According to a bill of sale which Charlie Sandles holds he was born in the year 1857, in Jackson, Tennessee. When I was 8 years old I was traded to Tom Lynch for 4 mules. My father's name, Ray and Mother's name, Elsie Sandles , I think they were born in Tennessee as they were young when I was born. I have 2 brothers, Tom and Joe , and 3 sisters, Josie , Sally and Sarah . I have seen my grandparents, but that is about all I can tell you about them. When we were all young and at home we had good times in them days, but Maser traded us and we were all separated but were not grown when the war closed. When we were freed we all went back together. We had good times playing with the white children, riding in the snow in winter and then we would play see-saw. Our quarters were built of logs covered over with boards hued out and our roof did not leak either. Our beds were built with forked pole drove in the ground by placing two poles in the forked place and the other end run to the wall. We stretched cowhides over them and put moss, shucks and grass over that for our beds. We used the hides with the fur turned to us for cover and kept real warm. I'se heard father say my grandparents were captured back there in Africa and brought to this country when they were small children. One man owned mother and another owned father. But pretty soon after the war my people came to Texas with their Maser. Son that was the most trying time I have ever seen, that trip to Texas. We were short of food when we started and we traveled in our ox wagon. If we had had mules we never would have reached Texas as we had no feed. We traveled for about a week and would graze our oxen at night all along the way. Then all along the way when we stopped we killed wild meat to eat ourselves. One time we went a whole week without anything to eat except meat which we killed.

I'se done most all kinds of farm work such as chop cotton, corn, plowed, cleared land and cut cordwood. Maser would hire us out most of the time and collect our wages. That is what he really wanted, for us to hire out to another man all the time as he never farmed much during slavery time or even before slavery time was over. No I never did earn any money during slavery time. My new Maser would give me a nickel or dime once and awhile, when I could I would spend it for candy or something like that. Well, Maser generally had plenty to eat when he farmed and had a big garden too. He did not allow the slaves to have a garden he just gave them what he wanted them to have out of his garden. We had cornbread everyday and the corn would be fresh from the field everyday as Mistress would take one of the slaves to the field and bring it to the house and grate it by hand. She did not sift it like we do now to get the coarse grains out, we just used it coarse mixed with a little salt and water. Sometimes Mistress cooked it in the ashes on an iron skillet. We did not know what flour was as we never heard of it until a long time after freedom. Yes, we had rabbits, fish and once and awhile a great big possum cooked in that big iron skillet with them sweet potatoes all around him. Boy, that is one good meal when cooked that way. I sure did eat as I do like possum. Then we had plenty of pork and beef. Maser killed lots of squirrels and once and awhile a big deer as this country was full of wild game and there was no use of a man ever getting hungry. All we had to worry about was our cornbread. We did not have the fancy things to eat then like we do now and not half as many people sick or dying like they do now cause the food was healthy and people lived different and lived to be a lot older. This fancy stuff the people are eating today is killing them by the hundreds. We had good warm clothes to wear, better than we do now. We had royal shirts open all the way down the front and were spun by hand on one of these old spinning wheels, and they never did wear out, we just wore them until we got tired of them and threw them away so we could get some new ones. In the winter we wore woolen clothes. On Sunday we had white clothes and they had to be kept real clean. Our work clothes, we would gather different kinds of bark and poke-root berries and die them. After we worked and sweated in them so they looked so dirty. No we did not have shoes, but when it got cold Maser would have lots of cowhides tanned in ashes with the fur left on them and we wrapped our feet and legs in them. Believe me, our feet would keep warm.

I married several years after freedom, Mister I had on what they called leather clothes out and out, except I had a big red handkerchief around my neck. My first Maser, Alvin Sandles was a real good man if he is in the middle of mother earth, he and Mistress both were real white people. They were so good to their colored people. Yes sir, I'se never seen either of them mad, and they were always jolly good young people. They had one curly haired girl the sweetest thing you ever saw. Many times I have caught my mules with that child on my shoulders. When she was little you could ask her who she loved best and she would say, "I'se loved Charlie the best." Everywhere her father went she would go with him, but poor child just before she was grown she was riding a wild horse one day and that horse threw her off and killed her. We had to bury her mother too caused she grieved herself to death over their only child. I stayed with them a long time after the war here in Texas. The house Maser lived in back there in Texas was a big old house built of logs and had 4 rooms upstairs and 2 downstairs. All around the house they had lots of shade trees planted and a high split rail fence all around this house. After he came to Texas he had somewhat different home. It was built right out in the woods out of logs and only had two rooms with a hall through it, no floor, and one door to each room. Over the doors were hides stretched to keep out the rain and cold. Maser did not own any land back there in Texas, but he had a place rented with about 40 acres of land to work. All the slaves he had was my family, which was 8 of us. Maser would wake us every morning about 4 o'clock so we could be up and tend the stock, eat and be in the field when daylight came. Then he worked us just as long as we could see. At night we came in and fed the stock and by the time we went to our quarters it was about 9 or 10 o'clock. Yes Maser would thrash the slaves if they got unruly just like you would a stubborn mule, and he never got mad about either. Thanks to my Lord! he never hit me a lick in his life. I'se seen him whip one of my brothers just exactly like you would one of your own children. He never would bruise them or skin them up. Everyone loved Maser, he hardly ever spoke a harsh word to the slaves and everyone of them would have died for him. All the slaves I ever saw traded was myself about 3 years before the war closed.

