How Freedom Came
“The way I heard it the owners called their slaves up and told them they was free. They give them their choice of leaving or staying. Most of them stayed.”
First Crop after Freedom
“In 1865, when the slaves were freed, they acknowledged they were free in May in Alabama. All that was free and would stay and help them make their crops, they give them one-tenth. That is, one-tenth went to all the hands put together. Of course if they had a lot of hands that wouldn’t be much. Then again, it might be a good deal. I know about that by hearing the old people talk about it.”
Opinions
“I’ll tell you my opinions some other time. I think the young people are beyond control. I don’t have any trouble with mine. I never have had any trouble with them.”
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Eliza Hays
2215 W. Twentieth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 77 or more
“On the fourth of August, my birthday, and directly after the colored people were set free, all the white people gave a great big dinner to the slaves. All the white people at my home came together and gave a big dinner to us. It was that way all over the United States. My mother told me I was four years old at that big dinner. They went to a great big book and throwed it open and found my birthday in it. I never will forget that. You can figure from that exactly how old I am. (Seventy-seven or seventy-eight—ed.)
“My mother’s name was Elizabeth Tuggle and my father’s name was Albert Tuggle. My mother was the mother of sixteen children. They were some of them born in freedom and some born in slavery. They are all dead but three. My mother was married twice.