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Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XI, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2

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[Pg 316] <div class='left'> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="samstewart"> <tr><td align='left'>N.C. District:</td><td align='left'>No. 2</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Worker:</td><td align='left'>Mary A. Hicks</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>No. Words:</td><td align='left'>1519</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Subject:</td><td align='left'>SAM T. STEWART, EX-SLAVE</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Person Interviewed:</td><td align='left'>Sam T. Stewart</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Editor:</td><td align='left'>Daisy Bailey Waitt</td></tr> </table></div> [TR: Date stamp: JUN 1 1937] <ANTIMG src="images/image316.jpg" width-obs="408" height-obs="600" alt="Sam T. Stewart" title="Sam T. Stewart" />Sam T. Stewart <hr style="width: 25%;" /> [Pg 317] <h2>SAM T. STEWART</h2> [HW: 84 years.] "My name is Sam T. Stewart. I was born in Wake County, North Carolina Dec. 11, 1853. My father was a slave, A.H. Stewart, belonging to James Arch Stewart, a slave owner, whose plantation was in Wake County near what is now the Harnett County line of Southern Wake. Tiresa was my mother's name. James Arch Stewart, a preacher, raised my father, but my mother was raised by Lorenzo Franks, a Quaker in Wake County. When I was two years old James Arch Stewart sold my father to speculators, and he was shipped to Mississippi. I was too young to know my father. "The names of the speculators were—Carter Harrison, and—, and a man named Roulhac. I never saw my father again, but I heard from him the second year of the surrender, through his brother and my aunt. My father died in Mississippi. "The speculators bought up Negroes as a drover would buy up mules. They would get them together by 'Negro drivers', as the white men employed by the speculators were called. Their names were,——Jim Harris of Raleigh, and——yes, Dred Thomas, who lived near Holly Springs in Wake County. Wagon trains carried the rations on the trip to Mississippi. The drivers would not start until[Pg 318] they had a large drove. Then the slaves were fastened together with chains. The chain was run between them, when they had been lined up like soldiers in double file. A small chain was attached to a Negro on the left and one to the Negro on the right and fastened to the main chain in the center. Billy Askew was another speculator. He lived on the corner of Salisbury and Carbarrus Street in Raleigh. Sometimes as many as thirty slaves were carried in a drove. They walked to Mississippi. "My brothers and sisters are dead. Down on the plantations our houses were built of poles daubed with mud, with a rived board (split board). I had good beds, good clothes, and plenty to eat. We made it and we ate it. When a slave owner treated his slaves unusually good some other slave owner would tell him that he was raising slaves who would rise against him. Lorenzo Franks, who owned me and my mother, was a Quaker. He treated his slaves unusually well. He would not sell any of them. His brother was an Iron Side Baptist preacher, and he would tell his brother he was raising slaves who would rise against him. Franks owned seventeen slaves, I don't know how many Stewart owned." [HW: m p. 6] [TR: Editor indicated three paragraphs on page 6 (page 322 of the volume) should have been moved here.] "I did farm work in slavery time. I earned no money except what we made on patches. These patches were given to my mother by my master. We caught birds and[Pg 319] game, sent it to town, and sold it for money. We caught birds and partridges in traps. Our master would bring them to town, sell them for us, and give us the money. We had a lot of possums and other game to eat. We got our food out of the big garden planted for the whole shebang. My master overseered his plantation. "We didn't think much of the poor white man. He was down on us. He was driven to it, by the rich slave owner. The rich slave owner wouldn' let his Negroes sociate with poor white folks. Some of the slave owners, when a poor white man's land joined theirs and they wanted his place would have their Negroes steal things and carry them to the poor white man, and sell them to him. Then the slave owner, knowing where the stuff was, (Of course the slave had to do what his master told him.) would go and find his things at the poor white man's house. Then he would claim it, and take out a writ for him, but he would give him a chance. He would tell him to sell out to him, and leave, or