Directions: Read the passage below and answer the questions that follow.

Source: The following passage is an excerpt from an interview of the son of former slaves by a
government employee hired to conduct interviews as part of the Federal Writers’ Project.

“It has been so long since I heard my parents tell about slavery I couldn’t tell you straight.
. . . [My mother] talked about how the Yankees done when they come through. They took
axes and busted up good furniture. They ate up and wasted good rations . . . [My parents]
wanted freedom but it wasn’t like they thought it would be. They didn’t know how it
would be . . . In some ways it was better and some ways it was worse. They had to work
or starve is what they told me.”

Speaker: Henry Nelson, age 70, of Edmonton, Arkansas, the son of former slaves
Interviewed by: Irene Robertson, a member of the Federal Writers’ Project
Date: 1938

Question 1: How might this interview be useful as evidence of the conditions facing slaves at
the end of the Civil War?

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Question 2: What about this source might make it less useful as evidence of the conditions
facing slaves at the end of the Civil War?

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