were arranged in rows at the back of master's great
house. The nearest cabins were about one hundred yards from it.

"Dr. Jonathan Yellerday looked after slaves' health and the food was
fair, but the slaves were worked by overseers who made it hard for
them, as he allowed them to whip a slave at will. He had so many
slaves he did not know all their names. His fortune was his slaves. He
did not sell slaves and he did not buy many, the last ten years
preceding the war. He resorted to raising his own slaves.

"When a girl became a woman she was required to go to a man and become
a mother. There was generally a form of marriage. The master read a
paper to them telling them they were man and wife. Some were married by
the master laying down a broom and the two slaves, man and woman would
jump over it. The master would then tell them they were man and wife
and they could go to bed together. Master would sometimes go and get a
large hale hearty Negro man from some other plantation to go to his
Negro woman. He would ask the other master to let this man come over to
his place to go to his slave girls. A slave girl was expected to have
children as soon as she became a woman. Some of them had children at
the age of twelve and thirteen years old. Negro men six feet tall went
to some of these children.

"Mother said there were cases where these young girls loved someone
else and would have to receive the attentions of men of the master's
choice. This was a general custom. This state of affairs tended to
loosen the morals of the Negro race and they have never fully recovered
from its effect. Some slave women would have dozens of men during their
life. Negro women who had had a half dozen mock husbands in slavery
time were plentiful. The holy bonds of matrimony did not mean much to a
slave. The masters called themselves Christians, went to church worship
regularly and yet allowed this condition to exist. Mother, father,
sister and I were sent as refugees from Mississippi to N.C. They were
afraid the Yankees would get us in Mississippi. I was only four years
old when the war ended as I was born April 6, 1861 so I do not remember
the trip. We were sent to Warren County to the Brownloe's plantation
where we stayed until the war ended.

"There was a question as to just what Mississippi would do and then
mother said the Doctor feared we would be taken by the Yankees there so
he sent us to N.C. to the above named County. Mother was sent