Slave Narrative of Mrs. Heyburn

Interviewer: Ruby Garten
Person Interviewed: Mrs. Heyburn
Location: Union County, Kentucky

(These two stories were told by Mrs. Heyburn as she remembered them from her grandmother).

“When the War was going on between the States and the Confederate soldiers had gone south, the Yankee soldiers came through. There was a little negro slave boy living on the farm and he had heard quite a bit about the Yankees, so one day they happened to pass through where he could see them and he rushed into the house and said, “Miss Lulu, I saw a Yankee, and he was a man.”

“I remember the slaves on my grandfather’s farm. After they were freed they asked him to keep them because they didn’t want to leave. He told them they could stay and one of the daughters of the slaves was married in the kitchen of my grandfather’s house. After the wedding they set supper for them. Some of the slave owners were very good to their slaves; but some whipped them until they made gashes in their backs and would put salt in the gashes.


Surnames:
Heyburn,

Locations:
Union County KY,

Collection:
Federal Writers' Project. WPA Slave Narratives. Web. 2007-2024. The WPA Slave Narratives must be used with care. There is, of course, the problem of confusion in memory resulting from (73+ years) of the participants. In addition, inexperienced interviewers sometimes pursued question lines related to their own interests and perspectives and attempted to capture the colloquialism of the informant's speech. The interviews provide fascinating insight and surprisingly candid information, however.

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