Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 1
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Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 1
Author: United States. Work Projects Administration
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11255]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11255
Credits: Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders. Produced from images provided
by the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES: A FOLK HISTORY OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES FROM INTERVIEWS WITH FORMER SLAVES, VOLUME II, ARKANSAS NARRATIVES, PART 1 ***
[TR: ***] = Transcriber Note
[HW: ***] = Handwritten Note
[Illustration: Old Slave]
SLAVE NARRATIVES
A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves
TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT,
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Illustrated with Photographs
WASHINGTON 1941
VOLUME II
ARKANSAS NARRATIVES
PART I
Prepared by
the Federal Writers' Project of
the Works Progress Administration
for the State of Arkansas
INFORMANTS
Abbott, Silas
Abernathy, Lucian
Abromsom, Laura
Adeline, Aunt
Adway, Rose
Aiken, Liddie
Aldridge, Mattie
Alexander, Amsy O.
Alexander, Diana
Alexander, Fannie
Alexander, Lucretia
Allen, Ed
Allison, Lucindy
Ames, Josephine
Anderson, Charles
Anderson, Nancy
Anderson, R.B.
Anderson, Sarah
Anderson, Selie
Anderson, W.A.
Anthony, Henry
Arbery, Katie
Armstrong, Campbell
Armstrong, Cora
Baccus, Lillie
Badgett, Joseph Samuel
Bailey, Jeff
Baker, James
Baltimore, William
Banks, Mose
Banner, Henry
Barnett, John W.H.
Barnett, Josephine Ann
Barnett, Lizzie
Barnett, Spencer
Barr, Emma
Barr, Robert
Bass, Matilda
Beal, Emmett
Beard, Dina
Beck, Annie
Beckwith, J.H.
Beel, Enoch
Belle, Sophie D.
Bellus, Cyrus
Benford, Bob
Bennet, Carrie Bradley Logan
Benson, George
Benton, Kato
Bertrand, James
Biggs, Alice
Billings, Mandy
Birch, Jane
Black, Beatrice
Blackwell, Boston
Blake, Henry
Blakeley, Adeline
Bobo, Vera Roy
Boechus, Liddie
Bond, Maggie (Bunny)
Bonds, Caroline
Boone, Rev. Frank T.
Boone, J.F.
Boone, Jonas
Bowdry, John
Boyd, Jack
Boyd, Mal
Braddox, George
Bradley, Edward
Bradley, Rachel
Brannon, Elizabeth
Brantley, Mack
Brass, Ellen
Bratton, Alice
Briles, Frank
Brooks, Mary Ann
Brooks, Waters
Brown, Casie Jones
Brown, Elcie
Brown, F.H.
Brown, George
Brown, J.N.
Brown, Lewis
Brown, Lewis
Brown, Mag
Brown, Mary
Brown, Mattie
Brown, Molly
Brown, Peter
Brown, William
Brown, William
Broyles, Maggie
Bryant, Ida
Buntin, Belle
Burgess, Jeff
Burkes, Norman
Burks, Sr., Will
Burris, Adeline
Butler, Jennie
Byrd, E.L.
Byrd, Emmett Augusta
ILLUSTRATIONS
Old Slave _Frontispiece_
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Silas Abbott
R.F.D.
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 73
"I was born in Chickashaw County, Mississippi. Ely Abbott and Maggie
Abbott was our owners. They had three girls and two boys--Eddie and
Johnny. We played together till I was grown. I loved em like if they was
brothers. Papa and Mos Ely went to war together in a two-horse top
buggy. They both come back when they got through.
"There was eight of us children and none was sold, none give way. My
parents name Peter and Mahaley Abbott. My father never was sold but my
mother was sold into this Abbott family for a house girl. She cooked and
washed and ironed. No'm, she wasn't a wet nurse, but she tended to Eddie
and Johnny and me all alike. She whoop them when they needed, and Miss
Maggie whoop me. That the way we grow'd up. Mos Ely was 'ceptionly good
I recken. No'm, I never heard of him drinkin' whiskey. They made cider
and 'simmon beer every year.
"Grandpa was a soldier in the war. He fought in a battle. I don't know
the battle. He wasn't hurt. He come home and told us how awful it was.
"My parents stayed on at Mos Ely's and my uncle's family stayed on. He
give my uncle a home and twenty acres of ground and my parents same
mount to run a gin. I drove two mules, my brother drove two and we drove
two more between us and run the gin. My auntie seen somebody go in the
gin one night but didn't think bout them settin' it on fire. They had a
torch, I recken, in there. All I knowed, it burned up and Mos Ely had to
take our land back and sell it to pay for four or five hundred bales of
cotton got burned up that time. We stayed on and sharecropped with him.
We lived between Egypt and Okolona, Mississippi. Aberdeen was our
tradin' point.
"I come to Arkansas railroading. I railroaded forty years. Worked on the
section, then I belong to the extra gang. I help build this railroad to
Memphis.
"I did own a home but I got in debt and had to sell it and let my money
go.
"Times is so changed and the young folks different. They won't work only
nough to get by and they want you to give em all you got. They take it
if they can. Nobody got time to work. I think times is worse than they
ever been, cause folks hate to work so bad. I'm talking bout hard work,
field work. Jobs young folks want is scarce; jobs they could get they
don't want. They want to run about and fool around an get by.
"I get $8.00 and provisions from the government."
Interviewer: Watt McKinney
Person interviewed: Lucian Abernathy, Marvell, Arkansas
Age: 85
"I was borned in de 'streme norf part of Mississippi nigh de Tennessee
line. You mought say dat it was 'bout straddle of de state line and it
wasn't no great piece from where us libed to Moscow what was de station
on de ole Memfis en Charston Railroad. My white folks was de Abernathys.
You neber do hear 'bout many folks wid dat name these times, leastwise
not ober in dis state, but dere sure used to be heap of dem Abernathys
back home where I libed and I spect dat mebbe some dere yit en cose it's
bound to be some of the young uns lef' dar still, but de ole uns, Mars
Luch en dem, dey is all gone.
"Mars Luch, he was my young boss. Though he name was Lucian us all
called him Luch and dat was who I is named for. Ole mars, he was name
Will and dat was Mars Luch's pa and my ole miss, she name Miss Cynthia
and young miss, her name Miss Ellen. Ole mars an' ole miss, dey just had
de two chillun, Mars Luch and Miss Ellen; dat is what libed to be grown.
Mars Luch, he 'bout two year older dan me and Miss Ellen, she 'bout two
year older dan Mars Luch. Miss Ellen, she married er gentman from
Virginny and went dar to lib and Mars Luch, he married Miss Fannie
Keith.
"Miss Fannie's folks, dey libed right nigh us on to 'j'ining place and
dem was my ole man's peoples. Yas sah, boss, dat ole man you see settin'
right dar now in dat chere. She was Ella Keith, dats zackly what her
named when us married and she named fer Miss Fannie's ma. Dat she was.
Us neber did leave our folkses eben atter de War ober and de niggers git
dey freedom, yit an' still a heap of de niggers did leave dey mars' and
a heap of dem didn' an' us stayed on an farmed de lan' jus' like us been
doin' 'cept dey gib us a contract for part de crop an' sell us our grub
'gainst us part of de crop and take dey money outen us part of de cotton
in de fall just like de bizness is done yit and I reckon dat was de
startin' of de sharecrop dat is still goin' on.
"Soon atter Mars Luch good and grown an' him an' Miss Fannie done
married, ole mars and ole miss, dey bofe died and Mars Luch say he gwine
sell out an' lebe 'cause de lan' gittin' so poor and wore out and it
takin' three an' more acres to make a bale and he tell us all dat when
we wind up de crop dat fall and say, 'You boys mebbe can stay on wid
whoever I sell out to er if not den you can fin' you homes wid some one
close if you wants to do dat.' And den he says dat he gwine fin' him
some good lan' mebbe in Arkansas down de riber from Memfis. Mighty nigh
all de ole famblys lef' de place when Mars Luch sole it out.
"My pappy and my mammy, dey went to Memfis and me wid 'em. I was growed
by den and was fixin' to marry Ella just es soon es I could fin' a good
home. I was a country nigger en liked de farm an' en cose wasn't
satisfied in town, so 'twasn't long 'fore I heered 'bout han's beein'
needed down de riber in Mississippi and dats where I went en stayed for
two years and boss, I sure was struck wid dat lan' what you could make a
bale to a acre on an' I just knowed dat I was gwine git rich in a hurry
an' so I writ er letter to Ella en her peoples tellin' dem 'bout de rich
lan' and 'vising dem to come down dere where I was and I was wantin' to
marry Ella den. Boss, and you know what, 'twasn't long afore I gits er
letter back an' de letter says dat Ella an' her peoples is down de riber
in Arkansas from Memfis at Bledsoe wid Mars Luch an' Miss Fannie where
Mars Luch had done moved him an' Miss Fannie to a big plantation dey had
bought down dere.
"Dat was a funny thing how dat happened an' Bledsoe, it was right 'cross
de riber from where I was en had been for two years an' just soon es I
git dat letter I 'range wid a nigger to take me 'cross da riber in er
skift to de plantation where dey all was and 'bout fust folkses dat I
see is Ella an' her peoples en lots of de famblys from de ole home place
back in Tennessee an' I sure was proud to see Mars Luch en Miss Fannie.
Dey had built demselves a fine house at a p'int dat was sorter like a
knoll where de water don' git when de riber come out on de lan' in case
of oberflow and up de rode 'bout half mile from de house, Mars Luch had
de store en de gin. Dey had de boys den, dat is Mars Luch and Miss
Fannie did, and de boys was named Claude an' Clarence atter Miss
Fannie's two brudders.
"Dem was de finest boys dat one ever did see. At dat time Claude, he
'bout two year old and Clarence, he 'bout four er mebbe little less.
Ella, she worked in da house cooking for Miss Fannie an' nussin' de
chillun and she plumb crazy 'bout de chillun an' dey just as satisfied
wid her as dey was wid dere mama and Ella thought more dem chillun dan
she did anybody. She just crazy 'bout dem boys. Mars Luch, he gibe me
job right 'way sort flunkying for him and hostling at de lot an' barn
and 'twasn't long den 'fore Ella and me, us git married an' libs in a
cabin dat Mars Luch had built in de back of de big house.
"Us git 'long fine for more dan a year and Mars Luch, he raise plenty
cotton an' at times us ud take trip up to Memfis on de boat, on de Phil
Allin what was 'bout de fineist boat on de riber in dem days and de one
dat most frequent put in at us landin' wid de freight for Mars Luch and
den he most ginally sont he cotton an' seed to Memfis on dis same Phil
Allin.
"I jus' said, boss, dat us git 'long fine for more dan a year and us all
mighty happy till Miss Fannie took sick an' died an' it mighty nigh
killed Mars Luch and all of us and Mars Luch, he jus' droop for weeks
till us git anxious 'bout him but atter while he git better and seam
like mebbe he gwine git ober he sadness but he neber was like he used to
be afore Miss Fannie died.
"Atter Miss Fannie gone, Mars Luch, he say, 'Ella, you an' Luch mus'
mobe in de big house an' make you a bed in de room where de boys sleep,
so's you can look atter 'em good, 'cause lots nights I gwine be out late
at de gin an' store an' I knows you gwine take plumb good care of dem
chillun.' An' so us fixed us bed in de big house an' de boys, dey
sleeped right dar in dat room on dere bed where us could take care of
'em.
"Dat went on for 'bout two years an' den Mars Luch, he 'gun to get in
bad health an' jus' wasted down like and den one night when he at de
store he took down bad and dey laid him down on de bed in de back room
where he would sleep on sich nights dat he didn' come home when he was
so busy an' he sont a nigger on a mule for me to come up dar an' I went
in he room an' Mars Luch, he say, 'Lissen, Luch, you is been a good
faithful nigger an' Ella too, an' I is gonna die tonight and I wants you
to send er letter to Miss Ellen in Virginny atter I is daid en tell her
to come an' git de boys 'cause she is all de kin peoples dat dey habe
lef' now cepn cose you an' Ella an' it mought be some time afore she
gits here so you all take good en faithful care dem till she 'rives an'
tell her she habe to see dat all de bizness wind up and take de boys
back wid her an' keep dem till dey is growed,'
"Well, boss, us done jus' like Mars Luch tell us to do an' us sure feel
sorry for dem two little boys. Dey jus' 'bout five an' seben year old
den and day sure loved dere pa; day was plumb crazy 'bout Mars Luch and
him 'bout dem too.
"'Bout two weeks from time dat Mars Luch daid, Miss Ellen come on de
boat one night an' she stayed some days windin' up de bizness and den
she lef' an' take de boys 'way wid her back to Virginny where she libed.
Us sure did hate to 'part from dem chillun. Dat's been nigh on to sixty
years ago but us neber forgit dem boys an' us will allus lobe dem. Dey
used to sen' us presents an' sich every Christmas for seberal years and
den us started movin' 'bout an' I reckon dey don' know where we's at
now. I sure would like to see dem boys ag'in. I betcha I'd know dem
right today. Mebbe I wouldn't, it's been so long since I seen 'em; but
shucks, I know dat dey would know me."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Laura Abromsom, R.F.D., Holly Grove, Arkansas
Receives mail at Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: 74
"My mama was named Eloise Rogers. She was born in Missouri. She was sold
and brought to three or four miles from Brownsville, Tennessee. Alex
Rogers bought her and my papa. She had been a house girl and well cared
for. She never got in contact wid her folks no more after she was sold.
She was a dark woman. Papa was a ginger cake colored man. Mama talked
like Alex Rogers had four or five hundred acres of land and lots of
niggers to work it. She said he had a cotton factory at Brownsville.
"Mistress Barbara Ann was his wife. They had two boys and three girls.
One boy George went plumb crazy and outlived 'em all. The other boy died
early. Alex Rogers got my papa in Richmond, Virginia. He was took outer
a gang. We had a big family. I have eight sisters and one brother.
"Pa say they strop 'em down at the carriage house and give 'em five
hundred lashes. He say they have salt and black pepper mixed up in er
old bucket and put it all on flesh cut up with a rag tied on a stick
(mop). Alex Rogers had a nigger to put it on the place they whooped. The
Lord puts up wid such wrong doings and den he comes and rectifies it. He
does that very way.
"Pa say they started to whoop him at the gin house. He was a sorter
favorite. He cut up about it. That didn't make no difference 'bout it.
Somehow they scared him up but he didn't git whooped thater time.
"They fed good on Alex Rogers' place. They'd buy a barrel of coffee, a
barrel molasses, a barrel sugar. Some great big barrels.
"Alex Rogers wasn't a good man. He'd tell them to steal a hog and git
home wid it. If they ketch you over there they'll whoop you. He'd help
eat hogs they'd steal.
"One time papa was working on the roads. The neighbor man and road man
was fixing up their eating. He purty nigh starved on that road work. He
was hired out.
"Mama and papa spoke like they was mighty glad to get sat free. Some
believed they'd git freedom and others didn't. They had places they met
and prayed for freedom. They stole out in some of their houses and
turned a washpot down at the door. Another white man, not Alex Rogers,
tole mama and papa and a heap others out in the field working. She say
they quit and had a regular bawl in the field. They cried and laughed
and hollered and danced. Lot of them run offen the place soon as the man
tole 'em. My folks stayed that year and another year.
"What is I been doing? Ast me is I been doing? What ain't I been doing
be more like it. I raised fifteen of my own children. I got four living.
I living wid one right here in dis house wid me now. I worked on the
farm purty nigh all my life. I come to dis place. Wild, honey, it was! I
come in 1901. Heap of changes since then.
"Present times--Not as much union 'mongst young black and white as the
old black and white. They growing apart. Nobody got nothin' to give. No
work. I used to could buy second-handed clothes to do my little children
a year for a little or nothin'. Won't sell 'em now nor give 'em 'way
neither. They don't work hard as they used to. They say they don't git
nothin' outen it. They don't want to work. Times harder in winter 'cause
it cold and things to eat killed out. I cans meat. We dry beef. In town
this Nickellodian playing wild wid young colored folks--these Sea Bird
music boxes. They play all kind things. Folks used to stay home Saturday
nights. Too much running 'round, excitement, wickedness in the world
now. This generation is worst one. They trying to cut the Big Apple
dance when we old folks used to be down singing and praying, 'Cause dis
is a wicked age times is bad and hard."
Interviewer's Comment
Mulatto, clean, intelligent.
Interviewer: Mrs. Zillah Cross Peel
Person interviewed: "Aunt Adeline" Age: 89
Home: 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas
"I was born a slave about 1848, in Hickmon County, Tennessee," said Aunt
Adeline who lives as care taker in a house at 101 Rock Street,
Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is owned by the Blakely-Hudgens estate.
Aunt Adeline has been a slave and a servant in five generations of the
Parks family. Her mother, Liza, with a group of five Negroes, was sold
into slavery to John P.A. Parks, in Tennessee, about 1840.
"When my mother's master come to Arkansas about 1849, looking for a
country residence, he bought what was known as the old Kidd place on the
Old Wire Road, which was one of the Stage Coach stops. I was about one
year old when we came. We had a big house and many times passengers
would stay several days and wait for the next stage to come by. It was
then that I earned my first money. I must have been about six or seven
years old. One of Mr. Parks' daughters was about one and a half years
older than I was. We had a play house back of the fireplace chimney. We
didn't have many toys; maybe a doll made of a corn cob, with a dress
made from scraps and a head made from a roll of scraps. We were playing
church. Miss Fannie was the preacher and I was the audience. We were
singing "Jesus my all to Heaven is gone." When we were half way through
with our song we discovered that the passengers from the stage coach had
stopped to listen. We were so frightened at our audience that we both
ran. But we were coaxed to come back for a dime and sing our song over.
I remember that Miss Fannie used a big leaf for a book.
"I had always been told from the time I was a small child that I was a
Negro of African stock. That it was no disgrace to be a Negro and had it
not been for the white folks who brought us over here from Africa as
slaves, we would never have been here and would have been much better
off.
"We colored folks were not allowed to be taught to read or write. It was
against the law. My master's folks always treated me well. I had good
clothes. Sometimes I was whipped for things I should not have done just
as the white children were.
"When a young girl was married her parents would always give her a
slave. I was given by my master to his daughter, Miss Elizabeth, who
married Mr. Blakely. I was just five years old. She moved into a new
home at Fayetteville and I was taken along but she soon sent me back
home to my master telling him that I was too little and not enough help
to her. So I went back to the Parks home and stayed until I was over
seven years old. [1]My master made a bill of sale for me to his
daughter, in order to keep account of all settlements, so when he died
and the estate settled each child would know how he stood.
"I was about 15 years old when the Civil War ended and was still living
with Mrs. Blakely and helped care for her little children. Her daughter,
Miss Lenora, later married H.M. Hudgens, and I then went to live with
her and cared for her children. When her daughter Miss Helen married
Professor Wiggins, I took care of her little daughter, and this made
five generations that I have cared for.
"During the Civil War, Mr. Parks took all his slaves and all of his fine
stock, horses and cattle and went South to Louisiana following the
Southern army for protection. Many slave owners left the county taking
with them their slaves and followed the army.
"When the war was over, Mr. Parks was still in the South and gave to
each one of his slaves who did not want to come back to Arkansas so much
money. My uncle George came back with Mr. Parks and was given a good
mountain farm of forty acres, which he put in cultivation and one of my
uncle's descendants still lives on the place. My mother did not return
to Arkansas but went on to Joplin, Missouri, and for more than fifty
years, neither one of us knew where the other one was until one day a
man from Fayetteville went into a restaurant in Joplin and ordered his
breakfast, and my mother who was in there heard him say he lived in
Fayetteville, Arkansas. He lived just below the Hudgens home and when my
mother enquired about the family he told her I was still alive and was
with the family. While neither of us could read nor write we
corresponded through different people. But I never saw her after I was
eleven years old. Later Mr. Hudgens went to Joplin to see if she was
well taken care of. She owned her own little place and when she died
there was enough money for her to be buried.
"Civil War days are vivid to me. The Courthouse which was then in the
middle of the Square was burned one night by a crazy Confederate
soldier. The old men in the town saved him and then put him in the
county jail to keep him from burning other houses. Each family was to
take food to him and they furnished bedding. The morning I was to take
his breakfast, he had ripped open his feather bed and crawled inside to
get warm. The room was so full of feathers when I got there that his
food nearly choked him. I had carried him ham, hot biscuits and a pot of
coffee.
"After the War many soldiers came to my mistress, Mrs. Blakely, trying
to make her free me. I told them I was free but I did not want to go
anywhere, that I wanted to stay in the only home that I had ever known.
In a way that placed me in a wrong attitude. I was pointed out as
different. Sometimes I was threatened for not leaving but I stayed on.
"I had always been well treated by my master's folks. While we lived at
the old Kidd place, there was a church a few miles from our home. My
uncle George was coachman and drove my master's family in great splendor
in a fine barouche to church. After the war, when he went to his own
place, Mr. Parks gave him the old carriage and bought a new one for the
family.
