grandmother came from Pennsylvania with her white owners. In
accordance with the laws of the state they had left, she was freed when
she came of age, and married a man named Smith. Her name was Louisa.
Eugene's "Arnt" married a slave. As his mother was free, her children
were free, but Eugene added:

"She had put a Guardian over us, and Captain Crump was our guardian.
Guardians protected the Negro children who belonged to them."

To illustrate that children were considered the property of the mothers'
owners, he added that his uncle went to Columbia County and married a
slave, and that all of her children belonged to her master.

Mr. Clark, who owned Eugene's father, paid him 50c a week, and was angry
when Louisa refused to allow her children to work for him.

"He was good in a way," admitted Eugene, "Some masters were cruel to the
colored people, but a heap of white people won't believe it.

"I was too little to do any work before freedom. I just stayed with my
mother, and ran around. She did washing for white folks. We lived in a
rented house. My father's master, Mr. Clark, let him come to see us
sometimes at night. Free colored folks had to pay taxes. Mother had to
pay taxes. Then when they came of age, they had to pay taxes again. Even
in Augusta you had to have a pass to go from house to house. They had
frolics. Sometimes the white people came and looked at 'em having a good
time. 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
every half hour. There was an uptown market, too, at Broad and McKinne."

Asked about school, Eugene said:

"Going to school wasn't allowed, but still some people would slip their
children to school. There was an old Methodist preacher, a Negro named
Ned Purdee, he had a school for boys and girls going on in his back
yard. They caught him and put him in jail. He was to be put in stocks
and get so many lashes every day for a month. I heard him tell many
times how the man said: 'Ned, I won't whip you. I'll whip on the stock,
and you holler.' So Ned would holler out loud, as if they were whipping
him. They put his feet and hands in the holes, and he was supposed to be
whipped across his back."

"I read in the paper where a lady said slaves were never sold here in
Augusta at the old market, but I saw them selling slaves myself. They
put them up on something like a table, bid 'em off just like you w