…You want to know about slavery? Well, a great deal happened besides that, but …
… One day I saw Master sitting in the gallery and his face all screwed up. He said, ‘Go get you mammy and everybody. ‘I went flying’. My shirt tail didn’t hit my back till I told everybody. Master am crying and he reads the paper and says, ‘You are free as I am. What are you going to do?’ Mammy says, ‘We are staying right here.’ But the next morning Pappy borrows an ox-team to tote our stuff away. We go ‘about sixty miles and stay ‘about six months, den takes a place where we can make a crop. Then Master tells us we can live in an old place without rent and have what we can make. So we moved back and stayed for two years. Then we moved several places and sometimes the old missus came to see us and said, ‘Ain’t you ashamed? De Yankees are feeding you.’ But they weren’t, because we were making a crop…
…You want to know about slavery? Well, a great deal happened besides that, but …
…My Pappy wasn’t afraid of anything. He is light colored from the white blood, and he ran away several times. There are big woods all around and we saw lots of runaways. One old fellow named John has been a runaway for four years and the [slave] patterroller tries all their tricks, but they can’t catch him. They wanted him badly, because it inspired other slaves to run away if he stays a-loose… One day I was in the woods and met a … run-awayer [runaway enslaved person]. He came to the cabin and Mammy made him a bacon and egg sandwich and we never saw him again. Maybe he did get clear to Mexico, where a lot of the slaves ran to.
In this interview, recorded by the interviewer in the first person, Walter Rimm describes a slave auction, where enslavers tried to sell a young woman who appeared to be white. The excerpt ends with Walter Rimm describing his second wife’s racial background.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
…You want to know about slavery? Well, a great deal happened besides that, but …
Master Hatch buys and sells [redacted] some in those days, but he ain’t a [redacted] trader. Those sales are one thing that made an impression on me. I heard old folks whisper about going to a sale, and about noon there was a crowd of white folks in the front yard and a [redacted] trader with the slaves. They set up a platform in the middle of the yard and one white man gets on that and another white man comes up and has a white woman with him. She appears to be about fifteen years old and has long, black hair down her back. They put her on the platform and then I heard a scream and a woman who looked like the gal cried out, ‘I’ll cut my throat if my daughter is sold.’ The white man goes and talks to her, and finally allows her to take the young gal away with her. That sure stirs up some emotion amongst the white folks, but they say that gal has just a little [Black]…blood and can be sold as a slave, but she looks as white as anybody I’ve ever seen.
… [after the Civil War was over and the death of his first wife] I married Minnie Bennett, a light colored gal… Her mammy am a white woman. She was kidnapped in Kentucky by some white men and they dyed her hair and skin and brought her to Texas with some slaves for sale. Master Means, in Corpus [Texas], bought her. She was so small all she remembered was her real name was Mary Schlous and her parents are white and she lived in Kentucky. Master Means comes in the next morning and busts out cussin’, for there is black dye all over the pillow and his slave is getting blonde, but dem slave traders are gone, so he can’t do nothin’. He ‘cides to keep her and she grows up with the slaves jus’ like she is a [redacted]. She gets used to being with dem and marries one. She has one child ‘fore freedom, what am Minnie [Walter Rimm’s second wife]. She has to run away to get freedom, because Master Means won’t let her have freedom. Lots of slaves had to do that…
Thomas McIntire’s father was “taken by slave traders from Africa,” brought to the United States, sold, and enslaved. Jim Lane enslaved around 550 people, including Thomas McIntire. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas McIntire’s thoughts on topics connected to freedom. Thomas McIntire describes how enslaved people sought a better life and discussed freedom in code. Thomas McIntire also shares memories of learning about the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, emancipation and famous activists.
…The slave quarters were about 300 yards from the big house, and every family had their own cabin and eight acres of land for themselves, and all the vegetables and garden truck they needed. They [enslaved people on Jim Lane’s plantation] raised their own chickens and turkeys. But the hogs and cattle were butchered and shared with all the different families, and so was the milk. But I remember hearing my folks talking and it wasn’t just eats they wanted. They wanted to be free, and educate their children, like Master Jim’s children, so they could grow up and have something for themselves. I’d often hear them saying “Never mind, children, for your auntie is sure coming.” That was just a blind for saying, “Freedom’s coming”. We children soon learnt what it meant, but the white folks never did learn.
