When I Was a Slave

 When I Was a Slave are selected narratives from a WPA project. At the time, former slaves were 80+ years old. It is interesting how each person interviewed focused on different memories from their days held captive in the south as plantation slaves. Some focused on their living quarters, their work, their meals; others on their slave masters/mistresses. One slave recited exact amounts of items buried to prevent northern soldiers from stealing the valuables. 

However could anyone remember that the slave master's household had 3 silver salt and 3 silver pepper holders, 94 silver teaspoons and so on. Perhaps that slave had helped bury them or kept the inventory for the masters? I suppose if the owners had boxed sets of silverware, like my mother had, they would know how many of each utensil fit in the boxes.

Some slaves sang the virtues of their owners ~ they were well fed, well-dressed, decent housing. Others said the opposite. One man said that slaves who glorified their masters were lying. Hard to imagine a world where men felt justified in buying, selling, owning other people. The owners felt slaves were mere animals to be beat into submission. Sad and horrifying. 

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Above is a copy of my Goodreads review of When I Was A Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection edited by Norman R. Yetman Reading this book is how I learned that the slave cabins had dirt floors.

I wondered, later, why none of the interviewed slaves mentioned Outhouses. Or did they dig holes, bury it, as modern day hunters are told to do?