SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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V Interviewer Mrs* Berniee Bowden
Person interviewed Handy Tucker
1021 £• 11th Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Ae» 80?
"I was here in slavery times hat I don't know what year I was born*
War? I was in it!
"I member old master and old mistis too* I member I didn't know noth-
ft
in 1 bout ay mother and father cause it was night when they went to work
and night when they come in and we chilluns would be under the bed asleep*
*X know the white folks had a kitchen full of we chilluns* We went
over to the kitchen to eat*
"My mother belonged to the Cockrills and my father belonged to the
Armstrongs* They were cousins and their plantations joined*
•I was large enough to know when they took my parents to Texas, bat I
dldn 9 t know how serious it was till they was gone* I member peepin 1
through the crack of the fence but I didn f t know they was takin 1 em off*
"They left me with the old doctor woman* She doctored both white and
colored* I stayed there till I was fourteen years old*
"I know we had our meals off a big wooden tray but we had wooden
spoons to eat with*
•I member when they was fightin 1 here at Pine Bluff* I was standin 1
at the overseer 1 s bell house waitin f for a doll dress a girl had promised
me and the guns was goin* just like pop guns* We didn 9 t know what it was
to take off our shoes and clothes for six months* We was ready to run if
they broke in on us*