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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery
+in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4
+
+Author: Work Projects Administration
+
+Release Date: April 24, 2008 [EBook #25154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Diane Monico and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress, Manuscript Division)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  +------------------------------------------------------+
+  | This book has been transcribed for Project Gutenberg |
+  |              by Distributed Proofreaders,            |
+  |         in memory of our friend and colleague        |
+  |          Dr. Laura Wisewell, Beloved Emerita.        |
+  +------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 4
+
+
+
+Prepared by
+the Federal Writers' Project of
+the Works Progress Administration
+for the State of Arkansas
+
+
+
+
+INFORMANTS
+
+
+Jackson, Clarice                               1, 3
+Jackson, Israel                                   5
+Jackson, Lula                                 9, 18
+Jackson, Mary                                    20
+Jackson, Taylor                                  22
+Jackson, Virginia                                26
+Jackson, William                                 28
+Jamar, Lawson                                    30
+James, Nellie                                    32
+James, Robert                                    34
+Jefferson, Ellis                                 36
+Jeffries, Moses                                  38
+Jefson, Rev. Ellis                               43
+Jenkins, Absolom                                 47
+Jerman, Dora                                     50
+Johnson, Adaline                                 52
+Johnson, Alice                                   59
+Johnson, Allen                                   63
+Johnson, Annie                                   67
+Johnson, Ben                                 70, 72
+Johnson, Betty                                   73
+Johnson, Cinda                                   76
+Johnson, Ella                                    77
+Johnson, Fanny                                   84
+Johnson, George                                  91
+Johnson, John                                    94
+Johnson, Letha                                   98
+Johnson, Lewis                                  100
+Johnson, Lizzie                                 102
+Johnson, Louis                                  104
+Johnson, Mag                                    107
+Johnson, Mandy                                  110
+Johnson, Marion                       112, 115, 120
+Johnson, Martha                                 122
+Johnson, Millie (Old Bill)                      124
+Johnson, Rosie                                  126
+Johnson, Saint                                  128
+Johnson, Willie                                 130
+Jones, Angeline                                 134
+Jones, Charlie                                  136
+Jones, Cynthia                                  138
+Jones, Edmund                                   141
+Jones, Eliza                                    143
+Jones, Evelyn                                   145
+Jones, John                                     148
+Jones, John                                     149
+Jones, Lidia (Lydia)                       151, 153
+Jones, Liza (Cookie)                            155
+Jones, Lucy                                     158
+Jones, Mary                                     159
+Jones, Mary                                     163
+Jones, Nannie                                   164
+Jones, Reuben                                   166
+Jones, Vergil                                   169
+Jones, Walter                                   171
+Junell, Oscar Felix                             173
+
+Keaton, Sam                                     175
+Kendricks, Tines                           177, 186
+Kennedy, Frank                                  189
+Kerns, Adreanna [TR: Adrianna?] W.              191
+Key, George                                     196
+Key, Lucy                                       198
+King, Anna                                 201, 205
+King, Mose                                      207
+King, Susie                                     210
+Kirk, William                                   214
+Krump, Betty                                    216
+Kyles, Rev. Preston                        220, 222
+
+Lagrone, Susa                                   223
+Laird, Barney A.                                225
+Lamar, Arey                                     228
+Lambert, Solomon                                229
+Larkin, Frank                         235, 236, 239
+Lattimore, William                              242
+Lawsom, Bessie                                  244
+Lee, Henry                                      247
+Lee, Mandy                                      250
+Lee, Mary                                       251
+Lewis, Talitha                                  252
+Lindsay, Abbie                                  255
+Lindsey, Rosa                                   260
+Little, William                                 262
+Lofton, Minerva                                 264
+Lofton, Robert                                  267
+Logan, John H.                                  274
+Lomack, Elvie                                   281
+Long, Henry                                     284
+Love, Annie                                     290
+Love, Needham                                   292
+Lucas, Louis                                    297
+Luckado, Lizzie                                 304
+Luckett, John                                   306
+Lynch, John                                     307
+Lynch, Josephine Scott                          310
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson
+                    Eighteenth and Virginia, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I was six or seven when they begin goin' to the Civil War. We had a
+big old pasture opposite and I know they would bring the soldiers
+there and drill 'em.
+
+"Oh my God, don't talk about slavery. They kept us in so you know we
+couldn't go around.
+
+"But if they kept 'em a little closer now, the world would be a better
+place. I'm so glad I raised my children when they was raisin'
+children. If I told 'em to do a thing, they did it 'cause I would
+always know what was best. I got here first you know.
+
+"People now'days is just shortening their lives. The Lord is pressin'
+us now tryin' to press us back. But thank God I'm saved.
+
+"Did you ever see things like they is now?
+
+"I looks at the young folks and it seems like they is all in a
+hurry--looks like they is on the last round.
+
+"These here seabirds, (a music machine called seaburg--ed.) is ruinin'
+the young folks.
+
+"I feels my age now, but I thank the Lord I got a home and got a
+little income.
+
+"My children can't help me--ain't got nothin' to help with but a
+little washin'. My daughter been bustin' the suds for a livin' 'bout
+thirty-two years now.
+
+"I never went to school. My dad put me to work after freedom and then
+when schools got so numerous, I got too big. Ain't but one thing I
+want to learn this side of the River, is to read the Bible. I wants to
+confirm Jesus' words.
+
+"The fus' place we went after we left the home place durin' of the
+war, we went to Wolf Creek. And then they pressed 'em so close we went
+to Red River. And they pressed 'em so close again we went to Texas and
+that's where we was when freedom come.
+
+"That was in July and they closed the crap (crop) and then six weeks
+'fore Christmas they loaded the wagons and started back to Arkansas.
+We come back to the Johnson place and stayed there three years, then
+my father rented the Alexander place on the Tamo.
+
+"I stayed right there till I married. I married quite young, but I had
+a good husband. I ain't sayin' this just 'cause he's sleepin' but
+ever'body will tell you he was good to me. Made a good livin' and I
+wore what I wanted to.
+
+"He come from South Carolina way before the war. Come from Abbeville.
+They was emigratin' the folks.
+
+"I tell you all I can, but I won't tell you nothin' but the truth."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Owns her home and lives on the income from rental property.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson
+                    1738 Virginia Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"Was I here in slavery days? Well, I remember when the soldiers went
+to war. Oh, I'm old--I ain't no baby. But I been well taken care of--I
+been treated well.
+
+"I was bred and born right here in Arkansas and been livin' here all
+the time 'cept when they said the Yankees was comin'. I know we was
+just closin' up a crop. They put us in wagons and carried us to Wolf
+Creek in Texas and then they carried us to Red River. That was because
+it would be longer 'fore we found out we was free and they would get
+more work out a us.
+
+"Old master's name was Robert Johnson and they called him Bob.
+
+"After freedom they brought us back to Arkansas and put the colored
+folks to workin' on the shares. Yes'm they said they got their share.
+They looked like they was well contented. They stayed three or four
+years. We was treated more kinder and them that was not big enough to
+work was let go to school. I went to school awhile and then I had a
+hard spell of sickness--it was this slow fever. I was sick five or six
+weeks and it was a long time 'fore I could get my health so I didn't
+try to go to school no more. Seemed like I forgot everything I knowed.
+
+"When I was fifteen I got tired of workin' so hard so I got married,
+but I found out things was wusser. But my husband was good to me. Yes
+ma'm, he was a good man and nice to me. He was a good worker. He was
+deputy assessor under Mr. Triplett and he was a deputy sheriff and
+then he was a magistrate. Oh, he was a up-to-date man. He went to
+school after we was married and wanted me to go but I thought too much
+of my childun. When he died, 'bout two years ago, he left me this
+house and two rent houses. Yes ma'm, he was a good man.
+
+"They ain't nothin' to this here younger generation. Did you ever see
+'em goin' so fast? They won't take time to let you tell 'em anything.
+They is in a hurry. The world is too fast for me, but thank the Lord
+my childun is all settled. I got some nieces and nephews though that
+is goin' too fast.
+
+"Yes'm, I'm gettin' along all right. I ain't got nothin' to complain
+of."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Israel Jackson
+                    3505 Short Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"My name's Israel Jackson. No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas--born
+in Yaller Bush County, Mississippi August de third, 1860.
+
+"My old master? Called him General--General Bradford. I don't know
+where he was but he was gone somewhere. Don't know her name--just
+called her missis.
+
+"Yas'm, I was big enough to work. Dey had me to lead out my young
+master's horse on de grass. I had a halter on it and one time I laid
+down and went to sleep. I had de rope tied to my leg and when it come
+twelve o'clock de horse drag me clear to de house. No ma'am, I didn't
+wake up till I got to de house. It was my young master's saddle horse.
+
+"Yas'm, I knowed dey was a war 'cause de men come past just as thick.
+No'm, I wasn't afraid. I kept out of de way. Old missis wouldn't let
+us get in de way. I 'member dey stopped dere and told us we was free.
+Lots of de folks went off but my mother kept workin' in de field, and
+my father didn't leave.
+
+"Old master had us go by his name. Dat's what dey called 'em--all de
+hands on de place.
+
+"I thought from boyhood he was awful cruel. Didn't 'low us chillun in
+de white folks' house at all. Had one woman dat cooked. Dey was fifty
+or a hundred chillun on de place and dey had a big long trough dug out
+of a log and each chile had a spoon and he'd eat out of dat trough.
+Yas'm, I 'member dat. Eat greens and milk. As for meat, we didn't know
+what dat was. My mother would go huntin' at night and get a 'possum
+to feed us and sometimes old master would ketch her and take it away
+from her and give her a piece of salt meat. But sometimes she'd bury a
+'possum till she had a chance to cook it. And dey'd take sackin' like
+you make cotton sacks and dye it and make us clothes.
+
+"When de conch would blow at four o'clock every mornin' everybody got
+up and got ready for de field. Dey'd take dere chillun up to dat big
+long house. When mother went to de field I'd go along and lead de
+horse till I got to where dey was workin', then I'd sit down and let
+the horse eat. I was young and it's been so long.
+
+"No ma'am, I never went to school. No ma'am, can't read or write.
+Never had no schools as I remember.
+
+"Dey stayed on de place after freedom. No ma'am, dey did not pay 'em.
+I'se old but I ain't forgot dat. Dey fed theirselves by stealin' and
+gettin' things in de woods.
+
+"After dem Blue Jackets come in dere General Bradford never did come
+back and our folks stayed dere and when dey did leave dey went to
+Sunflower County. After dat we got along better.
+
+"How many brothers and sisters? I b'lieve I had five.
+
+"I stayed with my parents till I was grown. No ma'am, dey didn't 'low
+us to marry. When we was twenty we was neither man nor boy; we was
+considered a hobble-de-hoy. And when we got to be twenty-one we was
+considered a man and your parents turned you loose, a man. So I left
+home and went to Louisiana. I stayed dere a year, then I went back to
+Mississippi and worked. I come here to Arkansas twenty-six years ago.
+Is dis Jefferson? Well, I come here to de west end.
+
+"Since I been here I been workin' at de foundry--Dilley's foundry.
+
+"'Bout two years ago I got sick and broke up and not able to work and
+Mr. Dilley give me a pension--ten dollars a month. But de wages and
+hour got here now and I don't know what he's gwine do. When de next
+pay-day comes he might give me somethin' and he might not.
+
+"Miss, de white folks has done so bad here dat I don't know what dey's
+gwine a do. Mr. Ed and his father been takin' care of me for twenty
+years. Dey sure has been takin' care of me. Miss, I can't find no
+fault of Mr. Ed Dilley at all.
+
+"I can do a little light work but when I work half a day I get nervous
+and can't do nothin'.
+
+"No ma'am, I never did vote. Dey didn't 'low us to vote. Well, if dey
+did I didn't know it and I didn't vote.
+
+"Well, Miss, I think de young folks is near to de dogs and de dogs
+ought to have 'em and bury 'em. Miss, I don't 'cept none of 'em. I
+wouldn't want to go on and tell you how dey has treated me. Dey ain't
+no use to ask 'cause I ain't gwine tell you. The people is more wicked
+and more wuss and ever'thing. I don't think nothin' of 'em.
+
+"Miss, let me tell you de only folks dat showed me any friendly is Mr.
+Ed Dilley. I worked out dere night and day, Sunday and Monday--any
+time he called.
+
+"Miss, I ain't never seen any jail house; I ain't never been to police
+headquarters; I ain't never been called a witness in my life. I try to
+live right, all I know, and if I do wrong it's somethin' I don't know.
+I ain't had dat much trouble in my life.
+
+"I went up here to Judge Brewster to see about de pension and he said,
+'Got a home?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Got it paid for?' 'Yes.' 'Got a deed?'
+'Yes.' 'Got a abstract?' 'Yes.' 'Well, bring it up here and sign it
+and go get de pension.'
+
+"But I wouldn't do it. Miss, I would starve till I was as stiff as a
+peckerwood peckin' at a hole 'fore I'd sign anything on my deed. Miss,
+I wouldn't put a scratch on my deed. I wouldn't trust 'em, wouldn't
+trust 'em if dey was behind a Winchester."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson
+                    1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 79?
+
+
+"I was born in Alabama, Russell County, on a place called Sand Ridge,
+about seven miles out from Columbus, Georgia. Bred and born in
+Alabama. Come out here a young gal. Wasn't married when I come out
+here. Married when a boy from Alabama met me though. Got his picture.
+Lula Williams! That was my name before I married. How many sisters do
+you have? That's another question they ask all the time; I suppose you
+want to know, too. Two. Where are they? That's another one of them
+questions they always askin' me. You want to know it, too? I got one
+in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And the other one is in Philadelphia; no,
+I mean in Philipp city, Tallahatchie (county). Her name is Bertha
+Owens and she lives in Philipp city. What state is Philipp city in?
+That'll be the next question. It is in Mississippi, sir. Now is thar
+anything else you'd like to know?
+
+"My mother's name was Bertha Williams and my father's name was Fred
+Williams. I don't know nothing 'bout mama's mother. Yes, her name was
+Crecie. My father's mother was named Sarah. She got killed by
+lightning. Crecie's husband was named John Oliver. Sarah's husband was
+named William Daniel. Early Hurt was mama's master. He had an awful
+name and he was an awful man. He whipped you till he'd bloodied you
+and blistered you. Then he would cut open the blisters and drop
+sealing-wax in them and in the open wounds made by the whips.
+
+"When the Yankees come in, his wife run in and got in the bed between
+the mattresses. I don't see why it didn't kill her. I don't know how
+she stood it. Early died when the Yankees come in. He was already
+sick. The Yankees come in and said, 'Did you know you are on the
+Yankee line?'
+
+"He said, 'No, by God, when did that happen?'
+
+"They said, 'It happened tonight, G----D---- you.'
+
+"And he turned right on over and done everything on hisself and died.
+He had a eatin' cancer on his shoulder.
+
+
+Schooling, Etc.
+
+"My mother had so many children that I didn't get to go to school
+much. She had nineteen children, and I had to stay home and work to
+help take care of them. I can't write at all.
+
+"I went to school in Alabama, 'round on a colored man's place--Mr.
+Winters. That was near a little town called Fort Mitchell and Silver
+Rim where they put the men in jail. I was a child. Mrs. Smith, a white
+woman from the North, was the second teacher that I had. The first was
+Mr. Croler. My third teacher was a man named Mr. Nelson. All of these
+was white. They wasn't colored teachers. After the War, that was. I
+have the book I used when I went to school. Here is the little
+Arithmetic I used. Here is the Blue Back Speller. I have a McGuffy's
+Primer too. I didn't use that. I got that out of the trash basket at
+the white people's house where I work. One day they throwed it out.
+That is what they use now, ain't it?
+
+"Here is a book my husband give me. He bought it for me because I told
+him I wanted a second reader. He said, 'Well, I'll go up to the store
+and git you one.' Plantation store, you know. He had that charged to
+his account.
+
+"I used to study my lesson. I turned the whole class down once. It was
+a class in spelling. I turned the class down on
+'Publication'--p-u-b-l-i-c-a-t-i-o-n. They couldn't spell that. But
+I'll tell the world they could spell it the next day.
+
+"My teacher had a great big crocus sack, and when she got tired of
+whipping them, she would put them in the sack. She never did put me in
+that sack one time. I got a whipping mos' every day. I used to fight,
+and when I wasn't fightin' for myself, I'd be fighting for other
+children that would be scared to fight for theirselves, and I'd do
+their fighting for them.
+
+"That whippin' in your hand is the worst thing you ever got. Brother,
+it hurts. I put a teacher in jail that'd whip one of my children in
+the hand.
+
+
+Occupational History and Family
+
+"My mama said I was six years old when the War ended and that I was
+born on the first day of October. During the War, I run up and down
+the yard and played, and run up and down the street and played; and
+when I would make too much noise, they'd whip me and send me back to
+my mother and tell her not to whip me no more, because they had
+already done it. I would help look after my mother's children. There
+were five children younger than I was. Everywhere she went, the white
+people would want me to nurse their children, because they said, 'That
+little rawboneded one is goin' to be the smartest one you got. I want
+her.' And my ma would say:
+
+"'You ain't goin' to git 'er.' She had two other girls--Martha and
+Sarah. They was older than me, and she would hire them out to do
+nursing. They worked for their master during slave time, and they
+worked for money after slavery.
+
+"My mama's first husband was killed in a rasslin' (wrestling) match.
+It used to be that one man would walk up to another and say, 'You
+ain't no good.' And the other one would say, 'All right, le's see.'
+And they would rassle.
+
+"My mother's first husband was pretty old. His name was Myers. A young
+man come up to him one Sunday morning when they were gettin'
+commodities. They got sorghum, meat, meal, and flour; if what they got
+wasn't enough, then they would go out and steal a hog. Sometime they'd
+steal it anyhow; they got tired of eatin' the same thing all the time.
+Hurt would whip them for it. Wouldn't let the overseer whip them. Whip
+them hisself. 'Fraid the overseer wouldn't give them enough. They
+never could find my grandfather's meat. That was Grandfather William
+Down. They couldn't find his meat because he kept it hidden in a hole
+in the ground. It was under the floor of the cabin.
+
+"Old Myers made this young man rassle with him. The young fellow
+didn't want to rassle with him; he said Myers was too old. Myers
+wasn't my father; he was my mother's first husband. The young man
+threw him. Myers wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted to rassle
+again. The young man didn't want to rassle again. But Myers made him.
+And the second time, the young man threw him so hard that he broke his
+collar-bone. My mother was in a family way at the time. He lived about
+a week after that, and died before the baby was born.
+
+"My mother's second husband was named Fred Williams, and he was my
+father. All this was in slavery times. I am his oldest child. He
+raised all his children and all his stepchildren too. He and my mother
+lived together for over forty years, until she was more than seventy.
+He was much younger than she was--just eighteen years old when he
+married her. And she was a woman with five children. But she was a
+real wife to him. Him and her would fight, too. She was jealous of
+him. Wouldn't be none of that with me. Honey, when you hit me once,
+I'm gone. Ain't no beatin' on me and then sleepin' in the same bed
+with you. But they fit and then they lived together right on. No
+matter what happened, his clean clothes were ready whenever he got
+ready to go out of the house--even if it was just to go to work. His
+meals were ready whenever he got ready to eat. They were happy
+together till she died.
+
+"But when she died, he killed hisself courtin'. He was a young
+preacher. He died of pneumonia. He was visiting his daughter and got
+exposed to the weather and didn't take care of hisself.
+
+"Right after the War, I was hired as a half-a-hand. After that I got
+larger and was hired as a whole hand, me and the oldest girl. I worked
+on one farm and then another for years. I married the first time when
+I was fifteen years old. That was almost right after slave time. Four
+couples of us were married at the same time. They lived close to me. I
+didn't want my husband to git in the bed with me when I married the
+first time. I didn't have no sense. I was a Christian girl.
+
+"Frank Sampson was his name. It rained the day we married. I got my
+feet wet. My husband brought me home and then he turned 'round and
+went back to where the wedding was. They had a reception, and they
+danced and had a good time. Sampson could dance, too, but I didn't. A
+little before day, he come back and said to me--I was layin' in the
+middle of the bed--'Git over.' I called to mother and told her he
+wanted to git in the bed with me. She said, 'Well, let him git in.
+He's yo'r husband now.'
+
+"Frank Sampson and me lived together about twenty years before he got
+killed, and then I married Andrew Jackson. He had children and
+grandchildren. I don't know what was the matter with old man Jackson.
+He was head deacon of the church. We only stayed together a year or
+more.
+
+"I have been single ever since 1923, jus' bumming 'round white folks
+and tryin' to work for them and makin' them give me somethin' to eat.
+I ain't been tryin' to fin' no man. When I can't fin' no cookin' and
+washin' and ironin' to do, I used to farm. I can't farm now, and
+'course I can't git no work to do to amount to nothin'. They say I'm
+too old to work.
+
+"The Welfare helps me. Don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for them. I
+git some commodities too, but I don't git any wood. Some people says
+they pay house rent, but they never paid none of mine. I had to go to
+Marianna and git my application straight before I could git any help.
+They charged me half a dollar to fix out the application. The Welfare
+wanted to know how I got the money to pay for the application if I
+didn't have money to live on. I had to git it, and I had to git the
+money to go to Marianna, too. If I hadn't, I never would have got no
+help.
+
+
+Husband's Death
+
+"I told you my first husband got killed. The mule run away with his
+plow and throwed him a summerset. His head was where his heels should
+have been, he said, and the mule dragged him. His chest was crushed,
+and mashed. His face was cut and dirtied. He lived nine days and a
+half after he was hurt and couldn't eat one grain of rice. I never
+left his bedside 'cept to cook a little broth for him. That's all he
+would eat--just a little broth.
+
+"He said to his friend, 'See this little woman of mine? I hate to
+leave her. She's just such a good little woman. She ain't got no
+business in this world without a husband.'
+
+"And his friend said to him, 'Well, you might as well make up your
+mind you got to leave her, 'cause you goin' to do it.'
+
+"He got hurt on Thursday and I couldn't git a doctor till Friday. Dr.
+Harper, the plantation doctor, had got his house burned and his hands
+hurt. So he couldn't come out to help us. Finally Dr. Hodges come. He
+come from Sunnyside, Mississippi, and he charge me fourteen dollars.
+He just made two trips and he didn't do nothin'.
+
+"Bowls and pitchers were in style then. And I always kept a pitcher of
+clean water in the house. I looked up and there was a bunch of men
+comin' in the house. It was near dark then. They brought Sampson in
+and carried him to the bed and put him down. I said, 'What's the
+matter with Frank?' And they said, 'The mule drug him.' And they put
+him on the bed and went on out. I dipped a handkerchief in the water
+and wet it and put it in his mouth and took out great gobs of dust
+where the mule had drug him in the dirt. They didn't nobody help me
+with him then; I was there alone with him.
+
+"I started to go for the doctor but he called me back and said it
+wasn't no use for me to go. Couldn't git the doctor then, and if I
+could, he'd charge too much and wouldn't be able to help him none
+nohow. So we wasn't able to git the doctor till the next day, and then
+it wasn't the plantation doctor. We had planted fifteen acres in
+cotton, and we had ordered five hundred pounds of meat for our winter
+supply and laid it up. But Frank never got to eat none of it. They
+sent three or four hands over to git their meals with me, and they et
+up all the meat and all the other supplies we had. I didn't want it.
+It wasn't no use to me when Frank was gone. After they paid the
+doctor's bill and took out for the supplies we was supposed to git,
+they handed me thirty-three dollars and thirty-five cents. That was
+all I got out of fifteen acres of cotton.
+
+
+Ravelings
+
+"I sew with rav'lin's. Here is some rav'lin's I use. I pull that out
+of tobacco sacks, flour sacks, anything, when I don't have the money
+to buy a spool of thread. I sew right on just as good with the
+rav'lin's as if it was thread. Tobacco sacks make the best rav'lin's.
+I got two bags full of tobacco sacks that I ain't unraveled yet. There
+is a man down town who saves them for me. When a man pulls out a sack
+he says, 'Save that sack for me, I got an old colored lady that makes
+thread out of tobacco sacks.' These is what he has give me. (She
+showed the interviewer a sack which had fully a gallon of little
+tobacco sacks in it--ed.)
+
+"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
+they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
+didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.
+
+"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
+together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these
+reels? They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent.
+You turn till the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go
+to the loom. It is in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty,
+too.
+
+
+Present Condition
+
+"I used to live in a four-room house. They charged me seven dollars
+and a half a month for it. They fixed it all up and then they wanted
+to charge ten dollars, and it wouldn't have been long before they went
+up to fifteen. So I moved. This place ain't so much. I pays five
+dollars and a half for it. When it rains, I have to go outside to keep
+from gittin' too wet. But I cut down the weeds all around the place. I
+planted some flowers in the front yard, and some vegetables in the
+back. That all helps me out. When I go to git commodities, I walk to
+the place. I can't stand the way these people act on the cars. Of
+course, when I have a bundle, I have to use the car to come back. I
+just put it on my head and walk down to the car line and git on. Lord,
+my mother used to carry some bundles on her head."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+According to the marriage license issued at the time of her last
+marriage in 1922, Andrew Jackson was sixty years old, and sister
+Jackson was fifty-two. But Andrew Jackson was eighty when sister
+Jackson married him, she says. Who can blame him for saying sixty to
+the clerk? Sister Jackson admits that she was six years old during the
+War and states freely and accurately details of those times, but what
+wife whose husband puts only sixty in writing would be willing to
+write down more than fifty-two for herself?
+
+Right now at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty
+and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the
+same.
+
+The McGuffy's Primer which she thinks is used now is a modernized
+McGuffy printed in 1908. The book bought for her by her first husband
+is an original McGuffy's Second Reader.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson (supplement) [HW: cf. 30600]
+                    1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 79
+Occupation: Field hand
+
+
+Whippings
+
+"Early Hurt had an overseer named Sanders. He tied my sister Crecie to
+a stump to whip her. Crecie was stout and heavy. She was a grown young
+woman and big and strong. Sanders had two dogs with him in case he
+would have trouble with anyone. When he started layin' that lash on
+Crecie's back, she pulled up that stump and whipped him and the dogs
+both.
+
+"Old Early Hurt came up and whipped her hisself. Said, 'Oh, you're too
+bad for the overseer to whip, huh?'
+
+"Wasn't no such things as lamps in them days. Jus' used pine knots.
+When we quilted, we jus' got a good knot and lighted it. And when that
+one was nearly burnt out, we would light another one from it.
+
+"We had a old lady named 'Aunt' Charlotte; she wasn't my aunt, we jus'
+called her that. She used to keep the children when the hands were
+working. If she liked you she would treat your children well. If she
+didn't like you, she wouldn't treat them so good. Her name was
+Charlotte Marley. She was too old to do any good in the field; and she
+had to take care of the babies. If she didn't like the people, she
+would leave the babies' napkins on all day long, wet and filthy.
+
+"My papa's mama, Sarah, was killed by lightning. She was ironing and
+was in a hurry to get through and get the supper on for her master,
+Early Hurt. I was the oldest child, and I always was scared of
+lightning. A dreadful storm was goin' on. I was under the bed and I
+heard the thunder bolt and the crash and the fall. I heard mama
+scream. I crawled out from under the bed and they had grandma laid out
+in the middle of the floor. Mama said, 'Child, all the friend you got
+in the world is dead.' Early Hurt was standin' over her and pouring
+buckets of water on her. When the doctor come, he said, 'You done
+killed her now. If you had jus' laid her out on the ground and let the
+rain fall on her, she would have come to, but you done drownded her
+now.' She wouldn't have died if it hadn't been for them buckets of
+water that Early Hurt throwed in her face.
+
+"Honey, they ain't nothin' as sweet to drink out of as a gourd. Take
+the seeds out. Boil the gourd. Scrape it and sun it. There ain't no
+taste left. They don't use gourds now."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Violent death followed Lula Jackson's family like an implacable
+avenger. Her father's mother was struck and killed by lightning. Her
+mother's first husband was thrown to his death in a wrestling match.
+Her own husband was dragged and kicked to death by a mule. Her
+brother-in-law, Jerry Jackson, was killed by a horse. But Sister
+Jackson is bright and cheery and full of faith in God and man, and
+utterly without bitterness.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: Mary Jackson,
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 75?
+
+
+"My name is Mary Jackson, and I was born in Miller Grove, Hunt County,
+Texas during the War. No sir, I do not know the year. Our master's
+name was Dixon, and he was a wealthy plantation owner, had lots of
+property in Hunt County.
+
+"The days after the War--called the Reconstruction days, I
+believe--were sure exciting, and I can 'mind' a lot of things the
+people did, one of them a big barbecue celebration commemoratin' the
+return of peace. They had speeches, and music by the band--and there
+were a lot of soldiers carrying guns and wearing some kind of big
+breastplates. The white children tried to scare us by telling us the
+soldiers were coming to kill us little colored children. The band
+played 'Dixie' and other familiar tunes that the people played and
+sang in those days.
+
+"Yes sir, I remember the Klu Klux Klan. They sure kept us frightened
+and we would always run and hide when we heard they were comin'. I
+don't know of any special harm they done but we were afraid of em.
+
+"I have been a member of the A. M. E. Church for forty years, and my
+children belong to the same church.
+
+"No sir, I don't know if the government ever promised our folks
+anything--money, or land, or anything else.
+
+"Don't ask me anything about this 'new generation' business. They're
+simply too much for me; I cannot understand em at all. Don't know
+whether they are coming or going. In our day the parents were not near
+so lenient as they are today. I think much of the waywardness of the
+youth today should be blamed on the parents for being too slack in
+their training."
+
+
+NOTE: Mrs. Jackson and her son live in a lovely cottage, and her taste
+in dress and general deportment are a credit to the race.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Taylor Jackson,
+                    Edmondson, Arkansas
+Age: 88?
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was born two miles from Baltimore, Maryland. I was a good size boy.
+My father carried me to see the war flag go up. There was an awful
+crowd, one thousand people, there. I had two masters in this country
+besides in Virginia. When war was declared there was ten boats of
+niggers loaded at Washington and shipped to New Orleans. We stayed in
+the 'Nigger Traders Yard' there about three months. But we was not to
+be sold. Master Cupps [Culps?] owned father, mother and all of us. If
+they gained the victory he was to take us back to Virginia. I never
+knowed my grandparents. The yard had a tall brick wall around it. We
+had a bunk room, good cotton pads to sleep on and blankets. On one
+side they had a wall fixed to go up on from the inside and twelve
+platforms. You could see them being sold on the inside and the crowd
+on the outside. When they auctioned them off they would come, pick out
+what they wanted to sell next and fill them blocks again. They sold
+niggers all day long. They come in another drove they had, had men out
+buying over the country. They come in thick wood doors with iron nails
+bradded through, fastened on big hinges, fastened it with chains and
+iron bars. The house was a big red brick house. We didn't get none too
+much to eat at that place. I reckon one side was three hundred yard
+long of the wall and the house was that long. Some of them in there
+cut their hands off with a knife or ax. Well, they couldn't sell
+them. Nobody would buy them. I don't know what they ever done with
+them. Plenty of them would cut their hand off if they could get
+something to cut with to keep from being sold.
+
+"We stayed in that place till Wyley Lions [Lyons?] come and got us in
+wagons. He kept us for Master Cupps. Mother was a house girl in
+Virginia. She was one more good cook. I started hoeing and picking
+cotton in Virginia for master. When I was fourteen years old I done
+the same in Mississippi with Wiley Lyons in Mississippi close to
+Canton. In Canton, Mississippi Wiley Lyons had the biggest finest
+brick house in that country. He had two farms. In Bolivar County was
+the biggest. I could hear big shooting from Canton fifteen miles away.
+He wasn't mean and he didn't allow the overseers to be mean.
+
+"Hilliard Christmas [a neighbor] was mean to his folks. My father
+hired his own time. He raised several ten acre gardens and
+watermelons. He paid Mr. Cupp in Virginia. He come to see our folks
+how they was getting along.
+
+"A Negro on a joining farm run off. They hunted him with the dogs and
+they found him at a log. Heap his legs froze, so the white doctor had
+to cut them off. He was on Solomon's farms. After that he got to be a
+cooper. He made barrels and baskets--things he could do sittin' in his
+chair. They picked him up and made stumps for him. Some folks was
+mean.
+
+"My mother was Rachel and my father was Andrew Jackson. I had three
+brothers fought in the War. I was too young. They talked of taking me
+in a drummer boy the year it ceased. My nephew give me this uniform.
+It is warm and it is good. My breeches needs some repairs reason I
+ain't got them on. [He has worn a blue uniform for years and
+years--ed.]
+
+"There was nine of us children. I got one girl very low now. She's in
+Memphis. I been in Arkansas 45 years. I come here jes' drifting
+looking out a good location. I never had no dealings with the Ku Klux.
+I been farming all my life. Yes, I did like it. I never owned a home
+nor no land. I never voted in my life. I had nine children of my own
+but only my girl living now.
+
+"Nine or ten years ago I could work every minute. Times was good!
+good! Could get plenty work--wood to cut and ditching. It is not that
+way now. I can't do a day's work now. I'm failing fast. I feel it.
+
+"Young folks can make a living if they work and try. Some works too
+hard and some don't hardly work. Work is scarcer than it ever was to
+my knowledge. Times changed and changed the young folks. Mother died
+two or three years after the War. My father died first year we come to
+Mississippi.
+
+[We went by and took the old Negro to West Memphis. From there he
+could take a jitney to Memphis to see his daughter--ed.]
+
+"I ain't never been 'rested. I ain't been to jail. Nearly well be as
+so confined with the mud. [We assured him it was nicer to ride in the
+car than be in jail--ed.]
+
+"I couldn't tell how many I ever seen sold. I seen some sold in
+Virginia, I reckon, or Maryland--one off the boats. They kept them
+tied. They was so scared they might do anything, jump in the big
+waters. They couldn't talk but to some and he would tell white folks
+what he said. [They used an interpreter.] Some couldn't understand one
+another if they come from far apart in the foreign country. Slavery
+wasn't never bad on me. I never was sold off from my folks and I had
+warmer, better clothes 'an I have now. I had plenty to eat, more'an I
+has now generally. I had better in slavery than I have now. That is
+the truth. I'm telling the truth, I did. Some didn't. One neighbor got
+mad and give each hand one ear of corn nine or ten o'clock. They take
+it to the cook house and get it made up in hominy. Some would be so
+hungry they would parch the corn rather 'an wait. He'd give 'em meal
+to make a big kettle of mush. When he was good he done better. Give
+'em more for supper.
+
+"Freedom--soldiers come by two miles long look like. We followed them.
+There was a crowd following. Wiley Lyons had no children; he adopted a
+boy and a girl. Me and the boy was growing up together. Me and the
+white boy (fifteen or sixteen years old, I reckon we was) followed
+them. They said that was Grant's army. I don't know. 'That made us
+free' they told us. The white boy was free, he just went to see what
+was happening. We sure did see! We went by Canton to Vicksburg when
+fighting quit. Folks rejoiced, and then went back wild. Smart ones
+soon got work. Some got furnished a little provisions to help keep
+them from starving. Mr. Wiley Lyons come got us after five months. We
+hung around my brother that had been in the War. I don't know if he
+was a soldier or a waiter. We worked around Master Lyons' house at
+Canton till he died. I started farming again with him.
+
+"I get $8 a month pension and high as things is that is a powerful
+blessing but it ain't enough to feed me good. It cost more to go after
+the commodities up at Marion than they come to [amount to in value]."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Virginia Jackson,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 74
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Mother said I was born the same year peace was declared. I was born
+before the Civil War close, I reckon. I was born in Tunica,
+Mississippi. Mother belong to Mistress Cornelia and Master John Hood.
+He come from Alabama in wagons and brought mother and whole lot of
+'em, she said, to Tunica, Mississippi. My mother and father never
+sold. They told me that. She said she was with the master and he give
+her to father. He ask her did she want him and ask him if he want her.
+They lived on joint places. They slept together on Wednesday and
+Saturday nights. He stayed at Hood's place on Sunday. They was owned
+by different masters. They didn't never say 'bout stepping over no
+broom. He was a Prince. When he died she married a man named Russell.
+I never heard her say what his name was. My father was Mathew Prince.
+They was both field hands. I never knowed my father. I called my
+stepfather popper. I always did say mother.
+
+"Mother said her master didn't tell them it was freedom. Other folks
+got told in August. They passed it 'round secretly. Some Yankees come
+asked if they was getting paid for picking cotton in September. They
+told their master. They told the Yankees 'yes' 'cause they was afraid
+they would be run off and no place to go. They said Master Hood paid
+them well for their work at cotton selling time. He never promised
+them nothing. She said he never told one of them to leave or to stay.
+He let 'em be. I reckon they got fed. I wore cotton sack dresses. It
+wasn't bagging. It was heavy stiff cloth.
+
+"Mother and her second husband come to Forrest City. They hoped they
+could do better. I come too. I worked in the field all my whole life
+'cepting six years I worked in a laundry. I washed and ironed. I am a
+fine ironer. If I was younger I could get all the mens' shirts I could
+do now. I do a few but I got neuralgia in my arms and shoulders.
+
+"I don't believe in talking 'bout my race. They always been lazy folks
+and smart folks, and they still is. The present times is good for me.
+I'm so thankful. I get ten dollars and some help, not much. I don't go
+after it. I let some that don't get much as I get have it. I told 'em
+to do that way."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Jackson
+                    Route 6, Box 81, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"Me? Well, I was born July 12, 1853. Now you can figure that up.
+
+"I was sold four times in slavery times. I was sold through the nigger
+traders and you know they didn't keep you long.
+
+"I was born in Tennessee, raised in Mississippi, and been here in
+Arkansas up and down the Arkansas River ever since I was fifteen.
+
+"A fellow bought me in Tennessee and sold me to a fellow named Abe
+Collins in Mississippi. He sold me to Dr. Maloney and then Winn and
+Trimble in Hempstead County bought me. They run a tanyard.
+
+"I went to school one day in my life. My third master's children
+learned me my ABC's in slavery times. I'm not educated but I can read.
+Read the Bible and something like that.
+
+"The Ku Klux run me one night. They come to the door and I went out
+the window. They went to my master's tanyard in broad open day and
+took leather. Oh, I been all through the roughness. But the Lord has
+blessed me ever since I been in this world. I can see good and hear
+good and get about.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas with some refugees, and I been up and down
+the river ever since.
+
+"In slavery times I had plenty to eat, such as 'twas. Had biscuits on
+Sunday made out of shorts.
+
+"I lived with one man, Dr. Maloney, who was pretty cruel. I run away
+from him once, but he caught me fore night. Put me in a little house
+on bread and water for three or four days and then he sold me. Said he
+wouldn't have a nigger that would run away. Otherwise I been treated
+pretty well.
+
+"I come to Pine Bluff in '82. Last place I farmed was at what they
+call the Nichol place.
+
+"I used to vote Republican--wouldn't let us vote nothin' else. In this
+country they won't let niggers vote in the primary 'cause they can
+vote in the presidential election. I held one office--justice of the
+peace.
+
+"If the younger generation don't change, the Lord goin' to put curses
+on em. That's just what's goin' to come of em. More you do for em the
+worse they is. Don't think about the future--just today."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lawson Jamar,
+                    Edmondson, Arkansas
+Age: 66
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"Papa had twelve children and when he died he lef' two and now I am
+all the big family left.
+
+"Mama was born in Huntsville, Alabama. I was born there too. She was
+Liza, b'long to Tom and Unis Martin. Papa b'long to Mistress Sarah and
+Jack Jamar. They had to work hard. They had to do good work. They had
+to not slight their work. Papa's main job was to carry water to the
+hands. He said it kept him on the go. They had more than one water
+boy. They had to go to the wash hole before they went to bed and wash
+clean. The men had a place and the women had their place. They didn't
+have to get in if it was cold but they had to wash off.
+
+"They hauled a wagon load of axes or hoes and lef' 'em in the field so
+they could get 'em. Then they would haul plows, hoes or axes to the
+shop to be fixed up. They had two or three sets. They worked from
+early till late. They had a cook house. They cooked at their own
+houses when the work wasn't pushing. When they got behind they would
+work in the moonlight. If they got through they all went and help some
+neighbor two or three nights and have a big supper sometimes. They
+done that on Saturday nights, go home and sleep all day Sunday.
+
+"If they didn't have time to wash and clean the houses and the beds
+some older women would do that and tend to the babies. They had a hard
+time during the War. It was hard after the War. Papa brought me to
+this country to farm. He farmed till he started sawmilling for
+Chappman Dewy at Marked Tree. Then he swept out and was in the office
+to help about. He never owned nothing. He come and I farmed. He helped
+a little. He was so old. He talked more about the War and slavery. I
+always have farmed. Farmed all my life.
+
+"I don't farm now. I got asthma and cripple with rheumatism. What my
+wife and children can't do ain't done now. [Three children.] I don't
+get no help but I applied for it.
+
+"Present times is all right where a man can work. The present
+generation rather do on heap less and do less work. They ain't got
+manners and raisin' like I had. They don't know how to be polite. We
+tries to learn 'em [their children] how to do."
+
+
+NOTE: The woman was black and so was the cripple Negro man; their
+house was clean, floors, bed, tables, chairs. Very good warm house.
+They couldn't remember the old tales the father told to tell them to
+me.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: Nellie James,
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"Nellie James is my name. Yes, Mr. D. B. James was my husband, and he
+remembered you very kindly. They call me 'Aunt Nellie.' I was born in
+Starkville, Ouachita County, Mississippi the twenty-ninth of March, in
+1866, just a year after the War closed. My parents were both owned by
+a plantation farmer in Ouachita County, Mississippi, but we came to
+Arkansas a good many years ago.
+
+"My husband was principal of the colored school here at Russellville
+for thirty-five years, and people, both white and black, thought a
+great deal of him. We raised a family of six children, five boys and a
+girl, and they now live in different states, some of them in
+California. One of my sons is a doctor in Chicago and is doing well.
+They were all well educated. Mr. James saw to that of course.
+
+"So far as I remember from what my parents said, the master was
+reasonably kind to all his slaves, and my husband said the same thing
+about his own master although he was quite young at the time they were
+freed. (Yes sir, you see he was born in slavery.)
+
+"I was too young to remember much about the Ku Klux Klan, but I
+remember we used to be afraid of them and we children would run and
+hide when we heard they were coming.
+
+"No sir, I have never voted, because we always had to pay a dollar for
+the privilege--and I never seemed to have the dollar (laughingly) to
+spare at election time. Mr. James voted the Republican ticket
+regularly though.
+
+"All our family were Missionary Baptists. I united with the Baptist
+church when I [HW: was] thirteen years old.
+
+"I think the young people of both races are growing wilder and wilder.
+The parents today are too slack in raising them--too lenient. I don't
+know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to do, or
+what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a time
+trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."
+
+
+NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most
+successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet,
+refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and
+successful family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none
+of the brogue that is characteristic of the colored race of the
+South.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Robert James
+                    4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 66, or older
+Occupation: Cook
+
+
+"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's
+name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David
+Jones was her old master. That was in Mississippi--the good old
+country! People hate it because they don't like the name but it was a
+mighty good country when I was there. The white people there were
+better to the colored people when I was there than they are here. But
+there is a whole lots of places that is worse than Arkansas.
+
+"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with
+nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my
+brother happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought
+about me and wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in
+Chicago following up their information and got in touch with my
+people. Didn't find them out till the great war started. Had to go to
+Europe to find my relatives. My sister's people and mine too were born
+in Illinois, but my mother and two sisters and another brother were
+born in Mississippi. Their kin born in Illinois were half-brothers and
+so on.
+
+
+Refugeeing--Ghosts
+
+"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to
+keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it
+must have been true.
+
+"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to
+driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story
+house. They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise
+nobody; so they just camped there for the night. After they went to
+bed, big balls of fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got
+scared and run out of the house and camped outside for the night.
+There wasn't no more sleeping in that house.
+
+"Some people believe in ghosts and some don't. What do you believe?
+This is what I have seen myself. Mules and horses were running 'round
+screaming and hollering every night. One day, I was walking along when
+I saw a mule big as an elephant with ears at least three feet long and
+eyes as big as auto lamps. He was standing right in the middle of the
+road looking at me and making no motion to move. I was scared to
+death, but I stooped down to pick up a stone. It wasn't but a second.
+But when I raised up, he had vanished. He didn't make a sound. He just
+disappeared in a second. That was in the broad open daylight. That was
+what had been causing all the confusion with the mules and horses.
+
+"When I first married I used to room with an old lady named Johnson.
+Time we went to bed and put the light out, something would open the
+doors. Finally I got scared and used to tell my wife to get up and
+close the doors. Finally she got skittish about it. There used to be
+the biggest storms around there and yet you couldn't see nothin'.
+There wasn't no rain nor nothin'. Just sounds and noises like storms.
+My wife comes to visit me sometimes now.
+
+"My mother says there wasn't any such thing as marriage in slave
+times. Old master jus' said, 'There's your husband, Florida.'"
+
+
+
+
+Little Rock District
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson
+Subject: HISTORY OF ELLIS JEFFERSON--(NEGRO)
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)
+
+This Information given by: Ellis Jefferson (Uncle Jeff) (C)
+Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas
+Occupation: Superanuated Minister of the M. E. Church
+Age: 77
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+He has his second eyesight and his hair is short and white. He is a
+black skinned, bright-eyed old man. "Uncle Jeff" said he remembered
+when the Civil War had ended they passed by where he lived with teams,
+wagons filled, and especially the artillery wagon. They were carrying
+them back to Washington. His mother was freed from Mrs. Nancy Marshall
+of Roanoke, Va. She moved and brought his mother, he and his sister,
+Ann, to Holly Springs, Miss. The county was named for his mistress:
+Marshall County, Mississippi.
+
+In 1868 they moved to [HW: within] 4 miles of DeWitt and 10 miles of
+Arkansas Post. Later they moved to Kansas and near Wichita then back
+to Marshall, Texas. His sister has four sons down there. He thinks she
+is still living. His Mistress went back to Roanoke, Va., and his
+mother died at Marshall. Tom Marshall was his Master's name, but he
+seems to have died in the Civil War. This old Uncle Jeff lived in
+Alabama and has preached there and in northern Mississippi and near
+Helena, Arkansas. He helped cook at Helena in a hotel. He preaches
+some but the WPA supports him now. Uncle Jeff can't remember his
+dreams he said "The Bible says, young men dream dreams and old men see
+visions."
+
+He had a real vision once, he was going late one afternoon to get his
+mules up and he heard a voice "I have a voice I want you to complete.
+Carry my word." He was a member of the church but he made a profession
+and a year later was ordained into the ministry. He believes in
+dreams. Says they are warnings.
+
+Uncle Jeff says he has written some poetry but it has all been lost.
+
+When anyone dies the sexton goes to the church and tolls the bell as
+many times as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church
+for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul
+rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people
+can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery.
+
+[HW: Marshall County, Miss., named for John Marshall of Virginia,
+Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, 1801-35. _History of
+Marshall (County), Mississippi_, by Clayton M. Alexander.]
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
+Subject: [HW: Moses Jeffries]
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)
+
+This information given by: Moses E. Jeffries
+Place of Residence: 1110 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Occupation: Plasterer
+Age: 81 [TR: Age: 75 on 4th page of form.]
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+"I was born in 1856. My age was kept with the cattle. As a rule, you
+know, slaves were chattels. There was a fire and the Bible in which
+the ages were kept was lost. The man who owned me couldn't remember
+what month I was born in. Out of thirteen children, my mother could
+only remember the age of one. I had twelve brothers and sisters--Bob
+Lacy, William Henry, Cain Cecil, Jessie, Charles, Harvey, Johnnie,
+Anna, Rose, Hannah, Lucy, and Thomas. I am the only one living now. My
+parents were both slaves. My father has been dead about fifty-nine
+years and my mother about sixty or sixty-one years. She died before I
+married and I have been married fifty years. I have them in my Bible.
+
+I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said there was
+going to be war. I remember when they had [HW: a] slave market in New
+Orleans. I was living betweeen [TR: between] Pine Bluff and New
+Orleans (living in Arkansas) and saw the slaves chained together as
+they were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of
+the big farms or plantations.
+
+I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the Confederate
+armies when they were retreating near the end of the war. I was just
+about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall, Texas.
+
+The man that owned me said to the old people that they were free,
+that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham Lincoln had set
+them free. Of course, I didn't know what freedom was. They brought the
+news to them one evening, and them niggers danced nearly all night.
+
+I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves first, and
+the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through our field about
+half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs would be trailing them.
+The hunters didn't bother to stop and question us because they knew
+the hounds were on the trail. I have known slaves to run away and stay
+three years at a time. Master would whip them and they would run away.
+They wouldn't have no place to go or stay so they would come back
+after a while. Then they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish
+them much, however, because they might run off again.
+
+
+MARRIAGE
+
+If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would
+ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were
+somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for
+her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all
+the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then.
+You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases,
+however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold
+away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to
+time.
+
+
+INHERITANCE OF SLAVES
+
+If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves should go to
+each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred slaves and they
+divided them up just as you would cattle. Some times there were
+certain slaves that certain children liked, and they were granted
+those slaves.
+
+
+WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED
+
+Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of the niggers got
+anything. They didn't give them anything. The slaves were hired and
+allowed to work the farms on shares. That is where the system of share
+cropping came from. I was hired for fifty dollars a year, but was paid
+only five. The boss said he owed me fourteen dollars but five was all
+I got. I went down town and bought some candy. It was the first time I
+had had that much money.
+
+I couldn't do anything about the pay. They didn't give me any land.
+They hired me to work around the house and I ate what the boss ate.
+But the general run of slaves got pickled pork, molasses, cornmeal and
+sometimes flour (about once a week for Sunday). The food came out of
+the share of the share cropper.
+
+You can tell what they did by what they do now. It (share cropping)
+hasn't changed a particle since. About Christmas was the time they
+usually settled up. Nobody was forced to remain as a servant. I know
+one thing,--Negroes did not go to jail and penitentiary like they do
+now.
+
+
+KU KLUX KLAN
+
+The Ku Klux Klan to the best of my knowledge went into action about
+the time shortly after the war when the amendments to the Constitution
+gave the Negroes the right to vote. I have seen them at night dressed
+up in their uniform. They would visit every Negro's house in the
+comunity [TR: community]. Some they would take out and whip, some they
+would scare to death. They would ask for a drink of water and they had
+some way of drinking a whole bucketful to impress the Negroes that
+they were supernatural. Negroes were very superstitious then. Colonel
+Patterson who was a Republican and a colonel or general of the
+militia, white and colored, under the governorship of Powell Clayton,
+stopped the operation of the Klan in this state. After his work, they
+ceased terrorizing the people.
+
+
+POLITICAL OFFICIALS
+
+Many an ex-slave was elected sheriff, county clerk, probate clerk,
+Pinchback[A] was elected governor in Louisiana. The first Negro
+congressman was from Mississippi and a Methodist preacher Hiram
+Revells[B]. We had a Nigger superintendent of schools of the state of
+Arkansas, J. C. Corbin[C]--I don't remember just when, but it was in
+the early seventies. He was also president of the state school in Pine
+Bluff--organized it.
+
+
+SUFFRAGE
+
+The ex-slave voted like fire directly after the war. That was about
+all that did vote then. If the Niggers hadn't voted they never would
+have been able to elect Negroes to office.
+
+I was elected Alderman once in Little Rock under the administration of
+Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge,
+Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of
+Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of
+public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern
+Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion
+H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all
+aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County, S.
+H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about five feet
+high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of Desha County.
+Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro used to hold good offices
+in this state.
+
+I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter caused it.
+Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern part of the
+state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with the North in the
+war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the North somewheres. When
+Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom the old ex-slaveholders
+supported because he was a Southerner and sided with Baxter against
+Brooks, it put the present Democratic party in power, and they passed
+the Grandfather law barring Negroes from voting.
+
+Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted out. Ballot
+boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally, Negroes got
+discouraged and quit trying to vote."
+
+[Footnote A: [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of
+La. Held office 43 days.]]
+
+[Footnote B: [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of
+Jefferson Davis.]]
+
+[Footnote C: [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of
+public instruction in 1873--served until the end of 1875.]]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher),
+                    Hazen, Ark.
+Age: 77
+
+
+"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and
+he couldn't talk plain.
+
+"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a white
+man. He was a Scotchman.
+
+"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left
+Virginia.
+
+"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em was
+married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly
+Springs, Mississippi in 1867.
+
+"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at
+Holly Springs.
+
+"I had two sisters Ann and Mariah. Old Miss Nancy Marshall had kin
+folks at Marshall, Texas. She took Ann with her and I have never seen
+her since.
+
+"In 1878 we immigrated to Kansas. We soon got back to Helena. Mariah
+died there and in 1881 mother died.
+
+"Old Miss Nancy's boys named Blunt, John, Bill, Harp. I don't know
+where they scattered out to finally.
+
+"All my folks ever expected was freedom. We was nicely taken care of
+till the family split up. My father was suppressed. He belong to
+Master Ernman. He run off and went on with the Yankees when they come
+down from Virginia. We think he got killed. We never heard from him
+after 1863.
+
+"In 1882 my white folks went to Padukah, Kentucky. They was on the run
+from Yellow Fever. They had kin up there. I stayed in Memphis and
+nursed. They put up flags. Negroes didn't have it. They put coffins on
+the porches before the people died. Carried wagons loads of dead
+bodies wrapped in sheets. White folks would meet and pray the disease
+be lifted. When they started vomiting black, there was no more hopes.
+Had to hold them on bed when they was dying. When they have Yellow
+Fever white folks turn yellow. I never heard of a case of Yellow Fever
+in Memphis mong my race. Dr. Stone of New Orleans had better luck with
+the disease than any other doctor. I was busy from June till October
+in Memphis. They buried the dead in long trenches. Nearly all the
+business houses was closed. The boats couldn't stop in towns where
+Yellow Fever had broke out.
+
+"I never seen the Ku Klux.
+
+"I never seen no one sold. My father still held a wild animal instinct
+up in Virginia; they couldn't keep him out of the woods. He would
+spend two or three days back in there. Then the Patty Rollers would
+run him out and back home. He was a quill blower and a banjo picker.
+They had two corn piles and for prizes they give them whiskey. They
+had dances and regular figure callers. This has been told to me at
+night time around the hearth understand. I can recollect when round
+dancing come in. It was in 1880. Here's a song they sung back in
+Virginia: 'Moster and mistress both gone away. Gone down to
+Charleston/ to spend the summer day. I'm off to Charleston/early in
+the mornin'/ to spend nother day.'
+
+"I used to help old Miss Nancy make candles for her little brass lamp.
+We boiled down maple sap and made sugar. We made turpentine.
+
+"I don't know about the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia. We had
+rebellions at Helena in 1875. The white folks put the Negroes out of
+office. They put J. T. White in the river at Helena but I think he got
+out. Several was killed. J. T. White was a colored sheriff in Phillips
+County. In Lee County it was the same way. The Republican party would
+lect them and the Democratic party roust them out of office.
+
+"In 1872 I went to school 2-1/2 miles to Arkansas Post to a white
+teacher. I went four months. Her name was Mrs. Rolling. My white folks
+started me and I could spell to 'Baker' in the Blue Book Speller
+before I started to school. That is the only book I ever had at
+school. I learned to read in the Bible next.
+
+"In 1872 locust was numerous. We had four diseases to break out:
+whooping cough, measles, smallpox; and cholera broke out again. They
+vaccinated for smallpox, first I ever heard of it. They took matter
+out of one persons arm and put it in two dozen peoples arms. It killed
+out the smallpox.
+
+"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and forest
+fires broke out often.
+
+"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We gambled
+and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good raising.
+I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord hailed me in
+wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing in his
+sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to teach a
+Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader. Three
+months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop Lee,
+Johnson, Copeland--all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I
+attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I
+preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee,
+Mississippi, and Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated
+minister.
+
+"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become
+more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the
+home land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some
+work or a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins,
+                    R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 80
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil
+War). I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension
+and he sends me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount
+whatever he can spare me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I
+pick cotton some last year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got
+to raining and so cold my granddaughter said it would make me sick.
+
+"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from
+Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A.
+B. Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was
+name Liddy Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to
+Tennessee from Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than
+ten miles apart. Then they got consent and got married. I don't know
+how they struck up together.
+
+"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins'
+house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His
+daughter lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home
+from the war dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The
+only little children on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no
+kin but jus' like twins. Master would call us up and stick his finger
+in biscuits and pour molasses in the hole. That was sure good eating.
+The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up
+another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got
+them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother
+beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over
+at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us
+biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and
+call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer
+badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to
+whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe
+from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take
+me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get
+my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We walked four miles. He'd
+tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed over there much and
+the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come. They let her
+stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to
+preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to
+come home. Me and papa always walked.
+
+"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't
+know what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the
+best, somebody said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six
+years trying to do as well as they had done in slavery. It was years
+'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing
+well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the
+hardest--eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from
+Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and
+done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the
+girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We
+boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats
+about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we
+rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a
+heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.
+
+"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The
+main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but
+it was carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd
+tell colored folks not to do this and that and it would get them in
+trouble. The Ku Klux would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks
+thought 'cause they was free they ought not work. They got to rambling
+and scattered out.
+
+"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted
+different ways--sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I
+don't believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for
+Cleveland years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the
+last war. I don't believe in war.
+
+"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now.
+Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are
+restless. I see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got
+grown looked so fresh and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried
+now. They fixes up their face but it still show it. Folks quicker than
+they used to be. They acts before they have time to think now. Times
+is good for me but I see old folks need things. I see young folks
+wasteful--both black and white. White folks setting the pace for us
+colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Dora Jerman,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 60?
+
+
+"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father.
+Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee.
+Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around
+handy to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her
+and Aunt Polly both. Aunt Polly was a friend that was sold with her
+every time. They was like sisters and the most pleasure to each other
+in old age.
+
+"My great-great-grandma said to grandma, 'Hurry back wid that pitcher
+of water, honey, so you will have time to run by and see your mama and
+the children and tell them good-bye. Old master says you going to be
+sold early in the morning.' The water was for supper. That was the
+last time she ever seen or heard of any of her own kin folks. Grandma
+said a gang of them was sold next morning. Aunt Polly was no kin but
+they was sold together. Whitfield bought one and Strum bought the
+other.
+
+"They come on a boat from Virginia to Aberdeen, Mississippi. They
+wouldn't sell her mother because she brought fine children. I think
+she said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold
+several times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat
+they had to walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open
+and bled. 'Black Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them
+with hot tallow or mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a
+good girl and mind master and mistress.
+
+"Grandma said she had a hard time all her life. She was my mother's
+mother and she lived to be way over a hundred years old. Aunt Polly
+lived with her daughter when she got old. Grandma died first. Then
+Aunt Polly grieved so. She was old, old when she died. They still
+lived close together, mostly together. Aunt Polly was real black; mama
+was lighter. I called grandma 'mama' a right smart too. They called
+each other 'sis'. Grandma said, 'I love sis so good.' Aunt Polly
+lessened her days grieving for sis. They was both field hands. They
+would tell us girls about how they lived when they was girls. We'd
+cry.
+
+"We lived in the country and we listened to what they said to us. If
+it had been times then like now I wouldn't know to tell you. Folks is
+in such a hurry somehow. Gone or going somewhere all the time.
+
+"All my folks is most all full-blood African. I don't believe in races
+mixing up. It is a sin. Grandma was the brightest one of any of us.
+She was ginger-cake color.
+
+"No, I don't vote. I don't believe in that neither.
+
+"Times is too fast. Fast folks makes fast times. They all fast. Coming
+to destruction."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Adaline Johnson
+                    Joining the Plunkett farms
+                    Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas
+Age: 96
+
+
+"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on
+Strickland's place. My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North
+Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big
+plantations, full of niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where
+my mother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They lived at
+Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old
+master. There was Hue Battle too. Master Joe Battle and Master
+Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to
+whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks
+with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.
+
+"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He
+was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them about it at the hotel. He
+got up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom
+Williams didn't drink. He went to war and got shot. He professed
+religion when he was twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his
+Testament in his pocket and blood run on it. That was when he was shot
+in the Civil War.
+
+"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no
+law to kill a crazy man. They took him to North Carolina where was all
+white folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor
+crazy nigger. They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to
+place all white folks lived.
+
+"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress
+Frankie (Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em be, he ain't goiner
+whoop Fenna, he's kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.'
+They whoop niggers black as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten
+Williams. Fenna was half white. He was John Williams' boy. John was
+Brutten's brother. John Williams went to Mississippi and overseed for
+Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd shoot at anything and call it a
+hawk.
+
+"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to
+sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi learned her how to sew. She
+sewed up bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.
+
+"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe
+Williams. She cooked and wove some in her young life. Rich white folks
+didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they
+changed her about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the
+public.
+
+"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduke
+Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big towns and had a good time.
+Miss Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from
+Mississippi) to North Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it
+all away soon as it ripen. He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy.
+He give some of it out in cups. They said there was some double
+rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.
+
+"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the
+men on his place five dollars and every woman a sow pig to raise from.
+Tole us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one
+and my mother one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever
+had. He got killed. Master Tom was so good to his niggers. He never
+whooped them. His wife ruled him, made him do like she wanted
+everything but mean to his niggers. Her folks slashed their niggers
+and she tried to make him do that too. He wouldn't. They said she wore
+the breeches 'cause she ruled him.
+
+"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away
+from every one of us. We raised 'em up fine big hogs. She took them
+away from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had
+plenty land he left her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen
+Hopkins. They had a boy. He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She
+was so mean. Followed the boy to Texas. They all said she couldn't
+rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom Williams. She didn't.
+
+"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she
+wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had raised a little half white
+boy. 'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's
+little nigger child and give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His
+own black mama beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal Pierce's
+place. They kept Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give
+him to somebody else 'way off. Tom had a brother in Georgia. It was
+Tom's wife wouldn't let Wilks go on living with us.
+
+"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers
+but she was better than any other white women to Wilks and Fenna and
+George.
+
+"'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought
+him a axe, it was a great big axe. They bought him a great big hoe.
+They got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like
+everybody else. 'Big Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim
+Battle was gone off. His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When
+Jim Battle come back he said Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put
+him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big Will'. We never heard or seen him no
+more. His family stayed on the plantation and worked. 'Big Will' could
+split as many more rails as anybody else on the place.
+
+"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy
+babies and raise them.
+
+"The Battles had gins and stores in North Carolina and Williams had
+farms, nothing but farms.
+
+"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after
+the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy, Johnny Williams. He run to
+me, said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was
+when the Yankee soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war.
+I cooked when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded and spun
+then. I had a ounce of cotton to card every night from September till
+March. When I'd be dancing around, Miss Helland Harris Williams say,
+'You better be studying your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop
+dancing.
+
+"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich
+folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the niggers cried and cried and
+bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean
+master.
+
+"They had a mean master right then--Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever
+God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That was in Mississippi. They took
+us back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and
+stage-coaches, wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on
+big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up
+the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.
+
+"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee.
+I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our
+snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night
+so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The
+Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they
+could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina.
+
+"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama--mama was Liza
+Williams--Master Brutten bought her sister three or four years after
+that and they took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now
+they call it Wakefield Post Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid,
+Henry, John was Tom Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.
+
+"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was
+Joe Battle's uncles. Jesse Ford was Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas.
+He come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was
+put on a block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell
+downstairs. I never heard such crying before nor since as I heard that
+day. Said they lost their best master. They knowed how bad they got
+whooped on Ozoo River.
+
+"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big
+towns. He never did marry. My last master was Tom Williams. He was so
+nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard
+times come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks--foot tracks and
+finger tracks both.
+
+"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers
+and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them your finger marks.' Then he
+scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get
+scared, he ain't go to whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not
+goiner hurt him.'
+
+"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of
+white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way they come free
+niggers. Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a
+hog, take it and give it to her. She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto
+baby turned up. Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes
+they did.
+
+"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to
+George to come after them to Ohio. Bill Harris had a baltimore
+trotter. The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open,
+read it, give it to his owner. He got mad and sold George. He was Sam
+Harrises carriage driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned
+him about reading and writing. When the war was over George come
+through on the train. Sam Harris run up there, cracked his heels
+together, hugged him, and give him ten dollars. He sold him when he
+was so mad. I don't know if he went to Ohio to Stinson's or not.
+
+"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after
+freedom.
+
+"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there
+with his leg shot off and was there till he could get on to his folks.
+
+"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was cars
+going different places. We got on Mr. Boyd's car. He paid our way out
+here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd
+brought us right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at
+Raleigh, North Carolina.
+
+"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children
+scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty acres. Some of it in
+woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with
+me--taking care of me. Papa tole my son to take care of me and since
+he died my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go
+hungry nigh all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son
+both. If I could get a cow. We tries to have a garden. They ain't
+making nothing on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I
+ever seen in my life. I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising.
+The doctor put some medicine in my ears--both of them.
+
+"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time
+to take off my shoes and fix the tacks--beat 'em down. They made holes
+in bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and
+stand."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+This is another one of those _terrible_ cases. This old woman is on
+starvation. She had a cow and can't get another one. The son is blind
+but feels about and did milk. The bedbugs are nearly eating her up.
+They scald but can't get rid of them. They have a fairly good house to
+live in. But the old woman is on starvation and away back eight miles
+from Biscoe. I hate to see good old Negroes want for something to eat.
+She acts like a small child. Pitiful, so feeble. The second time I
+went out there I took her daughter who walks out there every week. We
+fixed her up an iron bedstead so she can sleep better. I took her a
+small cake. That was her dinner. She had eaten one egg that morning.
+She was a clean, kind old woman. Very much like a child. Has a rising
+in her head and said she was afraid her head would kill her. She gave
+me a gallon of nice figs her daughter picked, so I paid her
+twenty-five cents for them. She had plenty figs and no sugar.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Alice Johnson
+                    601 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"You want to know what they did in slavery times! They were doin' jus'
+what they do now. The white folks was beatin' the niggers, burning 'em
+and boilin' 'em, workin' 'em and doin' any other thing they wanted to
+do with them. 'Course you wasn't here then to know about nigger dogs
+and bull whips, were you? The same thing is goin' on right now. They
+got the same bull whips and the same old nigger dogs. If you don't
+believe it, go right out here to the county farm and you find 'em
+still whippin' the niggers and tearing them up and sometimes lettin'
+the dogs bite them to save the bull whips.
+
+"I was here in slavery time but I was small and I don't know much
+about it 'cept what they told me. But you don't need to go no further
+to hear all you want to know. They sont you to the right place. They
+all know me and they call me Mother Johnson. So many folks been here
+long as me, but don't want to admit it. They black their hair and
+whiten their faces, and powder and paint. 'Course it's good to look
+good all right. But when you start that stuff, you got to keep it up.
+Tain't no use to start and stop. After a while you got that same color
+hair and them same splotches again. Folks say, 'What's the matter, you
+gittin so dark?' Then you say, 'Uh, my liver is bad.' You got to keep
+that thing up, baby.
+
+"I thank God for my age. I thank God He's brought me safe all the way.
+That is the matter with this world now. It ain't got enough religion.
+
+"I was born in Mississippi way below Jackson in Crystal Springs. That
+is on the I. C. Road near New Orleans. The train that goes there goes
+to New Orleans. I was bred and born and married there in Crystal
+Springs. I don't know just when I was born but I know it was in the
+month of December.
+
+"I remember when the slaves were freed. I remember the War 'cause I
+used to hear them talking about the Yankees and I didn't know whether
+they were mules or horses or what not. I didn't know if they was
+varmints or folks or what not. I can't remember whether I seen any
+soldiers or not. I heard them talking about soldiers, but I didn't see
+none right 'round where we was.
+
+"Now what good's that all goin' to do me? It ain't goin' to do me no
+good to have my name in Washington. Didn't do me no good if he stuck
+my name up on a stick in Washington. Some of them wouldn't know me.
+Those that did would jus' say, 'That's old Alice Johnson.'
+
+"Us old folks, they don't count us. They jus' kick us out of the way.
+They give me 'modities and a mite to spend. Time you go and get lard,
+sugar, meat, and flour, and pay rent and buy wood, you don't have
+'nough to go 'round. Now that might do you some good if you didn't
+have to pay rent and buy wood and oil and water. I'll tell you
+something so you can earn a living. Your mama give you a education so
+you can earn a living and you earnin' it jus' like she meant you to.
+But most of us don't earn it that way, and most of these educated
+folks not earnin' a livin' with their education. They're in jail
+somewheres. They're walkin' up and down Ninth Street and runnin' in
+and out of these here low dives. You go down there to the penitentiary
+and count those prisoners and I'll bet you don't find nary one that
+don't know how to read and write. They're all educated. Most of these
+educated niggers don't have no feeling for common niggers. 'They just
+walk on them like they wasn't living. And don't come to 'em tellin'
+them that you wanting to use them!
+
+"The people et the same thing in slavery time that they eat now. Et
+better then 'n they do now. Chickens, cows, mules died then, they
+throw 'em to the buzzards. Die now, they sell 'em to you to eat.
+Didn't eat that in slavery time. Things they would give to the dogs
+then, they sell to the people to eat now. People et pure stuff in
+slavery. Don't eat pure stuff now. Got pure food law, but that's all
+that is pure.
+
+"My mother's name was Diana Benson and my father's name was Joe Brown.
+That's what folks say, I don't know. I have seen them but I wasn't
+brought up with no mother and father. Come up with the white folks and
+colored folks fust one and then the other. I think my mother and
+father died before freedom. I don't know what the name of their master
+was. All my folks died early.
+
+"The fus' white folks I knowed anything about was Rays. They said that
+they were my old slave-time masters. They were nice to me. Treated me
+like they would their own children. Et and slept with them. They
+treated me jus' like they own. Heap of people say they didn't have no
+owners, but they got owners yet now out there on that government farm.
+
+"The fus' work I done in my life was nussing. I was a child then and I
+stayed with the white folks' children. Was raised up in the house with
+'em. I was well taken care of too. I was jus' like their children.
+That was at Crystal Springs.
+
+"I left them before I got grown and went off with other folks. I never
+had no reason. Jus' went on off. I didn't go for better because I was
+doing better. They jus' told me to come and I went.
+
+"I been living now in Arkansas ever since 1911. My husband and I
+stayed on to work and make a living. I take care of myself. I'm not
+looking for nothin' now but a better home over yonder--better home
+than this. Thank the Lawd, I gits along all right. The government
+gives me a check to buy me a little meat and bread with. Maybe the
+government will give me back that what they took off after a while. I
+don't know. It takes a heap of money to feed thousands and millions of
+people. When the check comes, I am glad to git it no matter how little
+it is. Twarn't for it, I would be in a sufferin' condition.
+
+"I belong to the Arch Street Baptist Church. I been for about twenty
+years. I was married sixteen years to my first husband and
+twenty-eight to my second. The last one has been dead five years and
+the other one thirty-six years. I ain't got none walkin' 'round. All
+my husbands is dead. There ain't nothin' in this quitin' and goin' and
+breakin' up and bustin' up. I don't tell no woman to quit and don't
+tell no man to quit. Go over there and git 'nother woman and she will
+be wuss than the one you got. When you fall out, reason and git
+together. Do right. I stayed with both of my husbands till they died.
+I ain't bothered 'bout another one. Times is so hard no man can take
+care of a woman now. Come time to pay rent, 'What you waiting for me
+to pay rent for? You been payin' it, ain't you?' Come time to buy
+clothes, 'What you waitin' for me to buy clothes for? Where you
+gittin' 'um from before you mai'd me?' Come time to pay the grocery
+bill, 'How come you got to wait for me to pay the grocery bill? Who
+been payin' it?' No Lawd, I don't want no man unless he works. What
+could I do with him? I don't want no man with a home and bank account.
+You can't git along with 'im. You can't git along with him and you
+can't git along with her."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Allen Johnson
+                    718 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: About 82
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia about twelve miles from Cartersville, in Cass
+County, and about the same distance from Cassville. I was a boy about
+eight or nine years old when I come from there. But I have a very good
+memory. Then I have seed the distance and everything in the Geography.
+My folks were dead long ago now. My oldest brother is dead too. He was
+just large enough to go to the mills. In them times, they had mills.
+They would fix him on the horse and he would go ahead.
+
+"My father's name was Clem Johnson, and my mother's name was Mandy.
+Her madam's name I don't know. I was small. I remember my grandma.
+She's dead long long ago. Long time ago! I think her name was Rachel.
+Yes, I'm positive it was Rachel. That is what I believe. I was a
+little bitty fellow then. I think she was my mother's mother. I know
+one of my mother's sisters. Her name was Lucinda. I don't know how
+many she had nor nothin'.
+
+"Johnsons was the name of the masters my mother and father had. They
+go by the name of Johnson yet. Before that I don't know who they had
+for masters. The pastor's name was Lindsay Johnson and the old missis
+was Mary Johnson. People long time ago used to send boys big enough to
+ride to the mill. My brother used to go. It ran by water-power. They
+had a big mill pond. They dammed that up. When they'd get ready to run
+the mill, they'd open that dam and it would turn the wheel. My oldest
+brother went to the mill and played with old master's son and me.
+
+"They used to throw balls over the house and see which could catch
+them first. There would be three or four on a side of the house and
+they would throw the ball over the house to see which side would be
+quickest and aptest.
+
+"My mother and father both belonged to the same man, Lindsay Johnson.
+I was a small boy. I can't tell you how he was to his folks. Seems
+like though he was pretty good to us. Seemed like he was a pretty good
+master. He didn't overwork his niggers. He didn't beat and 'buse them.
+He gave them plenty to eat and drink. You see the better a Negro
+looked and the finer he was the more money he would bring if they
+wanted to sell them. I have heard my mother and father talk about it
+plenty of times.
+
+"My father worked in the field during slavery. My mother didn't do
+much of no kind of work much. She was a woman that had lots of
+children to take care of. She had four children during slavery and
+twelve altogether. Her children were all small when freedom was
+declared. My oldest brother, I don't remember much about slavery
+except playing 'round with him and with the other little boys, the
+white boys and the nigger boys. They were very nice to me.
+
+"I was a great big boy when I heard them talking about the pateroles
+catching them or whipping them. At that time when they would go off
+they would have to have a pass. When they went off if they didn't have
+a pass they would whip and report them to their owners. And they would
+be likely to get another brushing from the owners. The pateroles never
+bothered the children any. The children couldn't go anywhere without
+the consent of the mother and father. And there wasn't any danger of
+them running off. If they caught a little child between plantations,
+they would probably just run them home. It was all right for a child
+to go in the different quarters and play with one another during
+daytime just so they got back before night. I was a small boy but I
+have very good recollections about these things. I couldn't tell you
+whether the pateroles ever bothered my father or not. Never heard him
+say. But he was a careful man and he always knew the best time and way
+to go and come. Them old fellows had a way to git by as well as we do
+now.
+
+"They fed the slaves about what they wanted to. They would give them
+meat and flour and meal. I used to hear my father say the old boss fed
+him well. Then again they would have hog killln' time 'long about
+Christmas. The heads, lights, chittlings and fats would be given to
+the slaves. 'Course I didn't know much about that only what I heard
+from the old folks talking about it. They lived in the way of eating,
+I suppose, better than they do now. Had no expense whatever.
+
+"As to amusements, I'll tell you I don't know. They'd have little
+dances about like they do now. And they give quiltings and they'd have
+a ring play. My mother never knew anything about dances and fiddling
+and such things; she was a Christian. They had churches you know. My
+white folks didn't object to the niggers goin' to meetin'. 'Course
+they had to have a pass to go anywhere. If they didn't they'd git a
+brushin' from the pateroles if they got caught and the masters were
+likely to give them another light brushin' when they got home.
+
+"I think that was a pretty good system. They gave a pass to those that
+were allowed to be out and the ones that were supposed to be out were
+protected. Of course, now you are your own free agent and you can go
+and come as you please. Now the police take the place of the
+pateroles. If they find you out at the wrong time and place they are
+likely to ask you about it.
+
+"A slave was supposed to pick a certain amount of cotton I have heard.
+They had tasks. But we didn't pick cotton. Way back in Georgia that
+ain't no cotton country. Wheat, corn, potatoes, and things like that.
+But in Louisiana and Mississippi, there was plenty of cotton. Arkansas
+wasn't much of a cotton state itself. It was called a 'Hoojer' state
+when I was a boy. That is a reference to the poor white man. He was a
+'Hoojer'. He wasn't rich enough to own no slaves and they called him a
+'Hoojer'.
+
+"The owners would hire them to take care of the niggers and as
+overseers and pateroles. They was hired and paid a little salary jus'
+like the police is now. If we didn't have killing and murderin', there
+wouldn't be no need for the police. The scoundrel who robs and kills
+folks ought to be highly prosecuted.
+
+"I reckon I was along eight or nine years old when freedom came. My
+oldest brother was twelve, and I was next to him. I must have been
+eight or nine--or maybe ten.
+
+"My occupation since freedom has been farming and doing a little job
+work--anything I could git. Work by the day for mechanic and one thing
+and another. I know nothin' about no trade 'ceptin' what I have picked
+up. Never took no contracts 'ceptin' for building a fence or somethin'
+small like that. Mechanic's work I suppose calls for license."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Annie Johnson
+                    804 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"I was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and I was four years old
+when the Civil War closed. My parents died when I was a baby and a
+white lady named Mrs. Mary Peters took me and raised me. They moved
+from there to Champaign, Illinois when I was about six years old. My
+mother died when I was born. Them white people only had two slaves, my
+mother and my father, and my father had run off with the Yankees. Mrs.
+Peters was their mistress. She died when I was eight years old and
+then I stayed with her sister. That was when I was up in Champaign.
+
+"The sister's name was Mrs. Mary Smith. She just taught school here
+and there and around in different places, and I went around with her
+to take care of her children. That kept up until I was twenty years
+old. All of her traveling was in Illinois.
+
+"I didn't get much schooling. I went to school a while and taken sore
+eyes. The doctor said if I continued to go to school, I would strain
+my eyes. After he told me that I quit. I learned enough to read the
+Bible and the newspaper and a little something like that, but I can't
+do much. My eyes is very weak yet.
+
+"When I was twenty years old I married Henry Johnson, who was from
+Virginia. I met him in Champaign. We stayed in Champaign about two
+years. Then we came on down to St. Louis. He was just traveling 'round
+looking for work and staying wherever there was a job. Didn't have no
+home nor nothing. He was a candy maker by trade, but he did anything
+he could get to do. He's been dead for forty years now. He came down
+here, then went back to Champaign and died in Springfield, Illinois
+while I was here.
+
+"I don't get no pension, don't get nothing. I get along by taking in a
+little washing now and then.
+
+"My mother's name was Eliza Johnson and my father's name was Joe
+Johnson. I don't know a thing about none of my grandparents. And I
+don't know what my mother's name was before she married.
+
+"A gentleman what worked on the place where I lived said that if you
+didn't have a pass during slave times, that if the pateroles caught
+you, they would whip you and make you run back home. He said he had to
+run through the woods every which way once to keep them from catching
+him.
+
+"I have heard the old folks talk about being put on the block. The
+colored woman I lived with in Champaign told me that they put her on
+the block and sold her down into Ripley, Mississippi.
+
+"She said that the way freedom came was this. The boss man told her
+she was free. Some of the slaves lived with him and some of them
+picked up and went on off somewhere.
+
+"The Ku Klux never bothered me. I have heard some of the colored
+people say how they used to come 'round and bother the church services
+looking for this one and that one.
+
+"I don't know what to say about these young folks. I declare, they
+have just gone wild. They are almost getting like brutes. A woman come
+by here the other day without more 'n a spoonful of things on and
+stopped and struck a match and lit her cigarette. You can't talk to
+them neither. I don't know what we ought to do about it. They let
+these white men run around with them. I see 'em doing anything. I
+think times are bad and getting worse. Just as that shooting they had
+over in North Little Rock." (Shooting and robbing of Rev. Sherman, an
+A. M. E. minister, by Negro robbers.)
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson
+                    Near Holly Grove and Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 73
+
+
+"My master was Wort Garland. My papa's master was Steve Johnson. Papa
+went off to Louisiana and I never seen him since. I guess he got
+killed. I was born in Madison County, Tennessee. I come to Arkansas
+1889. Mother was here. She come on a transient ticket. My papa come
+wid her to Holly Grove. They both field hands. I worked on the
+section--railroad section. I cut and hauled timber and farms. I never
+own no land, no home. I have two boys went off and a grown girl in
+Phillips County. I don't get no help. I works bout all I able and can
+get to do.
+
+"I have voted. I votes a Republican ticket. I like this President. If
+the men don't know how to vote recken the women will show em how.
+
+"The present conditions is very good. The present generation is beyond
+me.
+
+"I heard my folks set around the fireplace at night and talk about
+olden times but I couldn't tell it straight and I was too little to
+know bout it.
+
+"We looked all year for Christmas to get some good things in our
+stockings. They was knit at night. Now we has oranges and bananas all
+the time, peppermint candy--in sticks--best candy I ever et. Folks
+have more now that sort than we had when I was growing up. We was
+raised on meat and corn bread, milk, and garden stuff. Had plenty
+apples, few peaches, sorghum molasses, and peanuts. Times is better
+now than when I come on far as money goes. Wood is scarce and folks
+can't have hogs no more. No place to run and feed cost so much. Can't
+buy it. Feed cost more 'en the hog. Times change what makes the folks
+change so much I recken."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson (deaf),
+                    Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+Black
+
+
+"Steve Johnson was my owner. Way he come by me was dat he married in
+the Ward family and heired him and my mother too. Louis Johnson was my
+father's name. At one time Wort Garland owned my mother, and she was
+sold. Her name was Mariah.
+
+"My father went to war twice. Once he was gone three weeks and next
+time three or four months. He come home sound. I stayed on Johnson's
+farm till I was a big boy."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Betty Johnson
+                    1920 Dennison Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, within a block of the statehouse.
+We were the only colored people in the neighborhood. I am eighty-three
+years old. I was born free. I have never been a slave. I never met any
+slaves when I was small, and never talked to any. I didn't live near
+them and didn't have any contacts with them.
+
+"My father carried my mother to Pennsylvania before I was born and set
+her free. Then he carried her back to Montgomery, Alabama, and all her
+children were born free there.
+
+"We had everything that life needed. He was one of the biggest
+planters around in that part of the country and did the shipping for
+everybody.
+
+"My mother's name was Josephine Hassell. She had nine children. All of
+them are dead except three. One is in Washington, D. C.; another is in
+Chicago, Illinois, and then I am here. One of my brothers was a mail
+clerk for the government for fifty years, and then he went to
+Washington and worked in the dead letter office.
+
+"My father taken my oldest brother just before the Civil War and
+entered him in Yale and he stayed there till he finished. Later he
+became a freight conductor and lost his life when his train was caught
+in a cyclone. That's been years ago.
