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Primary source: Mother Ann Clark, "But I Can Kill You," slave narrative, c. 1936.
Caption: Members of the New Deal’s Federal Writers’ Project interviewed former slaves during 1936–38. The misspellings respect the speech and regional dialect of the ex-slaves. Mother Ann Clark, born June 1, 1825, was a slave in Louisiana. She describes the ruthlessness of her master.
[ . . . ]
My papa was strong. He never had a licking in his life. He helped the master, but one day the master says, "Si, you got to have a whopping," and my papa says, "I never had a whopping and you can't whop me." And the master says, "But I can kill you," and he shot my papa down. My mama took him in the cabin and put him on a pallet. He died.
[ . . . ]
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Mother Ann Clark, "But I Can Kill You," in Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery (1945; reprint, ed. B. A. Botkin, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 55.
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