.

"Oh! Good Lord! Dem patterollers was awful. Folkses what dey cotched widout no paper, dey jus' plum wore out. Old man John was de fiddler on our place, and when de patterollers cotched him dey beat him up de wust of all, 'cause him and his fiddle was all de time drawin' Niggers out to do dances.

"If Old Marster wanted to send a massage he sont Uncle Randall on a mule named Jim. Sometimes dat old mule tuk a notion he didn't want to go; den he wouldn't budge. I ricollects one time dey tuk a bundle of fodder and tied it to Old Jim's tail, but still he wouldn't move. Old Marster kep' a special man to fetch and carry mail for de plantation in a road cyart, and nobody warn't 'lowed to go nigh dat cyart.

"When slaves got in from de fields at night dey cooked and et deir supper and went to bed. Dey had done been wukin' since sunup. When dere warn't so much to do in de fields, sometimes Old Marster let his Niggers lay off from wuk atter dinner on Saddays. If de chinches was most eatin' de Niggers up, now and den de 'omans was 'lowed to stay to de house to scald evvything and clear 'em out, but de menfolkses had to go on to de field. On Sadday nights de 'omans patched, washed, and cut off peaches and apples to dry in fruit season. In de daytime dey had to cut off and dry fruit for Old Miss. When slaves got smart wid deir white folkses, deir Marsters would have 'em beat, and dat was de end of de matter. Dat was a heap better'n dey does now days, 'cause if a Nigger gits out of place dey puts him on de chaingang. [TR: 'Whipping' written in margin.]

"Sunday was a day off for all de slaves on our plantation. Cause, de mens had to look atter de stock in de lot right back of de cabins. De 'omans cooked all day for de next week. If dey tuk a notion to go to church, mules was hitched to wagons made lak dippers, and dey jigged off down de road. Us had four days holiday for Christmas. Old Miss give us lots of good things to eat dem four days; dere was cake, fresh meat, and all kinds of dried fruit what had been done stored away. All de Niggers tuk dat time to rest but my Mammy. She tuk me and went 'round to de white folkses' houses to wash and weave. Dey said I was a right smart, peart little gal, and white folkses used to try to hire me from Old Miss. When dey axed her for me, Old Miss allus told 'em: 'You don't want to hire dat gal; she ain't no 'count.' She wouldn't let nobody hire her Niggers, 'cept Mammy, 'cause she knowed Mammy warn't gwine to leave her nohow. On New Year's Day, if dere warn't too much snow on de ground, de Niggers burnt brush and cleared new ground.

"When Aunt Patience led de singin' at cornshuckin's, de shucks sho'ly did fly. Atter de corn was shucked, dey fed us lots of good things and give us plenty of liquor. De way cotton pickin' was managed was dis: evvybody dat picked a thousand pounds of cotton in a week's time was 'lowed a day off. Mammy picked her thousand pounds evvy week.

"Dances? Now you's talkin' 'bout somepin' sho' 'nough. Old John, de fiddler man, was right dere on our plantation. Niggers dat had done danced half de night would be so sleepy when de bugle sounded dey wouldn't have time to cook breakfast. Den 'bout de middle of de mawnin' dey would complain 'bout bein' so weak and hongry dat de overseer would fetch 'em in and have 'em fed. He let 'em rest 'bout a hour and a half; den he marched 'em back to de field and wuked 'em 'til slap black dark. Aunt Sook was called de lead wench. If de moon warn't out, she put a white cloth 'round her shoulders and led 'em on.

"Didn't none of Old Marsters chillun marry in slavery time, but Old Miss, she let us see a Nigger gal named Frances Hester git married. When I sot down to dat weddin' supper I flung de chicken bones over my shoulder, 'cause I didn't know no better. I don't 'member what gals played when I was little, but boys played ball all day long if dey was 'lowed to. One boy, named Sam, played and run so hard he tuk his bed Monday and never got up no more.

"I heared tell of Raw Haid and Bloody Bones. Old folkses would skeer us most nigh to death tellin' us he was comin'. Mankind! Us made for de house den. Missy, please mam, don't ax me 'bout dem ha'nts. I sees 'em all de time. Atter she had done died out, Old Miss used to come back all de time. She didn't lak it 'cause day wropped her in a windin' sheet and buried her by de doorsteps, but I reckon dey done fixed her by now, 'cause she don't come back no more. Dere's a house in Athens, called de Bell House, dat nobody kin live in, 'cause a man run his wife from home and atter she died, she come back and ha'nted dat house.

"Lawd have mercy! Look here, don't talk lak dat. I ain't told you before but part o' dis here yard is conjured. A man comes here early evvy mornin' and dresses dis yard down wid conjuration. Soon as I sot down here to talk to you, a pain started in my laigs, and it is done gone all over me now. I started to leave you and go in de house. Come on. Let's leave dis yard right now. Hurry!" On reaching the kitchen Addie hastily grasped the pepper box and shook its contents over each shoulder and on her head, saying: "Anything hot lak dis will sho drive dis spell away. De reason I shakes lak I does, one day I was in de yard and somepin cotch me. It helt fast to my footses, den I started to shake all over, and I been shakin' ever since. A white 'oman gimme some white soap, and evvy mornin' I washes myself good wid dat soap 'fore I puts on my clothes."

Leaving the kitchen, Addie entered the front room which serves as a bedroom. "Lawdy, Missy!" she exclaimed, "Does you smell dat funny scent? Oh, Good Lawd! Jus' look at dem white powders on my doorstep! Let me git some hot water and wash 'em out quick! Now Missy, see how dese Niggers 'round here is allus up to deir meanness? Dere's a man in de udder room bilin' his pizen right now. I has to keep a eye on him all de time or dis here old Nigger would be in her grave. I has to keep somepin hot all de time to keep off dem conjure spells. I got three pids of pepper most ready to pick, and I'se gwine to tie 'em 'round my neck, den dese here spells folkses is all de time tryin' to put on me won't do me no harm."

Addie now lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "I found a folded up piece of white paper under our back doorstep dis very mornin'. Bless your life, I got a stick from de kitchen quick and poked it in a crack in de steps and got it out 'fore I put my foots down on dem steps. I sho did."

Here Addie reverted to her story of the plantation. "Old Marster was mighty good to his Niggers," she said. When any of 'em got sick Old Miss sont to town for him, and he allus come right out and fetched a doctor. Old Miss done her very best for Pappy when he was tuk sick, but he died out jus' de same. Pappy used to drive a oxcart and, when he was bad off sick and out of his haid, he hollered out: 'Scotch dat wheel! Scotch dat wheel!' In his mind, he was deep in de bad place den, and didn't know how to pray. Old Miss, she would say: 'Pray, Pete, Pray.' Old Miss made a heap of teas from diff'unt things lak pennyroyal, algaroba wood, sassafras, flat tobacco, and mullein. Us wore rabbits foots, little bags of asfiddy (asafetida), and garlic tabs 'round our necks to keep off mis'ries. I wishes I had a garlic tab to wear 'round my neck now.

"One day Old Miss called us togedder and told us dat us was free as jay birds. De Niggers started hollerin': 'Thank de Lawd, us is free as de jay birds.' 'Bout dat time a white man come along and told dem Niggers if he heared 'em say dat again he would kill de last one of 'em. Old Miss axed us to stay on wid her and dar us stayed for 'bout three years. It paid us to stay dere 'stead of runnin' off lak some udder Niggars dat played de fool done. T'warn't long 'fore dem Yankees come 'long, and us hustled off to town to see what dey looked lak. I never seed so many mens at one time in my life before. When us got back to de plantation de overseer told us not to drink no water out of de well, 'cause somebody had done put a peck of pizen in dar. He flung a whole bushel of salt in de well to help git rid of de pizen.

"Atter de end of de war, I went to wuk as a plow-hand. I sho did keep out of de way of dem Ku Kluxers. Folkses would see 'em comin' and holler out: 'De Ku Kluxers is ridin' tonight. Keep out of deir way, or dey will sho kill you.' Dem what was skeered of bein' cotched and beat up, done deir best to stay out of sight.

"It was a long time atter de war was done over 'fore schools for Niggers was sot up, and den when Nigger chillun did git to go to school dey warn't 'lowed to use de old blue-back spellin' book 'cause white folkses said it larn't 'em too much.

"It was two or three years atter de war 'fore any of de Niggers could save up enough money to start buyin' land, and den, if dey didn't watch dey steps mighty keerful, de white folkses would find a way to git dat land back from de Niggers.

"What! Is I got to tell you 'bout dat old Nigger I got married up wid? I don't want to talk 'bout dat low down, no 'count devil. Anyhow, I married Ed Griffeth and, sho dat, I had a weddin'. My weddin' dress was jus' de purtiest thing; it was made out of parade cloth, and it had a full skirt wid ruffles from de knees to de hem. De waist fitted tight and it was cut lowneck wid three ruffles 'round de shoulder. Dem puff sleeves was full from de elbow to de hand. All dem ruffles was aidged wid lace and, 'round my waist I wore a wide pink sash. De underskirt was trimmed wid lace, and dere was lace on de bottom of de drawers laigs. Dat was sho one purty outfit dat I wore to marry dat no 'count man in. I had bought dat dress from my young Mist'ess.

"Us had seven chillun and ten grandchillun. Most of 'em is livin' off up in Detroit. If Ed ain't daid by now he ought to be; he was a good match for de devil.

"I reckon Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Jeff Davis done right as fur as dey knowed how and could. If dem northern folkses hadn't fotched us here, us sho wouldn't never have been here in de fust place. Den dey hauled off and said de South was mean to us Niggers and sot us free, but I don't know no diffunce. De North sho let us be atter dat war, and some of de old Niggers is still mad 'cause dey is free and ain't got no Marster to feed 'em and give 'em good warm clothes no more.

"Oh! You gits happy when you jines up wid de church. I sho don't want to go to de bad place. Dere ain't but two places to go to, Heaven and hell, and I'se tryin' to head for Heaven. Folkses says dat when Old Dives done so bad he had to go to de bad place, a dog was sot at his heels for to keep him in dar. No Mam, if it's de Good Lawd's will to let me git to Heaven, I is sho gwine to keep out of hell, if I kin.

"Goodbye, Missy. Next time you comes fetch me a garlic tab to keep de conjure spells 'way from me," was Addie's parting request.

---

PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
EMMA VIRGEL, Age 73
1491 W. Broad Street
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Grace McCune
Athens
Edited by:
Sarah H. Hall
Athens
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7
Augusta, Ga.
[Date Stamp: MAY 13 1938]

Hurrying for shelter from a sudden shower, the interviewer heard a cheerful voice singing "Lord I'se Comin' Home," as she rushed up the steps of Aunt Emma's small cabin. Until the song was ended she quietly waited on the tiny porch and looked out over the yard which was attractive with roses and other old-fashioned flowers; then she knocked on the door.

Dragging footsteps and the tap, tap of a crutch sounded as Aunt Emma approached the door. "Come in out of dat rain, chile, or you sho' will have de pneumony," she said. "Come right on in and set here by my fire. Fire feels mighty good today. I had to build it to iron de white folkses clothes." Aunt Emma leaned heavily on her crutch as she wielded the iron with a dexterity attainable only by long years of experience. Asked if her lameness and use of a crutch made her work difficult, she grinned and answered: "Lawsy chile, I'se jus' so used to it, I don't never think 'bout it no more. I'se had to wuk all of my life, no matter what was in de way." The comfort, warmth and cheer of the small kitchen encouraged intimate conversation and when Aunt Emma was asked for the story of her childhood days and her recollections of slavery, she replied: "I was too little to 'member much, but I'se heared my Ma tell 'bout dem days.

"My Pa and Ma was Louis and Mary Jackson. Dey b'longed to Marse John Montgomery, way down in Oconee County. Marse John didn't have no wife den, 'cause he didn't git married 'til atter de War. He had a big place wid lots of slaves. He was sho' good to 'em, and let 'em have plenty of evvything. De slave quarters was log cabins wid big fireplaces, whar dey done de cookin'. Dey had racks to hang pots on to bile and dey baked in ovens set on de harth (hearth). Dat was powerful good eatin'. Dey had a big old gyarden whar dey raised plenty of corn, peas, cabbages, potatoes, collards, and turnip greens. Out in de fields dey growed mostly corn, wheat, and cotton. Marster kep' lots of chickens, cows, hogs, goats, and sheep; and he fed 'em all mighty good.

"Marster let his slaves dance, and my Ma was sho' one grand dancer in all de breakdown's. Dey give 'em plenty of toddy and Niggers is dancers f'um way back yonder while de toddy lasts.

"Slaves went to deir Marster's meetin's and sot in de back of de church. Dey had to be good den 'cause Marster sho' didn't 'low no cuttin' up 'mongst his Niggers at de church. Ma said he didn't believe in whuppin' his Niggers lessen it jus' had to be done, but den dey knowed he was 'round dar when he did have to whup 'em.

"Ma said when dey had big baptizin's in de river dey prayed and shouted and sung 'Washin' 'way my Sins,'—'Whar de Healin' Water Flows,' and 'Crossin' de River Jerdan.' De white preacher baptized de slaves and den he preached—dat was all dere was to it 'ceppen de big dinner dey had in de churchyard on baptizin' days.

"When slaves died, dey made coffins out of pine wood and buried 'em whar de white folkses was buried. If it warn't too fur a piece to de graveyard, dey toted de coffin on three or four hand sticks. Yessum, hand sticks, dat's what day called 'em. Dey was poles what dey sot de coffin on wid a Nigger totin' each end of de poles. De white preacher prayed and de Niggers sung 'Hark f'um de Tomb.'

"Ma said she had a grand big weddin'. She wore a white swiss dress wid a bleachin' petticoat, made wid heaps of ruffles and a wreath of flowers 'round her head. She didn't have no flower gals. Pa had on a long, frock tail, jim swinger coat lak de preacher's wore. A white preacher married 'em in de yard at de big house. All de Niggers was dar, and Marster let 'em dance mos' all night.

"I was de oldest of Ma's 10 chillun. Dey done all gone to rest now 'ceptin' jus' de three of us what's lef in dis world of trouble. Yessum, dere sho' is a heap of trouble here.

"Atter de War, Ma and Pa moved on Mr. Bill Marshall's place to farm for him and dar's whar I was born. Dey didn't stay dar long 'fore dey moved to Mr. Jim Mayne's place away out in de country, in de forks of de big road down below Watkinsville. I sho' was a country gal. Yessum, I sho' was. Mr. Mayne's wife was Mrs. Emma Mayne and she took a lakin' to me 'cause I was named Emma. I stayed wid her chilluns all de time, slep' in de big house, and et dar too, jus' lak one of dem, and when dey bought for dey chillun dey bought for me too.

"Us wore homespun dresses and brass toed shoes. Sometimes us would git mighty mad and fuss over our games and den Miss Emma would make us come in de big house and set down. No Ma'am, she never did whup us. She was good and she jus' talked to us, and told us us never would git to Heb'en lessen us was good chillun. Us played games wid blocks and jumped de rope and, when it was warm, us waded in de crick. Atter I was big 'nough, I tuk de white chillun to Sunday School, but I didn't go inside den—jus' waited on de outside for 'em. I never got a chanct to go to school none, but de white chilluns larnt me some.

"Marse Jim was mighty good to de Niggers what wukked for him, and us all loved him. He didn't 'low no patterollers or none of dem Ku Kluxers neither to bother de Niggers on his place. He said he could look atter 'em his own self. He let 'em have dances, and evvy Fourth of July he had big barbecues. Yessum, he kilt hogs, goats, sheep and sometimes a cow for dem barbecues. He believed in havin' plenty to eat.

"I 'members dem big corn shuckin's. He had de mostes' corn, what was in great big piles put in a circle. All de neighbors was axed to come and bring deir Niggers. De fus' thing to do was to 'lect a gen'ral to stand in de middle of all dem piles of corn and lead de singin' of de reels. No Ma'am, I don't 'member if he had no shuck stuck up on his hat or not, and I can't ricollec' what de words of de reels was, 'cause us chillun was little den, but de gen'ral he pulled off de fus' shuck. Den he started singin' and den dey all sung in answer to him, and deir two hands a-shuckin' corn kep' time wid de song. As he sung faster, dey jus' made dem shucks more dan fly. Evvy time de gen'ral would speed up de song, de Niggers would speed up deir corn shuckin's. If it got dark 'fore dey finished, us chillun would hold torch lights for 'em to see how to wuk. De lights was made out of big pine knots what would burn a long time. Us felt mighty big when us was 'lowed to hold dem torches. When dey got done shuckin' all de corn, dey had a big supper, and Honey, dem was sho' some good eatments—barbecue of all sorts—jus' thinkin' 'bout dem pies makes me hongry, even now. Ma made 'em, and she couldn't be beat on chicken pies and sweet potato pies. Atter dey done et and drunk all dey wanted, Marse Jim would tell 'em to go to it. Dat was de word for de gen'ral to start up de dancin', and dat lasted de rest of de night; dat is if dey didn't all fall out, for old time corn shuckin' breakdowns was drag-outs and atter all dem 'freshments, hit sho' kept somebody busy draggin' out dem what fell out. Us chillun was 'lowed to stay up long as us wanted to at corn shuckin's, and sometimes us would git out and try to do lak de grown-up Niggers. Hit was de mos' fun.

