Venus | Fictional account based on WPA Slave Narratives (Mississippi)
As a MDAH volunteer, one of my assignments was to write scripts for potential historical re-enactors based on historic documents.
Venus
Female Slave, fictional
Time period: Pre-1865
Prop/pantomine options: Hands in constant motion while she speaks.
Descriptors: Big, strong, in her 40s or 50s.
I was named after my mammy Venus, but they call me Venie. We all belong to the Harper family. When we left Alabama we came to Mississippi. Went to the Denham place near Garlandsville. Eighteen o’ twenty niggers. We traveled a hundred miles and it took five days and nights. The men walked while the women and children rode in wagons. Five mules pulled two wagons. We stayed on the Denham place about three years. Then we moved to Homewood for five years. My mammy was sold off two years quick after we settled here to Forest.
Don’t know my exact birthday, but when I was ten or so I helped the cook Aunt Daisy in the Big House. Go all over the country a-huntin’ eggs an’ chickens. Sometimes I’d bring buckets of cold buttermilk to the field niggers. Sometimes sweetmilk and collards. Sometimes I sing when I walk to the fields.
Her come de Marster, root toot too
Here come Marster, comin’ my way
Howdy, Marster, howdy do
What you gwine a-bring from town today?
When I grew up Marster put me in the field too because he could see I was strong. Three-hundred pounds I’d carry to the gin. Wouldn’t get lashed if I picked my 300 pounds. Marse took the strap to me once. Twenty licks, but I didn’t holler once. I just closed my eyes knowin’ the Devil would punish him one day.
I was married to a fine man name of Charles for a spell. He lived on the farm down the road a ways. Before we were allowed to marry, his overseer Thompson threatened him to be sold like the overseer man brought back old man Joe from runnin’ away. Old Joe was always a-runnin’ away and that man Duncan put his hound dogs on him and brought him back. Thompson put his hand on my Charles’s shoulder and looked him in the eye sorrowful-like. “Charles, he said, I ain’t never going to get powerful tired of huntin’ you. If I suspect you plannin’ to run I’m going to have to get the Marster to sell you somewhere else. Another Marster goin’ whup you into the ground if he catch you runnin’ ‘way like you did. I’d be sure sad for you if you get sold away. Us gonna miss you being around this plantation and your nigger wench would too.”
We didn’t have no babies so Marster Harper say Charles couldn’t come around Saturdays no more. Thompson’s told right. I do miss him. Don’t like to feel hard but I do.
Marse Harper wouldn’t let the boys abuse us while he lived, but when he died they was wild and cruel. The old marster give us good dinners at Christmas, but the young ones stopped all that. Young Marse Harper don’t allow us to go to church, or to pray or sing. If he caught us prayin’ or signin’ he’d whup us. He better not catch you with a book in your hand. Don’t allow it. I don’t know what the reason is. Just meanness, I reckin’. He don’t care for nothin’ accept farmin’, buyin’ more land and more niggers.
He told me to get rid of my lil’ patch too, but I snuck in a new one. Took a yam and put it in the ground behind the shack to grow. When it gets dark, I build me a fire and cook ‘em in the ashes. Never had no schoolin,’ but Aunt Daisy taught me a thing or two. I can figger a little, but that’s all. I’m gettin’ old now so young Marster stop’d comin’ at me, but I’m still strong. Only carry half the cotton I used too. I pray he don’t sell me away like his daddy did my mammy.