would never sell
me because I was regarded as the best young slave on the plantation.
Different from many other slaves, I was kept on the plantation from the
day I was born until the day I ran away.

Slaves were sold in two ways, sometimes at private sale to a man who
went about the Southland buying slaves until he has many in his
possession, then he would have a big auction sale and would re-sell them
to the highest bidder, much in the same manner as our live-stock are
sold now in auction sales. Professional slave buyers in those days were
called "nigger buyers". He came to the plantation with a doctor. He
would point out two or three slaves which looked good to him and which
could be spared by the owner, and would have the doctor examine the
slave's heart. If the doctor pronounced the slave as sound, then the
nigger buyer would make an offer to the owner and if the amount was
satisfactory, the slave was sold. Some large plantation owners, having a
large number of slaves, would hold a public auction and dispose of some
of them, then he would attend another sale and buy new slaves, this was
done sometimes to get better slaves and sometimes to make money on the
sale of them.

Many times, as I have said before, our treatment on our plantation was
horrible. When I was just a small boy, I witnessed my sister sold and
taken away. One day one of horses came into the barn and Mastah noticed
that she was caripped. He flew into a rage and thought I had hurt the
horse, either that, or that I knew who did it. I told him that I did not
do it and he demanded that I tell him who did it, if I didn't. I did not
know and when I told him so, he secured a whip tied me to a post and
whipped me until I was covered with blood. I begged him, "Mastah,
Mastah, please don't whip me, I do not know who did it." He then took
out his pocket knife and I would have been killed if Missus (his dear
wife) had not make him quit. She untied me and cared for me.

Many has been the time, I have seen my mammy beaten mercilessly and for
no good reason. One day, not long before the out-break of the Civil
War, a nigger buyer came and I witnessed my dear Mammy and my one year
old baby brother, sold. I seen er taken away, never to see her again
until I found her twenty-seven years later at Clarksburg, Tennessee. My
baby brother was with her, but I did not know him until Mammy told me
who he was, he had grown into a large man. That was a happy meeting.
After tho