District Supervisor
Federal Writers' Project
Athens, Georgia
July 15, 1937
Aunt Harriet Miller, a chipper and spry Indian Half-breed, thinks she is
about 100 years old. It is remarkable that one so old should possess so
much energy and animation. She is tall and spare, with wrinkled face,
bright eyes, a kindly expression, and she wears her iron grey hair wound
in a knob in the manner of a past generation. Aunt Harriet was neatly
dressed as she had just returned from a trip to Cornelia to see some of
her folks. She did not appear at all tired from the trip, and seemed
glad to discuss the old days.
"My father," said Aunt Harriet, "was a Cherokee Indian named Green
Norris, and my mother was a white woman named Betsy Richards. You see, I
am mixed. My mother give me to Mr. George Naves when I was three years
old. He lived in de mountains of South Carolina, just across de river.
He didn't own his home. He was overseer for de Jarretts, old man Kennedy
Jarrett. Honey, people was just like dey is now, some good and some bad.
Mr. Naves was a good man. Dese here Jarretts was good to deir slaves but
de ----s was mean to deirs. My whitefolks tried to send me to school but
de whitefolks wouldn't receive me in deir school on account of I was
mixed, and dere warn't no colored school a t'all, nowhere.
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