"Dey went huntin' and fishin' and when dey cotch or kilt much, dey had a big supper. I 'members de fus' time I ever cooked 'possum. Ma was sick in de bed, and de mens had done been 'possum huntin'. Ma said I would jus' have to cook dem 'possums. She told me how to fix 'em and she said to fix 'em wid potatoes and plenty of butter and red pepper. Den she looked at me right hard and said dat dey had better be jus' right. Dat skeered me so I ain't never been so I could eat no 'possum since den. Yessum, dey was cooked jus' right, but cookin' 'em jus' once when I was skeered cured me of de taste for eatin' 'possum.

"Us chillun didn't git out and go off lak dey does dese days. Us stayed dar on de plantation. In winter us had to wear plenty of clothes, wid flannel petticoats and sich lak, and us stayed in by de fire. Big boys had clothes made out of jeans, but little boys wore homespun shirts. On hot days us jus' wore one piece of clothes, a sort of shirt what was made long and had a yoke in it.

"Dey made me use snuff to cure my sore eyes when I was little, and I never could quit usin' it no more. When I was 'bout 15, Ma and Pa moved to Athens and I went to wuk for Mr. Joe Webb's fambly. I wukked for 'em for 30 years and raised all deir chillun. Dey was all mighty good to me and seed dat I had plenty of evvything. I would still be dar, but de old folkses all done died out and gone to dey rest and de younguns done married and lef' here.

"I was wukkin' right in de house wid 'em when I 'cided to git married. Yes Ma'am, I sho' done had one swell elegant weddin'. Jus' evvything heart could ask for. I married at my Ma's house, but my white folkses was all right dar, and dey had done fixed de house up pretty wid flowers all over it. Dey give me my white flannel weddin' dress and it was sho' pretty, but dey warn't nothin' lackin' 'bout my second day dress. My white folkses bought dat too,—It was a bottle green silk. Lawsy, but I was sho' one dressed up bride. It was 8 o'clock dat night when de preacher got finished wid tyin' dat knot for me and Sam Virgel. My sister and her fellow stood up wid us and us had a big crowd at our weddin' supper. Dere was one long table full of our white folkses, 'sides all de Niggers, and I jus' never seed so much to eat. My white folkses said dat Emma jus' had to have plenty for her weddin' feast and dey evermore did lay out good things for dat supper, and dem Niggers sho' did hide dat chicken and cake away lak dey hadn't never seed none before.

"I wukked on for de Webbs 'til dey was all gone. De old folks is in Heb'en whar I 'spects to see 'em some day when de Lord done called me home. De younguns moved away, but I still loves 'em evvyone, 'cause dey looked atter old Emma so good when dey was here. Us never had no chillun and Sam done been gone to his res' long years ago. I'se jus' a-wukkin and a-waitin 'til I gits called to go too. I don't have plenty all de time now lak I used to, and nobody here looks atter old Emma no more, but I makes out.

"I'se mighty glad it rained if dat's what sont you to my door. It's been nice to talk wid white folkses again. I wisht I had somepin' nice for you! Let me cut you a bunch of my flowers?" She carefully placed her iron on the hearth and hobbled out in the yard. The May shower had been followed by sunshine as she handed her guest a huge bouquet of roses, Aunt Emma bowed low. "Good-bye, Missy," she said, "please come back to see me."

---

[HW: Dist. 7
Ex-Slave #110]
Adella S. Dixon
INTERVIEW WITH RHODUS WALTON, EX-SLAVE, Age 84
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

Ten years before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, a son was born to Antony and Patience Walton who lived in Lumpkin, Stewart County, Ga. When this son, Rhodus, was three weeks old, his mother, along with the three younger children, was sold. His father and the thirteen sons and daughters that she left behind were never seen again. His parents' birthplace and the name they bore before moving to the Walton home are unknown to Rhodus and he never was able to trace his family even after "freedom."

The Walton plantation, home of Mr. Sam B. Walton who purchased his mother, was a very large one with the "Big House" on an elevation near the center. The majestic colonial home with its massive columns was seen for miles around and from its central location the master was able to view his entire estate.

Approximately one block from the planter's home, the "quarters" were clustered. These were numerous loghouses with stick-and-clay chimneys in which the slave families dwelt. Each house was composed of one room sparsely furnished. The beds were corded with rope and as large families were stressed, it was often necessary for several members to sleep on the floor. There was an open fireplace at which family meals were prepared. Equipment consisted of an iron pot suspended by a hanger and a skillet with long legs that enabled the cook to place fire beneath it. Bread known as "ash cake" was sometimes cooked on the hot coals.

The auction block was located not far from this old home. Here Rhodus Walton with other young children watched slaves emerge from boxcars, where they had been packed so closely that there was no room to sit, to be sold to the highest bidder. This was one of his most vivid recollections.

As Rhodus' father did not come to this home with his family, he knows nothing of him. Except for brief intervals his mother worked in the house where cotton and wool were spun into thread and then woven into cloth from which the slaves' clothing was made. An elder sister nursed the master's smaller children. Rhodus' first duties were to drive the cows to and from the pastures and to keep the calves from annoying the milkers.

His master was a very cruel man whose favorite form of punishment was to take a man (or woman) to the edge of the plantation where a rail fence was located. His head was then placed between two rails so that escape was impossible and he was whipped until the overseer was exhausted. This was an almost daily occurrence, administered on the slightest provocation.

Saturday was the only afternoon off and Christmas was the only vacation period, but one week of festivities made this season long remembered. Many "frolics" were given and everyone danced where banjoes were available; also, these resourceful people secured much of their music from an improvised fiddle fashioned from a hand saw. Immediately after these festivities, preparations began for spring planting. New ground was cleared; old land fertilized and the corn fields cleared of last year's rubbish.

Courtship began at a later age than is customary now but they were much more brief. Gifts to one's sweetheart were not permitted, but verses such as:

Roses are red,
Violets blue,
I don't love
No one but you

were invariably recited to the loved one. Young negro men always "cocked" their hats on one side of their heads when they became interested in the other sex. Marriages were performed by the master. Common law situations did not exist.

Serious illnesses were not frequent and home remedies compounded of roots and herbes usually sufficed. Queensy's light root, butterfly roots, scurry root, red shank root, bull tongue root were all found in the woods and the teas made from their use were "cures" for many ailments. Whenever an illness necessitated the services of a physician, he was called. One difference in the old family doctor and those of today was the method of treatment. The former always carried his medicine with him, the latter writes prescriptions. The fee was also much smaller in olden times.

Food was distributed weekly in quantities according to the size of the family. A single man would receive:

1 pk. meal	on Sunday
1 qt. syrup	flour (seconds)
3 ½ lbs. meat	Holidays—July 4th and Christmas fresh meat.

Peas, pepper grass, polk salad were plentiful in the fields. Milk and "pot likker" could be had from the big house when desired, although every family cooked for itself. Saturday afternoon was the general fishing time and each person might catch as many as he needed for his personal use.

The slaves did most of the weaving on the plantation, but after the cloth was woven the problem of giving it color presented itself. As they had no commercial dye, certain plants were boiled to give color. A plant called indigo, found in the cotton patch, was the chief type of dye, although thare was another called copperas. The dresses made from this material were very plain.

Walton believes in most of the old signs and superstitions because he has "watched them and found that they are true." The continuous singing of a whipporwill near a house is a sign of death, but if an iron is placed in the fire and allowed to remain there, the bird will fly away.

When the news of the war finally reached the plantation, the slaves followed the progress with keen interest and when battles were fought near Columbus, and firing of guns was heard, they cried joyfully—"It ain't gonna be long now." Two of their master's sons fought in the Confederate Army, but both returned home before the close of the war. One day news came that the Yankee soldiers were soon to come, and Walton began to hide all valuables. The slaves were sent to the cemetery to dig very deep graves where all manner of food was stored. They were covered like real graves and wooden slabs placed at either end. For three days before the soldiers were expected, all the house servants were kept busy preparing delicacies with which to tempt the Yankees and thus avoid having their place destroyed. In spite of all this preparation, they were caught unawares and when the "blue coats" were seen approaching, the master and his two sons ran. The elder made his way to the woods; the younger made away on "Black Eagle" a horse reputed to run almost a mile a minute. Nearly everything on the place was destroyed by these invaders. One bit of information has been given in every interview where Northern soldiers visited a plantation, they found, before coming, whether the Master was mean or kind and always treated him as he had treated his slaves. Thus Mr. Walton was "given the works" as our modern soldiers would say.

When the war ended the slaves were notified that they were free. Just before Rhodus' family prepared to move, his mother was struck on the head by a drunken guest visiting at the "big house." As soon as she regained consciousness, the family ran off without communicating with an elder sister who had been sold to a neighbor the previous year. A year later, news of this sister reached them through a wagoner who recognized the small boys as he passed them. He carried the news to the family's new residence back to the lost sister and in a few weeks she arrived at Cuthbert to make her home with her relatives.

For the past 9 years Rhodus has been unable to work as he is a victim of a stroke on his left side; both sides have been ruptured, and his nerves are bad. He attributes his long life to his faith in God.

---

[HW: Dist. 5
Ex-slave #111
(Ross)]
AN ACCOUNT Of SLAVERY RELATED BY WILLIAM WARD—EX-SLAVE
[Date Stamp: 10-8-1937]

In a small one-room apartment located on one of Atlanta's back streets lives William Ward, an ex-slave, whose physical appearance in no way justifies his claim to being 105 years of age. He is about five ft. in height with a rather smooth brown complexion. What hair he has is gray. He moves about like a much younger person. For a person of his age his thoughts and speech are remarkably clear.

On a bright sunny afternoon in September this writer had an opportunity of talking with Mr. Ward and in the course of the conversation some very interesting things were learned regarding the institution of slavery and its customs. Ward took a dip of snuff from his little tin box and began his story by saying that he is the son of Bill and Leana Ward who were brought to this country from Jamaica, B.W.I. The first thing he remembers was the falling of the stars in 1833. From that time until he was 9 years old he played around the yard with other slave children. Then his parents were sent back to Jamaica by their master, the former Governor Joseph E. Brown. While he was in bondage he carried the name of his masters instead of Ward, his parents' name.

From the age of 9 until he was old enough to do heavy work, he kept the master's yard clean.

Although Mr. Brown owned between 50 and 75 slaves, he had no plantation but hired his slaves out to other men who needed more help but were not able to own as many slaves as their work required.

Mr. Ward and his fellow slaves lived in one-room houses in the rear of the master's home. The furnishings consisted of a bed which was known as a "Grand Rascal" due to its peculiar construction. The mattress made in the form of a large bag was stuffed with hat and dried grass.

At daybreak each morning they were called from these crude beds to prepare for the day's work. Breakfast, which consisted of white bacon, corn bread, and imitation coffee, was served before they left for the scene of their day's work. Incidentally the slaves under Mr. Brown's ownership never had any other form of bread than corn bread.

This imitation coffee was made by putting corn meal in a pan, parching it until it reached a deep golden brown and steeping it in boiling water. At noon, dinner was brought to them in the field in wash tubs placed on carts drawn by oxen. Dinner consisted of fat meat, peas and corn bread. Often all laundry was done in these same tubs.

The only time that this diet ever varied was at Christmas time when the master had all slaves gathered in one large field. Then several hogs were killed and barbecued. Everyone was permitted to eat as much as he could, but was forbidden to take anything home. When some one was fortunate enough to catch a possum or a coon, he had a change of food.

On Sundays the slaves were permitted to have a religious meeting of their own. This usually took place in the back yard or in a building dedicated for this purpose. They sang spirituals which gave vent to their true feelings. Many of these songs are sung today. There was one person who did the preaching. His sermon was always built according to the master's instructions which were that slaves must always remember that they belonged to their masters and were intended to lead a life of loyal servitude. None of the slaves believed this, although they pretended to believe because of the presence of the white overseer. If this overseer was absent sometimes and the preacher varied in the text of his sermon, that is, if he preached exactly what he thought and felt, he was given a sound whipping.

Mr. Brown was a kind person and never mistreated his slaves, although he did furnish them with the whip for infractions of rules such as fighting, stealing, visiting other plantations without a "pass", etc. Ward vividly recalls that one of the soundest thrashings he ever got was for stealing Mr. Brown's whisky. His most numerous offenses were fighting. Another form of punishment used in those days was the stocks, such as those used in early times in England. Serious offenses like killing another person was also handled by the master who might hang him to a tree by the feet or by the neck, as he saw fit.

Few slaves ever attempted to escape from Mr. Brown, partially because of his kindliness and partically because of the fear inspired by the pack of blood hounds which he kept. When an escaped slave was caught he was returned to his master and a sound beating was administered.

As far as marriage was concerned on the Brown estate, Mr. Brown, himself placed every two individuals together that he saw fit to. There was no other wedding ceremony. If any children were born from the union, Mr. Brown named them. One peculiarity on the Brown estate was the fact that the slaves were allowed no preference or choice as to who his or her mate would be. Another peculiarity was these married couples were not permitted to sleep together except when the husband received permission to spend the night with his wife. Ward is the father of 17 children whose whereabouts he does not know.

At this point Ward began to smile, and when he was asked the cause of his mirth, he replied that he was thinking about his fellow slaves beliefs in conjuring one another. This was done by putting some sort of wild berries in the person's food. What he can't understand is why some of this black magic was not tried on the white people since they were holding the Negroes as slaves.

Ward recalls vividly Sherman's march through Georgia. When Sherman reached the present site of Hapeville, he bombarded Atlanta with cannon, afterwards marching through and burning the city. The white residents made all sorts of frantic attempts to hide their money and other valuables. Some hiding places were under stumps of trees and in sides of hills. Incidentally Sherman's army found quite a bit of the hidden wealth. Slaves were never allowed to talk over events and so very few, if any, knew about the war or its results for them before it actually happened. At the time that Sherman marched through Atlanta, Ward and other slaves were living in an old mansion at the present site of Peachtree and Baker Streets. He says that Sherman took him and his fellow slaves as far as Virginia to carry powder and shot to the soldiers. He states that he himself did not know whether Sherman intended to keep him in slavery or free him. At the close of the war, his master, Mr. Brown, became ill and died later. Before His death he informed the slaves that they could remain on his property or go where they wanted to. Ward was taken to Mississippi where he remained in another form of slavery (Peonage System) for 40 years. He remembers when Atlanta was just a few hills without any buildings. Some of the buildings he worked on are the Herman Building and the original Kimball House, a picture of which is attached.

He attributes his old age to his belief in God and living a sane life. Whenever he feels bad or in low spirits, a drink of coffee or a small amount of whisky is enough to brace him. He believes that his remedy is better than that used in slavery which consisted mainly of pills and castor oil.

With a cheerful good-bye, Ward asked that the writer stop in to see him again; said that he would rather live in the present age under existing conditions than live in slavery.

---

Driskell
JWL 10-12-37
[MR. WILLIAM WARD]

Following is Mr. William Ward's description of the bed called "The Grand Rascal."

"De beds dat all o' de slaves slept in wus called 'Grand Rascals'. Dey wus made on de same order as a box. De way dey made 'em wus like dis: dey took four strips of narrow wood, each one of 'em 'bout a foot wide, an' den dey nailed 'em together so dat dey wus in de shape of a square. Den dey nailed a bottom onto dis square shape. Dis bottom wus called de slats. When dis wus finished dey set dis box on some legs to keep it off'n de floor, an' den dey got busy wid de mattress. Dey took ol' oat sacks an' filled 'em wid straw an' hay an' den dey put dis in de box an' slept on it. Dere wusn't no springs on dese bunks an' everybody had a hard time sleepin'.

"De real name of dese wus 'Sonova-Bitches' but de slaves called 'em 'Grand Rascals' 'cause dey didn't want people to hear 'em use a bad word.

"After Sherman come through Atlanta he let de slaves go, an' when he did, me an' some of de other slaves went back to our ol' masters. Ol' man Gov. Brown wus my boss man. After de war wus over Ol' man Gordon took me an' some of de others out to Mississippi. I stayed in peonage out dere fer 'bout forty years. I wus located at jes' 'bout forty miles south of Greenwood, an' I worked on de plantations of Ol' man Sara Jones an' Ol' man Gordon.

"I couldn't git away 'cause dey watched us wid guns all de time. When de levee busted dat kinda freed me. Man, dey was devils; dey wouldn't 'low you to go nowhere—not even to church. You done good to git sumpin' to eat. Dey wouldn't give you no clothes, an' if you got wet you jes' had to lay down in whut you got wet in.

"An', man, dey would whup you in spite of de devil. You had to ask to git water—if you didn't dey would stretch you 'cross a barrel an' wear you out. If you didn't work in a hurry dey would whup you wid a strap dat had five-six holes in it. I ain't talkin' 'bout whut I heard—I'm talkin' 'bout whut I done see'd.

"One time dey sent me on Ol' man Mack Williams' farm here in Jasper County, Georgia. Dat man would kill you sho. If dat little branch on his plantation could talk it would tell many a tale 'bout folks bein' knocked in de head. I done seen Mack Williams kill folks an' I done seen 'im have folks killed. One day he tol' me dat if my wife had been good lookin', I never would sleep wid her again 'cause he'd kill me an' take her an' raise chilluns off'n her. Dey uster take women away fum dere husbands an' put wid some other man to breed jes' like dey would do cattle. Dey always kept a man penned up an' dey used 'im like a stud hoss.

