Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States

Slave Narratives: A Folk History
of Slavery in the United States

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
Slavery
in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, by Work
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Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives
Author: Work Projects Administration
Release Date: October 2, 2004 [EBook #13579]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE
NARRATIVES: INDIANA ***

Produced by Jeannie Howse, Andrea Ball, Terry Gilliland and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Produced from images
provided by the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division

[TR: ***] = Transcriber Note [HW: ***] = Handwritten Note

[Illustration: Old Slave, Peter Dunn]

SLAVE NARRATIVES
A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with
Former Slaves
TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY THE FEDERAL
WRITERS' PROJECT 1936-1938 ASSEMBLED BY THE LIBRARY
OF CONGRESS PROJECT WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SPONSORED BY THE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Illustrated with Photographs
WASHINGTON 1941

VOLUME V
INDIANA NARRATIVES

Prepared by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress
Administration for the State of Indiana
INFORMANTS
Arnold, George W. [TR: with Professor W.S. Best and Samuel Bell]
Ash, Thomas, and Crane, Mary
Barber, Rosa Blakeley, Mittie Boone, Carl Bowman, Julia Boyce,
Angie Boysaw, Edna Bracey, Callie [TR: daughter of Louise Terrell]
Buckner, Dr. George Washington Burns, George Taylor Butler, Belle
[TR: daughter of Chaney Mayer]
Carter, Joseph William Cave, Ellen Cheatam, Harriet Childress, James
Colbert, Sarah Cooper, Frank [TR: son of Mandy Cooper]
Edmunds, Rev. H.H. Eubanks, John [TR: and family]
Fields, John W. Fortman, George [TR: and other interested citizens]
Gibson, John Henry Guwn, Betty [TR: reported by Mrs. Hattie Cash,
daughter]
Hockaday, Mrs. Howard, Robert Hume, Matthew
Jackson, Henrietta Johnson, Lizzie Jones, Betty Jones, Nathan
Lennox, Adeline Rose Lewis, Thomas Locke, Sarah H. [TR: daughter
of Wm. A. and Priscilla Taylor]
McKinley, Robert Miller, Richard Moorman, Rev. Henry Clay Morgan,
America Morrison, George Mosely, Joseph [TR: also reported as

Moseley in text of interview]
Patterson, Amy Elizabeth Preston, Mrs.
Quinn, William M.
Richardson, Candus Robinson, Joe Rogers, Rosaline Rollins, Parthena
Rudd, John
Samuels, Amanda Elizabeth Simms, Jack Slaughter, Billy Smith, Mr.
and Mrs. Alex Stone, Barney Suggs, Adah Isabelle Sutton, Katie
Thompson, George
Wamble (Womble), Rev. Watson, Samuel Whallen, Nancy Whitted,
Anderson Woodson, Alex

ILLUSTRATIONS
Mary Crane [TR: not in original index]
John W. Fields
Anderson Whitted
[TR: Federal Writer Anna Pritchett annotated her interviews by
marking each paragraph to indicate whether the information was
obtained from the respondent (A) or was a comment by the interviewer
(B). Since the information was presented in sequence, it is presented
here without these markings, with the interviewer's remarks set apart by
the topic heading 'Interviewer's Comment'.]
[TR: Information listed separately as References, such as informant
names and addresses, has been incorporated into the interview headers.
In some cases, information has been rearranged for readability. Names
in brackets were drawn from text of interviews.]

Ex-Slave Stories District No. 5 Vanderburgh County Lauana Creel
AN UNHAPPY EXPERIENCE [GEORGE W. ARNOLD]
This is written from an interview with each of the following: George W.
Arnold, Professor W.S. Best of the Lincoln High School and Samuel
Bell, all of Evansville, Indiana.
George W. Arnold was born April 7, 1861, in Bedford County,
Tennessee. He was the property of Oliver P. Arnold, who owned a
large farm or plantation in Bedford county. His mother was a native of
Rome, Georgia, where she remained until twelve years of age, when
she was sold at auction.

Oliver Arnold bought her, and he also purchased her three brothers and
one uncle. The four negroes were taken along with other slaves from
Georgia to Tennessee where they were put to work on the Arnold
plantation.
On this plantation George W. Arnold was born and the child was
allowed to live in a cabin with his relatives and declares that he never
heard one of them speak an unkind word about Master Oliver Arnold or
any member of his family. "Happiness and contentment and a
reasonable amount of food and clothes seemed to be all we needed,"
said the now white-haired man.
Only a limited memory of Civil War days is retained by the old man
but the few events recalled are vividly described by him. "Mother, my
young brother, my sister and I were walking along one day. I don't
remember where we had started but we passed under the fort