… I remember all the slaves that could get out from the quarters coming to meetings in the woods to talk about getting away to freedom or going off to war. Some from our place did go off. We all knew the Underground Railroad through the whole country. Because lots of Quakers had come and bought property on those parts and they were teaching the slaves to not be afraid of their rights.
…When the war came on, lots of the Lane slaves went in. My father and brother Wash went, and Wash was in the battle, between [Confederate] General Morgan and [Union] General Burden around Mt. Sterling [in Kentucky]. Lots of women and children went into Camp Nelson and lived at what they called the Woman’s Hall. The men who cared to go there went to the barracks at Camp Nelson.
When the war was over Father and Wash both came home. Jim Lane freed us before the war was over and gave us all a little money or paid some if they were staying on till the war was over. Those that stayed after the war he gave ten acres of land and built them a little place to live in….
I knew Ben Arnett [a Black minister and civil rights advocate who was elected in 1885 to the Ohio state legislature] personally and heard him speak lots of times; and too I heard Booker T. Washington, and Douglas, and almost all the big men among [Black people]… I read a little, and I read lots about most of the ones I ain’t heard.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire
1847 (90)
Unknown
Jim Lane
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Clark County, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Education, Literacy, Resistance, Union Troops, Civil War
Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable
Thomas McIntire’s father was “taken by slave traders from Africa,” brought to the United States, sold, and enslaved. Jim Lane enslaved around 550 people, including Thomas McIntire. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas McIntire’s description of religious practice on enslaver Jim Lane’s plantation.
…There was a log church right on our plantation for us to attend, and other slaves from other plantations came and had meetings with us. They used to sing lots of good old fashioned songs, but I just can’t think of them right now. Lane and some of his friends had a little church they built for themselves, and they always walked from our plantation because he was quite religious, and didn’t allow any work on Sundays. No horses were hitched up for them, and the only work done was just milk the cows. The cooking was done Friday and Saturday, but one or two of the slaves that worked at the cooking and setting of the tables had to kind of stick around, but got home in time to go to meeting. When there were weddings, or funerals on holidays, there wasn’t work done except what couldn’t be got around doing…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire
1847 (90)
Unknown
Jim Lane
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Clark County, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Religion
Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable
Thomas McIntire’s father was “taken by slave traders from Africa,” brought to the United States, sold, and enslaved. Jim Lane enslaved around 550 people, including Thomas McIntire. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas McIntire’s recollection of the slave trade and how his enslaver treated enslaved people.
…Lane and the people who owned mother were friends, and betwixt them they gave father and mother in order so they could be man and wife. You see, in those days all they did was to give an order in writing for a man and woman to be man and wife. Lane was a little more human than some of the slave owners back in those times, so he allowed Mother and Father to go by the name of McIntire as the married name…
I never saw a Lane slave whipped nor treated cruel, and he never allowed any of his families to be separated. That was the reason he had so many slaves, because when he went to sales, he’d just buy a whole family before he’d allow them to all be separated. Then when his children married he’d give them four or five families, but he never gave it in writing to them. So, they couldn’t sell them…
The folks that owned the next plantation to ours, the Bigstaffs, were cruel to their slaves, and some the Bigstaffs boys would know the patrollers and help to catch slaves and whip them if they couldn’t show a pass from their masters.
I saw them driving long lines of slaves chained together, with the little ones pitched up in an ox cart, and I don’t know how many men on horseback with long whips slashing them and driving them along the road. The slave traders went all around and bought up men and women, some of them right from the field; no time for them to say goodbye to the families, buying and selling them worse than cattle.
The slave traders took them to a halfway house on the Tennessee highway close to us, owned by Billy Wurtz. He had a big cellar where they put the slaves till they were going to sell them or else take them further south. They used to make a big sale day at Mt. Sterling and auction off the slaves. They’d whip them on the block to make them holler. I saw all that, and more…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire
1847 (90)
Unknown
Jim Lane
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Clark County, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Slave Traders, Violence
Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable
In this interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas Lewis’s memories of the Civil War and his mother’s interactions with Union soldiers.
