In this excerpt, the interviewer records George Thompson’s memories of enslavement in the first person. After describing how enslaved people were named, George Thompson explains how despite wanting to learn how to read, his enslaver used violence to prevent him from learning.
…I [George Thompson] was quite a small boy when our family, which included an older sister, was sold to Ed. Thompson in Metcalfe Co. Kentucky, who owned about 50 other slaves, and as was the custom then we were given the name of our new master, “Thompson”.
I was hardly twelve years old when slavery was abolished, yet I can remember at this late date most of the happenings as they existed at that time.
I was so young and inexperienced when freed I remained on the Thompson plantation for four years after the war and worked for my board [shelter] and clothes as coach boy and any other odd jobs around the plantation.
I have no education, I can neither read nor write, as a slave I was not allowed to have books. On Sundays, I would go into the woods and gather ginseng which I would sell to the doctors for from 10¢ to 15¢ a pound, and with this money, I would buy a book that was called the Blue Back Speller. Our master would not allow us to have any books and when we were lucky enough to own a book we would have to keep it hidden, for if our master would find us with a book he would whip us and take the book from us. After receiving three severe whippings I gave up and never again tried for any learning, and to this day I can neither read nor write…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
George Thompson
1854 (approx. 83)
William R. Mays
Manfred Furgeson, Ed Thompson
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Johnson County, IN
IN
Hart, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Education, Literacy, Emancipation, Violence
Metcalf County, Hart County, Monroe County, First Person, Whipped, Sold, Slave Patrollers
In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts formerly enslaved person George Henderson’s memories of education, religion and emancipation in the first person.
…I saw the slaves in chains after they were sold. The white folks did not teach us to read and write. We had church on the plantation but we went from one plantation to another to hear preaching. White folks preacher’s name was Reuben Lee, in Versailles [Kentucky]. A meeting of the Baptist Church resulted in the first baptizing I ever saw. It was in Mr. Chillers pond. The preacher would say ‘I am baptizing you in Mr. Chillers pond because I know he is an honest man’…
…When the news came we were freed everybody was glad. The slaves cleared up the ground and cut down trees. Stayed with Master Cleveland the first year after the war. Have heard the Ku Klux Klan ride down the road, wearing masks. None ever bothered me or any of Master Clevelands slaves…
Enslaved from birth, George Fordman was not Black, but part indigenous and part white. George Fordman explains to his interviewer how he came to be enslaved in a tragic history that begins with White people forcibly driving his indigenous ancestors from their home in Indiana in 1838. After his ancestors walked all the way to Alabama, the George family “automatically” enslaved them, even though they were not Black.
In the full interview (see link below) George Fordman describes the “dark trail” of his childhood, in which the reader learns that George Fordman’s enslaver was his father and his grandfather.
In this first person excerpt, the interviewer records how George Fordman was emancipated and how he came to be called George Fordman.
Note: Mistress Lorainne enslaved George Fordsman. Her husband was Ford George, who was dead at the time of the events described. Ford George incestuously raped Eliza, an enslaved person who was also Ford George’s daughter. The person being interviewed is the child of Eliza and Ford George.
… [Ford George’s mother] named me Ford George, in derision, but remained my friend. She was never angry with my mother. She knew a slave had to submit to her master and besides Eliza did not know she was Master Ford George’s daughter.
… Five years before the outbreak of the Civil War [the enslaver] Mistress Hester called all the slaves together and gave us our freedom….
