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(Mobile County, AL. Ila B. Prine, Federal Writers Project, August 27, 1937)
A little old, short, black woman, who lives at 557 St. Francis street, said she was about ten years old when the war started. She said that her young "Marster" went to the war, and her "Paw" went along to wait on him. "My Marster's name was Mr. John Erwing and my Misstress' name was Miss Dillie. They lived on a big plantation in Georgia, near Lumpkin, below Columbus. Mr. and Mrs. Erwing had five girls and one boy, Cynthia being named after one of the girls." She said her grandmother Dilsey was the cook, her mother Mary was the milk woman, and her sister Victoria was the house girl, and another woman named Fanny weaved the cloth and made the clothes.
Cynthia said she was large enough to thread needles for them and light the old women's pipes, and get water for them to drink.
Cynthia said they were owned by good people, and they never wanted for anything. Her 'Marster' was a good christian man. He had good log cabins built in rows for his slaves, which had homemade furniture that was much more substantial than they make now. He had a large plantation and had "plenty of niggers", but he never mistreated them. Every Sunday morning he had all the slaves come to his house and have worship, and he would have them repeat the Lord's prayer after him every Sunday.
Cynthia said that when the association met, he would let the men hitch up the double mule and ox-teams, and carry all the slaves five or six miles to it. She said they would stay a whole week sometimes.
Cynthia would go to church every Sunday, in the back of her Mistres buggy. On Saturdays they would cook up bread and cake to take along, and that every first Sunday of each month was big times, for the white folks would have foot washing. The church they attended was called the Antioch Church.
In recalling those days, Cynthia said she would like to go back to those days, if she could have the same owners, because then they had plenty to eat and wear and a good house to live in, while now she has to get things the best way she can. She said they raised hogs, cows, chickens, and cattle, as well as all kind of foodstuffs. They furnished the slaves plenty of milk, and when the cows had young calves, they boiled the milk and used it. She said they always had plenty of butter to eat and cook with. When she thought of the chicken pies they made, it made her so hungry, because things are not cooked today as they were then. Hog killing time was a great occasion, for they spent days drying out the lard and making cracklings, stuffing sausages and curing the meat. She said they would also kill a cow and dry it.
The slaves on one plantation always did all the work, except at log rolling time, then the neighboring plantations would come or send all their slaves to help. Then the Marster would have plenty to eat. The slaves always had to have a pass, Cynthia said, sometimes the "Patty-rollers" would come and see if they all had passes, and occasionally if they caught one without a pass, they would give them a lick or two with a whip, and tell them to be sure and get a pass before coming out again. She said she had never seen a slave beaten or sold.
She said that sometimes after a log rolling they would have a "Candy pull" or dance. She said, nearly every Saturday night the slaves would have a dance on their plantation, but "Ol' Marster" made them be orderly, but allowed them to have a good time. He also allowed the men to hunt 'possum, and coons at night and go fishing in the daytime.
Cynthia said she always went with one of the young girls and "tote" the lunch, and bait the hooks and "tote" the fish home.
At night after the day's work was done, the women usually quilted. She said her Mistress would invite all the young white girls in the neighborhood in to help her, and they surely would have a good time.
She also recalled the women making palmetto fans and hats. Said that the men planted indigo and dried the seed, and the women used that for dying their hats and dresses. She said that they sometimes trimmed their hats with ribbons and wore them on Sundays.
Another thing that they used to do, was to dry peaches, and also take roasting ears of corn and scrape them, and put it up on a big scaffold they had in the yard and dry it. Then made starch out of it. They raised their own wheat, and every other week they would go to the mill to have it ground into flour, and they also carried the corn to have ground for meal.
The slaves were only allowed to raise rice in the ditches, but they could have as much of that as they wanted. The women worked in the fields, just like the men, except those that had real young babies. She said her mother would leave the field at four o'clock so she come home and milk the cows.
When a man wanted to marry a certain girl, he would go to the Marster, and ask him if he could have "sich and sich a gal, and Ol' Marster would make them jump over a broom stick, and then they would be married". The women and men's clothes were made of striped cotton, the women's clothes consisted of a dress, chemise and head rags, while the men had plain cotton pants and shirts.
Cynthia said she doesn't remember but one person dying, and that was a cousin of hers. She said that people were not as sickly then as they are now, and they didn't have big funerals.
When she was asked if she remembered the Yankees coming through Georgia, she said: "Lord, yeah! My Marster made us tote the meat 'bout a mile from the house and bury it". She said when they came up to the house they asked her mistress if they had any milk, and she told them yes, and they went in the dairy and drank all the milk and eat up all bread and everything that was cooked on the place. She said the next time they came back through "they were beating drums, and told us, that we were free, but us didn't leave the Ol' Marster and Mistress, then stayed on with them five or six years. My mother took up with a man by the name of Simmie Poe and fooled us off to Alabama and I'se been here every since. I ain't neber been married but one time and my husband was John Erwing, and us never had a child, so here I is alone in the world, with out a soul to help me now.
"I guess though it will not be for long, because I'se getting old. You knows I'se been here a long time when I tells you 'bout all the things I has, and, too, I remembers hearing of Grant and Lincoln who had something to do with freeing us. I also remembers something 'bout Jeff Davis, and they had a song about him. It goes something like this;
"Hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree Hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, Hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, As we go marching along."
But what's the use of bringing up all of dat now, let bygone be bygone, and everybody should forget it and live peaceably together."
