for not telling me I was free, and
not helping me to git back to my mammy and pappy! Lots of white people
done that.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

MRS. ESTHER EASTER
Age 85 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

I was born near Memphis, Tenn., on the old Ben Moore plantation, but I
don't know anything about the Old South because Master Ben moves us
all up into Missouri (about 14-miles east of Westport, now Kansas
City), long before they started fighting about slavery.

Mary Collier was my mother's name before she was a Moore. About my
father, I dunno. Mammy was sickly most of the time when I was a baby,
and she was so thin and poorly when they move to Missouri the white
folks afraid she going die on the way.

But she fool 'em, and she live two-three year after that. That's what
good Old Master Ben tells me when I gets older.

I stay with Master Ben's married daughter, Mary, till the coming of
the War. Times was good before the War, and I wasn't suffering none
from slavery, except once in a while the Mistress would fan me with
the stick--bet I needed it, too.

When the War come along Master he say to leave Mistress Mary and get
ready to go to Texas. Jim Moore, one of the meanest men I ever see,
was the son of Master Ben; he's going take us there.

Demon Jim, that's what I call him when he ain't round the place, but
when he's home it was always Master Jim 'cause he was reckless with
the whip. He was a Rebel officer fighting round the country and didn't
take us slaves to Texas right away. So I stayed on at his place not
far from Master Ben's plantation.

Master Jim's wife was a demon, just like her husband. Used the whip
all the time, and every time Master Jim come home he whip me 'cause
the Mistress say I been mean.

One time I tell him, you better put me in your pocket (sell me),
Master Jim, else I'se going run away'. He don't pay no mind, and I
don't try to run away 'cause of the whips.

I done see one whipping and that enough. They wasn't no fooling about
it. A runaway slave from the Jenkin's plantation was brought back, and
there was a public whipping, so's the slaves could see what happens
when they tries to get away.

The runaway was chained to the whipping post, and I was full of misery
when I see the lash cutting deep into that boy's skin. He swell up
like a dead horse, but he gets over it, only he was never no count for
work no more.

While Master Jim is out fighting the Yanks, the Mistress is fi