Good Lil’ Boys and Girls from the Tar Heel State of North Carolina: Black Children Speak Series!

By Sharon Kaye Hunt RD

The book is one of twelve books of the Black Children Speak series. The books are compiled 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 of the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524583880

Sharon Kaye Hunt RD

Sharon Kaye Hunt, a freelance writer and a retiree from a historically black college and university (HBCU) writes cookbooks and children books. She includes many historical facts in her books to inspire the study of African American history. For her cookbooks, most of her work is about Georgia and African American history. The recipes represent different regions of Georgia and the honor of the two-hundred-plus years of the plantations cooks in preparing foods for the plantation owners and their slaves. Her most famous cookbook, Bread from Heaven, has sold thousands of copies. Ms. Hunt sold her Bread from Heaven cookbook a record three times on the QVC Home Shopping Network. Ms. Hunt is the author of the original recipe of the world’s largest peach cobbler, a historical food product showcased each year at the annual Peach Festival held in Fort Valley, Georgia. Ms. Hunt graduated with BS and MS degrees from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. She majored in food and nutrition and is a registered dietitian. She did further study at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Ms. Hunt served as the charter president of the Warner Robins Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Warner Robins, Georgia. Ms. Hunt cofounded the undergraduate chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Chapter Inc. at Oklahoma State University. Ms. Hunt received three grants from the Georgia Endowment of Humanities, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. She is a Kellogg Enhancement Recipient from the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Currently, Ms. Hunt is a charter member of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Sharon Kaye Hunt, RD.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-8389-7

                eBook           978-1-5245-8388-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769; King James Bible Online, 2016. www.kingjamesbibleonline.org.

Rev. date: 02/21/2017

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

About North Carolina

Part I – North Carolina Slave Narratives, Volume XI

1. A Big Wedding

2. Abraham Lincoln

3. Abraham Lincoln’s Cause

4. Abraham Lincoln’s Woes

5. Against the Negro

6. Auction Block

7. Beat with a Stick

8. Bees in Charge

9. Big Meeting

10. Black Man’s Freedom

11. Black vs Yellow Girls

12. Blue Eyes Father

13. Burying the Dead

14. Children in the Salt Mine

15. Christmas on One North Carolina Plantation

16. Colored Soldiers

17. Cows in the Field

18. Curse Abraham Lincoln

19. Darkey Houses

20. Doctor’s Slaves

21. Dr. Bogan

22. Drinking Hunter

23. Droves of Hogs

24. Free Issues

25. Full Slaves

26. General Mixture

27. Good Men and Women

28. Goose and General Lee

29. Grandmother

30. Great Grandmother

31. Guns

32. Haints

33. Ku Klux

34. Mixed Blood

35. Moonlight Nights in Georgia

36. My Son

37. Mount Airy

38. Patterollers

39. Plowing Mama

40. Poor White Trash

41. Pregnant in the Field

42. Reciting for Money

43. Shim Sham, Free Issues or Negroes of mixed.

44. Slave Speculator

45. Stock Father

46. Throwing Nickels

47. White Mother

48. Writing

Part 2 – North Carolina Slave Narratives

1. A Slave Woman’s Struggle

2. Across the Water

3. After Slavery

4. Ashes from the Hearth

5. Baby Sold

6. Bad Mistress

7. Black Builder

8. Black Foreman

9. Body Servant

10. Born Free Children

11. Bound Girl

12. Brother Brother

13. Candy Pullings

14. Chained for Whipping

15. Church

16. Church

17. Confederate Soldiers

18. Cut Ear Off

19. Daddy’s Duties

20. Daddy’s Gift of Slaves

21. Dancing in the Quarters

22. Deed

23. Disguised Abraham Lincoln

24. Dressed Down

25. Gamecocks

26. Given Away

27. Good or Bad

28. Good or Bad

29. Horn vs Plantation Bell

30. House Servants

31. Jeff Davis

32. Love

33. Making Money

34. Married

35. Master’s Son

36. Mean Missus

37. Mulattoes

38. My Father was a White Man

39. Negroes

40. Old Issue

41. Overseer

42. Overseer vs Mistress

43. Part White

44. Pass

45. Prayer Meeting

46. President Roosevelt

47. Printing the Newspaper

48. Queen in Africa

49. Reading and Writing

50. Sherman’s Sister

51. Sing and Dance

52. Singing for the Lord

53. Son Sold

54. Speaking Well

55. Speaking Well

56. Speaking Well

57. Till Dark

58. Tobacco

59. Two Thousand Acres (2000 Acres)

60. White Brother

61. White Mother

62. Who Am I?

Extra: 128 Black Inventors And Their Inventions

References

Dedication

All of my work and life is dedicated to

Jesus Christ, head of my life.

