"This young generation livin' so fast they stop thinkin'. They do well to keep livin' their selves. They wastes a heap they outer save fur rainy days. They ain't takin' no advice from old folks. I don't know whut goiner become of them."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Will Ann Rogers R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 70

"I was born three years after the surrender. I was born at Fryers Point, Mississippi. The reason I ain't got the exact date when I was born, my ma put it down in the Bible and the house burned up and everything in it burned to ashes. No mam she got somebody what could write real nice to write all the names and ages for her.

"When ma was a young woman, she said they put her on a block and sold her. They auctioned her off at Richmond, Virginia. When they sold her, her mother fainted or drapped dead, she never knowed which. She wanted to go see her mother lying over there on the ground and the man what bought her wouldn't let her. He just took her on. Drove her off like cattle, I recken. The man what bought her was Ephram Hester. That the last she ever knowed of any of her folks. She say he mated 'em like stock so she had one boy. He livin' down here at Helena now. He is Mose Kent. He was born around Richmond, Virginia jes' lack dat she say.

"When it nearly 'bout time for freedom a whole army of Yankees come by and seed Mose working. They told him if he come go wid them they give him that spotted horse and pair red boots. He crawled up on the horse an' was gone wid 'em for a fact she said. She started right after them, following him. She followed them night and day. She nearly starved, jess begged 'long the road all she could. I heard her say how fast she have to walk to keep on trail of 'em and how many nights. She say some nights when they camped she would beg 'round and try to fill up. But she couldn't get to Mose without them seein' her. When they got to Fryers Point she went an' got him. They jess laughed and never give him nuthin'. They left that army fast as they could she say.

"She married at Fryers Point. She had jes' one boy and I had four or five sisters. They all dead but me and Mose. He think he 'bout ninety years old. He come here to see me last year. He sho is feeble.

"How come I here? When I was fourteen years old my family heard how fine this State was and moved to Helena. I lived at Moro and Cotton Plant. Then, the way I come here was funny. A man come up there and say a free train was comin' to go back to Africa. All who wanted to go could go. My pa sold out 'bout all we had an' we come here lack they say. No train come yet goin' to Africa as I seed. My pa give the white man $5.00 to pay fer the train. Tom Watson was one of 'em too. He was a sorter leader 'mong 'em wantin' to go back. Well when the day come that the train due to start everybody come to the depot whar the train going to stop. There was a big crowd. Yes mam, dressed up, and a little provisions and clothes fixed up. Jes' could take along a little. They say it would be crowded so. We stayed around here a week or two waitin' to hear somethin' or be ready to go. Most everybody stayed prutty close to the depot for two or three days. Yes mam there sho was a crowd—a whole big train full from here 'sides the other places. I jes' stayed here an' been here ever since. The depot agent, he told 'em he didn't know 'bout no train going to Africa. The tickets was no good on his trains.

"How I owns this place, I'll tell you. A man here had all dis land 'round here (Negro town) laid off. He couldn't sell none of his lots. They wouldn't buy his lots. So he got after me. We had made a good crop, so I got up the money and bought this place. One hundred dollars is what I give him. Others then started to settlin' in and about close to my place.

"I guess it was Spotsells in Virginia what raised her. She say her name was Lizzie Spotsell Johnson. Then when Ephram Hester bought her they learned her to do about in their house. She cooked and swept and knocked flies and tended to the children. She stayed with 'em a pretty long time till she run off and went to Fryers Point.

"She may have told us about the Nat Turner rebellion but I don't remember it. They sung a lot in my mother's time. Seemed lack they was happier than we are somehow. She sung religious songs and one or two field songs. I don't recollect 'em now.

"I never did vote. I never cared nuthin' about it. Some of 'em 'round here wouldn't miss votin' for nothin'.

"Lawd me, chile, the times is done run ahead of me now. I'm so fur behind I never expect to catch up. I don't pay no more attention to the young folks, the way they act now, 'an I do my little dog there. They don't want no advice and I would be afraid I would 'vise 'em wrong. When my children come I tell 'em you are grown and you knows right from wrong. Do right. That's all I know to say.

"The way I am supported is my husband gets all the jobs he able to do and can and the governmint give me an' him $10 a month. We has a little garden."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: William Henry Rooks Baptist Preacher; Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 84

The slaves didn't spect nothing but freedom. Jes freedom! In Africa they was free as wild animals and then they was so restricted. Jes put in bondage for no reason at all.

No plantations was divided. I was born a slave and I remembers right smart how it was.

My master was John Freeman and his wife's name was Fannie. I went to Como, Mississippi twice a week to get the mail all durin the war. It was eight miles. I rode a pony.

If you go to church you have to have a pass from the master. The pattyrollers see you and you have to show it to them. It was just a note. If you didn't have it they take or send you home. If they catch you any more without a pass they whip you. They come to the church and in all public places like the police stands around now. They rode around mostly. Sometimes they went in droves.

They would let you go visiting sometimes and exchange work. Some masters was good and some was mean jess like they are now and some slaves good and some bad. That is the way they are now.

Some of the white men had a hundred slaves and had plenty money. The war broke nearly all of them. The very worse thing I ever knowed about it was some white men raised hands to sell like they raise stock now. It was hard to have your child took off and never see or hear tell of it. Mean man buy it and beat it up. Some of them was drove off to be sold at auction at New Orleans. That was where some took them cause they could get big money for them.

I never knowed of a master to give the slaves a dime when they become free. They never promissed them nothing. The Yankees might have to toll them off. The hands all stayed on John Freeman's place and when it was over he give them the privilege of staying right on in their houses. Some left after awhile and went somewhere they thought they could do better.

They didn't have the Ku Klux but it was bout like it what they had. They wore caps shine de coons eye and red caps and red garments. Red symbolize blood reason they wore red. They broke up our preaching. Some folks got killed. Some was old, some young—old devlish ones. They was like a drove of varments. I guess you be scared. They run the colored folks away from church a lot of times. That was about equalization after the freedom. That was the cause of that.

There was uprisings like I'm telling you but the colored folks didn't have nothing to go in a gun if he had one. White folks make them give up a gun.

The first votin I done I was workin for young Henry Larson back in Mississippi. He give my mother $120 a year to cook for his young wife and give her what she eat and I worked on his farm. He told me to go vote, it was election day. I ask him how was I going to know how to vote. I could read a little. I couldn't write. The ballot box was at Pleasant Mount. Ozan set over the box. He was a Yankee. He was the only one kept the box. It was a wooden box nailed up and a slit in the top. A.R. Howe and Captain Howe was two more Yankee white men there watching round all day. Ozan was the sheriff at Sardis, Mississippi soon after the war. Some more colored folks come up to vote. We stood around and watched. We saw D. Sledge vote; he owned half of the county. We knowed he voted Democrat so we voted the other ticket so it would be Republican. I voted for President Grant. I don't believe in women voting. They used to have the Australian Ballot System. It's a heap more the man that's elected than it is the party. We all voted for Hoover; he was a Republican and foe he got one term served out we was about on starvation. I ain't voted since. That President claim to be a Democrat. He ain't no Democrat. I don't know what he be.

I been farming and preaching. I started preaching in Mississippi. I joined the conference in Arkansas in 1886 and started preaching at Surrounded Hill (Biscoe). I come here in 1884 from Pinola County. Mississippi. I had some stock and they was fencing up everything over there. I had no land so I come to an open country. It wasn't long before they fenced it in. I come to Brinkley and worked for Gun and Black sawmill and I been here forty or fifty years. I don't know jess how long. I couldn't starve to death in a whole year here. The people wouldn't let me. I got lot of friends, both black and white, here.

I married December 17, 1874 in the Baptist church. Glasco Wilson was the preacher married me. My wife died here in dis house nine years ago. We had ten children but jes two livin now. My girl married a preacher and live at Hope. Arkansas. My son preaches in Parson, Kansas.

I supports my own self. I works and I preaches a little yet. I saved up some money but it nearly give out. The young generation, some of them, do mighty bad. Some of them is all right. Some of them don't do much and don't save nothing. I owns this house and did own another one what burned down. A lamp exploded and caught it while I was going off up the road but I never looked back or I would have seen it. It seem lack now it takes more money to do than it ever did in times before. Seems like money is the only thing to have and get. Folks gone scottch crazy over money, money! Both is changing. The white folks, I'm speaking bout, the white folks has changed and course the colored folks keeping up wid them. The old white and colored neither can't keep up wid the fast times. I say it's the folks that made this depression and it's the folks keeping the depression. The little fellow is squeezed clear out. It out to be stopped. Folks ain't happy like they used to be. Course they sung songs all the time. Religious choruses mostly.



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Amanda Rosa 817 Schiller Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 82

"I was nine years old in the time of the surrender. I know I was here in that time. I don't know nothin' 'bout their carryin'-on. I know they whipped them with hobble rods. You don't know what hobble rods is!!! Ain't you seen these here long thin hick'ry shoots? They called hobble rods. I don't know why they called 'em hobble rods. I know they made you hobble. They'd put 'em in the fire and roast 'em and twist 'em. I have seen 'em whip them till the blood run down their backs. I've seen 'em tie the women up, strip 'em naked to their waist and whip 'am till the blood run down their backs. They had a nigger whipper, too.

"I was born in Salem, Alabama. I came up here about twenty-five years ago.

"Isaac Adair was the name of the old man who owned me. He owned my mother and father too, Hester and Scip. Their last name was Adair, the same as their master's.

"I don't remember the names of my grandfather and grandmother, 'cause we was crossed up, you see, One of my grandmothers was named Crecie and the other was named Lydia. I don't remember my grandfather's name. I spect I used to call 'im master. I used to remember them but I don't no more. Nobody can't worry me 'bout them old folks now. They ast me all them questions at the Welfare. They want to know your gran'pa and your gran'ma. Who were they, what did they do, where did they live, where are they now? I don't know what they did. That's too far back for me.

