Arkansas Narratives

From Interviews with 195 Former US Slaves."Once on the Blackshear place, they took all the fine looking boys and girls that was thirteen years old or older and put them in a big barn after they had stripped them naked and leave them there until Monday morning. Out of that came sixty babies. "They was too many babies to leave in the quarters for some one to take care of during the day. They built a long old trough like a great long old cradle and put all these babies in it every morning. "When they were at the other end of the row, all at once a cloud no bigger than a small spot came up, and it grew fast, and it thundered and lightened and the rain just came down in great sheets. And when it got so they could go to the other end of the field, that trough was filled with water and every baby in it was floating 'round in the water drownded. Typewritten records prepared by the THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT 1936-1938. Assembled by the Library of Congress Project. Work Projects Administration for the District of Columbia. Sponsored by the Library of Congress. Originally published WASHINGTON 1941