SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

had been accustomed to enjoy. I remember hearing my mother tell,
in later years, that she really had expected to live as her mistress
had; having some one to wit upon her, plenty of money to spend, ride
in a carriage with a coachman. But she always added that the eman-
cipated ones soon found out that freedom meant more work and harder
than they had ever done before.
What did they work at? Pardon me please for so often reminding
you of conditions of that time. Few of the trades workers were white«
Brick makers and brick layers, stone masons, lathers, plasters, -
all types of builders were of the freed men. You must remember that
slaves were the only ones who did this work. Their masters had used
their labor as their means of income* Hot all slaves were in the cot-
ton fields, as some suppose. The slave owners of towns and villages
had their slaves learn skilled trade occupations and made a great deal
of money by their earnings. The Yankee soldiers and the many Northern
people who lived here hired the freed men and paid them. Quite soon
the colored people were buying homes. Many were even hired by their
former masters and paid for the work they formerly did without pay
under slavery. 1 I remember Bill Read and Dave Lowe* They had been
coachmen before freedom. By combining their first savings, they bought
a hack, as it was called. It was more of a cab. For all those who did
not have private conveyances, this was the only way of getting about
town. It was Little Rock's first taxi-cab business, I should say. Bill
and Dave made a fortune; they had a monopoly of business for years and
eventually had enough cabs to take the entire population to big even-
ing parties, theater, and all places where crowds would gather.
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