John W. Fields lived in enslavement and gained freedom shortly before the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, he describes an example of extreme cruelty, in which an enslaved person was whipped severely, and the other enslaved people were forced to pour salt water on her wounds.
My Mistress had separated me from all my family but one brother with sweet words, but that pose was dropped after she reached her place. Shortly after I had been there, she married a northern man by the name of David Hill. At first he was very nice to us, but he gradually acquired a mean and overbearing manner toward us. I remember one incident that I don’t like to remember. One of the women slaves had been very sick and she was unable to work just as fast as he thought she ought to. He had driven her all day with no results. That night after completing our work he called us all together. He made me hold a light, while he whipped her and then made one of the slaves pour salt water on her bleeding back. My innards turn yet at that sight.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
John W. Fields
1848 (89)
Cecil C. Miller
David Hill
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Lafayette, IN
Indiana
Owensboro, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Violence
First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, hired out
John W. Fields lived in enslavement and gained freedom shortly before the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, he describes the process of Emancipation and his failed attempts to join the Union Army. He finishes by describing the first paid work he was able to get.
At the beginning of the Civil War I was still at this place as a slave. It looked at the first of the war as if the south would win, as most of the big battles were won by the South. This was because we slaves stayed at home and tended the farms and kept their families.
To eliminate this solid support of the South, the Emancipation Act was passed, freeing all slaves. Most of the slaves were so ignorant they did not realize they were free. The planters knew this and as Kentucky never seceded from the Union, they would send slaves into Kentucky from other states in the south and hire them out to plantations. For these reasons I did not realize that I was free until 1864. I immediately resolved to run away and join the Union Army and so my brother and I went to Owensburg, Ky. and tried to join. My brother was taken, but I was refused as being too young. I tried at Evansville, Terre Haute and Indianapolis but was unable to get in. I then tried to find work and was finally hired by a man at $7.00 a month.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
John W. Fields
1848 (89)
Cecil C. Miller
David Hill
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Lafayette, IN
Indiana
Owensboro, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation
First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, hired out, Civil War
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
Richard Miller was the son of an Indian mother and an enslaved father. In the following excerpts, he describes two examples of violence. The first is an example of an enslaved person being burned alive. The second describes a former enslaved person defending himself after the KKK murdered his wife.
He remembers a slave by the name of Brown, in Texas, who was chained hand and feet to a woodpile, oil thrown over him, and the wood, then fire set to the wood, and he was burned to death.
After the fire smoldered down, the white women and children took his ashes for souvenirs.
. . . George Band was a very powerful slave, always ready to fight, never losing a fight, always able to defend himself until one night a band of Ku Kluxers came to his house, took his wife, hung her to a tree, hacked her to death with knives. Then went to the house, got George, took him to see what they had done to his wife. He asked them to let him go back to the house to get something to wrap his wife in, thinking he was sincere in his request, they allowed him to go. Instead of getting a wrapping for his wife, he got his Winchester rifle, shot and killed fourteen of the Kluxers. The county was never bothered with the Klan again. However, George left immediately for the North.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Richard Miller
1843
Sarah H. Locke
Unknown
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Marion County, IN
Indiana
Danville, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Violence
Third person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Klan/mob violence
Sophia word spent the first nearly 20 years of her life enslaved. In this excerpt, she tells several stories of extreme cruelty and their results. The first is an example of her being whipped for trying to take food from the kitchen of her enslaver. The next set of stories describes the cruelty of a neighboring enslaver and the suicides of the enslaved that resulted from this treatment.
The mistress had an old parrot and one day I was in the kitchen making cookies. I decided I wanted some of them, so I took me out some and put them on a chair, and when I did this the mistress entered the door. I picked up a cushion and threw it over the pile of cookies on the chair. Mistress came near the chair and the old parrot cries out, ‘Mistress burn, Mistress burn’, then the mistress looked under the cushion and she had me whipped. But the next day I killed the parrot, and she often wondered who or what killed the bird.
