My Childhood's Days in Slavery: Autobiography of a Former Slave Woman
()
About this ebook
Read more from Annie L. Burton
Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days: Autobiography of a Former Slave Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen's Slave Narratives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life of a Slave Girl - Women's Slave Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlavery Days of My Childhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemories of Childhood's Slavery Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemories of Childhood's Slavery Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorn a Slave: Anthology: Collected Memoirs and Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to My Childhood's Days in Slavery
Related ebooks
Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Oklahoma Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhite Lawyer, Black Power: A Memoir of Civil Rights Activism in the Deep South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComposition Studies Through a Feminist Lens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFace It, You're Black!: Growing Up Colored in an All-White Indiana Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHome for Wayward Boys, A: The Early History of the Alabama Boys’ Industrial School Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn The Company Of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMovie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States. From Interviews with Former Slaves / Kentucky Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Conservation of Races Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsC is for Civil Rights : The African-American Civil Rights Movement | Children's History Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving the Drama: Community, Conflict, and Culture among Inner-City Boys Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Full Court Press: Mississippi State University, the Press, and the Battle to Integrate College Basketball Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrincess of the Hither Isles: A Black Suffragist's Story from the Jim Crow South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMay Day at Yale, 1970: Recollections: The Trial of Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlowers for Brother Mudd: One Woman’S Path from Jim Crow to Career Diplomat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho am I?: Memoirs of a transformative Black Studies program Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFugitive Testimony: On the Visual Logic of Slave Narratives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLand of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North Pole Legacy: The Search for the Arctic Offspring of Robert Peary and Matthew Henson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stormy Weather: Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrespassers?: Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Month in Yorkshire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLocked Gray / Linked Blue: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism, and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucinda Sly: A Woman Hanged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Cultural, Ethnic & Regional Biographies For You
Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men We Reaped: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: An Oprah's Book Club Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Violinist of Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Punch Me Up To The Gods: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heavy: An American Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cook County ICU: 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Up From Slavery: An Autobiography: A True Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Crazy Horse: The Merciless Indian Wars in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre In Her Own Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for My Childhood's Days in Slavery
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
My Childhood's Days in Slavery - Annie L. Burton
RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE
Table of Contents
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 on the plantation, one of the big boys got a little brandy and gave us children all a drink, enough to make us drunk. Four doctors were sent for, but nobody could tell what was the matter with us, except they thought we had eaten something poisonous. They wanted to give us some castor oil, but we refused to take it, because we thought that the oil was made from the bones of the dead men we had seen. Finally, we told about the big white boy giving us the brandy, and the mystery was cleared up.
Young as I was then, I remember this conversation between master and mistress, on master's return from the gate one day, when he had received the latest news: William, what is the news from the seat of war?
A great battle was fought at Bull Run, and the Confederates won,
he replied. Oh, good, good,
said mistress, and what did Jeff Davis say?
Look out for the blockade. I do not know what the end may be soon,
he answered. What does Jeff Davis mean by that?
she asked.