"When you didn't do right Ol' Mack Williams would shoot you or tie a chain 'roun your neck an' throw you in de river. He'd git dem other niggers to carry dem to de river an' if dey didn't he'd shoot 'em down. Any time dey didn't do whut he said he would shoot 'em down. He'd tell 'em to "Ketch dat nigger", an' dey would do it. Den he would tell 'em to put de chain 'roun dere neck an' throw 'em in de river. I ain't heard dis—I done seen it.

"In 1927 I wus still in peonage but I wus back in Mississippi on Gordon's farm. When de levee broke in May of dat same year I lost my wife an' three chilluns. I climbed a tree an' stayed dere fer four days an' four nights. Airplanes dropped food an' when I got ready to eat I had to squeeze de water out of de bread. After four days I got out of de tree an' floated on logs down de river 'till I got to Mobile, Alabama, an' I wade fum dere to Palmetto, Georgia, where I got down sick. De boss mans dere called Gov. Harden an' he sent de Grady Hospital examiners down dere an' got me an' I been in Atlanta since dat time."

---

Willie H. Cole
10-8-37
THE STORY OF AN EX-SLAVE
[MRS. LULA WASHINGTON, Age 84]

Mrs. Lula Washington was born a slave. She claims to be eighty-four years old.

Mrs. Washington was confined to bed because of a recent accident in which she received a broken leg.

She is the mother of twenty-three children of which only two are living. She lives in one room at 64 Butler St., N.E. with one of her daughters. Since the death of her husband several years ago she has been making her living as a dray-women, driving a mule and wagon.

Following are some of the events she remembers. "Ah wuz born in Randolph, Alabama on de plantation of Marster John Terrell, de sixth child of my mammy and pappy".

"When ah wuz six years old marster John sold me an' my sister, Lize and brother, Ben to Marster Charlie Henson."

"Marster Charlie wuz good to his niggers.

"He never whipped dem 'less dey done somethin' awful bad, like stealin chickens or slipping off de plantation without permission."

"It wuz funny, de white folks would whipped de niggers for stealin' but if dey saw a hog in de woods, dey would make the niggers catch de hog an kill him an hide him under dey bushes. Den at night de niggers would hafta' go down to de spring, build a fire, heat water an skin de hog."

"De man on de plantation next to us' shore wuz mean to his niggers, Marster Jim Roberts wus his name. He would take his niggers an strip there clothes to dere waist an' lay dem 'cross a barrel an beat dem 'til the blood run. Den he would pore salt water on de sore places."

"Oh 'member one time he tied two wimmen by dere thumbs to a limb of a tree for blessin' out the missus."

"Us had plenty to eat and plenty to wear, calico dresses an' brogan shoes. Sometimes dere misses would give the wimmen some of her old clothes".

"All de niggers on Marster Charlie's plantation had to work in de field 'cept Malindy Lu, a Mulatto nigger gal. Marster Charlie kept her in de house to take care of Missus Jane, dat wuz Marster Charlie wife."

"One thing 'bout de mulatto niggers, wuz, dey thought dey wuz better than de black niggers. I guess it wuz 'cause dey was half white. Dere wuz a bad feelin' 'tween the mulatto slaves an de black ones."

Asked, how did the slaves marry? She replied, "Ah jest don't 'member seeing any marry 'cause ah wuz so small. Ah wuz jest eleven years old de time of de war but ah' members hearing some of dem say dat when two slaves wanted to git married dey would hafta get permission from dere marster. Den dey would come 'fore de marster an' he would have dem to jump over a broom an den 'nounce dem married."

"When de Yankees come thru" de white folks told us to go down to de swamp an hide cause dey would git us. When de war wuz over de white folks told us we wuz free."

"Marster Terrell gave my mammy an pappy a oxcart an mule an a bushel of meal. Den my pappy an mammy come got me an my sister an' brother. Den we come from Randolph, Alabama to Georgia."

"Sometimes I wish I wuz back in slavery, times is so hard."

Mrs. Washington's chief concern now is getting her old-age pension.

---

PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
GREEN WILLBANKS, Age 77
347 Fairview Street
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Mrs. Sadie B. Hornsby
Athens
Edited by:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7
Augusta, Georgia
Sept. 19, 1938

Fairview Street, where Green Willbanks lives is a section of shabby cottages encircled by privet hedges.

As the visitor carefully ascended the shaky steps to his house a mulatto man, who was sitting on the veranda, quickly arose. "Good morning," he said, "Yes mam, this is Green Willbanks. Have a seat in the swing." The porch furniture was comprised of a chair, a swing, and a long bench. Green is tall, slender, and stooped; a man with white hair and grizzled face. A white broadcloth shirt, white cotton trousers, blue socks, and low-cut black shoes made up his far from immaculate costume.

The old man's eyes brightened when he was asked to give the story of his life. His speech showed but little dialect, except when he was carried away by interest and emotion, and his enunciation was remarkably free from Negroid accent.

"I don't mind telling you what I know," he began, "but I was such a little chap when the war ended that there's mighty little I can recollect about slavery time, and it seems that your chief interest is in that period. I was born on a plantation the other side of Commerce, Georgia, in Jackson County. My Ma and Pa were Mary and Isom Willbanks; they were raised on the same plantation where I was born. Ma was a field hand, and this time of the year when work was short in the field—laying-by time, we called it—and on rainy days she spun thread and wove cloth. As the thread left the spinning wheel it went on a reel where it was wound into hanks, and then it was carried to the loom to be woven into cloth. Pa had a little trade; he made shoes and baskets, and Old Boss let him sell them. Pa didn't make shoes for the slaves on our plantation; Old Boss bought them ready-made and had them shipped here from the West.

"Me and Jane, Sarah, Mitchell, and Willie were the five children in our family. Oh! Miss, I was not big enough to do much work. About the most I done was pick up chips and take my little tin bucket to the spring to get a cool, fresh drink for Old Miss. Us children stayed 'round the kitchen and drunk lots of buttermilk. Old Miss used to say, 'Give my pickaninnies plenty of buttermilk.' I can see that old churn now; it helt about seven or eight gallons.

"Our houses? Slaves lived in log cabins built the common way. There was lots of forest pine in those days. Logs were cut the desired length and notches put in each end so they would fit closely and have as few cracks as possible, when they stacked them for a cabin. They sawed pine logs into blocks and used a frow to split them into planks that were used to cover the cracks between the logs. Don't you know what a frow is? That's a wooden wedge that you drive into a pine block by hitting it with a heavy wooden mallet, or maul, as they are more commonly called. They closed the cracks in some of the cabins by daubing them with red mud. The old stack chimneys were made of mud and sticks. To make a bed, they first cut four posts, usually of pine, and bored holes through them with augers; then they made two short pieces for the head and foot. Two long pieces for the sides were stuck through the auger holes and the bedstead was ready to lay on the slats or cross pieces to hold up the mattress. The best beds had heavy cords, wove crossways and lengthways, instead of slats. Very few slaves had corded beds. Mattresses were not much; they were made of suggin sacks filled with straw. They called that straw 'Georgia feathers.' Pillows were made of the same things. Suggin cloth was made of coarse flax wove in a loom. They separated the flax into two grades; fine for the white folks, and coarse for the Negroes.

"The only one of my grandparents I can bring to memory now is Grandma Rose on my Pa's side. She was some worker, a regular man-woman; she could do any kind of work a man could do. She was a hot horse in her time and it took an extra good man to keep up with her when it came to work.

"Children were not allowed to do much work, because their masters desired them to have the chance to grow big and strong, and therefore they had few opportunities to earn money of their own. I never did own any money during slavery days, but I saw plenty of ten cent greenbacks (shinplasters).

"White children and slave children played around the plantation together but they were not allowed to fight. They had to be on friendly terms with each other.

"What about our food? The biggest thing we had was buttermilk, some sweet milk, and plenty of cornbread, hog meat, and peas. As a rule we had wheat bread once a week, usually on Sunday. All kinds of fruits were plentiful in their seasons. Each slave family was permitted to have separate garden space, in fact, Old Boss insisted that they work their own gardens, and they raised plenty of vegetables. Grown folks had rabbits and 'possums but I never did get much 'quainted with them. We fished in the cricks and rills 'round the plantation and brought in lots of hornyheads and perch. You never saw any hornyheads? Why they is just fish a little bigger and longer than minnows and they have little horns on their heads. We caught a good many eels too; they look like snakes, but folks call them eels. I wasn't much 'quainted with them fish they brought from way down South; they called them mullets.

"The kitchen was a separate log house out in the back yard. The fireplace, where the cooking was done, took up one end of the kitchen, and there was a rack acrost it to hang the cook-pots on for biling. Baking and frying was done in ovens and heavy iron skillets that sat on trivets so coals could be piled underneath, as well as over the lids.

"The long shirts slave boys wore in summer were straight like a meal sack open at both ends, with holes in the sides for your arms to go through. You stuck your head in one end and it came out the other; then you were fully dressed for any whole summer day. These summer shirts were made of thin osnaburg. Our winter clothes were made of woolen cloth called merino. Old Boss kept enough sheep to provide plenty of wool and some mighty good food. Slave children had no extra or special clothes for Sunday; they wore the same kind of gowns, or long shirts, seven days a week. Old Boss provided brass-toed brogans for winter, but we never thought of such a thing as shoes to wear in hot weather.

"My owners were Marse Solomon and his wife, Miss Ann Willbanks. We called them Old Boss and Old Miss. As I saw it, they were just as good as they could be. Old Boss never allowed nobody to impose on his slave children. When I was a little chap playing around the big house, I would often drop off to sleep the minute I got still. Good Old Boss would pick me up and go lay me on his own bed and keep me there 'til Ma come in from the field.

"Old Boss and Old Miss had five children. The boys were Solomon, Isaac, James, and Wesley. For the life of me I can't bring to memory the name of their only daughter. I guess that's because we frolicked with the four boys, but we were not allowed to play with Little Miss.

"It was a right decent house they lived in, a log house with a fine rock chimney. Old Boss was building a nice house when the war come on and he never had a chance to finish it. The log house was in a cedar grove; that was the style then. Back of the house were his orchards where fruit trees of every kind we knew anything about provided plenty for all to eat in season as well as enough for good preserves, pickles, and the like for winter. Old Boss done his own overseeing and, 'cording to my memory, one of the young bosses done the driving.

"That plantation covered a large space of land, but to tell you how many acres is something I can't do. There were not so many slaves. I've forgot how they managed that business of getting slaves up, but I do know we didn't get up before day on our place. Their rule was to work slaves from sunup to sundown. Before they had supper they had a little piddlin' around to do, but the time was their own to do as they pleased after they had supper. Heaps of times they got passes and went off to neighboring plantations to visit and dance, but sometimes they went to hold prayer-meetings. There were certain plantations where we were not permitted to go and certain folks were never allowed on our place. Old Boss was particular about how folks behaved on his place; all his slaves had to come up to a certain notch and if they didn't do that he punished them in some way or other. There was no whipping done, for Old Boss never did believe in whipping slaves.

"None of the slaves from our place was ever put in that county jail at Jefferson. That was the only jail we ever heard of in those days. Old Boss attended to all the correction necessary to keep order among his own slaves. Once a slave trader came by the place and offered to buy Ma. Old Boss took her to Jefferson to sell her on the block to that man. It seemed like sales of slaves were not legal unless they took place on the trading block in certain places, usually in the county site. The trader wouldn't pay what Old Boss asked for her, and Old Miss and the young bosses all objected strong to his selling her, so he brought Ma back home. She was a fine healthy woman and would have made a nice looking house girl.

"The biggest part of the teaching done among the slaves was by our young bosses but, as far as schools for slaves was concerned, there were no such things until after the end of the war, and then we were no longer slaves. There were just a few separate churches for slaves; none in our part of the country. Slaves went to the same church as their white folks and sat in the back of the house or in a gallery. My Pa could read the Bible in his own way, even in that time of slavery; no other slave on our place could do that.

"Not one slave or white person either died on our plantation during the part of slavery that I can bring to memory. I was too busy playing to take in any of the singing at funerals and at church, and I never went to a baptizing until I was a great big chap, long after slavery days were over.

"Slaves ran off to the woods all right, but I never heard of them running off to no North. Paterollers never came on Old Boss' place unless he sont for them, otherwise they knowed to stay off. They sho was devils in sheeps' clothing; that's what we thought of them paterollers. Slaves worked all day Saddays when there was work to be done, but that night was their free time. They went where they pleased just so Old Boss gave them a pass to protect them from paterollers.

"After slaves went to church Sunday they were free the rest of the day as far as they knowed. Lots of times they got 'em a stump speaker—usually a Negro—to preach to them. There were not as many preachers then as now.

"'Bout Christmas Day? They always had something like brandy, cider, or whiskey to stimulate the slaves on Christmas Day. Then there was fresh meat and ash-roasted sweet 'taters, but no cake for slaves on our place, anyhow, I never saw no cake, and surely no Santa Claus. All we knowed bout Christmas was eating and drinking. As a general thing there was a big day's work expected on New Years Day because we had to start the year off right, even if there was nothing for the slaves to do that day but clean fence corners, cut brush and briers, and burn off new ground. New Years Day ended up with a big old pot of hog jowl and peas. That was for luck, but I never really knowed if it brought luck or not.

"Well, yes, once a year they had big cornshuckings in our section and they had generals to lead off in all the singing; that was done to whoop up the work. My Pa was one of the generals and he toted the jug of liquor that was passed 'round to make his crowd hustle. After the corn was shucked the crowd divided into two groups. Their object was to see which could reach the owner of the corn first and carry him where he wanted to go. Usually they marched with him on their shoulders to his big house and set him down on his porch, then he would give the word for them to all start eating the good things spread out on tables in the yard. There was a heap of drinking done then, and dancing too—just all kinds of dancing that could be done to fiddle and banjo music. My Pa was one of them fiddlers in his young days. One of the dances was the cotillion, but just anybody couldn't dance that one. There was a heap of bowing and scraping to it, and if you were not 'quainted with it you just couldn't use it.

"When any of the slaves were bad sick Old Boss called in his own family doctor, Dr. Joe Bradbury. His plantation hit up against ours. The main things they gave for medicine them days was oil and turpentine. Sometimes folks got black snakeroot from the woods, biled it, and gave the tea to sick folks; that was to clean off the stomach. Everybody wore buckeyes 'round their necks to keep off diseases for we never knowed nothing about asefetida them days; that came later.

"When the Yankees came through after the surrender Old Boss and Old Miss hid their valuables. They told us children, 'Now, if they ask you questions, don't you tell them where we hid a thing.' We knowed enough to keep our mouths shut. We never had knowed nothing but to mind Old Boss, and we were scared 'cause our white folks seemed to fear the Yankees.

"Old Boss had done told slaves they were free as he was and could go their own way, but we stayed on with him. He provided for Pa and give him his share of the crops he made. All of us growed up as field hands.

"Them night-riders were something else. They sho did beat on Negroes that didn't behave mighty careful. Slaves didn't buy much land for a long time after the war because they didn't have no money, but schools were set up for Negroes very soon. I got the biggest part of my education in West Athens on Biggers Hill. When I went to the Union Baptist School my teacher was Professor Lyons, the founder of that institution.

"When me and Molly Tate were married 50 years ago we went to the church, because that was the cheapest place to go to have a big gathering. Molly had on a common, ordinary dress. Folks didn't dress up then like they does now; it was quite indifferent. Of our 10 children, 8 are living now and we have 14 grandchildren. Six of our children live in the North and two have remained here in Athens. One of them is employed at Bernstein's Funeral Home and the other works on the university campus. I thanks the Lord that Molly is still with me. We bought this place a long time ago and have farmed here ever since. In fact, I have never done nothing but farm work. Now I'm too old and don't have strength to work no more.

"I thinks Abraham Lincoln was a all right man; God so intended that we should be sot free. Jeff Davis was all right in his way, but I can't say much for him. Yes mam, I'd rather be free. Sho! Give me freedom all the time. Jesus said: 'If my Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.'

"When I jined the church, I felt like I was rid of my burden. I sot aside the things I had been doing and I ain't never been back to pick 'em up no more. I jined the Baptist church and have been teaching a class of boys every Sunday that I'm able to go. I sho am free from sin and I lives up to it.

"I wonder if Molly's got them sweet 'taters cooked what I dug this morning. They warn't much 'count 'cause the sun has baked them hard and it's been so dry. If you is through with me, I wants to go eat one of them 'taters and then lay this old Nigger on the bed and let him go to sleep."

---

[HW: Dist 5]
Josephine Lowell
[HW: ELIZA WILLIAMSON]

[TR: This interview contained many handwritten edits; where text was transposed or meaning was significantly changed, it has been noted.]

Just a few recollections of life in slavery time, as told me by [TR: illegible] who was Eliza Taliaferro Williamson, daughter of Dickerson and Polly Taliaferro. My mother was born at Mt. Airy, North Carolina, near the Virginia line, and always went to school, across the line, in Virginia. Her grandfather was John Taliaferro, slave holder, tobacco raiser, and farmer. The Negro quarters were near the main or Big House. Mother said that great-grandfather would go to the back door each night and call every slave to come in for family prayer. They came and knelt in the Big House, while old marster prayed. Mother said it was like a camp-meeting when he died—wailing and weeping by the Negroes for their old Marster. She said the slaves had the same food that the white family had and the same warm clothes for winter. All clothing, bed sheeting, table linen, towels, etc. were hand woven. They raised sheep for wool, and flax for linen, but I don't know where they got the cotton they used. The work of the house and farm was divided as with a big family. Some of the women cooked, sewed, wove, washed, milked, but was never sent to the field. None of the Toliver family believed in women working in the field. When each of great-grandfather's children married, he or she was given a few slaves. I think he gave my grandfather, Dickerson Taliaferro, three slaves, and these he brought with him to Georgia when they settled in Whitfield County.

