Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume XVII, Virginia Narratives

In Short

This collection compiles mid-1930s oral histories from formerly enslaved Virginians recorded by the Federal Writers' Project. Through direct interviews, elderly men and women recall the everyday discipline, fear, and domestic work of their youth, alongside momentous historical turns including Nat Turner's rebellion, John Brown's execution, the Civil War, and the arrival of Union troops. Retaining authentic regional speech and personal detail, the narrative reveals how individuals navigated bondage, preserved family ties, practiced hidden faith, endured family separations, and built self-reliant lives as free citizens following emancipation.

The Story

The account begins with childhood memories from the antebellum era, establishing the pervasive control and constant peril that defined plantation life. Informants recall the looming terror of slave auctions in towns like Petersburg, where families were routinely torn apart, as well as the ever-present threat of patrollers who whipped enslaved people caught without written passes. Domestic routine and labor formed the backdrop of early life: children gathered crop weeds by hand, ran errands for plantation households, or minded white children while adults worked fields under the threat of severe punishment. Alongside stories of brutality, several speakers recall plantation owners who treated their workers with relative mildness or forbidden indulgence, highlighting the stark variance in conditions depending entirely on a master's character.

Subversive acts of survival and solidarity run through the narrative's opening phase. Enslaved people gathered secretly at night to pray for freedom, placing heavy iron pots near doors to muffle their voices, or stringing wild grapevines across country roads to trip the horses of pursuing night riders. When major historical disruptions broke out, news spread rapidly through the quarters. Early memories recall the widespread panic surrounding Nat Turner's revolt and the solemn impact of John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry.

As the Civil War escalates across Virginia, the structural stability of the plantation system fractures. Gunboats shell coastal towns, white families flee their properties, and enslaved laborers lay down their tools when confederate overseers abandon the fields. Union troops establish lines at strongholds like Fortress Monroe and Hampton, drawing thousands of self-liberated people who enlist as soldiers, work as government water boys, or cook and wash for the advancing armies. Former slaves don blue uniforms, fight in battles, and take up arms against their former captors.

The climax arrives with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox and the fall of Richmond, marked by spontaneous celebrations, songs of freedom, and the raising of white flags across the landscape. Yet the end of the war brings new hardships and dislocation. Union forces displace families, and relatives lose contact for decades; in one instance, a brother and sister live as neighbors for ten years before discovering their kinship. Former soldiers and field hands return home to establish independent livelihoods, purchase land, construct homes, and build the first schools for formerly enslaved children. The narrative closes in the late 1930s with these long-surviving witnesses reflecting on their decades of freedom, passing down their history to younger generations, and contemplating their own mortality.

How It Unfolds

Memories of early bondage Elderly Virginians describe their earliest years working on rural plantations, where young children pulled weeds from cotton fields, ran errands, and witnessed the harsh realities of physical punishment and family separation at local auction blocks.

Secrets and hidden faith Enslaved communities meet covertly in woodland cabins to sing and pray for deliverance, relying on clever ruses—like turned iron pots to absorb sound and grapevine traps set along dark roads—to outwit roaming patrollers.

War comes to Virginia The outbreak of the Civil War disrupts daily routine as Union gunboats advance along the James River, plantation owners flee, and field hands abandon their labor upon news of approaching Federal forces.

Seeking the Union lines Fleeing families and young men cross into Union territory at places like Hampton and Fortress Monroe, taking up jobs as military water boys, teamsters, and laborers, while others enlist directly into colored cavalry and infantry regiments.

The victory of freedom Lee's surrender at Appomattox brings widespread jubilation, as liberated men and women raise white flags, sing songs declaring an end to forced labor, and begin searching for lost family members.

Building a free life In the decades after emancipation, former slaves purchase land, build homes in towns like Portsmouth, attend newly established institutes, and work as pioneering teachers and community leaders despite ongoing segregation.

