Rhonda Rogers VanDyke

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Matthew Hume

The interviewer documents this interview in the third person. In the excerpt below, the interviewer shared a story from Matthew Hume about an enslaved person who issued fake freedom papers to free other enslaved people before describing Matthew Hume’s emancipation.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

…One way of exacting obedience was to threaten to send offenders South to work in the fields. The slaves around Lexington, Kentucky, came out ahead on one occasion. The collector was Shrader. He had the slaves handcuffed to a large leg chain and forced on a flatboat. There were so many that the boat was grounded, so some of the slaves were released to push the boat off. Among the “blacks” was one who could read and write. Before Shrader could chain them up again, he was seized and chained, taken to below Memphis Tennessee, and forced to work in the cotton fields until he was able to get word from Richmond identifying him. In the meantime, the educated [redacted] issued freedom papers to his companions. Many of them came back to Lexington, Kentucky where they were employed…

Mr. Hume thought the Emancipation Proclamation was the greatest work that Abraham Lincoln ever did. The [redacted] people on his plantation did not learn of it until the following August. Then Mr. Payne and his sons offered to let them live on their ground with conditions similar to our renting system, giving a share of the crop. They remained here until Jan. 1, 1865 when they crossed the Ohio River at Madison. They had a cow that had been given them before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued but this was taken away from them. So they came to Ind. homeless, friendless and penniless…

He could not understand the attitude of his race who preferred to remain in slavery receiving only food and shelter, rather than to be free citizens where they could have the right to develop their individualism

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Matthew Hume	Unknown (Unknown)	Grace Monroe	Daniel Payne

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Jefferson County, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Resistance, Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln	Trimble County, Third Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Notable,

Hume_M_1

September 29, 2020November 10, 2022

Nannie Eaves

The interviewer records this interview with Nannie Eaves in the first person. Both Nannie Eaves and her husband Ben Eaves fathers were their enslavers. Their father’s were brothers, making Nannie and her husband first cousins. In this excerpt, Nannie Eaves explains this relationship and how it impacted her life while enslaved. Nannie Eaves also references her husband’s service during the Civil War and slave traders.

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Excerpt:

…I guess I was about twenty one years old when I was freed. I was never once treated as a slave because my master was my very own Daddy. Ben Eaves, my husband, was a slave and child of George Eaves, my master’s brother. He ran away from his master and Daddy and joins the U.S. [Union] Army during the Secess War [the Civil War] and is now drawing a pension from Uncle Sam. I’m sure glad that he had sense enough to go that way [since his pension provides her with money to survive]…

…We had two slave traders in this town. They were Judge Houston and his son-in-law, Dr. Brady. They gathered up all the slaves that were unruly or that people wanted to trade and housed them in an old barn until they had enough to take to New Orleans on a boat. They traded them down there for work in the cotton fields.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Nannie Eaves	Unknown (91)	Unknown	William Eaves

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
KY	KY	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Slave Traders	McLean County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow

Eaves_N_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Susan Dale Sanders

In this interview, recorded in the first person, the interviewer recounts how Susan Dale Sanders’s parents were enslaved people who lived on separate plantations.

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Excerpt:

…The next farm close to the master’s was owned by a man, Colonel Jack Allen, and he had a big farm and owned lots of slaves. And Mammy was allowed to marry one of the Allen slaves, and my father’s name was Will Allen. You see the slaves had the same name as the masters, as he owned them. My mammy had seven children and we all grew up on our master Dales farm. My father had to stay at his master’s, Col. Jack Allen’s, and work in the fields all day, but at night he would come to my mammy’s cabin and stay all night, and go back to his master’s, Col. Allen’s fields the next morning…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Susan Dale Sanders	Unknown (Unknown)	Byers York	Rueben Dale, Susan Lovell

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Louisville, KY	KY	Taylorsville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Marriage	Spencer County, First Person, Veteran or Widow,

Sanders_S_2

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Clay Reaves

Clav Reaves was born to an enslaved family very late in the Civil War. In this excerpt, he describes his earliest memories, while still living on the farm where he was born, after Emancipation. He describes his lineage with the enslavers, his mother’s life and why she stayed on the farm, and his search for his estranged father who changed his name after gaining freedom.

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Excerpt:

Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn’t tell you about him. He stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and left. He didn’t live with Mother ever again. I never did hear any reason. He went to Joe Night’s farm. He left me and a sister – older, but there was one dead between us. Mother raised us. She stayed on with the Reaves two years after he left. The last year she was there she hired to them. The only thing she ever did before freedom was cook and weave. She had her loom in the kitchen. It was a great big kitchen built off from the house and a portico joined it to the house. I used to lay up under her loom. It was warm there in winter time. I was the baby. I heard mother say some things I remember well.

