SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30780
Interviewer Samuel S» Taylor
Person interviewed J« L» Smith
1215 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 76
"I was born in 1862 in the month of September on the fifteenth* I was
born at a place they call Indian Bay on White River down here in Arkansas*
tiy mother was named Bmroaline Smith and she was born in Tennessee« I don f t
know really now what county or what part of the state* My father 1 s name
was John Smith* He was bom in North Carolina* I don f t know nothing about
what my grandfather's name and grandmother's names were*, I never saw them*
Noue of my folks are old aged as I am* My father was sixty years old when
he died and my mother was only younger than that#
Experience of Father
"I heard my father say that he helped get out juniper timber in North
Carolina* The white man me and my sister worked with after my father died
was the man my father worked with in the juniper swamp. His name was
Alfred Perry White* As long as he lived, we could do work for him* We
didn't live on his place but we worked for him by the day# He is dead
now—died way back yonder in the seventies* There was the Brooks and
Baxter trouble in 1874, and my father died in seventy-five* White lived a
little while longer*
"My father was married twice before he married my mother* He had two
sets of children* I don f t know how many of them there werea He had four
children by my mother* He had only four children as far as I can remember*