In this interview, the interviewer recounts the life of Jenny McKee in the third person, referring to her as “Aunt Jenny.” In this excerpt, the interviewer documents how Jenny McKee was either sold or given away by her step-father to a Black woman, whose husband fought for the Union 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.
…During the [Civil] War, her mother died with cholera, and after the war, her step-father sold or gave her away to an old [redacted] lady by the name of Tillet, her husband was a captain from the 116th regiment from Manchester [the 116th United States Colored Infantry Regiment was made up of Black soldiers who served under white officers and fought for the Union during the Civil War].
They had no children and so Aunt Jenny was given or sold to Martha Tillet. Aunt Jenny still has the paper that was written with her adoption…the paper was exactly as written below:
White Ranch
September 10, 1866
To Whom it may concern, I, John Redman has this day given my consent that Mrs. Martha Tillet can have my child Jenny Redman to raise and own as her child, that I shall not claim and take her away at any time in the future.
x
John Redman
his mark
She has a picture in her possession of Captain Tillet in war costume and with his old rifle. After the war the Tillets were sent back to Manchester where he was mustered out, Aunt Jenny being with them. “I stayed with them,” Aunt Jenny said, “until I was married Dec. 14, 1876, to David McKee another soldier of the 116th regiment”. She draws a pension now from his services…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Jenny McKee
Unknown (about 85)
Unknown
Martha Tillet
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Laurel County, KY
KY
TX
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Union Troops
First Person, Sold, Enslaver Father, Veteran or Widow
The interviewer recounts her interview with Peter Bruner in the third person. Enslaver John Bell Bruner was “very cruel” to Peter Bruner. John Bell Bruner and his wife frequently whipped Peter Bruner and never gave him enough to eat. In the excerpt below, the interviewer describes Peter Bruner frequent attempts to escape, including his successful escape after which he enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War.
…Peter endured torture as long as he could and finally decided to escape. He went to Richmond, Kentucky on to Lexington. On his way, he made a contract with a man to drive his horses to Orleans, but was caught while in Lexington. On his way, they caught him and took him to jail and he remained until his master came for him. This did not down him, for just as soon as he could he escaped again, and this time got as far as Xenia, Ohio, but was again caught and brought back. This time he was severely beaten for three hours.
When 17 years old, Peter was hired out to Jimmy Benton, who was more cruel than John Bruner, but was again brought back. It was then that he tried again to escape… This was about the year 1861, when the war had begun. Again he was caught and taken back…. He escaped several times but never could seem to get anywhere. Once when he and another slave, Phil, escaped they were caught and made to walk the entire distance barefoot. After this Peter was chained each night to a chair. One morning while eating his breakfast he heard a knock at the door and on opening it he found a troop of Union Home Guards. Jim Benton and John Bruner were taken to prison…
When John Bruner was taken from [released from] Prison, he was much better to Peter. Soon after John was released from Prison, Peter escaped again. This time he had joined a regiment in the war. He went through hardships, cold, hunger, and illness…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Peter Bruner
1845 (91)
Evelyn McLemore
John Bell Bruner
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Estill County, KY
KY
Winchester, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Escape, Resistance, Violence
Estill County, Clark County, Third Person, Whipped, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Hired Out
…After I [Susan Dale Sanders] grew up, I worked for Mrs. Susan Lovell, who was the ole master’s married daughter. She lived down the road from his farm. She was good to me! You see I was named after Susan Lovell. It was while I was working for her when the [Civil] war ended. She told me I was free after the war was over. I got happy and sang, but I didn’t know for a long time what to be free was, so after the war she hired me and I stayed on doing all the cooking and washing and all the work, and I was hired by her for four dollars a month…
The interviewer records this interview with Nannie Eaves in the first person. Both Nannie Eaves and her husband Ben Eaves fathers were their enslavers. Their father’s were brothers, making Nannie and her husband first cousins. In this excerpt, Nannie Eaves explains this relationship and how it impacted her life while enslaved. Nannie Eaves also references her husband’s service during the Civil War and slave traders.
