First-Person – Page 4 – Reckoning, Inc.

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Clay Reaves

Clav Reaves was born to an enslaved family very late in the Civil War. In this excerpt, he describes his earliest memories, while still living on the farm where he was born, after Emancipation. He describes his lineage with the enslavers, his mother’s life and why she stayed on the farm, and his search for his estranged father who changed his name after gaining freedom.

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Excerpt:

Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn’t tell you about him. He stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and left. He didn’t live with Mother ever again. I never did hear any reason. He went to Joe Night’s farm. He left me and a sister – older, but there was one dead between us. Mother raised us. She stayed on with the Reaves two years after he left. The last year she was there she hired to them. The only thing she ever did before freedom was cook and weave. She had her loom in the kitchen. It was a great big kitchen built off from the house and a portico joined it to the house. I used to lay up under her loom. It was warm there in winter time. I was the baby. I heard mother say some things I remember well.

She said she was never sold. She said the Reaves said her children need never worry, they would never be sold. We were Reaves from back yonder. Mother’s grandfather was a white man. She was a Reaves and her children are mostly Reaves. She was light. Father was about, might be a little darker than I am (mulatto). At times she worked in the field, but in rush time. She wove all the clothes on the place. She worked at the loom and I lay up under there all day long. Mother had three girls and five boys.

Mr. Reaves (we called him ‘master’) had two boys in the army. He was a real old man. He may have had more than two, but I know there was two gone off. The white folks lived in sight of the quarters. Their house was a big house and painted white. I’ve been in there. I’ve never seen any grandparents of mine – that I was allowed to claim kin with.

When I got up some size, I was allowed to go see my father. I went over to see him sometimes. After freedom, he went to where his brothers lived. They wanted him to change his name from Reaves to Cox and he did. He changed it from James Reaves to James Cox. But I couldn’t tell you if at one time they belong to Cox in Kentucky or if they belong to Cox in Tennessee or if they took on a name they liked.

I kept my name Reaves. I am a Reaves from start to finish. I was raised by mother and she was a Reaves. Her name was Olive Reaves. Her old mistress’ name was Charlotte Reaves, old master was Edmond Reaves

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Clay Reaves	Year Unknown (79)	Irene Robertson	Edmond Reaves

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Palestine, AR	Arkansas	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation	First Person, Bound out after war, breeding

Reaves_C_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie was enslaved on a small plantation with few slaves. In this excerpt, he describes the living conditions he and his family experienced.

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Excerpt:

Master Bogie owned about 200 acres of land in the eastern section of the county, and as far as I can remember there were only four slaves on the place. We lived in a one-room cabin, with a loft above, and this cabin was an old fashioned one about hundred yards from the house. We lived in one room, with one bed in the cabin. The one bed was an old fashioned, high post corded bed where my father and mother slept. My sister and I slept in a trundle bed, made like the big bed except the posts were made smaller and were on rollers, so it could be rolled under the big bed. There was also a cradle, made of a wooden box, with rockers nailed on, and my mother told me that she rocked me in that cradle when I was a baby. She used to sit and sing in the evening. She carded the wool and spun yarn on the old spinning wheel. My grandfather was a slave of Talton Embry, whose farm joined the Wheeler farm. He made shingles with a steel drawing knife that had a wooden handle. He made these shingles in Mr. Embry’s yard. I do not remember my grandmother, and I didn’t have to work in slave days, because my mother and father did all the work except the heavy farm work. My Mistus used to give me my winter clothes. My shoes were called brogans. My old master had shoes made. He would put my foot on the floor and mark around it for the measure of my shoes.

Most of the cooking was in an oven in the yard, over the bed of coals. Baked possum and groundhog in the oven, stewed rabbits, fried fish and fried bacon called streaked meat all kinds of vegetables, boiled cabbage, pone cornbread, and sorghum molasses. Old folks would drink coffee, but children would drink milk, especially buttermilk.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dan Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles	First Person

Bogie_D_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

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 Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles, Education, Literacy, Religion	First Person

Bogie_D_2

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, former enslaved person Dulcina Baker Martin describes Union soldiers raiding her enslavers’ farm for food and supplies, and her optimistic feelings about this experience.

