Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Claiborne Moss
1812 Marshall Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born in Washington County, Georgia, on Archie Duggins' plantation, fifteen miles from Sandersville, the county-seat, June 18, 1857.
"My mother's name was Ellen Moss. She was born in Georgia too, in Hancock County, near Sparta, the county-seat. My father was Fluellen Moss. He, too, was born in Hancock County. Bill Moss was his owner. Jesse Battle was my mother's owner before she married. My mother and father had ten children, none of them living now but me, so far as I know. I was the fifth in line. There were four older than I. The oldest was ten years older than I.
"Bill Moss' and Jesse Battle's plantations ware not far apart. I never heard my father say how he first met my mother. I was only eight years old when he died. They were all right there in the same neighborhood, and they would go visiting. Battle and Moss and Evans all had plantations in the same neighborhood and they would go from one place to the other.
"When Bill Moss went to Texas, he gave my mother and father to Mrs. Beck. Mrs. Beck was Battle's daughter and Mrs. Beck bought my father from Moss and that kept them together. He was that good. Moss sold out and went to Texas and all his slaves went walking while he went on the train. He had about a hundred of them. When he got there, he couldn't hear from them. He didn't know where they was—they was walking and he had got on the train—so he killed hisself. When they got there, just walking along, they found him dead.
"Moss' nephew, Whaley, got two parts of all he had. Another fellow—I can't call his name—got one part. His sister, they sent her back five—three of my uncles and two of my aunties.
"Where I was raised, Duggins wasn't a mean man. His slaves didn't get out to work till after sunup. His brother, who lived three miles out from us, made his folks get up before sunup. But Duggins didn't do that. He seemed to think something of his folks. Every Saturday, he'd give lard, flour, hog meat, syrup. That was all he had to give. That was extra. War was going on and he couldn't get nothing else. On Wednesday night he'd give it to them again. Of course, they would get corn-meal and other things from the kitchen. They didn't eat in the kitchen or any place together. Everybody got what there was on the place and cooked it in his cabin.
"Before I was born, Beck sold my mother and father to Duggins. I don't know why he sold them. They had an auction block in the town, but out in the country they didn't have no block. If I had seen a nigger and wanted to buy him, I would just go up to the owner and do business with him. That was the way it was with Beck and Duggins. Selling my mother and father was just a private transaction between them.