Tag: Bound Out After War

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Mary Wright

Mary Wright was born the year the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Mary Wright’s retelling of her mother’s story of the Ku Klux Klan using violence to intimidate Black people after the Civil War in Kentucky.    

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

…My [Mary Wright’s] mammy bound me out to Miss Puss Graham to learn to work, for my vittles [food] and clothes. Miss Puss gave me a pair of red morocco shoes and I was so happy, I’ve never forgotten these shoes. I heard my mammy talk of thee [ ___ ] Rising. The Ku Klux [Klan] used to stick the [ ___ ]head on a stake alongside the Cadiz road and  the buzzards would eat them till nothing was left but the bones. There was a sign on this stake that said ‘Look out [ ___ ]! You are next.’  We children would not go far away from the cabin. I tell you that is so. I just knew that this Ku Klux would do that to us sure if we had been caught…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Mary Wright1865 (Unknown)UnknownJames Coleman
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
KYKYGracey, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Violence, KKKChristian County, First Person, Dialect, Klan/Mob Violence, Bound out After War

Wright_M_1

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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 ReavesYear Unknown (79)Irene RobertsonEdmond Reaves
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Palestine, ARArkansasUnknown
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, EmancipationFirst Person, Bound out after war, breeding

Reaves_C_1

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Robert Glenn

Robert Glenn’s enslaver sold him away from his family at a young age.  In this excerpt he describes his Emancipation and how his enslaver agreed to pay him for a year of his services.  It then goes on to talk about Glenn’s difficult decision to leave this place, which he called home, to work elsewhere.
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Excerpt:

A big army of Yankees came through a few months later and soon we heard of the surrender. A few days after this master told me to catch two horses that we had to go to Dickenson which was the County seat of Webster County. On the way to Dickenson he said to me, ‘Bob, did you know you are free and Lincoln has freed you? You are as free as I am.’ We went to the Freedmen’s Bureau and went into the office. A Yankee officer looked me over and asked Master my name, and informed me I was free, and asked me whether or not I wanted to keep living with Moore. I did not know what to do, so I told him yes. A fixed price of seventy-five dollars and board was then set as the salary I should receive per year for my work. The Yankees told me to let him know if I was not paid as agreed. 

I had been thinking for several days before I went back home as to just what I must tell Mr. Moore and as to how he felt about the matter, and what I would get when I got home. In my dilemma I almost forgot I was free.  I got home at night and my mind and heart was full but I was surprised at the way he treated me. He acted kind and asked me if I was going to stay with him next year. I was pleased. I told him, ‘Yes sir!’, and then I lay down and went to sleep. He had a boss man on his plantation then and next morning he called me, but I just couldn’t wake. I seemed to be in a trance or something, I had recently lost so much sleep. He called me the second time and still I did not get up. Then he came in and spanked my head. I jumped up and went to work feeding the stock and splitting wood for the day’s cooking and fires. I then went in and ate my breakfast. Mr. Moore told me to hitch a team of horses to a wagon and go to a neighbors five miles away for a load of hogs. I refused to do so. They called me into the house and asked me what I was going to do about it. I said I do not know. As I said that I stepped out of the door and left. I went straight to the county seat and hired to Dr. George Rasby in Webster County for one hundred dollars per year. I stayed there one year. 

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Robert Glenn1850 (87)T. Pat MatthewsBob Hall, William Moore
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Raleigh, NCNorth CarolinaHillsboro,  NC
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Emancipation, economicsFirst person, bound out after war

Glenn_R_3

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Samuel Watson

Samuel Watson was very young when the Civil War ended and Emancipation was granted to those enslaved.  However, he clearly remembers the struggles his family had after Emancipation.  In this excerpt, he describes the struggle his mother had supporting the family, how his siblings became indentured servants, and his life as an indentured servant to an unkind employer.
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Excerpt:

Uncle Samuel remembers when the war ended and the slaves were emancipated. “Some were happy and some were sad!” Many dreaded leaving their old homes and their masters’ families.

Uncle Samuel’s mother and three children were told that they were free people and the master asked the mother to take her little ones and go away.

She complied and took her family to the plantation of Jourdain James, hoping to work and keep her family together. Wages received for her work failed to support the mother and children so she left the employ of Mr. James and worked from place to place until her children became half starved and without clothing.

The older children, remembering better and happier days, ran away from their mother and went back to their old master.

Thomas Watson went to Dixon, Kentucky and had an article of indenture drawn up binding both Thomas and Laurah to his service for a long number of years. Little Samuel only remained with his mother who took him to the home of William Allen Price. Mr. Price’s plantation was situated in Webster County, Kentucky about half-way between Providence and Clay on Craborchard Creek. Mr. Price had the little boy indentured to his service for a period of eighteen years. There the boy lived and worked on the plantation.

He said he had a good home among good people. His master gave him five real whippings within a period of fourteen years but Uncle Samuel believes he deserved every lash administered.