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Excerpt:

When I lived with Ole Miss (enslaver), I remember a pack of soldiers coming and taking’ all the saddle and buggy horses, and only leaving one old brokedown nag in the barn. Ole Miss cried and cried, but there ain’t no use a crying’ after the colt is gone. The soldiers took all the meat from the smokehouse, and that was something awful, because we didn’t know what we were going to do for meat, for most folks was having’ the same thing happen.

It wasn’t so pleasant to have soldiers come and do things like that, but Mother, she says, she was always glad, because she felt the Union was being’ helped to win the war by us having enough to feed the soldiers.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation,	First Person, Union Troops

Martin_D_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, Dulcina Baker Martin recites a story her aunt told her about an enslaver who was presumed dead, and her grave raided by an enslaved person.

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Excerpt:

They used to talk about such things, like ghosts, and haints, and spirits. My aunt says, once there was a young Miss who died and her folks had buried her with lots of jewelry. One of the slaves looked hard and long at all that fine jewelry going into the ground. So when night comes, he goes to the graveyard and starts digging in the young Miss’ grave. When he came to the casket and opened it, and was taking a ring off of her hand, the young Miss spoke to him. He started running’, and she came up out of the grave and started running’ too. When she got to the house, the family knew she wasn’t dead as soon as they saw her, and they were sure glad, and day set the slave free and gave him a lot of money and a fine horse.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion, Violence	First person, dialect

Martin_D_2

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she describes several experiences she has had supporting women during pregnancy and while giving birth.

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Excerpt:

When I go on a baby case, I just let nature have its way. I always test the baby, the first thing I do is blow my breath in the baby’s mouth. I spank it just a little so it will cry and I give it warm catnip tea so if it is going to have the hives they will break out on it. I always have my own catnip and sheep balls, for some cases need one kind of tea and some another. I give sink field tea for the colic. It is just good for a young baby’s stomach. I have been granning for nigh under forty years and I only lost two babies that were born alive. One of these was the white man’s fault, this baby was born with the jaundice and I told this white man to go to the store and get me some calomel and he says, whoever heard of giving a baby such truck, and so that baby died.

Of course you can tell whether the baby is going to be a boy or girl before he is born. If the mother carries that child more on the left and high up, that baby will be a boy; and if she carries it more to the middle, that will be a girl. Mothers ought to be more careful while carrying their children not to get scared of anything, for they will sure mark their babies with terrible ugly things. I know once a young woman was expecting and she went blackberry hunting and a bull cow with long horns got after her and she was so scared that she threw her hands over her head. And when that baby boy was born he had two nubs on his head just like horns beginning to grow. So I had her call her doctor and they cut them off. One white woman I waited on liked hot chocolate and she always wanted more, she never had enough of that stuff, and one day she spills some on her leg and it just splotched and burned her and when that gal was born, she had a big brown spot on her leg just like her mammy’s scar from the burn. Now you see, I know you can mark the babies.

There was a colored woman once I waited on that had to help the white folks kill hogs and she never did like hog liver but the white folks told her to take one home and fix it for her supper. Well, she picked that thing up and started off with it and it made her feel creepy all over. And that night her baby was born, a gal child, and the print of a big hog-liver was standing out all over one side of her face. That side of her face is all blue and purplish and just the shape of a liver. And it’s still there.

I grannied over three hundred children and I know what I’m talking about.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Gender/Gender roles, Family, Equality	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she discusses her belief in ghosts and specific experiences she has had.

*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:

Sure there are ghosts. One night as I was going home from work, the tallest man I ever saw followed me with the prettiest white shirt on, and then he passed me and waited at the corner. I was feeling creepy and wanted to run but just couldn’t get my legs to move. When I got to the corner where he was, I said ‘Good Evening’ and I saw him plain as day and he did not speak and just disappeared right before my eyes.

