C.B. McRay

C. B. McRay was born on April 12, 1861, on Main Street in Jasper, Texas, enslaved by John McRay, a slave trader who bought people in New Orleans and sold them to local farmers. His father, Calvin Bell McRay, was born in Virginia and his mother, Harriet, in Sabine County; his grandparents had been born in Africa. His brother Bill McRay was also interviewed. People called him "Coon" because he was long and thin, and "Racer" because, he said, at ten he could run down a rabbit.

Other townspeople called John McRay's people "McRay's free niggers." C. B. said the enslaved ate at a long table with the same food as the white family, that the women spun and wove in the parlor, and that everyone was inspected in Sunday clothes before church. But those who talked back were the first to be sold. He told of a foreman named Charlie who was sold to a harsh enslaver, Ballard Adams, for letting the firewood run low. Adams forced Charlie to wear a "Louisiana shirt," a barrel with a hole for his head, so that he could not sit or use his arms, all day for a month, and chained him to his bed at night. When Charlie ran to the woods, Adams tried to sell him back, but freedom had come; McRay told Charlie he could come back.

When freedom was declared, McRay called everyone to the parlor, advised them to stay around Jasper where people knew them, and asked anyone who wanted to stay with him to stand. Everyone stood. Later, when conditions grew worse, people began to leave. He was living in Jasper when interviewed.