…I guess I was about twenty one years old when I was freed. I was never once treated as a slave because my master was my very own Daddy. Ben Eaves, my husband, was a slave and child of George Eaves, my master’s brother. He ran away from his master and Daddy and joins the U.S. [Union] Army during the Secess War [the Civil War] and is now drawing a pension from Uncle Sam. I’m sure glad that he had sense enough to go that way [since his pension provides her with money to survive]…
…We had two slave traders in this town. They were Judge Houston and his son-in-law, Dr. Brady. They gathered up all the slaves that were unruly or that people wanted to trade and housed them in an old barn until they had enough to take to New Orleans on a boat. They traded them down there for work in the cotton fields.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Nannie Eaves
Unknown (91)
Unknown
William Eaves
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
KY
KY
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Slave Traders
McLean County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow
In this interview, recorded in the first person, the interviewer recounts how Susan Dale Sanders’s parents were enslaved people who lived on separate plantations.
…The next farm close to the master’s was owned by a man, Colonel Jack Allen, and he had a big farm and owned lots of slaves. And Mammy was allowed to marry one of the Allen slaves, and my father’s name was Will Allen. You see the slaves had the same name as the masters, as he owned them. My mammy had seven children and we all grew up on our master Dales farm. My father had to stay at his master’s, Col. Jack Allen’s, and work in the fields all day, but at night he would come to my mammy’s cabin and stay all night, and go back to his master’s, Col. Allen’s fields the next morning…
George Conrad was an enslaved person on a 900 acre farm in Kentucky. Mr. Conrad enlisted in the army in 1883 and took part in the fighting with American Indians during that time. In this excerpt, he describes an example attempts by the US Army to force assimilation on Indians in Oklahoma.
I laid there ’til August 8, then we changed regiments with the 5th Calvary to go to Nebraska. There was a breakout with the Indians at Ft. Reno the 1st of July 1885. The Indian Agency tried to make the Indians wear citizens’ clothes. They had to call General Sheridan from Washington, D. C., to quiet the Indians down. Now, we had to make a line in three divisions, fifteen miles a part, one non-commissioned officer to each squad, and these men was to go to Caldwell, Kansas and bring him to Ft. Reno that night. He came that night, so the next morning Colonel Brisbane and General Hatch reported to General Sheridan what the trouble was. General Sheridan called all the Indian Chiefs together and asked them why they rebelled against the agency, and they told them they weren’t going to wear citizen’s clothes. General Sheridan called his corporals and sergeants together and told them to go behind the guard house and dig a grave for this Indian agent in order to fool the Indian Chiefs. Then, he sent a detachment of soldiers to order the Indian Chiefs away from the guard house and to put this Indian agent in the ambulance that brought him to Ft. Reno and take him back to Washington, D. C., to remain there ’til he returned. The next morning he called all the Indian Chiefs to the guard house and pointed down to the grave and said that, “I have killed the agent and buried him there.” The Indians tore the feathers out of their hats rejoicing that they killed the agent.
Almost 107 at the time she was interviewed, the interviewer notes that Patsy Jane Bland remembered a great deal about life as an enslaved person. Patsy Jane Bland was sold twice as an enslaved person and had four children when the Civil War began. In this excerpt, recorded in the third person, the interviewer recounts Patsy Jane Bland’s education, memories of a white wedding, and emancipation.
…She [Patsy Jane Bland] had to work, too, for life was not all play and she recalls sitting at the feet of her little mistress and learning to spell out her letters until the mother of the white child decided that she was getting too smart and she had to stop, until she was married to her last and fourth husband, who taught her some more…
[Patsy Jane Bland remembers a wedding of white people at the enslaver’s home.] The wedding preparations began days in advance with the saving of chickens and eggs and butter. The liveliest egg-beating, butter creaming, raisin stoning, sugar pounding, cake icing, coconut scraping, and grating, Jelly straining, silver cleaning, egg frothing, floor rubbing, pastry making, ruffle crimping, tarlatan smoothing, trunk moving time you ever saw, and the peeping at the bride with her long veil and train, and the guests the whole army of slaves turned out to help.
Aunt Patsy remembers the night before the wedding when they all gathered in the quarter to sing every song they knew over and over again, celebrating the leaving of the bride for Virginia and how Young Miss died soon after her big wedding and was buried in her bridal dress…
Already the mother of four when the Civil War began, Patsy remembered seeing soldiers, and “because they were scared,” the slaves ran from them and hid out. She remembered the day all the blacks on her plantation were set free. There was shouting and crying; there was joy and sadness. She said many blacks did not want to leave the plantation to go out into a world of which they knew nothing. Patsy, though, gathered her four children around her, and with her husband, who was named Wilson, left the plantation. When the fieldworker asked if she was happier free, Patsy looked off into the distance and said, “Free? Is anybody ever free? Isn’t everybody you know a slave to someone or something or other?”
