s like de people has
now. I likes it better being a slave, we got along better then, than we
do now. We didn't have to pay for everything we had.

De worst time we ever had was when de Yankee men come thru. We had heard
they was coming and de missus tell us to put on a big pot of peas to
cook, so we put some white peas in a big pot and put a whole ham in it,
so that we'd have plenty for de Yankees to eat. Then when they come,
they kicked de pot over and de peas went one way and de ham another.

De Yankees 'stroyed 'most everything we had. They come in de house and
told de missus to give them her money and jewels. She started crying and
told them she ain't got no money or jewels, 'cepting de ring she had on
her finger. They got awfully mad and started 'stroying everything. They
took de cows and horses, burned de gin, de barn, and all de houses 'cept
de one massa and missus was living in. They didn't leave us a thing
'cept some big hominy and two banks of sweet potatoes. We chipped up
some sweet potatoes and dried them in de sun, then we parched them and
ground them up and that's all we had to use for coffee. It taste pretty
good too. For a good while we just live on hominy and coffee.

No ma'am, we ain't had no celebration after we was freed. We ain't know
we was free 'til a good while after. We ain't know it 'til General
Wheeler come thru and tell us. After that, de massa and missus let all
de slaves go 'cepting me; they kept me to work in de house and de
garden."

Home address:

2125 Calhoun St.
Columbia, S.C.

Project 1885-1
FOLKLORE
Spartanburg Dist. 4
June 22, 1937

Edited by:
Elmer Turnage

STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES

"I will be 85 years old dis coming August. My master said I was 14 years
old de August coming after freedom.

"My master was Billy Scott who had seven or eight hundred acres of land,
and 48 slaves. He wouldn't have no white overseers, but had some nigger
foremen dat sometimes whipped de niggers, and de master would whip dem,
too. He was a fair man, not so good and not so mean. He give us poor
quarters to live in, and sometimes plenty to eat, but sometimes we went
hungry. He had a big garden, plenty cows, hogs and sheep. De most we had
ter eat, was corn, collards, peas, turnip-greens and home-made molasses.
We had wheat bread on Sundays. It was made from flour grind at our own
mill. We didn't have but one day off, that was Christmas Day and den we
had to grind o