The women were given Saturday afternoons off to launder their clothes
and prepare for Sunday's services. All slaves were required to appear on
Monday mornings as clean as possible with their clothing mended and
heads combed.
Lye soap was used both for laundering and bathing. It was made from
fragments of fat meat and skins that were carefully saved for that
purpose. Potash was secured from oak ashes. This mixture was allowed to
set for a certain period of time, then cooked to a jelly-like
consistency. After cooling, the soap was cut into square bars and
"lowanced out" (allowance) to the slaves according to the number in each
family. Once Duncan was given a bar of "sweet" soap by his mistress for
doing a particularly nice piece of work of polishing the harness of her
favorite mare and so proud was he of the gift that he put it among his
Sunday clothes to make them smell sweet. It was the first piece of
toilet sopa that he had ever seen; and it caused quite a bit of envy
among the other slave children.
Duncan Gaines does not remember his grandparents but thinks they were
both living on some nearby plantation. His father was the plantation
blacksmith and Duncan liked to look on as plowshares, single trees,
horse shoes, etc were turned out or sharpened.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127