SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Interviewer Sanaa! 8. Taylor
Person Interviewed Ctoella Thomas
1014 V. Fifth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 63
"I was born in Uarianna, lee County, in Arkansas* I wasn't horn right
in the town but out a piece from the town in the old Bouden place, in 1875*
My father kept a record of all births and deaths in his Bible* He never
forgot whenever a new baby would come to get down his glasses and pen and
ink and Bible* My daddy learned to read and write after the emancipa-
tion*
"My father 9 s name was Frank Johnson and my mother 1 s name was Henrietta
Johnson* I don f t know the given names of my father 9 s and mother 9 s parents*
I do know my mother 9 s mother 9 s name, Lucinda, and my father 9 s mother was
named Stephens* I don Y t know their given names* My mother 9 s master was a
Trotter*
"My father was a free man* He hired his own time* He told me that
his father hired his own time and he would go off and work* He made wash-
pots* He would go off and work and bring back money and things* His
mother was free too* When war was declared, he volunteered to go* He was
with the Yankees* My father worked just like my grandfather did* Whenever
he had a job to do* He never had a lick from anybody, carried his gun
strapped down on his side all the time and never went without it*
* After the War, he worked on a steamboat* They used to kick the
roustabouts about and run them around but they never laid the weight of
their hands on him*
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