"I can remember the days of slavery as happy ones. We always had an
abundance of food. Old Aunt Martha cooked and there was always plenty
prepared for all the white folks as well as the colored folks. There was
a long table at the end of the big kitchen for the colored folks. The
vegetables were all prepared of an evening by Aunt Martha with someone
to help her.
"My mother seemed to have a gift of telling fortunes. She had a brass
ring about the size of a dollar with a handwoven knotted string that she
used. I remember that she told many of the young people in the
neighborhood many strange things. They would come to her with their
premonitions.
"Yes, we were afraid of the patyroles. All colored folks were. They said
that any Negroes that were caught away from their master's premises
without a permit would be whipped by the patyroles. They used to sing a
song:
'Run nigger run,
The patyroles
Will get you.'
"Yes'm, the War separated lots of families. Mr. Parks' son, John C.
Parks, enlisted in Colonel W.H. Brooks' regiment at Fayetteville as
third lieutenant. Mr. Jim Parks was killed at the Battle of Getysburg.
"I do remember it was my mistress, Mrs. Blakely, who kept the Masonic
Building from being burned. The soldiers came to set it on fire. Mrs.
Blakely knew that if it burned, our home would burn as it was just
across the street. Mrs. Blakely had two small children who were very ill
in upstairs rooms. She told the soldiers if they burned the Masonic
Building that her house would burn and she would be unable to save her
little children. They went away."
While Aunt Adeline is nearing ninety, she is still active, goes shopping
and also tends to the many crepe myrtle bushes as well as many other
flowers at the Hudgens place.
She attends to the renting of the apartment house, as caretaker, and is
taken care of by members of the Blakely-Hudgens families.
Aunt Adeline talks "white folks language," as they say, and seldom
associates with the colored people of the town.
[Footnote 1: This statement can be verified by the will made by John
P.A. Parks, and filed in Probate Court in the clerk's office in
Washington County.]
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Rose Adway
405 W. Pullen, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 76
"I was born three years 'fore surrender. That's what my people told me.
Born in Mississippi. Let me see what county I come out of. Smith
County--that's where I was bred and born.
"I know I seen the Yankees but I didn't know what they was. My mama and
papa and all of 'em talked about the War.
"My papa was a water toter in durin' the War. No, he didn't serve the
army--just on the farm.
"Mama was the cook for her missis in slavery times.
"I think my folks went off after freedom and then come back. That was
after they had done been sot free. I can remember dat all right.
"I registered down here at the Welfare and I had to git my license from
Mississippi and I didn't remember which courthouse I got my license, but
I sent letters over there till I got it up. I got all my papers now, but
I ain't never got no pension.
"I been through so much I can't git much in my remembrance, but I was
_here_--that ain't no joke--I _been_ here.
"My folks said their owners was all right. You know they was 'cause they
come back. I remember dat all right.
"I been farmin' till I got disabled. After I married I went to farmin'.
And I birthed fourteen head of chillun by dat one man! Fourteen head by
dat one man! Stayed at home and took care of 'em till I got 'em up some
size, too. All dead but five out of the fourteen head.
"My missis' name was Miss Catherine and her husband named Abe Carr.
"I went to school a little bit--mighty little. I could read but I never
could write.
"And I'm about to go blind in my old age. I need help and I need it bad.
Chillun ain't able to help me none 'cept give me a little bread and give
me some medicine once in a while. But I'm thankful to the Lord I can get
outdoors.
"I don't know what to think of this young race. That baby there knows
more than I do now, nearly. Back there when I was born, I didn't know
nothin'.
"I know they said it was bad luck to bring a hoe or a ax in the house on
your shoulder. I heard the old folks tell dat--sure did.
"And I was told dat on old Christmas night the cows gets down on their
knees and gives thanks to the Lord.
"I 'member one song:
'I am climbin' Jacob's ladder
I am climbin' Jacob's ladder
I am climbin' Jacob's ladder
For the work is almost done.
'Every round goes higher and higher
Every round goes higher and higher
Every round goes higher and higher
For my work is almost done.
'Sister, now don't you get worried
Sister, now don't you get worried
Sister, now don't you get worried
For the work is almost done.'
My mother used to sing dat when she was spinnin' and cardin'. They'd
spin and dye the thread with some kind of indigo. Oh, I 'member dat all
right."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Liddie Aiken, Wheatley, Arkansas
Age: 62
"My mother was born in southwest Georgia close to the Alabama line. Her
mother come from Virginia. She was sold with her mother and two little
brothers. Her mother had been sold and come in a wagon to southwest
Georgia. They was all field hands. They cleaned out new ground. They was
afraid of hoop-snakes. She said they look like a hoop rolling and
whatever they stuck a horn or their tail in it died. They killed trees.
"Mama said she druther plough than chop. She was a big woman and they
let her plough right along by her two little brothers, Henry and Will
Keller. Will et so many sweet potatoes they called him 'Tater Keller.'
After he got grown we come out here. Folks called him 'Tate Keller.'
Henry died. I recollect Uncle Tate.
"I was born close to Mobile, Alabama. Mama was named Sarah Keller.
Grandma was called Mariah. Banks Tillman sold her the first time. Bill
Keller bought them all the last time. His wife was named Ada Keller.
They had a great big family but I forgot what they said about them. Mack
clem up in a persimmon tree one day and the old man hollered at him,
'Get out of that tree 'fore you fall.' 'Bout then the boy turned 'loose
and fell. It knocked the breath out him. It didn't kill him. Three or
four of Miss Ada's children died with congestive chills. Mama said the
reason they had them chills they played down at the gin pond all the
time. It was shady and a pretty place and they was allowed to play in
the pond. Three or four of them died nearly in a heap.
"One of the boys had a pet billy-goat. It got up on top mama's house one
time. It would bleat and look down at them. They was afraid it would
jump down on them if they went out. It chewed up things Aunt Beanie
washed. She had them put out on bushes and might had a line too. They
fattened it and killed it. Mama said Mr. Bill Keller never had nothing
too good to divide with his niggers. I reckon by that they got some of
the goat.
"They lived like we live now. Every family done his own cooking. I don't
know how many families lived on the place.
"I know about the Yankees. They come by and every one of the men and
boys went with them but Uncle Cal. He was cripple and they advised him
not to start. Didn't none of the women go. Mama said she never seen but
one ever come back. She thought they got killed or went on some place
else.
"Mr. Keller died and Miss Ada went back to her folks. They left
everything in our care that they didn't move. She took all her house
things. They sold or took all their stock. They left us a few cows and
pigs. I don't know how long they stayed after the old man died. His
children was young; he might not been so old.
"I recollect grandma. She smoked a pipe nearly all the time. My papa was
a livery stable man. He was a fine man with stock. He was a little black
man. Mama was too big. Grandma was taller but she was slick black. He
lived at Mobile, Alabama. I was the onliest child mama had. Uncle 'Tate
Keller' took grandma and mama to Mobile. He never went to the War. He
was a good carpenter and he worked out when he didn't have a lot to do
in the field. He was off at work when all the black men and boys left
Mr. Bill. He never went back after they left till freedom.
"They didn't know when freedom took place. They was all scattering for
two years about to get work and something to eat. Tate come and got
them. They went off in a wagon that Tate made for his master, Bill
Keller. We come to Tupelo, Mississippi from Mobile when I was a little
bit of a girl. Then we made one crop and come to Helena. Uncle Tate died
there and mama died at Crocketts Bluff. My papa died back in Mobile,
Alabama. He was breaking a young horse and got throwed up side a tree.
He didn't live long then.
"I got three boys now and I had seben--all boys. They farms and do
public work. Tom is in Memphis. Pete is in Helena and I live wid Macon
between here (Wheatley) and Cotton Plant. We farm. I done everything
could be thought of on a farm. I ploughed some less than five year ago.
I liked to plough. My boy ploughs all he can now and we do the chopping.
We all pick cotton and get in the corn. We work day laborers now.
"If I was young the times wouldn't stand in my way. I could make it. I
don't know what is the trouble lessen some wants too much. They can't
get it. We has a living and thankful for it. I never 'plied for no help
yet.
"I still knits my winter stockings. I got knitting needles and cards my
own mother had and used. I got use for them. I wears clothes on my body
in cold weather. One reason you young folks ain't no 'count you don't
wear enough clothes when it is cold. I wear flannel clothes if I can get
holt of them.
"Education done ruint the world. I learnt to read a little. I never went
to school. I learnt to work. I learnt my boys to go with me to the field
and not to be ashamed to sweat. It's healthy. They all works."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Mattie Aldridge
Age: 60? Hazen, Arkansas
"My mother's old owner named Master Sanders. She born somewhere in
Tennessee. I heard her say she lived in Mississippi. I was born in
Tennessee. My pa was born in Mississippi. I know he belong to the
Duncans. His name George Washington Duncan. There ain't nary drap white
blood in none us. I got four brothers. I do remembers grandma. She set
and tell us tales bout old times like you want to know. Been so long I
forgotten. Ma was a house girl and pa a field hand. Way grandma talked
it must of been hard to find out what white folks wanted em to do, cause
she couldn't tell what you say some times. She never did talk plain.
"They was glad when freedom declared. They said they was hard on em.
Whoop em. Pa was killed in Crittenden County in Arkansas. He was
clearin' new ground. A storm come up and a limb hit him. It killed him.
Grandma and ma allus say like if you build a house you want to put all
the winders in you ever goin' to want. It bad luck to cut in and put in
nother one. Sign of a death. I ain't got no business tellin' you bout
that. White folks don't believe in signs.
"I been raisin' up childern--'dopted childern, washin', ironin',
scourin', hoein', gatherin' corn, pickin' cotton, patchin', cookin'.
They ain't nothin' what I ain't done.
"No'm, I sure ain't voted. I don't believe in women votin'. They don't
know who to vote for. The men don't know neither. If folks visited they
would care more bout the other an wouldn't be so much devilment goin'
on."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor.
Person Interviewed: Amsy O. Alexander
2422 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 74
[HW: Helps Build Railroad]
"I was born in the country several miles from Charlotte in Macklenberg,
County, North Carolina in 1864.
"My father's name was John Alexander and my mother was Esther McColley.
That was her maiden name of course.
"My father's master was named Silas Alexander and my mother belonged to
Hugh Reed. I don't know just how she and my father happened to meet.
These two slaveholders were adjoining neighbors, you might say.
"My father and my mother married during the war. I was the first child.
I had three half brothers and three half sisters from the father's side.
I didn't have no whole brothers and sisters. I am the only one on my
mother's side. My father was not in the war.
"I don't know that the pateroles bothered him very much. My father and
mother were well treated by our master and then both she and my father
were quiet and their masters were good to them naturally.
"During slavery times, my father was a farmer. My mother farmed too. She
was a hand in the field. They lived in a little log cabin, one room.
They had a bed in there, a few chairs and a homemade table. They had a
plank floor. I only know what I heard my people speak of. I don't know
what was what for myself because I was too young.
"From what I can understand they had a big room at the house and the
slaves came there and ate there. They had a colored woman who prepared
their meals. The children mostly were raised on pot liquor. While the
old folk were working the larger young uns mongst the children would
take care of the little ones.
"Their masters never forced any breeding. I have heard of that happening
in other places but I never heard them speak of it in connection with
our master.
"When the master came back from the war, they told the slaves they were
free. After slavery my people stayed on and worked on the old
plantation. They didn't get much. Something like fifty cents a day and
one meal. My folks didn't work on shares.
"Back there in North Carolina times got tight and it seemed that there
wasn't much doing. Agents came from Arkansas trying to get laborers. So
about seven or eight families of us emigrated from North Carolina. That
is how my folks got here.
"The Ku Klux were bad in North Carolina too. My people didn't have any
trouble with them in Arkansas, though. They weren't bothered so much in
North Carolina because of their owners. But they would come around and
see them. They came at night. We came to Arkansas in the winter of 1897.
"I went to public school after the war, in North Carolina. I didn't get
any further than the eighth grade. My father and mother didn't get any
schooling till after the war. They could read a little but they picked
it up themselves during slavery. I suppose their Master's children
learned it to them.
"My father never did see any army service. I have heard him speak of
seeing soldiers come through though. They looted the place and took
everything they wanted and could carry.
"When I first come to this state, I settled in Drew County and farmed. I
farmed for three years. During the time I was there, I got down sick
with slow fever. When I got over that I decided that I would move to
higher ground. There was a man down there who recommended Little Rock
and so I moved here. I have been here forty-nine years. That is quite a
few days.
"I belong to the Presbyterian Church and have been a member of that
church for fifty-five years. I have never gotten out publicly, but I
even do my little preaching round in the house here.
"When I came to Little Rock, I came in a very dull season. There wasn't
even a house to be rented. It was in the winter. I had to rent a room at
"Jones" hall on Ninth and Gaines streets and paid one dollar a day for
it. I stayed there about a month. Finally there was a vacant house over
on Nineteenth street and Common and I moved there. Then I commenced to
look for work and I walked the town over daily. No results whatever.
Finally I struck a little job with the contractor here digging ditches,
grubbing stumps, grading streets and so forth. I worked with him for
three years and finally I got a job with the street car company, as
laborer in the Parks. I worked at that job two years. Finally I got a
job as track laborer. I worked there a year. Then I was promoted to
track foreman. I held that seven years.
"I quit that then and went to the railroads. I helped to build the
Choctaw Oklahoma and Gulf Railway. When the road was completed, I made
the first trip over it as Porter. I remained there till August 9, 1928.
During that time I was operated on for prostatitis and doctors rendered
me unfit for work, totally disabled; so that is my condition today.
"I think the future looks bright. I think conditions will get better. I
believe that all that is necessary for betterment is cooperation.
"I believe the younger generation--the way it looks--is pretty bad. I
think we haven't done anything like as much as we could do in teaching
the youngsters. We need to give them an idea of things. They don't know.
Our future depends on our children If their minds aren't trained, the
future will not be bright. Our leaders should lecture to these young
people and teach them. We have young people who dodge voting because of
the poll tax. That is not the right attitude. I don't know what will
become of us if our children are not better instructed. The white people
are doing more of this than we are.
"There was a time when children didn't know but what the foot was all
there was of a chicken. The foot was all they had ever seen. But young
folks nowaday should be taught everything."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Diana Alexander, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 74
"I was born in Mississippi close to Bihalia. Our owner was Myers(?)
Bogan. He had a wife and children. Mama was a field woman. Her name was
Sarah Bogan and papa's name was Hubberd Bogan.
"I heard them talk about setting the pot at the doors and having singing
and prayer services. They all sung and prayed around the room. I forgot
all the things they talked about. My parents lived on the same place
after freedom a long time. They said he was good to them.
"Dr. Bogan in Forrest City, Arkansas always said I was his brother's
child. He was dead years ago, so I didn't have no other way of knowing.
"The only thing I can recollect about the War was once my mistress took
me and her own little girl upstairs in a kind of ceiling room (attic).
They had their ham meat and jewelry locked up in there and other fine
stuff. She told us to sit down and not move, not even grunt. Me and
Fannie had to be locked up so long. It was dark. We both went to sleep
but we was afraid to stir. The Yankees come then but I didn't get to see
them. I didn't want to be took away by 'em. I was big enough to know
that. I heard 'em say we was near 'bout eat out at the closing of the
War. I thought it muster been the Yankees from what they was talking
about, eating us out.
"I been washing and ironing and still doing it. All my life I been doing
that 'ceptin' when I worked in the field.
"Me and my daughter is paying on this house (a good house). I been
making my own living--hard or easy. I don't get no relief aid. Never
have. I 'plied for the old people's pension. Don't get it."
Interviewer's Comment
This must be Myers Bogan, yet she told me Bogan Myers. Later she said
Dr. Bogan of Forrest City was thus and so.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Fannie Alexander, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 62
"I was an orphant child. My mother-in-law told me during slavery she was
a field hand. One day the overseer was going to whoop one of the women
'bout sompin or other and all the women started with the hoes to him and
run him clear out of the field. They would killed him if he hadn't got
out of the way. She said the master hadn't put a overseer over them for
a long time. Some of 'em wouldn't do their part and he put one of the
men on the place over the women. He was a colored foreman. The women
worked together and the men worked together in different fields. My
mother-in-law was named Alice Drummond. She said they would cut the
hoecakes in half and put that in your pan, then pour the beef stew on
top. She said on Christmas day they had hot biscuits. They give them
flour and things to make biscuit at home on Sundays. When they got
through eating they take their plate and say, 'Thank God for what I
received.' She said they had plenty milk. The churns was up high--five
gallon churns. Some churns was cedar wood. The children would churn
standing on a little stool. It would take two to churn. They would
change about and one brushed away the flies. She lived close to Meridian
and Canton.
"My mother talked the bright side to her children. She was born in
Tennessee. She had two older sisters sold from her. She never seen them
no more. They was took to Missouri. Mother was never sold. She was real
bright color. She died when I was real little. From what I know I think
my parents was industrious. Papa was a shoemaker. He worked on Sunday to
make extra money to buy things outside of what his master give them for
his family. Now I can remember that much. My papa was a bright color
like I am but not near as light as mama. He had a shop when I was little
but he wasn't 'lowed to keep it open on Sunday. I heard him tell about
working on Sundays during slavery and how much he made sometimes. He
tanned his own leather.
"I went to Mississippi and married. Folks got grown earlier than they do
now and I married when I was a young girl 'bout seventeen. We come to
Arkansas. I sewed for white and colored. I cooked some. I taught school
in the public schools. I taught opportunity school two years. I had a
class at the church in day and at the schoolhouse at night. I had two
classes.
"John Hays was mama's owner in Tennessee."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Lucretia Alexander
1708 High Street. Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 89
"I been married three times and my last name was Lucretia Alexander. I
was twelve years old when the War began. My mother died at seventy-three
or seventy-five. That was in August 1865--August the ninth. She was
buried August twelfth. The reason they kept her was they had refugeed
her children off to different places to keep them from the Yankees. They
couldn't get them back. My mother and her children were heir property.
Her first master was Toliver. My mother was named Agnes Toliver. She had
a boy and a girl both older than I were. My brother come home in '65. I
never got to see my sister till 1869.
"My father died in 1881 and some say he was one hundred twelve and some
say one hundred six. His name was Beasley, John Beasley, and he went by
John Beasley till he died.
"My mother died and left four living children. I was the youngest.
"I got religion in 1865. I was baptized seventy-three years ago this
August.
"I ain't got nary living child. My oldest child would have been
sixty-four if he were living. They claim my baby boy is living, but I
don't know. I have four children.
"The first overseer I remember was named Kurt Johnson. The next was
named Mack McKenzie. The next one was named Pink Womack. And the next
was named Tom Phipps. Mean! Liked meanness! Mean a man as he could be.
I've seen him take them down and whip them till the blood run out of
them.
"I got ten head of grandchildren. And I been grandmother to eleven head.
I been great-grandmother to twelve head of great-grandchildren. I got
one twenty-three and another nineteen or twenty. Her father's father was
in the army. She is the oldest. Lotas Robinson, my granddaughter, has
four children that are my great-grandchildren. Gayden Jenkins, my
grandson, has two girls. I got a grandson named Dan Jenkins. He is the
father of three boys. He lives in Cleveland. He got a grandson named
Mark Jenkins in Memphis who has one boy. The youngest granddaughter--I
don't remember her husband's name--has one boy. There are four
generations of us.
"I been here. You see I took care of myself when I was young and tried
to do right. The Lord has helped me too. Yes, I am going on now. I been
here a long time but I try to take care of myself. I was out visiting
the sick last time you come here. That's the reason I missed you. I
tries to do the best I can.
"I am stricken now with the rheumatism on one side. This hip.
"My mother was treated well in slavery times. My father was sold five
times. Wouldn't take nothin'. So they sold him. They beat him and
knocked him about. They put him on the block and they sold him 'bout
beatin' up his master. He was a native of Virginia. The last time they
sold him they sold him down in Claiborne County, Mississippi. Just below
where I was born at. I was born in Copiah County near Hazlehurst, about
fifteen miles from Hazlehurst. My mother was born in Washington County.
Virginia. Her first master was Qualls Tolliver. Qualls moved to
Mississippi and married a woman down there and he had one son, Peachy
Toliver. After he died, he willed her to Peachy. Then Peachy went to the
Rebel army and got killed.
"My mother's father was a free Indian named Washington. Her mother was a
slave. I don't know my father's father. He moved about so much and was
sold so many times he never did tell me his father. He got his name from
the white folks. When you're a slave you have to go by your owner's
name.
"My master's mother took me to the house after my mother died. And the
first thing I remember doing was cleaning up. Bringing water, putting up
mosquito-bars, cooking. My master's mother was Susan Reed. I have done
everything but saw. I never sawed in my life. The hardest work I did was
after slavery. I never did no hard work during slavery. I used to pack
water for the plow hands and all such as that. But when my mother died,
my mistress took me to the house.
