abored in the field.

"My mother's mother was named Nancy Martin and her father was named
Jordan Martin. We kept a Jordan in the family all the way down. Both of
them farmed. They were slaves.

"There were fourteen children of us,--eleven sisters and three brothers.
The brothers were Jordan, Prince, and John. The sisters were Margaret,
Eliza, Nancy, Tempy, Bell, Abbie, Caroline, Frances, Dosia, Mattie,
Lucy, Louisa, Ida."

Suicide

"They say Negroes won't commit suicide, but Isom told us of a girl that
committed suicide. There was a girl named Lu who used to run off and go
to the dances. The patrollers would try to catch her but they couldn't
because she was too fast on her feet. One day they got after her in the
daytime. She had always outran them at night. She ran to the cabin and
got her quarter which she had hid. She put the quarter in her mouth. The
white folks didn't allow the slaves to handle no money. The quarter got
stuck in her throat, and she went on down to the slough and drowned
herself rather than let them beat her, and mark her up. Then patrollers
sure would get you and beat you up. If they couldn't catch you when you
were running away from them, they would come on your master's place and
get you and beat you. The master would allow them to do it. They didn't
let the patrollers come on the Blackshear place, but this gal was so
hard-headed 'bout goin' out that they made a 'ception to her. And they
intended to make her an example to the rest of the slaves. But they
didn't get Lucy."

Death of Sixty Babies

"Once on the Blackshear place, they took all the fine looking boys and
girls that was thirteen years old or older and put them in a big barn
after they had stripped them naked. They used to strip them naked and
put them in a big barn every Sunday and leave them there until Monday
morning. Out of that came sixty babies.

"They was too many babies to leave in the quarters for some one to take
care of during the day. When the young mothers went to work Blackshear
had them take their babies with them to the field, and it was two or
three miles from the house to the field. He didn't want them to lose
time walking backward and forward nursing. They built a long old trough
like a great long old cradle and put all these babies in it every
morning when the mother come out to the field. It was set at the end of
the rows under a big old cottonwood tree.

"When they were at the other end of the row, all