“Both my parents was sold but I don’t know how it was done.  There was thirteen children in our family.  The white folks had a picnic and took colored long to do round.  Some heard bout freedom and went home tellin’ bout it.  We stayed on and worked.

“The Ku Klux sure did run some of em.  Seem like they didn’t know what freedom meant.  Some of em run off and kept goin’.  Never did get back.  I don’t know a thing bout the Ku Klux.  I heard em say they got whoopin’s for doin’ too much visitin’.  I was a baby so I don’t know.

“I do not vote.  I voted for McKinley in Mississippi.

“I been farmin’ all my life.  I got one hog and a garden, three little grand babies.  My daughter died and their papa went off and left em.  Course I took em—­had to.  I pay $1 house rent.  I get $12 from the PWA.

“The times is mighty fast.  I recken the young folks do fair.  There has been big changes since I come on.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Maggie Wesmoland, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  85

“I was born in Arkansas in slavery time beyond Des Arc.  My parents was sold in Mississippi.  They was brought to Arkansas.  I never seed my father after the closing of the war.  He had been refugeed to Texas and come back here, then he went on back to Mississippi.  Mama had seventeen children.  She had six by my stepfather.  When my stepfather was mustered out at De Valls Bluff he come to Miss (Mrs.) Holland’s and got mama and took her on wid him.  I was give to Miss Holland’s daughter.  She married a Cargo.  The Hollands raised me and my sister.  I never seen mama after she left.  My mother was Jane Holland and my father was Smith Woodson.  They lived on different places here in Arkansas.  I had a hard time.  I was awfully abused by the old man that married Miss Betty.  She was my young mistress.  He was poor and hated Negroes.  He said they didn’t have no feeling.  He drunk all the time.  He never had been used to Negroes and he didn’t like em.  He was a middle age man but Miss Betty Holland was in her teens.

“No, mama didn’t have as hard a time as I had.  She was Miss Holland’s cook and wash woman.  Miss Betty told her old husband, ’Papa don’t beat his Negroes.  He is good to his Negroes.’  He worked overseers in the field.  Nothing Miss Betty ever told him done a bit of good.  He didn’t have no feeling.  I had to go in a trot all the time.  I was scared to death of him—­he beat me so.  I’m scarred up all over now where he lashed me.  He would strip me start naked and tie my hands crossed and whoop me till the blood ooze out and drip on the ground when I walked.  The flies blowed me time and again.  Miss Betty catch him gone, would grease my places and put turpentine on them to kill the places blowed.  He kept a bundle of hickory switches at the house all the time.  Miss Betty was good to me.  She would cry and beg him to be good to me.