Source: This interview was with Perry Lewis in Baltimore, Maryland. The interview was
conducted in 1987 by a black interviewer identified as Rogers in the final
transcripts.
I was born on Kent Island about 86 years ago.... My father was a freeman and my
mother-e-slave, owned by Thomas Totson, who-owned-a-small-farm
on which Twas
bom in a log cabin....
As you know the mother was the owner of the children that she brought into the world.
Mother being a slave made me a slave. She cooked
and worked on the farm, ate
whatever was in the farmhouse and did her share of work
to keep and maintain
the
Tolsons. They being poor, not have a large place or a number of slaves
to increase
their
wealth, made them little above the free colored
people and with no knowledge, they
could not teach me or any one else to read....
I have heard that patrollers were on Kent Island and the colored people would go out in
the country on the roads, create disturbance to attract
the patrollers' attention. They
would tie ropes and grape vines across the roads
, so when the patrollers would come
to
the scene of the disturbance on horseback at full
tilt, they would be caught, throwing
those who would come in contact with the rope
or vine off the horse, sometimes badly
injuring the riders. This would create hatred between
the slaves, the free people, the
patrollers and other white people who were
concerned....
I do not remember being sick but I have heard mother say, when she or her children
were sick, the white doctor who attended the
Tolsons treated us and the only herbs
I
can recall were life-everlasting boneset and woodditney (types of herbs used for medicine), from each of
which a tea could be made.
This is about all I can recall.
Document Question:
According to Document C, what was happening with patrollers that was creating hatred among different
people?