Sam T Stewart
From:
North Carolina
N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: Mary A. Hicks
No. Words: 1519
Subject: SAM T. STEWART, EX-SLAVE
Person Interviewed: Sam T. Stewart
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt
[TR: Date stamp: JUN 1 1937]
SAM T. STEWART [HW: 84 years.]
"My name is Sam T. Stewart. I was born in Wake County, North Carolina
Dec. 11, 1853. My father was a slave, A.H. Stewart, belonging to James
Arch Stewart, a slave owner, whose plantation was in Wake County near
what is now the Harnett County line of Southern Wake. Tiresa was my
mother's name. James Arch Stewart, a preacher, raised my father, but my
mother was raised by Lorenzo Franks, a Quaker in Wake County. When I
was two years old James Arch Stewart sold my father to speculators, and
he was shipped to Mississippi. I was too young to know my father.
"The names of the speculators were--Carter Harrison, and--, and a man
named Roulhac. I never saw my father again, but I heard from him the
second year of the surrender, through his brother and my aunt. My
father died in Mississippi.
"The speculators bought up Negroes as a drover would buy up mules. They
would get them together by 'Negro drivers', as the white men employed
by the speculators were called. Their names were,----Jim Harris of
Raleigh, and----yes, Dred Thomas, who lived near Holly Springs in Wake
County. Wagon trains carried the rations on the trip to Mississippi.
The drivers would not start until they had a large drove. Then the
slaves were fastened together with chains. The chain was run between
them, when they had been lined up like soldiers in double file. A small
chain was attached to a Negro on the left and one to the Negro on the
right and fastened to the main chain in the center. Billy Askew was
another speculator. He lived on the corner of Salisbury and Carbarrus
Street in Raleigh. Sometimes as many as thirty slaves were carried in a
drove. They walked to Mississippi.
"My brothers and sisters are dead. Down on the plantations our houses
were built of poles daubed with mud, with a rived board (split board).
I had good beds, good clothes, and plenty to eat. We made it and we ate
it. When a slave owner treated his slaves unusually good some other
slave owner would tell him that he was raising slaves who would rise
against him. Lorenzo Franks, who owned me and my mother, was a Quaker.
He treated his slaves unusually well. He would not sell any of them.
His brother was an Iron Side Baptist preacher, and he would tell his
brother he was raising slaves who would rise against him. Franks owned
seventeen slaves, I don't know how many Stewart owned."
[HW: m p. 6] [TR: Editor indicated three paragraphs on page 6 (page 322
of the volume) should have been moved here.]
"I did farm work in slavery time. I earned no money except what we made
on patches. These patches were given to my mother by my master. We
caught birds and game, sent it to town, and sold it for money. We
caught birds and partridges in traps. Our master would bring them to
town, sell them for us, and give us the money. We had a lot of possums
and other game to eat. We got our food out of the big garden planted
for the whole shebang. My master overseered his plantation.
"We didn't think much of the poor white man. He was down on us. He was
driven to it, by the rich slave owner. The rich slave owner wouldn' let
his Negroes sociate with poor white folks. Some of the slave owners,
when a poor white man's land joined theirs and they wanted his place
would have their Negroes steal things and carry them to the poor white
man, and sell them to him. Then the slave owner, knowing where the
stuff was, (Of course the slave had to do what his master told him.)
would go and find his things at the poor white man's house. Then he
would claim it, and take out a writ for him, but he would give him a
chance. He would tell him to sell out to him, and leave, or take the
consequences. That's the way some of the slave owners got such large
tracks of lands.
"The free Negro was a child by a white man and a colored woman, or a
white woman and a Negro slave. A child by a white man and a Negro woman
was set free when the man got ready. Sometimes he gave the free Negro
slaves. Oscar Austin, an issue, was set free and given slaves by his
master and daddy. Old man Oscar Austin lived by the depot in Raleigh.
He is dead now.
"When a child by a Negro man slave and a white woman arrived he could
not be made a slave, but he was bound out until he was 21 years old.
The man, who ever wanted him, had him bound to him by the courts and
was his gardeen until he was 21 years old. He could not be made a slave
if he was born of a free woman. There were jails for slaves called
dungeons; the windows were small. Slaves were put into jail for
misdemeanors until court was held, but a white man could not be kept
there over 30 days without giving bond. Whites and slaves were kept in
the same jail house, but in separate rooms.
"They never taught me to read and write; and most slaves who got any
reading and writing certainly stole it. There were rules against slaves
having books. If the patterollers caught us with books they would whip
us. There were whipping posts on the plantation but patterollers tied
Negroes across fences to whip them. There was no church on the
plantation. We had prayer meetings in the cabins. We had big times at
corn shuckings and dances. We all had plenty of apple and peach brandy
but very few got drunk. I never saw a nigger drunk until after the
surrender. We went to the white folks' church. We were partitioned off
in the church.
"The patterollers visited our house every Saturday night, generally. We
set traps to catch the patterollers. The patterollers were poor white
men. We stretched grape vines across the roads, then we would run from
them. They would follow, and get knocked off their horses. I knew many
of the patterollers. They are mostly dead. Their children, who are
living now in Wake County and Raleigh, are my best friends, and I will
therefore not tell who they were. I was caught by the patterollers in
Raleigh.
"I would have been whipped to pieces if it hadn't been for a white boy
about my age by the name of Thomas Wilson. He told them I was his
nigger, and they let me go. We had brought a load of lightwood splints
in bundles to town on a steer cart. This was near the close of the war.
We had sold out one load of splints had had been paid for them in
Confederate money. We had several bills. We went into a bar and bought
a drink, each paying one dollar a drink, or two dollars for two small
drinks. The bar was in the house where the Globe Clothing Store is now
located on the corner of Wilmington and Exchange Streets. Just as I
swallowed my drink a constable grabbed me by the back of the neck, and
started with me to the guard house, where they done their whippin'.
Down at the guard house Nick Denton, the bar tender, told Thomas
Wilson 'Go, tell the constable that is your nigger'. Thomas came
running up crying, and told the constable I was his nigger. The
constable told him to take me and carry me on home or he would whip
both of us. We then hitched our ox to the cart and went home."
[TR: The editor indicated with lines that the following three
paragraphs should be moved to page 2 of this interview (page 318 of the
volume).]
"When I was a child I played marbles, 'Hail over', and bandy, a game
played like golf. In striking the ball we knocked it at each other.
Before we hit the ball we would cry, 'Shins, I cry', then we would
knock the ball at our playmates. Sometime we used rocks for balls.
"We got Christmas holidays from Christmas to New Years day. This was
also a time when slaves were hired out or sold. You were often put on
the auction block at Christmas. There was a whipping post, an auction
block, and jail located on Court House Square where the news stand is
now located on Fayetteville Street. There was a well in the yard.
"We were treated by doctors when sick. We were given lots of herbs.
"I do not believe in ghosts.
"I did not feel much elated over hearing I was free, I was afraid of
Yankee soldiers. Our mistress told us we were free. I farmed first year
after the war. We had no horses, the Yankees had taken the horses, and
some of us made a crap with grubbing hoes.
"I think Abraham Lincoln was a man who aimed to do good, but a man who
never got to it. I cannot say anymore than that his intentions were
good, and if he had lived he would have done more good."
[HW: ---- Insert from p. 6.]
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