My master wasn’t as mean as most masters. Hugh White was so mean to his slaves, that I know of two gals that killed themselves. One n***** gal, Sudie, was found across the bed with a pen knife in her hand. He whipped another N***** gal most to death for forgetting to put onions in the stew. The next day she went down to the river and for nine days they searched for her and her body finally washed upon the shore. The master could never live in that house again as when he would go to sleep he would see the n***** standing over his bed. Then he moved to Richmond and there he stayed until a little later when he hung himself.
Watt Jordan grew up in a large family of enslaved persons. He and his family lived in fear of being separated after his grandmother was sold and never seen again. In this excerpt, he describes that event, as well as his and his family’s fate after Emancipation, in which he was bound out but left that home early due to cruel treatment.
. . . There were thirteen of us children. I remember best, Molly, Walker, Charles, Aggie, Henry, and Zeke. They were fixing to sell us again when freedom was declared. My mother was sick, and she feared we would all be sold down south somewhere and she’d never see us again.
. . . When freedom was declared, ole man Spencer told Mother she could stay on until she got well, and he wanted to know what she was going to do about us children. So she bound several of us out and I went to Matt Clay, who took me to stay until I was 21. I’ve never seen Mother again.
I left Clay’s after he flew into a rage one day and was going to whip me. I was eighteen then, and I knew I was just as good a man as Clay was; so, when he started to whip me, I just whipped him and left. He tried to get me back, then came to town and raised a racket, but folks all told him I was free to do what I wanted, so he left me alone.
The Spencer plantation wasn’t big and there weren’t so many slaves on it. My grandmother lived on the same plantation as us, but they sold her off somewhere, and we never saw or heard tell of her again. Once, ole man Spencer gave her a good whipping, because she stole food from the house for us children, and I remember it because we never got hardly anything to eat.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Watt Jordan
1857
Unknown
Dick SpencerJordan
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Clark County, OH
Ohio
Fleming County, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation
First person, dialect, witnessed extreme cruelty, bound out after war sold (family)
Scott Mitchell lived through the Civil War, though he does not know his age. Here, he briefly describes his recollection of the war and stories of lynchings and hangings that took place during that time.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
Yes, I remember the Civil War, because I was living in Christian County where I was born, right with my master and mistress, Captain Hester and his wife. I was raised on a farm right with the, then I left there.
Yes, Captain Hester traded my mother and my sister, ’twas in 1861, he sent them to Mississippi. When they were away from him about two years, he bought them back. Yes, he was good to us. I was my mistress’ boy. I looked after her, and she made all of my clothes, and she knitted my socks, because I was her [redacted].
Yes, I was twenty years old when I was married.
I remember I was a boy when they had the Civil War. I remember there was a brick office where they hanged colored folks. Yes, the blood was a-streaming down. Sometimes they hung them by their feet, sometimes they hung them by their thumbs.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Scott Mitchell
Unknown
Margaret Bishop
Captain Hester
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Breathitt County, KY
Kentucky
Christian County, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Civil War, Violence,
First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Klan/mob violence,
America Morgan and her entire family were enslaved by a cruel enslaver named Clark Rudd. Here, Mrs. Morgan describes various instances of extreme cruelty she witnessed in her time on the plantation.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
She [Mrs. Morgan] remembers very clearly the happenings of her early life. Her mother, Manda Rudd, was owned by Clark Rudd, and the “devil has sure got him.” [Her father] became a Rudd, because he was married to Manda on the Rudd plantation. There were six children in the family, and all went well until the death of the mother; Clark Rudd whipped her to death when America was five years old. Six little children were left motherless to face a “frowning world.”
…Aunt Catherine, who looked after all the children on the plantation, was very unruly, no one could whip her. Once America was sent for two men to come and tie Aunt Catherine. She fought so hard, it was as much as the men could do to tie her. They tied her hands, then hung her to the joist and lashed her with a cowhide. It “was awful to hear her screams.”
She remembers one slave, who had been given five hundred lashes on his back, thrown in his cabin to die. He laid on the floor all night, at dawn he came to himself, and there were bloodhounds licking his back.
When the overseers lashed a slave to death, they would turn the bloodhounds out to smell the blood, so they would know “[redacted] blood,” that would help trace runaway slaves.
