Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember: Twenty-seven Oral Histories of Former South Carolina Slaves by Belinda Hurmence

Author:Belinda Hurmence
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History
Publisher: John F. Blair Publisher
Published: 1989-10-23T05:00:00+00:00

But darkies stay at home,

The year of jubilee is come,

And Freedom will begun.

The first two people that was hung in Charleston was Harry and Janie, husband and wife who was slaves of Mr. Christopher Black. Mr. Black had them whipped and they planned to kill the whole family. They poisoned the breakfast one morning, and if two of the family hadn’t oversleep, they too would a-been dead. The others die almost instantly. An investigation was made and the poison discovered, and the two slaves hung on the big oak tree in the middle of Ashley Avenue.

When any in your owner’s family was going to be married, the slaves was dressed in linen clothes to witness the ceremony. Only special slaves was chosen to be at the wedding. Slaves was always asked how they like the one who was coming in the family. I didn’t like that, ’cause I had to lie on myself by saying nice things about the person and hate the person at the same time.

Slaves was always buried in the night, as no one could stop to do it in the day. Old boards was used to make the coffin that was blackened with shoe polish.

Mr. Stiles Bee, on James Island, give tract of land to the Negroes for a school just after the war. He put up a shed-like building with a few chairs in it. It was at the place called Cut Bridge.

After the war I did garden work. I was janitor at Benedict College in Columbia for two years and at Claflin in Orangeburg for twelve. Now all that is past, and I’m living from hand to mouth. The banks took all my money and I can’t work or do the collecting for my landlord, and he give me a room free. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what I’d do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.