"My mother and father had nine children. I have only one sister living. All the others done gone to heaven but me and her.

"My mother and father lived in a log cabin. They had one-legged beds nailed to the wall. They had benches and boxes and blocks and all sich as that for chairs. My daddy made the table we used. He made them one-legged beds too. They kept the food in boxes and gourds. They had these big gourds. They could cut holes in the top of them and put things in them. My mammy had a lot of 'em and they were nice and clean too. Wisht I had one of them now.

"Some folks didn't have that good. We had trundle beds for the children that would run under the big bed when they wasn't sleeping in it. We made a straw mattress. You know the white folks weren't goin' to let 'em use cotton, and they didn't have no chickens to git feathers from; so they had to use straw. Oh, they had a hard time I'm tellin' you. My mother pulled greens out of the garden and field, and cured it up for the mattress.

"For rations, we'd eat onions and vegetables. We et what was raised. You know they didn't have nothin' then 'cept what they raised. All the cookin' was done at one house, but there was two cooks, one for the colored folks and one for the white folks. My grandma cooked for the white people. They cooked in those big old washpots for the colored people. We all thought we had a pretty good master.

"We didn't know nothin' about a master.

"I ain't positive what time the hands ate breakfast. I know they et it and I know they et at the same time and place. I think they et after sunrise. They didn't have to eat before sunrise.

"When they fed the children, they cook the food and put it in a great big old tray concern and called up the children, 'Piggee-e-e-e-e, piggee-e-e-e-e.' My cousin was the one had to go out and call the children; and you could see them runnin' up from every which way, little shirt tails flyin' and hair sticking out. Then they would pour the food out in different vessels till the children could git around them with those muscle-shell spoons. Many of them as could get 'round a vessel would eat out of it and when they finished that one, they'd go to another one, and then to another one till they all got fed.

"My master worked seventy hands they said. He had two colored overseers and one white one. He didn't allow them overseers to whip and slash them niggers. They had to whip them right. Didn't allow no pateroles to bother them neither. That's a lot of help too. 'Cause them pateroles would eat you up. It was awful. Niggers used to run away to keep from bein' beat up.

"I knowed one gal that ran away in the winter time and she went up into the hollow of a tree for protection. When she came in, she was in sich a bad condition they had to cut off both her legs. They had froze out there. They taken care of her. They wanted her to work. She was jus' as nice a seamstress as you ever saw. And she could do lots of things. She could get about some. She could go on her knees. She had some pads for them and was just about as high as your waist when she was goin' along on her hands and knees, swinging her body between her arms.

Ate in the Big House

"The cooks and my mother stayed in the white folks' yard. They weren't in the quarters. My mother was seamstress and she was right in the house all the day long sewing. The children like me and my sister, they used us 'round the house and yard for whatever we could do. They didn't never whip none of my father's children. If we done something they thought we ought to been whipped for, they would tell father to whip us, and if he wanted to, he would; and if he didn't want to, he wouldn't. They made a big difference for some reason.

Marriage

"They married in that time by standing up and letting someone read the ceremony to them. My master was a Christian. There wasn't no jumpin' over a broomstick on my master's place. The white folks didn't have no nigger preacher for their churches. But the colored folks had 'em. They preached out of these little old Blue Back Spellers—leastways they was little blue back books anyhow.

Freedom

"My folks was on the road refugeeing from Magnolia, Arkansas to Pittsburg, Texas when the news came that the colored folks was free. And my master came 'round and told the niggers they was free as he was. I didn't hear him. I don't know where I was. I'm sure I was out playin somewheres.

Slave Wages and Experiences after the War

"My father worked in a blacksmith shop right after the War. Before the War, he went far and near to work for the white folks. They'd risk him with their money and everything. They would give him part of it; I don't know how much. He brought money to them, and they sure give him money.

"We didn't have to wear the things the other slave children had to wear. He would order things for his family and my father would do the same for us. When old master made his order, my father would put his in with it.

Family

"I am the mother of fifteen children—ten girls and five boys. That was enough for me. I am willing to quit off. My husband is dead. He's been dead for thirty-five years.

Opinions

"I don't know what to say about these young people. Mine are pretty good. So, I'm 'fraid to say much about the others.

"Lord, I don't know what we'll do if we don't get some rain.

Vocational Experiences

When I was able I washed and ironed. I didn't have to do nothin' till after my father and husband died. Then I washed and ironed and cooked till the white folks set me out. They said I was too old. That is one thing I hates to think of. They had the privilege to say I couldn't work; they ought to a seen that I got somethin' to live on when I wasn't able to work no more."

Interviewer's Comment

You can't get the whole story by reading the words in this interview. You have to hear the tones and the accents, and see the facial expressions and bodily movements, and sense the sometimes almost occult influence; you have to feel the utter lack of resentment that lies behind the words that sound vehement when read. You marvel at the quick, smooth cover-up when something is to be withheld, at the unexpected vigor of the mind when the bait is attractive enough to draw it out, and at the sweetness of the disposition. Some old people merely get mellowed and sweetened by the hardships through which they have passed. Sometimes, you wonder if some of the old folk don't have dispositions that they can turn off or on at will.

It is not hard to realize the reason why Amanda was treated better than other children when you remember that she called her grandpa "Master".



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: "Cat" Ross Brassfield, Ark. Age: Born 1862

"I was born in Releford County on old Major Ross place. I was born durin' a battle between the North and South at Murfreesboro. The house was on the battle ground. Mama had five children. Her name was Susanna Wade. Papa's name was Amos Ross. He belong to Major Bill Ross. Major Ross had ten houses houses—one at the edge of the thicket, two on Stone river, and they was scattered around over his land. Major Ross never went to war. Papa went with Major Billy to bury his gold. It stayed where they put it till after the war they went and dug it up. I seen that. When they brought it to the house, it was a pot—iron pot—full of gold. I didn't know where they had it buried nor how they fixed it.

"My folks was all field hands. They muster been blessed cause they didn't get mixed up with the other nations. Grandfather's mother—Grandma Venus—come from Africa. She'd been in bondage about a hundred years. I recollect her well. My folks all lived to be old people, over a hundred years old. They was all pretty well, all Africans.

"I have seen the Ku Klux quarter mile long and two breasted on horses. They scared me so bad I never had no experiences with them. They run my uncle in. He was a big dancer. One time they made him dance. He cut the pigeon-wing for them. That was the name of what he danced.

"I never was sold. I was give way. One of the Wades married into the Mitchell family. Mama belong to the Wades. They give me and Mama and Aunt Sallie—she wasn't my aunt but I called her that—to Wade's daughter. She was the young mistress. The Wades wasn't so good to their slaves. When freedom was declared, Papa come and got me and Mama and took us on over to his place agin. We started sharecroppin' at Major Ross's place. In 1881 Chick McGregor paid my way. I come to Arkansas. I farmed all my life till 1922 to 1933 I been here in Brassfield sawmilling. They took the mill away from here. I cain't plough, I'm not able. I pick and hoe cotton. I work day labor. I never have got on the Welfare."



Southfield FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of Interviewer: Pernella Anderson Subject: Centennial Snow—Spring in St. Louis addition

Name: Mattie Ross Occupation: Gardening Residence: South Field, Oil Field. Age: 74 [TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]

Ah wuz born aftuh surrender. Ah guess ah'm about 74 years ole. Mah pa wuz er slave an mah ma wuz too. Dey moster wuz name Green Traylor an dey lived right down dar at Tula Creek. Mah mistess wuz named Martha Traylor an dey name me aftuh huh. Mah name is Martha Lee Traylor. Aftuh she mahried huh name wiz Martha Tatum. We worked down dar. Oh! Mah Lawd! How we did work—all ovah dat bottom. De puttiest fiel' ah evah did see. De Traylor's owned hit den. Later on de Tatums bought hit fum dem and years aftuh dat de Nash's bought hit fum de Tatums. But new all uv dat place is growed up. Nothing but er pine thicket and er black berry thicket. Ye caint hardly walk through de place. Later on de Cobbs owned us. George Cobb wuz his name. He lived down in de Caledonia settlement. Ah went behin' him er many er day wid de hoe or he'd crack mah haid. He use tuh be de sheriff here de years uv de boom an his nephew is de sheriff now—Grady Wosley. Later en while ah wuz a gull ah werked fuh de Swilleys an wuz partly raised on dey plantation. De ole man wuz name Lawson Swilley. His wife, Margaret Swilley, and I clare dem two people treated me white. She mammied me er many er day. Ah wuz bred and born right down dar er-round Caledonia. Ah wuz a big gull durin de time uv de centennial snow. Dis snow wuz called dat cause hit wuz de bigges snow dat evah been. Hit wuz ovah yo haid. We had tuh spade our way evah whah we went. Tuh de wood gitting place, tuh de sping, tuh de hoss lot, and evah whah. De anow wuz warm an soft. We piled up so much snow till hit took hit er half er year tuh melt. Dat snow stayed on de groun two months.

Ah am de muthah uv five gulls and fo' boys. Didn nairy one uv mah gulls come in de pen till dey wuz mahried. Ah use tuh fish in er big ole fish pond rat down whah de wesson depot is now. Years ergo people come fum Camden an othuh places tuh fish in dat fish pond.

Mr. Sam Austin sole old man Burgy (Burgiss?) er piece uv groun' to bury folks in and he wuz de first man tuh die an be buried dar. So dey name hit de Burgy Cemetery.

Down dar in Memphis Addition atah the colored Prof. Dykes place dar use tuh be one uv de bes' springs. Course at dat time hit wuz er big ole fiel' den and de watuch wuz jes lak ice watuh.

