*Interview with Carrie Pollard*
--_Ruby Pickens Tartt, Livingston, Alabama_
_A HUSBAND COULDN'T BE BOUGHT_
Carrie Pollard was born in slavery time but she was never a slave. Her
grandmother was a free woman who came to Tuscaloosa as a servant in the
1820's and was rescued from a man who claimed ownership, but whose claim
was disallowed. The grandmother went to Gainesville, with her slave
husband for whom she bought freedom.
One of her daughters, who was Carrie Pollard's Aunt Cynthia, was not so
lucky. She couldn't buy her husband free. The story, told so often to
Carrie when she was a child, is still a bright memory to the mulatto
woman who was born in 1859 and still lives in Gainesville in the house
of her birth.
[Illustration: _Carrie Pollard, Gainesville, Alabama_]
"My Aunt Cynthy," said Carrie, "was free born in North Carolina. She
come down here to Gainesville, an' though the deed sez you can't take a
blue veined chile an' make a slave outa her, de man whut brought her
made like he owned her or sump'in'. She lived on one plantation wid her
guardian. Tom Dobbs, a slave nigger whut belonged to Mr. Dobbs here in
Gainesville, he lived on another farm cross de road. An' dey couldn't
marry, 'caze Mr. Dobbs wouldn't sell Tom an' Aunt Cynthy's white folks
wouldn't let her marry, so dey jes' taken up an' went ahead. Her an' Tom
had nine chillun, as fine looking mulattoes ez you'd wanta see. An' old
Mr. Dobbs wanted 'em an' he couldn't get 'em.
"Aunt Cynthy was a good midwife, so a white lady sent fer her to come to
Sumterville, Alabama, to nuss her an' she went. An' while she was dere,
she dream't sump'in' done happened to her chillun an' dat dey was in
trouble. So she tole de white lady she was nussin' 'bout whut she
dream't an' she said, 'Mammy, iffen you is worried 'bout your chillun
I'ze gwineter send you to a fortune teller an' see whut's de matter.'
"De fortune teller cut de cards, an' den she looked up en tole Aunt
Cynthia 'All yo' chillun an' your husband done gone an' I can't tell you
where dey's at.' So Aunt Cynthia run back an' tole de white lady. She
called her husband an' he had one of his niggers saddle up two hosses
an' ride wid Aunt Cynthy back to Gainesville. When she foun' her
guardian, Mr. Steele, he met her wid de news dat dey was tuck to DeKalb,
Mississippi.
"He got on his hoss an' tuck some other white men wid him, an' dey
captured old man Dobbs right dere wid Tom an' de nine chillun. Dey done
stopped an' camped an' was cookin' supper. So Mr. Steele tole him he
could keep Tom, 'caze he was hissen, an' a slave, but Cynthy was free
born an' he couldn't have her chillun. But Mr. Dobbs sez he didn't want
Tom nohow, caze he was part Indian an' no 'count an' wouldn't work. So
Mr. Steele bought Tom for Aunt Cynthy an' brought 'em all back to live
wid him. An' he give Aunt Cynthy an' Tom an' de chillun a nice house
right 'cross de branch here after surrender."
Carrie tells of how her grandmother used to send them to the mill in
Gainesville with wheat, "jes' lack you do corn nowadays, to git flour.
An' us git de grudgins an' de seconds an' have de bes' buckwheat cakes
you ever et."
She says there are more black Negroes now in Gainesville than she has
ever seen. She says, "Hit use to be a sight to see 'bout fifty bes'
lookin' mulatto girls up in de public square here listenin' to de ban'
an' nussen' de chillun, not five black ones in de bunch. An' dey had
good sense, too. Us didn't have no clocks, so us white mistis would say,
'Yawl come home a hour by sun to do de night work,' an' us didn't hardly
ever miss it." She says her grandmother sent her two daughters to school
in Mobile, and they went down the river from Gainesville in a river boat
called _Cremonia_.