"But Lawd! I've seen such brutish doin's--runnin' niggers with hounds
and whippin' them till they was bloody. They used to put 'em in stocks.
When they didn't put 'em in stocks, used to be two people would whip
'em--the overseer and the driver. The overseer would be a man named
Elijah at our house. He was just a poor white man. He had a whip they
called the BLACK SNAKE.
"I remember one time they caught a man named George Tinsley. They put
the dogs on him and they bit 'im and tore all his clothes off of 'im.
Then they put 'im in the stocks. The stocks was a big piece of timber
with hinges in it. It had a hole in it for your head. They would lift it
up and put your head in it. There was holes for your head, hands and
feet in it. Then they would shut it up and they would lay that whip on
you and you couldn't do nothin' but wiggle and holler, 'Pray, master,
pray!' But when they'd let that man out, he'd run away again.
"They would make the slaves work till twelve o'clock on Sunday, and then
they would let them go to church. The first time I was sprinkled, a
white preacher did it; I think his name was Williams.
"The preacher would preach to the white folks in the forenoon and to the
colored folks in the evening. The white folks had them hired. One of
them preachers was named Hackett; another, Williams; and another, Gowan.
There was five of them but I just remember them three. One man used to
hold the slaves so late that they had to go to the church dirty from
their work. They would be sweaty and smelly. So the preacher 'buked him
'bout it. That was old man Bill Rose.
"The niggers didn't go to the church building; the preacher came and
preached to them in their quarters. He'd just say, 'Serve your masters.
Don't steal your master's turkey. Don't steal your master's chickens.
Don't steal your master's hawgs. Don't steal your master's meat. Do
whatsomeever your master tells you to do.' Same old thing all the time.
"My father would have church in dwelling houses and they had to whisper.
My mother was dead and I would go with him. Sometimes they would have
church at his house. That would be when they would want a real meetin'
with some real preachin'. It would have to be durin' the week nights.
You couldn't tell the difference between Baptists and Methodists then.
They was all Christians. I never saw them turn nobody down at the
communion, but I have heard of it. I never saw them turn no pots down
neither; but I have heard of that. They used to sing their songs in a
whisper and pray in a whisper. That was a prayer-meeting from house to
house once or twice--once or twice a week.
"Old Phipps whipped me once. He aimed to kill me but I got loose. He
whipped me about a colored girl of his'n that he had by a colored woman.
Phipps went with a colored woman before he married his wife. He had a
girl named Martha Ann Phipps. I beat Martha 'bout a pair of stockings.
My mistress bought me a nice pair of stockings from the store. You see,
they used to knit the stockings. I wore the stockings once; then I
washed them and put them on the fence to dry. Martha stole them and put
them on. I beat her and took them off of her. She ran and told her
father and he ran me home. He couldn't catch me, and he told me he'd get
me. I didn't run to my father. I run to my mistress, and he knew he'd
better not do nothin' then. He said, 'I'll get you, you little old black
some thin'.' Only he didn't say 'somethin'.' He didn't get me then.
"But one day he caught me out by his house. I had gone over that way on
an errand I needn't have done. He had two girls hold me. They was
Angeline and Nancy. They didn't much want to hold me anyhow. Some
niggers would catch you and kill you for the white folks and then there
was some that wouldn't. I got loose from them. He tried to hold me
hisself but he couldn't. I got away and went back to my old mistress and
she wrote him a note never to lay his dirty hands on me again. A little
later her brother, Johnson Chatman, came there and ran him off the
place. My old mistress' name was Susan Chatman before she married. Then
she married Toliver. Then she married Reed. She married Reed last--after
Toliver died.
"One old lady named Emily Moorehead runned in and held my mother once
for Phipps to whip her. And my mother was down with consumption too. I
aimed to git old Phipps for that. But then I got religion and I couldn't
do it. Religion makes you forgit a heap of things.
"Susan Reed, my old mistress, bought my father and paid fifteen hundred
dollars for him and she hadn't never seen 'im. Advertising. He had run
away so much that they had to advertise and sell 'im. He never would run
away from Miss Susan. She was good to him till she got that old nigger
beater Phipps. Her husband, Reed, was called a nigger spoiler. My father
was an old man when Phipps was on overseer and wasn't able to fight much
then.
"Phipps sure was a bad man. He wasn't so bad neither; but the niggers
was scared of him. You know in slave times, sometimes when a master
would git too bad, the niggers would kill him--tote him off out in the
woods somewheres and git rid of him. Two or three of them would git
together and scheme it out, and then two or three of them would git him
way out and kill 'im. But they didn't nobody ever pull nothin' like
that on Phipps. They was scared of him.
"One time I saw the Yankees a long way off. They had on blue uniforms
and was on coal black horses. I hollered out, 'Oh, I see somethin'.' My
mistress said, 'What?' I told her, and she said, 'Them's the Yankees.'
She went on in the house and I went with her. She sacked up all the
valuables in the house. She said, 'Here,' and she threw a sack of silver
on me that was so heavy that I went right on down to the ground. Then
she took hold of it and holp me up and holp me carry it out. I carried
it out and hid it. She had three buckskin sacks--all full of silver.
That wasn't now; that was in slavery times. During the War, Jeff Davis
gave out Confederate money. It died out on the folks' hands. About
twelve hundred dollars of it died out on my father's hands. But there
wasn't nothin' but gold and silver in them sacks.
"I heard them tell the slaves they were free. A man named Captain Barkus
who had his arm off at the elbow called for the three near-by
plantations to meet at our place. Then he got up on a platform with
another man beside him and declared peace and freedom. He p'inted to a
colored man and yelled, 'You're free as I am.' Old colored folks, old as
I am now, that was on sticks, throwed them sticks away and shouted.
"Right after freedom I stayed with that white woman I told you about. I
was with her about four years. I worked for twelve dollars a month and
my food and clothes. Then I figured that twelve dollars wasn't enough
and I went to work in the field. It was a mighty nice woman. Never hit
me in her life. I never have been whipped by a white woman. She was good
to me till she died. She died after I had my second child--a girl child.
"I have been living in this city fifteen years. I come from Chicot
County when I come here. We come to Arkansas in slavery times. They
brought me from Copiah County when I was six or eight years old. When
Mrs. Toliver married she came up here and brought my mother. My mother
belonged to her son and she said, 'Agnes (that was my mother's name),
will you follow me if I buy your husband?' Her husband's name was John
Beasley. She said, 'Yes.' Then her old mistress bought Beasley and paid
fifteen hundred dollars to get my mother to come with her. Then Peachy
went to war and was shot because he come home of a furlough and stayed
too long. So when he went back they killed him. My mother nursed him
when he was a baby. Old man Toliver said he didn't want none of us to be
sold; so they wasn't none of us sold. Maybe there would have been if
slavery had lasted longer; but there wasn't.
"Mother really belonged to Peachy, but when Peachy died, then she fell
to her mistress.
"I have been a widow now for thirty years. I washed and ironed and
plowed and hoed--everything. Now I am gittin' so I ain't able to do
nothin' and the Relief keeps me alive. I worked and took care of myself
and my last husband and he died, and I ain't married since. I used to
take a little boy and make ten bales of cotton. I can't do it now. I
used to be a woman in my day. I am my mother's seventh child.
"I don't buy no hoodoo and I don't believe in none, but a seventh child
can more or less tell you things that are a long way off. If you want to
beat the devil you got to do right. God's got to be in the plan. I tries
to do right. I am not perfect but I do the best I can. I ain't got no
bottom teeth, but my top ones are good. I have a few bottom ones. The
Lawd's keepin' me here for somepin. I been with 'im now seventy-three
years."
Interviewer's Comment
I'll bet the grandest moment in the life of Sister Alexander's mother
was when her mistress said, "Agnes, will you follow me if I buy your
husband?" Fifteen hundred dollars to buy a rebellious slave in order to
unite a slave couple. It's epic.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ed Allen, Des Arc, Ark.
Age: ?
"I know that after freedom they took care of my pa and ma and give em a
home long as they lived. Ma died wid young mistress here in Des Arc.
"The present generation is going to the bad. Have dealings wid em, not
good to you. Young folks ain't nice to you like they used to be.
"White boys and colored boys, whole crowd of us used to go in the river
down here all together, one got in danger help him out. They don't do it
no more. We used to play base ball together. All had a good time. We
never had to buy a ball or a bat. Always had em. The white boys bought
them. I don't know as who to blame but young folk changed."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Lucindy Allison, Marked Tree, Arkansas
With children at Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 61
"Ma was a slave in Arkansas. She said she helped grade a hill and help
pile up a road between Wicksburg and Wynne. They couldn't put the road
over the hill, so they put all the slaves about to grade it down. They
don't use the road but it's still there to show for itself.
"She was a tall rawbony woman. Ma was a Hillis and pa's name was Adam
Hillis. He learned to trap in slavery and after freedom he followed that
for a living. Ma was a sure 'nough field hand. Mama had three sets of
children. I don't know how many she did have in all. I had eleven my own
self. Grandma was named Tempy and I heard them tell about when she was
sold. She and mama went together. They used to whoop the slaves when
they didn't work up peart.
"When the 'Old War' come on and the Yankees come they took everything
and the black men folks too. They come by right often. They would drive
up at mealtime and come in and rake up every blessed thing was cooked.
Have to go work scrape about and find something else to eat. What they
keer 'bout you being white or black? Thing they was after was filling
theirselves up. They done white folks worse than that. They burned their
cribs and fences up and their houses too about if they got mad. Things
didn't suit them. If they wanted a colored man to go in camp with them
and he didn't go, they would shoot you down like a dog. Ma told about
some folks she knowd got shot in the yard of his own quarters.
"Us black folks don't want war. They are not war kind of folks. Slavery
wasn't right and that 'Old War' wasn't right neither.
"When my children was all little I kept Aunt Mandy Buford till she died.
She was a old slave woman. Me and my husband and the biggest children
worked in the field. She would sit about and smoke. My boys made cob
pipes and cut cane j'ints for 'er to draw through. Red cob pipes was the
prettiest. Aunt Mandy said her master would be telling them what to do
in the field and he say to her, 'I talking to you too.' She worked right
among the men at the same kind of work. She was tall but not large. She
carried children on her right hip when she was so young she dragged that
foot when she walked. The reason she had to go with the men to the field
like she did was 'cause she wasn't no multiplying woman. She never had a
chile in all her lifetime. She said her mother nearly got in bad one
time when her sister was carrying a baby. She didn't keep up. Said the
riding boss got down, dug a hole with the hoe to lay her in it 'cause
she was so big in front. Her mother told him if he put her daughter
there in that hole she'd cop him up in pieces wid her hoe. He found he
had two to conquer and he let her be. But he had to leave 'cause he
couldn't whoop the niggers.
"If I could think of all she tole I'd soon have enough to fill up that
book you're getting up. I can't recollect who she belong to, and her old
talk comes back to me now and then. She talked so much we'd get up and
go on off to keep from hearing her tell things over so many times.
"Folks like me what got children think the way they do is all right. I
don't like some of my children's ways but none of us perfect. I tells
'em right far as I knows. Times what makes folks no 'count. Times gets
stiff around Biscoe. Heap of folks has plenty. Some don't have much--not
enough. Some don't have nothing.
"I don't believe in women voting. That ruined the country. We got along
very well till they got to tinkering with the government."
Name of Interviewer: Pernella Anderson
Subject: Early Days in Caledonia--Early days in El Dorado
Name: Josephine Ames
Occupation: Domestic
Resident: Fordville
Age: not given.
[TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
Ah wuz bo'n de first year niggers wuz free. Wuz born in Caledonia at de
Primm place. Mah ma belonged tuh George Thompson. After mah ma died ah
stayed wid de Wommacks, a while. Aftuh dat mah pa taken me home. Pa's
name wuz Jesse Flueur. Ah worked lak er slave. Ah cut wood, sawed logs,
picked 400 pounds uv cotton evah day. Ah speck ah married de first time
ah wuz about fo'teen years ole. Ah been mahrid three times. All mah
husband's is daid. Ole man England and ole man Cullens run business
places and ole man Wooley. His name wuz reason Wooley. De Woolies got
cemetery uv dey own right dar near de Cobb place. No body is buried in
dar but de fambly uv Wooleys. Ole man Allen Hale, he run er store dar
too. He is yet livin right dar. He is real ole. De ole Warren Mitchell
place whar ah use tuh live is Guvment land. Warren Mitchell, he
homesteaded the place. We lived dar and made good crops. De purtiest dar
wuz eround, but not hit's growed up. Don lived dar and made good crops.
De purtiest dar wuz eround. Dar is whah all mah chillun wuz bo'n. Ah use
tuh take mah baby an walk tuh El Dorado to sevice. Ah use tuh come tuh
El Dorado wid a oman by de name of Sue Foster. Nothin but woods when dey
laid de railroad heah. Dey built dem widh horses and axes. Ah saw em
when dey whoop de hosses and oxen till dey fall out working dem when dey
laid dat steel. Ah wuz at de first buryin uv de fust pussen buried in
Caledonia graveyard. Huh name wuz Joe Ann Polk. We set up wid huh all
night and sing and pray. An when we got nearly tuh de church de bells
started tolling and de folks started tuh singin. When evah any body died
dey ring bells tuh let yo know some body wuz daid. A wuz born on
Christmas day, an ah had two chilluns born on Christmas Day. Dey wuz
twins and one uv em had two teeth and his hair hung down on her
shoulders when hit wuz born but hit did not live but er wek.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Charles Anderson. Helena, Arkansas
Age: 77 or 78, not sure
"I was born in Bloomfield, Kentucky. My parents had the same owners.
Mary and Elgin Anderson was their names. They was owned by Isaac Stone.
Davis Stone was their son. They belong to the Stones as far back as they
could remember. Mama was darker than I am. My father was brighter than I
am. He likely had a white father. I never inquired. Mama had colored
parents. Master Stone walked with a big crooked stick. He nor his son
never went to war. Masters in that country never went. Two soldiers were
drafted off our place. I saw the soldiers, plenty of them and plenty
times. There never was no serious happenings.
"The Federal soldiers would come by, sleep in the yard, take our best
horses and leave the broken down ones. Very little money was handled. I
never seen much. Master Stone would give us money like he give money to
Davis. They prized fine stock mostly. They needed money at wheat harvest
time only. When a celebration or circus come through he give us all
twenty-five or thirty cents and told us to go. There wasn't many slaves
up there like down in this country. The owners from all I've heard was
crueler and sold them off oftener here.
"Weaving was a thing the women prided in doing--being a fast weaver or a
fine hand at weaving. They wove pretty coverlets for the beds. I see
colored spreads now makes me think about my baby days in Kentucky.
"Freedom was something mysterious. Colored folks didn't talk it. White
folks didn't talk it. The first I realized something different, Master
Stone was going to whip a older brother. He told mama something I was
too small to know. She said, 'Don't leave this year, son. I'm going to
leave.' Master didn't whip him.
"Master Stone's cousin kept house for him. I remember her well. They
were all very nice to us always. He had a large farm. He had twenty
servants in his yard. We all lived there close together. My sister and
mama cooked. We had plenty to eat. We had beef in spring and summer.
Mutton and kid on special occasions. We had hog in the fall and winter.
We had geese, ducks, and chickens. We had them when we needed them. We
had a field garden. He raised corn, wheat, oats, rye, and tobacco.
"Once a year we got dressed up. We got shirts, a suit, pants and shoes,
and what else we needed to wear. Then he told them to take care of their
clothes. They got plenty to do a year. We didn't have fine clothes no
time. We didn't eat ham and chicken. I never seen biscuit--only
sometimes.
"I seen a woman sold. They had on her a short dress, no sleeves, so they
could see her muscles, I reckon. They would buy them and put them with
good healthy men to raise young slaves. I heard that. I was very small
when I seen that young woman sold and years later I heard that was what
was done.
"I don't know when freedom came on. I never did know. We was five or six
years breaking up. Master Stone never forced any of us to leave. He give
some of them a horse when they left. I cried a year to go back. It was a
dear place to me and the memories linger with me every day.
"There was no secret society or order of Ku Klux in reach of us as I
ever heard.
"I voted Republican ticket. We would go to Jackson to vote. There would
be a crowd. The last I voted was for Theodore Roosevelt. I voted here in
Helena for years. I was on the petit jury for several years here in
Helena.
"I farmed in your state some (Arkansas). I farmed all my young life. I
been in Arkansas sixty years. I come here February 1879 with distant
relatives. They come south. When I come to Helena there was but one set
of mechanics. I started to work. I learned to paint and hang wall paper.
I've worked in nearly every house in Helena.
"The present times are gloomy. I tried to prepare for old age. I had a
apartment house and lost it. I owned a home and lost it. They foreclosed
me out.
"The present generation is not doing as well as I have.
"My health knocked me out. My limbs swell, they are stiff. I have a bad
bladder trouble.
"I asked for help but never have got none. If I could got a little
relief I never would lost my house. They work my wife to death keeping
us from starving. She sewed till they cut off all but white ladies. When
she got sixty-five they let her go and she got a little job cooking.
They never give us no relief."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Nancy Anderson
Street H, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 66
"I was born at Sanitobia, Mississippi. Mother died when I was a child. I
was three months old, they said, when I lost her. Father lived to be
very old. My mother was Ella Geeter and my stepmother was Lucy Evans. My
father's name was Si Hubbard. My parents married after the War. I
remembers Grandma Harriett Hubbard. She said she was sold. She was a
cook and she raised my papa up with white folks. Her children was sold
with her. Papa was sold too at the same time. Papa fired a steam gin.
They ground corn and ginned cotton.
"I stayed with Sam Hall's family. She was good to me. I had a small bed
by the fireplace. She kept me with two of her own children. Some of the
girls and boys I was raised up with live at Sanitobia now and have fine
homes. When we would be playing they would take all the toys from me.
Miss Fannie would say, 'Poor Nancy ain't got no toys.' Then they would
put them on the floor and we would all play. They had a little table. We
all eat at it. We had our own plates. We all eat out of tin plates and
had tin cups.
"They couldn't keep me at home when papa married. I slipped off across
the pasture. There was cows and hogs in there all the time. I wasn't
afraid of them. I would get behind Miss Fannie and hide in her dress
tail when they come after me. They let me stay most of the time for
about five years. Sam Hall was good to my father and Miss Fannie about
raised me after my mother died. She made me mind but she was good to me.
"Grandma lived with papa. She was part Indian. As long as papa lived he
share cropped and ginned. He worked as long as he was able to hit a
lick. He died four miles east out from Sanitobia on Mr. Hayshaws place.
What I told you is what I know. He said he was sold that one time.
Hubbards had plenty to eat and wear. He was a boy and they didn't want
to stunt the children. Papa was a water boy and filed the hoes for the
chopping hands. He carried a file along with them hoeing and would
sharpen their hoes and fetch 'em water in their jugs. Aunt Sallie, his
sister, took keer of the children.
"Papa went to the War. He could blow his bugle and give all the war
signals. He got the military training. Him and his friend Charlie Grim
used to step around and show us how they had to march to orders. His
bugle had four joints. I don't know what went with it. From what they
said they didn't like the War and was so glad to get home.
"Between the big farms they had worm fences (rail fences) and gates. You
had to get a pass from your master to go visiting. The gates had big
chains and locks on them. Some places was tollgates where they traveled
over some man's land to town. On them roads the man owned the place
charged. He kept some boy to open and shut the gate. They said the gates
was tall.
"Some of the slaves that had hard masters run off and stay in the woods.
They had nigger dogs and would run them--catch 'em. He said one man
(Negro) was hollowing down back of the worm fence close to where they
was working. They all run to him. A great long coachwhip snake was
wrapped 'round him, his arms and all, and whooping him with its tail. It
cut gashes like a knife and the blood poured. The overseer cut the
snake's head off with his big knife and they carried him home bleeding.
His master didn't whoop him, said he had no business off in the woods.
He had run off. His master rubbed salt in the gashes. It nearly killed
him. It burnt him so bad. That stopped the blood. They said sut (soot)
would stopped the blood but it would left black mark. The salt left
white marks on him. The salt helped kill the pison (poison). Some
masters and overseers was cruel. When they was so bad marked they didn't
bring a good price. They thought they was hard to handle.
"Aunt Jane Peterson, old friend of mine, come to visit me nearly every
year after she got so old. She told me things took place in slavery
times. She was in Virginia till after freedom. She had two girls and a
boy with a white daddy. She told me all about how that come. She said no
chance to run off or ever get off, you had to stay and take what come.
She never got to marry till after freedom. Then she had three more black
children by her husband. She said she was the cook. Old master say,
'Jane, go to the lot and get the eggs.' She was scared to go and scared
not to go. He'd beat her out there, put her head between the slip gap
where they let the hogs into the pasture from the lot down back of the
barn. She say, 'Old missis whip me. This ain't right.' He'd laugh. Said
she bore three of his children in a room in the same house his family
lived in. She lived in the same house. She had a room so as she could
build fires and cook breakfast by four o'clock sometimes, she said. She
was so glad freedom come on and soon as she heard it she took her
children and was gone, she said. She had no use for him. She was scared
to death of him. She learned to pray and prayed for freedom. She died in
Cold Water, Mississippi. She was so glad freedom come on before her
children come on old enough to sell. Part white children sold for more
than black children. They used them for house girls.
