"They were better to the animals than to us." Nate Chute, USA Today Network


On June 19, communities across the nation observe Juneteenth — a day to celebrate the abolition of slavery and remember the unimaginable suffering of millions. 

Below are the stories of three of Asheville's last slaves — whether they worked the Swannanoa Valley fields or eked out a living in Asheville after Emancipation — in their own words. 

Federal Writers' Project

In the depths of the Great Depression, as unemployed Americans toiled away at infrastructure projects like the Blue Ridge Parkway and dams for the Tennessee Valley Authority, there was a different kind of public work in action. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal founded the Federal Writers' Project, a small army of out-of-work writers that roamed across the Southeast to gather testimony from the few remaining former slaves. Those interviews, numbering over two thousand, are held in the Library of Congress and available to read (and in many cases, listen to) online. 

Part of the Federal Writers' Project mission was ethnography — the sociological study of people and their customs — so many of the interviews were transcribed phonetically to help preserve the speaker's distinctive accent, which sometimes held clues to their cultural origins. Since the phonetic transcriptions can be difficult to read, the passages below have been edited for clarity while staying as true to the original speech patterns as possible. 

'I didn't know the Lord would let people live who were so cruel'

W. L. Bost, an 88-year-old former slave, was interviewed in his home at 63 Curve Street in Asheville.

As a child, Bost and his family were enslaved to a man named Jonas Bost, who owned a hotel in Newton and a couple of plantations nearby. 

Lord, child, I remember when I was a little boy, 'bout ten years, the speculators come through Newton with droves of slaves. They always stay at our place. The poor critters nearly froze to death. They always come 'long on the last day of December so that the n------ would be ready for sale on the first day of January. Many the time I see four or five of them chained together. They never had enough clothes on to keep a cat warm. The women never wore anything but a thin dress and a petticoat and one underwear. I've seen the ice balls hangin' on to the bottom of their dresses as they ran along, just like sheep in a pasture 'fore they are sheared. . .

The speculators stayed in the hotel and put the n------ in the quarters just like droves of hogs. All through the night I could hear them mournin' and prayin'. I didn't know the Lord would let people live who were so cruel. . . 

I remember when they put 'em on the block to sell 'em. The ones 'tween 18 and 30 always bring the most money. The auctioneer, he stand off at a distance and cry 'em off as they stand on the block. I can hear his voice as long as I live. . .

Plenty of the colored women have children by the white men. She know better than to not do what he say. Didn't have much of that until the men from South Carolina come up here and settle and bring slaves. Then they take them very same children what have they own blood and make slaves out of them. If the Missus find out she raise revolution. But she hardly find out. The white men are not going to tell and the n----- women were always afraid to. 

'Better to the animals than to us'

Sarah Gudger may have been the oldest woman in the United States at the time of her interview. (As best anyone in the area could calculate, it seemed Sarah was 121 years old. There were 70-year-olds who remembered Gudger being "old" when they were children). Toward the end of her life, Gudger lived at 8 Dalton Street in South Asheville — in what the Federal Writers Project interviewer describes as "the Negro section lying north of Kenilworth."

I never sleep on a bedstead till after freedom, no ma'am, till after freedom. Jes' an ole pile o' rags in the corner. Hardly nothing to keep us from freezin'. Lord, child, nobody knows how mean darkies were treated. Why, they were better to the animals than to us. . .

Ole Boss, he send us n------ out in any kind of weather, rain o' snow, it never matter. We had to go out to the mountains, cut wood and drag it down to the house. Many the time we come in with our clothes stuck to our poor ole cold bodies, but it warn't no use to try to get 'em dry. If the Ole Boss o' the Ole Missus see us, they yell: "Get out of here you black thing, an get your work out the way!" And Lordy, honey, we knew to get, else we get the lash. They didn't care how ole or how young you were, you never too big to get the lash. . .

All the slaves be in the field, plowin', hoein', singin' in the boilin' sun. Old Master, he come through the field with a man called the speculator. They walk round jes' lookin, jes' lookin. All the darkies know what this mean. They didn't dare look up, jes' work right on. Then the speculator see who he want. He talk to Old Master, then they slaps the handcuffs on him and take him away to the cotton country. . .

When the darkies get sick, they were put in a lil' ole house close to the big house, and one of the other darkies waited on 'em. There were very few doctors then. Only three in the whole section. When they wanted medicine they went to the woods and gathered hoarhound, slipperelm for poltices and all kinds of bark for teas. All this herbs bring you round. 

'I don’t know where any of my people are now.'

Fannie Moore was 88 years old when she was interviewed in 1937. She lived at 151 Valley Street, Asheville. 

The 'breed woman' always bring more money than the rest, even the men. When they put her on the block they put all her children around her to show folks how fast she can have children. When she sold, her family never see her again. She never know how many children she has. . . Many boys and girls marry they own brothers and sisters and never know the difference lest they get to talkin' about they parents and where they used to live. . .

Folks back then never hear tell of all the ailments the folks have now. There were no doctors. Just use roots and bark for teas of all kinds. My ole granny used to make tea out o' dogwood bark and give it to us children when we have a cold, else she make a tea out of wild cherry bark, pennyroil, or hoarhound. My goodness, but they was bitter. We do most anything to get out of takin' the tea, but it weren't no use, granny just get you by the collar, hold your nose, and you just swallow it or get strangled. When the baby have the colic she get rat's vein and make a syrup and put a little sugar in it an boil it. Then soon as it cold she give it to the baby. For stomach ache she give us snake root. Sometimes she make tea, other time she just cut it up in little pieces and make you eat one or two of them. When you have fever she wrap you up in cabbage leaves or ginseng leaves, this make the fever go. When the fever got too bad she take the hoofs of the hog that had been killed and parch 'em in the ashes and then she beat 'em up and make a tea. This was the most terrible of all. . .

The n------ was afraid to move, much less try to do anything. They never know what to do, they have no learnin’. Have no money. All they can do was stay on the same plantation til they can do better. We live on the same plantation till the children all grown up and mammy and pappy both die then we leave. I don’t know where any of my people are now.

Buncombe County's vast collection of property records include entries for slaves like Bost, Gudger, and Moore. Those documents are being digitized as part of North Carolina's People Not Property project, an initiative to make slave records from across the state available online. Drew Reisinger, Buncombe County's register of deeds, began that meticulous process in 2012, making Buncombe County among the first in the nation to do so.  Historians and amateur genealogists hope to use data from the deeds to understand trends in the ways slaves lived, worked, and died — and trace the family trees that slavery erased. 

More: Buncombe records unearth slave data, expansion planned

More: Grant backs project to digitally preserve slave deeds across North Carolina

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