The Auction

Some of my earliest memories of childhood are of seeing my mother crying as white men tore me and my brother away from her. We lived on a farm in South Carolina and were born on June 21, 1822, into slavery. At the age of 8, my brother and I were brought to the auction house to be sold.

Both my brother and I were first shaved and cleaned to make us more appealing to the buyers. As we walked into the Auction house we saw many white men and several other slaves being sold. We also saw our mother crying and praying for no one to buy us. Then both me and my brother were forced to walk back and forth opening our mouths and holding our hands up to the buyers as they examined us. Eventually, the bidding started. It began slow as the white men started shouting out numbers. Eventually someone called our names "Jimmy and Jeramy Williams". Shortly after, we were sold for $93 to a young white man. As we were brought to him, our mother started crying out, but it was futile. We were taken to a new farm, my home for a long time.

Resistance

Once my brother and I arrived on 

the farm we were put to work 

feeding and watering the animals.

On some occasions, we also performed other labors including cleaning in the house, and sometimes even worked the cotton Jim. I was never a good slave, but especially as I got closer to adulthood I would try everything I could to make my owners regret buying me. Some of the resistance I gave was breaking some cotton Jim's "accidentally". I stopped working and ran to the far stretches of the farm, I would sing 

the songs of other slaves of the farm, and even start a fire in one of the many houses on the farm. I had been working hard all day when all of a sudden the owner showed up and started screaming at everyone and whipping people unprovoked. That night I decided to retaliate by setting the house on fire. That time 

I was not caught. However, on 

several occasions I did get caught.

Beatings 

The times I was caught 

are not good memories. 

Many times I was 

whipped and burned in

public to teach me a

lesson as well as everyone watching.

I never learned anything except how to get away with more rebellious acts, these beatings caused injuries that lead to scars. I had many of these scars. My brother however also had a few but not nearly as many he had given up on everything and did not rebell in any way, if the 

owner came and whipped him for no apparent reason he would not try and defend himself he would just take it and continue his work. Slavery had taken the life out of him and he was only a shell of his former self. It caused the opposite for me. The more we were abused the more I would rebel and try to get a better life or at leat makes theirs worse.

Field Work

Due to my rebellious 

behavior I was 

condemned to fieldwork

at a very young age.

We would work on these plantations for 14 hours a day. In these 14 hours, we would plant, tend, and harvest tobacco, wheat, corn, and cotton. The owners owned a total of 21 slaves that worked on these plantations. Working there was a horrible existence they would have us working horrible labors nonstop for long periods at a time. The meals we ate had 

barely and nutrition and were disgusting. Sickness was extremely common because of the unsanitary conditions as well as the constant work. The sick slaves were ignored and forced to continue working. This caused many deaths and sadness on the plantation but if we slowed down even a bit we would get whipped. At least on the plantation we had some privacy.