"I don't know Ku Klux stories enough to tell one. These old tales leave
my mind. I'm 66 and all that was before my time.
"Times is strange--hard, too. But the way I have heard they had to work
and do and go I hardly ever do grumble. I've heard so much. I got
children and I do the best I can by them. That is all I can do or say."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: R.B. Anderson
Route 4, Box 68 (near Granite)
Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75
[HW: The Brooks-Baxter War]
"I was born in Little Rock along about Seventeenth and Arch Streets.
There was a big plantation there then. Dr. Wright owned the plantation.
He owned my mother and father. My father and mother told me that I was
born in 1862. They didn't know the date exactly, so I put it the last
day in the year and call it December 30, 1862.
"My father's name was William Anderson. He didn't go to the War because
he was blind. He was ignorant too. He was colored. He was a pretty good
old man when he died.
"My mother's name was Minerva Anderson. She was three-fourths Indian,
hair way down to her waist. I was in Hot Springs blacking boots when my
mother died. I was only about eight or ten years old then. I always
regretted I wasn't able to do anything for my mother before she died. I
don't know to what tribe her people belonged.
"Dr. Wright was awful good to his slaves.
"I don't know just how freedom came to my folks. I never heard my father
say. They were set free, I know. They were set free when the War ended.
They never bought their freedom.
"We lived on Tenth and near to Center in a one-room log house. That is
the earliest thing I remember. When they moved from there, my father had
accumulated enough to buy a home. He bought it at Seventh and Broadway.
He paid cash for it--five hundred and fifty dollars. That is where we
all lived until it was sold. I couldn't name the date of the sale but it
was sold for good money--about three thousand eight hundred dollars, or
maybe around four thousand. I was a young man then.
"I remember the Brooks-Baxter War.
"I remember the King White fooled a lot of niggers and armed them and
brought them up here. The niggers and Republicans here fought them and
run them back where they come from.
"I know Hot Springs when the main street was a creek. I can't remember
when I first went there. The government bath-house was called 'Ral
Hole', because it was mostly people with bad diseases that went there.
"After the War, my father worked for a rich man named Hunter. He was
yardman and took care of the horse. My mother was living then.
"Scipio Jones and I were boys together. We slept on pool tables many a
time when we didn't have no other place to sleep. He was poor when he
was a boy and glad to get hold of a dime, or a nickel. He and I don't
speak today because he robbed me. I had a third interest in my place. I
gave him money to buy my place in for me. It was up for sale and I
wanted to get possession. He gave me some papers to sign and when I
found out what was happening, he had all my property. My wife kept me
from killing him."
Interviewer's Comment
Occupation: Grocer, bartender, porter, general work
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Sarah Anderson
3815 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78?
"I don't know when I was born. When the Civil War ended, I was bout four
or five years old.
"I jes' remember when the people come back--the soldiers--when the War
ended. We chillun run under the house. That was the Yankees.
"I was born in Bibb County, Georgia. That's where I was bred and born.
"I been in Arkansas ever since I was fourteen. That was shortly after
the Civil War, I reckon. We come here when they was emigratin' to
Arkansas. I'm tellin' you the truth, I been here a long time.
"I member when the soldiers went by and we chillun run under the house.
It was the Yankee cavalry, and they made so much noise. Dat's what the
old folks told us. I member dat we run under the house and called our
self hidin'.
"My master was Madison Newsome and my missis was Sarah Newsome. Named
after her? Must a done it. Ma and her chillun was out wallowin' in the
dirt when the Yankees come by. Sometimes I stayed in the house with my
white folks all night.
"My mother and father say they was well treated. That's what they say.
"Old folks didn't low us chillun round when they was talkin' bout their
business, no ma'am.
"We stayed with old master a good while after freedom--till they
commenced emigratin' from Georgia to Arkansas. Yes ma'am!
"I'm the mother of fourteen chillun--two pairs of twins. I married
young--bout fifteen or sixteen, I reckon. I married a young fellow. I
say we was just chaps. After he died, I married a old settled man and
now he's dead.
"I been livin' a pretty good life. Seems like the white folks just
didn't want me to get away from their chillun.
"All my chillun dead cept one son. He was a twin."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Selie Anderson, Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born near Decatur, Alabama and lived there till I was fifteen
years old. Course I members hearin' em talk bout Mars Newt. I named fur
my ma's old mistress--Miss Selie Thompson and Mars Newt Thompson. Pa
died when I was three years old. He was a soldier. Ma had seven
children. They have bigger families then than they have now. Ma name
Emmaline Thompson. Pa name Sam Adair. I can't tell you about him. I
heard em say his pa was a white man. He was light skinned. Old folks
didn't talk much foe children so I don't know well nough to tell you
bout him. Ma was a cook and a licensed midwife in Alabama. She waited on
both black and white. Ma never staid at home much. She worked out. I
come to Mississippi after I married and had one child. Ma and all come.
Ma went to Tom McGehee's to cook after freedom. She married old man
named Lewis Chase and they worked on where he had been raised. His name
was Lewis Sprangle. He looked after the stock and drove the carriage.
Daniel Sprangle had a store and a big farm. He had three girls and three
boys, I was their house girl. Mama lived on the place and give me to em
cause they could do better part by me than she could. I was six years
old when she give me to em. They lernt me to sweep, knit, crochet, piece
quilts. She lernt her children thater way sometimes. Miss Nancy Sprangle
didn't treat me no different from her own girls. Miss Dora married Mr.
Pitt Loney and I was dressed up and held up her train (long dress and
veil). I stayed with Miss Dora after she married. One of the girls
married Mr. John Galbreth. I married and went home then come to
Mississippi. Mrs. Gables, Mr. Gables was old people but they had two
adopted boys. I took them boys to the field to work wid my children. She
sewed for me and my children. Her girls cooked all we et in busy times.
They done work at the house but they didn't work in the field.
"I been married five times. Every time I married I married at home.
Mighty little marryin' goin' on now--mighty little. Mama stayed wid Mr.
Sprangle till we all got grown. Miss Nancy's girls married so that all
the way I knowd how to do. I had a good time. I danced every chance I
got. I been well blessed all my life till I'm gettin' feeble now.
"Papa run the gin on Mr. Sprangle's place, then he went to war, come
back foe he died. I recken he come home sick cause he died pretty soon.
"I jess can member this Ku Klux broke down our door wid hatchets. It
scared us all to death. They didn't do nuthin' to us. They was huntin'
Uncle Jeff. He wasn't bout our house. He was ox driver fer Mr. Sprangle.
Him and a family of pore white folks got to fussin' bout a bridle. Some
of em was dressed up when they come to our house ma said. After that Mr.
Kirby killed him close to his home startin' out one mornin' to work. His
name was Uncle Jeff Saxon. Ma knowd it was some of the men right on Mr.
Sprangle's place whut come to our house.
"I live wid my daughter. I get $8 from the Welfare.
"If they vote for better it be all right. I never seen no poles. I don't
know how they vote. I'm too old to start up votin'.
"Lawd you got me now. The times changed and got so fast. It all beyond
me. I jes' listens. I don't know whut goner happen to this young
generation."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: W.A. Anderson (dark brown)
3200 W. 18th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 78
Occupation: House and yard man
[HW: Serves the "Lawd"]
"I don't know nothin' about slavery. You know I wouldn't know nothin'
bout it cause I was only four years old when the war ended. All I know
is I was born in slavery; but I don't know nothin' bout it.
"I don't remember nothin' of my parents. Times was all confused and old
folks didn't talk before chilun. They didn't have time. Besides, my
mother and father were separated.
"I was born in Arkansas and have lived here all my life. But I don't
gossip and entertain. I just moved in this house last week. Took a
wheelbarrow and brought all these things here myself.
"Those boys out there jus' threw a stone against the house. I thought
the house was falling. I work all day and when night comes, I'm tired.
"I don't have no wife, no children, nothin'; nobody to help me out. I
don't ask the neighbors nothin' cept to clear out this junk they left
here.
"I ain't goin' to talk about the Ku Klux. I got other things to think
about. It takes all my time and strength to do my work and live a
Christian. Folks got so nowadays they don't care bout nothin'. I just
live here and serve the Lawd."
Interviewer's Comments
Anderson is separated from his wife who left him. He lost his home a
short time ago. A few months ago, he was so sick he was expected to die.
He supports himself through the friendliness of a few white people who
give him odds and ends of work to do.
I made three calls on him, helped him set up his stoves and his beds and
clear up his house a little bit since he had just moved into it and had
a good deal of work to do. His misfortunes have made him unwilling to
talk just now, but he will give a good interview later I am certain.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Henry Anthony; R.F.D. #1 Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 84
"I was born at Jackson, North Carolina. My master and mistress named
Betsy and Jason Williams but my pa's name was Anthony. My young master
was a orderly seargent. He took me wid him to return some mules and
wagons. He showed me what he want done an I followed him round wid
wagons. The wagons hauled ammunition and provisions. Pa worked for the
master and ma cooked. They got sold to Lausen Capert. When freedom come
they went back and stayed a month or two at Williams then we all went
back to John Odom. We stayed round close and farmed and worked till they
died. I married and when I had four or five children I heard ob dis
country. I come on immigration ticket to Mr. Aydelott here at Biscoe.
Train full of us got together and come. One white man got us all up and
brought us here to Biscoe. I farmed for Mr. Aydelott four or five years,
then for Mr. Bland, Mr. Scroggin.
"I never went to school a day in my life. I used to vote here in Biseoe
right smart. I let the young folks do my votin. They can tell more about
it. I sho do not think it is the woman's place to vote an hold all the
jobs from the men. Iffen you don't in the Primary cause you don't know
nuf to pick out a man, you sho don't know nuthin er tall bout votin in
the General lection. In fact it ain't no good to our race nohow.
"The whole world gone past my judgment long ago. I jess sets round to
see what they say an do next. It is bad when you caint get work you able
to do on that's hard on the old folks. I could saved. I did save right
smart. Sickness come on. Sometimes you have a bad crop year, make
nuthin, but you have to live on. Young folks don't see no hard times if
they keep well an able to work.
"I get commodities and $6 a month. I do a little if I can.
"One time my son bought a place fo me and him. He paid all cept $70. I
don't know whut it cost now. It was 47 acres. I worked on it three
years. He sold it and went to the sawmill. He say he come out square on
it. I didn't wanter sell it but he did."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Katie Arbery
815 W. Thirteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
"I am eighty years old. My name 'fore I was a Arbery was Baxter. My
mother was a Baxter. Born in Union County.
"My mother's first people was Baxter and my grandmother was a Baxter and
they just went by that name; she never did change her name.
"The boss man--that was what they called our master--his name was Paul
McCall. He was married twice. His oldest son was Jim McCall. He was in
the War. Yes ma'am, the Civil War.
"Paul McCall raised me up with his chillun and I never did call him
master, just called him pappy, and Jim McCall, I called him brother Jim.
Just raised us all up there in the yard. My grandmother was the cook.
"There wasn't no fightin' in Union County but I 'member when the Yankees
was goin' through and singin'
'The Union forever, hurrah, boys, hurrah
We'll rally 'round the flag, boys,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.'
(She sang this--ed.)
And I 'member this one good:
'Old buckwheat cakes and good strong butter
To make your lips go flip, flip, flutter.
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land.'
"Pappy used to play that on his fiddle and have us chillun tryin' to
dance. Used to call us chillun and say, 'You little devils, come up here
and dance' and have us marchin'.
"My cousin used to be a quill blower. Brother Jim would cut fishin'
canes and plat 'em together--they called 'em a pack--five in a row, just
like my fingers. Anybody that knowed how could sure make music on 'em.
Tom Rollins, that was my baby uncle, he was a banjo picker.
"I can remember a heap a things that happened, but 'bout slavery, I
didn't know one day from another. They treated us so nice that when they
said freedom come, I thought I was always free.
"I heered my grandmother talk about sellin' 'em, but I was just a little
kid and I didn't know what they was talkin' about. I heered 'em say,
'Did you know they sold Aunt Sally away from her baby?' I heered 'em
talkin', I know that much.
"After freedom, our folks stayed right on Paul McCall's place. My
grandmother cooked for the McCalls till I was eight or nine years old,
then she cooked for the McCrays--they was all relatives--till I was
twenty-one. Then I married.
"Paul McCall first married in the Baxter family and then he married into
the McCray family. I lived on the McCall place till I was grown. They
all come from Alabama. Yes'm, they come befo' the war was.
"Chillun in dem days paid attention. People _raised_ chillun in dem
days. Folks just feeds 'em now and lets 'em grow up.
"I looks at the young race now and they is as wise as rabbits.
"I never went to school but three months, but I never will forget that
old blue back McGuffey's. Sam Porter was our teacher and I was scared of
him. I was so scared I couldn't learn nothin'.
"As far as I can remember I have been treated nice everywhere I been.
Ain't none of the white folks ever mistreated me.
"Lord, we had plenty to eat in slavery days--and freedom days too.
"One time when my mother was cookin' for Colonel Morgan and my oldest
brother was workin' some land, my mother always sent me over with a
bucket of milk for him. So one day she say. 'Snooky, come carry your
brother's milk and hurry so he can have it for dinner.' I was goin'
across a field; that was a awful deer country. I had on a red dress and
was goin' on with my milk when I saw a old buck lookin' at me. All at
once he went 'whu-u-u', and then the whole drove come up. There was
mosely trees (I think she must have meant mimosa--ed.) in the field and
I run and climbed up in one of 'em. A mosely tree grows crooked; I don't
care how straight you put it in the ground, it's goin' to grow crooked.
So I climb up in the mosely tree and begin to yell. My brother heard me
and come 'cause he knowed what was up. He used to say, 'Now, Snipe, when
you come 'cross that mosely field, don't you wear that old red dress
'cause they'll get you down and tear that dress off you.' I liked the
dress 'cause he had give it to me. I had set the milk down at the foot
of the tree and it's a wonder they didn't knock it over, but when my
brother heard me yell he come a runnin', with a gun and shot one of the
deer. I got some of the venison and he give some to Colonel Morgan, his
boss man. Colonel Morgan had fought in the war.
"The reason I can't tell you no more is, since I got old my mind goes
this and that a way.
"But I can tell you all the doctors that doctored on me. They give me up
to die once. I had the chills from the first of one January to the next
We had Dr. Chester and Dr. McCray and Dr. Lewis--his name was Perry--and
Dr. Green and Dr. Smead. Took quinine till I couldn't hear, and finally
Dr. Green said, 'We'll just quit givin' her medicine, looks like she's
goin' to die anyway.' And then Dr. Lewis fed me for three weeks steady
on okra soup cooked with chicken. Just give me the broth. Then I
commenced gettin' better and here I am.
"But I can't work like I used to. When I was young I could work right
along with the men but I can't do it now. I wish I could 'cause they's a
heap a things I'd like that my chillun and grandchillun can't get for
me.
"Well, good-bye, come back again sometime."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Campbell Armstrong
802 Schiller Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 86
[HW: Boys liked corn shuckings]
"I couldn't tell you when I was born. I was born a good while before
freedom. I was a boy about ten years old in the time of the Civil War.
That would make me about eighty-five or six years old.
"My father's name was Cy Armstrong. My mother's name was Gracie
Armstrong. I don't know the names of my grandparents. They was gone when
I got here. My sister died right there in the corner of the next room.
House and Furniture
"I used to live in an old log house. Take dirt and dob the cracks. The
floors were these here planks. We had two windows and one door. That was
in Georgia, in Houston County, on old Dempsey Brown's place. I know
him--know who dug his grave.
"They had beds nailed up to the side of the house. People had a terrible
time you know. White folks had it all. When I come along they had it and
they had it ever since I been here. You didn't have no chance like folks
have nowadays. Just made benches and stools to sit on. Made tables out
of planks. I never saw any cupboards and things like that. Them things
wasn't thought about then. The house was like a stable then. But them
log houses was better than these 'cause the wind couldn't get through
them.
Work as a Boy
"I wasn't doin' nothin' but totin' water. I toted water for a whole year
when I was a boy about eight years old. I was the water boy for the
field hands. Later I worked out in the fields myself. They would make me
sit on my mammy's row to help keep her up.
Free Negroes
"You better not say you were free them days. If you did, they'd tell you
to get out of there. You better not stop on this side of the Mason Dixie
Line either. You better stop on the other side. Whenever a nigger got so
he couldn't mind, they'd take him down and whip him. They'd whip the
free niggers just the same as they did the slaves.
Marriage
"You see that broom there? They just lay that broom down and step over
it. That was all the marriage they knowed about.
Corn Shuckings
"The boys used to just get down and raise a holler and shuck that corn.
Man, they had fun! They sure liked to go to those corn shuckings. They
danced and went on. They'd give 'em whiskey too. That's all I know about
it.
Rations
"They'd weigh the stuff out and give it to you and you better not go
back. They'd give you three pounds of meat and a quart of meal and
molasses when they'd make it. Sometimes they would take a notion to give
you something like flour. But you had to take what they give you. They
give out the rations every Saturday. That was to last you a week.
Patrollers
"I was at a ball one night. They had fence rails in the fire. Patroller
knocked at the door, stepped in and closed it behind him. Nigger pulled
a rail out of the fire and stuck it 'gainst the patroller and that
patroller stepped aside and let that nigger get by. Niggers used to tie
ropes across the road so that the patrollers' horses would trip up.
Mulattoes
"I never seed any mulattoes then. That thing is something that just come
up. Old Dempsey Brown, if he seed a white man goin' 'round with the
nigger women on his place, he run him away from there. But that's gwine
on in the full now.
"That ought not to be. If God had wanted them people to mix, he'd have
mixed 'em. God made 'em red and white and black. And I'm goin' to stay
black. I ain't climbed the fence yet and I won't climb it now. I don't
know. I don't believe in that. If you are white be white, and if you are
black be black. Children need to go out and play but these boys ought
not to be 'lowed to run after these girls.
Whippings
"Your overseer carried their straps with them. They had 'em with 'em all
the time. Just like them white folks do down to the County Farm. Used to
use a man just like he was a beast. They'd make him lay down on the
ground and whip him. They'd had to shoot me down. That is the reason I
tend to my business. If he wouldn't lay down they'd call for help and
strap him down and stretch him out. Put one man on one arm and another
on the other. They'd pull his clothes down and whip the blood out of
him. Them people didn't care what they done since they didn't do right.
Freedom
"When I first heard them talking about freedom, I didn't know what
freedom was. I was there standin' right up and looking at 'em when they
told us we was free. And master said, 'You all free now. You can go
where you want to.'
"They never give you a thing when they freed you. They give you some
work to do. They never looked for nothin' only to go to work. The white
folks always had the best of it.
"When Abe Lincoln first freed 'em, they all stood together. If this one
was ill the others went over and sit up with him. If he needed something
they'd carry it to him. They don't do that now. They done well then. As
soon as they quit standing together then they had trouble.
Wages Then
"Fellow said to me, 'Campbell, I want you to split up them blocks and
pile 'em up for me.' I said, 'What you goin' to pay me?' He said, 'I'll
pay you what is right.' I said, 'That won't do; you have to tell me what
you goin' to give me before I start to work.' And he said to me, 'You
can git to hell out of here.'
Selling and Buying Slaves
"They'd put you up on the block and sell you. That is just what they'd
do--sell you. These white folks will do anything,--anything they want to
do. They'd take your clothes off just like you was some kind of a beast.
"You used to be worth a thousand dollars then, but you're not worth two
bits now. You ain't worth nothin' when you're free.
Refugees--Jeff Davis
"They used to come to my place in droves. Wagons would start coming in
in the morning and they wouldn't stop coming in till two or three in the
evening. They'd just be travelin' to keep out the way of the Yankees.
They caught old Jeff Davis over in Twiggs County. That's in Georgia.
Caught him in Buzzard's Roost. That was only about four or five miles
from where I was. I was right down yonder in Houston County. Twigg
County and Houston County is adjoinin'. I never saw any of the soldiers
but they was following them though.
Voters
"I have seen plenty of niggers voting. I wasn't old enough to vote in
Georgia. I come in Arkansas and I found out how the folks used
themselves and I come out that business. They was selling themselves
just like cattle and I wouldn't have nothing to do with that.
"I knew Jerry Lawson, who was Justice of Peace. He was a nigger, a
low-down devil. Man, them niggers done more dirt in this city. The
Republicans had this city and state. I went to the polls and there was
very few white folks there. I knew several of them niggers--Mack
Armstrong, he was Justice of Peace. I can't call the rest of them.
Nothing but old thieves. If they had been people, they'd been honest.
Wouldn't sell their brother. It is bad yet. They still stealin' yet.