It was the custom for a slave indentured to a master to be given a fair education, a good horse, bridle, saddle and a suit of clothes for his years of toil, but Mr. Price did not believe the boy deserved the pay and refused to pay him. A lawyer friend sued in behalf of the N***o and received a judgement of $115.00 (one hundred and fifteen dollars). Eighteen dollars repaid the lawyer for his service and Samuel started out with $95.00 and his freedom.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Samuel Watson1862Lauana CreelThomas Watson
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Evansville, INIndianaClay, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Emancipation, Economics, EqualityThird person, Dialect, Bound out after war, whipped, notable,

Watson_S_1

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Watt Jordan

Watt Jordan grew up in a large family of enslaved persons.  He and his family lived in fear of being separated after his grandmother was sold and never seen again.  In this excerpt, he describes that event, as well as his and his family’s fate after Emancipation, in which he was bound out but left that home early due to cruel treatment.
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Excerpt:

. . . There were thirteen of us children.  I remember best, Molly, Walker, Charles, Aggie, Henry, and Zeke.  They were fixing to sell us again when freedom was declared.  My mother was sick, and she feared we would all be sold down south somewhere and she’d never see us again. 

. . . When freedom was declared, ole man Spencer told Mother she could stay on until she got well, and he wanted to know what she was going to do about us children.  So she bound several of us out and I went to  Matt Clay, who took me to stay until I was 21.  I’ve never seen Mother again.

I left Clay’s after he flew into a rage one day and was going to whip me. I was eighteen then, and I knew I was just as good a man as Clay was; so, when he started to whip me, I just whipped him and left.  He tried to get me back, then came to town and raised a racket, but folks all told him I was free to do what I wanted, so he left me alone. 

The Spencer plantation wasn’t big and there weren’t so many slaves on it.  My grandmother lived on the same plantation as us, but they sold her off somewhere, and we never saw or heard tell of her again. Once, ole man Spencer gave her a good whipping, because she stole food from the house for us children, and I remember it because we never got hardly anything to eat.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Watt Jordan1857UnknownDick SpencerJordan
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clark County, OHOhioFleming County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, EmancipationFirst person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty, bound out after war sold (family)

Jordan_W_1

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Wes Woods

Wes Woods grew up near the end of enslavement in our country, but shares the memories he has or has been told of life as an enslaved person.  He describes the living conditions first, and then  how his father hired him out to earn extra money after Emancipation.
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Excerpt:

There were three or four cabins for the slaves to live in, not so very far from the house. The cabin where my mother and father lived was the closest to the house, for my mother did the cooking. Our cabin was one long room, with a loft above, which we reached with a ladder. There was one big bed, with a trundle bed, which was on wooden rollers and was shoved under the big bed in the daytime. The oldest boys slept in a big wooden bed in the loft. The cabins were built of logs and chinked with rock and mud. The ceiling was of joists, and my mother used to hang the seed that we gathered in the fall, to dry from these joists. Some of the chimneys were made with sticks and chinked with mud, and would sometimes catch on fire. Later people learned to build chimneys of rock with big wide fireplaces, and a hearth of stone, which made them safer from fire.

We were glad when the news came that we were free, but none of us left for a long time, not until the Woods family was broken up. My father hired me out to work for my victuals and clothes, and I got $25.00 at the end of the year. I do not remember any wedding or death in my old master’s house.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Wes Woods1864Eliza IsonEliza Kennedy
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKentuckyCartersville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, 1st Person, Bound out after war

Woods_W_1

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America Morgan

America Morgan and her entire family were enslaved by a cruel enslaver named Clark Rudd.  Here, Mrs. Morgan describes various instances of extreme cruelty she witnessed in her time on the plantation.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

She [Mrs. Morgan]  remembers very clearly the happenings of her early life.  Her mother, Manda Rudd, was owned by Clark Rudd, and the “devil has sure got him.”  [Her father] became a Rudd, because he was married to Manda on the Rudd plantation.  There were six children in the family, and all went well until the death of the mother; Clark Rudd whipped her to death when America was five years old.  Six little children were left motherless to face a “frowning world.”

…Aunt Catherine, who looked after all the children on the plantation, was very unruly, no one could whip her. Once America was sent for two men to come and tie Aunt Catherine. She fought so hard, it was as much as the men could do to tie her. They tied her hands, then hung her to the joist and lashed her with a cowhide. It “was awful to hear her screams.”

She remembers one slave, who had been given five hundred lashes on his back, thrown in his cabin to die. He laid on the floor all night, at dawn he came to himself, and there were bloodhounds licking his back.

When the overseers lashed a slave to death, they would turn the bloodhounds out to smell the blood, so they would know “[redacted] blood,” that would help trace runaway slaves.

Aunt Jane Stringer was given five hundred lashes and thrown in her cabin. The next morning when the overseer came, he kicked her and told her to get up, and wanted to know if she was going to sleep there all day. When she did not answer him, he rolled her over and the poor woman was dead, leaving several motherless children.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
America Morgan1852 (85)Anna PritchettClark Rudd
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Marion County, INIndianaKentucky
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, ViolenceThird person, whipped, witnessed extreme cruelty, sold (self or family), bound out after war

Morgan_A_1