[George Fordman’s grandmother continued to work for the George family, and George Fordman remained on the George plantation. Several years later, when the Civil War was over,] the Freedmen started teaching school in Kentucky the census taker called to enlist me as a pupil. ‘What do you call this child?’ he asked Mistress Lorainne. ‘We call him the Little Captain because he carried himself like a soldier,’ said Mistress Lorainne. ‘He is the son of my husband and a slave woman but we are rearing him.’ Mistress Lorainne told the stranger that I had been named Ford George in derision and he suggested she list me in the census as George Fordsman, which she did, but she never allowed me to attend the Freedmen’s School, desiring to keep me with her own children and let me be taught at home. My mother [Eliza]’s half brother, Patent George allowed his name to be reversed to George Patent when he enlisted in the Union Service at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
George Fordman
Unknown (Unknown)
Lauana Creel
Ford George
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Evansville, IN
IN
AL or KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Education, Emancipation, Family, Violence
Trigg County, First Person, Enslaver Father, Notable
After the Civil War started, Dr. Warren Wortham moved his family and about 40-50 enslaved people (including young Caroline Wright) from Louisiana to Texas. Caroline was 12 when she was freed. In this excerpt, the interviewer records Caroline Wright in the first person. The interviewer recounts a time Caroline Wright was possibly going to be sold and describes broadly cultural aspects of her life.
… in Louisiana, we were all put on the block and valued. I was six years old and I was valued at $1,500. But our family wasn’t sold to anyone. I was given to Miss Muriel, Dr. Wortham’s daughter. Me and my sisters was made house slaves and my mammy and pappy and brothers was made field slaves.
Our master, Dr. Wortham, sure was a fine doctor. He never whipped us. The young missus learned us our A B C’s ’cause there was no school for the slaves. There wasn’t no church on the plantation, but we all went occasionally to a big log cabin and camp shed. Sometime a white would preach and sometimes a colored preacher…
On Christmas, the white folks always give us presents and plenty to eat, and we always had a big dance five or six times a year. Dr. Wortham lived in a great big log house made from cedar logs…
[Describing enslavement in Texas:] we got up about four in the morning and ate breakfast about nine o’clock. All the slaves had to work from sun to sun, and when we were sick, the master treated us…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Caroline Wright
Unknown (about 90)
Unknown
Hayes White, Miss Muriel, Dr. Warren and Annie Wortham
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Waco, TX
TX
Jones Creek by Baton Rouge, LA
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Education, Religion
First Person, Third Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Hired Out
The interviewer recorded this excerpt as a first person narrative by Bert Mayfield. In the excerpt, Bert Mayfield describes “stirring offs” – the social gatherings that accompanied work needed to make food from maple syrup. Bert Mayfield also describes the role religion played in his life. This excerpt contains two songs that were recorded by the interviewer.
…[Bert Mayfield describes how sugar was tapped from the enslaver’s maple trees. The syrup was boiled down to be useful at]…these “stirring offs” which usually took place at night.
The neighbors would usually come and bring their slaves. We played Sheep-meat and other games. Sheep-meat was a game played with a yarn ball and when one of the players was hit by the ball that counted him out. One song we would always sing was;
“Who ting-a-long? Who ting-a-long? Who’s been here since I’ve been gone? A pretty girl with a josey on”.
My old missus Meg taught me how to read from an old national spelling book, but I did not learn to write. We had no church, but the Bible was read to us on Sunday afternoons by some of the white folks. The first Church I remember was the Old Fork Baptist Church… The first preacher I remember was Burdette Kemper. I heard him preach at the old church where my missus and master took me every Sunday. The first Baptizing that I remember was on Dix Fiver near Floyd’s Mill. Preacher Kemper did the Baptizing and Ellen Stone, one of our slaves was Baptized there with a number of others—whites and blacks too. When Ellen came up out of the water she was clapping her hands and shouting. One of the songs I remember at this Baptizing was:
“Come sinners and Saints and hear me tell
The wonders of E-Man-u-el,
Who brought my soul with him to dwell
And give me heavenly union.”
