Tag: Witnessed Extreme Cruelty

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

Ann Gudgel

Ann Gudgel lived in enslavement during the Civil War. In this excerpt, she describes how enslaved persons were vaccinated against smallpox (the process involved infecting a patient with the pus of a smallpox victim).

Excerpt:

One day they vaccinated all the slaves but mine never took at all. I never told anybody, but I just sat right down by the fireplace and rubbed wood ashes and juice that spewed out of the wood real hard over the scratch. All the others were really sick and had the most awful arms, but mine never did even hurt.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Ann Gudgel	Unknown	Mildred Roberts	Ball

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Anderson County, KY	Kentucky	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	First person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty

Gudgel_A_2

Thomas McIntire

Thomas McIntire’s father was “taken by slave traders from Africa,” brought to the United States, sold, and enslaved. Jim Lane enslaved around 550 people, including Thomas McIntire. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas McIntire’s thoughts on topics connected to freedom. Thomas McIntire describes how enslaved people sought a better life and discussed freedom in code. Thomas McIntire also shares memories of learning about the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, emancipation and famous activists.

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

Excerpt:

…The slave quarters were about 300 yards from the big house, and every family had their own cabin and eight acres of land for themselves, and all the vegetables and garden truck they needed. They [enslaved people on Jim Lane’s plantation] raised their own chickens and turkeys. But the hogs and cattle were butchered and shared with all the different families, and so was the milk. But I remember hearing my folks talking and it wasn’t just eats they wanted. They wanted to be free, and educate their children, like Master Jim’s children, so they could grow up and have something for themselves. I’d often hear them saying “Never mind, children, for your auntie is sure coming.” That was just a blind for saying, “Freedom’s coming”. We children soon learnt what it meant, but the white folks never did learn.

… I remember all the slaves that could get out from the quarters coming to meetings in the woods to talk about getting away to freedom or going off to war. Some from our place did go off. We all knew the Underground Railroad through the whole country. Because lots of Quakers had come and bought property on those parts and they were teaching the slaves to not be afraid of their rights.

…When the war came on, lots of the Lane slaves went in. My father and brother Wash went, and Wash was in the battle, between [Confederate] General Morgan and [Union] General Burden around Mt. Sterling [in Kentucky]. Lots of women and children went into Camp Nelson and lived at what they called the Woman’s Hall. The men who cared to go there went to the barracks at Camp Nelson.

When the war was over Father and Wash both came home. Jim Lane freed us before the war was over and gave us all a little money or paid some if they were staying on till the war was over. Those that stayed after the war he gave ten acres of land and built them a little place to live in….

I knew Ben Arnett [a Black minister and civil rights advocate who was elected in 1885 to the Ohio state legislature] personally and heard him speak lots of times; and too I heard Booker T. Washington, and Douglas, and almost all the big men among [Black people]… I read a little, and I read lots about most of the ones I ain’t heard.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire	1847 (90)	Unknown	Jim Lane

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	OH	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Education, Literacy, Resistance, Union Troops, Civil War	Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable

McIntire_T_3

Thomas McIntire

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

Excerpt:

…There was a log church right on our plantation for us to attend, and other slaves from other plantations came and had meetings with us. They used to sing lots of good old fashioned songs, but I just can’t think of them right now. Lane and some of his friends had a little church they built for themselves, and they always walked from our plantation because he was quite religious, and didn’t allow any work on Sundays. No horses were hitched up for them, and the only work done was just milk the cows. The cooking was done Friday and Saturday, but one or two of the slaves that worked at the cooking and setting of the tables had to kind of stick around, but got home in time to go to meeting. When there were weddings, or funerals on holidays, there wasn’t work done except what couldn’t be got around doing…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire	1847 (90)	Unknown	Jim Lane

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	OH	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion	Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable

McIntire_T_2

Thomas McIntire

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

Excerpt:

