Jane Smith
From:
South Carolina
=Project 1885-(1)=
=Folk Lore=
=Spartanburg, S.C.=
=District No. 4=
=May 28, 1937.=
=Edited by:=
=R.V. Williams=
=STORIES OF EX-SLAVES=
"Aunt" Jane Smith, 80 years old, says that she was only eight years old
when the war ended, and that her recollections are very meagre as to
conditions during slavery.
Her mother belonged to John Snoddy, who owned a farm a few miles west of
Spartanburg. Her father was owned by Dr. Miller of a nearby plantation.
She stated that she was old enought to rock the cradle for the white
babies during slavery.
She stated that she could remember seeing some of the slaves being
whipped on their bare backs with a plaited hickory stick, or thong. She
never received any whippings. She said that a man once cut at her with
his thong, but that she escaped the blow by dodging.
She said she remembered seeing a small child with a piece of bread in
its hand when a hog entered the house and in snatching at the bread,
caught the child's hand near the thumb with its tusks. When running off,
the hog carried the child with it, dragging it along into the field. All
the other children and some men ran after the hog and caught it. The
other colored children were whipped, but by staying in the house and
watching the babies, keeping them safe from other pigs which had also
entered the house, she was not whipped.
Aunt Jane said that when the Yankee soldiers came to the house, they
were just as thick as the "fingers on her hands." She held up her hands
for inspection to illustrate how thick the soldiers stood in the ranks.
She said they did not take anything, but that they crawled under the
house to get the hen eggs. One soldier, she said, came to the house and
asked if there were any horses on the farm. A colored woman told him
that there were no horses on the place, but just at that time, one of
the horses in a nearby stable neighed, and the soldier threatened the
woman's life for lying to him. She says she doesn't remember whether the
soldier took the horses but thinks that he did.
The soldiers told the colored people that they free, but she said that
didn't signify much to her mind. Some time afterwards, she said her
father came and carried her and her mother to his master's place. Later,
she came to Spartanburg and got a job as a cook and washerwoman.
When asked if she knew anything about conjuring, she stated that she had
heard of it but didn't know anything about it. When asked if she had
ever seen a ghost, she said, "No, but I heard one once." She said that
one night after her master had killed "hisself" in the barn with a
pistol, she heard the doors being shut, the windows being slammed, and
the chairs rocking on the front porch all by themselves. She declared
that the wind was not blowing and that a "ghost was doing all dem
things."
She stated that she had been married twice; had reared a houseful of
children; had adopted some and reared them, but that she didn't have
anybody to work for her now but "him," referring to her husband who was
sitting on a trunk.
"Thank the Lord for coming to see me," she said, as the writer left.
SOURCE: Jane Smith, Concord St., Spartanburg, S.C. Interviewer: F.S.
DuPre
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Mary Smith
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Hector Smith
