"The slave holders in the port of the country I came from was men and it
was quite offen that slaves were tied to a whipping stake and whipped
with a blacksnake until the blood ran down their bodies."

"I remembers quite clearly one scene that happened jus' afore I left
that there part of the country. At the slaveholders home on the
plantation I was at it was customary for the white folks to go to church
on Sunday morning and to leave the cook in charge. This cook had a habit
of making cookies and handing them out to the slaves before the folks
returned. Now it happened that on one Sunday for some reason or tother
the white folks returned before the regular time and the poor cook did
not have time to get the cookies to the slaves so she just hid then in a
drawer that was in a sewing chair."

"The white folks had a parrot that always sat on top of a door in this
room and when the mistress came in the room the mean old bird hollered
out at the top of his voice, 'Its in the rocker. It's in the rocker'.
Well the Missus found the cookies and told her husband where upon the
husband called his man that done the whipping and they tied the poor
cook to the stake and whipped her till she fainted. Next morning the
parrot was found dead and a slave was accused because he liked the woman
that had been whipped the day before. They whipped him than until the
blood ran down his legs."

"Spirits? Yessir I believe in them, but we warnt bothered so much by
them in them days but we was by the wild animals. Why after it got dark
we children would have to stay indoors for fear of them. The men folks
would build a big fire and I can remember my Pappy a settin on top of
the house at night with a old flint lock across his legs awaiting for
one of them critters to come close enough so he could shoot it. The