, "Be quiet, dey'll lynch you." She didn't know no
better! She was a old slave nigger. I showed the Yankees where the
white folks hid their silver and money and jewelry, and Mamma sho'
whipped me about it too. She was no fool 'bout slavery. Slavery sho'
didn't he'p us none to my belief.

I didn't care much 'bout Lincoln. It was nice of him to free us, but
'course he didn't want to.

The overseer was sho' nothing but poor white trash, the kind who
didn't lak niggers and dey still don't, old devils. Don't let 'em fool
you, dey don't lak a nigger a'tall.

I'm a Methodist. People ought to praise God 'cause he done done so
much for dese sinners. Dey was heap more religious in my early days. I
jined church in 1863. I jined the Holiness so I could git baptized and
the Methodist wouldn't baptize you. After my baptism, I went back to
the Methodist Church. You know my pastor, Reverend Miller, is the
first Methodist preacher I ever knowed that was baptized, and that
baptizes everybody.

I was married in Akin, South Carolina to Andrew Pew. We had 12
chillun. Jest one boy is my only living child today.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

MARSHALL MACK
Age 83 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.

I was born September 10, 1854. I am the second child of five. My
mother was named Sylvestus Mack and my father Booker Huddleston. I do
not remember my mother's master, 'cause he died before I was born. My
Mistress was named Nancy Mack. She was the mother of six children,
four boys and two girls. Three of dem boys went to the War and one
packed and went off somewhar and nobody heard from him doing of the
whole War. But soon as the War was over he come home and he never told
whar he had been.

I never saw but one grown person flogged during slavery and dat was my
mother. The younger son of my mistress whipped her one morning in de
kitchen. His name was Jack. De slaves on Mistress' place was treated
so good, all de people round and 'bout called us "Mack's Free
Niggers." Dis was 14 miles northwest of Liberty, county seat of
Bedford County, Virginia.

One day while de War was going on, my Mistress got a letter from her
son Jim wid jest one line. Dat was "Mother: Jack's brains spattered on
my gun this morning." That was all he written.

Jack Huddleston owned my father, who was his half-brother, and he was
the meanest man I ever seen. He flogged my father with tobacco sticks
and my mother after these floggings (which I never seen) ha