SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson
Persons interviewed Maggie Snow and Charlie Steow
R«F.DM Brinkley, Arkansas
Ages 69 and 75
"My parents 1 names was Mary and Henderson Eurkendall* They had seven
children* Mama died when I was three years old* Papa was a Yankee soldier*
"They belong to the same white folks, Moster Jake and Peggy Kurkendall*
They had a big farm*
"My papa told me that one morning they woke up and looked out over the
field. The Yankees had pitched their camps far as you could see on Moster
Jake's farm. They come up to his house. Moster Jake had a big house and
a big family* The Yankees come up there and thro wed out all they had and
told the slaves to take it* No, they didn't; they was scared to take it and
it belong to them. They didn f t want it all wasted like they was doing*
Papa said they rode their horses up to the house• They took all the soldiers
on the place to the camp* They was scared not to go.
"Papa left mama at the old home place and Moster Jake let them work
all they could* Papa stayed in the war till after the battle at Vicksburg*
Then he come home* They stayed awhile at Moster Jake f s and worked* He got
his knee hurt and his health ruined* He never was no count after he got
back home* Mama could pick six hundred pounds of cotton a day he said* They
worked from daybreak till pitch dark in them days*
"Little Jake Kurkendall is living now Enoch or Harrison Station, Miss-
issippi. He is older than I am. He got a family. But he is all the son
old Moster Jake had that I know living now*
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£05