SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30832
Interviewer Miss Irene Bobertson
Person interviewed Mary Tabon* gorrest City, Arkansas
Age 67
"Pa was sold twice to my knowing* He was sold to McCoy, then to
Alexander* He was Virginian* Then he was carried to Alabama and brought to
Holly Grove by the Mayos. I have wore four names, Alexander, Adams, Morgan,
and Tabon*
n 2fy mother f s owners was Ellis from Alabama* She said she was sold from
the Scales to Ellis* Her father, sister, and two brothers was sold from
Sllis* She never seen them no more* They found Uncle Charles Ellis dead in
the field* They never knowed how it come*
"My parents had hard times during slavery* Ma had a big scar on her
shoulder where the overseer struck her with a whoop* She was chopping
cotton. She either wasn f t doing to suit him or wasnH getting along fast
enough to suit him*
*Ma had so many little ones to raise she give me to Nancy Bennett* I
love her soul in her grave* I helped her to do all her work she taught me*
She'd leave me with her little boy and go to church and I f d make cakes and
corn bread. She brag on me* We f d have biscuits on Sunday morning* They was a
rarity*
"One day she had company* She told me to bake some potatoes with
the jackets on* I washed the potatoes and wrapped them up in rags and
boiled them* It made her so mad she wet the towel and whooped me with
it, I unwrapped the potatoes and we had them that way for dinner*•
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