“When I left Alabama I went to Mississippi.  I worked my way on a steamboat.  I had been trained to do whatever I was commanded.  The man, my boss, said, ’Mack, get the rope behind the boiler and tie it to the stob and ‘dead man’.  I tied it to the stob and I was looking for a dead man.  He showed me what it was.  Then I tied it.  I went to Vicksburg then.  I had got mixed up with a woman and run off.

“I been married once in my life.  I had eighteen children.  Nine lived.  I got a boy here and a girl in Pine Bluff.  My son’s wife is mean to me.  I don’t want to stay here.  If I can get my pension started, I want to live with my daughter.

“I used to vote Republican.  They claimed it made times better for my race.  I found out better.  I don’t vote now.  Wilson was good as Mr. Roosevelt, I think.  I voted about eight years ago, I reckon.  I didn’t vote for Mr. Roosevelt.

“I wish I was young and had the chance this generation has got.  Times is better every way for a good man unless he is unable to work like I am now. (This old man tends his garden, a large nice one—­ed.) My son supports me now.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Ellen Brass
                    1427 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  About 82

[HW:  White Folks want Niggers]

“I was born in Alabama in Green County.  I was about four years old when I came from there; so I don’t know much about it.  I growed up in Catahoula, Louisiana.  My mother’s name was Caroline Butler and my father’s name was Lee Butler.  One of my father’s brothers was named Sam Butler.  I used to be a Butler myself, but I married.  My father and mother were both slaves.  They never did any slave work.

Father Free Raised

“My father was free raised.  The white folks raised him.  I don’t know how he became free.  All that I know is that he was raised right in the house with the white folks and was free.  His mother and father were both slaves.  I was quite small at the time and didn’t know much.  They bought us like cattle and carried us from place to place.

Slave Houses

“The slaves lived in log cabins with one room.  I don’t know what kind of house the white folks lived in.  They, the colored folks, ate corn bread, wheat bread (they raised wheat in those times), pickled pork.  They made the flour right on the plantation.  George Harris, a white man, was the one who brought me out of Louisiana into this State.  We traveled in wagons in those days.  George Harris owned us in Louisiana.

Slave Sales

“We were sold from George Harris to Ben Hickinbottom.  They bought us then like cattle.  I don’t know whether it was a auction sale or a private sale.  I am telling it as near as I know it, and I am telling the truth.  Hickinbottom brought us to Catahoula Parish in Louisiana.  Did I say Harris brought us?  Well, Hickinbottom brought us to Louisiana.  I don’t know why they went from one place to the other like that.  The soldiers were bad about freeing the slaves.  From Catahoula Parish, Hickinbottom carried us to Alexandria, Louisiana, and in Alexandria, we was set free.