“According to preparation and conditions there were less corruption then than there is now.  In them days, they had to learn the tricks.  But now they know them.  Now you find the man and he already knows what to do.

Songs

“Back in that period, nearly all the songs the Negro sang considerably were the spirituals:  ‘I’m Going Down to Jordan,’ ‘Roll Jordan Roll.’”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  J.F.  Boone
                    1502 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  66

[HW:  A Union Veteran]

“My father’s name was Arthur Boone and my mother’s name was Eliza Boone, I am goin’ to tell you about my father.  Now be sure you put down there that this is Arthur Boone’s son.  I am J.F.  Boone, and I am goin’ to tell you about my father, Arthur Boone.

“My father’s old master was Henry Boone.  My mother came from Virginia—­north Virginia—­and my father came from North Carolina.  The Boones bought them.  I have heard that my father, Arthur Boone, was bought by the Boones.  They wasn’t his first masters.  I have heard my father say that it was more than a thousand dollars they paid for him.

“He said that they used to put up niggers on the block and auction them off.  They auctioned off niggers accordin’ to the breed of them.  Like they auction off dogs and horses.  The better the breed, the more they’d pay.  My father was in the first-class rating as a good healthy Negro and those kind sold for good money.  I have heard him say that niggers sometimes brought as high as five thousand dollars.

“My father don’t know much about his first boss man.  But the Boones were very good to them.  They got biscuits once a week.  The overseer was pretty cruel to them in a way.  My father has seen them whipped till they couldn’t stand up and then salt and things that hurt poured in their wounds.  My father said that he seen that done; I don’t know whether it was his boss man or the overseer that done it.

“My father said that they breeded good niggers—­stud ’em like horses and cattle.  Good healthy man and woman that would breed fast, they would keep stalled up.  Wouldn’t let them get out and work.  Keep them to raise young niggers from.  I don’t know for certain that my father was used that way or not.  I don’t suppose he would have told me that, but he was a mighty fine man and he sold for a lot of money.  The slaves weren’t to blame for that.

“My father said that in about two or three months after the War ended, his young master told them that they were free.  They came home from the War about that time.  He told them that they could continue living on with them or that they could go to some one else if they wanted to ’cause they were free and there wasn’t any more slavery.

“I was born after slavery.  Peace was declared in 1865, wasn’t it?  When the War ended I don’t know where my father was living, but I was bred and born in Woodruff near Augusta in Arkansas.  All the Booneses were there when I knew anything about it.  They owned hundreds and hundreds of acres of ground.  I was born on old Captain Boone’s farm.