“My mother was Hulda Williams.  Grandpa was Jack Williams.  Her mistress was a widow woman in slavery times.  They lived in Louisiana.  I was born close to Bastrop in Morehouse Parish.  My father died when I was ten years old.  He was old.  I was a child.  Things look different to you then you know.  Grandpa was Hansen Terry, grandma Aggie Terry.  They called pa Major Terry but he belong to Bill Talbot.  Hansen Terry was a free man. He molded his own money. He died in South Carolina.  Pa come from Edgefield, South Carolina to Alabama.  Stayed there awhile then come on to Louisiana.  He slipped off from his master.  Between South Carolina and Louisiana he walked forty miles.  He rode all the other time.  My folks always farmed.

“Times have been getting some better all along since I was a chile.  Times is a heap better now than I ever seen in my life.  The young men depends on their wives to cook and make a living.  They don’t work much—­none of em.  We old niggers doin’ the wash in’ and the young women doin’ cookin’ and easy jobs.  None of the men ain’t workin’ to do no good!  A few months in the year ain’t no workin’.

“I get commodities.  I owns this house now.  I bout paid it out.  I washes three washin’s a week.  The rest of the time I pieces up quilts for myself.  I need cover.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Belle Buntin, Marianne, Arkansas
Age:  Up in 80’s

“I never was sold.  I was born in Oakland, Mississippi.  My master said he wanted all he raised.  He never sold one.  He bought my mother in Lexington County.  She was a field hand.  Our owners was Master Johnson Buntin and Mistress Sue Buntin.  They had two children—­Bob and Fannie.  He had a big plantation and four families of slaves.  Charlotte was the cook.  Myra worked at the house and in the field.  He had seven little colored boys and two little colored girls.  I spent most of my time up at the house playing with Bob and Fannie.  When mistress whooped one she whooped all three.  She would whoop us for stealing her riding horse out.  We would bridle it and all three ride and ride.  We got several whoopings about that.

“I have seen colored folks sold at Oakland.  They had a block and nigger traders come.  One trader would go and see a fine baby.  He keep on till he got it.  I’ve seen them take babies from the mother’s arm and if the mother dare cry, they would git a beatin’.  They look like they bust over their grief.

“If you was out after seven o’clock the patrollers git you.  They would beat and take you home.  Some masters say to them, ‘You done right,’ and some say, ‘You bring my hands home; I’ll whoop them myself.’

“The patrollers caught one of Gaddises women and whooped her awful for coming to town on Sunday.  I never did know why she went to town that way.

“That selling was awful and crowds come to see how they sell.  They acted like it was a picnic.  Some women was always there, come with their husbands.  Some women sold slaves and some bought them.