SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30801
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed Andrew Skaith
B*F*D*f Forrest City, Arkansas
Age 73
W I was born after the surrender at Oxford, Mississippi• We belong to
Master Jim Snith* Mother cooked and father worked in the field* He was on
a average being good* They didn f t trouble my mother as I recollect hearing
♦em say but they whooped them in the field* Pattyrollers chased papa in
sometimes* I heard him talk about it but I couldn f t tell what he said now*
Mana had two before freedom, then she married and had three children* He
died* She married the second time and had two more children* That made
seben in all*
"She said her first marriage was pronounced (announced)* My mother
said their master refugeed them to Texas till the year of the surrender*
Ihey didn't know nothing f bout freedom till a while after they got back from
Texas* They stayed on that year and longer too not knowing 'bout freedom*
My rickerliction is short*
"Frank Houston was a neighbor of our f n* He lived on my folks* joining
plantation close to Houston, Mississippi during slavery* During or before
the War come on he put his money in a barrel—hogshead* They said it was
gold and silver* I don f t know* It might some been paper* He rolled the
barrel down to the river* It was the Tallahassee (?) River eighteen miles
northeast of Oxford, Mississippi* He hid his barrel of money in the river*
^ey hunted and hunted it and never could find it*> It might sunk in the
^d and quick sand* Somebody might er hauled it out and stole it*
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