Sold

“When I was a year old, my mother was sold for $1500 in gold, and I was sold for $500 in gold to William Carter who lived about five miles south of Cartersville.  The payment was made in fine gold.  I was sold because my folk realized that freedom was coming and they wanted to obtain the cash value of their slaves.

Name

“My name is spelled ‘Waters’ but it is pronounced ‘Waiters.’  When I was born, I was thought to be a very likely child and it was proposed that I should be a waiter.  Therefore I was called Waters (but it was pronounced Waiters).  They did not spell it w-a-i-t-e-r-s, but they pronounced it that way.

How Freedom Came

“My mother said that they had been waiting a long time to hear what had become of the War, perhaps one or two weeks.  One day when they were in the field moulding corn, going round the corn hoeing it and putting a little hill around it, the conk sounded at about eleven o’clock, and they knew that the long expected time had come.  They dropped their hoes and went to the big house.  They went around to the back where the master always met the servants and he said to them, ’You are all free, free as I am.  You can go or come as you please.  I want you to stay.  If you will stay, I will give you half the crop.’  That was the beginning of the share cropping system.

“My mother came at once to the quarters, and when she found me she pulled the end out of a corn sack, stuck holes on the sides, put a cord through the top, pulled out the end, put it on me, put on the only dress she had, and made it back to the old home (her first master’s folk).

What the Slaves Expected

“When the slaves were freed, they got what they expected.  They were glad to get it and get away with it, and that was what mother and them did.

Slave Time Preaching

“One time when an old white man come along who wanted to preach, the white people gave him a chance to preach to the niggers.  The substance of his sermon was this: 

“’Now when you servants are working for your masters, you must be honest.  When you go to the mill, don’t carry along an extra sack and put some of the meal or the flour in for yourself.  And when you women are cooking in the big house, don’t make a big pocket under your dress and put a sack of coffee and a sack of sugar and other things you want in it.”

“They took him out and hanged him for corrupting the morals of the slaves.

Conditions After the War

“Immediately after the War, there was a great scarcity of food.  Neither Negroes nor white folk had anything to eat.  The few white people who did have something wouldn’t let it be known.  My grandmother who was sixty-five years old and one of the old and respected inhabitants of that time went out to find something for us to eat.  A white woman named Mrs. Burton gave her a sack of meal and told her not to tell anybody where she got it.