Aunt Jane Stringer was given five hundred lashes and thrown in her cabin. The next morning when the overseer came, he kicked her and told her to get up, and wanted to know if she was going to sleep there all day. When she did not answer him, he rolled her over and the poor woman was dead, leaving several motherless children.
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
America Morgan
1852 (85)
Anna Pritchett
Clark Rudd
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Marion County, IN
Indiana
Kentucky
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Family, Violence
Third person, whipped, witnessed extreme cruelty, sold (self or family), bound out after war
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
In the full version of the interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person the cruelty enslavers inflicted on Hannah Davidson and the other enslaved people. Hanna Davidson describes a life of continuous work and repeated whippings. Enslavers Emmette and Susan Meriwether kept Hannah Davidson, her sister, and others enslaved for over twenty one years after they were legally free. In this excerpt, recorded in the first person, Hannah Davidson describes the violence of her enslaver and how she was denied an education.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
… It is best not to talk about them. The things that my sister Mary and I suffered were so terrible that people would not believe them. It is best not to have such things in our memory…
If you wanted to go to another plantation, you had to have a pass. If my folks were going to somebody’s house, they’d have to have a pass. Otherwise, they’d be whipped. They’d take a big man and tie his hands behind a tree, just like that big tree outside, and whip him with rawhide and draw blood every whip. I know I was scared every time I’d hear the slave say, ‘Pray, Master.’…
Once, Jim Ferguson, a … Black man, came to teach school. The white folks beat and whipped him and drove him away in his underwear.
I wanted so hard to learn to read, but I didn’t even know I was free, even when slavery was ended.
I had been so exhausted working, I was like an inch-worm crawling along a roof. I worked till I thought another lick would kill me. If you had something to do, you did it or got whipped. Once I was so tired I couldn’t work anymore. I crawled in a hole under the house and stayed there till I was rested….
I never will forget it–how my master always used to say, ‘Keep a [redacted] down’ I never will forget it…
The slaves tried to get schools, but they didn’t get any. Finally, they started a few schools in little log cabins. But we children, my sister and I, never went to school…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Hannah Davidson
1852 (approx. 85)
K. Osthimer
Emmette and Susan Meriwether
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Toledo, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Education, Violence
Ballard County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Union Troops
In the full version of the interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person the cruelty enslavers inflicted on Hannah Davidson and the other enslaved people. Hanna Davidson describes a life of continuous work and repeated whippings. Enslavers Emmette and Susan Meriwether kept Hannah Davidson, her sister, and others enslaved for over twenty one years after they were legally free. In this excerpt, recorded in the first person, Hannah Davidson describes religion and songs she sang as a child.
…We didn’t have any churches… We used to sing, ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’. When our folks sang that, we could really see the chariot…
The only fun we had was on Sunday evening, after work. That was the only chance we got. We used to go away off from the house and play in the haystack… Sundays the slaves would wash out their clothes. It was the only time they had to themselves… We never observed Christmas. We never had holidays, son, no, sir! [she is referring to the interviewer.] We didn’t know what the word was…
School? We never saw the inside of a schoolhouse. Mistress used to read the Bible to us every Sunday morning.
We sang two songs I still remember.
I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How he called little children like lambs to his fold,
I should like to have been with them then.
I wish that his hands had been placed on my head,
That his arms had been thrown around me,
That I might have seen his kind face when he said
‘Let the little ones come unto me.’
Yet still to his footstool in prayer I nay go
And ask for a share of his love,
And that I might earnestly seek Him below
And see Him and hear Him above.
Then there was another:
I want to be an angel
And with the angels stand
With a crown upon my Forehead
And a harp within my hand.
And there before my Saviour,
So glorious and so bright,
I’d make the sweetest music
And praise him day and night.