…Lane and the people who owned mother were friends, and betwixt them they gave father and mother in order so they could be man and wife. You see, in those days all they did was to give an order in writing for a man and woman to be man and wife. Lane was a little more human than some of the slave owners back in those times, so he allowed Mother and Father to go by the name of McIntire as the married name…

I never saw a Lane slave whipped nor treated cruel, and he never allowed any of his families to be separated. That was the reason he had so many slaves, because when he went to sales, he’d just buy a whole family before he’d allow them to all be separated. Then when his children married he’d give them four or five families, but he never gave it in writing to them. So, they couldn’t sell them…

The folks that owned the next plantation to ours, the Bigstaffs, were cruel to their slaves, and some the Bigstaffs boys would know the patrollers and help to catch slaves and whip them if they couldn’t show a pass from their masters.

I saw them driving long lines of slaves chained together, with the little ones pitched up in an ox cart, and I don’t know how many men on horseback with long whips slashing them and driving them along the road. The slave traders went all around and bought up men and women, some of them right from the field; no time for them to say goodbye to the families, buying and selling them worse than cattle.

The slave traders took them to a halfway house on the Tennessee highway close to us, owned by Billy Wurtz. He had a big cellar where they put the slaves till they were going to sell them or else take them further south. They used to make a big sale day at Mt. Sterling and auction off the slaves. They’d whip them on the block to make them holler. I saw all that, and more…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas McIntire	1847 (90)	Unknown	Jim Lane

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	OH	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Slave Traders, Violence	Bath County, First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Notable

McIntire_T_1

Thomas Lewis

In this interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas Lewis’s memories of the Civil War and his mother’s interactions with Union soldiers.

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

Excerpt:

…Once when I was a little boy, I was sitting on the fence while my mother plowed to get the field ready to put in wheat. The white man who owned her was plowing too. Some Yankee soldiers on horses came along. One rode up to the fence and when my mother came to the end of the furrow, he said to her, “Lady, could you tell me where Jim Downs’ still house is?” My mother started to answer, but the man who owned her told her to move on. The soldiers told him to keep quiet, or they would make him sorry. After he went away, my mother told the soldiers where the house was. The reason her master did not want her to tell where the house was, was that some of his Rebel friends [people supporting the Confederacy] were hiding there. Spies had reported them to the Yankee [Union] soldiers. They went to the house and captured the Rebels.

Next soldiers came walking. I had no cap. One soldier asked me why I did not wear a cap. I said I had no cap. The soldier said, “You tell your mistress I said to buy you a cap or I’ll come back and kill the whole family.” They bought me a cap, the first one I ever had.

The soldiers passed for three days and a half. They were getting ready for a battle. The battle was close. We could hear the cannon. After it was over, a white man went to the battle field. He said that for a mile and a half one could walk on dead men and dead horses. My mother wanted to go and see it, but they wouldn’t let her, for it was too awful.

…Once they sent my mother there [to the nearest small town]… She saw a flash, and something hit a big barn. The timbers flew every way, and I suppose killed men and horses that were in the barn. There were Rebels hidden in the barn and in the houses, and a Yankee spy had found out where they were. They bombed the barn and surrounded the town. No one was able to leave. The Yankees came and captured the Rebels.

I had a cousin named Jerry. Just a little while before the barn was struck a white man asked Jerry how he would like to be free. Jerry said that he would like it all right. The white men took him into the barn and were going to put him over a barrel and beat him half to death. Just as they were about ready to beat him, the bomb struck the barn and Jerry escaped…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis	1857 (approx. 80)	Estella R. Dodson	Unknown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Bloomington, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War	Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out

Lewis_T_1

Thomas Lewis

In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Thomas Lewis’s memory of how White people forced Black people to work for free even after the Civil War and how Thomas Lewis’s mother resisted this practice.

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

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

Excerpt:

…I was born in Spencer County, Kentucky, in 1857. I was born a slave. There was slavery all around on all the adjoining places. I was seven years old when I was set free. My father was killed in the Northern army. My mother, step-father and my mother’s four living children came to Indiana when I was twelve years old. My grandfather was set free and given a little place of about sixteen acres.

