Frank Menefee
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Frank Menefee (abt. 1852 - aft. 1936)

Frank Menefee
Born about in Alabama, United Statesmap
[sibling(s) unknown]
[spouse(s) unknown]
[children unknown]
Died after after about age 84 [location unknown]
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Profile last modified | Created 4 Jul 2020
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Biography

US Black Heritage Project
Frank Menefee is a part of US Black heritage.

Frank Menefee was born into slavery about 1852 in Alabama. His parents were Monroe and Susan Menefee. He recalled his father was a shoemaker. Frank had six siblings: Patsy, Sally, Lula, Mary, Melvina, and Philmore. Their slave owner was Willis Menefee. Frank stated in his interview that his mother's father and mother were Muton and Patsy Footman from Meridian, Mississippi.

Frank was a Freedman living in Opelika, Alabama when interviewed at the age of 84 in 1936 by the Federal Writers' Project for their Slave Narrative Project. All quotes are from that interview as transcribed by the interviewer, and are in the Public Domain.[1][2] In his interview he recalls life growing up as a slave.

He recalled that his owners were Willis and Hannah Menefee, who had two children - Willis and Willie. Willis Menefee had seven or eight hundred acres in a plantation but Frank did not know the number of slaves he had. Mr. Sadler was the overseer.

He recalled being awakened in the mornings by someone blowing a cockle shell, then working in the fields.

"Us plowed 'twell dark an' lots an' lots of times all night long wid a lantern tied to front an' back of de plows. We was picking cotton all night long too, be ready to take dat wagon to de gin by tnree or four o'clock in de morning. in chains. Sometimes dey would put de slaves When dey wuk clearing up new groun' dey had chains put 'roun' dey ankles."

On Sunday mornings, Hannah Menefee taught the slaves from the Bible, then they went to church. The white people sat up front and the black people in the back.

Once the proclamation came that the slaves were freedmen, Willis Menefee gave each freed slave a suit of clothes, some money, a mule, a cow, wagon, hog and corn to help them start their new lives as freedmen. Frank's family moved to Dr. Lawrence Smith's near Louisiana.

Frank also mentioned his first wife was named Drake, and his second wife Phobe Ethen.

Research Note

Thus far no grave sites have been found for any of the names mentioned in this profile.

Sources

  1. The Federal Writers' Project. Slave Narratives; A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, Washington, District of Columbia : The Library of Congress, 1941 (https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/?fa=original-format:manuscript/mixed+material)
  2. Federal Writers' Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 1, Alabama, Aarons-Young(https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.010/?sp=284)


See also:

  • A site that claims the Slave Narratives were sometimes altered by the interviewer, and/or government reviewers, and did not represent the true words of the enslaved person. [1]




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