the fireplace, and the pots hung down on hooks.
"Us cooked corn dodgers," one ex-slave recalled, "the hearth would be
swept clean, the ash cakes wrapped up into corn shucks and cooked brown.
They sure was good!"

TYPES OF WORK

The large plantations were really industrial centers in which almost
everything necessary to the life of the white family and the large
retinue of slaves was grown or manufactured. On estates where there were
many slaves there were always trained blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters,
tanners, shoemakers, seamstresses, laundresses, weavers, spinners, cooks
and house servants; all employed in the interest of the community life
of the plantation. Those who could not learn to do any of this skilled
work were turned into the fields and called, "hands". Both men and women
were employed in the fields where cotton, corn, rice and tobacco were
cultivated. House servants ware always considered superior to field
hands.

Melinda Mitchell, who was born a slave in Edgefield, S.C., said, "My
family wasn't fiel' hands. We wus all house servants. My father wus de
butler, and he weighed out de rations fer de slaves. My mammy wus de
house 'oman and her mother and sister wus de cooks. Marster wouldn't
sell none of his slaves, and when he wanted to buy one he'd buy de whole
fambly to keep fum havin' 'em separated."

At an early age Melinda and her younger sister were given to the two
young ladies of the house as their personal maids. "I wus given to Miss
Nettie," Melinda said, "Our young Mistresses visited, too, and wherever
dey went my sister and me went erlong. My own mammy took long trips with
ole Mistis to de Blue Ridge Mountains and sometimes over de big water."

Susannah Wyman of the Starling Freeman plantation in South Carolina
said, "The house servants wuz trained to cook, clean up, de man wuz
trained to make shoes. I don't think us had carpenters. I toted water in
de field, hoed some. I wuz quite young. I spun but I didn't weave. Dere
wuz a lady dey had on de place did de weavin'. I had many a striped
dress woven on dat big loom and dey wuz pretty, too."

Susie Brown, who used to live on the Evans plantation on Little River in
Columbia County was too little to do any hard work during slavery times.
"I jus' stayed at home and 'tend de baby," she said. "But my mother was
a cook and my father a blacksmith."

Mary's mother was a plantation weaver. "Mistis would cut out dresses out
of homespun. We had purpl