+
+"My sisters in Washington and Chicago are the only two living besides
+myself. All the others are dead. All of them were government workers.
+My sister in Washington has four boys and five girls. My sister in
+Chicago has two children--one in Detroit and one in Washington. I am
+the oldest living.
+
+"We never had any kind of trouble with white people in slave time, and
+we never had any since. Everybody in town knowed us, and they never
+bothered us. The editor of the paper in Montgomery got up all our
+history and sent the paper to my brother in Washington. If I had saved
+the paper, I would have had it now. I don't know the name of the
+paper. It was a white paper. I can't even remember the name of the
+editor.
+
+"We were always supported by my father. My mother _did_ [HW: ?] do
+nothing at all except stay home and take care of her children. I had a
+father that cared for us. He didn't leave that part undone. He did his
+part in every respect. He sent every child away to school. He sent two
+to Talladega, one to Yale, three to Fiske, and one to Howard
+University.
+
+"I don't remember much about how freedom came to the slaves. You see,
+we didn't live near any of them and would not notice, and I was young
+anyway. All I remember is that when the army came in, everybody had a
+stick with a white handkerchief on it. The white handkerchief
+represented peace. I don't know just how they announced that the
+slaves were free.
+
+"We lived in as good a house as this one here. It had eight rooms in
+it. I was married sixty years ago. My husband died two years ago. We
+were married fifty-eight years. Were the only colored people here to
+celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. (She is mistaken in this; Waters
+McIntosh has been married for fifty-six years and he and his wife are
+still making it together in an ideal manner--ed.) I am the mother of
+eight children; three girls are living and two boys. The rest are
+dead.
+
+"I married a good man. Guess there was never a better. We lived
+happily together for a long time and he gave me everything I needed.
+He gave me and my children whatever we asked for.
+
+"I was sick for three years. Then my husband took down and was sick
+for seven years before he died.
+
+"I belong to the Holiness Church down on Izard Street, and Brother
+Jeeter is my pastor."
+
+
+INTERVIEWER'S COMMENT
+
+Betty Johnson's memory is accurate, and she tells whatever she wishes
+to tell without hesitation and clearly. She leaves out details which
+she does not wish to mention evidently, and there is a reserve in her
+manner which makes questioning beyond a certain point impertinent.
+However, just what she tells presents a picture into which the details
+may easily be fitted.
+
+Her husband is dead, but he was evidently of the same type she is. She
+lives in a beautiful and well kept cottage. Her husband left a similar
+house for each of her three children. The husband, of course, was
+colored. It is equally evident that the father was white.
+
+Although my questions traveled into corners where they evidently did
+not wish to follow, the mother and son, who was from time to time with
+her, answered courteously and showed no irritation.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Cinda Johnson
+                    506 E. Twenty, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"Yes ma'm, this is Cinda. Yes'm, I remember seein' the soldiers but I
+didn't know what they was doin'. You know old folks didn't talk in
+front of chilluns like they does now--but I been here. I got great
+grand chillun--boy big enuf to chop cotton. That's my daughter's
+daughter's chile. Now you _know_ I been here.
+
+"I heered em talkin' bout freedom. My mother emigrated here drectly
+after freedom. I was born in Alabama. When we come here, I know I was
+big enuf to clean house and milk cows. My mother died when I was bout
+fifteen. She called me to the bed and tole me who to stay with. I been
+treated bad, but I'm still here and I thank the Lord He let me stay.
+
+"I been married twice. My first husband died, but I didn't have no
+graveyard love. I'm the mother of ten whole chillun. All dead but two
+and only one of them of any service to me. That's my son. He's good to
+me and does what he can but he's got a family. My daughter-in-law--all
+she does is straighten her hair and look cute.
+
+"One of my sons what died belonged to the Odd Fellows and I bought
+this place with insurance. I lives here alone in peace. Yes, honey, I
+been here a long time."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Ella Johnson
+                    913-1/2 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: About 85
+
+
+"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Not exactly in the town but in hardly
+not more than three blocks from the town. Have you heard about the
+Grissoms down there? Well, them is my white folks. My maiden name was
+Burke. But we never called ourselves any name 'cept Grissom.
+
+"My mother's name was Sylvia Grissom. Her husband was named Jack
+Burkes. He went to the Civil War. That was a long time ago. When they
+got up the war, they sold out a lot of the colored folks. But they
+didn't get a chance to sell my mother. She left. They tell me one of
+them Grissom boys has been down here looking for me. He didn't find me
+and he went on back.
+
+My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was named
+after the white folks. All the old folks is dead, but the young ones
+is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many
+of them that I forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children
+named after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.
+
+"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena
+and came here. She run off from the Grissoms. They whipped her too
+much, those white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. She
+took all of us with her. All six of us children were born before the
+war. I was the fourth.
+
+"There is a place down here where the white folks used to whip and
+hang the niggers. Baskin Lake they call it. Mother got that far. I
+don't know how. I think that she came in a wagon. She stayed there a
+little while and then she went to Churchill's place. Churchill's place
+and John Addison's place is close together down there. That is old
+time. Them folks is dead, dead, dead. Churchill's and Addison's places
+joined near Horse Shoe Lake. They had hung and burnt people--killed
+'em and destroyed 'em at Baskin Lake. We stayed there about four days
+before we went on to Churchill's place. We couldn't stay there long.
+
+"The ha'nts--the spirits--bothered us so we couldn't sleep. All them
+people that had been killed there used to come back. We could hear
+them tipping 'round in the house all the night long. They would blow
+out the light. You would kiver up and they would git on top of the
+kiver. Mama couldn't stand it; so she come down to General Churchill's
+place and made arrangements to stay there. Then she came back and got
+us children. She had an old man to stay there with us until she come
+back and got us. We couldn't stay there with them ha'nts dancing
+'round and carryin' us a merry gait.
+
+"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know
+what they give her for the work, but I know they paid her. She was a
+hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee.
+He went off and left the plantation in the hands of his oldest son.
+His son was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the
+first war ever got up--the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long
+enough to make two or three crops. I don't know just how long.
+Churchill and them wanted to own her--them and John Addison.
+
+"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field.
+Three--I made four. There was my oldest sister, my brother, and my
+next to my oldest sister, and myself--Annie, John, Martha, and me. I
+chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my
+company walked out ahead. I was young then, but my company helped me
+pick that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res'
+of them could pick anything for looking at him.
+
+"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died
+before the war was over. They paid my mother some money and said she
+would get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it?
+But they didn't no more come. They all died and none of them got the
+balance. I ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to Adams
+and Singfield. I give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged
+Wash Jordan sent to me. They all say he's a big crook, but I didn't
+know it. Adams kept coming to my house until he got my papers and then
+when he got the papers he didn't come no more.
+
+"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's.
+He said I had to be sworn in and it would cost me one dollar.
+Singfield wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he
+got through writing, he said that was all and me and Pearl made up one
+dollar between us and give it to him. And then we come on away. We
+left Mr. Adams and Mr. Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the
+papers there in the office with them. They didn't give me no receipt
+for the papers and they didn't give me no receipt for the dollar.
+Singfield's wife has been to see me several times to sell me
+something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave, but she ain't never
+said nothin' about those papers. You think she doesn't know 'bout 'em?
+I have seen Adams once down to Jim Perry's funeral on Arch Street. I
+asked him about my papers and he said the Government hadn't answered
+him. He said, 'Who is you?' I said, 'This is Mrs. Johnson.' Then he
+went on out. He told me when he got a answer, it will come right to my
+door.
+
+"I never did no work before goin' on Churchill's plantation. Some of
+the oldest ones did, but I didn't. I learned how to plow at John
+Addison's place. The war was goin' on then. I milked cows for him and
+churned and cleaned up. I cooked some for him. Are you acquainted with
+Blass? I nursed Julian Blass. I didn't nurse him on Addison's place; I
+nursed him at his father's house up on Main Street, after I come here.
+I nursed him and Essie both. I nursed her too. I used to have a time
+with them chillen. They weren't nothin' but babies. The gal was about
+three months old and Julian was walkin' 'round. That was after I come
+to Little Rock.
+
+"My mother come to Little Rock right after the war. She brought all of
+us with her but the oldest. He come later.
+
+"She want to work and cooked and washed and ironed here. I don't
+remember the names of the people she worked for. They all dead--the
+old man and the old ladies.
+
+"She sent me to school. I went to school at Philander [HW: (Philander
+Smith College?)] and down to the end of town and in the country. We
+had a white man first and then we had a colored woman teacher. The
+white man was rough. He would fight all the time. I would read and
+spell without opening my book. They would have them blue-back spellers
+and McGuffy's reader. They got more education then than they do now.
+Now they is busy fighting one another and killin' one another. When
+you see anything in the paper, you don't know whether it is true or
+not. Florence Lacy's sister was one of my teachers. I went to Union
+school once. [HW: ---- insert from P. 5]
+
+"You remember Reuben White? They tried to bury him and he came to
+before they got him in the grave. He used to own the First Baptist
+Church. He used to pastor it too. He sent for J. P. Robinson by me. He
+told Robinson he wanted him to take the Church and keep it as long as
+he lived. Robinson said he would keep it. Reuben White went to his
+brother's and died. They brought him back here and kept his body in
+the First Baptist Church a whole week. J. P. carried on the meetin',
+and them sisters was fightin' him. They went on terrible. He started
+out of the church and me and 'nother woman stopped him. At last they
+voted twice, and finally they elected J. P. He was a good pastor, but
+he hurrahed the people and they didn't like that.
+
+"Reuben White didn't come back when they buried him the second time.
+They were letting the coffin down in the grave when they buried him
+the first time, and he knocked at it on the inside, knock, knock.
+(Here the old lady rapped on the doorsill with her knuckles--ed.) They
+drew that coffin up and opened it. How do I know? I was there. I heard
+it and seen it. They took him out of the coffin and carried him back
+to his home in the ambulance. He lived about three or four years after
+that.
+
+"I had a member to die in my order and they sent for the undertaker
+and he found that she wasn't dead. They took her down to the
+undertaker's shop, and found that she wasn't dead. They said she died
+after they embalmed her. That lodge work ran my nerves down. I was in
+the Tabernacle then. Goodrich and Dubisson was the undertakers that
+had the body. Lucy Tucker was the woman. I guess she died when they
+got her to the shop. They say the undertaker cut on her before he
+found that she was dead.
+
+"I don't know how many grades I finished in school. I guess it was
+about three altogether. I had to git up and go to work then. [TR: This
+paragraph was marked with a line on the right; possibly it is the
+paragraph to be inserted on the previous page.]
+
+"After I quit school, I nursed mighty nigh all the time. I cooked for
+Governor Rector part of the time. I cooked for Dr. Lincoln Woodruff. I
+cooked for a whole lot of white folks. I washed and ironed for them
+Anthonys down here. She like to had a fit over me the last time she
+saw me. She wanted me to come back, but my hand couldn't stand it. I
+cooked for Governor Rose's wife. That's been a long time back. I
+wouldn't 'low nobody to come in the kitchen when I was working. I
+would say, 'You goin' to come in this kitchen, I'll have to git out.'
+The Governor was awful good to me. They say he kicked the res' of them
+out. I scalded his little grandson once. I picked up the teakettle.
+Didn't know it had water in it and it slipped and splashed water over
+the little boy's hand. If'n it had been hot as it ought to have been,
+it would have burnt him bad. He went out of that kitchen hollerin'.
+The Governor didn't say nothin' 'cept, 'Ella, please don't do it
+again.' I said, 'I guess that'll teach him to stay out of that kitchen
+now.' I was boss of that kitchen when I worked there.
+
+"We took the lock off the door once so the Governor couldn't git in
+it.
+
+"I dressed up and come out once and somebody called the Governor and
+said, 'Look at your cook.' And he said, 'That ain't my cook.' That was
+Governor Rector. I went in and put on my rags and come in the kitchen
+to cook and he said, 'That is my cook.' He sure wanted me to keep on
+cookin' for him, but I just got sick and couldn't stay.
+
+"I hurt my hand over three years ago. My arm swelled and folks rubbed
+it and got all the swelling down in one place in my hand. They told me
+to put fat meat on it. I put it on and the meat hurt so I had to take
+it off. Then they said put the white of an egg on it. I did that too
+and it was a little better. Then they rubbed the place until it
+busted. But it never did cure up. I poisoned it by goin' out pulling
+up greens in the garden. They tell me I got dew poisoning.
+
+"I don't git no help from the Welfare or from the Government. My
+husband works on the relief sometimes. He's on the relief now.
+
+"I married--oh, Lordy, lemme see when I did marry. It's been a long
+time ago, more 'n thirty years it's been. It's been longer than that.
+We married up here on Twelfth and State Street, right here in Little
+Rock. I had a big wedding. I had to go to Thompson's hall. That was on
+Tenth and State Street. They had to go to git all them people in. They
+had a big time that night.
+
+"I lived in J. P. Robinson's house twenty-two years. And then I lived
+in front of Dunbar School. It wasn't Dunbar then. I know all the
+people that worked at the school. I been living here about six
+months."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Ella Johnson is about eighty-five years old. Her father went to war
+when the War first broke out. Her mother ran away then and went to
+Churchill's farm not later than 1862. Ella Johnson learned to plow
+then and she was at least nine years old she says and perhaps older
+when she learned to plow. So she must be at least eighty-five.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: Fanny Johnson
+Aged: 76
+Home: Palmetto (lives with daughter who owns
+a comfortable, well furnished home)
+
+
+As told by: Mrs. Fanny Johnson
+
+"Yes ma'am. I remembers the days of slavery. I was turned five years
+old when the war started rushing. No ma'am, I didn't see much of the
+Yankees. They didn't come thru but twice. Was I afraid? No ma'am. I
+was too busy to be scared. I was too busy looking at the buttons they
+wore. Until they went in Master's smoke house. Then I quit looking and
+started hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.
+
+My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold to a man named Woodfork
+and brought to Nashville. The Woodfork colored folks was always
+treated good. Master used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he
+bought one in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't
+believe in separating families. He didn't believe in dividing mother
+from her baby.
+
+But they did take them away from their babies. I remember my
+grandmother telling about it. The wagon would drive down into the
+field and pick up a woman. Then somebody would meet her at the gate
+and she would nurse her baby for the last time. Then she'd have to go
+on. Leastwise, if they hadn't sold her baby too.
+
+It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White
+or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing
+against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about. Most of the time
+it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he
+couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the
+Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up
+at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the overseers was good to
+us.
+
+But it wasn't that way on all the plantations. On the next one they
+was mean. Why you could hear the sound of the strap for two blocks. No
+there wasn't any blocks. But you could hear it that far. The "niggah
+drivah" would stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would
+stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some they whipped
+so hard they had to carry them in. Just once did anybody on the
+Woodfork place get whipped that way.
+
+We never knew quite what happened. But my grandmother thought that the
+colored man what took down the ages of the children so they'd know
+when to send them to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else
+couldn't have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said, 'I
+bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And the overseer
+didn't dare do so any more.
+
+No ma'am, I never worked in the field. I wasn't old enough. You see I
+helped my grandmother, she is the one who took care of the babies. All
+the women from the lower end would bring their babies to the upper end
+for her to look after while they was in the field. When I got old
+enough, I used to help rock the cradles. We used to have lots of
+babies to tend. The women used to slip in and nurse their babies. If
+the overseer thought they stayed too long he used to come in and whip
+them out--out to the fields. But they was good to us, just the same.
+We had plenty to wear and lots to eat and good cabins to live in. All
+of them wasn't that way though.
+
+I remember the women on the next plantation used to slip over and get
+somthing to eat from us. The Woodfork colored folks was always well
+took care of. Our white folks was good to us. During the week there
+was somebody to cook for us. On Sunday all of them cooked in their
+cabins and they had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even
+when they was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough
+to eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our place. The
+Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for food. Our white folks
+treated us real good.
+
+Didn't make much difference when the war started rushing. We didn't
+see any fighting. I told you the Yankees come thru twice----let me go
+back a spell.
+
+We had lots of barrels of Louisiana molasses. We could eat all we
+wanted. When the barrels was empty, we children was let scrape them.
+Lawsey, I used to get inside the barrel and scrape and scrape and
+scrape until there wasn't any sweetness left.
+
+We was allowed to do all sorts of other things too. Like there was
+lots of pecans down in the swamps. The boys, and girls too for that
+matter, was allowed to pick them and sell them to the river boats what
+come along. The men was let cut cord wood and sell it to the boats.
+Flat boats they was. There was regular stores on them. You could buy
+gloves and hats and lots of things. They would burn the wood on the
+boat and carry the nuts up North to sell. But me, I liked the sugar
+barrel best.
+
+When the Yankees come thru, I wasn't scared. I was too busy looking at
+the bright buttons on their coats. I edged closer and closer. All they
+did was laugh. But I kept looking at them. Until they went into the
+smoke house. Then I turned loose and hollered. I hollored because I
+thought they was going to take all Master's sirup. I didn't want that
+to happen. No ma'am they didn't take nothing. Neither time they came.
+
+After the war was over they took us down the river to The Bend. It was
+near Vicksburg----an all day's ride. There they put us on a plantation
+and took care of us. It was the most beautifulest place I ever see.
+All the cabins was whitewashed good. The trees was big and the whole
+place was just lovely. It was old man Jeff Davis' place.
+
+They fed us good, gave us lots to eat. They sent up north, the Yankees
+did, and got a young white lady to come down and teach us. I didn't
+learn nothing. They had our school near what was the grave yard. I
+didn't learn cause I was too busy looking around at the tombstones.
+They was beautiful. They looked just like folks to me. Looks like I
+ought have learned. They was mighty good to send somebody down to
+learn us that way. I ought have learned, it looks ungrateful, but I
+didn't.
+
+My mother died on that place. It was a mighty nice place. Later on we
+come to Arkansas. We farmed. Looked like it was all we knowed how to
+do. We worked at lots of places. One time we worked for a man named
+Thomas E. Allen. He was at Rob Roy on the Arkansas near Pine Bluff.
+Then we worked for a man named Kimbroo. He had a big plantation in
+Jefferson county. For forty years we worked first one place, then
+another.
+
+After that I went out to Oklahoma. I went as a cook. Then I got the
+idea of following the resort towns about. In the summer I'd to [TR:
+go?] to Eureka.[D] In the winter I'd come down to Hot Springs.[E] That
+was the way to make the best money. Folks what had money moved about
+like that. I done cooking at other resorts too. I cooked at the hotel
+at Winslow.[F] I done that several summers.
+
+Somehow I always come back to Hot Springs. Good people in Eureka.
+Finest man I ever worked for--for a rich man was Mr. Rigley, [TR:
+Wrigley] you know. He was the man who made chewing gum. We didn't have
+no gas in Eureka. Had to cook by wood. I remember lots of times Mr.
+Wrigley would come out in the yard where I was splitting kindling.
+He'd laugh and he'd take the ax away from me and split it hisself.
+Finest man----for a rich man I ever see.
+
+Cooking at the hotel at Winslow was nice. There was lots of fine
+ladies what wanted to take me home with them when they went home. But
+I told them, 'No thank you, Hot Springs is my home. I'm going there
+this winter.'
+
+I'm getting sort of old now. My feet ain't so sure as they used to be.
+But I can get about. I can get around to cook and I can still see to
+thread a needle. My daughter has a good home for me." (I was conducted
+into a large living room, comfortably furnished and with a degree of
+taste--caught glimpses of a well furnished dining room and a kitchen
+equipment which appeared thoroughly modern--Interviewer)
+
+"People in Hot Springs is good people. They seem sort of friendly.
+Folks in Eureka did too, even more so. But maybe it was cause I was
+younger then and got to see more of them. But the Lord has blessed me
+with a good daughter. I got nothing to complain about, I don't hold
+grudges against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is doing."
+
+[Footnote D: Eureka Springs, Ark.]
+
+[Footnote E: Hot Springs National Park]
+
+[Footnote F: rustic hotel on mountain near village of Winslow, Ark.]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: George Johnson
+                    814 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 75
+
+
+"I was born in Richmond, Virginia, September 28, 1862, and came to
+this country in 1869. My father was named Benjamin Johnson and my
+mother was named Phoebe Johnson. I don't know the names of my
+grandmother and grandfather. My father's master was named Johnson; I
+forget his first name. He was a doctor and lived on Charleston and
+Morgan Streets. I don't know what my mother's name was before she
+married my father. And I don't know what her master's name was. She
+died when I was just three years old.
+
+"The way my father happened to bring me out here was, Burton Tyrus
+came out here in Richmond stump speaking and telling the people that
+money grew like apples on a tree in Arkansas. They got five or six
+boat loads of Negroes to come out here with them. Father went to share
+cropping on the Red River Bottom on the Chickaninny Farm. He put in
+his crop, but by the time he got ready to gather it, he taken sick and
+died. He couldn't stand this climate.
+
+"Then me and my sisters was supposed to be bound out to Henry Moore
+and his wife. I stayed with them about six years and then I ran off.
+And I been scouting 'round for myself ever since.
+
+"My occupation has been chiefly public work. My first work was rail
+roading and steam boating. I was on the Iron Mountain when she was
+burning wood. That was about fifty some years ago. After that I worked
+on the steamboats _Natchez_ and _Jim Lee_. I worked on them as
+roustabout. After that I would just commence working everywhere I
+could get it. I came here about forty-five years ago because I liked
+the city. I was in and out of the city but made this place my
+headquarters.
+
+"I'm not able to do any work now. I put in for the Old Age Pension two
+years ago. They told me I would have to prove my age but I couldn't do
+it any way except to produce my marriage license. I produced them. I
+got the license right out of this county courthouse here. I was
+married the last time in 1907 and was forty-five years old then. That
+will make me seventy-six years old this year--the twenty-eighth day of
+this coming September. My wife died nine years ago.
+
+"I have heard my father talking a little but old folks then didn't
+allow the young ones to hear much. My daddy sent me to bed at night.
+When night came you went to bed; you didn't hang around waiting to
+hear what the old folks would say.
+
+"My daddy got his leg shot in the Civil War. He said he was in that
+battle there in Richmond. I don't know which side he was on, but I
+know he got his leg shot off. He was one-legged. He never did get any
+pension. I don't know even whether he was really enlisted or not. All
+I know is that he got his leg shot off in the war.
+
+"When the war ended in 1865, the slaves around Richmond were freed. I
+never heard my father give the details of how he got his freedom. I
+was too young to remember them myself.
+
+"I don't know how many slaves Dr. Johnson had but I know it was a good
+many, for he was a tobacco raiser. I don't remember what kind of
+houses his slaves lived in. [And I never heard the kind of food we
+et.] [HW: ?]
+
+"I never heered tell of patrols till I came to Arkansas. I never
+heered much of the Ku Klux either. I guess that was all the same,
+wasn't it? Peace wasn't declared here till 1866. I never heered of
+any of my acquaintances being bothered but I heered the colored people
+was scared. All I know was that you had to come in early. Didn't, they
+get you.
+
+"What little schooling I got, I got it by going to night school here.
+That is been a good many years back--forty years back. I forgot now
+who was teaching night school. It was some kin of Ishes out here I
+know.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"I think times is tight now. Tighter than I ever knowed 'em to be
+before. Quite a change in this world now. There is not enough work now
+for the people and from what I can see, electricity has knocked the
+laboring man out. It has cut the mules and the men out.
+
+"My opinion of these young people is that they got all the education
+in the world and no business qualifications. They are too fast for any
+use."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Johnson
+                    R.F.D., Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 73
+
+
+"I was born sixteen miles on the other side of Jackson, Tennessee. The
+old mistress was Miss Sally, and old master was Mr. Steve Johnson,
+same name as mine. My papa's name was Louis Johnson but my mama
+belonged to the Conleys and befo' she married papa her name was Martha
+Conley. My folks fur as I knowed was field hands. They stayed on at
+Johnsons and worked a long time after freedom. I was born just befo'
+freedom. From what I heard all of my folks talkin' the Ku Klux 'fected
+the colored folks right smart, more than the war. Seemed 'bout like
+two wars and both of 'em tried their best to draw in the black race.
+The black race wanted peace all the time. It was Abraham Lincoln whut
+wanted to free the black race. He was the President. The first war was
+'bout freedom and the war right after it was equalization. The Ku Klux
+muster won it cause they didn't want the colored folks have as much as
+they have. I heard my folks say they knowed some of the Ku Klux. They
+would get killed sometimes and then you hear 'bout it. They would be
+nice as pie in day time and then dress up at night and be mean as they
+could be. They wanted the colored folks think they was hants and
+monsters from the bad place. All the Yankees whut wanted to stay after
+they quit fighting, they run 'em out wid hounds at night. The Ku Klux
+was awful mean I heard 'em say. Mr. Steve Johnson looked after all his
+hands. All that stayed on to work for him. He told 'em long as they
+stayed home at night and behave 'em selves they needn't be scared.
+They wanter go out at night they had to have him write 'em a pass.
+Jess like slavery an' they were free.
+
+"The master didn't give 'em nuthin'. He let 'em live in his
+houses--log houses, and he had 'em fed from the store stead of the
+smoke house. He give 'em a little money in the fall to pay 'em. 'Bout
+all the difference they didn't get beat up. If they didn't work he
+would make 'em leave his place.
+
+"That period--after the Civil War, it sure was hard. It was a
+_de_'pression I'll tell you. I never seed a dollar till I was 'bout
+grown. They called 'em 'wagon wheels.' They was mighty scarce. Great
+big heavy pieces of silver. I ain't seed one fer years. But they used
+to be some money.
+
+"Lady, whut you wanter know was fo my days, fo I was born. My folks
+could answered all dem questions. There was 4 girls and 6 boys in my
+family.
+
+"Course I did vote. I used to have a heap a fun on election day. They
+give you a drink. It was plentiful I tell you. I never did drink much.
+I voted Republican ticket. I know it would sho be too bad if the white
+folks didn't hunt good canidates. The colored race got too fur behind
+to be able to run our govmint. Course I mean education. When they git
+educated they ain't studyin' nuthin' but spendin' all they make and
+havin' a spreein' time. Lady, that is yo job. The young generation
+ain't carin' 'bout no govinment.
+
+"The present conditions--that's whut I been tellin' you 'bout. It is
+hard to get work heap of the time. When the white man got money he
+sure give the colored man and woman work to do. The white man whut
+live 'mong us is our best friend. He stand by our color the best. It
+is a heap my age, I reckon, I can't keep in work. Young folks can pick
+up work nearly all time.
+
+"I started to pay fer my home when I worked at the mill. I used to
+work at a shoe and shettle mill. I got holt of a little cash. I still
+tryin' to pay fer my home. I will make 'bout two bales cotton this
+year. Yes maam they is my own. I got a hog. I got a garden. I ain't
+got no cow.
+
+"No maam I don't get no 'sistance from the govmint. No commodities--no
+nuthin'. I signed up but they ain't give me nuthin'. I think I am due
+it. I am gettin' so no account I needs it. Lady, I never do waste no
+money. I went to the show ground and I seed 'em buyin' goobers and
+popcorn. I seed a whole drove of colored folks pushin' and scrouging
+in there so feared they wouldn't get the best seat an' miss somepin.
+Heap of poor white people scrouging in there too all together. They
+need their money to live on fo cold weather come. Ain't I tellin' you
+right? I sho never moved outer my tracks. I never been to a show in my
+life. Them folks come in here wid music and big tent every year. I
+never been to a show in my life. That what they come here fur, to get
+the cotton pickin' money. Lady, they get a pile of money fore they
+leave. Course folks needs it now.
+
+"When I had my mules and rented I made most and next to that when I
+farmed for a fourth. When I was young I made plenty. I know how cotton
+an' corn is made now but I ain't able to do much work, much hard work.
+The Bible say twice a child and once a man. My manhood is gone fur as
+work concerned.
+
+"I like mighty well if you govmint folks could give me a little
+'sistance. I need it pretty bad at times and can't get a bit."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Letha Johnson
+                    2203 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"I heered the people say I was born in time of slavery. I was born
+durin' of the War.
+
+"And when we went back home they said we had been freed four years.
+
+"My father's last owner was named Crawford. He was a awful large man.
+That was in Monroe County, Mississippi.
+
+"I know they was good to us 'cause we stayed right there after freedom
+till my father died in 1889. And mama stayed a year or two, then she
+come to Arkansas.
+
+"After my husband died in 1919, I went to Memphis. Then this girl I
+raised--her mother willed her to me--I come here to Arkansas to live
+with her after I got down with the rheumatism so I couldn't wash and
+iron.
+
+"In my husband's lifetime I didn't do nothin' but farm. And after I
+went to Memphis I cooked. Then I worked for a Italian lady, but she
+did her own cookin'. And oh, I thought she could make the best
+spaghetti.
+
+"I used to spin and make soap. My last husband and I was married
+fifteen years and eight months and we never did buy a bar of soap. I
+used to be a good soap maker. And knit all my own socks and stockin's.
+
+"I used to go to a school-teacher named Thomas Jordan. I remember he
+used to have us sing a song
+
+    'I am a happy bluebird
+    Sober as you see;
+    Pure cold water
+    Is the drink for me.
+
+    I'll take a drink here
+    And take a drink there,
+    Make the woods ring
+    With my temperance prayer.'
+
+We'd all sing it; that was our school song. I believe that's the
+onliest one I can remember.
+
+"'Bout this younger generation--well, I tell you, it's hard for me to
+say. It just puts me to a wonder. They gone a way back there. Seem
+like they don't have any 'gard for anything.
+
+"I heard 'em 'fore I left Mississippi singin'
+
+    'Everybody's doin' it, doin' it.'
+
+"'Co'se when I was young they was a few that was wild, but seem like
+now they is all wild. But I feels sorry for 'em."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lewis Johnson
+                    713 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 87
+
+
+"I'll be eighty-seven the eighteenth of this month if I live.
+
+"They's a heap of things the human family calls luck. I count myself
+lucky to be livin' as old as I is.
+
+"Some says it is a good deed I've done but I says it's the power of
+God.
+
+"I never had but two spells of sickness when I was spectin' to die.
+Once was in Mississippi. I had a congestis chill. I lay speechless
+twenty-four hours and when I come to myself they had five doctors in
+the house with me.
+
+"But my time hadn't come and I'm yet livin' by the help of the good
+Master.
+
+"I stole off when I was eighteen and got my first marriage license.
+They was a white fellow was a justice of the peace and he took
+advantage of my father and he stood for me 'cause he wanted me to work
+on his place. In them days they'd do most anything to gain labor.
+
+"When they was emigratin' 'em from Georgia to these countries, they
+told 'em they was hogs runnin' around already barbecued with a knife
+and fork in their back. Told 'em the cotton growed so tall you had to
+put little chaps up the stalk to get the top bolls.
+
+"But they tole some things was true. Said in Mississippi the cotton
+growed so tall and spread so it took two to pick a row, and I found
+that true.
+
+"Old master always fed his hands good so they could meet the demands
+when he called on 'em. He worked 'em close but he fed 'em.
+
+"He raised wheat, corn, peas, rye, and oats, and all such like that.
+Oh, he was a round farmer all right. And he raised feed for his stock
+too.
+
+"My old boss used to raise sweet potatoes enough to last three years.
+
+"The people of the South was carried through that sweat of freedom.
+They was compelled to raise cotton and not raise much to eat. They
+told 'em they could buy it cheaper than raise it, but it was a
+mistake.
+
+"I used to have a wood yard on the Mississippi and when the steamers
+come down the river, I used to go aboard and quiz the people from the
+North. Heap of 'em would get chips of different woods and put it away
+to carry home to show. And they'd take cotton bolls and some limbs to
+show the people at home how cotton grows.
+
+"To my idea, the North is wiser than the South. My idea of the North
+is they is more samissive to higher trades--buildin' wagons and
+buggies, etc.
+
+"Years ago they wasn't even a factory here to make cloth. Had to send
+the cotton to the North and then order the cloth from the North, and
+time they got it the North had all the money.
+
+"In the old days they was only two countries they could depend on to
+raise tobacco and that was Virginia and South Carolina.
+
+"I can remember a right smart before the War started. Now I can set
+down and think of every horse's name my old boss had. He had four he
+kept for Sunday business. Had Prince, Bill, Snap, and Puss. And every
+Saturday evening he had the boys take 'em in the mill pond and wash
+'em off--fix 'em up for Sunday."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Johnson,
+                    Biscoe, Arkansas
+Age: 65
+
+
+"I was born at Holly Springs, Mississippi. My mother was fifteen years
+old when the surrender come on. Her name was Alice Airs. Mama said she
+and grandma was sold in the neighborhood and never seen none of her
+folks after they was sold. The surrender come on. They quit and went
+on with some other folks that come by. Mama got away from them and
+married the second year of the surrender. She said she really got
+married; she didn't jump the broom. Mama was a cook in war times.
+Grandma churned and worked in the field. Grandma lived in to herself
+but mama slept on the kitchen floor. They had a big pantry built
+inside the kitchen and in both doors was a sawed-out place so the cats
+could come and go.
+
+"My father was sold during of the War too but he never said much about
+it. He said some of the slaves would go in the woods and the masters
+would be afraid to go hunt them out without dogs. They made bows and
+arrows in the woods.
+
+"I heard my parents tell about the Ku Klux come and made them cook
+them something to eat. They drunk water while she was cooking. I heard
+them say they would get whooped if they sot around with a book in
+their hand. When company would come they would turn the pot down and
+close the shutters and doors. They had preaching and prayed that way.
+The pot was to drown out the sound.
+
+"They said one man would sell off his scrawny niggers. He wanted fine
+looking stock on his place. He couldn't sell real old folks. They kept
+them taking care of the children and raising chickens, turkeys, ducks,
+geese, and made some of them churn and milk.
+
+"My stepfather said he knowed a man married a woman after freedom and
+found out she was his mother. He had been sold from her when he was a
+baby. They quit and he married ag'in. He had a scar on his thigh she
+recollected. The scar was right there when he was grown. That brought
+up more talk and they traced him up to be her own boy.
+
+"Hester Swafford died here in Biscoe about seven years ago. Said she
+run away from her owners and walked to Memphis. They took her up over
+there. Her master sent one of the overseers for her. She rode
+astraddle behind him back. They got back about daylight. They whooped
+her awful and rubbed salt and pepper in the gashes, and another man
+stood by handed her a hoe. She had to chop cotton all day long. The
+women on the place would doctor her sores.
+
+"Grandma said she remembered the stars falling. She said it turned
+dark and seem like two hours sparkles fell. They said stars fell. She
+said it was bad times. People was scared half to death. Mules and
+horses just raced. She said it took place up in the day. They didn't
+have time-pieces to know the time it come on.
+
+"Young folks will be young the way I see it. They ain't much
+different. Times is sure 'nough hard for old no 'count folks. Young
+folks makes their money and spends it. We old folks sets back needing.
+Times is lots different now. It didn't used to be that way."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Louis Johnson
+                    721 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 86
+
+
+"My father said I was fifteen when peace was declared. In slavery days
+they didn't low colored folks to keep their ages and didn't low em to
+be educated. I was born in Georgia. I went to a little night school
+but I never learned to read. I never learned to write my own name.
+
+"I never did see no fightin' a tall but I saw em refugeein' goin'
+through our country night and day. Said they was goin' to the Blue
+Ridge Mountains to pitch battle. They was Rebels gettin' out of the
+way of the Yankees.
+
+"Old master was a pretty tough old fellow. He had work done aplenty.
+He had a right smart of servants. I wasn't old enough to take a record
+of things and they didn't low grown folks to ask too many questions.
+
+"I can sit and study how the rich used to do. They had poor white
+folks planted off in the field to raise hounds to run the colored
+folks. Colored folks used to run off and stay in the woods. They'd
+kill old master's hogs and eat em. I've known em to stay six months at
+a time. I've seen the hounds goin' behind niggers in the woods.
+
+"We had as good a time as we expected. My old master fed and clothed
+very well but we had to keep on the go. Some masters was good to em.
+Yes, madam, I'd ruther be in times like now than slavery. I like it
+better now--I like my liberty.
+
+"In slavery days they made you pray that old master and mistress would
+hold their range forever.
+
+"My old master was Bob Johnson. He lived in Muskoge County where I was
+born. Then he moved to Harris County and that's where the war ketched
+him. He become to be a widower there.
+
+"I member when the Yankees come and took old master's horses and
+mules.
+
+"I had a young boss that went to the war and come home with the
+rheumatism. He was walkin' on crutches and I know they sent him to a
+refugee camp to see to things and when he come back he didn't have no
+crutches. I guess the Yankees got em.
+
+"Childern travels now from one seaport to another but in them days
+they kept the young folks confined. I got along all right 'cept I
+didn't have no liberty.
+
+"I believe it was in June when they read the freedom papers. They told
+us we was free but we could stay if we wanted to. My father left Bob
+Johnson's and went to work for his son-in-law. I was subject to him
+cause I was a minor, so I went with him. Before freedom, I chopped
+cotton, hoed corn and drapped peas, but now I was big enough to follow
+the plows. I was a cowboy too. I tended to the cows. Since I've been
+grown I been a farmer--always was a farmer. I never would live in town
+till I got disabled for farming.
+
+"After we was free we was treated better. They didn't lash us then. We
+was turned loose with the white folks to work on the shares. We always
+got our share. They was more liberal along that line than they is now.
+
+"After I come to this country of Arkansas I bought several places but
+I failed to pay for them and lost them. Now my wife and me are livin'
+on my daughter.
+
+"I been married three times. I married 'fore I left Georgia but me and
+her couldn't get along. Then I married in Mississippi and I brought
+her to Arkansas. She died and now I been married to this woman
+fifty-three years.
+
+"I been belongin' to the church over forty years. I have to belong to
+the church to give thanks for my chance here now. I think the people
+is gettin' weaker and wiser."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Mag Johnson,
+                    Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 65 or 70?
+
+
+"Pa was born in North Ca'lina. Ma was born in Virginia. Their names
+George and Liza Fowler.
+
+"Ma's fust owner what I heard her tell 'bout was Master Ed McGehee in
+Virginia. He's the one what brung her in a crowd of nigger traders to
+Somerville, Tennessee. The way it was, a cavalry of Yankees got in
+back of them. The nigger trader gang drive up. They got separated. My
+ma and her gang hid in a cave two weeks an' not much to eat. The
+Yankees overtook 'em hid in the cave and passed on. Ma say one day the
+nigger traders drive up in front McGehee's yard and they main heads
+and Master Ed had a chat. They hung around till he got ready and took
+off a gang of his own slaves wid him. They knowed he was after selling
+them off when he left wid 'em.
+
+"Ben Trotter in Tennessee bought ma and three more nigger girls. The
+Yankees took and took from 'em. They freed a long time b'fore she
+knowed of. She said they would git biscuits on Sunday around. Whoop
+'em if one be gone.
+
+"Ole miss went out to the cow pen an' ma jus' a gal like stole outen a
+piece er pie and a biscuit and et it. The cook out the cow pen too but
+the three gals was doing about in the house and yard. Ma shut polly up
+in the shed room. Then she let it out when she et up the pie and
+biscuit. Ole miss come in. Polly say, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me
+up.' She missed the pie. Called all four the girls and ma said, 'I
+done et it. I was so hungry.' Ole miss said that what polly talking
+'bout, but she didn't understand the bird so very well. Ole miss say,
+'I'm goiner tell Ben and have him whoop you.' That scared all four the
+girls case he did whoop her which he seldom done. She say when Master
+Ben come they stood by the door in a 'joining room. Ma say 'fore God
+ole miss tole him. Master Ben sont 'em out to pick up apples. He had a
+pie a piece cooked next day and a pan of hot biscuits and brown gravy,
+tole 'em to fill up. He tole 'em he knowed they got tired of corn
+batter cakes, milk and molasses but it was best he had to give them
+till the War was done.
+
+"Ma said her job got to be milking, raising and feeding the fowls,
+chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, and turkeys all. The Yankees
+discouraged her. They come so many times till they cleaned 'em out she
+said.
+
+"What they done to shut up polly's mouf was sure funny. He kept on
+next morning saying, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me up.' Liza pulled
+up her dress and underskirt and walked back'ards, bent down at him. He
+got scared. He screamed and then he hollered 'Ball-head and no eyes'
+all that day.
+
+"Ma said they had corn shuckings and corn shellings and brush
+burnings. Had music and square dancing plenty times.
+
+"When they got free they didn't know what it was nor what in the world
+to do with it. What they said 'minds me of folks now what got
+education. Seems like they don't know what to do nor where to put it.
+
+"Pa said the nigger men run off to get a rest. They'd take to the
+woods and canebrakes. Once four of the best nigger fellars on their
+master's place took to the woods for to git a little rest. The master
+and paddyrolls took after 'em. They'd been down in there long 'nough
+they'd spotted a hollow cypress with a long snag of a limb up on it.
+It was in the water. They got them some vines and fixed up on the
+snag. They heard the dogs and the horn. They started down in the
+hollow cypress. One went down, the others coming on. He started
+hollering. But he thought a big snake in there. He brought up a cub on
+his nearly bare foot. They clem out and went from limb to limb till
+they got so away the dogs would loose trail. They seen the mama bear
+come and nap four her cubs to another place. His foot swole up so.
+They had to tote my pa about. Next day the dogs bayed them up in the
+trees. Master took them home, doctored his foot. Ast 'em why they
+runed off and so much to be doing. They tole 'em they taking a little
+rest. He whooped them every one.
+
+"Pretty soon the Yankees come along and broke the white folks up. Pa
+went wid the Yankees. He said he got grown in the War. He fed horses
+for his general three years. He got arm and shoulder wounded, scalped
+his head. They mustered him out and he got his bounty. He got sixty
+dollars every three months.
+
+"He died at Holly Grove, Arkansas about fifty years ago. Them was his
+favorite stories."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mandy Johnson
+                    607 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 92
+
+
+"This is me. I'se old and ain't no 'count. I was done grown when the
+war started. You _know_ I was grown when I was washin' and ironin'. I
+stood right there and watched the soldiers goin' to war. I heered the
+big bell go b-o-n-g, b-o-n-g and everybody sayin' 'There's goin' to be
+a war, there's goin' to be a war!' They was gettin' up the force to go
+bless your heart! Said they'd be back by nine tomorrow and some said
+'I'm goin' to bring you a Yankee scalp.' And then they come again and
+want _so many_. You could hear the old drums go boom--boom. They was
+drums on this side and drums on that side and them drums was a
+talkin'! Yes'm, I'se here when it started--milkin' cows, washin' and
+cookin'. Oh, that was a time. Oh my Lord--them Yankees come in just
+like blackbirds. They said the war was to free the folks. Lots of 'em
+got killed on the first battle.
+
+"I was born in Bastrop, Louisiana in February--I was a February colt.
+
+"My old master was John Lovett and he was good to us. If anybody put
+their hands on any of his folks they'd have him to whip tomorrow. They
+called us old John's free niggers. Yes ma'm I had a good master. I
+ain't got a scratch on me. I stayed right in the house and nussed till
+I'se grown. We had a good time but some of 'em seed sights. I stayed
+there a year after we was free.
+
+"I married durin' the war and my husband went to war with my uncle. He
+didn't come back and I waited three years and then I married again.
+
+"You know they used to give the soldiers furloughs. One time one young
+man come home and he wouldn't go back, just hid out in the cane brake.
+Then the men come that was lookin' for them that 'exerted' durin' the
+war and they waited till he come out for somethin' to eat and they
+caught him and took him out in the bayou and shot him. That was the
+onliest dead man I ever seen. I seen a heap of live ones.
+
+"The war was gettin' hot then and old master was in debt. Old mistress
+had a brother named Big Marse Lewis. He wanted to take all us folks
+and sell us in New Orleans and said he'd get 'em out of debt. But old
+master wouldn't do it. I know Marse Lewis got us in the jail house in
+Bastrop and Mars John come to get us out and Marse Lewis shot him
+down. I went to my master's burial--yes'm, I did! Old mistress didn't
+let us go to New Orleans either. Oh Lordy, I was young them days and I
+wasn't afraid of nothin'.
+
+"Oh ho! What you talkin' 'bout? Ku Klux? They come out here just like
+blackbirds. They tried to scare the people and some of 'em they
+killed.
+
+"Yes Lord, I seen a heap. I been through a lot and I seen a heap, but
+I'm here yet. But I hope I never live to see another war.
+
+"When peace was declared, old mistress say 'You goin' to miss me' and
+I sho did. They's good to us. I ain't got nothin' to do now but sit
+here and praise the Lord cause I gwine to go home some day."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Carol Graham
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson
+
+
+"Howdy, Missy, glad to see you again. As you sees I'm 'bout wound up
+on my cotton baskets and now I got these chairs to put bottoms in but
+I can talk while I does this work cause it's not zacting like making
+baskets.
+
+"'Pears like you got a cold. Now let me tell you what to do for it.
+Make a tea out of pine straw and mullein leaves an' when you gets
+ready for bed tonight take a big drink of it an' take some tallow and
+mix snuff with it an' grease the bottom of your feets and under your
+arms an' behind your ears and you'll be well in the mornin'.
+
+"Yes'm hits right in the middle of cotton picking time now. Always
+makes me think of when I was a boy. I picked cotton some but I got
+lots of whippins 'cause I played too much. They was some chinquapin
+trees in the fiel' and I jest natchally couldn' help stopping to pick
+up some 'chanks' now an' then. I likes the fall time. It brings back
+the old times on the plantation. After frost had done fell we would go
+possum huntin' on bright moonlight nights and we would mostly find Mr.
+Possum settin' in the 'simmon tree just helpin' hisself to them good
+old ripe juicy 'simmons. We'd catch the possum an' then we'd help
+ourselves to the 'simmons. Mentionin' 'simmons, my mammy sure could
+make good pies with them. I can most taste them yet and 'simmon bread
+too.
+
+"He! he! he! jes' look at that boy goin' by with that stockin' on his
+head. Niggers used to wear stockings on they legs but now they wear
+them on they heads to make they hair lay down.
+
+"Since this rain we had lately my rheumatism been botherin' me some. I
+is gone to cutting my fingernails on Wednesday now so's I'll have
+health; an' I got me a brand new remedy too an' it's a good one. Take
+live earth worms an' drop them in hot grease an' let them cook till
+there's no 'semblance of a worm then let the grease cool an' grease
+the rheumatic parts. You know that rheumatism done come back cause I
+got out of herbs. I just got to git some High John the Conqueror root
+an' fix a red flannel sack an' put it in the sack along with five
+finger grass, van van oil, controllin' powder, magnetic loadstone an'
+drawin' powder. Now, missy, the way I fixes that sure will ward off
+evil an' bring heaps of good luck. And I just got to fix myself that.
+You better let me fix you one too. If you and me had one of them
+wouldn't neither one of us be ailing. You needs some lucky hand root
+too to carry round with you all the time. Better let Uncle Marion fix
+you up.
+
+"Did I ever tell you I used to tell fortunes with cards? But I stopped
+that cause I got my jack now and it's so much truthfuler than cards.
+You 'members when I answered that question for you and missy last year
+and how what I told you come true. Yes'm I never misses now. Uncle
+Marion can sure help you.
+
+"There goes sister Melissy late with her washin' ergin. You know,
+Missy, niggers is always slow and late. They'll be wantin' God to wait
+on them when they start to heaven. White folks is always on time and
+they sings 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There', and
+niggers sing 'Don't Call The Roll Till I Get There.' You know I hates
+for it to get so cool. I'll have to move in off the gallery to work.
+When I sits on the gallery I sees everybody pass an' changes the time
+of day with them. 'Howdy, Sister Melissy. Late ergin I see.' Yes, I
+sees everything that goes on from my gallery. I hates for cool weather
+to come so's I have to move in.
+
+"Ain't that a cute little feller in long pants? Lawsy me! chillun
+surely dresses diffunt now from when I was a chap. I didn' know
+nothin' 'bout no britches; I went in my shirt tail--didn' wear nothin'
+but a big old long shirt till I was 'bout twelve. You know that little
+fellow's mama had me treat him for worms. I made him a medicine of
+jimson weed an' lasses for his mama to give him every morning before
+breakfast an' that sure will kill 'em. Yes'm, that little fellow is
+all dressed up. 'Minds me of when I used to dress up to go courtin' my
+gal. I felt 'bout as dressed up as that little fellow does. I'd take
+soot out of the chimney and black my shoes then take a biscuit and rub
+over them to shine 'em. You know biscuits have grease in them and my
+shoes looked just like they done been shined by the bootblack.
+
+"Law, missy, I don' know nothin' to tell you this time. Maybe if you
+come back I can think of something 'bout when niggers was in politics
+after the war but now I just can't 'member nothin'."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Carol Graham (Add.)
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson
+                    El Dorado, Ark.
+Age: ?
+
+
+    "Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,
+     Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,
+       I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,
+     Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars.
+
+    "Dar's perfect peace somewhars,
+     Dar's perfect peace somewhars,
+       I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,
+     Dar's perfect peace somewhars.
+
+"Good mornin', Missie! Glad to see you again. I is workin' on chairs
+again. Got these five to bottom for Mr. Brown and I sho can talk while
+I does this work.
+
+"Ain't the sunshine pretty this mornin'? I prayed last night that the
+Lord would let today be sunny. I 'clare, Missie, hits rained so much
+lately till I bout decided me and all my things was goin' to mildew.
+Yes'm, me and all-l-l my things. And I done told you I likes to set on
+my gallery to work. I likes to watch the folks go by. It seems so
+natchel like to set here and howdy with em.
+
+"I been in this old world a long time, but just can recollect bein' a
+slave. Since Christmas ain't long past it sets me to thinkin' bout the
+last time old Sandy Claus come to see us. He brought us each one a
+stick of candy, a apple and a orange, and he never did come to see us
+no more after that time cause we peeped. That was the last time he
+ever filt our stockin'. But you knows how chaps is. We just had to
+peep.
+
+"You knows I was born and raised in Louisiana. I done told you that
+many times. And I just wish you could see the vituals on old marster's
+table at Christmas time. Lawdy, but his table jes groaned with good
+things. Old Mistress had the cook cookin' for weeks before time it
+seemed to me. There was hams and turkeys and chickens and cakes of all
+kinds. They sho was plenty to eat. And they was a present for all the
+niggers on the place besides the heaps of pretty things that Marster's
+family got off the tree in the parlor.
+
+"When I first began to work on the farm old master put me to cuttin'
+sprouts, then when I got big enough to make a field hand, I went to
+the field then. I done lots of kinds of work--worked in the field,
+split rails, built fences, cleared new ground and just anything old
+marster wanted me to do. I members one time I got a long old splinter
+in my foot and couldn't get it out, so my mammy bound a piece of fat
+meat round my foot and let it stay bout a couple days, then the
+splinter come out real easy like. And I was always cutting myself too
+when I was a chap. You know how careless chaps is. An soot was our
+main standby for cuts. It would close the gash and heal it. And soot
+and sugar is extra good to stop bleeding. Sometime, if I would be in
+the field too far away from the house or anyplace where we could get
+soot, we would get cobwebbs from the cotton house and different places
+to stop the bleeding. One time we wasn't close to neither and one the
+men scraped some felt off from a old black hat and put it on to stop
+the bleedin'.
+
+"My feets was tough. Didn't wear shoes much till I was grown. Went
+barefooted. My feets was so tough I could step on stickers and not
+feel em. Just to show how tough I was I used to take a blackberry limb
+and take my toes and skin the briers off and it wouldn't hurt my
+feets.
+
+"Did I ever tell you bout my first pair of breeches? I was bout twelve
+then and before that I went in my shirt tail. I thought I was goin' to
+be so proud of my first breeches but I didn't like them. They was too
+tight and didn't have no pockets. They come just below my knees and I
+felt so uncomfortable-like that I tore em off me. And did I get a
+lickin? I got such a lickin' that when my next ones was made I was
+glad to put em on and wear em.
+
+"I stayed round with marster's boys a lot, and them white boys was as
+good to me as if I had been their brother. And I stayed up to the big
+house lots of nights so as to be handy for runnin' for old master and
+mistress. The big house was fine but the log cabin where my mammy
+lived had so many cracks in it that when I would sleep down there I
+could lie in bed and count the stars through the cracks. Mammy's beds
+was ticks stuffed with dried grass and put on bunks built on the wall,
+but they did sleep so good. I can most smell that clean dry grass now.
+Mammy made her brooms from broom sage, and she cooked on a fireplace.
+They used a oven and a fireplace up at the big house too. I never saw
+no cookstove till I was grown.
+
+"I members one time when I was a little shaver I et too many green
+apples. And did I have the bellie ache, whoo-ee! And mammy poured cold
+water over hot ashes and let it cool and made me drink it and it sure
+cured me too. I members seein' her make holly bush tea, and parched
+corn tea too for sickness. Nother time I had the toothache and mammy
+put some axle grease in the hollow of the tooth and let it stay there.
+The pain stopped and the tooth rotted out and we didn't have to pull
+it.
+
+"Whee! Did you see how that car whizzed round the corner? There warn't
+no cars in my young days. They had mostly two-wheeled carts with
+shafts for the horse to be hitched in, and lots of us drove oxen to
+them carts. I plowed oxen many-a-day and rode em to and from the
+field. Let me tell you, Missy, if you don't know nothin' bout
+oxen--they surely does sull on you--you beat them and the more you
+beat the more they sulls. Yes'm, they sure sulls in hot weather, but
+it never gets too cold for em.
+
+"Howdy, Parson. That sho was good preachin' Sunday. Yes suh, it was
+fine.
+
+"That's the pastor of our church, an he sho preached two good sermons
+last Sunday. Sunday mornin' he preached 'Every kind of fish is caught
+in a net' and that night he preached 'Marvel not you must be born
+again.' But that mornin' sermon, it capped the climax. Parson sho told
+em bout it. He say, 'First, they catch the crawfish, and that fish
+ain't worth much; anybody that gets back from duty or one which says I
+will and then won't is a crawfish Christian.' Then he say, 'The next
+is a mudcat; this kind of a fish likes dark trashy places. When you
+catch em you won't do it in front water; it likes back water and wants
+to stay in mud. That's the way with some people in church. You can't
+never get them to the front for nothin'. You has to fish deep for
+them. The next one is the jellyfish. It ain't got no backbone to face
+the right thing. That the trouble with our churches today. Too many
+jellyfishes in em.' Next, he say is the gold fish--good for nothin'
+but to look at. They is pretty. That the way folks is. Some of them go
+to church just to sit up and look pretty to everybody. Too pretty to
+sing; too pretty to say Amen! That what the parson preached Sunday.
+Well, I'm a full-grown man and a full-grown Christian, praise the
+Lord. Yes,'m, parson is a real preacher."
+
+
+
+
+VOODOO MAN
+UNCLE MARION JOHNSON, EX-SLAVE.
+[Date Stamp: OCT 26 1936]
+
+
+"Yes young missey ah'll sho tell yo-all whut yo wants ter know. Yes'm
+ole Uncle Marion sho kin. Mah price is fo' bits fer one question.
+No'm, not fo' bits fo th' two uv yo but fo' bits each. Yo say yo all
+ain't got much money and yo all both wants ter know th' same thing.
+Well ah reckon since yo all is been comin' roun' and tawkin' to ole
+Uncle Marion ah cud make hit answer th' one question fuh both uv yo
+fuh fo' bits 'tween yo. No'm ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will
+haft tuh come inside th' house."
+
+"[TR: " should be (]We went inside the house and Uncle Marion
+unwrapped his voodoo instrument which proved to be a small glass
+bottle about 2-1/2 inches tall wrapped to the neck in pink washable
+adhesive tape and suspended from a dirty twine about six inches long.
+At the top of the twine was a slip knot and in a sly way Uncle Marion
+would twist the cord before asking the question. If the cord was
+twisted in one direction the bottle would swing in a certain direction
+and if the cord was twisted in the other direction the bottle would
+swing in the opposite direction. Uncle Marion thought that we did not
+observe this and of course we played dumb. By twisting the cord and
+slyly working the muscles of his arm Uncle Marion made his instrument
+answer his questions in the way that he wished them answered.)
+
+"Now ifn the answer to huh question is yais swing towards huh and ifn
+taint be still. (The bottle slowly swung toward me.) Now missy see hit
+have done answered yo question and yo done seed hit say yes. Yes'm hit
+sho am yes and yo' jes wait and see ifn ole Uncle Marion aint right.
+Now yo jes answer the same question fuh tother young missy heah. Now
+ifn the answer is yais yo turn toward huh which am the opposite to
+which yo jes turnt and ifn the answer is no sta' still. (The bottle
+then slowly turned around and went in Mrs. Thompson's direction.)
+
+"Yo say whut do ah call dis heah? Ah calls hit a "jack". Yas'm hits a
+jack an' hit sho will answer any question yo wants ter ask hit. No'm
+yo cuden ask hit yo-self. Ah would haft ter ask hit fer yo. An' let me
+tell yo' ole Uncle Marion sho kin help youall chillun. Ah kin help yo
+all ward off evil and jinx; ah kin help yo all git a job; ah kin help
+yo all ovah come the ruination uv yo home. Uncle Marion sho cain give
+yo a helpin good luck hand. Ah cain help yo ovah come yo enemies.
+
+"Now since ah knows yo young misses am in'erested an ah knows yo will
+sen' othah fokes tuh me what am in trouble ah am gointer tell yo all
+whut some uv mah magic remidies is so yo all kin tell fokes that ah
+have them yarbs (herbs) fuh sale. Yes'm ah has them yarbs right hea
+fuh sale and hit sho will work too.
+
+"Now thar is High John the Conquerer Root. If'n yo totes one o' them
+roots in yo pocket yo will nevah be widout money. No mam. And you'll
+always conquer yo troubles an yo enemies. An fokes can sho git them
+yarbs thru me. Efn Uncle Marion don' have non on han' he sho kin git
+em for em.
+
+"Den dar is five finger grass, ah kin git dat fuh yo too. Ifn dat is
+hung up ovah th' bedstid hit brings restful sleep and keeps off evil.
+Each one uv dem five fingahs stans for sumpin too. One stans fuh good
+luck, two fuh money, thee fuh wisdom, fo' fuh power an five fuh love.
+
+"Yas'm an ah kin buil' a unseen wall aroun' yo so as ter keep evil,
+jinx and enemies way fum yo and hit'll bring heaps uv good luck too.
+The way ah does hit is this way: Ah takes High John the Conqueror Root
+and fixes apiece of red flannel so as ter make a sack and puts hit in
+the sack along wid magnetic loadstone, five finger grass, van van oil,
+controllin' powdah and drawin powdah and the seal uv powah. This heah
+mus be worn aroun the neck and sprinkle hit ever mornin fuh seven
+mornins wid three drops uv holy oil. Then theah is lucky han' root.
+Hit looks jes like a human han'. If yo carries hit on yo person hit
+will shake yo jinx and make yo a winnah in all kinds o games and
+hit'll help yo choose winnin numbers."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Martha Johnson,
+                    West Memphis
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was born at Lake Providence, Louisiana second year after the War.
+Mother's mother was left in Jackson, Tennessee. Mother was sold at
+Vicksburg, Mississippi. Father's mother was left at Pittsburg,
+Virginia. Father was brought to Lake Providence and sold to Master
+Ross and Mr. Coleman was his overseer. He was stripped stark naked and
+put up on the block. That was Nigger Traders Rule, he said. He was
+black as men get to be. Mother was three-fourths white. Her master was
+her father. He had two families. They was raised up in the same house
+with his white family. Master's white wife raised her and kept her
+till her death. He was dead I think.
+
+"Then her young white master sold her. He sold his half-sister. She
+met my father at Vicksburg, Mississippi where he mustered out. She was
+chambermaid when the surrender came on, on the Gray Eagle boat from
+Vicksburg to Memphis. Mother died when I was nine years old. Papa had
+no boys, only three girls. I was his 'Tom Boy.' I did the milking and
+out-of-door turns. Papa was a small man. He weighed 150 pounds. He
+carpentered, made and mended shoes, and was a blacksmith. We farmed
+and farmed. I was chambermaid in Haynes, Arkansas hotel three years. I
+washed and ironed. I'm not much cook. I never was fond of cooking.
+
+"I never voted. I'm not starting now. I'm too old.
+
+"Times is hard. You can't get ahead no way. It keeps you hustling all
+the time to live. Times is going pretty fast. In some ways times is
+better for some people and harder for other people.
+
+"These young folks don't want to be advised and I don't advise them
+except my own children. I tell them all they listen to. They listen
+now better than they did when they was younger. They are all grown.
+
+"I don't get no help from nowhere but my children a little. I own my
+home."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
+Person interviewed: Millie Johnson (Old Bill)
+                    El Dorado, Arkansas
+Age: ?
+
+
+"I was born in Caledonia, Arkansas but I don't know when. I just can't
+tell you nothing hardly about when I was a child because my mind goes
+and comes. I was a slave and my white folks were good to me. They let
+me play and have a good time just like their children did.
+
+"After I got grown I run around terrible. My husband quit me a long
+time ago. The white folks let me have my way. They said I was mean and
+if my husband fooled with me, told me to shoot him. I am going back
+home to Caledonia when I get a chance. My sister's boy brought me up
+here; Mack Ford is his name.
+
+"A long time ago--I don't know how long it's been--I came out of the
+back door something hung their teeth in my ankle. I hollered and
+looked down and it was a big old rattlesnake. I cried to my sister to
+get him off of me. She was scared, so all I knew to do was run, jump
+and holler. I ran about--oh, I don't know how far--with the snake
+hanging to my ankle. The snake would not let me go, and it wasn't but
+one thing for me to do and that was stop and pull the snake off of me.
+I stopped and began pulling. I pulled and pulled and pulled and
+pulled. The snake would not let me go. I began pulling again. After
+awhile I got it off. When I pulled the snake away the snake brought
+his mouth full of my meat. You talk about hurting, that like to have
+killed me. That place stayed sore for twenty years before it healed
+up. After it had been healed a couple years I then scratched the
+place on a bob wire that inflamed it. That has been about 25 or 30
+years ago and it's been sore ever since. Lord, I sure have been
+suffering too. As soon as it gets well I am going back to Caledonia. I
+am praying for God to let me live to get back home. Mack Ford is the
+cause of me being up here.
+
+"I was born in slavery time way before the War. My name is Millie
+Johnson but they call me Bill."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Rosie Johnson,
+                    Holly Grove, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+
+
+"I was born and raised on Mr. Dial's place. Mama belong to them. My
+papa belong to Frank Kerr. His old mistress' name Jane Roberts in
+Alabama. His folks come from Alabama. He say Jane Roberts wouldn't
+sell her slaves. They was aired (heired) down mong the children. David
+Dial had sebral children and mama was his house girl and nurse. They
+was married in Dial's yard. My papa name Jacob Kerr. They took me to
+Texas when I warn't but two years old. We rode in the covered wagon
+where they hauled the provisions. They muster stayed a pretty good
+time. I heard em talkin' what all they raised out there and what a
+difference they found in the country. They wanted to go. They didn't
+wanter be in the war they said. It was too close to suit them.
+
+"I recken I was too small to recollect the Ku Klux. I heard em talk
+bout how mean the Jayhaws was.
+
+"I never voted. What business I got votin' I would jes' lak you tell
+me? I don't believe in it no more'n nuthin'.
+
+"I been farmin' all my life. I had fourteen children. Eight livin'
+now. They scattered bout up North. It took meat and bread to put in
+their mouths and somebody workin' to get it there I tell you. There
+ain't a lazy bone in me. I jes' give out purty nigh. I wash and iron
+some when I ken get it.
+
+"I got a hog and a garden. I ain't got nuthin' else. I don't own no
+house, no place. I got a few chickens bout the place what eat up the
+scraps what the pig don't get.
+
+"I signed up three years ago. I don't get nuthin' now. What I scrape
+round and make is all I has.
+
+"I was born in June 1861. I don't recollect what day they said. Pear
+lack it been so long. When it come to work I recken I is had a hard
+time all my life. I never minded nuthin' till I got so slow and no
+count."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Saint Johnson
+                    Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: --
+Occupation: Drayman
+
+
+"As far as slavery is concerned I know nothing about it except as the
+white people told me. My mother would ask me what they told me and I
+would tell her that Miss Annie said I didn't have to call her father
+'Master' any more. And she would say, 'No, you don't.'
+
+"My father's name was Wiley Johnson. He was ninety years old when he
+died. He was born in Cave Spring, Georgia, in Floyd County. My mother
+was born in the same place. Both of them were Johnsons. They were
+married during slavery times. I don't know what her name was before
+she married.
+
+"Anyway, I've told you enough. I've told you too much. How come they
+want all this stuff from the colored people anyway? Do you take any
+stories from the white people? They know all about it. They know more
+about it than I do. They don't need me to tell it to them.
+
+"I don't tell my age. I just say I was born after slavery. Then I
+can't be bothered about all this stuff about records. Colored people
+didn't keep any records. How they goin' to know when they were born or
+anything? I don't believe in all that stuff.
+
+"You know these young people as well as I do. They ain't nothin'.
+
+"I ain't got nothin' to say about politics. You know what the truth
+is. Why don't you say it? You don't need to hide behind my words.
+You're educated and I'm not; you don't need to get anything from me.
+
+"Yes, I had some schoolin'. But you know more about these things than
+I do."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+At first, I thought I wouldn't write this interview up; but afterwards
+I thought: Maybe this interview will be of interest to those who want
+the work done. It represents the attitude of a very small, but
+definite, minority. About five persons out of a hundred and fifty
+contacted and more than eighty written up have taken this attitude.
+
+Johnson is reputed to have been born in slavery, but he says not. He
+had a high school education. He is a good man, wholesome in all his
+contacts, despite the apparent intolerance of his private remarks to
+the interviewer.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Willie Johnson (female)
+                    1007 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 71
+
+
+"My father said he had a real good master. When he got up large enough
+to work, his master learned him a trade. He learned the mechanic's
+trade, such as blacksmithing and working in shops. He learned him all
+of that. And then he learned him to be a shoemaker. You see, he
+learned him iron work and woodworking too. And he never whipped him
+during slavery time. Positively didn't allow that.
+
+"My father's name was Jordan Kirkpatrick. His master was named
+Kirkpatrick also. My father was born in Tennessee in Sumner County.
+
+"My father married in slave time. You know, they married in slave
+time. I have heard people talking about it. I have heard some people
+say they married over 'gain when freedom came. My father had a
+marriage certificate, and I didn't hear him say anything about being
+married after freedom. I have seen the certificate lots of times. I
+don't know the date of it. The certificate was issued in Sumner
+County, Tennessee.
+
+"My father and mother belonged to different masters. My mother's
+master was a Murray. She had a good many people. Her name before she
+married was Mary Murray. I don't know just how my mother and father
+met. The two places weren't far apart. They lived a good distance from
+each other though, and I remember hearing him tell how he had to go
+across the fields to get to her house after he was through with the
+day's work. The pateroles got after him once. They didn't catch him,
+so they didn't do anything to him. He skipped them some way or
+another.
+
+"I have heard them say that before the slaves were set free the
+soldiers were going 'round doing away with everything that they could
+get their hands on. Just a while before they were set free, my father
+took my mother and the children one night and slipped off. He went to
+Nashville. That was during the War. It wasn't long after that till
+everybody was set free. They never did capture him and get him back.
+
+"During the War they went around pressing men into service. Finally
+once, they caught him but they let him go. I don't know how he got
+away.
+
+"I can remember he said once they got after him and there was a white
+man and his family living in the house. He rented a room from the
+white man. That was in Nashville. These pateroles or whatever they was
+got after him and claimed they were coming to get him, and the old man
+and the old woman he stayed with took him upstairs and said they would
+protect him if the pateroles came back. I don't know whether they came
+back or not, but they never got him.
+
+"My father supported himself and his family in Nashville by following
+his trade. He seems to have gotten along all right. He never seemed to
+have any trouble that I heard him speak of.
+
+"I was born in 1867 in Nashville, Tennessee, about half a block from
+the old Central Tennessee College[G]. I think it became Walden
+University later on, and I think that it's out now. That's an old
+school. My oldest sister was graduated from it. I could have been if I
+hadn't taken up the married notion.
+
+"I got part of my schooling in Nashville and part here. When I left
+Nashville, I was only a child nine years old. I only went to school
+four sessions after we came out here. I didn't like out here. I wanted
+to stay back home. My father came out here because he had heard that
+he could make more money with his trade here than he could in
+Nashville, which he did. He was shoeing horses and building wagons and
+so on. Just in this blacksmithing and carpenter work.
+
+"I wanted to learn that. I would stay 'round the shop and help him
+shoe horses. But they wouldn't let me take it up. I got so I could do
+carpenter work pretty good. First I learned how to make a box
+square--that is a hard job when a person doesn't know much.
+
+"I never heard my father say anything about the food the slaves ate. I
+have heard him talk about the good times they had around hog killing.
+His master raised sweet potatoes and corn and wheat and things like
+that. I guess they ate just about what they raised.
+
+"My father never was a sharecropper. He knew nothing of rural work
+except the mechanical side of it. He could make or do anything that
+was needed in fixing up something to do farm work with. I have seen
+him make and sharpen plows. The first cotton stalk cutter that was
+made within ten miles of here was made by my father. The people 'round
+here were knocking off cotton stalks with sticks until my father began
+making the cutter. Then everybody began using his cutter. That is, the
+different farmers and sharecroppers around here began using them. I
+was scared of the first one he made. He made six saws or knives and
+sharpened them and put them on a section of a log so that it could be
+hitched to a mule and pulled through the fields and cut the cotton
+stalks down.
+
+"My mother's old master was her father. I think my father's father was
+a Negro and his mother was an Indian. My mother's mother was an
+American woman, that is, a slavery woman. My mother and father were
+lucky in having good people. My mother was treated just like one of
+her master's other children. My father's master had an overseer but
+he never was allowed to touch my father. Of course my mother never was
+under an overseer."
+
+[Footnote G: [HW: Central Tennessee College estab. about 1866-7.]]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Angeline Jones
+                    Near Biscoe and Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 79
+[Date Stamp: May 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Mother was cooking. Her name was
+Marilla Harris and she took my pa's name, Brown. He was Francis Brown.
+I was three years old when the surrender come on. Then grandma, my
+mama and pa and me and my brother come with a family to Biscoe. There
+wasn't no Biscoe but that's where we come to anyhow. Mama and grandma
+cooked for a woman. They bought a big farm and started clearing. Some
+of it was cleared. Mama's been dead forty years. I farmed all my whole
+life. I don't know nothing else.
+
+"Grandma had a right smart to say during slavery times. She was
+cooking for her mistress and had a family. She'd hide good things to
+take to her children. The mistress kept a polly parrot about in the
+kitchen. Polly would tell on grandma. Caused grandma to get whoopings.
+She talked like a good many of 'em. She got sick. The woman what
+married grandma's brother was to take her place. She wasn't going to
+be getting no whoopings. She sewed the parrot up. He got to dwindling.
+They doctored him. She clipped his tongue at the same time so he never
+could do no good talking. He died. They never found out his trouble.
+Grandma said they worried about the parrot but she never did; she
+knowed what been done. Grandma come from Paris, Tennessee but I think
+the same folks fetched 'er. I don't think she said she was sold. She
+said slavery times was hard. Mama didn't see as hard times as grandma
+had. Grandma shielded her in the work part a whole heap to get to
+live where she did. They loved to be together. She's been dead and
+left me forty odd years. I works and support myself, and my kin folks
+help all they can."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Charlie Jones
+                    1303 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+
+
+"I was borned in '61 in the State of Mississippi August the 15th.
+
+"I member just a little bout the War. Yes'm, I member seein' the
+soldiers. They was walkin'--just a long row of em. Had guns across
+their shoulders and had them canteens. I member we chilluns run out to
+the road and got upon the bars and watched em go by. I think it was
+after they had fought in Vicksburg and was comin' back towards
+Memphis.
+
+"My mother belonged to the Harrises and we stayed with her and my
+father belonged to the Joneses.
+
+"I member how they used to feed us chillun. They had a big cook
+kitchen at the big house and we chillun would be out in the yard
+playin'. Cook had a big wooden tray and she'd come out and say
+'Whoopee!' and set the tray on the ground. Sometimes it was milk and
+sometimes it would be potlicker. We'd fall down and start eatin'. Get
+out [TR: our?] heads in and crowd just like a lot of pigs.
+
+"After freedom we went to old Colonel Jones and worked on the shares.
+I wasn't big enough to work but I member when we left the Harris
+place. I know they wasn't so cruel to em. Didn't have no overseer.
+Some of the people had cruel overseers.
+
+"I went to school after the War a right smart. I got as far as the
+third grade. Studied McGuffy's Reader and the old Blue Back Speller.
+Yes'm, sure did.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas wid my parents in '78. Come right here to
+Jefferson County, down at Fairfield on the Lambert place.
+
+"All my life I've farmed. I worked on the shares and rented too. Could
+make the most money rentin'. I got everywhere from 4¢ to 50¢ a pound
+for cotton. I had cows and hogs and chickens and raised some corn.
+
+"I made a garden and made a little cotton and corn last year on
+government land on the old river bank.
+
+"I heered of the Klu Klux but they never did bother me.
+
+"I voted the Publican ticket and never had no trouble.
+
+"I been right around this town fifteen years and I own this home. I
+worked about six months at the shops but the rest of the time I
+farmed.
+
+"Heap of things I'd do when I was young the young folks won't do
+now."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Cyntha Jones
+                    3006 W. Tenth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 88
+
+
+"Well, here's one of em. Born down in Drew County.
+
+"Simpson Dabney was old master and his wife named Miss Adeline.
+
+"I reckon I do remember bout the War. Yes ma'am, the Yankees come and
+they had me scared. I wouldn't know when they got in the yard till
+they was all around me. Had me holdin' the bridles.
+
+"My young missis' husband was in the War and when they fought the last
+battle at Princeton, she had me drive the carriage. When I heard them
+guns I said we better go back, so I turned round and made them horses
+step so fast my dress tail stood out straight. I thought they was
+goin' to kill us all. And when we got home all the windows was broke.
+Miss Nancy say, 'Cyntha, somebody come and broke all my windows,' but
+it was them guns broke em.
+
+"Old master was a doctor but my young missis' husband wasn't nothin'
+but a hunter till they carried him to war. He was so skeered they had
+to most drag him.
+
+"I seen two wars and heered tell of another.
+
+"I member when the Yankees come and took things I just fussed at em. I
+thought what was my white folks' things was mine too. But when they
+got my old master's horse my daddy went amongst em and got it back
+cause he had charge of the stock. I don't know whether he got em at
+night or not but I know he went in the daytime and come back in the
+daytime.
+
+"Old master's children and my father's children worked in the field
+just alike. He wouldn't low a overseer on the place, or a patroller
+either.
+
+"Dr. Dabney and his sister raised my mother. They brought her from
+some furrin' country to Arkansas. And when he married, my mother
+suckled every one of his children.
+
+"I just worked in the house and nussed. Never worked in the field till
+I was grown and married. I was nineteen when I married the fust time.
+I stayed right there in that settlement till the second year of
+surrender.
+
+"When I was twenty-one they had me fixed up for a midwife. Old Dr.
+Clark was the one started me. I never went to school a minute in my
+life but the doctors would read to me out of their doctor books till I
+could get a license. I got so I could read print till my eyes got so
+bad. Old Dr. Clark was the one learned me most and since he died I
+ain't never had a doctor mess with me.
+
+"In fifteen years I had 299 babies on record right there in Rison.
+That's where I was fixed up at--under five doctors. And anybody don't
+believe it, they can go down there and look up the record.
+
+"We had plenty to eat in slave times. Didn't have to go to the store
+and buy it by the dribble like they does now. Just go to the
+smokehouse and get it.
+
+"I got such a big mind and will I wants to get about and raise
+something to eat now so we wouldn't have to buy everything, but I
+ain't able now. I've had twenty-one children but if I had em now
+they'd starve to death.
+
+"I been married four times but they all dead--every one of em.
+
+"When freedom come my old master give my mother $500 cause she saved
+his money for him when the Yankees come. She put it in the bed and
+slept on it. He had four farms and he told her she could have ary one
+of em and any of the stock, but my father had done spoke for a place
+in Cleveland County--he had done bought him a place.
+
+"And old master on his dying bed, he asked my mother to take his two
+youngest children and raise em cause their mother was sickly, but she
+didn't do it.
+
+"I don't know hardly what to think of this younger generation. Used to
+be they'd go to Sunday school barefooted but now'days, time they is
+born they got shoes and stockin's on em.
+
+"I used to spin, knit and weave. I even spun thread to make these
+ropes they use to plow. I could spin a thread you could sew with, and
+weave cloth with stripes and flowers. Have to know how to dye the
+thread. That's all done in the warp. Call the other the filler.
+
+"Now let me tell you, when that was goin' on and you raised your meat
+and corn and potatoes, that was livin'!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Edmond Jones
+                    1824 W. Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 75
+
+
+"I growed up in the war. I remember seein' the soldiers--hundreds and
+thousands of em. Oh, yes'm, I growed up in the war. I was born under
+Abraham Lincoln's administration and then Grant.
+
+"I remember when that old drum beat everbody had to be in bed at nine
+o'clock. That was when they had martial law. Hays knocked that out you
+know. That was when they had the Civil Rights Bill. I growed up in
+that.
+
+"Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Freedom in January and I
+was born in May so you might say I was born right into freedom.
+
+"I always say I was born so close to slavery I could smell it, just
+like you cookin' somethin' for dinner and I smelled it.
+
+"I tell these young people I can look back to my boy days quick as
+they can.
+
+"Yes'm, I don't know anything bout slavery. My people say they come
+from North Carolina, but I been right here on this spot of ground for
+forty-four years. I come here when they was movin' the cemetery.
+
+"My mother was a cook here for Mrs. Reynolds. After I growed up here I
+went out to my father where he was workin' on the shares and stayed
+there a year. I married quite young and bought a place out there. I
+said I was twenty-one when I got the license but I wasn't but twenty.
+
+"In old times everbody thought of the future and had all kinds of
+things to eat. First prayer I was taught was the Lord's Prayer--'Give
+us this day our daily bread.' I said sure was a long time bein'
+answered cause now we're gettin' it--just our daily bread.
+
+"I never had no luck farmin'--ever' time I farmed river overflowed. I
+raised everthing I needed or I didn't have it. Had as high as thirty
+head of cows at one time.
+
+"I went to work as janitor at Merril School to take the regular
+janitor's place for just two months and how long you reckon I stayed
+there? Twenty years. Then I come here and sit down and haven't done
+anything since.
+
+"The first school I went to was in the First Baptist Church on Pullen
+Street. They had it there till they could put up a building.
+
+"I went to nine different teachers and all of em was white. They was
+sent here from the North. We studied McGuffy's reader and you stayed
+with it till you learned it. I got it till today--in my head you
+understand.
+
+"Sure, Lord, I used to vote and hold ever' kind of office. Used to be
+justice of the peace six years. I said I been in everthing but a bull
+fight.
+
+"I've traveled ever' place--Niagara Falls, Toronto, Canada. I been in
+two World's Fairs and in several inaugurations. Professor Cheney says
+I know more history than any the teachers at the college."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Eliza Jones
+                    610 E. Eighteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 89
+
+
+"Yes ma'am, this is Eliza. I was born in slave times and I knowed how
+to work good.
+
+"You know I was grown in time of the War 'cause I married the first
+year of freedom.
+
+"Belonged to a widow named Edna Mitchell. That was in Tennessee near
+Jackson. Oh Lawd, my missis was good to all her niggers--if you should
+call 'em that.
+
+"She had two men and three women. My mother was the cook. Let's
+see--Sarah was one, Jane was two, and Eliza was three. (I was Eliza.)
+Then there was Doc and Uncle Alf. I reckon he was our uncle. Anyway we
+all called him Uncle Alf. He managed the business--he was the head man
+and Doc was next. And Miss Edna raised us all to grown.
+
+"Now I'm tellin' you right straight along. I try to tell the truth. I
+forgits and I can't remember ever'thing like it ought to be but I hit
+at it.
+
+"Things is hard this year and I don't know how come. I guess it's
+'cause folks is so wicked. They is livin' fast--black and white.
+
+"How many chillun? Now, you'd be s'prised. I hardly ever tell folks
+how many. I had fifteen; I was a good breeder. But they is all dead
+but one, and they ain't doin' me no good. Never raised but two. Most
+of 'em just died when they was born.
+
+"I'd a been better off if I had stayed single a while longer and went
+to school and learned how to read and write and figger. But I went to
+another kind of a school.
+
+"But I sure has been blest. I been here a long time, got a chile to
+cook me a little bread--don't have to worry 'bout dat.
+
+"I had to send clean back to where I j'ined the Metropolitan to get my
+age. That was in Cairo, Illinois 'cause I'd lived there fifteen years.
+But when my daughter and her husband come here and got settled, why I
+come to finish it out.
+
+"Yes ma'am, I sure have worked hard. I've plowed, split wood, and done
+a little bit of ever'thing. But it was all done since freedom. In
+slavery times I was a house girl. I tell you I was a heap better off a
+slave than I was free.
+
+"After freedom we had to go and get what we could get to do and work
+hard.
+
+"They used to talk 'bout ha'nts and squinch owls. Say it was a sign of
+somebody dead. But I don't believe in that. 'Course what I don't
+believe in somebody else does."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Evelyn Jones
+                    815 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: Between 68 and 78?
+
+
+"I was born in Lonoke County right here in Arkansas. My father's
+name--I don't know it. I don't know nothin' 'bout my father. My
+mother's name was Mary Davis.
+
+"My daddy died when I was five weeks old. I don't know nothin' 'bout
+'im. Just did manage to git here before he left. I don't know the date
+of my birth. I don't know nothin' 'bout it and I ain't goin' to tell
+no lie.
+
+"I have nineteen children. My youngest living child is twenty-eight
+years old. My oldest living is fifty-three. I have four dead. I don't
+know how old the oldest one is. That one's dead.
+
+"I have a cousin named Harry Jordan. He lives 'round here somewheres.
+You'll find him. I don't know where he lives. He says he knows just
+how old I am, and he says that I'm sixty-eight. My daughter here says
+I'm seventy. And my son thinks I'm older. Don't nobody know. My daddy
+never told me. My mama was near dead when I was born; what could she
+tell me? So how am I to know?
+
+"My mother was born in slavery. She was a slave. I don't know nothin'
+'bout it. My mother came from Tennessee. That's what she told me. I
+was born in a log cabin right here in Arkansas. I was born in a log
+cabin right in front of the white folks' big house. It was not far
+from the white folks' graveyard. You know they had a graveyard of
+their own. Old Bill Pemberton, that was the name of the man owned the
+place I was born on. But he wasn't my mother's owner.
+
+"I don't know where my father come from. My mother said she had a good
+time in slavery. She spoke of lots of things but I don't remember
+them.
+
+"My grandma told me about when she went to church she used to carry
+her good clothes in a bundle. When she got near there, she would put
+them on, and hide her old clothes under a rock. When she come out from
+the meeting, she would have to put on her old clothes again to go home
+in. She didn't dare let the white folks see her in good clothes.
