William M Adams thought he was 93 years old at the time he was interviewed.[i] He was uncertain of his date of birth and relied on what his mother had told him. In addition, I have been unable to identify any census records of Adams or any documentation of his birth. This is a common issue in identifying people who were born into slavery.  Despite this, we know that Adams was interviewed at his home located at 1404 Illinois Avenue, Fort Worth, Texas, where he had lived since 1902.[ii]  Unfortunately, there is no recording of the date of this interview nor who conducted it. Despite this, it is a valuable source that provides insight into slavery through the perspective of a formerly enslaved person. This interview was collected by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of their federal writer's project, which was collected between 1936 and 1938.  This blog post will look in-depth into the interview with William M Adams, which I will evaluate and provide context to this interview.

Adams was born into slavery on the Lake Creek plantation, in San Jacinto, Texas. [iii] James Davis owned the plantation; Adams was between the ages of 16 and 18 at the time of emancipation, according to the age that was given in his interview.  He recalls his parents, Julia and James Adams and does not suggest in his interview that he was separated from his parent during his enslavement.[iv] This was a common occurrence for families during slavery. As well as his parents, Adams mentions that he had 12 siblings; large families were common among enslaved people due to forced reproduction and assault occurring often.[v] However, William M Adams does not mention this in his interview, or imply that it was happening within the Lake Creek plantation while he was there.

Adams mentions that his master treated him well and gave him money often. However, this was referring to James Davis’s wife, Anne Eliza Hill, at the point of Adams’s enslavement.[vi]  From the age of seven, Adams had been taken into the main plantation house as Anne Eliza Hills' servant, and he would help her with menial tasks such as knitting and lighting her pipe.[vii] Adams acted as a servant here until the death of Anne.  James Davis was the plantation owner and was known as a prominent lawyer by Adams. However, using different databases, I found that James Davis was a planter, politician, and soldier and later became a general.[viii]

The Lake Creek Plantation had a substantial slave holding, with Adams recalling around 100 enslaved people being located there at a time. [ix]In addition, he mentions that around 100 enslaved people were sold during his time at the plantation, suggesting that James Davis not only enslaved people but was actively involved in trading them.  The other enslaved people lived in poorer conditions than Adams, in wood cabins with mud floors behind the main plantation house.[x] They were controlled by a regime enforced by the people overseeing them, controlling small details such as when the lights would go out at night.  

William Adams primarily reports that his enslavers treated him well. However, he does recognise that some of the other enslaved people were oppressed.  He reports that many enslaved people were brutally whipped and beaten by overseers. [xi] As well as this, some plantations would allow poor white men who couldn’t afford enslaved people to come and whip them for varying reasons, such as not performing to the standard the overseers desired in specific jobs.  Adams also reported that cruelty was also directed towards animals; if the dogs could not track down enslaved people who had run away, then they would be beaten and punished as well.[xii]  The description of cruelty in Adams’ interview suggests that this interview has not been edited.  Texas and Mississippi had the highest rates of adaptions made to the WPA interviews which alter the perspective of slavery in these states, however, some of these adaptions are recognised as grammatical corrections. In addition to this, Texas withheld many of their interviews from being added to the WPA interview collection.[xiii]  This means that this source is significant as it openly criticises slavery within a state which had tried to suggest the benefits of slavery.

William Adams became known as a spiritualist and preacher throughout his life as an enslaved man and a freeman.[xiv] Spiritualism, along with practices such as voodoo, was a profound part of the enslaved cultural identity.[xv]  Even though the enslaved people held onto their African identity, it is clear that it was heavily adapted and suppressed by the control they experienced over their lives. Religion was also a large part of the enslaved people's cultural identity, but they did not have access to a church that they could attend.  Despite this, they often prayed to be free.  Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Adam says the enslaved people on the plantation began to pray for the North's victory over the Southern states. [xvi] Not only did religion provide roots to their cultural identity, but it also provided the enslaved people with hope for freedom.  As William Adams was a preacher and spiritualist, he gained a level of status among the enslaved community as people looked to him to provide guidance to the community.

Following emancipation, at the age of 16 to 18,  Adams began working in a grocery store and was paid $1.50 a week. [xvii] He managed to stay close to his mother after emancipation and gifted her $1 of his pay check each week keeping 50 cents for himself. Not all enslaved people found new employment when they received their freedom. Many continued to work in the same way they had under slavery but were receiving little pay. William married his wife Sarah and began to farm until eventually moving to Fort Worth in 1902, where he was interviewed.  Unfortunately, the date that William died is unknown.

[i] William M Adams WPA interview, (last accessed 17/03/2025), pp 9-11

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mesn/mesn-161/mesn-161.pdf

[ii] IBID

[iii] Texas State Historical Association, (last accessed 14/03/2025)

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lake-creek-tx

[iv] William M Adams WPA interview, (last accessed 17/03/2025), pp 9-11

[v] Andrea Livesey, Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana, Slavery & Abolition, 38:2, 373-391

[vi] William M Adams WPA interview,( last accessed 17/03/2025), pp 9-11

[vii] IBID

[viii] Ancestors Family Search, General James Keenan Davis, (last accessed 17/03/2025)

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LQRK-WVV/general-james-keenan-davis-1790-1859

[ix] William M Adams WPA interview, (last accessed 17/03/35), pp 9-11

[x] IBID

[xi] IBID

[xii] IBID

[xiii] Sharon Ann Musher, ‘Contesting “The Way the Almighty Wants It: Crafting Memories of enslaved in the Slave Narrative Collection’,  American Quarterly, 53:1, (March, 2001)

[xiv] William M Adams WPA interview, (last accessed 19/03/2025), pp9-11

[xv] Nancy Gray Schoomaker, ‘ Mystery and Possibility: Spiritualists in the Nineteenth-century South’, University of North Carolina, 2010

[xvi] William M Adams WPA interview, (Last accessed 17/03/2025), pp 9-11

[xvii] IBID

Bibliography:

-          William M Adams WPA interview, (last accessed 17/03/2025), pp 9-11

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mesn/mesn-161/mesn-161.pdf

-          Texas State Historical Association, (last accessed 14/03/2025)

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lake-creek-tx

-          Texas State Historical Association, ( last accessed 14/03/2025)

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/davis-james

-           Ancestors Family Search, General James Keenan Davis, (last accessed 17/03/2025)

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LQRK-WVV/general-james-keenan-davis-1790-1859

-          Ancestors Family Search, Anne Eliza Hill, (last accessed 17/03/2025)

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/MWYC-HYC/anne-eliza-hill-1795-1869

-          Documenting the American South, (Last accessed 15/03/2025)

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/religiouscontent.html

-          Sharon Ann Musher, ‘Contesting “The Way the Almighty Wants It: Crafting Memories of enslaved in the Slave Narrative Collection’,  American Quarterly, 53:1, (March, 2001)

-          Nancy Gray Schoomaker, ‘ Mystery and Possibility: Spiritualists in the Nineteenth-century South’, University of North Carolina, 2010

-          Gary A. Donaldson, ‘A window on Slave Culture: Dances at Congo Square in New Orleans, 1800-1862’, The Journal of Negro History, 49:2, (Spring, 1984)

-          Andrea Livesey, Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana, Slavery & Abolition, 38:2, 373-391