Betty Simmons, a Texan in Slavery’s Last Years (opens in new tab)

In 1863, Betty Simmons was about 20 years old, and her 3-year-old son, Charlie, would soon be made to work in the field. In her 1938 interview with the Federal Writers’ Project, Simmons said: “[They take them young].” (These interviews were rendered by government workers in an excessively heavy dialect—in this case, for example, “Dey […] The post appeared first on .