e didn't have no
crutches. I guess the Yankees got em.

"Childern travels now from one seaport to another but in them days
they kept the young folks confined. I got along all right 'cept I
didn't have no liberty.

"I believe it was in June when they read the freedom papers. They told
us we was free but we could stay if we wanted to. My father left Bob
Johnson's and went to work for his son-in-law. I was subject to him
cause I was a minor, so I went with him. Before freedom, I chopped
cotton, hoed corn and drapped peas, but now I was big enough to follow
the plows. I was a cowboy too. I tended to the cows. Since I've been
grown I been a farmer--always was a farmer. I never would live in town
till I got disabled for farming.

"After we was free we was treated better. They didn't lash us then. We
was turned loose with the white folks to work on the shares. We always
got our share. They was more liberal along that line than they is now.

"After I come to this country of Arkansas I bought several places but
I failed to pay for them and lost them. Now my wife and me are livin'
on my daughter.

"I been married three times. I married 'fore I left Georgia but me and
her couldn't get along. Then I married in Mississippi and I brought
her to Arkansas. She died and now I been married to this woman
fifty-three years.

"I been belongin' to the church over forty years. I have to belong to
the church to give thanks for my chance here now. I think the people
is gettin' weaker and wiser."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mag Johnson,
Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: 65 or 70?

"Pa was born in North Ca'lina. Ma was born in Virginia. Their names
George and Liza Fowler.

"Ma's fust owner what I heard her tell 'bout was Master Ed McGehee in
Virginia. He's the one what brung her in a crowd of nigger traders to
Somerville, Tennessee. The way it was, a cavalry of Yankees got in
back of them. The nigger trader gang drive up. They got separated. My
ma and her gang hid in a cave two weeks an' not much to eat. The
Yankees overtook 'em hid in the cave and passed on. Ma say one day the
nigger traders drive up in front McGehee's yard and they main heads
and Master Ed had a chat. They hung around till he got ready and took
off a gang of his own slaves wid him. They knowed he was after selling
them off when he left wid 'em.

"Ben Trotter in Tennessee bought ma and three more nigger girls. The
Yan