Ex-Slave Stories
District #5
Vanderburgh County
Lauana Creel

TOLD BY JOHN RUDD, AN EX-SLAVE

“Yes, I was a slave,” said John Rudd, “And I’ll say this to the whole world, Slavery was the worst curse ever visited on the people of the United States.”

John Rudd is a negro, dark and swarthy as to complexion but his nose is straight and aqualine, for his mother-was half Indian.

The memory of his mother, Liza Rudd, is sacred to John Rudd today and her many disadvantages are still a source of grief to the old man of 83 years.  John Rudd was born on Christmas day 1854 in the home of Benjamin Simms, at Springfield, Kentucky.  The mother of the young child was house maid for mistress Simms and Uncle John remembers that mother and child received only the kindliest consideration from all members of the Simms family.

While John was yet a small boy Benjamin Simms died and the Simms slaves were auctioned to the highest bidders.  “If’n you wants to know what unhappiness means,” said Uncle John Rudd, “Jess’n you stand on the Slave Block and hear the Auctioneer’s voice selling you away from the folks you love.”  Uncle John explained how mothers and fathers were often separated from their dearly loved children, at the auction block, but John and his younger brother Thomas were fortunate and were bought by the same master along with Liza Rudd, their mother.  An elder brother, Henry, was separated from his mother and brothers and became the property of George Snyder and was thereafter known as Henry Snyder.

When Liza Rudd and her two little sons left the slave block they were the property of Henry Moore who lived a few miles away from Springfield.  Uncle John declares that unhappiness met them at the threshold of the Moore’s estate.

Liza was given the position of cook, housemaid and plough-hand while her little boys were made to hoe, carry wood and care for the small children of the Moore family.

John had only been at the Moore home a few months when he witnessed several slaves being badly beaten.  Henry Moore kept a white overseer and several white men were employed to whip slaves.  A large barrel stood near the slave quarters and the little boy discovered that the barrel was a whipping post.  The slaves would be strapped across the side of the barrel and two strong men would wield the “cat of nine tails” until blood flowed from gashed flesh, and the cries and prayers of the unfortunate culprits availed them nothing until the strength of the floggers became exhausted.