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1900 Vangine Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 81
"I was born in Mississippi. My mistress was Jane Davis. She raised me. She owned my mother too.
"When Miss Jane's husband died, he willed the niggers to his childua and Mandy Paine owned me then. When I was
one month old they said I was so white Mandy Paine thought her brother was my father, so she got me and carried
me to the meat block and was goin' to out my head off. When the childun heard, they run and cried, 'Mama's goin' to
kill Harriet's baby.' Old mistress, Jane Davis, heard about it and she come and paid Miss Jane forty dollars for me
and carried me to her home, and I slep right in the bed with her till the war ceasted."
"Her childun was grown and they used to come by and say, 'Ma, why don't you take that nigger out of your bed?'
and she'd reach over and pat me and say, 'This the only nigger I got.'
"I stayed there two or three years after freedom. I didn't know what free meant. Big childun all laugh and say, 'All
niggers free, all niggers free.' And I'd say, 'What is free?' I was lookin' for a man to come.
"I worked in the house and in the field. I had plenty chances to go to school but I didn't have no sense.
"My mother was sold to nigger traders and I never did see her again. I always say I never had no mother, and I
never did know who my father was.
"I've worked hard since I got to be a woman. I never been the mother of but three childun. Me and my boy stay
together.
"I had a happy time when I lived with Miss Jane, but I been workin' ever since.
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowdan"
