Tag: First-Person

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Sarah Frances Shaw Graves

Sarah Frances Shaw Graves’ enslaver moved her from Kentucky to Missouri at a young age.  In this excerpt, she describes the term “allotment” and the process of hiring out an enslaved person.  She goes on to describe how her father was allotted to another enslaver when they were moved to Missouri, and how the enslavers would not tell her mother where her father was in order to encourage her to remarry and have children.
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Excerpt:

Yes ma’am. Allotted? Yes ma’am. I’m going to explain that, she replied. You see there were slave traders in those days, just like you got horse and mule and auto traders now. They bought and sold slaves and hired them out. Yes ma’am, rented them out. Allotted means something like hired out. But the slave never got any wages. That all went to the master. The man they were allotted to paid the master.  

I never was sold. My mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. Yes ma’am when a slave was allotted, somebody made a down payment and gave a mortgage for the rest. A chattel mortgage.  A down payment!!  Times don’t change, just the merchandise.  

Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves, Aunt Sally asserted. 

We left my papa in Kentucky, because he was allotted to another man. My papa never knew where my mama went, and my mama never knew where papa went. 

Aunt Sally paused a moment, then went on bitterly. They never wanted Mama to know, because they knew she would never marry so long as she knew where he was. Our master wanted her to marry again and raise more children to be slaves. They never wanted Mama to know where Papa was, and she never did, sighed Aunt Sally.  Only those who have lost their mate, and never know the end of the tale, can understand such heart anguish.  

Mama said she would never marry again to have children, continued Aunt Sally, so she married my step-father, Trattle Barber, because he was sick and could never be a father. He was so sick he couldn’t work, so me and mama had to work hard. 

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Sarah Frances Shaw Graves1850 (87)UnknownJimmie Shaw
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Skidmore, MOMissouriLouisville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, EconomicsFirst person, sold (family), hired out

Graves_S_1

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Sarah Frances Shaw Graves

Sarah Frances Shaw Graves’ enslaver moved her from Kentucky to Missouri at a young age.  In this excerpt, she gives details about what it’s like to be whipped by an enslaver.  She then tells a story of how she was blamed for something one of the enslaver’s children did, and was nearly whipped twice for this.
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Excerpt:

Yes ma’am. Some masters were good and some were bad. My mama’s master whipped his slaves for pastime. My master was not so bad as some were to their slaves. I’ve had many a whipping, some I deserved, and some I got for being blamed for doing things the master’s children did. My master whipped his slaves with a cat-o’-nine-tails. He’d say to me, ’You ain’t had a currying down for some time. Come here!!!’ Then he whipped me with the cat. The cat was made of nine strips of leather fastened onto the end of a whip. Lots of times when he hit me, the cat left nine stripes of blood on my back. Yes ma’am . . .

. . . I belong to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and I ain’t never cussed but once in my life, and that was one time I nearly got two whippings for something I didn’t do. Some of the master’s kin folks had a wedding, and we walked to the church, and somebody kicked dust on the bride’s clothes, and I got blamed but I never kicked it. The master’s daughter Puss, she kicked it. Ole mistress she whipped me. Yes ma’am, she whipped me. It was the worst whipping I ever got. The worst whipping in my whole life, and I still got the marks on my body. Yes ma’am. I have them yet.  When the master came home, he was going to whip me again, and I got mad and told him it was a lie, and if Puss said I kicked dust on the white folks she was a DAMNED LYIN’ DEVIL. He took the switch and gave Puss a whipping for telling a lie. Yes ma’am. That’s the only time I ever cussed in my life.  Yes ma’am, and that’s about all I know about slavery and folks’ ways hereabouts. 

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Sarah Frances Shaw Graves1850 (87)UnknownJimmie Shaw
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Skidmore, MOMissouriLouisville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
ViolenceFirst person, whipped

Graves_S_2

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Sarah Waggoner

Sarah Waggoner was a 93 year old formerly enslaved person.  She remembers a great deal about her life of enslavement.  In this excerpt she first describes how her enslaver worked her much harder late in the Civil War because she knew the enslaved were likely to be freed.  She then goes on to describe the work and the life she lived inside her enslavers’ house.
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Excerpt:

During the war, Old Miss kept telling me I had to help her put new cloth in the loom and when little Jane, that’s her little girl, wanted me to play, her mother would say, ’Sarey has to work fast now, because she is going to be free’.  Oh Lord, Miss, Sarey will never be free. But I was freed. 

Now I am going to tell you about home life. I worked in the house for Old Miss, and we had plenty to do and plenty to eat. When the white folks were through eating, I got a pan and got the grub, and sat on the floor and ate it. 

