One way of exacting obedience was to threaten to send offenders South to work in the fields.  The slaves around Lexington, Kentucky, came out ahead on one occasion.  The collector was Shrader.  He had the slaves handcuffed to a large leg chain and forced on a flat boat.  There were so many that the boat was grounded, so some of the slaves were released to push the boat off.  Among the “blacks” was one who could read and write.  Before Shrader could chain them up again, he was seized and chained, taken to below Memphis Tennessee and forced to work in the cotton fields until he was able to get word from Richmond identifying him.  In the meantime the educated negro issued freedom papers to his companions.  Many of them came back to Lexington, Kentucky where they were employed.

Mr. Hume thought the Emancipation Proclamation was the greatest work that Abraham Lincoln ever did.  The colored people on his plantation did not learn of it until the following August.  Then Mr. Payne and his sons offered to let them live on their ground with conditions similar to our renting system, giving a share of the crop.  They remained here until Jan. 1, 1865 when they crossed the Ohio at Madison.  They had a cow which had been given them before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued but this was taken away from them.  So they came to Ind. homeless, friendless and penniless.

Mr. Hume and his aged wife have been married 62 years and resided in the same community for 55 years where they are highly respected by all their neighbors.

He could not understand the attitude of his race who preferred to remain in slavery receiving only food and shelter, rather than to be free citizens where they could have the right to develop their individualism.

Virginia Tulley
District #2
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Ex-slave of Allen county
[Mrs. Henrietta Jackson]

References: 
A. Ft.  Wayne News Sentinel November 21, 1931
B. Personal interview
[TR:  There are no ‘A’ and ‘B’ annotations in the interview.]

Mrs. Henrietta Jackson, Fort Wayne resident, is distinguished for two reasons; she is a centennarian and an ex-slave.  Residing with her daughter, Mrs. Jackson is very active and helps her daughter, who operates a restaurant, do some of the lighter work.  At the time I called, an August afternoon of over 90 degrees temperature, Mrs. Jackson was busy sweeping the floor.  A little, rather stooped, shrunken body, Mrs. Jackson gets around slowly but without the aid of a cane or support of any kind.  She wears a long dark cotton dress with a bandana on her head with is now quite gray.  Her skin is walnut brown her eyes peering brightly through the wrinkles.  She is intelligent, alert, cordial, very much interested in all that goes on about her.