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Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives, Part 1 by Work Projects Administration
page 101 of 335 (30%)



Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Henry Banner
County Hospital
Little Rock, Ark.
Age: ?


[HW: Forty Acres and a Mule]

"I was sold the third year of the war for fifteen years old. That would
be in 1864. That would make my birthday come in 1849. I must have been
12 year old when the war started and sixteen when Lee surrendered. I was
born and raised in Russell County, Ol' Virginny. I was sold out of
Russell County during the war. Ol' Man Menefee refugeed me into
Tennessee near Knoxville. They sold me down there to a man named Jim
Maddison. He carried me down in Virginny near Lynchburg and sold me to
Jim Alec Wright. He was the man I was with in the time of the surrender.
Then I was in a town called Liberty. The last time I was sold, I sold
for $2,300,--more than I'm worth now.

"Police were for white folks. Patteroles were for niggers. If they
caught niggers out without a pass they would whip them. The patteroles
were for darkies, police for other people.

"They run me once, and I ran home. I had a dog at home, and there wasn't
no chance them gettin' by that dog. They caught me once in Liberty, and
Mrs. Charlie Crenchaw, Ol' John Crenchaw's daughter, came out and made
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