One time dey sent me on Ol’ man Mack Williams’ farm here in Jasper County-Georgia. Dat man would kill you sho. If dat little branch on his plantation could talk it would tell many a tale ’bout folks bein’ knocked in de head. I done seen Mack Williams kill folks an’ I done seen ’im have folks killed. One day he tol’ me dat if my wife had been good lookin’, I never would sleep wid her agin ’cause he’d kill me an’ take her an’ raise chilluns off’n her. Dey uster [used to] take women away fum dere husbands an’ put wid some other man to breed jes’ like dey would do cattle. Dey always kept a man penned up an’ dey used ’im like a stud hoss.
WILLIAM WARD, enslaved in Georgia, interviewed 1937 [WPA Slave Narrative Project]
He had so many slaves he did not know all their names. His fortune was his slaves. He did not sell slaves and he did not buy many, the last ten years preceding the war. He resorted to raising his own slaves. . . .
. . . A slave girl was expected to have children as soon as she became a woman. Some of them had children at the age of twelve and thirteen years old. . . .
Mother said there were cases where these young girls loved someone else and would have to receive the attentions of men of the master’s choice. This was a general custom. . . The masters called themselves Christians, went to church worship regularly and yet allowed this condition to exist.
HILLIARD YELLERDAY, enslaved in North Carolina, interviewed ca. 1937 [WPA Slave Narrative Project]
TELL THE TRUTH AND SHAME THE DEVILS.
America need to deal with it’s ugly truth! Don’t pretend to be so shocked at what Ariel Castro did when the US Government allowed this to happen to black women for over 200 years. No one came to rescue these women.
Ariel Castro held hostage 3 women, raped them repeatedly, impregnated & beat them, withheld food from them, & then went to church on Sundays. Slave owners did the same thing to black women and no law protected them from such horrific atrocities.