Good Li’L Boys and Girls from the Sunshine State of Florida: Black Children Speak Series!

By Sharon Kaye Hunt

This book is one of twelve books of the Black Children Speak Series. The books are compiled from the interviews taken from slaves by the interviewers of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 19361938. Most of the ex-slaves giving the interviews were children during slavery and gave interviews of their experiences and insights about living on plantations. The ex-slaves answered questions on all aspects of the plantations in seventeen states of the United States before the Civil War.

African-Americans were freed from slavery after the Civil War in 1865.

The series is dedicated to all people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524537685

Sharon Kaye Hunt

Sharon Hunt, born in Nobletown and is a 1965 graduate of Wewoka High School. She graduated with B.S. and M.S Degrees from Oklahoma State University. She did further study at Kansas State University. Ms. Hunt is a retired registered dietitian and worked as a dietitian at St. Luke’s and Texas Children’s Hospitals in Houston, Texas. Ms. Hunt taught food and nutrition for more than forty years at Langston University and Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, Georgia. While at Fort Valley, Ms. Hunt wrote a cookbook Bread from Heaven and appeared on QVC Home Shopping Network three times. Ms. Hunt wrote the original recipe for the World Largest Peach Cobbler for Peach County, Georgia. Ms. Hunt co-founded the undergraduate chapter of Delta Sigma Theta at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma and served as the charter president of the Warner Robins Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in Warner Robins, Georgia. Currently, Ms. Hunt is retired from teaching and has begun a new career in African-American History. She has self-published 35 books on different aspects of history. She mainly writes about Oklahoma and Georgia. She hopes to be on the move to write 11th grade Black history books and to include more history about the slaves in eleventh grade history in the United States. Ms. Hunt promoted a Community Pride Sign to be placed in her hometown of Wewoka, Okla. On the African leader -Lawyer James Coody Johnson who assisted slaves and Native Americans. To get an understanding of slaves’ survival food, Ms. Hunt submitted a proposal to the Oklahoma Legislature to vote in the “Cornmeal-hoecake Bread” as Oklahoma’s official bread. Ms. Hunt is writing a series of books to show how the slaves may have celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners during their harsh times.The former slaves gave ideas about how they celebrated different holidays.

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ABOUT FLORIDA

Sunshine State

CAPITAL: Tallahassee, AREA: 58,560 sq. mi., rank, 22nd. MOTTO: In God We Trust. FLOWER: Orange Blossom. BIRD: Mockingbird. TREE: Sabal Palm. SONG: The Suwanee River. ADMISSION: 27th

The Florida peninsula juts southward 500 mi. between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico; Cuba is only 90 mi. from its southern tip. It has some 30,000 lakes; Okeechobee, covering 700 sq. mi., is the 4th largest lake inside the U.S. Highest Elevation in the state is 345 ft., in the NW.

Florida was discovered by Ponce de Leon 1513; acquired from Spain 1819 by treaty ratified 1821. It was organized as a Territory Mar. 30, 1822, and admitted Florida produces most of the nation’s oranges nd grapefruit. It ranks 2nd to California in producing fresh vegetables. It also produces avocados, watermelons, limes, tangerines, sugarcane, peanuts, cotton and tobacco.

Florida has 18 airports and 7 major railroads.

Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine in is a well-preserved Spanish for built in 1672-1696 which is a national monument. Marineland of Florida, 18 miles South of St. Augustine has 2, 500 marine specimen.

FEDERAL WRITERS’S PROJECT

American Guide (Negro Writers’ Unit)

Jacksonville, Florida

(All informants lived in Florida, some reared in other states.)

There were forty-nine individual informants, thirty –five men and 15 women. The combined interviews were sixteen in total, six men and ten women.

1.    A Governor’s Slaves

-No blood on His hands!

"Mrs. Brooks was born in 1858 in Edgefield, S.C. Her parents Hawkins and Harriett Knox and at the time of the birth of their daughter were slaves in a large belonging to Governor Frank Pickens, on this plantations were raised cotton, corn, potatoes, tobacco, peas, wheat and truck products.

As soon as Matilda was large enough to go into the fields she helped her parents with the farming. The former slave describes Governor Pickens as being ‘very good’ to his slaves. He supervised them personally although offered duties often made this difficult. He saw to it that their quarters were comfortable and that they always had sufficient food. Where they become old he would himself doctor on their on them with pills, castor oil, turpentine and other remedies. Their diet consisted largely potatoes, corn bread, syrup, greens, peas and occasionally ham, fowl and other meats or poultry. Their chief beverage was coffee made from parched corn."

Ex-Slave Matilda Brooks, 79 who lives in Monticello, Florida was once a slave of a South Carolina governor born in 1857 or 1858 in Edgefield, S.C.

NEW TESTAMENT

HEBREWS 1:1

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets.

2.    Abraham Lincoln

-Served as a defense!

"Ole Dr. Jameson, he wuz my Massy. He had a plantation three mile from Perry, Georgia. I can ’member whole lots about working for them. Y’see I was growed up when peace come.

"My mother used to be a seamstress and served with her fingers all the time. She made the finest kind of stiches while I worked around de table or did any other kind of house work.

"I knowed de time when Ab’ram Linkum come to de plantation. He come through there on the train and stopped over night oncet. He was known by Dr. Jameson and he came to Perry to see about the food for the soldiers.

