Tag: First-Person

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George Fordman

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. 
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Excerpt:

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 FordmanUnknown (Unknown)Lauana CreelFord George
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Evansville, ININAL or KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Education, Emancipation, Family, ViolenceTrigg County, First Person, Enslaver Father, Notable

Fordman_G_2

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George Fordman

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 this excerpt the interviewer recounts the words of George Fordman as he describes the “dark trail” of his childhood, in which the reader learns that George Fordman’s enslaver was his father and his grandfather.  At several points in the interview, the interviewer inserts their own narrative and conclusions. 

Teachers may need to warn students before reading that this excerpt refers to an enslaver incestuously raping an enslaved person.  The excerpt also references an enslaver’s death.  
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Excerpt:

…As Eliza George, daughter of [enslaver] Ford George and [indigneous enslaved person] Courtney Hawk, grew into young womanhood the young master Ford George went more often to social functions. He was admired for his skill with firearms and for his horsemanship. While Courtney and his child remained at the plantation Ford enjoyed the companionship of the beautiful women of the vicinity. At last he brought home the beautiful Loraine, his young bride. Courtney was stoical as only an Indian can be. She showed no hurt but helped Mistress Hester and Mistress Loraine with the housework.

Here George Fortman paused to let his blinded eyes look back into the long ago. Then he again continued with his story of the dark trail.

Mistress Loraine became mother of two sons and a daughter and the big white two-story house… [in Kentucky] became a place of laughter and happy occasions, so my mother told me many times.

Suddenly sorrow settled down over the home and the laughter turned into wailing, for Ford George’s body was found pierced through the heart and the… [half white, half indigenous] Eliza, was nowhere to be found.

The young master’s body lay in state for many days. Friends and neighbors came bringing flowers. His mother, bowed with grief, looked on the still face of her son and understood—understood why death had come and why Eliza had gone away.

The beautiful home on the Cumberland river with its more than 600 acres of productive land was put into the hands of an administrator of estates to be readjusted in the interest of the George heirs. It was only then Mistress Hester went to Aunt Lucy and demanded of her to tell where Eliza could be found.

‘She has gone to Alabama, Ole Mistus’, said Aunt Lucy, ‘Eliza was scared to stay here.’ A party of searchers were sent out to look for Eliza. They found her secreted in a canebrake in the lowlands of Alabama nursing her baby boy at her breast. They took Eliza and the baby back to Kentucky. I am that baby, that child of unsatisfactory birth.

The face of George Fortman registered sorrow and pain, it had been hard for him to retell the story of the dark road to strange ears.

My white uncles had told Mistress Hester that if Eliza brought me back they were going to build a fire and put me in it, my birth was so unsatisfactory to all of them, but Mistress Hester always did what she believed was right and I was brought up by my own mother.

We lived in a cabin at the slave quarters and mother worked in the broom cane. Mistress Hester 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..

[The following is the conclusion of the interviewer:] The truth had been told at last. The master was both the father of Eliza and the father of Eliza’s son…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
George FordmanUnknown (Unknown)Lauana CreelFord George
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Evansville, ININAL or KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, Violence, Resistance, EscapeTrigg County, First Person, Enslaver Father, Notable

Fordman_G_1

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Celia Henderson

Celia Henderson moved from Louisville, Kentucky to Natchez, Mississippi when her enslaved mother was sold to pay off the enslaver’s debt.  In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts Celia Henderson’s memories about religion in the first person.  

*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:

…Never no church for colored people does I remember in Natchez. One time There was a drought, and the water we hauled from way over to the river. Now that was down right work, hauling that water. There was an old man, he was powerful in prayer, and gathered the darkies under a big tree, and we all kneeled down while he prayed for the poor beasts what needs good clean water for to drink. That was a pretty sight, that church meeting under the big tree. I always remember that, and how that day he found a spring with his old cane, just like a miracle after prayer. It was a pretty sight to see my cows and all the cattle trotting for that water. The men dug out a round pond for the water to run up into, out of the spring, and it was good water that wouldn’t make the beasts sick, and we-all was sure happy.

…I was baptized by a white minister in Louisville, and I’ve been a Baptist for sixty years now. Yes ma’am. There are plenty of colored churches in Louisville now, but when I was young, the white folks had to see to it that we [enslaved people] were Baptised and knew Bible verses and hymns. There weren’t smart [redacted] preachers like Reverend Williams … and there ain’t so many now…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Celia Henderson Unknown (Unknown)Miriam LoganGrohagen
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Lebanon, OHOHHardin County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
ReligionHardin County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders

Henderson_C_2

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Celia Henderson

Celia Henderson moved from Louisville, Kentucky to Natchez, Mississippi when her enslaved mother was sold to pay off the enslaver’s debt.   In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts Celia Henderson’s memories about the Civil War in the first person. Teachers may need to help students navigate the comparison at the end of the excerpt as a critique of how poorly Blacks were treated at the time of the interview rather than wishing she were still enslaved
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Excerpt:

… All I remember about the close of the war, was that white folks were broken up and poor down there at Natchez (Mississippi); and the first time I heard the EMANCIPATION read out, There was a lot of prancing around, and a big time.

