excerpt from To Be A Slave

Major Ellison bought me and carried me to Mississippi. I didn't want to go. They 'zamine you just like they do a horse; they look at your teeth, and pull your eyelids back and look at you eyes, and feel you just like you was a horse. He 'zamined me and said, "Where's your mother?" I said, "I don't know where my mother is, but I know her." He said, "Would you know your mother if you saw her?" I said, "Yes, sir. I would know her. I don't know where she is, but I would know heer." They had done sold her then. He said, "Do you want us to buy you?" I said, "No. I don't want you to buy me. I want to stay here." He said, "We'll be nice to you and give you plenty to eat." I said, "No, you won't have much to eat. What do you have to eat?" He said, "Lots of peas and cottonseed and things like that." But I said, "No, I'd rather stay here because I get plenty of pot licker and bread and buttermilk, and I don't want to go; I got plenty." I didn't know that that wasn't lots to eat. He said, "Well, I have married your mistress and she wants me to buy you." But I still said, "I don't want to go." They had done sold my mother to Mr. Armstrong then. So he kept talking to me, and he said, "Don't you want to see your sister?" I said, "Yes, but I don't want to go there to see her." They had sold her to Mississippi before that, and I knowed she was there, but I didn't want to go.
I went on back home, and the next day the old white woman whipped me, and I said to myself, "I wish that old white man had bought me." I didn't know he had bought me anyhow, but soon they took my cotton dresses and put 'em in a box, and they combed my hair, adn I heard them tell me taht Mr. Ellison had done come after me and he was in a buggy. I wanted to ride in the buggy, but I didn't want to go with him. So when I saw him I had a bucket of water on my head, and I set it on the shelf and ran just as fast as I could for the woods. They caught me, and Aunt Bet said, "Honey, don't do that. Mr. Ellison done bought you and you must go with him." She tied my clothes up in a bundle and he had me sitting up in the buggy with him, and we started to his house here. I had to get down to open the gate, and when I got back up I got behind in the little seat for servants, and he told me to come back and get inside, but I said I could ride behind up to the house, and he let me stay there, but he kept watching me. He was scared I would run away, because I had done run away that morning, but I wasn't going to run away, 'cause I wouldn't know which way to go after I got that far away.

Anonymous
Fisk, pp. 191-192