The
Federal Writers Project was a make-work initiative by the Federal Government
under Roosevelt during the Great Depression. It’s purpose was to give
employment to out-of-work writers. Among its various projects, one of the most
notable was its Slave Narrative Collection which interviewed surviving former
slaves. It resulted in over 2,000 interviews and close to 10,000 pages of
materials.
For
those who are interested most of the audio recordings have been digitized by
the Library of Congress and the majority of the writer material has been
archived by Project Guttenburg. A link to which is here. The narrative below
was given to a researcher in 1936 in Alabama, but unfortunately her identity
has been lost to time.
“In
them times white men went out with colored gals and women bold. Any time they
saw one and wanted her, she had to go with him, and his wife didn't say nothin’
'bout it. Not only the men, but the women went with colored men too. That's why
so many women slave owners wouldn't marry, 'cause they was goin’ with one of
their slaves. These things that have been goin’ on now ain't new, they've been
happenin’. That's why I say you just as well should leave 'em alone because
they gwine to do what they want to anyhow….
“My
young marster wanted to go with me, and 'cause I wouldn't go with him, he
pretended I had done somethin’ and beat me. I fought him back because he had no
right to beat me for not goin’ with him. His mother got mad at me for fightin’
him back and I told her why he had beat me. Well then she sent me to the
courthouse to be whipped for fightin’ him. They had stocks there where most
people would send their slaves to be whipped. These stocks were in the shape of
a cross, and they would strap your clothes up around your waist and have
nothin’ but your naked part out to whip. They didn't care who saw your
nakedness . Anyway they beat me that day until I couldn't sit down. When I went
to bed I had to lie on my stomach to sleep. After they finished whippin’ me, I
told them they needn't think they had done somethin’ by stripping me in front
of all them folk 'cause they had also stripped their mama's and sisters. God
had made us all, and he had made us just alike.
“They
never carried me back home after that; they put me in the Nigger Traders Office
to be sold. About two days later I was sold to a man at McBean. When I got to
his place everyone told me there how mean he was and that his wife was still
meaner. She was jealous if needed because I was light; she said she didn't know
what her husband wanted to bring that half white nigger there for, and if he
didn't get rid of me pretty quick she was goin’ to leave. Well he didn't get rid
of me and she left about a month after I got there. When he saw she wasn't
goin’ to come back 'til after I was gone, he took me back to the Niggers
Trader's Office.
“As
long as you warn't sold, your marster was 'sponsible for you, so whenever they
put on the market you had to praise yourself in order to be sold right away. If
you didn't praise yourself you got a beatin’. I didn't stay in the market long.
A 'dissipated’ woman bought me and I done laundry work for her and other
'dissipated women’ to pay my board 'til freedom come. They was all very nice to
me.
“Whenever
you want sold your folk never knowed about it 'til afterwards, sometimes they
never saw you again. They didn't even know who you was sold to or where they
was carryin’ you, unless you could write back and tell 'em.
“The
market was in the middle of Broad and Center Streets. They made a scaffold
whenever they was goin’ to sell anybody, and would put the person up on this so
everybody could see 'em good. Then they would sell 'em to the highest bidder.
Everybody wanted women who would have children fast. They would always ask you
if you were a good breeder, and if so they would buy you at your word, but if
you already had too many chillun, they would say you warn't much good. If you
hadn't ever had any chillun, your marster would tell 'em you was strong,
healthy, and a fast worker. You had to have somethin’ about you to be sold. Now
sometimes, if you was a real pretty young gaak, somebody would buy you without
knowin’ anything's 'bout you, just for yourself. Before my old marster died, he
had a pretty gal he was goin’ with and he wouldn't let her work nowhere but in
the house, and his wife nor nobody else didn't say nothin’ 'bout it; but they
knowed better. She had three chillun for him and when he died his brother come
and got the gal and the chillun.
“One
white lady that lived near us at McBean slipped in a colored gal's room and cut
her baby's head clean off 'cause it belonged to her husband. He beat her 'bout
it and started to kill her, but she begged so I reckon he got to feelin’ sorry
for her. But he kept goin’ with the colored gal and they had more chillun.