…On Sunday’s we would hold prayer meetings among ourselves…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Bert Mayfield
1852 (Unknown)
Eliza Ison
Smith Stone
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Garrard County, KY
KY
Bryantsville, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Garrard County, Religion, Songs, Social Gatherings, Education
Barney Stone was 91 years old when interviewed. He was enslaved for 16 years before he escaped and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Barney Stone was a self-taught teacher at a Black school and then became a preacher. Earlier in the interview, Barney Stone explains how he witnessed his enslaver sell his sister, mother and brother. He also recounts how his enslaver brutally whipped him, and other examples of cruelty towards enslaved people. In this excerpt, Barney Stone explains how he joined the Union Army and his experience during the Civil War.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
… After those experiences of sixteen long years in Hell, as a slave, I was very bitter against the white man, until after I ran away and joined the Union army.
At the out-break of the Civil War and when the Northern [Union] army was marching into the Southland, hundreds of male slaves were shot down by the Rebels [Confederates], rather than see them join with the Yankees [Union soldiers]. One day when I learned that the Northern troops were very close to our plantation, I ran away and hid in a culvert [tunnel for water], but was found and I would have been shot – had the Yankee troops not scattered them – and that saved me. I joined the Union army and served one year, eight months and twenty-two days, and fought with them in the battle of Fort Wagnor, and also in the battle of Milikin’s Bend. When I went into the army, I could not read or write. The white soldiers took an interest in me and taught me to write and read, and when the war was over I could write a very good letter. I taught what little I knew to [redacted]children after the War…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Barney Stone
1847 (91)
Robert C. Irvin
Lemuel Stone
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Noblesville, IN
KY
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Literacy, Education
First Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County
Unlike most of the interviews in this collection, the interviewer Martin Richardson was part of the Negro Writers’ Unit in Florida, a subgroup of the Federal Writers’ Project that employed Black workers.
Interviewer Martin Richardson’s introduction notes that he is recording, “Verbatim Interview with Arnold Gragston, 97-year-old ex-slave whose early life was spent helping slaves to freedom across the Ohio River, while he, himself, remained in bondage. As he puts it, he guesses he could be called a ‘conductor’ on the underground railway.” Arnold Gragston estimated that he rowed two or three hundred enslaved people to freedom. In this excerpt, Arnold Gragston describes how his enslaver treated enslaved people, describing education and marriage practices.
…Mr. Tabb [Arnold Gragston’s enslaver] was a pretty good man. He used to beat us, sure; but not nearly so much as others did, some of his own kin people, even. But he was kinda funny sometimes; he used to have a special slave who didn’t have nothing to do but teach the rest of us–we had about ten on the plantation, and a lot on the other plantations near us–how to read and write and figure. Mr. Tabb liked us to know how to figure. But sometimes when he would send for us and we would be a long time coming, he would ask us where we had been. If we told him we had been learning to read, he would near beat the daylights out of us–after getting somebody to teach us; I think he did some of that so that the other owners wouldn’t say he was spoiling his slaves.
He was funny about us marrying, too. He would let us go a-courting on the other plantations near anytime we liked, if we were good, and if we found somebody we wanted to marry, and she was on a plantation that
belonged to one of his kin folks or a friend, he would swap a slave so that the husband and wife could be together. Sometimes, when he couldn’t do this, he would let a slave work all day on his plantation, and live with his wife at night on her plantation. Some of the other owners was always talking about his spoiling us…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Arnold Gragston
1840 (97)
Martin Richardson
Jack Tabb
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Eddy, FL
FL
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Underground Railroad, Conductor of Underground Railroad, Education, Marriage, Family, Violence
First Person, Dialect, Whipped, Slave Patrollers, Notable, Mason County
Unlike most of the interviewers in this collection, the interviewer Martin Richardson was part of the Negro Writers’ Unit in Florida, a subgroup of the Federal Writers’ Project that employed Black workers.
