The Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery
in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, by Work Projects Administration

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Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves
Kansas Narratives

Author: Work Projects Administration

Release Date: March 6, 2004 [EBook #11485]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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SLAVE NARRATIVES

A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves

TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT,
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

WASHINGTON 1941

VOLUME VI

KANSAS NARRATIVES

Prepared by
the Federal Writers' Project of
the Works Progress Administration
for the State of Kansas

INFORMANTS

Holbert, Clayton
Simms, Bill
Williams, Belle

THE AMERICAN GUIDE
TOPEKA, KANSAS

EX SLAVE STORY
OTTAWA, KANSAS
BY: Leta Gray (interviewer)

"My name is Clayton Holbert, and I am an ex slave. I am eighty-six years
old. I was born and raised in Linn County, Tennessee. My master's name
was Pleasant "Ples" Holbert. My master had a fairly large plantation; he
had, I imagine, around one hundred slaves."

"I was working the fields during the wind-up of the Civil War. They
always had a man in the field to teach the small boys to work, and I was
one of the boys. I was learning to plant corn, etc. My father, brother
and uncle went to war on the Union side."

"We raised corn, barley, and cotton, and produced all of our living on
the plantation. There was no such thing as going to town to buy things.
All of our clothing was homespun, our socks were knitted, and
everything. We had our looms, and made our own suits, we also had reels,
and we carved, spun, and