{"id":444,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-06-09 18:47:53","latitude":30.679574099999999958754415274597704410552978515625,"longitude":-95.5522823000000016691046766936779022216796875,"title":"The Slave Narrative of Andy McAdams","subtitle":"","fullsize":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/56e8d6c94bd93a2e1f545f7435028457.jpg","address":"","all_locations":[],"zoom":9,"creator":["Kelly Hampton"],"description":"Except for a one-year stint working in a New Orleans hotel, Andy McAdams spent his entire life farming the land in and around Walker County, Texas, both as an enslaved person and a freed person. In the latter half of the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) interviewed many formerly enslaved people. In fact, several of McAdams’s 17 children worked as interviewers for the FWPewers. Such interviewers set out to document the stories of those who had lived both in captivity and in freedom. However, many of the questions that FWP administrators approved were worded to encourage answers that would support a “sanitized” version of history. [1]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nOne such question, aimed at formerly enslaved people, was, “Have you been happier in slavery or free?” This question conceals the tactics of white slave holders and racists to intentionally make survival more difficult for freedpeople in the Reconstruction Era. As such, McAdams’s account contrasted his difficult but structured life as an enslaved person with the uncertainties and harshness of life as a freedman. [2]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nIn his interview, McAdams recalled his life as an enslaved person as one of holiday celebrations, like the Sabbath and Christmas, during which his master gave gifts to his slaves and afforded them time for rest. He would even allow the enslaved people to congregate to dance and celebrate at nightfall before resting the next day. As an enslaved person, he had food, nice clothing, and access to proper healthcare because of his value as property to the slaveholder. When he recounts his life following the war and the end of his enslavement, he describes extreme poverty, an intense fear of racial violence, and a lack of work, shelter, and healthcare. [3]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nAfter the war and the abolition of slavery, McAdams recalls a celebration in the street among fellow formerly enslaved people. While everyone was celebrating, a white man on horseback rode through the crowd and cut a woman &quot;nearly in half&quot; without ever stopping. This effectively ended the celebration and sent all the freed people into hiding, where they began to wonder how they would survive. Much to McAdam’s disapproval, neither the federal nor state governments provided freedpeople with land or mules, although farming remained the only practical way to make a living in Walker County. McAdams accordingly felt that he and other African Americans were worse off free than as enslaved people because they had nothing to start from and nowhere to go. [4]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nMcAdams also described the first and only time he ever voted, mentioning that African American voting was heavily discouraged by local whites who often caked up their warnings with violence. Though the new voters were promised protection by the Texas governor, “padderrollers” were there to catch and whip the offending Black men who dared to vote. Paddyrollers, also known as paddy rollers, were armed white organizations that functioned as a police group for Black people both during and after slavery. While he was able to escape the white vigilantes before they whipped and beat him, many of his fellow voters suffered violent punishment for their decision. Such actions effectively stopped many freedmen from voting again, including Andy McAdams. [5]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nThe question of whether Andy was happier as an enslaved person or free may have an answer that seems counterintuitive to the end of slavery. Still, the poor conditions many African Americans faced post-slavery cannot be separated from the enterprise of slavery itself. A basic lack of possessions, education, and land made life almost impossible for formerly enslaved people, and neither the state nor the federal government moved to support them. Freedpeople struggled to provide enough food to survive without their masters’ aid, while also facing violent, racist attacks as they tried to start their lives over from scratch. [6]<br />\r\n<br />\r\nDespite the attempt by white FWP officials to display a cleaner version of the reality of slave conditions, Andy McAdams concluded that in the long run, the hardships of Reconstruction were worth it so that new Black generations could educate themselves and live more easily than he could. McAdams maintained faith in the future of Black people as free men, and even if he personally struggled less as an enslaved person, one would presume he would rather his ethnic group be free than have stayed in captivity.<br />","sponsor":"Sam Houston State University","accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"https://slaveryintexas.org/items/show/304?tour=1&index=6","related_resources":["[1] “Andy McAdams,” Slavery in Texas, accessed March 28, 2026, https://slaveryintexas.org/items/show/304; Norman R. Yetman, “‘Born in Slavery’: An Introduction to the WPA Slave Narratives,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin (April 2001), accessed March 28, 2026, https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0104/slaves.html","[2] Catherine A. Stewart, Long Past Slavery: Representing Race in the Federal Writers’ Project (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 67-68.","[3] Andy McAdams,” Slavery in Texas.","[4] Ibid.","[5] Ibid.","[6] Ibid."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/56e8d6c94bd93a2e1f545f7435028457.jpg":{"id":3146,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Southern Paddyrollers","description":"Paddyrollers, or &quot;padderrollers&quot; for Andy McAdams, are mentioned a couple times in his narrative, both before and after the end of slavery. With their guns and whips, the paddyrollers struck fear into slaves and then into freedman into the war, beating them into submission to their white masters and superiors. | https://ibw21.org/editors-choice/slavery-and-the-origins-of-the-american-police-state/ | Slavery and Reconstruction","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/56e8d6c94bd93a2e1f545f7435028457.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/231c72ee6f4bc7e998fde8681a130825.jpg":{"id":3147,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Freedman&#039;s First Vote in Palestine, TX","description":"Taken during the first voting cycle where freed slaves were allowed to participate in a nearby east Texas town. This would have been taken around the same time Andy McAdams cast his first and only vote in Huntsville, Texas. | https://www.lwvtexas.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&amp;club_id=979482&amp;module_id=485202#gsc.tab=0 | 1860s","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/231c72ee6f4bc7e998fde8681a130825.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/1541e2b638947f1829ef1ac6f6332dd3.jpg":{"id":3148,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Slave Home in Brazos County","description":"The home of an unrelated freedman in a nearby county. When McAdams was freed and was responsible for building his own home, it may have resembled the home pictured. McAdams describes a second home his som built in place of the first, so his home may have been less sturdy and sheltering than the one pictured. | https://genealogytrails.com/tex/state/slavenarra19.htm | Slavery and Reconstruction Era ","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/1541e2b638947f1829ef1ac6f6332dd3.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/323bc0a464fdd83c231b5a28aeb4c39b.jpg":{"id":3149,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Irrigation Farming on a Texas Plantation","description":"Andy McAdams spent nearly his entire life farming the East Texas lands.  The perspective of the photo likely matches what McAdams life would have looked like day to day caring for the crops. | https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth12657/ | 1910","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/323bc0a464fdd83c231b5a28aeb4c39b.jpg"},"https://easttexashistory.org/files/fullsize/45697075e09ee3244e1d1439bff6c131.jpg":{"id":3150,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Walker County Training School","description":"The Walker County Training School was established by Samuel Walker Houston, a former slave of Sam Houston&#039;s, in order to educate black people in and around Walker County. McAdams valued education highly, and the ability for black people to be educated post-slavery was one of the highlights of Reconstruction for McAdams. | https://easttexashistory.org/items/show/2?tour=5&amp;index=0 | Early 20th century","thumbnail":"https://easttexashistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/45697075e09ee3244e1d1439bff6c131.jpg"}}}