FROM THE MOUTH OF THE SLAVE

Narrator	State	Sample Quotation
Alice Alexander	Oklahoma	"We lived in a one room log hut, and slept on homemade rail bed steads wid cotton, an' sum times straw, mos'ly straw summers an' cotton winners." [source]
Andy J. Anderson	Texas	"De Marster finished his statement asayin', 'All yous niggers can stay wid me'. I's says to myse'f, not loud 'nough fo' anyone to heah, I's thinks, but de Marster heahs me w'en I's says, 'Lak hell I's will'." [source]
Scott Bond	Arkansas	"I proceeded: 'Ann gave birth to a child while she was your servant. It is said that Mr. Rutledge, who was your nephew and manager of your farm at that time, was the father of this child. It is further said that Mrs. Goodlow dressed the child and called it Scott Winfield.' " [source]
Betty Foreman Chessier	Oklahoma	"I doesn't remembah any play songs, 'cause I was almost in prison chile. I couldn't play with any of the darkies. I doesn't remembah playin' in my life when I was a little girl en' when I got grown I diden wanta." [source]
Betty Cofer	North Carolina	"Yes'm, I saw some slaves sold away from the plantation, four men and two women, both of 'em with little babies. The traders got 'em. Sold 'em down to Mobile, Alabama. One was my pappy's sister. We never heard from her again." [source]
Holt Collier	Mississippi	Having killed 2212 bear, after which he says, "I just quit counting", Holt and the famous pack of dogs, which he had trained, were known by hunters and sportsmen, not only in the Delta but in other states. [source]
George Fleming	South Carolina	"Slaves started to work by de time dey was old enough to tote water and pick up chips to start fires wid. Some of dem started to work in de fields when dey about ten, but most of 'em was older." [source]
Hector Godbold	South Carolina	"Wha' yuh gwinna do wid me? I sho' been heah in slavery time. Talk to dem sodjurs when dey wuz 'treatin' dey way back home. My ole Missus wuz Miss Mary Godbold en den she marry uh Haselden. Dey buy my mamma from da ole man Frank Miles right o'er yonner."[source]
James Green	Texas	"I never knew my age until after de Civil War when I was set free for de second time. Then my marster gets out a great big book and it showed dat I was twenty-five years old. It shows more too: It shows I was twelve when I was bought and $800 was paid for me. Dat $800 was stolen money, cose I was kidnapped. Dis is about how it come." [source]
Lancy Harris	North Carolina	"Ma bed had fo' posts and a cord running from pos' to pos' to make spring. We sleep in a room wid pot racks near the fire place, a barrel of soap up in a corner, but the floors wus white like a bread tray. Everything wus in one room." [source]
John Harrison	Oklahoma	"All of the Nations of the Five Tribes suffered extensively account of the war. The Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nation suffered because it was in their territory that the Confederate Army was quartered and lived during the life of the War and it was naturally a drain on the citizenship of those tribes." [source]
Matilda Hatchett	Arkansas	"Didn't git no chance to learn nothin' in slavery. Sometimes the children would teach the darkies 'round the house their ABC's. I've heard of folks teachin' their slaves to read the Bible. They didn't teach us to read nothin'. I've heard of it, but I've never seen it, that some folks would cut off the first finger of a nigger that could write." [source]
James Martin	Texas	"I helped bring the first railroad here. The S.P. in them days only ran near Seguin and I was a spiker and worked the whole distance. Then I helped build the old railroad from Indianola to Cuero and then from Cuero to Corpus.... That was in 1873 and 1874." [source]
Jerry Moore	Texas	"I rec'lect the time the cullud folks registered here after the war. They outnumbered the whites a long way. Davis was governor and all the white folks had to take the Iron Clad oath to vote. Carpetbaggers and Negroes run the government." [source]
Henry Turner	Arkansas	No Negro slave was allowed to go beyond the confines of his owner's plantation without written permission. This was described by "Uncle" Henry Turner as a "pass"; and on this "pass" was written the name of the Negro, the place he was permitted to visit, and the time beyond which he must not fail to return. [source]
Hettie Watkins	Indiana	Miss Watkins, while giving the sketch of her father to this writer, related a story of one of her uncles which I regarded as a reflection of that courage with which the colored ex-slave was called upon, on various occasions, to defend his newly acquired rights as an American citizen. [source]
Charles Williams	Louisiana	"I knows one Beauty thing erbout myself. I cin ackomplush anything I lays my mits apond." [source]