Memories of Childhoods Slavery Days

Memories of Childhood's Slavery
Days

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Title: Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days
Author: Annie L. Burton
Release Date: February 26, 2006 [EBook #17864]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHILDHOOD'S SLAVERY DAYS ***

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Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

By
Annie L. Burton

BOSTON
ROSS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1909

RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE
The memory of my happy, care-free childhood days on the plantation,
with my little white and black companions, is often with me. Neither
master nor mistress nor neighbors had time to bestow a thought upon us,
for the great Civil War was raging. That great event in American
history was a matter wholly outside the realm of our childish interests.
Of course we heard our elders discuss the various events of the great
struggle, but it meant nothing to us.
On the plantation there were ten white children and fourteen colored
children. Our days were spent roaming about from plantation to
plantation, not knowing or caring what things were going on in the
great world outside our little realm. Planting time and harvest time
were happy days for us. How often at the harvest time the planters
discovered cornstalks missing from the ends of the rows, and blamed
the crows! We were called the "little fairy devils." To the sweet
potatoes and peanuts and sugar cane we also helped ourselves.
Those slaves that were not married served the food from the great
house, and about half-past eleven they would send the older children
with food to the workers in the fields. Of course, I followed, and before
we got to the fields, we had eaten the food nearly all up. When the
workers returned home they complained, and we were whipped.

The slaves got their allowance every Monday night of molasses, meat,
corn meal, and a kind of flour called "dredgings" or "shorts." Perhaps
this allowance would be gone before the next Monday night, in which
case the slaves would steal hogs and chickens. Then would come the
whipping-post. Master himself never whipped his slaves; this was left
to the overseer.
We children had no supper, and only a little piece of bread or
something of the kind in the morning. Our dishes consisted of one
wooden bowl, and oyster shells were our spoons. This bowl served for
about fifteen children, and often the dogs and the ducks and the
peafowl had a dip in it. Sometimes we had buttermilk and bread in our
bowl, sometimes greens or bones.
Our clothes were little homespun cotton slips, with short sleeves. I
never knew what shoes were until I got big enough to earn them
myself.
If a slave man and woman wished to marry, a party would be arranged
some Saturday night among the slaves. The marriage ceremony
consisted of the pair jumping over a stick. If no children were born
within a year or so, the wife was sold.
At New Year's, if there was any debt or mortgage on the plantation, the
extra slaves were taken to Clayton and sold at the court house. In this
way families were separated.
When they were getting recruits for the war, we were allowed to go to
Clayton to see the soldiers.
I remember, at the beginning of the war, two colored men were hung in
Clayton; one, Cæsar King, for killing a blood hound and biting off an
overseer's ear; the other, Dabney Madison, for the murder of his master.
Dabney Madison's master was really shot by a man named Houston,
who was infatuated with Madison's mistress, and who had hired
Madison to make the bullets for him. Houston escaped after the deed,
and the blame fell on Dabney Madison, as he was the only slave of his
master and mistress. The clothes of the two victims were hung on two

pine trees, and no colored person would touch them. Since I have
grown up, I have seen the skeleton of one of these men in the office of
a doctor in Clayton.
After the men were hung, the bones were put in an old deserted house.
Somebody that cared for the bones used to put them in the sun in bright
weather, and back in the house when it rained. Finally the bones
disappeared, although the boxes that had contained them still remained.
At one time, when they were building barns