Oh Lordy, but I worked hard since I was twelve years old. But not in the fields. Old Miss said there was plenty for me to do in the house, and there was, sure enough.  I washed and cooked for all of us. And ironed too. I’d heat the irons, great big old irons, in the fireplace. I ironed on a quilt spread out on the floor, and I ironed just as nice as anybody. I lived right in the house with the white folks. In summer we slept, my brother Henry and me, in a trundle bed in the kitchen; and in the winter made a pallet beside the fireplace. Old Pap was good to us. He kept up a fire all night when it was cold. I never saw a cooking stove or a lace shoe until I was freed. We just had to burn our faces cooking over the fireplace. I milked eight cows and then put the milk away. That took a long time. They didn’t have horses then, much. They had a yoke of oxen. Sometimes some of us were hired out to work but we didn’t get any money for that ourselves. They drawed the wages.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Sarah Waggoner1844 (93)G.K. BartlettJim Howard
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Savannah, MOMissouriGrayson County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Gender/gender rolesFirst person, dialect, hired out

Waggoner_S_1

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Sebert Douglas

Sebert Douglas lived in Kentucky before and during the Civil War.  In this excerpt, he gives several brief recollections: of Morgan’s raid, enslaved persons who joined the Union Army, examples of KKK violence, and what he did after emancipation.
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Excerpt:

I remember [Confederate General John Hunt] Morgan’s Raid. I don’t remember what year it was but I remember a right smart about it. Cumberland Gap was where they met. The Rebs and Yankees both came and took things from old master. I remember three horses they took as well. Yankees had tents in the yard. They were in the yard right in front of the Methodist church.

My mother was Mrs. Hood’s slave, and when she married she took my mother along and I was born on her place. I was the carriage boy in slave times. My father did the driving and I was the waiting boy. I opened the gates.

I remember Billy Chandler and Lewis Rodman ran off and joined the Yankees but they came back after the war was over.

Pattyrollers were about the same as the Ku Klux. The Ku Klux would take the roof off the colored folks’ houses and take their bedding and make ’em go back where they came from.

We stayed right there with old master for two or three years, then we went to the country and farmed for ourselves.

I went to school just long enough to read and write. I never seen any use for figures until I married and went to farming.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Sebert Douglas82 years oldBernice BowdenGover Hood
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Pine Bluff, AKArkansasLebanon, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Violence,First person, dialect, Klan/mob violence, Union soldiers,

Douglas_S_1

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Sophia Word

Sophia word spent the first nearly 20 years of her life enslaved.  In this excerpt, she tells several stories of extreme cruelty and their results.  The first is an example of her being whipped for trying to take food from the kitchen of her enslaver.  The next set of stories describes the cruelty of a neighboring enslaver and the suicides of the enslaved that resulted from this treatment.
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Excerpt:

The mistress had an old parrot and one day I was in the kitchen making cookies. I decided I wanted some of them, so I took me out some and put them on a chair, and when I did this the mistress entered the door.  I picked up a cushion and threw it over the pile of cookies on the chair. Mistress came near the chair and the old parrot cries out, ‘Mistress burn, Mistress burn’, then the mistress looked under the cushion and she had me whipped.  But the next day I killed the parrot, and she often wondered who or what killed the bird.

My master wasn’t as mean as most masters. Hugh White was so mean to his slaves, that I know of two gals that killed themselves. One n***** gal, Sudie, was found across the bed with a pen knife in her hand. He whipped another N***** gal most to death for forgetting to put onions in the stew. The next day she went down to the river and for nine days they searched for her and her body finally washed upon the shore. The master could never live in that house again as when he would go to sleep he would see the n***** standing over his bed. Then he moved to Richmond and there he stayed until a little later when he hung himself.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Sophia Word1937 (99)Pearl HouseWilliam Reid
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clay County, KYKentuckyUnknown
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, violenceFirst person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty

Word_S_1

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Watt Jordan

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.
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Excerpt:

. . . 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 Jordan1857UnknownDick SpencerJordan
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clark County, OHOhioFleming County, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, EmancipationFirst person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty, bound out after war sold (family)

Jordan_W_1

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William Ball Williams, III

William Ball Williams, III fought for the Union army in the Civil War.  In this excerpt, he describes the experience of being a formerly enslaved person in the Union army and the fear he always lived in.
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Excerpt:

I ran away to Louisville to join the Yankees one day. I was scared to death all the time. They put us in front to shield themselves. They said they were fighting for us–for our freedom. Piles of them were killed. I got a flesh wound. I’m scarred up some. We got plenty to eat. I was in two or three hot battles. I wanted to quit but they would catch them and shoot them if they left. I didn’t know how to get out and get away. I mustered out at Jacksonville, Florida and walked every step of the way back. When I got back it was fall of the year. My folks were still at my master’s. I was on picket guard at Jacksonville, Florida. We fought a little at Pensacola, Florida.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Ball Williams, III98 years oldIrene RobertsonRobert Ball
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Forrest City, AKArkansasGreensburg, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil WarFirst Person, Union soldiers

Williams_W_1

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William Emmons

William Emmons spent much of his early life enslaved.  Here, he describes the process of traders who bought and sold enslaved people, and they bought and sold these people for various reasons, including breeding and to take advantage of struggling plantation owners who needed extra money.

