BIO: Preely Coleman, Slave - Smith County, TX Submitted by East Texas Genealogical Society P. O. Box 6967, Tyler, TX 75711 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************************** All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. ***************************************************************** BORN IN SLAVERY: SLAVE NARRATIVE FROM THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT, 1936-1938 Copied from the National Archives web page Number 4260003 EX-SLAVE STORIES PREELY COLEMAN was born in 1852 on the Souba farm, near New Berry, South Carolina, but he and his mother were sold and brought to Texas when Freely was a month old. They settled near Alto, Texas. Freely now lives in Tyler. "I's Preely Coleman and I never gets tired of talking. Yes, ma'am, it am Juneteenth, but I'm home, 'cause I'm too old now to go on them celebrations. Where was I born? I knows that 'xactly, 'cause my mammy tells me that a thousand times. I was born down on the old Souba place, in South Carolina, 'bout ten mile from New Berry. My mammy belonged to the Souba family, but its a fact one of Souba boys was my pappy and so the Soubas sells my mammy to Bob and Dan Lewis and they brung us to Texas 'long with a big bunch of other slaves. Mammy tells me it was a full month 'fore they gits to Alto, their new home. "When I was a chile I has a purty good time, 'cause there was plenty chillen on the plantation. We had the big races. Durin' the war the sojers stops by on the way to Mansfield, in Louisiana, to git some thim' to eat and stay all night, and then's when we had the races. There was a mulberry tree we'd run to and we'd line up and the sojers would say, 'Now the first one to slap that tree gits a quarter.' and I nearly allus gits there first. I made plenty quarters slappin' that old mulberry tree! "So the chillen gits into their heads to fix me, 'cause I wins all the quaraters. They throws a rope over my head and started draggin me down the road, and down the hill, and I was nigh 'bout choked to death. My only friend was Billy and he was a-fightin', tryin to git me loose. They was goin' to throw me in the big spring at the feet of that hill, but we meets Capt. Berryman, a white man, and he took his knife and cut the rope from my neck and took me by the heels and soused me up and down in the spring till I come to. They never tries to kill me any more. "My mammy done married John Selman on the way to Texas, no cere'mony, you know, but with her massa's consent. Now our masters, the Lewises, they loses their place and then the Selman's buy me and mammy. They pays $1,000 for my mammy and I was throwed in. "Massa Selman has five cabins in he backyard and they's built like half circle. I grows big 'nough to hoe and den to plow. We has to be ready for the field by daylight and the conk was blowed, and massa call out, 'All hands ready for the field.' At 11:30 he blows the conk, what am the mussel shell, you knows, 'gain and we eats dinner, and at 12:30 we has to be back at work. Bus massa wouldn't 'low no kind work on Sunday. "Massa Tom made us wear the shoes, 'cause they's so many snags and stumps our feets gits sore, and they was red russet shoes. I'll never forgit 'em, they was so sfiff at first we could hardly stand 'em. But Massa Tom was a good man, though he did love he dram. He kep' the bottle in the center of the dining table all the time and every meal he'd have the toddy. Us slaves et out under the trees in summer and in the kitchen in winter and most gen'rally we had bread in pot liquor or milk, but sometimes honey. "I well 'members when freedom come. We was in the field and Massa comes up and say. 'You all is free as I is.' There was shoutin' and singin' and 'fore night we was all'way to freedom.