Amos Clark

Amos Clark was born on April 2, 1841, enslaved by Robert Clark in Washington County, Texas. His mother fixed the year by a family event: the enslaver's brother had come back from a trading trip scarred from a fight with Native people.

As a teenager he was traded to Ed Roseborough and moved with the household to Belton, Texas, driving ox wagons loaded with bedding, livestock, and the enslaver's books in a horsehair trunk he was ordered to guard. On arrival the enslaved men cut logs and built the main house, their own cabins, a kitchen, an office, and the furniture. Some cabins went two years without floors. There was no mill at first, so they ground corn in a hollowed log. More than fifty people were enslaved on the 300-acre place. There was no overseer, and none of the enslaved could read, so they knew little about the war.

He remembered two fiddlers, Jim Roseborough and Tom, playing for barbecues and all-night dances, and he could still recite the square-dance calls. He married Liza Smith and they had four children, only one of whom, John, was still living when Amos was interviewed. After freedom he farmed near Belton, and in his late nineties he lived in Waco.