Ku Klux
"That's another devil. Man, I'll tell you we seen terrible times. I
don't know nothing much about 'em myself. I know one thing. Abe Lincoln
said, 'Kill him wherever you see him.'
Self-Support and Support of Aged Slaves in Slave Times
"A white man asked me how much they givin' me. I said, 'Eight dollars.'
He said, 'You ought to be gittin' twenty-five.' I said, 'Maybe I ought
to be but I ain't.'
"I ain't able to do no work now. I ain't able to tote that wood hardly.
I don't git as much consideration as they give the slaves back yonder.
They didn't make the old people in slavery work when they was my age. My
daddy when he was my age, they turned him out. They give him a rice
patch where he could make his rice. When he died, he had a whole lot of
rice. They stopped putting all the slaves out at hard labor when they
got old. That's one thing. White folks will take care of their old ones.
Our folks won't do it. They'll take a stick and kill you. They don't
recognize you're human. Their parents don't teach them. Folks done quit
teaching their children. They don't teach them the right thing no more.
If they don't do, then they ought to make them do.
Little Rock
"I been here about twenty years in Little Rock. I went and bought this
place and paid for it. Somebody stole seventy-five dollars from me right
here in this house. And that got me down. I ain't never been able to git
up since.
"I paid a man for what he did for me. He said, 'Well, you owe me fifteen
cents.' When he got done he said, 'You owe me fifty cents.' You can't
trust a man in the city.
"I was living down in England. That's a little old country town. I come
here to Little Rock where I could be in a city. I done well. I bought
this place.
"I reckon I lived in Arkansas about thirty years before I left and come
here to Little Rock. When I left Georgia, I come to Arkansas and settled
down in Lonoke County, made crops there. I couldn't tell you how long I
stayed there. I didn't keep no record of it at all. I come out of Lonoke
County and went into Jefferson.
"Man, I was never in such shape as I am in now. That devilish stock law
killed me. It killed all the people. Nobody ain't been able to do
nothin' since they passed the stock law. I had seventy-five hogs and
twenty cows. They made a law you had to keep them chickens up, keep them
hogs up, keep them cows up. They shoots at every right thing, and the
wrong things they don't shoot at. God don't uphold no man to set you up
in the jail when you ain't done nothin'. You didn't have no privilege
then (slave time), and you ain't got none now."
Interviewer: Pernella Anderson, colored.
El Dorado Division
Federal Writers' Project
Union County. Arkansas
_EX-SLAVE AND RIDDLES_
"I was born in the Junction city community and belonged to the Cooks. I
was ten years old at surrender. Mother and father had 12 children and we
lived in a one room log cabin and cooked on a fireplace and oven. Mos
and Miss Cook did not allow ma and pa to whip me. When ever I do
something and I knew I was going to get a whipping I would make it to
old Miss. She would keep me from getting that whipping. I was a devilish
boy. I would do everything in the world I could think of just for
devilment. Old mos was sure good to his slaves. I never went to school
a day in my life. Old Miss would carry me to church sometimes when it
was hot so we could fan for her. We used palmeter fan leaves for fans.
We ate pretty good in slavery time, but we did not have all of this late
stuff. Some of our dishes was possum stew, vegetables, persimmon pie and
tato bread. Ma did not allow us to sit around grown folks. When they
were talking she always made us get under the bed. Our bed was made from
pine poles. We children slept on pallets on the floor. The way slaves
married in slavery time they jumped over the broom and when they
separated they jumped backward over the broom. Times were better in
slavery time to my notion than they are now because they did not go
hungry, neither necked. They ate common and wore one kind of clothes."
A duck, a bullfrog and a skunk went to a circus, the duck and the
bullfrog got in, why didn't the skunk get in?
(Answer). The duck had a bill, the bullfrog had a greenback but the
skunk had nothing but a scent.
If your father's sister is not your aunt what kin is she to you? (your
mother).
What is the difference between a four quart measure and a side saddle?
(Answer). They both hold a gallon. (a gal on)
--Cora Armstrong, colored.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Lillie Baccus, Madison, Arkansas
Age: 73
"I'll tell you what I heard. I was too little to remember the Civil War.
Mama's owner was ---- Dillard. She called him 'Master' Dillard. Papa's
owner was ---- Smith. He called him 'Master' Smith. Mama was named Ann
and papa Arthur Smith. I was born at West Point, Mississippi. I heard ma
say she was sold. She said Pattick sold her. She had to leave her two
children Cherry and Ann. Mama was a field hand. So was grandma yet she
worked in the house some she said. After freedom Cherry and Ann come to
mama. She was going to be sold agin but was freed before sold.
"Mama didn't live only till I was about three years old, so I don't know
enough to tell you about her. Grandma raised us. She was sold twice. She
said she run out of the house to pick up a star when the stars fell.
They showered down and disappeared.
"The Yankees camped close to where they lived, close to West Point,
Mississippi, but in the country close to an artesian well. The well was
on their place. The Yankees stole grandma and kept her at their tent.
They meant to take her on to wait on them and use but when they started
to move old master spicioned they had her hid down there. He watched out
and seen her when they was going to load her up. He went and got the
head man to make them give her up. She was so glad to come home. Glad to
see him cause she wanted to see him. They watched her so close she was
afraid they would shoot her leaving. She lived to be 101 years old. She
raised me. She used to tell how the overseer would whip her in the
field. They wasn't good to her in that way.
"I have three living children and eleven dead. I married twice. My first
husband is living. My second husband is dead. I married in day time in
the church the last time. All else ever took place in my life was hard
work. I worked in the field till I was too old to hit a tap. I live wid
my children. I get $8 and commodities.
"I come to Arkansas because they said money was easy to get--growed on
bushes. I had four little children to make a living for and they said it
was easier.
"I think people is better than they was long time ago. Times is harder.
People have to buy everything they have as high as they is, makes money
scarce nearly bout a place as hen's teeth. Hens ain't got no teeth. We
don't have much money I tell you. The Welfare gives me $8."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Joseph Samuel Badgett
1221 Wright Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 72
[HW: Mother was a Fighter]
"My mother had Indian in her. She would fight. She was the pet of the
people. When she was out, the pateroles would whip her because she
didn't have a pass. She has showed me scars that were on her even till
the day that she died. She was whipped because she was out without a
pass. She could have had a pass any time for the asking, but she was too
proud to ask. She never wanted to do things by permission.
Birth
"I was born in 1864. I was born right here in Dallas County. Some of the
most prominent people in this state came from there. I was born on
Thursday, in the morning at three o'clock, May the twelfth. My mother
has told me that so often, I have it memorized.
Persistence of Slave Customs
"While I was a slave and was born close to the end of the Civil War, I
remember seeing many of the soldiers down here. I remember much of the
treatment given to the slaves. I used to say 'master' myself in my day.
We had to do that till after '69 or '70. I remember the time when I
couldn't go nowhere without asking the 'white folks.' I wasn't a slave
then but I couldn't go off without asking the white people. I didn't
know no better.
"I have known the time in the southern part of this state when if you
wanted to give an entertainment you would have to ask the white folks.
Didn't know no better. For years and years, most of the niggers just
stayed with the white folks. Didn't want to leave them. Just took what
they give 'em and didn't ask for nothing different.
"If I had known forty years ago what I know now!
First Negro Doctor in Tulip, Arkansas
"The first Negro doctor we ever seen come from Little Rock down to
Tulip, Arkansas. We were all excited. There were plenty of people who
didn't have a doctor living with twenty miles of them. When I was
fourteen years old, I was secretary of a conference.
Schooling
"What little I know, an old white woman taught me. I started to school
under this old woman because there weren't any colored teachers. There
wasn't any school at Tulip where I lived. This old lady just wanted to
help. I went to her about seven years. She taught us a little every
year--'specially in the summer time. She was high class--a high class
Christian woman--belonged to the Presbyterian church. Her name was Mrs.
Gentry Wiley.
"I went to school to Scipio Jones once. Then they opened a public school
at Tulip and J.C. Smith taught there two years in the summer time. Then
Lula Baily taught there one year. She didn't know no more than I did.
Then Scipio came. He was there for a while. I don't remember just how
long.
"After that I went to Pine Bluff. The County Judge at that time had the
right to name a student from each district. I was appointed and went up
there in '82 and '83 from my district. It took about eight years to
finish Branch Normal at that time. I stayed there two years. I roomed
with old man John Young.
"You couldn't go to school without paying unless you were sent by the
Board. We lived in the country and I would go home in the winter and
study in the summer. Professor J.C. Corbin was principal of the Pine
Bluff Branch Normal at that time. Dr. A.H. Hill, Professor Booker, and
quite a number of the people we consider distinguished were in school
then. They finished, but I didn't. I had to go to my mother because she
was ill. I don't claim to have no schooling at all.
"Forty Acres and a Mule"
"My mother received forty acres of land when freedom came. Her master
gave it to her. She was given forty acres of land and a colt. There is
no more to tell about that. It was just that way--a gift of forty acres
of land and a colt from her former master.
"My mother died. There is a woman living now that lost it (the home).
Mother let Malinda live on it. Mother lived with the white folks
meanwhile. She didn't need the property for herself. She kept it for us.
She built a nice log house on it. Fifteen acres of it was under
cultivation when it was given to her. My sister lived on it for a long
time. She mortgaged it in some way I don't know how. I remember when the
white people ran me down there some years back to get me to sign a title
to it. I didn't have to sign the paper because the property had been
deeded to Susan Badgett and HEIRS; lawyers advised me not to sign it.
But I signed it for the sake of my sister.
Father and Master
"My mother's master was named Badgett--Captain John Badgett. He was a
Methodist preacher. Some of the Badgetts still own property on Main
Street. My mother's master's father was my daddy.
Marriage
"I was married July 12, 1889. Next year I will have been married fifty
years. My wife's name was Elizabeth Owens. She was born in Batesville,
Mississippi. I met her at Brinkley when she was visiting her aunt. We
married in Brinkley. Very few people in this city have lived together
longer than we have. July 12, 1938, will make forty-nine years. By July
1939, we will have reached our fiftieth anniversary.
Patrollers, Jayhawkers, Ku Klux, and Ku Klux Klan
"Pateroles, Jayhawkers, and the Ku Klux came before the war. The Ku Klux
in slavery times were men who would catch Negroes out and keep them if
they did not collect from their masters. The Pateroles would catch
Negroes out and return them if they did not have a pass. They whipped
them sometimes if they did not have a pass. The Jayhawkers were highway
men or robbers who stole slaves among other things. At least, that is
the way the people regarded them. The Jayhawkers stole and pillaged,
while the Ku Klux stole those Negroes they caught out. The word 'Klan'
was never included in their name.
"The Ku Klux Klan was an organization which arose after the Civil War.
It was composed of men who believed in white supremacy and who regulated
the morals of the neighborhood. They were not only after Jews and
Negroes, but they were sworn to protect the better class of people. They
took the law in their own hands.
Slave Work
"I'm not so certain about the amount of work required of slaves. My
mother says she picked four hundred pounds of cotton many a day. The
slaves were tasked and given certain amounts to accomplish. I don't know
the exact amount nor just how it was determined.
Opinions
"It is too bad that the young Negroes don't know what the old Negroes
think and what they have done. The young folks could be helped if they
would take advice."
Interviewer's Comment
Badgett's distinctions between jayhawkers, Ku Klux, patrollers, and Ku
Klux Klan are most interesting.
I have been slow to catch it. All my life, I have heard persons with
ex-slave background refer to the activities of the Ku Klux among slaves
prior to 1865. I always thought that they had the Klux Klan and the
patrollers confused.
Badgett's definite and clear-cut memories, however, lead me to believe
that many of the Negroes who were slaves used the word Ku Klux to denote
a type of persons who stole slaves. It was evidently in use before it
was applied to the Ku Klux Klan.
The words "Ku Klux" and "Ku Klux Klan" are used indiscriminately in
current conversation and literature. It is also true that many persons
in the present do, and in the past did, refer to the Ku Klux Klan simply
as "Ku Klux."
It is a matter of record that the organization did not at first bear the
name "Ku Klux Klan" throughout the South. The name "Ku Klux" seems to
have grown in application as the organization changed from a moral
association of the best citizens of the South and gradually came under
the control of lawless persons with lawless methods--whipping and
murdering. It is antecedently reasonable that the change in names
accompanying a change in policy would be due to a fitness in the prior
use of the name.
The recent use of the name seems mostly imitation and propaganda.
Histories, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, in general, do not record a
meaning of the term Ku Klux as prior to the Reconstruction period.
Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
1. Name and address of informant--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street,
Little Rock.
2. Date and time of interview--
3. Place of interview--713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with
informant--
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Personal History of Informant
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little
Rock.
1. Ancestry--father, Jeff Wells; mother, Tilda Bailey.
2. Place and date of birth--born in 1861 in Monticello, Arkansas.
3. Family--
4. Places lived in, with dates--reared in Monticello. Lived in Pine
Bluff thirty-two years, then moved to Little Rock and has lived here
thirty-two years.
5. Education, with dates--
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates--Hostler
7. Special skills and interests--
8. Community and religious activities--
9. Description of informant--
10. Other points gained in interview--
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT-Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little
Rock.
[HW: A Hostler's Story]
"I was born in Monticello. I was raised there. Then I came up to Pine
Bluff and stayed there thirty-two years. Then I came up here and been
here thirty-two years. That is the reason the white folks so good to me
now. I been here so long, I been a hostler all my life. I am the best
hostler in this State. I go down to the post office they give me money.
These white folks here is good to me.
"What you writing down? Yes, that's what I said. These white folks like
me and they good to me. They give me anything I want. You want a drink?
That's the best bonded whiskey money can buy. They gives it to me. Well,
if you don't want it now, come in when you do.
"I lost my wife right there in that corner. I was married just once.
Lived with her forty-three years. She died here five months ago. Josie
Bailey! The white folks thought the world and all of her. That is
another reason they give me so much. She was one of the best women I
ever seen.
"I gits ten dollars a month. The check comes right up to the house. I
used to work with all them money men. Used to handle all them horses at
the post office. They ought to give me sixty-five dollars but they
don't. But I gits along. God is likely to lemme live ten years longer. I
worked at the post office twenty-two years and don't git but ten dollars
a month. They ought to gimme more.
"My father's name was Jeff Wells. My mother's name was Tilda Bailey. She
was married twice. I took her master's name. Jeff Wells was my father's
name. Governor Bailey ought to give me somethin'. I got the same name he
has. I know him.
"My father's master was Stanley--Jeff Stanley. That was in slavery time.
That was my slave time people. I was just a little bit of a boy. I am
glad you are gittin' that to help the colored people out. Are they goin'
to give the old slaves a pension? What they want to ask all these
questions for then? Well, I guess there's somethin' else besides money
that's worth while.
"My father's master was a good man. He was good to him. Yes Baby! Jeff
Wells, that my father's name. I was a little baby settin' in the basket
'round in the yard and they would put the cotton all 'round me. They
carried me out where they worked and put me in the basket. I couldn't
pick no cotton because I was too young. When they got through they would
put me in that big old wagon and carry me home. There wasn't no trucks
then. Jeff Wells (that was my father), when they got through pickin' the
cotton, he would say, 'Put them children in the wagon; pick 'em up and
put 'em in the wagon.' I was a little bitty old boy. I couldn't pick no
cotton then. But I used to pick it after the surrender.
"I remember what they said when they freed my father. They said, 'You're
free. You children are free. Go on back there and work and let your
children work. Don't work them children too long. You'll git pay for
your work.' That was in the Monticello courthouse yard. They said,
'You're free! Free!'
"My mistress said to me when I got back home, 'You're free. Go on out in
the orchard and git yoself some peaches.' They had a yard full of
peaches. Baby did I git me some peaches. I pulled a bushel of 'em.
Ku Klux Klan
"The Ku Klux run my father out of the fields once. And the white people
went and got them 'bout it. They said, 'Times is hard, and we can't have
these people losin' time out of the fields. You let these people work.'
A week after that, they didn't do no mo. The Ku Klux didn't. Somebody
laid them out. I used to go out to the fields and they would ask me,
'Jeff Bailey, what you do in' out here?' I was a little boy and you jus'
ought to seen me gittin' 'way frum there. Whooo-eeee!
"I used to pick cotton back yonder in Monticello. I can't pick no cotton
now. Naw Lawd! I'm too old. I can't do that kind of work now. I need
help. Carl Bailey knows me. He'll help me. I'm a hostler. I handle
horses. I used to pick cotton forty years ago. My mother washed clothes
right after the War to git us children some thin' to eat. Sometimes
somebody would give us somethin' to help us out.
"Tilda Bailey, that was my mother. She and my father belonged to
different masters. Bailey was her master's name. She always called
herself Bailey and I call myself Bailey. If I die, I'll be Bailey. My
insurance is in the name of Bailey. My father and mother had about eight
children. They raised all their children in Monticello. You ever been to
Monticello? I had a good time in Monticello. I was a baby when peace was
declared. Just toddling 'round.
"My father drank too much. I used to tell him about it. I used to say to
him, 'I wouldn't drink so much whiskey.' But he drank it right on. He
drank hisself to death.
"I believe Roosevelt's goin' to be President again. I believe he's goin'
to run for a third term. He's goin' to be dictator. He's goin' to be
king. He's goin' to be a good dictator. We don't want no more Republic.
The people are too hard on the poor people. President Roosevelt lets
everybody git somethin'. I hope he'll git it. I hope he'll be dictator.
I hope he'll be king. Yuh git hold uh some money with him.
"You couldn't ever have a chance if Cook got to be governor. I believe
Carl Bailey's goin' to be a good governor. I believe he'll do better.
They put Miz Carraway back; I believe she'll do good too."
Extra Comment
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little
Rock.
Jeff Bailey talked like a man of ninety instead of a man of seventy-six
or seven. It was hard to get him to stick to any kind of a story. He had
two or three things on his mind and he repeated those things over and
over again--Governor Bailey, Hostler, Post Office. He had to be pried
loose from them. And he always returned the next sentence.
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins.
Person Interviewed: James Baker Aged: 81
Home: With daughter who owns home at 941 Wade St.
The outskirts of eastern Hot Springs resemble a vast
checkerboard--patterned in Black and White. Within two blocks of a house
made of log-faced siding--painted a spotless white and provided with
blue shutters will be a shack which appears to have been made from the
discard of a dozen generations of houses.
Some of the yards are thick with rusting cans, old tires and
miscelaneous rubbish. Some of them are so gutted by gully wash that any
attempt at beautification would be worse than useless. Some are
swept--farm fashion--free from surface dust and twigs. Some
attempt--others achieve grass and flowers. Vegetable gardens are far
less frequent then they should be, considering space left bare.
The interviewer frankly lost her way several times. One improper
direction took her fully half a mile beyond her destination. From a
hilltop she could look down on less elevated hills and into narrow
valleys. The impression was that of a cheaply painted back-drop designed
for a "stock" presentation of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch."
Moving along streets, alleys and paths backward "toward town" the
interviewer reached another hill. Almost a quarter of a mile away she
spied an old colored man sunning himself on the front porch of a well
kept cottage. Somthing about his white hair and erectly-slumped bearing
screamed "Ex-slave" even at that distance. A negro youth was passing.
"I beg your pardon, can you tell me where to find Wade Street and James
Baker?" "Ya--ya--ya--s ma'am. Dat--dat--dat's de house over
da--da--da--da--r. He--he--he lives at his daughter's" "Could that be he
on the porch?" "Ya--ya--yas ma'am. Dat--dat--dat's right."
"Yes, ma'am I'm James Baker. Yes ma'am I remembers about the war. You
want to talk to me about it. Let me get you a chair. You'd rather sit
right there on the step? All right ma'am.
I was born in Hot Spring county, below Melvern it was. I was borned on
the farm of a man named Hammonds. But I was pretty little when he sold
me to some folks named Fenton. Wasn't with them so very long. You know
how it goes--back in them days. When a girl or a boy would marry, why
they'd givem them as many black folks as they could spare. I was give to
one of the daughters when she married. She was Mrs. Samuel Gentry.
I wasn't so very big before the war. So I didn't have to work in the
fields. Just sort of played around. Can't remember very much about what
happened then. We never did see no fighting about. They was men what
passed through. They was soldiers. They come backwards and forewards. I
was about as big as that boy you see there"--pointing to a lad about 8
years old--"some of them they was dressed in blue--sort of blue. We was
told that they was Federals. Then some of them was in grey--them was the
Southerners.
No, we wasn't scared of them--either of them. They didn't never bother
none of us. Didn't have anything to be scared of not at all. It wasn't
really Malvern we was at--that was sort of before Malvern come to be.
Malvern didn't grow up until after the railroad come through. The town
was across the river, sort of this side. It was called Rockport.
Ma'am--you know about Rockport"--a delighted chuckle. "Yes, ma'am, don't
many folks now-a-days know about Rockport. Yes ma'am the river is pretty
shoaly right there. Pretty shoaly. Yes ma'am there was lots of doings
around Rockport. Yes ma'am. Dat's right. Before Garland county was made,
Rockport was the capitol O--I mean de county seat of Hot Spring County.
