others. I was born in a typical log-cabin, about fourteen by sixteen
feet square. In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and
sister till after the Civil War, when we were all declared free.

Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even
later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of the
tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my
mother's side, suffered in the middle passage of the slaveship while
being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in
securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the
history of my family, beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much
attention was given to family history and family records--that is,
black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of
a purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the
slave family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new
horse or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do
not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was
a white man who lived on one of the nearby plantations. Whoever he
was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing
in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him.
He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the
Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time. . . .

I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was
declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children--John,
my older brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself--had a pallet on the
dirt floor, or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of
filthy rags laid upon the dirt floor.