Enslaved for three decades and in three states, Delia Garlic knew the worst of slavery, including violent punishment and forced separation from family members. Decades later she offered an unsparing assessment: "Dem Days was Hell."
"Mammy an' me was sold to a man by de name of Carter who was de' sheriff of de county. No'm de warn't no good times at his house. He was a widower 'an his daughter kept house for him. I nursed for her, 'an one day I was playin' wid de baby. It hurt its li'l han' an' commenced to cry, an' she whirl on me, pick up a hot iron an' run it all down my arm an' han'. It took off de flesh when she done it.
Atter awhile, marster married ag'in; but things warn't no better. I seed his wife blackin' her eyebrows wid smut one day, so I thought I'd black mine jes' for fun. I rubbed some smut on my eyebrows an' forgot to rub it off, an' she kotched me. She was powerful mad an' yelled: "You Black devil, I'll show you how to mock your betters."
Den she pick up a stick of stovewood an' flails it ag'in' my head. I didn't know nothin' more 'till I come to, lyin' on de floor. I heard de mistus say to one of de girls: "I thought her thick skull and cap of wool could take it better than that."
from a book of slave narratives entitled: "REMEMBERING SLAVERY"
The New Press Publishing Co.
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