Dat make me think. Mah pa sed he went tuh de wah tuh cook fuh his ole moster, Green Traylor. Well pa said dar wuz er spring whar dey got watuh. Said he went tuh git watuh outen de sping and had tuh pull dead men outn de spring an dat day drinked of'n dem dead men all while de wah wuz going on.



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Laura Rowland (Bright Mulatto) Age: 65? Address: Brinkley, Arkansas

"My parents name was Mary Ann and Sam Billingslea. Mother's father lived with us when I first remember. His name was Robert Todd. He was a brown skin Negro. They said he was a West Indian. He talked of olden times but I don't remember well enough to tell you. Father owned a home that we was living on when I first remember. Mother was bright color, too. Vaden, Mississippi was our trading post. Mother had twenty children. She was a worker. She would work anywhere she was put. My folks never talked much about slavery. I don't know how they got our place.

"I know they was bothered by the Ku Klux. One night they heard or saw the Ku Klux coming. The log house set low on the ground but was dug out to keep potatoes and things in—a cellar like. The planks was wide, bout a foot wide, rough pine, not nailed down. They lifted the planks up and all lay down and put the planks back up. The house look like outside nothing could go under it, it was setting on the hard ground. When they got there and opened the doors they saw nobody at home and rode off.

"Another time, one black night, a man—he must have been a soldier—strided a block step with his horse and ordered supper. She told him she didn't have nothing cooked and very little to cook. He cursed and ordered the supper. Told her to get it. She pretended to be fixing it and slipped out the back door down the furrows and squatted in the briers in a fence corner. Long time after she had been out there hid, he come along, jumped the fence on his horse, jumped over her back, down into the lane and to the road he went. If the horse hadn't jumped over her and had struck her he would have killed her. Now I think he was a soldier, not the Ku Klux. I heard my father say he was a yard boy.

"I married in Mississippi and came to Malvern and Hot Springs. He was a mill hand. I raised three children of my own and was a chamber maid. I kept house and cooked for Mrs. Bera McCafity, a rich woman in Hot Springs. My husband died and was buried at Malvern. I married again, in Hot Springs, and lived there several years. We went to the steel mill at Gary, Indiana. He died. I come back here and to Brinkley in 1920. One daughter lives in Detroit and one in Chicago. The youngest one is married, has a family and a hard time; the other makes her living. It takes it all to do her. I get $8.00 on the P.W.A.

"They all accuse me around here of talking mighty proper. I been around fine city folks so much I notice how they speak.

"I don't fool with voting. I don't care to vote unless it would be some town question to settle. I would know something about it and the people.

"I don't know my age. I was grown when I married nearly sixty years ago. We have to show our license to get on the W.P.A. or our age in the Bible you understand."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Landy Rucker 2315 W. Fourth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 83

"I was born in 1854 in the State of Georgia, Elbert County.

"I member some about the war. I went to the field when I was twelve. Pulled fodder, picked peas and tended to the cow pen. I had to go then. We had a good master. Our mistress wasn't good though. She wouldn't give us enough to eat. Old master used to ask if we had enough to eat and he'd pull out great big hams and cut em all to pieces and give em to us. Old mistress would cry and say, 'You're givin' away all my good dinner.' But she repented since the war. She said she didn't do right.

"We got here to Pine Bluff in '61.

"Oh yes, I remember comin' here on the train and on the boat.

"Old mistress whipped us when she thought we needed it. I been pretty good all my life.

"My father was a blacksmith and one day when I was six or seven I was takin' his dinner when some dogs smelled the dinner and smelled me too and they got after me. I had to climb a tree and they stayed around till they heard some other dogs barkin' and ran off. I come down then and took my bucket and left. Nother time some hogs chased me. They rooted all around the tree till they heard somethin' crackle in the woods and run off and then I'd come down.

"After the war I went to school three days and the teacher whipped me. I went home and I didn't go back. I went home and went to the field. I had a mother and a sister and I tried to make a living for them.

"I went to school a little while after that and then went to the field. Most I know I learned by myself.

"Yes'm, I seen the Yankees bout a year fore the war ceasted. They come to get somethin' to eat and anything else they could get. Got the mules and things and took my two brothers and put em in the war. One come back after surrender and the other one died in the war. They said they was fightin' to free the niggers from being under bondage.

"I seen the Ku Klux. Looked like their horses could fly. Made em jump a big high fence. They come and took my father and all the other men on the place and was goin' to put em in the Confederate army. But papa was old and he cried and old mistress thought a lot of him so they let him stay. I just lay down and hollered cause they was takin' my brothers, but they didn't keep em long. One of my brothers, six years older than me, come up here to Pine Bluff to jine the Yankees.

"We could hear the guns at Marks Mill.

"I been married twice. There was about eleven years betwixt the two marriages.

"I worked on the farm till about '85. Then I worked in the planing mill. I got hit by a car and it broke my hip so I have to walk on crutches now. Then I got me a little shoe shop and I got along fine till I got so I couldn't set down long enough to fix a pair of shoes. I bought this house and I gets help from the Relief so I'm gettin' along all right now."



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Martha Ruffin 1310 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was born in North Carolina, and I was seven years old when the Surrender was. Every one of my children can tell you when they was born, but I can't. My mother, Quinettie Farmer was her name. Brother Robert Farmer is my cousin. He is about the same age as my husband. He got married one week and me and my husband the next. My father's name was Valentine Farmer. My grandmother on my mother's side was Mandy Harrison, and my grandfather's name on my mother's side was Jordan Harrison. My grandpa on my father's side was named Reuben Farmer, and his wife was Nancy Farmer. I have seed my grandpa and grandma on my father's side. But my mother didn't see them on my mother's side.

"I 'members my daddy's white folks' names, Moses Farmer. My father never was sold. My daddy, Valentine Farmer, was a ditcher, shoemaker, and sometimes a tanner. My mother was a house girl. She washed and ironed. I couldn't tell exactly what my grandparents did. My grandparents, so my parents told me, were mostly farmers. I reckon Moses Farmer owned about three hundred slaves.

"I was born on Robert Bynum's place. He was my mother's owner. He married one of the Harrison girls and my mother fell to that girl. My mother done just about as she pleased. She didn't know nothin' about workin' in the field till after the Surrender.

"The way my mother and father happened to meet—my old master hired my daddy to do some work for him and he met my mama that way.

"The way my folks learned they was free was, a white school-teacher who was teaching school where we stayed told my mother she was free, but not to say nothing about it. About three weeks later, the Yankees come through there and told them they was free and told my old boss that if he wanted them to work he would have to hire them and pay them. The school-teacher stayed with mother's folks—mother's white folks. The school-teacher was teaching white folks, not niggers. She was a Yankee, too. My mother was the house girl, and the school-teacher stayed with her folks. The War was so hot she couldn't git no chance to go back home.

"My daddy farmed after the War. He farmed on shares the first year. The next year, he bought him a horse. He finally owned his own farm. He owned it when he died. He had about one hundred acres of land.

"I have pretty fair health for an old woman like I am. I am bothered with the rheumatism. The Lawd wouldn't let both of us git down at the same time. (Here she refers to her husband who was sick in bed at the time she made the statement. You have his story already. It was difficult for her to tell her story, for he wanted it to be like his—ed.)

"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church. I haven't changed my membership from my home.

"I got married in 1882, in February. How many years is that? I got so I can't count up nothin'. Fifty-six years. Yes, that's it; that's how long I been married. I had a little sister that got married with me. She didn't really git married; she just stood up with me. She was just a little baby girl. They told me I was pretty near twenty-three years old when I married. I have a daughter that's been married twenty-five years. We had older daughters, but that one was the first one married. I have got a daughter over in North Little Rock that is about fifty years old. Her husband is dead. We had ten children. My daughter is the mother of ten children too. She got married younger than I did. This girl I am living with is my baby. I have four children living—three girls and one boy. A woman asked me how many children I had and I told her three. She was a fortuneteller and she wanted to tell me my fortune. But I didn't want her to tell me nothin'. God was gittin' ready to tell me somethin' I didn't want to hear. I've got five great-grandchildren. We don't have no great-great-grandchildren. Don't want none."

Interviewer's Comment

The old lady's style was kind of cramped by the presence of her husband. Every once in a while, when she would be about to paint something in lurid colors, he would drop in a word and she would roll her phrases around in her mouth, so to speak, and shift and go ahead in a different direction and on another gear.

Very pleasant couple though—with none of the bitterness that old age brings sometimes. The daughter's name is Searles.



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person Interviewed: Thomas Ruffin 1310 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 82 or 84

"I was born in North Carolina, Franklin County, near Raleigh. My father's name really I don't know. Folks said my master was my daddy. That's what they told me. Of course, I don't know myself. But then white folks did anything they wanted to in slavery times.

"My mother's name was Morina Ruffin. I don't know the names of my grandparents. That is too far back in slavery for me. Of course, old man Ruffin my father's father, which would have been my grandfather, he died way back yonder in slave times before the war. My father gotten kilt in the war. His name was Tom Ruffin. I was named after him. He died trying to hold us. That man owned three hundred slaves. He never married. Carried my mother round everywhere he went. Out of all his niggers, he didn't have but one with him. That was in slavery time and he was a fool about her.

"I couldn't tell you exactly when I was born. Up until the surrender I couldn't tell how old I was. I am somewheres around eighty-two years old. The old lady is just about the same. We guesses it in part. We figure it on what we heard the old folks say and things like that. I remember plenty of things about slavery that I saw.

"I never did much when I was a boy. The biggest thing I remember is a mule got to kicking and jumped around in a stall. She lost her footing and fell down and broke her neck right there in the stall. I remember her name as well as if it was yesterday. Her name was Bird. That was just before the war. I know I must have been at least four years old then. You can figure that up and see what it comes to.

"I never did any work when I was a child. I jus went to the spring with the young Mistress and danced for them sometimes. But they never did give me any work to do,—like they did the others. I lived right in the biggest house the biggest portion of my time.

