SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Interviewer Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed Virginia Sims
1121 N* Magnolia
Age 95 Pine Bluff, Ark.
Occupation Retired Midwife
"I was born in 1844• I was twenty when peace was de-
clared* I was born in Virginia* Yes ma'am, but I was sold,
put up on a stump just like you sell hogs to the highest spec-
ulator* I was sold with my mother from a man named Joe Poin-
dexter and bought by Tom Murphy and brought to Arkansas* My
God, every Murphy round here knows me* Yes ! m, my mother and
me was sold* Papa wasn't sold, but he come here the second
year after surrender*
11 1 was old enough to spin twelve cuts a day - had it to
do. And I could weave cloth just like they do now*
"Had seven brothers and I f m the onliest girl.
ft I can recollect when Miss Mary Poindexter died* They
said I was two*
"My mistis in Arkansas was Mrs* Susan Murphy. That was
out on the plantation, we didn ! t live in no city - my God, no I
"The way my people acts now, they looks foolish. I never
heard a person curse till I come up here* I was a grown young
lady nineteen years old when our master lowed us to get out and
cote. You better not* The first husband I married I was nine-
teen goin 1 on twenty. My husband fought on the Southern side*
His master sent him as a substitute*