Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves | Page 5

They gives
the mules, ruffage and such, to chaw on all night. But they didn't give
us nothing to chaw on. Learned us to steal, that's what they done. Why
we would take anything we could lay our hands on, when we was
hungry. Then they'd whip us for lieing when we say we dont know
nothing about it. But it was easier to stand, when the stomach was full."
"Now my father, he was a fighter. He was mean as a bear. He was so
bad to fight and so troublesome he was sold four times to my knowing
and maybe a heap more times. That's how come my name is Falls, even
if some does call me Robert Goforth. Niggers would change to the
name of their new marster, every time they was sold. And my father
had a lot of names, but kep the one of his marster when he got a good
home. That man was Harry Falls. He said he'd been trying to buy father
for a long time, because he was the best waggoner in all that country
abouts. And the man what sold him to Falls, his name was Collins, he
told my father, "You so mean, I got to sell you. You all time
complaining about you dont like your white folks. Tell me now who
you wants to live with. Just pick your man and I will go see him." Then
my father tells Collins, I want you to sell me to Marster Harry Falls.
They made the trade. I disremember what the money was, but it was
big. Good workers sold for $1,000 and $2,000. After that the white
folks didn't have no more trouble with my father. But he'd still fight.
That man would fight a she-bear and lick her every time."

"My mother was sold three times before I was born. The last time when
Old Goforth sold her, to the slave speculators,--you know every time
they needed money they would sell a slave,--and they was taking them,
driving them, just like a pack of mules, to the market from North
Carolina into South Carolina, she begun to have fits. You see they had
sold her away from her baby. And just like I tell you she begun having
fits. They got to the jail house where they was to stay that night, and
she took on so, Jim Slade and Press Worthy--them was the slave
speculators,--couldnt do nothing with her. Next morning one of them
took her back to Marse Goforth and told him, "Look here. We cant do
nothing with this woman. You got to take her and give us back our
money. And do it now,' they says. And they mean it too. So Old Marse
Goforth took my mother and give them back their money. After that
none of us was ever separated. We all lived, a brother and two sisters
and my mother, with the Goforths till freedom."
"And do you know, she never did get over having fits. She had them
every change of the moon, or leastways every other moon change. But
she kept on working. She was a hard worker. She had to be. Old
Mistress see to that. She was meaner than old Marster, she was. She
would sit by the spinning wheel and count the turns the slave women
made. And they couldn't fool her none neither. My mother worked until
ten o'clock almost every night because her part was to 'spend so many
cuts' a day, and she couldnt get through no sooner. When I was a little
shaver, I used to sit on the floor with the other little fellows while our
mothers worked, and sometimes the white folks girls would read us a
Bible story. But most of the time we slept. Right there on the floor.
Then later, when I was bigger, I had to work with the men at night
shelling corn, to take to town early mornings."
"Marster Goforth counted himself a good old Baptist Christian. The
one good deed he did, I will never forget, he made us all go to church
every Sunday. That was the onliest place off the farm we ever went.
Every time a slave went off the place, he had to have a pass, except we
didnt, for church. Everybody in thet country knowed that the Goforth
niggers didn't have to have no pass to go to church. But that didn't
make no difference to the Pattyroolers. They'd hide in the bushes, or

wait along side of the road, and when the niggers come from meeting,
the Pattyroolers's say, 'Whar's your pass'? Us Goforth niggers used to
start running soon as we was out of church. We never got caught. That
is why I tell you I cant