a ferry boat. They put us on the
"block" and sold us. I can remember it well. A white man "cried" me
off just like I was a animal or varmint or something. He said, "Here's
a little nigger, who will give me a bid on her. She will make a good
house gal someday." Old man Davis give him $300.00 for me. I don't
know whether I was afraid or not; I don't think I cared just so I had
something to eat. I was allus hungry. Miss Davis' grandmother and one
of my aunts and uncles. Old man Davis bought the rest of us. Uncle
Henry looked after me when he could. I could see my mother once in
awhile but not often.

I had a purty easy time. I didn't have to work very hard 'till I was
about ten years old. I started working in the field and I had to work
in the weaving room too. We made all our own clothes. I spun and wove
cotton and wool. Old Master bought our shoes. We made fancy cloth. We
could stripe the cloth or check it or leave it plain. We also wove
coverlids and jeans to make mens suits out of. I could still do that
if I had to.

We all went to church with the white folks. We didn't have no colored
preachers. The niggers would get happy and shout all over the place.
Sometimes they'd fall out doors.

The Big House was a double log, two story house, not very fine but
awful comfortable. They was four big fireplace rooms downstairs and
two upstairs. Then they was two sort of shed rooms. There was a big
piazza across the front. The kitchen was a way off from the house,
seems like it was 200 feet at least. Our quarters were close by at the
back. He didn't have many slaves and they was nearly all my kinfolks.
There was Aunt Emmy and Phillis, Uncles Henry, Mitchell, Louis and
Andy, and the others were Uncle Logan and Uncle Nathan. They was old
Mistress' slaves when she done married.

Old Master and old Mistress had three boys, Eli, Billy and Dock. They
had to go to war and old Mistress sho' did cry. She say they might get
killed and she might not see 'em any more. I wonder why all dem white
folks didn't think of that when they sold mothers away from they
chillun. I had to be sold away from my mother. Two of her boys was
badly wounded but they all come back.

Abe Lincoln done everything he could for the niggers. We lost our best
friend when he got killed.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

GEORGE KYE
Age 110 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Okla.

I was born in Arkansas under Mr. Abraham Stover, on a big farm about
twenty miles n