Thomas McIntire

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.  
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Excerpt:

…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 McIntire1847 (90)UnknownJim Lane
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clark County, OHOHKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Emancipation, Education, Literacy, Resistance, Union Troops, Civil WarBath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable

McIntire_T_3

M.S. Fayman

M.S. Fayman was born free to wealthy free parents in Louisiana.  Her family was Creole – her grandmother was Haitian (Black) and her grandfather was French.  Her parents sent her to a private boarding school when she was five years old.  When she was ten, she was kidnapped at school and forcibly enslaved in Kentucky by Buckram Haynes, who forced M.S. Fayman to teach his children French until she escaped. After her escape, she returned home, attended Fisk University and became a French teacher there.  In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts M.S. Fayman’s kidnapping and description of her enslavement in the first person. 
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Excerpt:

… [My family] lived in a large and spacious house surrounded by flowers and situated on a farm containing about 750 acres, on which we raised pelicans for sale in the market at New Orleans.  

When I was about 5 years old I was sent to a private School in Baton Rouge, conducted by French sisters [nuns], where I stayed until I was kidnapped in 1860. At that time I did not know how to speak English; French was the language spoken in my household and by the people in the parish [county].  Baton Rouge, situated on the Mississippi, was a river port and stopping place for all large river boats, especially between New Orleans and large towns and cities north. We children were taken out by the sisters after school and on Saturdays and holidays to walk. One of the places we went was the wharf. One day in June and on a Saturday a large boat was at the wharf going north on the Mississippi River. We children were there. Somehow, I was separated from the other children. I was taken up bodily by a white man, carried on the boat, put in a cabin and kept there until we got to Louisville, Kentucky, where I was taken off.  After I arrived in Louisville I was taken to a farm near Frankfort [Kentucky] and installed there, virtually a slave until 1864, when I escaped through the kindness of a delightful Episcopalian woman from Cincinnati, Ohio. 

As I could not speak English, my chores were to act as a tutor and companion for the children of Pierce Buckran Haynes, a well known slave trader and plantation owner in Kentucky. Haynes wanted his children to speak French and it was my duty to teach them. I was the private companion of three girls and one small boy, each day I had to talk French and write French for them. They became very proficient in French, and I in the rudiments [basics] of the English language.  I slept in the children’s quarters with the Haynes’ children, ate and played with them. I had all the privileges of the household accorded me with the exception of one, I never was taken off nor permitted to leave the plantation. While on the plantation I wore good clothes, similar to those of the white children. 

Haynes was a merciless brutal tyrant with his slaves, punishing them severely and cruelly both by the lash and in the jail on the plantation… On the farm the slaves were assigned a task to do each day and In the event it was not finished they were severely whipped. While I never saw a slave whipped, I did see them afterwards, they were very badly marked and striped by the overseers who did the whipping…. 


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
M.S. Fayman1850 (approx. 87)RogersPierce Buckram Haynes
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Baltimore, MDMDSaint-Nazaire, LA
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Education, Kidnapped, Resistance, EscapeFirst Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Slave Traders

Fayman_M_1

Mary Jane Mooreman

The interviewer records this interview in the first person, writing down the words of Mary Jane Mooreman using heavy dialect.  The reader should note that these are not necessarily the exact words of Mary Jane Mooreman –  they are the interviewer’s version of Mary Jane Mooreman’s speech. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts how Mary Jane Mooreman learned how to read and write before documenting her memories of the Civil War.  

Miss Maud is Mary Jane Mooreman’s employer, who was also present for the interview.Miss Mary is the interviewer, Mary D. Hudgens. 
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Excerpt:

…Yes ma’am we learned to read and write. Oh, Miss Maude now–I don’t want to recite. I don’t want to. (But she did Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and The Playful Kitten–the latter all of 40 lines.) I think, I think they both come out of McGuffey’s second Reader. Yes ma’am I remember McGuffey’s and the Blueback speller too.  

No, Miss Mary, there wasn’t so much of the war that was fought around us. I remember that old Master used to go out in the front yard and stand by a locust tree and put his ear against it. He said that way he could hear the cannon down to Bowling Green. No, I didn’t ever hear any shooting from the war myself.  

Yes ma’am, the Confederates used to come through lots. I remember how we used to go to the spring for water for them. Then we’d stand with the buckets on our heads while they drank–drank out of a big gourd. When the buckets were empty we’d go back to the spring for more water.  Once the Yankees [Union soldiers] come by the place. It was at night. They went out to the quarters [where the enslaved people lived] and they tried to get them to rise up. Told them [the enslaved people] to come on in the big house and take what they wanted. Told them to take anything they wanted to take, take Master’s silver spoons and Miss’ silk dress. ‘If they don’t like it, we’ll shoot their brains out,’ they said. Next morning they told Master. He got scared and moved…  It was near the end of the war and we were already free, only we didn’t know it…