+
+"I think my mother's white people were named Jordans. My mother and
+them all belonged to the young mistress. I think her name was Jordan.
+Yes, that's what it was--Jordan.
+
+"Grandmammy had so many children. She had nineteen children--just like
+me. My grandmammy was a great big old red woman. She had red hair too.
+I never heard her say nothin' 'bout nobody whippin' her and my
+granddaddy. They whipped all them children though. My mama just had
+six children.
+
+"Mama said her master tried to keep her in slavery after freedom. My
+mama worked at the spinning-wheel. When she heard the folks say they
+was through with the War, she was at the spinning-wheel. The white
+folks ought a tol' them they was free but they didn't. Old Jordan
+carried them down in De Valla Bluff. He carried them down
+there--called hisself gittin' away from the Yankees. But the Yankees
+told mama to quit workin'. They tol' her that she was free. My mama
+said she was in there at the wheel spinning and the house was full of
+white men settin' there lookin' at her. You don't see that sort of
+thing now.
+
+"They had a man--I don't know what his name was. He stalled them
+steers, stalled 'em twice a day. They used to pick cotton. I dreamed
+about cotton the other night.
+
+"My father farmed after slavery. I never heard them say they were
+cheated out of nothin'. I don't know whether they was or not. I'll
+tell you the truth. I didn't pay them no 'tention. Mighty little I can
+remember."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was raised an orph'_ant_ but I was born in Tennessee. I lived over
+there and farmed till 'bout fifty year ago. I come out here wid Mr.
+Woodson to pick cotton. He dead now and I still tryin' to work all I
+can.
+
+"I haben voted in thirty-five year. Because I couldn't vote in the
+Primary, then I say I wouldn't vote 'tall. I don't care if the women
+want to vote. Don't do no good nohow.
+
+"I farmed all my life 'ceptin' 'bout ten years I worked on the
+section. I got so I couldn't stand up to it every day and had to farm
+again.
+
+"I never considered times hard till I got disabled to work. It mighty
+bad when you can't get no jobs to do. My hardest time is in the
+winter. I has a garden and chickens but I ain't able to buy a cow. Man
+give me a little pig the other day. He won't be big enough to eat till
+late next spring. Every winter times is hard for me. It's been thater
+wa's ever since I begin not to be able to get about. Helped by the
+PWA."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: John Jones
+                    3109 W. 10th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I come here in 1856--you can figure it out for yourself. I was born
+in Arkansas, fifty miles below here.
+
+"I remember the soldiers. I know I was a little boy drivin' the gin.
+Had to put me upon the lever. You see, all us little fellows had to
+work.
+
+"I remember seein' the Indians goin' by to fight at Arkansas Post.
+They fought on the southern side. When I heard the cannons, I asked my
+mama what it was and she said 'twas war.
+
+"John Dye--that was my young master--went to the War but Ruben had a
+kind of afflicted hand and he didn't go.
+
+"Our plantation was on the river and I used to see the Yankee boats go
+down the river.
+
+"My papa belonged to the Douglases and mama belonged to the Dyes. I
+was born on the Douglas place and I ain't been down there in over
+fifty years. They said I was born in March but I don't know any more
+bout it than a rabbit.
+
+"Papa said he was raised up in the house. Said he didn't do much
+work--just tended to the gin.
+
+"I remember one night the Ku Klux come to our house. I was so scared I
+run under the house and stayed till ma called me out. I was so scared
+I didn't know what they had on.
+
+"I remember when some of the folks come back from Texas and they said
+peace was declared.
+
+"I think my brother run off and jined the Yankees and come here when
+they took Pine Bluff. War is a bad thing. I think they goin' keep on
+till they hatch up another one.
+
+"I didn't go to school much. I was the oldest boy at home and I had to
+plow. I went seven days all told and since then I learned ketch as
+ketch can. I can read and write pretty well. It's a consolation to be
+able to read. If you can't get all of it, you can get some of it.
+
+"Been here in Jefferson County ever since 1867. I come here from
+Lincoln County.
+
+"After freedom my papa moved my mama down on the Douglas place where
+he was and stayed one year, then moved on the Simpson place in Lincoln
+County, and then come up here in Jefferson County. I remember all the
+moves.
+
+"I remember down here where Kientz Bros, place is was the gallows
+where they hung folks in slavery times. You know--when they had
+committed some crime.
+
+"Yes'm, I voted but I never held any office.
+
+"I know I don't look my age but I can tell you a heap of things
+happened before emancipation.
+
+"I think the people are better off free--they got liberty."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lidia Jones
+                    228 N. Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 94
+Occupation: None--blind
+
+
+"I was born in Mississippi and emigrated to Arkansas. Born on the
+Peacock place. Old John Patterson was my old master.
+
+"My first goin' out was to the cow pen, then to the kitchen, and then
+they moved me to Mrs. Patterson's dining-room.
+
+"I helped weave cloth. Dyed it? I wish you'd hush! My missis went to
+the woods and got it. All I know is, she said it was indigo. She had a
+great big kittle and she put her thread in that. No Lord, she never
+bought _her_ indigo--she _raised_ it.
+
+"Oh, Miss Fannie could do most anything. Made the prettiest
+counter-panes I ever saw. Yes ma'am, she could do it and _did_ do it.
+
+"She had a loom half as big as this house. Lord a mercy, a many a time
+I went dancin' from that old spinnin'-wheel.
+
+"They made all the clothes for the colored folks. They'd be sewin' for
+weeks and months.
+
+"Miss Fannie and Miss Frances--that was her daughter--they wove such
+pretty cloth for the colored. You know, they went and made themselves
+dresses and the white and colored had the same kind of dresses.
+
+"Yes Lord, they _had_ some folks.
+
+"Miss Frances wore hoops but Miss Fannie didn't.
+
+"During of the War them Yankees come down the river; but to tell the
+truth, we run and hid and never seen 'em no more.
+
+"They took Mars John's fine saddle horse named Silver Heels. Yes
+ma'am, took saddle and bridle and the horse on top of 'em. And he had
+a mare named Buchanan and they took her too. He had done moved out of
+the big house down into the woods. Called hisself hidin' I reckon. And
+he had his horses tied down by the river and the Yankees slipped up on
+him and took the horses.
+
+"Yankees burned his house and gin house too and set fire to the
+cotton. Oh Lord, I don't like to talk about it. Them Yankees was
+rough.
+
+"Right after freedom our white folks left this country and went to
+Missouri and the last account I heard of 'em they was all dead.
+
+"After freedom, folks scattered out just like sheep.
+
+"I'm tryin' to study 'bout some songs but I can't think of nothin' but
+Dixie."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lydia Jones
+                    228 North Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 93
+
+
+"My name's Lydia--Lydia Jones. Oh my God I'se born in Mississippi. I
+wish you'd hush--I know all about slavery.
+
+"I never had but one master. That was old John Patterson. No he want
+good to me. I wish you'd hush! I had two young masters--Marse John and
+Marse Edward. Marse John go off to war and say he gwine whip them
+Yankees with his pocket knife, but he didn't _do_ it. They said the
+war was to keep the colored folks slaves. I tell you I've heard them
+bull whips a ringin' from sun to sun.
+
+"After the war when they told us we is free, they said to hire
+ourselves out. They didn't give us a nickel when we left.
+
+"I heered talk of the Ku Klux and they come close enough for us to be
+skeered but I never seen none of 'em. We never had no slave uprisin's
+on our plantation--old John Patterson would a shot 'em down. I tell
+you he was a rabid man.
+
+"I used to pick cotton and chop cotton and help weave the cloth. My
+old mistress--Miss Fannie--used to go to the woods and get things to
+dye the cloth. She would dye some blue and some red.
+
+"Only song I 'member is Dixie. I heered talk of some others but God
+knows I never fooled with 'em.
+
+"Yes'm I believes in hants. Let me tell you something. My mama seen my
+daddy after he been dead a long time. He come right up through the
+crack by the fireplace and he said 'Don't you be afraid Emmaline' but
+she was agoin'. They had to sing and pray in the house 'fore my mama
+would go back but she never seen him again.
+
+"I'se been blind now for three years and I lives with my granddaughter
+but lady, I'll tell you the truth--I been around. Yes, madam, I is."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Liza Jones (Cookie)
+                    610 S. Eighteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 88
+
+
+"Come in, this is Cookie. Well, I do know a heap about slavery, cause
+I worked. I stayed in the house; I was house girl. They called me
+Cookie cause I used to cook so much.
+
+"That was in Madison County, near Jackson, Tennessee. My mistress was
+good to me. Yes'm, I got along all right but a heap of others got
+along all wrong.
+
+"Mistress took care of us in the cold and all kinds of weather. She
+sho did.
+
+"She had four women and four men. We had plenty to eat. She had hogs
+and sheep and geese and always cooked enough for all of us. Whatever
+she had to eat we had.
+
+"We clothed our darkies in slavery times. I was a weaver for four
+years and never done nothin' else. Yes ma'm, I was a house woman and I
+am now.
+
+"Yes ma'm, I member seein' different kinds of soldiers. I member once
+some Rebels come to old mistress to get somethin' to eat but before it
+was ready the Yankees come and run em off. They didn't have time to
+eat it all so us colored folks got the rest of it.
+
+"Old mistress had a son Mac and he was in the war. The Yankees
+captured him and carried him to Chicago and put him in a warehouse
+over the water.
+
+"Old mistress was a good old Christian woman. All the darkies had to
+come to her room to prayermeetin' every night. She didn't skip no
+nights. And her help didn't mind workin'. They'd go the length for
+her, Miss.
+
+"After I was grown I went most anywhere, but when I was little I sho
+set on old mistress' dress tail. I used to go to church with her.
+She'd say, "Open your mouf and sing" and I'd just holler and sing. I
+can member now how loud I used to holler.
+
+"Aint no use in talkin', I had a good mistress. I never was sold. Old
+mistress wouldn't sell. There was a speculator come there and wanted
+to buy us. When we was free, old mistress say, "Now I could a sold you
+and had the money, and now you is goin' to leave." But they didn't,
+they stayed. Some stayed with old mistress till she died, but I
+didn't. I married the first year of freedom.
+
+"My mistress and me spin a many a cut of cotton together. She couldn't
+beat me neither. If that old soul was livin' today, I'd be right with
+her. I was gettin' along. I didn't know nothin' but freedom.
+
+"I had freedom then and I ain't been free since, didn't have no
+sponsibility. But when they turned you loose, you had your doctor bill
+and your grub bill--now wasn't you a slave then?
+
+"My mammy was a cook and her name was Katy.
+
+"After I was married we went to live at Black Ankle. I learned to cook
+and I sho did cook for the white folks twenty-one years. I used to go
+back and see old mistress. If I stay away too long, she send for me.
+
+"How many childen I had? You want the truth? Well, fifteen, but never
+had but three to live any length of time.
+
+"Well, I told you the best I know and the straightest I know. If I
+can't tell you the truth, I'm not goin' to tell you nothin'.
+
+"Yes, honey, I saw the Ku Klux."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lucy Jones,
+                    Marianna, Arkansas
+Age: Born 1866
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was raised second year after the surrender. I don't know a father
+or mother. They was dead when I was five years old. I had no sisters
+nor brothers. Mrs. Cynthia Hall raised me. She raised my mother.
+Master Hall was her husband. They was old people and they was so good
+to me. They had no children and I lived in the house with them. I
+never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count
+money.
+
+"My mother was dark. I married when I was fifteen years old. I have
+four children living. They are all dark. They are about the same color
+but darker than I am.
+
+"No ma'am, I don't believe one could be voodooed. I lived nearly all
+my life with white folks and they don't heed no foolishness like that,
+do they? I cooked, worked in the field, washed and ironed.
+
+"I married three times. The first time at Raymond, Mississippi. I
+never had no big weddings.
+
+"Seems like some folks have lost their grip and ain't willing to start
+over. I don't know much to say for the young people. They are not
+smart. They got more schooling. They try to shirk all the work they
+can. I never seen no Ku Klux in my life. People used to raise nearly
+all their living at home and now they depend on buying nearly
+everything. Well, I think it is bad."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones
+                    1017 Dennison, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"I was born on the twenty-second of March, 1866, in Van Buren,
+Arkansas. I had six children. All of them were bred and born at the
+same place.
+
+"I was born in a frame house. My father used to live in the country,
+but I was born in the town. He bought it just as soon as he come out
+of the army and married right away and bought this home. I don't know
+where he got his money from. I guess he saved it. He served in the
+Union army; he wasn't a servant. He was a soldier, and drawed his pay.
+He never run through his money like most people do. I don't know
+whether he made any money in slavery or not but he was a carpenter
+during slave times and they say he always had plenty of money. I guess
+he had saved some of that too.
+
+"My mother was married twice. Her name was Louisa Buchanan. My father
+was named Abraham Riley. My stepfather was named Moses Buchanan. My
+father was a soldier in the old original war (the Civil War)--the war
+they ended in 1865.
+
+"I disremember who my mother's master was but I think it was a man
+named Johnson. I didn't know my father's people. She married him from
+White County up here. Her and him, they corresponded mostly in letters
+because he traveled lots. He looked like an Indian. He had straight
+hair and was tall and rawboned and wore a Texas hat. I had his picture
+but the pictures fade away. My father was a sergeant. He died sometime
+after the war. I don't remember when because I wasn't old enough. I
+can just remember looking at the corpse. I was too small to do any
+grieving.
+
+"My mother was a nurse in slavery times. She nursed the white folks
+and their children. She did the housework and such like. She was a
+good cook too. After freedom, when the old folks died out, she cooked
+for Zeb Ward--you know him, head of the penitentiary. She used to cook
+for the Jews and gentiles. That her kind of work. That was her
+occupation--good cook. She could make all kinds of provisions. She
+could make preserves and they had a big orchard everywhere she worked.
+
+"I have heard my mother talk about pateroles, jayhawkers, and Ku Klux,
+but I never knew of them myself. I have heard say they were awful
+bad--the Ku Klux or somethin'.
+
+"My mother's white folks sold her. I don't know who they sold her to
+or from. They sold her from her mother. I don't know how she got free.
+I think she got free after the war ceased. But she had a good time all
+her life. She had a good time because she was a good cook, and a good
+nurse, and she had good white folks. My grandma, she had good folks
+too. They was free before they were free, my ma and grandma. They was
+just as free before freedom as they were afterwards. My mother had
+seven children and two sets of twins among them. But I am the only one
+living.
+
+
+Occupation
+
+"They say that I'm too old to work now; so I can't make nothin' to
+keep my home goin'. I have five children living. Two are away from
+here--one in Michigan, and another in Illinois. I have three others
+but they don't make enough to help me much. I used to work 'round the
+laundries. Then I used to work 'round with these colored restaurants.
+I worked with a colored woman down by the station for twelve or
+fifteen years. I first helped her wash and iron. She ironed and hired
+other girls to wait table and wash dishes and so on. Them times wasn't
+like they are now. They'd hire you and keep you. Then I worked at a
+white boarding house on Second and Cross. I quit working at the
+laundries because of the steady work in the restaurants. After the
+restaurants I went to work in private families and worked with them
+till I got so I couldn't work no more. Maybe I could do plenty of
+things, but they won't give me a chance.
+
+"I have been married twice. My second husband was John Jones. He
+always went by the name of his white folks. They were named Ivory. He
+came from up in Searcy. I got acquainted with him and we started going
+together. He'd been married before and had children up in Searcy. He
+got his leg cut off in a accident. He was working over to the shop
+lifting ties with another helper and this man helping him gave way on
+his side and let his end fall. It fell across my husband's foot and
+blood poison set in and caused him to lose his foot and leg. He had
+his foot cut off at the county hospital and made himself a peg-leg. He
+cut it out hisself while he was at the hospital. He lived a long while
+after that. He died on Tenth and Victory. My first husband was Henry
+White. He was a shop worker too--the Iron Mountain.
+
+"We went to school together. I lost my health before I married, and I
+had to stop going to school. The doctor was a German and lived on
+Cross between Fifth and Sixth. He said that he ought to have written
+the history of my life to show what I was cured of because I was
+paralyzed two years. My head was drawed 'way back between my
+shoulders. I lived with my first husband about six years. He died with
+T.B. in Memphis, Tennessee. He had married again when he died. We got
+so we couldn't agree, so I thought it was best for him to live with
+his mother and me to live with mine. We quit under good conditions. I
+had a boy after he was separated from me.
+
+"I don't know what to say about the people now. I don't get 'round
+much. They aren't like they used to be. The young people don't like to
+have you 'round them. I never did object to any of my children gettin'
+married because my mother didn't object to me.
+
+"I know Mr. Gillespie. (He passed at the time--ed.) He comes to see me
+now and then. All my people are dead now 'cept my children."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Brother Gillespie has a story turned in previously. Evidently he is
+making eyes at the old lady; but the romance is not likely to bud. She
+has lost the sight of one eye apparently through a cataract which has
+spread over the larger part of the iris. Nevertheless, she is more
+active than he is, and apparently more competent, and she isn't
+figuring on making her lot any harder than it is.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones
+                    509 E. 23rd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born three weeks 'fore Christmas in South Carolina.
+
+"I 'member one time the Yankees come along and I run to the door. I
+know ma made me go back but I peeped out the window. You know how
+children is. They wore great big old hats and blue coats.
+
+"'Nother time we saw them a comin' and said, 'Yonder come the Yankees'
+and we run. Ma said, 'Don't run, them's the Yankees what freed you.'
+
+"Old mis' was named Joanna Long and old master was Joe Long. I can't
+remember much, I just went by what ma said.
+
+"I went to school now and then on account we had to work.
+
+"We had done sold out in South Carolina and was down at the station
+when some of the old folks said if we was goin' to the Mississippi
+bottoms where the panthers and wolves was we would never come back. We
+thought we was comin' to Arkansas but when we found out we was in the
+Mississippi bottoms. We stayed there and made two crops, then we come
+to Arkansas.
+
+"The way the younger generation is livin' now, the Lord can't bless
+'em. They know how to do right but they won't do it. Yes ma'am."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Nannie Jones
+                    1601 Saracen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 81
+
+
+"Good morning. Come in. I sure is proud to see you. Yes ma'am, I sure
+is.
+
+"I was born in Chicot County. I heerd Dr. Gaines say I was four years
+old in slavery times. I know I ain't no baby. I feels my age, too--in
+my limbs.
+
+"I heerd 'em talk about a war but I wasn't big enough to know about
+it. My father went to war on one side but he didn't stay very long. I
+don't know which side he was on. Them folks all dead now--I just can
+remember 'em.
+
+"Dr. Gaines had a pretty big crew on the place. I'm gwine tell you
+what I know. I can't tell you nothin' else.
+
+"Now I want to tell it like mama said. She said she was sold from
+Kentucky. She died when I was small.
+
+"I remember when they said the people was free. I know they jumped up
+and down and carried on.
+
+"Dr. Gaines was so nice to his people. I stayed in the house most of
+the time. I was the little pet around the house. They said I was so
+cute.
+
+"Dr. Gaines give me my age but I lost it movin'. But I know I ain't no
+baby. I never had but two children and they both livin'--two girls.
+
+"Honey, I worked in the field and anywhere. I worked like a man. I
+think that's what got me bowed down now. I keeps with a misery right
+across my back. Sometimes I can hardly get along.
+
+"Honey, I just don't know 'bout this younger generation. I just don't
+have no thoughts for 'em, they so wild. I never was a rattlin' kind of
+a girl. I always was civilized. Old people in them days didn't 'low
+their children to do things. I know when mama called us, we'd better
+go. They is a heap wusser now. So many of 'em gettin' into trouble."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Reuben Jones
+                    Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"Well, I'm one of em. I can tell you bout it from now till sundown.
+
+"I was born at Senatobia, Mississippi, this side of Jackson. Born in
+'52 on April the 16th. That's when I was born.
+
+"Old man Stephen Williams was my master in time of the war and before
+the war, too. He was pretty good to me. Give me plenty of something to
+eat, but he whipped me. Oh, I specked I needed it. Put me in the field
+when I was five years old. Put a tar cap on my head. I was so young
+the sun made my hair come out so they put that tar cap on my head.
+
+"I member when they put the folks on blocks as high as that house and
+sell em to the highest bidder. No ma'm, I wasn't sold cause my mother
+had three or four chillun and boss man wouldn't sell dem what had
+chillun cause dem chillun was hands for him.
+
+"They made me hide ever'thing they had from the Yankees. Yes'm, I seen
+em come out after the fodder and the corn. We hid the meat and the
+mules and the money. Drove the mules in the cave. Kept em der till the
+Yankees left. We dug the hole for the meat but old marse dug the hole
+for the money.
+
+"I used to help put timbers on the bridge to keep the Yankees out but
+dey come right on through just the same. Took the ox wagon but dey
+sent it back.
+
+"Couldn't go nowhere without a pass. Had a whippin' block right at the
+horse trough. Yes ma'm, they'd eat you up. I mean they'd whip you, but
+they give you plenty of somethin' to eat.
+
+"My mother was the weaver and they had a tanyard on the place.
+
+"In slavery days couldn't go see none of your neighbors without a
+pass. People had meetin' right at the house. Dey'd have prayer and
+singin'. I went to em. I could sing--Lord yes. I used to know a lot of
+old songs--'Am I A Soldier of the Cross?'.
+
+"Lord yes, ma'm, don't talk! When the soldiers come out where we was I
+could hear the guns. Had a battle right in town. Rebels just as scared
+of the Yankees as if twas a bear. I seed one or two of em come to town
+and scare the whole business.
+
+"I never knowed but one man run off and jined the Yankees. Carried his
+master's finest ridin' hoss and a mule. He always had a fine hoss and
+Yankees come and took it. When the Yankees come out the last time, my
+owners cleaned out the smoke house and buried the meat.
+
+"I helped gin cotton when I wasn't big enough to stand up to the
+breast. Stood upon a bench and had a lantern hung up so I could see
+fore daylight. Yes ma'm, great big gin house. Yes ma'm, I sho has
+worked--all kinds and plowin'.
+
+"Now my old boss called me Tony--that's what he called me.
+
+"When peace come, we had done gathered our crop and we left there a
+week later. You know people usually hunts their kinfolks and we went
+to Hernando. Come to Arkansas in '77. Got offin de boat right der at
+de cotehouse. Pine Bluff wasn't nothin' when I come here.
+
+"I used to vote. I aimed to vote the Republican ticket--I don't know.
+
+"Oh yes ma'm, I seed the Ku Klux, yes ma'm. They're bad, too. Lord I
+seed a many of them. They come to my house. I went to the door and
+that's as far as I went. That was in Hernando. I went back to my old
+home in Hernando bout three months ago. Went where I was bred and born
+but I didn't know the place it was tore up so.
+
+"This younger generation whole lot different from when I was comin'
+up. Yes'm, it's a whole lot different. They ain't doin' so well. I
+have always tended to my own business. Cose I been arrested for
+drivin' mules with sore shoulders. Didn't put me in jail, but the
+officers come up. That was when I was workin' on the Lambert place. I
+told em they wasn't my mules so they let me go.
+
+"I can't tell you bout the times now. I hope it'll get better--can't
+get no wusser."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Vergil Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 70
+
+
+"My parents was Jane Jones and Vergil Jones. Their owner was Colonel
+Jones in Alabama. Papa went to the war and served four years. He got a
+$30 a month Union pension long as he lived. He was in a number of
+places. He fought as a field man. He had a long musket he brought home
+from the war. He told us a heap of things long time ago. Seem lack
+folks set down and talked wid their children more'n they do nowdays.
+
+"Papa come to this State after the surrender. He married here. I am
+the oldest of seven children. Mama was in this State before the war.
+She was bought when she was a girl and brought here. I don't know if
+Colonel Jones owned her or if papa had seen her somewhere else. He
+come to her and they married. My mama was a house girl some and she
+washed and ironed for Miss Fannie Lambert. They had a big family and a
+big farm. Their farm was seven miles this side of Indian Bay, eight
+miles to Clarendon. They had thirteen in family and mama had seven
+children made nine in her family. She had a bed piled full of starched
+clothes white as snow. Lamberts had three sets of twins. Our family
+lived with the Lamberts 23 or 24 years. We started working for Mr. B.
+J. Lambert and Miss Fannie (his wife). Mama nursed me and R. T. from
+the same breast. We was raised up grown together and I worked for R.
+T. till he died. We played with J. L. Black too till he was grown. He
+was county judge and sheriff of this county (Monroe).
+
+"Folks that helped me out is about all dead. I pick cotton but I can't
+pick very much. Now I don't have no work till chopping cotton times
+comes on. It is hard now. I would do jobs but I don't hear of no jobs
+to be done. I asked around but didn't find a thing to do.
+
+"I heard about the Ku Kluxes. My papa used to dodge the Ku Kluxes. He
+lay out in the bushes from them. It was bad times. Some folks would
+advise the black folks to do one way and then the Ku Kluxes come and
+make it hot for them. One thing the Ku Kluxes didn't want much big
+gatherings among the black folks. They break up big gatherings. Some
+white folks tell them to do one thing and then some others tell them
+to do some other way. That is the way it was. The Ku Kluxes was hot
+headed. Papa wasn't a bad man but he was afraid they did do so much.
+He was on the lookout and dodged them all the time.
+
+"I haven't voted for a long time. I couldn't keep my taxes up.
+
+"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house--not so
+good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that
+nobody would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between
+farming. I still farm. They hire mostly by the day--day labor. Them
+two things and my dis'bility is making it mighty hard for me to live.
+I work at any jobs I can get.
+
+"I signed up for the Old Age Pension. They said I couldn't work, I was
+too old. I wanted to work on the government work. I never got nothing.
+I don't get no kind of help. I thought I didn't know how to get into
+the Old Age Pension reason I didn't get it. It would help keep in wood
+this wet weather when work is scarce."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Walter Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"My father run away scared of the Yankees. He got excited and left. My
+mother didn't want him to leave her. She was crying when he left. My
+father belong to the Wilsons. Mother was sold on the block in
+Richmond, Virginia when she was twelve years old and never seen her
+mother again. Mother belong to Charles Hunt. Her name was Lucy Hunt.
+She married three times. Charles Hunt went to market to buy slaves. We
+lived in Hardeman County, Tennessee when I was born but he sent us to
+Mississippi. She worked in the field then but before then she was a
+house girl. No, she was black. We are all African.
+
+"I got eight children. When my wife died they finished scattering out.
+I come here from Grand Junction, Mississippi. I eat breakfast on
+Christmas day 1883 at Forrest City and spent the day at Hazen. I come
+with friends. We paid our own ways. We come on the train and boat and
+walked some.
+
+"No, I don't take stock in voting. I never did. I have voted so long
+ago I forgot it all.
+
+"The biggest thing I can tell you ever happened to us more than I told
+you was in 1878 I had yellow fever. Dr. Milton Pruitt come to see me.
+The next day his brother come to see me. Dr. Milton died the next day.
+I got well. At Grand Junction both black and white died. Some of both
+color got well. A lot of people died.
+
+"How am I making a living? I don't make one. Mr. Ashly lets me live in
+a house and gives me scrap meat. I bottom chairs or do what I can. I
+past heavy work. The Welfare don't help me. I farmed, railroaded
+nearly all my life. Public work this last few years."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Oscar Felix Junell
+                    1720 Brown Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 60
+
+
+"My father's name was Peter Junell, Peter W. Junell. I don't know what
+the W. was for. He was born in Ouachita County near Bearden, Arkansas.
+Bearden is an old town. It is fourteen miles from Camden. My dad was
+seventy-five years old when he died. He died in 1924. He was very
+young in the time of slavery. He never did do very much work.
+
+"His master was named John Junell. That was his old master. He had a
+young master too, Warren Junell. His old master given him to his young
+master, Warren. My father's mother and father both belonged to the
+Junells. His mother's name was Dinah, and his father's name was
+Anthony. All the slaves took their last names after their owners. They
+never was sold, not in any time that my father could remember.
+
+"As soon as my father was large enough to go to walkin' about, his old
+master given him to his son, Master Warren Junell. Warren would carry
+him about and make him rassle (wrestle). He was a good rassler. As far
+as work was concerned, he didn't do nothing much of that. He just
+followed his young master all around rasslin.
+
+"His masters was good to him. They whipped slaves sometimes, but they
+were considered good. My father always said they was good folks. He
+never told me how he learnt that he was free.
+
+"Pretty well all the slaves lived in log cabins. Even in my time,
+there was hardly a board house in that county. The food the slaves ate
+was mostly bread and milk--corn bread. Old man Junell was rich and
+had lots of slaves. When he went to feed his slaves, he would feed
+them jus like hogs. He had a great long trough and he would have bread
+crumbled up in it and gallons of milk poured over the bread, and the
+slaves would get round it and eat. Sometimes they would get to
+fighting over it. You know, jus like hogs! They would be eatin and
+sometimes one person would find somethin and get holt of it and
+another one would want to take it, and they would get to fightin over
+it. Sometimes blood would get in the trough, but they would eat right
+on and pay no 'tention to it.
+
+"I don't know whether they fed the old ones that way or not. I jus
+heered my father tell how he et out of the trough hisself.
+
+"I have heered my father talk about the pateroles too. He talked about
+how they used to chase him. But he didn't have much experience with
+them, because they never did catch him. That was after the war when
+the slaves had been freed, but the pateroles still got after them. My
+father remember how they would catch other slaves. One night they went
+to an old man's house. It was dark and the old man told them to come
+on in. He didn't have no gun, but he took his ax and stood behind the
+door on the hinge side. It was after slavery. When he said for them to
+come in, they rushed right on in and the old man killed three or four
+of them with his ax. He was a old African, and they never had been
+able to do nothin' with him, not even in slavery time. I never heard
+that they did nothin' to the old man about it. The pateroles was
+outlaws anyway.
+
+"I heard my father say that in slavery time, they took the finest and
+portlies' looking Negroes--the males--for breeding purposes. They
+wouldn't let them strain themselves up nor nothin like that. They
+wouldn't make them do much hard work."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Sam Keaton,
+                    Brinkley, Ark.
+Age: 78
+
+
+"I was born close to Golden Hill down in Arkansas County. My parents
+names was Louana and Dennis Keaton. They had ten children. Their
+master was Mr. Jack Keaton and Miss Martha. They had four boys. They
+all come from Virginia in wagons the second year of the war--the Civil
+War. I heard 'em tell about walking. Some of em walked, some rode
+horse back and some in wagons. I don't know if they knowed bout slave
+uprisings or not. I know they wasn't in em because they come here wid
+Mr. Jack Keaton. It was worse in Virginia than it was down here wid
+them. Mr. Keaton didn't give em nothing at freedom. They stayed on
+long as they wanted to stay and then they went to work for Mr. Jack
+Keaton's brother, Mr. Ben Keaton. They worked on shares and picked
+cotton by the hundred. My parents staid on down there till they died.
+I been working for Mr. Floria for thirty years.
+
+"My father did vote. He voted a Republican ticket. I haven't voted for
+fifty years. They that do vote in the General election know very
+little bout what they doing. If they could vote in the Primary they
+would know but a mighty little about it. The women ain't got no
+business voting. Their place is at home. They cain't keep their houses
+tidied up and like they oughter be and go out and work regularly.
+That's the reason I think they oughter stay at home and train the
+children better than it being done.
+
+"I think that the young generation is going to be lost. They killing
+and fighting. They do everything. No, they don't work much as I do.
+They don't save nothing! They don't save nothing! Times is harder than
+they used to be some. Nearly everybody wants to live in town. My age
+is making times heap harder for me. I live with my daughter. I am a
+widower. I owns 40 acres land, a house, a cow. I made three bales
+cotton, but I owe it bout all. I tried to get a little help so I could
+get out of debt but I never could get no 'sistance from the Welfare."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Watt McKinney
+Person interviewed: Tines Kendricks,
+                    Trenton, Arkansas
+Age: 104
+
+
+"My name is Tines Kendricks. I was borned in Crawford County, Georgia.
+You see, Boss, I is a little nigger and I really is more smaller now
+dan I used to be when I was young 'cause I so old and stooped over. I
+mighty nigh wore out from all these hard years of work and servin' de
+Lord. My actual name what was give to me by my white folks, de
+Kendricks, was 'Tiny'. Dey called me dat 'cause I never was no size
+much. Atter us all sot free I just changed my name to 'Tines' an' dats
+what I been goin' by for nigh on to ninety years.
+
+"'Cordin' to what I 'member 'bout it, Boss, I is now past a hundred
+and four year old dis past July de fourth two hours before day. What I
+means is what I 'member 'bout what de old mars told me dat time I
+comed back to de home place atter de War quit an' he say dat I past
+thirty then. My mammy, she said I born two hours before day on de
+fourth of July. Dat what dey tole me, Boss. I is been in good health
+all my days. I ain't never been sick any in my life 'scusin' dese last
+years when I git so old and feeble and stiff in de joints, and my teef
+'gin to cave, and my old bones, dey 'gin to ache. But I just keep on
+livin' and trustin' in de Lord 'cause de Good Book say, 'Wherefore de
+evil days come an' de darkness of de night draw nigh, your strength,
+it shall not perish. I will lift you up 'mongst dem what 'bides wid
+me.' Dat is de Gospel, Boss.
+
+"My old mars, he was named Arch Kendricks and us lived on de
+plantation what de Kendricks had not far from Macon in Crawford
+County, Georgia. You can see, Boss, dat I is a little bright an' got
+some white blood in me. Dat is 'counted for on my mammy's side of de
+family. Her pappy, he was a white man. He wasn't no Kendrick though.
+He was a overseer. Dat what my mammy she say an' then I know dat
+wasn't no Kendrick mixed up in nothin' like dat. Dey didn't believe in
+dat kind of bizness. My old mars, Arch Kendricks, I will say dis, he
+certainly was a good fair man. Old mis' an' de young mars, Sam, dey
+was strickly tough an', Boss, I is tellin' you de truth dey was cruel.
+De young mars, Sam, he never taken at all atter he pa. He got all he
+meanness from old mis' an' he sure got plenty of it too. Old mis', she
+cuss an' rare worse 'an a man. Way 'fore day she be up hollerin' loud
+enough for to be heered two miles, 'rousin' de niggers out for to git
+in de fields even 'fore light. Mars Sam, he stand by de pots handin'
+out de grub an' givin' out de bread an' he cuss loud an' say: 'Take a
+sop of dat grease on your hoecake an' move erlong fast 'fore I lashes
+you.' Mars Sam, he was a big man too, dat he was. He was nigh on to
+six an' a half feet tall. Boss, he certainly was a chile of de debbil.
+All de cookin' in dem days was done in pots hangin' on de pot racks.
+Dey never had no stoves endurin' de times what I is tellin' you 'bout.
+At times dey would give us enough to eat. At times dey wouldn't--just
+'cordin' to how dey feelin' when dey dishin' out de grub. De biggest
+what dey would give de field hands to eat would be de truck what us
+had on de place like greens, turnips, peas, side meat, an' dey sure
+would cut de side meat awful thin too, Boss. Us allus had a heap of
+corn-meal dumplin's an' hoecakes. Old mis', her an' Mars Sam, dey real
+stingy. You better not leave no grub on your plate for to throw away.
+You sure better eat it all iffen you like it or no. Old mis' and Mars
+Sam, dey de real bosses an' dey was wicked. I'se tellin' you de truth,
+dey was. Old mars, he didn't have much to say 'bout de runnin' of de
+place or de handlin' of de niggers. You know all de property and all
+the niggers belonged to old mis'. She got all dat from her peoples.
+Dat what dey left to her on their death. She de real owner of
+everything.
+
+"Just to show you, Boss, how 'twas with Mars Sam, on' how contrary an'
+fractious an' wicked dat young white man was, I wants to tell you
+'bout de time dat Aunt Hannah's little boy Mose died. Mose, he sick
+'bout er week. Aunt Hannah, she try to doctor on him an' git him well
+an' she tell old mis' dat she think Mose bad off an' orter have de
+doctor. Old mis', she wouldn't git de doctor. She say Mose ain't sick
+much, an' bless my Soul, Aunt Hannah she right. In a few days from
+then Mose is dead. Mars Sam, he come cussin' an' tole Gabe to get some
+planks an' make de coffin an' sont some of dem to dig de grave over
+dere on de far side of de place where dey had er buryin'-groun' for de
+niggers. Us toted de coffin over to where de grave was dug an' gwine
+bury little Mose dar an' Uncle Billy Jordan, he was dar and begun to
+sing an' pray an' have a kind of funeral at de buryin'. Every one was
+moanin' an' singin' an' prayin' and Mars Sam heard 'em an' come
+sailin' over dar on he hoss an' lit right in to cussin' an' rarein'
+an' say dat if dey don't hurry an' bury dat nigger an' shut up dat
+singin' an' carryin' on, he gwine lash every one of dem, an' then he
+went to cussin' worser an' 'busin' Uncle Billy Jordan. He say iffen he
+ever hear of him doin' any more preachin' or prayin' 'round 'mongst de
+niggers at de grave-yard or anywheres else, he gwine lash him to
+death. No suh, Boss, Mars Sam wouldn't even 'low no preachin' or
+singin' or nothin' like dat. He was wicked. I tell you he was.
+
+"Old mis', she ginrally looked after de niggers when dey sick an' give
+dem de medicine. An' too, she would get de doctor iffen she think dey
+real bad off 'cause like I said, old mis', she mighty stingy an' she
+never want to lose no nigger by dem dyin'. How-some-ever it was hard
+some time to get her to believe you sick when you tell her dat you
+was, an' she would think you just playin' off from work. I have seen
+niggers what would be mighty near dead before old mis' would believe
+them sick at all.
+
+"Before de War broke out, I can 'member there was some few of de white
+folks what said dat niggers ought to be sot free, but there was just
+one now an' then that took that stand. One of dem dat I 'member was de
+Rev. Dickey what was de parson for a big crowd of de white peoples in
+dat part of de county. Rev. Dickey, he preached freedom for de niggers
+and say dat dey all should be sot free an' gived a home and a mule.
+Dat preachin' de Rev. Dickey done sure did rile up de folks--dat is de
+most of them like de Kendricks and Mr. Eldredge and Dr. Murcheson and
+Nat Walker and such as dem what was de biggest of the slaveowners.
+Right away atter Rev. Dickey done such preachin' dey fired him from de
+church, an' 'bused him, an' some of dem say dey gwine hang him to a
+limb, or either gwine ride him on a rail out of de country. Sure
+enough dey made it so hot on dat man he have to leave clean out of de
+state so I heered. No suh, Boss, they say they ain't gwine divide up
+no land with de niggers or give them no home or mule or their freedom
+or nothin'. They say dey will wade knee deep in blood an' die first.
+
+"When de War start to break out, Mars Sam listed in de troops and was
+sent to Virginny. There he stay for de longest. I hear old mis'
+tellin' 'bout de letters she got from him, an' how he wishin' they
+hurry and start de battle so's he can get through killin' de Yankees
+an' get de War over an' come home. Bless my soul, it wasn't long
+before dey had de battle what Mars Sam was shot in. He writ de letter
+from de hospital where they had took him. He say dey had a hard fight,
+dat a ball busted his gun, and another ball shoot his cooterments
+(accouterments) off him; the third shot tear a big hole right through
+the side of his neck. The doctor done sew de wound up; he not hurt so
+bad. He soon be back with his company.
+
+"But it wasn't long 'fore dey writ some more letters to old mis' an'
+say dat Mars Sam's wound not gettin' no better; it wasn't healin' to
+do no good; every time dat they sew de gash up in his neck it broke
+loose again. De Yankees had been puttin' poison grease on the bullets.
+Dat was de reason de wound wouldn't get well. Dey feared Mars Sam
+goin' to die an' a short time atter dat letter come I sure knowed it
+was so. One night just erbout dusk dark, de screech owls, dey come in
+er swarm an' lit in de big trees in de front of de house. A mist of
+dust come up an' de owls, dey holler an' carry on so dat old mars get
+he gun an' shot it off to scare dem erway. Dat was a sign, Boss, dat
+somebody gwine to die. I just knowed it was Mars Sam.
+
+"Sure enough de next day dey got de message dat Mars Sam dead. Dey
+brung him home all de way from Virginny an' buried him in de
+grave-yard on de other side of de garden wid his gray clothes on him
+an' de flag on de coffin. That's what I'se telling you, Boss, 'cause
+dey called all de niggers in an' 'lowed dem to look at Mars Sam. I
+seen him an' he sure looked like he peaceful in he coffin with his
+soldier clothes on. I heered atterwards dat Mars Sam bucked an' rared
+just 'fore he died an' tried to get outen de bed, an' dat he cussed to
+de last.
+
+"It was this way, Boss, how come me to be in de War. You see, they
+'quired all of de slaveowners to send so many niggers to de army to
+work diggin' de trenches an' throwin' up de breastworks an' repairin'
+de railroads what de Yankees done 'stroyed. Every mars was 'quired to
+send one nigger for every ten dat he had. Iffen you had er hundred
+niggers, you had to send ten of dem to de army. I was one of dem dat
+my mars 'quired to send. Dat was de worst times dat dis here nigger
+ever seen an' de way dem white men drive us niggers, it was something
+awful. De strap, it was goin' from 'fore day till 'way after night. De
+niggers, heaps of 'em just fall in dey tracks give out an' them white
+men layin' de strap on dey backs without ceastin'. Dat was zackly way
+it was wid dem niggers like me what was in de army work. I had to
+stand it, Boss, till de War was over.
+
+"Dat sure was a bad war dat went on in Georgia. Dat it was. Did you
+ever hear 'bout de Andersonville prison in Georgia? I tell you, Boss,
+dat was 'bout de worstest place dat ever I seen. Dat was where dey
+keep all de Yankees dat dey capture an' dey had so many there they
+couldn't nigh take care of them. Dey had them fenced up with a tall
+wire fence an' never had enough house room for all dem Yankees. They
+would just throw de grub to 'em. De mostest dat dey had for 'em to eat
+was peas an' the filth, it was terrible. De sickness, it broke out
+'mongst 'em all de while, an' dey just die like rats what been
+pizened. De first thing dat de Yankees do when dey take de state 'way
+from de Confedrits was to free all dem what in de prison at
+Andersonville.
+
+"Slavery time was tough, Boss. You Just don't know how tough it was. I
+can't 'splain to you just how bad all de niggers want to get dey
+freedom. With de 'free niggers' it was just de same as it was wid dem
+dat was in bondage. You know there was some few 'free niggers' in dat
+time even 'fore de slaves taken outen bondage. It was really worse on
+dem dan it was with dem what wasn't free. De slaveowners, dey just
+despised dem 'free niggers' an' make it just as hard on dem as dey
+can. Dey couldn't get no work from nobody. Wouldn't airy man hire 'em
+or give 'em any work at all. So because dey was up against it an'
+never had any money or nothin', de white folks make dese 'free
+niggers' sess (assess) de taxes. An' 'cause dey never had no money for
+to pay de tax wid, dey was put up on de block by de court man or de
+sheriff an' sold out to somebody for enough to pay de tax what dey say
+dey owe. So dey keep these 'free niggers' hired out all de time most
+workin' for to pay de taxes. I 'member one of dem 'free niggers'
+mighty well. He was called 'free Sol'. He had him a little home an' a
+old woman an' some boys. Dey was kept bounded out nigh 'bout all de
+time workin' for to pay dey tax. Yas suh, Boss, it was heap more
+better to be a slave nigger dan er free un. An' it was really er
+heavenly day when de freedom come for de race.
+
+"In de time of slavery annudder thing what make it tough on de niggers
+was dem times when er man an' he wife an' their chillun had to be
+taken 'way from one anudder. Dis sep'ration might be brung 'bout most
+any time for one thing or anudder sich as one or tudder de man or de
+wife be sold off or taken 'way to some other state like Louisiana or
+Mississippi. Den when a mars die what had a heap of slaves, these
+slave niggers be divided up 'mongst de mars' chillun or sold off for
+to pay de mars' debts. Then at times when er man married to er woman
+dat don't belong to de same mars what he do, then dey is li'ble to git
+divided up an' sep'rated most any day. Dey was heaps of nigger
+families dat I know what was sep'rated in de time of bondage dat tried
+to find dey folkses what was gone. But de mostest of 'em never git
+togedder ag'in even after dey sot free 'cause dey don't know where one
+or de other is.
+
+"Atter de War over an' de slaves taken out of dey bondage, some of de
+very few white folks give dem niggers what dey liked de best a small
+piece of land for to work. But de mostest of dem never give 'em
+nothin' and dey sure despise dem niggers what left 'em. Us old mars
+say he want to 'range wid all his niggers to stay on wid him, dat he
+gwine give 'em er mule an' er piece er ground. But us know dat old
+mis' ain't gwine agree to dat. And sure enough she wouldn't. I'se
+tellin' you de truth, every nigger on dat place left. Dey sure done
+dat; an' old mars an' old mis', dey never had a hand left there on
+that great big place, an' all that ground layin' out.
+
+"De gov'ment seen to it dat all of de white folks had to make
+contracts wid de niggers dat stuck wid 'em, an' dey was sure strict
+'bout dat too. De white folks at first didn't want to make the
+contracts an' say dey wasn't gwine to. So de gov'ment filled de jail
+with 'em, an' after that every one make the contract.
+
+"When my race first got dey freedom an' begin to leave dey mars', a
+heap of de mars got ragin' mad an' just tore up truck. Dey say dey
+gwine kill every nigger dey find. Some of them did do dat very thing,
+Boss, sure enough. I'se tellin' you de truth. Dey shot niggers down by
+de hundreds. Dey jus' wasn't gwine let 'em enjoy dey freedom. Dat is
+de truth, Boss.
+
+"Atter I come back to de old home place from workin' for de army, it
+wasn't long 'fore I left dar an' git me er job with er sawmill an'
+worked for de sawmill peoples for about five years. One day I heered
+some niggers tellin' about er white man what done come in dar gittin'
+up er big lot of niggers to take to Arkansas. Dey was tellin' 'bout
+what a fine place it was in Arkansas, an' how rich de land is, an' dat
+de crops grow without working, an' dat de taters grow big as er
+watermelon an' you never have to plant 'em but de one time, an' all
+sich as dat. Well, I 'cided to come. I j'ined up with de man an' come
+to Phillips County in 1875. Er heap er niggers come from Georgia at de
+same time dat me an' Callie come. You know Callie, dats my old woman
+whats in de shack dar right now. Us first lived on Mr. Jim Bush's
+place over close to Barton. Us ain't been far off from dere ever since
+us first landed in dis county. Fact is, Boss, us ain't been outen de
+county since us first come here, an' us gwine be here now I know till
+de Lord call for us to come on home."
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+Name of interviewer: Watt McKinney
+Subject: Superstitious beliefs
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page, add page)
+
+This information given by: Tines Kendricks (C)
+Place of residence: Trenton, Arkansas
+Occupation: None
+Age: 104
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+There is an ancient and traditional belief among the Southern Negroes,
+especially the older ones, that the repeated and intermitted cries of
+a whippoorwill near a home in the early evenings of summer and
+occurring on successive days at or about the same time and location;
+or the appearance of a highly excited redbird, disturbed for no
+apparent reason, is indicative of some imminent disaster, usually
+thought to be the approaching death of some member of the family.
+
+Tines Kendricks, who says that he was born the slave of Arch Kendricks
+in Crawford County, Georgia, two hours before day on a certain Fourth
+of July, one hundred and four years ago, recalls several instances in
+his long and eventful life in which he contends the accuracy of these
+forecasts was borne out by subsequent occurrences. The most striking
+of these he says was the time his young master succumbed from the
+effect of a wound received at the first battle of Manassas after
+hovering between life and death for several days. The young master,
+Sam Kendricks, who was the only son of his parents, volunteered at the
+beginning of the War and was attached to the army in Virginia. He was
+a very impetuous, high-spirited young man and chafed much under the
+delay occasioned between the time of his enlistment and first battle,
+wanting to have the trouble over with and the difficulties settled
+which he honestly thought could be accomplished in the first
+engagement with that enemy for whom he held such profound contempt.
+Sam Kendricks, coming as he did from a long line of slave-owning
+forebears, was one of those Southerners who felt that it was theirs to
+command and the duty of others to obey. They would brook no
+interference with the established order and keenly resented the
+attitude and utterances of Northern press and spokesmen on the slavery
+question. Tines Kendricks recalls the time his young master took leave
+of his home and parents for the war and his remarks on departing that
+his neck was made to fit no halter and that he possessed no mite of
+fear for Yankee soldier or Yankee steel. Soon after the battle of
+Manassas, Arch Kendricks was advised that Sam had suffered a severe
+wound in the engagement. It was stated, however, that the wound was
+not expected to prove fatal. This sad news of what had befallen the
+young master was soon communicated throughout the entire length and
+breadth of the great plantation and in the early evening of that day
+Tines sitting in the door of his cabin in the slave quarters a short
+distance from the master's great house heard the cry of a whippoorwill
+and observed that the voice of this night bird seemed to arise from
+the dense hedge enclosing the spacious lawn in front of the home.
+Disturbed and filled with a sense of foreboding at this sound of the
+bird, he earnestly hoped and prayed that the cry would not be repeated
+the following evening, but to his great disappointment it was heard
+again and nearer the house than before. On each succeeding evening
+according to Tines Kendricks the call of the bird came clearly through
+the evening's stillness and each time he noticed that the cry came
+from a spot nearer the home until at last the bird seemed perched
+beneath the wide veranda and early on the morning following, a very
+highly excited redbird darted from tree to tree on the front lawn.
+The redbird continued these peculiar actions for several minutes after
+which it flew and came to rest on the roof of the old colonial mansion
+directly above the room formerly occupied by the young master. Tines
+was convinced now that the end had come for Sam Kendricks and that his
+approaching death had been foretold by the whippoorwill and that each
+evening as the bird approached nearer the house and uttered his night
+cry just so was the life of young Sam Kendricks slowly nearing its
+close and the actions of the redbird the following day was revealing
+evidence to Tines that the end had come to his young master which
+indeed it had as proven by a message the family received late in the
+morning of this same day.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Frank Kennedy,
+                    Holly Grove, Arkansas
+Age: 65 or 70?
+
+
+"My parents' name was Hannah and Charles Kennedy. They b'long to
+Master John Kennedy. I was raised round Aberdeen, Mississippi but they
+come in there after freedom. I heard em talk but I couldn't tell you
+much as where they come from. They said a young girl bout got her
+growth would auction off for more than any man. They used em for cooks
+and house women. I judge way they talked she be fifteen or sixteen
+years old. They brought $1,600 and $2,000. If they was scared up,
+where they been beat, they didn't sell off good. I knowed Master John
+Kennedy.
+
+"The Ku Klux come round but they didn't bother much. They would bother
+if you stole something. Another thing they made em stay close bout
+their own places and work. I don't know bout freedom.
+
+"I been farmin' and sawmillin' at Clarendon. I gets jobs I can do on
+the farms now. I got rheumatism so I can't get round. I had this
+trouble five years or longer now.
+
+"The times is worse, so many folks stealin' and killin'. The young
+folks don't work steady as they used to. Used to get figured out all
+you raised till now they refuse to work less en the money in sight.
+They don't work hard as I allers been workin'.
+
+"I got one girl married. I don't have no land nor home. I works for
+all I have yet.
+
+"I have voted--not lately. I think my color outer vote like the white
+folks do long as they do right. The women takin' the mens' places too
+much it pears like. But they may be honester. I don't know how it will
+be."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns
+                    800 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"When they first put me in the field, they put me and Viney to pick up
+brush and pile it, to pick up stumps, and when we got through with
+that, she worked on her mother's row and I worked on my aunt's row
+until we got large enough to have a row to ourselves. Me and Viney
+were the smallest children in the field and we had one row each. Some
+of the older people had two rows and picked on each row.
+
+"My birthday is on the fourth of November, and I am eighty-five years
+old. You can count back and see what year I was born in.
+
+
+Relatives
+
+"My mother's first child was her master's child. I was the second
+child but my father was Reuben Dortch. He belonged to Colonel Dortch.
+Colonel Dortch died in Princeton, Arkansas, Dallas County, about
+eighty-six miles from here. He died before the War. I never saw him.
+But he was my father's first master. He used to go and get goods, and
+he caught this fever they had then--I think it was cholera--and died.
+After Colonel Dortch died, his son-in-law, Archie Hays, became my
+father's second master. Were all with Hays when we were freed.
+
+"My father's father was a white man. He was named Wilson Rainey. I
+never did see him. My mother has said to me many a time that he was
+the meanest man in Dallas County. My father's mother was named Viney.
+That was her first name. I forget the last name. My mother's name was
+Martha Hays, and my grandmother's name on my mother's side was Sallie
+Hays. My maiden name was Adrianna Dortch.
+
+
+A Devoted Slave Husband
+
+"I have heard my mother tell many a time that there was a slave man
+who used to take his own dinner and carry it three or four miles to
+his wife. His wife belonged to a mean white man who wouldn't give them
+what they needed to eat. He done without his dinner in order that she
+might have enough. Where would you find a man to do that now? Nowadays
+they are taking the bread away from their wives and children and
+carrying it to some other woman.
+
+
+Patrollers
+
+"A Negro couldn't leave his master's place unless he had a pass from
+his master. If he didn't have a pass, they would whip him. My father
+was out once and was stopped by them. They struck him. When my father
+got back home, he told Colonel Dortch and Colonel Dortch went after
+them pateroles and laid the law down to them--told them that he was
+ready to kill 'em.
+
+"The pateroles got after a slave named Ben Holmes once and run him
+clean to our place. He got under the bed and hid. But they found him
+and dragged him out and beat him.
+
+
+Work
+
+"I had three aunts in the field. They could handle a plow and roll
+logs as well as any man. Trees would blow down and trees would have to
+be carried to a heap and burned.
+
+"I been whipped many a time by my mistress and overseer. I'd get
+behind with my work and he would come by and give me a lick with the
+bull whip he carried with him.
+
+"At first when the old folks cut wood, me and Viney would pick up
+chips and burn up brush. We had to pick dry peas in the fall after the
+crops had been gathered. We picked two large basketsful a day.
+
+"When we got larger we worked in the field picking cotton and pulling
+corn as high as we could reach. You had to pull the fodder first
+before you could pull the corn. When we had to come out of the field
+on account of rain, we would go to the corn crib and shuck corn if we
+didn't have some weaving to do. We got so we could weave and spin.
+When master caught us playing, he would set us to cutting jackets. He
+would give us each two or three switches and we would stand up and
+whip each other. I would go easy on Viney but she would try to cut me
+to pieces. She hit me so hard I would say, 'Yes suh, massa.' And she
+would say, 'Why you sayin' "Yes suh, massa," to me? I ain't doin'
+nothin' to you.'
+
+"My mother used to say that Lincoln went through the South as a beggar
+and found out everything. When he got back, he told the North how
+slavery was ruining the nation. He put different things before the
+South but they wouldn't listen to him. I heard that the South was the
+first one to fire a shot.
+
+"Lemme tell you how freedom came. Our master came out where we was
+grubbing the ground in front of the house. My father was already in
+Little Rock where they were trying to make a soldier out of him.
+Master came out and said to mother, 'Martha, they are saying you are
+free but that ain't goin' to las' long. You better stay here. Reuben
+is dead.'
+
+"Mother then commenced to fix up a plan to leave. She got the oxen
+yoked up twice, but when she went to hunt the yoke, she couldn't find
+it. Negroes were all going through every which way then. Peace was
+declared before she could get another chance. Word came then that the
+government would carry all the slaves where they wanted to go. Mother
+came to Little Rock in a government wagon.
+
+"She left Cordelia. Cordelia was her daughter by Archie Hays. Cordelia
+was supposed to join us when the government wagon came along but she
+went to sleep. One colored woman was coming to get in the wagon and
+her white folks caught her and made her go back. Them Yankees got off
+their horses and went over there and made them turn the woman loose
+and let her come on. They were rough and they took her on to Little
+Rock in the wagon.
+
+"The Yankees used to come looking for horses. One time Master Archie
+had sent the horses off by one of the colored slaves who was to stay
+at his wife's house and hide them in the thicket. During the night,
+mother heard Archie Hays hollering. She went out to see what was the
+matter. The Yankees had old Archie Hays out and had guns poked at his
+breast. He was hollering, 'No sir. I don't.' And mother came and said,
+'Reuben, get up and go tell them he don't know where the horses is.'
+Father got up and did a bold thing. He went out and said, 'Wait,
+gentlemen, he don't know where the horses is, but if you'll wait till
+tomorrow morning, he'll send a man to bring them in.' I don't know how
+they got word to him but he brought them in the next morning and the
+Yankees taken them off.
+
+"Once a Rebel fired a shot at a Yankee and in a few minutes, our place
+was alive with them. They were working like ants in a heap all over
+the place. They took chickens and everything on the place.
+
+Master Archie didn't have no sons large enough for the army. If he
+had, they would have killed him because they would have thought that
+he was harboring spies."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns is a sister to Charles Green Dortch. Cross
+reference; see his story.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: George Key,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 70 plus
+
+
+"I was born in Fayette County, Tennessee. My mother was Henrietta
+Hair. She was owned by David Hair. He had a gang of children. I was
+her only child. She married just after the surrender she said. She
+married Henry Key.
+
+"One thing I can tell you she told me so often. The Yankees come by
+and called her out of the cabin at the quarters. She was a brown girl.
+They was going out on a scout trip--to hunt and ravage over the
+country. They told her to get up her clothes, they would be by for
+her. She was grandma's and grandpa's owners' nurse girl. She told them
+and they sent her on to tell the white folks. They sent her clear off.
+She didn't want to leave. She said her master was plumb good to her
+and them all. They kept her hid out. The Yankees come slipping back to
+tole her off. They couldn't find her nowhere. They didn't ax about
+her. They was stealing her for a cook she thought. She couldn't cook
+to do no good she said. She wasn't married for a long time after then.
+She said she was scared nearly to death till they took her off and hid
+her.
+
+"I have voted but not for a long time. I'm too old to get about and
+keep too sick to go to the polls to vote. I got high blood pressure.
+
+"Times is fair. If I was a young man I would go to work. I can't
+grumble. Folks mighty nice to me. I keeps in line with my kin folks
+and men my age.
+
+"The young age folks don't understand me and I don't know their ways
+neither. They may be all right, but I don't know."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lucy Key,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 70 plus
+
+
+"I was born in Marshall County, Mississippi. I seen Yankees go by in
+droves. I was big enough to recollect that. Old mis', Ellis Marshall's
+mother, named all the colored children on the place. All the white and
+colored children was named for somebody else in the family. Aunt Mary
+Marshall stayed in the house wid old mis'.
+
+"Old mis' had a polly parrot. That thing got bad 'bout telling on us.
+Old mis' give us a brushing. Her son was a bachelor. He lived there.
+He married a girl fourteen or fifteen years old and Lawrence Marshall
+is their son. His sister was in Texas. They said old man Marshall was
+so stingy he would cut a pea in two. Every time we'd go in the orchard
+old polly parrot tell on us. We'd eat the turning fruit. One day Aunt
+Mary (colored) scared polly with her dress and apron till he took bad
+off sick and died. Mr. Marshall was rough. If he'd found that out he'd
+'bout whooped Aunt Mary to death. He didn't find it out. He'd have
+crazy spells and they couldn't handle him. They would send for Wallace
+and Tite Marshall (colored men on his place). They was all could do
+anything wid 'em. He had plenty money and a big room full of meat all
+the time.
+
+"I recollect what we called after the War a 'Jim Crow.' It was a
+hairbrush that had brass or steel teeth like pins 'ceptin' it was
+blunt. It was that long, handle and all (about a foot long). They'd
+wash me and grease my legs with lard, keep them from looking ashy and
+rusty. Then they'd come after me with them old brushes and brush my
+hair. It mortally took skin, hair, and all.
+
+"The first shoe I ever wore had a brass toe. I danced all time when I
+was a child. We wore cotton dresses so strong. They would hang you if
+you got caught on 'em. We had one best dress.
+
+"One time I went along wid a colored girl to preaching. Her fellar
+walked home wid 'er. I was coming 'long behind. He helped her over the
+rail fence. I wouldn't let him help me. I was sorter bashful. He
+looked back and I was dangling. I got caught when I jumped. They got
+me loose. My homespun dress didn't tear.
+
+"I liked my papa the best. He was kind and never whooped us. He belong
+to Master Stamps on another place. He was seventy-five years old when
+he died.
+
+"I milked a drove of cows. They raised us on milk and they had a
+garden. I never et much meat. I went to school and they said meat
+would make you thick-headed so you couldn't learn.
+
+"I think papa was in the War. We cut sorghum cane with his sword what
+he fit wid.
+
+"Stamps was a teacher. He started a college before the War. It was a
+big white house and a boarding house for the scholars. He had a
+scholar they called Cooperwood. He rode. He would run us children.
+Mama went to Master Stamps and he stopped that. He was the teacher. I
+think that was toreckly after the War. Then we lived in the boarding
+house. Four or five families lived in that big old house. It had
+fifteen rooms. That was close to Marshall, Mississippi.
+
+"Me and the Norfleet children drove the old mule gin together. There
+was Mary, Nell, Grace. Miss Cora was the oldest. Miss Cora Marshall
+married the old bachelor I told you about. She didn't play much.
+
+"When the first yellow fever broke out, Master George Stamps sent papa
+to Colliersville from Germantown. The officers stayed there. While he
+was waiting for meat he would stay in the bottoms. He'd bring meat
+back. Master George had a great big heavy key to the smokehouse. He'd
+cut meat and give it out to his Negroes. That meat was smuggled from
+Memphis. He'd go in a two-horse wagon. I clem up and look through the
+log cracks at him cutting up the meat fer the hands on his place.
+
+"I had the rheumatism but I cured it. I cupped my knee. Put water in a
+cup, put a little coal oil (kerosene) on top, strike a match to it and
+slap the cup to my knee. It drawed a clear blister. I got it well and
+the rheumatism was gone. I used to rub my legs from my waist down'ards
+with mule water. They say that is mighty good for rheumatism. I don't
+have it no more.
+
+"No sir-ree-bob, I ain't never voted and I don't aim to long as I'm in
+my mind.
+
+"Times ain't hard as they was when I was coming on. (Another Negro
+woman says Aunt Lucy Key will wash or do lots of things and never take
+a cent of pay for it--ed.) Money is scarce but this generation don't
+know how to work. My husband gets relief 'cause he's sick and wore
+out. My nephew gives us these rooms to live in. He got money. (We saw
+a radio in his room and modern up-to-date furnishings--ed.) He is a
+good boy. I'm good to him as I can be. Seems like some folks getting
+richer every day, other folks getting worse off every day. Times look
+dark that way to me.
+
+"I been in Arkansas eight years. I tries to be friendly wid
+everybody."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Bernice Bowden.
+Person interviewed: Anna King (c)
+Home: 704 West Fifth, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 80
+
+
+"Yes honey, I was here in slavery times. I'se gittin' old too, honey.
+I was nine years old goin' on ten when the war ceasted. I remember
+when they was volunteerin'. I remember they said it wasn't goin' to be
+nothin' but a breakfus' spell.
+
+"My fust marster was Nichols Lee. You see I was born in slavery
+times--and I was sold away from my mother. My mother never did tell us
+nothin' 'bout our ages. My white people told me after freedom that I
+was 'bout nine or ten.
+
+"When the white chillun come of age they drawed for the colored folks.
+Marse Nichols Lee had a girl named Ann and she drawed me. She didn't
+keep me no time though, and the man what bought me was named Leo
+Andrew Whitley. He went to war and died before the war ceasted. Then I
+fell to his brother Jim Whitley. He was my last marster. I was with
+him when peace was declared. Yes mam, he was good to me. All my white
+folks mighty good to me. Co'se Jim Whitley's wife slap my jaws
+sometimes, but she never did take a stick to me.
+
+"Lord honey, its been so long I just can't remember much now. I'se
+gittin' old and forgitful. Heap a things I remember and heap a things
+slips from me and is gone.
+
+"Well honey, in slavery times, a heap of 'em didn't have good owners.
+When they wanted to have church services and keep old marster from
+hearin', they'd go out in the woods and turn the wash-pot upside down.
+You know that would take up all the sound.
+
+"I remember Adam Heath--he was called the meanest white man. I
+remember he bought a boy and you know his first marster was good and
+he wasn't used to bein' treated bad.
+
+One day he asked old Adam Heath for a chew of tobacco, so old Adam
+whipped him, and the boy ran away. But they caught him and put a bell
+on him. Yes mam, that was in slavery times. Honey, I had good owners.
+They didn't believe in beatin' their niggers.
+
+"You know my home was in North Carolina. I was bred and born in
+Johnson County.
+
+"I remember seein' the soldiers goin' to war, but I never seed no
+Yankee soldiers till after freedom.
+
+"When folks heard the Yankees was comin' they run and hide their
+stuff. One time they hide the meat in the attic, but the Yankees found
+it and loaded it in Everett Whitley's wife's surrey and took it away.
+She died just 'fore surrender.
+
+"And I remember 'nother time they went to the smokehouse and got
+something to eat and strewed the rest over the yard. Then they went in
+the house and jest ramshacked it.
+
+"My second marster never had no wife. He was courtin' a girl, but when
+the war come, he volunteered. Then he took sick and died at Manassas
+Gap. Yes'm, that's what they told me.
+
+"My furst marster had a whiskey still. Now let me see, he had three
+girls and one boy and they each had two slaves apiece. Ann Lee drawed
+me and my grandmother.
+
+"No mam, I never did go to school. You better _not_ go to school. You
+better not ever be caught with a book in your hand. Some of 'em
+slipped off and got a little learnin'. They'd get the old Blue Back
+book out. Heap of 'em got a little learnin', but I didn't.
+
+"When I fell to Jim Whitley's wife she kept me right in the house with
+her. Yes mam, she was one good mistis to me when I was a child. She
+certainly did feed me and clothe me. Yes mam!
+
+"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? Let me see, honey, if I can give you
+a guess. I been here about forty years. I remember they come to the
+old country (North Carolina) and say, if you come to Arkansas you wont
+even have to cook. They say the hogs walkin' round already barbecued.
+But you know I knowed better than that.
+
+"We come to John M. Gracie's plantation and some to Dr. Blunson
+(Brunson). I remember when we got off the boat Dr. Blunson was sittin'
+there and he said "Well, my crowd looks kinda puny and sickly, but I'm
+a doctor and I'll save 'em." I stayed there eight years. We had to pay
+our transportation which was fifty dollars, but they sure did give you
+plenty of somethin' to eat--yes mam!
+
+"No'm my hair ain't much white. My set o'folks don't get gray much,
+but I'm old enough to be white. I done a heap a hard work in my life.
+I hope clean up new ground and I tells folks I done everything 'cept
+Maul rails.
+
+"Lord honey, I don't know chile. I don't know _what_ to think, about
+this here younger generation. Now when they raised me up, I took care
+of myself and the white folks done took care of me.
+
+"Yes mam, honey, I seed the Ku Klux. I remember in North Carolina when
+the Ku Klux got so bad they had to send and get the United States
+soldiers. I remember one come and joined in with the Ku Klux till he
+found out who the head man was and then he turned 'em up and they
+carried 'em to a prison place called Gethsemane. No mam! They never
+come back. When they carried you to Gethsemane, you never come back.
+
+"I say the Lord blest me in my old age. Even though I can't see, I set
+here and praise the Lord and say, Lord, you abled me to walk and hear.
+Yes, honey, I'm sure glad you come. I'm proud you thought that much of
+me.
+
+"Good bye, and if you are ever passin' here again, stop and see me."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Anna King
+                    704 W. Fifth (rear), Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I used to 'member lots but you know, my remembrance got short.
+
+"I was bred and born in Johnston County, North Carolina. I was sold
+away from my mother but after freedom I got back. I had a brother was
+sold just 'fore I was. My mother had two boys and three girls and my
+oldest sister was sold.
+
+"And then you know, in slavery times, when the white children got
+grown, their parents give 'em so many darkies. My young Missis drawed
+me.
+
+"My fust master was such a drinker. Named Lee. Lawd a mercy, I knowed
+his fust name but I can't think now. Young Lee, that was it.
+
+"He sold me, and Leo Andrew Whitley bought me. Don't know how
+much--all I know is I was sold.
+
+"After freedom I scrambled back to the old plantation and that's the
+way I found my mother.
+
+"My last master never married. He had what they called a northern
+trotter.
+
+"Wish I was able to get back to the old country and find some of my
+kin folks. If they ain't none of the old head livin', the young folks
+is. I got oceans of kin folks in Sampson County.
+
+"My husband was a preacher and he come to the old country from this
+here Arkansas. He always said he was going to bring me out to this
+country. He was always tellin' me 'bout Little Rock and Hot Springs.
+So I was anxious to see this country. So after he died and when they
+was emigratin' the folks here, I come. I 'member Dr. Blunson counted
+us out after we got off the boat and he said, 'Well, my crowd looks
+kinda sickly, but I'm a doctor and I'll save you.' Lawd, they
+certainly come a heap of 'em. When the train uncoupled at Memphis,
+some went to Texas, some to Mississippi, and some to Louisiana and
+Arkansas. People hollerin' 'Goodbye' made you feel right sad.
+
+"Some of 'em stayed in Memphis but I wouldn't stay 'cause dat's the
+meanest place in the world.
+
+"John M. Gracie had paid out his money for us and I believe in doin'
+what's right. That was a plantation as sure as you bawn."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Mose King,
+                    Lexa, Arkansas
+Age: 81
+
+
+"I was born in Richmond, Virginia. My master was Ephriam Hester. He
+had a wife and little boy. We called her mistress. I forgot their
+names. It's been so long ago.
+
+"My parents named Lizzie Johnson and Andrew Kent. I had seven sisters
+and there was two of us boys. When mistress died they sold mother and
+my eldest sister and divided the money. I don't know her master's name
+in Virginia. Mother was a cook at Ephriam Hester's. Sister died soon
+as they come 'way from Virginia. I heard her talk like she belong to
+Nathan Singleterry in Virginia. They put mother and Andrew Kent
+together. After the surrender she married Johnson. I heard her say my
+own father was 'cross the river in a free state.
+
+"There was two row of houses on the side of a road a quarter mile long
+and that is the place all the slaves lived. Ephriam Hester had one
+hundred acres of wheat. Mother was the head loom. He wasn't cruel but
+he let the overseers be hard. He said he let the overseers whoop 'em,
+that what he hired 'em for. They had a whooping stock. It was a table
+out in the open. They moved it about where they was working. They put
+the heads and hands and feet in it. I seen a heap of 'em get mighty
+bad whoopings. I was glad freedom come on fer that one reason. Long as
+he lived we had plenty to eat, plenty to wear. We had meal, hogs,
+goat, sheep and cows, molasses, corn hominy, garden stuff. We did have
+potatoes. I said garden stuff.
+
+"Ephriam Hester come to a hard fate. A crowd of cavalrymen from
+Vicksburg rode up. He was on his porch. He went in the house to his
+wife. One of the soldiers retched in his pocket and got something and
+throwed it up on top of the house. The house burned up and him and her
+burned up in it. The house was surrounded. That took place three miles
+this side of Natchez, Mississippi. They took all his fine stock, all
+the corn. They hauled it off. They took all the wagons. They sot all
+they didn't take on fire and let it burn up. They burnt the gin and
+some cotton. They burnt the loom house, the wheat house; they robbed
+the smokehouse and burned it. We never got nothing. We come purt nigh
+starving after then. After that round we had no use fer the Yankees. I
+was learned young two wrongs don't make a right. That was wrong. They
+done more wrong than that. I heard about it. We stayed till after
+freedom. It was about a year. It was hard times. Seemed longer. We
+went to another place after freedom. We never got a chance to get
+nothing. Nothing to get there.
+
+"In slavery times they had clog dances from one farm to another.
+Paddyrollers run 'em in, give them whoopings. They had big nigger
+hounds. They was no more of them after the War. The Ku Klux got to
+having trouble. They would put vines across the narrow roads. The
+horses run in and fell flat. The Ku Klux had to quit on that account.
+
+"We didn't know exactly when freedom was. I went to school at
+Shaffridge, two miles from Clarks store. That was what is Clarksdale,
+Mississippi now. He had a store, only store in town. Old man Clark run
+it. He was old bachelor and a all right fellow, I reckon. I thought
+so. I went to colored teachers five or six months. I learned in the
+Blue Back books. I stopped at about 'Baker (?)'.
+
+"I farmed all my life. I got my wife and married her in 1883. We got a
+colored preacher, Parson Ward. I had four children. They all dead but
+one. I got two lots and a house gone back to the state. I come to see
+'bout 'em today. I going to redeem 'em if I can. I made the money to
+buy it at the round house. I worked there ten or twelve years. I got
+two dollars ninety-eight cents a day. I hates to loose it. I have a
+hard time now to live, Miss.
+
+"I votes Republican mostly. I have voted on both sides. I tries to
+live like this. When in Rome, do as Romans. I want to be peaceable wid
+everybody.
+
+"The present times is hard. I can't get a bit of work. I tries. Work
+is hard fer some young folks to get yet.
+
+"I love to be around young folks. Fer as I know they do all right. The
+world looks nicer 'an it used to look. All I see wrong, times is
+hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Zillah Cross Peel
+Information given by: Aunt Susie King, Ex-slave.
+Residence: Cane Hill, Arkansas. Washington County.
+Age: about 93.
+
+
+Across the Town Branch, in what is dubbed "Tin-cup" lives one of the
+oldest ex-slaves in Washington county, "Aunt Susie" King, who was born
+at Cane Hill, Arkansas about 1844.
+
+"Aunt Susie" doesn't know just how old she is, but she thinks she is
+over ninety, just how much she doesn't know. Perhaps the most accurate
+way to get near her age would be go to the county records where one
+can find the following bill of sale:
+
+    "State of Arkansas, County of Washington, for and in
+    consideration of natural affection that I have for my
+    daughter, Rebecca Rich, living in the county aforesaid above
+    mentioned, and I do hereby give and bequath unto her one negro
+    woman named Sally and her children namely Sam, and Fill, her
+    lifetime thence to her children her lawful heirs forever and I
+    do warrant and forever defend said negro girl and her children
+    against all lawful claims whatsoever.
+
+    July, 1840.                           Tom Hinchea Barker,
+    Witness, J. Funkhouser.
+
+                                          Filed for record,
+                                          Feb. 16, 1841.
+
+When this bill of sale was read to "Aunt Susie" she said with great
+interest,
+
+"Yes'm, yes'm that sure was my Ma and my two brothers, Sam and Fill,
+then come a 'nother brother, Allan, and then Jack and then I'm next
+then my baby sister Milly Jane. Yes'm we's come 'bout every two
+years."
+
+"Yes'm, ole Missy was rich; she had lots of money, lots of lan'. Her
+girl, she jes' had one, married John Nunley, Mister Ab, he married
+Miss Ann Darnell, Mister Jack he married Miss Milly Holt, and Mister
+Calvin he married Miss Lacky Foster. Yes'm they lived all 'round 'bout
+us. Some at Rhea's Hill and some at Cane Hill," and to prove the
+keenness of this old slave's mind, as well as her accuracy, one need
+only to go to the county deed records where in 1849, Rebecca Rich
+deeded several 40 acres tracts of land to her sons, James, Calvin,
+William Jackson and Absaolum. This same deed record gives the names of
+the wives of these sons just as "Aunt Susie" named them. However, Miss
+Lacky Foster was "Kelika Foster."
+
+Then Aunt Susie started remembering:
+
+"Yes'm, my mother's name was Sally. She'd belonged to Mister Tom H.
+Barker and he gived her to Miss Becky, his daughter. I think of them
+all lots of days. I know a heap of folks that some times I forgot.
+When the War came, we lived in a big log house. We had a loom room
+back of the kitchen. I had a good mother. She wove some. We all wove
+mos' all of the blankets and carpets and counterpans and Old Missey
+she loved to sit down at the loom and weave some", with a gay chuckle
+Aunty Susie said, "then she'd let me weave an' Old Missey she'd say I
+takes her work and the loom away from her. I did love to weave, all
+them bright colores, blue and red and green and yellow. They made all
+the colors in the back yard in a big kettle, my mother, Sally did the
+colorin'".
+
+"We had a heap of company. The preacher came a lot of times and when
+the War come Ole Missey she say if we all go with her, she'd take us
+all to Texas. We's 'fraid of the Yankees; 'fraid they get us.
+
+"We went in wagons. Ole Missey in the carriage. We never took nothin'
+but a bed stead for Ole Missey. They was a great drove of we darkies.
+Part time we walked, part time we rode. We was on the road a long
+time. First place we stopped was Collins County, and stayed awhile I
+recollect. We had lots of horses too. Some white folks drove 'long and
+offered to take us away from Ole Missey but we wouldn't go. We didn't
+want to leave Ole Missey, she's good to us. Oh Lord, it would a nearly
+kilt her effen any body'd hit one of her darkies; I'd always stay in
+the house and took care of Ole Miss. She was pretty woman, had light
+hair. She was kinda punny tho, somethin' matter with her mos' all the
+time, headache or toothache or something'."
+
+"Mister Rich went down to the river swimmin' one time I heard, and got
+drowned."
+
+"Yes'm, they was good days fo' the War."
+
+"Yes'm we stayed in Texas until Peace was made. We was then at
+Sherman, Texas. Peace didn't make no difference with us. We was glad
+to be free, and we com'd back to Arkansas with Ole Missey. We didn't
+want to live down there. Me and my man, Charlie King, was married
+after the War, and we went to live on Mister Jim Moores place. Ole
+Miss giv'd my ma a cow. I made my first money in Texas, workin' for a
+woman and she giv'd me five dollars."
+
+"Yes'm after Peace the slaves all scattered 'bout."
+
+"The colored folks today lak a whole heap bein' like they was fo' the
+War. They's good darkies, and some aint so good." Me and my man had
+seven children all dead but two, Bob lives with me. I don't worry
+'bout food. We ain't come no ways starvin'. I have all I want to eat.
+Bob he works for Missus Wade every mornin' tendin' to her flowers and
+afternoons works for him self. She owns this house, lets us live in
+it. She's good all right, good woman."
+
+"I like flowers too, but ain't got no water, no more. Water's scarce.
+Someone turned off the hydrant."
+
+"I belong to the Baptist church a long while."
+
+"Do you know Gate-eye Fisher?" When I said "yes, I went down to talk
+to him last week," she said, "well, law me, Gate-eye ain't no fool.
+He's the best cook as ever struck a stove. He married my baby sister,
+Milly Jane's child. Harriet Lee Ann, she's my niece. She left him,
+said she'd never go back no more to him. She's somewhere over in
+Oklahoma."
+
+"And did you see Doc Flowers? Yes'm, I was mos' a mother to him.
+
+"One time my man and me heard a peckin' at the do'. We's eatin'
+supper. I went to the do' and there was Doc. He and his step-pa, Ole
+Uncle Ike, had a fight and Doc come to us and stayed 'bout three
+years. He started cryin'."
+
+"Yes'm my Pa and Ma had belonged to Mister John Barker, before he
+giv'd my Ma to Miss Becky, my Pa was a leather worker. He could make
+shoes, and boots and slippers."
+
+"Yes'm, Good bye. Come back again honey. Yes'm I'd like a little
+snuff--not the sweet kind. It makes my teeth feel better to have
+snuff. I ain't got much but snags, and snuff, a little mite helps
+them."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Kirk
+                    1910 W. Sixth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"I been here ever since 1853--yes ma'm! Cose I 'member the war! I tell
+you I've seen them cannon balls goin' up just like a balloon. I wasn't
+big enough to work till peace was declared but they had my mammy and
+daddy under the lash. One good thing 'bout my white folks, they give
+the hands three months' schoolin' every year. My mammy and daddy got
+three months' schoolin' in the old country. Some said that was General
+Washington's proclamation, but some of 'em wouldn't hear to it. When
+peace was declared, some of the niggers had as good education as the
+white man. That was cause their owners had 'lowed it to 'em.
+
+"They used to put us in cells under the house so the Yankees couldn't
+get us. Old master's name was Sam Kirk and he had overseers and nigger
+dogs (bloodhounds) that didn't do nothin' but run them niggers.
+
+"I 'member one time when they say the Yankees was comin' all us
+chillun, boys and girls, white and black, got upon the fence and old
+master come out and say 'Get in your holes!'
+
+"The war went on four years. Them was turrible times. I don't never
+want to see no more war. Them that had plenty, time the regiment went
+by they didn't have nothin'. Old mistress had lots a turkeys and hogs
+and the Yankees just cleaned 'em out. Didn't have time to pick
+'em--just skinned 'em. They had a big camp 'bout as long as from here
+to town.
+
+"They burned up the big house as flat as this floor. They wasn't
+nothin' left but the chimneys. Oh the Yankees burned up plenty. They
+burned Raleigh and they burned Atlanta--that was the southern capital.
+I've seen the Yankees go right out in people's fields and make 'em
+take the horses out. Then they'd saddle 'em and ride right off.
+
+"General Grant had ten thousand nigger soldiers outside of the
+Irishmen and the Dutchmen. I know General Grant looked fearful when he
+come by. After surrender he had a corps pass through and notify the
+people that the war was over.
+
+"Abraham Lincoln was a war captain. He was a man that believed in
+right. He was seven feet four inches high.
+
+"I was born in North Carolina and I come here in 'sixty seven. I
+worked too!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Betty Krump,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: --
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Mother come to Helena, Arkansas from Lake Charles, Louisiana. I was
+born here since freedom. She had twelve children, raised us two. She
+jus' raised me en my sister. She lives down the street on the corner.
+She was a teacher here in Helena years and years. I married a doctor.
+I never had to teach long as he lived, then I was too old. I never
+keered 'bout readin' and books. I rather tomboy about. Then I set up
+housekeepin'. I don't know nothin' 'bout slavery. I know how they come
+here. Two boats named Tyler and Bragg. The Yankees took 'em up and
+brought 'em up to their camps to pay them to wait on them. They come.
+Before 'mancipation my mammy and daddy owned by the very same old
+fellar, Thomas Henry McNeil. He had a big two-story stone house and
+big plantation. Mother said she was a field hand. She ploughed. He
+treated 'em awful bad. He overworked 'em. Mother said she had to work
+when she was pregnant same as other times. She said the Yankees took
+the pantry house and cleaned it up. They broke in it. I'm so glad the
+Yankees come. They so pretty. I love 'em. Whah me? I can tell 'em by
+the way they talk and acts. You ain't none. You don't talk like 'em.
+You don't act like 'em. I watched you yeste'd'y. You don't walk like
+'em. You act like the rest of these southern women to me.
+
+"Mother said a gang of Yankees came to the quarters to haul the
+children off and they said, 'We are going to free you all. Come on.'