The body of work is dedicated to my ancestors, my

parents and brothers.

Dedicated to the readers – For all people!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The book- GOOD LIL’ BOYS AND GIRLS from the Tar Heel State of North Carolina is part of twelve(12) Black Children Speak Series. The Series are made up from interviews taken from ex-slaves by Works Project Administration (WPA) for the District of Columbia Sponsored by the Library of Congress. The title of the project SLAVE NARRATIVES-A Folk History in the United States Interviews with Former Slaves.

The ‘Black Children Speak Series’ show the answers about childhood from ex-slaves- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’Project, 1936-1938.

Ex-Slaves were interviewed from seventeen states.

The author is indebted to the WPA writers taking the interviews, the ex-slaves and the Library of Congress.

As an extra, more than one hundred Black Inventors and their Inventions are included In each of the Series. The inventions are from the Black Invention Museum. Some of The inventors were slaves.

DISCLAIMER: The words of the ex-slaves have not been edited. Ex-slaves spoke in the language they knew. Some words may be offensive in the ex-slaves’ discription of the activities of their childhood.

All recipes were developed by the Author. The recipes are only suggestions.

INTRODUCTION

Each of the Black Children Speak Series will be comprised of the answers given on topics of what slave children experienced on plantations more than 150 years ago.

There were twenty questions asked by the interviewers of the Writers’ Project Sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. For each of the Series, the author has selected informative information that gives perspectives on slave children’s Impact on the United States then and now.

Each Series has the following:

1. The author has selected highlights from summaries of questions asked to ex-slaves about their childhood from seventeen states. These highlights have been developed into 12 books called the Black Children Speak Children Series. The highlights are in the wordings of the slave childrens’ words as written by the WPA writers.

Sample of Instructions to WPA writers and twenty questions STORIES FROM EX-SLAVES

2. The main purpose of these detailed and homely questions is to get the Negro interested in talking about the days of slavery. If he will talk freely, he should be encouraged to say what he pleases without references to the questions. If should be remembered that the Federal Writers’ Project is not interested in taking sides on any question. The worker should not censor any material collected, regardless of its nature.

3. It will not be necessary, indeed it will probably be a mistake, to ask every person all of the questions. Any incidents or facts he can recall should be written down as nearly as possible just as he says them, but do not use dialect spelling or complicated that it may confuse the reader.

4. A second visit, a few days after the first one, is important so that the worker may gather all the worthwhile recollections that the first talk has aroused.

Questions:

1. When and where were you born?

2. Give the names of your father and mother. Where did they come from? Give names of your brothers and sisters. Tell about your life with them and describe your home and the quarters. Describe the beds and where you slept. Do you remember anything about your grandparents or any stories told you about them?

3. What work did you do in slavery days? Did you ever earn any money? What did you buy with this money?

4. What did you eat and how was it cooked? Any possums? Rabbits? Fish? What food did you like best" Did the slaves have their own gardens?

5. What clothing did you wear in hot weather?

6. Cold weather? On Sundays? Any shoes? Describe your Sundays?

7. Tell about your master, mistress, their children, the house they lived in, the overseer or driver, poor white neighbors.

8. How many acres in the plantation? How many slaves on it? How and at what time did the overseer wake up the slaves? Did they work hard and late at night? How and for what cause were the slaves punished? Tell what you saw. Tell some of the stories you heard.

9. Was there a jail for slaves? Did you ever see any slaves sold or auctioned off?

How did groups of slaves travel? Did you ever see slaves in chains?

10. Did the white folks help you to learn and write?

11. Did the slaves have a church on your plantation? Diid they read the Bible? Who was your favorite preacher? Your favorite Spirituals? Tell about the baptizing: baptizing songs. Funerals and funeral songs.