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Mary Jane Mooreman[Year (age at interview)]Mary D. HudgensCharles Wickliffe Mooreman
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
ARARKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Literacy, EducationHartford County, First Person, Sold, Union Troops

Mooreman_M_1

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 Bogie1858Eliza IsonBob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKentuckyKentucky
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles, Education, Literacy, ReligionFirst Person

Bogie_D_2

Rev. John R. Cox

Rev. John R. Cox was born to two enslaved parents in Kentucky.  In this excerpt, he tells a story of his mother’s escape from enslavement and how she lived in the wilderness for 2 years before being recaptured and sold.  He then relates how this led her to his father, how they were married and had children together while enslaved, including Rev. Cox.  He finishes up by telling about his education, and the punishment enslaved people sometimes got if they were caught trying to learn to read or write.
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Excerpt:

A slave owner, in West Virginia, bought a thirteen-year-old black girl at an auction. When this girl was taken to his home she escaped, and after searching everywhere, without finding her, he decided that she had been helped to escape and gave her up as lost. About two years after that a neighbor, on a close farm, was in the woods feeding his cattle, he saw what he first thought was a bear, running into the thicket from among his cows. Getting help, he rounded up the cattle and searching the thick woodland, finally found that what he had supposed was a wild animal, was the long lost fugitive black girl. She had lived all this time in caves, feeding on nuts, berries, wild apples, and milk from cows, that she could catch and milk. Returned to her master she was sold to a Mr. Morgan Whittaker who lived near where Prestonsburg, Kentucky now is.

Dr. David Cox, a physician from Scott County, Virginia, who treated Mr. Whitaker for cancer, saw this slave girl, who had become a strong healthy young woman, and Mr. Whitaker unable to otherwise pay his doctor bill, let Dr. Davis have her for the debt.

At this time the slave girl was about twenty-one years of age, and Dr. Davis took her home to Scott County, Virginia where he married her to his only other slave, George Cox, by the ceremony of laying a broom on the floor and having the two young negroes step over the broomstick.

Among the children of George Cox and his wife was Rev. John R. Cox, Col. who now lives in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, and is probably the only living ex-slave in this county.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, by President Lincoln, in 1865, John managed to get four years of schooling where he learned to read and write and become very proficient in arithmetic.

He says that had he had the opportunity to study that we have today he could have been the smartest man in the United States. He also says, that before freedom, the negroes in his neighborhood were allowed no books, if found looking at a book a slave was whipped unmercifully.


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Rev. John R. Cox1852 (Carl F. HallDr. David Cox
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Cattletsburg, KYKentuckyUnknown
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, Education, LiteracyThird person, slave patrol, whipped, sold (family)

Cox_J_1

Patsy Jane Bland

Almost 107 at the time she was interviewed, the interviewer notes that Patsy Jane Bland remembered a great deal about life as an enslaved person.  Patsy Jane Bland was sold twice as an enslaved person and had four children when the Civil War began.  In this excerpt, recorded in the third person, the interviewer recounts Patsy Jane Bland’s education, memories of a white wedding, and emancipation. 
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Excerpt:

…She [Patsy Jane Bland] had to work, too, for life was not all play and she recalls sitting at the feet of her little mistress and learning to spell out her letters until the mother of the white child decided that she was getting too smart and she had to stop, until she was married to her last and fourth husband, who taught her some more… 

[Patsy Jane Bland remembers a wedding of white people at the enslaver’s home.] The wedding preparations began days in advance with the saving of chickens and eggs and butter. The liveliest egg-beating, butter creaming, raisin stoning, sugar pounding, cake icing, coconut scraping, and grating, Jelly straining, silver cleaning, egg frothing, floor rubbing, pastry making, ruffle crimping, tarlatan smoothing, trunk moving time you ever saw, and the peeping at the bride with her long veil and train, and the guests the whole army of slaves turned out to help.

Aunt Patsy remembers the night before the wedding when they all gathered in the quarter to sing every song they knew over and over again, celebrating the leaving of the bride for Virginia and how Young Miss died soon after her big wedding and was buried in her bridal dress…

Already the mother of four when the Civil War began, Patsy remembered seeing soldiers, and “because they were scared,” the slaves ran from them and hid out. She remembered the day all the blacks on her plantation were set free. There was shouting and crying; there was joy and sadness. She said many blacks did not want to leave the plantation to go out into a world of which they knew nothing. Patsy, though, gathered her four children around her, and with her husband, who was named Wilson, left the plantation. When the fieldworker asked if she was happier free, Patsy looked off into the distance and said, “Free? Is anybody ever free? Isn’t everybody you know a slave to someone or something or other?”


