and family and other nearby white neighbors would
ofttime attend our services. De patrollers wouldn't allow de slaves to
hold night services, and one night dey caught me mother out praying.
Dey stripped her naked and tied her hands together and wid a rope tied
to de hand cuffs and threw one end of de rope over a limb and tied de
other end to de pommel of a saddle on a horse. As me mother weighed
'bout 200, dey pulled her up so dat her toes could barely touch de
ground and whipped her. Dat same night she ran away and stayed over a
day and returned.

During de fall months dey would have corn shucking and cotton pickings
and would give a prize to de one who would pick de highest amount of
cotton or shuck de largest pile of corn. De prize would usually be a
suit of clothes or something to wear and which would be given at some
later date.

We could only have dances during holidays, but dances was held on
other plantations. One night a traveler visiting me Master and wanted
his boots shined. So Master gave de boots to one of de slaves to shine
and de slave put de boots on and went to a dance and danced so much
dat his feet swelled so dat when he returned he could not pull 'em
off.

De next morning as de slave did not show up with de boots dey went to
look for him and found him lying down trying to pull de boots off. He
told his Master dat he had put de boots on to shine 'em and could not
pull 'em off. So Master had to go to town and buy de traveler another
pair of boots. Before he could run away de slave was beaten wid 500
lashes.

De War dat brought our freedom lasted about two years. Me Master went
and carried one of de slaves for a servant. He was kind and good and
from dat day on he never whipped another slave nor did he allow any of
his slaves whipped. Dis time lasted from January to June de 19th when
we was set free in de State of Texas.

Lincoln and Davis both died short of promise. I means dat dey both
died before dey carried out dere plans and promises for freeing de
slaves.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

MORRIS HILLYER
Age 84 yrs.
Alderson, Okla.

My father was Gabe Hillyer and my mother was Clarisay Hillyer, and our
home was in Rome, Georgia. Our owner was Judge Hillyer. He was de last
United States senator to Washington, D. C., before de War.

My mother died when I was only a few days old and the only mother I
ever knew was Judge Hillyer's wife, Miss Jane. Her nine children were
all