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Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Emma Barr, Madison, Arkansas
Age: 65

"My parents belong to two people. Mama was born in Mississippi I think
and papa come from North Carolina. Papa's master was Lark Hickerson.
Mama was sold from Dr. Ware to Dr. Pope. She was grown when she was
sold. She was the mother of twenty-seven children. She had twins three
times.

"During the Civil War she was run from the Yankees and had twins on the
road. They died or was born dead and she nearly died. They was buried
between twin trees close to Hernando, Mississippi. Her last owner was
Dr. Pope, ten miles south of Augusta, Arkansas. I was born there and
raised up three miles south of Augusta, Arkansas.

"When mama was sold she left her people in Mississippi but after freedom
her sisters, Aunt Mariah and Aunt Mary, come here to mama. Aunt Mariah
had no children. Aunt Mary had four boys, two girls. She brought her
children. Mama said her husband when Dr. Ware owned her was Maxwell but
she married my papa after Dr. Pope bought her.

"Dr. Ware had a fine man he bred his colored house women to. They didn't
plough and do heavy work. He was hostler, looked after the stock and got
in wood. The women hated him, and the men on the place done as well.
They hated him too. My papa was a Hickerson. He was a shoemaker and
waited on Dr. Pope. Dr. Pope and Miss Marie was good to my parents and
to my auntees when they come out here.

"I am the onliest one of mama's children living. Mama was sold on the
block and cried off I heard them say when they lived at Wares in
Mississippi. Mama was a house girl, Aunt Mary cooked and my oldest
sister put fire on the skillet and oven lids. That was her job.

"Mama was lighter than I am. She had Indian blood in her. One auntee was
half white. She was lighter than I am, had straight hair; the other
auntee was real dark. She spun and wove and knit socks. Mama said they
had plenty to eat at both homes. Dr. Pope was good to her. Mama went to
the white folks church to look after the babies. They took the babies
and all the little children to church in them days.

"Mama said the preachers told the slaves to be good and bedient. The
colored folks would meet up wid one another at preaching same as the
white folks. I heard my auntees say when the Yankees come to the house
the mistress would run give the house women their money and jewelry and
soon as the Yankees leave they would come get it. That was at Wares in
Mississippi.

"I heard them talk about slipping off and going to some house on the
place and other places too and pray for freedom during the War. They
turned an iron pot upside down in the room. When some mens' slaves was
caught on another man's place he was allowed to whoop them and send them
home and they would git another whooping. Some men wouldn't allow that;
they said they would tend to their own slaves. So many men had to leave
home to go to war times got slack.

"It was Judge Martin that owned my papa before he was freed. He lived
close to Augusta, Arkansas. When he was freed he lived at Dr. Pope's. He
was sold in North Carolina. Dr. Pope and Judge Martin told them they was
free. Mama stayed on with Dr. Pope and he paid her. He never did whoop
her. Mama told me all this. She died a few years ago. She was old. I
never heard much about the Ku Klux. Mama was a good speller. I was a
good speller at school and she learned with us. I spelled in Webster's
Blue Back Speller.

"We children stayed around home till we married off. I nursed nearly all
my life. Me and my husband farmed ten years. He died. I don't have a
child. I wish I did have a girl. My cousin married us in the church. His
name was Andrew Baccus.

"After my husband died I went to Coffeeville, Kansas and nursed an old
invalid white woman three years, till she died. I come back here where I
was knowed. I'm keeping this house for some people gone off. Part of the
house is rented out and I get $8 and commodities. I been sick with the
chills." 

Interviewer: S.S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Robert Barr
                    3108 West 18th St.
                    Little Rock, Ark.
Age: 73
Occupation: Preaching

[HW: A Preacher Tells His Story]

"I am a minister of the Gospel. I have been preaching for the last
thirty years. I am batching here. A man does better to live by himself.
Young people got the devil in them now a days. Your own children don't
want you around.

"I got one grand-daughter that ain't never stood on the floor. Her
husband kicked her and hit her and she ain't never been able to stand up
since. I got another daughter that ain't thinking about marrying. She
just goes from one man to the other.

"The government gives me a pension. The white folks help me all along.
Before I preached, I fiddled, danced, shot craps, did anything.

"My mother was born in Chickasaw, Mississippi. She was born a slave. Old
man Barr was her master. She was a Lucy Appelin and she married a Barr.
I don't know whether she stood on the floor and married them as they do
now or not. They tell me that they just gave them to them in those days.
My mother said that they didn't know anything about marriage then. They
had some sort of a way of doing. Ol' Massa would call them up and say,
'You take that man, and go ahead. You are man and wife.' I don't care
whether you liked it or didn't. You had to go ahead. I heard em say:
'Nigger ain't no more'n a horse or cow,' But they got out from under
that now. The world is growing more and more civilized. But when a
nigger thinks he is something, he ain't nothin'. White folks got all the
laws and regulations in their hands and they can do as they please. You
surrender under em and go along and you are all right. If they told a
woman to go to a man and she didn't, they would whip her. You didn't
have your own way. They would make you do what they wanted. They'd give
you a good beating too.

"My father was born in Mississippi. His name was Simon Barr. My mother
and father both lived on the same plantation. In all groups of people
they went by their master's name. Before she married, my mother's master
and mistress were Appelins. When she got married--got ready to
marry--the white folks agreed to let them go together. Old Man Barr must
have paid something for her. According to my mother and father, that's
the way it was. She had to leave her master and go with her husband's
master.

"According to my old father and mother, the Patteroles went and got the
niggers when they did something wrong. They lived during slave time.
They had a rule and government over the colored and there you are. When
they caught niggers out, they would beat them. If you'd run away, they'd
go and get you and beat you and put you back. When they'd get on a
nigger and beat him, the colored folks would holler, 'I pray, Massa.'
They had to have a great war over it, before they freed the nigger. The
Bible says there is a time for all things.

"My mother and father said they got a certain amount when they was
freed. I don't know how much it was. It was only a small amount. After a
short time it broke up and they didn't get any more. I get ten dollars
pension now and that is more than they got then.

"I heard Old Brother Page in Mississippi say that the slaves had heard
em say they were going to be free. His young mistress heard em say he
was going to be free and she walked up and hocked and spit in his face.
When freedom came, old Massa came out and told them.

"I have heard folks talk of buried treasure. I'll bet there's more money
under the ground than there is on it. They didn't have banks then, and
they put their money under the ground. For hundreds of years, there has
been money put under the ground.

"I heard my mother talk about their dances and frolics then. I never
heard her speak of anything else. They didn't have much freedom. They
couldn't go and come as they pleased. You had to have a script to go and
come. Niggers ain't free now. You can't do anything; you got nothin'.
This whole town belongs to white folks, and you can't do nothin'. If
nigger get to have anything, white folks will take it.

"We raised our own food. We made our own flour. We wove our own cloth.
We made our clothes. We made our meal. We made our sorghum cane
molasses. Some of them made their shoes, made their own medicine, and
went around and doctored on one another. They were more healthy then
than they are now. This generation don't live hardly to get forty years
old. They don't live long now.

"I came to Arkansas about thirty-five years ago. I got right into
ditches. The first thing I did was farm. I farmed about ten years. I
made about ten crops. Mississippi gave you more for your crops than
Arkansas."