Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves

Slave Narratives: A Folk History
of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former
Slaves

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Slavery
in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, by Work
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Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 4
Author: Work Projects Administration
Release Date: June 1, 2006 [EBook #18485]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE
NARRATIVES: A FOLK ***

Produced by Robert Fry and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by the Library of Congress, Manuscript
Division)

[TR: ***] = Transcriber Note [HW: ***] = Handwritten Note

SLAVE NARRATIVES
A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with
Former Slaves
TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY THE FEDERAL
WRITERS' PROJECT 1936-1938 ASSEMBLED BY THE LIBRARY
OF CONGRESS PROJECT WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SPONSORED BY THE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Illustrated with Photographs
WASHINGTON, 1941

VOLUME IV
GEORGIA NARRATIVES
PART 4

Prepared by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress
Administration for the State of Georgia

INFORMANTS
Telfair, Georgia 1 Thomas, Cordelia 11 Thomas, Ike 25 Toombs, Jane
Mickens 29 Town, Phil 37 [TR: In the interview, he's named Phil
Towns.]
Upson, Neal 48
Van Hook, John F. 71 Vinson, Addie 97 Virgel, Emma 115
Walton, Rhodus 123 Ward, William 128, 132 Washington, Lula 134
Willbanks, Green 136 Williamson, Eliza 148 Willingham, Frances 151
Willis, Adeline 161 Willis, Uncle 168 [TR: Willis Bennefield in
combined interview.] Winfield, Cornelia 176 Womble, George 179
[TR: Also called Wombly in the interview.] Wright, Henry 194
Young, Dink Walton 205
COMBINED INTERVIEWS
[Excerpts from Slave Interviews] Adeline 212 Eugene 213 Mary 215
Rachel 216 Laura 216 Matilda 217 Easter 218 Carrie 219 Malinda 219
Amelia 220
[Four Slaves Interviewed by Maude Barragan, Edith Bell Love, Ruby
Lorraine Radford] Ellen Campbell 221 Rachel Sullivan 226 Eugene
Wesley Smith 230 Willis Bennefield 235 [TR: Uncle Willis in
individual interview.]
[Folklore] Emmaline Heard 245 Rosa and Jasper Millegan 251 Camilla
Jackson 254 Anna Grant 255 Emmaline Heard 256
COMPILATIONS [Richmond County]
Folklore 261 Conjuration 269 Folk Remedies and Superstitions 282
Mistreatment of Slaves 290 Slavery 308 Work, Play, Food, Clothing,
Marriage, etc. 355

Transcriber's Notes:
[TR: The interview headers presented here contain all information
included in the original, but may have been rearranged for readability.
Also, some ages and addresses have been drawn from blocks of
information on subsequent interview pages. Names in brackets were
drawn from text of interviews.]
[TR: Some interviews were date-stamped; these dates have been added
to interview headers in brackets. Where part of date could not be
determined -- has been substituted. These dates do not appear to
represent actual interview dates, rather dates completed interviews were
received or perhaps transcription dates.]
[TR: In general, typographical errors have been left in place to match
the original images. In the case where later editors have hand-written
corrections, simple typographical errors have been silently corrected.]

PLANTATION LIFE AS VIEWED BY AN EX-SLAVE
GEORGIA TELFAIR, Age 74 Box 131, R.F.D. #2 Athens, Ga.
Written by: Miss Grace McCune Athens, Ga.
Edited by: Mrs. Sarah H. Hall Athens, Ga.
and Mrs. Leila Harris Augusta, Ga. [Date Stamp: APR 29 1938]
"Yes chile, I'll be glad to tell you de story of my life, I can't tell you
much 'bout slav'ry 'cause I wuz jus' six months old when freedom come,
but I has heared quite a lot, and I will tell you all I kin 'member 'bout
everythin." Said old "Aunt" Georgia Telfair, who lives with her son to
whom her devotion is quite evident. Both "Aunt" Georgia and the little
home show the excellent care that is given them.
"My pa," she said, "wuz Pleasant Jones, an' he b'longed to Marse
Young L.G. Harris. Dey lived at de Harris place out on Dearing Street.

Hit wuz all woods out dar den, an' not a bit lak Dearing Street looks
now.
"Rachel wuz my ma's name. Us don' know what her las' name wuz
'cause she wuz sold off when she wuz too little to 'member. Dr. Riddin'
(Redding) bought her an' his fambly always jus' called her Rachel
Riddin'. De Riddin' place wuz whar Hancock Avenue is now, but it wuz
all in woods 'roun' dar, jus' lak de place whar my pa wuz. Atter dey wuz
married ma had to stay on