*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:

Ole man Emmons had asked his family to never sell off any of the [   ] if they could help it, and never to sell any of them to [   ] traders. The traders were looked on as low, and they treated folks badly. Why I’ve seen slave traders buy up women and men for the purpose of breeding them just like animals, and they’d beat them if they didn’t do what they expected of them. The slave traders wanted strong children for work hands and they were all the time figuring to get a strong woman to carry out the plan for raising children that would sell really good. They would keep them and feed them for a few years and then sell them off to the highest bidder. There is no decency in such folks as them. 

Slavery was worse than most people could imagine, at best. The [   ] traders used to travel all over the country sometimes and buy up slaves from plantation owners who were almost ready to go down in debt. I’ve seen men chained together, and women being carried in wagons with their babies. Just taking them to market for sale like cattle.     

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Emmons1845 (93)UnknownRoy EmmonsRiggs
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Springfield, OHOhioNicholas, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
EconomicsFirst person, slave traders

Emmons_W_1

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William Emmons

William Emmons spent much of his early life enslaved.  He also fought in the Civil War, which he describes below, including being threatened while on the way to enlist, getting injured in battle, and the celebrations that followed the announcement of victory.  He finishes by describing briefly the work he did after emancipation.

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

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Excerpt:

I left and joined the army when I was 18. But forty of us from the plantation around near Carlisle went at the same time. When we went off for the army, going down a dusty road, three white fellers we knew came a riding up, and said, “Where are you [redacted] goin?”  We told them we were going to war and they tried to make us go back to the plantation. We told them we’d kill them sure if they kept on meddling with us, and they got scared and let us alone.    

In one the battles I got shot in the left hand, and I tied it up myself. The captain he noticed it one day, and he asked to see it. Then he sent me to the hospital. They thought they’d have to take my hand off, but I didn’t want them to that. So they kept me in the hospital for about thirty days and doctored it, and finally, I was back in the lines fighting.    

The day we were emancipated we were at Petersburg, Virginia, and I never heard as much shouting and hollering in my life. When the war was over, I went back to Emmonds plantation, and they asked me what I was going to do now that I was free. I told them I was going to work, but they told me no free [   ]could stay on the plantation.    

I went to Mason County and hired to a Major Read. He was an abolitionist and went about the country trying to get the plantation owners to hire the free slaves and help make good citizens of them. Major Read paid me $20.00 a month, and board and clothes. I was able to save a good little sum, and I left and went up to Ripley.    

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
William Emmons1845 (93)UnknownRoy EmmonsRiggs
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Springfield, OHOhioNicholas, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, EmancipationFirst person, Union soldiers

Emmons_W_2

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Alex Woodson

In this third person narrative, the interviewer first describes how Alex Woodson (who is referred to as “Uncle Alex”) was sold. The interviewer then documents several stories of enslaved people during the Civil War, before briefly referencing emancipation. 

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].  See more information.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

…[Alex Woodson] was a good-sized boy, possibly 7 years or more when Freedom was declared. His master was “Old Master” Sterrett who had about a 200-acre place and whose son in law Tom Williams ran a store on this place. When Williams married Sterrett’s daughter he was given Uncle Alex and his mother and brother as a present. Williams was then known as “Young Master.”

When war came Old Master gave his (Woodson’s) mother a big roll of bills, “greenbacks as big as your arm”, to keep for him, and was forced to leave the neighborhood. After the war… [Alex Woodson’s mother] returned the money to him intact.

Uncle Alex remembers his mother taking him and other children and running down the river bank and hiding in the woods all night when the soldiers came. They were [Confederate General] Morgan’s men and took all available cattle and horses in the vicinity and beat [searched] the woods looking for Yankee soldiers. Uncle Alex said he saw Morgan at a distance on his big horse and he “was sure a mighty fine looker.”

Sometimes the Yankee soldiers would come riding along and they took things too.

When the [Civil] War was over old Master came back home and the [redacted] continued to live on at the place as usual, except for a few [formerly enslaved people] that wanted to go North…

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Alex WoodsonUnknown (80-85)  Iris Cook“Old Master” Sterrett, Tom Williams 
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
New Albany, ININWoodsonville,  KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, EconomicsFirst Person, Third Person, Dialect, Sold, Hired Out, Hart County

Woodson_A_1

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