SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

Interviewer Pemella U. Anderson
Person Interviewed Fannie Tatum, Junction City» Arkansas
Age Born 1863
*I was born on Wilmington landing in 1862 on the Guachita River and
was carried away when I was two years old. My mother ran away and left my
sister and me when we was three and five years old* I never saw her any
more till I was eight and after I was eight years old I never saw her
again in forty years* After my mama left me old Master Heal come here to
£1 Dorado and had me bound to him until I was twenty*one* I stayed there
till I was twenty«one* I slept by the jamb of the fireplace on a sack of
straw and covered with saddle blankets* That was in the winter when snow
was waist high* In summer I slept on naked floor and anywhere I laid
down was my bed just like a dog*
"I wasn't allowed to eat at the table. I et on the edge of the porch
with the dogs with my fingers* I worked around the house and washed until
A.
I was nine and then I started to plowing* At ten I started splitting rails*
My task was two hundred rails a day* If I didn f t cut them I got a beat**
?
ing* I did not know what a coat was* I wore two pieces, a lowelf underskirt
T
and a lowel dress, bachelor brogans and sacks and rags wrapped around my
legs for stockings* That was in winter* Summer I went barefooted and wore
one piece* My sun hat was a rag tied on my head*
"I did not know anything about Sunday School nor church* She
children would try to teach me my ABC f s but master would not let them* Eever
visited any colored people* If I see a colored person coming I run from them*