My grandfather was a member of the Legislature from Whitfield County for two terms. He was as gentle with his slaves as a father would have been, and was never known to abuse one of them. One of his slaves, who was a small boy at the close of the War, stayed with my grandfather until he was a grown man, then after a few years away from home, came home to old Marster to die. This is the picture of good slave holders, but sad to say all were not of that type. [TR: deleted: 'See next sheet for'] a picture of horror, which was also told me by my mother. [TR: deleted: 'The thought of it'] was like a nightmare to my childish mind.

The Story of little Joe.

[TR: deleted: 'Mother said there were'] two families lived on farms adjacent to her father. They were the two Tucker brothers, tobacco raisers. One of the wives, Polly, or Pol, as she was called, hated the family of her husband's brother because they were more affluent than she liked them to be. It [HW: Her jealousy] caused the two families to live in disagreement.

Little Joe belonged to Pol's family, and was somewhere between ten and fourteen years old. Mother said Pol made Joe work in the field at night, and forced him to sing so they would know he wasn't asleep. He wore nothing in summer but an old shirt made of rough factory cloth which came below his knees. She said the only food Pol would give him was swill [HW: scraps] from the table—handed to him out the back door. Mother said Pol had some kind of impediment in her speech, which caused her to say 'ah' at the close of a sentence. So, when she called Joe to the back door to give him his mess of scraps, she would say, "Here, Joe, here's your truck, ah." Mother was a little girl then, and she and grandmother felt so sorry for Joe that they would bake baskets of sweet potatoes and slip [TR: 'to the field to give him' replaced with illegible text ending 'in the field']. She said he would come through the corn, almost crawling, so Pol wouldn't see him, and take the sweet potatoes in the tail of his shirt and scuttle back through the tall stuff where he might hide and eat it them.

She had a Negro woman who had a baby (and there may have been other women) but this Negro woman was not allowed to see her baby except just as a cow would be let in to her calf at certain times during the day, [TR: 'then' replaced by ??] she had to go to the field and leave it alone. Mother said that Pol either threw or kicked the baby into the yard because it cried, and it died. I don't know why the authorities didn't arrest her, but she may have had an alibi, or some excuse for the death of the child.

The Burning of the Tobacco Barn

The [HW: other] Tucker brother had made a fine crop of tobacco that year, more than a thousand dollars worth in his big barn. Pol made one of her slaves go with her, [HW: when] and she set fire to the tobacco barn of her brother-in-law's barn, and not being able to get away [HW: unable to escape] before the flames [HW: brought] a crowd, she hid in the grass, right near the path where the people were running to the fire. She had some kind of stroke, perhaps from fright, or pure deviltry which 'put her out of business'. I wish I could remember whether it killed her or just made a paralytic of her, but this is a true story.

---

PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
FRANCES WILLINGHAM, Age 78
288 Bridge Street
Athens, Georgia
Written by:
Sadie B. Hornsby
Athens
Edited by:
Sarah H. Hall
Athens
Leila Harris
Augusta
and
John N. Booth
District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Residencies 6 & 7

The interviewer arrived at Frances Willingham's address on a sultry July morning, and found a fat and very black Negress sweeping the sidewalk before the three-room frame house. There was no front yard and the front steps led up from the sidewalk into the house. A vegetable garden was visible at the rear of the lot. The plump sweeper appeared to be about five feet tall. Her wooly white hair was plaited in tiny braids, and she wore a brown print dress trimmed in red and blue. A strand of red beads encircled her short neck, and a blue checked coat and high topped black shoes completed her costume. Asked if Frances Willingham was at home, the woman replied: "Dis is her you is a-talkin' to. Come right in and have a seat."

When Frances was asked for the story of her life, her daughter who had doubtless been eavesdropping, suddenly appeared and interrupted the conversation with, "Ma, now don't you git started 'bout dem old times. You knows your mind ain't no good no more. Tomorrow your tongue will be runnin' lak a bell clapper a-talkin' to yourself." "Shut your big mouth, Henrietta." Frances answered. "I been sick, and I knows it, but dere ain't nothin' wrong wid my mind and you knows it. What I knows I'se gwine to tell de lady, and what I don't know I sho' ain't gwine tell no lie about. Now, Missus, what does you want to know? Don't pay no 'tention to dis fool gal of mine 'cause her mouth is big as dis room.

"I was born way off down in Twiggs County 'bout a mile from de town of Jeffersonville. My Pa and Ma was Otto and Sarah Rutherford. Our Mist'ess, dat was Miss Polly, she called Ma, Sallie for short. Dere was nine of us chillun, me and Esau, Harry, Jerry, Bob, Calvin, Otto, Sallie and Susan. Susan was our half-sister by our Pa's last marriage. Us chillun never done much but play 'round de house and yards wid de white chillun. I warn't but four years old when dey made us free." Henrietta again interrupted, "See dere, I told you she don't know what she's a-talkin' 'bout."

Frances ignored the interruption and continued: "Us lived in log cabins what had jus' one room wid a stick and mud chimbly at de end. Our bedsteads was made out of rough planks and poles and some of 'em was nailed to de sides of de cabins. Mattress ticks was made out of osnaburg and us filled 'em wid wheat straw in season. When dat was used up us got grass from de fields. Most any kind of hay was counted good 'nough to put in a slave's mattress. Dey let us mix some cotton wid de hay our pillows was stuffed wid.

"My grandmas lived on another plantation. I 'members once Grandma Suck, she wes my Ma's mammy, come to our house and stayed one or two days wid us. Daddy's Ma was named Puss. Both my grandmas was field hands, but Ma, she was a house gal 'til she got big enough to do de cyardin' and spinnin'. Aunt Phoebie done de weavin' and Aunt Polly was de seamster. All de lak of dat was done atter de craps was done laid by.

"No Ma'am, nobody never give slave chillun no money in dem times. I never had none 'til atter us had done been give our freedom. I used to see Old Marster countin' of it, but de slaves never did git none of dat money.

"Our Old Marster was a pow'ful rich man, and he sho' b'lieved in givin' us plenty to eat. It warn't nothin' fine, but it was good plain eatin' what filled you up and kept you well. Dere was cornbread and meat, greens of all sorts, 'taters, roas'en-ears and more other kinds of veg'tables dan I could call up all day. Marster had one big old gyarden whar he kept most evvything a-growin' 'cept cabbages and 'matoes. He said dem things warn't fittin' for nobody to eat. Marster let Daddy go huntin' enough to fetch in lots of 'possums, coons, rabbits, and squirrels. Us cooked 'em 'bout lak us does now, only us never had no stoves den, and had to do all de cookin' in open fireplaces in big old pots and long handled skillets what had big old heavy lids. I'se seed Ma clean many a 'possum in hot ashes. Den she scalded him and tuk out his innards. She par-boiled and den baked him and when she fetched him to de table wid a heap of sweet 'taters 'round him on de dish, dat was sho' somepin good to eat. Daddy done his fishin' in Muddy Crick 'cause slaves wern't 'lowed to leave de plantation for nothin' lak dat.

"Summertimes us wore homespun dresses, made wid full skirts sewed on to tight fittin' waisties what was fastened down de back wid buttons made out of cows and rams horns. Our white petticoat slips and pantalettes was made on bodices. In winter us wore balmorals what had three stripes 'round de bottom, and over dem us had on long sleeved ap'ons what was long as de balmorals. Slave gals' pantalettes warn't ruffled and tucked and trimmed up wid lace and 'broidery lak Miss Polly's chilluns' was. Ours was jus' made plain. Grown folks wore rough brogans, but me, I wore de shoes what Miss Polly's chillun had done outgrowed. Dey called 'em Jackson shoes, 'cause dey was made wid a extra wide piece of leather sewed on de outside so as when you knocked your ankles 'gainst one another, it wouldn't wear no holes in your shoes. Our Sunday shoes warn't no diffunt from what us wore evvyday.

[TR: HW sidenote: 'durable', regarding Jackson Shoes]

"Marse Lish Jones and his wife—she was Miss Polly—was our Marster and Mist'ess. Dey sho' did love to be good to deir little Niggers. Dey had five chillun of deir own, two gals and three boys. Dey was: Mary, Anna Della, Steve, John, and Bob. 'Bout deir house! Oh, Missus, dat was somepin to see for sho'. It was a big old fine two-story frame house wid a porch 'cross de front and 'round both sides. Dere was five rooms on de fust floor and three upstairs. It sho' did look grand a-settin' back dar in dat big old oak grove.

"Old Marster had a overseer but he never had no car'iage driver 'cause he loved to drive for hisself so good. Oh Lord! How big was dat plantation? Why, it must have been as big as from here to town. I never did know how many slaves Marster had, but dat old plantation was plumb full of 'em. I ain't never seed Old Marster do nothin' 'cept drive his car'iage, walk a little, and eat all he wanted to. He was a rich man, and didn't have to do nothin'.

"Our overseer got all de slaves up 'fore break of day and dey had to be done et deir breakfast and in de field when de sun riz up. Dat sun would be down good 'fore dey got to de house at night. I never seed none of de grown folks git whupped, but I sho' got a good beatin' myself one time. I had done got up on top of de big house porch and was a-flappin' my arms and crowin' lak a rooster. Dey told me to come on down, but I wouldn't mind nobody and kept on a-crowin' and a-flappin', so dey whupped me down.

"Dey had jails in Jeffersonville, but dem jails was for white folks what didn't be-have deirselfs. Old Marster, de overseer, and de patterollers kept de slaves straight. Dey didn't need no jails for dem.

"I ain't never been to school a day in my life, 'cause when I was little, Niggers warn't 'lowed to larn to read and write. I heared Ma say de colored preacher read out of de Bible, but I never seed him do it, 'cause I never went to church none when I was a chap. Colored folks had deir own church in a out settlement called John De Baptist. Dat's whar all de slaves went to meetin'. Chilluns was 'lowed to go to baptizin's. Evvybody went to 'em. Dey tuk dem converts to a hole in de crick what dey had got ready for dat purpose. De preacher went fust, and den he called for de converts to come on in and have deir sins washed away.

"Our Marster sot aside a piece of ground 'long side of his own place for his Niggers to have a graveyard. Us didn't know nothin' 'bout no fun'rals. When one of de slaves died, dey was put in unpainted home-made coffins and tuk to de graveyard whar de grave had done been dug. Dey put 'em in dar and kivvered 'em up and dat was all dey done 'bout it.

"Us heared a plenty 'bout patterollers beatin' up Niggers what dey cotched off deir Marsters' plantations widout no passes. Sometimes dey cotched one of our Marster's slaves and sometimes dey didn't, but dey was all time on deir job.

"When slaves come in from de fields at night de 'omans cleant up deir houses atter dey et, and den washed and got up early next mornin' to put de clothes out to dry. Mens would eat, set 'round talkin' to other mens and den go to bed. On our place evvybody wukked on Saddays 'til 'bout three or four o'clock and if de wuk was tight dey wukked right on 'til night lak any other day. Sadday nights de young folks got together to have deir fun. Dey danced, frolicked, drunk likker, and de lak of dat. Old Marster warn't too hard on 'em no time, but he jus' let 'em have dat night to frolic. On Sunday he give dem what wanted 'em passes to go to church and visit 'round.

"Christmas times, chilluns went to bed early 'cause dey was skeered Santa Claus wouldn't come. Us carried our stockin's up to de big house to hang 'em up. Next mornin' us found 'em full of all sorts of good things, 'cept oranges. I never seed nary a orange 'til I was a big gal. Miss Polly had fresh meat, cake, syrup puddin' and plenty of good sweet butter what she 'lowanced out to her slaves at Christmas. Old Marster, he made syrup by de barrel. Plenty of apples and nuts and groundpeas was raised right dar on de plantation. In de Christmas, de only wuk slaves done was jus' piddlin' 'round de house and yards, cuttin' wood, rakin' leaves, lookin' atter de stock, waitin' on de white folks and little chores lak dat. Hard work started again on de day atter New Year's Day. Old Marster 'lowed 'em mighty little rest from den 'til atter de craps was laid by.

"Course Marster let his slaves have cornshuckin's, cornshellin's, cotton pickin's, and quiltin's. He had grove atter grove of pecan, chestnut, walnut, hickor'nut, scalybark, and chinquapin trees. When de nuts was all gathered, Old Marster sold 'em to de big men in de city. Dat was why he was so rich. Atter all dese things was gathered and tended to, he give his slaves a big feast and plenty to drink, and den he let 'em rest up a few days 'fore dey started back to hard wuk.

"I never seed but one marriage on Old Marster's plantation, and I never will forgit dat day. Miss Polly had done gimme one of little Miss Mary's sho' 'nough pretty dresses and I wore it to dat weddin', only dey never had no real weddin'. Dey was jus' married in de yard by de colored preacher and dat was all dere was to it.

"Ma used to tell us if us didn't be-have Raw Head and Bloody Bones would come git us and take us off. I tried to see him but I never did. Grown folks was all time skeerin' chillun. Then us went to bed at night, us used to see ghosties, what looked lak goats tryin' to butt us down. Ma said I evermore used to holler out in my sleep 'bout dem things I was so skeered of.

[HW sidenote: Home remedies]

"White folks was mighty good and kind when deir slaves got sick. Old Marster sont for Dr. 'Pree (DuPree) and when he couldn't git him, he got Dr. Brown. He made us swallow bitter tastin' powders what he had done mixed up in water. Miss Polly made us drink tea made out of Jerusalem oak weeds. She biled dem weeds and sweetened de tea wid syrup. Dat was good for stomach trouble, and us wore elder roots strung 'round our necks to keep off ailments.

"Mercy me! I'se seed plenty of dem yankees a-gwine and comin'. Dey come to our Marster's house and stole his good mules. Dey tuk what dey wanted of his meat, chickens, lard and syrup and den poured de rest of de syrup out on de ground. Atter de war was over Niggers got so rowdy dem Ku Kluxers come 'long to make 'em be-have deirselfs.' Dem Niggers and Kluxers too jus' went hog wild.

"What did Niggers have to buy no land wid, when dey never had no money paid 'em for nothin' 'til atter dey was free? Us jus' stayed on and wukked for Old Marster, 'cause dere warn't no need to leave and go to no other place. I was raised up for a field hand, and I ain't never wukked in no white folks house.

"Me I'se sho' glad Mr. Lincoln sot us free. Iffen it was still slav'ry time now old as I is, I would have to wuk jus' de same, sick or no. Now I don't have to ax nobody what I kin do. Dat's why I'se glad I'se free.

"Now, 'bout my marriage; I was a-living in Putnam County at dat time, and I got married up wid Green Willingham. He had come dar from Jasper County. I didn't have no weddin'. Ma jus' cooked a chicken for us, and I was married in a white dress. De waist had ruffles 'round de neck and sleeves. Us had 17 chilluns in all, seven boys and 10 gals, dere was 19 grandchillun and 21 great grandchillun. Dey ain't all of 'em livin', and my old man, he's done been daid a long time ago."

Henrietta again made her appearance and addressed her mother: "Hush your mouth Ma, for you knows you ain't got all dem chillun. I done told de lady you ain't got your right mind." Frances retorted: "You shut up your mouth, Henrietta. I is so got my right mind, and I knows how many chillun of mine dere was. One thing sho' you is got more mouth dan all de rest of my chillun put together."

The interviewer closed her notebook and took her departure, leaving Frances dozing in her chair.

---

[HW: Dist-1-2
Ex-slave #114
(Mrs. Stonestreet)]
ADELINE WILLIS—EX-SLAVE
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

Who is the oldest ex-slave in Wilkes County? This question was answered the other day when the quest ended on the sunny porch of a little cottage on Lexington Road in Washington-Wilkes, for there in a straight old-fashioned split-bottom chair sat "Aunt" Adeline Willis basking in the warm October sunshine. She is remarkable for her age—she doesn't know just exactly how old she is, from all she tells and what her "white folks" say she is around a hundred. Her general health is good, she spends her days in the open and tires only on the days she cannot be out in her place in the sun. She has the brightest eyes, her sight is so good she has never had to wear glasses; she gets around in the house and yard on her cane. Her memory is excellent, only a time or two did she slowly shake her head and say apologetically—"Mistress, it's been so long er go, I reckon I done forgot".

From her long association with white people she uses very little Negro dialect and always refers to her Mother as "Mother", never as Ma or Mammy as most Negroes do. This is very noticable.

Her mother was Marina Ragan, "cause she belonged to the Ragans," explained Aunt Adeline, "and she was born on the Ragan Plantation right down on Little River in Greene County" (Georgia). When Marina's "young Mistress" married young Mr. Mose Wright of Oglethorpe County, she took Marina to her new home to be her own servant, and there is where Adeline was born. The place was known as the Wright Plantation and was a very large one.

