Freedom My name is Walter, and I was born a slave in North Carolina. Now, I am in Virginia.. I?d been working in tobacco fields since I was a boy. Planting? harvesting...binding and stacking. Backbreaking work, sunup to sundown. I slept in a wooden cabin with three other slaves, a boy named John, the mother: Jackie and her daughter; Lindsay. I slept on an old hay mattress on the floor for a bed. Next to the bed, there was a chair that had a candle as our only light source. There was never any privacy. The master of the house was named Jim. Master Jim didn?t do one thing in the house. He explained ?you Negro?s do everything I ask of you, no ifs, buts, or what?s!? We had to comply or we would get a whipping of a life time.