Unfortunately, Aunt Emma was born of parents belonging to a family that bought and sold slaves as they did cattle and thought of them only in terms of dollars and cents. The story she tells of her childhood would make a Simon Legree turn pale with envy. She is not resentful, but is honest in telling of those early years of her life, years of suffering and great hardship.
Although she has never been to school, she uses very little dialect: "No mam, honey, the folks I belonged to said it wouldn't do fer niggers to learn out'n books; that schools warn't fer them. They said learnin' would git us so they couldn't do nothin' wid us. After freedom I wuz nussin' here in Washin'ton. The mother of the chillun was a good lady an' she let me look on the books when she read to them an' larned me the lessons 'long with her chillun. She said it wuz a pity I couldn't ov went to school, cause I wuz a apt pupil. I larned easy, yassum, that's what she said."
"My Ma wuz name Margaret an' she had thirteen chillun, six of 'em twins. I wuz the oldest one, but I ain't a twin. I wuz born on a plantation in Wilkes County right on the line of Oglethorpe. In the white family I belonged to there wuz a mother, four boys, an' two girls, all grown. They come to Wilkes County from Maryland. All four of the men went to the war an' three of 'em died of sickness caught in the war."
Aunt Emma told of how the slaves had to live on the plantation and an unpleasant story it was. There were no neat cabins all in a row making up the "quarters" where the slaves lived. Instead they were made to live around in any old hut they could find shelter in. Her mother and three other women stayed in one room of the house the white family lived in.
The little slaves were fed pig-fashion in the kitchen, but they were given just so much food and no more. They were alloted two garments at the time, summer and winter: "Why, honey, I never had no shoes 'til after freedom come. I've walked on snow many a time barefooted with my feet so cold my toes wuz stickin' straight up with no feelin' in 'em. The white folks had a trained shoe-maker slave an' he made shoes fer them, but us little niggers didn't have none. The first shoes I ever remembers had wooden bottoms an' sich a sound as they made when the folks walked 'round with 'em on."
The slaves did plenty of hard work done on the plantation. The women labored all day in the fields and then spun at night. Each one was given the task of spinning six broaches a week. On Saturday "a white lady" reeled off the spinning and if one of the women had failed in her task she was severely beaten. The men worked all day and until ten o'clock at night shucking corn or doing other chores by lamp light.
Every Wednesday night the slaves had to go to the spring and wash their clothes by torch light. They did have all day Sunday as a resting period, but they were not allowed to go to church and no religious services were held for them. There was one day holiday at Christmas, "but I never heard of a Santa Claus when I wuz a child," said Emma.
When a slave died on the place he was wrapped in a sheet, put into a pine box, and taken to a "burying ground" where he was put in the ground without any services, and with only the immediate family attending. All other slaves on the place had to keep on working just as though nothing had happened.
There were no marriages. The slaves being told to "step over the broom stick." Many families were separated by sale. "I recollects good when Mr. Seaborn Callaway come over to the place an' bought my Grandma an' some other slaves an' took 'em away. We jest cried an' cried an' Grandma did too. Them white folks bought an' sold slaves that way all the time."
"Honey, there wuz one time when them white folks wuz good to us slaves," said Aunt Emma, "an' that wuz when we wuz sick. They would give us homemade remedies like tansy tea, comfort root tea, life everlasting tea, boneset tea, garlic water an' sich, 'cordin' ter what ailed us. Then if we didn't git better they sont fer the doctor. If we had a misery anywhere they would make poultices of tansy leaves scalded, or beat up garlic an' put on us. Them folks wuz sho' 'cerned 'bout us when we wuz sick, 'cause they didn't want us ter die."