Folklore
June 8, 1938
Edited by: Elmer Turnage
REMINISCENCES I was born in barnwell…
I don't remember much
about the patrollers. They were not so active around there, but I heard
some things about them. They would ride around and try to keep the slaves
on their own plantations. A song which some of the negroes sang went like
this: 'Run, nigger, run! Paddy roller will catch you!'
Kimmarie: this shows memories of a child who was not personally involved
in the situation but the problem was still evident in song. The memories
are distant from the event. The interview was for a government history project
that did not seem to be extremely biased.
NAME OF WORKER LEVI C. HUBERT ADDRESS [353?] West 118th Street, Manhattan
DATE October 2, 1938 SUBJECT AMERICAN FOLKLORE -- MARY THOMAS
1. Date and time of interview October 24 and 25, 1938
2. Place of interview 358 West 119th Street, top floor
3. Name and address of informant Mrs. Mary Thomas, 353 West 119th Street
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant.
Mrs. Cole, [4?] West 112th Street, Manhattan
1. Ancestry American Negro, came from a family who were once slaves but
who, before the Rebellion, became fugitives, aided by the Underground Railroad
and settled in the North
2. Place and date of birth Born around 1874 in [Free?] Haven (now [Lawnside?])
New Jersey
When the two finished
that chore, and it was a mighty big chore, too, they went up to the big
house and asked for their freedom.
The master sent them back to their cabin and said that since the old man
wasn't no good any more, and it just cost the master money to feed him,
he could go whenever he pleased, but the son was going to stay on the farm
and if he tried any foolishness, he would sell him south. Selling a slave
south meant that the slave would be taken to one of the slave trader's jails
and put on the block and be sold to some plantation way down south. And
no worser thing could happen. Many a family was separated like that, mothers
from their children, fathers from their children, wives from their husbands,
and the old folks say that a pretty girl fetched (brought) a higher price
and didn't have to work in the fields. These young girls, with no one to
protect them, were used by their masters and bore children for them. These
white masters were the ones who didn't respect our women and all the mixing
up today in the south is the result of this power the law gave over our
women.
(The old lady was full of horrible examples of the depravity of white masters
in the days of slavery. And while I sympathized with her completely, I managed
to get her back to the story of her grandfather.)
Kimmarie: This shows the power that was held over the slaves. The ability
to ask them to do anything, the ability to separate families and the ability
to use the women for sex. The recorder reroutes the conversation back to
the subject of the story where other stories may have come out if Mary had
been free to speak. The events described are from the past, and also were
second hand from her father.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/murray
African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P.Murray Collection,
1818-1907
Lynch law in Georgia : by Ida B. Wells-Barnett ; a six-weeks' record in
the center of southern civilization, as faithfully chronicled by the "Atlanta
journal" and the "Atlanta constitution" ; also the full report
of Louis P. Le Vin, the Chicago detective sent to investigate the burning
of Samuel Hose, the torture and hanging of Elijah Strickland, the colored
preacher, and the lynching of nine men for alleged arson.
Kimmarie: I actually took both of these examples because they refer to the concept of lynching only being used in response to interracial sexual improprieties. I felt that this was important in that it helped me understand the concept of a black man not being allowed to even look a white woman in the eye which was evident in the book black like me. This helped me understand how that evolved. It is also interesting in that the lynchings were blamed on that when no improprieties were in evidence.
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