REFERENCES

1.  Personal interview with Bolden Hall, living near the Masonic Hall, in the Eastern section of Live Oak, Florida

2.  Personal interview with Charlotte Martin, living near Greater Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in the Eastern section of Live Oak, Florida

3.  Sarah Ross, living near Greater Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church, Live Oak, Florida

FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT American Guide, (Negro Writers’ Unit)

Pearl Randolph, Field Worker
Lake City, Florida
January 14, 1937

REBECCA HOOKS

Rebecca Hooks, age 90 years, is one of the few among the fast-thinning ranks of ex-slaves who can give a clear picture of life “befo’ de wah.”

She was born in Jones County, Georgia of Martha and Pleasant Lowe, who were slaves of William Lowe.  The mother was the mulatto offspring of William Lowe and a slave woman who was half Cherokee.  The father was also a mulatto, purchased from a nearby plantation.

Because of this blood mixture Rebecca’s parents were known as “house niggers,” and lived on quarters located in the rear of the “big house.”  A “house nigger” was a servant whose duties consisted of chores around the big house, such as butler, maid, cook, stableman, gardner and personal attendant to the man who owned him.

These slaves were often held in high esteem by their masters and of course fared much better than the other slaves on the plantation.  Quite often they were mulattoes as in the case of Rebecca’s parents.  There seemed to be a general belief among slave owners that mulattoes could not stand as much laborious work as pure blooded Negro slaves.  This accounts probably for the fact that the majority of ex-slaves now alive are mulattoes.

The Lowes were originally of Virginia and did not own as much property in Georgia as they had in Virginia.  Rebecca estimates the number of slaves on this plantation as numbering no more than 25.

They were treated kindly and cruelly by turns, according to the whims of a master and mistress who were none too stable in their dispositions.  There was no “driver” or overseer on this plantation, as “Old Tom was devil enough himself when he wanted to be,” observes Rebecca.  While she never felt the full force of his cruelties, she often felt sorry for the other slaves who were given a task too heavy to be completed in the given time; this deliberately, so that the master might have some excuse to vent his pentup feelings.  Punishment was always in the form of a severe whipping or revocation of a slave’s privilege, such as visiting other plantations etc.