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	~‘~X~8LAV~ STOflI~S	Page One ~	r (
	(Texas)	.	?~.•


FRA.NK BELL, 86, was a slave of Johnson Bell, who ran a saloon In New Orleans. Prank lives in )Ladisonville, Texas.






	t,1 was owned by Johnson Bell and. born in New Orleans, 4n Louislana. ‘Cordin‘ to the bill of sa].e, I~m eighty..six years old, and my master was a Frenchman and was real mean to me. He run saloon ~.nd kept bad women. I don‘t know nothing ‘b~t my folks, if‘ I even had any, ‘cept in~ma. They done tell me she was a bad wonan and a !rench Creole.

	ft I worked trouncl mastert s saloon, kept everything cleaned up after they‘d have all night drinicin‘ parties, men and w~en. I earned nickels to tip off where to go, so‘s they could. sow wild. oats. I buried the nickels under rocks. If master done cotch me with money, he‘d take it and beat me nearly to death. All I had. to eat was old stuff those people left ‚ all scraps what was left.

	„ One t irne s orne bad men come t o mast er ‚ s and git s in a shootin‘ scrape and the~r was two men kilt. I sho‘ did run. B~tt master cotch me and make me talce th~ men to the river and tie a weight on them, so they‘d sink and the law wouldn‘t git him.

	“The clothes I wore was some master‘s old ones. They aflus had holes in them. Master he stay drunk nearly all time and was mean to his slave. I‘m the only one he had, and didn‘t cost him nothing0 He have bill of sale made, ‚ cause the law say he done stole me when I~m small child. Master kept me In chains sometimes. He shot se~veral men.
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