Texas Slave Narrative
-Patsy Southwell
“I never have shoes and us has no Sunday clothes... I seed 'em hit my Mammy five hunnerd licks and my pappy six hunnerd.”
Texas Slave Narrative
-Polly Shine
...”Well we wore royal shirts or dresses in hot weather. In cold weather we had leather coats to put on - no shoes did we see until long time after freedom. On Sunday we just had plain white royal dress, but they had to be clean. I just had one plain cotton dress that was homespun - no shoes or hose did I have. We had good clothes during slavery time. Well we never have had anything to eat or wear either since freedom...”
Texas Slave Narrative
-Callie Shepherd
...My mammy, she a little red-Indian nigger woman not so big as me
Texas Slave Narrative
-Mariah Snyder
“They tied a bell on one woman what run away all the time. They locks it round her head. I seed lots of niggers put on the block and bid off and carry away in chains. One woman name Venus raises her hands and hollers, 'Weigh dem cattle,' whilst she's bein' bid off.”
Texas Slave Narrative
-Hannah Scott
...”Mama's name was Ardissa and she 'long to Marse Clark Eccles , but us chillen allus call him White Pa. Miss Hetty , his wife, we calls her White Ma...”
Texas Slave Narrative
-Millie Ann Smith
...”We slips off and have prayer but daren't 'low the white folks know it and sometime we hums 'ligious songs low like when we's workin'. It was our way of prayin' to be free, but the white folks didn't know it.”
[Note: The illegal and unlawful detention of First Nation people, by British-Americans, allowed inbreeding of parents with their children]
Wesley Burrell-Texas Slave Narrative
The horrors of slavery and inbreeding mothers with there children (see *asterisk)
"We have been mixed breeded an' we dosen't seem as African...”
* “One boy, was traded off from his mother when he was young an' after he was grown he was sold back to de same master an' married to his own mother.
How she found out dis was her son, she had struck him in de head axcidental like when he was young with a hot poker iron, an' after dey was married, she looked in his head an' saw de scar an' asket him why it was dere. He began to tell her, an' she fainted 'cause it was her own son. Mothers did not have time to clean up dere chillun only on a Sunday. Sometimes lice would get in our heads an' almost eat us up. After freedom was declared, de master come an' took my sister away from my mother an' kept her for a while but she run off. Den I went to Leon County where she was an' brought her home."Dere was a whole lot of colored folks turned a loose in de woods. I don't know anything but what was very bad. Some white folks would not even let us have prayer meeting nor look at any sort of book with reading in it. All de readin' an' writin' I could do, I learned it from de Bible by myself. A white lady was here de other night wanted to know 'bout slavery time an' when I started to tell her she said she didn't want to hear dat stuff. I told her de half hadn't been told if she didn't want in hear dat, it wasn't nothing to tell." below the knee dresses
"Our mother was name Sayle . Bruno Dusk was to get my mother back when he come of age. My father and mother carried one child with them an' left one dere. When he come of age, he went after her and marse Sayle run off up to John Akels '. I don' know how long Sayle had owned dem but when I was a baby de over-seer shot my father.
One morning we was down in de bottom while my mother picked a thorn out of daddy's foot an' de over seer shot him in de heart. Marse John Sayle fired him cause he killed my father. When I got large enough, de first thing I had to do was to mind sheep, bare foot, bare head an almost bare back.
Dey fed me jus' like I was a pig or something.
Every thing we had was crumbled up in a big tray such as milk, beans, an' greens was all in one tray. De people was mighty cruel on us in slavery time.
Some would take us an' stake us to four stakes an' whip us until de blood run down; some times dey hit five-hundred or more licks. Some of de women, when pregnant would be beaten with dere stomach down in a hole an' dey was tied to a stake. Dey was not allowed to sing or pray; if caught doing so we would git a whippen.
We was not allowed to go from one place to another without consent of de boss. De pat-roller would whip dem if dey should be caught without a pass from de boss. Many days when snow was knee deep an' my old marster had his boots an' over coat on, I would have to go with him an be bare foot an' with nothing on my head.
"I was here in McLennan county some time before de Civil war began.I heard one of de first bomb shells of de war. Some people was so mean dat dey would sick dogs on dem to catch us.
I hope I never to see slavery no more like we was beat an' drove 'round.
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