HILLIARD YELLERDAY (A SLAVE STORY)
Reference: Hilliard Yellerday
Editor: George L. Andrews

HILLIARD YELLERDAY
1112 Oakwood Avenue, Raleigh North Carolina.

"My mother and father told me many interesting stories of slavery and
of its joys and sorrows. From what they told me there was two sides to
the picture. One was extremely bad and the other was good.

"These features of slavery were also dependent on the phases of human
attitude and temperment which also was good or bad. If the master was
broadminded, with a love in his heart for his fellowman, his slaves
were at no disadvantage because of their low social standing and their
lack of a voice in the civil affairs of the community, state, and
nation. On the other hand if the master was narrowminded, overbearing
and cruel the case was reversed and the situation the slaves were
placed in caused a condition to exist concerning their general welfare
that was bad and the slave was as low socially as the swine or other
animals on the plantation.

"Some owners gave their slaves the same kind of food served on their
own tables and allowed the slaves the same privileges enjoyed by their
own children. Other masters fed their slave children from troughs made
very much like those from which the hogs of the plantation were fed.
There were many instances where they were given water in which the
crumbs and refuse from the masters table had been placed. They gathered
around this food with gourds and muscle shells from the fresh-water
creeks and ate from this trough. Such a condition was very bad indeed."

[HW: begin]

"My mother was named Maggie Yellerday, and my father was named Sam
Yellerday. They belonged to Dr. Jonathan Yellerday, who owned a large
plantation and over a hundred slaves. His plantation looked like a
small town. He had blacksmith shops, shoe shops, looms for weaving
cloth, a corn mill, and a liquor distillery. There was a tanyard
covering more than a quarter of an acre where he tanned the hides of
animals to use in making shoes. There was a large bell they used to
wake the slaves, in the morning, and to call them to their meals during
the day. He had carriages and horses, stable men and carriage men. The
carriage master and his family rode in was called a coach by the slaves
on the plantation. His house had eighteen rooms, a large hall, and four
large porches. The house set in a large grove about one mile square and
the slave quarters