Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Minerva Davis, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 56


"My father was sold in Richmond, Virginia when he was eighteen years old
to the nigger traders. They had nigger traders and cloth peddlers and
horse traders all over the country coming by every few weeks. Papa said
he traveled to Tennessee. His job was to wash their faces and hands and
fix their hair--comb and cut and braid their hair and dress them to be
auctioned off. They sold a lot of children from Virginia all along the
way and he was put up in Tennessee and auctioned off. He was sold to the
highest bidder. Bill Thomas at Brownsville, Tennessee was the one bought
him. Papa was a large strong man.

"He run off and went to war. He had learned to cook and he was one-eyed
and couldn't fight. All the endurin' time he cooked at the camps. Then
he run off from war when he got a chance before he was mustered out and
he never got a pension because of that. He said he come home pretty
often and mama was expecting a baby. He thought he was needed at home
worse. He was so tired of war. He didn't know it would be valuable to
him in his old days. He was sorry he didn't stay till they got him
mustered out. He said it was harder in the war than in slavery. They was
putting up tents and moving all the time and he be scared purt nigh to
death all the time. Never did know when they would be shot and killed.

"Mama said the way they bought grandma was at a well. A drove of folks
come by. It was the nigger traders. She had pulled up her two or three
buckets. She carried one bucket on her head and one in each hand. They
said, 'Draw me up some water to drink.' She was so smart they bragged on