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Patsy Jane Bland
1830 (106)
Anna Bowles Wiley
William Kettering, Charles Morgan, John Boyle
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Terre Haute, IN
IN
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Education, Marriage (Whites), Emancipation
Shelby County, Third Person, Whipped, Sold, Veteran or Widow,
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 shares the story of how the enslavers of John Eubanks allowed him to join the Union army during the Civil War, how John Eubanks enlisted, and his experience returning after the war.
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 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.]
Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, when the north seemed to be losing, someone conceived the idea of forming negro regiments and as an inducement to the slaves, they offered them freedom if they would join the Union forces. John’s mistress and master told him that if he wished to join the Union forces, he had their consent and would not have to run away like other slaves were doing. At the beginning of the war, John was twenty-one years of age. When Lincoln freed the slaves by his Emancipation Proclamation, John was promptly given his freedom by his master and mistress.
John decided to join the northern army which was located at Bowling Green, Kentucky, a distance of thirty-five miles from Glasgow where John was living. He had to walk the entire thirty-five miles…
[The interview lists the battle John Eubanks fought in during the Civil War, then describes return home after the Civil War ended.] Upon his return to Glasgow, Ky, he saw for the first time in six years, his mother and other members of his family who had returned free.
[Part 2: What follows is a different version of the interview, recorded by the same interviewer, but this time in the first person. Below are excerpts that cover the same topics described in Part 1.]
I was twenty-one when war broke out. Master Eubanks said to me, ‘You all don’t need to run away if you all want to join up with the army.’ He’d say, ‘There would be a fine if slaves ran off. You all don’t have to run off, go right on and I do not pay that fine.’ He said, ‘Enlist in the army but don’t run off.’
Now, I walk thirty-five miles from Glasgow to Bowling Green to this place—to the enlisting place—from home for miles—to Glasgow—to Bowling Green, thirty-five miles. On the road I meet up with two boys, so we go on. They ran away from Kentucky, and we go together.
Then some Bushwackers [during the Civil War, these were people who supported the Confederacy in states that remained in the Union (like Kentucky) and practiced guerilla warfare even though they usually were not in the Confederate army.] come down the road. We were scared and ran to the woods and hid. As we ran through the woods, pretty soon we heard chickens crowing. We filled our pockets with stones. We were going to kill chickens to eat. Pretty soon we heard a man holler, ‘You come ’round outta there’—and I see a white man and come out. He said, ‘What are you all doing here?’ I turn around and say, ‘Well boys, come on boys,’ and the boys come out. The man said, ‘I’m a Union Soldier. What are you all doing here?’ I say, ‘We’re going to enlist in the army.’ He says, ‘That’s fine’ and he says, ‘come along’ He says, ‘get right on white man’s side’—we go to the station. Then he says, ‘You go right down to the station and give your information…
…When I came back from the army, I went home to Mother and said ‘Don’t you know me?’ She says, ‘No, I don’t know you.’ I say, ‘You don’t know me?’ She says, ‘No, I don’t know you.’ I say, ‘I’m John.’ Then she cried, and said how I’d grown, and she thought I’d been dead this long time. I explained how the many fights I’ve been in with no scratch and she was happy…
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:
Civil War, Family, Emancipation, Enlistment, Interviewer
Barron County, First Person, Third Person, Dialect, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable
Tony and Becky Eubanks enslaved John Eubanks during the period described in this excerpt. The Eubanks family supported the Union during the Civil War and allowed the men they enslaved to join the Union army, which John Eubanks chose to do, joining Company K of the 108th Kentucky Infantry Regiment – a unit of Black soldiers who volunteered to fight. At the time of the interview, John Eubanks was the only surviving Civil War veteran in his town. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts John Eubanks’s experiences during the Civil War in the third person.
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 lists John Eubanks experiences as a Union soldier during the Civil War.
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.” 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.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
Barron County, First Person, Third Person, Dialect, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable
Excerpt:
…Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, when the north seemed to be losing, someone conceived the idea of forming… [Black] regiments and as an inducement to the slaves, they offered them freedom if they would join the Union forces. John’s mistress and master told him that if he wished to join the Union forces, he had their consent and would not have to run away like other slaves were doing. At the beginning of the war, John was twenty-one years of age. When Lincoln freed the slaves by his Emancipation Proclamation, John was promptly given his freedom by his master and mistress.