Interviewer Martin Richardson’s introduction notes that he is recording a, “Verbatim Interview with Arnold Gragston, 97-year-old ex-slave whose early life was spent helping slaves to freedom across the Ohio River, while he, himself, remained in bondage. As he puts it, he guesses he could be called a ‘conductor’ on the underground railway…”
The majority of this remarkable interview is included below as it offers a rare, rich, personal account of a conductor on the Underground Railroad. This account is accessible to students and documents Arnold Gragston’s actions and also his motivations. Martin Richardson recounts in the first person Arnold Gragston’s experience as an enslaved person, how he became a conductor, the process of escaping, the attitudes of multiple White enslavers, and finally Arnold Gragston’s own escape.
…Most of the slaves didn’t know when they was born, but I did. You see, I was born on a Christmas morning–it was in 1840; I was a full grown man when I finally got my freedom.
Before I got it, though, I helped a lot of others get theirs. Lord only knows how many; might have been as much as two-three hundred. It was way more than a hundred, I know…
…Mr. Tabb [who enslaved Arnold Gragston] was a pretty good man. He used to beat us, sure; but not nearly so much as others did, some of his own kin people, even. But he was kinda funny sometimes; he used to have a special slave who didn’t have nothing to do but teach the rest of us–we had about ten on the plantation, and a lot on the other plantations near us–how to read and write and figure. Mr. Tabb liked us to know how to figure. But sometimes when he would send for us and we would be a long time coming, he would ask us where we had been. If we told him we had been learning to read, he would near beat the daylights out of us–after getting somebody to teach us; I think he did some of that so that the other owners wouldn’t say he was spoiling his slaves.
He was funny about us marrying, too. He would let us go a-courting on the other plantations near anytime we liked, if we were good, and if we found somebody we wanted to marry, and she was on a plantation that belonged to one of his kin folks or a friend, he would swap a slave so that the husband and wife could be together. Sometimes, when he couldn’t do this, he would let a slave work all day on his plantation, and live with his wife at night on her plantation. Some of the other owners was always talking about his spoiling us.
He wasn’t a Democrat like the rest of them in the county; he belonged to the ‘know-nothin’ party and he was a real leader in it. He used to always be making speeches, and sometimes his best friends wouldn’t be speaking to him for days at a time.
Mr. Tabb was always especially good to me. He used to let me go all about–I guess he had to; couldn’t get too much work out of me even when he kept me right under his eyes. I learned fast, too, and I think he kinda liked that..’
It was because he used to let me go around in the day and night so much that I came to be the one who carried the running away slaves over the river. It was funny the way I started it too.
I didn’t have no idea of ever getting mixed up in any sort of business like that until one special night. I hadn’t even thought of rowing across the river myself.
But one night I had gone on another plantation courting, and the old woman whose house I went to told me she had a real pretty girl there who wanted to go across the river and would I take her? I was scared and backed out in a hurry. But then I saw the girl, and she was such a pretty little thing, brown-skinned and kinda rosy, and looking as scared as I was feeling, so it wasn’t long before I was listening to the old woman tell me when to take her and where to leave her on the other side.
I didn’t have nerve enough to do it that night, though, and I told them to wait for me until tomorrow night. All the next day I kept seeing Mister Tabb laying a rawhide across my back, or shooting me, and kept seeing that scared little brown girl back at the house, looking at me with her big eyes and asking me if I wouldn’t just row her across to Ripley. Me and Mr. Tabb lost, and soon as dust settled that night, I was at the old lady’s house.
I don’t know how I ever rowed the boat across the river the current was strong and I was trembling. I couldn’t see a thing there in the dark, but I felt that girl’s eyes. We didn’t dare to whisper, so I couldn’t tell her how sure I was that Mr. Tabb or some of the others owners would tear me up when they found out what I had done. I just knew they would find out.
I was worried, too, about where to put her out of the boat. I couldn’t ride her across the river all night, and I didn’t know a thing about the other side. I had heard a lot about it from other slaves but I thought it was just about like Mason County, with slaves and masters, overseers and rawhides; and so, I just knew that if I pulled the boat up and went to asking people where to take her I would get a beating or get killed.
