. He has been dead about twelve or
thirteen years. I have had so much sickness I can't remember exactly. I
married him a long time ago. I got it put down in the Bible. I married
yonder in Emmet, Arkansas. I ain't got the Bible nor nothing. My brother
had it and he is dead.

"My father's name was Daniel Briggs. He died in Hot Springs. We were
small children when he and my mother was separated. He was in one place
and we were in another. He tried to get us children when he died, but we
was little and couldn't get to him. My mother was dead then.

"My mother's name was Susanna Briggs. Her father's name was Isaac Metz.
The children left him in South Carolina. The white folks sold them away
from him. My mother just had three children: me, and my two brothers. I
don't know how many my grandfather had. There were four sisters that I
know besides my mother and two boys: Aunt Melissa, and Aunt Jane, and
Aunt Annie, and Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Albert Mitchell, and Uncle Ben. My
grandmother's name was Betsy. I never got to see her but they told me
about her.

Good Masters

"I have heard them say that their white folks didn't whip them. My
master was a good man. My young master, when it come to the surrender,
slipped back home and told them they was going to be free as ever he
was. His name was Joe Mitchell. I never seed my white folks whip anybody
in my life. They just never whipped anybody. They never whipped me. I
have seen the white folks next to us whip their Negroes and I asked
grandma about it. She said that those were their Negroes and she would
explain what they was being whipped for. They was on another farm. I
don't remember what they was being whipped for.

"My young master told the slaves when he notified them they was free
that if they didn't want to stay with him, he would give them enough to
go on till they could make it, you know, to keep them from starving. He
was a good man.

"The old man, Joe's father, was named Thomas Mitchell. He died before I
was born. I never seed him, just knowed his name. Joe's mother was named
Isabel Mitchell. I came to be named Briggs because her husband's name
was Briggs. He belonged to a Briggs. I don't know what his name was
else. They didn't belong to the same master. They used to let them
marry. They would fix great big tables. Sometimes they would marry in
the house; that was in the winter. Then sometimes they would marry
outdoors. Then they would set a long table for all th