130. ANDERSON WHITTED

They Often Took Babies from Their Mothers and Sold Them

Anderson Whitted
(Courtesy of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress)

Anderson Whitted was born in 1848 in Orange County, North Carolina. At the time of the interview, he was a month away from his eighty-ninth birthday. Since his mother took care of the white children on the plantation, her own nine children were very well treated. The owner was from a family of Hickory Quakers and did not believe in mistreating his slaves. He always provided them with plenty to eat as well as with clothing to wear to church on Sunday. Despite a law that prohibited giving books to blacks, Anderson’s family had a Bible and an elementary spelling book. Anderson said his uncle belonged to a mean owner, though. His slaves worked hard all day and were chained together at night. His uncle ran away during the early part of the war, and after two years broke through the lines and joined the Northern army. He returned to North Carolina after emancipation.

Anderson’s father, held by Anderson’s master’s half-brother, lived fourteen miles away, but every two weeks he was loaned a horse to visit his family. His father could read and spell very well, and he taught his family on these visits. Anderson learned to read the Bible first and in later years learned to read other things. It was customary for the slaveholder to search the slaves’ quarters, but Anderson’s owner never did.

Anderson’s owner was a physician, and Anderson’s grandmother often assisted him on his rounds to care for the sick. When the war broke out, the owner’s son joined the Southern army and was wounded, so the doctor took Anderson’s grandmother with him to help in treating him and bringing him home. On the way home the doctor died, but his grandmother got the son home and nursed him back to health.

Life for the slaves was different after the son began running the place, for he was not good to them. Anderson was then sixteen years old, and his older brother was the overseer. The slaves had been allowed a share of the crops, but the new owner refused to give them anything to live on. In that region wheat was harvested in the middle of June. Although there was a big crop that year, before the harvest the entire family was turned out with nothing. Anderson left his older brother with his mother and the other children sitting by the road while he ran the fourteen miles to his father to find out what to do. His father borrowed two teams and wagons, rented a house on the edge of town, and moved the family in.

The slaves were freed about that time, and for the first time in their lives the entire family was together. After the war, the government was providing former slaves with hardtack and pickled beef, so his father went to a government office and received the family’s allotment of food. Although the family was satisfied with the hardtack because they were free, Anderson said he had never seen any beef that looked like the pickled beef and thought it must have been horse meat. In 1865 his father started working in a mill and soon started bringing food home from there. In time, the family raised their own crops, too.

His older brother worked in the mornings and went to a Quaker Normal School in the afternoons. President Harrison appointed him to the revenue department, but later he was transferred to the post office department. He was retired on a pension at the age of seventy-five. At the time of the interview he was ninety-seven and still living in Washington, D.C.

During the war Anderson ran twelve miles away to a camp of some Northern soldiers. They gave him a horse to ride, and he stayed with them for two weeks gathering firewood. He said those were the happiest days he had ever known because they were his first taste of freedom.

Although Anderson was never sold, he often observed processions of slaves who had been. Following a sale, he would see a wagon loaded with provisions followed by the slaves all tied together. Slaveholders often took babies away from their mothers and sold them. Some old woman, too old to work, would then care for the children until they were old enough to work. At six they were put to work thinning corn, worming tobacco, and pulling weeds. At seven they were taught to use a hoe. At sixteen they were full hands, working along with the older slaves.

In April 1880 Anderson left Orange County because the land was too rough there to make a living. Leaving his wife and children behind, he started out in search of a better place to live. In November he sent for them, as he had found a job working at the brickyards in Rockville. At that time work was being completed on the courthouse. To make a living, Anderson often did the work of two men.

One child was born in Rockville, but his wife died soon after arriving there. Anderson stayed single for three years, but he married again when he found that he could not care for his family alone. After the death of his second wife a number of years before the interview, he spent winters with his three living daughters. During the summer months, a daughter came to Rockville to live with him.