Hot Springs was in that county at that time. There was big doings in
town when they held court. Real big doings.
No, ma'am I didn't do nothing much when the war was over. No, I didn't
go to be with my daddy. I moved over to live with a man I called Uncle
Billy--Uncle Billy Bryant he was. He had all his family with him. I
stayed with him and did what he told me to--'til I grew up. He was
always good to me--treated me like his own children.
Uncle Billy lived at Rockport. I liked living with him. I remember the
court house burned down--or blowed down--seems like to me it burned
down. Uncle Billy got the job of cleaning bricks. I helped him. That was
when they moved over to Malvern--the court house I mean. No--no they
didn't. Not then, that was later--they didn't build the railroad until
later. They built it back--sort of simple like--built it down by Judge
Kieth's.
No ma'am. I don't remember nothing about when they built the railroad.
You see we lived across the river--and I guess--well I just didn't know
nothing about it. But Rockport wasn't no good after the railroad come
in. They moved the court house and most of the folks moved away. There
wasn't nothing much left.
I started farming around there some. I moved about quite a bit. I lived
down sort of by Benton too for quite a spell. I worked around at most
any kind of farming.
'Course most of the time we was working at cotton and corn. I's spent
most of my life farming. I like it. Moved around pretty considerable.
Sometimes I hired out--sometimes I share cropped--sometimes I worked
thirds and fourths. What does I mean by hired out--I means worked for
wages. Which way did I like best--I'll take share-cropping. I sort of
like share-cropping.
I been in Hot Springs for 7 years. Come to be with my daughter." (An
interruption by a small negro girl--neatly dressed and bright-eyed. Not
content with watching from the sidelines she had edged closer and
squatted comfortably within a couple of feet of the interviewer. A wide,
pearly grin, a wee pointing forefinger and, "Granddaddy, that lady's got
a tablet just like Aunt Ellen. See, Granddaddy.") "You mustm't bother
the lady. Didn't your mother tell you not to stop folks when they is
talking."--the voice was kindly and there was paternal pride in it. A
nickle--tendered the youngster by the interviewer--and guaranteed to
produce a similar tablet won a smile and childish silence.
"Yes, ma'am, I lives with my daughter--her name is Lulu Mitchell. She
owns her house--yes ma'am it helps. But it's sure hard to get along.
Seems like it's lots harder now than it used to be when I was gitting
started. Lulu works--she irons. Another daughter lives right over there.
Her name's Ellen. She works too--at what she can get to do. She owns her
house too.
Three of my daughters is living. Been married twice--I has. Didn't stay
with the last one long. Yes ma'am I been coming backwards and forewards
to Hot Springs all my life--you might say. 'Twasn't far over and I kept
a'coming back. Been living all around here. It's pretty nice being with
my daughter. She's good to me. I loves my granddaughter. We has a pretty
hard time--Harder dan what I had when I was young--but then it do seem
like it's harder to earn money dan what it was when I was young."
Interviewer: R.S. Taylor
Person Interviewed: Uncle William Baltimore
Resident: Route #1, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Jefferson County. Age: 103.
"You wants to know how old I is? I'se lived a long time. I'se goin' on
104. My gran'mammy was over 100 years. My mamma was 100. My pappy was
96. They was twelve chilluns. I don't know if any of my sisters or
brothers is livin'. Don't know if one of my friends back in my boy days
is livin'. I'se like a poor old leaf left hangin' to a tree.
"Yes--I sho do member back befo' the war. I was borned on the Dr. Waters
place about twelve miles out of Pine Bluff on the east side of Noble
Lake. My gran'mammy and gran'pappy and my mamma and my pappy were slaves
on de Walker plantation. I was not bought or sold--just lived on de old
plantation. I wasn't whipped neither but once I mighty near got a
beatin'. Want to hear about it? I likes to tell.
"Dr. Waters had a good heart. He didn't call us 'slaves'. He call us
'servants'. He didn't want none of his niggers whipped 'ceptin when
there wasn't no other way. I was grown up pretty good size. Dr. Waters
liked me cause I could make wagons and show mules. Once when he was
going away to be gone all day, he tole me what to do while he was gone.
The overseer wasn't no such good man as old master. He wanted to be boss
and told me what to do. I tole him de big boss had tole me what to do
and I was goin' to do it. He got mad and said if I didn't do what he
said I'd take a beating. I was a big nigger and powerful stout. I tole
the overseer fore he whipped me he's show himself a better man than I
was. When he found he was to have a fight he didn't say no more about
the whipping.
"I worked on de plantation till de war broke. Then I went into the army
with them what called themselves secesh's. I didn't fight none, never
give me a gun nor sword. I was a servant. I cooked and toted things. In
1863 I was captured by the Yankees and marched to Little Rock and sworn
in as a Union Soldier. I was sure enough soldier now. I never did any
fighting but I marched with the soldiers and worked for them whatever
they said.
"We marched from Pine Bluff on through Ft. Smith and the Indian
Territory of Oklahoma. Then we went to Leavenworth Kansas and back to
Jefferson County, Arkansas. And all that walking I did on these same
foots you see right here now.
"On this long march we camped thirty miles from Ft. Smith. We had gone
without food three days and was powerful hongry. I started out to get
something to eat. I found a sheep, I was tickled. I laughed. I could
turn the taste of that sheep meat under my tongue. When I got to camp
with the sheep I had to leave for picket duty. Hungrier than ever, I
thought of that sheep all the time. When I got back I wanted my chunk of
meat. It had been killed, cooked, eat up. Never got a grease spot on my
finger from my sheep.
"When time come for breaking up the army I went back to Jefferson county
and set to farmin'. I was free now. I didn't do so well on the land as I
didn't have mules and money to live on. I went to Dersa County and
opened up a blacksmith shop. I learned how to do this work when I was
with Dr. Waters. He had me taught by a skilled man. I learned to build
wagons too.
"I made my own tools. Who showed me how? Nobody. When I needed a hack
saw I made it out of a file--that was all I had to make it of. I had to
have it. Once I made a cotton scraper out of a piece of hardwood. I put
a steel edge on it. O yes I made everything. Can I build a wagon--make
all the parts? Every thing but the hubs for the wheels.
"You say I don't seem to see very well. Ha-ha! I don't see nuthin' at
all. I'se been plum blind for 23 years. I can't see nothin'. But I
patches my own clothes. You don't know how I can thread the needle? Look
here." I asked him to let me see his needle threader. He felt around in
a drawer and pulled out a tiny little half arrow which he had made of a
bit of tin with a pair of scissors and fine file. He pushed this through
the eye of the needle, then hooked the thread on it and pulled it back
again threading his needle as fast as if he had good eyesight. "This is
a needle threader. I made it myself. Watch me thread a needle. Can't I
do it as fast as if I had a head full of keen eyes? My wife been gone
twenty years. She went blind too. I had to do something. My patches may
not look so pretty but they sure holt (hold).
"You wants to know what I think of the way young folks is doing these
days? They'se goin' to fast. So is their papas and mammas. Dey done
forgot dey's a God and a day of settlin'. Den what dances pays de
fiddler. I got religion long time ago--jined de Baptist church in 1870
and haven't never got away from it. I'se tried to tote fair with God and
he's done fair by me.
"Does I get a pension? I shure do. It was a lucky day when de Yankees
got me. Ef they hadn't I don't know what'd become of me. After I went
blind I had hard times. Folks, white folks and all, brought me food. But
that wasn't any good way to get along. Sometimes I ate, sometimes I
didn't. So some of my white, friends dug up my record with the Yankees
and got me a pension. Now I'm setting pretty for de rest of my life.
Yes--O yes I'se older dan most folks get. Still I may be still takin' my
grub here when some of these young whiskey drinkin razzin' around young
chaps is under the dirt. It pays to I don know of any bad spots in me
yet. It pays to live honest, work hard, stay sober. God only knows what
some of these lazy, triflin' drinkin' young folks is comin' to."
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Mose Banks
Douglas Addition, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 69
"My name is Mose Banks and I am sixty-nine years old. I was born in
1869. I was born four years after freedom but still I was a slave in a
way. My papa stayed with his old miss and master after freedom until he
died and he just died in 1918, so we all stayed with him too. I had one
of the best easiest times in my life. My master was name Bob Stevenson
and he was a jewel. Never meaned us, never dogged, never hit one of us
in his life. He bought us just like he bought my papa. He never made any
of the girls work in the field. He said the work was too hard. He always
said splitting rails, bushing, plowing and work like that was for men.
That work makes no count women.
"The girls swept yards, cleaned the house, nursed, and washed and
ironed, combed old miss' and the children's hair and cut their finger
and toe nails and mended the clothes. The womens' job was to cook,
attend to the cows, knit all the socks for the men and boys, spin
thread, card bats, weave cloth, quilt, sew, scrub and things like that.
"The little boys drove up the cows, slopped the hogs, got wood and pine
for light, go to the spring and get water. After a boy was twelve then
he let him work in the fields. My main job was hitching the horse to the
buggy for old Miss Stevenson, and put the saddle on old master's saddle
horse.
"I was very small but when the first railroad come through old master
took us to see the train. I guess it was about forty or fifty miles
because it took us around four days to make the round trip. The trains
were not like they are now. The engine was smaller and they burned wood
and they had what they called a drum head and they didn't run very fast,
and could not carry many cars. It was a narrow gauge road and the rails
were small and the road was dirt. It was not gravel and rocks like it is
now. It was a great show to me and we all had something to talk about
for a long time. People all around went to see it and we camped out one
night going and coming and camped one night at the railroad so we could
see the train the next day. A man kept putting wood in the furnace in
order to keep a fire. Smoke come out of the drum head. The drum head was
something like a big washpot or a big old hogshead barrel. An ox team
was used for most all traveling. You did not see very many horses or
mules.
"The white children taught us how to read and I went to school too.
"I went to church too. We did not have a church house; we used a brush
arbor for service for a long time. In the winter we built a big fire in
the middle and we sat all around the fire on small pine logs. Later they
built a log church, so we had service in there for years.
"We did not live near a school, so old mistress and the children taught
us how to read and write and count. I never went to school in my life
and I bet you, can't none of these children that rub their heads on
college walls beat me reading and counting. You call one and ask them to
divide ninety-nine cows and one bob-tailed bull by two, and they can't
answer it to save their lives without a pencil and paper and two hours'
figuring when it's nothing to say but fifty.
"Wasn't no cook stoves and heaters until about 1890 or 1900. If there
was I did not know about them. They cooked on fireplace and fire out in
the yard on what they called oven and we had plenty of plain grub. We
stole eggs from the big house because we never got any eggs.
"The custom of marrying was just pack up and go on and live with who you
wanted to; that is the Negroes did--I don't know how the white people
married. This lawful marrying came from the law since man made law.
"When anybody died everybody stopped working and moaned and prayed until
after the burying.
"I can say there is as much difference between now and sixty years ago
as it is in day and night."
Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Henry Banner
County Hospital
Little Rock, Ark.
Age: ?
[HW: Forty Acres and a Mule]
"I was sold the third year of the war for fifteen years old. That would
be in 1864. That would make my birthday come in 1849. I must have been
12 year old when the war started and sixteen when Lee surrendered. I was
born and raised in Russell County, Ol' Virginny. I was sold out of
Russell County during the war. Ol' Man Menefee refugeed me into
Tennessee near Knoxville. They sold me down there to a man named Jim
Maddison. He carried me down in Virginny near Lynchburg and sold me to
Jim Alec Wright. He was the man I was with in the time of the surrender.
Then I was in a town called Liberty. The last time I was sold, I sold
for $2,300,--more than I'm worth now.
"Police were for white folks. Patteroles were for niggers. If they
caught niggers out without a pass they would whip them. The patteroles
were for darkies, police for other people.
"They run me once, and I ran home. I had a dog at home, and there wasn't
no chance them gettin' by that dog. They caught me once in Liberty, and
Mrs. Charlie Crenchaw, Ol' John Crenchaw's daughter, came out and made
them turn me loose. She said, 'They are our darkies; turn them loose.'
"One of them got after me one night. I ran through a gate and he
couldn't get through. Every time I looked around, I would see through
the trees some bush or other and think it was him gaining on me. God
knows! I ran myself to death and got home and fell down on the floor.
"The slaves weren't expecting nothing. It got out somehow that they were
going to give us forty acres and a mule. We all went up in town. They
asked me who I belonged to and I told them my master was named Banner.
One man said, 'Young man, I would go by my mama's name if I were you.' I
told him my mother's name was Banner too. Then he opened a book and told
me all the laws. He told me never to go by any name except Banner. That
was all the mule they ever give me.
"I started home a year after I got free and made a crop. I had my gear
what I had saved on the plantation and went to town to get my mule but
there wasn't any mule.
"Before the war you belonged to somebody. After the war you weren't
nothin' but a nigger. The laws of the country were made for the white
man. The laws of the North were made for man.
"Freedom is better than slavery though. I done seed both sides. I seen
darkies chained. If a good nigger killed a white overseer, they wouldn't
do nothin' to him. If he was a bad nigger, they'd sell him. They raised
niggers to sell; they didn't want to lose them. It was just like a mule
killing a man.
"Yellow niggers didn't sell so well. There weren't so many of them as
there are now. Black niggers stood the climate better. At least,
everybody thought so.
"If a woman didn't breed well, she was put in a gang and sold. They
married just like they do now but they didn't have no license. Some
people say that they done this and that thing but it's no such a thing.
They married just like they do now, only they didn't have no license.
"Ol' man came out on April 9, 1865. and said, 'General Lee's whipped now
and dam badly whipped. The war is over. The Yankees done got the
country. It is all over. Just go home and hide everything you got.
General Lee's army is coming this way and stealing everything they can
get their hands on.' But General Lee's army went the other way.
"I saw a sack of money setting near the store. I looked around and I
didn't see nobody. So I took it and carried it home. Then I hid it. I
heard in town that Jeff Davis was dead and his money was no good. I took
out some of the money and went to the grocery and bought some bread and
handed her five dollar bill. She said, 'My goodness, Henry, that money
is no good; the Yankees have killed it.' And I had done gone all over
the woods and hid that money out. There wasn't no money. Nobody had
anything. I worked for two bits a day. All our money was dead.
"The Yankees fed the white people with hard tacks (at Liberty,
Virginia). All around the country, them that didn't have nothin' had to
go to the commissary and get hard tacks.
"I started home. I went to town and rambled all around but there wasn't
nothin' for me.
"I was set free in April. About nine o'clock in the morning when we went
to see what work we would do, ol' man Wright called us all up and told
us to come together. Then he told us we were free. I couldn't get
nothing to do; so I jus' stayed on and made a crop."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John W. H. Barnett, Marianna, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born at Clinton Parish, Louisiana. I'm eighty-one years old. My
parents and four children was sold and left six children behind. They
kept the oldest children. In that way I was sold but never alone. Our
family was divided and that brought grief to my parents. We was sold on
a block at New Orleans. J.J. Gambol (Gamble?) in north Louisiana bought
us. After freedom I seen all but one of our family. I don't recollect
why that was.
"For three weeks steady after the surrender people was passing from the
War and for two years off and on somebody come along going home. Some
rode and some had a cane or stick walking. Mother was cooking a pot of
shoulder meat. Them blue soldiers come by and et it up. I didn't get any
I know that. They cleaned us out. Father was born at Eastern Shore,
Maryland. He was about half Indian. Mother's mother was a squaw. I'm
more Indian than Negro. Father said it was a white man's war. He didn't
go to war. Mother was very dark. He spoke a broken tongue.
"We worked on after freedom for the man we was owned by. We worked crops
and patches. I didn't see much difference then. I see a big change come
out of it. We had to work. The work didn't slacken a bit. I never owned
land but my father owned eighty acres in Drew County. I don't know what
become of it. I worked on the railroad section, laid crossties, worked
in stave mills. I farmed a whole lot all along. I hauled and cut wood.
"I get ten dollars and I sells sassafras and little things along to help
out. My wife died. My two sons left just before the World War. I never
hear from them. I married since then.
"Present times--I can't figure it out. Seems like a stampede. Not much
work to do. If I was young I reckon I could find something to do.
"Present generation--Seem like they are more united. The old ones have
to teach the young ones what to do. They don't listen all the time. The
times is strange. People's children don't do them much good now seems
like. They waste most all they make some way. They don't make it regular
like we did farming. The work wasn't regular farming but Saturday was
ration day and we got that."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Josephine Ann Barnett,
R.F.D., De Valls Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 75 or 80
"I do not knows my exact age. I judge I somewhere between 75 and 80
years old. I was born close to Germantown, Tennessee. We belong, that is
my mother, to Phillip McNeill and Sally McNeill. My mother was a milker.
He had a whole heap of hogs, cattle and stock. That not all my mother
done. She plowed. Children done the churnin'.
"The way it all come bout I was the onliest chile my mother had. Him and
Miss Sallie left her to help gather the crop and they brought me in the
buggy wid them. I set on a little box in the foot of the buggy. It had a
white umbrella stretched over it. Great big umbrella run in between
them. It was fastened to the buggy seat. When we got to Memphis they
loaded the buggy on the ship. I had a fine time coming. When we got to
Bucks Landing we rode to his place in the buggy. It is 13 miles from
here (De Valls Bluff). In the fall nearly all his slaves come out here.
Then when my mother come on. I never seen my papa after I left back home
[TR: Crossed out: (near Germantown)]. My father belong to Boston Hack.
He wouldn't sell and Mr. McNeill wouldn't sell and that how it come.
"I muster been five or six years old when I come out here to Arkansas.
My grandma was a midwife. She was already out here. She had to come with
the first crowd cause some women was expecting. I tell you it sho was
squally times. This country was wild. It was different from Tennessee or
close to Germantown where we come from. None of the slaves liked it but
they was brought.
"The war come on direckly after we got here. Several families had the
slaves drove off to Texas to save them. Keep em from following the
Yankee soldiers right here at the Bluff off. I remember seein' them come
up to the gate. My mother and two aunts went. His son and some more men
drove em. After freedom them what left childern come back. I stayed with
my grandma while they gone. I fed the chickens, shelled corn, churned,
swept. I done any little turns they sent me to do.
"One thing I remember happened when they had scrimmage close--it mighter
been the one on Long Prairie--they brought a young boy shot through his
lung to Mr. Phillip McNeill's house. He was a stranger. He died. I felt
so sorry for him. He was right young. He belong to the Southern army.
The Southern army nearly made his place their headquarters.
"Another thing I remember was a agent was going through the country
settin' fire to all the cotton. Mr. McNeill had his cotton--all our crop
we made. That man set it afire. It burned more than a week big. He
burned some left at the gin not Mr. McNeill's. It was fun to us children
but I know my grandma cried and all the balance of the slaves. Cause
they got some Christmas money and clothes too when the cotton was sold.
"The slaves hated the Yankees. They treated them mean. They was having a
big time. They didn't like the slaves. They steal from the slaves too.
Some poor folks didn't have slaves.
"After freedom my mother come back after me and we come here to De Valls
Bluff and I been here ever since. The Yankee soldiers had built shacks
and they left them. They would do. Some was one room, log, boxed and all
sorts. They give us a little to eat to keep us from starvin'. It sho was
a little bit too. My mother got work about.
"The first schoolhouse was a colored school. We had two rooms and two
teachers sent down from the North to teach us. If they had a white
school I didn't know it. They had one later on. I was bout grown. Mr.
Proctor and Miss Rice was the first teachers. We laughed bout em. They
was rough looking, didn't look like white folks down here we'd been used
to. They thought they sho was smart. Another teacher come down here was
Mr. Abner. White folks wouldn't have nothin' to do with em. We learned.
They learned us the ABC's and to write. I can read. I learned a heap of
it since I got grown just trying. They gimme a start.
"Times is hard in a way. Prices so high. I never had a hard time in my
life. I get $40 a month. It is cause my husband was a soldier here at De
Valls Bluff.
"I do not vote. I ain't goiner vote.
"I don't know what to think of the young generation. They are on the
road to ruin seems like. I speakln' of the real young folks. They do
like they see the white girls and boys doin'. I don't know what to
become of em. The women outer stay at home and let the men take care of
em. The women seems like taking all the jobs. The colored folks cookin'
and making the living for their men folks. It ain't right--to me. But I
don't care how they do. Things ain't got fixed since that last war."
(World War).
Interviewer: Mrs. Rosa B. Ingram
Person interviewed: Lizzie Barnett; Conway, Arkansas
Age: 100?
"Yes; I was born a slave. My old mammy was a slave before me. She was
owned by my old Miss, Fanny Pennington, of Nashville, Tennessee. I was
born on a plantation near there. She is dead now. I shore did love Miss
Fanny.
"Did you have any brothers and sisters, Aunt Liz.?"
"Why, law yes, honey, my mammy and Miss Fanny raised dey chillun
together. Three each, and we was jes' like brothers and sisters, all
played in de same yard. No, we did not eat together. Dey sot us niggers
out in de yard to eat, but many a night I'se slept with Miss Fanny.
