How Freedom Came

“I was living in Bartow County in north Georgia when freedom came.  I don’t remember how the slaves found it out.  I remember them saying, ‘Well, they’s all free.’  And that is all I remember.  And I remember some one saying—­asking a question, ‘You got to say master?’ And somebody answered and said, ‘Naw.’  But they said it all the same.  They said it for a long time.  But they learned better though.

Family

“I have brother Willis, Lizzie, Mary, Maud, and myself.  There was four sisters and one brother.  I had just one child—­a boy.  He lived to be a grown man and raised a family.  His wife had three children and all of them is gone.  The father, the mother, and the children.  I was a woman.  I wasn’t no man.  I just had one child, but the Lord blessed me.  I have three sisters and a brother dead.

Master

“My old master’s name was John Patterson and my old mistress was named Lucy Patterson.  She had a son named Bill and a son named Tommy and a son named Charles, and a boy named Bob, and a girl named Marion.  We are so for apart they can’t help me none.  I know Bob’s boys are dead because they got killed in a fight in Texas.

Crippled in Slave Time

“I been crippled all my life.  We was on the lawn playing and the white boy had been to the pond to water the horses.  He came back and said he was going to run over us.  We all ran and climbed up on the top of a ten rail fence.  The fence gave ’way and broke and fell down with us.  I caught the load.  They all fell on me.  It knocked the knee out of place.  They carried me to Stilesboro to Dr. Jeffrey, a white doctor in slavery time.  I don’t know what he did, but he left me with my knee out of joint after he treated it.  I can’t work my toes and I have to walk with that stick.

Soldiers

“I was a tot when I seen the soldiers coming dressed in blue, and I run.  They was very nice to the colored people, never beat ’em or nothin’.  I was in Bartow County when they come through.  They took a lot of things, but I can’t remember exactly what it was.  I ’tended to the children then—­both the white and colored children, but mostly the white.

Good Masters

“My old master, John Patterson, never beat up the women and men he bossed.

Patrollers

“I have heard people talk about the pateroles raising sand with the niggers.  Some of the niggers would say they got whipped.  I was small.  I would hear ’em say, ‘The pateroles is out tonight.’

Ku Klux Klan

“I have seed the old Ku Klux.  That was after freedom.  They came ’round to my old master where my mama stayed.  They were just after whipping folks.  Some of them they couldn’t whip.