Witnessed Extreme Cruelty – Page 4

August 13, 2020October 4, 2020

Hannah Davidson

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.

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Excerpt:

… 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

Davidson_H_3

August 13, 2020October 2, 2020

Hannah Davidson

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Excerpt:

…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,

Davidson_H_2

August 13, 2020October 4, 2020

Hannah Davidson

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.

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

Excerpt:

… 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

Davidson_H_1

August 12, 2020October 4, 2020

Carl Boone

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.”

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Excerpt:

…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

Boone_C_1

August 12, 2020November 10, 2022

Barney Stone

Barney Stone was 91 years old when interviewed. He was enslaved for 16 years before he escaped and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Barney Stone was a self-taught teacher at a Black school and then became a preacher. The interviewer notes that Barney Stone had a “remarkable memory,” which is evident in the excerpt below where Barney Stone recounts multiple examples of his enslaver’s brutal treatment of enslaved people. In this excerpt, Barney Stone recounts how his enslaver sold his sister, mother and brother. The excerpt ends with Barney Stone reuniting with his mother and brother.

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

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Excerpt:

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

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

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

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Barney 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

Stone_B_3

August 12, 2020November 10, 2022

Barney Stone

Barney Stone was 91 years old when interviewed. He was enslaved for 16 years before he escaped and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Barney Stone was a self-taught teacher at a Black school and then became a preacher. The interviewer notes that Barney Stone had a “remarkable memory,” which is evident in the excerpt below where Barney Stone explains the practice of buying and selling enslaved people.

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

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Excerpt:

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

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

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Barney 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

Stone_B_2

August 12, 2020November 10, 2022

Barney Stone

Barney Stone was 91 years old when interviewed. He was enslaved for 16 years before he escaped and joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Barney Stone was a self-taught teacher at a Black school and then became a preacher. Earlier in the interview, Barney Stone explains how he witnessed his enslaver sell his sister, mother and brother. He also recounts how his enslaver brutally whipped him, and other examples of cruelty towards enslaved people. In this excerpt, Barney Stone explains how he joined the Union Army and his experience during the Civil War.

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

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Source Description:

… After those experiences of sixteen long years in Hell, as a slave, I was very bitter against the white man, until after I ran away and joined the Union army.

At the out-break of the Civil War and when the Northern [Union] army was marching into the Southland, hundreds of male slaves were shot down by the Rebels [Confederates], rather than see them join with the Yankees [Union soldiers]. One day when I learned that the Northern troops were very close to our plantation, I ran away and hid in a culvert [tunnel for water], but was found and I would have been shot – had the Yankee troops not scattered them – and that saved me. I joined the Union army and served one year, eight months and twenty-two days, and fought with them in the battle of Fort Wagnor, and also in the battle of Milikin’s Bend. When I went into the army, I could not read or write. The white soldiers took an interest in me and taught me to write and read, and when the war was over I could write a very good letter. I taught what little I knew to [redacted] children after the War…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Barney 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

Stone_B_1

August 12, 2020October 4, 2020

Armstead Barrett

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

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Excerpt:

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

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

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

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Armstead 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,

Barrett_A_1

August 12, 2020September 29, 2020

Alex Smith and Elizabeth Smith

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.

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Excerpt:

…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

Smith_A_1

August 12, 2020October 4, 2020

Albert Todd

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.

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Excerpt:

…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

Tag: Witnessed Extreme Cruelty

Hannah Davidson

Hannah Davidson

Hannah Davidson

Carl Boone

Barney Stone

Barney Stone

Barney Stone

Armstead Barrett

Alex Smith and Elizabeth Smith

Albert Todd

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