The People

• Fannie Berry: A resilient woman who recalls early wartime songs, table-serving duties, hiding behind houses during skirmishes, her early marriage at fourteen, and her lifelong dedication to hard work, gardening, and fishing into her nineties.
• Charles Grandy: A former slave from Norfolk who began manual field labor at age five, later escaped to join the 19th Wisconsin Regiment, served as a Union guard at Fortress Monroe, and spent his later years organizing veterans and reading his Bible.
• Marriah Hines: A gentle woman born in Southampton County whose master treated his workers with unusual compassion, allowing them time for music, candy pulls, and self-directed farm work both before and after emancipation.
• Moble Hopson: A practical rural man who describes local Civil War troop movements, changing post-war racial classifications, and his neighbor's traditional method of locating water streams using a divining rod crafted from a peeled elm branch.
• Albert Jones: A veteran of the Union Colored Cavalry who fought in Company 'K' for over three years, carrying ammunition on a bay horse and continuing to battle even after receiving a bullet wound that permanently stiffened his right hand.
• Richard Slaughter: An elderly man born on the James River who fled to Hampton on a Union gunboat at age thirteen, served as a government water boy during McClellan's retreat, and once met Abraham Lincoln aboard a steamboat.
• Elizabeth Sparks: A spirited, plain-spoken woman who recounts how her husband feigned a limp to avoid being taken from his family by Union forces, ultimately refusing to dwell on past cruelty because the perpetrators have faced their final judgment.
• Mary Jane Wilson: An ambitious daughter of enslaved parents who watched Union troops march past her yard, went on to attend Hampton Institute, and became one of the first pioneering Black schoolteachers in Portsmouth, Virginia.

In Its Own Voice

"Sech rejoicing an' shoutin', you never he'rd in you' life."

Fannie Berry recalls the spontaneous explosion of joy and singing among the enslaved population upon learning that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox.

"Dey use to have meetings an' sing and pray an' th' ol' paddy rollers would hear dem, so to keep th' sound from goin' out, slaves would put a great big iron pot at the door..."

Fannie Berry explains how enslaved believers attempted to muffle their worship services to avoid discovery and brutal beatings by white patrols.

"My father went to work in the Norfolk Navy Yard as a teamster. He began right away buying us a home. We was one of the first Negro land owners in Portsmouth after emancipation."

Mary Jane Wilson describes her family's immediate drive toward financial independence and land ownership directly following the end of the Civil War.

What It's Really About

This work explores how human beings preserve personal dignity, spiritual integrity, and community bonds under an oppressive institution designed to strip them of agency. It contrasts the extreme cruelty of forced labor, physical violence, and broken families with the quiet ingenuity of enslaved people who created secret networks of worship, resistance, and self-preservation. Beneath the chronological accounts of war and emancipation lies an argument about the endurance of memory: these oral histories serve as an unmediated testament to the capacity of the human spirit to survive dehumanization, secure independence, and construct meaningful, self-directed lives in the face of immense historical trauma.

Why Read It Today

This text offers readers an unfiltered, firsthand window into nineteenth-century American history through the unadorned voices of the people who lived it. Unlike formal academic histories, these narratives capture the immediate sensory details of plantation life, the chaos of wartime Virginia, and the profound relief of sudden liberation. The prose carries the rhythmic cadences and idiom of nineteenth-century oral speech, giving the reading experience an intimate, conversational quality that feels remarkably direct and unvarnished.

Readers should be prepared for structural and stylistic challenges. The collection consists of transcribed interviews rather than a unified narrative, resulting in varying entry lengths, occasional repetition, and structural fragmentation. The interviewers meticulously transcribed local dialects and phonetically spelled vernacular speech, which requires a patient, attentive ear to decipher smoothly. Furthermore, the text candidly documents extreme physical abuse, slave auctions, racial slurs, and severe social inequality. For those willing to navigate these historical realities, the volume delivers a deeply moving, unforgettable portrait of resilience, faith, and the triumph of freedom.