"I was born in 1855 down on Bayou Bartholomew near Pine Bluff,
Jefferson County.
"My mother's name was Louisa. She married a man named Bill Cardrelle
after freedom. Her husband in slavery time was Sam Lucas. He belonged
to a man by the name of O'Neil. They took him in the War and he never
did come back to her. (He didn't much believe he was my father, but I
went in his name anyway.)
"My mother's father's name was Jacob Boyd. I was young, but I know
that. He was free and didn't belong to nobody. That was right here in
Arkansas. He had three other daughters besides my mother, and all of
them were slaves because their mother was a slave. His wife was a
woman by the name of Barclay. Her master was Antoine Barclay (?). She
was a slave woman. She died down there in New Cascogne. That was a
good while ago.
"The French were very kind to their slaves. The Americans called all
us people that belonged to the Frenchmen free people. They never gave
the free Negroes among them any trouble. I mean the Frenchmen didn't
give them no trouble.
"The reason we finally left the place after freedom was because of the
meanness of a colored woman, Amanda Sanders. I don't know what she had
against us. The old mistress raised me right in the house and fed me
right at the table. When she died, this woman used to beat the devil
out of me. We had had good owners. They never had no overseers until
just before the War broke out, and they never beat nobody.
"The _first_ overseer was on a boat named the _Quapaw_ when the mate
knocked him in the head and put him in a yawl and took him to the
shore. The boss saw it and took four men and went and got him and had
the doctor attend to him. It was a year before he could do anything.
He didn't stay there long before they had him in the War. He just got
to oversee a short time after he got well. He was in the cavalry. The
other boys went off later. They took the cavalry first. None of them
ever came back. They were lost in the big fight at Vicksburg. My
_paran_, Mark Noble, he was the only one that got back.
"I don't remember my father's father. But I know that his mother went
in the name of Rhoda. I don't know her last name. She was my grandma
on his side.
"I belonged to a man named Brumbaugh. His first name was Raphael. He
was a all right man. He had a _colored man for an overseer_ before
this here white man I was tellin' you about came to him. 'Uncle' Jesse
was the foreman. He was not my uncle. He was related to my wife
though; so I call him uncle now. Of course, I didn't marry till after
freedom came. I married in 1875.