"Our white folks didn't like any one wearing blue clothes. Thought they were Yankees, and that meant freedom for us niggers. Men in blue clothes came and put a rope around my marsters neck, took him all around the nigger cabins and asked where he hid them. He told them, Texas. They said, get them and free them or they would hang him.
"He sent after them and everything was alright.
"I though my white marster was God. He took sick and died.
"I heard the other slaves saying he committed suicide because he had lost all his money.
"In those times my father saw my mother, decided he wanted her for his woman. He tol his white folks and they fixed up a cabin for them to live in together. Was no ceremony. Had nigger midwives for babies.
"I knows every lucky silver pieces of money. I believe in lucky pieces of silver. I is a dreamer, always been dat way. I have seen my bright days ahead of me, in dreams and visions. If I hears a woman's voice calling me, a calling me in my sleep I is bound to move outa dat house. I dont keer wher I goes, I is got to go some whars."
Information by: Charles Hinton Place of residence: RFD 5 Old riv. Rd. Occupation: Age: 83
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden. Person interviewed: Charlie Hinton (c) Age: 89 Home: Old River Road--Pine Bluff, Ark.
"Oh Lordy, lady, I was pickin' cotton durin' the war. I was here before the first gun was fired. When the war came they sent my mother and father and all the other big folks to Texas and left us undergrowth here to make a crop.
"My mother's name was Martha and my father was named Peter Hinton. Now I'm just goin' to tell you everything--I'm not ashamed. I've got the marks of slavery on me. My old marster and Miss Mary, they was good to me, but the old cook woman throwed me off the porch and injured my back. I ain't never been able to walk just right since.
"Now, here's what I remember. Our marster, we thought he was God.
"They pretty near raised us with the pigs. I remember they would cook a great big oven of bread and then pour a pan full of buttermilk or clabber and we'd break off a piece of bread and get around the pan of milk jest like pigs. Yes mam, they did that.
"Let's see now, what else occurred. Old marster would have my father and Uncle Jacob and us boys to run foot races. You know--they was testin' us, and I know I was valued to be worth five hundred dollars.