Economics – Reckoning, Inc.

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Lula Chambers

Dave Lillard enslaved over one hundred people, including Lula Chambers. She did not know her father and her mother was sold shortly after Lula Chambers was born. The interviewer records in the first person Lula Chambers’s memories of the Ku Klux Klan and why some enslavers did not abuse enslaved people for economic reasons.

*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:

… I used to be scared to death of those old Ku Klux folks with all their hoods on their heads and faces. I never will forget, I saw a real old [redacted] woman slave down on her knees praying to God for his help. She had a Bible in front of her. Course she couldn’t read it, but she did know what it was, and she was praying out of her very heart, until she had drawn the attention of the old Ku Klux [Klan] and one of them just walked in her cabin and lashed [whipped] her unmerciful. He made her get up off her knees and dance, old as she was. Of course the old soul couldn’t dance but he just made her hop around anyhow.

The slave owners in the county where I was raised—the well-to-do ones I mean, did not abuse the slaves like the poor trash and other slaveholders did. Of course they whipped them plenty when they didn’t suit. But they kind of took care of them to sell. They had a great slave market there that didn’t do anything but sell slaves, and if they wanted a good price for them, the slave would have to be in a pretty good condition. That’s what saved their hides…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Lula Chambers	Unknown (Unknown, older than 90)	Grace E. White	Dave Lillard

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
St. Louis, MO	MO	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Economics, Violence	Gallatin County, First Person, Dialect, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Klan/Mob Violence

Chambers_L_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Alex and Elizabeth Smith

Alex and Elizabeth Smith were enslaved on separate farms, owned by relatives in close proximity to each other. This excerpt describes their different experiences during enslavement, and their early life after gaining freedom.

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Excerpt:

On the Peter Stubblefield plantation, the slaves were treated very well and had plenty to eat, while on the Robert Stubblefield plantation Mr. Smith went hungry many times, and said, “Often, I would see a dog with a bit of bread, and I would have been willing to take it from him if I had not been afraid the dog would bite me.”

Mrs. Smith was named after Elizabeth Stubblefield, a relative of Peter Stubblefield. As a child of five years or less, Elizabeth had to spin “long reels five cuts a day,” pick seed from cotton, and cockle burrs from wool, and perform the duties of a house girl.

Unlike the chores of Elizabeth, Mr. Smith had to chop wood, carry water, chop weeds, care for cows, pick bugs from tobacco plants. This little boy had to go barefoot both summer and winter and remembers the cracking of ice under his bare feet.

The day the mistress and master came and told the slaves they were free to go anyplace they desired, Mrs. Smith’s mother told her later that she was glad to be free but she had no place to go or any money to go with. Many of the slaves would not leave and she never witnessed such crying as went on. Later Mrs. Smith was paid for working. She worked in the fields for “vittles” and clothes. A few years later she nursed children for twenty-five cents a week and “vittles,” but after a time she received fifty cents a week, board, and two dresses. She married Mr. Smith at the age of twenty.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Alex and Elizabeth Smith	Unknown (83)	Henrietta Karwowski	Robert and Peter Stubblefield

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
South Bend, IN	Indiana	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation, Economics,	First Person,

Smith_A_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Joseph Mosley

Joseph Mosley lived in enslavement from 1853 until Emancipation. In this excerpt, he describes his enslaver, who was a slave trader who made those he enslaved march from Virginia to Kentucky, or Mississippi to Virginia, chained together.

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Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Joseph Mosley	1853	Anna Pritchett	Tim Mosley

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Indianapolis, IN	Indiana	Hopkinsville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence, economics	First person, Slave trader

Excerpt:

Joseph Mosley, one of twelve children, was born March 15, 1853, fourteen miles from Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

His master, Tim Mosley, was a slave trader. He was supposed to have bought and sold 10,000 slaves. He would go from one state to another buying slaves, bringing in as many as 75 or 80 slaves at one time.