"That day and time, they made compost heaps. Mixed dirt with manure. They hoed cotton and crops. They didn't know what school was. They helped with washing and ironing. Did every kind of work they had strength enough to do till they got big enough to go to the field. That was what the children did.

"When they were about seven years old, to the best of my recollection they would go to the field. Seven or eight. They would pick up corn stalks and brush. And from that on when they were about eight or nine, they would pick cotton.

"My mother never did have to do anything round the farm. She lived about seventy-five miles from it, there where the master had his office. He was a lawyer. After I was born, she didn't come out to see me but once a year that I recollect. When she did come, she would bring me some candy or cakes or something like that.

"I didn't see the soldiers during the time of the war. But I saw plenty of them afterwards—riding round and telling the niggers they were free. They had some of the finest saddles I ever seed. You could hear them creaking a block off. No, I didn't see them while they was fighting. We were close enough to hear the guns crash, and we could see the light from them, but I didn't actually see the fightin. The Yankees come through on every plantation where they were working and entered into every house and told us we was free. The Yankees did it. They told you you were free as they were, that you didn't have to stay where you was, that you didn't have no more master, that you could go and come as you pleased.

"I got along hard after I was freed. It is a hard matter to tell you what we could find or get. We used to dig up dirt in the smokehouse and boil it and dry it and sift it to get the salt to season our food with. We used to go out and get old bones that had been throwed away and crack them open and get the marrow and use them to season the greens with. Jus plenty of niggers then didn't have anything but that to eat.

"Even in slavery times, there was plenty of niggers out of them three hundred slaves who had to break up old lard gourds and use them for meat. They had to pick up bones off the dung hill and crack them open to cook with. And then, of course, they'd steal. Had to steal. That the bes way to git what they wanted.

"They had a great big kitchen for the slaves. They had what you call pot racks they could push them big pots in and out on. They cooked hog slop there. They had trays and bowls to eat out of that were made out of gum wood. It was a long house used as a kitchen for the hands to go in and eat. They et dinner there and for supper they would be there. But breakfast, they would have to eat in the field. The young niggers would bring it out to them. They would bring it about an hour after the sun rose and the slave hands would eat it right out in the field; that was the breakfast. You see the hands went to the field before sunup, and they didn't get to eat breakfast in the kitchen and it had to be et in the field. Little undergrowth of children—they had plenty of them on the place—had to carry their meals to them.

"They would usually give them collars [HW: collards] in green times, potatoes in potato time. Bread,—they didn't know what that was. White folks hardly knew theirselves. They didn't have butter and they didn't have no sugar. Didn't know much about what meat was yet. They would give the little bits of children pot liquor. That's the most I ever seed them git. Of course I was treated differently. You couldn't judge them by me. I was the only half-white youngun round there, and they said I was half-brother to ol Marse's chillun. And the white chillen would git me up to the house to dance for them and all like, and they would give me biscuits or anything good they had. I never seed the others eatin nothin but pot liquor.

"Most of the slaves lived in log cabins. You know they never had but one door. In general where they had large families, they would have two rooms with a chimney in the middle of the house. The chimney was built out of mud and straw. I can remember them sawin the timber. Two pulled a big ol crosscut saw. Didn't have no saw mills then. This world has come from a long ways. They used to didn't have no plows. It was without form. You made it at home.

"They had ol homemade bedsteads to sleep in. They had a little rope that ran back and forth instead of slats. That was called a corded bed. Cheers were all made at home and were split bottoms.

"They didn't many of the slaves have food in their homes. But when they did, they would jus have a little wooden box and they would put their food in it.

"It seems like the white people got to burying their money during the time of the war. That never come out till after the war. Then they got to wantin that money and started looking for it. There never was any talk of buried treasure before the war.

"My folks didn't give me any schoolin before the surrender. I never got any before the surrender and a mighty little afterwards. No nigger knowed anything. I started to farming when I was thirteen years old. I used to be a fertilizer, and then a cotton sower. That was the biggest I knowed about farming when I was a boy. My mother lived about fifteen years after slavery. I reckon.

"In the time of slavery, you couldn't marry a woman. You just took up with her. Mother married the same man she had been going with after freedom. She had four children after the surrender as fer as I can tell—three girls and two boys.

"I moved from North Carolina to Louisiana. Stayed there one year and then moved here. Bought forty acres of land. Bought it after I'd been here a year. It took me four years to pay for that. Then next time I bought eighty acres and paid for them. Paid them out in two years. Then I bought eighty acres more and paid for them in two years. Couldn't pay for them cash at first, but could have paid for the last eighty when I bought them if I had a wanted to. Then I bought eighty more and then I bought eighty again and then forty and on till I had five hundred and three acres of farm land. I got the three over when I got the sorghum mill.

"I left my farm and come to the city for doctor's treatment. My old lady and I worked out five hundred and three acres of land. I got five children living. I gave each one of them forty acres of land. Most of the rest I sold. I got a fellow here that owes me for one of the places now. He lives over on Third and Dennison. His name is Wright. My old lady an me held on to that and didn't lose it even in all these hard years.

"My daughter kept after me to come here and she built this little house out here where I could holler or do anything I wanted to do and not disturb nobody. I couldn't feel at home up in a big house with other people. Four or five months ago it would take two people to put me to bed. I would get off from home and have to carry me back. But I am gettin along fine now. This high blood pressure keeps me from remembering so well. Ol lady where's my pipe? You didn't find it up to daughter's? Ain't it in the kitchen? Can't you find it nowheres? What didju do with it? Well, you needn't look for it no longer. It's here in my pocket. That's my high blood pressure workin. That whut it does to you.

"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church and have been belonging to it altogether about sixty-three years. I used to be a Missionary. I been a member of the church a long time.

"I think times are jus fulfilling the Bible. The people are wiser now than we ever known them to be and wickeder. I don't believe the times you see now will be always. People are getting so wise and so wicked that I think the end is near at hand. You notice the Germans now are trying to make slaves out of the Jews. There's the Japans that is jus slaughtering up the Chinese like they was nothin but dumb brutes. The world is wickeder than it ever has been before.

"The young people today! I'd hate to tell you what I do think of them. The business is going to fall."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Casper Rumple, De Valls Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I will be, providin' the good Lord spare me, 79 years old the first day of January. I was born in Lawrence County, South Carolina. The Big road was the dividing line between that and Edgefield County. My mother belonged to John Griffin. His wife named Rebecca. My father was a Irishman. Course he was a white man—Irishman. Show I did know him. He didn't own no slaves. I don't guess he have any land. He was a overseer in Edgefield County. His name was Ephraim Rumple. What become of him? He went off to fight the Yankees and took Malaria fever and died on Red River. I could show you bout where he died.

"My mother had a big family. I can't tell you much bout them. I was the youngest. She cooked up at John Griffins. He was a old man and the land was all his wife's. She was old too. She had some grown girls. He had no children. They called him Pa and I did too. I stayed round with him nearly all the time helping him.

"He had a room and she had a room. I slept on a bed—little bed—home-made bed—in the room wid him and she slept in the room with her two girls and my mother slept in the kitchen a whole heap so she be there to get breakfast early. They riz early every mornin'. John Griffins wife owned four plantations more than 160 acres in each one, but I couldn't say how much.

"My mother was a field hand in busy times too. Miss Rebecca had all the slaves clothes made. She seed to that. She go to the city, Augusta, and bring back bolts cloth. One slave sewed for Miss Rebecca and her family. She didn't do all the sewing but she sewed all the time. One woman done all the weavin'. At night after they work in the field Miss Rebecca give em tasks—so many bats to card or so much spinnin' to do.

"Master John didn't want em to work at night but she made em work all the same. They b'long to her. Another thing the women had to do was work in the garden. It was a three acre garden. They always had plenty in thar. Had it palinged so the young chickens couldn't squeeze through the cracks.

"They had plenty stock and made all the fertilizer needed in the garden and patches. They had goober patch, popcorn patch, sorghum patches, several of em, pea patches but they was field cabbage patch and watermellon patch. They had chicken house, goose house, duck house and way off a turkey pen. It had a cover on it. They had to be cleaned and all that manure moved to the garden and patches. Old man John Griffin was a good man. Things went on pretty quiet bout the place. They had to do their own cooking. They got for the grown ups 3 pounds meat, 1 pk.[TR:?] meal a week. They fed the young chaps plenty so they wouldn't get stunted. They keep em chunky till they get old nough to grow up tall and that make big women and big men. They stunt em then when they start runnin' up, it cause em to be low. The owners was mighty careful (not)[HW: ?] to feed the chaps nough to eat so they make strong hands.

"Men come long the road peddlin' from out the cities, men come long with droves of horses and mules. They was called horse traders. Then once in a while they come long tradin' and selling slaves. Nother way they sell em was at public auction. Iffen a slave steal from another master, like go in his smoke house or crib and steal, the sheriff have to whip him. They would have public whippin'.

"How'd they know was freedom? How'd they not know it was freedom? Everybody went wild. They was jes' crazy cause they was free. Way I knowd for certain it was freedom Mr. John Griffin had all the slaves that hadn't done went off come to the house and he told them they was all free. Some of em just started walking the roads till they nearly starved. The government didn't start feeding the slaves till so many nearly starved. My mother cooked on nearly a year. Then she went to work for Vaughn in Edgefield County.

"They didn't give them no land. The white folks was land pore.

"They didn't have no money. When the masters had money they give the slaves a little spending money. Nearly all the slaves had a little money long. They get a pass to split rails for a neighbor and make money. That was befo freedom. After freedom nobody had money but the Yankee soldiers. They keep it closer than the folks you been livin' with.

"Mr. Griffin, he was called General by all the young men. He was too old to fight so he trained soldiers. He didn't wear a uniform but they did. They met certain days every week. They wore gray uniforms.

