“Little Boy, Little Boy who made your breeches? 
  Mamma cut ’em out and pappa sewed de stitches.”

Children were told that babies were dug out of tree stumps and were generally made to “shut up” if they questioned their elders about such matters.

Children with long or large heads were thought to be marked to become “wise men.”  Everyone believed in ghosts and entertained all the superstitions that have been handed down to the present generation.  There was much talk of “hoodooism” and anyone ill for a long time without getting relief from herb medicines was thought to be “fixed” or suffering from some sin that his father had committed.

Duncan was 12 years of age when freedom was declared and remembers the hectic times which followed.  He and other slave children attended schools provided by the Freedmen’ Aid and other social organizations fostered by Northerners.  Most of the instructors were whites sent to the South for that purpose.

The Gaines were industrious and soon owned a prosperous farm.  They seldom had any money but had plenty of foodstuffs and clothing and a fairly comfortable home.  All of the children secured enough learning to enable them to read and write, which was regarded as very unusual in those days.  Slaves had been taught that their brain was inferior to the whites who owned them and for this reason, many parents refused to send their children to school, thinking it a waste of time and that too much learning might cause some injury to the brain of their supposedly weak-minded children.

Of the various changes, Duncan remembers very little, so gradual did they occur in his section.  Water was secured from the spring or well.  Perishable foodstuffs were let down into the well to keep cool.  Shoes were made from leather tanned by setting in a solution of red oak bark and water; laundering was done in wooden tubs, made from barrels cut in halves.  Candles were used for lighting and were made from sheep and beef tallow.  Lightwood torches were used by those not able to afford candles.  Stockings were knitted by the women during cold or rainy weather.  Weaving and spinning done by special slave women who were too old to work in the fields; others made the cloth into garments.  Everything was done by hand except the luxuries imported by the wealthy.

Duncan Gaines is now a widower and fast becoming infirm.  He looks upon this “new fangled” age with bare tolerance and feels that the happiest age of mankind has passed with the discarding of the simple, old fashioned way of doing things.

REFERENCE

1.  Personal interview with Duncan Gaines, Second Street near Madison Training School for Negroes, Madison, Florida

FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT American Guide, (Negro Writers’ Unit)

Rachel Austin, Secretary
Jacksonville, Florida
April 16, 1937