“All I can ricollect ‘bout de comin’ of freedom was Old Marster tellin’ us dat us was free as jack-rabbits and dat from den on Niggers would have to git deir own somepin t’eat.  It warn’t long atter dat when dem yankees, wid pretty blue clothes on come through our place and dey stole most evvything our Marster had.  Dey kilt his chickens, hogs, and cows and tuk his hosses off and sold ’em.  Dat didn’t look right, did it?

“My aunt give us a big weddin’ feast when I married Tom Adams, and she sho’ did pile up dat table wid heaps of good eatments.  My weddin’ dress was blue, trimmed in white.  Us had six chillun, nine grandchillun, and 19 great-grandchillun.  One of my grandchillun is done been blind since he was three weeks old.  I sont him off to de blind school and now he kin git around ’most as good as I kin.  He has made his home wid me ever since his Mammy died.

“‘Cordin’ to my way of thinkin’, Abraham Lincoln done a good thing when he sot us free.  Jeff Davis, he was all right too, ’cause if him and Lincoln hadn’t got to fightin’ us would have been slaves to dis very day.  It’s mighty good to do jus’ as you please, and bread and water is heaps better dan dat somepin t’eat us had to slave for.

“I jined up wid de church ’cause I wanted to go to Heben when I dies, and if folks lives right dey sho’ is gwine to have a good restin’ place in de next world.  Yes Mam, I sho b’lieves in ’ligion, dat I does.  Now, Miss, if you ain’t got nothin’ else to ax me, I’se gwine home and give dat blind boy his somepin t’eat.”

[HW:  Dist. 6 Ex-Slv. #4]

Washington Allen, ex-slave
Born:  December —­, 1854
Place of birth:  “Some where” in South Carolina
Present Residence:  1932-Fifth Avenue, Columbus, Georgia
Interviewed:  December 18, 1936
[may 8 1937]

[TR:  Original index refers to “Allen, Rev. W.B. (Uncle Wash)”; however, this informant is different from the next informant, Rev. W.B.  Allen.]

The story of “Uncle Wash”, as he is familiarly known, is condensed as follows: 

He was born on the plantation of a Mr. Washington Allen of South Carolina, for whom he was named.  This Mr. Allen had several sons and daughters, and of these, one son—­George Allen—­who, during the 1850’s left his South Carolina home and settled near LaFayette, Alabama.  About 1858, Mr. Washington Allen died and the next year, when “Wash” was “a five-year old shaver”, the Allen estate in South Carolina was divided—­all except the Allen Negro slaves.  These, at the instance and insistence of Mr. George Allen, were taken to LaFayette, Alabama, to be sold.  All were put on the block and auctioned off, Mr. George Allen buying every Negro, so that not a single slave family was divided up.

“Uncle Wash” does not remember what he “fetched at de sale”, but he does distinctly remember that as he stepped up on the block to be sold, the auctioneer ran his hand “over my head and said:  Genilmens, dis boy is as fine as split silk”.  Then when Mr. George Allen had bought all the Allen slaves, it dawned upon them, and they appreciated, why he had insisted on their being sold in Alabama, rather than in South Carolina.