Interview with Hannah Meriwether Davidson
State:
Ohio
Mrs. Hannah Davidson occupies two rooms
in a home at 533 Woodland Avenue, Toledo, Ohio. Born on a plantation in Ballard
County, Kentucky, in 1852, she is today a little, white-haired old lady. Dark,
flashing eyes peer through her spectacles. Always quick to learn, she has
taught herself to read. She says, "I could always spell almost
everything." She has eagerly sought education. Much of her ability to read
has been gained from attendance in recent years in WPA "opportunity
classes” in the city. Today, this warm-hearted, quiet little Negro woman seeks
out a bare existence on an old age pension of $23.00 a month. It is with regret
that she recalls the shadows and sufferings of the past. She says, "It is
best not to talk about them. The things that my sister May and I suffered were
so terrible that people would not believe them. It is best not to have such
things in our memory."
“My father and mother were Isaac and Nancy Meriwether," she stated.
"All the slaves went under the name of my master and mistress, Emmett and
Susan Meriwether. I had four sisters and two brothers. There was Adeline,
Dorah, Alice, and Lizzie. My brothers were Major and George Meriwether. We
lived in a log cabin made of sticks and dirt, you know, logs and dirt stuck in
the cracks. We slept on beds made of boards nailed up.
I don't remember anything about my grandparents. My folks were sold around and
I couldn't keep track of them.
The first work I did out from home was with my mistress's brother, Dr. Jin
Taylor, in Kentucky, taking care of his children. I was an awful tiny little
somethin' about eight or nine years old. I used to turn the real for the old
folks who was spinning. That's all I've ever known - work.
I never got a penny. My master kept me and my sister Kary twenty-two long years
after we were supposed to be free. Work, work, work. I don't think my sister
and I ever went to bed before twelve o'clock at night. We never got a penny.
They could have spared it, too; they had enough.
We ate corn bread and fat meat. Meat and bread, we kids called it. We all had a
pint tin cup of buttermilk. No slaves had their own gardens.
The men just wore jeans. The slaves all made their own clothes. They just wove
all the time; the old women wove all the time. I wasn't old enough to go in the
field like the oldest children. The oldest children - they worked. After
slavery ended, my sister Mary and me worked as ex-slaves, and we worked. Most
of the slaves had shoes, but us kids used to run around barefoot most of the
time.
My folks, my master and mistress, lived in a great, white, frame house, just
the same as a hotel. I grew up with the youngest child, Mayo. The other white
children grew up and worked as overseers. Mayo always wanted me to call him
"Master Mayo". I fought him all the time. I never would call him
'Master Mayo'. My mistress wouldn't let anyone harm me and she made Mayo
behave.
My master wouldn't let the poor white neighbors - no one-tell us we was free.
The plantation was many, many acres, hundreds and hundreds of acres, honey.
There were about twenty-five or thirty families of slaves. They got up and
stood until daylight, waiting to plow. Yes, child, they was up early. Our folks
don't know how we had to work. I don't like to tell you how we were treated -
how we had to work. It's best to brush those things out of our memory.
If you wanted to go to another plantation, you had to have a pass If my folks
was going to somebody's house, they'd have to have a pass. Otherwise they'd be
whipped. They'd take a big man and tie his hands behind a tree, just like that
big tree outside, and whip him with a rawhide and draw Hood every whip. I know
I was soared every time I'd hear the slave say, 'Pray, Master."
Once, when I was milking a cow, I asked Master Ousley, 'Master Ousley, will you
do me a favor?'
"He said in his drawl, 'Of course I will.'
“Take
me to McCracken County,' I said. I didn't even know where McCracken County was,
but my sister was there. I wanted to find my sister. When I reached the house
where my sister stayed, I went through the gate. I asked if this was the house
where Mary Meriwether lived. Her mistress said, 'Yes, she's in the back. Are
you the girl Mr. Meriwether 's looking for?' My heart was in my mouth. It must
seemed I couldn't go through the gate. I never even saw my sister that time. I
hid for a while and then went back.
"We didn't have any churches. My master would come down Sunday morning
with just enough flour to make bread. Coffee, too. Their coffee was parts of
meal, corn and so on. Work all week and that's what they had for coffee.
"We used to sing, 'Swing, low, sweet chariot'. When our folks sang that,
we could really see the chariot.
"Once, Jim Ferguson, a colored man, came to teach school. The white folks
beat and whipped him and drove him away in his underwear.
"I wanted so hard to learn to read, but I didn't even know I was free,
even when slavery was ended.
"I been so exhausted working, I was like an inch-worm crawling along a
roof. I worked till I thought another lick would kill me. If you had something
to do, you did it or got whipped. Once I was so tired I couldn't work any more.
I crawled in a hole under the house and stayed there till I was rested. I
didn't get whipped, wither.
"I never will forget it - how my master always used to say, 'Keep a nigger
downl' I never will forget it. I used to wait on table and I heard them talk.
"The only fun we had was on Sunday evening, after work. That was the only
chance we got. We used to go away off from the house and play in the haystack.