"Mr. Pennington up and took de old-time consumption. Dey calls it T.B.
now. My mammy nursed him and took it from him and died before Mr. Abe
Lincoln ever sot her free.
"I have seen hard times, Miss, I shore have.
"In dem days when a man owned a plantation and had children and they
liked any of the little slave niggers, they were issued out to 'em just
like a horse or cow.
"'Member, honey, when de old-time war happened between the North and
South, The Slavery War. It was so long ago I just can 'member it. Dey
had us niggers scared to death of the Bluejackets. One day a man come to
Miss Fanny's house and took a liking to me. He put me up on a block an'
he say, 'How old is dis nigger?' An' she say 'five' when she know well
an' good I was ten. No, he didn't get me. But I thought my time had
come.
"Yes, siree, I was Miss Fanny's child. Why wouldn't I love her when I
sucked titty from her breast when my mammy was working in the field? I
shore did love Miss Fanny.
"When de nigger war was over and dey didn't fit (fight) any longer, Abe
Lincoln sot all de niggers free and den got 'sassinated fer doin it.
"Miss, you don't know what a hard life we slaves had, cause you ain't
old enough to 'member it. Many a time I've heard the bull whips
a-flying, and heard the awful cries of the slaves. The flesh would be
cut in great gaps and the maggits (maggots) would get in them and they
would squirm in misery.
"I want you to know I am not on Arkansas born nigger. I come from
Tennessee. Be sure to put that down. I moved to Memphis after Miss Fanny
died.
"While I lived in Memphis, de Yellow Fever broke out. You have never
seed the like. Everything was under quarantine. The folks died in piles
and de coffins was piled as high as a house. They buried them in
trenches, and later they dug graves and buried them. When they got to
looking into the coffins, they discovered some had turned over in dey
coffins and some had clawed dey eyes out and some had gnawed holes in
dey hands. Dey was buried alive!
"Miss, do you believe in ha'nts? Well, if you had been in Memphis den
you would. Dey was jes' paradin' de streets at nite and you'd meet dem
comin at you round de dark corners and all de houses everywhere was
ha'nted. I've seed plenty of 'em wid my own eyes, yes, siree.
"Yes, the times were awful in Memphis endurin the plague. Women dead
lying around and babies sucking their breasts. As soon as the frost came
and the quarantine was lifted, I came to Conway, 1867. But I am a
Tennessee nigger.
"When I cams to Conway there were few houses to live in. No depot. I
bought this piece of land to build my shanty from Mr. Jim Harkrider for
$25.00. I worked hard for white folks and saved my money and had this
little two-room house built (mud chimney, and small porch and one small
window). It is about to fall down on me, but it will last as long as I
live. At first, I lived and cooked under a bush (brush) arbor. Cooked on
the coals in an iron skillet. Here it it, Miss.
"Part ob de time after de nigger war (Civil) I lived in Hot Springs.
President 'Kinley had a big reservation over there and a big hospital
for the sick and wounded soldiers. Den de war broke out in Cuba and dere
was a spatch (dispatch) board what de news come over dat de war was on.
Den when dat war was over and 'Kinley was tryin to get us niggers a
slave pension dey up and 'sassinated him.
"After Mr. Lincoln sot de slaves free, dey had Northern teachers down
South and they were called spies and all left the country.
"I don't know 'sactly how old I am. Dey say I am 100. If Miss Fanny was
livin' she could settle it. But I have had a hard life. Yes mam. Here I
is living in my shanty, 'pendin' on my good white neighbors to feed me
and no income 'cept my Old Age Pension. Thank God for Mr. Roosevelt. I
love my Southern white friends. I am glad the North and South done shook
hands and made friends. All I has to do now is sit and look forward to
de day when I can meet my old mammy and Miss Fanny in the Glory Land.
Thank God."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Spencer Barnett (blind), Holly Grove, Ark.
Age: 81
"I was born April 30, 1856. It was wrote in a old Bible. I am 81 years
old. I was born 3 miles from Florence, Alabama. The folks owned us was
Nancy and Mars Tom Williams. To my recollection they had John, William,
and Tom, boys; Jane, Ann, Lucy, and Emma, girls. In my family there was
13 children. My parents name Harry and Harriett Barnett.
"Mars Tom Williams had a tanning yard. He bought hides this way: When a
fellow bring hides he would tan em then give him back half what he
brought. Then he work up the rest in shoes, harness, whoops, saddles and
sell them. The man all worked wid him and he had a farm. He raised corn,
cotton, wheat, and oats.
"That slavery was bad. Mars Tom Williams wasn't cruel. He never broke
the skin. When the horn blowed they better be in place. They used a
twisted cowhide whoop. It was wet and tied, then it mortally would hurt.
One thing you had to be in your place day and night. It was confinin'.
"Sunday was visiting day.
"One man come to dinner, he hit a horse wid a rock and run way. He
missed his dinner. He come back fo dark and went tole Mars Tom. He
didn't whoop him. I was mighty little when that took place.
"They worked on Saturday like any other day. One man fixed out the
rations. It didn't take long fer to go git em.
"The women plowed like men in plow time. Some women made rails. When it
was cold and raining they spun and wove in the house. The men cut wood
under a shed or side the barn so it knock off the wind. Mars Tom
Williams had 12 grown men and women. I was too little to count but I
heard my folks call am over by name and number more times en I got
fingers and toes. He would hire em out to work some.
"When freedom come on I was on Hawkin Lankford Simpson place. It was 3
or 5 miles from town. They had a big dinner-picnic close by. It was 4 or
5 day of August. A lot of soldiers come by there and said, 'You niggers
air free.' It bout broke up the picnic. The white folks broke off home.
Them wanted to go back went, them didn't struck off gone wild. Miss Lucy
and Mr. Bob Barnett give all of em stayed some corn and a little money.
Then he paid off at the end of the year. Then young master went and
rented at Dilly Hunt place. We stayed wid him 3 or 4 years then we went
to a place he bought. Tom Barnett come to close to Little Rock. Mars
William started and died on the way in Memphis. We come on wid the
family. Guess they are all dead now. Wisht I know or could find em. Tom
never married. He was a soldier. One of the boys died fo the war
started.
"My brother Joe married Luvenia Omsted and Lewis Omsted married my
sister Betsy and Mars Tom Williams swapped the women. My ma was a cook
for the white folks how I come to know so much bout it all. Boys wore
loose shirts till they was nine or ten years old. The shirt come to the
calf of the leg. No belt.
"We had plenty common eating. They had a big garden and plenty milk.
They cooked wid the eggs mostly. They would kill a beef and have a week
of hog killing. They would kill the beef the hardest weather that come.
The families cooked at night and on Sunday at the log cabins. They cook
at night for all next day. The old men hauled wood.
"When I was a little boy I could hear men runnin' the slaves wid hounds
in the mountains. The landmen paid paddyrollers to keep track of slaves.
Keep em home day and night.
"We took turns bout going to white church. We go in washin' at the creek
and put on clean clothes. She learned me a prayer. Old mistress learned
me to say it nights I slept up at the house. I still can say it:
'Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die fo I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.'
"The slaves at our places had wheat straw beds. The white folks had fine
goose feather beds. We had no idle days. Had a long time at dinner to
rest and rest and water the teams. Sometimes we fed them. Old mistress
had two peafowls roosted in the Colonial poplar trees. She had a pigeon
house and a turkey house. I recken chicken and goose house, too. When
company come you take em to see the farm, the garden, the new leather
things jes' made and to see the little ducks, calves, and colts. Folks
don't care bout seeing that now.
"The girls went to Florence to school. All I can recollect is them going
off to school and I knowed it was Florence.
"The Yankees burned the big house. It was a fine house. Old mistress
moved in the overseer's house. He was a white man. He moved somewhere
else. The Yankees made raids and took 15 or 20 calves from her at one
time. They set the tater house afire. They took the corn. Old mistress
cried more on one time. The Yankees starved out more black faces than
white at their stealing. After that war it was hard for the slaves to
have a shelter and enough eatin' that winter. They died in piles bout
after that August I tole you bout. Joe Innes was our overseer when the
house burned.
"The Ku Klux come to my house twice. They couldn't get filled up wid
water. They scared us to death. I heard a lot of things they done.
"I don't vote. I voted once in all my life fo some county officers.
"I been in Arkansas since February 5, 1880. I come to Little Cypress. I
worked for Mr. Clark by the month, J.W. Crocton's place, Mr. Kitchen's
place. I was brakeman on freight train awhile. I worked on the section.
I farmed and worked in the timber. I don't have no children; I never
been married. I wanted to work by the month all my life. I sells mats
(shuck mats) $1.00 and I bottom chairs 50¢. The Social Welfare gives me
$10.00. That is 10¢ a meal. That woman next door boards me--table
board--for 50¢ a day. I make all I can outer fust one thing and
another." (He is blind--cataracts.)
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Emma Barr, Madison, Arkansas
Age: 65
"My parents belong to two people. Mama was born in Mississippi I think
and papa come from North Carolina. Papa's master was Lark Hickerson.
Mama was sold from Dr. Ware to Dr. Pope. She was grown when she was
sold. She was the mother of twenty-seven children. She had twins three
times.
"During the Civil War she was run from the Yankees and had twins on the
road. They died or was born dead and she nearly died. They was buried
between twin trees close to Hernando, Mississippi. Her last owner was
Dr. Pope, ten miles south of Augusta, Arkansas. I was born there and
raised up three miles south of Augusta, Arkansas.
"When mama was sold she left her people in Mississippi but after freedom
her sisters, Aunt Mariah and Aunt Mary, come here to mama. Aunt Mariah
had no children. Aunt Mary had four boys, two girls. She brought her
children. Mama said her husband when Dr. Ware owned her was Maxwell but
she married my papa after Dr. Pope bought her.
"Dr. Ware had a fine man he bred his colored house women to. They didn't
plough and do heavy work. He was hostler, looked after the stock and got
in wood. The women hated him, and the men on the place done as well.
They hated him too. My papa was a Hickerson. He was a shoemaker and
waited on Dr. Pope. Dr. Pope and Miss Marie was good to my parents and
to my auntees when they come out here.
"I am the onliest one of mama's children living. Mama was sold on the
block and cried off I heard them say when they lived at Wares in
Mississippi. Mama was a house girl, Aunt Mary cooked and my oldest
sister put fire on the skillet and oven lids. That was her job.
"Mama was lighter than I am. She had Indian blood in her. One auntee was
half white. She was lighter than I am, had straight hair; the other
auntee was real dark. She spun and wove and knit socks. Mama said they
had plenty to eat at both homes. Dr. Pope was good to her. Mama went to
the white folks church to look after the babies. They took the babies
and all the little children to church in them days.
"Mama said the preachers told the slaves to be good and bedient. The
colored folks would meet up wid one another at preaching same as the
white folks. I heard my auntees say when the Yankees come to the house
the mistress would run give the house women their money and jewelry and
soon as the Yankees leave they would come get it. That was at Wares in
Mississippi.
"I heard them talk about slipping off and going to some house on the
place and other places too and pray for freedom during the War. They
turned an iron pot upside down in the room. When some mens' slaves was
caught on another man's place he was allowed to whoop them and send them
home and they would git another whooping. Some men wouldn't allow that;
they said they would tend to their own slaves. So many men had to leave
home to go to war times got slack.
"It was Judge Martin that owned my papa before he was freed. He lived
close to Augusta, Arkansas. When he was freed he lived at Dr. Pope's. He
was sold in North Carolina. Dr. Pope and Judge Martin told them they was
free. Mama stayed on with Dr. Pope and he paid her. He never did whoop
her. Mama told me all this. She died a few years ago. She was old. I
never heard much about the Ku Klux. Mama was a good speller. I was a
good speller at school and she learned with us. I spelled in Webster's
Blue Back Speller.
"We children stayed around home till we married off. I nursed nearly all
my life. Me and my husband farmed ten years. He died. I don't have a
child. I wish I did have a girl. My cousin married us in the church. His
name was Andrew Baccus.
"After my husband died I went to Coffeeville, Kansas and nursed an old
invalid white woman three years, till she died. I come back here where I
was knowed. I'm keeping this house for some people gone off. Part of the
house is rented out and I get $8 and commodities. I been sick with the
chills."
Interviewer: S.S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Robert Barr
3108 West 18th St.
Little Rock, Ark.
Age: 73
Occupation: Preaching
[HW: A Preacher Tells His Story]
"I am a minister of the Gospel. I have been preaching for the last
thirty years. I am batching here. A man does better to live by himself.
Young people got the devil in them now a days. Your own children don't
want you around.
"I got one grand-daughter that ain't never stood on the floor. Her
husband kicked her and hit her and she ain't never been able to stand up
since. I got another daughter that ain't thinking about marrying. She
just goes from one man to the other.
"The government gives me a pension. The white folks help me all along.
Before I preached, I fiddled, danced, shot craps, did anything.
"My mother was born in Chickasaw, Mississippi. She was born a slave. Old
man Barr was her master. She was a Lucy Appelin and she married a Barr.
I don't know whether she stood on the floor and married them as they do
now or not. They tell me that they just gave them to them in those days.
My mother said that they didn't know anything about marriage then. They
had some sort of a way of doing. Ol' Massa would call them up and say,
'You take that man, and go ahead. You are man and wife.' I don't care
whether you liked it or didn't. You had to go ahead. I heard em say:
'Nigger ain't no more'n a horse or cow,' But they got out from under
that now. The world is growing more and more civilized. But when a
nigger thinks he is something, he ain't nothin'. White folks got all the
laws and regulations in their hands and they can do as they please. You
surrender under em and go along and you are all right. If they told a
woman to go to a man and she didn't, they would whip her. You didn't
have your own way. They would make you do what they wanted. They'd give
you a good beating too.
"My father was born in Mississippi. His name was Simon Barr. My mother
and father both lived on the same plantation. In all groups of people
they went by their master's name. Before she married, my mother's master
and mistress were Appelins. When she got married--got ready to
marry--the white folks agreed to let them go together. Old Man Barr must
have paid something for her. According to my mother and father, that's
the way it was. She had to leave her master and go with her husband's
master.
"According to my old father and mother, the Patteroles went and got the
niggers when they did something wrong. They lived during slave time.
They had a rule and government over the colored and there you are. When
they caught niggers out, they would beat them. If you'd run away, they'd
go and get you and beat you and put you back. When they'd get on a
nigger and beat him, the colored folks would holler, 'I pray, Massa.'
They had to have a great war over it, before they freed the nigger. The
Bible says there is a time for all things.
"My mother and father said they got a certain amount when they was
freed. I don't know how much it was. It was only a small amount. After a
short time it broke up and they didn't get any more. I get ten dollars
pension now and that is more than they got then.
"I heard Old Brother Page in Mississippi say that the slaves had heard
em say they were going to be free. His young mistress heard em say he
was going to be free and she walked up and hocked and spit in his face.
When freedom came, old Massa came out and told them.
"I have heard folks talk of buried treasure. I'll bet there's more money
under the ground than there is on it. They didn't have banks then, and
they put their money under the ground. For hundreds of years, there has
been money put under the ground.
"I heard my mother talk about their dances and frolics then. I never
heard her speak of anything else. They didn't have much freedom. They
couldn't go and come as they pleased. You had to have a script to go and
come. Niggers ain't free now. You can't do anything; you got nothin'.
This whole town belongs to white folks, and you can't do nothin'. If
nigger get to have anything, white folks will take it.
"We raised our own food. We made our own flour. We wove our own cloth.
We made our clothes. We made our meal. We made our sorghum cane
molasses. Some of them made their shoes, made their own medicine, and
went around and doctored on one another. They were more healthy then
than they are now. This generation don't live hardly to get forty years
old. They don't live long now.
"I came to Arkansas about thirty-five years ago. I got right into
ditches. The first thing I did was farm. I farmed about ten years. I
made about ten crops. Mississippi gave you more for your crops than
Arkansas."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Matilda Bass
1100 Palm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
"Yes ma'am, I was eight years old when the Old War ceasted.
"Honey, I've lived here twenty years and I don't know what this street
is.
"I was born in Greenville, Mississippi. They took my parents and carried
'em to Texas to keep 'em from the Yankees. I think they stayed three
years 'cause I didn't know 'em when they come back.
"I 'member the Yankees come and took us chillun and the old folks to
Vicksburg. I 'member the old man that seed after the chillun while their
parents was gone, he said I was eight when freedom come. We didn't know
nothin' 'bout our ages--didn't have 'nough sense.
"My parents come back after surrender and stayed on my owner's
place--John Scott's place. We had three masters--three brothers.
"I been in Arkansas twenty years--right here. I bought this home.
"I married my husband in Mississippi. We farmed.
"The Lord uses me as a prophet and after my husband died, the Lord sent
me to Arkansas to tell the people. He called me out of the church. I
been out of the church now thirty-three years. Seems like all they think
about in the churches now is money, so the Lord called me out."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Emmett Beal, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born in Holloman County, Bolivar, Tennessee. Master Dr. Jim May
owned my set er folks. He had two girls and two boys. I reckon he had a
wife but I don't recollect seeing her. Ma suckled me; William May with
me. Ely and Seley and Susie was his children.
"I churned for mama in slavery. She tied a cloth around the top so no
flies get in. I better hadn't let no fly get in the churn. She take me
out to a peach tree and learn me how to keep the flies outen the churn
next time.
"Mama was Dr. May's cook. We et out the dishes but I don't know how all
of 'em done their eating. They eat at their houses. Dr. May had a good
size bunch of hands, not a big crowd. We had straw beds. Made new ones
every summer. In that country they didn't 'low you to beat yo' hands up.
I heard my folks say that more'n one time.
"Dr. May come tole 'em it was freedom. They could get land and stay--all
'at wanted to. All his old ones kept on wid him. They sharecropped and
some of them got a third. I recollect him and worked for him.
"The Ku Klux didn't bother none of us. Dr. May wouldn't 'low them on his
place.
"Mama come out here in 1880. I figured there better land out here and I
followed her in 1881. We paid our own ways. Seem like the owners ought
to give the slaves something but seem like they was mad 'cause they set
us free. Ma was named Viney May and pa, Nick May.
"Pa and four or five brothers was sold in Memphis. He never seen his
brothers no more. They come to Arkansas.
"Pa and Dr. May went to war. The Yankees drafted pa and he come back to
Dr. May after he fit. He got his lip split open in the War. Dr. May come
home and worked his slaves. He didn't stay long in war.
"I reckon they had plenty to eat at home. They didn't run to the stores
every day 'bout starved to death like I has to do now. Ma said they
didn't 'low the overseers to whoop too much er Dr. May would turn them
off.
"Er horse stomped on my foot eight years ago. I didn't pay it much
'tention. It didn't hurt. Blood-p'ison come in it and they took me to
the horsepital and my leg had to come off, (at the knee).
"We have to go back to Africa to vote all the 'lections. Voting brings
up more hard feelings."
Interviewer: Pernella Anderson, colored.
_EX-SLAVES_
Yes I was born in slavery time. I was born September 2, 1862 in the
field under a tree. I don't know nothing about slavery. I was too young
to remember anything about slavery. But I tell you this much, times
ain't like they used to be. There was easy living back in the 18 hundred
years. People wore homemade clothes, what I mean homespun and lowell
clothes. My ma spun and weaved all of her cloth. We wore our dresses
down to our ankles in length and my dresses was called mother hubbards.
The skirts had about three yards circumference and we wore plenty of
clothes under our dress. We did not go necked like these folks do now.
Folk did not know how we was made. We did not show our shape, we did not
disgrace ourself back in 1800. We wore our hair wrapped and head rags
tied on our head. I went barefooted until I was a young missie then I
wore shoes in the winter but I still went barefooted in the summer. My
papa was a shoemaker so he made our shoes. We raised everything that we
ate when I was a chap. We ate a plenty. We raised plenty of whippowell
peas. That was the only kind of peas there was then. We raised plenty
Moodie sweet potatoes they call them nigger chokers now. We had cows so
we had plenty of milk and butter. We cooked on the fireplace. The first
stove I cooked on was a white woman's stove, that was 1890.
I never chanced to go to school because where we lived there wasn't no
school. I worked all of the time. In fact that was all we knew. White
people did not see where negroes needed any learning so we had to work.
We lived on a place with some white people by the name of Dunn. They
were good people but they taken all that was made because we did not
know. I ain't never been sick in my life and I have never had a doctor
in my life. I am in good health now.
We traveled horseback in the years of 1800. We did not ride straddle the
horse's back we rode sideways. The old folks wore their dreses dragging
the ground. We chaps called everybody old that married. We respected
them because they was considered as being old. Time has made a change.
--Dina Beard, Douglas Addition.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Annie Beck, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 50
"I was born in Mississippi. Mama was born in Alabama and sold to
Holcomb, Mississippi. Her owner was Master Beard. She was a field woman.
