ive it to him. I don't know what they said to my father. Then
the last gun was fired. I don't know where peace was declared. Notice
come how that everybody was free. Told my daddy, 'You're just as free as
I am.' Some went back to their daddy's name. Some went back to their
master's name. My daddy went back to his old master's name.

Right after the War

"First year after the war, they planted a crop. Didn't raise no cotton
during the war, from the time the war started till it ended, they didn't
raise no cotton.

"After the war, they give the colored people corn and cotton, one-third
and one-fourth. They would haul a load of it up during the war I mean,
during the time before the war, and give it to the colored people.

"They had two crops. No cotton in the time of the war, nothing but corn
and peas and potatoes and so on. All that went to the white people. But
they divided it. They give all so much round. Had a bin for the white
and a bin for the colored. The next year they commenced with the third
and fourth business--third of the cotton and fourth of the corn. You
could have all the peanuts you wanted. You could sell your corn but they
would only give you fifty cents for it--fifty cents a bushel.

"My father farmed and sharecropped for a while after the war. He changed
from his master's place the second year and went on another place. He
farmed all his life. He raised all his children and got wore out and
pore. He died in Kemper County, Mississippi. All his children and
everything was raised there.

Life Since the War

"I came to Arkansas in the eighties. Come to Helena. I did carpenter and
farm work in Helena. I made three crops, one for Phil Maddox, two with
Miss Hobbs. I come from Helena here.

"I married in Mississippi in Roland Forks, sixty miles this side of
Vicksburg. I had two boys and three girls. Two girls died in Helena. One
died in Roland Forks before I come to Helena. Nary one of the boys
didn't die.

"I don't do no work now. This rheumatism's got me down. I call that age.
If I could work, I couldn't git nothing worth while. These niggers here
won't pay you nothing they promise you. My boy's got me to feed as long
as I live now. I did a batch of work for the colored people round here
in the spring of the year and I ain't got no money for it yit.

"I belong to the Mount Zion Baptist Church; I reckon I do. I got down
sick so I couldn't go and I don't know whether they turned me OUT OR NO.
I