"They had a battle at Lawrence. It was 17 miles. The soldiers passed long the Big road. I didn't see the battles. I heard plenty talk about that conflict at Lawrence though.

"I heard the slaves was goin' to get 40 acres and a mule. I tell you they didn't wait to see if they was going to get another meal. They went wild, walking and hooping up and down the road. They found out when they nearly starved they had got the bad end of the game somehow. Then to keep em from starvin' they had certain days to go to Lawrence and get a little rations. Not much I tell you. They started stealin' and the Ku Klux started up bout that.

"The President got killed (Abraham Lincoln). Then they knowed the gig was up. They had to go to work hard as ever and mighty little to eat. The slaves did vote. It was the color of the paper they used way they knowed how to vote. The Republican government had full sway 12 years. All the offices at Edgefield nearly was Negroes cept the sheriff. The Yankees tell em what to do way they knowed how. Butler went to Congress. He was a Negro—(???). That was what the Ku Klux was mad bout. They run the Yankees out and took holt of the offices soon as they could.

"Our master had no Ku Klux comin' on our place. He protected us, It wasn't no different than slavery till I was nearly grown and a drove was walking going west to better place. I got in with them and come on. The Ku Klux had killed several Negroes. That scared them all up. I remember Tuscaloosa, Alabama when we cone through there. We was walking—a line a mile long—marching and singing. They was building back in a hurry seemed like to me. The town had been burned up. Some dropped out to get work along. Some fell out sick. Some so weak they died long the road. Had to keep up. Some stopped; they never caught up no more. Mostly old folks or half starved folks couldn't keep going. The Ku Klux whoop and shoot you down for any little thing. They started at night, fraid of the Yankees but they whooped and run them out and the Negroes left. The Ku Klux got so bold they didn't dress up nor go at night neither. At first they was careful then they got bold. The Yankee soldiers bout all they was afraid of. The Negroes found out who some of the Ku Klux was and told the Yankees but it didn't do much good. After bout twelve years all the Yankees gone back home. The white folks down in Carolina thought bout as little of them as Negroes. They wouldn't let them have no land if they did have money to pay any price for it. They didn't want them living amongst them. They say they rether have a Negro family.

"The biggest Negro uprisin' I ever seed was at freedom. They riz up in a hurry.

"I had to stop and work all along. I got to Arkansas in 1881. I never went no further. I been all my life farmin'. I cut and sell wood, clear land. The best living was when I farmed and sold wood. I bought a 10 acre farm and cleared it up graduly, then I sold it fer $180.00 cause I got blind and couldn't see to farm it. I had a house on it. I own this here house (a splendid home). My daughter and her husband come to take care me. They come from Cincinatti here. She made $15.00 a week up there three years. I get $8.00 a month now from the Social Welfare. If I could see I could make money.

"I never seen times like this. Sin is causin' it. Unrest and selfishness. No neighborly spirit. I don't bother no young folks. I don't know how they will come out. If they caint get a big price they won't work and the white folks are doing their own work, and don't help like they did. I could get along if I could see. I had a light stroke keeps me from talkin' good, I hear that."



Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Henry Russell, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 72

"My father's name was Ed Russell, and he was owned by Dr. Tom Russell, de first pioneer settler of Russellville—de' man de town got its name from.

"My name is Henry, and some folks call me 'Bud.' I was born at Old Dwight de 28th of October, 1866. Yes suh, dat date is correct.

"I was too young to remember much about happenings soon after de War, but I kin ricollect my father belongin' to de militia for awhile during de Reconstruction days. Both Negroes and whites were members of de militia.

"My folks come here from Alabama, but I don't know much about them except dat my grandmother, Charlotte Edwards, give me an old wash pot dat has been in de family over one hundred years. Yes suh, it's out here in de ya'd now. Also, I owns an old ax handle dat I keep down at de store jist for a relic of old days. It's about a hundred years old, too.

"My wife was Sallie Johnson of Little Rock, and she was a sister of Mrs. Charley Mays, de barber you used to know, who was here sich a long time.

"For a long time I worked at different kinds of odd jobs, sometimes in de coal mines and sometimes on de farms, but for several years I've run a little store for de colored folks here in Russellville. Ain't able to do very much now.

"I remember very well de first train dat was ever run into Russellville. Must have been 68 or 69 years ago. A big crowd of people was here from all over de country. Of course dere was only a few families living in de town, and only one or two families of colored folks. People come in from everywhere, and it was a great sign. Little old train was no bigger dan de Dardanelle & Russellville train. (You remember de little old train dey used to call de 'Dinkey' don't you?) Well, it wasn't no bigger dan de Dinkey, and it didn't run into de depot at all, stopped down where de dump is now. Sure was a sight. Lot of de folks was afraid and wouldn't go near it, started to run when two men got off. I saw only two man working in front of it, but I remember it very plain. Dey was working with wheelbarrows and shovels to clear up de track ahead.

"Another thing I remember as a boy was de 'sassination of President Gyarfield. I can't read or write but very little, but I remember about dat. It was a dull, foggy mornin', and I was crossin' de bayou with Big Bob Smith. (You remember 'Big Bob' dat used to have the merry-go-'round and made all de county fairs.) Well, he told me all about de killing of de President. It was about 1881 wasn't it?

"I think times was better in de old days because people was better. Had a heap more honor in de old days dan dey have now. Not many young folks today have much character.

"All right. Come back again. Whenever I kin help you out any way, I'll be glad to."



NOTE: Henry Russell is quite proud of the fact that his ancestors were the first families of Russellville. He is a polite mulatto, uneducated, and just enough brogue to lend the Southern flavor to his speech, but is a fluent conversationalist.



Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller Person interviewed: Katie Rye, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 82

"We lived in Greenbrier, Faulkner County, Arkansas. All stayed at home and got along very well. We had enough to eat and wear. Mistress was awful mean to us but we stayed with them until after the war. After the war master moved us off to another place he had and my father farmed for his self, master and his pa and ma, and mistress' pa and ma. They awful good to us, but mistress was so high tempered she would get mad and whip some of the slaves but she never whipped any of us. She worried so over the loss of her slaves after the war she went crazy. We had two white grand pas and grand mas. We colored children called them grandpa and ma and uncle and aunt like the white children did and we didn't know the difference. The slaves was only allowed biscuit on Christmas and sometimes on Sundays but we had beef and plenty of honey and everything after we moved from the big house. Mistress used to come down to see us an' my mother would cook dinner for her and master. He was such a good man and the best doctor in the State. He would come in and take the babies up (mother had nine children) and get them to sleep for my mother. His mother would come to the kitchen and ask for a good cup of coffee and mother would make it for her. The master and his family were Northern people and my mother was given to the mistress by her father and mother when she married.

"After my father bought his own farm about ten miles from the big house, father would put us all in an ox wagon and take us back to see our white folks.

"The mistress claimed to be a Christian and church member but I don't see how she could have been she was so mean.

"I think the present day generation mighty wicked. Seems like they get worse instead of better, even the members of the church are not as good as they used to be. They don't raise the children like they used to. They used to go to Sunday School and church and take the children, now the children do as they please, roam the streets. It is sad to see how the parents are raising the children, just feed them and let them go. The children rule the parents now.

"We sang the old hymns and 'Dixie', 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia', 'When You and I Were Young, Maggie'."



Circumstances of Interview STATE—Arkansas NAME OF WORKER—Miss Hazel Horn ADDRESS—Little Rock, Arkansas DATE—Last of April, 1936 SUBJECT—Ex-slave [TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1. Name and address of informant—Uncle Bob Samuels, Washington, Arkansas

2. Date and time of interview—Last of April, 1936

3. Place of interview—Washington, Arkansas

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—J.C.W. Smith.

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—J.C.W. Smith

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.

Personal History of Informant

1. Ancestry—Grandmother, Spanish; Grandfather, Negro; father, Negro.

2. Place and date of birth—Born about 1846

3. Family—

4. Places lived in, with dates—

5. Education, with dates—

6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—

7. Special skills and interests—

8. Community and religious activities—

9. Description of informant—Tall and straight. He is blind. Clean in appearance, dressed in slightly faded overalls. He has short, clean, grey beard. Speaks with a clear accent.

10. Other points gained in interview—Ancestors were in De Soto expeditions.

Text of Interview (Unedited)

"From my mother's mother I learned that on my mother's side my ancestor came with De Soto from Spain where she was educated at Madrid. From Spain she came to Havana, Cuba, and from there to Tampa, Florida. From Florida she came to some point in Alabama. From this place she came to the Mississippi river and the East Bank and crossed where it is called Gaines Landing. After they crossed the river they went ten kilometers from there, traveled north from there to where Arkansas County is close to the mouth of the Arkansas River. Here they camped awhile. When they broke camp there they traveled northeast to Boiling Springs. Making their way from here they crossed the Ouachita River on the other side of Arkadelphia. They traveled on, crossing Little Missouri River below Wallaceburg. Here they found some Indian mounds. Then they traveled on a trail from there to Washington, turned into Washington and took a trail toward Columbus and turned off to the right (Uncle Bob not sure of the name of this trail) and crossed what is known as Beard's Lake. They crossed Little River at Ward's Ferry and crossed the Saline river. Traveling northwest they reached White Oak shoals where Index is now and crossed over into what was Mexico and traveled to a place called Kawaki located where [TR: ?] now is.

"After camping here for a while they came back into Arkansas to some point near Rando, crossed Red River at Dooley's Ferry, went to Coola Fabra(?) and back to Boiling Springs. [Here a gold mine was found and a quarrel ensued, and in a fight De Soto was killed.] They carried his body overland and buried him in the Mississippi River between Grensville[HW:sp.] and Vicksburg. [TR: Moved from end of interview: De Soto was buried at the junction of the Mississippi and [??] Rivers, about 100 miles south of Vicksburg.] The remaining forces of the expedition returned to Spain.