John decided to join the northern army which was located at Bowling Green, Kentucky, a distance of thirty-five miles from Glasgow where John was living. He had to walk the entire thirty-five miles. Although he fails to remember all the units that he was attached to, he does remember that it was part of [Union] General Sherman’s army. His regiment started with Sherman on his famous march through Georgia, but for some reason unknown to John, shortly after the campaign was on its way, his regiment was recalled and sent elsewhere.
His regiment was near Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the time [Confederate General] Lee surrendered…When Lee surrendered there was much shouting among the troops and John was one of many put to work loading cannons on boats to be shipped up the river…
When [Confederate] General Morgan, the famous southern raider, crossed the Ohio on his raid across southern Indiana, John was one of the…[Black] fighters who after heavy fighting, forced Morgan to recross the river and retreat back to the south. He also participated in several skirmishes with the cavalry troops commanded by the famous [Confederate General] Nathan Bedfored Forrest, and was a member of the…[Black] garrison at Fort Pillow, on the Mississippi which was assaulted and captured. This resulted in a massacre of the [redacted] soldiers. John was in several other fights, but as he says, “Never once got a skin hurt.”…
[Part 2: What follows is a different version of the interview, recorded by the same interviewer, but this time in the first person. Below are excerpts that cover the same topics described in Part 1.]
…I was twenty-one when war broke out. Master Eubanks said to me, ‘You all don’t need to run away if you all want to join up with the army.’ He’d say, ‘There would be a fine if slaves ran off. You all don’t have to run off, go right on and I do not pay that fine.’ He said, ‘Enlist in the army but don’t run off.’…
We were infantry and pretty soon we got into plenty of fights, but not a scratch hit me. We chased the cavalry. We ran them all night and next morning the Captain said, ‘They broke down.’ When we rest, he says ‘See they don’t trick you.’ I say, ‘We got all the army men together. We’ll hold them back ’til help comes.’
We didn’t have any tents, slept on naked ground in wet and cold and rain. Most of the time we were hungry, But we win the war and Master Eubanks tells us we are no more his property, we’re free now…
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
The interviewer’s perspective and opinions are evident throughout this interview, including the interviewers use of a variety of derogatory terms to refer to Billy Slaughter. Students should be reminded of the context of the WPA interviews, and consider the impact of the interviewer on the written interview. In this excerpt, the interviewer records Billy Slaughter’s opinions about President Lincoln and 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.
…[Billy Slaughter’s] real hero was Abraham Lincoln. He plans another pilgrimage to the Lincoln Farm to look again at the cabin in which his Emancipator was born. He asked me if I read history very much. I assured him that I read it to some extent… In the beginning of the War, the Negroes who enlisted in the Union Army were given freedom, also the wives, and the children who were not married.
… Not all [redacted] who wanted to join the Union forces were able to do so because of the strict watchfulness of their masters. The slaves were made to fight in the southern [Confederate] army whether they wanted to or not. This lessened the number of free [redacted] in the Northern army. As a result, Lincoln decided to free all [redacted]… This was the [redacted] story of the conditions that brought about the Emancipation Proclamation. Freeing the [redacted] was brought about during the Civil War but it was not the reason that the war was fought, was the unusual opinion of this [redacted]… [Billy Slaughter’s father joined the Union Army.] Uncle Billy’s father and mother and their children who were not married were given freedom. The old slave has kept the papers that were drawn up for this act.
The [redacted] explained that the [redacted]soldiers never fought in any decisive battles. There must always be someone to clean and polish the harness, care for the horses, dig ditches, and construct parapets…
In this excerpt, the interviewer records in their own words the background information provided by Betty Jones and also directly quotes her. This short excerpt provides teachers the opportunity to help students navigate seeming contradictions within a primary source. The interviewer states that Betty Jones “recalls no unkind treatment” but then Betty Jones herself describes the sorrow of her enslaved friends being sold. Students may need background information on the WPA interviews and help considering the context of a White interviewer who had not experienced slavery discussing and recording the recollections of a formerly enslaved person.
“Yes, Honey, I was a slave, I was born at Henderson, Kentucky and my mother was born there. We belonged to old Master John Alvis…” [Betty Jones answered.]
Betty Jones said her master was a rich man and had made his money by raising and selling slaves. She only recalls two house servants were [mixed race] … All the other slaves were black as they could be.
Betty Alvis [Jones] lived with her parents in a cabin near her master’s home on the hill. She recalls no unkind treatment.