She said she was never sold. She said the Reaves said her children need never worry, they would never be sold. We were Reaves from back yonder. Mother’s grandfather was a white man. She was a Reaves and her children are mostly Reaves. She was light. Father was about, might be a little darker than I am (mulatto). At times she worked in the field, but in rush time. She wove all the clothes on the place. She worked at the loom and I lay up under there all day long. Mother had three girls and five boys.

Mr. Reaves (we called him ‘master’) had two boys in the army. He was a real old man. He may have had more than two, but I know there was two gone off. The white folks lived in sight of the quarters. Their house was a big house and painted white. I’ve been in there. I’ve never seen any grandparents of mine – that I was allowed to claim kin with.

When I got up some size, I was allowed to go see my father. I went over to see him sometimes. After freedom, he went to where his brothers lived. They wanted him to change his name from Reaves to Cox and he did. He changed it from James Reaves to James Cox. But I couldn’t tell you if at one time they belong to Cox in Kentucky or if they belong to Cox in Tennessee or if they took on a name they liked.

I kept my name Reaves. I am a Reaves from start to finish. I was raised by mother and she was a Reaves. Her name was Olive Reaves. Her old mistress’ name was Charlotte Reaves, old master was Edmond Reaves

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Clay Reaves	Year Unknown (79)	Irene Robertson	Edmond Reaves

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Palestine, AR	Arkansas	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation	First Person, Bound out after war, breeding

Reaves_C_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie was enslaved on a small plantation with few slaves. In this excerpt, he describes the living conditions he and his family experienced.

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Excerpt:

Master Bogie owned about 200 acres of land in the eastern section of the county, and as far as I can remember there were only four slaves on the place. We lived in a one-room cabin, with a loft above, and this cabin was an old fashioned one about hundred yards from the house. We lived in one room, with one bed in the cabin. The one bed was an old fashioned, high post corded bed where my father and mother slept. My sister and I slept in a trundle bed, made like the big bed except the posts were made smaller and were on rollers, so it could be rolled under the big bed. There was also a cradle, made of a wooden box, with rockers nailed on, and my mother told me that she rocked me in that cradle when I was a baby. She used to sit and sing in the evening. She carded the wool and spun yarn on the old spinning wheel. My grandfather was a slave of Talton Embry, whose farm joined the Wheeler farm. He made shingles with a steel drawing knife that had a wooden handle. He made these shingles in Mr. Embry’s yard. I do not remember my grandmother, and I didn’t have to work in slave days, because my mother and father did all the work except the heavy farm work. My Mistus used to give me my winter clothes. My shoes were called brogans. My old master had shoes made. He would put my foot on the floor and mark around it for the measure of my shoes.

Most of the cooking was in an oven in the yard, over the bed of coals. Baked possum and groundhog in the oven, stewed rabbits, fried fish and fried bacon called streaked meat all kinds of vegetables, boiled cabbage, pone cornbread, and sorghum molasses. Old folks would drink coffee, but children would drink milk, especially buttermilk.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dan Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles	First Person

Bogie_D_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie lived in enslavement on a small plantation with few enslaved persons. In this excerpt, he describes the relationship he developed with the enslavers’ children, as well as his first experiences with education and religion.

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Excerpt:

There were four slaves. My mother did cooking and the men did the work. Bob Wheeler and Arch Bogie were our masters. Both were good and kind to us. I never saw a slave shipped, for my boss did not believe in that kind of punishment. My master had four boys, named Rube, Falton, Horace, and Billie. Rube and me played together and when we acted bad old Master always licked Rube three or four times harder than he did me because Rube was older. Their daughter was named American Wheeler, for her mother.

White folks did not teach us to read and write. I learned that after I left my white folks. There was no church for slaves, but we went to the white folks’ church at Mr. Freedom. We sat in the gallery. The first colored preacher I ever heard was old man Leroy Estill. He preached in the Freedom meeting house (Baptist). I stood on the banks of Paint Lick Creek and saw my mother baptized, but do not remember the preacher’s name or any of the songs they sang.

We did not work on Saturday afternoon. The men would go fishing, and the women would go to the neighbors’ and help each other piece quilts. We used to have big times at the corn shuckings. The neighbors would come and help. We would have campfires and sing songs, and usually a big dance at the barn when the corn was shucked. Some of the slaves from other plantations would pick the banjo, then the dance. Miss America married Sam Ward. I was too young to remember only that they had good things to eat.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dan Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles, Education, Literacy, Religion	First Person

Bogie_D_2

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, former enslaved person Dulcina Baker Martin describes Union soldiers raiding her enslavers’ farm for food and supplies, and her optimistic feelings about this experience.