And as soon as we got through singing those songs, we had to get right out to work. I was always glad when they called us in the house to Sunday school. It was the only chance we’d get to rest…
…Us kids always used to sing a song, ‘Gonna hang Jeff Davis [president of the Confederacy] to a sour apple tree as we go marchin’ home.’ I didn’t know what it meant at the time…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Hannah Davidson
1852 (approx. 85)
K. Osthimer
Emmette and Susan Meriwether
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Toledo, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Songs, Religion
Ballard County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Union Troops,
In the full version of the interview, the interviewer recounts in the first person the cruelty enslavers inflicted on Hannah Davidson and the other enslaved people. Hanna Davidson describes a life of continuous work and repeated whippings. Enslavers Emmette and Susan Meriwether kept Hannah Davidson, her sister, and others enslaved for over twenty one years after they were legally free. In this excerpt, recorded in the first person, Hannah Davidson describes the memories of the Civil War, the fear the KKK instilled in formerly enslaved people, and a contemporary exchange about slavery with a White stranger.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
… It is best not to talk about them. The things that my sister Mary and I suffered were so terrible that people would not believe them. It is best not to have such things in our memory…
My master kept me and my sister Mary twenty-two long years after we were supposed to be free. Work, work, work. I don’t think my sister and I ever went to bed before twelve o’clock at night. We never got a penny. They could have spared it, too; they had enough… We didn’t even know we were free. We had to wash the white people’s feet when they took their shoes off at night–the men and women…
All I know about the Civil War was that it was goin’ on. I heard talk about killing and so on, but I didn’t know anything about it….
I remember when Yankee soldiers came riding through the yard. I was scared and ran away crying. I can see them now. Their swords hung at their sides and their horses walked proud as if they walked on their hind legs. The master was in the field trying to hide his money and guns and things. The soldiers said, ‘We won’t hurt you, child.’ It made me feel wonderful.
What I call the Ku Klux were those people who met at night and if they heard anybody saying you were free, they would take you out at night and whip you. They were the plantation owners. I never saw them ride, but I heard about them and what they did. My master used to tell us he wished he knew who the Ku Kluxers were. But he knew, all right, I used to wait on the table and I heard them talking. ‘Gonna lynch another [redacted] tonight!’
…Well, slavery’s over and I think that’s a grand thing. A white lady recently [in the 1930s] asked me, ‘Don’t you think you were better off under the white people?’ I said ‘What you talkin’ about? The birds of the air have their freedom. I don’t know why she should ask me that anyway…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Hannah Davidson
1852 (approx. 85)
K. Osthimer
Emmette and Susan Meriwether
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Toledo, OH
OH
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Violence, Civil War, KKK
Ballard County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Union Troops
Carl Boone’s parents were both enslaved people who gained their freedom in 1829, and Carl Boone was born a free man in 1850. In this excerpt, the interviewer records an example of an enslaver named Daniel Thompson brutally killing an enslaved person. In what Carl Boone describes as Daniel Thompson’s “punishment for this terrible deed,” the excerpt goes on to describe the death of Daniel Thomspon’s son. These stories are told to the interviewer by Carl Boone, who is retelling stories he heard from his father. The interviewer notes that he is documenting Carl Boone’s story “word by word.”
…I was born a free man, fifteen years before the close of the Civil War. All the colored folk on plantations and farms around our plantation were slaves and most of them were terribly mistreated by their masters…
The most terrible treatment of any slave, is told by my father in a story of a slave on a neighboring plantation, owned by Daniel Thompson. “After committing a small wrong, Master Thompson became angry, tied his slave to a whipping post and beat him terribly. Mrs. Thompson begged him to quit whipping, saying, ‘you might kill him,’ and the master replied that he aimed to kill him. He then tied the slave behind a horse and dragged him over a fifty acre field until the slave was dead. As a punishment for this terrible deed, master Thompson was compelled to witness the execution of his own son, one year later. The story is as follows:
A neighbor to Mr. Thompson, a slave owner by name of Kay Van Cleve, had been having some trouble with one of his young male slaves, and had promised the slave a whipping. The slave was a powerful man and Mr. Van Cleve was afraid to undertake the job of whipping him alone. He called for help from his neighbors, Daniel Thompson and his son Donald. The slave, while the Thompsons were coming, concealed himself in a horse-stall in the barn and hid a large knife in the manger.
