TEXAS SLAVE FAMILIES

by Ruthe Winegarten

YES I WAS BORN A SLAVE AND SO WAS ROSA. WE GOT OUT OF THE CHATTEL SLAVERY AND I WAS BETTER OFF FOR GETTIN' OUT BUT ROSA DON'T THINK SO. SHE SAYS ALL WE FREED FOR IS TO STARVE TO DEATH.

--Jack and Rosa Maddox

Lord child, you hear these calves bawl, when you take or sell it mammy, that is way slaves did when they had auction sale. . . . The women and children they bawl and holler and cry, cause lots times they never would see husband, son, wife or brother any more. --Melea Malign, Montgomery County

Slavery in Texas was not a pro-family institution. Sales and the threat of sales had a devastating impact upon family members, as did physical and sexual violence, long work days, and efforts by some owners to dehumanize their chattels. Despite the existence of "kind" owners, the institution itself created situations in which deaths of slave holders, even those more "human," often caused family separations as members of slave families were sold off to different purchasers or left to various heirs in wills. Separation of children from mothers, husbands from wives, and brothers from sisters are mentioned frequently in the Texas slave narratives. Seductions, rapes, and forced breeding were common occurrences, and marriages between slaves, particularly when they lived on different plantations, required the approval of Old Mawster or Old Mistress. Despite these conditions, slaves struggled to preserve family life and protect their mates and children.

Slaves left few written records. Fortunately, during the late 1930s, federal Works Progress Administration workers interviewed thousands of ex-slaves about their experiences. The largest number of interviews were conducted in Texas, with some 800 men and women on record. The original typescripts of those interviews are at the University of Texas at Austin Barker Texas History Center. They have also been printed in a multi-volume series, edited by Charles Rawick, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. The following excerpts are from the Rawick series.*

THE SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

"I was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1852. . . When I was still pretty little my brother, uncle, aunt an' mother was sold an' I went with 'em. My father wasn't sold so he couldn't go. De Marster told us we was going to Texas, dat we belong to Dr. Massie now. Dey brought us to Texas on an ox cart. My sister got on de wagon to go, too, and de master said, 'Adeline, you can' come. You got stay here with Mistress.' Dat's de last I ever seen my sister. She was four years old den." --Mintie Maria Miller

"I gets to thinkin' how Wash Hodges sold off Maw's chillen. He'd . . . have the folks come for 'em when my maw was in the fields. When she'd come back, she'd raise a ruckus. Then many the time I seed her plop right down to a settin' and cry about it. But she allowed there weren't nothing could be done, cause it's the slavery law. She said, 'Oh, Lord, let me see the end of it before I die!'" --Lulu Wilson

" . . . I never knowed no mamma or no papa neither one." --Adline Marshall

"I's seed some bad sight in slav'ry do' [though]. . . . I seed chillen too little t' walk split from dey mammys 'n' sol' right on d' block in Woodville. Dey was sol' jus' like caffs. I seed niggers in han' locks. D' sellers he say, 'Bid a dollar, bid a hunnerd dollar.'"

--Josie Brown

"One boy was traded off from his mother when he was young an' after he was grown he was sold back to de same master and married to his own mother. How she found out dis was her son, she had struck him in de head axcidental an' after dey was married, she looked in his head an' saw de scar an' asket him why it was dere. He began to tell her, an' she fainted 'cause it was her own son." --Wesley Burrell

MARRIAGE

"A slave sees a slave gal what he wants, so he asks his old Marse can he see her. Iffen she owned by some one else, his Marse ask her Marse iffen it all right to put 'em together, an' iffen he say so, dey jes' did. Dat's de way pappa and mamma was put together. Twan't no Bible weddin' like now. Mama had 19 chillen in all,--10 boys an' 9 girls . . ." --Van Moore

"All de slaves married young, dat is most of dem did, but I didn't marries til I was nearly 40 years old. . . . When any of de slaves got married while Master Ingram was livin, he makes dem all gits married by de preacher, . . . every time one of de slaves gits married he [Ingram] would lets dem have a weddin dance to celebrates de weddin. Most of de slave owners would have a sham weddin and lets dem go at dat, when dey wasn't legally married, but nothin like dat happened at Master Ingram's place even if one of de slaves was from another plantation." --Calvin Moye

"The niggers didn't used to marry nuther. The master would hold a broom up and have the bride jump over it and then he held it a little higher for the groom to jump. When they did that he said, 'Salute your bride.' And that was all there was to it. There was a Carrol nigger wanted one of Master's gals and Colonel Carrol told him to ask Master. He come up and talked to Master 'bout it and Mr. Davy said he didn't like to stand 'twixt nobody, not even niggers, and so they married them. That nigger would get a pass and come over and stay with he gal and then he would say, 'I am sorry but it is that certain time and I got to go.'" --Lu Lee