"Sometime in 1816 my mother's mother was born. My mother's mother was Spanish. My mother says she was well educated. Mother and her mother have Spanish mixed with Negro blood. I had a sister named Mary and a brother named John.

"Armarilla, my grandmother came here from Cuba through to Gaines Landing. Her son Edmin and her husband were with her. They crossed the Mississippi River and she said they stopped at the old De Soto camp. A short distance west of this place they met two men—Nick Trammel and John Morrow who profitted (dealt) in Negro slaves. My grandfather and mother employed these men to guide them to Coola Fabre(?) Camden?. From Little River to Dooley's Ferry these men carried them to Waco, Texas. They killed my grandfather and kept my grandmother forcing her to marry either a half-breed Mexican, an Indian or a Negro. It was near Waco in Hickman[HW:sp.] Prairie that mother was born. The boy Edmin was returned to Dooley's Ferry and remained in the vicinity until he was about seventeen years of age. He then lived in the vicinity of Little Rock about six months before returning to Mexico. My grandmother said that Mr. Trammel and Mr. Morrow probably thought he might cause trouble and killed him as she never saw him after he returned from Little Rock. Mother was held in Lafayette County at a point where the river crossed and joined Bowie County (Texas) and where Louisiana bounded the south.

"De Soto traveled by land, not by boat. He had a force of about 550 persons. The women dressed as men. My grandmother was with her husband.

"My mother was a slave. She was held in Bowie County, Hickens[HW:sp.] Prairie, by Bob Trammel. They kept her locked up and I have heard mother say that she used whale bone, card bats and a spinning wheel. Finally they got so hot behind the Trammels in 1847-48, they pulled up stakes and went down on the Guadalupe River and carried my mother's mother down there. Before they left Dave Block went on Trammel's bond and got my mother. He made my mother head housekeeper slave. She had been taught Spanish. She was tall and fair with straight black hair. She was married to Dick Samuels, my father.

"After the war my father was elected [HW: Hempstead] County Clerk in 1872 on the Republican ticket. He could neither read nor write, so was clerk in name only securing one of the white men to attend to the office. By trade he was a blacksmith."

Interviewer's Comment

Uncle Bob Samuels is the son of Richard Samuels and Mary. He was a slave of David Block. After freedom he came to Little Rock with a sister and a brother, John. Uncle Bob said he often heard his mother speak of a gold mine. She had a trunk of maps and charts which her mother had given to her. In this was supposed to be the papers regarding De Soto's legendary gold mine. The trunk had been lost as Uncle Bob has no idea where the gold mine is. He tells the story the same way, never varying a point. He does not claim to remember Indian trails or names.

Uncle Bob is tall and straight. He is blind. Was clean in appearance dressed in slightly faded overalls. He has a short, clean grey beard. He talks with a clear accent, no Negro accent. During Reconstruction days he served as County Clerk of Hempstead County under Carpetbaggar rule. During those days he was a political power to be reckoned with. He was a national as well as a state figure in the "Lily White Republican" organization. [His wife was a Negro, good looking, but showed little trace of much white blood.]



Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins Person Interviewed: Emma Sanderson Home: 617 Wade Street, Hot Springs. Aged: 75

"Emma Sanderson"—"Wade Street". That was all the prospective interviewer could learn. "Emma Sanderson—ex-slave!" "Wade Street"—"Why it's way off that way. You go sort of thatta way, and then thatta way."

A city map disclosed no Wade Street. Maps belonging to a local abstractor helped not a whit. "Insurance maps are in more detail." someone advised, "Wade Street," mused the young woman at the desk, "I've heard of it. We have written a policy for someone there." The head of the department was new to the city, but he was eager to help. After about five minutes search—from wall maps to bound volumes of blocks and back again it appeared that "Wade Street" more frequently known as "Washington Street" meanders wanderingly from Silver Street, in the colored section out to the "Gorge addition" inhabited by low economic level whites.

Down Malvern Avenue (Hot springs' Beale Street) went the interviewer. On she went past the offices of a large Chicago packing house. For better then a block she trudged by dilapidated shops which a few seasons back had housed one of the key transient centers of the U.S.A. Down the street she walked, pausing for a moment to note that coffee colored faces decorated the placards in the beauty shop window—two well groomed mulatto girls sitting inside, evidently operators. Her course took her past sandwich joints and pool halls. Nails, she noted as she drifted along, had been driven into the projection beneath the plate glass window of the brick bank (closed during the depression—a building and bank built, owned and operated by negro capital) to keep loungers away. The colored theater (negroes are admitted only to the balconies of theaters in Hot Springs—one section of the balcony at the legitimate theater) she noticed was now serving as a religious gathering place. The well built and excellently maintained Pythian Bath house (where the hot waters are made available to colored folk) with the Alice Eve Hospital (45 beds, 5 nurses, 2 resident physicians—negro doctors thruout the town cooperating—surgical work a specialty) stood out in quiet dignity. For the rest, buildings were an indiscriminate hodge-podge of homes, apartment houses, shacks, and chain groceries. At the corner where "the street turns white" the interviewer turned east.

The Langston High School (for colored—with a reputation for turning out good cooks, football players and academicians) stands on Silver Street. A few paces from the building the interviewer met a couple of plump colored women laughing and talking loudly.

"I beg your pardon," was her greeting, "can you tell me where Wade Street is?" They could and did. They were so frankly interested in knowing why the white women wanted Emma Sanderson that she told them her mission. They were not taken aback—there was no servility—no resentment they were frankly charmed with the idea. Their directions for finding Mrs. Sanderson became even more explicit.

When the proper turn off was found the question of Wade versus Washington Street was settled. A topsy-turvy sign at the intersection announced that Wade Street was ahead. Emma Sanderson's grandson lived a couple of blocks down the road.

Only the fact that she could hear someone inside moving about kept the interviewer hammering on the door. Finally she was rewarded by a voice. "Is that somebody a' knockin'?" In a moment the door opened. The question, "Were you a slave" no matter how delicately put is a difficult one to ask, but Mrs. Sanderson was helpful, if doubtful that her story would do much good. "I was just so little when it all happened." But the interviewer was invited in and placed in a chair near the fire.

"No ma'am. He ain't my grandson—I's the third grandmother. No son, you ain't three—you's five. Don't you remember what I told you? Yes, he stays with me, ma'am. I take care of him while the rest of 'em works.

"It's hard for me to remember. I was just so little. Yes, ma'am, I was born a slave—but I was so little. Seems to me like I remember a big, big house. We was sort of out in the country—-out from Memphis. I know there was my father and my mother and my uncles and my aunts. I know there was that many. How many more of us old man Doc Walker had—I just don't know. They must have took good care of us tho. My mother was a house nigrah.

"When the war was ready to quit they gave us our pick. We could stay on and work for wages or we could go. The folks decided that the'd go on in to Memphis. My Mother and Father didn't live together none after we went to town. First I lived with Mother and then when she died my Father took me. My mother died when I was 9. She worked at cooking and washing. When I was big enough I went to school. I kept on going to school after my Father took me. He died when I was about 15. By that time I was old enough to look out after myself.

"What did I do? I stayed in folkses houses. I cooked and I washed. Then when I was about 16, I married. After that I had a man to take care of me. He was a carpenter.

"We been here in Hot Springs a long time—you maybe heared of Sanderson—he took up platering and he was good too. How long I been in Hot Springs—law I don't know—'cept I was a full grown women when we come.

"I's had four children—all of 'em is dead. I lives with my grandson. The little fellow, he'll be old enough to go to school in a year or two. A dime for him ma'am—an' 2 cents besides? Now son you keep the dime and you can spend the pennies. I always tries to teach him to save. Then when he gets big he'll know what to do."

Dining room and living room joined one another by means of a high and wide arch. The stove was sensibly set up in this passage. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with products which had in all probability been bought new. The child stood close by thruout the entire conversation. There was no whit of timidity about him, nor was he the least impertinent. He was frankly interested and wanted to know what was being said. He received the dime and the pennies with a pleasant grin and a (grandmother prompted) "Thank you". But the gift didn't startle him. Dimes must have been a fairly usual part of his life. But a few minutes before the interviewer left she dropped her pencil. It was new and long and yellow. The child's eyes clung to it as he returned it. "Would you like to have it." the young woman asked, "would you like a pencil of your very own, to draw with?" Would he! The child's whole face beamed. Dimes were as nothing compared to shiney new pencils. The third grandchild was overjoyed with his new plaything. Ella Sanderson was delighted with her great grandchild's pleasure. The interviewer received a warm and friendly "Good-bye".



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Mary Scott DeValls Bluff or Biscoe Age:

"I said if ever I seed you agin I'd show you dis here scar on my head. See here [a puffed-out, black, rusty, not quite round place, where no hair grew]. Dat dar what my young mistress put on me when I was a chile. Dock Hardy hired me. He was rich and married a pore gal. It went to her head. He was good to me. She was mean. She had him whoop me a time or two for nothin'. They had two little babies, I stayed round wid. I loved em. I churned, brought in all the wood mighty near, brought bout all the water from the spring. Master Dock be coming horseback from Franklin, Tennessee. I knowed bout time I take the babies to meet him. He'd wait at a big stump we could climb on his horse, take the baby in front and us up behind him, and put us off on the back piazza at the house. I wrapped up the churn and quit. She ax me what I quit churnin' for. I say the butter come. She say it ain't had time. I say it ready to take up anyhow. She got so mad she throwed a stick of stove wood, hit me on my head. I run out crying, the blood streamin' down. I started to the spring, come back and got the water bucket. I got me some water and brought back a fresh bucket full. I washed my head in cool water where it was bleedin'. It bled all way back. She say, 'Where you been?' I say I been to the spring, brought some cool water to the babies. I give em some I told her. When I got water I always give them some. She took the bucket, made me go wid her, poured the water out in the path under a shade tree, and made me take 'nother bucketful home. I thought she was so mean; I didn't know what she was doing that about. Got to the house she put me on a clean chemisette. I slipped off down to the feed house, lay down, my head on the cotton seeds, and went to sleep.