I was not even dreaming of Maser wanting to trade me, but he did do that very thing. All I knew about it was when my new Maser came to our quarters with Maser he told me that I belonged to Mr. Lynch and for me to go with him. Son, I cried for a week but that did not do any good. He would let me go to see my parents and former Maser every Saturday evening and could stay and go to the dances with them. I had to be back home or in my quarters before sundown on Sunday evening though. We traveled like you would drive a bunch of cattle in these days. I never was in a gang like that but I have seen them pass our house. They would be in the lead and their Maser or owner would be riding along behind them on a horse or to the side of them and had a big gun on his hips. All the white men in those days would wear a gun, and that was about all the law we had. I'se seen one or two duels fought by white men and the best man would win sometimes. Then I'se seen both killed, not a one left to tell the news, no sir. No the white people did not teach us to read or write, but Maser always made us go to church. We did not have church on our farm but there was one close by that we went to. Maser read the Bible to us every Sunday morning and taught us to always tell the truth no matter who it hurt as he was an awfully religious man. In the summer when everybody would be through with their work we had what they called campmeetings and lasted about a month. People came in ox wagons, afoot and horseback. They preached and shouted and all had a good time. The slaves were not allowed to shout and tell about their religion. When the meeting was about ready to close maybe there would be 2 or 3 white couples getting married. When they baptized they would take the white people first, then the slaves. I remembers one time there was a great big negro woman to be baptized and that preacher was a small man. Just when he started to let her down under the water she begins to shout and the preacher liked to have let her drown cause she was so big he could not raise her up out of the water. He had to call on some of the men folks to help him get her out of the water. You know they had to work with that negro woman two or three days before they could bring her to. I'se heard that some negroes tried to get away and go to the north when the war started, but I'se always heard that they were killed. I don't think they ever got very far trying that. We had to have a pass before we could go from one plantation to another or the Patter Rollers would get you.

The negroes were all scared of them cause they could hit him 39 licks with that cat-o-nine tails and believe me son, they would take the hair and hide both everytime they hit you. When we went to our quarters we nearly always just fell in the bed. Sometimes if we were not so tired we sat around and talked, but most of the time we went right to bed. Them patterrollers would come there and walk all around in my quarters and I would be plum still until they left because I'se afraid of them, they never did bother me, no sir. On Saturday mornings sometime we had to work but in the evening we never did work except cleaning up and taken baths getting ready for that negro dance and them good times we had picking that banjo, beating them tin pans and negro dancing, they would last all night. Maser would have to come and break up our dance every Sunday morning so'es we could get ready for church. Then on Sunday when church was over we ate and went to the creek in swimming - thats where you would find the slaves Sunday evening. On Christmas, boy did we have a time, yes sir, Maser he would have a big eggnog on Christmas morning, then he would give all the slaves some kind of present - fireworks, candy, nuts and the best of all, was that dinner Christmas day. He would have just anything a man could want to eat. On that day the slaves he had was free to go anywhere they wanted or do anything they wanted to do, as he would not have any restriction over us on that day. We did not know anyting about any other holiday except Sunday, we all called that a holiday. We played ring games as we had white children to play with. Maser's brother had several children, he lived close and his children played with us all time. We played wolf-over-the-river and hide-and-seek, then in the winter time we had sledge we rode the snow from the top of the hill to the bottom. We had see-saw and rode that and we used to have a real good time when we was young. No sir, I'se never seen one of them ghosts, I'se heard tell of them all right but if one was to get after me I sure could run. When we got sick Maser he always seen that we had good care taken of us. He first got us an old negro Mammy, if we was not very sick, but if we got too sick he went and got us a white doctor. If we just had cough and cold mammy fixed us up cough syrup out of onions, honey and vinegar. That is one of the best cough remedies that I knows of son. For chills and fevers she used herbs, cami-weed roots mixed with red oak bark; and for malaria she used cami-weed roots and peach tree leaves with mayflower roots boiled down to a syrup; and for sores, cuts, bruise, burns of anything like that she would boil down poke roots to a syrup and mix yellow of an egg and then take corn meal and make a salve to go on it. That is one of the best known salves yet son. I'se still use them old time remedies yet, hardly ever a doctor practiced on me. These here doctors now they don't know what to give you after they gets here. I'se remember one time when I had the chills about a year, and these doctors could not stop them, so I goes to see one of these old time slave women. You know all she did was to get a pint of whiskey and dozen lemons and cut them lemons up in fruit jar and poured that whiskey over them lemons and give that to me, them chills stopped the next day, and I never have had another chill. I'se remember plenty about that terrible war. My Maser he did not go to the war as he was not able to go, but he stayed at home and helped all he could by sending the soldiers something to eat and wear. Them soldiers they fought all around us, and I'se helped pick up and bury lots of them poor boys. Some of them were wounded and just lying there gradually dying for the want of attention. Boss we could not sleep at night for them guns. Those soldiers stole all the horses that Maser had to use in the war, but he was glad to let them go. Maser sent Mistress to another state where they was not so much fighting going on.

