Slavery Journal By Camy and Alice
Edward Hughes, 28 years old: January 1st, 1850
It’s a new year. I have hope. I think that finally I might be free. I can feel freedom as if it’s right next to me but I know that the
journey will still be long and painful. 10 years ago I was bought to have children with my wife Jasmine, who at that time was a complete stranger. Now we have 13 children. Diamond is nine, Sarah is eight,
Demetrious is seven, Shanice is six, Trevon and Maurice are five, Aliyah is four, Jackson, Alijah, and Jada are three, Ebony is two, Jalen is one,
and Nia is 4 months old. Also Jasmine is pregnant. I hope that soon she can get a year off. She has been pregnant for ten years and is
constantly going through so much pain. It pains me to see how sad she is and how how much she is hurt. Even with her bulging belly she still
works day in day out. She takes care of the six youngest children while handling many chores inside our owners house and out on the field. And
the slave owners give her no mercy. She is forced to keep working until
she goes into labor. I hope that she goes into labor this time at night
because the way that they give birth here is inhumane. They put her in a hole and whip her all the while that the baby’s born. And then she is given an hour off of work to clean the baby until right back out to
the field where she is punished for not working hard enough. I wouldn’t
make her pregnant if I had a choice. The master is very happy with our family. He is so proud that we gave him so many more workers. I also feel horrible for my darling children. On their 5th birthday they
immediately start working. If they are a girl they start in the house
until they prove themselves strong. If the are a boy they start in the fields and get punished because they aren’t strong enough. I hope that
the master will give Jasmine some mercy. She has had 13 children and is falling apart. I hope that after this next baby he will let her stop. I barely get an time to write like this at night. It is probably around
two in the morning so we will have to wake up pretty soon but I have just finished comforting Jasmine after a lot of kicking by the new
members of the family. Twins. Again. The least that the master could do would be to give us actual houses, not sheds, and beds, not hay, a
real home to pay us for all the hard work and pain that is brought to
us buy him. I want to try to run away but with the size of our family there is no possible way that we would even get out of the door
without getting caught and brutally punished. So for now we will just have to wait and continue to try to survive until God answers our prayers.
June 3, 1850
The weather is so hot. It’s nice to be out of the heat and on a cold
floor. Today Jasmine told me that the news in the master's house was that someone heard that there have been slave riots around the
country and that a lot of people are trying to get rid of slavery. This
made my heart shine a little bit knowing that we might be out of here soon. Our new babies are due any day now and Jasmine is in so much
pain. Even though she has done this so many times now it doesn’t hurt any less. She can barely even walk because her stomach is so big and
because of the pain that she is in. She comes home bloody with scars all over her back because she is unable to perform the forced work. I
have to nurse her with the little cloth from our clothing and water if I can find any. I hope that this is the last time. Pretty soon she will
have had fifteen children which is already overwhelming so she shouldn’t have to have more. Diamond, Sarah, and Demetrius are helping me with
the younger kids while Jasmine sleeps across the room. I have some bad new to tell her when she awakens. Today one of the slave managing
men told me that the day after Jasmine gives birth we will be sent
off to a slave auction in town. I am devastated because especially for a family of our size there is no way for us to stay together. He told
me that it was one of the masters friends who was looking to buy us
and that all ready the master is tired of us and needs to earn money right now, he told me not to get my hopes up though because together we are an expensive group. I am super scared but it might be nice to
go somewhere new and get away from our current master. This will be the sixth slave owner that I have ever lived with.
January 5th, 1850
Jasmine gave birth last night around midnight and we were all forced
to squeeze into a wagon to travel to the slave auction around two. We drove for five hours and finally arrived at around seven. When we
arrived there was already a large crowd. As we were pushed onto the stage our owners ripped off our clothes revealing our body to the
crowd. I had done this so many times before but I felt embarrassed
with my family around me. There were other slaves around us too. One by one the owners in the crowd walked up to examine our bodies. They
liked the strong muscular bodies without scars. I couldn’t tell who was our past masters friend. Many of them liked me because of my
strength. They whipped each of us to test our strongness and I didn’t even flinch. Many of the man nodded their heads and smiled which
scared me knowing that it might be hard for me to stay with my
family. They also loved Jasmine. Just as our past master they loved her
body and that she had already given birth to fifteen children. When the auctioneer said that she was only twenty five many of the men were
surprised and happy because she still had time for many more children in her life and could be a large profit. This made my heart ache and I
wanted to scream at them, “ can’t you tell that she has already been
through so much! Fifteen children for goodness sake!”, but I knew that if anything came out of my mouth nobody would want me and I would
be separated from my family. Many of them took a long hard look and
our kids thinking that if me and Jasmine were so successful and having children then they would probably be too and a few of them wouldn’t be in too long. They also took long looks at the other kids the same
age as mine trying to figure out if it would be worth it. In the end I was so relieved. After a long time in the hot sun the auction finally
closed and the last man had payed way more than asked for for us. He bought our whole family, thank goodness, along with a 12 year-old boy,
an eleven year-old boy from, and a five year-girl, and a three strong teenage boys who were being auctioned right beside us. We all shared two wagons this time as we traveled to our new home. It took as
about ten long hours to arrive so we got there around eight. They let us skip the end of the work and instead told us our jobs and sent us to our new homes. They told us that we will all be here for a while.
