SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Yankees did it* ihey told you you were free as they were, that you didn't
have to stay where you was, that you didn f t have no more master, that you
could go and come as you pleased*
"I got along hard after I was freed. It is a hard matter to tell you
what we could find or get# We used to dig up dirt in the smokehouse and
boil it and dry it and sift it to get the salt to season our food with* We
used to go out and get old "bones that had been throwed away and crack them
open and get the marrow and use them to season the greens with* Jus plenty
of niggers then didn't have anything but that to eat.
"Even in slavery times, there was plenty of niggers out of them three
hondred slaves who had to break up old lard gourds and use them for meat.
They had to pick up bones off the dung hill and crack them open to cook with.
And then, of course, they'd steal. Had to steal. That the bes way to git
what they wanted.>x
"They had a great big kitchen for the slaves, 'i'hey had ubat you call
potj^acks they could push them big. pots in and out on. They cooked hog slop
there. They had trays and bowls to eat out of that were made out of gum wood*
It was a long house used as a kitchen for the hands to go in and eat. They
et dinner there and for supper thqr \nould be there* But breakfast, they would
have to eat in the field* The young niggers wuld bring it out to them. They
would bring it about an hour after the sun rose and the slave hands would eat
it right out in the field; that was the breakfast. You see the hands went to
the field before sunup, and they didn't get to eat breakfast in the kitchen
and it had to be et in the field* Little undergrowth of children — they had
plenty of them on the place — had to carry their meals to them.
(coUardk)
"They would usually give them collars in green times, potatoes in potato
1 ft
time. Bread, — they didn't know what that was. White folks hardly knew