“Last Saturday I was prayin’ to God not to let me get out of the heart of the people.  You see, I have no kin people and I wanted people to come to my rescue.  The next day was Sunday and more people come to see me and brought me more things.

“I been in the church fifty-seven years.  I’m the oldest member in St. John’s.  I joined in May 1881.

“I went to school some.  I went as far as the fourth grade.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Minerva Davis, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age:  56

“My father was sold in Richmond, Virginia when he was eighteen years old to the nigger traders.  They had nigger traders and cloth peddlers and horse traders all over the country coming by every few weeks.  Papa said he traveled to Tennessee.  His job was to wash their faces and hands and fix their hair—­comb and cut and braid their hair and dress them to be auctioned off.  They sold a lot of children from Virginia all along the way and he was put up in Tennessee and auctioned off.  He was sold to the highest bidder.  Bill Thomas at Brownsville, Tennessee was the one bought him.  Papa was a large strong man.

“He run off and went to war.  He had learned to cook and he was one-eyed and couldn’t fight.  All the endurin’ time he cooked at the camps.  Then he run off from war when he got a chance before he was mustered out and he never got a pension because of that.  He said he come home pretty often and mama was expecting a baby.  He thought he was needed at home worse.  He was so tired of war.  He didn’t know it would be valuable to him in his old days.  He was sorry he didn’t stay till they got him mustered out.  He said it was harder in the war than in slavery.  They was putting up tents and moving all the time and he be scared purt nigh to death all the time.  Never did know when they would be shot and killed.

“Mama said the way they bought grandma was at a well.  A drove of folks come by.  It was the nigger traders.  She had pulled up her two or three buckets.  She carried one bucket on her head and one in each hand.  They said, ‘Draw me up some water to drink.’  She was so smart they bragged on her.  They said, ‘She such a smart little thing.’  They went to see her owner and bought her on the spot.  They took her away from her people and she never heard tell of none of them no more.  She said there was a big family of them.  They brought her to Brownsville, Tennessee and Johnny Williams bought her.  That was my grandma.

“Mother was born there on Johnny Williams’ place and she was heired by his daughter.  His daughter married Bill Thomas, the one what done bought my papa.  Her young mistress was named Sallie Ann Thomas.  Mama got married when she was about grown.  She said after she married she’d have a baby about the same time her young mistress had one.  Mama had twelve children and raised eleven to be grown.  Four of us are living yet.  My sister was married when I was born.  White folks married young and encouraged their slaves to so they have time to raise big families.  Mama died when I was a year old but papa lived on with Johnny Williams where he was when she died.  I lived with my married sister.  I was the baby and she took me and raised me with her children.