Annie
L. Burton
was
born in Clayton, Alabama in 1858. Her mother was a house
slave but ran away from the plantation after being whipped
but returned after the Civil War when
all slaves had been freed.
Burton moved to Boston where she became a domestic servant. She married
in 1888 a man who worked as a valet in Braintree. In 1909 Burton published
her book, Memories
of Childhood's Slavery Days
and a short biography of Abraham Lincoln.
(1)
Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
The memory of my happy, care-free childhood days on the plantation,
with my little white and black companions,
is often with me. Neither master nor mistress nor neighbors had time
to bestow a thought upon us, for the great Civil War was raging. That
great event in American history was a matter wholly outside the realm
of our childish interests. Of course we heard our elders discuss the
various events of the great struggle, but it meant nothing to us.
On the plantation there were ten
white children and fourteen colored children. Our days were spent
roaming about from plantation to plantation, not knowing or caring
what things were going on in the great world outside our little realm.
Planting time and harvest time were happy days for us. How often at
the harvest time the planters discovered cornstalks missing from the
ends of the rows, and blamed the crows! We were called the "little
fairy devils." To the sweet potatoes and peanuts and sugar cane
we also helped ourselves.
Those slaves that were not married served
the food from the great house, and about half-past eleven they would
send the older children with food to the workers in the fields. Of
course, I followed, and before we got to the fields, we had eaten
the food nearly all up. When the workers returned home they complained,
and we were whipped.
The slaves got their allowance every Monday night
of molasses, meat, corn meal, and a kind of flour called "dredgings"
or "shorts." Perhaps this allowance would be gone before
the next Monday night, in which case the slaves would steal hogs and
chickens. Then would come the whipping-post.
Master himself never whipped his slaves; this was left to the overseer.
We children had no supper, and only
a little piece of bread or something of the kind in the morning. Our
dishes consisted of one wooden bowl, and oyster shells were our spoons.
This bowl served for about fifteen children, and often the dogs and
the ducks and the peafowl had a dip in it. Sometimes we had buttermilk
and bread in our bowl, sometimes greens or bones.
(2)
Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
If a slave man and woman wished to marry, a party would be arranged
some Saturday night among the slaves. The marriage ceremony consisted
of the pair jumping over a stick. If no children were born within
a year or so, the wife was sold.
At New Year's, if there was any debt or mortgage on the plantation,
the extra slaves were taken to Clayton and sold at the court house.
In this way families were separated.
(3)
Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
I remember, at the beginning of the war, two colored men were hung
in Clayton; one, Caesar King, for killing a blood hound and biting
off an overseer's ear; the other, Dabney Madison, for the murder of
his master. Dabney Madison's master was really shot by a man named
Houston, who was infatuated with Madison's mistress, and who had hired
Madison to make the bullets for him. Houston escaped after the deed,
and the blame fell on Dabney Madison, as he was the only slave of
his master and mistress. The clothes of the two victims were hung
on two pine trees, and no colored person would touch them.
After the men were hung, the bones were
put in an old deserted house. Somebody that cared for the bones used
to put them in the sun in bright weather, and back in the house when
it rained. Finally the bones disappeared, although the boxes that
had contained them still remained.
(4)
Annie
L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
My
mother and my mistress were children together, and grew up to be mothers
together. My mother was the cook in my mistress's household. One morning
when master had gone to Eufaula, my mother and my mistress got into
an argument, the consequence of which was that my mother was whipped,
for the first time in her life. Whereupon, my mother refused to do
any more work, and ran away from the plantation. For three years we
did not see her again.
(5)
Annie
L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
One morning in April, 1865, my master got the news that the Yankees
had left Mobile Bay and crossed the Confederate lines, and that the
Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln. Mistress
suggested that the slaves should not be told of their freedom; but
master said he would tell them, because they would soon find it out,
even if he did not tell them. Mistress, however, said she could keep
my mother's three children, for my mother had now been gone so long.
All
the slaves left the plantation upon the news of their freedom, except
those who were feeble or sickly. With the help of these, the crops
were gathered. My mistress and her daughters had to go to the kitchen
and to the washtub. My little half- brother, Henry, and myself had
to gather chips, and help all we could. My sister, Caroline, who was
twelve years old, could help in the kitchen.
