Rb Anderson Interviewed By Samuel S Taylor
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: R.B. Anderson
Route 4, Box 68 (near Granite)
Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75
[HW: The Brooks-Baxter War]
"I was born in Little Rock along about Seventeenth and Arch Streets.
There was a big plantation there then. Dr. Wright owned the plantation.
He owned my mother and father. My father and mother told me that I was
born in 1862. They didn't know the date exactly, so I put it the last
day in the year and call it December 30, 1862.
"My father's name was William Anderson. He didn't go to the War because
he was blind. He was ignorant too. He was colored. He was a pretty good
old man when he died.
"My mother's name was Minerva Anderson. She was three-fourths Indian,
hair way down to her waist. I was in Hot Springs blacking boots when my
mother died. I was only about eight or ten years old then. I always
regretted I wasn't able to do anything for my mother before she died. I
don't know to what tribe her people belonged.
"Dr. Wright was awful good to his slaves.
"I don't know just how freedom came to my folks. I never heard my father
say. They were set free, I know. They were set free when the War ended.
They never bought their freedom.
"We lived on Tenth and near to Center in a one-room log house. That is
the earliest thing I remember. When they moved from there, my father had
accumulated enough to buy a home. He bought it at Seventh and Broadway.
He paid cash for it--five hundred and fifty dollars. That is where we
all lived until it was sold. I couldn't name the date of the sale but it
was sold for good money--about three thousand eight hundred dollars, or
maybe around four thousand. I was a young man then.
"I remember the Brooks-Baxter War.
"I remember the King White fooled a lot of niggers and armed them and
brought them up here. The niggers and Republicans here fought them and
run them back where they come from.
"I know Hot Springs when the main street was a creek. I can't remember
when I first went there. The government bath-house was called 'Ral
Hole', because it was mostly people with bad diseases that went there.
"After the War, my father worked for a rich man named Hunter. He was
yardman and took care of the horse. My mother was living then.
"Scipio Jones and I were boys together. We slept on pool tables many a
time when we didn't have no other place to sleep. He was poor when he
was a boy and glad to get hold of a dime, or a nickel. He and I don't
speak today because he robbed me. I had a third interest in my place. I
gave him money to buy my place in for me. It was up for sale and I
wanted to get possession. He gave me some papers to sign and when I
found out what was happening, he had all my property. My wife kept me
from killing him."
Interviewer's Comment
Occupation: Grocer, bartender, porter, general work
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Sarah Anderson Interviewed By Bernice Bowden
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Nancy Anderson Interviewed By Irene Robertson
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