"In 1862 I was twelve years old, big for my age, and I do more than half as much work as any grown slave. At dat time we see many free niggers, and nearly all of them sorry lookin'. They eat off of slave families, when they could git it.
"I come to Columbia in 1865, after all the niggers everywhere am set free. I work for white folks 'bout town and when the Freedman's aid was set up, I goes 'long wid some new found friends to the aid headquarters, and was the last one to be heard. The others got bundles of food and I see one git a piece of money, too. When I got to the white man in charge, he eye me and zay: 'What damn rebel did you slave for?' I forgot 'bout what I am there for and I say: 'I never slave for no damn rebel. I work for Governor Hammond and he is the finest buckra that is.'
"Then the aid man say: 'Dat damn rebel Hammond and all lak him yet unhung, should be, and you wid him. Go let him feed and clothe you! When you come here again maybe you have 'nough sense to ask for favors decent.' I so mad, I hardly 'member just what happen, 'ceptin' I come 'way just lak I go, empty handed.
"I am now an old man, as you see, but I am happy to know dat the white folks has always been ready to help me make a livin'. I now own a patch of ground, where I makes a livin' on the shares. My boy, a son by my second wife, works it, and he takes care of me now. If I had been as big, and knowed as much at the start of the war as I did at the end of it, I would surely have gone to the front wid my white master."
Project 1885-1
FOLKLORE
Spartanburg Dist. 4
May 25, 1937
Edited by:
Elmer Turnage
STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES
"I was born in Fairfield County, S.C. near Broad River. I was de son of John and Harriet Harper. I worked in slavery time and was a slave of John Stanley who was a good man and easy to work with. He give me a good whipping once when I was a boy. We earned no money but had our place to sleep and something to eat and wear. We didn't have any gardens, but master had a big plantation and lots of slaves, and worked a garden himself. I remember he whipped mother once the last year of the war,—just about to get freedom.
"Master belonged to patrollers, and let dem come on the place and punish the slaves if needed. They whipped my sister once. He had a house to lock slaves in when dey was bad. He learned us to read and write. He had a school on de plantation for his niggers. After the days work was over, we frolicked, and Saturday afternoons we had off to do what we wanted. We had to go to the white folks church and set in back of de church. Corn shuckings, cotton picking and carding and quilting, the old folks had when dey had big times and big eats.
"Weddings and funerals of slaves were about like white folks. Some would go walking and singing to de grave in back of hearse or body. There was a conjurer in our neighborhood who could make you do what he wanted, sometimes he had folks killed. The Yankees marched through our place, stole cattle, and meat. We went behind dem and picked up lots dat dey dropped when dey left. When de war was over, de niggers was promised small farms but dey didn't get 'em.