+She said, 'My husband in the field.' They sent for 'im. He come hard
+as he could. They loaded men and all on them two gunboats. The boat
+was anchored south of Tom Henry McNeill's plantation. He didn't know
+they was gone. When they got here old General Hindman had forty
+thousand back here in the hills. They fired in. The Yankees fired! The
+Yankees said they was goin' to drive 'em back and they scared 'em out
+of here and give folks that brought in them gunboat houses to live in.
+Mammy went to helping the Yankees. They paid her. That was 'fore
+freedom. I loves the Yankees. General Hindman's house was tore down up
+there to build that schoolhouse (high school). The Yankees said they
+was goin' to water their horses in the Mississippi River by twelve
+o'clock or take hell. I know my mammy and daddy wasn't skeered 'cause
+the Yankees taking keer of 'em and they was the ones had the cannons
+and gunboats too. I jus' love the Yankees fer freeing us. They run
+white folks outer the houses and put colored folks in 'em. Yankees had
+tents here. They fed the colored folks till little after 'mancipation.
+When the Yankees went off they been left to root hog er die. White
+folks been free all der lives. They got no need to be poor. I went to
+school to white teachers. They left here, folks didn't do 'em right.
+They set 'em off to theirselves. Wouldn't keep 'em, wouldn't walk
+'bout wid 'em. They wouldn't talk to 'em. The Yankees sont 'em down
+here to egercate us up wid you white folks. Colored folks do best
+anyhow wid black folks' children. I went to Miss Carted and to Mrs.
+Mason. They was a gang of 'em. They bo'ded at the hotel, one of the
+hotels kept 'em all. They stayed 'bout to theirselves. 'Course the
+white folks had schools, their own schools.
+
+"Ku Klux--They dressed up and come in at night, beat up the men 'bout
+here in Helena. Mammy washed and ironed here in Helena till she died.
+I never did do much of that kinder work. I been housekeeping purty
+near all my days.
+
+"Mammy was Fannie Thompson in Richmond, Virginia. She was took to New
+Orleans on a boat and sold. Sold in New Orleans. She took up wid
+Edmond Clark. Long as you been going to school don't you know folks
+didn't have no marryin' in slavery times? I knowed that. They never
+did marry and lived together all their lives. Preacher married
+me--colored preacher. My daddy, Edmond Clark, said McNeil got him at
+Kentucky.
+
+"I done told you 'nough. Now what are you going to give me? The
+gover'ment got so many folks doin' so much you can't tell what they
+after. Wish I was one of 'em.
+
+"The present times is tough. We ain't had no good times since dem
+banks broke her. Three of 'em. Folks can't get no credit. Times ain't
+lack dey used to be. No use talking 'bout this young generation. One
+day I come in my house from out of my flower garden. I fell to sleep
+an' I had $17.50 in little glass on the table to pay my insurance. It
+was gone when I got up. I put it in there when I lay down. I know it
+was there. It was broad open daytime. Folks steals and drinks whiskey
+and lives from hand to mouth now all the time. I sports my own self.
+Ain't nobody give me nothin' since the day I come here. I rents my
+houses and sells flowers."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+This old woman lives in among the white population and rents the house
+next to her own to a white family. The lady down at the corner store
+said she tells white people, the younger ones, to call her Mrs. Krump.
+She didn't pull that on me. She once told this white lady storekeeper
+to call her Mrs. No one told me about her, because the lady said they
+all know she is impudent talking. She is old, black, wealthy, and
+arrogant. I passed her house and spied her.
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkans Dist.]
+Name of Interviewer: Mrs. W. M. Ball
+Subject: Folk Tales.
+
+Information given by: Preston Kyles
+Place of Residence: 800 Block. Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark.
+Occupation: Minister. (Age) 81
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+One of the favorite folk songs sung to the children of a half century
+ago was "Run Nigger Run, or the Patty Roll Will Get You." Few of the
+children of today have ever heard this humorous ditty, and would,
+perhaps, be ignorant of its meaning. To the errant negro youths of
+slave times, however, this tune had a significant, and sometimes
+tragic, meaning. The "patty rolls" were guards hired by the
+plantations to keep the slaves from running away. The following story
+is told by an ex-slave:
+
+"When I wuz a boy, dere wuz lotsa Indians livin' about six miles frum
+de plantation on which I wuz a slave. De Indians allus held a big
+dance ever' few months, an' all de niggers would try to attend. On one
+ob dese osten'tious occasions about 50 of us niggers conceived de idea
+of goin', without gettin' permits frum de Mahster. As soon as it gets
+dark, we quietly slips outen de quarters, one by one, so as not to
+disturb de guards. Arrivin' at de dance, we jined de festivities wid a
+will. Late dat nite one ob de boys wuz goin' down to de spring fo' to
+get a drink ob water when he notice somethin' movin' in de bushes.
+Gettin' up closah, he look' again when--Lawd hab mersy! Patty rollers!
+A whole bunch ob 'em! Breathless, de nigger comes rushin' back, and
+broke de sad news. Dem niggers wuz scared 'mos' to death, 'cause dey
+knew it would mean 100 lashes for evah las' one ob dem effen dey got
+caught. After a hasty consultation, Sammy, de leader, suggested a plan
+which wuz agreed on. Goin' into de woods, we cuts several pieces of
+grape vine, and stretches it across de pathway, where we knowed de
+patty rollers would hab to come, tien' it to trees on both sides. One
+ob de niggers den starts down de trail whistlin' so as to 'tract de
+patty rollers 'tention, which he sho did, fo' here dey all cum,
+runnin' jus' as hard as dey could to keep dem niggers frum gettin'
+away. As de patty rollers hit de grape vine, stretched across de
+trail, dey jus' piles up in one big heap. While all dis commotion wuz
+goin' on, us niggers makes fo' de cotton fiel' nearby, and wends our
+way home. We hadn' no more'n got in bed, when de mahster begin
+knockin' on de door. "Jim", he yell, "Jim, open up de doah!" Jim gets
+up, and opens de doah, an de mahster, wid several more men, comes in
+de house. "Wheres all de niggers?" he asks. "Dey's all heah," Jim
+says. De boss walks slowly through de house, countin' de niggers, an'
+sho' nuf dey wuz all dere. "Mus' hab been Jim Dixon's negroes," he
+says finally.
+
+"Yes, suh, Cap'n, dey wuz a lot happen in dem times dat de mahsters
+didn't know nuthin' about."
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkana Dist., 9/5/31]
+Name of Interviewer: Cecil Copeland
+Subject: Apparition and Will-o'-the-Wisp.
+Story--Information:
+
+Information given by: Preston Kyles / Occupation: Minister
+Place of Residence: 800 Block, Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark. (Age) 81
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+The negro race is peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations. Most any
+old negro can recall having had several experiences with "de spirits."
+Some of these apparitions were doubtless real, as the citizens during
+Reconstruction Days employed various methods in keeping the negro in
+subjection. The organizers of the Ku Klux Klan, shortly after the
+Civil War, recognized and capitalized on the superstitious nature of
+the negro. This weakness in their character doubtless prevented much
+bloodshed during this hectic period.
+
+The following is a story as told by a venerable ex-slave in regard to
+the "spirits":
+
+"One day, when I wuz a young man, me an' a nigger, by de name ov
+Henry, wuz huntin' in an' old field. In dem days bear, deer, turkey,
+and squirrels wuz plentiful an' 'twant long befo' we had kilt all we
+could carry. As we wuz startin' home some monstrous thing riz up right
+smack dab in front ov us, not more'n 100 feet away. I asked Henry:
+"Black Boy, does yo' see whut I see?" an' Henry say, "Nigger I hopes
+yo' don't see whut I see, 'cause dey ain't no such man." But dere it
+stood, wid its sleeves gently flappin' in de wind. Ovah 8 feet tall,
+it wuz, an' all dressed in white. I yells at it, "Whut does yo' want?"
+but it didn't say nuthin'. I yells some mo' but it jus' stands there,
+not movin' a finger. Grabbin' de gun, I takes careful aim an' cracks
+down on 'em, but still he don't move. Henry, thinkin' maybe I wuz too
+scared to shoot straight, say: "Nigger, gib me dat gun!" I gibs Henry
+de gun but it don't take but one shot to convince him dat he ain't
+shootin' at any mortal bein'. Throwin' down de gun, Henry say,
+"Nigger, lets get away frum dis place," which it sho' didn't take us
+long to do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Susa Lagrone
+                    25th and Texas Streets, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 79
+
+
+"I don't know exactly how old I am but I know I was here at surrender.
+I was born in Mississippi. I seen the soldiers after they come home.
+They camped right there at our gate.
+
+"I think--now I don't know, but I think I was bout six or seven when
+they surrendered. I went down to the gate with Miss Sally and the
+children. Old mistress' name was Sally Stanton. She was a widow woman.
+
+"I learned to knit durin' the war. They'd give me a task to do, so
+much to do a day, and then I'd have all evenin' to play.
+
+"My father was a mechanic. He laid brick and plaster. You know in them
+days they plastered the houses. He belonged to old man Frank Scott. He
+was such a good worker Mr. Scott would give him all the work he could
+after he was free. That was in Mississippi.
+
+"I went to school right smart after freedom. Fore freedom the white
+folks learned me my ABC's. My mistress was good and kind to me.
+
+"When we went down to the gate to see the soldiers, I heard Miss Judy
+say (she was old mistress' sister), I heard her say, 'Well, you let em
+beat you' and started cryin'. I cried too and mama said, 'What you
+cryin' for?' I said, 'Miss Judy's cryin'.' Mama said, 'You fool, you
+is _free_!' I didn't know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers
+did a lot of devilment. Had guards but they just run over them
+guards.
+
+"I think Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the people some land after
+they was free, but they didn't give em nothin'--just turned em loose.
+
+"Course we ought to be free--you know privilege is worth everything.
+
+"After surrender my mother stayed with old mistress till next year.
+She thought there wasn't nobody like my mother. When she got sick old
+mistress come six miles every day to see her and brought her things
+till she died.
+
+"My mother learned to weave and spin and after we was free the white
+folks give her the loom. I know I made a many a yard of cloth after
+surrender. My mother was a seamstress and she learned me how to sew.
+
+"I never did hire out--just worked at home. My mother had six boys and
+six girls and they're all dead but me and my sister.
+
+"Somebody told me I was twenty-five when I married. Had three
+children--all livin'.
+
+"I used to see the white folks lookin' at a map to see where the
+soldiers was fightin' and I used to wonder how they could tell just
+lookin' at that paper.
+
+"Old mistress said after freedom, 'Now, Susa, I don't want you to
+suffer for nothin.' I used to go up there and stay for weeks at a
+time.
+
+"I just got down with rheumatism here bout three or four years ago,
+and you know it goes hard with me--I always been used to workin' all
+my life."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Barney A. Laird
+                    Brinkley, (near Moroe) Arkansas
+Age: 79
+
+
+"I was born in Pinola County, Mississippi. I remembers one time
+soldiers come by on all black horses and had a bundle on one shoulder
+strapped around under the other arm. They wore blue jackets. Their
+horses was trained so they marched good as soldiers. They camped not
+far from our house. There was a long string of soldiers. It took them
+a long time to go by.
+
+"One time they had a dinner in a sorter grove on a neighbor's farm.
+All us children went up there to see if they left anything. We et up
+the scraps. I say it was good eating. The fust Yankee crackers I ever
+et was there that day. They was fine for a fact.
+
+"Our owner was Dr. Laird. When I come to know anything his wife was
+dead but his married daughter lived with him. Her husband's name was
+John Balentine. My parents worked in the field and I stayed up at the
+house with my old grandpa and grandma. Their house was close to the
+white folks. Our houses was about on the farm. Some of the houses was
+pole houses, some hewed out. The fireplace in our house burned long
+wood and the room what had the fireplace was a great big room. We had
+shutters at the windows. The houses was open but pretty stout and
+good. We had plenty wood.
+
+"My parents both lived on the same farm. They had seven children. My
+mother's name was Caroline and my father's name was Ware A. Laird.
+Mother never told us if she was ever sold. Father never was sold. He
+never talked much.
+
+"One thing I know is: My wife's pa was sold, Squire Lester, so him and
+Adeline could be on the same farm. Them my wife's parents. They never
+put him on no block, jes' told him to get his belongings and where to
+go. I never seen nobody sold.
+
+"Dr. Laird was good to his darkies. My whole family stayed on his
+place till he died. I don't know how long. I don't know if I ever
+knowed when freedom come on. We had a hard time durin' the Civil War.
+That why I hate to hear about war. The soldiers tore down houses,
+burnt houses. They burnt up Dr. Laird's gin. I think it burned some
+cotton. They tore down fences and hauled em off to make fires at their
+camps. That let the stock out what they maybe did leave an old snag.
+Fust cussin' I ever heard done was one of them soldiers. I don't know
+what about but he was going at it. I stopped to hear what he saying. I
+never heard nobody cuss so much over nothing as ever I found out. They
+had cleaned us out. We didn't have much to eat nor wear then. We did
+have foe then from what they told us. The old folks got took care of.
+That don't happen no more.
+
+"I never seen a Ku Klux. I heard tell of them all my life.
+
+"Dr. Laird was old man and John Balentine was a peaceable man. He
+wanted his farm run peaceable. He was kind as could be.
+
+"I been farming all my life. I still be doing it. I do all I can. It
+is the young boys' place to take the plough handle--the making a man
+out of their young strength. They don't want to do it. Some do and
+some won't stay on the farm. Go to town is the cry. I got a wife and
+two boys. They got families. They are on the farm. I tell them to
+stay.
+
+"I get help from the Welfare if I'm able to come get what they give
+me.
+
+"I used to pay my taxes and vote. Now if I have a dollar I have to buy
+something to eat. Us darkies satisfied with the best the white folks
+can do. Darkies good workers but poor managers is been the way I seen
+it all my life. One thing we don't want no wars."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Arey Lamar
+                    612 E. 14th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Yes'm, I was born in slavery days but I don't know what day. But you
+know I been hustlin' 'round here a long time.
+
+"My mother said I was a great big girl when surrender come.
+
+"I was born in Greenville, Mississippi but I was raised down at Lake
+Dick.
+
+"I was a servant in Captain Will Nichols' house. I got a cup here now
+that was Captain Nichols' cup. Now that was away back there. That's a
+slavery time cup. After the handle got broke my mother used it for her
+coffee cup.
+
+"My mother's name was Jane Condray. After everything was free, a lot
+of us emigrated from the old country to Arkansas. When we come here we
+come through Memphis and I know I saw a pair of red shoes and cried
+for mama to buy 'em for me, but she wouldn't do it.
+
+"After I was grown and livin' in Little Rock, I bought me a pair of
+red shoes. I know I wore 'em once and I got ashamed of 'em and blacked
+'em.
+
+"My brother run away when they was goin' to have that Baxter-Brooks
+War and ain't been seen since.
+
+"I was the oldest girl and never did get a education, and I hate it. I
+learned to work though.
+
+"I don't know 'bout this younger generation. It looks like they're
+puttin' the old folks in the background. But I think it's the old
+christian people is holdin' the world together today."
+
+
+
+
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson.
+Person interviewed: Solomon Lambert,
+                    Holly Grove, Ark., R.F.D.
+Age: 89
+Subject: EX-SLAVERY
+Story:
+
+
+"My parents belong to Jordon and Judy Lambert. They (the Jordon
+family) had a big family. They never was sold. I heard 'em say that.
+They hired their slaves out. Some was hired fer a year. From New Year
+day to next New Year day. That was a busy day. That was the day to set
+in workin' overseers and ridin' bosses set in on New Year day. My
+parents' name was Fannie and Ben Lambert. They had eight children.
+
+"How did they marry? They say they jump the broomstick together! But
+they had brush brooms so I reckon that whut they jumped. Think the
+moster and mistress jes havin' a little fun outen it then. The brooms
+the sweep the floor was sage grass cured like hay. It grows four or
+five feet tall. They wrap it with string and use that for a handle.
+(Illustration-- [TR: not finished] The way they married the man ask
+his moster then ask her moster. If they agree it be all right. One of
+'em would 'nounce it 'fore all the rest of the folks up at the house
+and some times they have ale and cake. If the man want a girl and ther
+be another man on that place wanted a wife the mosters would swop the
+women mostly. Then one announce they married. That what they call a
+double weddin'. Some got passes go see their wife and family 'bout
+every Sunday and some other times like Fourth er July. They have a
+week ob rest when they lay by the crops and have some time not so busy
+to visit Christmas.
+
+"I never seen no Ku Klux. There was Jay Hawkers. They was folks on
+neither side jess goin' round, robbin' and stealin', money, silver,
+stock or anything else they wanted. We had a prutty good time we have
+all the hands on our place at some house and dance. We made our music.
+Music is natur'l wid our color. They most all had a juice (Jew's)
+harp. They make the fiddle and banjo. White folks had big times too.
+They had mo big gatherins than they have now. They send me to Indian
+Bay once or twice a week to get the mail. I had no money. They give my
+father little money long and give him some 'bout Christmas. White
+folks send their darkies wid a order to buy things. I never seen a big
+town till I started on that run to Texas. They took the men 450 miles
+to Indian Nation to make a crop. We went in May and came back in
+October. They hired us out. Mr. Jo Lambert and Mr. Beasley took us.
+One of 'em come back and got us. That kept us from goin' to war. They
+left the women, children and old men, too old fer war.
+
+"How'd I know 'bout war? That was the big thing they talk 'bout. See
+'em. The first I seen was when I was shuckin' corn at the corn pin
+(crib) a man come up in gray clothes. (He was a spy). The way he talk
+you think he a southern man 'cept his speech was hard and short. I
+noticed that to begin wid. They thought other rebels in the corn pin
+but they wasn't. Wasn't nobody out there but me. Then here come a man
+in blue uniform. After while here come the regiment. It did scare me.
+Bob and Tom (white boys) Lambert gone to war then. They fooled round a
+while then they galloped off. I show was glad when the last man rid
+off!
+
+Moster Lambert then hid the slaves in the bottoms. We carried
+provisions and they sent more'long. We stay two or three days or a
+week when they hear a regiment comin' through or hear 'bout a scoutin
+gang comin' through. They would come one road and go back another
+road. We didn't care if they hid us. We hear the guns. We didn't
+wanter go down there. That was white man's war. In 1862 and 1863 they
+slipped off every man and one woman to Helena. I was yokin' up oxen.
+Man come up in rebel clothes. He was a spy. I thought I was gone then
+but and a guard whut I didn't see till he left went on. I dodged round
+till one day I had to get off to mill. The Yankees run up on me and
+took me on. I was fifteen years old. I was mustered in August and let
+out in 1864 when it was over. I was in the Yankee army 14 months. They
+told me when I left I made a good soldier. I was with the standing
+army at Helena. They had a battle before I went in. I heard them say.
+You could tell that from the roar and cannons. They had it when I was
+in Texas. I wasn't in a battle. The Yankees begin to get slim then
+they made the darkies fill up and put them in front. I heard 'em say
+they had one mighty big battle at Helena. I had to drill and guard the
+camps and guard at the pickets (roads into Helena). They never let me
+go scoutin'. I walked home from the army. I was glad to get out. I
+expected to get shot 'bout all the time. I aint seen but mighty little
+difference since freedom. I went back and stayed 45 years on the
+Lambert place. I moved to Duncan. Moster died foe the Civil War. Some
+men raised dogs-hounds. If something got wrong they go get the dogs
+and use 'em. If some of the slaves try to run off they hunt them with
+the dogs. It was a big loss when a hand run off they couldn't ford
+that thing. They whoop 'em mostly fer stealin'. They trust 'em in
+everything then they whoop 'em if they steal. They know it wrong.
+Course they did. The worse thing I ever seen in slavery was when we
+went to Texas we camped close to Camden. Camden, Arkansas! On the way
+down there we passed by a big house, some kind. I seen mighty little
+of it but a big yard was pailened in. It was tall and fixed so they
+couldn't get out. They opened the big gate and let us see. It was full
+of darkies. All sizes. All ages. That was a _Nigger Trader Yard_ the
+worst thing I ever seen or heard tell of in my life. I heard 'em say
+they would cry 'em off certain times but you could buy one or two any
+time jes by agreement. I nearly fell out wid slavery then. I studied
+'bout that heap since then. I never seen no cruelty if a man work and
+do right on my moster's place he be honored by both black and white.
+Foe moster died I was 9 year old, I heard him say I valued at $900.00.
+I never was sold.
+
+"When I was small I minded the calves when they milk, pick up chips to
+dry fer to start fires, then I picked up nuts, helped feed the stock,
+learned all I could how to do things 'bout the place. We thought we
+owned the place. I was happy as a bird. I didn't know no better than
+it was mine. All the home I ever knowed. I tell you it was a good
+home. Good as ever had since. It was thiser way yo mama's home is your
+home. Well my moster's home was my home like dat.
+
+"We et up at the house in the kitchen. We eat at the darkey houses. It
+make no diffurence--one house clean as the other. It haft to be so.
+They would whoop you foe your nasty habits quick as anything and
+quicker. Had plenty clothes and plenty to eat. Folk's clothes made
+outer more lastin' cloth than now. They last longer and didn't always
+be gettin' more new ones. They washed down at the spring. The little
+darkies get in (tubs) soon as they hang out the clothes on the ropes
+and bushes. The suds be warm, little darkies race to get washed. Folks
+raced to get through jobs then and have fun all time.
+
+"Foe I jined the Yankees I had hoed and I had picked cotton. Moster
+Lambert didn't work the little darkies hard to to stunt them. See how
+big I am? I been well cared fur and done a sight er work if it piled
+up so it could be seen.
+
+(Solomon Lambert is a large well proportioned negro.) In 1870 the
+railroad come in here by Holly Grove. That the first I ever seen. The
+first cars. They was small.
+
+"I never knowd I oughter recollect what all they talked but she said
+they both (mother and father) come from Kentucky to Tennessee, then to
+Arkansas in wagons and on boats too I recken. The Lamberts brought
+them from Kentucky. For show I can't tell you no more 'bout them. I
+heard 'em say they landed at the Bay (Indian Bay).
+
+"Fine reports went out if you jin the army whut all you would get. I
+didn't want to be there. I know whut I get soon as ever I got way from
+them. Course I was goin' back. I had no other place to go. The
+government give out rations at Indian Bay after the war. I didn't need
+none. I got plenty to eat. Two or three of us colored folks paid Mr.
+Lowe $1.00 a month to teach us at night. We learned to read and
+calculate better. I learned to write. We stuck to it right smart
+while.
+
+"I been married twice. Joe Yancey (white) married me to my first wife
+at the white folks house. The last time Joe Lambert (white) married me
+in the church. I had 2 boys they dead now and 1 girl. She is living.
+
+During slavery I had a cart I drove a little mule to. I took a barrel
+of water to the field. I got it at the well. I put it close by in the
+shade of a tree. Trees was plentiful! Then I took the breakfast and
+dinner in my cart. I done whatever come to my lot in Indian Nation.
+After the war I made a plowhand. "_Say there_, _from 1864 to 1937 Sol
+Lambert farmed._" Course I hauled and cut wood, but my job is farmin'.
+I share croppe. I worked fer 1/3 and 1/4 and I have rented. Farmin' is
+my talent. That whar all the darkey belong. He is made so. He can
+stand the sun and he needs meat to eat. That is where the meat grows.
+
+"I got chickens and a garden. I didn't get the pigs I spoke fer. I got
+a fine cow. I got a house--10-1/2 acres of ground. That is all I can
+look after. I caint get 'bout much. I rid on a wagon (to town) my mare
+is sick I wouldn't work her. I got a buggy. Good nough fer my ridin' I
+don't come to town much. I never did.
+
+I get a Federal soldier's pension. I tell you 'bout it. White folks
+tole me 'bout it and hope me see 'bout gettin' it. I'm mighty proud of
+it. It is a good support for me in my old helpless days. I'm mighty
+thankful for it. I'm glad you sent me word to come here I love to help
+folks. They so good to me.
+
+"I vote a Republican ticket. I don't vote. I did vote when I was 21
+years old. It was stylish then and I voted some since then along. I
+don't bother with votin' and I don't know nuthin 'bout how it is done
+now. I tried to run my farm and let them hired run the governmint. I
+knowed my job like he knowed his job.
+
+I come back to tell you one other thing. My Captain was Edward
+Boncrow.
+
+"I told you all I know 'bout slavery less you ask me 'bout somethin' I
+might answer: We ask if we could go to white church and they tell us
+they wanted certain ones to go today so they could fix up. It was
+after the war new churches and schools sprung up. Not fast then.
+
+Prices of slaves run from $1600 to $2000 fer grown to middle age. Old
+ones sold low, so did young ones. $1600 was a slow bid. That is whut I
+heard.
+
+
+
+
+Name of Interviewer: Martin-Barker
+Subject: Ex-Slave
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page)
+
+This information given by: Frank Larkin
+Place of Residence: RFD #1--Bx. 73
+Age --
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+I was born a slave, my owner was Mr. Rhodes of Virginia. On a large
+plantation, my white folks gave a big to do, and served wine. Had corn
+shuckings. Swapped help around harvesting time. I was sold when 6 or 7
+years old. Sold to highest bidder. First marster gave my mother to his
+white daughter and let her keep me.
+
+I was raised as a house boy. I was always a mean boy. When I was sold
+I split another boys head open with an axe. Then I runned off. They
+caught me with blood hounds. My master whipped me with a cowhide whip.
+He made me take my clothes off and tied me to a tree. He would use the
+whip and then take a drink out of a jug and rest awhile, then he would
+whip me again.
+
+Sometimes we would set up until midnight pickin' wool. I would get so
+sleepy, couldn't hardly pick de wool.
+
+I hung up my stocking at Christmas to get gifts.
+
+When we left de plantation, we had to get a pass to go from one
+plantation to another.
+
+We went to church, sat on de back seat of the white folks church. It
+was a Baptist. Baptized in pool. White preacher said: "Obey your
+master."
+
+When I came to Arkanansas, I was sold to Mr. Larkin.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
+                    1126 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"Yes ma'm, I was born in slavery times, right about 1860. I was bred
+and born in Virginia--belonged to a man named Rhodes. When I was a
+little fellow, me and my mother was sold separate. My mother was sent
+to Texas and a man named Larkin bought me.
+
+"I member when people was put upon the block and sold. Man and wife
+might go together and might not. Yes ma'm, they sho did separate
+mother and childen.
+
+"Take a little chile, they would be worth a thousand dollars. Why old
+master would just go crazy over a little boy. They knowed what they
+would be worth when they was grown, and then they kept em busy.
+
+"I can't remember no big sight in Virginia but I remember when the
+hounds would run em. Some of the colored folks had mighty rough
+owners.
+
+"I remember when the Yankees come and took the best hoss my old boss
+had and left old crippled hoss with the foot evil.
+
+"And they'd get up in a tree with a spyglass and find where old boss
+had his cotton hid, come down and go straight and burn it and the corn
+crib and take what meat they wanted and then burn the smoke house.
+Yes'm, I remember all that. I tell you them Yankees was mean. Used to
+shake old mistress and try to make her tell where the money was hid.
+If you had a fat cow, just shoot her down and cook what they wanted.
+My old boss went to the bottoms and hid. Tried to make old mistress
+tell where he was.
+
+"Not all the old bosses was alike. Some fed good and some didn't. But
+they clothed em good--heavy cloth. Old man Larkin was pretty good man.
+We got biscuits every Sunday morning, other times got shorts. People
+was really healthier then.
+
+"I was brought up to work. The biggest trainin' we got was the boss
+told us to go there and come here and we learned to do as we was told.
+People worked in them days. A deal of em that won't work now.
+
+"During slavery days, colored folks had to go to the same church as
+the white folks and sit in the back.
+
+"My father died a long time ago. I don't remember anything bout him
+and I never did see my mother any more after she was sold.
+
+"After the war, old boss brought me to Arkansas when I was bout twelve
+years old. Biggest education I got, sit down with my old boss and he'd
+make me learn the alphabet. In those times they used the old Blue Back
+Speller.
+
+"After we come to Arkansas I worked a great deal on the farm.
+Farmin'--that was my trade. I staid with him four or five years. He
+paid me for my work.
+
+"Well, I hope we'll never have another war, we don't need it.
+
+"I never had trouble votin' but one time. They was havin' a big row
+between the parties and didn't want us to vote unless we voted
+democratic, but I voted all right. I believe every citizen ought to
+have the right to vote. I believe in people havin' the right what
+belongs to em.
+
+"I'm the father of thirteen childen by one woman--seven living
+some_where_, but they ain't no service to me.
+
+"Younger people not takin' time to study things. They get a little
+education and think they can do anything and get by with it. And
+there's a lot of em down here on this Cummins farm now."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
+                    618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I
+was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.
+
+"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first
+old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we
+had to take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I
+was somewhere between seven and eight years old.
+
+"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to
+Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.
+
+"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a
+pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it
+'fore we went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh,
+yes'm.
+
+"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and
+he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a
+cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like
+I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he
+never hit me nary a lick.
+
+"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up
+brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever'
+woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing--shoes
+and all.
+
+"Them Yankees sure did bad--burned up the cotton and the corn. I seen
+one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all
+around; directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that
+cotton as a bird to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up
+everything. I was a little scared of 'em but they said they wasn't
+goin' to hurt us. Old master had done left home and gone to the woods.
+It was enough to scare you--all them guns stacked up and bayonets that
+long and just as keen. Come in and have old missis cook for 'em.
+Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the colored folks and
+maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything; try to
+make her tell where the money was though.
+
+"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin'
+and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em
+stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed
+there after we was freed 'bout two years. They took care of me; I was
+raised motherless.
+
+"I farmed all my life. Never done public work two weeks in my life.
+Don't know what it is.
+
+"Old master had them blue back spellers and 'fore freedom sometimes
+he'd make us learn our ABC's.
+
+"And he'd let you go to church too. He'd ask if you got 'ligion and
+say, 'Now, when the preacher ask you, go up and give him your hand and
+then go to the back.' In them days, didn't have any but the white
+folks' church. But I was pretty rough in them days and I didn't j'ine.
+
+"But I tell you, you'd better not leave the plantation without a pass
+or them paddyrollers would make you shout. If they kotch you and you
+didn't have a pass, a whippin' took place right there.
+
+"Oh Lord, that's been a long time. I sits here sometimes and looks
+back and think it's been a long time, but I'm still livin'.
+
+"I've always tried to keep out of trouble. 'Co'se I've had some pretty
+tough times. I ain't never been 'rested fer nothin'. I ain't never
+been inside of a jail house. I've had some kin folks in there though.
+
+"I've been a preacher forty years. Don't preach much now. My lungs
+done got decayed and I can't hold up. Some people thinks preachin' is
+an easy thing but it's not.
+
+"Prettiest thing I ever saw when the Yankees was travelin' was the
+drums and kettledrums and them horses. It was the prettiest sight I
+ever saw. Them horses knowed their business, too. You couldn't go up
+to 'em either. They had gold bits in their mouths and looked like
+their bridles was covered with gold. And Yankees sittin' up there with
+a sword.
+
+"Old boss had a fine saddle horse and you know the Yankees had a old
+horse with the footevil and you know they turned him loose and took
+old boss's saddle horse. He didn't know it though; he was in the
+woods.
+
+"I believe there is people that can give you good luck. I know a woman
+that told me that I was goin' to have some good luck and it worked
+just like she said. She told us I would be the onliest man on the
+place that would pay out my mule and sure 'nough I was. I cleared
+forty dollars outside my mule and my corn. She said I was born to be
+lucky. Told me they would be lots of people work agin me but it
+wouldn't do no good."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Lattimore
+                    606 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"Yes'm I was a slave--I was born in 1859 in Mississippi. During the
+war I wasn't grown but I can remember when the Yankee soldiers come to
+Canton, Mississippi. We was sittin' out in the yard and the white
+folks was on the porch when they was bombardin' Jackson. We could hear
+the cannons. The white people said the Yankees was tryin' to whip the
+rebellion and set the niggers free. When they got done I didn't know
+what had happened but I remember the colored people packed up and we
+all went to Vicksburg. My father ran off and jined the Yankee army. He
+was in Colonel Zeigler's regiment in the infantry. I knowed General
+Grant when I seed him. I know when Abraham Lincoln died the soldiers
+(Yankees) all wore that black band around their arms.
+
+"After my father was mustered out we went to Warren County,
+Mississippi to live. He worked on the halves with a schoolteacher
+named Mr. Hannum. He said he was my godfather.
+
+"One time after the war Mr. Lattimore came and wanted my father to
+live with him but I didn't want him to because before the surrender
+old master whipped my father over the head with a walking stick 'cause
+he stayed too long and I was afraid he would whip him again.
+
+"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes ma'm I voted. I don't remember who I
+voted for first--my 'membrance don't serve me--I ain't got that fresh
+enough in my memory. I served eight years as Justice of the Peace
+after I come to Arkansas. I remember one time they put one colored man
+in office and I said that's pluckin' before it is ripe. We elected a
+colored sheriff in Warren County once. The white men went on his bond,
+but after awhile the Ku Klux compelled them to get off and then he
+couldn't make bond. He appealed to the citizens to let him stay in
+office without bond but they wouldn't do it. When a man is trying to
+get elected they promise a lot of things but afterwards they is just
+like a duck--they swim off on the other side.
+
+"I went to school after freedom and kept a goin' till I was married. I
+was a school director when I was eighteen. I didn't have any children
+and the superintendent who was very rigid and strict said 'Boy you is
+not even a patron of the school.' But he let me serve. I used to visit
+the school 'bout twice a week and if the teacher was not doin' right,
+I sure did lift my voice against it.
+
+"I lived in Chicot County when I first come to Arkansas and when I
+moved to Jefferson County, Judge Harry E. Cook sent my reputation up
+here. I ain't never peeped into a jailhouse or had handcuffs on these
+hands.
+
+"We've got to do something 'bout this younger generation. You never
+saw anything sicker. They is degenerating.
+
+"I hold up my right hand, swear to uphold the Constitution and
+preserve the flag and I don't think justice is being done when they
+won't let the colored folks vote. We'd like to harmonize things here.
+God made us all and said 'You is my chillun.'"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Bessie Lawsom,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia. My mama was brought from Virginia to one of
+the Carolina states, then to Georgia. She was sold twice. I don't
+recollect but one of her masters. I heard her speak of Master
+Bracknell. His wife, now I remember her well. She nursed me. I was
+sickly and they needed her to work in the crop so bad. She done had a
+baby leetle older than I was, so I nursed one breast and Jim the
+other. She raised me and Jim together. Mama was name Sallie and papa
+Mathew Bracknell. They called him Mat Bracknell. I don't know my
+master's name. They had other children.
+
+"Me and Jim dug wells out in the yard and buried all the little ducks
+and chickens and made graves. We had a regular burying ground we made.
+They treated us pretty good as fur as I knowed. I never heard mama
+complain. She lived till I was forty years old. Papa died a few years
+after freedom. He had typhoid fever. He was great to fish. I believe
+now he got some bad water to drink out fishing. There was six of us
+and three half children. I'm the onliest one living as I knows of. One
+sister died in 1923 in Atlanta. She come to see me. She lived with big
+rich folks there. She was a white man's girl. She never had so much
+bad luck as we dark skin children the way it was. My papa had to go to
+war with some of Master Bracknell's kin folks, maybe his wife's kin
+folks, and they took him to wait on them at the battle-fields. Some
+soldiers camped by at the last of the war. They stole her out. She
+went to take something to a sick widow woman for old mistress. She
+never got back for a week. She said she was so scared and one day when
+her man, the man that claimed her, went off on a scout trip she asked
+a man, seemed to be a big boss, could she go to that thicket and get
+some black gum toothbrushes. He let her ride a little old broken down
+horse out there. She had a bridle but she was bare back. She come home
+through the pasture and one of the colored boys took the horse back
+nearly to the camps and turned him loose. 'Fo'e my own papa got back
+she had a white chile. Master Bracknell was proud of her. Papa didn't
+make no difference in her and his children. After the War he bought a
+whole bolt of cloth when he went to town. Mama would make us all a
+dress alike. The Yankees whooped mama at their camp. She said she was
+afraid to try to get away and that come in her mind. Old mistress
+thought that widow woman was keeping her to wait on her and take care
+of her small children. She wasn't uneasy and they took care of me.
+
+"I don't recollect freedom. I heard mama say a drove come by and ask
+her to come go to Atlanta; they said Yankees give 'em Atlanta. She
+said she knowed if she went off papa wouldn't know where she was. She
+told 'em she had two young children she couldn't leave. They went on.
+She told old mistress and she said she done right not to go.
+
+"The Yankees stole mama's feather bed. Old mistress had great big high
+feather beds and big pillows. Mama had a bed in a shed room open out
+on the back piazza. They put them big beds across their horses and
+some took pillows and down the road they went. It was cold and the
+ground froze. They made cotton beds then and the Yankees done got all
+the geese and chickens. They nearly starved. The Yankees took all the
+cows and stock.
+
+"Master Bracknell was cripple. He had a store at Cross Roads. It was
+twenty-five miles from Marietta, Georgia. They never troubled him like
+they did old mistress. She was scared of them. She knowed if they come
+and caught her gone they would set fire to the house. No, they never
+burned nothing on our place but they did some in sight. I can remember
+seeing big fires about at night and day time too.
+
+"We lived on Master Bracknell's place till I was eight years old and
+my sister five. We come to South, Alabama, then to Mississippi and
+then up the river to Helena. I married in Jackson, Mississippi. A
+white boy married us. We lived on his place and he was going to
+preach. He wasn't a preacher then. Richard Moore was his name. It took
+him several weeks to learn what to say. He practiced on us. He thought
+a heap of me and he ask Jesse if he could marry us. He brought us a
+big fine cake his mother cooked for us when he come. My husband named
+Jesse Lawsom. He was raised in Louisiana. We lived together till he
+died. My mother went blind before she died. His mother lived there,
+then we took care of them and after he died his mother lived with me.
+Now I lives with this niece here some and my daughter in Jackson. I
+had fourteen children. I just got one left and grandchildren I go to
+see. I make the rounds. Some of 'em good and some of them ain't no
+account at tall.
+
+"I used to take advice. They get up and leave the place. They don't
+want old folks to advise 'em. If they can't get their price they sit
+around and go hungry. They won't work for what I used to be glad to
+get. I keep my girl on the right path and that is all I can do. My
+niece don't work out but her husband works on the farm all the time.
+She helps him. They go out and live till the work is done. He is off
+now ploughing. Times is fast sure as you born, girl. Faster 'an ever I
+seen."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Henry Lee
+                    R.F.D., two and one-half miles, Palestine, Arkansas
+Age: 87
+
+
+"I was born close to Huntsville, Alabama during slavery. My master was
+Tom Laughinghouse and Miss Fannie, his wife. They had two children,
+Jarman and Mattie. He was Dr. George Laughinghouse's brother. Dr.
+George lived at Forrest City.
+
+"He brung us to the old Pope place close to Forrest City after
+'mancipation. We didn't know we was free. Finally we kept hearing
+folks talk, then Master Tom told us we was free. We cleared land right
+on after freedom like we was slaves.
+
+"General Lee, a white man, owned a boat on the Mississippi River. He
+owned my father. We took on his name way after freedom. Mother was
+Becky Laughinghouse and father was Willis Lee. They had six children.
+
+"After I come to Arkansas I went to school three days to a white man.
+He was sont here from the North somewhere.
+
+"My folks was all black pure stock niggers and field folks same as I
+is.
+
+"Mother's owners was good to her. They give them all day Saturday to
+wash and iron and cook for her folks. They got a whooping if they went
+to the field Monday morning dirty. They was very good to us. I can
+recollect that. They was a reasonable set of white folks. They weighed
+out everything. They whooped their hands. They had a white overseer
+but he wasn't hired to whoop Laughinghouse's slaves.
+
+"They 'lowed mother to weave at her home at night. He had seven or
+eight families on his farm.
+
+"The well was a curiosity to me then and would sure be one now. We had
+a walled and curbed well. A long forked pole, a short chain and a long
+rope. We pulled up the water by the long forked pole. Cold! It was
+good cold water. Beats our water all to pieces.
+
+"The soldiers come up in a drove one day and ask mother for me. She
+didn't let any of us go.
+
+"Our master got killed over here close to Forrest City. We all picked
+cotton, then we all went to gin. A coupling pin broke and let a wooden
+block come down on him. It weighed one thousand pounds I expect. He
+was spreading a sheet and smoothing the cotton. It mashed and
+smothered him both. That was first of our scattering.
+
+"The colored folks raised gardens in the fence corners. They raised a
+heap of stuff that way. We lived a heap better then than now.
+
+"My father died and mother started sharecropping. First, one-half and
+then, one-third went to us. Things went on very well till the
+commissary come about. The nigger got figured clean out.
+
+"Nearly all the women of them days wore bonnets or what they called
+hoods one the other. Boys wore long shirts to calf of their legs.
+
+"We rode oxen to church. Many time rode to church and home in ox
+wagon.
+
+"Ku Kluxes followed Pattyrollers, then come on White Caps. If the
+Pattyrollers kilt a slave he had to pay the master the price. The Ku
+Kluxes rode at night. All of 'em's main business was to keep the
+slaves at their own places and at work. Iffen the master instructed
+them to keep offen his place they kept off. They never come on our
+place. But though I was feared of 'em.
+
+"I needs help and I don't git it. I applied. 'Cause a grandson helps
+us a little I don't git the welfare pension. I need it and I think I
+ought to git it. I worked hard, bought this house, paid my
+taxes--still trying. Still they don't aid me now and I passed aiding
+my own self. I think I oughten to git lef' out 'cause I help myself
+when I could. I sure is left out. Been left out.
+
+"A part of the people is accountable for the way the times is going
+on. Some of them is getting it all and don't give the others no show a
+tall. Times is powerful hard for some and too easy for others. Some is
+turned mean and some cowed down and times hard for them what can't
+work hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
+Person interviewed: Mandy Lee,
+                    Coal Hill, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"Yes'm I was a slave. I been here. I heard the bugles blowing, the
+fife beat, the drums beat, and the cannons roar. We started to Texas
+but never got across the river. I don't know what town it was but it
+was just across the river from Texas. My white folks was good to me. I
+staid with them till they died. Missy died first, then master died. I
+never was away from them. They was both good. My mammy was sold but I
+never was. They said they was surrendered when we come back from
+Texas. I heard the drums beat at Ft. Smith when we come back but I
+don't know what they was doing. I worked in the house with the
+children and in the field too. I help herd the horses. I would card
+and spin and eat peaches. No, that wasn't all I had to eat. I didn't
+have enough meat but I had plenty of milk and potatoes. I was born
+right here in Coal Hill. I ain't never lived anywhere else except when
+we went South during the war.
+
+"Law woman I can't tell you what I think of the present generation.
+They are good in their way but they don't do like we did. I never did
+go naked. I don't see how they stand it.
+
+"I could sing when I was young. We sang everything, the good and
+bad."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mary Lee
+                    1308 Texas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 74
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in 1864, March the fourth, the year before the Civil War
+ended. All I know is what they told me and what I read.
+
+"Born in Texas, but my mother and father was both born in Georgia.
+
+"My mother said her white folks was good to her. She was the house
+girl, she didn't have to work in no field.
+
+"I went to school when I was six or eight. I don't remember which. I
+had right smart schooling.
+
+"I remember my mother's young missis run off and got married. She was
+just a young girl, 'bout seventeen. That's been a long time.
+
+"I got a book sent to me a while back. It's a Catholic book--'History
+of Church and State.' Yes'm, I'm a Catholic. Used to belong to the
+Methodist church, but I wouldn't be a Methodist no more. I like the
+Catholics. You would too if you was one of 'em.
+
+"I been here in Arkansas since 1891. That's goin' right on up the
+road.
+
+"I can't do much work now, my breath gets short.
+
+"I used to make thirty-five dollars a month washin' and ironin'. Oh,
+that was a long time 'fore the depression.
+
+"I don't think nothin' of this younger generation. All goin' the same
+way. Oh lord, you better let 'em alone, they won't take no
+foolishness."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Talitha Lewis
+                    300 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 86
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I should say I was born in slavery times! Now if you ask me something
+I don't know, I couldn't tell you, honey, 'cause I believe in people
+tellin' the truth.
+
+"In a way I know how old I is. I give what my white folks give me.
+They told me I was born in 1852. Yes ma'am, my young missis used to
+set down and work on me. She'd say, 'Get it in your head' 'cause I
+ain't got no education.
+
+"I 'member my old missis. Know her name as good as I do mine. Name was
+Maria Whitley. After old master died, his property was divided and Jim
+Whitley drawed me and my mother and my sister. Yes ma'am, it was my
+sister.
+
+"Goldsboro, North Carolina is where I was born, in Johnston County.
+
+"Do I 'member anything 'bout peace declared? I should say I
+do--'member long time 'fore it come.
+
+"I seed so many different regiments of people I didn't know which was
+which. I know the Yankees called ever'body Dinah. They'd say to me,
+'Dinah, hold my horse,' and my hands would be full of bridles. And
+they'd say, 'You got anything buried?' The white folks had done buried
+the meat under my mother's house. And say, 'Is they good to you?' If
+they hadn't a been we wouldn't a known any better than to tell it.
+
+"I 'member they found where the meat was buried and they ripped up my
+mother's feather bed and filled it full of hams and shoulders, and
+there wasn't a middlin' in the lot. And kill chickens and geese! They
+got ever'thing and anything they wanted.
+
+"There was a battle-field about four miles from us where they fit at.
+
+"Honey, I can't tell it like I know it, but I _know_ it.
+
+"Old master was a good man. You had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
+And on Monday morning all his colored folks had clean clothes. I wish
+I could tell it like I know. He was a good man but he had as mean a
+wife as I ever saw. She used to be Nettie Sherrod and she _did_ _not_
+like a black face. Yes ma'am, Jim Whitley was a good man but his
+father was a devil.
+
+"If Massa Jim had a hand he couldn't control, he sold him. He said he
+wasn't goin' to beat 'em or have 'em run off and stay in the woods.
+Yes'm, that was my master, Jim Whitley.
+
+"His overseer was Zack Hill when peace declared.
+
+"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in
+1889. They emigranted us here. They sure said they had fritter trees
+and a molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters
+would fall in the pond. You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't
+believe that. Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was
+times when you could make good money here.
+
+"I know I is a slave time chile. I fared well but I sure did see some
+that didn't.
+
+"Our white folks had hands that didn't do nothin' but make clothes and
+sheets and kivers.
+
+"Baby, them Ku Klux was a pain. The paddyrollers was bad enough but
+them Ku Klux done lots of devilment. Yes ma'am, they _done_ some
+devilment.
+
+"I worked for a white man once was a Ku Klux, but I didn't know it for
+a long time. One time he said, 'Now when you're foolin' around in my
+closet cleanin' up, I want you to be pertickler.' I seed them rubber
+pants what they filled with water. I reckon he had enough things for a
+hundred men. His wife say, 'Now, Talitha, don't let on you know what
+them things is.'
+
+"Now my father belonged to the Adkins. He and my mother was married
+with a stiffcate 'fore peace declared and after peace declared they
+got a license and was married just like they marry now.
+
+"My master used to ask us chillun, 'Do your folks pray at night?' We
+said 'no' 'cause our folks had told us what to say. But the Lawd have
+mercy, there was plenty of that goin' on. They'd pray, 'Lawd, deliver
+us from under bondage.'
+
+"Colored folks used to go to the white folks' church. I was raised up
+under the old Primitive Baptist feet washin' church. Oh, that's a
+time, baby!
+
+"What I think of the younger generation? I don't know what to think of
+'em. I don't _think_--I know they is goin' too fast.
+
+"I learned how to read the Bible after I 'fessed religion. Yes ma'am,
+I can read the Bible, praise the Lawd!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Abbie Lindsay
+                    914 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+[HW: cf. Will Glass' story, No. ----?]
+
+
+"I was born June 1, 1856; the place at that time was called Lynngrove,
+Louisiana. It was just about a mile from the post office, and was in
+Morehouse Parish in the first ward--in the tenth ward I mean.
+
+
+Relatives
+
+"My father was named Alec Summerville. He named himself after the
+Civil War. They were going around letting the people choose their
+names. He had belonged to Alec Watts; but when they allowed him to
+select his own name after the war, he called himself Summerville after
+the town Summerville (Somerville), Alabama. His mother was named
+Charlotte Dantzler. She was born in North Carolina. John Haynes bought
+her and brought her to Arkansas. My father was an overseer's child.
+You know they whipped people in those days and forced them. That is
+why he didn't go by the name of Watts after he got free and could
+select his own name.
+
+"The name of my mother's mother was Celia Watts. I don't know my
+grandfather's first name. Old man Alec Watts' father gave my mother to
+him. I didn't know anything about that except what was told to me.
+They bought her from South Carolina. They came to Louisiana. My father
+was bought in South Carolina too. After the Haynes met the Watts,
+Watts married old man Haynes' daughter. He gave my father to his
+daughter, Mary Watts. She was Mary Watts after she was married. She
+was Mary Haynes before. Watts' father gave my mother to Alec Watts.
+That is just the way it was.
+
+"My mother and father had three children to live. I think there were
+about thirteen in all. There are just two of us living now. I couldn't
+tell you where Jeffrey Summerville, my living brother, is living now.
+
+
+Slave Houses
+
+"The slaves lived in hewed-log houses. I have often seen hewed-log
+houses. Have you ever seen one? You cut big logs and split them open
+with a maul and a wedge. Then you take a pole ax and hack it on both
+sides. Then you notch it--cut it into a sort of tongue and groove
+joint in each end. Before you cut the notches in the end, you take a
+broad ax and hew it on both sides. The notch holds the corners of the
+house-ties every corner. You put the rafters up just like you do now.
+Then you lathe the rafters and then put boards on top of the rafters.
+Sometimes shingles were used on the rafters instead of boards.
+
+"You would finish off the outside of the walls by making clay cakes
+out of mud and filling up the cracks with them. When that clay got
+hard, nothing could go through the walls. Sometimes thin boards were
+nailed on the inside to finish the interior.
+
+
+Furniture and Food
+
+"They had planks--homemade wooden beds. They made tables and chairs.
+They caned the chairs. They made the tables with four legs. You made
+it just like you would make a box, adding the legs.
+
+"A little house called the smokehouse was built in one of the corners
+of the yard. They would weigh out to each one so much food for the
+week's supply--mostly meat and meal, sometimes rice. They'd give you
+parched meal and rye too.
+
+"Sometimes they had the slaves cook their food in the cabins. Mostly
+all the time. My people ate in the kitchen because my mother was the
+cook and my father was the yard man. The others mostly cooked at
+home--in their cabins.
+
+
+Work
+
+"My mother and father worked around the house and yard. Slaves in the
+field had to pick a certain amount of cotton. The man had to pick from
+two to three hundred pounds of cotton a day if he wasn't sick, and the
+woman had to pick about one hundred fifty. Of course some of them
+could pick more. They worked in a way of speaking from can till can't,
+from the time they could see until the time they couldn't. They do
+about the same thing now.
+
+
+Recreation
+
+"I remember the time the white folks used to make the slaves all come
+around in the yard and sing every Sunday evening. I can't remember any
+of the songs straight through. I can just remember them in spots.
+
+    'Give me Jesus, you can have all the world
+    In the morning when I arise, Give me Jesus.'
+                                             (Fragment)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Lie on him if you sing right
+    Lie on him if you pray right
+    God knows that your heart is not right
+    Come, let us go to heaven anyhow.'
+                                       (Fragment)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'The ark was seen at rest upon the hill
+    On the hills of Calvary
+    And Great Jehovah spoke
+    Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
+                                    (First verse)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Peter spied the promised land
+    On the hill of Calvary
+    And Great Jehovah spoke
+    Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
+                                     (Second verse)
+
+There was lots more that they sung.
+
+"They could go to parties too, but when they went to them or to
+anything else, they had to have a pass. When they went to a party the
+most they did was to play the fiddle and dance. They had corn huskings
+every Friday night, and they ground the meal every Saturday. The corn
+husking was the same as fun. They didn't serve anything on the place
+where I was. I never knew them to serve anything at the corn shuckings
+or at the parties. Sometimes they would give a picnic, and they would
+kill a hog for that.
+
+
+Life Since Freedom
+
+"Right after the war, my father hired me out to nurse. Then I stayed
+around the house and helped my stepmother, and the white girls taught
+me a little until I got to be thirteen years old. Then I got three
+months' schooling in a regular school. I came here in 1915. I had been
+living in Newport before that. Yes, I been married, and that's all you
+need to know about that. I got two children: one fifty-three years
+old, and the other sixty.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"I don't have much thinking to do about the young people. It's a lost
+race without a change."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+"Mother" Lindsay is a Bible-reading, neat and clean-appearing,
+pleasant-mannered business woman, a little bulky, but carrying herself
+like a woman thirty years. She runs a cafe on Ninth Street and manages
+her own business competently. She refers to it as "Hole in the Wall."
+I had been trying for sometime to catch her away from her home. It was
+almost impossible for me to get a story from her at her restaurant or
+at her home.
+
+She doesn't like to sit long at a time and doesn't like to tell too
+much. When she feels quarters are a little close and that she is
+telling more than she wants to, she says, "Honey, I ain't got no more
+time to talk to you; I got to get back to the cafe and get me a cup of
+coffee."
+
+Will Glass, who has a story of his own, collaborated with her on her
+story. He has an accurate and detailed memory of many things. He is
+too young to have any personal memories. But he remembers everything
+he has been told by his grandparents and parents, and they seem to
+have talked freely to him unlike the usual parents of that period.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Rosa Lindsey
+                    302 S. Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia and I'm 83.
+
+"My white folks was named Abercrombie.
+
+"I don't remember my mother and I hardly remember my father. My white
+folks raised me up. I 'member my missis had me bound to her when I was
+twelve. I know when my grandma come to take me home with her, I run
+away from her and went back to my white folks.
+
+"My white folks was rich. I belonged to my young missis. She didn't
+'low nobody to hit me. When she went to school she had me straddle the
+horse behind her. The first readin' I ever learned was from the white
+folks.
+
+"I think the Yankees took Columbus, Georgia on a Sunday morning. I
+know they just come through there and tore up things and did as they
+pleased.
+
+"I stayed there a long time after the Yankees went back.
+
+"Old master wasn't too old to go to war but he didn't go. I think he
+had to dodge around to keep the Yankees from gettin' him. I think he
+went to Texas but we didn't go.
+
+"I loved my white folks 'cause I knowed more about them than anybody
+else.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas with a young white lady just married. She
+'suaded me to come with her and I just stayed.
+
+"Biggest thing I have did is washin' and ironin'. But now I am doing
+missionary work in the Sanctified church.
+
+"I don't know 'bout the younger generation. Looks like 'bout near
+ever'body lost now. There's some few young people is saved now but
+they ain't many."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: William Little,
+                    Atkins, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born on the plantation of Dr. Andrew Scott, but my old ma'ster
+was Col. Ben T. Embry. The 14th of March, in the year 1855, was my
+birthday. Yes suh, I was born right here at old Galla Rock! My old
+Ma'ster Embry had a good many slaves. He went to Texas and stayed
+about three years. Took a lot of us along, and de first work I ever
+done after I was set free was pickin' cotton at $2 a hundred pounds.
+Dere was seventy-five or a hundred of us freed at once. Yes suh! Den
+we drove five hundred miles back here from Texas, and drove five
+hundred head of stock. We was refigees--dat's de reason we had to go
+to Texas.
+
+"Father and mother both passed away a good many years ago. Oh, yes,
+dey was mighty well treated while dey was in slavery; never was a
+kinder mas'r anywhere dan my old mas'r. And he was wealthy, too--had
+lots of land, and a store, and plenty of other property. Many of the
+slaves stayed on as servants long after the War, and lived right
+around here at old Galla Rock.
+
+"No suh, I never belonged to no chu'ch; dey thought I done too much of
+the devil's work--playin' the fiddle. Used to play the fiddle for
+dances all around the neighborhood. One white man gave me $10 once for
+playin' at a dance. Played lots of the old-time pieces like 'Turkey in
+the Straw', 'Dixie', and so on.
+
+"We owns our home here, and I has another one. Been married twice and
+raised eighteen chillun. Yes suh, we've lived here eighteen years, and
+had fine health till last few years, but my health is sorter po'ly
+now. Got a swellin' in my laigs.
+
+"(Chuckling) I sure remembers lots of happy occasions down here in
+days before the War. One day the steamboat come up to the landin'. It
+was named the Maumelle--yes suh, Maumelle, and lots of hosses and
+cattle was unloaded from the steamer. Sure was busy days then. And our
+old mas'r was mighty kind to us."
+
+
+NOTE: "Uncle Bill" did not know how he came about the name "Little."
+Perhaps it was a nickname bestowed upon him to distinguish him from
+some other William of larger stature. However, he stands fully six
+feet in height, and has a strong, vigorous voice. He is the sole
+surveying ex-slave of the Galla Rock community.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: "Aunt Minerva" Lofton
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"Come in! Yes, my name's Minerva Lofton--at least it was yistiddy.
+Now, whatcha gonna ask me? Hope you ain't saying something that'll git
+me in bad. Don't want to git in any more trouble. Hard times' bad
+enough.
+
+"I was born in the country nine miles from Clarendon, Monroe County,
+December 3, 1869. Father died before I was born. My mother came from
+Virginia, and her mistress' name was Bettie Clark. They lived close to
+Richmond, and people used to say 'Blue Ridge,' so I think it was Blue
+Ridge County, Virginia. Mother was sold to Henry
+Cargile--C-a-r-g-i-l-e.
+
+"When they were expecting peace to be declared soon a lot of the
+colored people named Parks took many of the slaves to Texas to escape
+from the Yankees, but when they got to Corpus Christi they found the
+Yankee soldiers there just the same, so they came back to Arkansas. I
+sure used to laugh at my dear old mother when she'd tell about the
+long trip to Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They
+stopped over at Camden as they went through, and one of the colored
+gals who hated her played a prank on her to take out her spite on
+mother: They had stopped at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she
+sent my mother in to get a gallon of buttermilk. After drinking all
+she could hold she grabbed mother by the hair of the head and churned
+her up and down in the buttermilk till it streamed down her face, and
+on her clothes--a sight to behold. I laughed and laughed until my
+sides ached when mother told me about this.
+
+"Old mistis' name (that is, one of the old mistis') was Bettie Young,
+and my mother was named Bettie for her; she was a namesake--sort of a
+wedding present, I think.
+
+"I've been a member of the Pentecostal church for nineteen years.
+
+"No sir, I never have voted and never expect to. Why? Because I have a
+religious opinion about votin'. I think a woman should not vote; her
+place is in the home raising her family and attending to the household
+duties. We have raised only two boys (stepchildren)--had no children
+of our own--but I have decided ideas about women runnin' around among
+and votin'. When I see em settin' around the ballot box at the polls,
+sometimes with a cigarette in their mouths, and again slingin' out a
+'damn' or two, I want to slap em good and hard.
+
+"Yes, the old time religious songs--I sure remember some of them! Used
+to be able to sing lots of em, but have forgotten the words of many.
+Let's see:
+
+    'I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, Daniel in de lion's den;
+    I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord,
+          Daniel in de lion's den.'
+
+Here's another:
+
+    'Big bells a-ringin' in de army of de Lord;
+    Big bells a-ringin' in de army.
+    I'm so glad I'm in de army of de Lord;
+    My soul's a-shoutin' in de army.'
+
+"Modern youth? Humph! I think they are just a fulfilling of what
+Christ said: 'They shall grow wiser as they grow older, but weaker.'
+Where is it in the Scripture? Wait a minute and I'll look it up. Now,
+let's see--where was that passage? It says 'weaker' here and 'weaken'.
+Never mind--wait--I'll find it. Well, anyway, I don't know jest how to
+describe this generation. I heard a white woman once say that she had
+to do a little cussin' to make herself understood. 'Cussin'?' Why,
+'cussin'' is jist a polite word for it.
+
+"Good-bye, mister. You oughta thank the Lawd you've got a job!"
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
+Subject: Biographical Sketch of Robert Lofton
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page)
+
+This information given by: Robert Lofton
+Place of Residence: 1904 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Occupation: Farmer (no longer able to work)
+Age: 82
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+Robert Lofton was born March 11, 1855 in McDonogh, Georgia. His master
+lived in town and owned two Negro women and their children. One of
+these was Lofton's mother.
+
+His father was a Negro who lived back of him and belonged to the local
+postmaster. He had a wagon and did public hauling for his master, Dr.
+Tie. He was allowed to visit his wife and children at nights, and was
+kept plentifully supplied with money by his master.
+
+Lofton's master, Asa Brown, bought, or acquired from time to time in
+payment of debts, other slaves. These he hired out to farmers,
+collecting the wages for their labor.
+
+After the war, the Lofton family came to Arkansas and lived in Lee
+County just outside of Oak Forest. They were share croppers and
+farmers throughout their lives. He has a son, however, a war veteran
+and unusually intelligent.
+
+Robert Lofton is a fine looking old man, with silky white hair and an
+octoroon appearance, although the son of two colored persons.
+
+He remembers scarcely anything because of fading mental powers, but
+he is able to take long walks and contends that only in that way can
+he keep free from rheumatic pains. He speaks of having died recently
+and come back to life, is extremely religious, and is fearful of
+saying something that he should not.
+
+"I was in McDonogh, Georgia when the surrender came. [HW: That is
+where I was born on March 11, 1855.] There was plenty of soldiers in
+that little town--Yankees and Rebels. And they was sending mail out
+through the whole country. The Rebels had as good chance to know what
+was in the mail as the Yanks (his mother's husband's master was
+postmaster) did.
+
+
+How Freedom Came
+
+"The slaves learned through their masters that they were free. The
+Yankees never told the niggers anything. They could tell those who
+were with them that they were free. And they notified the people to
+notify their niggers that they were free. 'Release him. If he wants to
+stay with you yet, he may. We don't require him to go away but you
+must let him know he is free.'
+
+"The masters said, 'You are free now, Johnnie, just as free as I am.'
+Many of them put their things in a little wagon and moved to some
+other plantation or town or house. But a heap of them stayed right
+where they were.
+
+"My father found out before my mother did. He was living across town
+behind us about one-fourth of a mile. Dr. Tie, his master, had a post
+office, and that post office was where they got the news. My father
+got the news before my master did. He got on to it through being on
+with Dr. Tie. So my father got the news before my master, Asa Brown,
+did and he come over and told my mother before my master did. But my
+master came out the next thing and told her she could go or come as
+she pleased. She said she'd stay right along. And we got along just as
+we always did--until my father came and told us he was going to
+Atlanta with a crew of Yankees.
+
+
+Employment and Post-War Changes in Residence
+
+"He got a wagon and a team and run us off to the railroad. He got a
+job at Atlanta directly. After he made a year in Atlanta, he got
+dissatisfied. He had two girls who were big enough to cut cotton. So
+he decided to go farm. He went to Tennessee and we made a crop there.
+Then he heard about Arkansas and came here.
+
+"When he came here, somehow or other, he got in a fight with a colored
+man. He got the advantage of that man and killed him. The officers
+came after him, but he left and I ain't never seen nor heard of him
+since. He went and left my poor mother and her five children alone.
+But I was getting big enough to be some help. And we made crops and
+got along somehow.
+
+"I don't know what we expected. I never heerd anyone say a word. I was
+children you know, and it was mighty little that children knew because
+the old folks did not talk with them much.
+
+
+What They Got
+
+"I never heerd of anything any of them got. I never heerd of any of
+them getting anything except work. I don't recollect any pension or
+anything being given them--nothing but work.
+
+Folks on this place would leave and go over on that place, and folks
+on that place would come over here. They ate as long as the white
+folks ate. We stayed with our old master and mistress, (Mr. Asa Brown
+and Mrs. Sallie Brown).
+
+
+Good Master and Mistress
+
+"They did not whip us. They didn't whip nobody they had. They were
+good white folks. My mother never was whipped. She was not whipped
+after the surrender and she wasn't whipped before. [We lived in the
+same house as our master] [HW: (in margin) see p. 6] and we ate what
+he ate.
+
+
+Wives and Husbands
+
+"There was another woman my master owned. Her husband belonged to
+another white man. My father also belonged to another white man. Both
+of them would come and stay with their wives at night and go back to
+work with their masters during the day. My mother had her kin folks
+who lived down in the country and my mother used to go out and visit
+them. I had a grandmother way out in the country. My mother used to
+take me and go out and stay a day or so. She would arrange with
+mistress and master and go down Saturday and she would take me along
+and leave her other children with this other woman. Sunday night she
+would make it back. Sometimes she wouldn't come back until Monday.
+
+"It didn't look like she was any freer after freedom than she was
+before. She was free all the time she was a slave. They never whipped
+her. Asa Brown never whipped his niggers.
+
+
+Letting Out Slaves
+
+"Asa Brown used to rent out his niggers, sometimes. You know, they
+used to rent them. But he never rented my mother though. He needed her
+all the time. She was the cook. He needed her all the time and he kept
+her all the time. He let her go to see grandmother and he let her go
+to church.
+
+"Sometimes my mother went to the white church and sometimes she went
+to the colored folks church. When we went to the white folks church,
+we took and sat down in the back and behaved ourselves and that was
+all there was to it. When they'd have these here big
+meetings--revivals or protracted meetings they call them--she'd go to
+the white and black. They wouldn't have them all at the same time and
+everybody would have a chance to go to all of them.
+
+"They wouldn't allow the colored to preach and they wouldn't even call
+on them to pray but he could sing as good as any of them.
+
+"Generally all colored preachers that I knowed of was slaves. The
+slaves attended the churches all right enough--Methodists and Baptists
+both white and black. I never heard of the preachers saying anything
+the white folks did not like.
+
+"The Methodists' church started in the North. There was fourteen or
+fifteen members that got dissatisfied with the Baptist church and went
+over to the Methodist church. The trouble was that they weren't
+satisfied with our Baptism. The Baptists were here before the
+Methodists were thought of. These here fourteen or fifteen members
+came out of the North and started the Methodist church going.
+
+
+Share Cropping
+
+"Share cropping has been ever since I knowed anything. It was the way
+I started. I was working the white man's land and stock and living in
+his house and getting half of the cotton and corn. We had a garden and
+raised potatoes and greens and so on, but cotton and corn was our
+crop. Of course we had them little patches and raised watermelon and
+such like.
+
+
+Food and Quarters
+
+"We ate whatever the white man ate. My mother was the cook. She had a
+cook-room joined to her room [which reached clear over to the white
+folks' house.] [HW: see p. 4] Everything she cooked on that stove, we
+all ate it, white and black--some of the putting, [HW: pudding] some
+of the cakes, some of the pies, some of the custard, some of the
+biscuits, some of the corn bread--we all had it, white and black. I
+don't know no difference at all. Asa Brown was a good old man. There
+was some mean slave owners, but he wasn't one.
+
+
+Whippings
+
+"You could hear of some mean slave owners taking switches and beating
+their niggers nearly to death. But I never heard of my old master
+doing that. Slaves would run away and it would be a year or two before
+they would be caught. Sometimes they would take him and strip him
+naked and whip him till he wasn't able to stand for running away. But
+I never heard of nothing like that happening with Asa Brown. But he
+sometimes would sell a hand or buy one sometimes. He'd take a nigger
+in exchange for a debt and rent him out.
+
+
+Voting
+
+"There wasn't any voting by the slaves. But ever since freedom they
+have been voting. None of my friends ever held any office. I don't
+know anything about the niggers not voting now. Don't they vote?
+
+
+Patter Rollers, K. K. K., White Carmelias, Etc.
+
+"My mother and father knowed about Patter Rollers, but I don't know
+nothing about them. But they are dead and gone. I have heard of the Ku
+Klux but I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what I used to
+know. No sir, I am out of the question now.
+
+"There is one thing I keep straight. When I wants to drink or when I
+wants to eat--oh yes, I know how to go to bed.
+
+"You know I have seen the time when they would get in a close place
+and they would make me preach, but it's all gone from me now. I can't
+recollect."
+
+
+
+
+Mary D. Hudgins
+107 Palm Street,
+Hot Springs, Ark.
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: John H. Logan
+Aged: c. 89
+Home: 449 Gaines Avenue.
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+Gaines Avenue was once a "Quality Street". It runs on a diagonal from
+Malvern Avenue, a one-time first class residential thorofare to the
+Missouri Pacific Tracks. Time was when Gaines led almost to the gates
+of the fashionable Combes Racetrack.
+
+Built up during the days of bay windows Gaines Avenue has preserved
+half a dozen land marks of former genteelity. Long stretches between
+are filled "shot gun" houses, unaquainted for many years with a
+paintbrush.
+
+Within half a block of the streetcar line on Malvern an early spring
+had encouraged plowing of a 200 foot square garden. Signs such as
+"Hand Laundry" appear frequently. But by far the most frequent placard
+is "FOR SALE" a study in black and white, the insignia of a local real
+estate firm specializing in foreclosures.
+
+The street number sought proved to be two doors beyond the red brick
+church. A third knock brought a slight, wrinkled face to the door, its
+features aquiline, in coloring only the mildest of mocha. Its owner
+Laura Burton Logan, after satisfying herself that the visitor wasn't
+just an intruder, opened the door wide and invited her to come inside.
+
+"Logan, oh Logan, come on here, come on in here," she called to an old
+man in the next room. "Law, I don't know whether he can tell you
+anything or not. He's getting pretty feeble. Now five or six years ago
+he could have told you lots of things. But now----I don't know."
+
+Into the "front room" hobbled the old fellow. His back was bent, his
+eyes dimmed with age. His face was the sort often called "good"--not
+good in the sense stupid acquiescence--but rather evidence of an
+intelligent, non-preditory meeting of the problems of life.
+
+A quarter, handed the old fellow at the beginning of the interview
+remained clutched in his hand throughout the entire conversation.
+Because of events during the talk the interviewer reached for her
+change purse to find and offer another quarter. It was not in her
+purse. Getting up from her chair she looked on the floor about her. It
+wasn't there. Mrs. Logan, who had gone back to bed, wanted to know
+what the trouble was, and was worried when she found what was missing.
+By manner the interviewer put over the idea that she wasn't suspecting
+either of the two. But Logan, not having heard the entire conversation
+got to his feet and extended his hand--the one holding the quarter,
+offering it back to the interviewer.
+
+When he rose, there was the purse as it had slipped down on the seat
+of the rocker which the interviewer had almost taken and in which she
+had probably carelessly tossed her purse. A second quarter, added to
+his first, brought a beaming smile from the old man. But for the rest
+of the afternoon there was a lump in the interviewer's throat. Here
+was a man, evidently terribly in need of money, ready, without even a
+tiny protest, to return a gift of cash which must have meant so much
+to him--on the barest notion in his mind that the interviewer wanted
+it back.
+
+"Be patient with me ma'am," Logan began, "I can't remember so good.
+And I want to get it all right. I don't want to spoil my record now. I
+been honest all my life, always stood up and told the truth, done what
+was right. I don't want to spoil things and lie in my mouth now. Give
+me time to think.
+
+I was born, on----December----December 15. It was in 1848----I think.
+I was born in the house of Mrs. Cozine. She was living on Third Street
+in Little Rock. It was near the old Catholic Church. Was only a little
+ways from the State House. Mrs. Cozine, she was my first mistress.
+Then she sold me, me and my mother and a couple of brothers.
+
+It was Governor Roane she sold me to. Don't know just how old I
+was----good sized boy, though. Guess I was five--maybe six years old.
+He was a fine man, Governor Roane was--a mighty fine man. He always
+treated me good. Raised me up to be a good man.
+
+I remember when he gives us a free-pass. That was during the war. He
+said, 'Now boys, you be good. You stand for what is right, and don't
+you tell any stories. I've raised you up to do right.'
+
+When he wasn't governor any more he went back to Pine Bluff. We lived
+there a long time. I was with Governor Roane right up until I was
+grown. I can't right correct things in my mind altogether, but I think
+I was with him until I was about 20.
+
+When the war come on, Governor Roane helped to gather up troops. He
+called us in out of the fields and asked us if we wanted to go. I did.
+Right today I should be getting a pension. I was truly in the army.
+Ought to be getting a pension. Once a white man, Mr. Williams, I
+believe his name was, tried to get me to go with him to Little Rock.
+Getting me a pension would be easy he said. But somehow we never did
+go.
+
+I worked in the powder factory for a while. Then they set me to
+hauling things----mostly food from the Brazos river to Tyler, Texas.
+We had hard times then----we had a time----and don't you let anybody
+tell you we didn't. Sometimes we didn't have any bread. And even
+sometimes we didn't have any water. I wasn't so old, but I was a
+pretty good man----pretty well grown up.
+
+After the war I went back with my pappy. While I'd belonged to
+Governor Roane, Roane was my name. But when I went back with father, I
+took his name. We farmed for a while and later I went to Little Rock.
+
+I did lots of things there. Worked in a cabinet maker's shop for one
+thing. Was classed as a good workman, too. I worked the lathes. Did a
+good job of it. I never was the sort that had to walk around looking
+for work. Folks used to come and get me and ask me to work for them.
+
+How'd I happen to come to Hot Springs? They got me to come to work on
+the water mains. Worked for the water works a long time. Then I worked
+for a Mr. Smith in the bath house. I fired the furnace for him. Then
+for about 15 years I kept the yard at the Kingsway----the Eastman it
+was then. I kept the lawn clean at the Eastman Hotel. That was about
+the last steady work I did.
+
+Yes and in between I used to haul things. Had me an express wagon.
+Used to build rock walls too. Built good walls.
+
+Who did you say you was, Miss? Your father was Jack Hudgins--Law,
+child, law----"
+
+A feeble hand reached for the hand of the white woman and took it. The
+old eyes filled with tears and the face distorted in weaping. For a
+few minutes he sat, then he rose, and the young woman rose with him.
+For a moment she put a comforting arm around him and soon he was
+quieter.
+
+"Law, so your father was Jack Hudgins. How well I does remember him.
+Whatever did become of that fine boy? Dead did you say? I remembers
+now. He was a fine man, a mighty--mighty fine man. Jack Hudgins girl!
+
+Yes, Miss, I guess you has seen me around a lot. Lots of folks know
+me. They'll come along the street and they'll say, 'Hello Logan!' and
+sometimes I won't know who they are, but they'll know me.
+
+I remember once, it's been years and years ago, a man come along
+Central Avenue--a white man. I was going along the street and suddenly
+he grabbed me and hugged me. It scared me at first. 'Logan,' he says,
+'Logan' he says again. 'Logan, I'd know you anywhere. How glad I am to
+see you.' But I didn't recognize him. 'Wife,' he says 'wife, come on
+over and speak to Logan, he saved my life once.' Invited me to come
+and see him too, he did.
+
+Things have been mighty hard for the last few years. Seems like we
+could get the pension. First they had a rule that we'd have to sign
+away the home if we got $9.00 a month. Well, my wife's daughter was
+taking care of us. Even if we got the $9 she'd still have to help. She
+wasn't making much, but she was dividing everything--going without
+shoes and everything. So we thought it wasn't fair to her to sign away
+our home after all she'd done for us----so that they'd just kick her
+out when we was dead--she'd been too good to us. So we says 'No!' We
+been told that they done changed that rule, but we can't seem to get
+help at all. Maybe, Miss, there's somthing you can do. We sure would
+be thankful, if you could help us get on.
+
+All my folks is dead, my mother and my father and all my brothers, my
+first and my second wives and both my children. My wife's daughter
+helps us all she can. She's mighty good to us. Don't know what we'd do
+without her. Thank you, glad you come to see us. Glad to know you. If
+you can talk to them over at the Court House, we'd be glad. Good-bye.
+Come to see us ag in."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Elvie Lomack
+Residence: Foot of King Street on river bank,
+                    no number; Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"Come right in and I'll tell you what I know. I was born in Tennessee
+in slavery days. No ma'm I do not know what year, because I can't read
+or write.
+
+"I know who my mistress was. She was Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. She come
+from Virginia. She was an old maid and she was very nice. Some very
+good blooded people come from Virginia. She brought my mother with her
+from Virginia before I was born.
+
+"My father belonged to the Crowders and mammy belonged to Miss Lucy
+Ann Dillard. They wouldn't sell pappy to Miss Lucy and she wouldn't
+sell mammy to the Crowders, so mammy lost sight of him and never
+married again. She just married that time by the consent of the white
+folks. In them times they wasn't no such thing as a license for the
+colored folks.
+
+"I remember my mother milked and tended to the cows and issued out the
+milk to the colored folks.
+
+"Miss Lucy lived in town and come out once a week to see to us. When
+the overseer was there she come out oftener. We stayed right on there
+after the war, till we come to Arkansas. I was betwixt eleven and
+twelve years old.
+
+"And we was fooled in this place. A man my mother knowed had been here
+two years. He come back to Tennessee and, oh Lord, you could do this
+and do that, so we come here.
+
+"First year we come here we all got down sick. When we got well we had
+to go to work and I didn't have a chance to go to school.
+
+"I've seen my mother wring her hands and cry and say she wished she
+was back in Tennessee where Lucy Ann Dillard was.
+
+"When I got big enough I went to work for Ben Johnson and stayed there
+fifteen years. I never knew when my payday was. Mammy come and got my
+pay and give me just what she wanted me to have. And as for runnin' up
+and down the streets--why mammy would a died first. She's dead and in
+her grave but I give her credit--she took the best of care of us. She
+had three girls and they didn't romp up and down the big road neither.
+
+"I just looks at the young folks now. If they had been comin' along
+when I was, they'd done been tore all to pieces. They ain't raisin' em
+now, they're just comin' up like grass and weeds. And as for speakin'
+to you now--just turn their heads. Now I'm just fogy nuf that if I
+meet you out, I'll say good mornin' or good evenin'.
+
+"If it hadn't been for the Yankees, we'd have the yoke on our necks
+right today. The Lord got into their hearts.
+
+"Now I don't feel bitter gainst people. Ain't no use to hold malice
+gainst nobody--got to have a clean heart. Folks does things cause
+they's ignorant and don't know no better and they shouldn't be crowned
+with it.
+
+"But I'll tell you the truth--I've heard my mother say she was happier
+in slavery times than after cause she said the Dillards certainly took
+good care of her. Southerners got a heart in em."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: Henry Long
+Home 112 East Grand
+Age: c. 71
+
+
+"Yes, 'um, I owns my own home--and what's more it's on the same street
+with the Mayor's house. Yes 'um, I owns a good home, has my own
+chickens and my flowers and I has a pension of $50 a month.
+
+"Just the other day I got a letter. It wanted me to join the National
+Association of Retired Federal Workers. I took the letter to the boss
+and he told me not to bother. Guess I'd better spend my money on
+myself.
+
+"I got some oil stock too. Been paying pretty good dividends since I
+had it. Didn't pay any this year. They are digging a new well. That'll
+maybe mean more money. It's paid pretty good up to now. Yes, me and my
+wife, we're getting along pretty good. Nothing to worry about.
+
+"Where was I born--it was in Kentucky, Russellville it was, just a few
+miles from Bowling Green. Yes, 'um, Kentucky was a regular slave
+state----a genuine slave state. Lots of 'em there.
+
+"The man we belonged to----his name was Gabe Long. I remember hearin'
+'em tell how they put him up on one block and sold him. They put his
+wife up on another and sold her too. Only they both went in different
+directions. They didn't see each other again for 30 years. By that
+time he had married again twice. My mother was his third wife. She
+lived to be 102 and he lived to be 99. Yes, 'um, I comes from a long
+lived family. There's four of us still living. I got two brothers and
+one sister. They all live back in Kentucky----pretty close to where we
+was all born. One time, when I had a vacation----you know they gives
+you a vacation with pay----30 days vacation it was. Well one time on
+my vacation I went back to see my sister. She is living with her
+daughter. She is 78. One brother is living with his son. He's 73. My
+youngest brother owns his own farm. He is 64. All of 'em back in
+Kentucky, they've been farmers. I'm the only one who has worked in
+town. And I never worked in town until I come to Arkansas.
+
+"Been in Hot Springs for over 50 years. Law, when I first come there
+wasn't any Eastman hotel. There wasn't any Park hotel. I don't mean
+that Park Hotel up in Happy Hollow. The one I mean was down on
+Malvern. It burned in the fire of 1913. Law, when I come there wasn't
+nothing but mule street cars. Hot Springs has seen lots of changes.
+
+"Back in Kentucky I'd been working around where I was born. Worked
+around the houses mostly. They paid me wages and wanted me to go on
+working for them. But I decided I wanted to get away. So I went to
+Little Rock. But didn't find nothing much to do there. Then I went on
+up Cedar Glades way. Then I come to Hot Springs.
+
+"First I worked for a man who had a big garden----it's out where South
+Hot Springs is now----oh you know what the man's name was----he was
+named----he was named--name was Barker, that's it, Barker." (The
+"Barker Place" has been divided up into lots and blocks and is one of
+the more popular residential districts.)
+
+"Then I got a job at the Park hotel. No ma'am. I didn't work in the
+yard. I worked in the refrigerators and the pantry. Then about meal
+times I served the fruit. You know how a big, fashionable hotel
+is--there's lots of things that has to be done around 'em.
+
+"Finally I got rheumatism and I had to quit that kind of work. So I
+got a job firing the furnace at the electric light plant. It was down
+on Malvern then. That was before the fire of 1913. I was working right
+there when the fire come. It was pretty awful. It burned just about
+everything out there on Malvern----and places on lots of other streets
+too.
+
+"After that I got a job at the Eastman hotel. I fired the furnace and
+worked on the boilers. Worked there a long time. Then they sent me to
+the Arlington. You know at that time the same company owned both the
+Eastman and the Arlington. It wasn't this new Arlington----it was the
+second one--the red brick one. Built that second one while I was here.
+The first one was wood.
+
+"Back in the time when I come, there was a creek running through most
+of the town. There wasn't any Great Northern hotel. There was just a
+big creek there.
+
+"But how-some-ever, to go on. After I worked at the Arlington on the
+boilers and the furnace--I got a job at the Army and Navy Hospital.
+Now that wasn't the new hospital either. It was the old one--it was
+red brick too.
+
+"Next, I worked at the LaMar Bath house. I was there a long
+time----for years and years. Then they got to building over the bath
+houses. One by one they tore down the old ones and put new ones up. I
+worked on at the LaMar until they tore the old one down to build the
+new one. Then I went up to the Quapaw to work. Worked there for quite
+some time.
+
+"Finally they sent for me to come on down and work for the government.
+I's worked under a lot of the Superintendents. I started working for
+the government when Dr.----Dr.----Dr. Warring----Warring was his name.
+He was a nice man. Then there was Dr. Bolton. I worked for him too.
+Then there was----there was----oh, what was his
+name----De--De--DeValin--that's it. Then there was Dr. Collins. He was
+the last of the Doctors. Then there was Mr. Allen and now Mr. Libbey.
