Houses
“Slave houses were old log huts. Some made log houses and some made tent harbors. Just any sort of way on dirt. Some of them didn’t have any floors.
“One with a floor was built with one room. Cooked and et and everything in that one room. About 16 × 16. One window. No glass panes in it. Shutter window. Some niggers just built up a log house and dobbed it with dirt to keep the air from coming through.
“Food was kept in an old chest. There weren’t no such things as trunks and cupboards. I brought one from North Carolina with me—old-fashioned chest. Bed was homemade and nailed to the side of the wall. Some of them had railings on both sides when they were trying to make it look nice. Mattress was made out of straw or shucks. You could hear it rattling like a hog getting in his bed at night. I have slept on ’em many a time. Those with floors and those without were made alike. A box or anything was used for a table. If his master would give him anything he would make it out of a plank. Make it at night. Boxes and homemade stools were used for chairs. No chairs like there is now. People are blessed now. Didn’t go asking for no chairs then. They’d give you a chair—over your head.
“They et anything—any way they could get it,—in pans, old wooden trays, pots, anything. Fed you just like little pigs. Poured it all out in something and give them an old wooden spoon and telled them to get down and eat. Sometimes get down on your belly and eat. No dishes for niggers like now. No dishes till after freedom, and often none then.”
Tent Harbors
“Sometimes they’d have a great long place with walls in it with logs and planks and divided into stalls just like a man would have a great long place for mules and divide it into stalls. They were called stockades. You can see them in Tensas Parish in Louisiana. Now, each man would take his family and live in his stall. No doors between the rooms. Each room had a door leading into the open. They called ’em ‘tent harbors’ because they were built more like a tent. Some of them were covered with boards. People would go into the woods and rive out boards with a fro. A fro is a piece of iron about a foot and a half long with an eye in it and a wooden handle in the eye. You would drive it into the log and then work it along until you rived out the board.
“Slave quarters were built right straight on down so that the master could look right down the avenue when he would walk out. Little houses one right after the other.”
Food
“The niggers had anything to eat that the master give ’em. He would give plenty such as it was. Certain days they would go up and get it. Give it to ’em just like they go draw rations now. But they’d give it to you not you say what you wanted. So much meal and so much meat, and so on. Some of ’em raised flour. You had to take whatever you could get.”