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.
. . . 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 Jordan
1857
Unknown
Dick SpencerJordan
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Clark County, OH
Ohio
Fleming County, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation
First person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty, bound out after war sold (family)
Will Oats grew up enslaved to a wealthy plantation owner. This excerpt describes the plantation, including how holidays and spare time were spent. The excerpt finishes by describing how his family made a living after emancipation.
When the slaves would disobey their master while working, they were punished in some way, but there was no jail. They didn’t know how to read or write, and they had no church to attend. All they had to do when not at work was to talk to the older folks. On Christmas morning they would usually have a little extra to eat and maybe a stick of candy. On New Year’s Day their work went on just the same as on any other day.
As a boy, Will loved to play marbles, which was about the most interesting game they had to play. Of course, they could play outside, as all children do now, when they had spare time.
At that time there were few doctors and when the slaves would get hurt or sick; They were usually looked after by the master or by their overseer.
After the war had closed, Will’s grandmother walked from Monticello to Camp Nelson to get her free papers and her children. They were all very happy, but they were wondering what they were going to do without a home, work, or money. But after Will and his mother and grandmother got their freedom, the grandmother bought a little land and a house and they all went there to live. Of course, they worked for other people and raised a great deal of what they ate. Will lived there until he grew older and went out for himself, and later moved to Mercer County where he lives now.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Julia King lived with her entire family on the same plantation. When she was very young, her father, mother and sister all ran away and escaped via the Underground railroad. Here, she describes her memory of a song her mother sang before she escaped.
This is a brief recollection of Angie Boyce’s child, as told to her by her mother. Angie was born into enslavement in Kentucky early in the Civil War. Her mother married a man who purchased their freedom and attempted to move them to free territory. The following excerpt recalls their experience being arrested, returned to Kentucky, and put on trial to determine if they should return to enslavement.
The mother of Angie was married twice; the name of her first husband was Stines and that of her second husband was Henry King. It was Henry King who bought his and his wife’s freedom. He sent his wife and baby Angie to Indiana, but upon their arrival, they were arrested and returned to Kentucky. They were placed in the Louisville jail and lodged in the same cell with large Brutal and drunken Irish woman. The jail was so infested with bugs and fleas that the baby Angie cried all night. The white woman crazed with drink became enraged at the cries of the child and threatened to “bash its brains out against the wall if it did not stop crying”. The mother, Mrs. King was forced to stay awake all night to keep the white woman from carrying out her threat.
The next morning the N***o mother was tried in court and when she produced her free papers she was asked why she did not show these papers to the arresting officers. She replied that she was afraid that they would steal them from her. She was exonerated from all charges and sent back to Indiana with her baby.
Amy Elizabeth Patterson was born into enslavement, where her mother served as a personal maid and wet nurse for the enslaver’s children. This third person narrative retells Patterson’s experiences as the daughter of an enslaver’s maid, as well as her mother’s experiences giving birth to and raising children for her enslavers.
Louisa Street, the mother of Amy Elizabeth Patterson, was a housemaid at the Street home and her firstborn daughter was fair with gold-brown hair and amber eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Street always promised Louisa they would never sell her as they did not want to part with the child, so Louisa was given a small cabin near the master’s house. The mistress had a child near the age of the little mulatto and Louisa was a wet nurse for both children as well as a maid to Mrs. Street. Two years after the birth of Amy Elizabeth, Louisa became the mother of twin daughters, Fannie and Martha Street, then John Street decided to sell all his slaves as he contemplated moving into another territory.
The slaves were auctioned to the highest bidder and Louisa and the twins were bought by a man living near Cadiz but Mr. Street refused to sell Amy Elizabeth. She showed promise of growing into an excellent housemaid and seamstress and was already a splendid playmate and nurse to the little Street boy and girl. So Louisa lost her child but such grief was shown by both mother and child that the mother was unable to perform her tasks and the child cried continually. Then Mr. Street consented to sell the little girl to the mother’s new master.
Louisa Street became the mother of seventeen children. Three were almost white. Amy Elizabeth was the daughter of John Street and half-sister of his children by his lawful wife. Mrs. Street knew the facts and respected Louisa and her child and, says grandmother Patterson, “That was the greatest crime ever visited on the United States. It was worse than the cruelty of the overseers, worse than hunger, for many slaves were well fed and well cared for; but when a father can sell his own child, humiliate his own daughter by auctioning her on the slave block, what good could be expected where such practices were allowed?”
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Amy Elizabeth Patterson
1850 (87)
Lauana Creel
John Street
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Vanderburgh County, IN
Indiana
Kentucky
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Gender/gender roles, family
Third person, Sold (self or family), Enslaver father, slave traders
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.
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 Morgan
1852 (85)
Anna Pritchett
Clark Rudd
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Marion County, IN
Indiana
Kentucky
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Family, Violence
Third person, whipped, witnessed extreme cruelty, sold (self or family), bound out after war
The excerpts below provide teachers a unique opportunity to consider perspective and decisions made by an interviewer. The interviewer Archie Koritz submitted two separate documents for his interview with John Eubanks.
The first, featured in “Part 1” below is written in the third person. In the excerpt, Archie Koritz describes John Eubanks life during slavery, calling him “one of hte more fortunate slaves in that his mistress and master were kind.”