Adeline doesn't remember her father, and strange to say, she cannot recall how many brothers and sisters she had though she tried hard to name them all. She is sure, however, there were some older and some younger, "I reckon I must er come along about the middle", she said.

After a little while Aunt Adeline was living far back in the past and talked freely—with questions now and then to encourage her reminiscences, she told many interesting things about her life as a slave.

She told about the slaves living in the Quarters—log houses all in a long row near the "white folks' house", and how happy they were. She couldn't remember how many slaves were on the plantation, but was sure there were many: "Yas'm, my Marster had lots of niggers, jest how many, I don't know, but there sho' was a sight of us". They were given their allowance of "rations" every week and cooked their own meals in their cabins. They had good, plain, home-raised things to eat—"and we was glad to get it too. We didn't have no fancy fixings, jest plain food". Their clothes were made by Negro sewing women out of cloth spun and woven right there in the Quarters. All the little dresses were made alike. "When they took a notion to give us striped dresses we sho' was dressed up. I never will forget long as I live, a hickory stripe—(that's what they called stripes in them days)—dress they made me, it had brass buttons at the wrist bands. I was so proud of that dress and felt so dressed up in it I jest strutted er round with it on", and she chuckled over the recollection of that wonderful dress she wore so long ago.

When asked what was the very first thing she remembered, Aunt Adeline gave a rather surprising answer: "The first thing I recollect is my love for my Mother—I loved her so and would cry when I couldn't be with her, and as I growed up I kept on loving her jest that a-way even after I married and had children of my own."

The first work she did was waiting in the house. Before she could read her mistress taught her the letters on the newspapers and what they spelled so she could bring them the papers they wanted. Her mother worked in the field: she drove steers and could do all kinds of farm work and was the best meat cutter on the plantation. She was a good spinner too, and was required to spin a broach of "wool spinning" every night. All the Negro women had to spin, but Aunt Adeline said her mother was specially good in spinning wool and "that kind of spinning was powerful slow". Thinking a moment, she added: "And my mother was one of the best dyers anywhere 'round, and I was too. I did make the most colors by mixing up all kinds of bark and leaves. I recollect the prettiest sort of a lilac color I made with maple bark and pine bark, not the outside pine bark, but that little thin skin that grows right down next to the tree—it was pretty, that color was."

Aunt Adeline thinks they were more fortunate than any other little slaves she knew because their marster had a little store right there where he would give them candy every now and then—bright pretty sticks of candy. She remembers one time he gave them candy in little tin cups, and how proud of those cups they were. He never gave them money, but out of the store they could get what money bought so they were happy. But they had to have whippings, "yas'um, good er bad we got them whippings with a long cowhide kept jest fer that. They whipped us to make us grow better, I reckon".

Although they got whippings a-plenty they were never separated by sale. "No mam, my white folks never believed in selling their niggers", said Aunt Adeline, and related an incident proving this. "I recollect once my oldest brother done something Marster didn't like an' he got mighty mad with him an' said 'Gus, I'm goin' ter sell you, I ain't a-goin' to keep you no longer'. Mistress spoke up right quick and said: 'No you ain't a-goin' to sell Gus, neither, he's nussed and looked after all our oldest chillun, and he's goin' to stay right here'. And that was the last of that, Gus was never sold—he went to war with his young Marster when he went and died up there in the war cause he was homesick, so Marster come back and said."

Aunt Adeline was surprised when asked if the Doctor ever was called in to see her or any of the slaves when they were sick back in slavery days—in fact she was a bit indignant as she answered; "No mam, I was born, growed up, married, had sixteen children and never had no Doctor with me 'til here since I got so old". She went on to say that her white folks looked after their Negroes when they were sick.

They were given tonics and things to keep them well so sickness among them was rare. No "store-bought" medicines, but good old home-made remedies were used. For instance, at the first sniffle they were called in and given a drink of fat lightwood tea, made by pouring boiling water over finely split kindling—"that" explained Aunt Adeline, "was cause lightwood got turpentine in it". In the Springtime there was a mixture of anvil dust (gathered up from around the anvil in the blacksmith's shop) and mixed with syrup, and a teaspoon full given every morning or so to each little piccaninny as they were called up in the "white folks' yard". Sometimes instead of this mixture they were given a dose of garlic and whisky—all to keep them healthy and well.

There was great rejoicing over the birth of a Negro baby and the white folks were called upon to give the little black stranger a name.

Adeline doesn't remember anything about the holidays and how they were spent, not even Christmas and Thanksgiving, but one thing she does remember clearly and that is: "All my white folks was Methodist folks, and they had fast days and no work was done while they was fastin' and prayin'. And we couldn't do no work on Sunday, no mam, everybody had to rest on that day and on preachin' days everybody went to church, white and black to the same church, us niggers set up in the gallery that was built in the white folks' church for us".

There wasn't any time for play because there was so much work to do on a big plantation, but they had good times together even if they did have so much to do.

Before Adeline was grown her "young Mistress," Miss Mary Wright, married Mr. William Turner from Wilkes County, so she came to the Turner Plantation to live, and lived there until several years after the War. Adeline hadn't been in her new home long before Lewis Willis, a young Negro from the adjoining plantation, started coming to see her. "Lewis come to see me any time 'cause his Marster, Mr. Willis, give him a pass so he wasn't scared to be out at night 'count of the Patterollers. They didn't bother a nigger if he had a pass, they sho' did beat him." [HW: ?]

When Adeline was fourteen years old she and Lewis married, or rather it was like this: "We didn't have no preacher when we married, my Marster and Mistess said they didn't care, and Lewis's Master and Mistress said they didn't care, so they all met up at my white folks' house and had us come in and told us they didn't mind our marryin'. My Marster said, 'Now you and Lewis wants to marry and there ain't no objections so go on and jump over the broom stick together and you is married'. That was all there was to it and we was married. I lived on with my white folks and he lived on with his and kept comin' to see me jest like he had done when he was a courtin'. He never brought me any presents 'cause he didn't have no money to buy them with, but he was good to me and that was what counted."

Superstition and signs still have a big place in the life of this woman even after a hundred long years. She has outlived or forgotten many she used to believe in, but still holds fast to those she remembers. If a rooster crows anywhere near your door somebody is coming "and you might as well look for 'em, 'cause that rooster done told you". When a person dies if there is a clock in the room it must be stopped the very minute of death or it will never be any more good—if left ticking it will be ruined. Every dark cloudy day brings death—"Somebody leaving this unfriendly world today". Then she is sure when she "feels sadness" and doesn't know why, it a sign somebody is dying "way off somewhere and we don't know it". Yes, she certainly believes in all the signs she remembers even "to this good day", as she says.

When asked about the war Aunt Adeline said that times were much harder then: "Why we didn't have no salt—jest plain salt, and couldn't get none them days. We had to get up the dirt in the smokehouse where the meat had dripped and 'run it' like lye, to get salt to put on things—yas'm, times was sho' hard and our Marster was off in war all four years and we had to do the best we could. We niggers wouldn't know nothing about it all if it hadn't a been for a little old black, sassy woman in the Quarters that was a talkin' all the time about 'freedom'. She give our white folks lots of trouble—she was so sassy to them, but they didn't sell her and she was set free along with us. When they all come home from the war and Marster called us up and told us we was free, some rejoiced so they shouted, but some didn't, they was sorry. Lewis come a runnin' over there an' wanted me and the chillun to go on over to his white folks' place with him, an' I wouldn't go—No mam, I wouldn't leave my white folks. I told Lewis to go on and let me 'lone, I knowed my white folks and they was good to me, but I didn't know his white folks. So we kept living like we did in slavery, but he come to see me every day. After a few years he finally 'suaded me to go on over to the Willis place and live with him, and his white folks was powerful good to me. After a while, tho' we all went back and lived with my white folks and I worked on for them as long as I was able to work and always felt like I belonged to 'em, and you know, after all this long time, I feel like I am their's."

"Why I live so long, you asking? 'Cause I always been careful and took good care of myself, eat a plenty and stayed out in the good fresh open air and sunshine when I could—and then I had a good husband that took care of me." This last reason for her long life was added as an after thought and since Lewis, her husband, has been dead these forty years maybe those first named causes were the real ones. Be that as it may, Aunt Adeline is a very remarkable old woman and is most interesting to talk with.

---

FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECTS
Augusta-Athens
Supervisor: Miss Velma Bell
EXCERPTS FROM SLAVE INTERVIEWS
UNCLE WILLIS
[Date Stamp: APR 8 1937]

[TR: Also in combined interviews as Willis Bennefield.]

"Uncle Willis" lived with his daughter, Rena, who is 74 years old. "I his baby," said Rena. "All dead but me and I ain't no good for him now, 'cause I kain't tote nothin'."

When asked where her father was, Rena looked out over the blazing cotton field and called:

"Pap! Oh—pappy! Stop pickin' cotton and come in awhile. Dey's some ladies wants to see you."

Uncle Willis hobbled slowly to the cabin, which was set in the middle of the cotton patch. He wore clean blue overalls, obviously new. His small, regular features had high cheekbones. There was a tuft of white hair on his chin, and his head was covered with a "sundown" hat.

"Mawnin," he said. "I bin sick. So I thought I might git some cotton terday."

Willis thinks he is 101 years old. He said: "I was 35 years old when freedom declared." He belonged to a doctor in Burke County, who, Willis at first said, had three or four plantations. Later he stated that the good doctor had five or six places, all in Burke County.

"I wuk in de fiel'," he went on: "and I drove de doctor thirty years. He owned 300 slaves. I never went to school a day in my life, 'cept Sunday school, but I tuk de doctor's sons four miles ev'y day to school. Guess he had so much business in hand he thought de chillun could walk. I used to sit down on de school steps 'till dey turn out. I got way up de alphabet by listenin', but when I went to courtin' I forgot all dat."

Asked what his regular duties were, Willis answered with pride:

"Marster had a ca'yage and a buggy too. My father driv' de doctor. Sometimes I was fixin' to go to bed, and had to hitch up my horse and go five or six mile. I had a regular saddle horse, two pair of horses for ca'yage. Doctor were a rich man. Richest man in Burke County. He made his money on his farm. When summertime come, I went wid him to Bath, wheh he had a house on Tena Hill. We driv' down in de ca'yage. Sundays we went to church when Dr. Goulding preach. De darkies went in de side do'. I hear him preach many times."

Asked about living conditions on the plantation, Willis replied:

"De big house was set in a half acre yard. 'Bout fifty yards on one side was my house, and fifty yards on de yudder side was de house o' Granny, a woman what tended de chillun and had charge o'de yard when we went to Bath." Willis gestured behind him. "Back yonder was de quarters, half a mile long; dey wuz one room 'crost, and some had shed room. When any of 'em got sick, Marster would go round to see 'em all."

As to church, Willis said:

"I belongst to Hopeful Church. Church people would have singin' and prayin' and de wicked people would have dancin' and singin'." Willis chuckled. "At dat time I wuz a regular dancer! I cut de pigeon wing high enough! Not many cullud peoples know de Bible in slavery time. We had dances, and prayers, and sing, too. We sang a song, 'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, and cast a wishful eye.'"

"How about marriages?" Willis was asked.

"Colored preacher marry 'em. You had to get license and give it to de preacher and he marry 'em. When de men on our plantation had wives on udder plantations, dey call 'em broad wives."

"Did you give your wife presents when you were courting?" he was asked.

"I went to courtin' and never give her nuthin' till I marry her."

As to punishments, Willis said that slaves were whipped as they needed it, and as a general rule the overseer did the whipping.

"When derky wouldn't take whippin' from de overseer," he said, "he had to ca'y dem to de boss; and if we needed any brushin' de marster brush 'em. Why, de darkies would whip de overseer!"

Willis was asked to describe how slaves earned money for personal use, and replied:

"Dey made dey own money. In slavery time, if you wanted four-five acre of land to plant you anything on, marster give it to you and whatever dat land make, it belong to you. You could take dat money and spend it any way you wanted. Still he give you somethin' to eat and clothe you, but dat patch you mek cotton on, sometimes a whole bale, dat money yours."

Willis thought the plantation house was still there, "but it badly wounded," he said. "Dey tell me dere ain't nobuddy living in it now. It south of Waynesboro."

"When de soldiers come thoo'," continued Willis, "dey didn't burn dat place, but dey went in dere and took out ev'yting dey want and give it to de cullud people. Dey kep' it till dey got free. De soldiers tuk de doctor's horses and ca'y 'em off. Got in de crib and tek de corn. Got in de smoke 'ouse and tek de meat out. Old Marssa bury his money and silver in an iron chist. Dey tuk it 300 yards away to a clump o' trees and bury it. It tuk fo' men to ca'y it. Dere was money widout mention in dat chist! After de soldiers pass thoo' dey went down and got it back."

"What did you do after freedom was declared?"

Willis straightened up.

"I went down to Augusta to de Freedman's Bureau to see if twas true we wuz free. I reckon dere was over a hundred people dere. De man got up and stated to de people: 'You all is jus' as free as I am. You ain't got no mistis and no marster. Work when you want.' On Sunday morning Old Marster sont de house gal and tell us to all come to de house. He said:

'What I want to send for you all is to tell you dat you are free. You hab de privilege to go anywheh you want, but I don't want none o' you to leave me now. I wants you-all to stay right wid me. If you stay, you mus' sign to it.'

I asked him:

'What you want me to sign for? I is free.'

'Dat will hold me to my word and hold you to yo' word,' he say.

"All my folks sign it, but I wouldn't sign. Marster call me up and say: 'Willis, why wouldn't you sign?' I say: 'If I is already free, I don't need to sign no paper. If I was workin' for you and doin' for you befo' I got free, I kin do it still, if you wants me to stay wid you.'

"My father and mother tried to git me to sign, but I wouldn't sign. My mother said: 'You oughter sign. How you know Marster gwine pay?' I say: 'Den I kin go somewheh else.'

"Marster pay first class hands $15.00 a month, other hands $10.00, and den on down to five and six dollars. He give rations like dey always have. When Christmus' come, all come up to be paid off. Den he calls me. Ask whar is me? I was standin' roun' de corner of de house. 'Come up here, Willis,' he say. 'You didn't sign dat paper but I reckon I hab to pay you too.' He paid me and my wife $180.00. I said: 'Well, you-all thought he wouldn't pay me, but I got my money too.'

"I stayed to my marster's place one year after de war, den I lef' dere. Nex' year I decided I would quit dere and go somewheh else. It was on account o' my wife. You see, Marster bought her off, as de highes' bidder, down in Waynesboro, and she ain't seen her mother and father for fifteen years. When she got free, she went down to see 'em. Waren't willin' to come back. T'was on account o' Mistis and her. Dey bofe had chilluns, five-six year old. De chilluns had disagreement. Mistis slap my gal. My wife sass de Mistis. But my marster, he wuz as good a man as ever born. I wouldn't have lef' him for nobody, just on account of his wife and her fell out."

"What did your master say when you told him you were going to leave? Was he sorry?"

"I quit and goes over three miles to another widow lady's house, and mek bargain wid her," said Willis. "I pass right by de do'. Old boss sittin' on de pi—za. He say: 'Hey, boy, wheh you gwine?' I say: 'I 'cided to go.' I wuz de fo'man' o' de plow-han' den. I saw to all de looking up, and things like dat. He say: 'Hold on dere.' He come out to de gate. 'tell you what I give you to stay on here. I give you five acre of as good land as I got, and $30.00 a month, to stay here and see to my bizness.'"

Willis paused a moment, thinking back on that long distant parting.

"I say," he went on, "'I can't, marster. It don't suit my wife 'round here. She won't come back. I can't stay.'

"He turn on me den, and busted out crying. 'I didn't tho't I could raise up a darky dat would talk dat-a-way,' he said. Well, I went on off. I got de wagon and come by de house. Marster say: 'Now, you gwine off but don't forget me, boy. Remember me as you always done.' I said: 'All right.'"

Willis chewed his tobacco reflectively for a few minutes, spat into the rosemary bush and resumed his story.

"I went over to dat widow lady's house and work. Along about May I got sick. She say: 'I going send for de doctor.' I say: 'Please ma'am, don't do dat.' (I thought maybe he kill me 'cause I lef' him.) She say: 'Well, I gwine send fo' him.' I in desprut condition. When I know anything, he walk up in de do'. I was laying' wid my face toward de do', and I turn over.

"Doctor come up to de bed. 'Boy, how you gettin' on?' 'I bad off,' I say. He say: 'see you is. Yeh.' Lady say: 'Doctor, whut you think of him?' Doctor say: 'Mistis, it mos' too late, but I do all I kin.' She say: 'Please do all you kin, he 'bout de bes' han' I got.'

"Doctor fix up med'cine and tole her to give it to me.

"She say: 'Uncle Will, tek dis med'cine. I 'fraid to tek it. 'Fraid he wuz tryin' to kill me. Den two men, John and Charlie, come in. Lady say: 'Get dis med'cine in Uncle Will.' One o' de men hold my hand and dey gag me and put it in me. Nex' few days I kin talk and ax for somethin' to eat so I git better. (I say: "Well, he didn't kill me when I tuk de med'cine!')

"I stayed dere wid her," continued Willis. "Nex' year I move right back in two miles, other side wheh I always live, wid anudder lady. I stay dere three year. Got along all right. When I lef' from there, I lef' dere wid $300.00 and plenty corn and hog. Everything I want, and three hundred cash dollars in my pocket!"