…Once when I was a little boy, I was sitting on the fence while my mother plowed to get the field ready to put in wheat. The white man who owned her was plowing too. Some Yankee soldiers on horses came along. One rode up to the fence and when my mother came to the end of the furrow, he said to her, “Lady, could you tell me where Jim Downs’ still house is?” My mother started to answer, but the man who owned her told her to move on. The soldiers told him to keep quiet, or they would make him sorry. After he went away, my mother told the soldiers where the house was. The reason her master did not want her to tell where the house was, was that some of his Rebel friends [people supporting the Confederacy] were hiding there. Spies had reported them to the Yankee [Union] soldiers. They went to the house and captured the Rebels.
Next soldiers came walking. I had no cap. One soldier asked me why I did not wear a cap. I said I had no cap. The soldier said, “You tell your mistress I said to buy you a cap or I’ll come back and kill the whole family.” They bought me a cap, the first one I ever had.
The soldiers passed for three days and a half. They were getting ready for a battle. The battle was close. We could hear the cannon. After it was over, a white man went to the battle field. He said that for a mile and a half one could walk on dead men and dead horses. My mother wanted to go and see it, but they wouldn’t let her, for it was too awful.
…Once they sent my mother there [to the nearest small town]… She saw a flash, and something hit a big barn. The timbers flew every way, and I suppose killed men and horses that were in the barn. There were Rebels hidden in the barn and in the houses, and a Yankee spy had found out where they were. They bombed the barn and surrounded the town. No one was able to leave. The Yankees came and captured the Rebels.
I had a cousin named Jerry. Just a little while before the barn was struck a white man asked Jerry how he would like to be free. Jerry said that he would like it all right. The white men took him into the barn and were going to put him over a barrel and beat him half to death. Just as they were about ready to beat him, the bomb struck the barn and Jerry escaped…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis
1857 (approx. 80)
Estella R. Dodson
Unknown
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Bloomington, IN
IN
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War
Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out
In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas Lewis’s memory of how White people forced Black people to work for free even after the Civil War and how Thomas Lewis’s mother resisted this practice.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [ ___ ]. See more information.
…I was born in Spencer County, Kentucky, in 1857. I was born a slave. There was slavery all around on all the adjoining places. I was seven years old when I was set free. My father was killed in the Northern army. My mother, step-father and my mother’s four living children came to Indiana when I was twelve years old. My grandfather was set free and given a little place of about sixteen acres.
[After the Civil War was over] A gang of white men went to my grandmother’s place and ordered the [ ___ ] people out to work. The [ ___ ] people had worked before for white men, on shares. When the wheat was all in and the corn laid by, the white farmers would tell the [ ___ ] people to get out, and would give them nothing. The [ ___ ] people did not want to work that way, and refused. This was the cause of the raids by white farmers. My mother recognized one of the men in the gang and reported him to the standing soldiers in Louisville. He was caught and made to tell who the others were until they had 360 men. All were fined and none allowed to leave until all the fines were paid. So the rich ones had to pay for the poor ones. Many of them left because all were made responsible if such an event ever occurred again.
Our family left because we did not want to work that way….
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis
1857 (approx. 80)
Estella R. Dodson
Unknown
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Bloomington, IN
IN
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Sharecropping, Violence
Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out
In this interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person formerly enslaved person Thomas Lewis’s explanation of why enslaved people resisted and the consequence of that resistance.
… There was no such thing as being good to slaves. Many people were better than others, but a slave belonged to his master and there was no way to get out of it. A strong man was hard to make work. He would fight so that the white men trying to hold him would be breathless. Then there was nothing to do but kill him. If a slave resisted, and his master killed him, it was the same as self-defense today. If a cruel master whipped a slave to death, it put the fear into the other slaves…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis
1857 (approx. 80)
Estella R. Dodson
Unknown
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Bloomignton, IN
IN
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Resistance, Violence
Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out
In this excerpt, the interviewer records Thomas Ash’s memories of the Civil War and emancipation in the first person.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
…I have no way of knowing exactly how old I am, as the old Bible containing a record of my birth was destroyed by fire many years ago, but I believe I am about eighty-one years old. If so, I must have been born sometime during the year, 1856, four years before the outbreak of the War Between The States [Civil War]…
I can also remember how the grownup [redacted] on the place left to join the Union Army as soon as they learned of Lincoln’s proclamation making them free men.