SLAVE NARRATIVES Volume 5

“I come to dis state in 1885. I run off from my parents back in North Carolina. They was working in a turpentine forest there. “When freedom was declared my folks heard ‘bout a place where money was easy to make. So they walked from down close to Charleston up there and carried the children. I was ‘bout nine or ten years old. I liked the farm so I left the turpentine farm. I got to rambling round and finally got to Arkansas. I run off from my folks cause they kept staying there. I was a child and don’t recollect much ‘bout slavery. I was at the quarters wid all the children. My mother b’longed to Bob Plat and my father to a man named Rogers. My father could get a pass and come to see us every Sunday providin’ he didn’t go nowhere else or stop long the road. He came early and stay till bedtime. We all run to meet him. He kiss us all in bed when he be leavin’.