We all had part in intertainin’ him. Sime shined her shoes, some cooked for him, an’ I waited on de table, I can’t forget that. We had chicken has and batter cakes and dried venison that day.You be sure we kowed he was our friend and we catched what we had t’say. Now, he said this: (I never forget that ’slong as I live) If they free de people, I’ll bring you back into the Union (To Dr. Jameson) ‘If you dont free your slaves I’ll whip you back into the Union. Before I’d allow my wife an’ children to be sold as slaves, I’ll wade in blood and water up to my neck.’ Now he said all that, if my mother and father were living, they’d tell ya the same thing. That’s what Linkum said, He came through after Freedom and went to the ‘Sheds first. I couldn’t ’magine what was going on, but that came runnin’ to tell me and what a time we had. Linkum went to the smoke house and opened the door and said ‘Help yourselves; takr what you need; Cook yourselves a good meal; and we sho’ had a celebration!

Ex-Slave Salena Taswell, Miami, Florida; One the oldest ex-slave women in Miami.

NEW TESTAMENT

HEBREWS 1:2

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, who he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.

4.    After Work

-No rest for the weary!

When the slaves left the fields, they returned to their cabins and after preparing and eating of their evening meal they gathered around a cabin to sing and moan songs seasoned West Africa melody. Then to the tune of an old fiddle they danced a danced called the Green Corn Dance!

Sometimes the young men on the plantation would step away to visit a girl on another plantation. If they were caught by the Patrols while on these visit they would be lashed on the bare backs as a penalty for this offense. A whipping post was used for this purpose. As soon as one slave was whipped, he was given the whip to whip his brother slave.

Very often the lashes would bring blood very soon from the already lacerated skin, but this did not stop the lashing until one had received their due number of slaves."

Ex-Slave Dorsey Douglas

NEW TESTAMENT

HEBREWS 1:3

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power when by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

3.    Africa

-Listen for the Voice!

"The centenarian remembers his parents clearly; his mother was one Nancy and his father’s named Adam. His father, he says, used to spend hours after the candles were out telling him and his brother about his capture and subsequent slavery. Adam was a native of West Coast of Africa, and when quite a young man was attracted one day to a large ship that, had just come near his home, with many other he was attracted aboard by bright red handkerchiefs, shawls and other articles in the hands of the seamen. Shortly afterwards he was securely bound in the hold of the ship, to be later sold somewhere in America.

Thomas does not know exactly where Adam landed, but knows that his father had been in Florida many years before his birth. I guess that’s why I can’t stand red things now, he says; My pa hated the sight of it.

Thomas spent all of his enslaved years on the Campbell plantation, where he describe pre-emancipation conditions as better than he used to hear the was on the other places.

Campbell himself is described as moderate, if not actually kindly. He did not permit his slaves to be beaten to any great extent. The most he would give us was a ‘switching’ and most of the time we could pray out of it.

"But sometimes he would get ahead men working for him give me one time a week and of the one of the latter that it was they who induced the slaves of Campbell to remain and finish their crops after the Emancipation, receiving one-fourth of it for their share. He states that Campbell exceeded this amount in the division of later.

After surrender Thomas and his relatives remained on the Campbell’s place, working for $1 a month, payable at each Christmas. He calls how much he felt with this money, as compared with the other free Negroes in the section. All of the children and his mother were paid this amount, he states.

Ex-Slave Shack Thomas, Jacksonville, Florida; Born on the Campbell Plantation near Tallahassee

Centennarian-37 years at freedom

NEW TESTAMENT

HEBREWS 1:4

Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name they.

5.    Alcohol Casket

-He is a doctor in the emergency room!

The first sight of a certain young woman caused him to fall in love. He says the love was mutual at after a courtship of three weeks they were married the girl’s mother told Charles that she had always been very frail, but he did not know that she had consumption. Within three days after they were married she died and her death caused much grief for Charles.

He was reluctant to bury her and wanted to continue to stand look at her face. A white doctor and a school teacher whose name he does not remember, told him to put his wife’s body in alcohol to preserve it and he could look at it all the time. At that time, white people who had plenty of money and wanted to see the faces of their deceased used this method.

A glass casket was used and the diseased body of the deceased was placed in alcohol inside the casket another casket made of wood held the glass casket and the whole was placed in a vault made of stone or brick. The walls of the vault were left about four feet above the round and a window and ledge were placed in front, so when the casket was placed inside of the vault the bereaved could lean upon the ledge and lock in he face of the deceased. The wooden casket was provided with a glass top part of the way so that the face could easily be seen. Although the process of preserving the body in alcohol cost $160.00 Charles did not regret the expense saying, I had plenty of money at that time."

After the death of his wife, Charles left with his mother and father, Henrietta and Spencer Coates and went to Savannah, Georgia. He said they were so glad to go, that they walked to within 30 miles of Savannah, when they saw a man driving a horse who picked them up and carried them into Savannah.’

Ex-Slave Charles Coates

NEW TESTAMENT

HEBREWS 1:5

For unto which of the angels said he at any time. Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

6.    Ashes to the Union Army

-Keep yourself from burning in hell!

"Although shoes were unheard of in Lindsey’s youth, he used to watch carefully whenever a cow was skinned and its hide tanned to make shoes for the women and the folks in the big house through his attain to the tanning operations he learned everything about tanning except one solution that he could not until years later that he learned the jealously –guarded ingredients was plain salt and water. By the time he had learned it, however, he had so mastered the tanning operations that he at once added it