[After the Civil War was over] A gang of white men went to my grandmother’s place and ordered the [ ___ ] people out to work. The [ ___ ] people had worked before for white men, on shares. When the wheat was all in and the corn laid by, the white farmers would tell the [ ___ ] people to get out, and would give them nothing. The [ ___ ] people did not want to work that way, and refused. This was the cause of the raids by white farmers. My mother recognized one of the men in the gang and reported him to the standing soldiers in Louisville. He was caught and made to tell who the others were until they had 360 men. All were fined and none allowed to leave until all the fines were paid. So the rich ones had to pay for the poor ones. Many of them left because all were made responsible if such an event ever occurred again.

Our family left because we did not want to work that way….

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis	1857 (approx. 80)	Estella R. Dodson	Unknown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Bloomington, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Sharecropping, Violence	Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out

Lewis_T_2

Thomas Lewis

In this interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person formerly enslaved person Thomas Lewis’s explanation of why enslaved people resisted and the consequence of that resistance.

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

Excerpt:

… There was no such thing as being good to slaves. Many people were better than others, but a slave belonged to his master and there was no way to get out of it. A strong man was hard to make work. He would fight so that the white men trying to hold him would be breathless. Then there was nothing to do but kill him. If a slave resisted, and his master killed him, it was the same as self-defense today. If a cruel master whipped a slave to death, it put the fear into the other slaves…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Thomas Lewis	1857 (approx. 80)	Estella R. Dodson	Unknown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Bloomignton, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Resistance, Violence	Spencer County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, Hired Out

Lewis_T_3

Lula Chambers

Dave Lillard enslaved over one hundred people, including Lula Chambers. She did not know her father and her mother was sold shortly after Lula Chambers was born. The interviewer records in the first person Lula Chambers’s memories of the Ku Klux Klan and why some enslavers did not abuse enslaved people for economic reasons.

*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:

… I used to be scared to death of those old Ku Klux folks with all their hoods on their heads and faces. I never will forget, I saw a real old [redacted] woman slave down on her knees praying to God for his help. She had a Bible in front of her. Course she couldn’t read it, but she did know what it was, and she was praying out of her very heart, until she had drawn the attention of the old Ku Klux [Klan] and one of them just walked in her cabin and lashed [whipped] her unmerciful. He made her get up off her knees and dance, old as she was. Of course the old soul couldn’t dance but he just made her hop around anyhow.

The slave owners in the county where I was raised—the well-to-do ones I mean, did not abuse the slaves like the poor trash and other slaveholders did. Of course they whipped them plenty when they didn’t suit. But they kind of took care of them to sell. They had a great slave market there that didn’t do anything but sell slaves, and if they wanted a good price for them, the slave would have to be in a pretty good condition. That’s what saved their hides…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Lula Chambers	Unknown (Unknown, older than 90)	Grace E. White	Dave Lillard

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
St. Louis, MO	MO	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Economics, Violence	Gallatin County, First Person, Dialect, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders, Klan/Mob Violence

Chambers_L_1

September 29, 2020November 10, 2022

M.S. Fayman

M.S. Fayman was born free to wealthy free parents in Louisiana. Her family was Creole – her grandmother was Haitian (Black) and her grandfather was French. Her parents sent her to a private boarding school when she was five years old. When she was ten, she was kidnapped at school and forcibly enslaved in Kentucky by Buckram Haynes, who forced M.S. Fayman to teach his children French until she escaped. After her escape, she returned home, attended Fisk University and became a French teacher there. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts M.S. Fayman’s kidnapping and description of her enslavement in the first person.

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

Excerpt:

… [My family] lived in a large and spacious house surrounded by flowers and situated on a farm containing about 750 acres, on which we raised pelicans for sale in the market at New Orleans.

