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not sure just how old I was, but I was a big, flat—footed woman, and had worked as a slave on a plantation. ~r master was a good one, but many of them were not. In a way, we were happy and contented, working from sun up to Bull down. ~ut when Lincoln freed us, we rejoiced, yet we lciew we had to seek employment now and make our own way. Wages were low. You worked from morning until night for a dollar, but we did not complain. About 1870 a Mr. Masten, who was a coci operator, came to Richmond seeking laborers for his mines in Clay County. He told us that men could make four to five dol lars a day working in the mines ‚ going to work at seven and quitting at 3:30 each day. That sounded like a Paradise to our men folks. Big money and you oould get rich in little time. But he did. not tell all, because he wanted the men folk to come with him to Indiana. Three or four hundred came with Mr. )&asten. They were brought in box cars. Mr. Masten paid their transportation, but was to keep it out of their wages. 1~r husband was in that bunch, and the women folk stayed behind until their men could earn enough for their transpe~ ~tion to Indiana.“

	“When they arrived about four milee east of Lrazil, or what was known as Harmony, the train was stopped and a crowd of white miners ordered them not to come ai;y nearer Brazil, Then the trouble began. Our men did not know of the labor trouble, as they were not told of that part. Here they were fifteen hundred miles from home, no money. It was terrible. Many walked back to Virginia. Some went on foot to Illinois. Mr. Masten took some of them South of Brazil about three miles, where he had a number of company houses, and they tried to work in his mine there. But many wer‘~ shot at from the bushes and killed. Guards were placed about the mine by the owner, but still there was trouble all the time. The men did not make what Mr. Masten told them they could make, yet they had to st~y for they had no place to go. After about six months, i~r husband who had been working hi that mine, fell into the shaft and was injured. He was unable to work