Delia Garlic

[2][3][4][5][6] Between 1936 and 1938, The Works Project Administration (WPA) sent writers across the country to interview ordinary people about their experiences and life histories.

"[9] At the time of the 1937 interview, Garlic was one-hundred years old, but she was able to recount many of her experiences from her early life as an enslaved woman.

She, along with her mother and brother William, were then taken to an auction in Richmond, Virginia, where they were sold to their enslaver, a Henrico County sheriff named Carter.

"[2] This abuse continued even after Carter remarried, with several physical lashings resulting from Garlic's makeup choices.

[12] As a result, she yelled at Garlic, stating "You black devil, I'll show you how to mock your betters" and physically assaulted her by hitting her head with a piece of firewood.

[2][13][12] Following years of abuse at the hands of Carter and his wives, Garlic attempted to escape her enslaver after a specific instance where he threatened to have an overseer beat her in approximately 1860.

Garlic married a man from another plantation named Chatfield in the years leading up to the Civil War, but she never saw him again after he was forced into service for the Confederates in 1861.