As a matter of fact, Missouri did not secede; the Civil War which nevertheless ensued would find some slaveholders exposed to the full force of the 1862 proclamation in 1863 at the time of its first effectiveness.  Naturally it did not become effective in many other places till 1865.  It would very naturally happen then that a sale in Missouri in the latter part of 1862 or any time thereafter might be well construed by ex-slaves as a sale after emancipation, especially since they do not as a rule pay as much attention to the dates of occurrences as to their sequence.  This interpretation accords with the story.  Only such an explanation could make probable a narrative which places the subject as a newborn babe in 1860 and sold after slavery had ceased while still too young to remember.  Her earliest recollections are recollections of Arkansas.

She has lived in Arkansas ever since the Civil War and in Little Rock ever since 1879.  She made a living as a seamstress for awhile but is now unable to sew because of fading eyesight.  She married in 1879 and led a long and contented married life until the recent death of her husband.  She lives with her husband’s nephew and ekes out a living by fragmentary jobs.  She has a good memory and a clear mind for her age.

Slave After Freedom

“My mother was sold after freedom.  It was the young folks did all that devilment.  They found they could get some money out of her and they did it.  She was put on the block in St. Louis and sold down into Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Then they sold her into Helena, Arkansas.  After that they carried her down into Trenton (?), Arkansas.  I don’t know whether they sold her that time or not, but I reckon they did.  Leastways, they carried her down there.  All this was done after freedom.  My mother was only fifteen years old when she was sold the first time, and I was a baby in her arms.  I don’t know nothing about it myself, but I have heard her tell about it many and many a time.  It was after freedom.  Of course, she didn’t know she was free.

“It was a good while before my mother realized she was free.  She noticed the other colored people going to and fro and she wondered about it.  They didn’t allow you to go round in slave times.  She asked them about it and they told her, ‘Don’t you know you are free?’ Some of the white people too told her that she was free.  After that, from the way she talked, I guess she stayed around there until she could go some place and get wages for her work.  She was a good cook.

Mean Mistress

“I have seen many a scar on my mother.  She had mean white folks.  She had one big scar on the side of her head.  The hair never did grow back on that place.  She used to comb her hair over it so that it wouldn’t show.  The way she got it was this: