“I never went to church until after surrender.  Neither did we go to school but the white children taught me to read and count.

“I recollect as well today as if it had been yesterday the soldiers passing our house going to Vicksburg to fight.  The reason I recollect it so well they all was dressed in blue suits with pretty gold buttons down the front.  They passed a whole day and we watched them all day.

“Old miss and mars was not mean to us at all until after surrender and we were freed.  We did not have a hard time until after we were freed.  They got mad at us because we was free and they let us go without a crumb of anything and without a penny and nothing but what we had on our backs.  We wandered around and around for a long time.  Then they hired us to work on halves and man, we had a hard time then and I’ve been having a hard time ever since.

“Before the War we lived in log cabins.  There was a row of log cabins a quarter of a mile long.  No windows and no floor.  We had grass to sit on.  Our beds was made of pine poles nailed to the wall and we slept on hay beds.  My mama and other slaves pulled grass and let it dry to make the beds with.  Our cover was made from our old worn out clothes.

“On Sunday evenings we played.  We put on clean clothes once a week.  In summer we bathed in the branch.  We did not bathe at all in winter.  I went in my shirt tail until I was eleven or twelve years old.  Back in slavery time boys did not wear britches.  They wore shirts and our hair was long.  The slaves say if you cut a child’s hair before he or she was ten or twelve years old they won’t talk plain until they are that old.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  J.E.  Filer, Marianna, Arkansas
Age:  76

“I was born in Washington, Georgia.  I come here in 1866.  There was three stores in Marianna.  My parents name Betsy and Bob Filer.  My mother belong to Collins in Georgia.  She come to this state with Colonel Woods.  She worked in the field in Georgia and here too.  Mama said they always had some work on hand.  Work never played out.  When it was cold and raining they would shuck corn to send to mill.  The men would be under a shelter making boards or down at the blacksmith shop sharpening up the tools so they could work.

“Since we come to this state I’ve seen them make oak boards and pile them up in pens to dry out straight.  I don’t recollect that in Georgia.  I was so little when we come here.  I can recollect that but not much else.  My brother was older.  He might tell all about it.”

[TR:  Next section crossed out] Interviewer’s Comment

I didn’t get to see his brother.  I went twice more but he was at work on a farm somewhere.

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Subject:  Ex-slavery
[May 11 1938]

Person Interviewed:  Orleans Finger [TR:  In text of interview, Orleana]
                    Negro (Apparently octoroon or quadroon)
Address:  2804 West Fifteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas. 
Occupation:  Formerly field hand and housekeeper
Age:  79
[TR:  Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]