The second interview is labeled “Part 2” and is written in the first person. The excerpt from this interview covers the same content as that in “Part 1” but is a far more detailed version of John Eubanks life that goes into great detail about the cruelty of his enslaver. The details included in this part of the interview do not appear at all in “Part 1.” The reader can speculate that “Part 2” is similar to a transcript of the interview and “Part 1” is closer to a report of the interview submitted by interviewer Archie Koritz.
[Part 1: Recorded by the interviewer in the third person.]
Following the custom of the south, when the children of the Everrett family grew up, they married and slaves were given them for wedding presents. John was given to a daughter who married a man of the name of Eubanks, hence his name, John Eubanks. John was one of the more fortunate slaves in that his mistress and master were kind and they were in a state divided on the question of slavery. They favored the north. The rest of the children were given to other members of the Everrett family upon their marriage or sold down the river and never saw one another until after the close of the Civil War.
[Part 2: What follows is a different version of the interview, recorded by the same interviewer, but this time in the first person. The examples John Eubanks shares here about how violently his enslaver treated enslaved people do not appear at all in the full version of the interview recorded in Part 1. The brackets used below were inserted by the interviewer at the time the interview was recorded. ]
…I remember well, us young’uns on the Everett plantation. I have worked since I can remember, hoeing, picking cotton and other chores around the farm. We didn’t have many clothes, never underwear, no shoes, old overalls and a tattered shirt, winter and summer. Come the winter, it’d be so cold my feet were plumb numb most of the time, and many a time—when we got a chance—we drove the hogs from out in the bogs and put our feet in the warmed wet mud. They were cracked and the skin on the bottoms and in the toes were cracked and bleeding most of time, with bloody scabs, but the summer healed them again.
“Do you all remember, Grandpap,” [his daughter prompted] “your master—did he treat you mean?”
“No.” [His tolerant acceptance apparent in his answer] “It was done thataway. Slaves were whipped and punished and the young’uns belonged to the master to work for him or to sell. When I was about six years old, Master Everett gave me to Tony Eubanks as a wedding present when he married master’s daughter Becky. Becky wouldn’t let Tony whip her slaves who came from her father’s plantation. ‘They are my property,’ she says, ‘and you can’t whip them.’ Tony whipped his other slaves but not Becky’s.
I remember how they tied the slave around a post, with hands tied together around the post, then a husky lashed his back with a snakeskin lash until his back was cut and bloodened, the blood spattered [gesticulating with his unusually large hands] and his back all cut up. Then they’d pour salt water on him. That’d dry and then stick to him. He’d never take it off till it healed. Sometimes I’d see Master Everett hang a slave tip-toe. He’d tie him up so he stood tip-toe and left him thataway…
Master Everett whipped me once, and Mother, she cried. Then Master Everett says, ‘Why do you all cry?—You cry, I’ll whip another of these young’uns. She tried to stop. He whipped another. He says, ‘If you all don’t stop, you will be whipped too!’, and Mother, she’s trying to stop but tears roll out, so Master Everett whips her too.
I wanted to visit Mother when I belonged to Master Eubanks, but [enslaver Master Eubanks’s wife] Becky said, ‘You all best not see your Mother, or you’ll want to go all the time, then explaining that she wanted me to forget Mother, but I never could…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
John Eubanks
1836 or 1839 (approx 98)
Archie Koritz
Everett Family, Tony Eubanks
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Gary, IN
IN
Glasgow, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Violence, Family, Interviewer
Barron County, First Person, Third Person, Dialect, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable
Born enslaved, Dr. George Washington Buckner moved to Indianapolis after the Civil War, where he attended the only school for Black students in the city. He later completed a teacher training program and taught Black students before earning a medical degree and becoming a doctor. In 1913, he accepted President Woodrow Wilson’s nomination and served as the American Minister [Ambassador] to Liberia, living there for several years. See the full document for a detailed description of Dr. George Washington Buckner’s education and career after enslavement.
In this interview, recorded in the third person, Dr. George Washington Buckner recounts how White people viewed slavery in Kentucky, his work as an enslaved person, and how he felt when his sister was sold.
…The parents [of Dr. George Washington Buckner] were slaves and served a master not wealthy enough to provide adequately for their comforts. The mother had become invalid through the task of bearing children each year and being deprived of medical and surgical attention.
The master, Mr. Buckner, along with several of his relatives had purchased a large tract of land in Green County, Kentucky and by a custom or tradition as Dr. Buckner remembers; landowners that owned no slaves were considered “Po’ White Trash” and were scarcely recognized as citizens within the state of Kentucky.
Another tradition prevailed, that slave children should be presented to the master’s young sons and daughters and become their special property even in childhood. Adhering to that tradition the child, George Washington Buckner, became the slave of young Master Dickie Buckner, and although the two children were nearly the same age the little …[mixed race enslaved] boy was obedient to the wishes of the little master. Indeed, the slave child cared for the Caucasian boy’s clothing, polished his boots, put away his toys, and was his playmate and companion as well as his slave…
Dr. Buckner remembers that when a young daughter of his master married, his sister was given to her for a bridal gift and went away from her own mother to live in the young mistress’ new home. “It always filled us with sorrow when we were separated either by circumstances of marriage or death. Although we were not properly housed, properly nourished nor properly clothed we loved each other and loved our cabin homes and were unhappy when compelled to part.”…