May, Ann

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller Person interviewed: Ann May, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 82


"I was born at Cabin Creek (Lamar now, but I still call it Cabin Creek. I can't call it anything else). I was sold with my mother when I was a little girl and lived with our white folks until after the war and was freed. We lived on a farm. My father belong to another family, a neighbor of ours. We all lived with the white folks. My mother took care of all of them. They was always as good as they could be to us and after the war we stayed on with the white folks who owned my father and worked on the farm for him. His master gave us half of everything we made until we could get started our selves, then our white folks told my father to homestead a place near him, and he did. We lived there until after father died. We paid taxes and lived just like the white folks. We did what the white folks told us to do and never lost a thing by doing it. After I married my husband worked at the mill for your father and made a living for me and I worked for the white folks. Now I am too old to cook but I have a few washin's for the white folks and am getting my old age pension that helps me a lot.

"I don't know what I think about the young generation. I aim at my stopping place.

"The songs we sang were

'Come ye that love the Lord and let your Joys be known' 'When You and I Were Young, Maggie' 'Juanita' 'Just Before the Battle, Mother' 'Darling Nellie Gray' 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia' 'Old Black Joe' Of course we sang 'Dixie.' We had to sing that, it was the leading song."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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