Good Morning POU!
OK, meditate first, now today’s narratives from our brave ancestors, on life as a slave in the United States.
On “Plantation Life”
Jennie Webb
De fus’ thing I recollect is living in a slave cabin back o’ Marse’s big house, along wid forty or fifty other slaves. All my childhood life, I can never remember seeing my pa or ma gwine to wuk or coming in from wuk in de daylight, as dey went to de fiel’s fo’ day an’ wukked till after dark. It wuz wuk, wuk, all de time. My ma wukked in de fiel’s up to de day I wuz born. I wuz born twix de fiel’s an’ de cabins. Ma wuz den tooken to de house on a hoss.
Lewis Jones
My mammy am owned by Massa Fred Tate and so am my pappy and all my brudders and sisters. How many brudders and sisters? Lawd A’mighty! I’ll tell you, ’cause you ask, and dis nigger gives de facts as ’tis. Let’s see, I can’t ’lect de number. My pappy have twelve chillun by may mammy and twelve by anudderer nigger, name’ Mary. You keep de count. Den, dere am Lisa. Him have ten by her. And dere am Mandy. Him have eight by her. And dere am Betty. Him have six by her. Now let me ’lect some more. I can’t bring de names to mind, but there am two or three others what have jus’ one or two chillun by my pappy. Dat am right-close to fifty chillun, ’cause my mammy done told me. It’s disaway: my pappy am de breedin’ nigger.
Elias Thomas
It took a smart nigger to know who his father was, in slavery time. I just can remeber my mother.
Harriet Robinson
Whenever white folks had a baby born, den all de old niggers had to come th’ough the room, and the marster would be over ’hind the bed, and he’d say, ”Here’s a new little mistress or master you got to work for.” You had to say, ”Yessuh, Master”, and bow real low, or the overseer would crack you. Them was slavery days, dog days.
Sarah Debro
“One day Grandpappy sassed Miss Polly White, and she told him that if he didn’t behave hisself that she would put him in her pocket. Grandpappy was a big man, and I ask him how Miss Polly could do that. He said she meant that she would sell him, then put the money in her pocket. He never did sass Miss Polly no more.”
On “Conjuring”
Josh Hadnot
Dey was conjure men and women in slavery days. Dey make out like dey kin do t’ings to keep marster from whippin’ you. One of dem gib a ole lady a bag of san’ and tole her dat keep Marster from whippin’ her. Dat same day, she git too uppity and sass de marster, ’cause she feel safe. Dat marster, he whip dat darky so hard he cut dat bag of san’ plump in two. Dat ruint de conjure man’s business.
Julius Jones
The biggest thing the niggers done was working conjurations. The funny thing ’bout that was they could hoodoo each other, but they sure couldn’t hoodoo the white folks.
Sarah Douglas
“I was born in Alabama. I don’t know when though. I did not find out when I was born because old miss never told me. My ma died when I was real small and my old miss raised me. I had a hard time of my life. I slept on the floor just like a cat—anywhere I laid down I slept. In winter I slept on rags. If I got sick old miss would give me plenty of medicine because she wanted me to stay well in order to work. My old master was name John Buffett and old misses name was Eddie Buffett. She would fix my bread and licker in a tin lid and shove it to me on the floor. I never ate at the table until I was twelve and that was after freedom.
“To whip me she put my head between the two fence rails and she taken the cow hide whip and beat me until I couldn’t sit down for a week. Sometimes she tied our hands around a tree and tie our neck to the tree with our face to the tree and they would get behind us with that cow hide whip with a piece of lead tied to the end and lord have mercy! child, I shouted when I wasn’t happy. All I could say was, ‘Oh pray, mistress, pray.’ That was our way to say Lord have mercy. The last whipping old miss give me she tied me to a tree and oh my Lord! old miss whipped me that day. That was the worse whipping I ever got in my life. I cried and bucked and hollered until I couldn’t. I give up for dead and she wouldn’t stop. I stop crying and said to her, ‘Old miss, if I were you and you were me I wouldn’t beat you this way.’ That struck old miss’s heart and she let me go and she did not have the heart to beat me any more.
“I did every kind of work when I was a little slave; split rails, sprouted, ditched, plowed, chopped, and picked and planted.
“I remember young master going to war and I remember hearing the first gun shoot but I did not see it. I saw the smoke though.
“I never went to school a day in my life. The white folks said we did not need to learn, if we needed to learn anything they could learn us with that cow hide whip.
“We went to the white folks’ church, so we sit in the back on the floor. They allowed us to join their church whenever one got ready to join or felt that the Lord had forgiven them of their sins. We told our determination; this is what we said: ‘I feel that the Lord have forgiven me for my sins. I have prayed and I feel that I am a better girl. I belong to master so and so and I am so old.’ The white preacher would then ask our miss and master what they thought about it and if they could see any change. They would get up and say: ‘I notice she don’t steal and I notice she don’t lie as much and I notice she works better.’ Then they let us join. We served our mistress and master in slavery-time and not God.