"Our folks was so cruel, the slaves used to whisper 'round. Some of them
knew they was free, even if the white folks didn't want 'em to find out they
was free. They went off in the woods sometimes. But I was just a little kid and
I wasn't allowed to go around the big folks.
"I seen enough what the old folks
went through. My sister and I went through enough after slavery was over. For
twenty-one long years we were enslaved, even after we were supposed to be
free. We didn't even know we were free. We had to wash the white people's
feet when they took their shoes off at night - the men and women.
"Sundays the slaves would wash out their clothes. It was the only time
they had to themselves. Some of the old men worked in their tobacco patches.
We never observed Christmas. We never had no holidays, son, no, sir! We
didn't know what the word was.
"I never saw any slave funerals. Some slaves died, but I never saw any
of them buried. I didn't see any funerals at all.
"The white folks would come down to the cabins to marry the slaves. The
master or mistress would read a little out of a book. That's all there was to
it.
"We used to play a game called 'Hulgul'. We'd play it in the cabins and
sometimes with the white children. We'd hold hazelnuts in our hands. I'd say
'Hulgul' How many? You'd guess. If you hit it right, you'd get them all and
it would be your turn to say 'Hulgul'. If you'd say 'Three!' and I only had
two, you'd have to give me another to make three.
"The kids nowadays can go right to the store and buy a ball to play
with. We'd have to make a ball out of yard and put a sock around it for a
cover. Six of us would stay on one side of a house and six on the other side.
Then we'd throw the ball over the roof and say 'Catch!' If you'd catch it
you'd run around to the other side and hit somebody, then start over. We
worked so hard we couldn't play long on Sunday evenings.
"School? We never seen the inside of a schoolhouse. Mistress used to
read the Bible to us every Sunday morning.
"We say two songs I still remember.
"I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus washers among men,
"And as soon as we got through
singing those songs, we had to get right out to work. I was always glad when
they called us in the house to Sunday school. It was the only chance we'd get
to rest.
"When the slaves got sick, they'd take and look after themselves. My
master had a whole wall of his house for medicine, just like a store. They
made their own medicines and pills. My mistress's brother, Dr. Jim Taylor,
was a doctor. They done their own doctoring. I still have the mark where I was
vaccinated by my master.
"People was lousy in them days. I always had to pick louses from the
heads of the white children. You don't find children like that nowadays.
"My mistress had a little roan horse. She went all through the war on
that horse. Us little kids never went around the big folks. We didn't watch
folks faces to learn, like children do now. They wouldn't lot us. All I know
about the Civil War was that it was goin' on. I heard talk about killin' and
so on, but I didn't know nothin' about it.
"My mother was the last slave to get off the plantation. She travelled
across the plantation all night with us children. It was pouring rain. The
white folks surrounded her and took away us children, and gave her so many
minutes to get off the plantation. We never saw her again. She died away from
us.
"My brother came to see us once when slavery was over. He was grown up.
My master wasn't going to let him see us and he took up his gun. My mistress
said he should let him see us. My brother gave me a little coral ring. I
thought it was the prettiest thing I ever saw.
"I made my sister leave. I took a rolling pin to make her go and she
finally left. They didn't have any more business with us than you have right
now.
"I remember when Yankee soldiers came riding through the yard. I was
scared and ran away crying. I can see them now. Their swords hung et their
sides and their horses walked proud, as if they walked on their hind legs.
The master was in the field trying to hide his money and guns and things. The
soldiers said, 'We won't hurt you, child.' It made me feel wonderful.
"What I call the Ku Klux were those people who met at night and if they
heard anybody saying you was face, they would take you out at night and whip
you. They were the plantation owners. I never saw them ride, but I heard
about them and what they did. My master used to tell us he wished he knew who
the Ku Kluxers were. But he knew, all right, I used to wait on table and I
heard them talking. 'Gonna lynch another nigger tonight!'
"The slaves tried to get schools, but they didn't get any! Finally they
started a few schools in little log cabins. But we children, my sister and I,
never went to school.
"I married William L. Davison, when I was thirty-two years old. That was
after I left the plantation. I never had company there. I had to work. I have
only one grandchild still living, Willa May Reynolds. She taught school in
City Grove. Tennessee. She's married now.
"Us
kids always used to sing a song: "Gonna hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple
tree as we go marchin' home." I didn't know what it meant at the time.
"I never knew much about Booker T. Washington, but I heard about him.
Frederick Douglass was a great man, too. He did lots of good, like Abe Lincoln.
"Well, slavery's over and I think that's a grand thing. A white lady
recently asked me, 'Don't you think you were better off unter the white
people?' I said 'What you talkin' about? The birds of the air have their
freedom'. I don't know why she should ask me that anyway.
"I belong to the Third Baptist Church. I think all people should be
religious. Christ was a missionary. He went about doing good to people. You
should be clean, honest, and do everything good for people. I first turn the
searchlight on myself. To be a true Christian, you must do as Christ said:
"Love one another'. You know, that's why I said I didn't want to tell
about my life and the terrible things that I and my sister Mary suffered. I
want to forgive those people. Some people tell se those people are in hell now.
But I don't think that. I believe we should all do good to everybody."
Works Project Administration. Federal Writers Project. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Washington, D.C.