Interviewer: Mary A. Hicks
Person Interviewed: Viney Baker
Location: S. Harrington Street, Raleigh, North Carolina
Age: 78
An interview with Viney Baker 78 of S. Harrington Street, Raleigh.
My mammy wuz Hannah Murry an’ so fur as I know I ain’t got no father, do’ I reckon dat he wuz de plantation stock nigger. I wuz borned in Virginia as yo’ mought say ter my marster Mr. S. L. Allen.
We moved when I wuz little ter Durham County whar we fared bad. We ain’t had nothin’ much ter eat an’ ter w’ar. He had a hundert slaves an’ I reckon five hundert acres o’ lan’. He made us wuck hard, de little ones included.
One night I lay down on de straw mattress wid my mammy, an’ de nex’ mo’nin’ I woked up an’ she wuz gone. When I axed ’bout her I fin’s dat a speculator comed dar de night before an’ wanted ter buy a ‘oman. Dey had come an’ got my mammy widout wakin’ me up. I has always been glad somehow dat I wuz asleep.
Dey uster tie me ter a tree an’ beat me till de blood run down my back, I doan ‘member nothin’ dat I done, I jist ‘members de whuppin’s. Some of de rest wuz beat wuser dan I wuz too, an’ I uster scream dat I wuz sho’ dyin’.
Yes’um I seed de Yankees go by, but dey ain’t bodder us none, case dey knows dat ‘hind eber’ bush jist about a Confederate soldier pints a gun.
I warn’t glad at de surrender, case I doan understand hit, an’ de Allen’s keeps me right on, an’ whups me wuser den dan eber.
I reckon I wuz twelve years old when my mammy come ter de house an’ axes Mis’ Allen ter let me go spen’ de week en’ wid her. Mis’ Allen can’t say no, case Mammy mought go ter de carpet baggers so she lets me go fer de week-en’. Mammy laughs Sunday when I says somethin’ ’bout goin’ back. Naw, I stayed on wid my mammy, an’ I ain’t seed Mis’ Allen no mo’.