Fred Brown

Fred Brown was born on November 16, 1853, on a plantation along the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, where forty to fifty people were enslaved, growing mainly sugar cane and corn. His mother was the cook and helped at the loom; his father was the blacksmith, shoemaker and tanner, and Fred described how his father tanned hides with black-oak bark. He had three brothers, a sister, Julia, and six cousins on the place.

The quarters had dirt floors and holes instead of windows. Food included cornmeal, molasses, wild game, and bran roasted for coffee. An overseer ran the work and gave the whippings; people who ran off hid in the river caves and were hunted with dogs, and when caught were tied over a barrel and whipped until they bled. He also described how a second man, called the overlooker, controlled the enslaved women and forced them into unions in order to produce children for the enslaver. He remembered parties with banjo, Jew's harp and accordion, contests where dancers balanced a glass of water on their heads, log-rolling races, and weddings where couples jumped the broom.

During the war an overseer named Henry Ridder took him and others as refugees to Kaufman County, Texas. After freedom he worked five years as a laborer and then as a cook until 1933.