Sims, Jerry

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Jerry Sims (Indian and Negro) Brinkley, Arkansas Age: Born 1859


"I was born in 1859 close to Natchez, Mississippi. Chief Sims was my grandpa. He was Indian, full blood. His wife was a Choctaw Indian. Grandpa was a small red Indian. They kept my pa hid out with stock nearly all time of the Civil War. Both my mas' parents was nearly all Indian too but they was mixed. I'm more Indian than anything else. I heard pa talk about staying in the cane brakes. Mighty few cane brakes to be found now. I come with my grandpa and grandma to Arkansas when I was five years old.

"My ma belong to Quill and Sely Whitaker. I et and slept with Hattie and Bud and Rob Whitaker. Quill Whitaker was a Union surgeon in the Civil War.

"I don't think any of my folks was ever sold. They was of a porer class and had to have a living and sorter become slaves for a living. I never heard ma say how she got in bondage. Pa stayed with John Rob bout like a slave.

"I am a farmer. I am not on the PWA. Times for me is hard. You see some has so much and others hardly can live atall.

"It is not for me to say about the young generation. I have mighty little to do with any of them.

"I have voted but not lately. I never did understand voting."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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