lock and have time for
rest 'fore goin' back to work. Other slave owners roun' our place wasn't
as good to dere slaves, would work 'em hard and half starve 'em. And
some marsters or overseers would whip dere niggers pretty hard,
sometimes whip 'em to death. Marster Johns didn' have no overseer. He
seed to the work and my father was foreman. For awhile after old Marster
died, in 1862 or 1863, I forget which now, we had a overseer, John
Sewell. He was mean. He whipped the chillen and my mother told Miss
Lucy, old marster's oldest girl.

"We was allus well treated by old marster. We was called, 'John's free
niggers,' not dat we was free, but 'cause we was well treated. Jesse
Todd, his place joined ours, had 500 slaves, and he treated 'em mighty
bad. He whipped some of 'em to death. A man sold him two big niggers
which was brothers and they was so near white you couldn' hardly tell
'em from a white man. Some people thought the man what sold 'em was
their daddy. The two niggers worked good and dey hadn' never been
whipped and dey wouldn' stand for bein' whipped. One mornin' Todd come
up to 'em and told de oldest to take his shirt off. He say, 'Marster,
what you wan' me to take my shirt off for?' Todd say, 'I told you to
take your shirt off.' De nigger say, 'Marster, I ain' never took my
shirt off for no man.' Todd run in de house and got his gun and come
back and shot de nigger dead. His brother fell down by him where he lay
on de groun'. Todd run back to load his gun again, it bein' a single
shot. Todd's wife and son grabbed him and dey had all dey coul' do to
keep him from comin' out and killin' de other nigger.

"Marse Johns had 12 chillen. De house dey lived in was Colonyal style
and had 12 rooms. I was bo'n in dat house.

"De slaves had log cabins. We wore some cotton clothes in de summer but
in de winter we wore wool clothes. We allus had shoes. A shoemaker would
come 'round once a year and stay maybe 30 days, makin' shoes for
everybody on de place; den in about 6 months he would come back and
half-sole and make other repairs to de shoes. We made all our clothes on
de place. We wove light wool cloth for summer and heavy for winter.

"I could take raw cotton and card and spin it on a spinnin' wheel into
thread, fine enough to be sewed with a needle. We woun' de thread on a
broche, make like and 'bout de size of a ice pick. De thread was den
woun' on a reel 'bout de size of a forewheel of a wagon, and de reel
would t