After the arrival of the Thompsons, they and Mr. Van Cleve entered the stall in the barn. Together, the three white men made a grab for the slave, when the slave suddenly made a lunge at the elder Mr. Thompson with the knife, but missed him and stabbed Donald Thompson.
The slave was overpowered and tied, but too late, young Donald was dead.
The slave was tried for murder and sentenced to be hanged. At the time of the hanging, the first and second ropes used broke when the trap was sprung. For a while the executioner considered freeing the slave because of his second failure to hang him, but the law said, “He shall hang by the neck until dead,” and the third attempt was successful.”
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Carl Boone
1850 (87)
Robert C. Irvin
Miley Boone (Carl’s father’s enslaver)
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
Anderson, IN
IN
Marion County, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Resistance, Violence
First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Marion 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 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
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.
…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 Barrett
1847 (Unknown)
Unknown
Stafford Barrett
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
TX
TX
Huntsville, TX
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Overseer, Resistance, Violence, Economics
First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Slave Traders,
In this third person narrative, the interviewer briefly notes Alex Smith’s recollections of the Civil War, before comparing how their respective enslavers treated Alex and Elizabeth Smith. The excerpt ends with the interviewer briefly describing Elizabeth Smith’s life after emancipation.
…Although only a child of five, Mr. [Alex] Smith remembers the Civil War, especially the marching of thousands of soldiers, and the horse-drawn artillery wagons. The Stubblefields freed their slaves the first winter after the war.
On the Peter Stubblefield plantation, the slaves [including Elizabeth Smith] were treated very well and had plenty to eat, while on the Robert Stubblefield plantation Mr. [Alex] Smith went hungry many times, and said, “Often, I would see a dog with a bit of bread, and I would have been willing to take it from him if I had not been afraid the dog would bite me.”…
The day the mistress and master came and told the slaves they were free to go anyplace they desired, Mrs. Smith’s mother told her later that she was glad to be free but she had no place to go or any money to go with. Many of the slaves would not leave and she never witnessed such crying as went on. Later Mrs. Smith was paid for working. She worked in the fields for “vittles” [food] and clothes. A few years later she nursed children for twenty-five cents a week and “vittles,” but after a time she received fifty cents a week, board, and two dresses…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Alex Smith and Elizabeth Smith
Unknown (83), Unknown (83)
Henrietta Karwowski
Robert Stubblefield, Peter Stubblefield
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
South Bend, IN
IN
KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Hunger, Civil War, Economics
Third Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Union Troops
In this first person narrative, Albert Todd describes the cruelty he witnessed and experienced as an enslaved person, including how his enslaver fed him only once a day and punished him for stealing food. Albert Todd also recounts how he remained a slave for years after he was technically free.
*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.
…Our missus was good to us, but one white man neighbor got a new set of[redacted] every year. He would say if they didn’t die, there wasn’t any good work left in them after they worked for him for a year. He always cut off one of their ears so if they ran away he’d know them.
My clothes were a long shirt, made out of a meal sack. That’s all I wore in those days. I was a slave for three years after the others were freed because I didn’t know anything about being free. A Mrs.Gibbs got a hold of me and made me her slave. She was a cruel old woman and she didn’t have any mercy on me. She gave me one sausage and one biscuit in the morning and nothing else all day. One day she was gone and I stole some biscuits. She comes back and says, ’Did you take them biscuits?’ She tells me if I tell the truth she won’t punish me, but she knocks me down and beats me till I don’t know anything. But after a while, her house burned and she burned up in it. But before that, I was going to run away…
Interviewee Formerly enslaved person
Birth Year (Age)
Interviewer WPA Volunteer
Enslaver’s Name
Albert Todd
Unknown (Unknown)
Unknown
Capt. Hudson
Interview Location
Residence State
Birth Location
San Antonio, TX
TX
Russellville, KY
Themes & Keywords
Additional Tags:
Hunger, Violence
First Person, Dialect, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty, Sold, Logan County
Todd_A_1
Can we count on your support?
This website is a service of Reckoning, Inc., a small non-profit organization that depends on grants and donations to continue our work. Up to this point, we have avoided putting any paid advertising on our website. If you would like to help us keep it that way, please consider making a donation to our organization.