of the people.

There were no slave uprisings but sometimes when they did not work fast
enough or do the task right, they were "whupped" by the overseer and
given no food until it was done right.

Oliver came to Arkansas in 1910. He has had two wives and "de Lawd took
both of 'em." His second wife was "'ligious" and they "got along fine."
All in all he had a good time during his active days "and didn't have no
trouble with de white folks". He does not believe God ever intended some
of the people to be slaves.

MAY 31 1938
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Rebecca Brown Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78

"I was born October 18, 1859 in northeast Mississippi in Chickasaw
County. It was close to the Fulton Road to Houston, Mississippi. My
folks belong to C. B. Baldwin. After 'mancipation papa stop calling
himself Jacob Baldwin and called himself Jacob Brown in his own pa's
name. Mama was named Catherine Brown. The same man owned them both. They
had twelve children. They lost a child born in 1866. I had two brothers
sent to Louisiana as refugees. The place they was sent to was taken by
the Yankees and they was taken and the Yankees made soldiers out of
them. Charlie died in 1922 in Mobile, Alabama and Lewis after the War
joined the United States army. I never saw any grandparents. Mama was
born in Baltimore and her mother was born there too as I understood them
to say. Mama's father was a white Choctaw Indian. He was a cooper by
trade. His name was John Abbot. He sold Harriett, my grandma, and kept
mama and her brother. Then he married a white woman and had a white
family. Her brother died. That left her alone to wait on that white
family. They cut her hair off. She hated that. She loved her long
straight black hair. Then her papa, John Abbot (Abbott?), died. Her
brother run off and was leaving on a ship on the Potomac River. A woman
lost her trunk. They was fishing for it and found mama's brother
drowned. He had fell overboard too.

"Mama took a bucket on her arm to keep the stealers from gagging her.
She knowed if she had a bucket or basket they would not bother, they
would know she went out on turn (errand) and would be protected. They
didn't bother her then. She went down to the nigger trader's yard to
talk awhile but she was making her way off then. Sometimes she went down
to the yard to laugh and talk with some she knowed down there. She said
them steale