"Another thing I seen done was put three or four chinquapin switches
together green, twist them and dry them. They would cry like a leather
whip. They whooped the slaves with them.

"Grandpa was named Sam Abraham and Phillis Abraham was his mate. They
was sold twice. Once she was sold away from her husband to a speculator.
Well, it was hard on the Africans to be treated like cattle. I never
heard of the Nat Turner rebellion. I have heard of slaves buying their
own freedom. I don't know how it was done. I have heard of folks being
helped to run off. Grandma on mother's side had a brother run off from
Dalton, Mississippi to the North. After the war he come to Virginia.

"When freedom was declared we left and went to Wilmington and Wilson,
North Carolina. Dixon never told us we was free but at the end of the
year he gave my father a gray mule he had ploughed for a long time and
part of the crop. My mother jes picked us up and left her folks now. She
was cooking then I recollect. Folks jes went wild when they got turned
loose.

"My parents was first married under a twenty-five cents license law in
Virginia. After freedom they was remarried under a new law and the
license cost more but I forgot how much. They had fourteen children to
my knowing. After the war you could register under any name you give
yourself. My father went by the name of Right Dixon and mother Jilly
Dixon.

"The Ku Klux was bad. They was a band of land owners what took the law
in hand. I was a boy. I scared to be caught out. They took the place of
pattyrollers before freedom.