+
+"Yes, 'um, I worked for a lot of 'em and made a HOME RUN with all of
+'em. Every one of 'em liked me. I always did good work. All of 'em
+liked the way I worked.
+
+"Yes 'um. I been married 41 years----20 years to the first woman----21
+to this one. The first one come from Mississippi. Her name was Ula.
+This one's name is Charlotte. She come from Magnolia--that's in
+Arkansas.
+
+"You know ma'am, I come from Kentucky where they raise fine race
+horses. I worked around 'em a lot. But I ain't seen many races. We
+lived out in the country. We had good horses, but they didn't race
+'em. I worked with the horses around the place, but we didn't go in
+town to see the races. What did we raise? Well tobacco and wheat and
+the usual things. All my folks, but me is still working on farms.
+
+"No 'um, I didn't rightly know how old I was. I was working along, not
+thinking much about what I was doing. Then the men down at the office"
+(Hot Springs National Park) "started asking me how old I was. I
+couldn't tell 'em. But I thought I was born the year the slaves was
+freed. They said I ought to be retired.
+
+"So they wrote back----or somebody stopped over while he was on his
+vacation--can't quite remember which. Anyhow they found I was old
+enough to retire----ought to have retired several years ago. So now I
+got my home, got my pension and got my time to do what I wants to
+do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Annie Love
+                    1116 E. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85?
+
+
+"I don't know exactly how old I am. I was here when the war was goin'
+on. I know I used to see the soldiers come by and come in, but I
+wasn't big enough to work. I was born in Richmond, Virginia.
+
+"My owners moved from Virginia to Mississippi. My mother and I lived
+on one place and my father lived on another plantation. I remember one
+Sunday he come to see me and when he started home I know I tried to go
+with him. He got a little switch and whipped me. That's the onliest
+thing I can remember bout him.
+
+"Billy Cole was my master and I didn't have any mistress cause he
+never was married.
+
+"My mother worked in the field and I was out there with her when the
+cannons commenced shootin' at Helena. We said they was shootin' at us
+and we went to the house. Oh Lord, we said we could see em, Lord yes!
+
+"After surrender, our owner, Billy Cole, told us we was free and that
+we could go or stay so we stayed there for four or five years. I don't
+know whether we was paid anything or not. After that we just went from
+place to place and worked by the day.
+
+"I never did see any Ku Klux but they come to my mother's house one
+night and wanted my stepfather to show'em where a man lived. He went
+down the road with 'em a piece. They wanted a drink and, oh Lord,
+they'd drink mighty nigh a bucket full.
+
+"Oh Lord, when I was young goin' to parties and dances, that was my
+rule. Oh Lord, I went to them dances.
+
+"I went to church, too. That was one thing I did do. I ain't able to
+go now but I'll tell anybody when I could, I sure went.
+
+"I went to school mighty little--off and on bout two years. I never
+learned nothin' though.
+
+"I lived right in Memphis mighty nigh twenty years then I come to
+Arkansas bout thirty-two years ago and I'm mighty near right where I
+come to Pine Bluff.
+
+"I don't know of anything else but all my days I believe I've worked
+hard, cookin' and washin' and ironin'."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Needham Love
+                    1014 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 80, or older
+
+
+"Old Joe Love sold us to old Jim McClain, Meridian, Mississippi, and
+old McClain brought us down on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.
+That was during the War. It was down there on a big old plantation
+where the cane was high as this house. I was born in Alabama. When the
+War started, he brought us all down to Meridian and sold us. He sold
+me in my mother's arms.
+
+"We cut down all that cane and woods and cleared up the place on the
+Tallahatchie. We did all that before we learned we was free.
+
+"They built log houses for the white and black. They sealed the white
+folks' houses and chinked the colored folks'. They didn't have but one
+house for the white folks. There was only one white person down there
+and that was old Jim McClain. Just come down there in time of harvest.
+He lived in Lexington the rest of the time. He told his people, 'When
+I die, bury me in a bale of cotton.' One time he got sick and they
+thought he would die. They gathered all the hands up and all the
+people about the place. There was about three hundred. He come to his
+senses and said, 'What's all these people doing here?'
+
+"His son said, 'Papa, they thought you was goin' to die and they come
+up to see you.'
+
+"And he said to his son, 'Well, I ain't dead yet. Tell 'em to git back
+on the job, and chop that cotton.'
+
+"I did not have any work to do in slavery time. When the War ended I
+was only five years old. But I played the devil after the War though.
+When the slaves were freed, I shouted, but I ain't got nothin' yet. I
+learned a lot though. My father used to make a plow or a harrow. They
+made cotton in those days. Potatoes ain't no 'count now. In them days,
+they made potatoes so good and sweet that they would gum up your
+hands. Mothers used to make good old ash cakes. Used to have
+pot-liquor with grease standin' up on it. People don't know nothin'
+now. Don't know how to cook.
+
+"My father's name was Joe Love and my mother's name was Sophia. I
+don't know any of my grandparents. All of them belonged to old Joe
+Love. I never did know any of them. I know my father and mother--my
+mammy and pappy--that's what we called 'em in them days.
+
+"Old man Joe would go out sometimes and come in with a hog way in the
+night. He was a cooper--made water buckets, pans to make bread up in
+and things like that. Mammy would make us git up in the night and
+clean our mouths. If they didn't, children would laugh at them the
+next day and say the spiders had been biting your mouth, 'cause we
+were sposed to had so much grease on our mouths that the spiders would
+swing down and bite them.
+
+"I professed religion when I was sixteen years old. It was down in the
+Free Nigger Bend where my father had bought a little place on the
+public road between Greenwood and Shellmount.
+
+"I married that fall. My father had died and I had got to be a man.
+Done better then than I do since I got old. I had one cow and my
+mother let me have another. I made enough money to buy a pair of mules
+and a wagon. My wife was willing to work. She would go out and git
+some poke greens and pepper and things and cook them with a little
+butter. Night would come, we'd go out and cut a cord of wood. Got
+'long better then than people do now.
+
+"I began preaching soon as I joined the church. I began at the
+prayer-meetings. I preached for forty-seven years before I fell. I've
+had two strokes. It's been twenty-eight years or more since I was able
+to work for myself.
+
+"I have heard about the pateroles but I never did know much about
+them. I have heard my father talk about them. He never would get a new
+suit and go to town but what they would catch him out and say, 'You
+got a pass?' He would show it to them, and they would sit down and
+chew old nasty tobacco and spit the juice out on him all over his
+clothes.
+
+"The Ku Klux never did bother us any. Not after I got the knowledge to
+know what was what. They was scared to bother people 'cause the
+niggers had gone and got them some guns and would do them up.
+
+"Old Jim McClain had one son who was bad. He used to jump on the
+niggers an' 'buse and beat them up. The niggers got tired of it and he
+started gittin' beat up every time he started anything and they didn't
+have no more trouble.
+
+"Jim McClain didn't mistreat his niggers. The boys did after he was
+dead though. He died way after slavery. If a nigger went off his place
+and stole a cow or a hog or something, you better not come 'round
+there and try to do nothin' about it. Jim McClain would be right there
+to protect him.
+
+"When he died, the horses could hardly pull him up the hill. He wanted
+to stay back down there in the bottoms where that cotton was.
+
+"When I got to realizing, it was after freedom. But they had slavery
+rules then. There was one old woman who used to take care of the
+children while their parents were working in the fields. Sometimes it
+would be a week before I would see my mother and father. Children
+didn't set up then and look in old folks' faces like they do now. They
+would go to bed early. Wake up sometimes way in the middle of the
+night. Old folks would be holding a meeting and singing and praying.
+
+"They used to feed the children pot-liquor and bread and milk.
+Sometimes a child would find a piece of meat big as your two fingers
+and he would holler out, 'Oh look, I got some meat.'
+
+"Fourth of July come, everybody would lay by. Niggers all be gathered
+together dancing and the white folks standin' 'round lookin' at them.
+
+"Right after the surrender, I went to night school a little, but most
+of my schooling was got by the plow. After I come to be a minister I
+got a little schooling.
+
+"I can't get about now. I have had two strokes and the doctor says for
+me not to go about much. I used to be able to go about and speak and
+the churches would give me something, but since this new 'issue' come
+out, theology and dogology and all such as that, nobody cares to pay
+any 'tention to me. Think you are crazy now if you say 'amen.' Don't
+nobody carry on the church now but three people--the preacher, he
+preaches a sermon; the choir, he sings a song; and another man, he
+lifts a collection. People go to church all the years now and never
+pray once.
+
+"I get some help from the Welfare. They used to pay me ten dollars
+pension. They cut me down from ten to eight. And now they cut me down
+to four. They cut the breath out of me this time.
+
+"I got some mighty good young brothers never pass me up without givin'
+me a dime or fifteen cents. Then I got some that always pass me up and
+never give me nothing. I have built churches and helped organize
+churches from here back to Mississippi.
+
+"I don't know what's goin' to become of our folks. All they study is
+drinking whiskey and gamblin' and runnin' after women. They don't
+care for nothin'. What's ruinin' this country is women votin'. When a
+woman comes up to a man and smiles at him, he'll do what she wants him
+to do whether it's right or wrong.
+
+"The best part of our preachers is got so they are dishonest. Stealing
+to keep up automobiles. Some of them have churches that ain't no
+bigger than this room."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+The statements of Needham Love like those of Ella Wilson are not
+consistent on the subject of age. It is evident, however, that he is
+eighty years old or older. He thinks so. He has memories of slave
+times. He has some old friends who think him older.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Louis Lucas
+                    1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+Masters, Birth, Parents, Grandparents
+
+"I was born in 1855 down on Bayou Bartholomew near Pine Bluff,
+Jefferson County.
+
+"My mother's name was Louisa. She married a man named Bill Cardrelle
+after freedom. Her husband in slavery time was Sam Lucas. He belonged
+to a man by the name of O'Neil. They took him in the War and he never
+did come back to her. (He didn't much believe he was my father, but I
+went in his name anyway.)
+
+"My mother's father's name was Jacob Boyd. I was young, but I know
+that. He was free and didn't belong to nobody. That was right here in
+Arkansas. He had three other daughters besides my mother, and all of
+them were slaves because their mother was a slave. His wife was a
+woman by the name of Barclay. Her master was Antoine Barclay (?). She
+was a slave woman. She died down there in New Cascogne. That was a
+good while ago.
+
+"The French were very kind to their slaves. The Americans called all
+us people that belonged to the Frenchmen free people. They never gave
+the free Negroes among them any trouble. I mean the Frenchmen didn't
+give them no trouble.
+
+"The reason we finally left the place after freedom was because of the
+meanness of a colored woman, Amanda Sanders. I don't know what she had
+against us. The old mistress raised me right in the house and fed me
+right at the table. When she died, this woman used to beat the devil
+out of me. We had had good owners. They never had no overseers until
+just before the War broke out, and they never beat nobody.
+
+"The _first_ overseer was on a boat named the _Quapaw_ when the mate
+knocked him in the head and put him in a yawl and took him to the
+shore. The boss saw it and took four men and went and got him and had
+the doctor attend to him. It was a year before he could do anything.
+He didn't stay there long before they had him in the War. He just got
+to oversee a short time after he got well. He was in the cavalry. The
+other boys went off later. They took the cavalry first. None of them
+ever came back. They were lost in the big fight at Vicksburg. My
+_paran_, Mark Noble, he was the only one that got back.
+
+"I don't remember my father's father. But I know that his mother went
+in the name of Rhoda. I don't know her last name. She was my grandma
+on his side.
+
+"I belonged to a man named Brumbaugh. His first name was Raphael. He
+was a all right man. He had a _colored man for an overseer_ before
+this here white man I was tellin' you about came to him. 'Uncle' Jesse
+was the foreman. He was not my uncle. He was related to my wife
+though; so I call him uncle now. Of course, I didn't marry till after
+freedom came. I married in 1875.
+
+
+Early Days
+
+"When I was a little child, my duty was to clean up the yard and feed
+the chickens. I cleaned up the yard every Friday.
+
+
+House, Furniture, and Food
+
+"My mother lived in a cabin--log, two rooms, one window, that is one
+window in each room.
+
+"They didn't have anything but homemade furniture. We never had no bed
+bought from the store--nothin' like that. We just had something
+sticking against the wall. It was built in a corner with one post out.
+They made their table and used benches--two-legged and sometimes
+four-legged. The two-legged benches was a long bench with a wide plank
+at each end for legs.
+
+"For food we got just what the white folks got. We didn't have no
+quarters. They didn't have enough hands for that. They raised their
+own meat. They had about seven or eight. There was Dan, Jess, Bill,
+Steve. They bought Bill and Steve from Kentucky.
+
+"Old 'Free Jack' Jenkins, a colored man, sold them two men to ol'
+master. Jenkins was the only _Negro slave trader_ I ever knowed. He
+brought them down one evening and the old man was a long time trading.
+He made them run and jump and do everything before he would buy them.
+He paid one thousand five hundred dollars for each one of them. 'Free
+Jack' made him pay it part in silver and some in gold. He took some
+Confederate paper. It was circulating then. But he wouldn't take much
+of that paper money.
+
+"He stole those boys from their parents in Kentucky. The boys said he
+fooled them away from their homes with candy. Their parents didn't
+know where they were.
+
+"Then there were my brothers--two of them, John Alexander and William
+Hamilton. They were half-brothers. That makes six men altogether on
+the place. I might have made a miscount. There was old man Wash
+Pearson and his two boys, Joe and Nathan. That made ten persons with
+myself.
+
+"Brumbaugh didn't have such a large family. I never did know how large
+it was.
+
+
+Soldiers
+
+"The rebel soldiers were often at my place. A bad night the jayhawkers
+would come and steal stock and the slaves too, if they got a chance.
+They cleaned the old man's stock out one night. The Yankees captured
+them and brought them back to the house. They gave him his stallion, a
+great big fine horse. They offered him five thousand dollars for him
+but he wouldn't take it. They kept all the other horses and mules for
+their own use, but they gave the stallion back to the old man. If they
+hadn't give him back the stallion, the old man would have died. That
+stallion was his heart. The Yankees didn't do nobody no harm.
+
+"When the soldier wagons came down to get the feed, they would take
+one crib and leave one. They never bothered the smokehouse. They took
+all the dry cattle to feed the people that were contrabands. But they
+left the milk cows. The quartermaster for the contrabands was Captain
+Mallory. The contrabands were mostly slaves that they kept in camps
+just below Pine Bluff for their own protection.
+
+
+How Freedom Came
+
+"It was martial law and twelve men went 'round back and forth through
+the county. They come down on a Monday, and told the children they
+were free and told them they had no more master and mistress and told
+them what to call them. No more master and mistress, but Mr. and Mrs.
+Brumbaugh. Then they came down and told them that they would have to
+marry over again. But my ma never had a chance to see the old man any
+more. She didn't marry him over again because he didn't come back to
+her. But they advised them to stay with their owners if they wanted
+to. They didn't say for none of the slaves to leave their old masters
+and go off. We wouldn't have left but that old colored woman beat me
+around so all the time, so my mother came after me and took me home
+since I wanted to go. The Yankees' officer told her it would be good
+to move me from that place so I wouldn't be so badly treated. The
+white folks was all right; it was that old colored woman that beat on
+me all the time.
+
+
+Right After Freedom
+
+"Right after freedom my mother married Bill Cardrelle. She moved from
+the O'Neil place and went up to a place called the Dr. Jenkins' place.
+She kept house for her husband in the new place. I didn't do much
+there of anything. After they moved away from there when I was twelve
+years old, they taught me to plow (1867). I went to school in the
+contraband camp. Mrs. Clay and Mr. Clay, white folks from the North,
+were my teachers. At that time, the colored people weren't able to
+teach. I went a while to school with them. I got in the second
+reader--McGuffy's--that's far as I got.
+
+"I stayed with my mother and stepfather till I was about sixteen years
+old. She sent me away to come up here to my father, Sam Lucas. My
+oldest brother brought me here and I worked with him two years. Then I
+went to a man named Cunningham and stayed with him about six months.
+He paid me fifteen dollars a month and my board. He was going to raise
+my wages when his wife decided she wanted women to do the work. The
+women would slip things away and she wouldn't mention them to her
+husband till weeks afterwards. Then long after the time, she would
+accuse me. Those women would have the keys. When they went in to get
+soap, they would take out a ham and carry it off a little ways and
+hide. By the time his wife would tell him about it, you wouldn't be
+able to find it nowhere.
+
+"He owed me for a month's work. She told him not to pay it, but he
+paid it and told me not to let her know he did it. I didn't either.
+
+"When I left him, I came over the river here down here below Fourche
+Dam. I stayed there forty or fifty years in that place. When I was
+between thirty-two and thirty-three years old, I married, and I stayed
+right on in that same place. I farmed all the time down there. I had
+to go in a lawsuit about the last crop I made. Then I came here to
+Little Rock in 1904 and followed ditching with the home water company.
+Then I did gas ditching with the gas people. Then I worked on the
+street car line for old man White. I come down then--got broke down,
+and couldn't do much. The relief folks gave me a labor card; then they
+took it away from me--said I was too old. I have done a heap of work
+here in this town. I got old and had to stop.
+
+"I get old age assistance from the Welfare. That is where I get my
+groceries--through them. I wouldn't be able to live if it wasn't for
+them.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"There is a big difference between the young people now and what they
+used to be. The old folks ain't the same neither."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Lucas told his story very fluently but with deliberation and care. The
+statement about his father on the first page was not a slip. He told
+what he wanted to tell but he discouraged too much effort to go into
+detail on those matters. One senses a tragedy in his life and in the
+life of his mother that is poignant and appealing. Although he states
+no connection, one will not miss the impression that his stepfather
+was hostile. Suddenly we find his mother sending him to his father.
+But after he reached his father, there is little to indicate that his
+father did anything for him. Then, too, it is evident that his father
+deliberately neglected to remarry his mother after freedom.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Luckado,
+                    Hazen, Ark.
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was born at Duck Hill, Mississippi. There was three of us children.
+All dead now but me. My parents was Molly Louden and Jake Porter. One
+master my parents talked about was Missis Molly and Dr. McCaskill. I
+don't think my mother was mixed with Indian. Her father was a white
+man, but my father said he was Indian and African. My father was in
+the Civil War.
+
+"When the war was coming on they had the servants dig holes, then put
+rock on bottom, then planks, then put tin and iron vessels with money
+and silver, then put plank, then rocks and cover with dirt and plant
+grass on top. Water it to make it grow. They planted it late in the
+evening. I don't know what become of it.
+
+"When I was eight or nine years old I went to a tent show with Sam and
+Hun, my brothers. We was under the tents looking at a little Giraffe;
+a elephant come up behind me and touched me with its snout. I jumped
+back and run under it between its legs. That night they found me a
+mile from the tents asleep under some brush. They woke me up hunting
+me with pine knot torches. I had cried myself to sleep. The show was
+"Dan Rice and Coles Circus" at Dednen, Mississippi. They wasn't as
+much afraid of snakes as wild hogs, wolves and bears.
+
+"My mother was cooking at the Ozan Hotel at Sardis, Mississippi. I was
+a nurse for a lady in town. I took the children to the square
+sometimes. The first hanging I ever seen was on Court Square. One big
+crowd collected. The men was not kin, they called it "Nathaniel and
+DeBonepart" hanging. They was colored folks hung. One killed his
+mother and the other his father. I never slept a wink for two or three
+nights, I dream and jump up crying. I finally wore it off. I was a
+girl and I don't know how old I was. Besides the square full of
+people, Mrs. Hunter's and Mrs. Boo's yards was full of people.
+
+"We cooked for Capt. Salter at Sardis, Mississippi.
+
+"The first school I went to was to Mrs. J. P. Settles. He taught the
+big scholars. She sent me to him and he whooped me for singing:
+
+    "Cleveland is elected
+    No more I expected."
+
+I was a grown woman. They didn't want him elected I recken the reason
+they didn't want to hear it. Nobody liked em teaching but the last I
+heard of them he was a lawyer in Memphis. If folks learned to read a
+little that was all they cared about."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: John Luckett
+                    Highway No. 65, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born in Mississippi up above Vicksburg. I 'member the old Civil
+War but I was just a little boy.
+
+"Oh, I've seen the Yankees in Vicksburg where the battle was.
+
+"I was 'bout ten when freedom come--nothin' but a boy.
+
+"Clara Luckett was my mother. When the War was in Fort Pillow, I was a
+small boy. I don't know 'bout nothin' else--that's all I know about
+it.
+
+"I been workin' at these mills ever since surrender. I been firin' for
+'em.
+
+"I voted the Republican ticket. I voted for General Grant and
+Garfield. I was a young man then. I voted for McKinley too. I never
+did hold no office, I was workin' all the time. I knowed Teddy
+Roosevelt--I voted for him.
+
+"They wouldn't let me go to school I was so bad. I went one day and
+whipped the teacher. I didn't try--I whipped him and they 'xpelled me
+from school.
+
+"Since I been in this country, firin' made me deaf."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Lynch,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"My mother was a slave of Buck Lynch. They lived close to Nashville,
+Tennessee. My father run away from Buck Lynch before the Civil War. He
+lived in the woods till he nearly went wild. My mother fed him at
+night. I was twenty-one years old before I ever seen him. My mother
+worked several years and didn't know she was free. She come with some
+traders from close to Nashville out here. I was born at Cotton Plant.
+I got two living brothers in Memphis now.
+
+"I was raised a farmer. The first work I ever done away from home was
+here in Brinkley. I worked at the sawmill fur Gun and Black. Then I
+went to Ft. Smith and worked in er oil mill. I come back here and
+farmed frum 1911 till 1915. Then I worked in the Brinkley oil mill. I
+cooked the cotton seed meal. One of my bosses had me catch a small cup
+full fur him every once in awhile. The oil taste something like peanut
+butter. It taste very well while it is hot and smells fine too. I quit
+work when they quit the mill here. It burned up. I do like the work.
+They got some crazy notion and won't hire old fellows like me no more.
+Jobs are hard to get. Younger men can get something seems like pretty
+easy. I make a garden. That is 'bout all I can do or get to do.
+
+"My mother's name was Molly Lynch. She cooked some at Cotton Plant and
+worked in the field. She talked a right smart bout the way she had to
+do in slavery times but I don't recollect much.
+
+Shes been dead a long time. I heard folks say times was awful hard
+right after the war, that times was easier in slavery for de reason
+when they got sick they got the best of care. She said they had all
+kinds of herbs along the side of the walks in the garden. I don't
+guess after they got settled times was near as hard. She talked about
+how hard it was to get clothes and something to eat. Prices seemed
+like riz like they are now.
+
+"I don't know 'bout my father's votin' cause I didn't know him till
+after I was grown and not much then. He was down about Marianna when I
+knowed him. I did vote. I vote the Republican ticket. I like the way
+we voted the best in 1886 or '87. It was called Fair Divide. Each side
+put his man and the one got most votes got elected. I don't think it
+necessary fur the women to vote. Her place is in the home. Seem like
+the women all going to work and the men quit. About 40 years ago R. P.
+Polk was justice of the peace here and Clay Holt was the constable.
+They made very good officers. I don't recollect nothing 'bout them
+being elected. Brinkley is always been a very peaceable town. The
+colored folks have to go clear away from town with any rowdiness."
+(The Negroes live among the whites and at their back doors in every
+part of town.)
+
+"I live with my son-in-law. He works up at the Gazzola Grocery
+Company. He owns this house. He _is_ doing very well but he works
+hard.
+
+"The young generation so far as I knows is getting along fairly well.
+I don't know if times is harder; they is jes' different. When folks do
+right seems there's a way provided for 'em.
+
+"I signed up with the PWA. I signed up two or three times but they
+ain't give us nothing much yet. They wouldn't let me work. They said I
+was too old. I works if I can get any work to do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Josephine Scott Lynch,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"Josephine Scott Lynch is my name and I sho don't know a thing to tell
+you. I don't remember my father at tall. The first thing I can
+remember about my mama she was fixing to come to Arkansas. She come as
+a immigrant. They paid her fare but she had to pay it back. We come on
+the train to Memphis and on the boat to Gregory Point (Augusta). We
+left her brother with grandma back in Tennessee. There was three
+children younger than me. The old folks talked about old times more
+than they do now but I forgot all she said too much to tell it
+straight.
+
+"We farmed, cleared land and mama and me washed and ironed and sewed
+all our lives. I cooked for Mr. Gregory at Augusta for a long time. I
+married then I cooked and washed and ironed till I got so porely I
+can't do much no more.
+
+"I never voted and I wouldn't know how so ain't no use to go up there.
+
+"Some of the younger generation is better off than they used to be and
+some of them not. It depends a whole heap on the way they do. The
+colored folks tries to do like the white folks far as they's able.
+Everything is changing so fast. The present conditions is harder for
+po white folks and colored folks than it been in a long time. Nearly
+everything is to buy and prices out of sight. Work is so scarce."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
+Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery
+in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+
+Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4
+
+Author: Work Projects Administration
+
+Release Date: April 24, 2008 [EBook #25154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Diane Monico and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress, Manuscript Division)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 33%;" />
+<h5>This book has been transcribed for Project Gutenberg<br />
+by Distributed Proofreaders,<br />
+in memory of our friend and colleague<br />
+Dr. Laura Wisewell, Beloved Emerita.<br />
+</h5>
+<hr style="width: 33%;" />
+
+
+
+<h1>SLAVE NARRATIVES</h1>
+
+<h2><i>A Folk History of Slavery in the United States<br />
+From Interviews with Former Slaves</i><br /><br /></h2>
+
+
+<h4>TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
+THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT<br />
+1936-1938<br />
+ASSEMBLED BY<br />
+THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT<br />
+WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION<br />
+FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA<br />
+SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS<br /><br /></h4>
+
+
+<h3><i>Illustrated with Photographs</i><br /><br /></h3>
+
+
+
+<h4>WASHINGTON 1941</h4>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+
+<h2>VOLUME II</h2>
+
+<h2>ARKANSAS NARRATIVES</h2>
+
+<h2>PART 4</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3>Prepared by<br />
+the Federal Writers' Project of<br />
+the Works Progress Administration<br />
+for the State of Arkansas<br />
+</h3>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>INFORMANTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="informants">
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Clarice</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Israel</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Lula</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Mary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Taylor</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, Virginia</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jackson, William</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jamar, Lawson</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>James, Nellie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>James, Robert</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jefferson, Ellis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jeffries, Moses</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jefson, Rev. Ellis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jenkins, Absolom</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jerman, Dora</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Adaline</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Alice</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Allen</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Annie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Ben</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Betty</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Cinda</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Ella</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Fanny</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, George</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, John</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Letha</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Lewis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Lizzie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Louis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Mag</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Mandy</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Marion</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Martha</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Millie (Old Bill)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Rosie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Saint</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Johnson, Willie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Angeline</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Charlie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Cynthia</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Edmund</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Eliza</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Evelyn</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, John</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, John</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Lidia (Lydia)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Liza (Cookie)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Lucy</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Mary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Mary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Nannie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Reuben</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_166">166</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Vergil</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Walter</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Junell, Oscar Felix</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Keaton, Sam</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kendricks, Tines</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kennedy, Frank</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kerns, Adreanna [TR: Adrianna?] W.</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Key, George</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Key, Lucy</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>King, Anna</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>King, Mose</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>King, Susie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kirk, William</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Krump, Betty</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Kyles, Rev. Preston</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lagrone, Susa</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Laird, Barney A.</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lamar, Arey</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lambert, Solomon</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Larkin, Frank</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lattimore, William</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lawsom, Bessie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lee, Henry</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lee, Mandy</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lee, Mary</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lewis, Talitha</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lindsay, Abbie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lindsey, Rosa</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Little, William</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lofton, Minerva</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lofton, Robert</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Logan, John H.</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lomack, Elvie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Long, Henry</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Love, Annie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Love, Needham</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lucas, Louis</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Luckado, Lizzie</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Luckett, John</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lynch, John</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lynch, Josephine Scott</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Eighteenth and Virginia, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 82<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was six or seven when they begin goin' to the Civil War. We had a
+big old pasture opposite and I know they would bring the soldiers there and
+drill 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my God, don't talk about slavery. They kept us in so you know we
+couldn't go around.</p>
+
+<p>"But if they kept 'em a little closer now, the world would be a better
+place. I'm so glad I raised my children when they was raisin' children.
+If I told 'em to do a thing, they did it 'cause I would always know what was
+best. I got here first you know.</p>
+
+<p>"People now'days is just shortening their lives. The Lord is pressin'
+us now tryin' to press us back. But thank God I'm saved.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see things like they is now?</p>
+
+<p>"I looks at the young folks and it seems like they is all in a hurry&mdash;looks
+like they is on the last round.</p>
+
+<p>"These here seabirds, (a music machine called seaburg&mdash;ed.) is ruinin'
+the young folks.</p>
+
+<p>"I feels my age now, but I thank the Lord I got a home and got a
+little income.</p>
+
+<p>"My children can't help me&mdash;ain't got nothin' to help with but a little
+washin'. My daughter been bustin' the suds for a livin' 'bout thirty-two
+years now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I never went to school. My dad put me to work after freedom and
+then when schools got so numerous, I got too big. Ain't but one thing I
+want to learn this side of the River, is to read the Bible. I wants to
+confirm Jesus' words.</p>
+
+<p>"The fus' place we went after we left the home place durin' of the
+war, we went to Wolf Creek. And then they pressed 'em so close we went to
+Red River. And they pressed 'em so close again we went to Texas and that's
+where we was when freedom come.</p>
+
+<p>"That was in July and they closed the crap (crop) and then six weeks
+'fore Christmas they loaded the wagons and started back to Arkansas. We
+come back to the Johnson place and stayed there three years, then my father
+rented the Alexander place on the Tamo.</p>
+
+<p>"I stayed right there till I married. I married quite young, but I
+had a good husband. I ain't sayin' this just 'cause he's sleepin' but
+ever'body will tell you he was good to me. Made a good livin' and I wore
+what I wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>"He come from South Carolina way before the war. Come from Abbeville.
+They was emigratin' the folks.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you all I can, but I won't tell you nothin' but the truth."</p>
+
+
+<p>Interviewer's Comment</p>
+
+<p>Owns her home and lives on the income from rental property.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1738 Virginia Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 84<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Was I here in slavery days? Well, I remember when the soldiers went
+to war. Oh, I'm old&mdash;I ain't no baby. But I been well taken care of&mdash;I
+been treated well.</p>
+
+<p>"I was bred and born right here in Arkansas and been livin' here all
+the time 'cept when they said the Yankees was comin'. I know we was just
+closin' up a crop. They put us in wagons and carried us to Wolf Creek in
+Texas and then they carried us to Red River. That was because it would
+be longer 'fore we found out we was free and they would get more work out
+a us.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master's name was Robert Johnson and they called him Bob.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom they brought us back to Arkansas and put the colored
+folks to workin' on the shares. Yes'm they said they got their share.
+They looked like they was well contented. They stayed three or four years.
+We was treated more kinder and them that was not big enough to work was let
+go to school. I went to school awhile and then I had a hard spell of sickness&mdash;it
+was this slow fever. I was sick five or six weeks and it was a
+long time 'fore I could get my health so I didn't try to go to school no
+more. Seemed like I forgot everything I knowed.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was fifteen I got tired of workin' so hard so I got married,
+but I found out things was wusser. But my husband was good to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+Yes ma'm, he was a good man and nice to me. He was a good worker. He
+was deputy assessor under Mr. Triplett and he was a deputy sheriff and
+then he was a magistrate. Oh, he was a up-to-date man. He went to school
+after we was married and wanted me to go but I thought too much of my
+childun. When he died, 'bout two years ago, he left me this house and two
+rent houses. Yes ma'm, he was a good man.</p>
+
+<p>"They ain't nothin' to this here younger generation. Did you ever
+see 'em goin' so fast? They won't take time to let you tell 'em anything.
+They is in a hurry. The world is too fast for me, but thank the Lord my
+childun is all settled. I got some nieces and nephews though that is goin'
+too fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, I'm gettin' along all right. I ain't got nothin' to complain
+of."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Israel Jackson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">3505 Short Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My name's Israel Jackson. No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas&mdash;born
+in Yaller Bush County, Mississippi August de third, 1860.</p>
+
+<p>"My old master? Called him General&mdash;General Bradford. I don't know
+where he was but he was gone somewhere. Don't know her name&mdash;just called
+her missis.</p>
+
+<p>"Yas'm, I was big enough to work. Dey had me to lead out my young
+master's horse on de grass. I had a halter on it and one time I laid down
+and went to sleep. I had de rope tied to my leg and when it come twelve
+o'clock de horse drag me clear to de house. No ma'am, I didn't wake up till
+I got to de house. It was my young master's saddle horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Yas'm, I knowed dey was a war 'cause de men come past just as thick.
+No'm, I wasn't afraid. I kept out of de way. Old missis wouldn't let us
+get in de way. I 'member dey stopped dere and told us we was free. Lots
+of de folks went off but my mother kept workin' in de field, and my father
+didn't leave.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master had us go by his name. Dat's what dey called 'em&mdash;all de
+hands on de place.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought from boyhood he was awful cruel. Didn't 'low us chillun
+in de white folks' house at all. Had one woman dat cooked. Dey was fifty
+or a hundred chillun on de place and dey had a big long trough dug out of
+a log and each chile had a spoon and he'd eat out of dat trough. Yas'm, I
+'member dat. Eat greens and milk. As for meat, we didn't know what dat was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+My mother would go huntin' at night and get a 'possum to feed us and
+sometimes old master would ketch her and take it away from her and give her
+a piece of salt meat. But sometimes she'd bury a 'possum till she had a
+chance to cook it. And dey'd take sackin' like you make cotton sacks and
+dye it and make us clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"When de conch would blow at four o'clock every mornin' everybody got
+up and got ready for de field. Dey'd take dere chillun up to dat big long
+house. When mother went to de field I'd go along and lead de horse till I
+got to where dey was workin', then I'd sit down and let the horse eat. I
+was young and it's been so long.</p>
+
+<p>"No ma'am, I never went to school. No ma'am, can't read or write.
+Never had no schools as I remember.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey stayed on de place after freedom. No ma'am, dey did not pay 'em.
+I'se old but I ain't forgot dat. Dey fed theirselves by stealin' and
+gettin' things in de woods.</p>
+
+<p>"After dem Blue Jackets come in dere General Bradford never did come
+back and our folks stayed dere and when dey did leave dey went to Sunflower
+County. After dat we got along better.</p>
+
+<p>"How many brothers and sisters? I b'lieve I had five.</p>
+
+<p>"I stayed with my parents till I was grown. No ma'am, dey didn't 'low
+us to marry. When we was twenty we was neither man nor boy; we was considered
+a hobble-de-hoy. And when we got to be twenty-one we was considered a man
+and your parents turned you loose, a man. So I left home and went to
+Louisiana. I stayed dere a year, then I went back to Mississippi and
+worked. I come here to Arkansas twenty-six years ago. Is dis Jefferson?
+Well, I come here to de west end.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I been here I been workin' at de foundry&mdash;Dilley's foundry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Bout two years ago I got sick and broke up and not able to work and
+Mr. Dilley give me a pension&mdash;ten dollars a month. But de wages and hour
+got here now and I don't know what he's gwine do. When de next pay-day
+comes he might give me somethin' and he might not.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss, de white folks has done so bad here dat I don't know what dey's
+gwine a do. Mr. Ed and his father been takin' care of me for twenty years.
+Dey sure has been takin' care of me. Miss, I can't find no fault of Mr.
+Ed Dilley at all.</p>
+
+<p>"I can do a little light work but when I work half a day I get nervous
+and can't do nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"No ma'am, I never did vote. Dey didn't 'low us to vote. Well, if dey
+did I didn't know it and I didn't vote.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss, I think de young folks is near to de dogs and de dogs
+ought to have 'em and bury 'em. Miss, I don't 'cept none of 'em. I wouldn't
+want to go on and tell you how dey has treated me. Dey ain't no use to ask
+'cause I ain't gwine tell you. The people is more wicked and more wuss and
+ever'thing. I don't think nothin' of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss, let me tell you de only folks dat showed me any friendly is Mr.
+Ed Dilley. I worked out dere night and day, Sunday and Monday&mdash;any time he
+called.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss, I ain't never seen any jail house; I ain't never been to police
+headquarters; I ain't never been called a witness in my life. I try to
+live right, all I know, and if I do wrong it's somethin' I don't know. I
+ain't had dat much trouble in my life.</p>
+
+<p>"I went up here to Judge Brewster to see about de pension and he said,
+'Got a home?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Got it paid for?' 'Yes.' 'Got a deed?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+'Yes.' 'Got a abstract?' 'Yes.' 'Well, bring it up here and sign it and
+go get de pension.'</p>
+
+<p>"But I wouldn't do it. Miss, I would starve till I was as stiff as a
+peckerwood peckin' at a hole 'fore I'd sign anything on my deed. Miss, I
+wouldn't put a scratch on my deed. I wouldn't trust 'em, wouldn't trust
+'em if dey was behind a Winchester."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 79?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Alabama, Russell County, on a place called Sand Ridge,
+about seven miles out from Columbus, Georgia. Bred and born in Alabama.
+Come out here a young gal. Wasn't married when I come out here. Married
+when a boy from Alabama met me though. Got his picture. Lula Williams!
+That was my name before I married. How many sisters do you have? That's
+another question they ask all the time; I suppose you want to know, too.
+Two. Where are they? That's another one of them questions they always
+askin' me. You want to know it, too? I got one in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
+And the other one is in Philadelphia; no, I mean in Philipp
+city, Tallahatchie (county). Her name is Bertha Owens and she lives in
+Philipp city. What state is Philipp city in? That'll be the next question.
+It is in Mississippi, sir. Now is thar anything else you'd like to
+know?</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Bertha Williams and my father's name was Fred
+Williams. I don't know nothing 'bout mama's mother. Yes, her name was
+Crecie. My father's mother was named Sarah. She got killed by lightning.
+Crecie's husband was named John Oliver. Sarah's husband was named William
+Daniel. Early Hurt was mama's master. He had an awful name and he was an
+awful man. He whipped you till he'd bloodied you and blistered you. Then
+he would cut open the blisters and drop sealing-wax in them and in the open
+wounds made by the whips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When the Yankees come in, his wife run in and got in the bed between
+the mattresses. I don't see why it didn't kill her. I don't know how she
+stood it. Early died when the Yankees come in. He was already sick. The
+Yankees come in and said, 'Did you know you are on the Yankee line?'</p>
+
+<p>"He said, 'No, by God, when did that happen?'</p>
+
+<p>"They said, 'It happened tonight, G&mdash;&mdash;D&mdash;&mdash; you.'</p>
+
+<p>"And he turned right on over and done everything on hisself and died.
+He had a eatin' cancer on his shoulder.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Schooling, Etc.</h4>
+
+<p>"My mother had so many children that I didn't get to go to school much.
+She had nineteen children, and I had to stay home and work to help take care
+of them. I can't write at all.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school in Alabama, 'round on a colored man's place&mdash;Mr.
+Winters. That was near a little town called Fort Mitchell and Silver Rim
+where they put the men in jail. I was a child. Mrs. Smith, a white woman
+from the North, was the second teacher that I had. The first was Mr.
+Croler. My third teacher was a man named Mr. Nelson. All of these was
+white. They wasn't colored teachers. After the War, that was. I have the
+book I used when I went to school. Here is the little Arithmetic I used.
+Here is the Blue Back Speller. I have a McGuffy's Primer too. I didn't use
+that. I got that out of the trash basket at the white people's house where I
+work. One day they throwed it out. That is what they use now, ain't it?</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a book my husband give me. He bought it for me because I told
+him I wanted a second reader. He said, 'Well, I'll go up to the store and
+git you one.' Plantation store, you know. He had that charged to his
+account.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I used to study my lesson. I turned the whole class down once. It
+was a class in spelling. I turned the class down on 'Publication'&mdash;p-u-b-l-i-c-a-t-i-o-n.
+They couldn't spell that. But I'll tell the world they
+could spell it the next day.</p>
+
+<p>"My teacher had a great big crocus sack, and when she got tired of
+whipping them, she would put them in the sack. She never did put me in that
+sack one time. I got a whipping mos' every day. I used to fight, and when
+I wasn't fightin' for myself, I'd be fighting for other children that would
+be scared to fight for theirselves, and I'd do their fighting for them.</p>
+
+<p>"That whippin' in your hand is the worst thing you ever got. Brother,
+it hurts. I put a teacher in jail that'd whip one of my children in the
+hand.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Occupational History and Family</h4>
+
+<p>"My mama said I was six years old when the War ended and that I was
+born on the first day of October. During the War, I run up and down the
+yard and played, and run up and down the street and played; and when I would
+make too much noise, they'd whip me and send me back to my mother and tell
+her not to whip me no more, because they had already done it. I would help
+look after my mother's children. There were five children younger than I
+was. Everywhere she went, the white people would want me to nurse their
+children, because they said, 'That little rawboneded one is goin' to be the
+smartest one you got. I want her.' And my ma would say:</p>
+
+<p>"'You ain't goin' to git 'er.' She had two other girls&mdash;Martha and
+Sarah. They was older than me, and she would hire them out to do nursing.
+They worked for their master during slave time, and they worked for money
+after slavery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My mama's first husband was killed in a rasslin' (wrestling) match.
+It used to be that one man would walk up to another and say, 'You ain't no
+good.' And the other one would say, 'All right, le's see.' And they would
+rassle.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's first husband was pretty old. His name was Myers. A
+young man come up to him one Sunday morning when they were gettin' commodities.
+They got sorghum, meat, meal, and flour; if what they got wasn't
+enough, then they would go out and steal a hog. Sometime they'd steal it
+anyhow; they got tired of eatin' the same thing all the time. Hurt would
+whip them for it. Wouldn't let the overseer whip them. Whip them hisself.
+'Fraid the overseer wouldn't give them enough. They never could find my
+grandfather's meat. That was Grandfather William Down. They couldn't find
+his meat because he kept it hidden in a hole in the ground. It was under
+the floor of the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Myers made this young man rassle with him. The young fellow
+didn't want to rassle with him; he said Myers was too old. Myers wasn't my
+father; he was my mother's first husband. The young man threw him. Myers
+wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted to rassle again. The young man didn't
+want to rassle again. But Myers made him. And the second time, the young
+man threw him so hard that he broke his collar-bone. My mother was in a
+family way at the time. He lived about a week after that, and died before
+the baby was born.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's second husband was named Fred Williams, and he was
+my father. All this was in slavery times. I am his oldest child. He
+raised all his children and all his stepchildren too. He and my mother
+lived together for over forty years, until she was more than seventy. He
+was much younger than she was&mdash;just eighteen years old when he married her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+And she was a woman with five children. But she was a real wife to him. Him
+and her would fight, too. She was jealous of him. Wouldn't be none of that
+with me. Honey, when you hit me once, I'm gone. Ain't no beatin' on me and
+then sleepin' in the same bed with you. But they fit and then they lived
+together right on. No matter what happened, his clean clothes were ready
+whenever he got ready to go out of the house&mdash;even if it was just to go to
+work. His meals were ready whenever he got ready to eat. They were happy
+together till she died.</p>
+
+<p>"But when she died, he killed hisself courtin'. He was a young
+preacher. He died of pneumonia. He was visiting his daughter and got
+exposed to the weather and didn't take care of hisself.</p>
+
+<p>"Right after the War, I was hired as a half-a-hand. After that I got
+larger and was hired as a whole hand, me and the oldest girl. I worked on
+one farm and then another for years. I married the first time when I was
+fifteen years old. That was almost right after slave time. Four couples of
+us were married at the same time. They lived close to me. I didn't want my
+husband to git in the bed with me when I married the first time. I didn't
+have no sense. I was a Christian girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank Sampson was his name. It rained the day we married. I got my
+feet wet. My husband brought me home and then he turned 'round and went
+back to where the wedding was. They had a reception, and they danced and
+had a good time. Sampson could dance, too, but I didn't. A little before
+day, he come back and said to me&mdash;I was layin' in the middle of the bed&mdash;'Git
+over.' I called to mother and told her he wanted to git in the bed with
+me. She said, 'Well, let him git in. He's yo'r husband now.'</p>
+
+<p>"Frank Sampson and me lived together about twenty years before he got
+killed, and then I married Andrew Jackson. He had children and grandchildren.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+I don't know what was the matter with old man Jackson. He was head deacon
+of the church. We only stayed together a year or more.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been single ever since 1923, jus' bumming 'round white folks and
+tryin' to work for them and makin' them give me somethin' to eat. I ain't
+been tryin' to fin' no man. When I can't fin' no cookin' and washin' and
+ironin' to do, I used to farm. I can't farm now, and 'course I can't git
+no work to do to amount to nothin'. They say I'm too old to work.</p>
+
+<p>"The Welfare helps me. Don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for them.
+I git some commodities too, but I don't git any wood. Some people says they
+pay house rent, but they never paid none of mine. I had to go to Marianna
+and git my application straight before I could git any help. They charged
+me half a dollar to fix out the application. The Welfare wanted to know how
+I got the money to pay for the application if I didn't have money to live on.
+I had to git it, and I had to git the money to go to Marianna, too. If I
+hadn't, I never would have got no help.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Husband's Death</h4>
+
+<p>"I told you my first husband got killed. The mule run away with his
+plow and throwed him a summerset. His head was where his heels should have
+been, he said, and the mule dragged him. His chest was crushed, and mashed.
+His face was cut and dirtied. He lived nine days and a half after he was
+hurt and couldn't eat one grain of rice. I never left his bedside 'cept
+to cook a little broth for him. That's all he would eat&mdash;just a little
+broth.</p>
+
+<p>"He said to his friend, 'See this little woman of mine? I hate to leave
+her. She's just such a good little woman. She ain't got no business in this
+world without a husband.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And his friend said to him, 'Well, you might as well make up your mind
+you got to leave her, 'cause you goin' to do it.'</p>
+
+<p>"He got hurt on Thursday and I couldn't git a doctor till Friday. Dr.
+Harper, the plantation doctor, had got his house burned and his hands hurt.
+So he couldn't come out to help us. Finally Dr. Hodges come. He come from
+Sunnyside, Mississippi, and he charge me fourteen dollars. He just made two
+trips and he didn't do nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Bowls and pitchers were in style then. And I always kept a pitcher of
+clean water in the house. I looked up and there was a bunch of men comin'
+in the house. It was near dark then. They brought Sampson in and carried
+him to the bed and put him down. I said, 'What's the matter with Frank?'
+And they said, 'The mule drug him.' And they put him on the bed and went on
+out. I dipped a handkerchief in the water and wet it and put it in his mouth
+and took out great gobs of dust where the mule had drug him in the dirt.
+They didn't nobody help me with him then; I was there alone with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I started to go for the doctor but he called me back and said it wasn't
+no use for me to go. Couldn't git the doctor then, and if I could, he'd
+charge too much and wouldn't be able to help him none nohow. So we wasn't
+able to git the doctor till the next day, and then it wasn't the plantation
+doctor. We had planted fifteen acres in cotton, and we had ordered five
+hundred pounds of meat for our winter supply and laid it up. But Frank
+never got to eat none of it. They sent three or four hands over to git
+their meals with me, and they et up all the meat and all the other supplies
+we had. I didn't want it. It wasn't no use to me when Frank was gone.
+After they paid the doctor's bill and took out for the supplies we was
+supposed to git, they handed me thirty-three dollars and thirty-five cents.
+That was all I got out of fifteen acres of cotton.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Ravelings</h4>
+
+<p>"I sew with rav'lin's. Here is some rav'lin's I use. I pull that out
+of tobacco sacks, flour sacks, anything, when I don't have the money to buy
+a spool of thread. I sew right on just as good with the rav'lin's as if it
+was thread. Tobacco sacks make the best rav'lin's. I got two bags full of
+tobacco sacks that I ain't unraveled yet. There is a man down town who
+saves them for me. When a man pulls out a sack he says, 'Save that sack for
+me, I got an old colored lady that makes thread out of tobacco sacks.'
+These is what he has give me. (She showed the interviewer a sack which had
+fully a gallon of little tobacco sacks in it&mdash;ed.)</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
+they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
+didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.</p>
+
+<p>"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
+together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these reels?
+They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent. You turn till
+the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go to the loom. It is
+in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty, too.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Present Condition</h4>
+
+<p>"I used to live in a four-room house. They charged me seven dollars
+and a half a month for it. They fixed it all up and then they wanted to
+charge ten dollars, and it wouldn't have been long before they went up to
+fifteen. So I moved. This place ain't so much. I pays five dollars and a
+half for it. When it rains, I have to go outside to keep from gittin' too
+wet. But I cut down the weeds all around the place. I planted some flowers
+in the front yard, and some vegetables in the back. That all helps me out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+When I go to git commodities, I walk to the place. I can't stand the way
+these people act on the cars. Of course, when I have a bundle, I have to
+use the car to come back. I just put it on my head and walk down to the car
+line and git on. Lord, my mother used to carry some bundles on her head."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>According to the marriage license issued at the time of her last
+marriage in 1922, Andrew Jackson was sixty years old, and sister Jackson was
+fifty-two. But Andrew Jackson was eighty when sister Jackson married him,
+she says. Who can blame him for saying sixty to the clerk? Sister Jackson
+admits that she was six years old during the War and states freely and
+accurately details of those times, but what wife whose husband puts only
+sixty in writing would be willing to write down more than fifty-two for herself?</p>
+
+<p>Right now at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty
+and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the same.</p>
+
+<p>The McGuffy's Primer which she thinks is used now is a modernized McGuffy
+printed in 1908. The book bought for her by her first husband is an
+original McGuffy's Second Reader.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson (supplement) [HW: cf. 30600]<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 79<br />
+Occupation: Field hand<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<h4>Whippings</h4>
+
+<p>"Early Hurt had an overseer named Sanders. He tied my sister Crecie
+to a stump to whip her. Crecie was stout and heavy. She was a grown young
+woman and big and strong. Sanders had two dogs with him in case he would
+have trouble with anyone. When he started layin' that lash on Crecie's
+back, she pulled up that stump and whipped him and the dogs both.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Early Hurt came up and whipped her hisself. Said, 'Oh, you're
+too bad for the overseer to whip, huh?'</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't no such things as lamps in them days. Jus' used pine knots.
+When we quilted, we jus' got a good knot and lighted it. And when that one
+was nearly burnt out, we would light another one from it.</p>
+
+<p>"We had a old lady named 'Aunt' Charlotte; she wasn't my aunt, we jus'
+called her that. She used to keep the children when the hands were working.
+If she liked you she would treat your children well. If she didn't like
+you, she wouldn't treat them so good. Her name was Charlotte Marley. She
+was too old to do any good in the field; and she had to take care of the
+babies. If she didn't like the people, she would leave the babies' napkins
+on all day long, wet and filthy.</p>
+
+<p>"My papa's mama, Sarah, was killed by lightning. She was ironing
+and was in a hurry to get through and get the supper on for her master,
+Early Hurt. I was the oldest child, and I always was scared of lightning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+A dreadful storm was goin' on. I was under the bed and I heard the thunder
+bolt and the crash and the fall. I heard mama scream. I crawled out from
+under the bed and they had grandma laid out in the middle of the floor.
+Mama said, 'Child, all the friend you got in the world is dead.' Early
+Hurt was standin' over her and pouring buckets of water on her. When the
+doctor come, he said, 'You done killed her now. If you had jus' laid her
+out on the ground and let the rain fall on her, she would have come to, but
+you done drownded her now.' She wouldn't have died if it hadn't been for
+them buckets of water that Early Hurt throwed in her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Honey, they ain't nothin' as sweet to drink out of as a gourd. Take
+the seeds out. Boil the gourd. Scrape it and sun it. There ain't no
+taste left. They don't use gourds now."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>Violent death followed Lula Jackson's family like an implacable
+avenger. Her father's mother was struck and killed by lightning. Her
+mother's first husband was thrown to his death in a wrestling match. Her
+own husband was dragged and kicked to death by a mule. Her brother-in-law,
+Jerry Jackson, was killed by a horse. But Sister Jackson is bright
+and cheery and full of faith in God and man, and utterly without bitterness.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy<br />
+Person interviewed: Mary Jackson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Russellville, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 75?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My name is Mary Jackson, and I was born in Miller Grove, Hunt
+County, Texas during the War. No sir, I do not know the year. Our
+master's name was Dixon, and he was a wealthy plantation owner, had lots
+of property in Hunt County.</p>
+
+<p>"The days after the War&mdash;called the Reconstruction days, I believe&mdash;were
+sure exciting, and I can 'mind' a lot of things the people did, one
+of them a big barbecue celebration commemoratin' the return of peace.
+They had speeches, and music by the band&mdash;and there were a lot of soldiers
+carrying guns and wearing some kind of big breastplates. The white children
+tried to scare us by telling us the soldiers were coming to kill us
+little colored children. The band played 'Dixie' and other familiar tunes
+that the people played and sang in those days.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir, I remember the Klu Klux Klan. They sure kept us frightened
+and we would always run and hide when we heard they were comin'. I don't
+know of any special harm they done but we were afraid of em.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been a member of the A. M. E. Church for forty years, and my
+children belong to the same church.</p>
+
+<p>"No sir, I don't know if the government ever promised our folks anything&mdash;money,
+or land, or anything else.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me anything about this 'new generation' business.
+They're simply too much for me; I cannot understand em at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+Don't know whether they are coming or going. In our day the parents were
+not near so lenient as they are today. I think much of the waywardness
+of the youth today should be blamed on the parents for being too slack in
+their training."</p>
+
+
+<p>NOTE: Mrs. Jackson and her son live in a lovely cottage, and her
+taste in dress and general deportment are a credit to the race.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Taylor Jackson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Edmondson, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 88?<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born two miles from Baltimore, Maryland. I was a good size boy.
+My father carried me to see the war flag go up. There was an awful crowd,
+one thousand people, there. I had two masters in this country besides in
+Virginia. When war was declared there was ten boats of niggers loaded at
+Washington and shipped to New Orleans. We stayed in the 'Nigger Traders
+Yard' there about three months. But we was not to be sold. Master Cupps
+[Culps?] owned father, mother and all of us. If they gained the victory he
+was to take us back to Virginia. I never knowed my grandparents. The yard
+had a tall brick wall around it. We had a bunk room, good cotton pads to
+sleep on and blankets. On one side they had a wall fixed to go up on from
+the inside and twelve platforms. You could see them being sold on the inside
+and the crowd on the outside. When they auctioned them off they would
+come, pick out what they wanted to sell next and fill them blocks again.
+They sold niggers all day long. They come in another drove they had, had
+men out buying over the country. They come in thick wood doors with iron
+nails bradded through, fastened on big hinges, fastened it with chains and
+iron bars. The house was a big red brick house. We didn't get none too
+much to eat at that place. I reckon one side was three hundred yard long
+of the wall and the house was that long. Some of them in there cut
+their hands off with a knife or ax. Well, they couldn't sell them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Nobody would buy them. I don't know what they ever done with them. Plenty
+of them would cut their hand off if they could get something to cut with to
+keep from being sold.</p>
+
+<p>"We stayed in that place till Wyley Lions [Lyons?] come and got us in
+wagons. He kept us for Master Cupps. Mother was a house girl in Virginia.
+She was one more good cook. I started hoeing and picking cotton in
+Virginia for master. When I was fourteen years old I done the same in
+Mississippi with Wiley Lyons in Mississippi close to Canton. In Canton,
+Mississippi Wiley Lyons had the biggest finest brick house in that country.
+He had two farms. In Bolivar County was the biggest. I could hear big
+shooting from Canton fifteen miles away. He wasn't mean and he didn't
+allow the overseers to be mean.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilliard Christmas [a neighbor] was mean to his folks. My father
+hired his own time. He raised several ten acre gardens and watermelons.
+He paid Mr. Cupp in Virginia. He come to see our folks how they was getting
+along.</p>
+
+<p>"A Negro on a joining farm run off. They hunted him with the dogs and
+they found him at a log. Heap his legs froze, so the white doctor had to
+cut them off. He was on Solomon's farms. After that he got to be a cooper.
+He made barrels and baskets&mdash;things he could do sittin' in his chair. They
+picked him up and made stumps for him. Some folks was mean.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was Rachel and my father was Andrew Jackson. I had three
+brothers fought in the War. I was too young. They talked of taking me
+in a drummer boy the year it ceased. My nephew give me this uniform. It is
+warm and it is good. My breeches needs some repairs reason I ain't got them
+on. [He has worn a blue uniform for years and years&mdash;ed.]<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There was nine of us children. I got one girl very low now. She's
+in Memphis. I been in Arkansas 45 years. I come here jes' drifting looking
+out a good location. I never had no dealings with the Ku Klux. I
+been farming all my life. Yes, I did like it. I never owned a home nor no
+land. I never voted in my life. I had nine children of my own but only my
+girl living now.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine or ten years ago I could work every minute. Times was good!
+good! Could get plenty work&mdash;wood to cut and ditching. It is not that way
+now. I can't do a day's work now. I'm failing fast. I feel it.</p>
+
+<p>"Young folks can make a living if they work and try. Some works too
+hard and some don't hardly work. Work is scarcer than it ever was to my
+knowledge. Times changed and changed the young folks. Mother died two or
+three years after the War. My father died first year we come to Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>[We went by and took the old Negro to West Memphis. From there he
+could take a jitney to Memphis to see his daughter&mdash;ed.]</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't never been 'rested. I ain't been to jail. Nearly well be as
+so confined with the mud. [We assured him it was nicer to ride in the car
+than be in jail&mdash;ed.]</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't tell how many I ever seen sold. I seen some sold in
+Virginia, I reckon, or Maryland&mdash;one off the boats. They kept them tied.
+They was so scared they might do anything, jump in the big waters. They
+couldn't talk but to some and he would tell white folks what he said. [They
+used an interpreter.] Some couldn't understand one another if they come
+from far apart in the foreign country. Slavery wasn't never bad on me.
+I never was sold off from my folks and I had warmer, better clothes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+'an I have now. I had plenty to eat, more'an I has now generally. I had
+better in slavery than I have now. That is the truth. I'm telling the
+truth, I did. Some didn't. One neighbor got mad and give each hand one
+ear of corn nine or ten o'clock. They take it to the cook house and get it
+made up in hominy. Some would be so hungry they would parch the corn rather
+'an wait. He'd give 'em meal to make a big kettle of mush. When he was
+good he done better. Give 'em more for supper.</p>
+
+<p>"Freedom&mdash;soldiers come by two miles long look like. We followed them.
+There was a crowd following. Wiley Lyons had no children; he adopted a boy
+and a girl. Me and the boy was growing up together. Me and the white boy
+(fifteen or sixteen years old, I reckon we was) followed them. They said
+that was Grant's army. I don't know. 'That made us free' they told us.
+The white boy was free, he just went to see what was happening. We sure
+did see! We went by Canton to Vicksburg when fighting quit. Folks rejoiced,
+and then went back wild. Smart ones soon got work. Some got
+furnished a little provisions to help keep them from starving. Mr. Wiley
+Lyons come got us after five months. We hung around my brother that had
+been in the War. I don't know if he was a soldier or a waiter. We worked
+around Master Lyons' house at Canton till he died. I started farming again
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I get $8 a month pension and high as things is that is a powerful
+blessing but it ain't enough to feed me good. It cost more to go after
+the commodities up at Marion than they come to [amount to in value]."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Virginia Jackson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Helena, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 74<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Mother said I was born the same year peace was declared. I was born
+before the Civil War close, I reckon. I was born in Tunica, Mississippi.
+Mother belong to Mistress Cornelia and Master John Hood. He come from
+Alabama in wagons and brought mother and whole lot of 'em, she said, to
+Tunica, Mississippi. My mother and father never sold. They told me that.
+She said she was with the master and he give her to father. He ask her did
+she want him and ask him if he want her. They lived on joint places. They
+slept together on Wednesday and Saturday nights. He stayed at Hood's place
+on Sunday. They was owned by different masters. They didn't never say 'bout
+stepping over no broom. He was a Prince. When he died she married a man
+named Russell. I never heard her say what his name was. My father was
+Mathew Prince. They was both field hands. I never knowed my father. I
+called my stepfather popper. I always did say mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother said her master didn't tell them it was freedom. Other folks
+got told in August. They passed it 'round secretly. Some Yankees come
+asked if they was getting paid for picking cotton in September. They told
+their master. They told the Yankees 'yes' 'cause they was afraid they would
+be run off and no place to go. They said Master Hood paid them well for
+their work at cotton selling time. He never promised them nothing. She
+said he never told one of them to leave or to stay. He let 'em be. I reckon
+they got fed. I wore cotton sack dresses. It wasn't bagging. It was heavy
+stiff cloth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mother and her second husband come to Forrest City. They hoped they
+could do better. I come too. I worked in the field all my whole life
+'cepting six years I worked in a laundry. I washed and ironed. I am a fine
+ironer. If I was younger I could get all the mens' shirts I could do now. I
+do a few but I got neuralgia in my arms and shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe in talking 'bout my race. They always been lazy folks
+and smart folks, and they still is. The present times is good for me. I'm
+so thankful. I get ten dollars and some help, not much. I don't go after
+it. I let some that don't get much as I get have it. I told 'em to do that
+way."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: William Jackson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Route 6, Box 81, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 84<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Me? Well, I was born July 12, 1853. Now you can figure that up.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sold four times in slavery times. I was sold through the nigger
+traders and you know they didn't keep you long.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in Tennessee, raised in Mississippi, and been here in
+Arkansas up and down the Arkansas River ever since I was fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>"A fellow bought me in Tennessee and sold me to a fellow named Abe
+Collins in Mississippi. He sold me to Dr. Maloney and then Winn and Trimble
+in Hempstead County bought me. They run a tanyard.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school one day in my life. My third master's children
+learned me my ABC's in slavery times. I'm not educated but I can read.
+Read the Bible and something like that.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ku Klux run me one night. They come to the door and I went out
+the window. They went to my master's tanyard in broad open day and took
+leather. Oh, I been all through the roughness. But the Lord has blessed
+me ever since I been in this world. I can see good and hear good and get
+about.</p>
+
+<p>"I come here to Arkansas with some refugees, and I been up and down
+the river ever since.</p>
+
+<p>"In slavery times I had plenty to eat, such as 'twas. Had biscuits on
+Sunday made out of shorts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I lived with one man, Dr. Maloney, who was pretty cruel. I run away
+from him once, but he caught me fore night. Put me in a little house on
+bread and water for three or four days and then he sold me. Said he
+wouldn't have a nigger that would run away. Otherwise I been treated
+pretty well.</p>
+
+<p>"I come to Pine Bluff in '82. Last place I farmed was at what they
+call the Nichol place.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to vote Republican&mdash;wouldn't let us vote nothin' else. In this
+country they won't let niggers vote in the primary 'cause they can vote in
+the presidential election. I held one office&mdash;justice of the peace.</p>
+
+<p>"If the younger generation don't change, the Lord goin' to put curses
+on em. That's just what's goin' to come of em. More you do for em the
+worse they is. Don't think about the future&mdash;just today."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Lawson Jamar,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Edmondson, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 66<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Papa had twelve children and when he died he lef' two and now I am
+all the big family left.</p>
+
+<p>"Mama was born in Huntsville, Alabama. I was born there too. She was
+Liza, b'long to Tom and Unis Martin. Papa b'long to Mistress Sarah and
+Jack Jamar. They had to work hard. They had to do good work. They had to
+not slight their work. Papa's main job was to carry water to the hands. He
+said it kept him on the go. They had more than one water boy. They had to
+go to the wash hole before they went to bed and wash clean. The men had a
+place and the women had their place. They didn't have to get in if it was
+cold but they had to wash off.</p>
+
+<p>"They hauled a wagon load of axes or hoes and lef' 'em in the field so
+they could get 'em. Then they would haul plows, hoes or axes to the shop
+to be fixed up. They had two or three sets. They worked from early till
+late. They had a cook house. They cooked at their own houses when the
+work wasn't pushing. When they got behind they would work in the moonlight.
+If they got through they all went and help some neighbor two or three nights
+and have a big supper sometimes. They done that on Saturday nights, go
+home and sleep all day Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>"If they didn't have time to wash and clean the houses and the beds
+some older women would do that and tend to the babies. They had a hard
+time during the War. It was hard after the War. Papa brought me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+to this country to farm. He farmed till he started sawmilling for Chappman
+Dewy at Marked Tree. Then he swept out and was in the office to help
+about. He never owned nothing. He come and I farmed. He helped a little.
+He was so old. He talked more about the War and slavery. I always have
+farmed. Farmed all my life.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't farm now. I got asthma and cripple with rheumatism. What my
+wife and children can't do ain't done now. [Three children.] I don't get
+no help but I applied for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Present times is all right where a man can work. The present generation
+rather do on heap less and do less work. They ain't got manners and
+raisin' like I had. They don't know how to be polite. We tries to learn
+'em [their children] how to do."</p>
+
+
+<p>NOTE: The woman was black and so was the cripple Negro man; their
+house was clean, floors, bed, tables, chairs. Very good warm house. They
+couldn't remember the old tales the father told to tell them to me.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy<br />
+Person interviewed: Nellie James,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Russellville, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 72<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Nellie James is my name. Yes, Mr. D. B. James was my husband, and
+he remembered you very kindly. They call me 'Aunt Nellie.' I was born
+in Starkville, Ouachita County, Mississippi the twenty-ninth of March,
+in 1866, just a year after the War closed. My parents were both owned
+by a plantation farmer in Ouachita County, Mississippi, but we came to
+Arkansas a good many years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"My husband was principal of the colored school here at Russellville
+for thirty-five years, and people, both white and black, thought a
+great deal of him. We raised a family of six children, five boys and a
+girl, and they now live in different states, some of them in California.
+One of my sons is a doctor in Chicago and is doing well. They were all
+well educated. Mr. James saw to that of course.</p>
+
+<p>"So far as I remember from what my parents said, the master was
+reasonably kind to all his slaves, and my husband said the same thing
+about his own master although he was quite young at the time they were
+freed. (Yes sir, you see he was born in slavery.)</p>
+
+<p>"I was too young to remember much about the Ku Klux Klan, but I
+remember we used to be afraid of them and we children would run and hide
+when we heard they were coming.</p>
+
+<p>"No sir, I have never voted, because we always had to pay a dollar
+for the privilege&mdash;and I never seemed to have the dollar (laughingly)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+to spare at election time. Mr. James voted the Republican ticket
+regularly though.</p>
+
+<p>"All our family were Missionary Baptists. I united with the Baptist
+church when I [HW: was] thirteen years old.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the young people of both races are growing wilder and
+wilder. The parents today are too slack in raising them&mdash;too lenient.
+I don't know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to
+do, or what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a
+time trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."</p>
+
+
+<p>NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most
+successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet,
+refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and successful
+family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none of the brogue
+that is characteristic of the colored race of the South.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Robert James<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 66, or older<br />
+Occupation: Cook<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's
+name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David Jones
+was her old master. That was in Mississippi&mdash;the good old country! People
+hate it because they don't like the name but it was a mighty good country
+when I was there. The white people there were better to the colored people
+when I was there than they are here. But there is a whole lots of places
+that is worse than Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with
+nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my brother
+happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought about me and
+wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in Chicago following
+up their information and got in touch with my people. Didn't find them out
+till the great war started. Had to go to Europe to find my relatives. My
+sister's people and mine too were born in Illinois, but my mother and two
+sisters and another brother were born in Mississippi. Their kin born in
+Illinois were half-brothers and so on.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Refugeeing&mdash;Ghosts</h4>
+
+<p>"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to
+keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it
+must have been true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to
+driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story house.
+They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise nobody; so
+they just camped there for the night. After they went to bed, big balls of
+fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got scared and run out of the
+house and camped outside for the night. There wasn't no more sleeping in
+that house.</p>
+
+<p>"Some people believe in ghosts and some don't. What do you believe?
+This is what I have seen myself. Mules and horses were running 'round
+screaming and hollering every night. One day, I was walking along when I
+saw a mule big as an elephant with ears at least three feet long and eyes
+as big as auto lamps. He was standing right in the middle of the road
+looking at me and making no motion to move. I was scared to death, but I
+stooped down to pick up a stone. It wasn't but a second. But when I
+raised up, he had vanished. He didn't make a sound. He just disappeared
+in a second. That was in the broad open daylight. That was what had been
+causing all the confusion with the mules and horses.</p>
+
+<p>"When I first married I used to room with an old lady named Johnson.
+Time we went to bed and put the light out, something would open the doors.
+Finally I got scared and used to tell my wife to get up and close the
+doors. Finally she got skittish about it. There used to be the biggest
+storms around there and yet you couldn't see nothin'. There wasn't no
+rain nor nothin'. Just sounds and noises like storms. My wife comes to
+visit me sometimes now.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother says there wasn't any such thing as marriage in slave times.
+Old master jus' said, 'There's your husband, Florida.'"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Little Rock District<br />
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+<br />
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson<br />
+Subject: HISTORY OF ELLIS JEFFERSON&mdash;(NEGRO)<br />
+Story&mdash;Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)<br />
+<br />
+This Information given by: Ellis Jefferson (Uncle Jeff) (C)<br />
+Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas<br />
+Occupation: Superanuated Minister of the M. E. Church<br />
+Age: 77<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>He has his second eyesight and his hair is short and white. He
+is a black skinned, bright-eyed old man. "Uncle Jeff" said he remembered
+when the Civil War had ended they passed by where he lived with teams,
+wagons filled, and especially the artillery wagon. They were carrying
+them back to Washington. His mother was freed from Mrs. Nancy Marshall
+of Roanoke, Va. She moved and brought his mother, he and his sister, Ann,
+to Holly Springs, Miss. The county was named for his mistress: Marshall
+County, Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>In 1868 they moved to [HW: within] 4 miles of DeWitt and 10 miles of Arkansas
+Post. Later they moved to Kansas and near Wichita then back to Marshall,
+Texas. His sister has four sons down there. He thinks she is still
+living. His Mistress went back to Roanoke, Va., and his mother died at
+Marshall. Tom Marshall was his Master's name, but he seems to have died
+in the Civil War. This old Uncle Jeff lived in Alabama and has preached
+there and in northern Mississippi and near Helena, Arkansas. He helped
+cook at Helena in a hotel. He preaches some but the WPA supports him
+now. Uncle Jeff can't remember his dreams he said "The Bible says, young
+men dream dreams and old men see visions."</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+<p>He had a real vision once, he was going late one afternoon to get his
+mules up and he heard a voice "I have a voice I want you to complete.
+Carry my word." He was a member of the church but he made a profession
+and a year later was ordained into the ministry. He believes in dreams.
+Says they are warnings.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Jeff says he has written some poetry but it has all been lost.</p>
+
+<p>When anyone dies the sexton goes to the church and tolls the bell
+as many times as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church
+for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul rises
+from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people can put
+a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery.</p>
+
+<p>[HW: Marshall County, Miss., named for John Marshall of Virginia,
+Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, 1801-35. <span class="u">History of
+Marshall (County), Mississippi</span>, by Clayton M. Alexander.]</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+<br />
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor<br />
+Subject: [HW: Moses Jeffries]<br />
+Story&mdash;Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)<br />
+<br />
+This information given by: Moses E. Jeffries<br />
+Place of Residence: 1110 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas<br />
+Occupation: Plasterer<br />
+Age: 81</h3>
+<p>[TR: Age: 75 on 4th page of form.]<br /></p>
+
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in 1856. My age was kept with the cattle. As a
+rule, you know, slaves were chattels. There was a fire and the Bible
+in which the ages were kept was lost. The man who owned me couldn't
+remember what month I was born in. Out of thirteen children, my mother
+could only remember the age of one. I had twelve brothers and sisters&mdash;Bob
+Lacy, William Henry, Cain Cecil, Jessie, Charles, Harvey,
+Johnnie, Anna, Rose, Hannah, Lucy, and Thomas. I am the only one
+living now. My parents were both slaves. My father has been dead
+about fifty-nine years and my mother about sixty or sixty-one years.
+She died before I married and I have been married fifty years. I
+have them in my Bible.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said
+there was going to be war. I remember when they had [HW: a] slave market
+in New Orleans. I was living betweeen [TR: between] Pine Bluff and New Orleans
+(living in Arkansas) and saw the slaves chained together as they
+were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of the
+big farms or plantations.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the
+Confederate armies when they were retreating near the end of the
+war. I was just about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall,
+Texas.</p>
+
+<p>The man that owned me said to the old people that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+were free, that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham
+Lincoln had set them free. Of course, I didn't know what
+freedom was. They brought the news to them one evening, and
+them niggers danced nearly all night.</p>
+
+<p>I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves
+first, and the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through
+our field about half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs
+would be trailing them. The hunters didn't bother to stop and
+question us because they knew the hounds were on the trail. I have
+known slaves to run away and stay three years at a time. Master
+would whip them and they would run away. They wouldn't have no
+place to go or stay so they would come back after a while. Then
+they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish them much,
+however, because they might run off again.</p>
+
+
+<h4>MARRIAGE</h4>
+
+<p>If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry,
+I would ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter
+if she were somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master
+would pay for her and bring her home and say, "John, there's
+your wife. That is all the marriage there would be. Yellow women
+used to be a novelty then. You wouldn't see one-tenth as many
+then as now. In some cases, however, a man would retain his wife
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>even after she had been sold
+away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to
+time.</p>
+
+
+<h4>INHERITANCE OF SLAVES</h4>
+
+<p>If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves
+should go to each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred
+slaves and they divided them up just as you would cattle. Some
+times there were certain slaves that certain children liked, and
+they were granted those slaves.</p>
+
+
+<h4>WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED</h4>
+
+<p>Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of the niggers
+got anything. They didn't give them anything. The slaves
+were hired and allowed to work the farms on shares. That is where
+the system of share cropping came from. I was hired for fifty
+dollars a year, but was paid only five. The boss said he owed me
+fourteen dollars but five was all I got. I went down town and bought
+some candy. It was the first time I had had that much money.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't do anything about the pay. They didn't
+give me any land. They hired me to work around the house and I ate
+what the boss ate. But the general run of slaves got pickled pork,
+molasses, cornmeal and sometimes flour (about once a week for
+Sunday). The food came out of the share of the share cropper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You can tell what they did by what they do now. It (share cropping)
+hasn't changed a particle since. About Christmas was the
+time they usually settled up. Nobody was forced to remain as a
+servant. I know one thing,&mdash;Negroes did not go to jail and penitentiary
+like they do now.</p>
+
+
+<h4>KU KLUX KLAN</h4>
+
+<p>The Ku Klux Klan to the best of my knowledge went into action
+about the time shortly after the war when the amendments to
+the Constitution gave the Negroes the right to vote. I have seen
+them at night dressed up in their uniform. They would visit every
+Negro's house in the comunity [TR: community]. Some they would take out
+and whip, some they would scare to death. They would ask for a
+drink of water and they had some way of drinking a whole bucketful
+to impress the Negroes that they were supernatural. Negroes
+were very superstitious then. Colonel Patterson who was a Republican
+and a colonel or general of the militia, white and colored,
+under the governorship of Powell Clayton, stopped the operation
+of the Klan in this state. After his work, they ceased terrorizing
+the people.</p>
+
+
+<h4>POLITICAL OFFICIALS</h4>
+
+<p>Many an ex-slave was elected sheriff, county clerk, probate clerk,
+Pinchback<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> was elected governor in Louisiana. The first Negro
+congressman was from Mississippi and a Methodist preacher<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Hiram Revells<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>. We had a Nigger superintendent of schools of the
+state of Arkansas, J. C. Corbin<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a>&mdash;I don't remember just when,
+but it was in the early seventies. He was also president of the
+state school in Pine Bluff&mdash;organized it.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SUFFRAGE</h4>
+
+<p>The ex-slave voted like fire directly after the war. That
+was about all that did vote then. If the Niggers hadn't voted
+they never would have been able to elect Negroes to office.</p>
+
+<p>I was elected Alderman once in Little Rock under the administration
+of Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police,
+Police Judge, Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam
+Garrett was Chief of Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge.
+He was also a receiver of public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who
+founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion
+H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all
+aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County,
+S. H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about
+five feet high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of
+Desha County. Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro
+used to hold good offices in this state.</p>
+
+<p>I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter
+caused it. Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern
+part of the state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with
+the North in the war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the
+North somewheres. When Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom
+the old ex-slaveholders supported because he was a Southerner and
+sided with Baxter against Brooks, it put the present Democratic
+party in power, and they passed the Grandfather law barring Negroes
+from voting.</p>
+
+<p>Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted
+out. Ballot boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally,
+Negroes got discouraged and quit trying to vote."</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of La. Held office 43 days.]</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.]</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of public instruction in
+1873&mdash;served until the end of 1875.]</p>
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Hazen, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: 77<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and
+he couldn't talk plain.</p>
+
+<p>"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a
+white man. He was a Scotchman.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left
+Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em
+was married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly
+Springs, Mississippi in 1867.</p>
+
+<p>"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at
+Holly Springs.</p>
+
+<p>"I had two sisters Ann and Mariah. Old Miss Nancy Marshall had kin
+folks at Marshall, Texas. She took Ann with her and I have never seen her
+since.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1878 we immigrated to Kansas. We soon got back to Helena. Mariah
+died there and in 1881 mother died.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Miss Nancy's boys named Blunt, John, Bill, Harp. I don't know
+where they scattered out to finally.</p>
+
+<p>"All my folks ever expected was freedom. We was nicely
+taken care of till the family split up. My father was suppressed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+He belong to Master Ernman. He run off and went on with the Yankees when
+they come down from Virginia. We think he got killed. We never heard
+from him after 1863.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1882 my white folks went to Padukah, Kentucky. They was on the
+run from Yellow Fever. They had kin up there. I stayed in Memphis and
+nursed. They put up flags. Negroes didn't have it. They put coffins on
+the porches before the people died. Carried wagons loads of dead bodies
+wrapped in sheets. White folks would meet and pray the disease be lifted.
+When they started vomiting black, there was no more hopes. Had to hold
+them on bed when they was dying. When they have Yellow Fever white folks
+turn yellow. I never heard of a case of Yellow Fever in Memphis mong my
+race. Dr. Stone of New Orleans had better luck with the disease than any
+other doctor. I was busy from June till October in Memphis. They buried
+the dead in long trenches. Nearly all the business houses was closed.
+The boats couldn't stop in towns where Yellow Fever had broke out.</p>
+
+<p>"I never seen the Ku Klux.</p>
+
+<p>"I never seen no one sold. My father still held a wild animal
+instinct up in Virginia; they couldn't keep him out of the woods. He
+would spend two or three days back in there. Then the Patty Rollers
+would run him out and back home. He was a quill blower and a banjo
+picker. They had two corn piles and for prizes they give them whiskey.
+They had dances and regular figure callers. This has been told to me at
+night time around the hearth understand. I can recollect when round
+dancing come in. It was in 1880. Here's a song they sung back in
+Virginia: 'Moster and mistress both gone away. Gone down to Charleston/
+to spend the summer day. I'm off to Charleston/early in the mornin'/
+to spend nother day.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I used to help old Miss Nancy make candles for her little brass
+lamp. We boiled down maple sap and made sugar. We made turpentine.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia. We had
+rebellions at Helena in 1875. The white folks put the Negroes out of
+office. They put J. T. White in the river at Helena but I think he got
+out. Several was killed. J. T. White was a colored sheriff in Phillips
+County. In Lee County it was the same way. The Republican party would
+lect them and the Democratic party roust them out of office.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1872 I went to school 2-1/2 miles to Arkansas Post to a white
+teacher. I went four months. Her name was Mrs. Rolling. My white
+folks started me and I could spell to 'Baker' in the Blue Book Speller
+before I started to school. That is the only book I ever had at school.
+I learned to read in the Bible next.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1872 locust was numerous. We had four diseases to break out:
+whooping cough, measles, smallpox; and cholera broke out again. They
+vaccinated for smallpox, first I ever heard of it. They took matter out
+of one persons arm and put it in two dozen peoples arms. It killed out
+the smallpox.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and
+forest fires broke out often.</p>
+
+<p>"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We
+gambled and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good
+raising. I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord
+hailed me in wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing
+in his sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to
+teach a Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+Three months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop
+Lee, Johnson, Copeland&mdash;all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I
+attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I
+preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and
+Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated minister.</p>
+
+<p>"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become
+more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the home
+land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some work or
+a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 80<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil War).
+I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension and he sends
+me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount whatever he can spare
+me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I pick cotton some last
+year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got to raining and so cold my
+granddaughter said it would make me sick.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from
+Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A. B.
+Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was name Liddy
+Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to Tennessee from
+Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than ten miles apart.
+Then they got consent and got married. I don't know how they struck up
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins'
+house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His daughter
+lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home from the war
+dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The only little children
+on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no kin but jus' like twins.
+Master would call us up and stick his finger in biscuits and pour molasses in
+the hole. That was sure good eating. The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done
+et it up. He'd fix us up another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the
+grown folks got them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+My mother beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived
+over at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us
+biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and call us to
+find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer badness. We had a big
+business of throwing at things. He threatened to whoop us. We slacked up on
+it. I never heard them say but I believe from what I seen it was agreed to
+divide the children. Pa would take me over to see mama every Sunday morning.
+We leave soon as I could get my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We
+walked four miles. He'd tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed
+over there much and the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come.
+They let her stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to
+preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to come
+home. Me and papa always walked.</p>
+
+<p>"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't know
+what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the best, somebody
+said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six years trying to do as
+well as they had done in slavery. It was years 'fore they got back to it. I
+was grown 'fore they ever got to doing well again. My folks got off to Nashville.
+We lived there by the hardest&mdash;eight in family. We moved to Mississippi
+bottoms not far from Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat
+as hogs. We farmed and done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and
+lost two of the girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena.
+We boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats about
+till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we rented. I had
+two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a heap. He got some
+little children now and got one grown and married.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The
+main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but it was
+carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd tell colored
+folks not to do this and that and it would get them in trouble. The Ku Klux
+would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks thought 'cause they was
+free they ought not work. They got to rambling and scattered out.</p>
+
+<p>"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted
+different ways&mdash;sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I don't
+believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for Cleveland
+years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the last war. I don't
+believe in war.</p>
+
+<p>"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now.
+Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are restless. I
+see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got grown looked so fresh
+and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried now. They fixes up their
+face but it still show it. Folks quicker than they used to be. They acts
+before they have time to think now. Times is good for me but I see old folks
+need things. I see young folks wasteful&mdash;both black and white. White folks
+setting the pace for us colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Dora Jerman,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Forrest City, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 60?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father.
+Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee.
+Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around handy
+to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her and Aunt
+Polly both. Aunt Polly was a friend that was sold with her every time.
