Page 240 - Balancing between the present and the past

Appendix B: The slavery instrument
Harry Knox, a journalist working for the respected American newspaper Austin Press, interviewed in 1891 the 70-year-old Ben Simpson. The enslaved Simpson worked for over 20 years at an American plantation in Texas and told Knox the following story about his life:
“The plantation-owner was in charge of a large plantation. When he pulled me and the others of the boat, he chained us around our necks. The chains were fixed to the horses. With the chains we—my mother, my sister Emma, I and the other slaves had to walk all the way to his plantation in Texas. Somewhere along the way it started to snow, but the plantation-owner did not care about our bare feet. We had to sleep in the snow on the ground. The plantation-owner had a long whip, made of leather. And if one of us fell behind, then he would hit him with it. We had no tents. When the night came, he fixed our chains to a tree. The ground was our bed. A little raw meat and corn were the only things we ate. Often I ate weeds and I was very hungry. He let us never eat during the day and forced us to walk the whole day without any breaks. He branded me, my mother and my sister. At the border of Texas my mother couldn’t go any further. Her feet were broken and bleeding, her legs were swollen. The master took his gun and shot her. He didn’t burry her, he left her lying where he had shot her.”
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