When I was about 5 years old I was sent to a private School in Baton Rouge, conducted by French sisters [nuns], where I stayed until I was kidnapped in 1860. At that time I did not know how to speak English; French was the language spoken in my household and by the people in the parish [county]. Baton Rouge, situated on the Mississippi, was a river port and stopping place for all large river boats, especially between New Orleans and large towns and cities north. We children were taken out by the sisters after school and on Saturdays and holidays to walk. One of the places we went was the wharf. One day in June and on a Saturday a large boat was at the wharf going north on the Mississippi River. We children were there. Somehow, I was separated from the other children. I was taken up bodily by a white man, carried on the boat, put in a cabin and kept there until we got to Louisville, Kentucky, where I was taken off. After I arrived in Louisville I was taken to a farm near Frankfort [Kentucky] and installed there, virtually a slave until 1864, when I escaped through the kindness of a delightful Episcopalian woman from Cincinnati, Ohio.

As I could not speak English, my chores were to act as a tutor and companion for the children of Pierce Buckran Haynes, a well known slave trader and plantation owner in Kentucky. Haynes wanted his children to speak French and it was my duty to teach them. I was the private companion of three girls and one small boy, each day I had to talk French and write French for them. They became very proficient in French, and I in the rudiments [basics] of the English language. I slept in the children’s quarters with the Haynes’ children, ate and played with them. I had all the privileges of the household accorded me with the exception of one, I never was taken off nor permitted to leave the plantation. While on the plantation I wore good clothes, similar to those of the white children.

Haynes was a merciless brutal tyrant with his slaves, punishing them severely and cruelly both by the lash and in the jail on the plantation… On the farm the slaves were assigned a task to do each day and In the event it was not finished they were severely whipped. While I never saw a slave whipped, I did see them afterwards, they were very badly marked and striped by the overseers who did the whipping….

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
M.S. Fayman	1850 (approx. 87)	Rogers	Pierce Buckram Haynes

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Baltimore, MD	MD	Saint-Nazaire, LA

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Education, Kidnapped, Resistance, Escape	First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Slave Traders

Fayman_M_1

Parthena Rollins

In this interview, which the interviewer records in the third person, Parthena Rollins recounts numerous stories of enslavers brutally murdering enslaved people. Teachers should note this excerpt contains imagery of brutal violence, and may not be suitable for some students.

*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:

…Mrs. Parthena Rollins was born in Scott County, Kentucky, in 1853, a slave of Ed Duvalle, who was always very kind to all of his slaves, never whipping any of the adults, but often whipped the children to correct them, never beating them. They all had to work, but never overworked, and always had plenty to eat.

She remembers so many slaves, who were not as fortunate as they were.

Once when the “[redacted] traders” came through, there was a girl, the mother of a young baby; the traders wanted the girl, but would not buy her because she had the child. Her owner took her away, took the baby from her, and beat it to death right before the mother’s eyes, then brought the girl back to the sale without the baby, and she was bought immediately.

Her new master was so pleased to get such a strong girl who could work so well and so fast.

The thoughts of the cruel way of putting her baby to death preyed on her mind to such an extent, she developed epilepsy. This angered her new master, and he sent her back to her old master and forced him to refund the money he had paid for her.

Another slave had displeased his master for some reason, he was taken to the barn and killed and was buried right in the barn. No one knew of this until they were set free, as the slaves who knew about it were afraid to tell for fear of the same fate befalling on them.

Parthena also remembers slaves being beaten until their backs were blistered. The overseers would then open the blisters and sprinkle salt and pepper in the open blisters, so their backs would smart and hurt all the more.

Many times, slaves would be beaten to death, thrown into sinkholes, and left for the buzzards to swarm and feast on their bodies.

So many of the slaves she knew were half-fed and half-clothed, and treated so cruelly, that it “would make your hair stand on ends.”…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Parthena Rollins	1853 (84)	Anna Pritchett	Ed Duvalle

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Marion County, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	Scott County, Third Person, Whipped, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Slave Traders

Rollins_P_1

Joana Owens

In this short excerpt, Joana Owens describes her life as an enslaved person and the brutality of enslaver Nolan Barr. The interviewer recounts the words of Joana Owens in the first person. The excerpt ends with a brief memory of the Civil War.

