Frank Cannon states that he was born in Starkville, Mississippi, and his master was Charlie Cannon, an enslaver who had five farms. As cannon describes, his Master ‘bought a whole drove of us, grandparents on both sides’. Whilst there is no information on Charlie Cannon’s birth, death or genealogy, this statement confirms is his wealth.

The interview exemplifies how enslaved children have, as John Blassingame describes, a ‘distorted view of plantation culture being a paternalistic institution’. This is because Cannon suggests that his large plantation was tolerable, and his ‘pa’ liked the Master. Later, though, he issues a statement that subverts such claim; ‘some folks were treated very well, some killed’. This statement is contentious today given the retrospective outlook on slavery as a brutal trade and not a progressive environment in which slave and master lived in peace and harmony, as suggested by U.B Phillips. Cannon’s idea of a ‘tolerable plantation’ is to be in the master's presence and play, but not too much, as they would be ‘nettled’ on their legs and run away and ‘holler’, (cry). In Cannons case, any exemption from the worst form of treatment, based on his exposure to violence, has defined how he remembers his experience. He talks of his enslavement with an element of normality and does not feel as if his treatment was bad. The guidelines to this remembrance are; oppressed severely or not so oppressed becoming the basis of what he considers good and bad treatment. Despite this, his experience was clearly oppressive.

Cannon ate and drank out of hewed trays and whittling spoons, had to line up when Master Cannon entered the slave quarters, and lived off pot-liquor (the leftovers of a vegetable-based broth). This suggests that his standard of living was clearly of a low quality compared to his white masters, despite his belief that this was good treatment. Consistently, he retells of his experience in a positive light, yet the things mentioned above, clearly depict a poor and limited existence. His age, therefore, reduces the validity of his account based on his infancy and inability to retell the collective experiences of formerly enslaved people, as suggested by Sharron Anne Musher. References to other formerly enslaved people are appropriate here.

Irene Robertson also interviewed Fannie Clemons, age 7,8 at the time of interview. Enslaved in Farmville, Louisiana, she specifically stated that she could not ‘recollect her experience so good’ because of her young age during slavery. Therefore, whilst valuable, people who were young during slavery do not recite the experiences of those who were involved in the institution of slavery for a long time. Joe Clinton, a formerly enslaved man from Panola County Mississippi, was around fourteen-fifteen years old under slavery. He retells a much more brutal experience, importantly also in Mississippi and on a large farm. In this case Cannon does not represent a wider slave consciousness, and neither represents the different experiences between adults and children under slavery.

The national census data on slavery suggests that by 1860, the state of Mississippi had the second highest population of enslaved black people at 55.1%, surpassed only by South Carolina. Therefore, and with reference to Joe Clinton’s experience, Mississippi was more than likely a very brutal slave state, and of great importance to the Southern economy. Like with other Federal Writers Project interviews, there is a possibility that Cannon curtailed the true nature of his experience to better his societal position. Upon estimation, the interview was probably conducted around 1937, a time of racial oppression and national hardship for black Americans. This is plausible as he suggests that only ‘now people are getting mean, and only some work’; perhaps looking back at his experience under slavery as better than the position he was in during the time of the interview.

Irene Robertson, the interviewer, has been criticised for her work. The Encyclopaedia of Arkansas has suggested that she had a reputation for ‘stirring things up’ by reporting negative comments about what black and white people had said about each other. Despite this, she has also been highly regarded for her adherence to the Federal Writers project interview policy, and her contribution to over 12% of WPA interviews. Unlike other Arkansas writers, like Watt McKinney, her work has minimal racial bias when interviewing formerly enslaved people. This is because her work is purely interviewee dialogue, meaning she has allowed the memoirs of the formerly enslaved to create the narrative.

Despite this, from US civil war records and Ancestry archives, we can identify that her father, Samuel Robertson was a sharpshooter for the 14th Arkansas Infantry Regiment. The book, ‘History of Boone County, Arkansas’, describes the regiment as patriotic, and suggests they ‘followed their flag’, clearly dedicated to confederate causes. With Robertson also born in South Carolina in 1893, the largest slaving state prior to emancipation, it is reasonable to assume that she may well have had a racial agenda. People may have praised her work based on its withdrawn racial bias, which was consistent with other interviews from the FWP, yet this was comparative with extreme racial oppression at the time. If true, this could have radically influenced the essay structure, and perhaps pressured Cannon into a narrative that does not recite the true extent of his experience.

Robertson’s interviews do not have an editor’s name on the document but based on its format it has clearly undergone editorial changes before publication. This can be seen across all FWP documents which have boarders and names underlined at the top of the page. Unfortunately, in Cannons case, an original copy of the interview is not available. However, because of Robertson’s interview structure being almost entirely quote based, I would contend that any editorial changes would have been through changes to language, either for stereotyping purposes or, to show racial progress. Despite this, I would also contend that her interviews had a hierarchal/subservient dynamic. Specific to Cannon though, his narrative was probably tainted more by his own an attempt to meet the racial etiquette of the time by somewhat pleasing the interviewer, along with poor memory, rather than interviewer bias.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

• Irene Robertson Family: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/4821817/person/150103548521/facts?_phsrc=Gmo8&_phstart=successSource – (Last accessed 18 March 2020)

• Library of Congress, Frank Cannon Interview: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.022/?sp=6 - (Last accessed 15 March 2020)

• Map of Slave Population of the Southern States of the United States Compiled from the Census of 1860: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1860_slave_distribution.pdf- (Last accessed 16 March 2020)

• Sam E. Robertson Pension information and Military Information: https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=2281&h=19296&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=7602 - (Last accessed 17 March 2020)

• Slave Narratives, Arkansas. Interviews of Fannie Clemons and Joe Clinton: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13700/13700-h/13700-h.htm#CannonFrank- (Last accessed 16 March 2020)

Secondary Sources:

• Blassingame, John W., The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972)

• Logan, Roger V., History of Boone County, Arkansas, (Nashville: Turner publishing company, 1998)

• Alexander, Trent J. ; Condon, Sean ; Digman, Jason C. ; Hacker, David J., ‘A Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1860 Census of Slave Inhabitants’ Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 36:1 (2003) 21-27

• Smith, John D., ‘The Historiographic Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips’, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, 65:2 (Summer 1981) 138-153

Online Sources:

• John A. Lomax Picture, Prints and Photographs division, Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guide/images/Lomax0014_500.jpg - (Last accessed 17 March 2020)

• Limitations of the Slave Narrative Collection: https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/articles-and-essays/introduction-to-the-wpa-slave-narratives/limitations-of-the-slave-narrative-collection/ - (Last accessed 15 March 2020)

• Place enslaved (Mississippi) to place of interview (Arkansas): https://www.google.com/maps/d/ - (Last accessed 16 March 2020)

• Profile of Miss Irene Robertson: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/irene-robertson-3232/- (Last accessed 15 March 2020)