+They was like sisters and the most pleasure to each other in old age.</p>
+
+<p>"My great-great-grandma said to grandma, 'Hurry back wid that pitcher
+of water, honey, so you will have time to run by and see your mama and the
+children and tell them good-bye. Old master says you going to be sold early
+in the morning.' The water was for supper. That was the last time she ever
+seen or heard of any of her own kin folks. Grandma said a gang of them was
+sold next morning. Aunt Polly was no kin but they was sold together. Whitfield
+bought one and Strum bought the other.</p>
+
+<p>"They come on a boat from Virginia to Aberdeen, Mississippi. They
+wouldn't sell her mother because she brought fine children. I think she
+said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold several
+times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat they had to
+walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open and bled. 'Black
+Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them with hot tallow or
+mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a good girl and mind
+master and mistress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Grandma said she had a hard time all her life. She was my mother's
+mother and she lived to be way over a hundred years old. Aunt Polly lived
+with her daughter when she got old. Grandma died first. Then Aunt Polly
+grieved so. She was old, old when she died. They still lived close
+together, mostly together. Aunt Polly was real black; mama was lighter. I
+called grandma 'mama' a right smart too. They called each other 'sis'.
+Grandma said, 'I love sis so good.' Aunt Polly lessened her days grieving
+for sis. They was both field hands. They would tell us girls about how
+they lived when they was girls. We'd cry.</p>
+
+<p>"We lived in the country and we listened to what they said to us. If
+it had been times then like now I wouldn't know to tell you. Folks is in
+such a hurry somehow. Gone or going somewhere all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"All my folks is most all full-blood African. I don't believe in races
+mixing up. It is a sin. Grandma was the brightest one of any of us. She
+was ginger-cake color.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't vote. I don't believe in that neither.</p>
+
+<p>"Times is too fast. Fast folks makes fast times. They all fast.
+Coming to destruction."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Adaline Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Joining the Plunkett farms</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 96<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on
+Strickland's place. My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.
+Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big plantations, full of
+niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where my mother was born. Battles
+was rich set of white folks. They lived at Tarbry, North Carolina and some
+at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old master. There was Hue Battle too.
+Master Joe Battle and Master Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They
+told Mars Joe not to whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit
+him seven licks with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He
+was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them about it at the hotel. He got
+up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom Williams didn't
+drink. He went to war and got shot. He professed religion when he was
+twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his Testament in his pocket and
+blood run on it. That was when he was shot in the Civil War.</p>
+
+<p>"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no
+law to kill a crazy man. They took him to North Carolina where was all white
+folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor crazy nigger.
+They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to place all white folks
+lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress Frankie
+(Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em be, he ain't goiner whoop Fenna, he's
+kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.' They whoop niggers
+black as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten Williams. Fenna was half white.
+He was John Williams' boy. John was Brutten's brother. John Williams went
+to Mississippi and overseed for Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd
+shoot at anything and call it a hawk.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to
+sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi learned her how to sew. She sewed up
+bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.</p>
+
+<p>"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe
+Williams. She cooked and wove some in her young life. Rich white folks
+didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they
+changed her about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the public.</p>
+
+<p>"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduke
+Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big towns and had a good time. Miss
+Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from Mississippi) to North
+Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it all away soon as it ripen.
+He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy. He give some of it out in cups.
+They said there was some double rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the
+men on his place five dollars and every woman a sow pig to raise from. Tole
+us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one and my mother
+one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever had. He got killed.
+Master Tom was so good to his niggers. He never whooped them. His wife
+ruled him, made him do like she wanted everything but mean to his niggers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+Her folks slashed their niggers and she tried to make him do that too. He
+wouldn't. They said she wore the breeches 'cause she ruled him.</p>
+
+<p>"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away
+from every one of us. We raised 'em up fine big hogs. She took them away
+from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had plenty land he
+left her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen Hopkins. They had a boy.
+He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She was so mean. Followed the boy
+to Texas. They all said she couldn't rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom
+Williams. She didn't.</p>
+
+<p>"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she
+wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had raised a little half white boy.
+'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's little nigger
+child and give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His own black mama
+beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal Pierce's place. They kept
+Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give him to somebody else
+'way off. Tom had a brother in Georgia. It was Tom's wife wouldn't let
+Wilks go on living with us.</p>
+
+<p>"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers
+but she was better than any other white women to Wilks and Fenna and George.</p>
+
+<p>"'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought
+him a axe, it was a great big axe. They bought him a great big hoe. They
+got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like everybody else.
+'Big Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim Battle was gone off.
+His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When Jim Battle come back he said
+Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big
+Will'. We never heard or seen him no more. His family stayed on the plantation
+and worked. 'Big Will' could split as many more rails as anybody else on the place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy
+babies and raise them.</p>
+
+<p>"The Battles had gins and stores in North Carolina and Williams had
+farms, nothing but farms.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after
+the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy, Johnny Williams. He run to me,
+said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was when the
+Yankee soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war. I cooked
+when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded and spun then. I had a
+ounce of cotton to card every night from September till March. When I'd be
+dancing around, Miss Helland Harris Williams say, 'You better be studying
+your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop dancing.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich
+folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the niggers cried and cried and
+bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean master.</p>
+
+<p>"They had a mean master right then&mdash;Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever
+God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That was in Mississippi. They took us
+back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and stage-coaches,
+wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on big river
+boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up the estate.
+What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.</p>
+
+<p>"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee.
+I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our
+snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night so the
+robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The Yankees said they
+had to subdue our country. They took everything they could find. Times was
+hard. That was in North Carolina.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama&mdash;mama was Liza Williams&mdash;Master
+Brutten bought her sister three or four years after that and they
+took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now they call it Wakefield
+Post Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid, Henry, John was Tom
+Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.</p>
+
+<p>"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was
+Joe Battle's uncles. Jesse Ford was Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas. He
+come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was put on a
+block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell downstairs.
+I never heard such crying before nor since as I heard that day. Said they
+lost their best master. They knowed how bad they got whooped on Ozoo River.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big
+towns. He never did marry. My last master was Tom Williams. He was so
+nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard times
+come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks&mdash;foot tracks and finger
+tracks both.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers
+and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them your finger marks.' Then he
+scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get scared,
+he ain't go to whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not goiner hurt
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of
+white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way they come free niggers.
+Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a hog, take it
+and give it to her. She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto baby turned up.
+Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes they did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to
+George to come after them to Ohio. Bill Harris had a baltimore trotter.
+The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open, read it, give
+it to his owner. He got mad and sold George. He was Sam Harrises carriage
+driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned him about reading and
+writing. When the war was over George come through on the train. Sam
+Harris run up there, cracked his heels together, hugged him, and give him
+ten dollars. He sold him when he was so mad. I don't know if he went to
+Ohio to Stinson's or not.</p>
+
+<p>"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there
+with his leg shot off and was there till he could get on to his folks.</p>
+
+<p>"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was
+cars going different places. We got on Mr. Boyd's car. He paid our way out
+here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd brought
+us right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at Raleigh, North
+Carolina.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children
+scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty acres. Some of it in
+woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with me&mdash;taking
+care of me. Papa tole my son to take care of me and since he died
+my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go hungry nigh
+all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son both. If I
+could get a cow. We tries to have a garden. They ain't making nothing
+on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I ever seen in my life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising. The doctor put some medicine
+in my ears&mdash;both of them.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time
+to take off my shoes and fix the tacks&mdash;beat 'em down. They made holes in
+bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and stand."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>This is another one of those <span class="u">terrible</span> cases. This old woman is on
+starvation. She had a cow and can't get another one. The son is blind but
+feels about and did milk. The bedbugs are nearly eating her up. They
+scald but can't get rid of them. They have a fairly good house to live in.
+But the old woman is on starvation and away back eight miles from Biscoe.
+I hate to see good old Negroes want for something to eat. She acts like a
+small child. Pitiful, so feeble. The second time I went out there I took
+her daughter who walks out there every week. We fixed her up an iron bedstead
+so she can sleep better. I took her a small cake. That was her
+dinner. She had eaten one egg that morning. She was a clean, kind old
+woman. Very much like a child. Has a rising in her head and said she was
+afraid her head would kill her. She gave me a gallon of nice figs her
+daughter picked, so I paid her twenty-five cents for them. She had plenty
+figs and no sugar.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Alice Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">601 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 77<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"You want to know what they did in slavery times! They were doin' jus'
+what they do now. The white folks was beatin' the niggers, burning 'em and
+boilin' 'em, workin' 'em and doin' any other thing they wanted to do with
+them. 'Course you wasn't here then to know about nigger dogs and bull
+whips, were you? The same thing is goin' on right now. They got the same
+bull whips and the same old nigger dogs. If you don't believe it, go right
+out here to the county farm and you find 'em still whippin' the niggers and
+tearing them up and sometimes lettin' the dogs bite them to save the bull
+whips.</p>
+
+<p>"I was here in slavery time but I was small and I don't know much about
+it 'cept what they told me. But you don't need to go no further to hear all
+you want to know. They sont you to the right place. They all know me and
+they call me Mother Johnson. So many folks been here long as me, but don't
+want to admit it. They black their hair and whiten their faces, and powder
+and paint. 'Course it's good to look good all right. But when you start
+that stuff, you got to keep it up. Tain't no use to start and stop. After
+a while you got that same color hair and them same splotches again. Folks
+say, 'What's the matter, you gittin so dark?' Then you say, 'Uh, my liver
+is bad.' You got to keep that thing up, baby.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank God for my age. I thank God He's brought me safe all the way.
+That is the matter with this world now. It ain't got enough religion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was born in Mississippi way below Jackson in Crystal Springs. That
+is on the I. C. Road near New Orleans. The train that goes there goes to
+New Orleans. I was bred and born and married there in Crystal Springs. I
+don't know just when I was born but I know it was in the month of December.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember when the slaves were freed. I remember the War 'cause I
+used to hear them talking about the Yankees and I didn't know whether they
+were mules or horses or what not. I didn't know if they was varmints or
+folks or what not. I can't remember whether I seen any soldiers or not. I
+heard them talking about soldiers, but I didn't see none right 'round where
+we was.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what good's that all goin' to do me? It ain't goin' to do me no
+good to have my name in Washington. Didn't do me no good if he stuck my
+name up on a stick in Washington. Some of them wouldn't know me. Those
+that did would jus' say, 'That's old Alice Johnson.'</p>
+
+<p>"Us old folks, they don't count us. They jus' kick us out of the way.
+They give me 'modities and a mite to spend. Time you go and get lard, sugar,
+meat, and flour, and pay rent and buy wood, you don't have 'nough to go
+'round. Now that might do you some good if you didn't have to pay rent and
+buy wood and oil and water. I'll tell you something so you can earn a
+living. Your mama give you a education so you can earn a living and you
+earnin' it jus' like she meant you to. But most of us don't earn it that
+way, and most of these educated folks not earnin' a livin' with their
+education. They're in jail somewheres. They're walkin' up and down Ninth
+Street and runnin' in and out of these here low dives. You go down there
+to the penitentiary and count those prisoners and I'll bet you don't find
+nary one that don't know how to read and write. They're all educated.
+Most of these educated niggers don't have no feeling for common niggers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+'They just walk on them like they wasn't living. And don't come to 'em
+tellin' them that you wanting to use them!</p>
+
+<p>"The people et the same thing in slavery time that they eat now. Et
+better then 'n they do now. Chickens, cows, mules died then, they throw
+'em to the buzzards. Die now, they sell 'em to you to eat. Didn't eat that
+in slavery time. Things they would give to the dogs then, they sell to the
+people to eat now. People et pure stuff in slavery. Don't eat pure stuff
+now. Got pure food law, but that's all that is pure.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Diana Benson and my father's name was Joe Brown.
+That's what folks say, I don't know. I have seen them but I wasn't brought
+up with no mother and father. Come up with the white folks and colored
+folks fust one and then the other. I think my mother and father died
+before freedom. I don't know what the name of their master was. All my
+folks died early.</p>
+
+<p>"The fus' white folks I knowed anything about was Rays. They said that
+they were my old slave-time masters. They were nice to me. Treated me like
+they would their own children. Et and slept with them. They treated me
+jus' like they own. Heap of people say they didn't have no owners, but they
+got owners yet now out there on that government farm.</p>
+
+<p>"The fus' work I done in my life was nussing. I was a child then and I
+stayed with the white folks' children. Was raised up in the house with 'em.
+I was well taken care of too. I was jus' like their children. That was at
+Crystal Springs.</p>
+
+<p>"I left them before I got grown and went off with other folks. I never
+had no reason. Jus' went on off. I didn't go for better because I was
+doing better. They jus' told me to come and I went.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I been living now in Arkansas ever since 1911. My husband and I
+stayed on to work and make a living. I take care of myself. I'm not
+looking for nothin' now but a better home over yonder&mdash;better home than
+this. Thank the Lawd, I gits along all right. The government gives me a
+check to buy me a little meat and bread with. Maybe the government will
+give me back that what they took off after a while. I don't know. It takes
+a heap of money to feed thousands and millions of people. When the check
+comes, I am glad to git it no matter how little it is. Twarn't for it, I
+would be in a sufferin' condition.</p>
+
+<p>"I belong to the Arch Street Baptist Church. I been for about twenty
+years. I was married sixteen years to my first husband and twenty-eight to
+my second. The last one has been dead five years and the other one thirty-six
+years. I ain't got none walkin' 'round. All my husbands is dead.
+There ain't nothin' in this quitin' and goin' and breakin' up and bustin'
+up. I don't tell no woman to quit and don't tell no man to quit. Go over
+there and git 'nother woman and she will be wuss than the one you got. When
+you fall out, reason and git together. Do right. I stayed with both of my
+husbands till they died. I ain't bothered 'bout another one. Times is so
+hard no man can take care of a woman now. Come time to pay rent, 'What you
+waiting for me to pay rent for? You been payin' it, ain't you?' Come time
+to buy clothes, 'What you waitin' for me to buy clothes for? Where you
+gittin' 'um from before you mai'd me?' Come time to pay the grocery bill,
+'How come you got to wait for me to pay the grocery bill? Who been payin'
+it?' No Lawd, I don't want no man unless he works. What could I do with
+him? I don't want no man with a home and bank account. You can't git along
+with 'im. You can't git along with him and you can't git along with her."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Allen Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">718 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: About 82<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Georgia about twelve miles from Cartersville, in Cass
+County, and about the same distance from Cassville. I was a boy about eight
+or nine years old when I come from there. But I have a very good memory.
+Then I have seed the distance and everything in the Geography. My folks
+were dead long ago now. My oldest brother is dead too. He was just large
+enough to go to the mills. In them times, they had mills. They would fix
+him on the horse and he would go ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's name was Clem Johnson, and my mother's name was Mandy.
+Her madam's name I don't know. I was small. I remember my grandma. She's
+dead long long ago. Long time ago! I think her name was Rachel. Yes, I'm
+positive it was Rachel. That is what I believe. I was a little bitty
+fellow then. I think she was my mother's mother. I know one of my mother's
+sisters. Her name was Lucinda. I don't know how many she had nor nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnsons was the name of the masters my mother and father had. They
+go by the name of Johnson yet. Before that I don't know who they had for
+masters. The pastor's name was Lindsay Johnson and the old missis was Mary
+Johnson. People long time ago used to send boys big enough to ride to the
+mill. My brother used to go. It ran by water-power. They had a big mill
+pond. They dammed that up. When they'd get ready to run the mill, they'd
+open that dam and it would turn the wheel. My oldest brother went to the
+mill and played with old master's son and me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They used to throw balls over the house and see which could catch them
+first. There would be three or four on a side of the house and they would
+throw the ball over the house to see which side would be quickest and aptest.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother and father both belonged to the same man, Lindsay Johnson.
+I was a small boy. I can't tell you how he was to his folks. Seems like
+though he was pretty good to us. Seemed like he was a pretty good master.
+He didn't overwork his niggers. He didn't beat and 'buse them. He gave
+them plenty to eat and drink. You see the better a Negro looked and the
+finer he was the more money he would bring if they wanted to sell them. I
+have heard my mother and father talk about it plenty of times.</p>
+
+<p>"My father worked in the field during slavery. My mother didn't do
+much of no kind of work much. She was a woman that had lots of children to
+take care of. She had four children during slavery and twelve altogether.
+Her children were all small when freedom was declared. My oldest brother,
+I don't remember much about slavery except playing 'round with him and with
+the other little boys, the white boys and the nigger boys. They were very
+nice to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a great big boy when I heard them talking about the pateroles
+catching them or whipping them. At that time when they would go off they
+would have to have a pass. When they went off if they didn't have a pass
+they would whip and report them to their owners. And they would be likely
+to get another brushing from the owners. The pateroles never bothered the
+children any. The children couldn't go anywhere without the consent of the
+mother and father. And there wasn't any danger of them running off. If
+they caught a little child between plantations, they would probably just run
+them home. It was all right for a child to go in the different quarters and
+play with one another during daytime just so they got back before night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+I was a small boy but I have very good recollections about these things. I
+couldn't tell you whether the pateroles ever bothered my father or not.
+Never heard him say. But he was a careful man and he always knew the best
+time and way to go and come. Them old fellows had a way to git by as well
+as we do now.</p>
+
+<p>"They fed the slaves about what they wanted to. They would give them
+meat and flour and meal. I used to hear my father say the old boss fed him
+well. Then again they would have hog killln' time 'long about Christmas.
+The heads, lights, chittlings and fats would be given to the slaves.
+'Course I didn't know much about that only what I heard from the old folks
+talking about it. They lived in the way of eating, I suppose, better than
+they do now. Had no expense whatever.</p>
+
+<p>"As to amusements, I'll tell you I don't know. They'd have little
+dances about like they do now. And they give quiltings and they'd have a
+ring play. My mother never knew anything about dances and fiddling and such
+things; she was a Christian. They had churches you know. My white folks
+didn't object to the niggers goin' to meetin'. 'Course they had to have a
+pass to go anywhere. If they didn't they'd git a brushin' from the pateroles
+if they got caught and the masters were likely to give them another light
+brushin' when they got home.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that was a pretty good system. They gave a pass to those that
+were allowed to be out and the ones that were supposed to be out were
+protected. Of course, now you are your own free agent and you can go and
+come as you please. Now the police take the place of the pateroles. If
+they find you out at the wrong time and place they are likely to ask you
+about it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A slave was supposed to pick a certain amount of cotton I have heard.
+They had tasks. But we didn't pick cotton. Way back in Georgia that ain't
+no cotton country. Wheat, corn, potatoes, and things like that. But in
+Louisiana and Mississippi, there was plenty of cotton. Arkansas wasn't much
+of a cotton state itself. It was called a 'Hoojer' state when I was a boy.
+That is a reference to the poor white man. He was a 'Hoojer'. He wasn't
+rich enough to own no slaves and they called him a 'Hoojer'.</p>
+
+<p>"The owners would hire them to take care of the niggers and as overseers
+and pateroles. They was hired and paid a little salary jus' like the police
+is now. If we didn't have killing and murderin', there wouldn't be no need
+for the police. The scoundrel who robs and kills folks ought to be highly
+prosecuted.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I was along eight or nine years old when freedom came. My
+oldest brother was twelve, and I was next to him. I must have been eight
+or nine&mdash;or maybe ten.</p>
+
+<p>"My occupation since freedom has been farming and doing a little job
+work&mdash;anything I could git. Work by the day for mechanic and one thing and
+another. I know nothin' about no trade 'ceptin' what I have picked up.
+Never took no contracts 'ceptin' for building a fence or somethin' small
+like that. Mechanic's work I suppose calls for license."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Annie Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">804 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and I was four years old
+when the Civil War closed. My parents died when I was a baby and a white
+lady named Mrs. Mary Peters took me and raised me. They moved from there to
+Champaign, Illinois when I was about six years old. My mother died when I
+was born. Them white people only had two slaves, my mother and my father,
+and my father had run off with the Yankees. Mrs. Peters was their mistress.
+She died when I was eight years old and then I stayed with her sister. That
+was when I was up in Champaign.</p>
+
+<p>"The sister's name was Mrs. Mary Smith. She just taught school here
+and there and around in different places, and I went around with her to take
+care of her children. That kept up until I was twenty years old. All of her
+traveling was in Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't get much schooling. I went to school a while and taken sore
+eyes. The doctor said if I continued to go to school, I would strain my
+eyes. After he told me that I quit. I learned enough to read the Bible and
+the newspaper and a little something like that, but I can't do much. My eyes
+is very weak yet.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was twenty years old I married Henry Johnson, who was from
+Virginia. I met him in Champaign. We stayed in Champaign about two years.
+Then we came on down to St. Louis. He was just traveling 'round looking for
+work and staying wherever there was a job. Didn't have no home nor nothing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+He was a candy maker by trade, but he did anything he could get to do. He's
+been dead for forty years now. He came down here, then went back to Champaign
+and died in Springfield, Illinois while I was here.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't get no pension, don't get nothing. I get along by taking in a
+little washing now and then.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Eliza Johnson and my father's name was Joe Johnson.
+I don't know a thing about none of my grandparents. And I don't know
+what my mother's name was before she married.</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman what worked on the place where I lived said that if you
+didn't have a pass during slave times, that if the pateroles caught you,
+they would whip you and make you run back home. He said he had to run
+through the woods every which way once to keep them from catching him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard the old folks talk about being put on the block. The
+colored woman I lived with in Champaign told me that they put her on the
+block and sold her down into Ripley, Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"She said that the way freedom came was this. The boss man told her
+she was free. Some of the slaves lived with him and some of them picked up
+and went on off somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ku Klux never bothered me. I have heard some of the colored people
+say how they used to come 'round and bother the church services looking for
+this one and that one.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to say about these young folks. I declare, they
+have just gone wild. They are almost getting like brutes. A woman come by
+here the other day without more 'n a spoonful of things on and stopped and
+struck a match and lit her cigarette. You can't talk to them neither. I
+don't know what we ought to do about it. They let these white men run around
+with them. I see 'em doing anything. I think times are bad and getting worse.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+Just as that shooting they had over in North Little Rock." (Shooting and
+robbing of Rev. Sherman, an A. M. E. minister, by Negro robbers.)</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Near Holly Grove and Clarendon, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 73<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My master was Wort Garland. My papa's master was Steve Johnson. Papa
+went off to Louisiana and I never seen him since. I guess he got killed. I
+was born in Madison County, Tennessee. I come to Arkansas 1889. Mother was
+here. She come on a transient ticket. My papa come wid her to Holly Grove.
+They both field hands. I worked on the section&mdash;railroad section. I cut
+and hauled timber and farms. I never own no land, no home. I have two boys
+went off and a grown girl in Phillips County. I don't get no help. I works
+bout all I able and can get to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I have voted. I votes a Republican ticket. I like this President.
+If the men don't know how to vote recken the women will show em how.</p>
+
+<p>"The present conditions is very good. The present generation is beyond
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard my folks set around the fireplace at night and talk about
+olden times but I couldn't tell it straight and I was too little to know
+bout it.</p>
+
+<p>"We looked all year for Christmas to get some good things in our
+stockings. They was knit at night. Now we has oranges and bananas all the
+time, peppermint candy&mdash;in sticks&mdash;best candy I ever et. Folks have more
+now that sort than we had when I was growing up. We was raised on meat and
+corn bread, milk, and garden stuff. Had plenty apples, few peaches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+sorghum molasses, and peanuts. Times is better now than when I come on
+far as money goes. Wood is scarce and folks can't have hogs no more. No
+place to run and feed cost so much. Can't buy it. Feed cost more 'en the
+hog. Times change what makes the folks change so much I recken."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson (deaf),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Clarendon, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 84<br />
+Black<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Steve Johnson was my
+owner. Way he come by me was
+dat he married in the Ward
+family and heired him and my
+mother too. Louis Johnson was
+my father's name. At one time
+Wort Garland owned my mother,
+and she was sold. Her name
+was Mariah.</p>
+
+<p>"My father went to war
+twice. Once he was gone three
+weeks and next time three or
+four months. He come home
+sound. I stayed on Johnson's
+farm till I was a big
+boy."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Betty Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1920 Dennison Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, within a block of the statehouse.
+We were the only colored people in the neighborhood. I am eighty-three
+years old. I was born free. I have never been a slave. I never met any
+slaves when I was small, and never talked to any. I didn't live near them
+and didn't have any contacts with them.</p>
+
+<p>"My father carried my mother to Pennsylvania before I was born and set
+her free. Then he carried her back to Montgomery, Alabama, and all her
+children were born free there.</p>
+
+<p>"We had everything that life needed. He was one of the biggest planters
+around in that part of the country and did the shipping for everybody.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Josephine Hassell. She had nine children. All
+of them are dead except three. One is in Washington, D. C.; another is in
+Chicago, Illinois, and then I am here. One of my brothers was a mail clerk
+for the government for fifty years, and then he went to Washington and
+worked in the dead letter office.</p>
+
+<p>"My father taken my oldest brother just before the Civil War and
+entered him in Yale and he stayed there till he finished. Later he became
+a freight conductor and lost his life when his train was caught in a cyclone.
+That's been years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"My sisters in Washington and Chicago are the only two living besides
+myself. All the others are dead. All of them were government workers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+My sister in Washington has four boys and five girls. My sister in Chicago
+has two children&mdash;one in Detroit and one in Washington. I am the oldest
+living.</p>
+
+<p>"We never had any kind of trouble with white people in slave time,
+and we never had any since. Everybody in town knowed us, and they never
+bothered us. The editor of the paper in Montgomery got up all our history
+and sent the paper to my brother in Washington. If I had saved the paper,
+I would have had it now. I don't know the name of the paper. It was a
+white paper. I can't even remember the name of the editor.</p>
+
+<p>"We were always supported by my father. My mother <span class="u">did</span> [HW: ?] do nothing at
+all except stay home and take care of her children. I had a father that
+cared for us. He didn't leave that part undone. He did his part in every
+respect. He sent every child away to school. He sent two to Talladega,
+one to Yale, three to Fiske, and one to Howard University.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember much about how freedom came to the slaves. You
+see, we didn't live near any of them and would not notice, and I was young
+anyway. All I remember is that when the army came in, everybody had a
+stick with a white handkerchief on it. The white handkerchief represented
+peace. I don't know just how they announced that the slaves were free.</p>
+
+<p>"We lived in as good a house as this one here. It had eight rooms in
+it. I was married sixty years ago. My husband died two years ago. We
+were married fifty-eight years. Were the only colored people here to
+celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. (She is mistaken in this; Waters McIntosh
+has been married for fifty-six years and he and his wife are still
+making it together in an ideal manner&mdash;ed.) I am the mother of eight
+children; three girls are living and two boys. The rest are dead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I married a good man. Guess there was never a better. We lived
+happily together for a long time and he gave me everything I needed. He
+gave me and my children whatever we asked for.</p>
+
+<p>"I was sick for three years. Then my husband took down and was sick
+for seven years before he died.</p>
+
+<p>"I belong to the Holiness Church down on Izard Street, and Brother
+Jeeter is my pastor."</p>
+
+
+<h4>INTERVIEWER'S COMMENT</h4>
+
+<p>Betty Johnson's memory is accurate, and she tells whatever she wishes
+to tell without hesitation and clearly. She leaves out details which she
+does not wish to mention evidently, and there is a reserve in her manner
+which makes questioning beyond a certain point impertinent. However, just
+what she tells presents a picture into which the details may easily be
+fitted.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband is dead, but he was evidently of the same type she is.
+She lives in a beautiful and well kept cottage. Her husband left a
+similar house for each of her three children. The husband, of course, was
+colored. It is equally evident that the father was white.</p>
+
+<p>Although my questions traveled into corners where they evidently did
+not wish to follow, the mother and son, who was from time to time with her,
+answered courteously and showed no irritation.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Cinda Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">506 E. Twenty, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes ma'm, this is Cinda. Yes'm, I remember seein' the soldiers but
+I didn't know what they was doin'. You know old folks didn't talk in
+front of chilluns like they does now&mdash;but I been here. I got great
+grand chillun&mdash;boy big enuf to chop cotton. That's my daughter's
+daughter's chile. Now you <span class="u">know</span> I been here.</p>
+
+<p>"I heered em talkin' bout freedom. My mother emigrated here
+drectly after freedom. I was born in Alabama. When we come here, I
+know I was big enuf to clean house and milk cows. My mother died when
+I was bout fifteen. She called me to the bed and tole me who to stay
+with. I been treated bad, but I'm still here and I thank the Lord He
+let me stay.</p>
+
+<p>"I been married twice. My first husband died, but I didn't have
+no graveyard love. I'm the mother of ten whole chillun. All dead but
+two and only one of them of any service to me. That's my son. He's
+good to me and does what he can but he's got a family. My daughter-in-law&mdash;all
+she does is straighten her hair and look cute.</p>
+
+<p>"One of my sons what died belonged to the Odd Fellows and I
+bought this place with insurance. I lives here alone in peace. Yes,
+honey, I been here a long time."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Ella Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">913-1/2 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: About 85<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Not exactly in the town but in hardly
+not more than three blocks from the town. Have you heard about the Grissoms
+down there? Well, them is my white folks. My maiden name was Burke.
+But we never called ourselves any name 'cept Grissom.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Sylvia Grissom. Her husband was named Jack
+Burkes. He went to the Civil War. That was a long time ago. When they got
+up the war, they sold out a lot of the colored folks. But they didn't get
+a chance to sell my mother. She left. They tell me one of them Grissom
+boys has been down here looking for me. He didn't find me and he went on
+back.</p>
+
+<p>My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was
+named after the white folks. All the old folks is dead, but the young ones
+is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many of
+them that I forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children named
+after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.</p>
+
+<p>"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena and
+came here. She run off from the Grissoms. They whipped her too much, those
+white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. She took all of us with
+her. All six of us children were born before the war. I was the fourth.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a place down here where the white folks used to whip
+and hang the niggers. Baskin Lake they call it. Mother got that far.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+I don't know how. I think that she came in a wagon. She stayed there a
+little while and then she went to Churchill's place. Churchill's place and
+John Addison's place is close together down there. That is old time. Them
+folks is dead, dead, dead. Churchill's and Addison's places joined near
+Horse Shoe Lake. They had hung and burnt people&mdash;killed 'em and destroyed
+'em at Baskin Lake. We stayed there about four days before we went on to
+Churchill's place. We couldn't stay there long.</p>
+
+<p>"The ha'nts&mdash;the spirits&mdash;bothered us so we couldn't sleep. All them
+people that had been killed there used to come back. We could hear them
+tipping 'round in the house all the night long. They would blow out the
+light. You would kiver up and they would git on top of the kiver. Mama
+couldn't stand it; so she come down to General Churchill's place and made
+arrangements to stay there. Then she came back and got us children. She
+had an old man to stay there with us until she come back and got us. We
+couldn't stay there with them ha'nts dancing 'round and carryin' us a merry
+gait.</p>
+
+<p>"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know
+what they give her for the work, but I know they paid her. She was a
+hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee. He
+went off and left the plantation in the hands of his oldest son. His son
+was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the first war ever got
+up&mdash;the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long enough to make two or three
+crops. I don't know just how long. Churchill and them wanted to own her&mdash;them
+and John Addison.</p>
+
+<p>"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field.
+Three&mdash;I made four. There was my oldest sister, my brother, and my
+next to my oldest sister, and myself&mdash;Annie, John, Martha, and me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+I chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my
+company walked out ahead. I was young then, but my company helped me pick
+that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res' of them
+could pick anything for looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died
+before the war was over. They paid my mother some money and said she would
+get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it? But they
+didn't no more come. They all died and none of them got the balance. I
+ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to Adams and Singfield. I
+give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged Wash Jordan sent to me.
+They all say he's a big crook, but I didn't know it. Adams kept coming to
+my house until he got my papers and then when he got the papers he didn't
+come no more.</p>
+
+<p>"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's.
+He said I had to be sworn in and it would cost me one dollar. Singfield
+wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he got through
+writing, he said that was all and me and Pearl made up one dollar between us
+and give it to him. And then we come on away. We left Mr. Adams and Mr.
+Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the papers there in the office
+with them. They didn't give me no receipt for the papers and they didn't
+give me no receipt for the dollar. Singfield's wife has been to see me
+several times to sell me something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave,
+but she ain't never said nothin' about those papers. You think she doesn't
+know 'bout 'em? I have seen Adams once down to Jim Perry's funeral on Arch
+Street. I asked him about my papers and he said the Government hadn't
+answered him. He said, 'Who is you?' I said, 'This is Mrs. Johnson.' Then
+he went on out. He told me when he got a answer, it will come right to my door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I never did no work before goin' on Churchill's plantation. Some of
+the oldest ones did, but I didn't. I learned how to plow at John Addison's
+place. The war was goin' on then. I milked cows for him and churned and
+cleaned up. I cooked some for him. Are you acquainted with Blass? I nursed
+Julian Blass. I didn't nurse him on Addison's place; I nursed him at his
+father's house up on Main Street, after I come here. I nursed him and Essie
+both. I nursed her too. I used to have a time with them chillen. They
+weren't nothin' but babies. The gal was about three months old and Julian
+was walkin' 'round. That was after I come to Little Rock.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother come to Little Rock right after the war. She brought all
+of us with her but the oldest. He come later.</p>
+
+<p>"She want to work and cooked and washed and ironed here. I don't
+remember the names of the people she worked for. They all dead&mdash;the old man
+and the old ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"She sent me to school. I went to school at Philander [HW: (Philander Smith College?)] and down to the
+end of town and in the country. We had a white man first and then we had
+a colored woman teacher. The white man was rough. He would fight all the
+time. I would read and spell without opening my book. They would have them
+blue-back spellers and McGuffy's reader. They got more education then than
+they do now. Now they is busy fighting one another and killin' one another.
+When you see anything in the paper, you don't know whether it is true or
+not. Florence Lacy's sister was one of my teachers. I went to Union school
+once. [HW: &mdash;&mdash; insert from P.&nbsp;5]</p>
+
+<p>"You remember Reuben White? They tried to bury him and he came to
+before they got him in the grave. He used to own the First Baptist Church.
+He used to pastor it too. He sent for J. P. Robinson by me. He told
+Robinson he wanted him to take the Church and keep it as long as he lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+Robinson said he would keep it. Reuben White went to his brother's and
+died. They brought him back here and kept his body in the First Baptist
+Church a whole week. J. P. carried on the meetin', and them sisters was
+fightin' him. They went on terrible. He started out of the church and me
+and 'nother woman stopped him. At last they voted twice, and finally they
+elected J. P. He was a good pastor, but he hurrahed the people and they
+didn't like that.</p>
+
+<p>"Reuben White didn't come back when they buried him the second time.
+They were letting the coffin down in the grave when they buried him the
+first time, and he knocked at it on the inside, knock, knock. (Here the old
+lady rapped on the doorsill with her knuckles&mdash;ed.) They drew that coffin
+up and opened it. How do I know? I was there. I heard it and seen it.
+They took him out of the coffin and carried him back to his home in the
+ambulance. He lived about three or four years after that.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a member to die in my order and they sent for the undertaker and
+he found that she wasn't dead. They took her down to the undertaker's shop,
+and found that she wasn't dead. They said she died after they embalmed her.
+That lodge work ran my nerves down. I was in the Tabernacle then. Goodrich
+and Dubisson was the undertakers that had the body. Lucy Tucker was the
+woman. I guess she died when they got her to the shop. They say the undertaker
+cut on her before he found that she was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how many grades I finished in school. I guess it was
+about three altogether. I had to git up and go to work then.
+[TR: This paragraph was marked with a line on the right; possibly
+it is the paragraph to be inserted on the previous page.]</p>
+
+<p>"After I quit school, I nursed mighty nigh all the time. I cooked for
+Governor Rector part of the time. I cooked for Dr. Lincoln Woodruff. I
+cooked for a whole lot of white folks. I washed and ironed for them
+Anthonys down here. She like to had a fit over me the last time she saw me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+She wanted me to come back, but my hand couldn't stand it. I cooked for
+Governor Rose's wife. That's been a long time back. I wouldn't 'low
+nobody to come in the kitchen when I was working. I would say, 'You goin'
+to come in this kitchen, I'll have to git out.' The Governor was awful good
+to me. They say he kicked the res' of them out. I scalded his little grandson
+once. I picked up the teakettle. Didn't know it had water in it and it
+slipped and splashed water over the little boy's hand. If'n it had been hot
+as it ought to have been, it would have burnt him bad. He went out of that
+kitchen hollerin'. The Governor didn't say nothin' 'cept, 'Ella, please
+don't do it again.' I said, 'I guess that'll teach him to stay out of that
+kitchen now.' I was boss of that kitchen when I worked there.</p>
+
+<p>"We took the lock off the door once so the Governor couldn't git in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I dressed up and come out once and somebody called the Governor and
+said, 'Look at your cook.' And he said, 'That ain't my cook.' That was
+Governor Rector. I went in and put on my rags and come in the kitchen to
+cook and he said, 'That is my cook.' He sure wanted me to keep on cookin'
+for him, but I just got sick and couldn't stay.</p>
+
+<p>"I hurt my hand over three years ago. My arm swelled and folks rubbed
+it and got all the swelling down in one place in my hand. They told me to
+put fat meat on it. I put it on and the meat hurt so I had to take it off.
+Then they said put the white of an egg on it. I did that too and it was a
+little better. Then they rubbed the place until it busted. But it never
+did cure up. I poisoned it by goin' out pulling up greens in the garden.
+They tell me I got dew poisoning.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't git no help from the Welfare or from the Government. My
+husband works on the relief sometimes. He's on the relief now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I married&mdash;oh, Lordy, lemme see when I did marry. It's been a long
+time ago, more 'n thirty years it's been. It's been longer than that. We
+married up here on Twelfth and State Street, right here in Little Rock. I
+had a big wedding. I had to go to Thompson's hall. That was on Tenth and
+State Street. They had to go to git all them people in. They had a big
+time that night.</p>
+
+<p>"I lived in J. P. Robinson's house twenty-two years. And then I lived
+in front of Dunbar School. It wasn't Dunbar then. I know all the people
+that worked at the school. I been living here about six months."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>Ella Johnson is about eighty-five years old. Her father went to war
+when the War first broke out. Her mother ran away then and went to
+Churchill's farm not later than 1862. Ella Johnson learned to plow then and
+she was at least nine years old she says and perhaps older when she learned
+to plow. So she must be at least eighty-five.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins<br />
+Person interviewed: Fanny Johnson<br />
+Aged: 76<br />
+Home: Palmetto (lives with daughter who owns<br />
+a comfortable, well furnished home)<br /><br />
+As told by: Mrs. Fanny Johnson
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes ma'am. I remembers the days of slavery.
+I was turned five years old when the war started
+rushing. No ma'am, I didn't see much of the Yankees.
+They didn't come thru but twice. Was I afraid? No
+ma'am. I was too busy to be scared. I was too busy
+looking at the buttons they wore. Until they went in
+Master's smoke house. Then I quit looking and started
+hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.</p>
+
+<p>My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold
+to a man named Woodfork and brought to Nashville. The
+Woodfork colored folks was always treated good. Master
+used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he bought one
+in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't
+believe in separating families. He didn't believe in
+dividing mother from her baby.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But they did take them away from their babies.
+I remember my grandmother telling about it. The wagon would
+drive down into the field and pick up a woman. Then somebody
+would meet her at the gate and she would nurse her baby
+for the last time. Then she'd have to go on. Leastwise,
+if they hadn't sold her baby too.</p>
+
+<p>It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge
+against anybody. White or black, there's good folks in all
+kinds. I don't hold nothing against nobody. The good Lord
+knows what he is about. Most of the time it was just fine
+on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he couldn't
+be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the
+Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master
+was up at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the
+overseers was good to us.</p>
+
+<p>But it wasn't that way on all the plantations.
+On the next one they was mean. Why you could hear the sound
+of the strap for two blocks. No there wasn't any blocks.
+But you could hear it that far. The "niggah drivah" would
+stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would
+stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some
+they whipped so hard they had to carry them in. Just once
+did anybody on the Woodfork place get whipped that way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We never knew quite what happened. But my
+grandmother thought that the colored man what took down
+the ages of the children so they'd know when to send them
+to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else couldn't
+have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said,
+'I bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And
+the overseer didn't dare do so any more.</p>
+
+<p>No ma'am, I never worked in the field. I wasn't
+old enough. You see I helped my grandmother, she is the
+one who took care of the babies. All the women from the
+lower end would bring their babies to the upper end for her
+to look after while they was in the field. When I got old
+enough, I used to help rock the cradles. We used to have
+lots of babies to tend. The women used to slip in and nurse
+their babies. If the overseer thought they stayed too long
+he used to come in and whip them out&mdash;out to the fields.
+But they was good to us, just the same. We had plenty to
+wear and lots to eat and good cabins to live in. All of them
+wasn't that way though.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the women on the next plantation
+used to slip over and get somthing to eat from us. The Woodfork
+colored folks was always well took care of. Our white folks
+was good to us. During the week there was somebody to cook for
+us. On Sunday all of them cooked in their cabins and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even when they
+was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough to
+eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our
+place. The Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for
+food. Our white folks treated us real good.</p>
+
+<p>Didn't make much difference when the war started
+rushing. We didn't see any fighting. I told you the
+Yankees come thru twice&mdash;&mdash;let me go back a spell.</p>
+
+<p>We had lots of barrels of Louisiana molasses. We
+could eat all we wanted. When the barrels was empty, we
+children was let scrape them. Lawsey, I used to get inside
+the barrel and scrape and scrape and scrape until there
+wasn't any sweetness left.</p>
+
+<p>We was allowed to do all sorts of other things too.
+Like there was lots of pecans down in the swamps. The boys,
+and girls too for that matter, was allowed to pick them and
+sell them to the river boats what come along. The men was
+let cut cord wood and sell it to the boats. Flat boats they
+was. There was regular stores on them. You could buy gloves
+and hats and lots of things. They would burn the wood on the
+boat and carry the nuts up North to sell. But me, I liked
+the sugar barrel best.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the Yankees come thru, I wasn't scared.
+I was too busy looking at the bright buttons on their
+coats. I edged closer and closer. All they did was
+laugh. But I kept looking at them. Until they went
+into the smoke house. Then I turned loose and hollered.
+I hollored because I thought they was going to take
+all Master's sirup. I didn't want that to happen. No
+ma'am they didn't take nothing. Neither time they came.</p>
+
+<p>After the war was over they took us down the
+river to The Bend. It was near Vicksburg&mdash;&mdash;an all day's
+ride. There they put us on a plantation and took care of
+us. It was the most beautifulest place I ever see. All
+the cabins was whitewashed good. The trees was big and
+the whole place was just lovely. It was old man Jeff
+Davis' place.</p>
+
+<p>They fed us good, gave us lots to eat. They
+sent up north, the Yankees did, and got a young white
+lady to come down and teach us. I didn't learn nothing.
+They had our school near what was the grave yard. I
+didn't learn cause I was too busy looking around at the
+tombstones. They was beautiful. They looked just like
+folks to me. Looks like I ought have learned. They was
+mighty good to send somebody down to learn us that way.
+I ought have learned, it looks ungrateful, but I didn't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My mother died on that place. It was a
+mighty nice place. Later on we come to Arkansas.
+We farmed. Looked like it was all we knowed how to
+do. We worked at lots of places. One time we worked
+for a man named Thomas E. Allen. He was at Rob Roy
+on the Arkansas near Pine Bluff. Then we worked for
+a man named Kimbroo. He had a big plantation in
+Jefferson county. For forty years we worked first one
+place, then another.</p>
+
+<p>After that I went out to Oklahoma. I went
+as a cook. Then I got the idea of following the resort
+towns about. In the summer I'd to [TR: go?] to Eureka.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> In the
+winter I'd come down to Hot Springs.<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> That was the way
+to make the best money. Folks what had money moved about
+like that. I done cooking at other resorts too. I
+cooked at the hotel at Winslow.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> I done that several
+summers.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow I always come back to Hot Springs.
+Good people in Eureka. Finest man I ever worked for&mdash;for
+a rich man was Mr. Rigley, [TR: Wrigley] you know. He was the man who
+made chewing gum. We didn't have no gas in Eureka. Had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+to cook by wood. I remember lots of times Mr. Wrigley
+would come out in the yard where I was splitting kindling.
+He'd laugh and he'd take the ax away from me and split it
+hisself. Finest man&mdash;&mdash;for a rich man I ever see.</p>
+
+<p>Cooking at the hotel at Winslow was nice. There
+was lots of fine ladies what wanted to take me home with
+them when they went home. But I told them, 'No thank you,
+Hot Springs is my home. I'm going there this winter.'</p>
+
+<p>I'm getting sort of old now. My feet ain't so
+sure as they used to be. But I can get about. I can
+get around to cook and I can still see to thread a
+needle. My daughter has a good home for me." (I was
+conducted into a large living room, comfortably furnished
+and with a degree of taste&mdash;caught glimpses of a
+well furnished dining room and a kitchen equipment which
+appeared thoroughly modern&mdash;Interviewer)</p>
+
+<p>"People in Hot Springs is good people. They
+seem sort of friendly. Folks in Eureka did too, even more
+so. But maybe it was cause I was younger then and got
+to see more of them. But the Lord has blessed me with a
+good daughter. I got nothing to complain about, I don't
+hold grudges against nobody. The good Lord knows what he
+is doing."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Eureka Springs, Ark.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Hot Springs National Park</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> rustic hotel on mountain near village of Winslow, Ark.</p>
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: George Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">814 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 75<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Richmond, Virginia, September 28, 1862, and came to
+this country in 1869. My father was named Benjamin Johnson and my mother
+was named Phoebe Johnson. I don't know the names of my grandmother and
+grandfather. My father's master was named Johnson; I forget his first
+name. He was a doctor and lived on Charleston and Morgan Streets. I don't
+know what my mother's name was before she married my father. And I don't
+know what her master's name was. She died when I was just three years old.</p>
+
+<p>"The way my father happened to bring me out here was, Burton Tyrus
+came out here in Richmond stump speaking and telling the people that money
+grew like apples on a tree in Arkansas. They got five or six boat loads of
+Negroes to come out here with them. Father went to share cropping on the
+Red River Bottom on the Chickaninny Farm. He put in his crop, but by the
+time he got ready to gather it, he taken sick and died. He couldn't stand
+this climate.</p>
+
+<p>"Then me and my sisters was supposed to be bound out to Henry Moore
+and his wife. I stayed with them about six years and then I ran off. And
+I been scouting 'round for myself ever since.</p>
+
+<p>"My occupation has been chiefly public work. My first work was rail
+roading and steam boating. I was on the Iron Mountain when she was burning
+wood. That was about fifty some years ago. After that I worked
+on the steamboats <span class="u">Natchez</span> and <span class="u">Jim Lee</span>. I worked on them as roustabout.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+After that I would just commence working everywhere I could get it. I came
+here about forty-five years ago because I liked the city. I was in and out
+of the city but made this place my headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not able to do any work now. I put in for the Old Age Pension
+two years ago. They told me I would have to prove my age but I couldn't do
+it any way except to produce my marriage license. I produced them. I got
+the license right out of this county courthouse here. I was married the
+last time in 1907 and was forty-five years old then. That will make me
+seventy-six years old this year&mdash;the twenty-eighth day of this coming
+September. My wife died nine years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard my father talking a little but old folks then didn't
+allow the young ones to hear much. My daddy sent me to bed at night. When
+night came you went to bed; you didn't hang around waiting to hear what the
+old folks would say.</p>
+
+<p>"My daddy got his leg shot in the Civil War. He said he was in that
+battle there in Richmond. I don't know which side he was on, but I know he
+got his leg shot off. He was one-legged. He never did get any pension. I
+don't know even whether he was really enlisted or not. All I know is that
+he got his leg shot off in the war.</p>
+
+<p>"When the war ended in 1865, the slaves around Richmond were freed. I
+never heard my father give the details of how he got his freedom. I was
+too young to remember them myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how many slaves Dr. Johnson had but I know it was a good
+many, for he was a tobacco raiser. I don't remember what kind of houses
+his slaves lived in. [And I never heard the kind of food we et.] [HW: ?]</p>
+
+<p>"I never heered tell of patrols till I came to Arkansas. I never
+heered much of the Ku Klux either. I guess that was all the same, wasn't it?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+Peace wasn't declared here till 1866. I never heered of any of my
+acquaintances being bothered but I heered the colored people was scared.
+All I know was that you had to come in early. Didn't, they get you.</p>
+
+<p>"What little schooling I got, I got it by going to night school here.
+That is been a good many years back&mdash;forty years back. I forgot now who
+was teaching night school. It was some kin of Ishes out here I know.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Opinions</h4>
+
+<p>"I think times is tight now. Tighter than I ever knowed 'em to be
+before. Quite a change in this world now. There is not enough work now
+for the people and from what I can see, electricity has knocked the laboring
+man out. It has cut the mules and the men out.</p>
+
+<p>"My opinion of these young people is that they got all the education
+in the world and no business qualifications. They are too fast for any
+use."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: John Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">R.F.D., Clarendon, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 73<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born sixteen miles on the other side of Jackson, Tennessee.
+The old mistress was Miss Sally, and old master was Mr. Steve Johnson,
+same name as mine. My papa's name was Louis Johnson but my mama
+belonged to the Conleys and befo' she married papa her name was Martha
+Conley. My folks fur as I knowed was field hands. They stayed on at
+Johnsons and worked a long time after freedom. I was born just befo'
+freedom. From what I heard all of my folks talkin' the Ku Klux 'fected
+the colored folks right smart, more than the war. Seemed 'bout like
+two wars and both of 'em tried their best to draw in the black race.
+The black race wanted peace all the time. It was Abraham Lincoln whut
+wanted to free the black race. He was the President. The first war
+was 'bout freedom and the war right after it was equalization. The Ku
+Klux muster won it cause they didn't want the colored folks have as
+much as they have. I heard my folks say they knowed some of the Ku
+Klux. They would get killed sometimes and then you hear 'bout it.
+They would be nice as pie in day time and then dress up at night and
+be mean as they could be. They wanted the colored folks think they
+was hants and monsters from the bad place. All the Yankees whut wanted
+to stay after they quit fighting, they run 'em out wid hounds at night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+The Ku Klux was awful mean I heard 'em say. Mr. Steve Johnson looked
+after all his hands. All that stayed on to work for him. He told 'em
+long as they stayed home at night and behave 'em selves they needn't
+be scared. They wanter go out at night they had to have him write 'em
+a pass. Jess like slavery an' they were free.</p>
+
+<p>"The master didn't give 'em nuthin'. He let 'em live in his
+houses&mdash;log houses, and he had 'em fed from the store stead of the
+smoke house. He give 'em a little money in the fall to pay 'em. 'Bout
+all the difference they didn't get beat up. If they didn't work he would
+make 'em leave his place.</p>
+
+<p>"That period&mdash;after the Civil War, it sure was hard. It was a
+<span class="u">de</span>'pression I'll tell you. I never seed a dollar till I was 'bout
+grown. They called 'em 'wagon wheels.' They was mighty scarce. Great
+big heavy pieces of silver. I ain't seed one fer years. But they used
+to be some money.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady, whut you wanter know was fo my days, fo I was born. My
+folks could answered all dem questions. There was 4 girls and 6 boys
+in my family.</p>
+
+<p>"Course I did vote. I used to have a heap a fun on election day.
+They give you a drink. It was plentiful I tell you. I never did drink
+much. I voted Republican ticket. I know it would sho be too bad if
+the white folks didn't hunt good canidates. The colored race got too
+fur behind to be able to run our govmint. Course I mean education.
+When they git educated they ain't studyin' nuthin' but spendin' all they
+make and havin' a spreein' time. Lady, that is yo job. The young generation
+ain't carin' 'bout no govinment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The present conditions&mdash;that's whut I been tellin' you 'bout.
+It is hard to get work heap of the time. When the white man got money
+he sure give the colored man and woman work to do. The white man whut
+live 'mong us is our best friend. He stand by our color the best. It
+is a heap my age, I reckon, I can't keep in work. Young folks can pick
+up work nearly all time.</p>
+
+<p>"I started to pay fer my home when I worked at the mill. I used to
+work at a shoe and shettle mill. I got holt of a little cash. I still
+tryin' to pay fer my home. I will make 'bout two bales cotton this
+year. Yes maam they is my own. I got a hog. I got a garden. I ain't
+got no cow.</p>
+
+<p>"No maam I don't get no 'sistance from the govmint. No commodities&mdash;no
+nuthin'. I signed up but they ain't give me nuthin'. I think I
+am due it. I am gettin' so no account I needs it. Lady, I never do
+waste no money. I went to the show ground and I seed 'em buyin' goobers
+and popcorn. I seed a whole drove of colored folks pushin' and scrouging
+in there so feared they wouldn't get the best seat an' miss somepin. Heap
+of poor white people scrouging in there too all together. They need their
+money to live on fo cold weather come. Ain't I tellin' you right? I sho
+never moved outer my tracks. I never been to a show in my life. Them
+folks come in here wid music and big tent every year. I never been to a
+show in my life. That what they come here fur, to get the cotton pickin'
+money. Lady, they get a pile of money fore they leave. Course folks
+needs it now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When I had my mules and rented I made most and next to that when
+I farmed for a fourth. When I was young I made plenty. I know how
+cotton an' corn is made now but I ain't able to do much work, much hard
+work. The Bible say twice a child and once a man. My manhood is gone
+fur as work concerned.</p>
+
+<p>"I like mighty well if you govmint folks could give me a little
+'sistance. I need it pretty bad at times and can't get a bit."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Letha Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">2203 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 77<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I heered the people say I was born in time of slavery. I was born
+durin' of the War.</p>
+
+<p>"And when we went back home they said we had been freed four years.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's last owner was named Crawford. He was a awful large man.
+That was in Monroe County, Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they was good to us 'cause we stayed right there after freedom
+till my father died in 1889. And mama stayed a year or two, then she come to
+Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p>"After my husband died in 1919, I went to Memphis. Then this girl I
+raised&mdash;her mother willed her to me&mdash;I come here to Arkansas to live with
+her after I got down with the rheumatism so I couldn't wash and iron.</p>
+
+<p>"In my husband's lifetime I didn't do nothin' but farm. And after I
+went to Memphis I cooked. Then I worked for a Italian lady, but she did
+her own cookin'. And oh, I thought she could make the best spaghetti.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to spin and make soap. My last husband and I was married
+fifteen years and eight months and we never did buy a bar of soap. I used
+to be a good soap maker. And knit all my own socks and stockin's.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to go to a school-teacher named Thomas Jordan. I remember he
+used to have us sing a song</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I am a happy bluebird<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sober as you see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pure cold water<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the drink for me.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span><br />
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I'll take a drink here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And take a drink there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make the woods ring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With my temperance prayer.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We'd all sing it; that was our school song. I believe that's the onliest
+one I can remember.</p>
+
+<p>"'Bout this younger generation&mdash;well, I tell you, it's hard for me to
+say. It just puts me to a wonder. They gone a way back there. Seem like
+they don't have any 'gard for anything.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard 'em 'fore I left Mississippi singin'</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Everybody's doin' it, doin' it.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"'Co'se when I was young they was a few that was wild, but seem like
+now they is all wild. But I feels sorry for 'em."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Lewis Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">713 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 87<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I'll be eighty-seven the eighteenth of this month if I live.</p>
+
+<p>"They's a heap of things the human family calls luck. I count myself
+lucky to be livin' as old as I is.</p>
+
+<p>"Some says it is a good deed I've done but I says it's the power of God.</p>
+
+<p>"I never had but two spells of sickness when I was spectin' to die.
+Once was in Mississippi. I had a congestis chill. I lay speechless twenty-four
+hours and when I come to myself they had five doctors in the house with
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"But my time hadn't come and I'm yet livin' by the help of the good
+Master.</p>
+
+<p>"I stole off when I was eighteen and got my first marriage license.
+They was a white fellow was a justice of the peace and he took advantage of
+my father and he stood for me 'cause he wanted me to work on his place. In
+them days they'd do most anything to gain labor.</p>
+
+<p>"When they was emigratin' 'em from Georgia to these countries, they
+told 'em they was hogs runnin' around already barbecued with a knife and
+fork in their back. Told 'em the cotton growed so tall you had to put
+little chaps up the stalk to get the top bolls.</p>
+
+<p>"But they tole some things was true. Said in Mississippi the cotton
+growed so tall and spread so it took two to pick a row, and I found that
+true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old master always fed his hands good so they could meet the demands
+when he called on 'em. He worked 'em close but he fed 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"He raised wheat, corn, peas, rye, and oats, and all such like that. Oh,
+he was a round farmer all right. And he raised feed for his stock too.</p>
+
+<p>"My old boss used to raise sweet potatoes enough to last three years.</p>
+
+<p>"The people of the South was carried through that sweat of freedom.
+They was compelled to raise cotton and not raise much to eat. They told 'em
+they could buy it cheaper than raise it, but it was a mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to have a wood yard on the Mississippi and when the steamers
+come down the river, I used to go aboard and quiz the people from the North.
+Heap of 'em would get chips of different woods and put it away to carry home
+to show. And they'd take cotton bolls and some limbs to show the people at
+home how cotton grows.</p>
+
+<p>"To my idea, the North is wiser than the South. My idea of the North
+is they is more samissive to higher trades&mdash;buildin' wagons and buggies, etc.</p>
+
+<p>"Years ago they wasn't even a factory here to make cloth. Had to send
+the cotton to the North and then order the cloth from the North, and time
+they got it the North had all the money.</p>
+
+<p>"In the old days they was only two countries they could depend on to
+raise tobacco and that was Virginia and South Carolina.</p>
+
+<p>"I can remember a right smart before the War started. Now I can set
+down and think of every horse's name my old boss had. He had four he kept
+for Sunday business. Had Prince, Bill, Snap, and Puss. And every Saturday
+evening he had the boys take 'em in the mill pond and wash 'em off&mdash;fix 'em
+up for Sunday."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Johnson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Biscoe, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 65<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born at Holly Springs, Mississippi. My mother was fifteen
+years old when the surrender come on. Her name was Alice Airs. Mama said
+she and grandma was sold in the neighborhood and never seen none of her
+folks after they was sold. The surrender come on. They quit and went on
+with some other folks that come by. Mama got away from them and married
+the second year of the surrender. She said she really got married; she
+didn't jump the broom. Mama was a cook in war times. Grandma churned and
+worked in the field. Grandma lived in to herself but mama slept on the
+kitchen floor. They had a big pantry built inside the kitchen and in both
+doors was a sawed-out place so the cats could come and go.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was sold during of the War too but he never said much
+about it. He said some of the slaves would go in the woods and the
+masters would be afraid to go hunt them out without dogs. They made bows
+and arrows in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard my parents tell about the Ku Klux come and made them cook
+them something to eat. They drunk water while she was cooking. I heard
+them say they would get whooped if they sot around with a book in their
+hand. When company would come they would turn the pot down and close the
+shutters and doors. They had preaching and prayed that way. The pot was
+to drown out the sound.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They said one man would sell off his scrawny niggers. He wanted
+fine looking stock on his place. He couldn't sell real old folks. They
+kept them taking care of the children and raising chickens, turkeys,
+ducks, geese, and made some of them churn and milk.</p>
+
+<p>"My stepfather said he knowed a man married a woman after freedom and
+found out she was his mother. He had been sold from her when he was a
+baby. They quit and he married ag'in. He had a scar on his thigh she
+recollected. The scar was right there when he was grown. That brought up
+more talk and they traced him up to be her own boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hester Swafford died here in Biscoe about seven years ago. Said she
+run away from her owners and walked to Memphis. They took her up over
+there. Her master sent one of the overseers for her. She rode astraddle
+behind him back. They got back about daylight. They whooped her awful
+and rubbed salt and pepper in the gashes, and another man stood by handed
+her a hoe. She had to chop cotton all day long. The women on the place
+would doctor her sores.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandma said she remembered the stars falling. She said it turned
+dark and seem like two hours sparkles fell. They said stars fell. She
+said it was bad times. People was scared half to death. Mules and horses
+just raced. She said it took place up in the day. They didn't have time-pieces
+to know the time it come on.</p>
+
+<p>"Young folks will be young the way I see it. They ain't much
+different. Times is sure 'nough hard for old no 'count folks. Young
+folks makes their money and spends it. We old folks sets back needing.
+Times is lots different now. It didn't used to be that way."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Louis Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">721 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 86<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My father said I was fifteen when peace was declared. In slavery days
+they didn't low colored folks to keep their ages and didn't low em to be
+educated. I was born in Georgia. I went to a little night school but I
+never learned to read. I never learned to write my own name.</p>
+
+<p>"I never did see no fightin' a tall but I saw em refugeein' goin'
+through our country night and day. Said they was goin' to the Blue Ridge
+Mountains to pitch battle. They was Rebels gettin' out of the way of the
+Yankees.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master was a pretty tough old fellow. He had work done aplenty.
+He had a right smart of servants. I wasn't old enough to take a record of
+things and they didn't low grown folks to ask too many questions.</p>
+
+<p>"I can sit and study how the rich used to do. They had poor white
+folks planted off in the field to raise hounds to run the colored folks.
+Colored folks used to run off and stay in the woods. They'd kill old
+master's hogs and eat em. I've known em to stay six months at a time.
+I've seen the hounds goin' behind niggers in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"We had as good a time as we expected. My old master fed and
+clothed very well but we had to keep on the go. Some masters was good
+to em. Yes, madam, I'd ruther be in times like now than slavery. I
+like it better now&mdash;I like my liberty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"In slavery days they made you pray that old master and mistress would
+hold their range forever.</p>
+
+<p>"My old master was Bob Johnson. He lived in Muskoge County where I
+was born. Then he moved to Harris County and that's where the war ketched
+him. He become to be a widower there.</p>
+
+<p>"I member when the Yankees come and took old master's horses and mules.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a young boss that went to the war and come home with the
+rheumatism. He was walkin' on crutches and I know they sent him to a
+refugee camp to see to things and when he come back he didn't have no
+crutches. I guess the Yankees got em.</p>
+
+<p>"Childern travels now from one seaport to another but in them days
+they kept the young folks confined. I got along all right 'cept I didn't
+have no liberty.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it was in June when they read the freedom papers. They
+told us we was free but we could stay if we wanted to. My father left Bob
+Johnson's and went to work for his son-in-law. I was subject to him cause
+I was a minor, so I went with him. Before freedom, I chopped cotton, hoed
+corn and drapped peas, but now I was big enough to follow the plows. I
+was a cowboy too. I tended to the cows. Since I've been grown I been a
+farmer&mdash;always was a farmer. I never would live in town till I got disabled
+for farming.</p>
+
+<p>"After we was free we was treated better. They didn't lash us then.
+We was turned loose with the white folks to work on the shares. We always
+got our share. They was more liberal along that line than they is now.</p>
+
+<p>"After I come to this country of Arkansas I bought several places but I
+failed to pay for them and lost them. Now my wife and me are livin' on my
+daughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I been married three times. I married 'fore I left Georgia but me
+and her couldn't get along. Then I married in Mississippi and I brought
+her to Arkansas. She died and now I been married to this woman fifty-three
+years.</p>
+
+<p>"I been belongin' to the church over forty years. I have to belong to
+the church to give thanks for my chance here now. I think the people is
+gettin' weaker and wiser."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Mag Johnson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Clarendon, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 65 or 70?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Pa was born in North Ca'lina. Ma was born in Virginia. Their names
+George and Liza Fowler.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma's fust owner what I heard her tell 'bout was Master Ed McGehee in
+Virginia. He's the one what brung her in a crowd of nigger traders to
+Somerville, Tennessee. The way it was, a cavalry of Yankees got in back of
+them. The nigger trader gang drive up. They got separated. My ma and her
+gang hid in a cave two weeks an' not much to eat. The Yankees overtook 'em
+hid in the cave and passed on. Ma say one day the nigger traders drive up
+in front McGehee's yard and they main heads and Master Ed had a chat. They
+hung around till he got ready and took off a gang of his own slaves wid him.
+They knowed he was after selling them off when he left wid 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Ben Trotter in Tennessee bought ma and three more nigger girls. The
+Yankees took and took from 'em. They freed a long time b'fore she knowed
+of. She said they would git biscuits on Sunday around. Whoop 'em if one
+be gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Ole miss went out to the cow pen an' ma jus' a gal like stole outen
+a piece er pie and a biscuit and et it. The cook out the cow pen too but
+the three gals was doing about in the house and yard. Ma shut polly up in
+the shed room. Then she let it out when she et up the pie and biscuit.
+Ole miss come in. Polly say, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me up.' She
+missed the pie. Called all four the girls and ma said, 'I done et it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+I was so hungry.' Ole miss said that what polly talking 'bout, but she
+didn't understand the bird so very well. Ole miss say, 'I'm goiner tell
+Ben and have him whoop you.' That scared all four the girls case he did
+whoop her which he seldom done. She say when Master Ben come they stood
+by the door in a 'joining room. Ma say 'fore God ole miss tole him. Master
+Ben sont 'em out to pick up apples. He had a pie a piece cooked next day
+and a pan of hot biscuits and brown gravy, tole 'em to fill up. He tole
+'em he knowed they got tired of corn batter cakes, milk and molasses but
+it was best he had to give them till the War was done.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma said her job got to be milking, raising and feeding the fowls,
+chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, and turkeys all. The Yankees discouraged
+her. They come so many times till they cleaned 'em out she said.</p>
+
+<p>"What they done to shut up polly's mouf was sure funny. He kept on
+next morning saying, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me up.' Liza pulled up her
+dress and underskirt and walked back'ards, bent down at him. He got scared.
+He screamed and then he hollered 'Ball-head and no eyes' all that day.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma said they had corn shuckings and corn shellings and brush burnings.
+Had music and square dancing plenty times.</p>
+
+<p>"When they got free they didn't know what it was nor what in the world
+to do with it. What they said 'minds me of folks now what got education.
+Seems like they don't know what to do nor where to put it.</p>
+
+<p>"Pa said the nigger men run off to get a rest. They'd take to the
+woods and canebrakes. Once four of the best nigger fellars on their
+master's place took to the woods for to git a little rest. The master
+and paddyrolls took after 'em. They'd been down in there long 'nough
+they'd spotted a hollow cypress with a long snag of a limb up on it. It
+was in the water. They got them some vines and fixed up on the snag.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+They heard the dogs and the horn. They started down in the hollow cypress.
+One went down, the others coming on. He started hollering. But he thought
+a big snake in there. He brought up a cub on his nearly bare foot. They
+clem out and went from limb to limb till they got so away the dogs would
+loose trail. They seen the mama bear come and nap four her cubs to another
+place. His foot swole up so. They had to tote my pa about. Next day the
+dogs bayed them up in the trees. Master took them home, doctored his foot.
+Ast 'em why they runed off and so much to be doing. They tole 'em they
+taking a little rest. He whooped them every one.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon the Yankees come along and broke the white folks up. Pa
+went wid the Yankees. He said he got grown in the War. He fed horses for
+his general three years. He got arm and shoulder wounded, scalped his head.
+They mustered him out and he got his bounty. He got sixty dollars every
+three months.</p>
+
+<p>"He died at Holly Grove, Arkansas about fifty years ago. Them was his
+favorite stories."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Mandy Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">607 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 92<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"This is me. I'se old and ain't no 'count. I was done grown when
+the war started. You <span class="u">know</span> I was grown when I was washin' and ironin'.
+I stood right there and watched the soldiers goin' to war. I heered
+the big bell go b-o-n-g, b-o-n-g and everybody sayin' 'There's goin' to
+be a war, there's goin' to be a war!' They was gettin' up the force to
+go bless your heart! Said they'd be back by nine tomorrow and some said
+'I'm goin' to bring you a Yankee scalp.' And then they come again and
+want <span class="u">so many</span>. You could hear the old drums go boom&mdash;boom. They was
+drums on this side and drums on that side and them drums was a talkin'!
+Yes'm, I'se here when it started&mdash;milkin' cows, washin' and cookin'.
+Oh, that was a time. Oh my Lord&mdash;them Yankees come in just like blackbirds.
+They said the war was to free the folks. Lots of 'em got killed
+on the first battle.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in Bastrop, Louisiana in February&mdash;I was a February
+colt.</p>
+
+<p>"My old master was John Lovett and he was good to us. If anybody
+put their hands on any of his folks they'd have him to whip tomorrow.
+They called us old John's free niggers. Yes ma'm I had a good master.
+I ain't got a scratch on me. I stayed right in the house and nussed
+till I'se grown. We had a good time but some of 'em seed sights. I
+stayed there a year after we was free.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I married durin' the war and my husband went to war with my
+uncle. He didn't come back and I waited three years and then I married
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"You know they used to give the soldiers furloughs. One time one
+young man come home and he wouldn't go back, just hid out in the cane
+brake. Then the men come that was lookin' for them that 'exerted'
+durin' the war and they waited till he come out for somethin' to eat
+and they caught him and took him out in the bayou and shot him. That
+was the onliest dead man I ever seen. I seen a heap of live ones.</p>
+
+<p>"The war was gettin' hot then and old master was in debt. Old
+mistress had a brother named Big Marse Lewis. He wanted to take all
+us folks and sell us in New Orleans and said he'd get 'em out of debt.
+But old master wouldn't do it. I know Marse Lewis got us in the jail
+house in Bastrop and Mars John come to get us out and Marse Lewis
+shot him down. I went to my master's burial&mdash;yes'm, I did! Old mistress
+didn't let us go to New Orleans either. Oh Lordy, I was young
+them days and I wasn't afraid of nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ho! What you talkin' 'bout? Ku Klux? They come out here just
+like blackbirds. They tried to scare the people and some of 'em they
+killed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes Lord, I seen a heap. I been through a lot and I seen a heap,
+but I'm here yet. But I hope I never live to see another war.</p>
+
+<p>"When peace was declared, old mistress say 'You goin' to miss me'
+and I sho did. They's good to us. I ain't got nothin' to do now but
+sit here and praise the Lord cause I gwine to go home some day."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Carol Graham<br />
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Howdy, Missy, glad to see you again. As you sees I'm 'bout wound
+up on my cotton baskets and now I got these chairs to put bottoms in but
+I can talk while I does this work cause it's not zacting like making
+baskets.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pears like you got a cold. Now let me tell you what to do for
+it. Make a tea out of pine straw and mullein leaves an' when you gets
+ready for bed tonight take a big drink of it an' take some tallow and
+mix snuff with it an' grease the bottom of your feets and under your
+arms an' behind your ears and you'll be well in the mornin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm hits right in the middle of cotton picking time now.
+Always makes me think of when I was a boy. I picked cotton some but I
+got lots of whippins 'cause I played too much. They was some chinquapin
+trees in the fiel' and I jest natchally couldn' help stopping to pick up
+some 'chanks' now an' then. I likes the fall time. It brings back the
+old times on the plantation. After frost had done fell we would go possum
+huntin' on bright moonlight nights and we would mostly find Mr.
+Possum settin' in the 'simmon tree just helpin' hisself to them good old
+ripe juicy 'simmons. We'd catch the possum an' then we'd help ourselves
+to the 'simmons. Mentionin' 'simmons, my mammy sure could make good pies
+with them. I can most taste them yet and 'simmon bread too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He! he! he! jes' look at that boy goin' by with that stockin'
+on his head. Niggers used to wear stockings on they legs but now they
+wear them on they heads to make they hair lay down.</p>
+
+<p>"Since this rain we had lately my rheumatism been botherin' me some.
+I is gone to cutting my fingernails on Wednesday now so's I'll have health;
+an' I got me a brand new remedy too an' it's a good one. Take live earth
+worms an' drop them in hot grease an' let them cook till there's no 'semblance
+of a worm then let the grease cool an' grease the rheumatic parts.
+You know that rheumatism done come back cause I got out of herbs. I just
+got to git some High John the Conqueror root an' fix a red flannel sack
+an' put it in the sack along with five finger grass, van van oil, controllin'
+powder, magnetic loadstone an' drawin' powder. Now, missy, the
+way I fixes that sure will ward off evil an' bring heaps of good luck.
+And I just got to fix myself that. You better let me fix you one too. If
+you and me had one of them wouldn't neither one of us be ailing. You
+needs some lucky hand root too to carry round with you all the time.
+Better let Uncle Marion fix you up.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I ever tell you I used to tell fortunes with cards? But I
+stopped that cause I got my jack now and it's so much truthfuler than
+cards. You 'members when I answered that question for you and missy last
+year and how what I told you come true. Yes'm I never misses now. Uncle
+Marion can sure help you.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes sister Melissy late with her washin' ergin. You know,
+Missy, niggers is always slow and late. They'll be wantin' God to wait
+on them when they start to heaven. White folks is always on time and they
+sings 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There', and niggers sing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+'Don't Call The Roll Till I Get There.' You know I hates for it to get
+so cool. I'll have to move in off the gallery to work. When I sits on
+the gallery I sees everybody pass an' changes the time of day with them.
+'Howdy, Sister Melissy. Late ergin I see.' Yes, I sees everything that
+goes on from my gallery. I hates for cool weather to come so's I have to
+move in.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't that a cute little feller in long pants? Lawsy me! chillun
+surely dresses diffunt now from when I was a chap. I didn' know nothin'
+'bout no britches; I went in my shirt tail&mdash;didn' wear nothin' but a
+big old long shirt till I was 'bout twelve. You know that little fellow's
+mama had me treat him for worms. I made him a medicine of jimson weed an'
+lasses for his mama to give him every morning before breakfast an' that
+sure will kill 'em. Yes'm, that little fellow is all dressed up. 'Minds
+me of when I used to dress up to go courtin' my gal. I felt 'bout as
+dressed up as that little fellow does. I'd take soot out of the chimney
+and black my shoes then take a biscuit and rub over them to shine 'em.
+You know biscuits have grease in them and my shoes looked just like they
+done been shined by the bootblack.</p>
+
+<p>"Law, missy, I don' know nothin' to tell you this time. Maybe if you
+come back I can think of something 'bout when niggers was in politics
+after the war but now I just can't 'member nothin'."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Carol Graham (Add.)<br />
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">El Dorado, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: ?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dar's perfect peace somewhars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's perfect peace somewhars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dar's perfect peace somewhars.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Good mornin', Missie! Glad to see you again. I is workin'
+on chairs again. Got these five to bottom for Mr. Brown and I
+sho can talk while I does this work.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't the sunshine pretty this mornin'? I prayed last
+night that the Lord would let today be sunny. I 'clare, Missie,
+hits rained so much lately till I bout decided me and all my
+things was goin' to mildew. Yes'm, me and all-l-l my things.
+And I done told you I likes to set on my gallery to work. I likes
+to watch the folks go by. It seems so natchel like to set here
+and howdy with em.</p>
+
+<p>"I been in this old world a long time, but just can recollect
+bein' a slave. Since Christmas ain't long past it sets me
+to thinkin' bout the last time old Sandy Claus come to see us.
+He brought us each one a stick of candy, a apple and a orange, and
+he never did come to see us no more after that time cause we peeped.
+That was the last time he ever filt our stockin'. But you knows
+how chaps is. We just had to peep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You knows I was born and raised in Louisiana. I done told
+you that many times. And I just wish you could see the vituals
+on old marster's table at Christmas time. Lawdy, but his table
+jes groaned with good things. Old Mistress had the cook cookin'
+for weeks before time it seemed to me. There was hams and turkeys
+and chickens and cakes of all kinds. They sho was plenty to
+eat. And they was a present for all the niggers on the place besides
+the heaps of pretty things that Marster's family got off
+the tree in the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"When I first began to work on the farm old master put me
+to cuttin' sprouts, then when I got big enough to make a field
+hand, I went to the field then. I done lots of kinds of work&mdash;worked
+in the field, split rails, built fences, cleared new
+ground and just anything old marster wanted me to do. I members
+one time I got a long old splinter in my foot and couldn't get
+it out, so my mammy bound a piece of fat meat round my foot and
+let it stay bout a couple days, then the splinter come out real
+easy like. And I was always cutting myself too when I was a chap.
+You know how careless chaps is. An soot was our main standby for
+cuts. It would close the gash and heal it. And soot and sugar
+is extra good to stop bleeding. Sometime, if I would be in the
+field too far away from the house or anyplace where we could get
+soot, we would get cobwebbs from the cotton house and different
+places to stop the bleeding. One time we wasn't close to neither
+and one the men scraped some felt off from a old black hat and
+put it on to stop the bleedin'.</p>
+
+<p>"My feets was tough. Didn't wear shoes much till I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+grown. Went barefooted. My feets was so tough I could step on
+stickers and not feel em. Just to show how tough I was I used
+to take a blackberry limb and take my toes and skin the briers
+off and it wouldn't hurt my feets.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I ever tell you bout my first pair of breeches? I
+was bout twelve then and before that I went in my shirt tail.
+I thought I was goin' to be so proud of my first breeches but
+I didn't like them. They was too tight and didn't have no pockets.
+They come just below my knees and I felt so uncomfortable-like
+that I tore em off me. And did I get a lickin? I got such
+a lickin' that when my next ones was made I was glad to put em
+on and wear em.</p>
+
+<p>"I stayed round with marster's boys a lot, and them white
+boys was as good to me as if I had been their brother. And I
+stayed up to the big house lots of nights so as to be handy for
+runnin' for old master and mistress. The big house was fine but
+the log cabin where my mammy lived had so many cracks in it that
+when I would sleep down there I could lie in bed and count the
+stars through the cracks. Mammy's beds was ticks stuffed with
+dried grass and put on bunks built on the wall, but they did
+sleep so good. I can most smell that clean dry grass now. Mammy
+made her brooms from broom sage, and she cooked on a fireplace.
+They used a oven and a fireplace up at the big house too. I never
+saw no cookstove till I was grown.</p>
+
+<p>"I members one time when I was a little shaver I et too many
+green apples. And did I have the bellie ache, whoo-ee! And mammy
+poured cold water over hot ashes and let it cool and made me drink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+it and it sure cured me too. I members seein' her make holly
+bush tea, and parched corn tea too for sickness. Nother time I
+had the toothache and mammy put some axle grease in the hollow
+of the tooth and let it stay there. The pain stopped and the
+tooth rotted out and we didn't have to pull it.</p>
+
+<p>"Whee! Did you see how that car whizzed round the corner?
+There warn't no cars in my young days. They had mostly two-wheeled
+carts with shafts for the horse to be hitched in, and
+lots of us drove oxen to them carts. I plowed oxen many-a-day
+and rode em to and from the field. Let me tell you, Missy, if
+you don't know nothin' bout oxen&mdash;they surely does sull on you&mdash;you
+beat them and the more you beat the more they sulls. Yes'm,
+they sure sulls in hot weather, but it never gets too cold for
+em.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, Parson. That sho was good preachin' Sunday. Yes
+suh, it was fine.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the pastor of our church, an he sho preached two
+good sermons last Sunday. Sunday mornin' he preached 'Every kind
+of fish is caught in a net' and that night he preached 'Marvel
+not you must be born again.' But that mornin' sermon, it capped
+the climax. Parson sho told em bout it. He say, 'First, they
+catch the crawfish, and that fish ain't worth much; anybody that
+gets back from duty or one which says I will and then won't is a
+crawfish Christian.' Then he say, 'The next is a mudcat; this
+kind of a fish likes dark trashy places. When you catch em you
+won't do it in front water; it likes back water and wants to stay
+in mud. That's the way with some people in church. You can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+never get them to the front for nothin'. You has to fish deep
+for them. The next one is the jellyfish. It ain't got no backbone
+to face the right thing. That the trouble with our churches
+today. Too many jellyfishes in em.' Next, he say is the gold
+fish&mdash;good for nothin' but to look at. They is pretty. That
+the way folks is. Some of them go to church just to sit up and
+look pretty to everybody. Too pretty to sing; too pretty to say
+Amen! That what the parson preached Sunday. Well, I'm a full-grown
+man and a full-grown Christian, praise the Lord. Yes,'m,
+parson is a real preacher."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+VOODOO MAN<br />
+UNCLE MARION JOHNSON, EX-SLAVE.<br />
+[Date Stamp: OCT 26 1936]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes young missey ah'll sho tell yo-all whut yo wants ter know. Yes'm
+ole Uncle Marion sho kin. Mah price is fo' bits fer one question. No'm,
+not fo' bits fo th' two uv yo but fo' bits each. Yo say yo all ain't got
+much money and yo all both wants ter know th' same thing. Well ah reckon
+since yo all is been comin' roun' and tawkin' to ole Uncle Marion ah cud
+make hit answer th' one question fuh both uv yo fuh fo' bits 'tween yo.
+No'm ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will haft tuh come inside th'
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"[TR: " should be (]We went inside the house and Uncle Marion unwrapped his voodoo instrument
+which proved to be a small glass bottle about 2-1/2 inches tall wrapped
+to the neck in pink washable adhesive tape and suspended from a dirty twine
+about six inches long. At the top of the twine was a slip knot and in a
+sly way Uncle Marion would twist the cord before asking the question. If
+the cord was twisted in one direction the bottle would swing in a certain
+direction and if the cord was twisted in the other direction the bottle
+would swing in the opposite direction. Uncle Marion thought that we did not
+observe this and of course we played dumb. By twisting the cord and slyly
+working the muscles of his arm Uncle Marion made his instrument answer his
+questions in the way that he wished them answered.)</p>
+
+<p>"Now ifn the answer to huh question is yais swing towards huh and ifn
+taint be still. (The bottle slowly swung toward me.) Now missy see hit
+have done answered yo question and yo done seed hit say yes. Yes'm hit sho
+am yes and yo' jes wait and see ifn ole Uncle Marion aint right. Now yo
+jes answer the same question fuh tother young missy heah. Now ifn the
+answer is yais yo turn toward huh which am the opposite to which yo jes
+turnt and ifn the answer is no sta' still. (The bottle then slowly turned
+around and went in Mrs. Thompson's direction.)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yo say whut do ah call dis heah? Ah calls hit a "jack". Yas'm hits
+a jack an' hit sho will answer any question yo wants ter ask hit. No'm yo
+cuden ask hit yo-self. Ah would haft ter ask hit fer yo. An' let me tell
+yo' ole Uncle Marion sho kin help youall chillun. Ah kin help yo all ward
+off evil and jinx; ah kin help yo all git a job; ah kin help yo all ovah
+come the ruination uv yo home. Uncle Marion sho cain give yo a helpin
+good luck hand. Ah cain help yo ovah come yo enemies.</p>
+
+<p>"Now since ah knows yo young misses am in'erested an ah knows yo will
+sen' othah fokes tuh me what am in trouble ah am gointer tell yo all whut
+some uv mah magic remidies is so yo all kin tell fokes that ah have them
+yarbs (herbs) fuh sale. Yes'm ah has them yarbs right hea fuh sale and hit
+sho will work too.</p>
+
+<p>"Now thar is High John the Conquerer Root. If'n yo totes one o'
+them roots in yo pocket yo will nevah be widout money. No mam. And you'll
+always conquer yo troubles an yo enemies. An fokes can sho git them yarbs
+thru me. Efn Uncle Marion don' have non on han' he sho kin git em for em.</p>
+
+<p>"Den dar is five finger grass, ah kin git dat fuh yo too. Ifn dat is
+hung up ovah th' bedstid hit brings restful sleep and keeps off evil. Each
+one uv dem five fingahs stans for sumpin too. One stans fuh good luck, two
+fuh money, thee fuh wisdom, fo' fuh power an five fuh love.</p>
+
+<p>"Yas'm an ah kin buil' a unseen wall aroun' yo so as ter keep evil,
+jinx and enemies way fum yo and hit'll bring heaps uv good luck too. The
+way ah does hit is this way: Ah takes High John the Conqueror Root and
+fixes apiece of red flannel so as ter make a sack and puts hit in the sack
+along wid magnetic loadstone, five finger grass, van van oil, controllin'
+powdah and drawin powdah and the seal uv powah. This heah mus be worn aroun
+the neck and sprinkle hit ever mornin fuh seven mornins wid three drops uv holy
+oil. Then theah is lucky han' root. Hit looks jes like a human han'.
