Aunt Adeline
From:
Georgia
COMBINED INTERVIEWS
[HW: Dist 1-2
Ex-Slave #24]
FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECTS,
Augusta-Athens
Supervisor: Miss Velma Bell
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]
EXCERPTS FROM SLAVE INTERVIEWS
[ADELINE]
"Aunt Adeline," an ex-slave of Wilkes County, Georgia, thinks she is
"around a hundred." Her first memory is, in her own words, "my love for
my mother. I loved her so! I would cry when I couldn't be with her. When
I growed up, I kep' on loving her jes' that-a-way, even after I married
and had children of my own."
Adeline's mother worked in the field, drove steers, and was considered
the best meat cutter on the plantation. The slave women were required to
spin, and Adeline's mother was unusually good at spinning wool, "and
that kind of spinning was powerful slow," added the old woman. "My
mother was one of the best dyers anywhere around. I was too. I made
colors by mixing up all kinds of bark and leaves. I made the prettiest
sort of lilac color with maple bark and pine bark--not the outside pine
bark, but that little thin skin that grows right down next to the tree."
Adeline remembers one dress she loved: "I never will forget it as long
as I live. It was a hickory stripe dress they made for me, with brass
buttons at the wrist bands. I was so proud of that dress and felt so
dressed up in it, I just strutted!"
She remembers the plantation store and the candy the master gave the
Negro children. "Bright, pretty sticks of candy!" Tin cups hold a
special niche in her memory. But there were punishments, too. "Good or
bad, we got whippings with a long cowhide kept just for that. They
whipped us to make us grow better, I reckon!"
Asked about doctors, Adeline replied:
"I was born, growed up, married and had sixteen children and never had
no doctor till here since I got so old!"
Plantation ingenuity was shown in home concoctions and tonics. At the
first sniffle of a cold, the slaves were called in and given a drink of
fat lightwood tea, made by pouring boiling water over split kindling.
"'Cause lightwood got turpentine in it," explained Adeline. She said
that a springtime tonic was made of anvil dust, gathered at the
blacksmith's shop, mixed with syrup. This was occasionally varied with a
concoction of garlic and whiskey!
Adeline adheres to traditional Negro beliefs, and concluded her
recountal of folklore with the dark prediction: "Every gloomy day brings
death. Somebody leaving this unfriendly world to-day!"
[EUGENE]
Another version of slavery was given by Eugene, an Augusta Negro. His
mother was brought to Augusta from Pennsylvania and freed when she came
of age. She married a slave whose master kept a jewelry store. The freed
woman was required to put a guardian over her children. The jeweler paid
Eugene's father fifty cents a week and was angry when his mother refused
to allow her children to work for him. Eugene's mother supported her
children by laundry work. "Free colored folks had to pay taxes," said
Eugene, "And in Augusta you had to have a pass to go from house to
house. You couldn't go out at night in Augusta after 9 o'clock. They had
a bell at the old market down yonder, and it would strike every hour and
half hour. There was an uptown market, too, at Broad and McKinne."
Eugene told of an old Negro preacher, Ned Purdee, who had a school for
Negro children in his back yard, in defiance of a law prohibiting the
education of Negroes. Ned, said Eugene, was put in jail but the
punishment of stocks and lashes was not intended to be executed. The
sympathetic jailor told the old man: "Ned, I won't whip you. I'll just
whip down on the stock, and you holler!" So Ned made a great noise, the
jailor thrashed about with his stick, and no harm was done.
Eugene touched on an unusual angle of slavery when he spoke of husbands
and wives discovering that they were brother and sister. "They'd talk
about their grandfathers and grandmothers, and find out that they had
been separated when they were children," he said. "When freedom was
declared, they called the colored people down to the parade ground. They
had built a big stand, and the Yankees and some of the leading colored
men made addresses. 'You are free now. Don't steal. Work and make a
living. Do honest work. There are no more masters. You are all free.' He
said the Negro troops came in, singing:
"Don't you see the lightning?
Don't you hear the thunder?
It isn't the lightning,
It isn't the thunder,
It's the buttons on
The Negro uniforms!"
[MARY]
Mary is a tiny woman, 90 years old. "I'd love to see some of the white
folks boys and girls," she said, smiling and showing a set of strong new
teeth. "We had school on our plantation, and a Negro teacher named
Mathis, but they couldn't make me learn nothin'. I sure is sorry now!"
Mary's plantation memories, in contrast to those of slaves who remember
mostly molasses and corn-pone, include tomato rice, chickens, baked,
fried and stewed. "And chicken pies!" Mary closed her eyes. "Don't talk
about 'em! I told my grand children last week, I wanted to eat some
old-time potato pie!"
They played "peep-squirrel," Mary remembered. "I never could put up to
dance much, but none could beat me runnin'. "Peep Squirrel" was a game
we made up on the plantation. The girls peeped out, then ran by the men,
and they'd be caught and twirled around. They said I was like a kildee
bird, I was so little and could run so fast! They said I was married
when I was 17 years old. I know it was after freedom. I had the finest
kind of marrying dress that my father bought for me. It had great big
grapes hanging down from the sleeves and around the skirt." Mary sighed.
"I wish't I had-a kep' it for my children to saw!"
[RACHEL]
Rachel's master called his people "servants", not Negroes or slaves. "He
de bes' marster in de worl'," said Rachel. "I love his grave!"
Rachel nursed her aunt's children while the mother acted as nurse for
"de lady's baby whut come fum Russia wid de marster's wife." The czarina
was godmother for the ambassador's baby. "Marster bin somewheh in de
back part o' de worl'." explained the old woman, "You see, he wuz de
guv'nor. He knowed all de big people, senetras and all." Rachel laughed.
