rs would kill 'em and insect (dissect) 'em. But they didn't
get her. But might as well, Jim Williams owned that nigger yard. He put
her on a sailboat named Big Humphries. She was on there hard sailing,
she said, twenty-four days and nights. Jim Williams stole her! On that
sailboat is where she seen my papa. When they got to New Orleans a white
man from Baltimore was passing. He seen my mama. He ask her about her
papers. She told him she had been stole. He said without papers Jim
Williams couldn't sell her. He told Jim Williams he better not sell that
woman. Jim Williams knowed she was crazy about my papa. He hired him out
and ask her if she wanted to go with him. He got pay for both of them
hired out. It was better for him than if he owned her. When they had two
children, Jim Williams come back out to Chambers County, Alabama where
he had them hired out. He ask her if he would agree to let him sell her.
He was going to sell papa and the two children. She said she had seen
them whooped to death in the yards because they didn't want to be sold.
She was scared to contrary him. She had nobody to take her part. So she
let him sell her with papa and the two children. Jim Williams sold her
and papa and the two children to Billy Gates of Mississippi. Jim
Williams said, 'Don't never separate Henry and Hannah 'cause I don't
have the papers for Hannah.' Then they lived in the prairies eighteen
miles from Houston, where Billy Gates lived. Mama done well. She worked
and they treated her nice. Eight of us was born on that place includin'
me.

"I was raised up in good living conditions and kept myself so till
twelve years ago this next August this creeping neuritis (paralasis)
come on. I raised my niece. I cooked, washed and ironed, and went to the
field in field time.

"Master Billy Gates' daughter married Cyrus Brisco Baldwin. He was a
lawyer. He give mama, papa and one child to them. Master Billy Gates'
daughter died and left Miss Bessie. Mr. C. B. Baldwin married again. He
went to war in the 'Six Day Crowd.' Miss Bessie Baldwin married Bill
Buchannan at Okolona, Mississippi. Mama went and cooked for her. They
belong to her. She was good as she could be to her and papa both. One
time the overseer was going to whip them both. Miss Bessie said, 'Tell
Mr. Carrydine to come and let us talk it over.' They did and she said,
'Give Mr. Carrydine his breakfast and let him go.' They never got no
whippings.

"Mama was white as any white wo