It was plain that in his present status of relief ward, Uncle Willis looked back on that sum of money as a small fortune. He thought about it awhile, spat again, and went on:

"Fourth year I lef and went down to anudder place near de Creek. I stay dere 33 years in dat one place."

"Uncle Willis, did you ever see the doctor again?"

"He die 'fore I know it," he replied. "I was 'bout fifteen miles from him, and by de time I year o' his death, he bury on plantation near de creek."

Willis was asked about superstitions and answered with great seriousness:

"Eve'ybuddy in de worl' hab got a sperrit what follow 'em roun' and dey kin see diffrunt things. In my sleep I hab vision."

"Pappy, tell de ladies 'bout de hant," urged Aunt Rena from her post in the doorway, and Willis took up the story with eagerness:

"One night I was gwine to a lady's store, ridin' a horse. De graveyard was 100 yards from de road I wuz passin'. De moon was shinin' bright as day. I saw somethin' comin' out of dat graveyard. It come across de road, right befo' me. His tail were draggin' on de ground—a long tail. He had hair on both sides of him, layin' down on de road. He crep' up. I pull de horse dis way. He move too. I yell out: 'What in de name o' God is dat?' And it turn right straight around and went back to de graveyard. I went on to de lady's house and done my shoppin'. I tell you I wuz skeered, 'cause I was sho' I would see it going back, but I never saw it. De horse was turrible skeered of it. It looked like a Maryno sheep and it had a long, swishy tail."

Uncle Willis was asked if he had ever seen a person "conjured" and he answered:

"Dey is people in de worl' got sense enough to kill out de conjur in anybuddy, but nobuddy ever conjur me. I year 'um say, if a person conjur you, you'll git somethin' in you dat would kill you."

Asked to what he attributed his long, healthy life, Willis raised his head with a preaching look and replied:

"I tell you, Missis, 'zactly what I believe, I bin tryin' to serve God ever since I come to be a man of family. I bin tryin' to serve de Lawd 79 years, and I live by precept of de word. Until today nobuddy can turn me away from God business. I am a man studying my gospel, I ain't able to go to church, but I still keep serving God."

[TR: Return visit]

A week later Uncle Willis was found standing in his cabin door.

"Do you want to ride to the old plantation to-day?" he was asked. His vitality was almost too low for him to grasp the invitation.

"I'se mighty weak to-day," he said in a feeble voice. "I don't feel good for much."

"Where is Aunt Rena?" he was asked. "Do you think she would mind your taking an automobile trip?"

"She gone to town on de bus, to see de Fambly Welfare."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"I had some coffee, but I ain't eat none."

"Well, come on, Uncle Willis. We'll get you some breakfast and then we'll take you to the plantation and take your picture in the place where you were born, 101 years ago."

Uncle Willis appeared to be somewhat in a daze as he padlocked the cabin door, put on his "sundown" hat, took up his stout stick and tottered down the steps. He wore a frayed sweater with several layers of shirts showing at the cuffs. On the way he recalled the first railroad train that passed through Burke County.

"I kinder skeered," he recollected. "We wuz all 'mazed to see dat train flying' long 'thout any horses. De people wuz all afraid."

"Had you heard of airplanes before you saw one, Uncle Willis?"

"Yes, ma'am. I yeared o' dem but you couldn't gimme dis car full o' money to fly. Dey's too high off de ground. I never is gwine in one!"

Uncle Willis was deposited on the porch of one of the remaining slave cabins to eat his "breakkus," while his kidnapers sought over hill and field for "The big house," but only two cabins and the chimney foundations of a large burned dwelling rewarded the search.

The old ex-slave was posed in front of the cabin, to one side of the clay and brick chimney, and took great pleasure in the ceremony, rearing his head up straight so that his white beard stuck out.

The brutal reality of finding the glories of the plantation forever vanished must have been a severe blow for the old man. Several times on the way back he wiped tears from his eyes. Once again at his cabin in the cottonfield, his vitality reasserted itself, and he greeted his curious dusky neighbors with the proud statement.

"Dey tuk me when I was bred and born! I ain't ax no better time!"

Willis' farewell words were:

"Goo'bye! I hopes you all gits to Paradise!"

---

[HW: Dist 1-2
Ex-Slave #116]
EX-SLAVE INTERVIEW
CORNELIA WINFIELD, Age 82
Richmond County
1341 Ninth Street
Augusta, Georgia
BY: (Mrs.) Margaret Johnson—Editor
Federal Writers' Project
Augusta, Georgia
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

Cornelia Winfield, 1341 Ninth Street, was born in Crawford, Oglethorpe County, Georgia March 10, 1855. Her father, being the same age as her master, was given to him as a little boy. They grew up together, playing games, and becoming devoted to each other. When her master was married her father went to his home with him and became the overseer of all the slaves on the plantation. "My father and mother wuz house servants. My marster served my father's plate from his own table and sent it to him, every meal. He had charge of the work shop, and when marster was away he always stayed at the Big House, to take care of my Missis and the children. My mother was a seamstress and had three younger seamsters under her, that she taught to sew. We made the clothes for all the house servants and fiel' hans. My mother made some of the clothes for my marster and missis. My mother was a midwife too, and useter go to all the birthings on our place. She had a bag she always carried and when she went to other plantations she had a horse and buggy to go in.

"All the slaves on our place wuz treated well. I never heard of any of 'em bein' whipped. I was ten years old when freedom come, and I always knowed I wuz to belong to one of marster's daughters. After freedom my father and mother worked on just the same for marster. When my father died, marster's fam'ly wanted him buried in the fam'ly lot but I wanted him to lie by my mother."

Cornelia's husband was a Methodist preacher, and she lived with him to celebrate their Golden Wedding. During the last years of his life they lived in Augusta. For sixteen years she washed all the blankets for the Fire Department, and did some of the washing for the firemen. Cornelia is now 82 years of age, but her memory is good and her mind active; and she is extremely loquacious. She is quite heavy, and crippled, having to use a crutch when she walks. Her room was clean, but over-crowded with furniture, every piece of which has recently been painted. Of the wardrobe in her room Cornelia told the following story. "All the planks eny of our family was laid out on, my father kep'. When he came to Augusta he brought all these planks and made this here wardrobe. When the fire burnt me out, this here wardrobe was the only thing in my house that was saved."

During the past summer she put up quantities of preserves, pickles and canned fruits. These she sells in a little shop-room adjoining her house, and when the weather permits, on the steps of the Post Office.

Cornelia can read, and spends much of time reading the Bible but she learned to read after "Freedom." She is greatly interested to tell of the "best families" she has worked for and the gifts she has received from them.

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[HW: Dist. 5
Ex-Slave #117]
E. Driskell
Whitley
1-20-37
GEORGE WOMBLE
EX-SLAVE
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]

One of the relics of Slavery is George Womble. From all appearances Mr. Womble looks to be fifty-three years of age instead of the ripe old age of ninety-three that he claims. He is about five and one-half or six feet in height, weighs one-hundred and seventy-five pounds or more, and has good sight and hearing in addition to a skin that is almost devoid of any wrinkle. Besides all of this he is a clear thinker and has a good sense of humor. Following is an account of the experiences of Mr. Womble as a slave and of the conditions in general on the plantations where he lived:

"I was born in the year of 1843 near the present site of what is now known as Clinton, Georgia. The names of my parents were Patsy and Raleigh Ridley. I never saw my father as he was sold before I was old enough to recognize him as being my father. I was still quite young when my mother was sold to a plantation owner who lived in New Orleans, La. As she was being put on the wagon to be taken away I heard her say: "Let me see my poor child one more time because I know I'll never see him again". That was the last I ever saw or heard of her. As I had no brothers or sisters or any other relatives to care for me my master, who was Mr. Robert Ridley, had me placed in his house where I was taught to wait tables and to do all kinds of house work. Mr. Ridley had a very large plantation and he raised cotton, corn, oats, wheat, peas, and live stock. Horses and mules were his specialty—I remember that he had one little boy whose job was to break these animals so that they could be easily sold. My job was to wait tables, help with the house cleaning, and to act as nurse maid to three young children belonging to the master. At other times I drove the cows to and from the pasture and I often helped with the planting in the fields when the field hands were rushed. Out of the forty-odd slaves that were held by the Ridleys all worked in the field with the exception of myself and the cook whose name was Harriet Ridley." Continuing, Mr. Womble says: "I believe that Mr. Ridley was one of the meanest men that ever lived. Sometimes he whipped us, especially us boys, just to give himself a little fun. He would tie us in such a way as to cause our bodies to form an angle and then he preceeded to use the whip. When he had finished he would ask: "Who do you belong to?" and we had to answer; "Marse Robert". At other times he would throw us in a large tank that held about two-thousand gallons of water. He then stood back and laughed while we struggled to keep from drowning."

"When Marse Robert died I was still a small boy. Several months after his death Mrs. Ridley gave the plantation up and took her share of the slaves (ten in number) of which I was one, and moved to Tolbert County, Georgia near the present location of Talbottom, Georgia. The other slaves and the plantation were turned over to Marse Robert's relatives. After a few months stay in this place I was sold to Mrs. Ridley's brother, Enoch Womble. On the day that I was sold three doctors examined me and I heard one of them say: "This is a thoroughbred boy. His teeth are good and he has good muscles and eyes. He'll live a long time." Then Mr. Womble said: "He looks intelligent too. I think I'll take him and make a blacksmith out of him." And so to close the deal he paid his sister five-hundred dollars for me."

According to Mr. Womble his new master was even meaner than the deceased Mr. Ridley. He was likewise a plantation owner and a farmer and as such he raised the same things that Mr. Ridley did with the exception of the horses and the mules. In all there were about five-hundred acres to the plantation. There were six children in the Womble family in addition to Mr. Womble and his wife, and they all lived in a large one-storied frame house. A large hickory tree grew through the center of the porch where a hole had been cut out for its growth.

Mr. Womble says that his reputation of being an excellent house boy had preceded him, and so here too he was put to work in the master's house where he helped with the cooking, washed the dishes, cleaned the house, and also acted as nurse for the younger white children. In addition to this, he was also required to attend to the cows. He remembers how on one night at a very late hour he was called by the master to go and drive the cows from the pasture as the sleet and snow might do them more harm than good. He was so cold that on the way back from the pasture he stopped at the pig pens where he pushed one or two of them out of the spots where they had lain so that he could squat there, and warm his feet in the places left warm by their bodies. To add to his discomfort the snow and sleet froze in his long hair and this made him even more miserable than ever.

Mr. Womble was asked to tell what time he had to arise in the morning to be at his day's work, and he replied that sometimes he didn't even go to sleep as he had to keep one hand on the baby crib to keep it from crying. Most of the time he got up at four o'clock in the morning, and went to the kitchen where he helped the cook prepare breakfast. After this was done, and he had finished waiting on the master and his family he started to clean the house. When he had finished this, he had to take care of the younger Womble children, and do countless the other things to be done around a house. Of the other slaves, Mr. Womble says: "None of them ever suffered from that disease known as "mattress fever". They all got up long before day, and prepared their breakfasts and then before it was light enough to see clearly they were standing in the field holding their hoes and other implements—afraid to start work for fear that they would cover the cotton plants with dirt because they could'nt see clearly due to the darkness." An overseer was hired by the master to see that the work was done properly. If any of the slaves were careless about their work they were made to take off their clothes in the field before all the rest and then a sound whipping was administered. Field hands also get whippings when they failed to pick the required three-hundred pounds of cotton daily. To avoid a whipping for this they sprinkled the white sand of the fields on the dew soaked cotton and at the time it was weighed they were credited with more pounds than they had actually picked. Around ten or eleven o'clock in the morning they were all allowed to go to the cook house where they were given dinner by the plantation cook. By one o'clock they were all back in the field where they remained until it was too dark to see clearly, and then they were dismissed by the overseer after he had checked the number of pounds of cotton that they had picked.

The slaves knew that whenever Mr. Womble hired a new overseer he always told the prospect that if he could'nt handle the slaves his services would not be needed. The cook had heard the master tell a prospective overseer this and so whenever a new one was hired the slaves were quick to see how far they could go with him. Mr. Womble says that an overseer had to be a very capable man in order to keep his job as overseer on the Womble plantation because if the slaves found out that he was afraid of them fighting him (and they did sometimes) they took advantage of him so much so that the production dropped and the overseer either found himself trying to explain to his employer or else looking for another job. The master would never punish a slave for beating an overseer with his fists stated Mr. Womble.

During rainy weather the slaves shucked corn, piled manure in the barns, and made cloth. In the winter season the men split rails, built fences, and dug ditches, while the women did the weaving and the making of cloth. These slaves who were too old to work in the fields remained at home where they nursed the sick slaves (when there was sickness) and attended to the needs of those children who were too young for field work. Those children who were still being fed from their mother's breasts were also under the care of one of these old persons. However, in this case the mothers were permitted to leave the field twice a day (once between breakfast and dinner and once between dinner and supper) so that these children could be fed.

At times Mr. Womble hired some of his slaves out to work by the day for some of the other nearby plantation owners. Mr. Geo. Womble says that he was often hired out to the other white ladies of the community to take care of their children and to do their housework. Because of his ability to clean a house and to handle children he was in constant demand.

The men worked every day in the week while the women were given Saturday afternoon off so that they might do their personal work such as the washing and the repairing of their clothing etc. The women were required to do the washing and the repairing of the single men's clothing in addition to their own. No night work was required of any of them except during the winter when they were given three cuts of thread to card, reel, and spin each night.

There were some days when the master called them all to his back yard and told them that they could have a frolic. While they danced and sang the master and his family sat and looked on. On days like the Fourth of July and Christmas in addition to the frolic barbecue was served and says Mr. Womble: "It was right funny to see all of them dancing around the yard with a piece of meat in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.

Mr. Womble stated further that clothes were given to all the slaves once a year. An issue for the men usually consisted of one or two pairs of pants and some shirts, underwear, woolen socks, and a pair of heavy brogans that had been made of horse hide. These shoes were reddish in appearance and were as stiff as board according to Mr. Womble. For special wear the men were given a garment that was made into one piece by sewing the pants and shirt together. This was known as a "roundabout". The women were given one or two dresses that had been made of the same material as that of the men's pants. As the cloth that these clothes were made of was very coarse and heavy most of them lasted until the time for the next issue. None of the clothing that the slaves wore was bought. After the cloth had been made by the slaves who did all the spinning and the weaving the master's wife cut the clothes out while the slave women did the sewing. One of the men was a cobbler and it was he who made all of the shoes for slave use. In the summer months the field hands worked in their bare feet regardless of whether they had shoes or not. Mr. Womble says that he was fifteen years of age when he was given his first pair of shoes. They were a pair of red boots and were so stiff that he needed help to get them on his feet as well as to get them off. Once when the master had suffered some few financial losses the slaves had to wear clothes that were made of crocus material. The children wore sacks after holes had been cut out for their heads and arms. This garment looked like a slightly lengthened shirt in appearance. A dye made from red clay was used to give color to these clothes.

The bed clothing consisted of bagging sacks and quilts that were made out of old clothes.

At the end of the week all the field hands met in the master's backyard where they were given a certain amount of food which was supposedly enough to last for a week. Such an issue was made up of three pounds of fat meat, one peck of meal, and one quart of black molasses. Mr. Womble was asked what the slaves did if their allowance of food ran out before the end of the week, and he replied in the following manner: "If their food gave out before the time for another issue they waited until night and then one or two of them would go to the mill-house where the flour and the meal was kept. After they had succeeded in getting in they would take an auger and bore a hole in the barrel containing the meal. One held the sack while the other took a stick and worked it around in the opening made by the auger so as to make the meal flow freely. After their bags were filled the hole was stopped up, and a hasty departure was made. Sometimes when they wanted meat they either went to the smoke house and stole a ham or else they would go to the pen where the pigs were kept and take a small pig out. When they got to the woods with this animal they proceeded to skin and clean it (it had already been killed with a blow in the head before they left the pen). All the parts that they did not want were either buried or thrown in the nearby river. After going home all of this meat was cooked and hidden. As there was danger in being caught none of this stolen meat was ever fried because there was more danger of the odor of frying meat going farther away than that odor made by meat being boiled." At this point Mr. Womble stated that the slaves were taught to steal by their masters. Sometimes they were sent to the nearby plantations to steal chickens, pigs, and other things that could be carried away easily. At such times the master would tell them that he was not going to mistreat them and that he was not going to allow anyone else to mistreat them and that by taking the above mentioned things they were helping him to be more able to take care of them.

At breakfast the field hands ate fried meat, corn bread, and molasses. When they went to the house for dinner they were given some kind of vegetable along with pot liquor and milk. When the days work was done and it was time for the evening meal there was the fried meat again with the molasses and the corn bread. Mr. Womble says that they ate this kind of food every day in the week. The only variation was on Sunday when they were given the seconds of the flour and a little more molasses so that they might make a cake. No other sweetening was used except the molasses.

As for Mr. Womble and the cook they fared better as they ate the same kind of food that the master and his family did. He remembers how he used to take biscuits from the dishes that were being sent to the masters table. He was the waiter and this was an easy matter. Later he took some of these biscuits and sold them to the other little boys for a nickle each. Neither the master or the slaves had real coffee. They all drank a type of this beverage that had been made by parching bran or meal and then boiled in water.

