Tag: Slave Trader

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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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Barney Stone

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.  The interviewer notes that Barney Stone had a “remarkable memory,” which is evident in the excerpt below where Barney Stone recounts multiple examples of his enslaver’s brutal treatment of enslaved people. In this excerpt, Barney Stone recounts how his enslaver sold his sister, mother and brother.  The excerpt ends with Barney Stone  reuniting with his mother and brother. 

*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 would never sell me because I was regarded as the best young slave on the plantation. Different from many other slaves, I was kept on the plantation from the day I was born until the day I ran away…

Many times, as I have said before, our treatment on our plantation was horrible. When I was just a small boy, I witnessed my sister sold and taken away. One day one of the horses came into the barn and master noticed that she was crippled. He flew into a rage and thought I had hurt the horse, either that, or that I knew who did it. I told him that I did not do it and he demanded that I tell him who did it, if I didn’t. I did not know and when I told him so, he secured a whip tied me to a post and whipped me until I was covered with blood. I begged him, “Master, master, please don’t whip me, I do not know who did it.” He then took out his pocket knife and I would have been killed if Missus (his dear wife) had not made him quit. She untied me and cared for me.

Many has been the time, I have seen my mammy beaten mercilessly and for no good reason. One day, not long before the out-break of the Civil War, a [redacted] buyer came and I witnessed my dear Mammy and my one year old baby brother, sold. I saw her taken away, never to see her again until I found her twenty-seven years later at Clarksburg, Tennessee. My baby brother was with her, but I did not know him until Mammy told me who he was, he had grown into a large man. That was a happy meeting. 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.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Barney Stone1847 (91)Robert C. IrvinLemuel Stone
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Noblesville, INKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Family, Violence, Escape, ResistanceFirst Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County

Stone_B_3

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Barney Stone

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.  The interviewer notes that Barney Stone had a “remarkable memory,” which is evident in the excerpt below where Barney Stone explains the practice of buying and selling enslaved people. 

*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:

My master was a hard man when he was angry, drinking, or not feeling well, then at times he was kind to us. I was compelled to pick cotton and do other work when I was a very small boy. Master would never sell me because I was regarded as the best young slave on the plantation. Different from many other slaves, I was kept on the plantation from the day I was born until the day I ran away.

Slaves were sold in two ways, sometimes at private sale to a man who went about the Southland buying slaves until he has many in his possession, then he would have a big auction sale and would re-sell them to the highest bidder, much in the same manner as our live-stock [farm animals] are sold now in auction sales… He came to the plantation with a doctor. He would point out two or three slaves which looked good to him and which could be spared by the owner, and would have the doctor examine the slave’s heart. If the doctor pronounced the slave as sound, then the [redacted] buyer would make an offer to the owner and if the amount was satisfactory, the slave was sold. Some large plantation owners, having a large number of slaves, would hold a public auction and dispose of some of them, then he would attend another sale and buy new slaves, this was done sometimes to get better slaves and sometimes to make money on the sale of them.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Barney Stone1847 (91)Robert C. IrvinLemuel Stone
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Noblesville, INKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
EconomicsFirst Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County

Stone_B_2

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Barney Stone

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.
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Source Description:

… 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 Stone1847 (91)Robert C. IrvinLemuel Stone
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Noblesville, INKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Literacy, EducationFirst Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County

Stone_B_1

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Armstead Barrett

The interviewer chose to record this interview as a first person narrative. In this excerpt, Armstead Barrett describes how his enslaver treated enslaved people.  Students may need help navigating the seeming inconsistencies in this excerpt, as Armstead Barrett states that the “master was good to us,” while also noting that his enslaver was making money selling enslaved people and did not provide enslaved people with basic necessities like clothing.  Armstead Barrett then goes on to recount how two enslaved people were brutally treated by an overseer, who they later killed.
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Excerpt:

…Old master had a doctor for us when we were sick. We were too valuable. Just like the fat beef, master was good to us. Master would go to other states and get men and women and child slaves and bring them back to sell, because he was a speculator [a person who bought and sold enslaved people to make money]. He’d make them wash up good and then sell them.

Most time we went naked. Just have on one shirt or no shirt at all…

I remember a owner had some slaves and the overseer had it in for two of them. He’d whip them near every day, and they did all they could to please him.  So one day he comes to the field and calls one of them slaves, and that slave drops his hoe and goes over and grabs that overseer. Then the other slave cut that overseer’s head right slap off and threw it down one of the rows. The owner he fools around and sells them two slaves for $800.00 each and that is all the punishment them two slaves ever got.

Interviewee 
Formerly enslaved person		Birth Year (Age)Interviewer
WPA Volunteer		Enslaver’s Name
Armstead Barrett1847 (Unknown)UnknownStafford Barrett
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
TXTXHuntsville, TX
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Overseer, Resistance, Violence, EconomicsFirst Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, 

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