Natchez, Mississippi


James Lucas, ex-slave of Jefferson Davis, lives at Natchez, Adams
County. Uncle Jim is small, wrinkled, and slightly stooped. His woolly
hair is white, and his eyes very bright. He wears a small grizzled
mustache. He is always clean and neatly dressed.

"Miss, you can count up for yo'se'f. I was born on October 11, 1833. My
young Marster give me my age when he heired de prope'ty of his uncle,
Marse W.B. Withers. He was a-goin' through de papers an' a-burnin' some
of 'em when he foun' de one 'bout me. Den he says, 'Jim, dissen's 'bout
you. It gives yo' birthday.'

"I recollec' a heap' bout slav'ry-times, but I's all by myse'f now. All
o' my frien's has lef' me. Even Marse Fleming has passed on. He was a
little boy when I was a grown man.

"I was born in a cotton fiel' in cotton pickin' time, an' de wimmins
fixed my mammy up so she didn' hardly lose no time at all. My mammy sho'
was healthy. Her name was Silvey an' her mammy come over to dis country
in a big ship. Somebody give her de name o' Betty, but twant her right
name. Folks couldn' un'erstan' a word she say. It was some sort o'
gibberish dey called gulluh-talk, an' it soun' _dat_ funny. My pappy was
Bill Lucas.

"When I was a little chap I used to wear coarse lowell-cloth shirts on
de week-a-days. Dey was long an' had big collars. When de seams ripped
de hide would show through. When I got big enough to wait 'roun' at de
Big House an' go to town, I wore clean rough clo'es. De pants was white