Cyrus Bellus Research Paper

Many of the people interviewed from Little Rock, Arkansas were born around the time the war ended, so they did not experience the horrors of slavery themselves. The stories of their parents being all they have to share. Most of the former slaves moved to Arkansas to farm; these ex-slaves kept farming occupations until their retirement. Former slaves from Little Rock, Arkansas shared the same attitude towards work ethic; they were all willing to work hard. However, there were exceptions to these truths, some interviewees remember slavery clearly and told amazing stories of their escape.
Many past slaves were born close to the end of the Civil War, so they did not remember much at the time of their interviews. In R.B. Anderson’s interview, he says he does not remember much from slave times. He was born in 1862 making him three when freedom came. In his interview, Anderson tends to describe his family's lives more than his own. Cyrus Bellus follows the trend and talks about his family’s experience. Cyrus was born in 1865, the year the Civil War ended, so he has no recollection of slave times. All he has are his …show more content…
Henry Banner even stayed on his former plantation the day freedom came to farm because he said “he told us we were free. I couldn't get nothing to do; so I jus' stayed on and made a crop." Others, however, moved away from their plantations to farm. Ellen Brass said in her interview that her first job after freedom was farming, field work as she put it. In his interview, Waters Brooks claimed he came to Arkansas to farm. Although Brooks farmed cotton for a good portion of his life, he also worked at a sawmill and did odd end jobs. Martha Ruffin says in her interview that she did not know much about slavery, but she was sure that her father was a farmer after the Civil War. Many of these former slaves became farmers because it was all they had previously