Project #1655
Henry Grant
Columbia, S. C.
SAMUEL BOULWARE
EX-SLAVE 82 YEARS OLD.
Samuel Boulware's only home is one basement room, in the home of colored friends, for which no rent charges are made. He is old and feeble and has poor eyesight, yet, he is self-supporting by doing light odd jobs, mostly for white people. He has never married, hence no dependents whatever. One of the members of the house, in which Samuel lives, told him someone on the front porch wanted to talk with him.
From his dingy basement room he slowly mounted the steps and came toward the front door with an irregular shamble. One seeing his approach would naturally be of the opinion, that this old darkey was certainly nearing the hundred year mark. Apparently Father Time had almost caught up with him; he had been caught in the winds of affliction and now he was tottering along with a bent and twisted frame, which for many years in the past, housed a veritable physical giant. The winds of 82 years had blown over him and now he was calmly and humbly approaching the end of his days. Humility was his attitude, a characteristic purely attributable to the genuine and old-fashion southern Negro. He slid into a nearby chair and began talking in a plain conversational way.
"Dis is a mighty hot day white folks but you knows dis is July and us gits de hot days in dis month. De older I gits de more I feels de hot and de cold. I has been a strong, hard working man most all my life and if it wasn't for dis rheumatism I has in my right leg, I could work hard every day now.
"Does I 'member much 'bout slavery times? Well, dere is no way for me to disremember, unless I die. My mammy and me b'long to Doctor Hunter, some called him Major Hunter. When I was a small boy, I lived wid my mammy on de Hunter plantation. After freedom, I took de name of my daddy, who was a Boulware. He b'long to Reuben Boulware, who had a plantation two and one-half miles from Ridgeway, S. C., on de road dat leads to Longtown. My mistress' name was Effie. She and marster had four sons, no girls a-tall. George, Abram, Willie, and Henry, was their names. They was fine boys, 'cause they was raised by Mistress Effie's own hands. She was a good woman and done things 'zackly right 'round de plantation. Us slaves loved her, 'cause she said kind and soft words to us. Many times I's seen her pat de little niggers on de head, smile and say nice words to them. Boss, kind treatment done good then and it sho' does good dis present day; don't you think I's right 'bout dat? Marster had a bad temper. When he git mad, he walk fast, dis way and dat way, and when he stop, would say terrible cuss words. When de mistress heard them bad words, she would bow her pretty head and walk 'way kinda sad lak. It hurt us slaves to see de mistress sad, 'cause us wanted to see her smilin' and happy all de time.
"My mammy worked hard in de field every day and as I was just a small boy, I toted water to de hands in de field and fetched wood into de kitchen to cook wid. Mammy was de mother of twelve chillun; three of them die when they was babies. I's de oldest of de twelve and has done more hard work than de rest. I had five brothers and all of them is dead, 'cept one dat lives in Savannah, Georgia. I has four sisters, one living in Charleston, one in New York City, one in Ithaca, N. Y., and one in Fairfield County, dis State.
"Does my folks help me along any? No sir, they sho' don't. I gits nothin' from them, and I don't expect nothin' neither. Boss, a nigger's kinfolks is worse than a stranger to them; they thinks and acts for theirselves and no one else. I knows I's a nigger and I tries to know my place. If white folks had drapped us long time ago, us would now be next to de rovin' beasts of de woods. Slavery was hard I knows but it had to be, it seem lak. They tells me they eats each other in Africa. Us don't do dat and you knows dat is a heap to us.
"Us had plenty to eat in slavery time. It wasn't de best but it filled us up and give us strength 'nough to work. Marster would buy a years rations on de first of every year and when he git it, he would have some cooked and would set down and eat a meal of it. He would tell us it didn't hurt him, so it won't hurt us. Dats de kind of food us slaves had to eat all de year. Of course, us got a heap of vegetables and fruits in de summer season, but sich as dat didn't do to work on, in de long summer days.
"Marster was good, in a way, to his slaves but dat overseer of his name John Parker, was mean to us sometimes. He was good to some and bad to others. He strung us up when he done de whippin'. My mammy got many whippin's on 'count of her short temper. When she got mad, she would talk back to de overseer, and dat would make him madder than anything else she could do.