The slaves would be handcuffed to a chain, each chain would link 16 slaves. The slaves would walk from Virginia to Kentucky and some from Mississippi to Virginia.

In front of the chained slaves would be an overseer on horseback with a gun and dogs. In the back of the chained slaves would be another overseer on horseback with a gun and dogs. They would see that no slave escaped.

Mosley_J_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Joseph Ringo

Joseph Ringo lived with the same enslaver from his birth until 11 years after the Civil War. In this excerpt, he describes a visit the plantation received from Union soldiers and how the enslavers accommodated them out of fear. He then describes his experience with emancipation, and how his family were all paid to stay on the plantation. He finished by telling why and how he stayed on that plantation, getting paid and saving his money, for 11 years after emancipation.

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Excerpt:

I remember when the Yankee soldiers were camping’ around Minerva, Kentucky six of them came up to the big house one day, and put their horses in the stable, fed them, and then they laid around on our grass. Finally, they got up off the ground and went to the house and asked for something to eat. Ole Miss saw that they were getting food, ‘cause she was feared they’d do some damage if they didn’t’ get it.

I remember Master John calling us one morning and he sat on a stile and told us all we were free, and he said, “Now what are you all going to do?” He offered Eren $130.00 a year and clothes and board. Bill and me he offers $25.00 a year and board and keep, and Mother she is to get $1.50 a week and a place for her and the children, and clothes and a home for them.

We all stayed for one year, then mother and all of them went away, except me. I stayed on for eleven years after that. Master John French, he raised my wages every year, and I saved all I earned, or most of it.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Joseph Ringo	86 years old	Unknown	John French

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Mason County, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Economics,	First person, dialect, bound out after the war, Union soldiers,

Ringo_J_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

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 Glenn	1850 (87)	T. Pat Matthews	Bob Hall, William Moore

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Raleigh, NC	North Carolina	Hillsboro, NC

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation, economics	First person, bound out after war

Glenn_R_3

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

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 Watson	1862	Lauana Creel	Thomas Watson

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Evansville, IN	Indiana	Clay, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Economics, Equality	Third person, Dialect, Bound out after war, whipped, notable,

Watson_S_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Sarah Frances Shaw Graves

Sarah Frances Shaw Graves’ enslaver moved her from Kentucky to Missouri at a young age. In this excerpt, she describes the term “allotment” and the process of hiring out an enslaved person. She goes on to describe how her father was allotted to another enslaver when they were moved to Missouri, and how the enslavers would not tell her mother where her father was in order to encourage her to remarry and have children.

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Excerpt:

Yes ma’am. Allotted? Yes ma’am. I’m going to explain that, she replied. You see there were slave traders in those days, just like you got horse and mule and auto traders now. They bought and sold slaves and hired them out. Yes ma’am, rented them out. Allotted means something like hired out. But the slave never got any wages. That all went to the master. The man they were allotted to paid the master.

I never was sold. My mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. Yes ma’am when a slave was allotted, somebody made a down payment and gave a mortgage for the rest. A chattel mortgage. A down payment!! Times don’t change, just the merchandise.

Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves, Aunt Sally asserted.

We left my papa in Kentucky, because he was allotted to another man. My papa never knew where my mama went, and my mama never knew where papa went.

Aunt Sally paused a moment, then went on bitterly. They never wanted Mama to know, because they knew she would never marry so long as she knew where he was. Our master wanted her to marry again and raise more children to be slaves. They never wanted Mama to know where Papa was, and she never did, sighed Aunt Sally. Only those who have lost their mate, and never know the end of the tale, can understand such heart anguish.

Mama said she would never marry again to have children, continued Aunt Sally, so she married my step-father, Trattle Barber, because he was sick and could never be a father. He was so sick he couldn’t work, so me and mama had to work hard.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Sarah Frances Shaw Graves	1850 (87)	Unknown	Jimmie Shaw

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Skidmore, MO	Missouri	Louisville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Economics	First person, sold (family), hired out

Graves_S_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

William Emmons

William Emmons spent much of his early life enslaved. Here, he describes the process of traders who bought and sold enslaved people, and they bought and sold these people for various reasons, including breeding and to take advantage of struggling plantation owners who needed extra money.

