hand. For food, she gathered berries in the woods, got potatoes, raw
corn, &c. After a time, the master would send word to her to come in,
promising he would not sell us. But, at length, persons came who
agreed to give the prices he set on us. His wife, with much to be
done, prevailed on him not to sell me; but he sold my brother, who was
a little boy. My mother, frantic with grief, resisted their taking her
child away. She was beaten, and held down; she fainted; and, when she
came to herself, her boy was gone. She made much outcry, for which the
master tied her up to a peach-tree in the yard, and flogged her.

Another of my brothers was sold to Mr. Tyler, Dewan's Neck, Pasquotank
county. This man very much ill treated many colored boys. One very
cold day, he sent my brother out, naked and hungry, to find a yoke of
steers; the boy returned without finding them, when his master flogged
him, and sent him out again. A white lady, who lived near, gave him
food, and advised him to try again; he did so, but, it seems, again
without success. He piled up a heap of leaves, and laid himself down
in them, and died there. He was found through a flock of turkey
buzzards hovering over him; these birds had pulled his eyes out.

My young master and I used to play together; there was but two days'
difference in our ages. My old master always said he would give me to
him. When he died, all the colored people were divided amongst his
children, and I fell to young master; his name was James Grandy. I was
then about eight years old. When I became old enough to be taken away
from my mother and put to field work, I was hired out for the year, by
auction, at the court house, every January: this is the common
practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under
age. This continued till my master and myself were twenty-one years
old.