Son you have heard tell of Jesse James , that was one of the bravest men you ever saw. I'se seen him lots of times when I was just a kid. He used to stop at Masers and my father used to tend to his horse. I do know that he and Maser were great friends and he would not be captured or he would not capture a prisoner during the war, he just killed them. If he could not kill them he would let them go. That war it sure did ruin our county, burned nearly all our houses, tore down our fences, let out what stock we had left. But what I started to tell you, there was a white man there helping with the wounded and dead boys, and if he found one that he thought would not get well, he would hit that soldier on the back of his head and finish him up, then roll them all in a big hole together and pile the dirt over them. I did not help him much cause I'se got to where I would see spooks and he let me burn and bury the dead horses that was killed. I did not mind that like I did to bury them dead soldiers. When the war was over, Maser called me to the back door and said, well you black -- you are free, you can do just as you please, and gave me 50 cents in money. I began to dance and shout, and you know he like to have whipped me. I'se glad cause I knew I was going back to my first Maser and my people. I'se stayed there with my former Maser and worked for him that year, then he said he was coming to Texas and we started out in them ox wagons, we was all the next year coming to Texas and he settled here close by in home of his own. I still worked for him then, clearing land and helping him farm, he paid me by the day.

I got married to Georgia Brock here in Texas, we had large wedding. When I stole her she rode behind me on a horse about 20 miles before we could get where they was a preacher to marry us. When we gets back to where we was living, they were ever negro for miles around there at our house, done had everything we had cooked and a lot more they had brought in besides and they was drinking and done started dancing, boy oh boy, did we have a time. Everyone there wished us well and it lasted us about a month, I'se done plum wore out before it was over. Then I had to get out and go to work cause I did not have thing left to eat, they ate everything we had there to eat. We had 11 children, 3 of them died though when they was little. Capt., I don't know how many grandchildren I have, I done lost count of them a long time ago, they is getting to be too many of them. I'se has about 3 great-grandchildren and they are 6 and 7 years old. All my children are farming except 2, one is working in Dallas around a garage and filling station, the other one is there working in one of them hotels, I don't know what kind of work he does. My old woman she done gone on to that place they call Heaven. She has been dead about 12 or 14 years now. I'se living with one of my children. I has prayed to die for several years now, but the good Lord has kept me here for something, I do not know what, but my time now is short and I will be glad, as this old world is getting awful to live in. A man that has lived a clean life, don't care if I'se is a negro, can't hardly put up with all this sin we have these days here. Son all I'se says is, that freedom is not what it ought to be, I'se had better times during slavery than I do now, the negroes would still be better off under slavery. I don't know what I did expect from freedom, different from what we got though, I can tell you. They ought to have given us a home as they were plenty of land here for all in those days. They could have give us part of Maser's land because we made them what they had, instead of that, they turned us out without anything; no they never even give us the clothes we had on our backs, they turned us out without giving us one meal to eat, jest like a bunch of stray dogs. We was in a terrible shape the way they treated us when we was freed, if I had not had a good southern white man when I was a slave I would not have been here today because I would have starved to death a long time ago. He looked after me and helped me get accustomed to freedom, and also helped me to learn how to buy and spend what little I made for groceries. It took me several years to learn how to get along, as I was raised a slave, did not know anything but work; did not know hardly what a nickel or dime was until I was turned lose like a wild dog to roam and prowl the country, and then I got to where I was used to freedom, working for this white man and that one. Lots times they would not pay us, as we was slaves and could not demand our rights, if we got beat out of our wages and said anything about it, hell was to pay. They would take a club and beat hell out of us. No sir, they was not any land given us, much less any plantation divided, the government here would not give us a deed to land if we tried to homestead it. They said we was not citizens so therefore we had a hell of time here in the south as everything was against us. Well you asked me if my owners gave me 50 cents the morning he told me I was free, yes, but that was all, because he made me work one whole week for the clothes that I had when the government freed us.