The younger children were fed from a trough that was twenty feet in length. At meal time each day the master would come out and supervise the cook whose duty it was to fill the trough with food. For breakfast the milk and bread was all mixed together in the trough by the master who used his walking cane to stir it with. At dinner and supper the children were fed pot liquor and bread and sometimes milk that had been mixed together in the same manner. All stood back until the master had finished stirring the food and then at a given signal they dashed to the trough where they began eating with their hands. Some even put their mouths in the trough and ate. There were times when the master's dogs and some of the pigs that ran round the yard all came to the trough to share these meals. Mr. Womble states that they were not permitted to strike any of these animals so as to drive them away and so they protected their faces from the tongues of the intruders by placing their hands on the sides of their faces as they ate. During the meal the master walked from one end of the trough to the other to see that all was as it should be. Before Mr. Womble started to work in the master's house he ate as the other children for a short time. Some of the times he did not have enough food to eat and so when the time came to feed the cows he took a part of their food (a mixture of cotton seed, collard stalks, and small ears of corn) and ate it when night came. When he started working in the house regularly he always had sufficient food from then on.

All the food that was eaten was grown on the plantation in the master's gardens. He did not permit the slaves to have a garden of their own neither could they raise their own chickens and so the only time that they got the chance to enjoy the eating of chicken was when they decided to make a special trip to the master's poultry yard.

The housing facilities varied with the work a slave was engaged in on the Womble plantation according to Mr. Womble. He slept in the house under the dining-room table all of the time. The cook also slept in the house of her owner. For those who worked on the fields log cabins (some distance behind the master's house.) were provide [sic]. Asked to describe one of these cabins Mr. Womble replied: "They were two roomed buildings made out of logs and daubed with mud to keep the weather out. At one end there was a chimney that was made out of dried mud, sticks and stones. The fireplace was about five or six feet in length and on the inside of it there were some hooks to hang the pots from when there was cooking to be done.

"There was only one door and this was the front one. They would'nt put a back door in a cabin because it would be easy for a slave to slip out of the back way if the master or the overseer came to punish an occupant. There were one or two small openings cut in the back so that they could get air."

"The furniture was made by the blacksmith", continued Mr. Womble. "In one corner of the room there was a large bed that had been made out of heavy wood. Rope that ran from side to side served as the springs while the mattress was a large bag that had been stuffed with wheat straw. The only other furnishings were a few cooking utensils and one or two benches." As many as four families lived in one of these cabins although the usual number to a cabin was three families. There was one other house where the young children were kept while their parents worked in the fields.

Most of the sickness on the Womble plantation was due to colds and fever. For the treatment of either of these ailments the master always kept a large can filled with a mixture of turpentine and caster oil. When anyone complained of a cold a dose of this oil was prescribed. The master gave this dose from a very large spoon that always hung from the can. The slaves also had their own home made remedies for the treatment of different ailments. Yellow root tea and black-hall tea were used in the treatment of colds while willow tea was used in the treatment of fever. Another tea made from the droppings of sheep was used as a remedy for the measles. A doctor was always called when anyone was seriously ill. He was always called to attend those cases of childbirth. Unless a slave was too sick to walk he was required to go to the field and work like the others. If, however, he was confined to his bed a nurse was provided to attend to his needs.

On Sundays all of the slaves were allowed to attend the white church where they listened to the services from the rear of the church. When the white minister was almost through he would walk back to where the slaves sat and tell them not to steal their master's chickens, eggs, or his hogs and their backs would not be whipped with many stripes. After this they were dismissed and they all left the church wondering what the preacher's sermon meant. Some nights they went to the woods and conducted their own services. At a certain spot they all knelt and turned their faces toward the ground and then they began moaning and praying. Mr. Womble says that by huddling in this circle and turning their voices toward the ground the sound would not travel very far.

None of them ever had the chance to learn how to read and write. Some times the young boys who carried the master's children's books to and from school would ask these children to teach them to write but as they were afraid of what their father might do they always refused. On the adjoining plantation the owner caught his son teaching a little slave boy to write.

He was furious and after giving his son a severe beating he then cut the thumb and forefinger off of the slave. The only things that were taught the slaves was the use of their hands. Mr. Womble says that all the while that he was working in the master's house they still found the time for him to learn to be a blacksmith.

When a male slave reached the age of twenty-one he was allowed to court. The same was true of a girl that had reached the age of eighteen. If a couple wished to marry they had to get permission from the master who asked each in turn if they wished to be joined as man and wife and if both answered that they did they were taken into the master's house where the ceremony was performed. Mr. Womble says that he has actually seen one of these weddings and that it was conducted in the following manner: "A broom was placed in the center of the floor and the couple was told to hold hands. After joining hands they were commanded to jump over the broom and then to turn around and jump back.

"After this they were pronounced man and wife." A man who was small in stature was never allowed to marry a large, robust woman. Sometimes when the male slaves on one plantation were large and healthy looking and the women slaves on some nearby plantation looked like they might be good breeders the two owners agreed to allow the men belonging to the one visit the women belonging to the other, in fact they encouraged this sort of thing in hopes that they would marry and produce big healthy children. In such cases passes were given freely.

All of the newly born babies were named by the master. "The only baptisms that any of us get was with a stick over the head and then we baptised our cheeks with our tears," stated Mr. Wombly.

Continuing, Mr. Wombly stated that the slaves on the Womble plantation were treated more like animals rather than like humans. On one or two occasions some of them were sold. At such a time those to be sold were put in a large pen and then they were examined by the doctors and prospective buyers and later sold to the highest bidder the same as a horse or a mule. They were sold for various reasons says Mr. Womble. His mother was sold because she was too hard to rule and because she made it difficult to discipline the other slaves.

Mr. Womble further reported that most of his fellow slaves believed in signs. They believed that if a screech owl or a "hoot" owl came near a house and made noises at night somebody was going to die and instead of going to heaven the devil would get them. "On the night that old Marse Ridley died the screech owls like to have taken the house away," he says.

There was always a great amount of whipping on this plantation. This was practically the only form of punishment used. Most of them were whipped for being disobedient or for being unruly. Mr. Womble has heard his master say that he would not have a slave that he could not rule and to be sure that the slaves held him and his family in awe he even went so far as to make all of them go and pay their respects to the newly born white children on the day after their birth. At such a time they were required to get in line outside of the door and then one by one they went through the room and bowed their heads as they passed the bed and uttered the following words: "Young Marster" or if the baby was a girl they said: "Young Mistress". On one occasion Mr. Womble says that he has seen his master and a group of other white men beat an unruly slave until his back was raw and then a red hot iron bar was applied to his back. Even this did not make the slave submissive because he ran away immediately afterwards. After this inhuman treatment any number of the slaves ran away, especially on the Ridley plantation. Some were caught and some were not. One of the slaves on the Womble plantation took his wife and ran away. He and his wife lived in a cave that they found in the woods and there they raised a family. When freedom was declared and these children saw the light of day for the first time they almost went blind stated Mr. Womble.

Mr. Womble says that he himself has been whipped to such an extent by his master, who used a walking cane, that he had no feeling in his legs. One other time he was sent off by the master and instead of returning immediately he stopped to eat some persimmons. The master came upon him at the tree and started beating him on the head with a wagon spoke. By the time he reached the house his head was covered with knots the size of hen eggs and blood was flowing from each of them.

The slaves on the Womble plantation seldom if ever came in contact with the "Paddle-Rollers" who punished those slaves who had the misfortune to be caught off of their plantations without passes. In those days the jails were built for the white folks because the masters always punished the slaves when they broke any of the laws exclaimed Mr. Womble.

Several years before the war Mr. Wombly was sold to Mr. Jim Wombly, the son of Mr. Enoch Wombly. He was as mean as his father or meaner, Mr. Wombly says that the first thing that he remembers in regard to the war was to hear his master say that he was going to join the army and bring Abe Lincoln's head back for a soap dish. He also said that he would wade in blood up to his neck to keep the slaves from being freed. The slaves would go to the woods at night where they sang and prayed. Some used to say; "I knew that some day we'll be free and if we die before that time our children will live to see it."

When the Yankees marched through they took all of the silver and gold that had been hidden in the wall on the Womble plantation. They also took all of the live stock on the plantation, most of which had been hidden in the swamps. These soldiers then went into the house and tore the beds up and poured syrup in the mattresses. At the time all of the white people who lived on the plantation were hiding in the woods. After the soldiers had departed (taking these slaves along who wished to follow) Mrs. Womble went back into the house and continued to make the clothes and the bandages that were to be used by the Confederate Soldiers.

After the slaves were set free any number of them were bound over and kept, says Mr. Womble. He himself was to remain with the Womble family until he reached the age of twenty-one. When this time came Mr. Womble refused to let him go. However, Mrs. Womble helped him to escape but he was soon caught one night at the home of an elderly white lady who had befriended him. A rope was tied around his neck and he was made to run the entire way back to the plantation while the others rode on horse back. After a few more months of cruel treatment he ran away again. This time he was successful in his escape and after he had gone what he considered a safe distance he set up a blacksmith shop where he made a living for quite a few years. Later one of the white men in that community hired him to work in his store. After a number of years at this place he decided to come to Atlanta where he has been since.

Mr. Womble concluded by saying that he has been able to reach his present age because he has never done any smoking or drinking. An old lady once told him not to use soap on his face and he would not wrinkle. He accounts for his smooth skin in this manner.

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[HW: Dist. 5
Ex. Slave #118
E. Driskell]
SLAVERY AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF
HENRY WRIGHT—EX-SLAVE, Age 99

In Atlanta among that ever decreasing group of persons known as ex-slaves there is an old Negro man named Henry Wright. Although Mr. Wright is 99 years of age his appearance is that of a much younger man. He is about 5 feet in height; his dark skin is almost free of wrinkles and his head is thickly covered with gray hair. His speech and thought indicate that he is very intelligent and there is no doubt that he still possesses a clear and active mind.

As he noisily puffed on a battered old pipe he related the following tale of his experiences in slavery and of conditions in general as he saw them at that time.

Mr. Wright was born on the plantation of Mr. Phil House. This plantation was located near the present site of Buckhead, Ga. His parents were Henry Wright and Margaret House. In those days it was customary for slaves to carry the name of their owners. His father was owned by Mr. Spencer Wright and his mother was owned by Mr. Phil House. Both of these slave owners lived in the same district. His grandparents, Kittie and Anite House also belonged to Mr. Phil House and it was they who told him how they had been sold like cattle while in Virginia to a speculator (slave dealer) and brought to Decatur, Ga. where they were sold to Mr. House.

Mr. Wright lived with his mother on the House plantation for several years then he was given to Mr. George House, the brother of Phil House, as a wedding present. However, he saw his parents often as they were all allowed "passes" so that they might visit one another.

According to Mr. Wright, his master was a very rich man and a very intelligent one. His plantation consisted of about three or four hundred acres of land on which he raised cotton, cane, corn, vegetables and live stock. Although he was not very mean to his slaves or "servants" as he called them, neither did his kindness reach the gushing or overflowing stage.

On this plantation there were a large number of slaves, some of whom worked in "Old Marster's" (as Mr. House was called) house and some of whom worked in the fields.

As a youngster Mr. Wright had to pick up chips around the yard, make fires and keep the house supplied with water which he got from the well. When he was ten years of age he was sent to the field as a plow-boy. He remembers that his mother and father also worked in the fields. In relating his experience as a field hand Mr. Wright says that he and his fellow slaves were roused each morning about 3 o'clock by the blowing of a horn. This horn was usually blown by the white overseer or by the Negro foreman who was known among the slaves as the "Nigger Driver." At the sounding of the horn they had to get up and feed the stock. Shortly after the horn was blown a bell was rung and at this signal they all started for the fields to begin work for the day. They were in the field long before the sun was up. Their working hours were described as being from "sun to sun." When the time came to pick the cotton each slave was required to pick at least 200 lbs. of cotton per day. For this purpose each was given a bag and a large basket. The bag was hung around the neck and the basket was placed at the end of the row. At the close of the day the overseer met all hands at the scales with the lamp, the slate and the whip. If any slave failed to pick the required 200 lbs. he was soundly whipped by the overseer. Sometimes they were able to escape this whipping by giving illness as an excuse. Another form of strategy adopted by the slaves was to dampen the cotton or conceal stones in the baskets, either of which would make the cotton weigh more.

Sometimes after leaving the fields at dark they had to work at night—shucking corn, ginning cotton or weaving. Everyday except Sunday was considered a work day. The only form of work on Sunday was the feeding of the live stock, etc.

When Mr. Wright was asked about the treatment that was given the house slaves in comparison to that given the field slaves, he replied with a broad grin that "Old Marster" treated them much the same as he would a horse and a mule. That is, the horse was given the kind of treatment that would make him show off in appearance, while the mule was given only enough care to keep him well and fit for work. "You see," continued Mr. Wright, "in those days a plantation owner was partially judged by the appearance of his house servants." And so in addition to receiving the discarded clothes of "Old Marster" and his wife, better clothing was bought for the house slaves.

The working hours of the house slave and the field slave were practically the same. In some cases the house slaves had to work at night due to the fact that the master was entertaining his friends or he was invited out and so someone had to remain up to attend to all the necessary details.

On the plantation of Mr. House the house slaves thought themselves better than the field slaves because of the fact that they received better treatment. On the other hand those slaves who worked in the fields said that they would rather work in the fields than work in the house because they had a chance to earn spending money in their spare or leisure time. House servants had no such opportunity.

In bad weather they were not required to go to the fields—instead they cut hedges or did other small jobs around the house. The master did not want them to work in bad weather because there was too much danger of illness which meant a loss of time and money in the end.

Mr. House wanted his slaves to learn a trade such as masonry or carpentry, etc., not because it would benefit the slave, says Mr. Wright, but because it would make the slave sell for more in case he had "to get shet (rid) of him." The slaves who were allowed to work with these white mechanics, from whom they eventually learned the trade, were eager because they would be permitted to hire themselves out. The money they earned could be used to help buy their freedom, that is, what money remained after the master had taken his share. On the other hand the white mechanic had no particular objection to the slaves being there to help him, even though they were learning the trade, because he was able to place all the hard work on the slave which made his job easier. Mr. Wright remembers how his grandfather used to hire his time out doing carpentry work, making caskets and doing some masonry. He himself can plaster, although he never hired out during slavery.

Clothing was issued once per year usually around September. An issue consisted mostly of the following: 1 pair of heavy shoes called "Negro Brogans." Several homespun shirts, woolen socks and two or three pairs of jeans pants. The women were either given dresses and underskirts that were already made or just the plain cloth to make these garments from. Some of their clothing was bought and some was made on the plantation. The wool socks were knitted on the plantation along with the homespun which was woven there. The homespun was dyed by placing it in a boiling mixture of green walnut leaves or walnut hulls. In the event that plaid material was to be made the threads were dyed the desired color before being woven. Another kind of dye was made from the use of a type of red or blue berry, or by boiling red dirt in water (probably madder). The house slaves wore calico dresses or sometimes dresses made from woolen material.

Often this clothing was insufficient to meet the individual needs. With a broad smile and an almost imperceptible shake of his old gray head Mr. Wright told how he had worked in the field without shoes when it was so cold until the skin cracked and the blood flowed from these wounds. He also told how he used to save his shoes by placing them under his arm and walking barefooted when he had a long distance to go. In order to polish these shoes a mixture of soot and syrup was used.

The young slave children wore a one-piece garment with holes cut for the head and arms to go through. In appearance it resembled a slightly long shirt.

As Mr. House did not give blankets, the slaves were required to make the necessary cover by piecing together left over goods. After this process was completed, it was padded with cotton and then dyed in much the same way as homespun. After the dyeing was completed the slave was the owner of a new quilt.

The food that the slaves ate [**TR: was] all raised on the plantation. At the end of each week each slave was given 3 lbs. of meat (usually pork), 1 peck of meal and some syrup. Breakfast and dinner usually consisted of fried meat, corn bread and syrup. Vegetables were usually given at dinner time. Sometimes milk was given at supper. It was necessary to send the meals to the field slaves as they were usually too far away from the house to make the trip themselves. For this purpose there was a woman who did all the cooking for the field hands in a cook house located among the slave cabins.

Mr. House permitted his slaves to have a garden and chickens of their own. In fact, he gave each of them land, a small plot of ground for this purpose. The benefit of this was twofold as far as the slave was concerned. In the first place he could vary his diet. In the second place he was able to earn money by selling his produce either in town or to "Old Marster." Sometimes Old Marster took the produce to town and sold it for them. When he returned from town the money for the sale of this produce was given to the slave. Mr. Wright says that he and all the other slaves felt that they were being cheated when the master sold their goods. Mr. House also permitted his slaves to hunt and fish both of which were done at night for the most part.

Coffee was made by parching meal and then placing it in boiling water. To sweeten this coffee, syrup was used. One delicacy that he and the other slaves used to have on Sunday was biscuit bread which they called "cake bread."

All children who were too young to work in the field were cared for by some old slave woman who was too old to go to the field. She did all of their cooking, etc. The diet of these children usually consisted of pot liquor, milk, vegetables and in rare cases, meat. Mr. Wright laughed here as he stated that these children were given long handled spoons and were seated on a long bench before a trough out of which they all ate like little pigs. Not a slave ever suffered the pangs of hunger on the plantation of Mr. George House.

