Teshan Young

Teshan Young was born in Harrison County, Texas, enslaved along with her parents, a brother and three sisters by a man named Scott, whose plantation stretched about seven miles and held more than a hundred people. It had its own gin, mill, blacksmith shop, weaving house, and a nursery with swings for the enslaved children. Her family was never separated by sale.

She said the food was plentiful but the work was enforced with the whip. She remembered a man who was whipped so badly he never got up again, and that the children were allowed to go look at him. Her mother was whipped once for leaving the field to nurse her baby, and again for falling behind in her row. Her father was shot in the shoulder by the overseer while climbing a fence to escape a whipping.

She was about ten when the war began. Her job was minding the children whose mothers were in the field, feeding them from a long trough with wooden spoons and keeping order with a switch. At Christmas the men blew up dried hog bladders on sticks and burst them in the fire like fireworks. After freedom her father worked for the enslaver until he died. In 1867 she married Moses Young in a Black church, wearing a pink dress and hat. They bought their own farm, part of the old plantation, and raised thirteen children, whom she doctored with herbs from the woods. After her husband died in 1902 she stayed on the farm until 1915, then moved to Stop Six near Fort Worth.