"One white lady that lived near us at McBean slipped in a colored gal's room and cut her baby's head clean off 'cause it belonged to her husband. He beat her 'bout it and started to kill her, but she begged so I reckon he got to feelin' sorry for her. But he kept goin' with the colored gal and they had more chillun.
"I never will forget how my marster beat a pore old woman so she couldn't even get up. And 'cause she couldn't get up when he told her to, he hit her on the head with a long piece of iron and broke her skull. Then he made one of the other slaves take her to the jail. She suffered in jail all night, and the jailer heard her moanin' and groanin', so the next mornin' he made marster come and get her. He was so mad 'cause he had to take her out of jail that he had water pumped into her skull just as soon as he got back home. Then he dropped her down in a field and she died 'fore night. That was a sad time. You saw your own folk killed and couldn't say a word 'bout it; if you did you would be beat and sometimes killed too.
"A man in callin' distance from our place had a whippin' pole. This man was just as mean as he could be. I know he is in hell now, and he ought to be. A woman on his place had twins and she warn't strong from the beginnin'. The day after the chillun was borned, he told her to go over to his house and scrub it from front to back. She went over to the house and scrubbed two rooms and was so sick she had to lay down on the floor and rest awhile. His wife told her to go on back to her house and get in bed but she was afraid. Finally she got up and scrubbed another room and while she was carryin' the water out she fainted. The mistress had some of the men carry her home and got another slave to finish the scrubbin' so the marster wouldn't beat the pore nigger. She was a good woman but her husband was mean as the devil. He would even beat her. When he got home that night he didn't say nothin' 'cause the house had been scrubbed, but the next mornin' one of the chillun told him about the woman faintin' and the other girl finishin' the scrubbin'. He got mad and said his wife was cloakin' for the slaves, that there was nothin' wrong with the woman, she was just lazy. He beat his wife, then went out and tied the pore colored woman to a whippin' pole and beat her unmerciful. He left her hangin' on the pole and went to church. When he got back she was dead. He had the slaves take her down and bury her in a box. He said that laziness had killed her and that she warn't worth the box she was buried in. The babies died the next day and he said he was glad of it 'cause they would grow up lazy just like their mother.
"My marster had a barrel with nails drove in it that he would put you in when he couldn't think of nothin' else mean enough to do. He would put you in this barrel and roll it down a hill. When you got out you would be in a bad fix, but he didn't care. Sometimes he rolled the barrel in the river and drowned his slaves.
"I had a brother who worked at the acadamy and every night when the teacher had his class he would let my brother come in. He taught him to read and write too. He learned to read and write real well and the teacher said he was the smartest one in the class. Marster passed our window one night and heard him readin'. The next mornin' he called him over to the house and fooled him into readin' and writin', told him he had somethin' he wanted him to do if he could read and write good enough. My brother read everythin' marster give him and wrote with a pencil and ink pen. Marster was so mad that he could read and write better than his own boy that he beat him, took him away from the academy, and put him to work in the blacksmith shop. Marster wouldn't let him wear no shoes in the shop 'cause he wanted the hot cinders to fall on his feet to punish him. When the man in charge of the shop told marster he wouldn't work my brother unless he had on shoes, he bought some brogans that he knowed he couldn't wear, and from then on he made him do the hardest kind of work he could think of.
"My marster never whipped us himself. He had a coachman do all the whippin' and he stood by to see that it was done right. He whipped us until we was blistered and then took a cat-o-nine-tails and busted the blisters. After that he would throw salty water on the raw places. I mean it almost gave you spasms. Whenever they sent you to the courthouse to be whipped the jail keeper's daughter give you a kick after they put you in the stocks. She kicked me once and when they took me out I sho did beat her. I scratched her everwhere I could and I knowed they would beat me again, but I didn't care so long as I had fixed her."
One ex-slave "belonged to an old lady who was a widow. This lady was very good to me. Of course most people said it was 'cause her son was my father. But she was just good to all of us. She did keep me in the house with her. She knowed I was her son's child all right. When I married, I still stayed with my mistress 'til she died. My husband stayed with his marster in the day time and would come and stay with me at night.
"When my mistress died I had to be sold. My husband told me to ask his marster to buy me. He didn't want me to belong to him because I would have to work real hard and I hadn't been use to no hard work, but he was so afraid somebody would buy me and carry me somewhere way off, 'til he decided it was best for his marster to buy me. So his marster bought me and give me and my husband to his son. I kept house and washed for his son as long as he was single. When he married his wife changed me from the house and put me in the field and she put one of the slaves her mother give her when she married, in the kitchen. My marster's wife was very mean to all of us. She didn't like me at all. She sold my oldest child to somebody where I couldn't ever see him any more and kept me. She just did that to hurt me. She took my baby child and put her in the house with her to nurse her baby and make fire. And all while she was in the house with her she had to sleep on the floor.
"Whenever she got mad with us she would take the cow hide, that's what she whipped us with, and whip us 'til the blood ran down. Her house was high off the ground and one night the calf went under the house and made water. The next morning she saw it, so she took two of my sister-in-law's chillun and carried 'em in the kitchen and tied 'em. She did this while her husband was gone. You see if he had been there he wouldn't have let her done that. She took herself a chair and sit down and made one of the slaves she brought there with her whip those chillun so 'til all of the slaves on the place was cryin'. One of the slaves run all the way where our marster was and got him. He come back as quick as he could and tried to make her open the door, but she wouldn't do it so he had to break the door in to make her stop whippin' them chillun. The chillun couldn't even cry when he got there. And when he asked her what she was whippin' them for she told him that they had went under the house and made that water. My master had two of the men to take 'em over to our house, but they was small and neither one ever got over that whippin'. One died two days later and the other one died about a month afterwards. Everybody hated her after that.
"Just before freedom declared, my husband took very sick and she took her husband and come to my house to make him get up. I told her that he was not able to work, but my husband was so scared they would beat me to death 'til he begged me to hush. I expect marster would have if he hadn't been scared of his father. You see his father give me to him. He told me if the legislature set in his behalf he would make me know a nigger's place. You know it was near freedom. I told him if he made my husband get out of bed as sick as he was and go to work, I would tell his father if he killed me afterwards. And that's one time I was goin' to fight with 'em. I never was scared of none of 'em, so I told 'em if they touched my husband they wouldn't touch nothin' else. They wouldn't give us nothin' to eat that whole day.