Henry Cheatam

Henry Cheatam was born in 1850 near West Point, Mississippi, enslaved by Tom Hollingshead, who was killed in the Civil War; Henry remembered everyone going in to see the body when it was brought home. His parents were Emmeline and Sam Cheatam. The family lived in clay-daubed log cabins with beds nailed to the wall.

After the enslaver's death the widow put a Black overseer in charge, and Henry called him the meanest man who ever lived. He saw him beat his mother many times, and once beat Henry's pregnant aunt so savagely that she gave birth on the spot. Henry promised himself he would kill the man when he grew up. The mistress often did not know, and people did not dare tell her. He saw people in chains with heavy balls on their legs, and people sold on the block like cattle, children separated from their parents. He nearly was himself: when the estate was being divided, he was about to be sent to Texas with one of the daughters when word of freedom came, and he was able to stay with his mother.

Children wore one-piece osnaburg suits that they washed at night and put back on in the morning, and no shoes. He carried water to the field, spun and carded cotton, and made tallow candles. When the Yankees came, he helped hide the horses and meat and bury the valuables. He remembered the cow horn blown a set number of times to call particular people to the big house, and hiding from the patrollers on errands at night. In old age he lived in Mobile, Alabama, lonely and glad of company.