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 so