All the clothes I had was 2 shirts, no shoes, and on our heads we wore rag, not any hats. No sir, we was not forced to stay as servants only long enough to pay for what few clothes we had and then he told me I could go - and go I did, back to my first Maser, as the Maser that owned me when the war was over did'nt own me but about 3 years, so I did not like him like I did the Maser that raised me. After the war between the states we done the best we could, mostly what the white people made us do and that was what we could get to do, such as cut wood, clear land and work on the farm. Our wages was terribly low, that is when we got pay, as lots of them beat us all together out of what little we did make. We never received over 15 to 50 cents a day for our work until this here last war, then we got from 75 to $1.50 a day for our work. That was the first real break we negroes got since we was freed. Sometime we would get a job chopping cotton and work hard all the week thinking we would get the money for our work, but when we would get through with the man's cotton, he would call us to the house and give us a lot of old clothes that they had got tired of wearing, or else they had a few holes in them and they would give them to us and tell us, well I think that will more than pay you for what you have done here chopping cotton. That would not please us but what else could we do, if we had refused them and told the man we wanted our money, he would have took a club to us and beat hell out of us, so we had to take just what they would give us for our work. But this last war changed that to some extent, the negro now gets a little better deal than he did, but still the white people beat them ever chance they get and especially on these large plantations, they will get us in debt to them and we never can get out, as the most of us cannot keep account of what we get, or the work we do. Then just after the war, the KKK made us walk a chalk line, if we did'nt like the place we was at and got out and tried to do something else, the KKK was there to say what we would do. The negro has had hell of a hard time getting to where he is now because everything has been against the negro. The negroes would have been better off here in this country if the white people never had of freed them and turned them a loose, or if they were going to give him his freedom, send him back to his home country, because here we are a people without a country as all the law and things that pertain to the white people are not for the negro. He is taught from childhood that we are a low class of people to the white folks, and here in this country we are still servants to the white folks and always will be until we mix our blood with them.

In the north black and whites marry, and it will not be long before that starts here, as nearly all our younger negro women are nursing some white man's baby, and it will not be long until the white boys will be marrying these here kind of negro girls. I don't think that is right but it is so, and we have tried every way that we could to stop this happening to our negro girls but there is no way of stopping it, as you people can see for yourself we have now what we call the white negro and that is where they started. Way back yonder when I was a boy, they were more men than women, and the white man would mate with their negro servant girls and their children would be a dark skin people, neither black nor white. There is not today five negro kids out of a hundred that have not some white blood in them. Son, I have become plum disgusted with our race of people, as it used to be here in the south, the negro would have been killed or the white people very sorry, if a negro ever went to a white man's front door, or tip his hat when he got where they was a white man. In those days we were taught to respect the white man and his family. The first time I ever noticed this was, I went to New York once, and there at the very railroad where I got off was a negro working. I began to ask him where I could stay that night and he said, for 50 cents you can stay at my house. So I went home with that negro, and when we stepped on his front porch, they was a white woman opened the door and I began to grab off my hat and make excuses for being there on the front porch. That negro says, you black -- that is my wife, and you are from Texas. Yes sir, I told him we was from Texas where the negro was taught to respect the white race of folks, and they sure did make fun of me. As you know son, that here in Texas we was taught to go to the white man's back door and to always take off our hats, but things are changing here now, and the negro goes to the white man's front door and they go in his home, talk and mix with the white families. That is not right, if they is not something done, in a few years they will not be any pure negro blood left here in the south. But still Mister, I believe if times would get better here in the south the younger race of negroes would do some better, anyway I hope surely they will, because the young race of negroes are getting terrible. Of course, most of them can read and write, they have advanced in some ways and others they have gone to the dogs. Between 1865 and now we built some schools and churches to try to advance our race of people, but the more we do for them the worse they get Well yes, I have voted but not until late years, and I believe that we should be allowed more voting privileges than we have now, as we have to pay taxes and pay just what the white man here in the south put on us. We do not have voice in electing the officers here and therefore they can put on us just what they want to and get by with it because we cannot vote them out of office. All they say we have is help elect our President, but some day we will have a say who is elected here in the county offices. Our president is the only friend that the negro has ever had elected since the one that freed us. The one we now have gave us a small pension so'es we could get by in our old age. I'se getting a small pension now, is the way I'se living, because the child I live with cannot find work to support the kids he has as hard as times are now son. Well no sir, I'se never heard of slaves rioting, but I'se heard of negro riots like they did during the war down at Houston, and they had to kill several of them before they could quiet them down. I hope things turn out different from what I told you, but I'm afraid they will not.