…Once I had a dream, I knew I near about saw it. I always did cook every night a pot of beans on the fire for the children to eat next day while I was at work, and Lizzie, my daughter, used to get up in the night and get her some beans and eat them. And this dream was so real that I couldn’t tell if it was Lizzie or not, but this woman just glided by my bed and went afore the fire and stood there, then she just went twixt my bed and went by the wall. I just knew when I woke up that my child was sick that lived away from home and wanted my son to take me to see her. He said he would go himself and see, so he went, and when he came back he had a headache, and afore morning that [redacted] was dead. So you see, that was the sign of the dream. I was just warned in the dream and didn’t have sense enough to know it.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_2

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Edd Shirley

Edd Shirley was enslaved and sold to several enslavers in his life. In the excerpt below, he describes the different treatment the enslaved were given based on their masters. Specifically, he recalls several examples of violence against the enslaved.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [people]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

I am 97 years old and am still working as a janitor and supporting my family. My father was a white man and my mother was a colored lady. I was owned three different times, or rather was sold to three different families. I was first owned by the Waldens; then I was sold to a man by the name of Jackson, of Glasgow, Kentucky. Then my father, of this county, bought me.

I have had many slave experiences. Some slaves were treated good, and some were treated awful bad by the white people; but most of them were treated good if they would do what their master told them to do.

I once saw a light colored gal tied to the rafters of a barn, and her master whipped her until blood ran down her back and made a large pool on the ground. And I have seen n***o men tied to stakes drove in the ground and whipped because they would not mind their master; but most white folks were better to their slaves and treated them better than they are now. After their work in the fields was finished on Saturday, they would have parties and have a good time. Some old n***o man would play the banjo while the young people would dance and sing. The white folks would set around and watch; and would sometimes join in and dance and sing.

My colored grandfather lived to be 115 years old, and at that age he was never sick in his life. One day he picked up the water bucket to go to the spring, and as he was on his way back he dropped dead.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Edd Shirley	Unknown (97)	Lenneth Jones	Walden

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Monroe County, KY	Kentucky	unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, sold (self or family), enslaver father

Shirley_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Eli Coleman

Eli Coleman was born in 1846 and has a long memory of enslavement. In this excerpt he describes what it was like to serve alongside his enslaver in 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.

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Excerpt:

Master was a colonel in the war and took me along to care for his horse and gun. Those guns, you couldn’t hear anything popping. We [redacted] had to go all over and pick up those who were killed. The hurt we carried back. Those too badly hurt we had to carry to the burying place and the White man would finish killing them, so we could roll them in the hole.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Eli Coleman	1846 (91)	Unknown	George Brady

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Texas	Texas	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Union Troops

Coleman_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Eli Coleman

Eli Coleman was born in 1846 and has a long memory of enslavement. He also lived a long life after Emancipation. In this excerpt, he describes his experiences immediately after being freed, and his ultimate move to Texas from Kentucky. He also reflects on the state of African Americans in the early 20th century, notably discussing sharecropping as re-enslavement.

*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:

When Master said we were free, we all began to take on. We didn’t have no place to go and asked Master could we stay, but he said no. But he did let some stay and furnished teams and something to eat, and work on the halves. I stayed and was sharecropper, and that was when slavery started, for when we got our crop made, it took every bit of it to pay our debts and we had nothing left to buy winter clothes or pay doctor bills.

. . . I’d heard the railroad was building in Texas and they hire lots of [redacted]. I get a horse from Master, and roll up a few clothes and get my gun. I never got very far before the Indians took my horse away from me. It was about fifty miles to a train and I didn’t have any money, but I found a White man who wanted wood cut and I work near a month for him and get $2.00. I get on a train and come a hundred miles from where that railroad was going across the country, and I had to walk near all that hundred miles. Once and now a White man coming or going let me ride. But I got there, and the job pays me sixty cents a day. That was lots of money those days. Near as I remember, it was 1867 or 1868 when I came to Texas.

. . . Since the [redacted] been free it’s been Hell on the poor old [redacted]. He has advanced some ways, but he’s still a servant and will be, long as God’s curse still stay on the [redacted] race. We were turned loose with nothing and have been under the White man’s rule so long we couldn’t hold any job but labor. I worked almost two years on that railroad and the rest my life I farmed. Now I get a little pension from the government and the White folks are sure good to give it to me, because I ain’t good for work no more.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Eli Coleman	1846 (91)	Unknown	George Brady

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Texas	Texas	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Sharecropping,	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Union Troops,

Coleman_E_2

Tag: First-Person

Clay Reaves

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie

Dulcina Baker Martin

Dulcina Baker Martin

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell

Edd Shirley

Eli Coleman

Eli Coleman

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