The houses or cabins of the slaves were located a short distance in the rear of "Old Marster's" house. These houses were usually made from logs—the chinks being closed with mud. In some cases boards were used on the inside of the cabin to keep the weather out, but according to Mr. Wright, mud was always the more effective. The floor was usually covered with boards and there were two or three windows to each cabin, shutters being used in place of glass. The chimney and fireplace were made of mud, sticks and stones. All cooking was done on the fireplace in iron utensils, which Mr. Wright declares were a lot better than those used today. For boiling, the pots hung from a long hook directly above the fire. Such furniture as each cabin contained was all made by the slaves. This furniture usually consisted of a wooden bench, instead of a chair, and a crude bed made from heavy wood. Slats were used in the place of springs. The mattress was made stuffing a large bag with wheat straw. "This slept as good as any feather bed" says Mr. Wright. Candles were used to furnish light at night.

On this plantation each family did not have an individual cabin. Sometimes as many as three families shared a cabin, which of course was rather a large one. In this case it was partitioned off by the use of curtains.

Besides having to take care of the young children, these older slaves were required to care for those slaves who were ill. Mr. House employed a doctor to attend his slaves when their cases seemed to warrant it. If the illness was of a minor nature he gave them castor oil, salts or pills himself. Then, too, the slaves had their own home remedies. Among these were different tonics made from "yarbs" (herbs), plasters made from mustard, and whisky, etc. Most illnesses were caused by colds and fevers. Mr. Wright says that his two brothers and his sister, all of whom were younger than he, died as a result of typhoid fever.

Even with all the hardships that the slaves had to suffer they still had time to have fun and to enjoy themselves, Mr. Wright continued. At various times Mr. House permitted them to have a frolic. These frolics usually took place on such holidays as 4th of July, Christmas or "laying-by time", after the cultivating of the crops was finished and before gathering time. During the day the master provided a big barbecue and at night the singing and dancing started. Music was furnished by slaves who were able to play the banjo or the fiddle. The slaves usually bought these instruments themselves and in some cases the master bought them. "In my case," declared Mr. Wright, "I made a fiddle out of a large sized gourd—a long wooden handle was used as a neck, and the hair from a horse's tail was used for the bow. The strings were made of cat-gut. After I learned to play this I bought a better violin." Sometimes the slaves slipped away to the woods to indulge in a frolic. As a means of protection they tied ropes across the paths where they would be less likely to be seen. These ropes were placed at such a height as to knock a man from his horse if he came riding up at a great speed. In this way the master or the overseer was stopped temporarily, thereby giving the slaves time to scamper to safety. In addition to the presents given at Christmas (candy and clothing) the master also gave each family half a gallon of whisky. This made the parties more lively. One of the songs that the slaves on the House plantation used to sing at their parties runs as follows:

"Oh, I wouldn't have a poor girl,
(another version says, "old maid")
And I'll tell you the reason why,
Her neck's so long and stringy,
I'm afraid she'd never die."

On Sundays Mr. House required all of his slaves to attend church. All attended a white church where they sat in the back or in the balcony. After preaching to the white audience, the white pastor turned his attention to the slaves. His sermon usually ran: "Obey your master and your mistress and the Lord will love you." Sometimes a colored preacher was allowed to preach from the same rostrum after the white pastor had finished. His sermon was along similar lines because that is what he had been instructed to say. None of the slaves believed in the sermons but they pretended to do so.

Marriages were usually performed by the colored preacher although in most cases it was only necessary for the man to approach "Old Marster" and tell him that he wanted a certain woman for his wife. "Old Marster" then called the woman in question and if she agreed they were pronounced man and wife. If the woman was a prolific breeder and if the man was a strong, healthy-looking individual she was forced to take him as a husband whether she wanted to or not.

When Mr. Wright was asked if he had ever been arrested and placed in jail for any offense while he was a slave he replied that in those days few laws, if any, applied to slaves. He knows that it was against the law for anyone to teach a slave to write because on one occasion his father who had learned to do this with the help of his master's son was told by the master to keep it to himself, because if the men of the community found out that he could write they would cut his fingers or his hand off. Horse stealing or house burning was another serious crime. On the House plantation was a mulato slave who was to have been given his freedom when he reached the age of 21. When this time came Mr. House refused to free him and so an attempt was made to burn the House mansion. Mr. Wright remembers seeing the sheriff come from town and take this slave. Later they heard on the plantation that said slave had been hanged.

For the most part punishment consisted of severe whipping sometimes administered by the slaves' master and sometimes by the white men of the community known as the Patrol. To the slaves this Patrol was known as the "Paddle" or "Paddie-Rollers." Mr. Wright says that he has been whipped numerous times by his master for running away. When he was caught after an attempted escape he was placed on the ground where he was "spread-eagled," that is, his arms and feet were stretched out and tied to stakes driven in the ground. After a severe beating, brine water or turpentine was poured over the wounds. This kept the flies away, he says. Mr. House did not like to whip his slaves as a scarred slave brought very little money when placed on the auction block. A slave who had a scarred back was considered as being unruly. Whenever a slave attempted to escape the hounds were put on his trail. Mr. Wright was caught and treed by hounds several times. He later found a way to elude them. This was done by rubbing his feet in the refuse material of the barnyard or the pasture, then he covered his legs with pine tar. On one occasion he managed to stay away from the plantation for 6 months before he returned of his own accord. He ran away after striking his master who had attempted to whip him. When he returned of his own accord his master did nothing to him because he was glad that he was not forever lost in which case a large sum of money would have been lost. Mr. Wright says that slave owners advertised in the newspapers for lost slaves, giving their description, etc. If a slave was found after his master had stopped his advertisements he was placed on the block and sold as a "stray." While a fugitive he slept in the woods, eating wild berries, etc. Sometimes he slipped to the plantation of his mother or that of his father where he was able to secure food.

He took a deep puff on his pipe and a look of satisfaction crossed his face as he told how he had escaped from the "Paddle Rollers." It was the "Paddle-Rollers" duty to patrol the roads and the streets and to see that no slave was out unless he had a "pass" from his master. Further, he was not supposed to be any great distance away from the place he had been permitted to go. If a slave was caught visiting without a "pass" or if at any time he was off his plantation without said "pass" and had the misfortune to be caught by the "Paddle-Rollers" he was given a sound whipping and returned to his master.

When the Civil War began all the slaves on the House plantation grew hopeful and glad of the prospect of being set free. Mr. House was heard by some of the slaves to say that he hoped to be dead the day Negroes were set free. Although the slaves prayed for their freedom they were afraid to even sing any type of spiritual for fear of being punished.

When the Yankee troops came through near the House plantation they asked the slaves if their master was mean to them. As the answer was "no" the soldiers marched on after taking all the livestock that they could find. At the adjoining plantation where the master was mean, all property was burned. Mr. House was not present for when he heard of the approach of Sherman he took his family, a few valuables and some slaves and fled to Augusta. He later joined the army but was not wounded. However, his brother, Phil House, lost a leg while in action.

Mr. Wrights says that he witnessed one battle which was fought just a few miles beyond his plantation near Nancy's Creek. Although he did not officially join the Yankee army he cooked for them while they were camped in his vicinity.

When freedom was declared he says that he was a very happy man. Freedom to him did not mean that he could quit work but that he could work for himself as he saw fit to. After he was freed he continued working for his master who was considerably poorer than he had ever been before. After the war things were in such a state that even common table salt was not available. He remembers going to the smokehouse and taking the dirt from the floor which he later boiled. After the boiling process of this water which was now salty was used as a result of the dripping from the meats which had been hung there to be smoked in the "good old days."

After seven years of share-cropping with his former master Mr. Wright decided to come to Atlanta where he has been since. He attributes his ripe old age to sane and careful living. In any case he says that he would rather be free than be a slave but—and as he paused he shook his head sadly—"In those days a man did not have to worry about anything to eat as there was always a plenty. It's a lot different now."

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[HW: Dist. 6
Ex-Slave #119 v.3]
"MAMMY DINK"
[HW: DINK WALTON YOUNG], Age 96
Place of birth:
On the Walton plantation, near old Baughville,
Talbot County, Georgia
Date of Birth: About 1840
Present residence:
Fifth Avenue, between 14th and 15th Streets,
Columbus, Georgia
Interviewed: August 1, 1936

Dink Walton Young, better known as "Mammy Dink", is one of the oldest ex-slaves living in Muscogee County. She was born the chattel of Major Jack Walton, the largest ante-bellum planter and slave-holder of Talbot County, a man who owned several hundred Negroes and ten thousand or more acres of land. As a child, "Mammy Dink" was "brung up" with the Walton white children, often joining and playing with them in such games as "Mollie Bright", "William Trembletoe", and "Picking up Sticks".

The boys, white and black, and slightly older than she, played "Fox" and "Paddle-the-Cat" together. In fact, until the white boys and girls were ten or twelve years of age, their little Negro playmates, satellites, bodyguards, "gangs", and servants, usually addressed them rather familiarly by their first names, or replied to their nicknames that amounted to titles of endearment. Thus, Miss Susie Walton—the later Mrs. Robert Carter—was "Susie Sweet" to a host of little Negro girls of her age. Later on, of course, this form of familiarity between slave child and white child definitely ceased; but for all time there existed a strong bond of close friendship, mutual understanding, and spirit of comradeship between the Whites and Blacks of every plantation. As an example, Pat Walton, aged 18, colored and slave, "allowed" to his young master in 1861: "Marse Rosalius, youse gwine to de war, ain't yer?" and without waiting for an answer, continued: "So is Pat. You knows you ain't got no bizness in no army 'thout a Nigger to wait on yer an keep yer outa devilment, Marse Rosalius. Now, doen gin me no argyment, Marse Rosalius, case ise gwine 'long wid yer, and dat settles it, sah, it do, whether you laks it or you don't lak it." Parenthetically, it might be here inserted that this speech of Pat's to his young master was typical of a "style" that many slaves adopted in "dictating" to their white folks, and many Southern Negroes still employ an inoffensive, similar style to "dominate" their white friends.

According to "Mammy Dink", and otherwise verified, every time a Negro baby was born on one of his plantations, Major Dalton gave the mother a calico dress and a "bright, shiny", silver dollar.

All Walton slaves were well fed and clothed and, for a "drove" of about fifty or sixty little "back-yard" piccaninnies, the Waltons assumed all responsibility, except at night. A kind of compound was fenced off for "dese brats" to keep them in by day.

When it rained, they had a shelter to go under; play-houses were built for them, and they also had see-saws, toys, etc. Here, their parents "parked dese younguns" every morning as they went to the fields and to other duties, and picked them up at night. These children were fed about five times a day in little wooden trough-like receptacles. Their principal foods were milk, rice, pot-licker, vegetables and corn dumplings; and they stayed so fat and sleek "dat de Niggers calt 'em Marse Major's little black pigs."

The average weekly ration allowed an adult Walton slave was a peck of meal, two "dusters" of flour (about six pounds), seven pounds of flitch bacon, a "bag" of peas, a gallon of grits, from one to two quarts of molasses, a half pound of green coffee—which the slave himself parched and "beat up" or ground, from one to two cups of sugar, a "Hatful" of peas, and any "nicknacks" that the Major might have—as extras.

Many acres were planted to vegetables each year for the slaves and, in season, they had all the vegetables they could eat, also Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasting ears, watermelons and "stingy green" (home raised tobacco). In truth, the planters and "Niggers" all used "stingy green", there then being very little if any "menufro" (processed tobacco) on the market.

The standard clothes of the slaves were: jeans in the winter for men and women, cottonades and osnabergs for men in the summer, and calicos and "light goods" for the women in the summer time. About 75% of the cloth used for slaves' clothing was made at home.

If a "Nigger come down sick", the family doctor was promptly called to attend him and, if he was bad off, the Major "sat up" with him, or had one of his over-seers do so.

Never in her life was "Mammy Dink" whipped by any of the Waltons or their over-seers. Moreover, she never knew a Negro to be whipped by a white person on any of the dozen or more Walton plantations. She never "seed" a pataroler in her life, though she "has heard tell dat Judge Henry Willis, Marses Johnnie B. Jones, Ned Giddens, Gus O'Neal, Bob Baugh, an Jedge Henry Collier rid as patarolers" when she was a girl.

When the Yankee raiders came through in '65, "Mammy Dink" was badly frightened by them. She was also highly infuriated with them for "stealin de white fokes' things", burning their gins, cotton and barns, and conducting themselves generally as bandits and perverts.

In 1875, the year of the cyclone "whooch kilt sebenteen fokes twixt Ellesli (Ellerslie) and Talbotton", including an uncle of her's. "Mammy Dink" was living at the Dr. M.W. Peter's place near Baughville. Later, she moved with her husband—acquired subsequent to freedom—to the Dr. Thomas D. Ashford's place, in Harris County, near Ellerslie. There, she lost her husband and, about thirty-five years ago, moved to Columbus to be near Mrs. John T. Davis, Jr., an only daughter of Dr. Ashford, to whom she long ago became very attached.

When interviewed, "Mammy Dink" was at Mrs. Davis' home, "jes piddlin 'round", as she still takes a pride in "waiting on her white fokes."

Naturally, for one of her age, the shadows are lengthening. "Mammy Dink" has never had a child; all her kin are dead; she is 96 and has no money and no property, but she has her memories and, "thank Gawd", Mrs. Davis—her guardian-angel, friend and benefactress.

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Whitley,
4-29-37
Ex-Slave #119
MAMMY DINK IS DEAD
[HW: (From Columbus News—Record of Dec-8-1936)]

Mammy Dink, who cooked and served and gained pure joy through faithful service, has gone to the Big House in the skies. She lacked but a few years of a hundred and most of it was spent in loving service. She was loyal to the families she worked for and was, to all practical intents, a member of the family circle. She was 94 or 95 when she passed away—Mammy was about to lose track of mere age, she was so busy with other things—and she was happily at work to within a week of her death. She was an institution in Columbus, and one of the best known of the many faithful and loyal colored servants in this city.

Mammy Dink—her full name, by the way, was Dink Young—started out as a cook in a Talbot county family and wound up her career as cook for the granddaughter of her original employer. She was first in service in the home of Dr. M.W. Peters, in Talbot county, and later was the cook in the family of Dr. T.R. Ashford, at Ellerslie, in Harris county. Then, coming to Columbus, she was cook in the home of the late Captain T.J. Hunt for some 20 years.

For the last 27 years she had been cook for Mrs. John T. Davis, just as she had been cook in the home of her father, Dr. Ashford, and her grandfather, Dr. Peters.

Mammy, in leisure hours, used to sit on the coping at the Sixteenth street school, and watch the world go by. But her greatest joy was in the kitchen.

The Davis family was devoted to the faithful old servant. A week ago she developed a severe cold and was sent to the hospital. She passed away Saturday night—the old body had given out. The funeral service was conducted yesterday afternoon from St. Philips colored church in Girard. She was buried in a churchyard cemetery, two or three miles out, on the Opelika road. The white people who were present wept at the departure of one who was both servant and friend.

Thus passes, to a sure reward, Mammy Dink, whose life was such a success.

[HW: Mammy Dink died Saturday night, Dec. 5th, 1936]

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COMBINED INTERVIEWS
[HW: Dist 1-2
Ex-Slave #24]
FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECTS,
Augusta-Athens
Supervisor: Miss Velma Bell
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]
EXCERPTS FROM SLAVE INTERVIEWS
[ADELINE]

"Aunt Adeline," an ex-slave of Wilkes County, Georgia, thinks she is "around a hundred." Her first memory is, in her own words, "my love for my mother. I loved her so! I would cry when I couldn't be with her. When I growed up, I kep' on loving her jes' that-a-way, even after I married and had children of my own."

Adeline's mother worked in the field, drove steers, and was considered the best meat cutter on the plantation. The slave women were required to spin, and Adeline's mother was unusually good at spinning wool, "and that kind of spinning was powerful slow," added the old woman. "My mother was one of the best dyers anywhere around. I was too. I made colors by mixing up all kinds of bark and leaves. I made the prettiest sort of lilac color with maple bark and pine bark—not the outside pine bark, but that little thin skin that grows right down next to the tree." Adeline remembers one dress she loved: "I never will forget it as long as I live. It was a hickory stripe dress they made for me, with brass buttons at the wrist bands. I was so proud of that dress and felt so dressed up in it, I just strutted!"

She remembers the plantation store and the candy the master gave the Negro children. "Bright, pretty sticks of candy!" Tin cups hold a special niche in her memory. But there were punishments, too. "Good or bad, we got whippings with a long cowhide kept just for that. They whipped us to make us grow better, I reckon!"

Asked about doctors, Adeline replied:

"I was born, growed up, married and had sixteen children and never had no doctor till here since I got so old!"

Plantation ingenuity was shown in home concoctions and tonics. At the first sniffle of a cold, the slaves were called in and given a drink of fat lightwood tea, made by pouring boiling water over split kindling. "'Cause lightwood got turpentine in it," explained Adeline. She said that a springtime tonic was made of anvil dust, gathered at the blacksmith's shop, mixed with syrup. This was occasionally varied with a concoction of garlic and whiskey!

Adeline adheres to traditional Negro beliefs, and concluded her recountal of folklore with the dark prediction: "Every gloomy day brings death. Somebody leaving this unfriendly world to-day!"