ndricks' grandmother and her ten children lived on this
plantation. The grandmother had been brought to Georgia from Virginia:
"She used to tell me how the slave dealers brought her and a group of
other children along much the same as they would a herd of cattle," said
the ex-slave, "when they reached a town all of them had to dance through
the streets and act lively so that the chances for selling them would be
greater".
When asked to tell about Mr. Moore, her owner, and his family Jennie
Kendricks stated that although her master owned and operated a large
plantation, he was not considered a wealthy man. He owned only two other
slaves besides her immediate family and these were men.
"In Mr. Moores family were his mother, his wife, and six children (four
boys and two girls). This family lived very comfortably in a two storied
weatherboard house. With the exception of our grandmother who cooked for
the owner's family and slaves, and assisted her mistress with housework
all the slaves worked in the fields where they cultivated cotton and the
corn, as well as the other produce grown there. Every morning at sunrise
they had to get up and go to the fields where they worked until it was
too dark to see. At noon each day they were permitted to come to the
kitchen, located just a short distance in the rear of the master's
house, where they were served dinner. During the course of the day's
work the women shared all the men's work except plowing. All of them
picked cotton when it was time to gather the crops. Some nights they
were required to spin and to help Mrs. Moore, who did all of the
weaving. They used to do their own personal work, at night also." Jennie
Kendricks says she remembers how her mother and the older girls would go
to the spring at night where they washed their clothes and then left
them to dry on the surrounding bushes.
As a little girl Jennie Kendricks spent all of her time in the master's
house where she played with the young white children. Sometimes she and
Mrs. Moore's youngest child, a little boy, would fight because it
appeared to one that the other was receiving more attention from Mrs.
Moore than the other. As she grew older she was kept in the house as a
playmate to the Moore children so she never had to work in the field a
single day.
She stated that they all wore good clothing and that all of it was made
on the plantation with one exception. The servants spun the thread and
Mrs. Moore and h
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