two sons and one girl. Bigy and
Dunbar was the boys' names. Annie was the girl's name.

"My parents' names was Jane and William Brown. Papa said he was a little
shirt tail boy when the stars fell. Grandma Sofa and Grandpa Peter Bane
lived on the same place. I'm named after him. My papa come from
Tennessee to Mississippi. I never heard ma say where she come from.

"My remembrance of slavery is not at tall favorable. I heard the master
and overseers whooping the slaves b'fore day. They had stakes fixed in
the ground and tied them down on their stomachs stretched out and they
beat them with a bull whoop (cowhide woven). They would break the
blisters on them with white oak paddles that had holes in it so it would
suck. They be saying, 'Oh pray, master.' He'd say, 'Better pray fer
yourself.' I heard that going on when I was a child morning after
morning. I wasn't big enough to go to the field. I didn't have a hard
time then. Ma had to work when she wasn't able. Pa stole her out and one
night a small panther smelled them and come on a log up over where they
slept in a canebrake. Pa killed it with a bowie knife. Ma had a baby out
there in the canebrake. Pa had stole her out. They went back and they
never made her work no more. She was a fast breeder; she had three sets
of twins. They told him if he would stay out of the woods they wouldn't
make her work no more, take care of her children. They prized fast
breeders. They would come to see her and bring her things then. She had
ten children, three pairs of twins. Jonas and Sofa, Peter and Alice,
Isaac and Jacob.

"When I was fifteen years old, mother said, 'Peter, you are fifteen
years old today; you was born March 1, 1852.' She told me that two or
three times and I kept up wid it. I am glad I did; she died right after
that.

"Ma and pa et dinner, well as could be. Took cholera, was dead at twelve
o'clock that night. It was on Monday. Ike and Jake took it. They got
over it. I waited on the little things. One of them said, 'Peter, I'm
hungry.' I broiled some meat, made a ash cake and put the meat in where
I split the ash cake. He et it and went to sleep. He started mending.
Sister come and got the children and took them to Lake Providence. I
fell in the hands then of some cruel people. They had a doctor named Dr.
Coleman come to see ma and pa. He said, 'Don't eat no fruit, no
vegetables.' He said, 'Eat meat and bread.' I et green plums and peaches
like a boy fifteen years ol