Savannah Slave Narratives from the 1930s

The Great Depression crippled a lot of pockets starting in 1929, leaving many people broke, unemployed, and sometimes homeless. Herbert Hoover (a Republican) was president at the time, but he got voted out because the people thought he wasn’t doing enough to help the economy bounce back. Franklin D. Roosevelt (a Democrat) was elected in 1933. He had a lot of shit on his desk, but one of his main goals was to get the people straight financially. So he established The New Deal, which was a bunch of federal programs, projects, and regulations to relieve the damage of the Depression.

The Works Progress Administration (aka the WPA) was one part of the New Deal. It hired unskilled men to fix up roads, buildings, bridges, and stuff like that. And there was another component that hired artists and writers. The part for writers was called the Federal Writers Project. It employed historians, teachers, writers, and librarians. And one of their tasks was to go out and interview people from all over the country about their life backintheday.

My favoritest favorite project were the slave narratives! By this point, slavery had been over for roundabout 70 years. These writers, teachers, and historians visited plantations all across the south and interviewed people who had once upon a time been enslaved. Mind you, they were still living on plantations ‘cause they were sharecropping, which is another form of slavery. There are collections of slave narratives from Georgia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama…the whole south.

I started out reading ones from Louisiana, because that’s where my people from. Then I shifted to Georgia then South Carolina and eventually all of em. Or as many as I could get my hands on. I came across these the other day:

“My father’s name was George and my mother’s name was Nellie. My father was born in Africa. Him and two of his brothers and one sister was stole and brought to Savannah, Georgia and sold. Dey was de chillen of a chief of de Kiochi tribe. De way dey was stole, dey was asked to dance on a ship which some white men had, and my aunt said it was early in de mornin’ when dey found dey was away from de land and all dey could see was de water all ’round.” – Thomas Johns, enslaved in Alabama, interviewed in Texas, 1937

“I was born in San Antonio in 1862. My mother’s name was Rachael Miller. I don’t know if she was born in Tennessee or Mississippi. I heard her talk of both places. I don’t know nothing about my father, because he run off when I was about three months old. He was three-quarter Cherokee Indian. They were a lot of Indians then, and my husband’s people come from Savannah, Georgia, and he said they was lots of Indians there… My mother’s master’s name was John G. Wilcox.” – Julia Blanks, enslaved in Texas, interviewed in Texas in 1936

“Mr. Garrard wanted to marry a fine lady, but she ‘kicked him’ (word for rejected), and, in spite, he took Rose to live with him. He bought her in Savannah, expressly for the purpose. ‘I went with him for her in de buggy,’ said Israel, ‘and ‘fore he pay for she, he bring her home and try if she could cook and make pastry. He find she good, stirrin’ woman, and he keep her.’ He added that Garrard had seven children by her–two boys and five girls–the eldest of whom, a girl about ten years of age, was then living in Savannah. Over a year ago, Garrard died, leaving a will which called for the sale of his entire real estate, slaves, cattle, and other property, excepting Rose and his own children, who were manumitted. Out of the proceeds of the sale of the property, a home was to be purchased for Rose and her young family, and the balance of the funds was to be placed at interest, of which she was to receive one thousand dollars a year for the support of herself and children, and the remainder was bequeathed to his brother, Elliott Garrard of Savannah.” –Slave Testimony, John W. Blassingame

It goes to show just how connected we are and why history in Savannah is relevant to that in Texas and Alabama and so forth. Because of migration stories.

We move and migrate—voluntarily and involuntarily—and take our culture with us when we go. As a result, we’re sooo much closer to one another than we think we are. Not just geographically but culturally too. Personal history is family history. Family history is local history. Local history is national history. And national history is world history.

Ya dig?