W. L. Bost

W. L. Bost was born in Newton, North Carolina, where the enslaver, Jonas Bost, ran a hotel and owned two plantations nearby. His mother and grandmother belonged to the Bost family. He said the mistress would not allow anyone to be bought or sold, there was no overseer, and the oldest Black man looked after the others, so they lived better than people on other plantations.

Because speculators stayed at the Bost hotel, he saw the slave trade up close. Around the end of every December, traders drove droves of enslaved people through Newton so they would be ready for the New Year's Day sales. He saw four or five chained together, nearly frozen, the women in thin dresses with ice balls hanging from the hems, made to run behind the traders' horses to keep warm. They were locked in the quarters under guard, and all night he heard them mourning and praying. "I didn't know the Lord would let people live who were so cruel." He could still hear the auctioneer's voice selling men "stout as a mule" and young women shivering on the block, and mothers begging in vain to be sold with their husbands.

He said the enslaved were never allowed to learn anything, though one clever boy in Newton taught himself to read and taught others the Bible in the fields. He described patrollers who whipped anyone caught without a pass, and a man whipped to death with a bullwhip. In old age he lived on Curve Street in Asheville, North Carolina.