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

Excerpt:

…My mother and father were slaves, and there were two children born to them, my sister, and me. We used to live in Hawesville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. My people’s name was Barr, and their master’s name was Nolan Barr. You know they all had to take their masters names in slave days.

I will never forget how mean old Master Nolan Barr was to us. I was about fourteen years old and my sister was a little younger. We lived in an old log cabin. The cracks were filled with mud. My Mother did the housework for Master Barr’s house. My father and sister and I had to work in the fields. He had a big farm and owned lots of slaves, and when the old master got mad at his slaves for not working hard enough he would tie them up by their thumbs and whip the male slaves till they begged for mercy. He sure was a mean old man. I will never forget him as long as I live. I don’t know exactly how old I am, but I am close to ninety now. After I grew up and married a man named Owens, we come here to Louisville to live. That was a short while after the slaves were freed. I can remember how I and my sister used to go down to the river and watch the red hospital boats come in, bringing the wounded soldiers [from the Civil War] in to be cared for…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Joana Owens	Unknown (about 90)	Unknown	Nolan Barr

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Louisville, KY	KY	Hawesville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence, Civil War	Hancock County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty

Owens_J_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Matthew Hume

The interviewer documents this interview in the third person. In the excerpt below, the interviewer shared a story from Matthew Hume about an enslaved person who issued fake freedom papers to free other enslaved people before describing Matthew Hume’s 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:

…One way of exacting obedience was to threaten to send offenders South to work in the fields. The slaves around Lexington, Kentucky, came out ahead on one occasion. The collector was Shrader. He had the slaves handcuffed to a large leg chain and forced on a flatboat. There were so many that the boat was grounded, so some of the slaves were released to push the boat off. Among the “blacks” was one who could read and write. Before Shrader could chain them up again, he was seized and chained, taken to below Memphis Tennessee, and forced to work in the cotton fields until he was able to get word from Richmond identifying him. In the meantime, the educated [redacted] issued freedom papers to his companions. Many of them came back to Lexington, Kentucky where they were employed…

Mr. Hume thought the Emancipation Proclamation was the greatest work that Abraham Lincoln ever did. The [redacted] people on his plantation did not learn of it until the following August. Then Mr. Payne and his sons offered to let them live on their ground with conditions similar to our renting system, giving a share of the crop. They remained here until Jan. 1, 1865 when they crossed the Ohio River at Madison. They had a cow that had been given them before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued but this was taken away from them. So they came to Ind. homeless, friendless and penniless…

He could not understand the attitude of his race who preferred to remain in slavery receiving only food and shelter, rather than to be free citizens where they could have the right to develop their individualism

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Matthew Hume	Unknown (Unknown)	Grace Monroe	Daniel Payne

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Jefferson County, IN	IN	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Resistance, Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln	Trimble County, Third Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Notable,

Hume_M_1

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Frank Cooper

Frank Cooper was a child when he first spoke to his mother about her experiences being enslaved. This excerpt starts with her reaction to he and his siblings asking her about scars on their backs. After she has given them a taste of her experiences, she goes on to tell them of a time when she was whipped and severely beaten by her enslavers. The excerpt ends with her enslaver attempting to auction her off, only to stop the sale to an enslaver who only wanted to punish her.

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

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Frank Cooper	Unknown	William R. Mays	Good, Burton, Cooper

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Franklin, IN	Indiana	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender/Gender roles, Violence	First person, whipped, witnessed extreme cruelty, slave traders, sold (family)

Excerpt:

One day while my mammy was washing her back my sistah noticed ugly disfiguring scars on it. Inquiring about them, we found, much to our amazement, that they were mammy’s relics of the now gone, if not forgotten, slave days.

