Whiteside, Dolly

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dolly Whiteside (c) Age: 81 Home: 103 Oregon Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.


"I reckon I did live in slavery times-look at my hair.

"I been down sick-I been right low and they didn't speck me to live.

"Well, I'll tell you. I was old enough to know when they runned us to Texas so the Yankees couldn't overtaken us. We was in Texas when freedom come, I remember I was sittin on the fence when the soldiers in them blue uniforms with gold buttons come. He said, "I come to tell you you is free". I didn't know what it was all about but everybody was sayin' "Thank God". I thought it was the judgment day and I was lookin' for God. I said to myself, I'm goin' have some buttons like that some day.

"Colonel Williams was my marster. My mother was a nurse and took care of the colored folks when they was sick. I remember when people wasn't given nothin' but blue mass, calomel, castor oil and gruel, and every body was healthier than they is now.

"I'm the only one livin' that my mother birthed in this world. I was born here, but I been travelin', I been to Memphis and around.

"No mam, I don't remember nothin' else. I done tole you all I know."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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