old Lincoln; they wasn't nothing like 'im. Booker T.
Washington was one of the finest Negro Educators in the world, but old
Jefferson Davis was against the cullud man.

I think since slavery is all over, it has been a benefit to the cullud
man. He's got more freedom now.

Oklahoma Writer's Project
Ex-Slaves

BETTY ROBERTSON
Age 93 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma

I was born close to Webber's Falls, in the Canadian District of the
Cherokee Nation, in the same year that my pappy was blowed up and
killed in the big boat accident that killed my old Master.

I never did see my daddy excepting when I was a baby and I only know
what my mammy told me about him. He come from across the water when he
was a little boy, and was grown when old Master Joseph Vann bought
him, so he never did learn to talk much Cherokee. My mammy was a
Cherokee slave, and talked it good. My husband was a Cherokee born
negro, too, and when he got mad he forgit all the English he knowed.

Old Master Joe had a mighty big farm and several families of negroes,
and he was a powerful rich man. Pappy's name was Kalet Vann, and
mammy's name was Sally. My brothers was name Sone and Frank. I had one
brother and one sister sold when I was little and I don't remember the
names. My other sisters was Polly, Ruth and Liddie. I had to work in
the kitchen when I was a gal, and they was ten or twelve children
smaller than me for me to look after, too. Sometime Young Master Joe
and the other boys give me a piece of money and say I worked for it,
and I reckon I did for I have to cook five or six times a day. Some of
the Master's family was always going down to the river and back, and
every time they come in I have to fix something to eat. Old Mistress
had a good cookin' stove, but most Cherokees had only a big fireplace
and pot hooks. We had meat, bread, rice, potatoes and plenty of fish
and chicken. The spring time give us plenty of green corn and beans
too. I couldn't buy anything in slavery time, so I jest give the piece
of money to the Vann children. I got all the clothes I need from old
Mistress, and in winter I had high top shoes with brass caps on the
toe. In the summer I wear them on Sunday, too. I wore loom cloth
clothes, dyed in copperas what the old negro women and the old
Cherokee women made.

The slaves had a pretty easy time I think. Young Master Vann never
very hard on us and he never whupped us, and old Mistress was a widow
woman and a good Ch