take the consequences. That's the way some of the slave owners got such large tracks of lands. "The free Negro was a child by a white man and a colored woman, or a white woman and a Negro slave. A child by a white man and a Negro woman was set free when the man got ready. Sometimes he gave the free Negro slaves. Oscar Austin, an issue, was set free and given slaves by his master and daddy. Old man Oscar Austin lived by the[Pg 320] depot in Raleigh. He is dead now. "When a child by a Negro man slave and a white woman arrived he could not be made a slave, but he was bound out until he was 21 years old. The man, who ever wanted him, had him bound to him by the courts and was his gardeen until he was 21 years old. He could not be made a slave if he was born of a free woman. There were jails for slaves called dungeons; the windows were small. Slaves were put into jail for misdemeanors until court was held, but a white man could not be kept there over 30 days without giving bond. Whites and slaves were kept in the same jail house, but in separate rooms. "They never taught me to read and write; and most slaves who got any reading and writing certainly stole it. There were rules against slaves having books. If the patterollers caught us with books they would whip us. There were whipping posts on the plantation but patterollers tied Negroes across fences to whip them. There was no church on the plantation. We had prayer meetings in the cabins. We had big times at corn shuckings and dances. We all had plenty of apple and peach brandy but very few got drunk. I never saw a nigger drunk until after the surrender. We went to the white folks' church. We were partitioned off in the church.[Pg 321] "The patterollers visited our house every Saturday night, generally. We set traps to catch the patterollers. The patterollers were poor white men. We stretched grape vines across the roads, then we would run from them. They would follow, and get knocked off their horses. I knew many of the patterollers. They are mostly dead. Their children, who are living now in Wake County and Raleigh, are my best friends, and I will therefore not tell who they were. I was caught by the patterollers in Raleigh. "I would have been whipped to pieces if it hadn't been for a white boy about my age by the name of Thomas Wilson. He told them I was his nigger, and they let me go. We had brought a load of lightwood splints in bundles to town on a steer cart. This was near the close of the war. We had sold out one load of splints had had been paid for them in Confederate money. We had several bills. We went into a bar and bought a drink, each paying one dollar a drink, or two dollars for two small drinks. The bar was in the house where the Globe Clothing Store is now located on the corner of Wilmington and Exchange Streets. Just as I swallowed my drink a constable grabbed me by the back of the neck, and started with me to the guard house, where they done their whippin'. Down at the[Pg 322] guard house Nick Denton, the bar tender, told Thomas Wilson 'Go, tell the constable that is your nigger'. Thomas came running up crying, and told the constable I was his nigger. The constable told him to take me and carry me on home or he would whip both of us. We then hitched our ox to the cart and went home." [TR: The editor indicated with lines that the following three paragraphs should be moved to page 2 of this interview (page 318 of the volume).] "When I was a child I played marbles, 'Hail over', and bandy, a game played like golf. In striking the ball we knocked it at each other. Before we hit the ball we would cry, 'Shins, I cry', then we would knock the ball at our playmates. Sometime we used rocks for balls. "We got Christmas holidays from Christmas to New Years day. This was also a time when slaves were hired out or sold. You were often put on the auction block at Christmas. There was a whipping post, an auction block, and jail located on Court House Square where the news stand is now located on Fayetteville Street. There was a well in the yard. "We were treated by doctors when sick. We were given lots of herbs. "I do not believe in ghosts. "I did not feel much elated over hearing I was free, I was afraid of Yankee soldiers. Our mistress told us we were free. I farmed first year after the[Pg 323] war. We had no horses, the Yankees had taken the horses, and some of us made a crap with grubbing hoes. "I think Abraham Lincoln was a man who aimed to do good, but a man who never got to it. I cannot say anymore than that his intentions were good, and if he had lived he would have done more good." [HW: —— Insert from p. 6.] <hr style="width: 95%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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