They took her in a stage-coach. Their owner wanted to keep it a secret
about freedom. But he had a brother that fussed with him all the time
and he told the slaves they was all free. Mama said they was pretty good
always to her for it to be slavery, but papa said his owners wasn't so
good to him. He was sold in Richmond, Virginia to Master Thomas at
Grenada, Mississippi. He was a plain farming man."
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: J.H. Beckwith
619 North Spruce Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 68
"No ma'm I was not born in the time of slavery. I was sixty-eight last
Friday. I was born November 18, 1870 in Johnson County, North Carolina.
"My mother was born in Georgia and her name was Gracie Barum. Father was
born in North Carolina. His name was Rufus Beckwith. He belonged to
Doctor Beckwith and mother, I think, belonged to Tom Barum. Barum was
just an ordinary farmer. He was just a second or third class
farmer--just poor white folks. I think my mother was the only slave he
owned.
"My father had to walk seven miles every Saturday night to see my mother,
and be back before sunrise Monday.
"My parents had at least three or four children born in slavery. I know
my father said he worked at night and made shoes for his family.
"My father was a mulatto. He had a negro mother and a white father. He
had a mechanical talent. He seemed to be somewhat of a genius. He had a
productive mind. He could do blacksmithing, carpenter work, brick work
and shoe work.
"Father was married twice. He raised ten children by each wife. I think
my mother had fifteen children and I was the the thirteenth child. I am
the only boy among the first set, called to the ministry. And there was
one in the second set. Father learned to read and write after freedom.
"After freedom he sent my oldest brother and sister to Hampton, Virginia
and they were graduated from Hampton Institute and later taught school.
They were graduated from the same school Booker T. Washington was. He
got his idea of vocational education there.
"I haven't had much education. I went as far as the eighth grade. The
biggest education I have had was in the Conference.
"I joined the Little Rock General Conference at Texarkana in 1914. This
was the Methodist Episcopal, North, and I was ordained as a deacon and
later an elder by white bishops. Then in 1930 I joined the African
Methodist.
"By trade I am a carpenter and bricklayer. I served an apprentice under
my father and under a German contractor.
"I used to be called the best negro journeyman carpenter between Monroe,
Louisiana and Little Rock, Arkansas.
"I made quite a success in my trade. I have a couple of United States
Patent Rights. One is a brick mold holding ten bricks and used to make
bricks of concrete. The other is a sliding door. (See attached drawings)
[TR: Drawings missing.]
"I was in the mercantile business two and one-half years in Sevier
County. I sold that because it was too confining and returned to the
carpenter's trade. I still practice my trade some now.
"I have not had to ask help from anyone. I have helped others. I own my
home and I sent my daughter to Fisk University where she was graduated.
While there she met a young man and they were later married and now live
in Chicago. They own their home and are doing well.
"In my work in the ministry I am trying to teach my people to have
higher ideals. We have to bring our race to that high ideal of race
integrity. I am trying to keep the negro from thinking he is hated by
the upper class of white people. What the negro needs is
self-consciousness to the extent that he aspires to the higher
principles in order to stand on an equal plane in attainment but not in
a social way.
"At present, the negro's ideals are too low for him to visualize the
evils involved in race mixture. He needs to be lifted in his own
estimation and learn that a race cannot be estimated by other races--by
anything else but their own ideals.
"The younger generation is off on a tangent. They'll have to hit
something before they stop.
"The salvation of our people--of all people--white and colored, is
leadership. We've got to have vision and try to give the people vision.
Not to live for ourselves but for all. The present generation is
selfish. The life should flow out and as it flows out it makes room for
more life. If it does not flow out, it congeals and ferments.
Selfishness is just like damming a stream.
"I think Woodrow Wilson won the World War with his fourteen points of
democracy. If the people of foreign countries had not that old
imperialism sentiment, the Jew would not be where he is today."
Interviewer's Comment
This man is the best informed and most sensible negro I have
interviewed. In the room where I interviewed him, were a piano, a radio,
many ferns, a wool rug, chairs, divan, and a table on which were books
including a set of the Standard History of the World. I asked if he had
read the history and he replied, "Not all of it but I have read the
volumes pertaining to the neolithic age."
On the walls were several pictures and two tapestries.
The house was a good frame one and electric current was used.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Enoch Beel; Green Grove, Hazen, Arkansas
Age: 79
"Yes maam I was born a slave, born in slavery times. I wer born in
Hardman County, Tennessee. My own daddy was a Union soldier and my mama
was a cook fer the mistress. We belonged to Miss Viney and Dr. Jim Mass.
My daddy drawed a pension fer bein a soldier till he die. He went off to
wait on some men he know. Then he met some men wanted him to join the
army. They said then he get paid and get a bounty. No maam he never got
a red cent. He come back broke as he went off. He say he turned loose
soon as he could and mustered out and lef them right now. He had no time
to ax em no questions. That what he said! We stayed on that place till I
was big nuf to do a days work. We had no other place to go. There was
plenty land and no stock. Houses to stay in got scarce. If a family had
a place to stay at when that war ended he counted hisself lucky I tell
you. Heap of black an white jes ramlin round through the woods an over
the roads huntin a little to eat or a little sumpin to do. If you stay
in the field workin about puttin back the fences an round yo own house
you wouldn't be hurt.
"The Ku Kluxes war not huntin work theirselves. They was keepin order at
the gatherins and down the public roads. Folks had came toted off all
the folks made in the crops till they don't call nuthin stealin'. They
whooped em and made em ride on rails. I don't know all the carrings on
did take place. I sho would been scared if I seed em comin to me. We
left Dr. Mass and went to Grain, Tennessee. I had three sisters and
half-brothers. I don't remember how many, some dead. I farmed all my
life. Everybody said the land was so much better and newer out in
Arkansas. When I married I come to Tomberlin and worked fer Sam Dardnne
bout twelve years. Then I rented from Jim Hicks at England. I rented
from one of the Carlley boys and Jim Neelam. When I very fust come here
I worked at Helena on a farm one year. When I got my leg taken off it
cost bout all I ever had cumlated. I lives on my sister's place. Henry
Bratcher's wife out at Green Grove. The Wellfare give me $8 cause I
caint get bout.
"I don't know bout the times. It is so unsettled. Folks want work caint
get it and some won't work that could. You caint get help so you can
make a crop of your own no more, fer sometimes is close."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Sophie D. Belle, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 77
"I was born near Knoxville, Georgia. My mother was a professional pastry
cook. She was a house woman during slavery. She was owned by Lewis Hicks
and Ann Hicks. They had Saluda, Mary, Lewis, and Oscar.
"Mother was never sold. Mr. Hicks reared her. She was three-fourths
Indian. Her father was George Hicks. Gordon carried him to Texas. Mr.
Bob Gordon was mean. He asked Mr. Hicks to keep mother and auntie while
he went to Texas, Mr. Gordon was so mean. My mother had two little girls
but my sister died while small.
"I never saw any one sold. I never saw a soldier. But I noticed the
grown people whispering many times. Mother explained it to me, they had
some news from the War. Aunt Jane said she saw them pass in gangs. I
heard her say, 'Did you see the soldiers pass early this morning?' I was
asleep. Sometimes I was out at play when they passed.
"Master Hicks called us all up at dinner one day to the big house. He
told us, 'You are free as I am.' I never had worked any then. No, they
cried and went on to their homes. Aunt Jane was bad to speak out, she
was so much Indian. She had three children. She went to another place to
live. She was in search of her husband and thought he might be there at
Ft. Valley.
"Mother stayed on another year. Mr. Hicks was good to us. None of the
children ever worked till they was ten or twelve years old. He had a lot
of slaves and about twenty-five children on the place growing. He had
just a big plantation. He had a special cook, Aunt Mariah, to cook for
the field hands. They eat like he did. Master Hicks would examine their
buckets and a great big split basket. If they didn't have enough to eat
he would have her cook more and send to them. They had nice victuals to
eat. He had a bell to ring for all the children to be put to bed at
sundown and they slept late. He said, 'Let them grow.' Their diet was
milk and bread and eggs. We had duck eggs, guinea eggs, goose eggs, and
turkey eggs.
"I don't know what all the slaves had but mother had feather beds. They
saved all kind of feathers to make pillows and bed and chair cushions.
We always had a pet pig about our place. Master Hicks kept a drove of
pea-fowls. He had cows, goats, sheep. We children loved the lambs.
Elvira attended to the milk. She had some of the girls and boys to milk.
Uncle Dick, mother's brother, was Mr. Hicks' coachman. He was raised on
the place too.
"I think Master Hicks and his family was French, but, though they were
light-skin people. They had light hair too, I think.
"One day a Frenchman (white) that was a doctor come to call. My Aunt
Jane said to me, 'He is your papa. That is your papa.' I saw him many
times after that. I am considered eight-ninth white race. One little
girl up at the courthouse asked me a question and I told her she was too
young to know about such sin. (This girl was twenty-four years old and
the case worker's stenographer.)
"Master Hicks had Uncle Patrick bury his silver and gold in the woods.
It was in a trunk. The hair and hide was still on the trunk when the War
ceased. He used his money to pay the slaves that worked on his place
after freedom.
"I went to school to a white man from January till May and mother paid
him one dollar a month tuition. After I married I went to school three
terms. I married quite young. Everyone did that far back.
"I married at Aunt Jane's home. We got married and had dinner at one or
two o'clock. Very quiet. Only a few friends and my relatives. I wore a
green wool traveling dress. It was trimmed in black velvet and black
beads. I married in a hat. At about seven o'clock we went to ny
husband's home at Perry, Georgia. He owned a new buggy. We rode thirty
miles. We had a colored minister to marry us. He was a painter and a
fine provider. He died. I had no children.
"I came to Forrest City 1874. There was three dry-goods and grocery
stores and two saloons here--five stores in all. I come alone. Aunt Jane
and Uncle Sol had migrated here. My mother come with me. There was one
railroad through here. I belong to the Baptist church.
"I married the second time at Muskogee, Oklahoma. My husband lived out
there. He was Indian-African. He was a Baptist minister. We never had
any children. I never had a child. They tell me now if I had married
dark men I would maybe had children. I married very light men both
times.
"I washed and ironed, cooked and kept house. I sewed for the public,
black and white. I washed and ironed for Mrs. Grahan at Crockettsville
twenty-three years and three months. I inherited a home here. Owned a
home here in Forrest City once. I live with my cousin here. He uses that
house for his study. He is a Baptist minister. (The church is in front
of their home--a very nice new brick church--ed.) I'm blind now or I
could still sew, wash and iron some maybe.
"I get eight dollars from the Social Welfare. I do my own cooking in the
kitchen. I am seventy-seven years old. I try to live as good as my age.
Every year I try to live a little better, 'A little sweeter as the years
go by.'"
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Cyrus Bellus
1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 73
[HW: Made Own Cloth]
"I was born in Mississippi in 1865 in Jefferson County. It was on the
tenth of March. My father's name was Cyrus Bellus, the same as mine. My
mother's name was Matilda Bellus.
"My father's master was David Hunt. My father and mother both belonged
to him. They had the same master. I don't know the names of my
grandfather and mother. I think they were Jordons. No, I know my
grandmother's name was Annie Hall, and my grandfather's name was Stephen
Hall. Those were my mother's grandparents. My father's father was named
John Major and his mother was named Dinah Major. They belonged to the
Hunts. I don't know why the names was different. I guess he wasn't their
first master.
Slave Sales, Whippings, Work
"I have heard my folks talk about how they were traded off and how they
used to have to work. Their master wouldn't allow them to whip his
hands. No, it was the mistress that wouldn't allow them to be whipped.
They had hot words about that sometimes.
"The slaves had to weave cotton and knit sox. Sometimes they would work
all night, weaving cloth, and spinning thread. The spinning would be
done first. They would make cloth for all the hands on the place.
"They used to have tanning vats to make shoes with too. Old master
didn't know what it was to buy shoes. Had a man there to make them.
"My father and mother were both field hands. They didn't weave or spin.
My grandmother on my mother's side did that. They were supposed to
pick--the man, four hundred pounds of cotton, and the woman three
hundred. And that was gittin' some cotton. If they didn't come up to the
task, they was took out and give a whipping. The overseer would do the
thrashing. The old mistress and master wouldn't agree on that whipping.
Fun
"The slaves were allowed to get out and have their fun and play and
'musement for so many hours. Outside of those hours, they had to be
found in their house. They had to use fiddles. They had dancing just
like the boys do now. They had knockin' and rasslin' and all such like
now.
Church
"So for as serving God was concerned, they had to take a kettle and turn
it down bottom upward and then old master couldn't hear the singing and
prayin'. I don't know just how they turned the kettle to keep the noise
from goin' out. But I heard my father and mother say they did it. The
kettle would be on the inside of the cabin, not on the outside.
House, Furniture, Food
"The slaves lived in log houses instead of ones like now with
weather-boarding. The two ends duffed in. They always had them so they
would hold a nice family. Never had any partitions to make rooms. It was
just a straight long house with one window and one door.
"Provisions were weighed out to them. They were allowed four pounds of
meat and a peck of meal for each working person. They only provided for
the working folks. If I had eight in a family, I would just get the same
amount. There was no provisions for children.
"But all the children on the place were given something from the big
house. The working folks ate their breakfast before daylight in the log
cabin where they lived. They ate their supper at home too. They was
allowed to get back home by seven or eight o'clock. The slaves on my
place never ate together. I don't know anything about that kind of
feeding.
"They had nurses, old folks that weren't able to work any longer. All
the children would go to the same place to be cared for and the old
people would look after them. They wasn't able to work, you know. They
fed the children during the day.
How Freedom Came
"My father and mother and grandmother said the overseer told them that
they were free. I guess that was in 1865, the same year I was born. The
overseer told them that they didn't have any owner now. They was free
folks. The boss man told them too--had them to come up to the big house
and told them they had to look out for themselves now because they were
free as he was.
Right After the War
"Right after emancipation, my folks were freed. The boss man told them
they could work by the day or sharecrop or they could work by groups. A
group of folks could go together and work and the boss man would pay
them so much a day. I believe they worked for him a good while--about
seven or eight years at least. They was in one of the groups.
Earliest Recollections
"My own earliest recollections was of picking cotton in one of those
squads--the groups I was telling you about. After that, the people got
to renting land and renting stock for themselves. They sharecropped
then. It seems to me that everybody was satisfied. I don't remember any
one saying that he was cheated or beat out of anything.
Schooling
"We had a public school to open in Jefferson County, Mississippi. We
called it Dobbins Bridge. There was a bridge about a mile long built
across the creek. We had two colored women for teachers. Their names was
Mary Howard and Hester Harris. They only used two teachers in that
school. I attended there three years to those same two women.
"We had a large family and I quit to help take care of it.
Ku Klux
"I don't think there was much disturbance from the Ku Klux on that
plantation. The colored folks didn't take much part in politics.
Later Life
"I stopped school and went to work for good at about fifteen years. I
worked at the field on that same plantation I told you about. I worked
there for just about ten years. Then I farmed at the same place on
shares. I stayed there till I was 'bout twenty-six years old. Then I
moved to Wilderness Place in the Cotton Belt in Mississippi. I farmed
there for two years.
"I farmed around Greenville, Mississippi for a while. Then I left
Greenville and came to Arkansas. I come straight to Little Rock. The
first thing I did I went into the lumber grading. I wasn't trained to
it, but I went into it at the request of the men who employed me. I
stayed in that eight years. I learned the lumber grading and checking.
Checking is seeing the size and width and length and kind of lumber and
seeing how much of it there is in a car without taking it out, you know.
"I married about 1932. My wife is dead. We never had any children.
"I haven't worked any now in five years. I have been to the hospital in
the east end. I get old age assistance--eight dollars and commodities."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Bob Benford
209 N. Maple Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79
"Slavery-time folks? Here's one of em. Near as I can get at it, I'se
seventy-nine. I was born in Alabama. My white folks said I come from
Perry County, Alabama, but I come here to this Arkansas country when I
was small.
"My old master was Jim Ad Benford. He was good to us. I'm goin' to tell
you we was better off then than now. Yes ma'am, they treated us right.
We didn't have to worry bout payin' the doctor and had plenty to eat.
"I recollect the shoemaker come and measured my feet and directly he'd
bring me old red russet shoes. I thought they was the prettiest things I
ever saw in my life.
"Old mistress would say, 'Come on here, you little niggers' and she'd
sprinkle sugar on the meat block and we'd just lick sugar.
"I remember the soldiers good, had on blue suits with brass buttons.
"I'se big enough to ride old master's hoss to water. He'd say, 'Now,
Bob, don't you run that hoss' but when I got out of sight, I was bound
to run that hoss a little.
"I didn't have to work, just stayed in the house with my mammy. She was
a seamstress. I'm tellin' you the truth now. I can tell it at night as
well as daytime.
"We lived in Union County. Old master had a lot of hands. Old mistress'
name was Miss Sallie Benford. She just as good as she could be. She'd
come out to the quarters to see how we was gettin' along. I'd be so glad
when Christmas come. We'd have hog killin' and I'd get the bladders and
blow em up to make noise--you know. Yes, lady, we'd have a time.
"I recollect when Marse Jim broke up and went to Texas. Stayed there
bout a year and come back. [HW: migration?]
"When the war was over I recollect they said we was free but I didn't
know what that meant. I was always free.
"After freedom mammy stayed there on the place and worked on the shares.
I don't know nothin' bout my father. They said he was a white man.
"I remember I was out in the field with mammy and had a old mule. I
punched him with a stick and he come back with them hoofs and kicked me
right in the jaw--knocked me dead. Lord, lady, I had to eat mush till I
don't like mush today. That was old Mose--he was a saddle mule.
"Me? I ain't been to school a day in my life. If I had a chance to go I
didn't know it. I had to help mammy work. I recollect one time when she
was sick I got into a fight and she cried and said, 'That's the way you
does my child' and I know she died next week.
"After that I worked here and there. I remember the first run I worked
for was Kinch McKinney of El Dorado.
"I remember when I was just learnin' to plow, old mule knew five hundred
times more than I did. He was graduated and he learnt me.
"I made fifty-seven crops in my lifetime. Me and Hance Chapman--he was
my witness when I married--we made four bales that year. That was in
1879. His father got two bales and Hance and me got two. I made money
every year. Yes ma'am, I have made some money in my day. When I moved
from Louisiana to Arkansas I sold one hundred eighty acres of land and
three hundred head of hogs. I come up here cause my chillun was here and
my wife wanted to come here. You know how people will stroll when they
get grown. Lost everything I had. Bought a little farm here and they
wouldn't let me raise but two acres of cotton the last year I farmed and
I couldn't make my payments with that. Made me plow up some of the
prettiest cotton I ever saw and I never got a cent for it.
"Lady, nobody don't know how old people is treated nowdays. But I'm
livin' and I thank the Lord. I'm so glad the Lord sent you here, lady. I
been once a man and twice a child. You know when you're tellin' the
truth, you can tell it all the time.
"Klu Klux? The Lord have mercy! In '74 and '75 saw em but never was
bothered by a white man in my life. Never been arrested and never had a
lawsuit in my life. I can go down here and talk to these officers any
time.
"Yes ma'am, I used to vote. Never had no trouble. I don't know what
ticket I voted. We just voted for the man we wanted. Used to have
colored men on the grand jury--half and half--and then got down to one
and then knocked em all out.
"I never done no public work in my life but when you said farmin' you
hit me then.
"Nother thing I never done. I bought two counterpins once in my life on
the stallments and ain't never bought nothin' since that way. Yes ma'am,
I got a bait of that stallment buying. That's been forty years ago.
"I know one time when I was livin' in Louisiana, we had a teacher named
Arvin Nichols. He taught there seventeen years and one time he passed
some white ladies and tipped his hat and went on and fore sundown they
had him arrested. Some of the white men who knew him went to court and
said what had he done, and they cleared him right away. That was in the
'80's in Marion, Louisiana, in Union Parish."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Carrie Bradley Logan Bennet, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 79 plus
"I was born not a great piece from Mobile but it was in Mississippi in
the country. My mother b'long to Massa Tom Logan. He was a horse trader.
He got drowned in 1863--durin' of the War, the old war. His wife was
Miss Liza Jane. They had several children and some gone from home I jus'
seed when they be on visits home. The ones at home I can recollect was
Tiney, John, Bill, and Alex. I played wid Tiney and nursed Bill and Alex
was a baby when Massa Tom got drowned.
"We never knowed how Massa Tom got drowned. They brought him home and
buried him. His horse come home. He had been in the water, water was
froze on the saddle. They said it was water soaked. They thought he swum
the branch. Massa Tom drunk some. We never did know what did happen. I
didn't know much 'bout 'em.
"He had two or three families of slaves. Ma cooked, washed and ironed
for all on the place. She went to the field in busy times. Three of the
men drove horses, tended to 'em. They fed 'em and curried and sheared
'em. Ma said Massa Tom sure thought a heap of his niggers and fine
stock. They'd bring in three or four droves of horses
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