Excerpt from interview with former slave Simon Phillips, age 90, of Birmingham, Alabama, “What’s Mine Is Mine” Simon Phillips, born into slavery in Hale County, Alabama in 1847, was one of thousands interviewed for the Slave Narrative Collection of the Federal Writers’ Project.

One day . . .  a few n*****s was sticking sticks in the ground when the massa come up.

“What you n*****s doing!” he asked.

“We is staking off the land, Massa. The Yankees say half of it is ourn.”

The massa never got mad. He just look calm-like.

“Listen, n*****s,” he says, “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours You are just as free as I and the missus, but don’t go fooling around my land. I’ve tried to be a good master to you. I have never been unfair. Now if you wants to stay, you are welcome to work for me. I’ll pay you one-third the crops you raise. But if you wants to go, you sees the gate.”

The massa never have no more trouble. Them n*****s just stays right there and works. Sometime they loaned the massa money when he was hard pushed. Most of ’em died on the old grounds.

Source: reprinted in Botkin, B.A., ed. Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery. Delta, 1989, 239. (Document 4.7.4)