This is jockel podcast number 373 with echo Charles and me jockel willing good evening. I go

I

Was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia

I'm not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I

Suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time

As nearly as I have been able to learn I was born near a crossroads post office called hails Ford and the year was

1858 or 59

I do not know the month or day the earliest impressions I can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quarters the latter being the part of the

Plantation where the slaves had their cabins

My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable

desolate and discouraging surroundings

This was so however not because my owners were especially cruel for they were not as compared with many others

I was born in a typical log cabin about 14 by 16 square feet

In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and sister till after the Civil War

When we were all declared free

Of my ancestry I know almost nothing in the slave quarters and even later

I heard whispered conversations among the colored people of the tortures

Which the slaves including no doubt my ancestors on my mother's side suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America

I've been unsuccessful in securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the history of my family beyond my mother

She I remember had a half brother and a half sister

In the days of slavery not very much attention was given to family history and family records that is black family records

My mother I suppose attracted the attention of a purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers

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