arried fifty years. I have them in my Bible.

I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said there was
going to be war. I remember when they had [HW: a] slave market in New
Orleans. I was living betweeen [TR: between] Pine Bluff and New
Orleans (living in Arkansas) and saw the slaves chained together as
they were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of
the big farms or plantations.

I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the Confederate
armies when they were retreating near the end of the war. I was just
about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall, Texas.

The man that owned me said to the old people that they were free,
that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham Lincoln had set
them free. Of course, I didn't know what freedom was. They brought the
news to them one evening, and them niggers danced nearly all night.

I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves first, and
the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through our field about
half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs would be trailing them.
The hunters didn't bother to stop and question us because they knew
the hounds were on the trail. I have known slaves to run away and stay
three years at a time. Master would whip them and they would run away.
They wouldn't have no place to go or stay so they would come back
after a while. Then they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish
them much, however, because they might run off again.

MARRIAGE

If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would
ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were
somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for
her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all
the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then.
You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases,
however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold
away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to
time.

INHERITANCE OF SLAVES

If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves should go to
each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred slaves and they
divided them up just as you would cattle. Some times there were
certain slaves that certain children liked, and they were granted
those slaves.

WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED

Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of