lace.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

MRS. MATTIE LOGAN
Age 79 yrs.
Route 5, West Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This is a mighty fitting time to be telling about the slave days, for
I'm just finished up celebrating my seventy-nine years of being around
and the first part of my life was spent on the old John B. Lewis
plantation down in old Mississippi.

Yes, sir! my birthday is just over. September 1 it was and the year
was 1858. Borned on the John B. Lewis plantation just ten mile south
of Jackson in the Mississippi country. Rankin County it was.

My mother's name was Lucinda, and father's name was Levi Miles. My
mother was part Indian, for her mother was a half-blood Cherokee
Indian from Virginia.

There was children a-plenty besides me. There was Sally, Julia,
Hubbard, Ada, Ira, Anthony, Henry, Amanda, Mary, John, Lucinda, Daniel
and me, Mattie. That was my family.

The master's family was a large one, too. Six children was born to the
Master and Mistress. Her name, his first wife, was Jennie, the second
and last was named, Louise. The children was, Rebecca, Mollie, Jennie,
Susie, Silas, and Begerlan. They kind of leaned to females.

My mother belonged to Mistress Jennie who thought a heap of her, and
why shouldn't she? Mother nursed all Miss Jennie's children because
all of her young ones and my mammy's was born so close together it
wasn't no trouble at all for mammy to raise the whole kaboodle of
them. I was born about the same time as the baby Jennie. They say I
nursed on one breast while that white child, Jennie, pulled away at
the other!

That was a pretty good idea for the Mistress, for it didn't keep her
tied to the place and she could visit around with her friends most any
time she wanted 'thout having to worry if the babies would be fed or
not.

Mammy was the house girl and account of that and because her family
was so large, the Mistress fixed up a two room cabin right back of the
Big House and that's where we lived. The cabin had a fireplace in one
of the rooms, just like the rest of the slave cabins which was set in
a row away from the Big House. In one room was bunk beds, just plain
old two-by-fours with holes bored through the plank so's ropes could
be fastened in and across for to hold the corn-shuck mattress.

My brothers and sisters was allowed to play with the Master's
children, but not with the children who belonged to the field Negroes.
We just played yard games like marbles and