Maugan Shepherd

Maugan Shepherd was past 80 and living in a tumbledown house in Eufaula, Alabama, when he was interviewed. He was born at Chestnut Hill, enslaved by Rich Wiley and his wife. His parents, Bunk and Betsy Wiley, were field hands, and he had two brothers, Oliver and Monroe. He seldom saw his parents except on Sundays because they were always in the fields, while he spent his days chasing rabbits. At night he ate his cornpone and buttermilk and fell asleep. The enslaved people hated the overseer and refused to call him "Mister" behind his back.

He was too young to remember much of slavery, but he remembered being terrified of Union soldiers, who passed through Eufaula and laughed at the people hiding from them. He had never learned to read. He said he was proud to have been born enslaved because he had always had enough to eat and wear then, and didn't now.

More than fifty years before the interview he married Kitty, who earned her living washing clothes; they had no children. He still worked as a yardman and went to church every Sunday.