ay from them."

What the Freedmen Expected

"When the slave was freed, he was looking to get a home. They were goin'
to do this and goin' to do that but they didn't do nothin'. They let us
stay on the place until we made the crop, told us we was free to go
wherever we wanted to go. That is all they give us and all we got. Some
said, 'You promised to give us a home', and they said to them, 'Well,
you can stay here as long as you live.'"

How Freedom Came

"The old master called them together and told them they was free. 'Peace
declared. You all have to go for yourselves. Won't whip no more now. You
are all free.'"

Runaways and Mean Masters

"My father's master was right smart mean to him. It was partly my
father's fault. He wouldn't take no whipping much. If they would get
after him he would run off. Whenever there was anything they wanted him
to do and he didn't go and do it just that minute, they wanted to whip
him. Jus' like a child, you know. He had to move when he was told. If he
didn't do it then he got a whipping. He would run away in the woods and
stay a week or two before he'd come back. Sometimes some of the boys
would see him and they would say to him, 'Old master says for you to
come back home; he ain't goin' to do nothin' to you.' Nobody would go in
the woods and hunt him. Some of them would go in there and get hurt.

"There was some masters that would go in the woods hunting their
niggers. Sometimes they'd carry bloodhounds with them. They never did
run my father with the bloodhounds though.

"My mother's master and mistress was good to her. They never drove her
around. Old man Judge died and left her mistress and she lived a widow
the balance of her life. But she never gave my mother no trouble."

Sales and Separations

"There was plenty of slaves being put up on the block and sold. My
mother was sold. Her father was a Cooper and she was sold to Judge. He
bought my mother's mother and her both, so that made her a Judge. He
bought her and she had to go in his name. Her husband was left with the
Coopers. She was put up on the block. 'Who will give me a bid on this
woman?' The old man was bid back. The Coopers bid him back."

School

"My mother didn't get no schooling no more'n what I learned her after
freedom. She never went to school in her life. Still she saw she could
read the Bible, the hymn-book, and such things like that as she wanted
to before she died."

What the Slaves