(6)
Annie
L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
My mother came for us at the end of the year 1865, and demanded that
her children be given up to her. This, mistress refused to do, and
threatened to set the dogs on my mother if she did not at once leave
the place. My mother went away, and remained with some of the neighbors
until supper time. Then she got a boy to tell Caroline to come down
to the fence. When she came, my mother told her to go back and get
Henry and myself and bring us down to the gap in the fence as quick
as she could. Then my mother took Henry in her arms, and my sister
carried me on her back. We climbed fences and crossed fields, and
after several hours came to a little hut which my mother had secured
on a plantation. We had no more than reached the place, and made a
little fire, when master's two sons rode up and demanded that the
children be returned. My mother refused to give us up. Upon her offering
to go with them to the Yankee headquarters to find out if it were
really true that all negroes had been made free, the young men left,
and troubled us no more.
(7)
Annie
L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)
The times changed from slavery days to freedom's days. As young as
I was, my thoughts were mystified to see such wonderful changes; yet
I did not know the meaning of these changing days. But days glided
by, and in my mystified way I could see and hear many strange things.
I would see my master and mistress in close conversation and they
seemed anxious about something that I, a child, could not know the
meaning of. But as weeks went by,
I began to understand. I saw all the slaves one by one disappearing
from the plantation (for night and day they kept going) until there
was not one to be seen.
All around the plantation was left barren. Day
after day I could run down to the gate and see down the road troops
and troops of Garrison's Brigade, and in the midst of them gangs and
gangs of negro slaves who joined with the soldiers, shouting, dancing
and clapping their hands. The war was ended, and from Mobile Bay to
Clayton, Alabama, all along the road, on all the plantations, the
slaves thought that if they joined the Yankee soldiers they would
be perfectly safe.
As I looked on these I did not know what it meant,
for I had never seen such a circus. The Yankee soldiers found that
they had such an army of men and women and children, that they had
to build tents and feed them to keep them from starving. But from
what I, a little child, saw and heard the older ones say, that must
have been a terrible time of trouble. I heard my master and mistress
talking. They said, "Well, I guess those Yankees had such a large
family on their hands, we rather guessed those fanatics on freedom
would be only too glad to send some back for their old masters to
provide for them."
(8)
Annie
L. Burton, Abraham Lincoln
(1909)
In a little clearing in the
backwoods of Harding County, Kentucky, there stood years ago a rude
cabin within whose walls Abraham Lincoln passed his childhood. An
"unaccountable" man he has been called, and the adjective
was well chosen, for who account for a mind and nature like Lincoln's
with the ancestry he owned? His father was a thriftless, idle carpenter,
scarcely supporting his family, and with but the poorest living. His
mother was an uneducated woman, but must have been of an entirely
different nature, for she was able to impress upon her boy a love
of learning. During her life, his chief, in fact his only book, was
the Bible, and in this he learned to read. Just before he was nine
years old, the father brought his family across the Ohio River into
Illinois, and there in the unfloored log cabin, minus windows and
doors, Abraham lived and grew. It was during this time that the mother
died, and in a short time the shiftless father with his family drifted
back to the old home, and here found another for his children in one
who was a friend of earlier days. This woman was of a thrifty nature,
and her energy made him floor the cabin, hang doors, and open up windows.
She was fond of the children and cared for them tenderly, and to her
the boy Abraham owed many pleasant hours.
As he grew older, his love for knowledge increased
and he obtained whatever books he could, studying by the firelight,
and once walking six miles for an English Grammar. After he read it,
he walked the six miles to return it. He needed the book no longer,
for with this as with his small collection of books, what he once
read was his. He absorbed the books he read.
During these early years he did "odd jobs"
for the neighbors. Even at this age, his gift of story telling was
a notable one, as well as his sterling honesty. His first knowledge
of slavery in all its horrors came to him when he was about twenty-one
years old. He had made a trip to New Orleans, and there in the old
slave market he saw an auction. His face paled, and his spirits rose
in revolt at the coarse jest of the auctioneer, and there he registered
a vow within himself, "If ever I have a chance to strike against
slavery, I will strike and strike hard." To this end he worked
and for this he paid "the last full measure of devotion."
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