"I was a old maid when I married," she said. "De broom wuz de law. All
we hadder do was step over de broom befo' witnesses and we wuz marry!"
[LAURA]
"As far as I kin rekellec'," said Laura, "my mother was give." She could
not remember her age, but estimated that she might be 75 years old. Her
native dignity was evident in her calm manner, her neat clothing and the
comfortable, home-like room. "Dey say in dem days," she continued, "when
you marry, dey give you so many colored people. My mother, her brother
and her aunt was give to young Mistis when she marry de Baptis' preacher
and come to Augusta. When dey brought us to Augusta, I wuz de baby.
Round wheh de barracks is now, was de Baptis' parsonage. My mother was a
cook. I kin remember de Yankees comin' down Broad Street. Dey put up
wheh de barracks is on Reynolds Street. Dey ca'yed me to de fairground.
De man was speakin'. I thought it wuz up in de trees, but I know now it
muster been a platform in bushes. Mistis say to me: 'Well, Laura, what
did you see?' I say: 'Mistis, we is all free.' I such a lil' chile she
jus' laugh at me for saying sich a thing. When I was sick, she nuss me
good."
Laura remembered a long house with porches on Ellis Street, "running
almost to Greene," between 7th and 8th, where slaves were herded and
kept for market day. "Dey would line 'em up like horses or cows," she
said, "and look in de mouf' at dey teeth. Den dey march 'em down
together to market, in crowds, first Tuesday sale day."
[MATILDA]
In contrast to the pleasant recollections of most of the ex-slaves,
Matilda gave a vivid picture of the worst phase of plantation life on a
Georgia plantation. She had been plowing for four years when the war
started.
"I wuz in about my thirteen when de war end," she mumbled, "Fum de fus'
overseer, dey whu-op me to show me how to wuk. I wuk hard, all de time.
I never had no good times. I so old I kain't rekellec' my marster's
name. I kain't 'member, honey. I had too hard time. We live in, a
weather-board house, jus' hulled in. We had to eat anyting dey give us,
mos'ly black 'lasses in a great big ole hogshead. When de war gwine on,
we had to live on rice, mos'ly, what dey raise. We had a hard time.
Didn't know we wuz free for a long time. All give overseer so mean, de
slaves run away. Dey gits de blood-houn' to fin' 'em. Dey done dug cave
in de wood, down in de ground, and hide dere. Dey buckle de slave down
to a log and beat de breaf' outter dem, till de blood run all over
everywhere. When night come, dey drug 'em to dey house and greases 'em
down wid turpentine and rub salt in dey woun's to mek 'em hurt wuss. De
overseer give de man whiskey to mek him mean. When dey whu-op my mother,
I crawl under de house and cry."
One of Matilda's younger friends, listening, nodded her head in
sympathy.
"When Matilda's mind was clearer she told us terrible stories," she
said. "It makes all the rest of us thankful we weren't born in those
times."
Matilda was mumbling end weeping.
"Dey wuz mean overseer," she whispered. "But dey wuz run out o' de
country. Some white ladies in de neighborhood reported 'um and had 'um
run out."
[EASTER]
"Aunt Easter" is from Burke County. Her recollections are not quite so
appalling as Matilda's, but they are not happy memories.
"Dey didn' learn me nothin' but to churn and clean up house. 'Tend day
boy, churn dat milk, spin and cyard dat roll."
Asked if the slaves were required to go to Church, Easter shook her
head.
"Too tired. Sometime we even had to pull fodder on Sunday. Sometime we
go to church, but all dey talk about wuz obeyin' Massa and obeyin'
Missus. Befo' we went to church, we had to git up early and wash and
iron our clo'es."
Easter's brother was born the day Lee surrendered. "Dey name him
Richmond," she said.
[CARRIE]
Carrie had plenty to eat in slavery days. "I'd be a heap better off if
it was dem times now," she said, "My folks didn't mistreet de slaves.
When freedom come, de niggers come 'long wid dere babies on dey backs
and say I wuz free. I tell 'em I already free! Didn't mek no diffrunce
to me, freedom!"
[MALINDA]
Malinda would gladly exchange all worldly possessions and freedom to
have plantation days back again. She owns her home and has a garden of
old-fashioned flowers, due to her magic "growing hand."
"I belonged to a preacher in Ca'lina," said Malinda. "A Baptis'
preacher. My fambly wasn't fiel' han's, dey wuz all house servants.
Marster wouldn't sell none o' his slaves. When he wanted to buy one,
he'd buy de whole fambly to keep fum having 'em separated."
Malinda and her sister belonged to the young girls. "Whar'ever da young
Mistises visited, we went right erlong. My own mammy tuk long trips wid
ole Mistis to de Blue Ridge Mountings and sometimes over de big water."
Malinda said the slaves danced to "quills," a home-made reed instrument.
"My mammy wuz de bes' dancer on de planteshun," asserted the old woman.
"She could dance so sturdy, she could balance a glass of water on her
head and never spill a drap!"
[AMELIA]
Amelia, like many of the old slaves in Augusta to-day, came from South
Carolina.
"I put on a hoopskirt one time," she said. "I wanted to go to church wid
a hoop on. I such a lil' gal, all de chillun laugh at me, playin' lady.
I take it off and hide it in de wood."
Amelia remembered her young mistresses with affection. "Dey wuz so good
to me," she said, "dey like to dress me up! I was a lil' gal wid a tiny
wais'. Dey put corsets on me and lace me up tight, and then dey take off
all dey medallion and jewelry and hang 'em roun' my neck and put long
sash on me. I look pretty to go to dance. When I git back, I so tired I
thow myself on de bed and sleep wid dat tight corset on me!"
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Mammy Dink
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