I saw soldiers in blue down there in Natchez on the hill, once I saw them coming down the road when I was driving my cows up the road. I was scared sure, and I hid in the bushes on the side of the road until they went by. I don’t remember that my cows were much scared though. Mammy sais better hide when you see soldiers marching by, so that time a whole line of them came along, I hid…

 …Yes ma’am, most I ever earned was five dollars a week. I get twenty dollars now, and pay eight dollars for rent. We got no more–I figure –a working for ourselves than what we’d have were we slaves, for they give you a log house, and clothes, and you eat all you want to, and when you buy things, maybe you don’t make enough to get you what you need, working sun-up to sun down… 

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Celia HendersonUnknown (Unknown)Miriam LoganGrohagen
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Lebanon, OHOHHardin County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Emancipation, Economics, Civil WarHardin County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders

Henderson_C_1

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Caroline Wright

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.
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Excerpt:

…  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 WrightUnknown (about 90)UnknownHayes White, Miss Muriel, Dr. Warren and Annie Wortham
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Waco, TXTXJones Creek by Baton Rouge, LA
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Education, ReligionFirst Person, Third Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Hired Out

Wright_C_1

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Carl Boone

Carl Boone’s parents were both enslaved people who gained their freedom in 1829, and Carl Boone was born a free man in 1850. In this excerpt, the interviewer records an example of an enslaver named Daniel Thompson brutally killing an enslaved person.  In what Carl Boone describes as Daniel Thompson’s “punishment for this terrible deed,” the excerpt goes on to describe the death of Daniel Thomspon’s son. These stories are told to the interviewer by Carl Boone, who is retelling stories he heard from his father. The interviewer notes that he is documenting Carl Boone’s story “word by word.” 
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Excerpt:

…I was born a free man, fifteen years before the close of the Civil War. All the colored folk on plantations and farms around our plantation were slaves and most of them were terribly mistreated by their masters…

The most terrible treatment of any slave, is told by my father in a story of a slave on a neighboring plantation, owned by Daniel Thompson. “After committing a small wrong, Master Thompson became angry, tied his slave to a whipping post and beat him terribly. Mrs. Thompson begged him to quit whipping, saying, ‘you might kill him,’ and the master replied that he aimed to kill him. He then tied the slave behind a horse and dragged him over a fifty acre field until the slave was dead. As a punishment for this terrible deed, master Thompson was compelled to witness the execution of his own son, one year later. The story is as follows:

A neighbor to Mr. Thompson, a slave owner by name of Kay Van Cleve, had been having some trouble with one of his young male slaves, and had promised the slave a whipping. The slave was a powerful man and Mr. Van Cleve was afraid to undertake the job of whipping him alone. He called for help from his neighbors, Daniel Thompson and his son Donald. The slave, while the Thompsons were coming, concealed himself in a horse-stall in the barn and hid a large knife in the manger.

After the arrival of the Thompsons, they and Mr. Van Cleve entered the stall in the barn. Together, the three white men made a grab for the slave, when the slave suddenly made a lunge at the elder Mr. Thompson with the knife, but missed him and stabbed Donald Thompson.

The slave was overpowered and tied, but too late, young Donald was dead.

The slave was tried for murder and sentenced to be hanged. At the time of the hanging, the first and second ropes used broke when the trap was sprung. For a while the executioner considered freeing the slave because of his second failure to hang him, but the law said, “He shall hang by the neck until dead,” and the third attempt was successful.”

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Carl Boone1850 (87)Robert C. IrvinMiley Boone (Carl’s father’s enslaver)
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Anderson, ININMarion County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Resistance, ViolenceFirst Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Marion County

Boone_C_1

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Betty Guwn

Betty Guwn was an enslaved person on a tobacco plantation in Kentucky.  When her enslaver traveled to Mississippi to do business, he hid his money on Betty Guwn so he would not be robbed.  The interviewer begins by narrating background information provided by Betty Guwn. In the second half of the excerpt, the interviewer uses italics to show that Betty Guwn’s own words are being recorded. 
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Excerpt:

… [Betty Guwn’s] master was very wealthy. He owned and managed a cotton farm of two thousand acres down in Mississippi, not far from New Orleans. Once a year he spent three months there gathering and marketing his cotton. When he got ready to go there he would call all his slaves about him and give them a chance to volunteer. They had heard awful tales of the slave auction block at New Orleans, and the Master would solemnly promise them that they should not be sold if they went down [to Mississippi] of their own accord. 

