E~‘-slave Stories	Page Two	13
(Texas)








in jes‘ a long shirt with r~ string tied round the bottom for a belt. I went with ny yciung massa that w~y when he hunted. in the woods, and toted squirrels for him.

tiSoine white folksmi~ht want to put rae b~ck in slavery if I tells h~v

we was used in slavery time, but you asks me for the truth. The overseer was ‘straddle his big horse at three o‘clock in the mornin‘, roustin~ the hands ~~±‘ to the ~field. He got them all lined iîp and then come back to the house for breakfas‘. The rows was a mile longand no matter how much grass was in them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats you nearly to death. Lots of times they weighed cotton by candlelight . All the hands took dinner to the field ~n buckets and the overseer give them fifteen minutes to git dinner. He‘d start cuffin‘ some~ of them over the head when it was time to stop eatint and go back to work, Re‘d go to the house and eat his dinner end then he‘d come back end. look in all the buckets and. if a piece ‘of any— thing that was there when he left was et ‚ he ‘.d say you was los in‘ t tine and had. to be whipped. He‘d drive four st&ces in the ground and. tie a nigger down and beat him till he‘s rew. Then he‘d take a brick and grind it up in a powder end mix it with lard aiid put it all over him and roll him in a sheet, It ‚ d be two days a~ more ‚ fore that nigger could work ‘gain. I seed one nigger d.one that W~7 for stealth‘ a meat bone from the meatho~ise, Thatnigger got fift eon hundred lashes • The 1 i ‚ I chaps would pick up egg shells and. play with them 3fld~ if the overseer seed them he‘d say you was stealin‘ eggs and give you

a beatint. I ~ seed long lines of slaves chained together driv by a white man on a hoss, down the Jefferson road.