+If yo carries hit on yo person hit will shake yo jinx and make yo a winnah
+in all kinds o games and hit'll help yo choose winnin numbers."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Martha Johnson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">West Memphis</span><br />
+Age: 71<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born at Lake Providence, Louisiana second year after the War.
+Mother's mother was left in Jackson, Tennessee. Mother was sold at Vicksburg,
+Mississippi. Father's mother was left at Pittsburg, Virginia. Father
+was brought to Lake Providence and sold to Master Ross and Mr. Coleman was
+his overseer. He was stripped stark naked and put up on the block. That
+was Nigger Traders Rule, he said. He was black as men get to be. Mother
+was three-fourths white. Her master was her father. He had two families.
+They was raised up in the same house with his white family. Master's white
+wife raised her and kept her till her death. He was dead I think.</p>
+
+<p>"Then her young white master sold her. He sold his half-sister. She
+met my father at Vicksburg, Mississippi where he mustered out. She was
+chambermaid when the surrender came on, on the Gray Eagle boat from Vicksburg
+to Memphis. Mother died when I was nine years old. Papa had no boys,
+only three girls. I was his 'Tom Boy.' I did the milking and out-of-door
+turns. Papa was a small man. He weighed 150 pounds. He carpentered, made
+and mended shoes, and was a blacksmith. We farmed and farmed. I was
+chambermaid in Haynes, Arkansas hotel three years. I washed and ironed.
+I'm not much cook. I never was fond of cooking.</p>
+
+<p>"I never voted. I'm not starting now. I'm too old.</p>
+
+<p>"Times is hard. You can't get ahead no way. It keeps you
+hustling all the time to live. Times is going pretty fast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+In some ways times is better for some people and harder for other
+people.</p>
+
+<p>"These young folks don't want to be advised and I don't advise them
+except my own children. I tell them all they listen to. They listen now
+better than they did when they was younger. They are all grown.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't get no help from nowhere but my children a little. I own my
+home."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson<br />
+Person interviewed: Millie Johnson (Old Bill)<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">El Dorado, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: ?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Caledonia, Arkansas but I don't know when. I just
+can't tell you nothing hardly about when I was a child because my mind goes
+and comes. I was a slave and my white folks were good to me. They let me
+play and have a good time just like their children did.</p>
+
+<p>"After I got grown I run around terrible. My husband quit me a long
+time ago. The white folks let me have my way. They said I was mean and
+if my husband fooled with me, told me to shoot him. I am going back home
+to Caledonia when I get a chance. My sister's boy brought me up here; Mack
+Ford is his name.</p>
+
+<p>"A long time ago&mdash;I don't know how long it's been&mdash;I came out of the
+back door something hung their teeth in my ankle. I hollered and looked
+down and it was a big old rattlesnake. I cried to my sister to get him off
+of me. She was scared, so all I knew to do was run, jump and holler. I
+ran about&mdash;oh, I don't know how far&mdash;with the snake hanging to my ankle.
+The snake would not let me go, and it wasn't but one thing for me to do and
+that was stop and pull the snake off of me. I stopped and began pulling.
+I pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. The snake would not let me go.
+I began pulling again. After awhile I got it off. When I pulled the snake
+away the snake brought his mouth full of my meat. You talk about hurting,
+that like to have killed me. That place stayed sore for twenty years
+before it healed up. After it had been healed a couple years I then scratched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+the place on a bob wire that inflamed it. That has been about 25 or 30
+years ago and it's been sore ever since. Lord, I sure have been suffering
+too. As soon as it gets well I am going back to Caledonia. I am praying
+for God to let me live to get back home. Mack Ford is the cause of me
+being up here.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in slavery time way before the War. My name is Millie
+Johnson but they call me Bill."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Rosie Johnson,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Holly Grove, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 76<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born and raised on Mr. Dial's place. Mama belong to them. My
+papa belong to Frank Kerr. His old mistress' name Jane Roberts in Alabama.
+His folks come from Alabama. He say Jane Roberts wouldn't sell her slaves.
+They was aired (heired) down mong the children. David Dial had sebral
+children and mama was his house girl and nurse. They was married in Dial's
+yard. My papa name Jacob Kerr. They took me to Texas when I warn't but two
+years old. We rode in the covered wagon where they hauled the provisions.
+They muster stayed a pretty good time. I heard em talkin' what all they
+raised out there and what a difference they found in the country. They
+wanted to go. They didn't wanter be in the war they said. It was too
+close to suit them.</p>
+
+<p>"I recken I was too small to recollect the Ku Klux. I heard em talk
+bout how mean the Jayhaws was.</p>
+
+<p>"I never voted. What business I got votin' I would jes' lak you tell
+me? I don't believe in it no more'n nuthin'.</p>
+
+<p>"I been farmin' all my life. I had fourteen children. Eight livin'
+now. They scattered bout up North. It took meat and bread to put in
+their mouths and somebody workin' to get it there I tell you. There ain't
+a lazy bone in me. I jes' give out purty nigh. I wash and iron some when
+I ken get it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I got a hog and a garden. I ain't got nuthin' else. I don't own
+no house, no place. I got a few chickens bout the place what eat up the
+scraps what the pig don't get.</p>
+
+<p>"I signed up three years ago. I don't get nuthin' now. What I scrape
+round and make is all I has.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in June 1861. I don't recollect what day they said. Pear
+lack it been so long. When it come to work I recken I is had a hard time
+all my life. I never minded nuthin' till I got so slow and no count."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Saint Johnson<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: &mdash;<br />
+Occupation: Drayman<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"As far as slavery is concerned I know nothing about it except as the
+white people told me. My mother would ask me what they told me and I would
+tell her that Miss Annie said I didn't have to call her father 'Master' any
+more. And she would say, 'No, you don't.'</p>
+
+<p>"My father's name was Wiley Johnson. He was ninety years old when he
+died. He was born in Cave Spring, Georgia, in Floyd County. My mother was
+born in the same place. Both of them were Johnsons. They were married
+during slavery times. I don't know what her name was before she married.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyway, I've told you enough. I've told you too much. How come they
+want all this stuff from the colored people anyway? Do you take any stories
+from the white people? They know all about it. They know more about it than
+I do. They don't need me to tell it to them.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't tell my age. I just say I was born after slavery. Then I
+can't be bothered about all this stuff about records. Colored people didn't
+keep any records. How they goin' to know when they were born or anything?
+I don't believe in all that stuff.</p>
+
+<p>"You know these young people as well as I do. They ain't nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't got nothin' to say about politics. You know what the truth
+is. Why don't you say it? You don't need to hide behind my words. You're
+educated and I'm not; you don't need to get anything from me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I had some schoolin'. But you know more about these things than
+I do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>At first, I thought I wouldn't write this interview up; but afterwards
+I thought: Maybe this interview will be of interest to those who want the
+work done. It represents the attitude of a very small, but definite,
+minority. About five persons out of a hundred and fifty contacted and more
+than eighty written up have taken this attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson is reputed to have been born in slavery, but he says not.
+He had a high school education. He is a good man, wholesome in all his
+contacts, despite the apparent intolerance of his private remarks to the
+interviewer.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Willie Johnson (female)<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1007 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 71<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My father said he had a real good master. When he got up large enough
+to work, his master learned him a trade. He learned the mechanic's trade,
+such as blacksmithing and working in shops. He learned him all of that. And
+then he learned him to be a shoemaker. You see, he learned him iron work and
+woodworking too. And he never whipped him during slavery time. Positively
+didn't allow that.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's name was Jordan Kirkpatrick. His master was named Kirkpatrick
+also. My father was born in Tennessee in Sumner County.</p>
+
+<p>"My father married in slave time. You know, they married in slave time.
+I have heard people talking about it. I have heard some people say they
+married over 'gain when freedom came. My father had a marriage certificate,
+and I didn't hear him say anything about being married after freedom. I have
+seen the certificate lots of times. I don't know the date of it. The
+certificate was issued in Sumner County, Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>"My father and mother belonged to different masters. My mother's master
+was a Murray. She had a good many people. Her name before she married was
+Mary Murray. I don't know just how my mother and father met. The two places
+weren't far apart. They lived a good distance from each other though, and I
+remember hearing him tell how he had to go across the fields to get to her
+house after he was through with the day's work. The pateroles got after him
+once. They didn't catch him, so they didn't do anything to him. He skipped
+them some way or another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have heard them say that before the slaves were set free the soldiers
+were going 'round doing away with everything that they could get their hands
+on. Just a while before they were set free, my father took my mother and the
+children one night and slipped off. He went to Nashville. That was during
+the War. It wasn't long after that till everybody was set free. They never
+did capture him and get him back.</p>
+
+<p>"During the War they went around pressing men into service. Finally
+once, they caught him but they let him go. I don't know how he got
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"I can remember he said once they got after him and there was a white
+man and his family living in the house. He rented a room from the white man.
+That was in Nashville. These pateroles or whatever they was got after him
+and claimed they were coming to get him, and the old man and the old woman
+he stayed with took him upstairs and said they would protect him if the
+pateroles came back. I don't know whether they came back or not, but they
+never got him.</p>
+
+<p>"My father supported himself and his family in Nashville by following
+his trade. He seems to have gotten along all right. He never seemed to have
+any trouble that I heard him speak of.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in 1867 in Nashville, Tennessee, about half a block from the
+old Central Tennessee College<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a>. I think it became Walden University later on,
+and I think that it's out now. That's an old school. My oldest sister was
+graduated from it. I could have been if I hadn't taken up the married
+notion.</p>
+
+<p>"I got part of my schooling in Nashville and part here. When I left Nashville,
+I was only a child nine years old. I only went to school four sessions
+after we came out here. I didn't like out here. I wanted to stay back home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+My father came out here because he had heard that he could make more money
+with his trade here than he could in Nashville, which he did. He was shoeing
+horses and building wagons and so on. Just in this blacksmithing and
+carpenter work.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to learn that. I would stay 'round the shop and help him shoe
+horses. But they wouldn't let me take it up. I got so I could do carpenter
+work pretty good. First I learned how to make a box square&mdash;that is a hard
+job when a person doesn't know much.</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard my father say anything about the food the slaves ate. I
+have heard him talk about the good times they had around hog killing. His
+master raised sweet potatoes and corn and wheat and things like that. I
+guess they ate just about what they raised.</p>
+
+<p>"My father never was a sharecropper. He knew nothing of rural work
+except the mechanical side of it. He could make or do anything that was
+needed in fixing up something to do farm work with. I have seen him make and
+sharpen plows. The first cotton stalk cutter that was made within ten miles
+of here was made by my father. The people 'round here were knocking off
+cotton stalks with sticks until my father began making the cutter. Then
+everybody began using his cutter. That is, the different farmers and sharecroppers
+around here began using them. I was scared of the first one he
+made. He made six saws or knives and sharpened them and put them on a section
+of a log so that it could be hitched to a mule and pulled through the
+fields and cut the cotton stalks down.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's old master was her father. I think my father's father was a
+Negro and his mother was an Indian. My mother's mother was an American woman,
+that is, a slavery woman. My mother and father were lucky in having good
+people. My mother was treated just like one of her master's other children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+My father's master had an overseer but he never was allowed to touch my
+father. Of course my mother never was under an overseer."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> [HW: Central Tennessee College estab. about 1866-7.]</p>
+</div></div>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Angeline Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Near Biscoe and Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 79<br />
+[Date Stamp: May 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Mother was cooking. Her name was
+Marilla Harris and she took my pa's name, Brown. He was Francis Brown. I
+was three years old when the surrender come on. Then grandma, my mama and
+pa and me and my brother come with a family to Biscoe. There wasn't no
+Biscoe but that's where we come to anyhow. Mama and grandma cooked for a
+woman. They bought a big farm and started clearing. Some of it was
+cleared. Mama's been dead forty years. I farmed all my whole life. I
+don't know nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandma had a right smart to say during slavery times. She was
+cooking for her mistress and had a family. She'd hide good things to take
+to her children. The mistress kept a polly parrot about in the kitchen.
+Polly would tell on grandma. Caused grandma to get whoopings. She talked
+like a good many of 'em. She got sick. The woman what married grandma's
+brother was to take her place. She wasn't going to be getting no whoopings.
+She sewed the parrot up. He got to dwindling. They doctored him. She
+clipped his tongue at the same time so he never could do no good talking.
+He died. They never found out his trouble. Grandma said they worried about
+the parrot but she never did; she knowed what been done. Grandma come from
+Paris, Tennessee but I think the same folks fetched 'er. I don't think she
+said she was sold. She said slavery times was hard. Mama didn't see as hard
+times as grandma had. Grandma shielded her in the work part a whole heap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+to get to live where she did. They loved to be together. She's been dead
+and left me forty odd years. I works and support myself, and my kin folks
+help all they can."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Charlie Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1303 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 76<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was borned in '61 in the State of Mississippi August the 15th.</p>
+
+<p>"I member just a little bout the War. Yes'm, I member seein' the
+soldiers. They was walkin'&mdash;just a long row of em. Had guns across their
+shoulders and had them canteens. I member we chilluns run out to the road
+and got upon the bars and watched em go by. I think it was after they had
+fought in Vicksburg and was comin' back towards Memphis.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother belonged to the Harrises and we stayed with her and my
+father belonged to the Joneses.</p>
+
+<p>"I member how they used to feed us chillun. They had a big cook
+kitchen at the big house and we chillun would be out in the yard playin'.
+Cook had a big wooden tray and she'd come out and say 'Whoopee!' and set
+the tray on the ground. Sometimes it was milk and sometimes it would be
+potlicker. We'd fall down and start eatin'. Get out [TR: our?] heads in and crowd
+just like a lot of pigs.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom we went to old Colonel Jones and worked on the shares.
+I wasn't big enough to work but I member when we left the Harris place. I
+know they wasn't so cruel to em. Didn't have no overseer. Some of the
+people had cruel overseers.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school after the War a right smart. I got as far as the
+third grade. Studied McGuffy's Reader and the old Blue Back Speller. Yes'm,
+sure did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I come here to Arkansas wid my parents in '78. Come right here to
+Jefferson County, down at Fairfield on the Lambert place.</p>
+
+<p>"All my life I've farmed. I worked on the shares and rented too.
+Could make the most money rentin'. I got everywhere from 4&cent; to 50&cent; a pound
+for cotton. I had cows and hogs and chickens and raised some corn.</p>
+
+<p>"I made a garden and made a little cotton and corn last year on
+government land on the old river bank.</p>
+
+<p>"I heered of the Klu Klux but they never did bother me.</p>
+
+<p>"I voted the Publican ticket and never had no trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"I been right around this town fifteen years and I own this home. I
+worked about six months at the shops but the rest of the time I farmed.</p>
+
+<p>"Heap of things I'd do when I was young the young folks won't do now."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Cyntha Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">3006 W. Tenth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 88<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Well, here's one of em. Born down in Drew County.</p>
+
+<p>"Simpson Dabney was old master and his wife named Miss Adeline.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon I do remember bout the War. Yes ma'am, the Yankees come and
+they had me scared. I wouldn't know when they got in the yard till they
+was all around me. Had me holdin' the bridles.</p>
+
+<p>"My young missis' husband was in the War and when they fought the
+last battle at Princeton, she had me drive the carriage. When I heard
+them guns I said we better go back, so I turned round and made them horses
+step so fast my dress tail stood out straight. I thought they was goin'
+to kill us all. And when we got home all the windows was broke. Miss
+Nancy say, 'Cyntha, somebody come and broke all my windows,' but it was
+them guns broke em.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master was a doctor but my young missis' husband wasn't nothin'
+but a hunter till they carried him to war. He was so skeered they had to
+most drag him.</p>
+
+<p>"I seen two wars and heered tell of another.</p>
+
+<p>"I member when the Yankees come and took things I just fussed at em.
+I thought what was my white folks' things was mine too. But when they got
+my old master's horse my daddy went amongst em and got it back cause he
+had charge of the stock. I don't know whether he got em at night or not
+but I know he went in the daytime and come back in the daytime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old master's children and my father's children worked in the field
+just alike. He wouldn't low a overseer on the place, or a patroller
+either.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Dabney and his sister raised my mother. They brought her from
+some furrin' country to Arkansas. And when he married, my mother suckled
+every one of his children.</p>
+
+<p>"I just worked in the house and nussed. Never worked in the field
+till I was grown and married. I was nineteen when I married the fust time.
+I stayed right there in that settlement till the second year of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was twenty-one they had me fixed up for a midwife. Old Dr.
+Clark was the one started me. I never went to school a minute in my life
+but the doctors would read to me out of their doctor books till I could get
+a license. I got so I could read print till my eyes got so bad. Old Dr.
+Clark was the one learned me most and since he died I ain't never had a
+doctor mess with me.</p>
+
+<p>"In fifteen years I had 299 babies on record right there in Rison.
+That's where I was fixed up at&mdash;under five doctors. And anybody don't
+believe it, they can go down there and look up the record.</p>
+
+<p>"We had plenty to eat in slave times. Didn't have to go to the store
+and buy it by the dribble like they does now. Just go to the smokehouse and
+get it.</p>
+
+<p>"I got such a big mind and will I wants to get about and raise something
+to eat now so we wouldn't have to buy everything, but I ain't able
+now. I've had twenty-one children but if I had em now they'd starve to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"I been married four times but they all dead&mdash;every one of em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When freedom come my old master give my mother $500 cause she saved
+his money for him when the Yankees come. She put it in the bed and slept
+on it. He had four farms and he told her she could have ary one of em
+and any of the stock, but my father had done spoke for a place in Cleveland
+County&mdash;he had done bought him a place.</p>
+
+<p>"And old master on his dying bed, he asked my mother to take his two
+youngest children and raise em cause their mother was sickly, but she
+didn't do it.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know hardly what to think of this younger generation. Used
+to be they'd go to Sunday school barefooted but now'days, time they is
+born they got shoes and stockin's on em.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to spin, knit and weave. I even spun thread to make these
+ropes they use to plow. I could spin a thread you could sew with, and
+weave cloth with stripes and flowers. Have to know how to dye the thread.
+That's all done in the warp. Call the other the filler.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me tell you, when that was goin' on and you raised your meat
+and corn and potatoes, that was livin'!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Edmond Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1824 W. Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 75<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I growed up in the war. I remember seein' the soldiers&mdash;hundreds
+and thousands of em. Oh, yes'm, I growed up in the war. I was born under
+Abraham Lincoln's administration and then Grant.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember when that old drum beat everbody had to be in bed at nine
+o'clock. That was when they had martial law. Hays knocked that out you
+know. That was when they had the Civil Rights Bill. I growed up in that.</p>
+
+<p>"Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Freedom in January and I
+was born in May so you might say I was born right into freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"I always say I was born so close to slavery I could smell it, just
+like you cookin' somethin' for dinner and I smelled it.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell these young people I can look back to my boy days quick as they
+can.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, I don't know anything bout slavery. My people say they come
+from North Carolina, but I been right here on this spot of ground for forty-four
+years. I come here when they was movin' the cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was a cook here for Mrs. Reynolds. After I growed up here
+I went out to my father where he was workin' on the shares and stayed there
+a year. I married quite young and bought a place out there. I said I was
+twenty-one when I got the license but I wasn't but twenty.</p>
+
+<p>"In old times everbody thought of the future and had all kinds
+of things to eat. First prayer I was taught was the Lord's Prayer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>&mdash;'Give
+us this day our daily bread.' I said sure was a long time bein'
+answered cause now we're gettin' it&mdash;just our daily bread.</p>
+
+<p>"I never had no luck farmin'&mdash;ever' time I farmed river overflowed.
+I raised everthing I needed or I didn't have it. Had as high as
+thirty head of cows at one time.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to work as janitor at Merril School to take the regular
+janitor's place for just two months and how long you reckon I stayed there?
+Twenty years. Then I come here and sit down and haven't done anything since.</p>
+
+<p>"The first school I went to was in the First Baptist Church on
+Pullen Street. They had it there till they could put up a building.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to nine different teachers and all of em was white. They was
+sent here from the North. We studied McGuffy's reader and you stayed with
+it till you learned it. I got it till today&mdash;in my head you understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Lord, I used to vote and hold ever' kind of office. Used to
+be justice of the peace six years. I said I been in everthing but a bull
+fight.</p>
+
+<p>"I've traveled ever' place&mdash;Niagara Falls, Toronto, Canada. I been
+in two World's Fairs and in several inaugurations. Professor Cheney says I
+know more history than any the teachers at the college."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Eliza Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">610 E. Eighteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 89<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes ma'am, this is Eliza. I was born in slave times and I knowed how
+to work good.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I was grown in time of the War 'cause I married the first
+year of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"Belonged to a widow named Edna Mitchell. That was in Tennessee near
+Jackson. Oh Lawd, my missis was good to all her niggers&mdash;if you should call
+'em that.</p>
+
+<p>"She had two men and three women. My mother was the cook. Let's see&mdash;Sarah
+was one, Jane was two, and Eliza was three. (I was Eliza.) Then
+there was Doc and Uncle Alf. I reckon he was our uncle. Anyway we all
+called him Uncle Alf. He managed the business&mdash;he was the head man and Doc
+was next. And Miss Edna raised us all to grown.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm tellin' you right straight along. I try to tell the truth.
+I forgits and I can't remember ever'thing like it ought to be but I hit at
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Things is hard this year and I don't know how come. I guess it's
+'cause folks is so wicked. They is livin' fast&mdash;black and white.</p>
+
+<p>"How many chillun? Now, you'd be s'prised. I hardly ever tell folks
+how many. I had fifteen; I was a good breeder. But they is all dead but
+one, and they ain't doin' me no good. Never raised but two. Most of 'em
+just died when they was born.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'd a been better off if I had stayed single a while longer and went
+to school and learned how to read and write and figger. But I went to
+another kind of a school.</p>
+
+<p>"But I sure has been blest. I been here a long time, got a chile to
+cook me a little bread&mdash;don't have to worry 'bout dat.</p>
+
+<p>"I had to send clean back to where I j'ined the Metropolitan to get
+my age. That was in Cairo, Illinois 'cause I'd lived there fifteen years.
+But when my daughter and her husband come here and got settled, why I come
+to finish it out.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ma'am, I sure have worked hard. I've plowed, split wood, and
+done a little bit of ever'thing. But it was all done since freedom. In
+slavery times I was a house girl. I tell you I was a heap better off a
+slave than I was free.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom we had to go and get what we could get to do and work
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>"They used to talk 'bout ha'nts and squinch owls. Say it was a sign
+of somebody dead. But I don't believe in that. 'Course what I don't
+believe in somebody else does."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Evelyn Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">815 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: Between 68 and 78?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Lonoke County right here in Arkansas. My father's
+name&mdash;I don't know it. I don't know nothin' 'bout my father. My mother's
+name was Mary Davis.</p>
+
+<p>"My daddy died when I was five weeks old. I don't know nothin' 'bout
+'im. Just did manage to git here before he left. I don't know the date of
+my birth. I don't know nothin' 'bout it and I ain't goin' to tell no lie.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nineteen children. My youngest living child is twenty-eight
+years old. My oldest living is fifty-three. I have four dead. I don't
+know how old the oldest one is. That one's dead.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a cousin named Harry Jordan. He lives 'round here somewheres.
+You'll find him. I don't know where he lives. He says he knows just how
+old I am, and he says that I'm sixty-eight. My daughter here says I'm
+seventy. And my son thinks I'm older. Don't nobody know. My daddy never
+told me. My mama was near dead when I was born; what could she tell me?
+So how am I to know?</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was born in slavery. She was a slave. I don't know nothin'
+'bout it. My mother came from Tennessee. That's what she told me. I was
+born in a log cabin right here in Arkansas. I was born in a log cabin right
+in front of the white folks' big house. It was not far from the white
+folks' graveyard. You know they had a graveyard of their own. Old Bill
+Pemberton, that was the name of the man owned the place I was born on. But
+he wasn't my mother's owner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know where my father come from. My mother said she had a good
+time in slavery. She spoke of lots of things but I don't remember them.</p>
+
+<p>"My grandma told me about when she went to church she used to carry her
+good clothes in a bundle. When she got near there, she would put them on,
+and hide her old clothes under a rock. When she come out from the meeting,
+she would have to put on her old clothes again to go home in. She didn't
+dare let the white folks see her in good clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"I think my mother's white people were named Jordans. My mother and
+them all belonged to the young mistress. I think her name was Jordan. Yes,
+that's what it was&mdash;Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandmammy had so many children. She had nineteen children&mdash;just
+like me. My grandmammy was a great big old red woman. She had red hair
+too. I never heard her say nothin' 'bout nobody whippin' her and my granddaddy.
+They whipped all them children though. My mama just had six
+children.</p>
+
+<p>"Mama said her master tried to keep her in slavery after freedom. My
+mama worked at the spinning-wheel. When she heard the folks say they was
+through with the War, she was at the spinning-wheel. The white folks ought
+a tol' them they was free but they didn't. Old Jordan carried them down in
+De Valla Bluff. He carried them down there&mdash;called hisself gittin' away
+from the Yankees. But the Yankees told mama to quit workin'. They tol'
+her that she was free. My mama said she was in there at the wheel spinning
+and the house was full of white men settin' there lookin' at her. You don't
+see that sort of thing now.</p>
+
+<p>"They had a man&mdash;I don't know what his name was. He stalled them
+steers, stalled 'em twice a day. They used to pick cotton. I dreamed about
+cotton the other night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My father farmed after slavery. I never heard them say they were
+cheated out of nothin'. I don't know whether they was or not. I'll tell
+you the truth. I didn't pay them no 'tention. Mighty little I can remember."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: John Jones,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 71<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was raised an orph'<span class="u">ant</span> but I was born in Tennessee.
+I lived over there and farmed till 'bout fifty year ago. I
+come out here wid Mr. Woodson to pick cotton. He dead now and
+I still tryin' to work all I can.</p>
+
+<p>"I haben voted in thirty-five year. Because I couldn't
+vote in the Primary, then I say I wouldn't vote 'tall. I
+don't care if the women want to vote. Don't do no good nohow.</p>
+
+<p>"I farmed all my life 'ceptin' 'bout ten years I worked
+on the section. I got so I couldn't stand up to it every day
+and had to farm again.</p>
+
+<p>"I never considered times hard till I got disabled to
+work. It mighty bad when you can't get no jobs to do. My
+hardest time is in the winter. I has a garden and chickens
+but I ain't able to buy a cow. Man give me a little pig the
+other day. He won't be big enough to eat till late next
+spring. Every winter times is hard for me. It's been thater
+wa's ever since I begin not to be able to get about. Helped by
+the PWA."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: John Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">3109 W. 10th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 82<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I come here in 1856&mdash;you can figure it out for yourself. I was born
+in Arkansas, fifty miles below here.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember the soldiers. I know I was a little boy drivin' the gin.
+Had to put me upon the lever. You see, all us little fellows had to work.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember seein' the Indians goin' by to fight at Arkansas Post.
+They fought on the southern side. When I heard the cannons, I asked my
+mama what it was and she said 'twas war.</p>
+
+<p>"John Dye&mdash;that was my young master&mdash;went to the War but Ruben had
+a kind of afflicted hand and he didn't go.</p>
+
+<p>"Our plantation was on the river and I used to see the Yankee boats go
+down the river.</p>
+
+<p>"My papa belonged to the Douglases and mama belonged to the Dyes. I
+was born on the Douglas place and I ain't been down there in over fifty
+years. They said I was born in March but I don't know any more bout it than
+a rabbit.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa said he was raised up in the house. Said he didn't do much
+work&mdash;just tended to the gin.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember one night the Ku Klux come to our house. I was so scared
+I run under the house and stayed till ma called me out. I was so scared I
+didn't know what they had on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I remember when some of the folks come back from Texas and they said
+peace was declared.</p>
+
+<p>"I think my brother run off and jined the Yankees and come here when
+they took Pine Bluff. War is a bad thing. I think they goin' keep on till
+they hatch up another one.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't go to school much. I was the oldest boy at home and I had
+to plow. I went seven days all told and since then I learned ketch as
+ketch can. I can read and write pretty well. It's a consolation to be
+able to read. If you can't get all of it, you can get some of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Been here in Jefferson County ever since 1867. I come here from
+Lincoln County.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom my papa moved my mama down on the Douglas place where
+he was and stayed one year, then moved on the Simpson place in Lincoln
+County, and then come up here in Jefferson County. I remember all the
+moves.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember down here where Kientz Bros, place is was the gallows
+where they hung folks in slavery times. You know&mdash;when they had committed
+some crime.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, I voted but I never held any office.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I don't look my age but I can tell you a heap of things
+happened before emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the people are better off free&mdash;they got liberty."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Lidia Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">228 N. Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 94<br />
+Occupation: None&mdash;blind<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Mississippi and emigrated to Arkansas. Born on the
+Peacock place. Old John Patterson was my old master.</p>
+
+<p>"My first goin' out was to the cow pen, then to the kitchen, and then
+they moved me to Mrs. Patterson's dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>"I helped weave cloth. Dyed it? I wish you'd hush! My missis went to
+the woods and got it. All I know is, she said it was indigo. She had a
+great big kittle and she put her thread in that. No Lord, she never bought
+<span class="u">her</span> indigo&mdash;she <span class="u">raised</span> it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Fannie could do most anything. Made the prettiest counter-panes
+I ever saw. Yes ma'am, she could do it and <span class="u">did</span> do it.</p>
+
+<p>"She had a loom half as big as this house. Lord a mercy, a many a
+time I went dancin' from that old spinnin'-wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"They made all the clothes for the colored folks. They'd be sewin'
+for weeks and months.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Fannie and Miss Frances&mdash;that was her daughter&mdash;they wove such
+pretty cloth for the colored. You know, they went and made themselves
+dresses and the white and colored had the same kind of dresses.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes Lord, they <span class="u">had</span> some folks.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frances wore hoops but Miss Fannie didn't.</p>
+
+<p>"During of the War them Yankees come down the river; but to tell the
+truth, we run and hid and never seen 'em no more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They took Mars John's fine saddle horse named Silver Heels. Yes
+ma'am, took saddle and bridle and the horse on top of 'em. And he had a
+mare named Buchanan and they took her too. He had done moved out of the big
+house down into the woods. Called hisself hidin' I reckon. And he had his
+horses tied down by the river and the Yankees slipped up on him and took the
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Yankees burned his house and gin house too and set fire to the cotton.
+Oh Lord, I don't like to talk about it. Them Yankees was rough.</p>
+
+<p>"Right after freedom our white folks left this country and went to
+Missouri and the last account I heard of 'em they was all dead.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom, folks scattered out just like sheep.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm tryin' to study 'bout some songs but I can't think of nothin' but
+Dixie."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Lydia Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">228 North Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 93<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My name's Lydia&mdash;Lydia Jones. Oh my God I'se born in Mississippi.
+I wish you'd hush&mdash;I know all about slavery.</p>
+
+<p>"I never had but one master. That was old John Patterson. No he
+want good to me. I wish you'd hush! I had two young masters&mdash;Marse
+John and Marse Edward. Marse John go off to war and say he gwine whip
+them Yankees with his pocket knife, but he didn't <span class="u">do</span> it. They said the
+war was to keep the colored folks slaves. I tell you I've heard them
+bull whips a ringin' from sun to sun.</p>
+
+<p>"After the war when they told us we is free, they said to hire ourselves
+out. They didn't give us a nickel when we left.</p>
+
+<p>"I heered talk of the Ku Klux and they come close enough for us to
+be skeered but I never seen none of 'em. We never had no slave uprisin's
+on our plantation&mdash;old John Patterson would a shot 'em down. I tell you
+he was a rabid man.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to pick cotton and chop cotton and help weave the cloth. My
+old mistress&mdash;Miss Fannie&mdash;used to go to the woods and get things to
+dye the cloth. She would dye some blue and some red.</p>
+
+<p>"Only song I 'member is Dixie. I heered talk of some others but
+God knows I never fooled with 'em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm I believes in hants. Let me tell you something. My mama
+seen my daddy after he been dead a long time. He come right up through
+the crack by the fireplace and he said 'Don't you be afraid Emmaline' but
+she was agoin'. They had to sing and pray in the house 'fore my mama
+would go back but she never seen him again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'se been blind now for three years and I lives with my granddaughter
+but lady, I'll tell you the truth&mdash;I been around. Yes, madam,
+I is."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Liza Jones (Cookie)<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">610 S. Eighteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: 88<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Come in, this is Cookie. Well, I do know a heap about slavery,
+cause I worked. I stayed in the house; I was house girl. They called
+me Cookie cause I used to cook so much.</p>
+
+<p>"That was in Madison County, near Jackson, Tennessee. My mistress
+was good to me. Yes'm, I got along all right but a heap of
+others got along all wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"Mistress took care of us in the cold and all kinds of weather.
+She sho did.</p>
+
+<p>"She had four women and four men. We had plenty to eat. She had
+hogs and sheep and geese and always cooked enough for all of us. Whatever
+she had to eat we had.</p>
+
+<p>"We clothed our darkies in slavery times. I was a weaver for four
+years and never done nothin' else. Yes ma'm, I was a house woman and I
+am now.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ma'm, I member seein' different kinds of soldiers. I member
+once some Rebels come to old mistress to get somethin' to eat but before
+it was ready the Yankees come and run em off. They didn't have
+time to eat it all so us colored folks got the rest of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Old mistress had a son Mac and he was in the war. The Yankees
+captured him and carried him to Chicago and put him in a warehouse
+over the water.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old mistress was a good old Christian woman. All the darkies had
+to come to her room to prayermeetin' every night. She didn't skip no
+nights. And her help didn't mind workin'. They'd go the length for
+her, Miss.</p>
+
+<p>"After I was grown I went most anywhere, but when I was little I
+sho set on old mistress' dress tail. I used to go to church with her.
+She'd say, "Open your mouf and sing" and I'd just holler and sing. I
+can member now how loud I used to holler.</p>
+
+<p>"Aint no use in talkin', I had a good mistress. I never was sold.
+Old mistress wouldn't sell. There was a speculator come there and
+wanted to buy us. When we was free, old mistress say, "Now I could
+a sold you and had the money, and now you is goin' to leave." But they
+didn't, they stayed. Some stayed with old mistress till she died, but
+I didn't. I married the first year of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"My mistress and me spin a many a cut of cotton together. She
+couldn't beat me neither. If that old soul was livin' today, I'd be
+right with her. I was gettin' along. I didn't know nothin' but
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"I had freedom then and I ain't been free since, didn't have no
+sponsibility. But when they turned you loose, you had your doctor
+bill and your grub bill&mdash;now wasn't you a slave then?</p>
+
+<p>"My mammy was a cook and her name was Katy.</p>
+
+<p>"After I was married we went to live at Black Ankle. I learned
+to cook and I sho did cook for the white folks twenty-one years. I
+used to go back and see old mistress. If I stay away too long, she
+send for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How many childen I had? You want the truth? Well, fifteen, but
+never had but three to live any length of time.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I told you the best I know and the straightest I know. If
+I can't tell you the truth, I'm not goin' to tell you nothin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, honey, I saw the Ku Klux."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Lucy Jones,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Marianna, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: Born 1866<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was raised second year after the surrender. I don't know a father
+or mother. They was dead when I was five years old. I had no sisters nor
+brothers. Mrs. Cynthia Hall raised me. She raised my mother. Master Hall
+was her husband. They was old people and they was so good to me. They had
+no children and I lived in the house with them. I never went to school a
+day in my life. I can't read. I can count money.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was dark. I married when I was fifteen years old. I have
+four children living. They are all dark. They are about the same color but
+darker than I am.</p>
+
+<p>"No ma'am, I don't believe one could be voodooed. I lived nearly all
+my life with white folks and they don't heed no foolishness like that, do
+they? I cooked, worked in the field, washed and ironed.</p>
+
+<p>"I married three times. The first time at Raymond, Mississippi. I
+never had no big weddings.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems like some folks have lost their grip and ain't willing to start
+over. I don't know much to say for the young people. They are not smart.
+They got more schooling. They try to shirk all the work they can. I never
+seen no Ku Klux in my life. People used to raise nearly all their living at
+home and now they depend on buying nearly everything. Well, I think it is
+bad."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1017 Dennison, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 72<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born on the twenty-second of March, 1866, in Van Buren,
+Arkansas. I had six children. All of them were bred and born at the same
+place.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in a frame house. My father used to live in the country,
+but I was born in the town. He bought it just as soon as he come out of
+the army and married right away and bought this home. I don't know where
+he got his money from. I guess he saved it. He served in the Union army;
+he wasn't a servant. He was a soldier, and drawed his pay. He never run
+through his money like most people do. I don't know whether he made any
+money in slavery or not but he was a carpenter during slave times and they
+say he always had plenty of money. I guess he had saved some of that too.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was married twice. Her name was Louisa Buchanan. My
+father was named Abraham Riley. My stepfather was named Moses Buchanan. My
+father was a soldier in the old original war (the Civil War)&mdash;the war they
+ended in 1865.</p>
+
+<p>"I disremember who my mother's master was but I think it was a man named
+Johnson. I didn't know my father's people. She married him from White
+County up here. Her and him, they corresponded mostly in letters because
+he traveled lots. He looked like an Indian. He had straight hair and was
+tall and rawboned and wore a Texas hat. I had his picture but the pictures
+fade away. My father was a sergeant. He died sometime after the war.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+I don't remember when because I wasn't old enough. I can just remember
+looking at the corpse. I was too small to do any grieving.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was a nurse in slavery times. She nursed the white folks
+and their children. She did the housework and such like. She was a good
+cook too. After freedom, when the old folks died out, she cooked for Zeb
+Ward&mdash;you know him, head of the penitentiary. She used to cook for the
+Jews and gentiles. That her kind of work. That was her occupation&mdash;good
+cook. She could make all kinds of provisions. She could make preserves and
+they had a big orchard everywhere she worked.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard my mother talk about pateroles, jayhawkers, and Ku Klux,
+but I never knew of them myself. I have heard say they were awful bad&mdash;the
+Ku Klux or somethin'.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's white folks sold her. I don't know who they sold her to
+or from. They sold her from her mother. I don't know how she got free. I
+think she got free after the war ceased. But she had a good time all her
+life. She had a good time because she was a good cook, and a good nurse,
+and she had good white folks. My grandma, she had good folks too. They was
+free before they were free, my ma and grandma. They was just as free before
+freedom as they were afterwards. My mother had seven children and two sets
+of twins among them. But I am the only one living.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Occupation</h4>
+
+<p>"They say that I'm too old to work now; so I can't make nothin'
+to keep my home goin'. I have five children living. Two are away from
+here&mdash;one in Michigan, and another in Illinois. I have three others
+but they don't make enough to help me much. I used to work 'round the
+laundries. Then I used to work 'round with these colored restaurants.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+I worked with a colored woman down by the station for twelve or fifteen
+years. I first helped her wash and iron. She ironed and hired other girls
+to wait table and wash dishes and so on. Them times wasn't like they are
+now. They'd hire you and keep you. Then I worked at a white boarding house
+on Second and Cross. I quit working at the laundries because of the steady
+work in the restaurants. After the restaurants I went to work in private
+families and worked with them till I got so I couldn't work no more. Maybe
+I could do plenty of things, but they won't give me a chance.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been married twice. My second husband was John Jones. He
+always went by the name of his white folks. They were named Ivory. He came
+from up in Searcy. I got acquainted with him and we started going together.
+He'd been married before and had children up in Searcy. He got his leg cut
+off in a accident. He was working over to the shop lifting ties with
+another helper and this man helping him gave way on his side and let his end
+fall. It fell across my husband's foot and blood poison set in and caused
+him to lose his foot and leg. He had his foot cut off at the county
+hospital and made himself a peg-leg. He cut it out hisself while he was at
+the hospital. He lived a long while after that. He died on Tenth and
+Victory. My first husband was Henry White. He was a shop worker too&mdash;the
+Iron Mountain.</p>
+
+<p>"We went to school together. I lost my health before I married, and
+I had to stop going to school. The doctor was a German and lived on Cross
+between Fifth and Sixth. He said that he ought to have written the history
+of my life to show what I was cured of because I was paralyzed two years.
+My head was drawed 'way back between my shoulders. I lived with my
+first husband about six years. He died with T.B. in Memphis, Tennessee.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+He had married again when he died. We got so we couldn't agree, so I
+thought it was best for him to live with his mother and me to live with
+mine. We quit under good conditions. I had a boy after he was separated
+from me.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to say about the people now. I don't get 'round
+much. They aren't like they used to be. The young people don't like to
+have you 'round them. I never did object to any of my children gettin'
+married because my mother didn't object to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Mr. Gillespie. (He passed at the time&mdash;ed.) He comes to see
+me now and then. All my people are dead now 'cept my children."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>Brother Gillespie has a story turned in previously. Evidently he is
+making eyes at the old lady; but the romance is not likely to bud. She
+has lost the sight of one eye apparently through a cataract which has
+spread over the larger part of the iris. Nevertheless, she is more active
+than he is, and apparently more competent, and she isn't figuring on making
+her lot any harder than it is.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">509 E. 23rd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born three weeks 'fore Christmas in South Carolina.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'member one time the Yankees come along and I run to the
+door. I know ma made me go back but I peeped out the window.
+You know how children is. They wore great big old hats and blue
+coats.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nother time we saw them a comin' and said, 'Yonder come
+the Yankees' and we run. Ma said, 'Don't run, them's the Yankees
+what freed you.'</p>
+
+<p>"Old mis' was named Joanna Long and old master was Joe Long.
+I can't remember much, I just went by what ma said.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school now and then on account we had to work.</p>
+
+<p>"We had done sold out in South Carolina and was down at the
+station when some of the old folks said if we was goin' to the
+Mississippi bottoms where the panthers and wolves was we would
+never come back. We thought we was comin' to Arkansas but when
+we found out we was in the Mississippi bottoms. We stayed there
+and made two crops, then we come to Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p>"The way the younger generation is livin' now, the Lord can't
+bless 'em. They know how to do right but they won't do it. Yes
+ma'am."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Nannie Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1601 Saracen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 81<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Good morning. Come in. I sure is proud to see you. Yes ma'am, I
+sure is.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in Chicot County. I heerd Dr. Gaines say I was four years
+old in slavery times. I know I ain't no baby. I feels my age, too&mdash;in my
+limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"I heerd 'em talk about a war but I wasn't big enough to know about
+it. My father went to war on one side but he didn't stay very long. I
+don't know which side he was on. Them folks all dead now&mdash;I just can
+remember 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gaines had a pretty big crew on the place. I'm gwine tell you
+what I know. I can't tell you nothin' else.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I want to tell it like mama said. She said she was sold from
+Kentucky. She died when I was small.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember when they said the people was free. I know they jumped up
+and down and carried on.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gaines was so nice to his people. I stayed in the house most
+of the time. I was the little pet around the house. They said I was so
+cute.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gaines give me my age but I lost it movin'. But I know I
+ain't no baby. I never had but two children and they both livin'&mdash;two
+girls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Honey, I worked in the field and anywhere. I worked like a man. I
+think that's what got me bowed down now. I keeps with a misery right across
+my back. Sometimes I can hardly get along.</p>
+
+<p>"Honey, I just don't know 'bout this younger generation. I just don't
+have no thoughts for 'em, they so wild. I never was a rattlin' kind of a
+girl. I always was civilized. Old people in them days didn't 'low their
+children to do things. I know when mama called us, we'd better go. They
+is a heap wusser now. So many of 'em gettin' into trouble."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Reuben Jones<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 85<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Well, I'm one of em. I can tell you bout it from now till sundown.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born at Senatobia, Mississippi, this side of Jackson. Born in
+'52 on April the 16th. That's when I was born.</p>
+
+<p>"Old man Stephen Williams was my master in time of the war and
+before the war, too. He was pretty good to me. Give me plenty of something
+to eat, but he whipped me. Oh, I specked I needed it. Put me in
+the field when I was five years old. Put a tar cap on my head. I was so
+young the sun made my hair come out so they put that tar cap on my head.</p>
+
+<p>"I member when they put the folks on blocks as high as that house and
+sell em to the highest bidder. No ma'm, I wasn't sold cause my mother had
+three or four chillun and boss man wouldn't sell dem what had chillun
+cause dem chillun was hands for him.</p>
+
+<p>"They made me hide ever'thing they had from the Yankees. Yes'm, I
+seen em come out after the fodder and the corn. We hid the meat and the
+mules and the money. Drove the mules in the cave. Kept em der till the
+Yankees left. We dug the hole for the meat but old marse dug the hole for
+the money.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to help put timbers on the bridge to keep the Yankees out but
+dey come right on through just the same. Took the ox wagon but dey sent it
+back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't go nowhere without a pass. Had a whippin' block right at the
+horse trough. Yes ma'm, they'd eat you up. I mean they'd whip you, but they
+give you plenty of somethin' to eat.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was the weaver and they had a tanyard on the place.</p>
+
+<p>"In slavery days couldn't go see none of your neighbors without a
+pass. People had meetin' right at the house. Dey'd have prayer and singin'.
+I went to em. I could sing&mdash;Lord yes. I used to know a lot of old songs&mdash;'Am
+I A Soldier of the Cross?'.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord yes, ma'm, don't talk! When the soldiers come out where we
+was I could hear the guns. Had a battle right in town. Rebels just as
+scared of the Yankees as if twas a bear. I seed one or two of em come to
+town and scare the whole business.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knowed but one man run off and jined the Yankees. Carried
+his master's finest ridin' hoss and a mule. He always had a fine hoss and
+Yankees come and took it. When the Yankees come out the last time, my
+owners cleaned out the smoke house and buried the meat.</p>
+
+<p>"I helped gin cotton when I wasn't big enough to stand up to the
+breast. Stood upon a bench and had a lantern hung up so I could see fore
+daylight. Yes ma'm, great big gin house. Yes ma'm, I sho has worked&mdash;all
+kinds and plowin'.</p>
+
+<p>"Now my old boss called me Tony&mdash;that's what he called me.</p>
+
+<p>"When peace come, we had done gathered our crop and we left there a
+week later. You know people usually hunts their kinfolks and we went to
+Hernando. Come to Arkansas in '77. Got offin de boat right der at de
+cotehouse. Pine Bluff wasn't nothin' when I come here.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to vote. I aimed to vote the Republican ticket&mdash;I don't know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes ma'm, I seed the Ku Klux, yes ma'm. They're bad, too. Lord I
+seed a many of them. They come to my house. I went to the door and that's
+as far as I went. That was in Hernando. I went back to my old home in
+Hernando bout three months ago. Went where I was bred and born but I didn't
+know the place it was tore up so.</p>
+
+<p>"This younger generation whole lot different from when I was comin'
+up. Yes'm, it's a whole lot different. They ain't doin' so well. I have
+always tended to my own business. Cose I been arrested for drivin' mules
+with sore shoulders. Didn't put me in jail, but the officers come up. That
+was when I was workin' on the Lambert place. I told em they wasn't my mules
+so they let me go.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you bout the times now. I hope it'll get better&mdash;can't
+get no wusser."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Vergil Jones,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 70<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My parents was Jane Jones and Vergil Jones. Their owner was Colonel
+Jones in Alabama. Papa went to the war and served four years. He got a
+$30 a month Union pension long as he lived. He was in a number of places.
+He fought as a field man. He had a long musket he brought home from the
+war. He told us a heap of things long time ago. Seem lack folks set down
+and talked wid their children more'n they do nowdays.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa come to this State after the surrender. He married here. I am
+the oldest of seven children. Mama was in this State before the war. She
+was bought when she was a girl and brought here. I don't know if Colonel
+Jones owned her or if papa had seen her somewhere else. He come to her and
+they married. My mama was a house girl some and she washed and ironed for
+Miss Fannie Lambert. They had a big family and a big farm. Their farm was
+seven miles this side of Indian Bay, eight miles to Clarendon. They had
+thirteen in family and mama had seven children made nine in her family.
+She had a bed piled full of starched clothes white as snow. Lamberts had
+three sets of twins. Our family lived with the Lamberts 23 or 24 years.
+We started working for Mr. B. J. Lambert and Miss Fannie (his wife). Mama
+nursed me and R. T. from the same breast. We was raised up grown together
+and I worked for R. T. till he died. We played with J. L. Black too till
+he was grown. He was county judge and sheriff of this county (Monroe).</p>
+
+<p>"Folks that helped me out is about all dead. I pick cotton but I can't
+pick very much. Now I don't have no work till chopping cotton times comes on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+It is hard now. I would do jobs but I don't hear of no jobs to be done.
+I asked around but didn't find a thing to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard about the Ku Kluxes. My papa used to dodge the Ku Kluxes.
+He lay out in the bushes from them. It was bad times. Some folks would
+advise the black folks to do one way and then the Ku Kluxes come and make
+it hot for them. One thing the Ku Kluxes didn't want much big gatherings
+among the black folks. They break up big gatherings. Some white folks
+tell them to do one thing and then some others tell them to do some other
+way. That is the way it was. The Ku Kluxes was hot headed. Papa wasn't
+a bad man but he was afraid they did do so much. He was on the lookout and
+dodged them all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't voted for a long time. I couldn't keep my taxes up.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house&mdash;not
+so good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that nobody
+would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between farming.
+I still farm. They hire mostly by the day&mdash;day labor. Them two things
+and my dis'bility is making it mighty hard for me to live. I work at any
+jobs I can get.</p>
+
+<p>"I signed up for the Old Age Pension. They said I couldn't work, I
+was too old. I wanted to work on the government work. I never got nothing.
+I don't get no kind of help. I thought I didn't know how to get into
+the Old Age Pension reason I didn't get it. It would help keep in wood
+this wet weather when work is scarce."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Walter Jones,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 72<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My father run away scared of the Yankees. He got excited and left.
+My mother didn't want him to leave her. She was crying when he left. My
+father belong to the Wilsons. Mother was sold on the block in Richmond,
+Virginia when she was twelve years old and never seen her mother again.
+Mother belong to Charles Hunt. Her name was Lucy Hunt. She married three
+times. Charles Hunt went to market to buy slaves. We lived in Hardeman
+County, Tennessee when I was born but he sent us to Mississippi. She worked
+in the field then but before then she was a house girl. No, she was black.
+We are all African.</p>
+
+<p>"I got eight children. When my wife died they finished scattering
+out. I come here from Grand Junction, Mississippi. I eat breakfast on
+Christmas day 1883 at Forrest City and spent the day at Hazen. I come with
+friends. We paid our own ways. We come on the train and boat and walked
+some.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't take stock in voting. I never did. I have voted so long
+ago I forgot it all.</p>
+
+<p>"The biggest thing I can tell you ever happened to us more than I told
+you was in 1878 I had yellow fever. Dr. Milton Pruitt come to see me. The
+next day his brother come to see me. Dr. Milton died the next day. I got
+well. At Grand Junction both black and white died. Some of both color got
+well. A lot of people died.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How am I making a living? I don't make one. Mr. Ashly lets me live
+in a house and gives me scrap meat. I bottom chairs or do what I can. I
+past heavy work. The Welfare don't help me. I farmed, railroaded nearly
+all my life. Public work this last few years."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Oscar Felix Junell<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1720 Brown Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 60<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My father's name was Peter Junell, Peter W. Junell. I don't know what
+the W. was for. He was born in Ouachita County near Bearden, Arkansas.
+Bearden is an old town. It is fourteen miles from Camden. My dad was seventy-five
+years old when he died. He died in 1924. He was very young in the time
+of slavery. He never did do very much work.</p>
+
+<p>"His master was named John Junell. That was his old master. He had a
+young master too, Warren Junell. His old master given him to his young master,
+Warren. My father's mother and father both belonged to the Junells. His
+mother's name was Dinah, and his father's name was Anthony. All the slaves
+took their last names after their owners. They never was sold, not in any
+time that my father could remember.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as my father was large enough to go to walkin' about, his old
+master given him to his son, Master Warren Junell. Warren would carry him
+about and make him rassle (wrestle). He was a good rassler. As far as work
+was concerned, he didn't do nothing much of that. He just followed his
+young master all around rasslin.</p>
+
+<p>"His masters was good to him. They whipped slaves sometimes, but they
+were considered good. My father always said they was good folks. He never
+told me how he learnt that he was free.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well all the slaves lived in log cabins. Even in my time, there
+was hardly a board house in that county. The food the slaves ate was mostly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+bread and milk&mdash;corn bread. Old man Junell was rich and had lots of slaves.
+When he went to feed his slaves, he would feed them jus like hogs. He had a
+great long trough and he would have bread crumbled up in it and gallons of
+milk poured over the bread, and the slaves would get round it and eat. Sometimes
+they would get to fighting over it. You know, jus like hogs! They
+would be eatin and sometimes one person would find somethin and get holt of
+it and another one would want to take it, and they would get to fightin over
+it. Sometimes blood would get in the trough, but they would eat right on and
+pay no 'tention to it.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether they fed the old ones that way or not. I jus heered
+my father tell how he et out of the trough hisself.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heered my father talk about the pateroles too. He talked about
+how they used to chase him. But he didn't have much experience with them,
+because they never did catch him. That was after the war when the slaves had
+been freed, but the pateroles still got after them. My father remember how
+they would catch other slaves. One night they went to an old man's house.
+It was dark and the old man told them to come on in. He didn't have no gun,
+but he took his ax and stood behind the door on the hinge side. It was after
+slavery. When he said for them to come in, they rushed right on in and the
+old man killed three or four of them with his ax. He was a old African, and
+they never had been able to do nothin' with him, not even in slavery time.
+I never heard that they did nothin' to the old man about it. The pateroles
+was outlaws anyway.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard my father say that in slavery time, they took the finest and
+portlies' looking Negroes&mdash;the males&mdash;for breeding purposes. They wouldn't
+let them strain themselves up nor nothin like that. They wouldn't make them
+do much hard work."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Sam Keaton,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born close to Golden Hill down in Arkansas County.
+My parents names was Louana and Dennis Keaton. They had ten
+children. Their master was Mr. Jack Keaton and Miss Martha.
+They had four boys. They all come from Virginia in wagons the
+second year of the war&mdash;the Civil War. I heard 'em tell about
+walking. Some of em walked, some rode horse back and some in
+wagons. I don't know if they knowed bout slave uprisings or
+not. I know they wasn't in em because they come here wid Mr.
+Jack Keaton. It was worse in Virginia than it was down here
+wid them. Mr. Keaton didn't give em nothing at freedom. They
+stayed on long as they wanted to stay and then they went to
+work for Mr. Jack Keaton's brother, Mr. Ben Keaton. They worked
+on shares and picked cotton by the hundred. My parents
+staid on down there till they died. I been working for Mr.
+Floria for thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>"My father did vote. He voted a Republican ticket. I
+haven't voted for fifty years. They that do vote in the General
+election know very little bout what they doing. If they
+could vote in the Primary they would know but a mighty little
+about it. The women ain't got no business voting. Their place
+is at home. They cain't keep their houses tidied up and like
+they oughter be and go out and work regularly. That's the reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+I think they oughter stay at home and train the children better
+than it being done.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that the young generation is going to be lost.
+They killing and fighting. They do everything. No, they don't
+work much as I do. They don't save nothing! They don't save
+nothing! Times is harder than they used to be some. Nearly
+everybody wants to live in town. My age is making times heap
+harder for me. I live with my daughter. I am a widower. I
+owns 40 acres land, a house, a cow. I made three bales cotton,
+but I owe it bout all. I tried to get a little help so I could
+get out of debt but I never could get no 'sistance from the
+Welfare."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Watt McKinney<br />
+Person interviewed: Tines Kendricks,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Trenton, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 104<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My name is Tines Kendricks. I was borned in Crawford County, Georgia.
+You see, Boss, I is a little nigger and I really is more smaller now dan I
+used to be when I was young 'cause I so old and stooped over. I mighty nigh
+wore out from all these hard years of work and servin' de Lord. My actual
+name what was give to me by my white folks, de Kendricks, was 'Tiny'. Dey
+called me dat 'cause I never was no size much. Atter us all sot free I just
+changed my name to 'Tines' an' dats what I been goin' by for nigh on to
+ninety years.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cordin' to what I 'member 'bout it, Boss, I is now past a hundred
+and four year old dis past July de fourth two hours before day. What I
+means is what I 'member 'bout what de old mars told me dat time I comed back
+to de home place atter de War quit an' he say dat I past thirty then. My
+mammy, she said I born two hours before day on de fourth of July. Dat what
+dey tole me, Boss. I is been in good health all my days. I ain't never been
+sick any in my life 'scusin' dese last years when I git so old and feeble and
+stiff in de joints, and my teef 'gin to cave, and my old bones, dey 'gin to
+ache. But I just keep on livin' and trustin' in de Lord 'cause de Good Book
+say, 'Wherefore de evil days come an' de darkness of de night draw nigh,
+your strength, it shall not perish. I will lift you up 'mongst dem what
+'bides wid me.' Dat is de Gospel, Boss.</p>
+
+<p>"My old mars, he was named Arch Kendricks and us lived on de plantation
+what de Kendricks had not far from Macon in Crawford County, Georgia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+You can see, Boss, dat I is a little bright an' got some white blood in me.
+Dat is 'counted for on my mammy's side of de family. Her pappy, he was a
+white man. He wasn't no Kendrick though. He was a overseer. Dat what my
+mammy she say an' then I know dat wasn't no Kendrick mixed up in nothin'
+like dat. Dey didn't believe in dat kind of bizness. My old mars, Arch
+Kendricks, I will say dis, he certainly was a good fair man. Old mis' an'
+de young mars, Sam, dey was strickly tough an', Boss, I is tellin' you de
+truth dey was cruel. De young mars, Sam, he never taken at all atter he
+pa. He got all he meanness from old mis' an' he sure got plenty of it too.
+Old mis', she cuss an' rare worse 'an a man. Way 'fore day she be up
+hollerin' loud enough for to be heered two miles, 'rousin' de niggers out
+for to git in de fields even 'fore light. Mars Sam, he stand by de pots
+handin' out de grub an' givin' out de bread an' he cuss loud an' say:
+'Take a sop of dat grease on your hoecake an' move erlong fast 'fore I
+lashes you.' Mars Sam, he was a big man too, dat he was. He was nigh on to
+six an' a half feet tall. Boss, he certainly was a chile of de debbil. All
+de cookin' in dem days was done in pots hangin' on de pot racks. Dey never
+had no stoves endurin' de times what I is tellin' you 'bout. At times dey
+would give us enough to eat. At times dey wouldn't&mdash;just 'cordin' to how
+dey feelin' when dey dishin' out de grub. De biggest what dey would give de
+field hands to eat would be de truck what us had on de place like greens,
+turnips, peas, side meat, an' dey sure would cut de side meat awful thin
+too, Boss. Us allus had a heap of corn-meal dumplin's an' hoecakes. Old
+mis', her an' Mars Sam, dey real stingy. You better not leave no grub on
+your plate for to throw away. You sure better eat it all iffen you like it
+or no. Old mis' and Mars Sam, dey de real bosses an' dey was wicked.
+I'se tellin' you de truth, dey was. Old mars, he didn't have much to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+'bout de runnin' of de place or de handlin' of de niggers. You know all
+de property and all the niggers belonged to old mis'. She got all dat from
+her peoples. Dat what dey left to her on their death. She de real owner
+of everything.</p>
+
+<p>"Just to show you, Boss, how 'twas with Mars Sam, on' how contrary an'
+fractious an' wicked dat young white man was, I wants to tell you 'bout de
+time dat Aunt Hannah's little boy Mose died. Mose, he sick 'bout er week.
+Aunt Hannah, she try to doctor on him an' git him well an' she tell old mis'
+dat she think Mose bad off an' orter have de doctor. Old mis', she wouldn't
+git de doctor. She say Mose ain't sick much, an' bless my Soul, Aunt Hannah
+she right. In a few days from then Mose is dead. Mars Sam, he come cussin'
+an' tole Gabe to get some planks an' make de coffin an' sont some of dem to
+dig de grave over dere on de far side of de place where dey had er buryin'-groun'
+for de niggers. Us toted de coffin over to where de grave was dug
+an' gwine bury little Mose dar an' Uncle Billy Jordan, he was dar and begun
+to sing an' pray an' have a kind of funeral at de buryin'. Every one was
+moanin' an' singin' an' prayin' and Mars Sam heard 'em an' come sailin' over
+dar on he hoss an' lit right in to cussin' an' rarein' an' say dat if dey
+don't hurry an' bury dat nigger an' shut up dat singin' an' carryin' on,
+he gwine lash every one of dem, an' then he went to cussin' worser an'
+'busin' Uncle Billy Jordan. He say iffen he ever hear of him doin' any
+more preachin' or prayin' 'round 'mongst de niggers at de grave-yard or
+anywheres else, he gwine lash him to death. No suh, Boss, Mars Sam
+wouldn't even 'low no preachin' or singin' or nothin' like dat. He was
+wicked. I tell you he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Old mis', she ginrally looked after de niggers when dey sick an'
+give dem de medicine. An' too, she would get de doctor iffen she think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+dey real bad off 'cause like I said, old mis', she mighty stingy an' she
+never want to lose no nigger by dem dyin'. How-some-ever it was hard some
+time to get her to believe you sick when you tell her dat you was, an' she
+would think you just playin' off from work. I have seen niggers what would be
+mighty near dead before old mis' would believe them sick at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Before de War broke out, I can 'member there was some few of de white
+folks what said dat niggers ought to be sot free, but there was just one now
+an' then that took that stand. One of dem dat I 'member was de Rev. Dickey
+what was de parson for a big crowd of de white peoples in dat part of de
+county. Rev. Dickey, he preached freedom for de niggers and say dat dey all
+should be sot free an' gived a home and a mule. Dat preachin' de Rev.
+Dickey done sure did rile up de folks&mdash;dat is de most of them like de Kendricks
+and Mr. Eldredge and Dr. Murcheson and Nat Walker and such as dem
+what was de biggest of the slaveowners. Right away atter Rev. Dickey done
+such preachin' dey fired him from de church, an' 'bused him, an' some of dem
+say dey gwine hang him to a limb, or either gwine ride him on a rail out of
+de country. Sure enough dey made it so hot on dat man he have to leave clean
+out of de state so I heered. No suh, Boss, they say they ain't gwine divide
+up no land with de niggers or give them no home or mule or their freedom or
+nothin'. They say dey will wade knee deep in blood an' die first.</p>
+
+<p>"When de War start to break out, Mars Sam listed in de troops and
+was sent to Virginny. There he stay for de longest. I hear old mis'
+tellin' 'bout de letters she got from him, an' how he wishin' they hurry and
+start de battle so's he can get through killin' de Yankees an' get de War
+over an' come home. Bless my soul, it wasn't long before dey had de battle
+what Mars Sam was shot in. He writ de letter from de hospital where they
+had took him. He say dey had a hard fight, dat a ball busted his gun,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+and another ball shoot his cooterments (accouterments) off him; the third
+shot tear a big hole right through the side of his neck. The doctor done
+sew de wound up; he not hurt so bad. He soon be back with his company.</p>
+
+<p>"But it wasn't long 'fore dey writ some more letters to old mis' an'
+say dat Mars Sam's wound not gettin' no better; it wasn't healin' to do no
+good; every time dat they sew de gash up in his neck it broke loose again.
+De Yankees had been puttin' poison grease on the bullets. Dat was de
+reason de wound wouldn't get well. Dey feared Mars Sam goin' to die an' a
+short time atter dat letter come I sure knowed it was so. One night just
+erbout dusk dark, de screech owls, dey come in er swarm an' lit in de big
+trees in de front of de house. A mist of dust come up an' de owls, dey
+holler an' carry on so dat old mars get he gun an' shot it off to scare dem
+erway. Dat was a sign, Boss, dat somebody gwine to die. I just knowed it
+was Mars Sam.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough de next day dey got de message dat Mars Sam dead. Dey
+brung him home all de way from Virginny an' buried him in de grave-yard on
+de other side of de garden wid his gray clothes on him an' de flag on de
+coffin. That's what I'se telling you, Boss, 'cause dey called all de
+niggers in an' 'lowed dem to look at Mars Sam. I seen him an' he sure
+looked like he peaceful in he coffin with his soldier clothes on. I
+heered atterwards dat Mars Sam bucked an' rared just 'fore he died an'
+tried to get outen de bed, an' dat he cussed to de last.</p>
+
+<p>"It was this way, Boss, how come me to be in de War. You see, they
+'quired all of de slaveowners to send so many niggers to de army to work
+diggin' de trenches an' throwin' up de breastworks an' repairin' de railroads
+what de Yankees done 'stroyed. Every mars was 'quired to send one
+nigger for every ten dat he had. Iffen you had er hundred niggers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+you had to send ten of dem to de army. I was one of dem dat my mars 'quired
+to send. Dat was de worst times dat dis here nigger ever seen an' de way
+dem white men drive us niggers, it was something awful. De strap, it was
+goin' from 'fore day till 'way after night. De niggers, heaps of 'em just
+fall in dey tracks give out an' them white men layin' de strap on dey backs
+without ceastin'. Dat was zackly way it was wid dem niggers like me what
+was in de army work. I had to stand it, Boss, till de War was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat sure was a bad war dat went on in Georgia. Dat it was. Did you
+ever hear 'bout de Andersonville prison in Georgia? I tell you, Boss, dat
+was 'bout de worstest place dat ever I seen. Dat was where dey keep all de
+Yankees dat dey capture an' dey had so many there they couldn't nigh take
+care of them. Dey had them fenced up with a tall wire fence an' never had
+enough house room for all dem Yankees. They would just throw de grub to 'em.
+De mostest dat dey had for 'em to eat was peas an' the filth, it was terrible.
+De sickness, it broke out 'mongst 'em all de while, an' dey just die like
+rats what been pizened. De first thing dat de Yankees do when dey take de
+state 'way from de Confedrits was to free all dem what in de prison at
+Andersonville.</p>
+
+<p>"Slavery time was tough, Boss. You Just don't know how tough it was.
+I can't 'splain to you just how bad all de niggers want to get dey freedom.
+With de 'free niggers' it was just de same as it was wid dem dat was in
+bondage. You know there was some few 'free niggers' in dat time even 'fore
+de slaves taken outen bondage. It was really worse on dem dan it was with
+dem what wasn't free. De slaveowners, dey just despised dem 'free niggers'
+an' make it just as hard on dem as dey can. Dey couldn't get no work from
+nobody. Wouldn't airy man hire 'em or give 'em any work at all. So
+because dey was up against it an' never had any money or nothin',<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+de white folks make dese 'free niggers' sess (assess) de taxes. An' 'cause
+dey never had no money for to pay de tax wid, dey was put up on de block by
+de court man or de sheriff an' sold out to somebody for enough to pay de tax
+what dey say dey owe. So dey keep these 'free niggers' hired out all de
+time most workin' for to pay de taxes. I 'member one of dem 'free niggers'
+mighty well. He was called 'free Sol'. He had him a little home an' a old
+woman an' some boys. Dey was kept bounded out nigh 'bout all de time
+workin' for to pay dey tax. Yas suh, Boss, it was heap more better to be a
+slave nigger dan er free un. An' it was really er heavenly day when de
+freedom come for de race.</p>
+
+<p>"In de time of slavery annudder thing what make it tough on de niggers
+was dem times when er man an' he wife an' their chillun had to be taken 'way
+from one anudder. Dis sep'ration might be brung 'bout most any time for one
+thing or anudder sich as one or tudder de man or de wife be sold off or
+taken 'way to some other state like Louisiana or Mississippi. Den when a
+mars die what had a heap of slaves, these slave niggers be divided up 'mongst
+de mars' chillun or sold off for to pay de mars' debts. Then at times when
+er man married to er woman dat don't belong to de same mars what he do, then
+dey is li'ble to git divided up an' sep'rated most any day. Dey was heaps
+of nigger families dat I know what was sep'rated in de time of bondage dat
+tried to find dey folkses what was gone. But de mostest of 'em never git
+togedder ag'in even after dey sot free 'cause dey don't know where one or
+de other is.</p>
+
+<p>"Atter de War over an' de slaves taken out of dey bondage, some of de
+very few white folks give dem niggers what dey liked de best a small piece
+of land for to work. But de mostest of dem never give 'em nothin'
+and dey sure despise dem niggers what left 'em. Us old mars say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+he want to 'range wid all his niggers to stay on wid him, dat he gwine give
+'em er mule an' er piece er ground. But us know dat old mis' ain't gwine
+agree to dat. And sure enough she wouldn't. I'se tellin' you de truth,
+every nigger on dat place left. Dey sure done dat; an' old mars an' old
+mis', dey never had a hand left there on that great big place, an' all that
+ground layin' out.</p>
+
+<p>"De gov'ment seen to it dat all of de white folks had to make contracts
+wid de niggers dat stuck wid 'em, an' dey was sure strict 'bout dat too. De
+white folks at first didn't want to make the contracts an' say dey wasn't
+gwine to. So de gov'ment filled de jail with 'em, an' after that every one
+make the contract.</p>
+
+<p>"When my race first got dey freedom an' begin to leave dey mars', a
+heap of de mars got ragin' mad an' just tore up truck. Dey say dey gwine
+kill every nigger dey find. Some of them did do dat very thing, Boss, sure
+enough. I'se tellin' you de truth. Dey shot niggers down by de hundreds.
+Dey jus' wasn't gwine let 'em enjoy dey freedom. Dat is de truth, Boss.</p>
+
+<p>"Atter I come back to de old home place from workin' for de army, it
+wasn't long 'fore I left dar an' git me er job with er sawmill an' worked
+for de sawmill peoples for about five years. One day I heered some niggers
+tellin' about er white man what done come in dar gittin' up er big lot of
+niggers to take to Arkansas. Dey was tellin' 'bout what a fine place it was
+in Arkansas, an' how rich de land is, an' dat de crops grow without working,
+an' dat de taters grow big as er watermelon an' you never have to plant 'em
+but de one time, an' all sich as dat. Well, I 'cided to come. I j'ined up
+with de man an' come to Phillips County in 1875. Er heap er niggers come
+from Georgia at de same time dat me an' Callie come. You know Callie,
+dats my old woman whats in de shack dar right now. Us first lived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+on Mr. Jim Bush's place over close to Barton. Us ain't been far off from
+dere ever since us first landed in dis county. Fact is, Boss, us ain't been
+outen de county since us first come here, an' us gwine be here now I know
+till de Lord call for us to come on home."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+<br />
+Name of interviewer: Watt McKinney<br />
+Subject: Superstitious beliefs<br />
+Story&mdash;Information (If not enough space on this page, add page)<br />
+<br />
+This information given by: Tines Kendricks (C)<br />
+Place of residence: Trenton, Arkansas<br />
+Occupation: None<br />
+Age: 104<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>There is an ancient and traditional belief among the Southern Negroes,
+especially the older ones, that the repeated and intermitted cries of a
+whippoorwill near a home in the early evenings of summer and occurring on
+successive days at or about the same time and location; or the appearance of
+a highly excited redbird, disturbed for no apparent reason, is indicative of
+some imminent disaster, usually thought to be the approaching death of some
+member of the family.</p>
+
+<p>Tines Kendricks, who says that he was born the slave of Arch Kendricks in
+Crawford County, Georgia, two hours before day on a certain Fourth of July,
+one hundred and four years ago, recalls several instances in his long and
+eventful life in which he contends the accuracy of these forecasts was borne
+out by subsequent occurrences. The most striking of these he says was the
+time his young master succumbed from the effect of a wound received at the
+first battle of Manassas after hovering between life and death for several
+days. The young master, Sam Kendricks, who was the only son of his parents,
+volunteered at the beginning of the War and was attached to the army in
+Virginia. He was a very impetuous, high-spirited young man and chafed much
+under the delay occasioned between the time of his enlistment and first battle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+wanting to have the trouble over with and the difficulties settled which he
+honestly thought could be accomplished in the first engagement with that
+enemy for whom he held such profound contempt. Sam Kendricks, coming as
+he did from a long line of slave-owning forebears, was one of those Southerners
+who felt that it was theirs to command and the duty of others to obey.
+They would brook no interference with the established order and keenly
+resented the attitude and utterances of Northern press and spokesmen on the
+slavery question. Tines Kendricks recalls the time his young master took
+leave of his home and parents for the war and his remarks on departing that
+his neck was made to fit no halter and that he possessed no mite of fear for
+Yankee soldier or Yankee steel. Soon after the battle of Manassas, Arch
+Kendricks was advised that Sam had suffered a severe wound in the engagement.
+It was stated, however, that the wound was not expected to prove fatal. This
+sad news of what had befallen the young master was soon communicated throughout
+the entire length and breadth of the great plantation and in the early
+evening of that day Tines sitting in the door of his cabin in the slave
+quarters a short distance from the master's great house heard the cry of a
+whippoorwill and observed that the voice of this night bird seemed to arise
+from the dense hedge enclosing the spacious lawn in front of the home. Disturbed
+and filled with a sense of foreboding at this sound of the bird, he
+earnestly hoped and prayed that the cry would not be repeated the following
+evening, but to his great disappointment it was heard again and nearer the
+house than before. On each succeeding evening according to Tines Kendricks
+the call of the bird came clearly through the evening's stillness and each time
+he noticed that the cry came from a spot nearer the home until at last the bird
+seemed perched beneath the wide veranda and early on the morning following,
+a very highly excited redbird darted from tree to tree on the front lawn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+The redbird continued these peculiar actions for several minutes after which
+it flew and came to rest on the roof of the old colonial mansion directly
+above the room formerly occupied by the young master. Tines was convinced
+now that the end had come for Sam Kendricks and that his approaching death
+had been foretold by the whippoorwill and that each evening as the bird
+approached nearer the house and uttered his night cry just so was the life
+of young Sam Kendricks slowly nearing its close and the actions of the redbird
+the following day was revealing evidence to Tines that the end had
+come to his young master which indeed it had as proven by a message the
+family received late in the morning of this same day.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Frank Kennedy,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Holly Grove, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 65 or 70?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My parents' name was Hannah and Charles Kennedy. They b'long to
+Master John Kennedy. I was raised round Aberdeen, Mississippi but they
+come in there after freedom. I heard em talk but I couldn't tell you much
+as where they come from. They said a young girl bout got her growth would
+auction off for more than any man. They used em for cooks and house women.
+I judge way they talked she be fifteen or sixteen years old. They brought
+$1,600 and $2,000. If they was scared up, where they been beat, they
+didn't sell off good. I knowed Master John Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ku Klux come round but they didn't bother much. They would bother
+if you stole something. Another thing they made em stay close bout their
+own places and work. I don't know bout freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"I been farmin' and sawmillin' at Clarendon. I gets jobs I can do on
+the farms now. I got rheumatism so I can't get round. I had this trouble
+five years or longer now.</p>
+
+<p>"The times is worse, so many folks stealin' and killin'. The young
+folks don't work steady as they used to. Used to get figured out all you
+raised till now they refuse to work less en the money in sight. They don't
+work hard as I allers been workin'.</p>
+
+<p>"I got one girl married. I don't have no land nor home. I works for
+all I have yet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have voted&mdash;not lately. I think my color outer vote like the
+white folks do long as they do right. The women takin' the mens' places
+too much it pears like. But they may be honester. I don't know how it will
+be."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">800 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 85<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"When they first put me in the field, they put me and Viney to pick up
+brush and pile it, to pick up stumps, and when we got through with that, she
+worked on her mother's row and I worked on my aunt's row until we got large
+enough to have a row to ourselves. Me and Viney were the smallest children
+in the field and we had one row each. Some of the older people had two rows
+and picked on each row.</p>
+
+<p>"My birthday is on the fourth of November, and I am eighty-five years
+old. You can count back and see what year I was born in.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Relatives</h4>
+
+<p>"My mother's first child was her master's child. I was the second
+child but my father was Reuben Dortch. He belonged to Colonel Dortch.
+Colonel Dortch died in Princeton, Arkansas, Dallas County, about eighty-six
+miles from here. He died before the War. I never saw him. But he was my
+father's first master. He used to go and get goods, and he caught this
+fever they had then&mdash;I think it was cholera&mdash;and died. After Colonel Dortch
+died, his son-in-law, Archie Hays, became my father's second master. Were
+all with Hays when we were freed.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's father was a white man. He was named Wilson Rainey. I
+never did see him. My mother has said to me many a time that he was the
+meanest man in Dallas County. My father's mother was named Viney. That was
+her first name. I forget the last name. My mother's name was Martha Hays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>,
+and my grandmother's name on my mother's side was Sallie Hays. My maiden
+name was Adrianna Dortch.</p>
+
+
+<h4>A Devoted Slave Husband</h4>
+
+<p>"I have heard my mother tell many a time that there was a slave man who
+used to take his own dinner and carry it three or four miles to his wife.
+His wife belonged to a mean white man who wouldn't give them what they
+needed to eat. He done without his dinner in order that she might have
+enough. Where would you find a man to do that now? Nowadays they are
+taking the bread away from their wives and children and carrying it to some
+other woman.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Patrollers</h4>
+
+<p>"A Negro couldn't leave his master's place unless he had a pass from
+his master. If he didn't have a pass, they would whip him. My father was
+out once and was stopped by them. They struck him. When my father got back
+home, he told Colonel Dortch and Colonel Dortch went after them pateroles
+and laid the law down to them&mdash;told them that he was ready to kill
+'em.</p>
+
+<p>"The pateroles got after a slave named Ben Holmes once and run him
+clean to our place. He got under the bed and hid. But they found him and
+dragged him out and beat him.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Work</h4>
+
+<p>"I had three aunts in the field. They could handle a plow and roll
+logs as well as any man. Trees would blow down and trees would have to be
+carried to a heap and burned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I been whipped many a time by my mistress and overseer. I'd get
+behind with my work and he would come by and give me a lick with the bull
+whip he carried with him.</p>
+
+<p>"At first when the old folks cut wood, me and Viney would pick up chips
+and burn up brush. We had to pick dry peas in the fall after the crops had
+been gathered. We picked two large basketsful a day.</p>
+
+<p>"When we got larger we worked in the field picking cotton and pulling
+corn as high as we could reach. You had to pull the fodder first before you
+could pull the corn. When we had to come out of the field on account of
+rain, we would go to the corn crib and shuck corn if we didn't have some
+weaving to do. We got so we could weave and spin. When master caught us
+playing, he would set us to cutting jackets. He would give us each two or
+three switches and we would stand up and whip each other. I would go easy
+on Viney but she would try to cut me to pieces. She hit me so hard I would
+say, 'Yes suh, massa.' And she would say, 'Why you sayin' "Yes suh, massa,"
+to me? I ain't doin' nothin' to you.'</p>
+
+<p>"My mother used to say that Lincoln went through the South as a beggar
+and found out everything. When he got back, he told the North how slavery
+was ruining the nation. He put different things before the South but
+they wouldn't listen to him. I heard that the South was the first one to
+fire a shot.</p>
+
+<p>"Lemme tell you how freedom came. Our master came out where we was
+grubbing the ground in front of the house. My father was already in Little
+Rock where they were trying to make a soldier out of him. Master came out
+and said to mother, 'Martha, they are saying you are free but that ain't
+goin' to las' long. You better stay here. Reuben is dead.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mother then commenced to fix up a plan to leave. She got the oxen
+yoked up twice, but when she went to hunt the yoke, she couldn't find it.
+Negroes were all going through every which way then. Peace was declared
+before she could get another chance. Word came then that the government
+would carry all the slaves where they wanted to go. Mother came to Little
+Rock in a government wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"She left Cordelia. Cordelia was her daughter by Archie Hays.
+Cordelia was supposed to join us when the government wagon came along but
+she went to sleep. One colored woman was coming to get in the wagon and her
+white folks caught her and made her go back. Them Yankees got off their
+horses and went over there and made them turn the woman loose and let her
+come on. They were rough and they took her on to Little Rock in the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"The Yankees used to come looking for horses. One time Master Archie
+had sent the horses off by one of the colored slaves who was to stay at his
+wife's house and hide them in the thicket. During the night, mother heard
+Archie Hays hollering. She went out to see what was the matter. The
+Yankees had old Archie Hays out and had guns poked at his breast. He was
+hollering, 'No sir. I don't.' And mother came and said, 'Reuben, get up and
+go tell them he don't know where the horses is.' Father got up and did a
+bold thing. He went out and said, 'Wait, gentlemen, he don't know where the
+horses is, but if you'll wait till tomorrow morning, he'll send a man to
+bring them in.' I don't know how they got word to him but he brought them in
+the next morning and the Yankees taken them off.</p>
+
+<p>"Once a Rebel fired a shot at a Yankee and in a few minutes,
+our place was alive with them. They were working like ants in a heap
+all over the place. They took chickens and everything on the place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Master Archie didn't have no sons large enough for the army. If he had,
+they would have killed him because they would have thought that he was
+harboring spies."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns is a sister to Charles Green Dortch.
+Cross reference; see his story.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: George Key,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Forrest City, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 70 plus<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Fayette County, Tennessee. My mother was Henrietta
+Hair. She was owned by David Hair. He had a gang of children. I was her
+only child. She married just after the surrender she said. She married
+Henry Key.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing I can tell you she told me so often. The Yankees come by
+and called her out of the cabin at the quarters. She was a brown girl.
+They was going out on a scout trip&mdash;to hunt and ravage over the country.
+They told her to get up her clothes, they would be by for her. She was
+grandma's and grandpa's owners' nurse girl. She told them and they sent
+her on to tell the white folks. They sent her clear off. She didn't want
+to leave. She said her master was plumb good to her and them all. They
+kept her hid out. The Yankees come slipping back to tole her off. They
+couldn't find her nowhere. They didn't ax about her. They was stealing
+her for a cook she thought. She couldn't cook to do no good she said. She
+wasn't married for a long time after then. She said she was scared nearly
+to death till they took her off and hid her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have voted but not for a long time. I'm too old to get about and
+keep too sick to go to the polls to vote. I got high blood pressure.</p>
+
+<p>"Times is fair. If I was a young man I would go to work. I can't
+grumble. Folks mighty nice to me. I keeps in line with my kin folks and
+men my age.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The young age folks don't understand me and I don't know their ways
+neither. They may be all right, but I don't know."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Lucy Key,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Forrest City, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 70 plus<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Marshall County, Mississippi. I seen Yankees go by in
+droves. I was big enough to recollect that. Old mis', Ellis Marshall's
+mother, named all the colored children on the place. All the white and
+colored children was named for somebody else in the family. Aunt Mary
+Marshall stayed in the house wid old mis'.</p>
+
+<p>"Old mis' had a polly parrot. That thing got bad 'bout telling on
+us. Old mis' give us a brushing. Her son was a bachelor. He lived there.
