cheye, Alabama, a slave of
David Cavin. He recalls being brought to Texas in the 1850's, when
the Cavin family settled near old Port Caddo. Gus remained with his
master for ten years after emancipation. He now lives alone on a
fifty acre farm seven miles northeast of Marshall, which he bought
in 1877. Gus receives an $11.00 per month pension.

"I was born at Keecheye, Alabama, and belonged to old man David Cavin.
The only statement I can make 'bout my age is I knows I was 'bout twenty
years old when us slaves was freed. I never knowed my daddy, but my
mammy was Amelia Cavin. I's heard her say she's born in Alabama more
times than I got fingers and toes. Our old master brung us to Texas when
I's a good sized kid. I 'members like it am yesterday, how we camped
more'n a week in New Orleans. I seed 'em sell niggers off the block
there jus' like they was cattle. Then we came to old Port Caddo on Caddo
Lake and master settles a big farm close to where the boats run. Port
Caddo was a big shipping place then, and Dud and John Perry run the
first store there. The folks hauled cotton there from miles away.

"Mammy's folks was named Maria and Joe Gloster and they come to Texas
with the Cavins. My grandma say to me, 'Gus, don't run you mouth too
much and allus have manners to whites and blacks.' Chillen was raise
right then, but now they come up any way. I seed young niggers turn the
dipper up and drink 'fore old folks. I wouldn't dare do that when I's
comin' up.

"Maria say to me one day, 'Son, I's here when the stars fell.' She tell
me they fell like a sheet and spread over the ground. Ike Hood, the old
blacksmith on our place, he told me, too. I says, 'Ike, how old was you
when the stars fell?' He say, 'I's thirty-two.'

"Massa David had big quarters for us niggers, with chimneys and
fireplaces. They use to go round and pick up old hawg or cow bones to
bile with greens and cabbage. They was plenty of wild game, and deer and
wolves howlin' right through this country, but you can't even find the
track of one now.

"The first work I done was pickin' cotton. Every fellow was out at
daylight pickin' cotton or hoein' or plowin'. They was one overseer and
two nigger drivers. But at night you could hear us laughin' and talkin'
and singin' and prayin', and hear them fiddles and things playin'. It
look like darkies git 'long more better then than now. Some folks says
niggers oughtn't to be slaves, but I say