e now den in slavery time. Dere got to
be a change made. People got to turn. I belong to de Methodist Church en
I think everybody ought to belong to de church. God built de church for
de people en dey ought to go dere en be up en doin in de church. Dat dey
duty."

=Source:= Aaron Ford, Ex-Slave, Age 80-90, (No other information
given by interviewer.)

Personal interview by H. Grady Davis, June, 1937.

Project 1885 -1-
District #4
Spartanburg, S.C.
May 28, 1937

FOLKLORE: EX-SLAVES

Six miles east of Spartanburg on R.F.D. No. 2, the writer found Aunt
Charlotte Foster, a colored woman who said she was 98 years old. Her
mother was Mary Johnson and her father's name was John Johnson. She is
living with her oldest daughter, whose husband is John Montgomery.

She stated she knew all about slavery times, that she and her mother
belonged to William Beavers who had a plantation right on the main road
from Spartanburg to Union, that the farm was near Big Brown Creek, but
she didn't know what larger stream the creek flowed into. Her father
lived on another place somewhere near Limestone. She and her mother were
hands on the farm and did all kinds of hard work. She used to plow, hoe,
dig and do anything the men did on the plantation. "I worked in the hot
sun." Every now and then she would get a sick headache and tell her
master she had it; then he would tell her to go sit down awhile and rest
until it got better.

She had a good master; he was a Christian if there ever was one. He had
a wife that was fussy and mean. "I didn't call her Mistus, I called her
Minnie." But, she quickly added, "Master was good to her, just as kind
and gentle like." When asked what was the matter with the wife, she just
shook her head and did not reply. Asked if she had rather live now or
during slavery times, she replied that if her master was living she
would be willing to go back and live with him. "Every Sunday he would
call us chilluns by name, would sit down and read the Bible to us; then
he would pray. If that man ain't in the Kingdom, then nobody's there."

She said her master never whipped any of the slaves, but she had heard
cries and groans coming from other plantations at five o'clock in the
morning where the slaves were being beaten and whipped. Asked why the
slaves were being beaten, she replied rather vehemently, "Just because
they wanted to beat 'em; they could do it, and they