Regarding houses, Mr. Green says: "We lived in log houses dat had wood floors. Dere wuz one window an' a large fireplace where de cookin' wuz done in de ashes. De chinks in de walls wuz daubed wid mud to keep de weather out. De beds wuz made by hand an' de mattresses wuz big tickin's stuffed wid straw."
Continuing he says: "Yo' actual treatment depended on de kind o' marster you had. A heap o' folks done a heap better in slavery dan dey do now. Everybody on our plantation wuz glad when de Yankee soldiers tol' us we wuz free."
EX-SLAVE INTERVIEW:
MARGARET GREEN
1430 Jones Street
Augusta, Georgia.
(Richmond County)
BY: Mrs. Margaret Johnson
Editor
Federal Writers' Project,
Augusta, Georgia.
EX-SLAVE INTERVIEW
Margaret Green,
1430 Jones Street,
Augusta, Georgia
(Richmond County)
Margaret Green, 1430 Jones Street was born in 1855 on the plantation of Mr. Cooke McKie in Edgefield County, South Carolina.
Margaret's house was spotlessly clean, her furniture of the golden oak type was polished, and the table cover and sideboard scarfs were beautifully laundered. Margaret is a small, trim little figure dressed in a grey print dress with a full gathered skirt and a clean, starched apron with strings tied in a big bow. She has twinkling eyes, a kindly smile and a pleasant manner.
"Yes, mam, I remembers slavery times very well. I wuz a little girl but I could go back home and show you right where I wuz when the sojers come through our place with their grey clothes and bright brass buttons. They looked mighty fine on their hosses ridin' round. I could show you right where those sojers had the camp".
Margaret described "the quarters" and told of the life. "Each fam'ly had a garden patch, and could raise cotton. Only Marse Cooke raised cotton; what we raised we et".
"Margaret were the slaves on your master's plantation mistreated?"