"Then they says they gwine sell me, 'cause Miss Nancy's father-in-law dies and they got rid of some of us. She didn't want to sell me so she tell me to be sassy and no one would buy me. They takes me to Houston and to the market and a man call George Fraser sells the slaves. The market was a open house, more like a shed. We all stands to one side till our turn comes. They wasn't nothin' else you could do.
"They stands me up on a block of wood and a man bid me in. I felt mad. You see I was young then, too young to know better. I don't know what they sold me for, but the man what bought me made me open my mouth while he looks at my teeth. They done all us that-a-way, sells us like you sell a hoss. Then my old master bids me goodby and tries to give me a dog, but I 'members what Miss Nancy done say and I sassed him and slapped the dog out of his hand. So the man what bought me say, 'When one o'clock come you got to sell her 'gain, she's sassy. If she done me that way I'd kill her.' So they sells me twice the same day. They was two sellin's that day.
"My new master, Tom Johnson, lives in Lynchburg and owns the river boat there, and has a little place, 'bout one acre, on the bayou. Then the war comes and jes' 'fore war come to Galveston they took all the steamships in the Buffalo Bayou and took the cabins off and made ships. They put cotton bales 'round them and builded 'em up high with the cotton, to cotch the cannonballs. Two of 'em was the Island City, and the Neptune.
"Then freedom cries and the master say we all free and I goes to Houston with my mammy. We stays with a old colored woman what has a house her old master done give her and I finishes growin' there and works some. But then I comes to Galveston and hired out here and I been workin' for these white folks 24 year now."
[Tom Mills]
Tom Mills was born in Fayette Co., Alabama, in 1858, a slave of George Patterson, who owned Tom's father and mother. In 1862 George Patterson moved to Texas, bringing Tom and his mother, but not his father. After they were freed, it was difficult for Tom's mother to earn a living and they had a hard time for several years, until Tom was old enough to go to work on a ranch, as a cow-hand. In 1892 Tom undertook stock farming, finally settling in Uvalde in 1919. He now lives in a four-room house he built himself. A peach orchard and a grape arbor shade the west side of the house and well-fed cows are in the little pasture. Tom is contented and optimistic and says he can "do a lot of work yet."
"I was born in Alabama, in Fayette Co., in 1858. My mother was named Emaline Riley and my father was named Thad Mills. My sisters were named Ella and Ann and Lou and Maggie and Matildy, and the youngest one was Easter. I had two brothers, Richard and Ben. Bob Lebruc was my great-uncle and for a long while he ran a freight wagon from Salt Lakes to this country. That was the only way of getting salt to Texas, this part of Texas, I mean, because Salt Lakes is down east of Corpus, close to the bay. My uncle was finally killed by the Indians in Frio County.
"In Alabama we lived on Patterson's place. The grandmother of all these Pattersons was Betsy Patterson and we lived on her estate. My mother wove the cloth. It kep' her pretty busy, but she was stout and active. My uncle was blacksmith and made all the plows, too.
"We had a picket house, one room, and two beds built in corners.
"My mother done the cookin' up at the house because she was workin' up there all the time, weavin' cloth, and of course we ate up there. The rest of 'em didn't like it much because we ate up there, but her work was there. I guess you never did see a loom? It used to keep me pretty busy fillin' quills. She made this cloth--this four-dollar-a-yard, four-leaf jean cloth, all wool, of course.