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Alice Freeman. An interview with Mrs. Alice Freeman telling briefly of her experiences as the daughter of a slave. This interview presents the better side of conditions of the Negro during the period of slavery. As told by Dave L. Petway, colored, to L.C. Shaw.
Alice Freeman, a resident of the city of Spokane for the last 30 years, was born shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation that made all slaves in the United States free men and equal of the whites. To Mrs. Freeman's mother and her brothers and sisters the Emancipation meant little. To the average slave of the South, emancipation was the greatest single factor in American Negro history to date. Mrs. Freeman's father (she refuses to disclose his name) was a white planter who owned a large and exceedingly fertile acreage in Missouri. Her mother was a negress, whom Mrs. Freeman describes as the most striking and stunning negress she has ever seen. To this union of the white planter and the negress were born five children, three girls and two boys. Contrary to the accepted standard of ostracism in a case like this, both the mother and the children were accepted and respected members of the society of the vicinity. The children were well clothed and, according to the standards of the southern negro, were given a good education. Mrs. Freeman recalls that her brothers and sisters, and later herself---she was the youngest of the family--- were the envy of the negro population as they possessed a certificate which allowed them the privilege of voting. The children were never abused and any work they did was the work that the average child, white or colored, would do today. Mrs. Freeman's white father in addition to having his large acreage--- the main crops of which were grains, corn and vegetables---was the supervisor of a large Federal distillery on his land. This made him a man who at that time was classed as having considerable wealth. As each of the five mulatto children reached an age when their father considered them competent to handle their own affairs, they were deeded (with a clear title that could not be contested regardless of the fact that in their case they were not supposed to own land) a tract of land.
About the time Mrs. Freeman was given her land the "Carpet Baggers", a group of "crooked Northern white men", came to the South and told the free negroes to come North with them. They promised good jobs, easy money and equality with the whites. With this glowing recommendation many of the ignorant and illiterate negroes went North with the "Carpet Baggers" where they were forced to work for little or no money. The result was many of the negroes resorted to crime and those who did not either returned to the South or stayed in the North where many of them died of pneumonia and tuberculosis.
It was the fabulous tales of these men that caused Mrs. Freeman and her two sisters to sell their land and come West, where she met and married Mr. Freeman.
L.C. Shaw Spokane, Washington (February 15, 1937)
