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“I know I was born in Arkansas. The first place I recollect I was in Arkansas. “I was a drummer in the Civil War. I played the little drum. The bass drummer was Rheuben Turner. “I run off from home in Drew County. Five or six of us run off here to Pine Bluff. We heard if we could get with the Yankees we’d be free, so we run off here to Pine Bluff and got with some Yankee soldiers—the twenty-eighth Wisconsin. “Then we went to Little Rock and I j’ined the fifty-seventh colored infantry. I thought I was good and safe then. “We went to Fort Smith from Little Rock and freedom come on us while we was between New Mexico and Fort Smith. “They mustered us out at Fort Leavenworth and I went right back to my folks in Drew County, Monticello. “I’ve been a farmer all my life till I got too old.” Faulkner County Rye, Katie Age: 82 Clarksville, Arkansas Interviewer: Sallie C. Miller [M:10: pt. 6: 111–12] “We lived in Greenbrier, Faulkner County, Arkansas. All staid at home and got along very well. We had enough to eat and wear. Mistress was awful mean to us but we staid 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 127 Lankfordtext:Lankford / Final Pages 7/14/09 10:06 AM Page 127 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’.” Greene County Brown, Betty Age: ? Cape Girardeau, Missouri [M:11: pt. 8: 52–55] “In de ole’ days we live in Arkansaw, in Greene County. My mammy wuz Mary-Ann Millan, an’ we belong to ‘Massa’ John Nutt, an’‘Miss’ Nancy.’ “Our white folks live in a big double house, wid a open hall between. It wuz built of hewed logs an’ had a big po’ch on de wes’ side. De house stood on Cash rivuh, at the crossroads of three roads; one road go tuh Pocahontas, one tuh Jonesburg, an’ one tuh Pie-Hatten, (Powhatan). “Now whut fo’ you wanna’ know all dem things? Air ye tryin’ to raise de daid? Some o’’em, ah don’wanna see no...

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