In the history of American slavery, some slaveholders are remembered not because of the wealth they accumulated but because of the suffering they inflicted on the Africans they enslaved. One such figure was “Big Jim” McClain, a slave master in Virginia whose name survived mainly through the testimony of people who lived under his rule.
Much of what we know about McClain comes from the interviews of Sam Everett and Louisa Everett, two formerly enslaved Africans whose memories were recorded in 1936 as part of the WPA Slave Narrative Project. These interviews were conducted during the Great Depression, when the U.S. government sent writers across the country to document the life stories of elderly former slaves. The result was a massive collection of more than 2,000 interviews preserving firsthand accounts of slavery.
Sam and Louisa Everett were among the people interviewed. Their testimony offers one of the most disturbing glimpses into plantation life in the American South, especially the practice of forced slave breeding.
A Plantation Near Norfolk, Virginia
According to the accounts of former slaves, Big Jim McClain owned a large plantation in eastern Virginia, somewhere near Norfolk. Like many wealthy slaveholders in the region, he controlled the lives of a large number of enslaved Africans. The plantation operated like a self contained world where McClain’s authority was absolute.
Enslaved Africans worked the fields, tended livestock, and carried out domestic labor. Their daily lives were governed by strict rules and constant supervision. Punishments were harsh, and obedience was enforced through extreme violence.
Although many slaveholders used physical punishment, those who remembered McClain described him as unusually cruel. The stories told by former slaves portray a man who used violence not only to control labor but also to dominate and humiliate the Africans he owned.
The Everett testimonies describe a system of punishment that relied heavily on terror. The enslaved Africans he owned could be whipped for minor offenses or even for behavior that the slave master simply disliked.
Former slaves recalled that McClain sometimes whipped people until they collapsed. At other times, he used more extreme punishments meant to cause lasting pain and fear. One punishment remembered by former slaves involved hanging a person by their thumbs, a torture that left victims in agony.
These punishments served a clear purpose. In a system where hundreds of enslaved Africans were forced to work under the authority of a single owner, fear was a powerful tool. By punishing one person severely, a slave master could intimidate everyone else.
The cruelty remembered by McClain’s former slaves did not stop with physical punishment. Some of the most disturbing memories involve how he controlled the most private parts of the Africans he owned..
The System of Slave Breeding
By the early nineteenth century, the transatlantic slave trade had been outlawed by the United States. This meant that slaveholders could no longer legally import Africans from overseas. Instead, the enslaved population in the United States began to grow largely through natural increase.
For many slaveholders, enslaved women’s ability to give birth became an economic resource. Children born into slavery automatically became the property of the slaveholder. As a result, some plantations encouraged or forced reproduction in order to increase the enslaved population.
Former slaves said that Big Jim McClain practiced this system in a particularly disturbing way.
According to the Everett testimony, McClain sometimes selected men and women whom he believed would produce strong children. These people were then ordered to have sexual relations, regardless of whether they were married to someone else or whether they wanted to participate.
Family ties meant little in this system. A man might be forced to sleep with a woman who was not his wife. A woman might be ordered to bear children for a man she barely knew. Their personal wishes did not matter, because under slavery they were treated as property rather than human beings.
The Everetts recalled that McClain sometimes forced enslaved men and women together in deeply humiliating situations. On certain occasions, he ordered couples to have sexual relations while he stood nearby and watched.
These actions were not only about producing children. They were also about domination. By controlling the most private parts of enslaved people’s lives and forcing them into degrading acts, McClain demonstrated that his authority reached into every corner of their existence.
According to the testimony, McClain sometimes invited friends to witness these acts, turning the suffering of enslaved Africans into a spectacle. At times the visitors would choose for themselves the young women they found most attractive and then force their husbands or lovers to stand by and watch helplessly as they have their way with them.
The Story of Sam and Louisa Everett
One of the most well known stories connected to McClain’s plantation involves Sam Everett and Louisa Everett, the former slaves whose testimony preserved these memories.
According to Louisa Everett, McClain forced her and Sam together when they were young. The slave master believed that the two of them would produce strong children.
She recalled the moment vividly:
“Massa Jim called me and Sam to him and ordered Sam to pull off his shirt… he asked me if I thought I could stand this big man.”
Louisa said McClain had a bullwhip slung across his shoulder, making it clear that refusal was not an option.
Embarrassed and frightened, Louisa tried to hide her face so she would not have to look at Sam’s naked body. But McClain forced her to look.
Then he ordered them to have sex in his presence.
Louisa later explained that they had no choice but to obey.
“He told us what we must git busy and do in his presence, and we had to do it.”
From that moment forward, McClain declared them husband and wife.
Louisa later recalled that Sam treated her kindly and that their relationship slowly changed from forced obedience into something deeper.
“Sam was kind to me and I learnt to love him.”
The couple had several children together. Louisa even noted that McClain believed they were a “healthy pair” and therefore did not force her to sleep with other men afterward.
That small mercy shows how slave breeding worked on some plantations. Once a slaveholder believed a couple produced strong children, they might be left together simply because it was profitable.
The End of Slavery on the Plantation
When the Civil War ended in 1865 and slavery was abolished, the system that had allowed men like McClain to dominate hundreds of Africans collapsed.
Former slaves remembered that the transition to freedom was tense and sometimes violent. Plantation owners who had once exercised absolute authority suddenly faced the reality that the people they had enslaved were no longer legally their property.
On many plantations across the South, newly freed Africans left in large numbers, searching for family members or new opportunities. For former slaveholders, this moment often brought anger, confusion, and fear about the future.
For the people who had lived under McClain’s rule, emancipation meant the chance to escape a world defined by violence and control.
Sam and Louisa Everett eventually moved away from Virginia and settled in Florida, where they spent much of their later lives. By the time they were interviewed in the 1930s WPA Slave Narratives, both were elderly and had lived through slavery, the Civil War, extreme poverty, discrimination, reconstruction, and the early twentieth century.
Louisa Everett lived to a very old age. At the time of the interview, she was reported to be over ninety years old. Sam Everett was also elderly, and the couple had spent decades together after emancipation despite the fact that their relationship had originally been forced by their slave master.
Historical records show that both Sam and Louisa Everett eventually died in Florida, where they spent their later years after the end of slavery. Like many formerly enslaved Africans, the exact dates of their deaths are not clearly recorded in widely available sources. What has survived, however, is their testimony. Through the interviews conducted under the Federal Writers’ Project, their memories of slavery were preserved, leaving behind a powerful account of what life had been like on plantations ruled by men such as Big Jim McClain.
Sources:
https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2020/09/14/black-polk-mulberry-couple-told-horrific-life-slaves/3340392001/
Personal interview with Sam and Louisa Everett, P.O. Box 535 c/o E.P.J. Everett, Mulberry, Florida
Interview, Sam Everett, Louisa Everett, and Pearl Randolph, Slave Interview, October 8, 1936