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Patsy Jane Bland1830 (106)Anna Bowles WileyWilliam Kettering, Charles Morgan, John Boyle
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Terre Haute, ININKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Education, Marriage (Whites), EmancipationShelby County, Third Person, Whipped, Sold, Veteran or Widow, 

Bland_P_1

Kate Billingsby

The same family enslaved Kate Billingsby from her birth in 1828 until Emancipation. Ms. Billingsby still keeps in touch with the family.   This excerpt describes what she learned from that family, and how they (and their children) still looked after her even after her 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:

Her culture and training go back to the old Buckner family, at one time one of the most cultured families in Christian County. She is not a superstitious negro. Being born a Buckner slave, she was never sold and her manners and ways proclaim that she surely must have been raised in “The white folks house” as she claims, being a maid when old enough, to one of Frank Buckner’s daughters. 

She stated, “The Buckners were sure good to me, even now their children come to see me and always bring me something. They don’t let my taxes lapse and I’m never without something to eat.”

No, I don’t believe in ghosts, haints or anything of that kind – my White folks being “quality”. I’ve been raised by “quality”! Why I’m a “quality [redacted]”. When any of my folks get sick or any of my white folks, the doctor would always be sent for.”


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Kate BillingsbyUnknownUnknownFrank and Sarah Buckner
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Hopkinsville, KYKentuckyChristian County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Class, educationThird person, dialect

Billingsby_K_1

Robert Glenn

Robert Glenn’s enslaver sold him away from his family at a young age.  In this excerpt he describes how the son of his enslaver took it upon himself to teach him how to read and write, which was uncommon and often illegal.
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Excerpt:

Master Moore had four children, among whom was one boy about my age. The girls were named Atona, Beulah, and Minnie, and the boy was named Crosby. He was mighty brilliant. We played together. He was the only white boy there, and he took a great liking to me, and we loved each devotedly. Once in an undertone he asked me how I would like to have an education. I was overjoyed at the suggestion and he at once began to teach me secretly. I studied hard and he soon had me so I could read and write well. I continued studying and he continued teaching me. He furnished me books and slipped all the papers he could get to me and I was the best educated Negro in the community without anyone except the slaves knowing what was going on.  


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:
LiteracyFirst person, education

Glenn_R_2

Harriet Mason

In this excerpt that the interviewer records in the first person, Harriet Mason describes her life as an enslaved person in Texas.  Teachers may need to help students navigate Harriet Mason’s complementary description of her enslavers with the fact that they enslaved people.
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Excerpt:

…I didn’t sleep in the cabins with the rest of the [enslaved people]…; I slept in the big house and nursed the children. I was not paid any money for my work. My food was the same as what the white folks ate. The white folks took me to church and dressed me well. I had good shoes and they took me to church on Sunday. My master was a preacher and a doctor and a fine man. Miss Mat sure was hard to beat. The house they lived in was a big white house with two long porches. We had no overseer or driver. We had no Poor white neighbors. There were about 300 acres of land… but we did not have many slaves…There was no jail on the place and I never saw a slave whipped or punished in any way. I never saw a slave auctioned off. My Missus taught all the slaves to read and write, and we sat on a bench in the dining room. When the news came that we were free General Gano [the enslaver] took us all in the dining room and told us about it…


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Harriet Mason1847 (Unknown)Eliza IsonBriar M. Jones and Gano
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKYBryantsville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Literacy, EducationGarrard County, First Person

Mason_H_1

Hannah Davidson

In the full version of the interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person the cruelty enslavers inflicted on Hannah Davidson and the other enslaved people. Hanna Davidson describes a life of continuous work and repeated whippings. Enslavers Emmette and Susan Meriwether kept Hannah Davidson, her sister, and others enslaved for over twenty one years after they were legally free.  In this excerpt, recorded in the first person, Hannah Davidson describes the violence of her enslaver and how she was denied an education.  

*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:

… It is best not to talk about them. The things that my sister Mary and I suffered were so terrible that people would not believe them. It is best not to have such things in our memory…  

If you wanted to go to another plantation, you had to have a pass. If my folks were going to somebody’s house, they’d have to have a pass. Otherwise, they’d be whipped. They’d take a big man and tie his hands behind a tree, just like that big tree outside, and whip him with rawhide and draw blood every whip. I know I was scared every time I’d hear the slave say, ‘Pray, Master.’…  

Once, Jim Ferguson, a … Black man, came to teach school. The white folks beat and whipped him and drove him away in his underwear. 

I wanted so hard to learn to read, but I didn’t even know I was free, even when slavery was ended.  

I had been so exhausted working, I was like an inch-worm crawling along a roof. I worked till I thought another lick would kill me. If you had something to do, you did it or got whipped. Once I was so tired I couldn’t work anymore. I crawled in a hole under the house and stayed there till I was rested…. 

I never will forget it–how my master always used to say, ‘Keep a [redacted] down’ I never will forget it…

The slaves tried to get schools, but they didn’t get any. Finally, they started a few schools in little log cabins. But we children, my sister and I, never went to school…


Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Hannah Davidson1852 (approx. 85)K. OsthimerEmmette and Susan Meriwether
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Toledo, OHOHKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Education, ViolenceBallard County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Union Troops

Davidson_H_3