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Excerpt:

When I lived with Ole Miss (enslaver), I remember a pack of soldiers coming and taking’ all the saddle and buggy horses, and only leaving one old brokedown nag in the barn. Ole Miss cried and cried, but there ain’t no use a crying’ after the colt is gone. The soldiers took all the meat from the smokehouse, and that was something awful, because we didn’t know what we were going to do for meat, for most folks was having’ the same thing happen.

It wasn’t so pleasant to have soldiers come and do things like that, but Mother, she says, she was always glad, because she felt the Union was being’ helped to win the war by us having enough to feed the soldiers.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation,	First Person, Union Troops

Martin_D_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, Dulcina Baker Martin recites a story her aunt told her about an enslaver who was presumed dead, and her grave raided by an enslaved person.

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Excerpt:

They used to talk about such things, like ghosts, and haints, and spirits. My aunt says, once there was a young Miss who died and her folks had buried her with lots of jewelry. One of the slaves looked hard and long at all that fine jewelry going into the ground. So when night comes, he goes to the graveyard and starts digging in the young Miss’ grave. When he came to the casket and opened it, and was taking a ring off of her hand, the young Miss spoke to him. He started running’, and she came up out of the grave and started running’ too. When she got to the house, the family knew she wasn’t dead as soon as they saw her, and they were sure glad, and day set the slave free and gave him a lot of money and a fine horse.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion, Violence	First person, dialect

Martin_D_2

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she describes several experiences she has had supporting women during pregnancy and while giving birth.

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Excerpt:

When I go on a baby case, I just let nature have its way. I always test the baby, the first thing I do is blow my breath in the baby’s mouth. I spank it just a little so it will cry and I give it warm catnip tea so if it is going to have the hives they will break out on it. I always have my own catnip and sheep balls, for some cases need one kind of tea and some another. I give sink field tea for the colic. It is just good for a young baby’s stomach. I have been granning for nigh under forty years and I only lost two babies that were born alive. One of these was the white man’s fault, this baby was born with the jaundice and I told this white man to go to the store and get me some calomel and he says, whoever heard of giving a baby such truck, and so that baby died.

Of course you can tell whether the baby is going to be a boy or girl before he is born. If the mother carries that child more on the left and high up, that baby will be a boy; and if she carries it more to the middle, that will be a girl. Mothers ought to be more careful while carrying their children not to get scared of anything, for they will sure mark their babies with terrible ugly things. I know once a young woman was expecting and she went blackberry hunting and a bull cow with long horns got after her and she was so scared that she threw her hands over her head. And when that baby boy was born he had two nubs on his head just like horns beginning to grow. So I had her call her doctor and they cut them off. One white woman I waited on liked hot chocolate and she always wanted more, she never had enough of that stuff, and one day she spills some on her leg and it just splotched and burned her and when that gal was born, she had a big brown spot on her leg just like her mammy’s scar from the burn. Now you see, I know you can mark the babies.

There was a colored woman once I waited on that had to help the white folks kill hogs and she never did like hog liver but the white folks told her to take one home and fix it for her supper. Well, she picked that thing up and started off with it and it made her feel creepy all over. And that night her baby was born, a gal child, and the print of a big hog-liver was standing out all over one side of her face. That side of her face is all blue and purplish and just the shape of a liver. And it’s still there.

I grannied over three hundred children and I know what I’m talking about.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Gender/Gender roles, Family, Equality	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she discusses her belief in ghosts and specific experiences she has had.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

Sure there are ghosts. One night as I was going home from work, the tallest man I ever saw followed me with the prettiest white shirt on, and then he passed me and waited at the corner. I was feeling creepy and wanted to run but just couldn’t get my legs to move. When I got to the corner where he was, I said ‘Good Evening’ and I saw him plain as day and he did not speak and just disappeared right before my eyes.

…Once I had a dream, I knew I near about saw it. I always did cook every night a pot of beans on the fire for the children to eat next day while I was at work, and Lizzie, my daughter, used to get up in the night and get her some beans and eat them. And this dream was so real that I couldn’t tell if it was Lizzie or not, but this woman just glided by my bed and went afore the fire and stood there, then she just went twixt my bed and went by the wall. I just knew when I woke up that my child was sick that lived away from home and wanted my son to take me to see her. He said he would go himself and see, so he went, and when he came back he had a headache, and afore morning that [redacted] was dead. So you see, that was the sign of the dream. I was just warned in the dream and didn’t have sense enough to know it.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_2

Author: Rhonda Rogers VanDyke

Matthew Hume

Nannie Eaves

Susan Dale Sanders

Clay Reaves

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie

Dulcina Baker Martin

Dulcina Baker Martin

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell

Can we count on your support?