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Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XI, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2

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[Pg 342] <div class='left'> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="eliasthomas"> <tr><td align='left'>N.C. District:</td><td align='left'>No. 2</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Worker:</td><td align='left'>T. Pat Matthews</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>No. Words:</td><td align='left'>1177</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Subject:</td><td align='left'>ELIAS THOMAS</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Person Interviewed:</td><td align='left'>Elias Thomas</td></tr> <tr><td align='left'>Editor:</td><td align='left'>G.L. Andrews</td></tr> </table></div> [TR: Date stamp: AUG 6 1937] <hr style="width: 25%;" /> [Pg 343] <h2>ELIAS THOMAS</h2> <h4>84 years of age 521 Cannon Ave., Raleigh, N.C. </h4> "I was here when the Civil war was goin' on an' I am 84 years old. I was born in Chatham County on a plantation near Moncure, February 1853. "My marster was named Baxter Thomas and missus was named Katie. She was his wife. I don't know my father's name, but my mother was named Phillis Thomas. "It took a smart nigger to know who his father was in slavery time. I just can remember my mother. I was about four or five years old when she died. "My marster's plantation was fust the 'Thomas Place'. There was about two hundred acres in it with about one hundred acres cleared land. He had six slaves on it. "When I was eight years old he bought the Boylan place about two miles from his first home and he moved there. There was about one thousand acres of land of it all with about three hundred acres cleared for farming. On the Thomas place his house had six rooms, on the Boylan place the house had eight rooms. He brought in more slaves and took over all the slaves after John Boylan died. "John Boylan never married. He was a mighty hard man to git along with, an' Marster Baxter Thomas was about the only one who could do anything with him when he had one of his mad[Pg 344] spells. They were no blood relation but marster got possession of his property when he died. It was fixed that way. "We called the slave houses 'quarters'. They were arranged like streets about two hundred yards on the northside of the great house. "Our food was purty good. Our white folks used slaves, especially the children, as they did themselves about eatin'. We all had the same kind of food. All had plenty of clothes but only one pair of shoes a year. People went barefooted a lot then more than they do now. We had good places to sleep, straw mattresses and chickenfeather beds and feather bolsters. A bolster reached clear across the head of the bed. "We worked from sun to sun with one hour and a half to rest at noon or dinner time. I was so small I did not do much heavy work. I chopped corn and cotton mostly. The old slaves had patches they tended, and sold what they made and had the money it brought. Everybody eat out of the big garden, both white and black alike. Ole missus wouldn't allow us to eat rabbits but she let us catch and eat possums. Missus didn't have any use for a rabbit. "Sometimes we caught fish with hooks in Haw River, Deep River, and the Cape Fear, and when it was a dry time and the water got low we caught fish in seines. "My marster only had two children, both boys, Fred, and John. John was about my age and Fred was about two years[Pg 345] older. They are both dead. My marster never had any overseers, he made boss men out of his oldest slaves. "We thought well of the poor white neighbors. We colored children took them as regular playmates. Marster's boys played with 'em too and marster gave them all the work he could. He hired both men an women of the poor white class to work on the plantation. We all worked together. We had a good time. We worked and sang together and everybody seemed happy. In harvest time a lot of help was hired and such laughing, working and singing. Just a good time in general. We sang the songs 'Crossin' over Jordan' and 'Bound for the Promised Land'. "I never saw a jail for slaves but I have seen slaves whipped. I saw Crayton Abernathy, a overseer, whip a woman in the cotton patch on Doc. Smith's farm, a mile from our plantation. I also saw ole man William Crump, a owner, whip a man and some children. He waited till Sunday morning to whip his slaves. He would git ready to go to church, have his horse hitched up to the buggy and then call his slaves out and whip them before he left for church. He generally whipped about five children every Sunday morning. Willis Crump, a slave was tied up by his thumbs and whipped. His thumbs was in such a bad fix after that they rose and had to be cut open. Willis was whipped after the war closed for asking for his wages and having words with ole man Crump because he would not pay him. They fell out and he called his friends in and[Pg 346] they took and tied him and whipped him. "No books were allowed to slaves in slavery time. I never went to school a minute in my life. I cannot read and write. We had prayermeetings on the plantation about once or twice a week. We went to the white folks church on Sunday. We went to both the Methodist and Presbyterian. The preacher told us to obey our marsters. I remember the baptizings. They baptized in Shattucks Creek and Haw River. I saw a lot of colored folks baptized. "I do not remember any slaves running away from our plantation but they ran away from ole man Crump's and Richard Faucett's plantations near our plantation. Jacob Faucette ran away from Faucette and Tom Crump ran away from ole man Crump. They ran away to keep from getting a whippin'. "Colored folks are afraid of bears so one of the slaves who saw Tom Crump at night told him he saw a bear in the woods where he was stayin'. Tom was so scared he came home next morning and took his whippin'. Both came home on account of that bear business and both were whipped. "When we got sick Dr. Hews, Dr. Wych and Dr. Tom Buckhannan looked after us. A lot of the slaves wore rabbit feet, the front feet, for good luck. They also carried buckeyes. "I remember the Yankees. I will remember seein' them till I die. I will never forgit it. I thought it was the last of me. The white folks had told me the Yankees would kill me or carry me off, so I thought when I saw them coming it was the[Pg 347] last of me. I hid in the woods while they were there. They tore up some things but they did not do much damage. They camped from Holly Springs to Avant's Ferry on Cape Fear River. William Cross' plantation was about half the distance. The camp was about thirty miles long. General Logan,[9] who was an old man, was in charge. "I married Martha Sears when I was 23 years old. I married in Raleigh. My wife died in 1912. We had fourteen children, five are living now. "When the war closed I stayed on eight years with my marster. I then went to the N.C. State Hospital for the Insane. I stayed there 28 years. That's where I learned to talk like a white man." LE <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote">[9] HW: Maj.-Gen. John A. Logan, Fifteenth Army Corps (Union.) </div> </div> <hr style="width: 95%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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