I don’t know whether it seemed like a long time or a short time, now–it’s so long ago; I know it was a long time rowing there in the cold and worrying. But it was short, too, ’cause as soon as I did get on the other side the big-eyed, brown-skin girl would be gone. Well, pretty soon I saw a tall light and I remembered what the old lady had told me about looking for that light and rowing to it. I did; and when I got up to it, two men reached down and grabbed her; I started trembling all over again, and praying. Then, one of the men took my arm and I just felt down inside of me that the Lord had got ready for me. ‘You hungry, Boy?’ is what he asked me, and if he hadn’t been holding me I think I would have fallen backward into the river.
That was my first trip; it took me a long time to get over my scared feeling, but I finally did, and I soon found myself going back across the river, with two and three people, and sometimes a whole boatload. I got so I used to make three and four trips a month.
What did my passengers look like? I can’t tell you any more about it than you can, and you wasn’t there. After that first girl–no, I never did see her again–I never saw my passengers. I would have to be the black nights of the moon when I would carry them, and I would meet them out in the open or in a house without a single light. The only way I knew who they were was to ask them; What you say? And they would answer, Menare. I don’t know what that word meant–it came from the Bible. I only know that that was the password I used, and all of them I took over told it to me before I took them.
I guess you wonder what I did with them after I got them over the river. Well, there in Ripley was a man named Mr. Rankins; I think the rest of his name was John. He had a regular station there on his place for escaping slaves. You see, Ohio was a free state and once they got over the river from Kentucky or Virginia. Mr. Rankins could strut them all around town, and nobody would bother them. The only reason we used to land quietly at night was so that whoever brought them could go back for more, and because we had to be careful that none of the owners had followed us. Every once in a while they would follow a boat and catch their slaves back. Sometimes they would shoot at whoever was trying to save the poor devils.
Mr. Rankins had a regular station for the slaves. He had a big lighthouse in his yard, about thirty feet high and he kept it burning all night. It always meant freedom for slave if he could get to this light.
Sometimes Mr. Rankins would have twenty or thirty slaves that had run away on his place at the time. It must have cost him a whole lots to keep them and feed them, but I think some of his friends helped him.
Those who wanted to stay around that part of Ohio could stay, but didn’t many of them do it, because there was too much danger that you would be walking along free one night, feel a hand over your mouth, and be back across the river and in slavery again in the morning. And nobody in the world ever got a chance to know as much misery as a slave that had escaped and been caught.
So a whole lot of them went on North to other parts of Ohio, or to New York, Chicago or Canada; Canada was popular then because all of the slaves thought it was the last gate before you got all the way inside of heaven. I don’t think there was much chance for a slave to make a living in Canada, but didn’t many of them come back. They seem like they rather starve up there in the cold than to be back in slavery.
The Army soon started taking a lot of them, too. They could enlist in the Union Army and get good wages, more food than they ever had, and have all the little gals waving at them when they passed. Them blue uniforms was a nice change, too.
No, I never got anything from a single one of the people I carried over the river to freedom. I didn’t want anything; after had made a few trips I got to like it, and even though I could have been free any night myself, I figured I wasn’t getting along so bad so I would stay on Mr. Tabb’s place and help the others get free. I did it for four years.
I don’t know to this day how he never knew what I was doing; I used to take some awful chances, and he knew I must have been up to something; I wouldn’t do much work in the day, would never be in my house at night, and when he would happen to visit the plantation where I had said I was going I wouldn’t be there. Sometimes I think he did know and wanted me to get the slaves away that way so he wouldn’t have to cause hard feelings by freeing them.
I think Mr. Tabb used to talk a lot to Mr. John Fee; Mr. Fee was a man who lived in Kentucky, but Lord! how that man hated slavery! He used to always tell us (we never let our owners see us listening to him, though) that God didn’t intend for some men to be free and some men be in slavery. He used to talk to the owners, too, when they would listen to him, but mostly they hated the sight of John Fee.