This was her first reference to her misery days that she had ever made in my presence. Of course we all thought she was telling us a big story and we made fun of her. With eyes flashing, she stopped bathing, dried her back and reached for the smelly ole black whip that hung behind the kitchen door. Bidding us to strip down to our waists, my little mammy with the boney bent-over back, struck each of us as hard as ever she could with that black-snake whip, each stroke of the whip drew blood from our backs. Now, she said to us, you have a taste of slavery days. With three of her children now having tasted of some of her misery days she was in the mood to tell us more of her sufferings; still indelibly impressed in my mind.

‘My ole back is bent over from the quick-tempered blows feld by the red-headed Miss Burton. At dinner time one day when the churning wasn’t finished for the noonday meal, she said with an angry look that must have been reborn in my mammy’s eyes—eyes that were dimmed by years and hard living, three white women beat me from anger because they had no butter for their biscuits and cornbread. Miss Burton used a heavy board while the missus used a whip. While I was on my knees begging’ them to quit, Miss Burton hit the small of my back with the heavy board.I knew no more until kind Mr. Hamilton, who was staying with the white folks, brought me inside the cabin and brought me around with the camphor bottle. I’ll always thank him—God bless him—he picked me up where they had left me like a dog to die in the blazing noonday sun.

‘After my back was broken it was doubted whether I would ever be able to work again or not. I was placed on the auction block to be bidded for so my owner could see if I was worth anything or not. One man bid $1700 after putting’ two dirty fingers in my mouth to see my teeth. I bit him and his face showed anger. He then wanted to own me so he could punish me. Thinking his bid of $1700 was official, he unstrapped his buggy whip to beat me, but my master saved me. My master declared the bid unofficial. At this auction my sister was sold for $1900 and was never seen by us again.’

Cooper_F_1

John Rudd

John Rudd lived with his mother and brothers on a plantation in Kentucky. John’s enslaver sold one of his brothers, byt John, his mother and other siblings stayed together after the enslaver sold them all when he was a child. In this excerpt, he describes the barrel used to tie the enslaved to in order to whip them, and a grisly example of several enslaved persons getting badly whipped. One of them was a good friend of his, who then ran away and was found 3 days later hanging inside a barn, possibly a suicide.

*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:

John had only been at the Moore home a few months when he witnessed several slaves being badly beaten. Henry Moore kept a white overseer and several white men were employed to whip slaves. A large barrel stood near the slave quarters and the little boy discovered that the barrel was a whipping post. The slaves would be strapped across the side of the barrel and two strong men would wield the cat of nine tails until blood flowed from gashed flesh, and the cries and prayers of the unfortunate culprits availed them nothing until the strength of the floggers became exhausted.

One day, when several Negroes had just recovered from an unusual amount of chastisement, the little Negro, John Rudd, was playing in the front yard of the Moore’s house when he heard a soft voice calling him. He knew the voice belonged to Shell Moore, one of his best friends at the Moore estate. Shell had been among those severely beaten and little John had been grieving over his misfortunes.

“Shell had been in the habit of whittling out whistles for me and petting of me”, said the now aged negro. “I went to see what he wanted with me and he said ‘Goodbye Johnnie, you’ll never see Shellie alive after today.’” Shell made his way toward the cornfield but the little [redacted] boy, watching him go, did not realize what situation confronted him. That night the master announced that Shell had run away again and the slaves were started searching fields and woods but Shell’s body was found three days later by Rhoder McQuirk, dangling from a rafter of Moore’s corn crib where the unhappy [redacted] had hanged himself with a leather halter.

“Shell was a splendid worker and was well worth a thousand dollars. If he had been fairly treated he would have been happy and glad to repay kindness by toil. Master Henry would have been better to all of us, only Mistress Jane was always riling him up”, declared John Rudd as he sat in his rocking chair under a shade tree.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
John Rudd	1854 (83)	Lauana Creel	Benjamin SimmsHenry and Jane Moore

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Evansville, IN	Indiana	Springfield, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, violence	Third person, witnessed extreme cruelty, whipped

Rudd_J_1