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skyline1288: Mary Reynolds, 105 yrs old, Enslaved in Louisiana 1832-1865, Interview conducted in 1937 in Dallas, Texas. “Slavery was the worst days was ever seed in the world. They was things past tellin’, but I got the scars on my old body to show to this day. I seed worse than what happened to me. I seed them put the men and women in the stock with they hands screwed down through holes in the board and they… feets tied together and they naked behinds to the world. Solomon the overseer beat them with a big whip and massa look on. The niggers better not stop in the fields when they hear them yellin’. They cut the flesh most to the bones and some they was when they taken them out of stock and put them on the beds, they never got up again. When a nigger died they let his folks come out the fields to see him afore he died. They buried him the same day, take a big plank and bust it with a ax in the middle ’nough to bend it back, and put the dead nigger in betwixt it. They’d cart them down to the graveyard on the place and not bury them deep ’nough that buzzards wouldn’t come circlin’ round. Niggers mourns now, but in them days they wasn’t no time for mournin’.” ON HER MASSAS’ “RELATIONSHIPS” WITH SLAVE WOMEN: “They was a cabin called the spinnin’ house and two looms and two spinnin’ wheels goin’ all the time, and two nigger women sewing all the time. It took plenty sewin’ to make all the things for a place so big. Once massa goes to Baton Rouge and brung back a yaller gal dressed in fine style. She was a seamster nigger. He builds her a house ’way from the [slave] quarters and she done fine sewin’ for the whites. Us niggers knowed the doctor took a black woman quick as he did a white and took any on his place he wanted, and he took them often. But mostly the chillun born on the place looked like niggers. Aunt Cheyney allus say four of hers was massas, but he didn’t give them no mind. But this yaller gal breeds so fast and gits a mess of white young’uns. She larnt them fine manners and combs out they hair. Once two of them goes down the hill to the doll house where the Kilpatrick chillun am playin’. They wants to go in the dollhouse and one the Kilpatrick boys say, “That’s for white chillun.” They say, “We ain’t no niggers, ’cause we got the same daddy you has, and he comes to see us near every day and fotches us clothes and things from town.” They is fussin’ and Missy Kilpatrick is listenin’ out her chamber window. She heard them white niggers say, “He is our daddy and we call him daddy when he comes to our house to see our mama.” When massa come home that evenin’ his wife hardly say nothin’ to him, and he ask her what the matter and she tells him, “Since you asks me, I’m studyin’ in my mind ’bout them white young’uns of that yaller nigger wench from Baton Rouge.” He say, “Now, honey, I fotches that gal jus’ for you, ’cause she a fine seamster.” She say, “It look kind of funny they got the same kind of hair and eyes as my chillun and they got a nose looks like yours.” He say, “Honey, you jus’ payin’ ’tention to talk of li’l chillun that ain’t got no mind to what they say.” She say, “Over in Mississippi I got a home and plenty with my daddy and I got that in my mind.” Well, she didn’t never leave and massa bought her a fine, new span of surrey hosses. But she don’t never have no more chillun and she ain’t so cordial with the massa. Margaret, that yallow gal, has more white young’uns, but they don’t never go down the hill no more to the big house.
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skyline1288:

Mary Reynolds, 105 yrs old, Enslaved in Louisiana 1832-1865, Interview conducted in 1937 in Dallas, Texas.

“Slavery was the worst days was ever seed in the world. They was things past tellin’, but I got the scars on my old body to show to this day. I seed worse than what happened to me. I seed them put the men and women in the stock with they hands screwed down through holes in the board and they… feets tied together and they naked behinds to the world. Solomon the overseer beat them with a big whip and massa look on. The niggers better not stop in the fields when they hear them yellin’. They cut the flesh most to the bones and some they was when they taken them out of stock and put them on the beds, they never got up again.

When a nigger died they let his folks come out the fields to see him afore he died. They buried him the same day, take a big plank and bust it with a ax in the middle ’nough to bend it back, and put the dead nigger in betwixt it. They’d cart them down to the graveyard on the place and not bury them deep ’nough that buzzards wouldn’t come circlin’ round. Niggers mourns now, but in them days they wasn’t no time for mournin’.”

ON HER MASSAS’ “RELATIONSHIPS” WITH SLAVE WOMEN: “They was a cabin called the spinnin’ house and two looms and two spinnin’ wheels goin’ all the time, and two nigger women sewing all the time. It took plenty sewin’ to make all the things for a place so big. Once massa goes to Baton Rouge and brung back a yaller gal dressed in fine style. She was a seamster nigger. He builds her a house ’way from the [slave] quarters and she done fine sewin’ for the whites. Us niggers knowed the doctor took a black woman quick as he did a white and took any on his place he wanted, and he took them often. But mostly the chillun born on the place looked like niggers. Aunt Cheyney allus say four of hers was massas, but he didn’t give them no mind. But this yaller gal breeds so fast and gits a mess of white young’uns. She larnt them fine manners and combs out they hair.

Once two of them goes down the hill to the doll house where the Kilpatrick chillun am playin’. They wants to go in the dollhouse and one the Kilpatrick boys say, “That’s for white chillun.” They say, “We ain’t no niggers, ’cause we got the same daddy you has, and he comes to see us near every day and fotches us clothes and things from town.” They is fussin’ and Missy Kilpatrick is listenin’ out her chamber window. She heard them white niggers say, “He is our daddy and we call him daddy when he comes to our house to see our mama.” When massa come home that evenin’ his wife hardly say nothin’ to him, and he ask her what the matter and she tells him, “Since you asks me, I’m studyin’ in my mind ’bout them white young’uns of that yaller nigger wench from Baton Rouge.” He say, “Now, honey, I fotches that gal jus’ for you, ’cause she a fine seamster.” She say, “It look kind of funny they got the same kind of hair and eyes as my chillun and they got a nose looks like yours.” He say, “Honey, you jus’ payin’ ’tention to talk of li’l chillun that ain’t got no mind to what they say.” She say, “Over in Mississippi I got a home and plenty with my daddy and I got that in my mind.” Well, she didn’t never leave and massa bought her a fine, new span of surrey hosses. But she don’t never have no more chillun and she ain’t so cordial with the massa. Margaret, that yallow gal, has more white young’uns, but they don’t never go down the hill no more to the big house.

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