Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XI, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2
1936
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XI, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2
United States. Work Projects Administration
1936
In the late 1930s, as the last generation of formerly enslaved people grew elderly, the U.S. government sent writers across the South to preserve memories that had survived decades of silence and trauma. This volume gathers firsthand testimonies from North Carolina, letting real people speak in their own words about plantation life, the chaos of the Civil War, and freedom's complicated arrival. Uncle Jackson reminisces about relatives and skilled artisans he knew as a child. Uncle Ben recalls the moment slave traders separated him from his brother - a wound that never healed. Isaac describes the intricate machinery of the plantation system while also revealing the humanity that persisted within it. These aren't polished histories but living voices, sometimes fragmented, sometimes startlingly vivid. They capture the texture of everyday existence under slavery: the work, the food, the worship, the resistance, the small joys and vast cruelties. They also show how freedom came not as resolution but as a new, bewildering challenge. This is irreplaceable - a primary source that preserves voices America tried to silence, offering raw, personal access to one of the nation's most devastating chapters.
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“Dis gen'ration too dig'fied to have de old-time 'ligion.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“and she whipped my little sister what was only nine months old and jes' a baby to death. She come and took the diaper offen my little sister and whipped till the blood jes' ran”
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“Fore dat, a survey done been made and dey found de raft am a hundred and twenty-eight miles long. When we was on dat raft it am like a big swamp, with trees and thick brush and de driftwood and logs all wedge up tight 'tween everything.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“I want to tell how we crosses the Red River on de Red River Raft. Back in them days the Red River was near closed up by dis timber raft and de big boats couldn't git up de river at all. We gits a li'l boat, and a Caddo Indian to guide us. Dis Red River raft dey say was centuries old. De driftwood floatin' down de river stops in de still waters and makes a bunch of trees and de dirt 'cumulates, and broomstraws and willows and brush grows out dis rich dirt what cover de driftwood. Dis raft growed 'bout a mile a year and de oldes' timber rots and breaks away, but dis not fast[Pg 306] 'nough to keep de river clear. We found bee trees on de raft and had honey.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“It was long time after us come to Texas when de gov'ment opens up de channel. Dat am in 1873.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“Pappy was a Indian. I knows dat. He came from Congo, over in Africa, and I heared him say a big storm druv de ship somewhere on de Ca'lina coast. I 'member he mighty 'spectful to Massa and Missy, but he proud, too, and walk straighter'n anybody I ever seen. He had scars on de right side he head and cheek what he say am tribe marks, but what dey means I don't know.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“I never knowed of 'em puttin' bells on the slaves on our place, but over next to us they did. They had a piece what go round they shoulders and round they necks with pieces up over they heads and hung up the bell on the piece over they head.””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“Papa Day's place. "I 'member one year us don't make no crop hardly and daddy say he gwine git out 'fore us starves to death, and he””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
“Four is here in Austin and two in California and one in Ohio. "I gits a li'l pension, $9.00 de month, and my gal, Susie,””
— United States. Work Projects Administration
