Isaam Morgan

Isaam Morgan was born in 1853 near Lotts Landing on the Alabama River. He knew the year because he went back to the old place shortly before his interview and the former mistress's daughter looked it up in the family Bible. His mother was Ann Morgan; he had forgotten his father's name. He was enslaved by James and Delia Morgan, raised in their house as the house boy, and later drove the carriage. The Morgans sold firewood to the river steamboats, and enslaved men were paid for wood they cut beyond their quota.

He said the one overseer the Morgans ever hired was so violent that six men jumped him one night and scared him nearly to death, and after that the enslaver ran the place himself. People were so tired after work that they fell asleep within minutes, and on moonlit nights they were sometimes made to pick cotton. The dead were carried to their own graveyard in an ox cart, followed by everyone singing spirituals.

After the surrender, Union soldiers camped nearby offered him a horse to go north with them, but he stayed. At 21 the enslaver told him he was a grown man and had to find his own work. He became a loader and roustabout on steamboats such as the Lula D. and the Gardner, and picked cotton. He married three times. When interviewed at 1657 Sligo Street in Mobile, he asked to put on his hat for the photograph because he had no hair and liked to look stylish.