A slave inherits her owner's land
Harris remembers his family's slave past. His great-grandmother bore ten children by her owner, and when her owner died in the early 1870s, a court awarded her the land, a remarkable decision at a time when many white southerners, some as members of the Ku Klux Klan, were beginning to violently subjugate their black neighbors.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John Harris, September 5, 2002. Interview R-0185. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Now tell me a little bit going back. You said you're the
third. You're John Harris the third. What, was your
grandfather born in Greensboro as well?
- JOHN HARRIS:
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No. South Carolina.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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He's from South Carolina.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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My mother and father and my grandparents were from, they were from South
Carolina.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Whereabouts in South Carolina?
- JOHN HARRIS:
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A little place called Ridgeway.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Ridgeway. And where does that come in.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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Ridgeway, my mother was raised in Ridgeway. My father was raised in
Ridgeway. My mother came from, my mother's family owned their
land. My mother was raised on 550 acres of land. My father was a tenant
farmer. His family, they just moved from farm to farm. Every year there
was a different farm to work. But my mother's family and my
grandfather, my grandmother, my great grandmother was bought off the
auction block in Charleston by Tom Davis. Of course, Tom was the
plantation owner. But Tom Davis didn't have any other family.
He had ten children by my great grandmother, and he died first. He died
about 1870. My great grandmother went to court because he had a
brother that wanted the land. The court in South
Carolina awarded my great grandmother the plantation, and I have often
wondered how in South Carolina in 1870s that that happened. So I was
reading an article about the early South and especially South Carolina.
There was a black, a young black man that was in law school at the
University of South Carolina in Columbia in 1870. He went to law school
two years, 1870, '71, but he was not allowed to come back in
1873 because they had a liberal governor during the 1870s, the early
1870s, late 1860s, 1870s. They had a very liberal governor. After about
1870 it was already very difficult in South Carolina, but in 1873 is
when the Ku Klux Klan raised its ugly head. So it was just unheard of,
but the die had been cast my great grandmother. She gave each one of her
ten children 250 acres apiece. That's why everybody in that
area, all my cousins, that's why we're all
related, and we all own our own land down there. I have receipts where
my great grandmother paid the taxes on that property, and when she
couldn't and when one of her children couldn't pay
their taxes, she saw to it that those taxes were paid. I have receipts
dating, going up to 18, going up to 1902, and by this time now her
children now, they're able and capable of paying their own
taxes. So as a result well, my grandmother, I said my mother grew up on
550 acres. That's because her father was the youngest, and he
had a brother that was an invalid, and he took care of him. So he got
his 250 acres, and he bought another 50 acres from another brother. So
this is why he had 550 acres. He got the home place.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Okay. Which is still there.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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Which is still there. It doesn't look like, my
mother's baby brother lives in the house and raised his
sixteen children there. It doesn't look like modern, but
it's still, it's been fixed over so. But the
original house was built was pegs. They didn't use nails to
put it together. It was built with pegs. Didn't have a
kitchen originally. The kitchen had a dirt floor. In fact the kitchen
was sort of like a separate thing where they prepared food. But
eventually they added a kitchen to the house. But now the house you
wouldn't know it because it's altogether
different, but I remember it.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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So is it your understanding that this planter Davis, he essentially
lived with your great grandmother. I mean, they were husband and wife
for all practical purposes.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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No, for all practical purposes he was still the plantation owner, and he
owned her, and he owned them. We had a picture of him in the living
room, and he was pretty mean looking, but also in the living room there
was a picture on another wall of my grandfather's older
brother, and he was dressed down. So apparently he did some taking care
of—
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Of his children.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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Of his children, yes, because he had no other family.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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He had no other.
- JOHN HARRIS:
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Except when the night that he died we sent, we sent, my great
grandmother sent message to his brother in Ridgeway that lived in town
that his brother had died. They came in and got the body, but they never
saw him anymore. They never saw it anymore. Never heard. There was no
funeral where they all went. So that's—