"When Master Dock come he woke me up, wanted to know why I didn't meet him. He seen that blood. Went on to the house. He ask her what done my head that way. She say, 'She went to the spring, fell down, spilled the water, and hurt it on a rock.' I told him that wasn't so—not so! I told him all bout it. He told her she ought to be 'shamed treat good little nigger chap mean. He was so sorry for me. She didn't care. They had been goin' to old missis house every week. It was three weeks 'fo she would go. I got to see my mama, 'fo she died.

"Old Mistress Emily was a doctor woman. Dock told her, 'Mama, Scrubbs jumps and screams bout a hour late every evening wid her head.' When it got late it hurt and I screamed and jump up and down. Mistress Emily come got me in her arms, put me to sleep. When I woke up Dock and Kitty gone home with the babies. I cried bout being from the babies; I loved em, never been away from em 'fo. She got three maggots and says, 'Scrubbs, see what I got out your little head.' Mama had died then. She say, 'Your mama would want me to keep you here wid me.' She kept me till it healed up. Them maggots big as a sage broom straw. We swept the floor wid sage straw tied together then. Mistress Emily kept me a month with her and doctored my head every day. I slept on a pallet and on a little bed she had in the room. When I went back to Kitty's she wasn't as mean to me as she been—but mean nough then.

"My mama named Amy Hardy. She had five boys, three girls. She died with a young baby. I reckon they had different papas. I was my papa's only chile. They all said that. Bout a month after I went to Dock and Kitty's, it was surrender. He (the little Negro girl's father) come, stayed all night, and took me wid him to live. Dock wanted me to stay; I love Dock and the children. Every year till a few years ago my head get sore and run. We tried all kinds medicine on it. Don't know what cured it.

"The week 'fo I left there I had a task to make a cut of thread every night, a reel. When I heard papa was coming to git me, I put cotton bats under the reels and kivered em up. Good thing papa got me—Kitty would killed me when she went to spin next week. She been so mean why I done that way.

"They never sold any of our set but some on the place was sold. The mothers grieve and grieve over their children bein' sold. Some white folks let their slaves have preachin', some wouldn't. We had a bush arbor and set on big logs. Children set round on the ground. 'Fo freedom I never went to preachin'. I kept Kitty's babies so she went. Mothers didn't see their children much after they was sold.

"Fo freedom they would turn a wash pot upside-down at the door and have singin' and prayer meetin'. The pot would take up the noise. They done that when they danced too. I don't know how they found out the iron pot would take up the noise. They had plenty of em settin' round in them days. Somebody found it out and passed it on."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mollie Hardy Scott, R.F.D., DeValls Bluff, Arkansas Age: 90

"I was born at Granville, Georgia in Franklin County. I don't know my age cept I was big enough to plow when young master lef and went to war. My mother died bout time the war started. We belonged to Miss Eliza and Master Jim Hardy. He had two boys bout grown, Jim and John. My father belong to the Linzys. I don't know nuthin much bout them nor him neither. When the war was done he come and got me and we went to Barton County, Georgia. When I lef they give me my feather bed, two good coverlets and my clothes. White folks hated fo me to leave. We all cried but I never seen em no more. They said he take me off and let me suffer or die or something. I was all the child my father had but my mother had ten children I knowed of. We all lived on the place. They lived in a little log house and I stayed wid em some an up at white folks house mostly. No I never seed my folks no more. We had plenty to eat. Had meat and garden stuff. We had pot full of lye hominy. It last several days. It was good. I seed em open up a pot full of boiled corn-on-the-cob. Plenty milk and butter. We had wash pot full of collards or turnip salad. Maybe a few turnips on top and a big piece of fresh meat. We had plenty to eat and wear long as I lived wid the white folks. We had goobers, molasses candy to pull and pop corn every now and then. They fill all the pockets, set around the fire an eat at night. Sometimes we bake eggs and sweet potatoes, cracklin hoe cake covered up in the ashes. Bake apples in front of the fire on de hearth. Everybody did work an we sho had plenty to eat an wear.

"I had plenty when I stayed at my father's an we worked together all the time. When he died I married. I've had a hard time not able to work. There ain't no hard time if yous able to get bout. I pieces quilts an sells em now. Sells em if I can. For $150 piece (has no idea of money value). Some women promissed to come git 'em but they ain't come yet. I wanter buy me some shoes. I could do a heap if they send fo me. I can nurse. I kept a woman's children when she teached last year (Negro woman's children).

"I brought four or five when I come to Arkansas of my own. They all dead but my one girl I lives wid.

"Seemed lack so many colored folks coming out West to do better. We thought we come too. We come on immigrate ticket on the train. All the people I worked for was Captain Williams, Dr. Givens. Mr. Richardson right where Mesa is now but they called it 88 then (88 miles from Memphis). Mr. Gates. I farmed, washed and ironed. I nursed some since I'm not able to get about in the field. I never owned nothing. They run us from one year till the next and at the end of the year they say we owe it bout all. If we did have a good crop we never could get ahead. We couldn't get ahead nuff not to have to be furnished the next year. We did work but we never could get ahead. If a darky sass a white land owner he would be whooped bout his account or bout anything else. Yes siree right here in dis here county. Darky have to take what the white folks leave fo em and be glad he's livin.

"I say I ain't never voted. Whut in de world I would want er vote for? Let em vote if they think it do em good.

"I seen a whole gang of Ku Kluxes heap of times when I was little back in Georgia. I seed paddyrollers and then they quit and at night the Ku Kluxes rode by. They would whoop or shoot you either if you didn't tend to yo own business and stay at home at night. They kept black and white doing right I tell you. I sho was afraid of them but they didn't bother us. If you be good whose ever place you lives on would keep 'em from harmin you. They soon got all the bad Yankies ran back North from Georgia. They whip the black men and women too but it was mostly the men they watched and heap of it was for stealing. Folks was hungry. Couldn't help stealin if they seed anything. I seed heap of folks having a mighty hard time after the war in them restruction (Reconstruction) days. I was lucky.

"My daughter would do mo than she do fo me but she is a large woman and had both her legs broke. They hurt her so bad it is hard fo her to do much. She good as she can be to everybody. The Welfare give three of us $10.00 a month (daughter, husband, and Mollie). We mighty glad to get that. We sho is. I am willin to work if I could get work I could do. That's my worst trouble. Like I tell you, I can nurse and wash dishes if I could get the jobs.

"I don't see much of the real young folks. I don't know what they are doing much. If a fellow is able he ought to be able to do good now if he can get out and go hunt up work fo himself. That the way it look like. I don't know."



Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Sam Scott, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 79

"Hello dar, Mistah L——! Don' you dare pass by widout speakin' to dis old niggah friend of yo' chil'hood! No suh! Yuh can't git too big to speak to me!

"Reckon you've seen about all dar is to see in de worl' since I seen you, ain't you? Well, mos' all de old-time niggahs and whites is both gone now. I was born on de twentieth of July, 1879. Count up—dat makes me 79 (born 1859), don't it? My daddy's name was Sam, same as mine, and mammy's was Mollie. Dey was slaves on de plantation of Capt. Scott—yes suh, Capt. John R. Homer Scott—at Dover. My name is Sam, same as my father's, of course. Everybody in de old days knowed Sam Scott. My father died in slavery times, but mother lived several years after.

"No, I never did dance, but I sure could play baseball and make de home runs! My main hobby, as you calls it, was de show business. You remember de niggah minstrels we used to put on. I was always stage manager and could sing baritone a little. Ed Williamson and Tom Nick was de principal dancers, and Tom would make up all de plays. What? Stole a unifawm coat of yours? Why, I never knowed Tom to do anything like that! Anyway, he was a good-hearted niggah—but you dunno what he might do. Yes, I still takes out a show occasionally to de towns around Pope and Yell and Johnson counties, and folks treat us mighty fine. Big crowds—played to $47.00 clear money at Clarksville. Usually take about eight and ten in our comp'ny, boys and gals—and we give em a real hot minstrel show.

"De old show days? Never kin forgit em! I was stage manager of de old opery house here, you remember, for ten years, and worked around de old printin' office downstairs for seven years. No, I don't mean stage manager—I mean property man—yes, had to rustle de props. And did we have road shows dem days! Richards & Pringle's Georgia minstrels, de Nashville students, Lyman Twins, Barlow Brothers Minstrels, and—oh, ever so many more—yes, Daisy, de Missouri Girl, wid Fred Raymond. Never kin forgit old black Billy Kersands, wid his mouf a mile wide!

"De songs we used to sing in old days when I was a kid after de War wasn't no purtier dan what we used to sing wid our own minstrel show when we was at our best twenty-five and thirty years ago; songs like 'Jungletown,' 'Red Wing,' and 'Mammy's Li'l Alabama Coon.' Our circuit used to be around Holla Bend, Dover, Danville, Ola, Charleston, Nigger Ridge, out from Pottsville, and we usually starred off at the old opery house in Russellville, of course.

"I been married, but ain't married now. We couldn't git along somehow. Yes suh, I been right here workin' stiddy for a long time. Been janitor at two or three places same time; was janitor of de senior high school here for twenty-two years, and at de Bank of Russellville twenty-nine years.

"Folks always been mighty nice to me—and no slave ever had a finer master dan old Captain Scott.

"In de old show days de manager of de opery always said. 'Let de niggers see de show,' and sometimes de house was half full of colored folks—white folks on one side de house and niggahs on de other—and dere never was any disturbance of any kind. Ain't no sich good times now as we had in de old road show days. No suh!"