[Betty Jones said,] “Our only sorrow was when a crowd of our slave friends would be sold off, then the mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends always cried a lot and we children would grieve to see the grief of our parents…”
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.
… [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.
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.
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 Guwn
1832 (105)
Unknown
Unknown
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Muncie, IN
IN
Canton, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Third Person, Civil War, Marriage, Family, Economics
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.
…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 Stone
1847 (91)
Robert C. Irvin
Lemuel Stone
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Noblesville, IN
KY
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Family, Violence, Escape, Resistance
First Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County
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.
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 Stone
1847 (91)
Robert C. Irvin
Lemuel Stone
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Noblesville, IN
KY
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Economics
First Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County
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.
… 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 Stone
1847 (91)
Robert C. Irvin
Lemuel Stone
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Noblesville, IN
KY
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Literacy, Education
First Person, Third Person, Whipped, Witness Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops, Veteran or Widow, Notable, Spencer County
Anna Smith was married and had a young daughter when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This excerpt is the beginning of the interview. Here, the interviewer Geo. H. Conn offers his own personal assessment of Anna Smith. This excerpt offers teachers a chance to explore with students the context in which the WPA interviews occurred and how the interviewer influences the interview and its resulting narrative.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
…In a little old rocking chair, sits an old [redacted] known to her friends as “Grandma” Smith, spending the remaining days with her grandchildren. Small of stature, tipping the scales at about 100 lbs. but alert to the wishes and cares of her children, this old lady keeps posted on current events from those around her. With no stoop or bent back and with a firm step she helps with the housework and preparing of meals, waiting, when permitted, on others. In odd moments, she like to work at her favorite task of “hooking” rag rugs. Never having worn glasses, her eyesight is the envy of the younger generation. She spends most of the time at home, preferring her rocker and pipe (she has been smoking for more than eighty year) to a back seat in an automobile.
When referring to Civil War days, her eyes flash and words flow from her with a fluency equal to that of any youngster. Much of her speech is hard to understand as she reverts to the early idiom and pronunciation of her race. Her head, tongue, arms and hands all move at the same time as she talks. A note of hesitancy about speaking of her past shows at times when she realizes she is talking to one not of her own race, but after eight years in the north, where she has been treated courteously by her white neighbors, that old feeling of inferiority under which she lived during slave days and later on a plantation in Kentucky has about disappeared.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Anna Toll Smith
1835 (101 or 102)
Geo. H. Conn
Judge Toll
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Summit County, OH
OH
Henderson, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Interviewer
Third Person, Veteran or Widow, Slave Patrollers, Henderson County
In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts the life of Anna Smith in the third person. Anna Smith was married and had a young daughter when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In this excerpt, the interviewer describes Anna Smith’s memories of life as an enslaved person before and during the Civil War. The excerpt ends with Anna Smith describing her emancipation.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
… Mrs. Smith remembers her father who died at the age of 117 years. Her oldest brother was 50 when he joined the confederate army. Three other brothers were sent to the front [to fight in the Civil War]. One was an ambulance attendant, one belonged to the cavalry, one an orderly seargeant [sic] and the other joined the infantry. All were killed in action. Anna Smith’s husband later joined the war and was reported killed.
When she became old enough for service she was taken into the “Big House” of her master, where she served as kitchen helper, cook, and later a nurse, taking care of her mistress’ second child. She learned her A.B.C.’s by listening to the tutor teaching the children of Judge Toll…
Many instances during those terrible war days are fresh in her mind: men and boys, in pairs and groups passing the “big house” on their way to the recruiting station on the public square, later going back in squads and companies to fight; Yankee soldiers raiding the plantation, taking corn and hay or whatever could be used by the northern army; and continual apprehension [worry] for the menfolk at the front. She remembers the baying of blood hounds [barking of dogs] at night along the Ohio River, trying to follow the scent of escaping [redacted] and the crack of firearms as white people, employed by the plantation owners attempted to halt the [redacted] in their efforts to cross the Ohio River into Ohio [where they would be free] or to join the Federal [Union] army…
When President Lincoln issued his proclamation freeing the slaves, and the news reached the plantation, she went to her master to learn if she was free. On learning it was true she returned to her parents who were living on another plantation…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Anna Toll Smith
1835 (101 or 102)
Geo. H. Conn
Judge Toll
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Summit County, OH
OH
Henderson, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Education, Emancipation, Lincoln, Economics
Third Person, Veteran or Widow, Slave Patrollers, Henderson County
Smith_An_1
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