~2lNs
                                                              ~e	9
        I was born on the farm of ~ttie ~1j111ama, in 1855 and am
 alghty‘.‘two years old. I came to Mitchell, Indiana, about fifty yeara
 ago with my husband, who Is now dead and four children and have lived
here ever since. I was only a girl, about five or six years old when
the Clvii War broke out but I can remember very well, happening8
of that time.
        My mother was owned by V,att le ~ ill i~ms ‚ who had a large farm,
located in Larue county, Kentucky. My father wasa slave on the farm
of a Mr. Duret, nearby.
        In those days, slave owners, whenever one of their daughters
would get married, would ~lve her and her husband a slave as a
wedding present, usually allowing the girl to pick the one she wished
to accompany her to her new home. When Mr. Duret‘s eldest daughter
married Zeke Samples, she choose my father to accompany them to their
home.
       Zeke Samples proved to be a man who loved his toddies far
better than his bride and before lon~ he was “broke“. Everything he
had or owned, including my father, was to bt~ sold at auction to pay
off his debts.
       In those days, there were men who xr~de a business of buying
up negroes at auction sales and shipping them down to New Orleans to
be sold to owners of cotton and sugar cane plantations, just as men
today, buy and~ ship cattle. These men were cal1ed1~igger~-traders“
and they would ship whole boat loads at a time, buying them up~ two
or three he, two or three there ‚ and holding them In a jail uiitil
they had a boat load, This practice gave rise to the expression,
“sold down the river.“