The Civil War: A look through a slave.
*When I was little and started working on the plantation, I thought that was what I was going to do forever. My Daddy worked on the plantation and his Daddy before him, and his Daddy before him. It was the only thing my family ever did and probably the only thing we was ever going to do. My job didn't seem so important to me, I just picked the cotton everyday and tried to stay out of trouble to escape the beating from the white men. Sometimes me and my friends were beaten for laughing and fooling around during the day. Life was hard and one day we wanted to see a change.
*Sometimes we"d hear the older folks talking "bout being freed but we never thought it was really going to happen. Wasn't "til the early 1800's when I started believing them. Late at night on the plantation black folks would gather "round and start talking about the north and how they was looking to free us blacks. Said they were trying to argue whether or not slavery was morally right. Northern folks said it was against god to enslave any man against his own will and that it was a sin. Southern folks argued right back that in the bible there are slaves of the disciples and how the bible says a slaves supposed to obey his master. Them white folks down south think the slaves are inferior but should the color of skin decide that? Is it right for a mother to have her children ripped from the clutches of her hands and for families to be separated? Is it right to have your women beaten and raped by there masters and forced to bear children out of wedlock? Isn't that sin in the eyes of god? One day I watched my friend beaten so badly by the master I thought he was never going to wake up. I wanted to help him but you get beaten just for trying to help someone else up.
*As time passed on, tension grew between the north and south. Men settled westward and there were a lot of problems deciding weather or not to make the new states slave states or free states.