In the night, though, he was a different man, for every slave who came through his place going across the river he had a good word, something to eat and some kind of rags, too, if it was cold. He always knew just what to tell you to do if anything went wrong, and sometimes I think he kept slaves there on his place till they could be rowed across the river. Helped us a lot.
I almost ran the business in the ground after I had been carrying the slaves across for nearly four years. It was in 1863, and one night I carried across about twelve on the same night. Somebody must have seen us, because they set out after me as soon as I stepped out of the boat back on the Kentucky side; from that time on they were after me. Sometimes they would almost catch me; I had to run away from Mr. Tabb’s plantation and live in the fields and in the woods. I didn’t know what a bed was from one week to another. I would sleep in a cornfield tonight, up in the branches of a tree tomorrow night, and buried in a haypile the next night; the River, where I had carried so many across myself, was no good to me; it was watched too close.
Finally, I saw that I could never do any more good in Mason County, so I decided to take my freedom, too. I had a wife by this time, and one night we quietly slipped across and headed for Mr. Rankin’s bell and light. It looked like we had to go almost to China to get across that river: I could hear the bell and see the light on Mr. Rankin’s place, but the harder I rowed, the farther away it got, and I knew if I didn’t make it I’d get killed. But finally, I pulled up by the lighthouse, and went on to my freedom–just a few months before all of the slaves got theirs. I didn’t stay in Ripley, though; I wasn’t taking no chances. I went on to Detroit and still live there with most of 10 children and 31 grandchildren.
The bigger ones don’t care so much about hearing it now, but the little ones never get tired of hearing how their grandpa brought Emancipation to loads of slaves he could touch and feel, but never could see…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Arnold Gragston
1840 (97)
Martin Richardson
Jack Tabb
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Eddy, FL
FL
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Underground Railroad, Conductor of Underground Railroad, Resistance, Education, Escape, Violence, Marriage
First Person, Dialect, Whipped, Slave Patrollers, Notable, Mason County
In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts the life of Anna Smith in the third person. Anna Smith was married and had a young daughter when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In this excerpt, the interviewer describes Anna Smith’s memories of life as an enslaved person before and during the Civil War. The excerpt ends with Anna Smith describing 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.
… Mrs. Smith remembers her father who died at the age of 117 years. Her oldest brother was 50 when he joined the confederate army. Three other brothers were sent to the front [to fight in the Civil War]. One was an ambulance attendant, one belonged to the cavalry, one an orderly seargeant [sic] and the other joined the infantry. All were killed in action. Anna Smith’s husband later joined the war and was reported killed.
When she became old enough for service she was taken into the “Big House” of her master, where she served as kitchen helper, cook, and later a nurse, taking care of her mistress’ second child. She learned her A.B.C.’s by listening to the tutor teaching the children of Judge Toll…
Many instances during those terrible war days are fresh in her mind: men and boys, in pairs and groups passing the “big house” on their way to the recruiting station on the public square, later going back in squads and companies to fight; Yankee soldiers raiding the plantation, taking corn and hay or whatever could be used by the northern army; and continual apprehension [worry] for the menfolk at the front. She remembers the baying of blood hounds [barking of dogs] at night along the Ohio River, trying to follow the scent of escaping [redacted] and the crack of firearms as white people, employed by the plantation owners attempted to halt the [redacted] in their efforts to cross the Ohio River into Ohio [where they would be free] or to join the Federal [Union] army…
When President Lincoln issued his proclamation freeing the slaves, and the news reached the plantation, she went to her master to learn if she was free. On learning it was true she returned to her parents who were living on another plantation…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Anna Toll Smith
1835 (101 or 102)
Geo. H. Conn
Judge Toll
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Summit County, OH
OH
Henderson, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Education, Emancipation, Lincoln, Economics
Third Person, Veteran or Widow, Slave Patrollers, Henderson County