12. Did the slaves ever run away to the North? Why? What did you hear about patrollers? How did slaves carry news from one plantation to another? Did you hear of trouble between the blacks and whites?

13. What did the slaves do when they went to their quarter after the day’s work was done on the plantation? Did they work on Saturday afternoon? What did they do Saturdy nights? Sundays? Christmas morning? New Year’s Day? Any other holiday? Cornshucking? Cotton Picking? Dances? When some of the white master’s Family married or died? A wedding or death mong the slaves?

14. What games did you play as a child?

Can you give the words or sing any of the play songs or ring games of the chidren?

Riddles? Charms? Stories about animals?

What do you think of the plantation hollers? Can you tell a funny story you have heard or something funny that happened to you? Tell about the ghosts you have seen.

15. When slaves became sick who looked after them? What medicine(herbs, leaves, or roots) did the slaves use for sickness?

16. What charms did they wear and to keep off what disease?

17. What do you remember about the war that brought your freedom? What happened on the day news came that you were free? What did your master say and do?

18. Tel what work you did and how you lived the first ou did and how you lived the first year after the war and what you saw or heard about the KuKlux Klan and the nightriders.

Any school then for Negroes?

19. Now that slavery is ended what do you think of it? Tell why you joined and why you think all people should be religious.

20. Was the overseer poor white trash?

What were some of his rules?

******************************************

II. Bye Lines – short lines from Negro Spirituals or popular Negro sayings added at the top of the sayings.

III. Scriptures –at the bottom of each saying. Each saying has an old or New Testament scriptures.

IV. Food for Thought

ABOUT NORTH CAROLINA

1. Origin of the Name of North Carolina – In 1619 I gave a large patent to Sir Roberrt Heath to be called Povince of Carolina, rom Caolus. Latin name for Charles. A new patent was granted by Charles II to Earl of Clarendon and others. Divided into North and South Carolina 1710.

2. North Carolina has 301 miles of coastline.

3. North Carolina has 1,500 lakes of 10 acres or more.

4. North Carolina encompasses 52,586 squire miles

5. Mt. Mitchell is the highest peak in North Carolina at 6, 684 feet.

6. North Carolina has old battle grounds, state parks, Blue Ridge Mountains

PART I – NORTH CAROLINA SLAVE NARRATIVES, VOLUME XI

1. A Big Wedding

-God bless the union!

I wus only one year ole when de surrender come. Dat makes me shonuff ole. Near ‘bout a hundred an’ three years done passed over dis here white head of mine. I’s been here; I mean I’s been here Spects I’s I’s de olest nigger in Durham. I’se been here so long dat is don forgot near ’bout us much as dese here new generations niggers know or ever gwine know.

Marse George and Betty Hinton Chatmam County I don’t know how many field niggers Marse George had, but he had a mess of dem, an’ he had hosses, too, an’cows, hogs an’ sheeps. He raised sheeps an’ sold de wool, an’ dey used de wool at de big house too.

Dey was a big weaver’ room whar de blankets was wove an’ dey wove de cloth for de winter clothes too. Linda Hernten an’ Mike Edwards was de head weavers dey looked after de weavin’ of de fancy blankets. Mis’ Betsy was a good weaver, too. She weave de same as de niggers. She say she love de clackin’ sound of de loom an’ de way an’ de shuttles run in an’ out Carryin’ a long tail of bright colored thread. Some days she sot at de loom all Colored thread. Some days she set at de loom all de mawinin’ peddlin’ wid her feets an’ her an’ her white hans flittin’ ever de bobbins.

Se cardin’ an’ spinnin’ room was full of niggers. I can hear dem spinnin’ wheela now turnin’ roun’ an’ sayin’ hum-m-m-m, hum-m-m-m, an’ hear de slaves singin’ while dey spin. Mammy Rachel stayed in dyein: She know every kind of root, bark, leaf an’ berry dat made red, blue, green, or whatever color she wanted. Dey had a big shelter whar de dye pots wid water, den she put in de roots, bark an’ stuff an boil de juice out, den he strain it an’ put in de salt an’ vinegar to set de color. Affter de wool an cotton done been carded an’ spun an thread, mammy take de hanks an’ drap dem en de pot of boilin’ dye. She stir dem ‘roun’ an’ lef’ dem up an’ down wid a stick