They said that Jasmine, in the next ten years should have another ten
children, and to me and the teenage boys hat we will be working harder than we have ever worked before. To the older kids he put together the age matches and told them that they need to work together
because they will be together for a long time in their future though
they didn’t understand. They told Diamond and Sarah that for a while
they will be taking care of all of the kids at the plantation in a special room with three other girls and that they must prepare the kids for their future. And in a few years, 1-4 they will stop that and become maids in the house as well as get married to the boys they were
matched with. Once they were sent to find their cottage Jasmine
burst into tears, horrifies that she still had to give birth to at least
ten more kids. I don’t think that she can make it. That’s twenty five children. I think that our last master worked her too hard and with
the triplets and twins once she has gone through too much. She is only twenty five anyways. Afterall by the end of the next decade the master might consider her time done and that she is older so she
shouldn’t have to have any more kids. But continually every day I pray
and have hope. I treasure every moment because even in just 1-3 years
Diamond will be on her own with Josh, the chosen husband, having children of her own. This pains me to say but it’s true. And not believing it
won’t make it not happen. So we just have to see the fact to be true
and roll with it. We are a family and we will go through the hard times together. We will find something in this brutal life we were given and be thankful. Like we should be thankful that we didn’t get a master who was harsher, and that through that auction we 12weren’t
separated. And most important of all we will pray. I’m just sure that one day soon God will answer our thousands of prayers, it’s already
starting to happen, and we will all be free. Even if takes forever, i’m willing to wait for my freedom. For now atleast. And let’s pray that this will be a good new home, better that all the rest.
Tyrone Washington, 18 years old: February 8th 1870 The day had come when me and Ma was going to go to the slave auction. Don’t ask me how I got there because I don’t know. I was just a little 2 year old with his Mama. One thing that I do remember is that when them white folk came to Ma, they stopped and looked at me and made a ugly face. In my head I was clueless I had no idea what was wrong with their face, I thought that they were trying to smile but cause it was sunny out their face was all cringey. But anyway, some tall white man came over and bought Ma and next thing you know I’m livin with two other kids their names were, Amy and Shelby. Those girls was crazy. Amy had wavy cream colored hair which was always tangled and kind of smelled. Shelby, the older one, had slightly browner hair and it was always brushed, she spent most of her time in her room so I never really saw her. When I was old enough to speak clearly I had asked my mom where the girls would go everyday, I don’t think that Ma wanted to tell me cause she knew that I would want to go too so she told me that they would go to work just like us. I didn’t believe her. As the years went by me and Ma kept working and when I was 10 years old I saw the two girls walking from across the street towards the house with some colorful bags on their backs and this was the day I was going to find out where they was at all the time. The first thing that I thought of doing was to just ask the girls but if their daddy saw me talking to them he would make me work all through the night even if I couldn’t see. So I tried the next best thing, Ma.
When we were alone picking cotton, with sweat rolling down our backs, I asked her and like last time she made up some excuse for why they were gone all day but, as I was walking away she calls me back and says the truth. She had explained that the girls, every morning, would wake up eat breakfast and then go to this thing called school. When she said the word school I had to repeat it back to her cause I had not learned what it meant so it didn’t quite sound right when I said it. She said that school was a place where you learn stuff and read and write and the best part about it was that you could talk to other people than just your Ma. When I told her that it sounded like fun she didn’t hesitate to say “I was afraid of that”. When a week passed of me asking Ma that I wanted to go to school she finally told me to shut up because I was never going to go to school because I was black. That hit me as hard as a rock so I started to cry, good thing nobody was watching because I would be ashamed of myself if anyone saw. There was silence for a while then she grabbed me tight and started crying. While she was crying on my shoulder she said “I’m sorry for what I said and if you want to go to school someday you are going to make it happen even if it kills you; you are going to make a change in this world”. We hugged for about two minutes right before our owner came out and told us to get back to work. I thought about what Ma had said and it made me so mad that them white folk get to do all of these things and us slaves dont. We have to work for them and make their life easier and our life harder.
Aliya Johnson 15 years old: March 25th, 1866 Being a slave was tough. I was auctioned when I was 5. Me and my brother were both there all alone cause our Mama was being taken to her new home by this man and his wife. When this one person came over, after we had been standing there for about two hours, the first thing that they said was “I'll take both of them”. At the time me and my brother were very close until one day, when he was 4 years old and I was 6, our owner told him to go and pick all of the cotton that he could in 3 hours and if he didn’t have more than 20 pounds when he got back then he would get no dinner until he came home with 40 pounds of cotton. So, watching him until he had come inside with hands all ripped and bloody, he had not talked to me for a solid week. I didn't understand why he was so mad or upset at me because I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong but I knew that something was up. When he finally said something to me in bed he said “I don’t know what is wrong with me.” I answered him and I said “What do you mean, you've been acting fine except that you aren't talking to me.” “Yeah I know that but everyday when I go out in the field I get behind a bush and puke” he said. “Well maybe you're just sick; you will get over it.” At this time I didn't know that I was going to loose my brother in the morning. I woke up with a scare that morning because my brother was gasping for air and I asked him what's wrong, what's wrong, and all I got back was another few gasps. When he started to cool down he told me that he loved me and that he was scared. I hugged him and started to cry. I started to say “Don't loose me now, I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!” This didn't help he was still breathing hard and I could feel him wind down some more. I was so scared. He finally took his last breath in my arms but before he went he squeezed me tight and whispered I love you. I cried in bed for a week straight and went dark in the daytime.
Our owner found out and was feeling generous so he made a grave for him and even a tombstone. I on the other hand was somewhat grateful that he was free and that he didn't have to go through that field ever again. But now I had to become the nanny to the white family’s kids. So I had to work extra hard and some days I would be so angry that my brother had died that I would work so hard that it felt like I had just run from Texas to New York. I was 12 when they announced the Emancipation Proclamation and at that moment I knew I was free FOR GOOD.