“The Yankees never said nothin’ to me—­talked to my mother though, and old mis’.

“They said they was fightin’ to free the niggers.  There was a boy on the place and while old master was gone to war, he’d just go and come and get the news.  He didn’t do that when old master was home.  I know he brought the news when peace declared.  Patrollers got him one night.

“I ‘member when peace declared ever’body went around shoutin’ and hollerin’, ‘The niggers is free, the niggers is free!’

“Our folks stayed there on the place right smart while after freedom.  I ’member I was gwine out to the field and Woodson, he was the baby I upset, he wanted to go along and wanted me to tote him and I know old master said, ‘Put him down and let him walk.’

“They told me I was twenty when I was married—­the white folks told me.  I know my mother asked how old I was and they said I was ’bout twenty.  I ’member it well enough.

“I never went to school but I knowed my ABC’s and could read some in the first reader.  I ain’t forgot about it.  I thinks about it sometimes.

“The biggest work I has done is farm work.

“I’ve had nine chillun and raised all of ’em but one.”

NOTE: 

Eliza lives with her son who is well educated and a retired city mail carrier and he is now sending three children to the A.M.& N. College here.

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Mary Frazier, near Biscoe, Arkansas
Age:  60

“My parents was Neily and Amos Hamilton.  They lived in Marshall County, about forty-eight miles from Memphis.  They belong to people by that same name.

“I heard them all say how they come to be way out in Mississippi.  The Thompsons owned Grandma Diana and her husband in South Carolina.  Master Jefferies went there from Mississippi and bought grandma.  They let all twelve of her children go in the sale some way but they didn’t sell grandpa.  He grieved so till the same man come back a long time afterward and bought him.  Jefferies was good to them.  I was born in Mississippi.  Grandma cooked all the time.  Mama and papa both worked in the field.  I heard grandma say every one of her children was born in South Carolina.  Mr. Jefferies, one of the younger set, lived in Clarendon, Arkansas.  Since I come to this country I seen him.  I lived over there pretty close by.

“I got no ’pinion worth telling about our young folks.  They want to have a big time when they are young.  All young folks is swift on foot that way.  Times is funny.  Funniest times ever been in my life.  Is times right now?  Ain’t no credit no more.  That one thing making times so hard.  Money is the whole thing now’days.”

El Dorado District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer:  Pernella Anderson
Subject:  TALES OF SLAVERY DAYS
Story:—­Information
[Feb 6 1937]