Note:—While the interviewer was questioning Charles Douthit, Farmington, Missouri, negro, who was born in 1865, his wife standing in the door looked rather wild-eyed, and unable to stand it any longer, finally broke out with the following:—"Say! What are they gittin' all dis stuff fur anyway? I bet I know. They want ta find out how dey treated de ole slaves so's dey'll know how to treat the young 'uns when dey makes dem slaves. I bet they're goin' a try to have slaves again and dere are some people who want slavery back but de people won't stan' fur hit now. I don't know what de government wants to do but de people would have a most turrible war if dey tried to have slaves again. But ma muther who worked for John Coffman in Ste. Genevieve County, wuz well treated. She war really owned by the Missus and de Missus would not sell ma mamma. When de war wuz ober de missus gave ma muther some land an built her a beautiful home down dare. Ma muther wuz treated so good dat she stayed an worked fur de Missus til de Missus died. I was borned down in dat dare house dat de Missus built fur ma Muthuh and ma son lives dere now. I was down dere las week, an I calls hit home."
[John Estell]
Related by "Uncle" John Estell
[Missouri], age 85.
Slavery
"The slaves had a hard time, some of them. All the work was done by hand. The slaves cradled the wheat. They raised hemp for clothes. The old master had one woman who made clothes the year round for the hands. We had to get a pass from the master to leave the place. If any of the slaves got in trouble they were taken to the whippin' post. If they had done a big crime they got 60 or 70 lashes with a whip, for a small crime they got about thirty, if their master would not pay their fine. The white folks went to singin' school then they would sing one or two songs that's all they knew. They would have big basket meetings. All the slaves had to set in the gallery when we went to church. Most everybody went on hossback. Some of the farmers were good to their men and some bad. When some farm had more slaves than was needed, he would hire them out to some body or sell them. New Year's day was always sale day or the day they would hire out for the year. When we wanted to get married we had to ask the master and the girls' mother and father. All the married man got Thursday night off to go to see their wives.
"At Christmas time we got a week off and we got Saturday afternoon off. At Christmas the old boss would fix a big bowl of eggnog for us niggers. The niggers were superstitious. They would not live in a house where a sinner had died. There was an old man and woman lived down the road from our house that fit all the time, and by that house after dark one night one saw them walkin' around in the house. None of us niggers would go by there after dark, we always rode around the place. People are lots smarter now than they was then."
[Smoky Eulenberg]
Smoky Eulenberg,
Jackson, Missouri.
(Written from F.C.
in Sikeston District.)
"I was born on October 13, 1854. My master was Henry Walker and we live 'bout three mile from Jackson. De house was of logs. One of dose big double kind wid a open hall in between. Solomon Eulenberg was my father and he was a big fine looking man. My mother come fum Tennessee when she was ten year old.
"Master had nearly a hundred slaves and dey was about ten or twelve cabins in de quarters. Dey was a big feeding barn where we'd hitch up and go to work. De barn was built of big hewed logs, too.