Fannie Tatum
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Fannie Tatum, Junction City, Arkansas
Age: Born 1862
"I was born on Wilmington landing in 1862 on the Ouachita River and was
carried away when I was two years old. My mother ran away and left my
sister and me when we was three and five years old. I never saw her any
more till I was eight and after I was eight years old I never saw her
again in forty years. After my mama left me old Master Neal come here to
El Dorado and had me bound to him until I was twenty-one. I stayed there
till I was twenty-one. I slept by the jamb of the fireplace on a sack of
straw and covered with saddle blankets. That was in the winter when snow
was waist high. In summer I slept on naked floor and anywhere I laid
down was my bed just like a dog.
"I wasn't allowed to eat at the table. I et on the edge of the porch
with the dogs with my fingers. I worked around the house and washed
until I was nine and then I started to plowing. At ten I started
splitting rails. My task was two hundred rails a day. If I didn't cut
them I got a beating. I did not know what a coat was. I wore two pieces,
a lowel[HW:?] underskirt and a lowel[HW:?] dress, bachelor brogans and
sacks and rags wrapped around my legs for stockings. That was in winter.
Summer I went barefooted and wore one piece. My sun hat was a rag tied
on my head.
"I did not know anything about Sunday School nor church. The children
would try to teach me my ABC's but master would not let them. Never
visited any colored people. If I see a colored person coming I run from
them. They said they might steal me. After I got grown they let me go
to a colored party and they whipped me for going. Tried to make me tell
whether or not a boy come home with me but I did not tell it; one come
with me though. That was the first time I got out. Of course they sent
one of the boys along with me but he would not tell on me.
"I never slept in a bed until I was twenty-two years old. Never was with
any colored people until I was grown. My play was with white children.
My father was a white man. He was my ma's old master and they was Neals.
They kept my hair cut off like a boy's all the time. I never wore a
stocking until I was twenty-two and my hair did not grow out and get
combed until I was twenty-two. My old master and mistress would have
been mean to me but I was so smart they did not get a chance. The only
thing I was treated like a dog.
"I live in Junction City but am here visiting my daughter."
Next:
Anthony Taylor
Previous:
Liza Moore Tanner
Informational