MATING

"I'se always believed my master was also my father, but I never did know, cause my mother, she would never tell who my father was." --William Byrd

"Old Cap'n has a big house, but I jes' see it from de quarters. . . . I hear 'em say he don't have no wife, but has a black woman what stays at de house. Dat's de reason why dere is so many 'No Nation' niggers 'round now. Some call 'em 'Bright' niggers, but I calls 'em 'No Nation' niggers, 'cause dat is what dey is --dey ain't all Black and dey ain't white, but dey is mixed. Dat comes from slave times and de white folks did we wrong, 'cause we blacks get beat and whipped if dey don't do what de white folks tell 'em to." --Adline Marshall

"Ise ask 'bout my father an' she [mother] says him am on de place but dies befo' Ise bo'n. He was used fo' de father to sev'ral womens on de place." --Julia Malone

"You see, marriage in them days wasn't what it is now. Why some of them slaves was bred lak hosses. A good, well-built man was hired out among a bunch of wimmen, so as to produce good, healthy chillun." --Sam Meredith Mason

PREGNANCY

"Missus told me I had ought to marry. She told me if I would marry she would togger me up in a white dress and give me a weddin' supper. She made the dress and Wash Hodges married me out'n the Bible to a nigger b'longing to a nephew of his'n. I was about thirteen or fourteen. I know that it wasn't long after that when Missus Hodges got a doctor to me. The doctor told me that less'n I had a baby, old as I was and married, I'd start in on spasms. So it twan't long 'til I had a baby." --Lulu Wilson

" . . . I hab five sisters w'at died w'en dey was babies, 'cause dey put my mudder through, an' mek her wuk so hard, an' didnt give her much care w'en she was sick."

--Cassie Middleton

" . . . from what my mammy say an' from what I know, we sure was lucky to have old Mis' Cunningham for owner . . . 'cause she was sure a good woman. She didn't have to whip de slaves 'cause they all loved her, but I hear my mamma say some white folks whipped de slaves awful. . . . she say how she know a slave woman what was owned by a Marse Ricketts an' what was workin' in de field, was heavy wid a chile what wasn't bo'n yet, an' she had to set down in de row to rest. She was in misery an' couldn't work good, an' de boss man in de field had a nigger dig a pit where her stomach could fit in an' then lay her down an' tie her so she can't squirm 'round none, an' flog her till she lose her mind. Yes suh, dat's de truth . . ." --Van Moore

"Some of de women, when pregnant would be beaten with dere stomach down in a hole an' dey was tied to a stake." --Wesley Burrell

"When women had babies they had old granny women on the place to look after them. They stayed in bed three days and got up on the fourth. But if they had a bad time they let them stay in bed four days. The women who had nursing babies did work around the house or in the spinning rooms so they be where they can suckle the babies." --Lu Lee

ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION

"I have known too of women that got pregnant and didn't want the baby and they unfixed themselves by taking calomel and turpentine. In them days the turpentine was strong and ten or twelve drops would miscarry you. But the makers found what it was used for and they changed the way of making turpentine. It ain't no good no more." --Lu Lee

"I cheated Maser. I never did have any slaves. . . . I kept cotton roots and chewed them all

the time but I was careful not to let Maser know or catch me. So I never did have any children while I was a slave. . . . Yes, after freedom we had five children." --Mary Gaffney

" . . . all the negro womens they had become wise to this here cotton root. They would chew that and they would not give birth to a baby. All of their Masers sho' did have to watch them, but sometimes they would slip out at night and get them a lot of cotton roots and bury them under their quarters." --Dave L. Byrd

MOTHERHOOD AND CHILD CARE

"I am a wuk in de w'ite folks house . . . Mama uster tie me wid a string to a chair let out on de gallery to keep me from runnin' off down to de Bayou. Dey was 'fraid of alligators." --Hiram Mayes

"Ise raised in de nursery 'til Ise 'bout five yeahs old. De nursery am where de mammies brings dey babies 'til dey can git 'em back aftah workin' hours. Dis nursery am wo'k aplenty fo' de womens dat runs it 'cause dey am s'posed to keep de kids outer fights. 'Twas a big job 'cause de kids will fight evah time de womens have dey backs turned. De real trouble comes when meal time comes around. 'Twas sev'al long wood troughs put on de table an' each kid am give a wood spoon. Usual de troughs have milk wid co'n bread crumblins in it . . . De nurse gives de word when to eat an' de kids all tries to git mo' dan de rest of dem. Dat starts de a'guments an' de fights all ovah. De nursery also has slides fo' to play on and sev'al sand boxes. Marster Johnson am so good to all de little kids. . . . Mistez have four-five chilluns an' after Ise five yeahs ol' Ise took out to stay wid dem as de nurse. . . . [After freedom] . . . weuns all lives togedder in de cabin 'stead of me aliving in the Marster's house wid de kids." --Hannah Mullins