NOTE: Sam Scott, who has been personally known to the interviewer for many years, is above the average of the race for integrity and truthfulness. His statement that he was born a few years after slavery and that his father died during slavery was not questioned the matter being a delicate personal affair and of no special moment.



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Cora Scroggins, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: 48 or 50

"My mother was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee and brought to Arkansas by her master. Her name was Margaret. Dr. and Mrs. Porter brought my mother to Batesville, Arkansas when she was eight years old and raised her. She was very light. She had long straight hair but was mixed with white. She never knew much about her parents or people.

"Mr. William Brook (white) came to De Valls Bluff from Tennessee and brought her sister soon after the War. She was a very black woman.

"Dr. Porter had a family. One of their daughters was Mrs. Mattie Long, another Mrs. Willie Bowens. There were others. They were all fine to my mother. She married in Dr. Porter's home. Mrs. Porter had learnt her to sew. My father was a mechanic. My mother sewed for both black and white. She was a fine dressmaker. She had eight children and raised six of us up grown.

"My father was a tall rawbony brown man. His mother was an Indian squaw. She lived to be one hundred seven years old. She lived about with her children. The white folks all called her 'Aunt Matildy' Tucker. She was a small woman, long hair and high cheek bones. She wore a shawl big as a sheet purty nigh all time and smoked a pipe. I was born in Batesville.

"My mother spoke of her one long journey on the steamboat and stagecoach. That was when she was brought to Arkansas. It made a memorable picture in her mind.

"Dr. and Mrs. Porter told her she was free and she could go or stay. And she had nowheres to go and she had always lived with them white folks. She never did like black folks' ways and she raised us near like she was raised as she could.

"She used to tell us how funny they dressed and how they rode at night all through the country. She seen them and she could name men acted as Ku Kluxes but they never bothered her and she wasn't afraid of them.

"I cooked all my life till I got disabled. I never had a child. I wish I had a girl. I've been considered a fine cook all of my life."



Circumstances of Interview STATE—Arkansas NAME OF WORKER—Bernice Bowden ADDRESS—1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas DATE—November 4, 1938 SUBJECT—Ex-slaves [TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1. Name and address of informant—Sarah Sexton, Route 4, Box 685, Pine Bluff

2. Date and time of interview—November 3, 1958, 10:00 a.m.

3. Place of interview—Route 4, Box 685, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—Georgia Caldwell, Route 6, Box 128, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—None.

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—Frame house, front porch with two swings. Fence around yard. Chinaberry tree and Tree of Paradise, Coxcomb in yard. Southeast of Norton-Wheeler Stave Mill just off Highway 65.

Text of Interview

"Prewitt Tiller bought my mother and I belonged to young master. In slavery I was a good-sized-young girl, mama said. Big enough to put the table cloths on the best I could. After freedom I did all the cookin' and milkin' and washin'.

"Now listen, this young master was Prewitt's son.

"Grandpa's name was Ned Peeples and grandma was Sally Peeples. My mother was Dorcas. Well, my papa, I ain't never seed him but his name was Josh Allen. You see, they just sold 'em around. That's what I'm talkin' about—they went by the name of their owners.

"I'm seventy-eight or seventy-nine or eighty. That's what the insurance man got me up.

"I been in a car wreck and I had high blood pressure and a stroke all at once. And that wreck, the doctor said it cracked my skull. Till now, I ain't got no remembrance.

"You know how long I went to school? Three days. No ma'm I had to work, darlin'.

"I was born down here on Saline River at Selma. I done forgot what month."

"What kinda work have I done? Oh, honey, I done farmed myself to death, darlin'. You know Buck Couch down here at Noble Lake? Well, I hoped pick out eight bales of cotton for him.

"I wish I had the dollars I had workin' for R.A. Pickens down here at Walnut Lake. Yes, honey, I farmed for him bout fifteen or twenty years steady.

"And he sure was nice and he was mischievous. He called all of us his chillun. He use to say, 'Now you must mind your papa!' And we'd say 'Now Mr. Pickens, you know you ain't got no nigger chillun'. He use to say to me 'Sallie, you is a good woman but you ain't got no sense'. Them was fine white folks.

"Honey, these white folks round here what knows me, knows they ain't a lazy bone in my body.

"I'se cooked and washed and ironed and I'se housecleaned. Yes'm, I certainly was a good cook.

"I belongs to the Palestine Baptist Church. Yes ma'm. I don't know what I'd do if twasn't for the good Master. I talks to Him all the time.

"I goes to this here government school. A man teaches it. I don't know what his name is, we just calls him Professor.

"Well, chile, I'll tell you the truf. These young folks is done gone. And some o' these white headed women goes up here truckin'. It's a sin and a shame. I don't know what's gwine come of 'em."

Interviewer's Comment

This woman lives with her daughter Angelina Moore who owns her home.

Mother and daughter both attend government school. Both were neatly dressed. The day was warm so we sat on the front porch during the interview.

Personal History of Informant

1. Ancestry—Grandfather, Ned Peeples; grandmother, Sally Peeples; Mother, Dorcas Peeples; Father, Josh Allen.

2. Place and date of birth—On Saline River, Selma, Arkansas. No date.

3. Family—Two daughters and granddaughter.

4. Places lived in, with dates—Desha County, Walnut Lake, Noble Lake, (Arkansas) Poplar Bluff, Missouri. No dates.

5. Education, with dates—Three days, "after freedom". Attends government school now.

6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—Farmwork, cooking, laundry work until 1936.

7. Special skills and interests—Cooking.

8. Community and religious activities—Member of Palestine Baptist Church.

9. Description of informant—Medium height, plump, light complexion and gray hair.

10. Other points gained in interview—Injured in auto wreck seven years ago.



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Roberta Shaver, West Memphis, Arkansas Age: 50

"I was born close to Natchez, Mississippi. Grandma was sold at Wickerson County, Mississippi. They took her in a wagon to Jackson, Tennessee. She was mother of two children. They took them. She was part Indian. She was a farm woman. Her name was Dicy Jackson. They sold her away from the Jacksons to Dobbins. She was a house woman in Jackson, Tennessee. She said they was good to her in Tennessee. Grandma never was hit a lick in slavery. Grandpa was whooped a time or two. He run off to the woods for weeks and come back starved. He tended to the stock and drove Master Clayton around. He was carriage driver when they wanted to go places.

"After freedom grandma set out to get back to grandpa. Walked and rode too I reckon. She brought her children back. After a absence of five years she and grandpa went back together. They met at Natchez, Mississippi. Mama was born after freedom.

"The way grandma said she was sold was, a strange man come there one day and the master had certain ones he would sell stand in a line and this strange man picked out the ones he wanted and had them get their belongings and put them in the wagon and took them on off. She never seen grandpa for five years."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mary Shaw 1118 Palm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 77 Occupation: Laundry work

"I was born in Bolivar County, Mississippi. My mother didn't know how old I was but after freedom I went by Miss Ann Blanchet's—that was my mother's old missis—and she said I was born in 1861.

"But I don't know nothin' 'bout slavery or the War. I was born and bred in the desert and my mother said it was a long time after freedom 'fore she knowed anything about it. She said there was just lots of the folks said, to their knowin', they had been free three years 'fore they knowed anything about it.

"My husband brought me to Arkansas when I was 35 and I been workin' in the same family, Captain Jeter's family, ever since-forty odd years.

"I always have worked hard. I've had the flu only reason I'm sittin' here now. If I had to sit and hold my hands very long, they'd have to take me to Little Rock.

"I been married twice. My last husband was Sam Shaw. He was a great whiskey man and when whiskey went out, he went to bootleggin' and they got behind him and he left.

"He wrote me once and said if I'd borrow some money on my home and send it to him, he'd come back. I wrote and told him just like I'm tellin' you that after I had worked night and day to pay for this house while he was off tellin' some other woman lies just like he told me, I wasn't goin' to send him money. So I ain't seen him since.

"I ain't never been to school much. When schools got numerous in Mississippi they had me behind a plow handle.

"Mrs. Jeter made me mad once and I quit. My first husband was a porter on the railroad and I got on the train and went to Memphis with him.

"One time he come back from a trip to Pine Bluff and handed me a little package. I opened it and it was a note from Mrs. Jeter and a piece of corn bread. She said, 'Now, Mary, you see what I've had to eat. I want you to come back.' So I went back and stayed 'til she died. And now I'm workin' for her daughter, Mrs. McEwen. Mrs. Jeter used to say, 'Mary, I know you're not a Arkansas woman 'cause you ain't got a lazy bone in your body.'"



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Violet Shaw, West Memphis, Arkansas Age: 50

"I heard Grandma Katie Williams say she was put up on a high stump and auctioned off. She told how great-grandma cried and cried and never seen her no more. Grandma come from Oakland, Tennessee to Mississippi. Grandma took the two young children and left the other two with great-grandma. They took her from her husband. She never seen none of them again.

"After freedom she didn't know how to find them. She never could get trace of them. She tried. She never married no more. I was born at Clarksdale, Mississippi. I have seen Tom Pernell (white), the young master, come and spend the night with Henry Pernell. Henry had once been Tom's father's slave and carriage driver. I was too small to know the cause but I remember that several times mighty well. They fixed him up a clean bed by hisself. Henry lived in town. But he might have been drunk. I never seen no misbehavior out of him. It was strange to me to see that.

"Freedom—Aunt Mariah Jackson was freed at Dublin, Mississippi. She said she was out in the field working. A great big white man come, jumped up on a log and shouted, 'Freedom! Freedom!' They let the log they was toting down; six, three on a side, had holt of a hand stick toting a long heavy log. They was clearing up new ground. He told them they was free. They went to the house. They cooked and et and thanked God. Some got down and prayed, some sung. They had a time that day. They got the banjo and fiddle and set out playing. Some got in the big road just walking. She said they had a time that day."