[The interviewer used italics to show this part of the interview is in the words of Betty Guwn.] My Mistress called me to her and privately told me that when I was asked that question I should say to him: “I will go”. The Master had to take much money with him and was afraid of robbers. The day they were to start my Mistress took me into a private room and had me remove most of my clothing; she then opened a strong box [safe] and took out a great roll of money in bills; these she strapped to me in tight bundles, arranging them around my waist in the circle of my body. She put plenty of dresses over this belt and when she was through I wore a bustle of money clear around my belt. I made a funny figure, but no one noticed my odd shape because I was a slave and no one expected a slave to “know better”. We always got through safely and I went down with my Mistress every year. Of course my husband stayed at home to see after the family, and took them to the fields when too young to work under the task master, or overseer. Three months was a long time to be separated.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Betty Guwn1832 (105)UnknownUnknown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Muncie, ININCanton, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Third Person, EconomicsFirst Person, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow

Guwn_B_2

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Betty Guwn

Betty Guwn was an enslaved person on a tobacco plantation in Kentucky.  The interviewer begins by narrating background information provided by Betty Guwn about how enslavers negotiated the marriage of enslaved people. In the second half of the excerpt, the interviewer uses italics to show that Betty Guwn’s own words are being recorded.  In this portion of the excerpt, Betty Guwn recounts how her husband fought for the Union during the Civil War and her emancipation.  
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Source Description:

Mrs. Betty Guwn was born March 25, 1832, as a slave on a tobacco plantation, near Canton, Kentucky. It was a large plantation whose second largest product was corn. She was married while quite young by the slave method which was a form of union customary between the white masters. If the contracting parties were of different plantations the masters of the two estates bargained and the one sold his rights to the one on whose plantation they would live. Her master bought her husband, brought him and set them up in a shack. Betty was the personal attendant of the Mistress. The home was a large Colonial mansion and her duties were many and responsible. However, when her house duties were caught up her mistress sent her immediately to the fields. Discipline was quite stern there and she was “lined up” [to be beaten or whipped] with the others on several occasions…

[The interviewer used italics to show this part of the interview is in the words of Betty Guwn.]  When the Civil War came on there was great excitement among us slaves. We were watched sharply, especially soldier timber [enslaved people likely to be selected for fighting] for either army. My husband ran away early and helped [Union General] Grant to take Fort Donaldson. He said he would free himself, which he did; but when we were finally set free all our family prepared to leave, the Master begged us to stay and offered us five pounds of meal and two pounds of pork jowl each week if we would stay and work. We all went to Burgard, Kentucky, to live. At that time I was about 34 years old…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Betty Guwn1832 (105)UnknownUnknown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Muncie, ININCanton, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Third Person, Civil War, Marriage, Family, EconomicsFirst Person, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow

Guwn_B_1

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Bert Mayfield

The interviewer chose to record this interview with Bert Mayfield in the first person.  In the excerpt, Bert Mayfield tells the story of an enslaved person who escaped, but was later enslaved again.  The excerpt concludes with Bert Mayfield’s thought on emancipation and Lincoln. 
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Excerpt:

…There was no slave jail on the Stone place, and I never saw a slave sold or auctioned off. I was told that one of our slaves ran off and was gone for three years. Some white person wrote him to come home that he was free. He was making his own way in Ohio and stopped in Lexington, Kentucky for breakfast; while there he was asked to show his Pass papers which he did, but they were forged so he was arrested. Investigators soon found that his owner was Mr. Stone who did not wish to sell him and sent for him to come home…[Mr. Stone sent a White man to bring the enslaved man back to the plantation] … but instead he sold him to a southern slave trader… 

I received the first news of freedom joyfully. I went to old man Onstott’s to live. I lived there two or three years. I think Abe Lincoln a great man. He did not believe in slavery and would have paid the southern people for their slaves if he had lived…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Bert Mayfield1852 (Unknown)Eliza IsonSmith Stone
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKYBryantsville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Garrard County, Lincoln, First Person, Resistance, Slave Trader, Emancipation

Mayfield_B_1

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Belle Robinson

The interviewer chose to recount Belle Robinson’s story in the first person after a brief introduction.  In this excerpt, Mrs. Robinson describes the little she remembers about life as an enslaved person, which she refers to as “the slave days.”  Teachers may need to help students interpret this account which presents a rather benign view of slavery by noting the Belle Robinson’s age when she was enslaved, how much time had passed since then, and the context of the interview.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

I [the interviewer] found Aunt Belle sitting on the porch… When I went to her and told her who I was and the reason for my visit her face beamed with smiles and she said “Lordy, it has been so long that I have forgotten nearly everything I knew”… Aunt Belle tells me:

…I was born June 3rd, 1853… Harrison Brady bought me from Ole Miss Nancy Graham and when Mr. Brady died and his property was sold Mrs. Brady bought me back; and she always said that she paid $400 for me. I lived in that family for three generations, until every one of them died. I was the only child and had always lived at the big house with my missus. I wore the same kind of clothes and ate the same kind of food the white people ate. My mother and father lived at the cabin in the yard and my mother did the cooking for the family. My father did the work on the farm with the help that was hired from the neighbors. I was too young to remember much about the slave days, but I never heard of any slaves of the neighbors being punished. My missus always took me to the Baptist Church with her. I do not remember any preacher’s names or any songs they sang.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Belle Robinson1853 (Unknown)Eliza IsonNancy Graham, Harrison and Mrs. Brady
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Garrard County, KYKYLancaster, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Garrard County, ReligionFirst Person, Dialect, Sold

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