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 tek dem young”—which is converted here into standard English.) The prospect made her incredibly uneasy, but Simmons; her partner, George; and their children had few options. They were among the 182,566 people—30 percent of the Texas population—then reduced to property and held as slaves.