*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:

Ole man Emmons had asked his family to never sell off any of the [ ] if they could help it, and never to sell any of them to [ ] traders. The traders were looked on as low, and they treated folks badly. Why I’ve seen slave traders buy up women and men for the purpose of breeding them just like animals, and they’d beat them if they didn’t do what they expected of them. The slave traders wanted strong children for work hands and they were all the time figuring to get a strong woman to carry out the plan for raising children that would sell really good. They would keep them and feed them for a few years and then sell them off to the highest bidder. There is no decency in such folks as them.

Slavery was worse than most people could imagine, at best. The [ ] traders used to travel all over the country sometimes and buy up slaves from plantation owners who were almost ready to go down in debt. I’ve seen men chained together, and women being carried in wagons with their babies. Just taking them to market for sale like cattle.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
William Emmons	1845 (93)	Unknown	Roy EmmonsRiggs

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Springfield, OH	Ohio	Nicholas, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Economics	First person, slave traders

Emmons_W_1

September 27, 2020October 4, 2020

Alex Woodson

In this third person narrative, the interviewer first describes how Alex Woodson (who is referred to as “Uncle Alex”) was sold. The interviewer then documents several stories of enslaved people during the Civil War, before briefly referencing 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:

…[Alex Woodson] was a good-sized boy, possibly 7 years or more when Freedom was declared. His master was “Old Master” Sterrett who had about a 200-acre place and whose son in law Tom Williams ran a store on this place. When Williams married Sterrett’s daughter he was given Uncle Alex and his mother and brother as a present. Williams was then known as “Young Master.”

When war came Old Master gave his (Woodson’s) mother a big roll of bills, “greenbacks as big as your arm”, to keep for him, and was forced to leave the neighborhood. After the war… [Alex Woodson’s mother] returned the money to him intact.

Uncle Alex remembers his mother taking him and other children and running down the river bank and hiding in the woods all night when the soldiers came. They were [Confederate General] Morgan’s men and took all available cattle and horses in the vicinity and beat [searched] the woods looking for Yankee soldiers. Uncle Alex said he saw Morgan at a distance on his big horse and he “was sure a mighty fine looker.”

Sometimes the Yankee soldiers would come riding along and they took things too.

When the [Civil] War was over old Master came back home and the [redacted] continued to live on at the place as usual, except for a few [formerly enslaved people] that wanted to go North…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Alex Woodson	Unknown (80-85)	Iris Cook	“Old Master” Sterrett, Tom Williams

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
New Albany, IN	IN	Woodsonville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Economics	First Person, Third Person, Dialect, Sold, Hired Out, Hart County

Woodson_A_1

September 3, 2020September 28, 2020

William Quinn

William Quinn was born into enslavement in a rare family that paid a small sum of money to their enslaved people. Here, he describes this practice and how rare it was.

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Excerpt:

Mr. Quinn said that they were what were called “gift slaves”. They were never to be sold from the Stone farm and were given to Stone’s daughter as a gift with that understanding. He said that his “Old master paid him and his brother ten cents a day for cutting down corn and shucking it.”

It was very unusual for a slave to receive any money whatsoever for working. He said that his master had a son about his age, and the son and he and his brother worked around the farm together, and “Master Stone” gave all three of them ten cents a day when they worked. Sometimes they wouldn’t, they would play instead. And whenever “Master Stone” would catch them playing when they ought to have been at work, he would whip them—”and that meant his own boy would get a licking too.”

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
William Quinn	unknown	Harry Jackson	Steve Stone

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Marion County, IN	Indiana	Hardin County, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags
Family, Economics	Third person, hired out

Quinn_W_1