"Mother was a house gal. I 'member w'en mother uster carry us up to de big house an' sot us out under de trees, an' we had to stay out dere all day long. After eatin' times she uster come out wid a pan of soup for 'us. We wasn' 'lowed to go in de big house at all, an' we didn' know w'at a pair of shoes was. In winter us chillen had to stay in bed or 'roun' de shack w'er we lib w'ile mother wuk." --Peter Mitchell

FAMILY MEMBERS PROTECT EACH OTHER

" . . . Marster [Hooper] . . . lows dem [his slaves] one acres of land an' gives dem time to wo'k it. All dey makes on de acre am given to de nigger. Father always plants his acre in cotton, an w'en Marster Hooper takes his cotton to town, father's cotton goes too, an' what it brings am given to father. Well, dat away, father can buy things fo' himself so he has his own hoss an' saddle, and he brings us good things to eat our Marster don't furnish, sich as de coffee an' tea. Co'se, he brings us candy sometimes an' things to play wid. 'Twas green coffee dat father always brings, an' mammy would roast, grind it and make coffee fo' allus w'en her man comes to visit weuns." --Louise Matthews

"My mammy had a back that was turrible bad once. I seen her trying to get her clothes off her back, and I heared a woman say, 'Why mama what is the matter with your back?' It is raw and bloody and she says Marse Tom done beat her with a hand saw with the teeth in her back. She died with the marks on her, with the teeth-holes going cross-wise on her back. . . . Nuther day I am down in the hog pen . . . when I hear a loud agony screaming up to the house. . . . When I get up close I see Marse Tom got my mammy tied to a tree with her clothes pulled down and he is laying it on her with the bull whip and the blood is running down her eyes and off her back. I goes crazy. I say, 'Stop Marse Tom,' and he swings the whip and don't reach me good but it cuts just the same. . . . I run around crazy like and I see a big rock and I take it and I throw it and it ketches Marse Tom in the skull and he goes down like a poled ox." --William Moore

WORK DAYS

"Master always wake the slaves his self about four o'clock every morning, so's we would be in the field waiting fo day light to come then. Then he works us just as long as we could see. . . . Slaves was generally so tired when he would get to his quarters he jest fell in at the door." --Lee McGillery

"'Twas de makin' ob de clothes aftah wo'k houahs dat caused so much trouble 'twix de overseer an' de niggers. Deys was tired aftah wo'kin all dey would drap asleep. Den t'would come de whuppin.

"Ise 'membahs dat Ise left in de nursery by my mammy while am wo'kin' in de field. Den one night my mammy went down to de river fo' to wash some clothes. Youns see dat's de way she have to does to git some clean clothes. If she am not weavin' and spinnin' de cloth, she am washin' de clothes aftah wo'k. Dey don't lets her off f'om wo'k til dahk and makes her wo'k ever' day. If she wants to [be] wham [warm] she have to goes to de timbah an' cut a little wood." --Julia Malone

FREEDOM

"Mr. Davy stood on the porch and said he was going to read a proclamation. He started out to read and he busted into crying and his daughter had to read the paper. . . . She says, 'You is free mens and womens.' A man . . . named George cried out in a powerful voice: 'Free, free my Lord. Oh! free, free, My lord.' . . . I went bak to Master Henry's house and he said he was going to take me and my sister to the free state of Brazil where they could keep slaves. I told my sister and we run away to go to my grandmammy's." --Lu Lee

"I remembah den how our first Nineteenth was celebrated on June 19, 1866, and de song we sang was

De Blue Bonnet Flag

Hurrah fo' de Blue Bonnet Flag,

Horrah fo' de home-spun dresses

Dat de colored wimmen wear;

Yes I'm a radical girl

And glory in de name--

Hurrah fo' de home-spun dresses

Dat de colored wimmen wear."

--Maggie Whitehead Matthews

*There are 11 volumes of The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, and two series. Series 1 (vol. 4-5) and Series 2 (vol. 2-10) are Texas narratives.

Ruthe Winegarten is a historian and writer for the Texas Foundation of Women's Resources and the editor of I am Annie Mae: An Extraordinary Woman in Her Own Words.

This essay appeared originally in The Texas Humanist, March-April. 1985.