+He married a girl fourteen or fifteen years old and Lawrence Marshall is
+their son. His sister was in Texas. They said old man Marshall was so
+stingy he would cut a pea in two. Every time we'd go in the orchard old
+polly parrot tell on us. We'd eat the turning fruit. One day Aunt Mary
+(colored) scared polly with her dress and apron till he took bad off sick
+and died. Mr. Marshall was rough. If he'd found that out he'd 'bout
+whooped Aunt Mary to death. He didn't find it out. He'd have crazy
+spells and they couldn't handle him. They would send for Wallace and Tite
+Marshall (colored men on his place). They was all could do anything wid
+'em. He had plenty money and a big room full of meat all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect what we called after the War a 'Jim Crow.' It was a
+hairbrush that had brass or steel teeth like pins 'ceptin' it was blunt.
+It was that long, handle and all (about a foot long). They'd wash
+me and grease my legs with lard, keep them from looking ashy and rusty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+Then they'd come after me with them old brushes and brush my hair. It
+mortally took skin, hair, and all.</p>
+
+<p>"The first shoe I ever wore had a brass toe. I danced all time when I
+was a child. We wore cotton dresses so strong. They would hang you if you
+got caught on 'em. We had one best dress.</p>
+
+<p>"One time I went along wid a colored girl to preaching. Her fellar
+walked home wid 'er. I was coming 'long behind. He helped her over the
+rail fence. I wouldn't let him help me. I was sorter bashful. He looked
+back and I was dangling. I got caught when I jumped. They got me loose.
+My homespun dress didn't tear.</p>
+
+<p>"I liked my papa the best. He was kind and never whooped us. He belong
+to Master Stamps on another place. He was seventy-five years old when he died.</p>
+
+<p>"I milked a drove of cows. They raised us on milk and they had a
+garden. I never et much meat. I went to school and they said meat would
+make you thick-headed so you couldn't learn.</p>
+
+<p>"I think papa was in the War. We cut sorghum cane with his sword what
+he fit wid.</p>
+
+<p>"Stamps was a teacher. He started a college before the War. It was a
+big white house and a boarding house for the scholars. He had a scholar
+they called Cooperwood. He rode. He would run us children. Mama went to
+Master Stamps and he stopped that. He was the teacher. I think that was
+toreckly after the War. Then we lived in the boarding house. Four or five
+families lived in that big old house. It had fifteen rooms. That was
+close to Marshall, Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"Me and the Norfleet children drove the old mule gin together. There
+was Mary, Nell, Grace. Miss Cora was the oldest. Miss Cora Marshall
+married the old bachelor I told you about. She didn't play much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When the first yellow fever broke out, Master George Stamps sent papa
+to Colliersville from Germantown. The officers stayed there. While he was
+waiting for meat he would stay in the bottoms. He'd bring meat back.
+Master George had a great big heavy key to the smokehouse. He'd cut meat
+and give it out to his Negroes. That meat was smuggled from Memphis. He'd
+go in a two-horse wagon. I clem up and look through the log cracks at him
+cutting up the meat fer the hands on his place.</p>
+
+<p>"I had the rheumatism but I cured it. I cupped my knee. Put water in
+a cup, put a little coal oil (kerosene) on top, strike a match to it and
+slap the cup to my knee. It drawed a clear blister. I got it well and the
+rheumatism was gone. I used to rub my legs from my waist down'ards with
+mule water. They say that is mighty good for rheumatism. I don't have it
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>"No sir-ree-bob, I ain't never voted and I don't aim to long as I'm in
+my mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Times ain't hard as they was when I was coming on. (Another Negro
+woman says Aunt Lucy Key will wash or do lots of things and never take a
+cent of pay for it&mdash;ed.) Money is scarce but this generation don't know
+how to work. My husband gets relief 'cause he's sick and wore out. My
+nephew gives us these rooms to live in. He got money. (We saw a radio in
+his room and modern up-to-date furnishings&mdash;ed.) He is a good boy. I'm
+good to him as I can be. Seems like some folks getting richer every day,
+other folks getting worse off every day. Times look dark that way to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I been in Arkansas eight years. I tries to be friendly wid everybody."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Bernice Bowden.<br />
+Person interviewed: Anna King (c)<br />
+Home: 704 West Fifth, Pine Bluff, Ark.<br />
+Age: 80<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes honey, I was here in slavery times. I'se gittin' old too,
+honey. I was nine years old goin' on ten when the war ceasted. I remember
+when they was volunteerin'. I remember they said it wasn't goin'
+to be nothin' but a breakfus' spell.</p>
+
+<p>"My fust marster was Nichols Lee. You see I was born in slavery
+times&mdash;and I was sold away from my mother. My mother never did tell us
+nothin' 'bout our ages. My white people told me after freedom that I
+was 'bout nine or ten.</p>
+
+<p>"When the white chillun come of age they drawed for the colored
+folks. Marse Nichols Lee had a girl named Ann and she drawed me.
+She didn't keep me no time though, and the man what bought me was named
+Leo Andrew Whitley. He went to war and died before the war ceasted.
+Then I fell to his brother Jim Whitley. He was my last marster. I was
+with him when peace was declared. Yes mam, he was good to me. All my
+white folks mighty good to me. Co'se Jim Whitley's wife slap my jaws
+sometimes, but she never did take a stick to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord honey, its been so long I just can't remember much now.
+I'se gittin' old and forgitful. Heap a things I remember and heap a
+things slips from me and is gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Well honey, in slavery times, a heap of 'em didn't have good
+owners. When they wanted to have church services and keep old marster
+from hearin', they'd go out in the woods and turn the wash-pot upside
+down. You know that would take up all the sound.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember Adam Heath&mdash;he was called the meanest white man.
+I remember he bought a boy and you know his first marster was good and
+he wasn't used to bein' treated bad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day he asked old Adam Heath for a chew of tobacco, so old Adam
+whipped him, and the boy ran away. But they caught him and put a bell
+on him. Yes mam, that was in slavery times. Honey, I had good owners.
+They didn't believe in beatin' their niggers.</p>
+
+<p>"You know my home was in North Carolina. I was bred and born
+in Johnson County.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember seein' the soldiers goin' to war, but I never seed
+no Yankee soldiers till after freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"When folks heard the Yankees was comin' they run and hide
+their stuff. One time they hide the meat in the attic, but the Yankees
+found it and loaded it in Everett Whitley's wife's surrey and took it
+away. She died just 'fore surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"And I remember 'nother time they went to the smokehouse and
+got something to eat and strewed the rest over the yard. Then they
+went in the house and jest ramshacked it.</p>
+
+<p>"My second marster never had no wife. He was courtin' a girl,
+but when the war come, he volunteered. Then he took sick and died at
+Manassas Gap. Yes'm, that's what they told me.</p>
+
+<p>"My furst marster had a whiskey still. Now let me see, he had
+three girls and one boy and they each had two slaves apiece. Ann Lee
+drawed me and my grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>"No mam, I never did go to school. You better <span class="u">not</span> go to school.
+You better not ever be caught with a book in your hand. Some of 'em
+slipped off and got a little learnin'. They'd get the old Blue Back
+book out. Heap of 'em got a little learnin', but I didn't.</p>
+
+<p>"When I fell to Jim Whitley's wife she kept me right in the
+house with her. Yes mam, she was one good mistis to me when I was a child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+She certainly did feed me and clothe me. Yes mam!</p>
+
+<p>"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? Let me see, honey, if I can
+give you a guess. I been here about forty years. I remember they come
+to the old country (North Carolina) and say, if you come to Arkansas you
+wont even have to cook. They say the hogs walkin' round already barbecued.
+But you know I knowed better than that.</p>
+
+<p>"We come to John M. Gracie's plantation and some to Dr. Blunson
+(Brunson). I remember when we got off the boat Dr. Blunson was sittin'
+there and he said "Well, my crowd looks kinda puny and sickly, but I'm
+a doctor and I'll save 'em." I stayed there eight years. We had to
+pay our transportation which was fifty dollars, but they sure did give
+you plenty of somethin' to eat&mdash;yes mam!</p>
+
+<p>"No'm my hair ain't much white. My set o'folks don't get gray
+much, but I'm old enough to be white. I done a heap a hard work in my
+life. I hope clean up new ground and I tells folks I done everything
+'cept Maul rails.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord honey, I don't know chile. I don't know <span class="u">what</span> to think,
+about this here younger generation. Now when they raised me up, I took
+care of myself and the white folks done took care of me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes mam, honey, I seed the Ku Klux. I remember in North
+Carolina when the Ku Klux got so bad they had to send and get the United
+States soldiers. I remember one come and joined in with the Ku Klux
+till he found out who the head man was and then he turned 'em up and
+they carried 'em to a prison place called Gethsemane. No mam! They
+never come back. When they carried you to Gethsemane, you never come
+back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I say the Lord blest me in my old age. Even though I can't see,
+I set here and praise the Lord and say, Lord, you abled me to walk and hear.
+Yes, honey, I'm sure glad you come. I'm proud you thought that much of
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Good bye, and if you are ever passin' here again, stop and see me."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Anna King<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">704 W. Fifth (rear), Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 82<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I used to 'member lots but you know, my remembrance got short.</p>
+
+<p>"I was bred and born in Johnston County, North Carolina. I was sold
+away from my mother but after freedom I got back. I had a brother was sold
+just 'fore I was. My mother had two boys and three girls and my oldest
+sister was sold.</p>
+
+<p>"And then you know, in slavery times, when the white children got
+grown, their parents give 'em so many darkies. My young Missis drawed me.</p>
+
+<p>"My fust master was such a drinker. Named Lee. Lawd a mercy, I knowed
+his fust name but I can't think now. Young Lee, that was it.</p>
+
+<p>"He sold me, and Leo Andrew Whitley bought me. Don't know how much&mdash;all
+I know is I was sold.</p>
+
+<p>"After freedom I scrambled back to the old plantation and that's the
+way I found my mother.</p>
+
+<p>"My last master never married. He had what they called a northern
+trotter.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish I was able to get back to the old country and find some of my kin
+folks. If they ain't none of the old head livin', the young folks is. I
+got oceans of kin folks in Sampson County.</p>
+
+<p>"My husband was a preacher and he come to the old country from this
+here Arkansas. He always said he was going to bring me out to this
+country. He was always tellin' me 'bout Little Rock and Hot Springs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+So I was anxious to see this country. So after he died and when they was emigratin' the
+folks here, I come. I 'member Dr. Blunson counted us out after we got off the boat and
+he said, 'Well, my crowd looks kinda sickly, but I'm a doctor and I'll save you.' Lawd,
+they certainly come a heap of 'em. When the train uncoupled at Memphis, some went to
+Texas, some to Mississippi, and some to Louisiana and Arkansas. People hollerin'
+'Goodbye' made you feel right sad.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of 'em stayed in Memphis but I wouldn't stay 'cause dat's the meanest
+place in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"John M. Gracie had paid out his money for us and I believe in doin' what's right.
+That was a plantation as sure as you bawn."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Mose King,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Lexa, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 81<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Richmond, Virginia. My master was Ephriam Hester. He
+had a wife and little boy. We called her mistress. I forgot their names.
+It's been so long ago.</p>
+
+<p>"My parents named Lizzie Johnson and Andrew Kent. I had seven sisters
+and there was two of us boys. When mistress died they sold mother and my
+eldest sister and divided the money. I don't know her master's name in
+Virginia. Mother was a cook at Ephriam Hester's. Sister died soon as they
+come 'way from Virginia. I heard her talk like she belong to Nathan Singleterry
+in Virginia. They put mother and Andrew Kent together. After the
+surrender she married Johnson. I heard her say my own father was 'cross the
+river in a free state.</p>
+
+<p>"There was two row of houses on the side of a road a quarter mile long
+and that is the place all the slaves lived. Ephriam Hester had one hundred
+acres of wheat. Mother was the head loom. He wasn't cruel but he let the
+overseers be hard. He said he let the overseers whoop 'em, that what he
+hired 'em for. They had a whooping stock. It was a table out in the open.
+They moved it about where they was working. They put the heads and hands
+and feet in it. I seen a heap of 'em get mighty bad whoopings. I was glad
+freedom come on fer that one reason. Long as he lived we had plenty to eat,
+plenty to wear. We had meal, hogs, goat, sheep and cows, molasses, corn
+hominy, garden stuff. We did have potatoes. I said garden stuff.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ephriam Hester come to a hard fate. A crowd of cavalrymen from
+Vicksburg rode up. He was on his porch. He went in the house to his wife.
+One of the soldiers retched in his pocket and got something and throwed it
+up on top of the house. The house burned up and him and her burned up in
+it. The house was surrounded. That took place three miles this side of
+Natchez, Mississippi. They took all his fine stock, all the corn. They
+hauled it off. They took all the wagons. They sot all they didn't take on
+fire and let it burn up. They burnt the gin and some cotton. They burnt
+the loom house, the wheat house; they robbed the smokehouse and burned it.
+We never got nothing. We come purt nigh starving after then. After that
+round we had no use fer the Yankees. I was learned young two wrongs don't
+make a right. That was wrong. They done more wrong than that. I heard
+about it. We stayed till after freedom. It was about a year. It was hard
+times. Seemed longer. We went to another place after freedom. We never
+got a chance to get nothing. Nothing to get there.</p>
+
+<p>"In slavery times they had clog dances from one farm to another.
+Paddyrollers run 'em in, give them whoopings. They had big nigger hounds.
+They was no more of them after the War. The Ku Klux got to having trouble.
+They would put vines across the narrow roads. The horses run in and fell
+flat. The Ku Klux had to quit on that account.</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't know exactly when freedom was. I went to school at
+Shaffridge, two miles from Clarks store. That was what is Clarksdale,
+Mississippi now. He had a store, only store in town. Old man Clark run it.
+He was old bachelor and a all right fellow, I reckon. I thought so. I went
+to colored teachers five or six months. I learned in the Blue Back books.
+I stopped at about 'Baker (?)'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I farmed all my life. I got my wife and married her in 1883. We got
+a colored preacher, Parson Ward. I had four children. They all dead but
+one. I got two lots and a house gone back to the state. I come to see
+'bout 'em today. I going to redeem 'em if I can. I made the money to buy
+it at the round house. I worked there ten or twelve years. I got two
+dollars ninety-eight cents a day. I hates to loose it. I have a hard time
+now to live, Miss.</p>
+
+<p>"I votes Republican mostly. I have voted on both sides. I tries to
+live like this. When in Rome, do as Romans. I want to be peaceable wid
+everybody.</p>
+
+<p>"The present times is hard. I can't get a bit of work. I tries. Work
+is hard fer some young folks to get yet.</p>
+
+<p>"I love to be around young folks. Fer as I know they do all right. The
+world looks nicer 'an it used to look. All I see wrong, times is hard."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Zillah Cross Peel<br />
+Information given by: Aunt Susie King, Ex-slave.<br />
+Residence: Cane Hill, Arkansas. Washington County.<br />
+Age: about 93.<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>Across the Town Branch, in what is dubbed "Tin-cup" lives one
+of the oldest ex-slaves in Washington county, "Aunt Susie" King,
+who was born at Cane Hill, Arkansas about 1844.</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Susie" doesn't know just how old she is, but she thinks
+she is over ninety, just how much she doesn't know. Perhaps the most
+accurate way to get near her age would be go to the county records
+where one can find the following bill of sale:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"State of Arkansas, County of Washington, for and in consideration
+of natural affection that I have for my daughter, Rebecca Rich,
+living in the county aforesaid above mentioned, and I do hereby give
+and bequath unto her one negro woman named Sally and her children
+namely Sam, and Fill, her lifetime thence to her children her lawful
+heirs forever and I do warrant and forever defend said negro girl and
+her children against all lawful claims whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="left">July, 1840.</span> <span class="right">Tom Hinchea Barker,</span><br />
+<span class="left">Witness, J. Funkhouser.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="right">Filed for record,</span><br />
+<span class="right">Feb. 16, 1841.</span><br /></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When this bill of sale was read to "Aunt Susie" she said with
+great interest,</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, yes'm that sure was my Ma and my two brothers, Sam and
+Fill, then come a 'nother brother, Allan, and then Jack and then I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+next then my baby sister Milly Jane. Yes'm we's come 'bout every two
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, ole Missy was rich; she had lots of money, lots of lan'.
+Her girl, she jes' had one, married John Nunley, Mister Ab, he married
+Miss Ann Darnell, Mister Jack he married Miss Milly Holt, and Mister
+Calvin he married Miss Lacky Foster. Yes'm they lived all 'round 'bout
+us. Some at Rhea's Hill and some at Cane Hill," and to prove the
+keenness of this old slave's mind, as well as her accuracy, one need
+only to go to the county deed records where in 1849, Rebecca Rich deeded
+several 40 acres tracts of land to her sons, James, Calvin, William
+Jackson and Absaolum. This same deed record gives the names of the
+wives of these sons just as "Aunt Susie" named them. However, Miss
+Lacky Foster was "Kelika Foster."</p>
+
+<p>Then Aunt Susie started remembering:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, my mother's name was Sally. She'd belonged to Mister Tom
+H. Barker and he gived her to Miss Becky, his daughter. I think of
+them all lots of days. I know a heap of folks that some times I forgot.
+When the War came, we lived in a big log house. We had a loom room
+back of the kitchen. I had a good mother. She wove some. We all wove mos'
+all of the blankets and carpets and counterpans and Old Missey she loved
+to sit down at the loom and weave some", with a gay chuckle Aunty Susie
+said, "then she'd let me weave an' Old Missey she'd say I takes her
+work and the loom away from her. I did love to weave, all them bright
+colores, blue and red and green and yellow. They made all the colors
+in the back yard in a big kettle, my mother, Sally did the colorin'".<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We had a heap of company. The preacher came a lot of times and
+when the War come Ole Missey she say if we all go with her, she'd take
+us all to Texas. We's 'fraid of the Yankees; 'fraid they get us.</p>
+
+<p>"We went in wagons. Ole Missey in the carriage. We never took nothin'
+but a bed stead for Ole Missey. They was a great drove of we darkies.
+Part time we walked, part time we rode. We was on the road a long time.
+First place we stopped was Collins County, and stayed awhile I recollect.
+We had lots of horses too. Some white folks drove 'long and offered to
+take us away from Ole Missey but we wouldn't go. We didn't want to leave
+Ole Missey, she's good to us. Oh Lord, it would a nearly kilt her effen
+any body'd hit one of her darkies; I'd always stay in the house and
+took care of Ole Miss. She was pretty woman, had light hair. She was
+kinda punny tho, somethin' matter with her mos' all the time, headache
+or toothache or something'."</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Rich went down to the river swimmin' one time I heard,
+and got drowned."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, they was good days fo' the War."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm we stayed in Texas until Peace was made. We was then at
+Sherman, Texas. Peace didn't make no difference with us. We was glad
+to be free, and we com'd back to Arkansas with Ole Missey. We didn't
+want to live down there. Me and my man, Charlie King, was married after
+the War, and we went to live on Mister Jim Moores place. Ole Miss giv'd
+my ma a cow. I made my first money in Texas, workin' for a woman and
+she giv'd me five dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm after Peace the slaves all scattered 'bout."</p>
+
+<p>"The colored folks today lak a whole heap bein' like they was
+fo' the War. They's good darkies, and some aint so good."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+Me and my man had seven children all dead but two, Bob lives with
+me. I don't worry 'bout food. We ain't come no ways starvin'. I
+have all I want to eat. Bob he works for Missus Wade every mornin'
+tendin' to her flowers and afternoons works for him self. She owns
+this house, lets us live in it. She's good all right, good woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I like flowers too, but ain't got no water, no more. Water's
+scarce. Someone turned off the hydrant."</p>
+
+<p>"I belong to the Baptist church a long while."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Gate-eye Fisher?" When I said "yes, I went down
+to talk to him last week," she said, "well, law me, Gate-eye ain't
+no fool. He's the best cook as ever struck a stove. He married my
+baby sister, Milly Jane's child. Harriet Lee Ann, she's my niece.
+She left him, said she'd never go back no more to him. She's somewhere
+over in Oklahoma."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you see Doc Flowers? Yes'm, I was mos' a mother to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"One time my man and me heard a peckin' at the do'. We's eatin'
+supper. I went to the do' and there was Doc. He and his step-pa, Ole
+Uncle Ike, had a fight and Doc come to us and stayed 'bout three years.
+He started cryin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm my Pa and Ma had belonged to Mister John Barker, before
+he giv'd my Ma to Miss Becky, my Pa was a leather worker. He could
+make shoes, and boots and slippers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm, Good bye. Come back again honey. Yes'm I'd like a little
+snuff&mdash;not the sweet kind. It makes my teeth feel better to have snuff.
+I ain't got much but snags, and snuff, a little mite helps them."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: William Kirk<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1910 W. Sixth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 84<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I been here ever since 1853&mdash;yes ma'm! Cose I 'member the war!
+I tell you I've seen them cannon balls goin' up just like a balloon.
+I wasn't big enough to work till peace was declared but they had my
+mammy and daddy under the lash. One good thing 'bout my white folks,
+they give the hands three months' schoolin' every year. My mammy and
+daddy got three months' schoolin' in the old country. Some said that
+was General Washington's proclamation, but some of 'em wouldn't hear to
+it. When peace was declared, some of the niggers had as good education
+as the white man. That was cause their owners had 'lowed it to 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"They used to put us in cells under the house so the Yankees
+couldn't get us. Old master's name was Sam Kirk and he had overseers and
+nigger dogs (bloodhounds) that didn't do nothin' but run them niggers.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'member one time when they say the Yankees was comin' all us chillun,
+boys and girls, white and black, got upon the fence and old master
+come out and say 'Get in your holes!'</p>
+
+<p>"The war went on four years. Them was turrible times. I don't
+never want to see no more war. Them that had plenty, time the regiment
+went by they didn't have nothin'. Old mistress had lots a turkeys and
+hogs and the Yankees just cleaned 'em out. Didn't have time to pick 'em&mdash;just
+skinned 'em. They had a big camp 'bout as long as from here to
+town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They burned up the big house as flat as this floor. They wasn't
+nothin' left but the chimneys. Oh the Yankees burned up plenty. They
+burned Raleigh and they burned Atlanta&mdash;that was the southern capital.
+I've seen the Yankees go right out in people's fields and make 'em take
+the horses out. Then they'd saddle 'em and ride right off.</p>
+
+<p>"General Grant had ten thousand nigger soldiers outside of the
+Irishmen and the Dutchmen. I know General Grant looked fearful when
+he come by. After surrender he had a corps pass through and notify the
+people that the war was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Abraham Lincoln was a war captain. He was a man that believed in
+right. He was seven feet four inches high.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in North Carolina and I come here in 'sixty seven. I
+worked too!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Betty Krump,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Helena, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: &mdash;<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Mother come to Helena, Arkansas from Lake Charles, Louisiana. I was
+born here since freedom. She had twelve children, raised us two. She jus'
+raised me en my sister. She lives down the street on the corner. She was a
+teacher here in Helena years and years. I married a doctor. I never had to
+teach long as he lived, then I was too old. I never keered 'bout readin'
+and books. I rather tomboy about. Then I set up housekeepin'. I don't
+know nothin' 'bout slavery. I know how they come here. Two boats named
+Tyler and Bragg. The Yankees took 'em up and brought 'em up to their camps
+to pay them to wait on them. They come. Before 'mancipation my mammy and
+daddy owned by the very same old fellar, Thomas Henry McNeil. He had a big
+two-story stone house and big plantation. Mother said she was a field hand.
+She ploughed. He treated 'em awful bad. He overworked 'em. Mother said she
+had to work when she was pregnant same as other times. She said the Yankees
+took the pantry house and cleaned it up. They broke in it. I'm so glad the
+Yankees come. They so pretty. I love 'em. Whah me? I can tell 'em by the
+way they talk and acts. You ain't none. You don't talk like 'em. You
+don't act like 'em. I watched you yeste'd'y. You don't walk like 'em.
+You act like the rest of these southern women to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother said a gang of Yankees came to the quarters to haul the children
+off and they said, 'We are going to free you all. Come on.' She said,
+'My husband in the field.' They sent for 'im. He come hard as he could.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+They loaded men and all on them two gunboats. The boat was anchored south
+of Tom Henry McNeill's plantation. He didn't know they was gone. When they
+got here old General Hindman had forty thousand back here in the hills. They
+fired in. The Yankees fired! The Yankees said they was goin' to drive 'em
+back and they scared 'em out of here and give folks that brought in them gunboat
+houses to live in. Mammy went to helping the Yankees. They paid her.
+That was 'fore freedom. I loves the Yankees. General Hindman's house was
+tore down up there to build that schoolhouse (high school). The Yankees said
+they was goin' to water their horses in the Mississippi River by twelve
+o'clock or take hell. I know my mammy and daddy wasn't skeered 'cause the
+Yankees taking keer of 'em and they was the ones had the cannons and gunboats
+too. I jus' love the Yankees fer freeing us. They run white folks outer the
+houses and put colored folks in 'em. Yankees had tents here. They fed the
+colored folks till little after 'mancipation. When the Yankees went off they
+been left to root hog er die. White folks been free all der lives. They got
+no need to be poor. I went to school to white teachers. They left here,
+folks didn't do 'em right. They set 'em off to theirselves. Wouldn't keep
+'em, wouldn't walk 'bout wid 'em. They wouldn't talk to 'em. The Yankees
+sont 'em down here to egercate us up wid you white folks. Colored folks do
+best anyhow wid black folks' children. I went to Miss Carted and to Mrs.
+Mason. They was a gang of 'em. They bo'ded at the hotel, one of the hotels
+kept 'em all. They stayed 'bout to theirselves. 'Course the white folks had
+schools, their own schools.</p>
+
+<p>"Ku Klux&mdash;They dressed up and come in at night, beat up the men 'bout
+here in Helena. Mammy washed and ironed here in Helena till she died. I
+never did do much of that kinder work. I been housekeeping purty near all my
+days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mammy was Fannie Thompson in Richmond, Virginia. She was took to New
+Orleans on a boat and sold. Sold in New Orleans. She took up wid Edmond
+Clark. Long as you been going to school don't you know folks didn't have no
+marryin' in slavery times? I knowed that. They never did marry and lived
+together all their lives. Preacher married me&mdash;colored preacher. My daddy,
+Edmond Clark, said McNeil got him at Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>"I done told you 'nough. Now what are you going to give me? The
+gover'ment got so many folks doin' so much you can't tell what they after.
+Wish I was one of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"The present times is tough. We ain't had no good times since dem banks
+broke her. Three of 'em. Folks can't get no credit. Times ain't lack dey
+used to be. No use talking 'bout this young generation. One day I come in
+my house from out of my flower garden. I fell to sleep an' I had $17.50 in
+little glass on the table to pay my insurance. It was gone when I got up. I
+put it in there when I lay down. I know it was there. It was broad open
+daytime. Folks steals and drinks whiskey and lives from hand to mouth now
+all the time. I sports my own self. Ain't nobody give me nothin' since the
+day I come here. I rents my houses and sells flowers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>This old woman lives in among the white population and rents the house
+next to her own to a white family. The lady down at the corner store said
+she tells white people, the younger ones, to call her Mrs. Krump. She
+didn't pull that on me. She once told this white lady storekeeper to call
+her Mrs. No one told me about her, because the lady said they all know she
+is impudent talking. She is old, black, wealthy, and arrogant. I passed her
+house and spied her.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkans Dist.]<br />
+Name of Interviewer: Mrs. W. M. Ball<br />
+Subject: Folk Tales.<br />
+<br />
+Information given by: Preston Kyles<br />
+Place of Residence: 800 Block. Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark.<br />
+Occupation: Minister. (Age) 81<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>One of the favorite folk songs sung to the children of a half century ago
+was "Run Nigger Run, or the Patty Roll Will Get You." Few of the children of
+today have ever heard this humorous ditty, and would, perhaps, be ignorant of its
+meaning. To the errant negro youths of slave times, however, this tune had a
+significant, and sometimes tragic, meaning. The "patty rolls" were guards hired
+by the plantations to keep the slaves from running away. The following story is
+told by an ex-slave:</p>
+
+<p>"When I wuz a boy, dere wuz lotsa Indians livin' about six miles frum de
+plantation on which I wuz a slave. De Indians allus held a big dance ever' few
+months, an' all de niggers would try to attend. On one ob dese osten'tious occasions
+about 50 of us niggers conceived de idea of goin', without gettin' permits
+frum de Mahster. As soon as it gets dark, we quietly slips outen de quarters, one
+by one, so as not to disturb de guards. Arrivin' at de dance, we jined de festivities
+wid a will. Late dat nite one ob de boys wuz goin' down to de spring fo'
+to get a drink ob water when he notice somethin' movin' in de bushes. Gettin'
+up closah, he look' again when&mdash;Lawd hab mersy! Patty rollers! A whole bunch
+ob 'em! Breathless, de nigger comes rushin' back, and broke de sad news. Dem
+niggers wuz scared 'mos' to death, 'cause dey knew it would mean 100 lashes for
+evah las' one ob dem effen dey got caught. After a hasty consultation, Sammy,
+de leader, suggested a plan which wuz agreed on. Goin' into de woods, we cuts
+several pieces of grape vine, and stretches it across de pathway, where we knowed
+de patty rollers would hab to come, tien' it to trees on both sides. One ob de
+niggers den starts down de trail whistlin' so as to 'tract de patty rollers 'tention,
+which he sho did, fo' here dey all cum, runnin' jus' as hard as dey could to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+dem niggers frum gettin' away. As de patty rollers hit de grape vine, stretched
+across de trail, dey jus' piles up in one big heap. While all dis commotion wuz
+goin' on, us niggers makes fo' de cotton fiel' nearby, and wends our way home.
+We hadn' no more'n got in bed, when de mahster begin knockin' on de door. "Jim",
+he yell, "Jim, open up de doah!" Jim gets up, and opens de doah, an de mahster,
+wid several more men, comes in de house. "Wheres all de niggers?" he asks. "Dey's
+all heah," Jim says. De boss walks slowly through de house, countin' de niggers,
+an' sho' nuf dey wuz all dere. "Mus' hab been Jim Dixon's negroes," he says finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, suh, Cap'n, dey wuz a lot happen in dem times dat de mahsters didn't
+know nuthin' about."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkana Dist., 9/5/31]<br />
+Name of Interviewer: Cecil Copeland<br />
+Subject: Apparition and Will-o'-the-Wisp.<br />
+Story&mdash;Information:<br />
+<br />
+Information given by: Preston Kyles / Occupation: Minister<br />
+Place of Residence: 800 Block, Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark. (Age) 81<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>The negro race is peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations. Most any old
+negro can recall having had several experiences with "de spirits." Some of these
+apparitions were doubtless real, as the citizens during Reconstruction Days employed
+various methods in keeping the negro in subjection. The organizers of the
+Ku Klux Klan, shortly after the Civil War, recognized and capitalized on the superstitious
+nature of the negro. This weakness in their character doubtless prevented
+much bloodshed during this hectic period.</p>
+
+<p>The following is a story as told by a venerable ex-slave in regard to the
+"spirits":</p>
+
+<p>"One day, when I wuz a young man, me an' a nigger, by de name ov Henry, wuz
+huntin' in an' old field. In dem days bear, deer, turkey, and squirrels wuz plentiful
+an' 'twant long befo' we had kilt all we could carry. As we wuz startin' home
+some monstrous thing riz up right smack dab in front ov us, not more'n 100 feet
+away. I asked Henry: "Black Boy, does yo' see whut I see?" an' Henry say, "Nigger
+I hopes yo' don't see whut I see, 'cause dey ain't no such man." But dere it stood,
+wid its sleeves gently flappin' in de wind. Ovah 8 feet tall, it wuz, an' all
+dressed in white. I yells at it, "Whut does yo' want?" but it didn't say nuthin'.
+I yells some mo' but it jus' stands there, not movin' a finger. Grabbin' de gun,
+I takes careful aim an' cracks down on 'em, but still he don't move. Henry, thinkin'
+maybe I wuz too scared to shoot straight, say: "Nigger, gib me dat gun!" I gibs
+Henry de gun but it don't take but one shot to convince him dat he ain't shootin'
+at any mortal bein'. Throwin' down de gun, Henry say, "Nigger, lets get away frum
+dis place," which it sho' didn't take us long to do."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Susa Lagrone<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">25th and Texas Streets, Pine Bluff, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: 79<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I don't know exactly how old I am but I know I was here at surrender.
+I was born in Mississippi. I seen the soldiers after they come home. They
+camped right there at our gate.</p>
+
+<p>"I think&mdash;now I don't know, but I think I was bout six or seven when
+they surrendered. I went down to the gate with Miss Sally and the children.
+Old mistress' name was Sally Stanton. She was a widow woman.</p>
+
+<p>"I learned to knit durin' the war. They'd give me a task to do, so
+much to do a day, and then I'd have all evenin' to play.</p>
+
+<p>"My father was a mechanic. He laid brick and plaster. You know in
+them days they plastered the houses. He belonged to old man Frank Scott.
+He was such a good worker Mr. Scott would give him all the work he could
+after he was free. That was in Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school right smart after freedom. Fore freedom the white
+folks learned me my ABC's. My mistress was good and kind to me.</p>
+
+<p>"When we went down to the gate to see the soldiers, I heard Miss Judy
+say (she was old mistress' sister), I heard her say, 'Well, you let em beat
+you' and started cryin'. I cried too and mama said, 'What you cryin' for?'
+I said, 'Miss Judy's cryin'.' Mama said, 'You fool, you is <span class="u">free</span>!' I didn't
+know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers did a lot of devilment. Had
+guards but they just run over them guards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the people some land after
+they was free, but they didn't give em nothin'&mdash;just turned em loose.</p>
+
+<p>"Course we ought to be free&mdash;you know privilege is worth everything.</p>
+
+<p>"After surrender my mother stayed with old mistress till next year.
+She thought there wasn't nobody like my mother. When she got sick old
+mistress come six miles every day to see her and brought her things till
+she died.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother learned to weave and spin and after we was free the white
+folks give her the loom. I know I made a many a yard of cloth after
+surrender. My mother was a seamstress and she learned me how to sew.</p>
+
+<p>"I never did hire out&mdash;just worked at home. My mother had six boys
+and six girls and they're all dead but me and my sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody told me I was twenty-five when I married. Had three children&mdash;all
+livin'.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to see the white folks lookin' at a map to see where the soldiers
+was fightin' and I used to wonder how they could tell just lookin' at that
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Old mistress said after freedom, 'Now, Susa, I don't want you to
+suffer for nothin.' I used to go up there and stay for weeks at a time.</p>
+
+<p>"I just got down with rheumatism here bout three or four years ago, and
+you know it goes hard with me&mdash;I always been used to workin' all my life."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Barney A. Laird<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, (near Moroe) Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 79<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Pinola County, Mississippi. I remembers one time
+soldiers come by on all black horses and had a bundle on one shoulder
+strapped around under the other arm. They wore blue jackets. Their horses
+was trained so they marched good as soldiers. They camped not far from our
+house. There was a long string of soldiers. It took them a long time to
+go by.</p>
+
+<p>"One time they had a dinner in a sorter grove on a neighbor's farm.
+All us children went up there to see if they left anything. We et up the
+scraps. I say it was good eating. The fust Yankee crackers I ever et was
+there that day. They was fine for a fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Our owner was Dr. Laird. When I come to know anything his wife was
+dead but his married daughter lived with him. Her husband's name was John
+Balentine. My parents worked in the field and I stayed up at the house
+with my old grandpa and grandma. Their house was close to the white folks.
+Our houses was about on the farm. Some of the houses was pole houses, some
+hewed out. The fireplace in our house burned long wood and the room what
+had the fireplace was a great big room. We had shutters at the windows.
+The houses was open but pretty stout and good. We had plenty wood.</p>
+
+<p>"My parents both lived on the same farm. They had seven children.
+My mother's name was Caroline and my father's name was Ware A. Laird.
+Mother never told us if she was ever sold. Father never was sold. He
+never talked much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"One thing I know is: My wife's pa was sold, Squire Lester, so him
+and Adeline could be on the same farm. Them my wife's parents. They
+never put him on no block, jes' told him to get his belongings and where
+to go. I never seen nobody sold.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Laird was good to his darkies. My whole family stayed on his
+place till he died. I don't know how long. I don't know if I ever knowed
+when freedom come on. We had a hard time durin' the Civil War. That why
+I hate to hear about war. The soldiers tore down houses, burnt houses.
+They burnt up Dr. Laird's gin. I think it burned some cotton. They tore
+down fences and hauled em off to make fires at their camps. That let the
+stock out what they maybe did leave an old snag. Fust cussin' I ever heard
+done was one of them soldiers. I don't know what about but he was going at
+it. I stopped to hear what he saying. I never heard nobody cuss so much
+over nothing as ever I found out. They had cleaned us out. We didn't have
+much to eat nor wear then. We did have foe then from what they told us.
+The old folks got took care of. That don't happen no more.</p>
+
+<p>"I never seen a Ku Klux. I heard tell of them all my life.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Laird was old man and John Balentine was a peaceable man. He
+wanted his farm run peaceable. He was kind as could be.</p>
+
+<p>"I been farming all my life. I still be doing it. I do all I can. It
+is the young boys' place to take the plough handle&mdash;the making a man out
+of their young strength. They don't want to do it. Some do and some won't
+stay on the farm. Go to town is the cry. I got a wife and two boys. They
+got families. They are on the farm. I tell them to stay.</p>
+
+<p>"I get help from the Welfare if I'm able to come get what they give
+me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I used to pay my taxes and vote. Now if I have a dollar I have to
+buy something to eat. Us darkies satisfied with the best the white folks
+can do. Darkies good workers but poor managers is been the way I seen it
+all my life. One thing we don't want no wars."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Arey Lamar<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">612 E. 14th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes'm, I was born in slavery days but I don't know what day. But you
+know I been hustlin' 'round here a long time.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother said I was a great big girl when surrender come.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in Greenville, Mississippi but I was raised down at Lake
+Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a servant in Captain Will Nichols' house. I got a cup here now
+that was Captain Nichols' cup. Now that was away back there. That's a
+slavery time cup. After the handle got broke my mother used it for her
+coffee cup.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Jane Condray. After everything was free, a lot
+of us emigrated from the old country to Arkansas. When we come here we come
+through Memphis and I know I saw a pair of red shoes and cried for mama to
+buy 'em for me, but she wouldn't do it.</p>
+
+<p>"After I was grown and livin' in Little Rock, I bought me a pair of red
+shoes. I know I wore 'em once and I got ashamed of 'em and blacked 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother run away when they was goin' to have that Baxter-Brooks War
+and ain't been seen since.</p>
+
+<p>"I was the oldest girl and never did get a education, and I hate it. I
+learned to work though.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know 'bout this younger generation. It looks like they're
+puttin' the old folks in the background. But I think it's the old christian
+people is holdin' the world together today."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson.<br />
+Person interviewed: Solomon Lambert,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Holly Grove, Ark., R.F.D.</span><br />
+Age: 89<br />
+Subject: EX-SLAVERY<br />
+Story:<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My parents belong to Jordon and Judy Lambert.
+They (the Jordon family) had a big family. They never was sold.
+I heard 'em say that. They hired their slaves out. Some was
+hired fer a year. From New Year day to next New Year day. That
+was a busy day. That was the day to set in workin' overseers and
+ridin' bosses set in on New Year day. My parents' name was Fannie
+and Ben Lambert. They had eight children.</p>
+
+<p>"How did they marry? They say they jump the broomstick
+together! But they had brush brooms so I reckon that whut
+they jumped. Think the moster and mistress jes havin' a little
+fun outen it then. The brooms the sweep the floor was sage grass
+cured like hay. It grows four or five feet tall. They wrap it
+with string and use that for a handle. (Illustration&mdash; [TR: not finished]
+The way they married the man ask his moster then ask her moster.
+If they agree it be all right. One of 'em would 'nounce it 'fore
+all the rest of the folks up at the house and some times they have
+ale and cake. If the man want a girl and ther be another man on
+that place wanted a wife the mosters would swop the women mostly.
+Then one announce they married. That what they call a double weddin'.
+Some got passes go see their wife and family 'bout every Sunday and
+some other times like Fourth er July. They have a week ob rest when
+they lay by the crops and have some time not so busy to visit Christmas.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I never seen no Ku Klux. There was Jay Hawkers. They was
+folks on neither side jess goin' round, robbin' and stealin', money,
+silver, stock or anything else they wanted. We had a prutty good
+time we have all the hands on our place at some house and dance. We
+made our music. Music is natur'l wid our color. They most all had
+a juice (Jew's) harp. They make the fiddle and banjo. White folks
+had big times too. They had mo big gatherins than they have now.
+They send me to Indian Bay once or twice a week to get the mail. I
+had no money. They give my father little money long and give him
+some 'bout Christmas. White folks send their darkies wid a order
+to buy things. I never seen a big town till I started on that run
+to Texas. They took the men 450 miles to Indian Nation to make a crop.
+We went in May and came back in October. They hired us out. Mr. Jo
+Lambert and Mr. Beasley took us. One of 'em come back and got us.
+That kept us from goin' to war. They left the women, children and old
+men, too old fer war.</p>
+
+<p>"How'd I know 'bout war? That was the big thing they talk
+'bout. See 'em. The first I seen was when I was shuckin' corn at the
+corn pin (crib) a man come up in gray clothes. (He was a spy). The way
+he talk you think he a southern man 'cept his speech was hard and
+short. I noticed that to begin wid. They thought other rebels in the
+corn pin but they wasn't. Wasn't nobody out there but me. Then here
+come a man in blue uniform. After while here come the regiment. It did
+scare me. Bob and Tom (white boys) Lambert gone to war then. They
+fooled round a while then they galloped off. I show was glad when the
+last man rid off!</p>
+
+<p>Moster Lambert then hid the slaves in the bottoms. We carried
+provisions and they sent more'long. We stay two or three days or a
+week when they hear a regiment comin' through or hear 'bout a scoutin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+gang comin' through. They would come one road and go back another
+road. We didn't care if they hid us. We hear the guns. We didn't wanter
+go down there. That was white man's war. In 1862 and 1863 they slipped
+off every man and one woman to Helena. I was yokin' up oxen. Man come
+up in rebel clothes. He was a spy. I thought I was gone then but and a
+guard whut I didn't see till he left went on. I dodged round till one
+day I had to get off to mill. The Yankees run up on me and took me on.
+I was fifteen years old. I was mustered in August and let out in 1864
+when it was over. I was in the Yankee army 14 months. They told me
+when I left I made a good soldier. I was with the standing army at
+Helena. They had a battle before I went in. I heard them say. You
+could tell that from the roar and cannons. They had it when I was in
+Texas. I wasn't in a battle. The Yankees begin to get slim then they
+made the darkies fill up and put them in front. I heard 'em say they
+had one mighty big battle at Helena. I had to drill and guard the camps
+and guard at the pickets (roads into Helena). They never let me go scoutin'.
+I walked home from the army. I was glad to get out. I expected to get
+shot 'bout all the time. I aint seen but mighty little difference since
+freedom. I went back and stayed 45 years on the Lambert place. I moved
+to Duncan. Moster died foe the Civil War. Some men raised dogs-hounds.
+If something got wrong they go get the dogs and use 'em. If some of
+the slaves try to run off they hunt them with the dogs. It was a big loss
+when a hand run off they couldn't ford that thing. They whoop 'em mostly
+fer stealin'. They trust 'em in everything then they whoop 'em if
+they steal. They know it wrong. Course they did. The worse thing I
+ever seen in slavery was when we went to Texas we camped close to Camden.
+Camden, Arkansas! On the way down there we passed by a big house, some
+kind. I seen mighty little of it but a big yard was pailened in. It
+was tall and fixed so they couldn't get out. They opened the big gate
+and let us see. It was full of darkies. All sizes. All ages. That was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+<span class="u">Nigger Trader Yard</span> the worst thing I ever seen or heard tell of in
+my life. I heard 'em say they would cry 'em off certain times but
+you could buy one or two any time jes by agreement. I nearly fell out
+wid slavery then. I studied 'bout that heap since then. I never seen no
+cruelty if a man work and do right on my moster's place he be honored
+by both black and white. Foe moster died I was 9 year old, I heard
+him say I valued at $900.00. I never was sold.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was small I minded the calves when they milk, pick
+up chips to dry fer to start fires, then I picked up nuts, helped feed
+the stock, learned all I could how to do things 'bout the place. We
+thought we owned the place. I was happy as a bird. I didn't know no
+better than it was mine. All the home I ever knowed. I tell you it
+was a good home. Good as ever had since. It was thiser way yo mama's
+home is your home. Well my moster's home was my home like dat.</p>
+
+<p>"We et up at the house in the kitchen. We eat at the
+darkey houses. It make no diffurence&mdash;one house clean as the other.
+It haft to be so. They would whoop you foe your nasty habits quick
+as anything and quicker. Had plenty clothes and plenty to eat. Folk's
+clothes made outer more lastin' cloth than now. They last longer and
+didn't always be gettin' more new ones. They washed down at the spring.
+The little darkies get in (tubs) soon as they hang out the clothes on
+the ropes and bushes. The suds be warm, little darkies race to get
+washed. Folks raced to get through jobs then and have fun all time.</p>
+
+<p>"Foe I jined the Yankees I had hoed and I had picked cotton.
+Moster Lambert didn't work the little darkies hard to to stunt them.
+See how big I am? I been well cared fur and done a sight er work if
+it piled up so it could be seen.</p>
+
+<p>(Solomon Lambert is a large well proportioned negro.) In 1870 the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+railroad come in here by Holly Grove. That the first I ever seen.
+The first cars. They was small.</p>
+
+<p>"I never knowd I oughter recollect what all they talked
+but she said they both (mother and father) come from Kentucky to Tennessee,
+then to Arkansas in wagons and on boats too I recken. The
+Lamberts brought them from Kentucky. For show I can't tell you no
+more 'bout them. I heard 'em say they landed at the Bay (Indian Bay).</p>
+
+<p>"Fine reports went out if you jin the army whut all you would
+get. I didn't want to be there. I know whut I get soon as ever I got
+way from them. Course I was goin' back. I had no other place to go.
+The government give out rations at Indian Bay after the war. I didn't
+need none. I got plenty to eat. Two or three of us colored folks paid
+Mr. Lowe $1.00 a month to teach us at night. We learned to read and
+calculate better. I learned to write. We stuck to it right smart while.</p>
+
+<p>"I been married twice. Joe Yancey (white) married me to my
+first wife at the white folks house. The last time Joe Lambert (white)
+married me in the church. I had 2 boys they dead now and 1 girl. She
+is living.</p>
+
+<p>During slavery I had a cart I drove a little mule to. I
+took a barrel of water to the field. I got it at the well. I put it
+close by in the shade of a tree. Trees was plentiful! Then I took the
+breakfast and dinner in my cart. I done whatever come to my lot in
+Indian Nation. After the war I made a plowhand. "<span class="u">Say there</span>, <span class="u">from 1864
+to 1937 Sol Lambert farmed.</span>" Course I hauled and cut wood, but my job is
+farmin'. I share croppe. I worked fer 1/3 and 1/4 and I have rented.
+Farmin' is my talent. That whar all the darkey belong. He is made so.
+He can stand the sun and he needs meat to eat. That is where the meat
+grows.</p>
+
+<p>"I got chickens and a garden. I didn't get the pigs I
+spoke fer. I got a fine cow. I got a house&mdash;10-1/2 acres of ground. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+is all I can look after. I caint get 'bout much. I rid on a wagon
+(to town) my mare is sick I wouldn't work her. I got a buggy. Good
+nough fer my ridin' I don't come to town much. I never did.</p>
+
+<p>I get a Federal soldier's pension. I tell you 'bout it. White
+folks tole me 'bout it and hope me see 'bout gettin' it. I'm
+mighty proud of it. It is a good support for me in my old helpless
+days. I'm mighty thankful for it. I'm glad you sent me word to come
+here I love to help folks. They so good to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I vote a Republican ticket. I don't vote. I did vote when I was
+21 years old. It was stylish then and I voted some since then along.
+I don't bother with votin' and I don't know nuthin 'bout how it is
+done now. I tried to run my farm and let them hired run the governmint.
+I knowed my job like he knowed his job.</p>
+
+<p>I come back to tell you one other thing. My Captain was Edward Boncrow.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you all I know 'bout slavery less you ask me 'bout
+somethin' I might answer: We ask if we could go to white church and
+they tell us they wanted certain ones to go today so they could fix
+up. It was after the war new churches and schools sprung up. Not fast
+then.</p>
+
+<p>Prices of slaves run from $1600 to $2000 fer grown to middle
+age. Old ones sold low, so did young ones. $1600 was a slow bid.
+That is whut I heard.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Name of Interviewer: Martin-Barker<br />
+Subject: Ex-Slave<br />
+Story&mdash;Information (If not enough space on this page add page)<br />
+<br />
+This information given by: Frank Larkin<br />
+Place of Residence: RFD #1&mdash;Bx. 73<br />
+Age &mdash;<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>I was born a slave, my owner was Mr. Rhodes of Virginia. On a
+large plantation, my white folks gave a big to do, and served wine.
+Had corn shuckings. Swapped help around harvesting time. I was sold
+when 6 or 7 years old. Sold to highest bidder. First marster gave
+my mother to his white daughter and let her keep me.</p>
+
+<p>I was raised as a house boy. I was always a mean boy. When I
+was sold I split another boys head open with an axe. Then I runned off.
+They caught me with blood hounds. My master whipped me with a cowhide
+whip. He made me take my clothes off and tied me to a tree. He would
+use the whip and then take a drink out of a jug and rest awhile, then
+he would whip me again.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we would set up until midnight pickin' wool. I would
+get so sleepy, couldn't hardly pick de wool.</p>
+
+<p>I hung up my stocking at Christmas to get gifts.</p>
+
+<p>When we left de plantation, we had to get a pass to go from one
+plantation to another.</p>
+
+<p>We went to church, sat on de back seat of the white folks church.
+It was a Baptist. Baptized in pool. White preacher said: "Obey your
+master."</p>
+
+<p>When I came to Arkanansas, I was sold to Mr. Larkin.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1126 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 77<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes ma'm, I was born in slavery times, right about 1860. I was
+bred and born in Virginia&mdash;belonged to a man named Rhodes. When I
+was a little fellow, me and my mother was sold separate. My mother was
+sent to Texas and a man named Larkin bought me.</p>
+
+<p>"I member when people was put upon the block and sold. Man and
+wife might go together and might not. Yes ma'm, they sho did separate
+mother and childen.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a little chile, they would be worth a thousand dollars. Why
+old master would just go crazy over a little boy. They knowed what
+they would be worth when they was grown, and then they kept em busy.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't remember no big sight in Virginia but I remember when the
+hounds would run em. Some of the colored folks had mighty rough owners.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember when the Yankees come and took the best hoss my old
+boss had and left old crippled hoss with the foot evil.</p>
+
+<p>"And they'd get up in a tree with a spyglass and find where old
+boss had his cotton hid, come down and go straight and burn it and the
+corn crib and take what meat they wanted and then burn the smoke house.
+Yes'm, I remember all that. I tell you them Yankees was mean. Used
+to shake old mistress and try to make her tell where the money was hid.
+If you had a fat cow, just shoot her down and cook what they wanted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+My old boss went to the bottoms and hid. Tried to make old mistress
+tell where he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Not all the old bosses was alike. Some fed good and some didn't.
+But they clothed em good&mdash;heavy cloth. Old man Larkin was pretty
+good man. We got biscuits every Sunday morning, other times got shorts.
+People was really healthier then.</p>
+
+<p>"I was brought up to work. The biggest trainin' we got was the
+boss told us to go there and come here and we learned to do as we was
+told. People worked in them days. A deal of em that won't work now.</p>
+
+<p>"During slavery days, colored folks had to go to the same church
+as the white folks and sit in the back.</p>
+
+<p>"My father died a long time ago. I don't remember anything bout
+him and I never did see my mother any more after she was sold.</p>
+
+<p>"After the war, old boss brought me to Arkansas when I was bout
+twelve years old. Biggest education I got, sit down with my old boss
+and he'd make me learn the alphabet. In those times they used the old
+Blue Back Speller.</p>
+
+<p>"After we come to Arkansas I worked a great deal on the farm.
+Farmin'&mdash;that was my trade. I staid with him four or five years. He
+paid me for my work.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope we'll never have another war, we don't need it.</p>
+
+<p>"I never had trouble votin' but one time. They was havin' a big
+row between the parties and didn't want us to vote unless we voted
+democratic, but I voted all right. I believe every citizen ought to
+have the right to vote. I believe in people havin' the right what
+belongs to em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm the father of thirteen childen by one woman&mdash;seven living
+some<span class="u">where</span>, but they ain't no service to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Younger people not takin' time to study things. They get a
+little education and think they can do anything and get by with it.
+And there's a lot of em down here on this Cummins farm now."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 85<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I
+was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.</p>
+
+<p>"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first
+old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we had to
+take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I was somewhere
+between seven and eight years old.</p>
+
+<p>"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to
+Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.</p>
+
+<p>"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a
+pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it 'fore we
+went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh, yes'm.</p>
+
+<p>"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and
+he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a cow-hide
+whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like I'm whippin'
+you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he never hit me nary a
+lick.</p>
+
+<p>"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up
+brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever' woman
+knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing&mdash;shoes and all.</p>
+
+<p>"Them Yankees sure did bad&mdash;burned up the cotton and the corn. I
+seen one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all around;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that cotton as a bird
+to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up everything. I was a little
+scared of 'em but they said they wasn't goin' to hurt us. Old master had
+done left home and gone to the woods. It was enough to scare you&mdash;all them
+guns stacked up and bayonets that long and just as keen. Come in and have
+old missis cook for 'em. Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the
+colored folks and maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything;
+try to make her tell where the money was though.</p>
+
+<p>"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin'
+and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em
+stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed there
+after we was freed 'bout two years. They took care of me; I was raised
+motherless.</p>
+
+<p>"I farmed all my life. Never done public work two weeks in my life.
+Don't know what it is.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master had them blue back spellers and 'fore freedom sometimes he'd
+make us learn our ABC's.</p>
+
+<p>"And he'd let you go to church too. He'd ask if you got 'ligion and
+say, 'Now, when the preacher ask you, go up and give him your hand and then
+go to the back.' In them days, didn't have any but the white folks' church.
+But I was pretty rough in them days and I didn't j'ine.</p>
+
+<p>"But I tell you, you'd better not leave the plantation without a pass
+or them paddyrollers would make you shout. If they kotch you and you didn't
+have a pass, a whippin' took place right there.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Lord, that's been a long time. I sits here sometimes and looks back
+and think it's been a long time, but I'm still livin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've always tried to keep out of trouble. 'Co'se I've had some
+pretty tough times. I ain't never been 'rested fer nothin'. I ain't never
+been inside of a jail house. I've had some kin folks in there though.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been a preacher forty years. Don't preach much now. My lungs
+done got decayed and I can't hold up. Some people thinks preachin' is an
+easy thing but it's not.</p>
+
+<p>"Prettiest thing I ever saw when the Yankees was travelin' was the
+drums and kettledrums and them horses. It was the prettiest sight I ever
+saw. Them horses knowed their business, too. You couldn't go up to 'em
+either. They had gold bits in their mouths and looked like their bridles
+was covered with gold. And Yankees sittin' up there with a sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Old boss had a fine saddle horse and you know the Yankees had a old
+horse with the footevil and you know they turned him loose and took old
+boss's saddle horse. He didn't know it though; he was in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe there is people that can give you good luck. I know a
+woman that told me that I was goin' to have some good luck and it worked
+just like she said. She told us I would be the onliest man on the place
+that would pay out my mule and sure 'nough I was. I cleared forty dollars
+outside my mule and my corn. She said I was born to be lucky. Told me
+they would be lots of people work agin me but it wouldn't do no good."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: William Lattimore<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">606 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 78<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes'm I was a slave&mdash;I was born in 1859 in Mississippi. During
+the war I wasn't grown but I can remember when the Yankee soldiers come
+to Canton, Mississippi. We was sittin' out in the yard and the white
+folks was on the porch when they was bombardin' Jackson. We could hear the
+cannons. The white people said the Yankees was tryin' to whip the rebellion
+and set the niggers free. When they got done I didn't know what had
+happened but I remember the colored people packed up and we all went to
+Vicksburg. My father ran off and jined the Yankee army. He was in Colonel
+Zeigler's regiment in the infantry. I knowed General Grant when I
+seed him. I know when Abraham Lincoln died the soldiers (Yankees) all
+wore that black band around their arms.</p>
+
+<p>"After my father was mustered out we went to Warren County, Mississippi
+to live. He worked on the halves with a schoolteacher named Mr.
+Hannum. He said he was my godfather.</p>
+
+<p>"One time after the war Mr. Lattimore came and wanted my father to
+live with him but I didn't want him to because before the surrender old
+master whipped my father over the head with a walking stick 'cause he
+stayed too long and I was afraid he would whip him again.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes ma'm I voted. I don't remember
+who I voted for first&mdash;my 'membrance don't serve me&mdash;I ain't got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+that fresh enough in my memory. I served eight years as Justice of the
+Peace after I come to Arkansas. I remember one time they put one
+colored man in office and I said that's pluckin' before it is ripe. We
+elected a colored sheriff in Warren County once. The white men went on
+his bond, but after awhile the Ku Klux compelled them to get off and then
+he couldn't make bond. He appealed to the citizens to let him stay in
+office without bond but they wouldn't do it. When a man is trying to get
+elected they promise a lot of things but afterwards they is just like a
+duck&mdash;they swim off on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school after freedom and kept a goin' till I was married.
+I was a school director when I was eighteen. I didn't have any children
+and the superintendent who was very rigid and strict said 'Boy you is not
+even a patron of the school.' But he let me serve. I used to visit the
+school 'bout twice a week and if the teacher was not doin' right, I sure
+did lift my voice against it.</p>
+
+<p>"I lived in Chicot County when I first come to Arkansas and when I
+moved to Jefferson County, Judge Harry E. Cook sent my reputation up
+here. I ain't never peeped into a jailhouse or had handcuffs on these
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to do something 'bout this younger generation. You never
+saw anything sicker. They is degenerating.</p>
+
+<p>"I hold up my right hand, swear to uphold the Constitution and preserve
+the flag and I don't think justice is being done when they won't let
+the colored folks vote. We'd like to harmonize things here. God made us
+all and said 'You is my chillun.'"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Bessie Lawsom,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Helena, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 76<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Georgia. My mama was brought from Virginia to one
+of the Carolina states, then to Georgia. She was sold twice. I don't
+recollect but one of her masters. I heard her speak of Master Bracknell.
+His wife, now I remember her well. She nursed me. I was sickly and they
+needed her to work in the crop so bad. She done had a baby leetle older
+than I was, so I nursed one breast and Jim the other. She raised me and Jim
+together. Mama was name Sallie and papa Mathew Bracknell. They called him
+Mat Bracknell. I don't know my master's name. They had other children.</p>
+
+<p>"Me and Jim dug wells out in the yard and buried all the little ducks
+and chickens and made graves. We had a regular burying ground we made.
+They treated us pretty good as fur as I knowed. I never heard mama complain.
+She lived till I was forty years old. Papa died a few years after
+freedom. He had typhoid fever. He was great to fish. I believe now he
+got some bad water to drink out fishing. There was six of us and three half
+children. I'm the onliest one living as I knows of. One sister died in
+1923 in Atlanta. She come to see me. She lived with big rich folks there.
+She was a white man's girl. She never had so much bad luck as we dark skin
+children the way it was. My papa had to go to war with some of Master
+Bracknell's kin folks, maybe his wife's kin folks, and they took him to wait
+on them at the battle-fields. Some soldiers camped by at the last of the
+war. They stole her out. She went to take something to a sick widow woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+for old mistress. She never got back for a week. She said she was so
+scared and one day when her man, the man that claimed her, went off on a
+scout trip she asked a man, seemed to be a big boss, could she go to that
+thicket and get some black gum toothbrushes. He let her ride a little old
+broken down horse out there. She had a bridle but she was bare back. She
+come home through the pasture and one of the colored boys took the horse
+back nearly to the camps and turned him loose. 'Fo'e my own papa got back
+she had a white chile. Master Bracknell was proud of her. Papa didn't make
+no difference in her and his children. After the War he bought a whole bolt
+of cloth when he went to town. Mama would make us all a dress alike. The
+Yankees whooped mama at their camp. She said she was afraid to try to get
+away and that come in her mind. Old mistress thought that widow woman was
+keeping her to wait on her and take care of her small children. She wasn't
+uneasy and they took care of me.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't recollect freedom. I heard mama say a drove come by and ask
+her to come go to Atlanta; they said Yankees give 'em Atlanta. She said
+she knowed if she went off papa wouldn't know where she was. She told 'em
+she had two young children she couldn't leave. They went on. She told old
+mistress and she said she done right not to go.</p>
+
+<p>"The Yankees stole mama's feather bed. Old mistress had great big high
+feather beds and big pillows. Mama had a bed in a shed room open out on the
+back piazza. They put them big beds across their horses and some took
+pillows and down the road they went. It was cold and the ground froze.
+They made cotton beds then and the Yankees done got all the geese and
+chickens. They nearly starved. The Yankees took all the cows and
+stock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Master Bracknell was cripple. He had a store at Cross Roads. It was
+twenty-five miles from Marietta, Georgia. They never troubled him like they
+did old mistress. She was scared of them. She knowed if they come and
+caught her gone they would set fire to the house. No, they never burned
+nothing on our place but they did some in sight. I can remember seeing big
+fires about at night and day time too.</p>
+
+<p>"We lived on Master Bracknell's place till I was eight years old and my
+sister five. We come to South, Alabama, then to Mississippi and then up the
+river to Helena. I married in Jackson, Mississippi. A white boy married
+us. We lived on his place and he was going to preach. He wasn't a preacher
+then. Richard Moore was his name. It took him several weeks to learn what
+to say. He practiced on us. He thought a heap of me and he ask Jesse if he
+could marry us. He brought us a big fine cake his mother cooked for us when
+he come. My husband named Jesse Lawsom. He was raised in Louisiana. We
+lived together till he died. My mother went blind before she died. His
+mother lived there, then we took care of them and after he died his mother
+lived with me. Now I lives with this niece here some and my daughter in
+Jackson. I had fourteen children. I just got one left and grandchildren I
+go to see. I make the rounds. Some of 'em good and some of them ain't no
+account at tall.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to take advice. They get up and leave the place. They don't
+want old folks to advise 'em. If they can't get their price they sit around
+and go hungry. They won't work for what I used to be glad to get. I keep
+my girl on the right path and that is all I can do. My niece don't work out
+but her husband works on the farm all the time. She helps him. They go out
+and live till the work is done. He is off now ploughing. Times is fast sure
+as you born, girl. Faster 'an ever I seen."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Henry Lee<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">R.F.D., two and one-half miles, Palestine, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 87<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born close to Huntsville, Alabama during slavery. My master was
+Tom Laughinghouse and Miss Fannie, his wife. They had two children, Jarman
+and Mattie. He was Dr. George Laughinghouse's brother. Dr. George lived at
+Forrest City.</p>
+
+<p>"He brung us to the old Pope place close to Forrest City after
+'mancipation. We didn't know we was free. Finally we kept hearing folks
+talk, then Master Tom told us we was free. We cleared land right on after
+freedom like we was slaves.</p>
+
+<p>"General Lee, a white man, owned a boat on the Mississippi River. He
+owned my father. We took on his name way after freedom. Mother was Becky
+Laughinghouse and father was Willis Lee. They had six children.</p>
+
+<p>"After I come to Arkansas I went to school three days to a white man.
+He was sont here from the North somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"My folks was all black pure stock niggers and field folks same as I
+is.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother's owners was good to her. They give them all day Saturday to
+wash and iron and cook for her folks. They got a whooping if they went to
+the field Monday morning dirty. They was very good to us. I can recollect
+that. They was a reasonable set of white folks. They weighed out everything.
+They whooped their hands. They had a white overseer but he wasn't
+hired to whoop Laughinghouse's slaves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They 'lowed mother to weave at her home at night. He had seven or
+eight families on his farm.</p>
+
+<p>"The well was a curiosity to me then and would sure be one now. We had
+a walled and curbed well. A long forked pole, a short chain and a long rope.
+We pulled up the water by the long forked pole. Cold! It was good cold
+water. Beats our water all to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"The soldiers come up in a drove one day and ask mother for me. She
+didn't let any of us go.</p>
+
+<p>"Our master got killed over here close to Forrest City. We all picked
+cotton, then we all went to gin. A coupling pin broke and let a wooden
+block come down on him. It weighed one thousand pounds I expect. He was
+spreading a sheet and smoothing the cotton. It mashed and smothered him
+both. That was first of our scattering.</p>
+
+<p>"The colored folks raised gardens in the fence corners. They raised a
+heap of stuff that way. We lived a heap better then than now.</p>
+
+<p>"My father died and mother started sharecropping. First, one-half and
+then, one-third went to us. Things went on very well till the commissary
+come about. The nigger got figured clean out.</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly all the women of them days wore bonnets or what they called
+hoods one the other. Boys wore long shirts to calf of their legs.</p>
+
+<p>"We rode oxen to church. Many time rode to church and home in ox wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"Ku Kluxes followed Pattyrollers, then come on White Caps. If the
+Pattyrollers kilt a slave he had to pay the master the price. The Ku Kluxes
+rode at night. All of 'em's main business was to keep the slaves at their
+own places and at work. Iffen the master instructed them to keep offen his
+place they kept off. They never come on our place. But though I was feared
+of 'em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I needs help and I don't git it. I applied. 'Cause a grandson helps
+us a little I don't git the welfare pension. I need it and I think I ought
+to git it. I worked hard, bought this house, paid my taxes&mdash;still trying.
+Still they don't aid me now and I passed aiding my own self. I think I
+oughten to git lef' out 'cause I help myself when I could. I sure is left
+out. Been left out.</p>
+
+<p>"A part of the people is accountable for the way the times is going
+on. Some of them is getting it all and don't give the others no show a
+tall. Times is powerful hard for some and too easy for others. Some is
+turned mean and some cowed down and times hard for them what can't work
+hard."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller<br />
+Person interviewed: Mandy Lee,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Coal Hill, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 85<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes'm I was a slave. I been here. I heard the bugles blowing,
+the fife beat, the drums beat, and the cannons roar. We started to Texas
+but never got across the river. I don't know what town it was but it was
+just across the river from Texas. My white folks was good to me. I
+staid with them till they died. Missy died first, then master died. I
+never was away from them. They was both good. My mammy was sold but I
+never was. They said they was surrendered when we come back from Texas.
+I heard the drums beat at Ft. Smith when we come back but I don't know
+what they was doing. I worked in the house with the children and in the
+field too. I help herd the horses. I would card and spin and eat peaches.
+No, that wasn't all I had to eat. I didn't have enough meat but I had
+plenty of milk and potatoes. I was born right here in Coal Hill. I
+ain't never lived anywhere else except when we went South during the war.</p>
+
+<p>"Law woman I can't tell you what I think of the present generation.
+They are good in their way but they don't do like we did. I never did go
+naked. I don't see how they stand it.</p>
+
+<p>"I could sing when I was young. We sang everything, the good and
+bad."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Mary Lee<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1308 Texas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 74<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in 1864, March the fourth, the year before the Civil War
+ended. All I know is what they told me and what I read.</p>
+
+<p>"Born in Texas, but my mother and father was both born in Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother said her white folks was good to her. She was the house
+girl, she didn't have to work in no field.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school when I was six or eight. I don't remember which. I
+had right smart schooling.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember my mother's young missis run off and got married. She was
+just a young girl, 'bout seventeen. That's been a long time.</p>
+
+<p>"I got a book sent to me a while back. It's a Catholic book&mdash;'History
+of Church and State.' Yes'm, I'm a Catholic. Used to belong to the
+Methodist church, but I wouldn't be a Methodist no more. I like the
+Catholics. You would too if you was one of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"I been here in Arkansas since 1891. That's goin' right on up the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do much work now, my breath gets short.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to make thirty-five dollars a month washin' and ironin'. Oh,
+that was a long time 'fore the depression.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think nothin' of this younger generation. All goin' the same
+way. Oh lord, you better let 'em alone, they won't take no foolishness."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Talitha Lewis<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">300 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 86<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I should say I was born in slavery times! Now if you ask me something
+I don't know, I couldn't tell you, honey, 'cause I believe in people tellin'
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"In a way I know how old I is. I give what my white folks give me.
+They told me I was born in 1852. Yes ma'am, my young missis used to set
+down and work on me. She'd say, 'Get it in your head' 'cause I ain't got no
+education.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'member my old missis. Know her name as good as I do mine. Name
+was Maria Whitley. After old master died, his property was divided and Jim
+Whitley drawed me and my mother and my sister. Yes ma'am, it was my sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Goldsboro, North Carolina is where I was born, in Johnston County.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I 'member anything 'bout peace declared? I should say I do&mdash;'member
+long time 'fore it come.</p>
+
+<p>"I seed so many different regiments of people I didn't know which was
+which. I know the Yankees called ever'body Dinah. They'd say to me,
+'Dinah, hold my horse,' and my hands would be full of bridles. And they'd
+say, 'You got anything buried?' The white folks had done buried the meat
+under my mother's house. And say, 'Is they good to you?' If they hadn't a
+been we wouldn't a known any better than to tell it.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'member they found where the meat was buried and they ripped
+up my mother's feather bed and filled it full of hams and shoulders,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+and there wasn't a middlin' in the lot. And kill chickens and geese! They
+got ever'thing and anything they wanted.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a battle-field about four miles from us where they fit at.</p>
+
+<p>"Honey, I can't tell it like I know it, but I <span class="u">know</span> it.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master was a good man. You had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
+And on Monday morning all his colored folks had clean clothes. I wish I
+could tell it like I know. He was a good man but he had as mean a wife as I
+ever saw. She used to be Nettie Sherrod and she <span class="u">did</span> <span class="u">not</span> like a black face.
+Yes ma'am, Jim Whitley was a good man but his father was a devil.</p>
+
+<p>"If Massa Jim had a hand he couldn't control, he sold him. He said he
+wasn't goin' to beat 'em or have 'em run off and stay in the woods. Yes'm,
+that was my master, Jim Whitley.</p>
+
+<p>"His overseer was Zack Hill when peace declared.</p>
+
+<p>"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in
+1889. They emigranted us here. They sure said they had fritter trees and a
+molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters would fall
+in the pond. You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't believe that.
+Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was times when you could
+make good money here.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I is a slave time chile. I fared well but I sure did see some
+that didn't.</p>
+
+<p>"Our white folks had hands that didn't do nothin' but make clothes and
+sheets and kivers.</p>
+
+<p>"Baby, them Ku Klux was a pain. The paddyrollers was bad enough but
+them Ku Klux done lots of devilment. Yes ma'am, they <span class="u">done</span> some devilment.</p>
+
+<p>"I worked for a white man once was a Ku Klux, but I didn't know it for
+a long time. One time he said, 'Now when you're foolin' around in my closet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+cleanin' up, I want you to be pertickler.' I seed them rubber pants what
+they filled with water. I reckon he had enough things for a hundred men.
+His wife say, 'Now, Talitha, don't let on you know what them things is.'</p>
+
+<p>"Now my father belonged to the Adkins. He and my mother was married
+with a stiffcate 'fore peace declared and after peace declared they got a
+license and was married just like they marry now.</p>
+
+<p>"My master used to ask us chillun, 'Do your folks pray at night?' We
+said 'no' 'cause our folks had told us what to say. But the Lawd have
+mercy, there was plenty of that goin' on. They'd pray, 'Lawd, deliver us
+from under bondage.'</p>
+
+<p>"Colored folks used to go to the white folks' church. I was raised up
+under the old Primitive Baptist feet washin' church. Oh, that's a time,
+baby!</p>
+
+<p>"What I think of the younger generation? I don't know what to think of
+'em. I don't <span class="u">think</span>&mdash;I know they is goin' too fast.</p>
+
+<p>"I learned how to read the Bible after I 'fessed religion. Yes ma'am,
+I can read the Bible, praise the Lawd!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Abbie Lindsay<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">914 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 84<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[HW: cf. Will Glass' story, No. &mdash;&mdash;?]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>"I was born June 1, 1856; the place at that time was called Lynngrove,
+Louisiana. It was just about a mile from the post office, and was in Morehouse
+Parish in the first ward&mdash;in the tenth ward I mean.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Relatives</h4>
+
+<p>"My father was named Alec Summerville. He named himself after the
+Civil War. They were going around letting the people choose their names.
+He had belonged to Alec Watts; but when they allowed him to select his own
+name after the war, he called himself Summerville after the town Summerville
+(Somerville), Alabama. His mother was named Charlotte Dantzler. She
+was born in North Carolina. John Haynes bought her and brought her to
+Arkansas. My father was an overseer's child. You know they whipped people
+in those days and forced them. That is why he didn't go by the name of
+Watts after he got free and could select his own name.</p>
+
+<p>"The name of my mother's mother was Celia Watts. I don't know my
+grandfather's first name. Old man Alec Watts' father gave my mother to him.
+I didn't know anything about that except what was told to me. They bought
+her from South Carolina. They came to Louisiana. My father was bought in
+South Carolina too. After the Haynes met the Watts, Watts married old man
+Haynes' daughter. He gave my father to his daughter, Mary Watts. She was
+Mary Watts after she was married. She was Mary Haynes before. Watts'
+father gave my mother to Alec Watts. That is just the way it was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My mother and father had three children to live. I think there were
+about thirteen in all. There are just two of us living now. I couldn't
+tell you where Jeffrey Summerville, my living brother, is living now.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Slave Houses</h4>
+
+<p>"The slaves lived in hewed-log houses. I have often seen hewed-log
+houses. Have you ever seen one? You cut big logs and split them open with
+a maul and a wedge. Then you take a pole ax and hack it on both sides.
+Then you notch it&mdash;cut it into a sort of tongue and groove joint in each
+end. Before you cut the notches in the end, you take a broad ax and hew it
+on both sides. The notch holds the corners of the house-ties every corner.
+You put the rafters up just like you do now. Then you lathe the rafters
+and then put boards on top of the rafters. Sometimes shingles were used on
+the rafters instead of boards.</p>
+
+<p>"You would finish off the outside of the walls by making clay cakes
+out of mud and filling up the cracks with them. When that clay got hard,
+nothing could go through the walls. Sometimes thin boards were nailed on
+the inside to finish the interior.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Furniture and Food</h4>
+
+<p>"They had planks&mdash;homemade wooden beds. They made tables and chairs.
+They caned the chairs. They made the tables with four legs. You made it
+just like you would make a box, adding the legs.</p>
+
+<p>"A little house called the smokehouse was built in one of the corners
+of the yard. They would weigh out to each one so much food for the week's
+supply&mdash;mostly meat and meal, sometimes rice. They'd give you parched meal
+and rye too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes they had the slaves cook their food in the cabins. Mostly
+all the time. My people ate in the kitchen because my mother was the cook
+and my father was the yard man. The others mostly cooked at home&mdash;in their
+cabins.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Work</h4>
+
+<p>"My mother and father worked around the house and yard. Slaves in the
+field had to pick a certain amount of cotton. The man had to pick from two
+to three hundred pounds of cotton a day if he wasn't sick, and the woman
+had to pick about one hundred fifty. Of course some of them could pick
+more. They worked in a way of speaking from can till can't, from the time
+they could see until the time they couldn't. They do about the same thing
+now.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Recreation</h4>
+
+<p>"I remember the time the white folks used to make the slaves all come
+around in the yard and sing every Sunday evening. I can't remember any of
+the songs straight through. I can just remember them in spots.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Give me Jesus, you can have all the world<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the morning when I arise, Give me Jesus.'<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">(Fragment)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Lie on him if you sing right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lie on him if you pray right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God knows that your heart is not right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come, let us go to heaven anyhow.'<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">(Fragment)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'The ark was seen at rest upon the hill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the hills of Calvary<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Great Jehovah spoke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sanctify to God upon the hill.'<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">(First verse)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Peter spied the promised land<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the hill of Calvary<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Great Jehovah spoke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sanctify to God upon the hill.'<br /></span>
+<span class="i15">(Second verse)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was lots more that they sung.</p>
+
+<p>"They could go to parties too, but when they went to them or to anything
+else, they had to have a pass. When they went to a party the most
+they did was to play the fiddle and dance. They had corn huskings every
+Friday night, and they ground the meal every Saturday. The corn husking
+was the same as fun. They didn't serve anything on the place where I was.
+I never knew them to serve anything at the corn shuckings or at the parties.
+Sometimes they would give a picnic, and they would kill a hog for that.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Life Since Freedom</h4>
+
+<p>"Right after the war, my father hired me out to nurse. Then I stayed
+around the house and helped my stepmother, and the white girls taught me a
+little until I got to be thirteen years old. Then I got three months'
+schooling in a regular school. I came here in 1915. I had been living in
+Newport before that. Yes, I been married, and that's all you need to know
+about that. I got two children: one fifty-three years old, and the other
+sixty.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Opinions</h4>
+
+<p>"I don't have much thinking to do about the young people. It's a lost
+race without a change."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>"Mother" Lindsay is a Bible-reading, neat and clean-appearing,
+pleasant-mannered business woman, a little bulky, but carrying herself like
+a woman thirty years. She runs a cafe on Ninth Street and manages her own
+business competently. She refers to it as "Hole in the Wall." I had been
+trying for sometime to catch her away from her home. It was almost
+impossible for me to get a story from her at her restaurant or at her home.</p>
+
+<p>She doesn't like to sit long at a time and doesn't like to tell too
+much. When she feels quarters are a little close and that she is telling
+more than she wants to, she says, "Honey, I ain't got no more time to talk
+to you; I got to get back to the cafe and get me a cup of coffee."</p>
+
+<p>Will Glass, who has a story of his own, collaborated with her on her
+story. He has an accurate and detailed memory of many things. He is too
+young to have any personal memories. But he remembers everything he has
+been told by his grandparents and parents, and they seem to have talked
+freely to him unlike the usual parents of that period.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Rosa Lindsey<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">302 S. Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Georgia and I'm 83.</p>
+
+<p>"My white folks was named Abercrombie.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember my mother and I hardly remember my father. My white
+folks raised me up. I 'member my missis had me bound to her when I was
+twelve. I know when my grandma come to take me home with her, I run away
+from her and went back to my white folks.</p>
+
+<p>"My white folks was rich. I belonged to my young missis. She didn't
+'low nobody to hit me. When she went to school she had me straddle the horse
+behind her. The first readin' I ever learned was from the white folks.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the Yankees took Columbus, Georgia on a Sunday morning. I
+know they just come through there and tore up things and did as they
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"I stayed there a long time after the Yankees went back.</p>
+
+<p>"Old master wasn't too old to go to war but he didn't go. I think he
+had to dodge around to keep the Yankees from gettin' him. I think he went
+to Texas but we didn't go.</p>
+
+<p>"I loved my white folks 'cause I knowed more about them than anybody
+else.</p>
+
+<p>"I come here to Arkansas with a young white lady just married. She
+'suaded me to come with her and I just stayed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Biggest thing I have did is washin' and ironin'. But now I am doing
+missionary work in the Sanctified church.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know 'bout the younger generation. Looks like 'bout near
+ever'body lost now. There's some few young people is saved now but they
+ain't many."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy<br />
+Person interviewed: William Little,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Atkins, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born on the plantation of Dr. Andrew Scott, but my old ma'ster
+was Col. Ben T. Embry. The 14th of March, in the year 1855, was my birthday.
+Yes suh, I was born right here at old Galla Rock! My old Ma'ster
+Embry had a good many slaves. He went to Texas and stayed about three
+years. Took a lot of us along, and de first work I ever done after I was
+set free was pickin' cotton at $2 a hundred pounds. Dere was seventy-five
+or a hundred of us freed at once. Yes suh! Den we drove five hundred
+miles back here from Texas, and drove five hundred head of stock. We was
+refigees&mdash;dat's de reason we had to go to Texas.</p>
+
+<p>"Father and mother both passed away a good many years ago. Oh, yes,
+dey was mighty well treated while dey was in slavery; never was a kinder
+mas'r anywhere dan my old mas'r. And he was wealthy, too&mdash;had lots of
+land, and a store, and plenty of other property. Many of the slaves
+stayed on as servants long after the War, and lived right around here at
+old Galla Rock.</p>
+
+<p>"No suh, I never belonged to no chu'ch; dey thought I done too much of
+the devil's work&mdash;playin' the fiddle. Used to play the fiddle for dances
+all around the neighborhood. One white man gave me $10 once for playin'
+at a dance. Played lots of the old-time pieces like 'Turkey in the Straw',
+'Dixie', and so on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We owns our home here, and I has another one. Been married twice
+and raised eighteen chillun. Yes suh, we've lived here eighteen years,
+and had fine health till last few years, but my health is sorter po'ly
+now. Got a swellin' in my laigs.</p>
+
+<p>"(Chuckling) I sure remembers lots of happy occasions down here in
+days before the War. One day the steamboat come up to the landin'. It
+was named the Maumelle&mdash;yes suh, Maumelle, and lots of hosses and cattle
+was unloaded from the steamer. Sure was busy days then. And our old
+mas'r was mighty kind to us."</p>
+
+
+<p>NOTE: "Uncle Bill" did not know how he came about the name "Little."
+Perhaps it was a nickname bestowed upon him to distinguish him from some
+other William of larger stature. However, he stands fully six feet in
+height, and has a strong, vigorous voice. He is the sole surveying ex-slave
+of the Galla Rock community.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy<br />
+Person interviewed: "Aunt Minerva" Lofton<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Russellville, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 69<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Come in! Yes, my name's Minerva Lofton&mdash;at least it was yistiddy.
+Now, whatcha gonna ask me? Hope you ain't saying something that'll git me
+in bad. Don't want to git in any more trouble. Hard times' bad enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in the country nine miles from Clarendon, Monroe County,
+December 3, 1869. Father died before I was born. My mother came from
+Virginia, and her mistress' name was Bettie Clark. They lived close to
+Richmond, and people used to say 'Blue Ridge,' so I think it was Blue
+Ridge County, Virginia. Mother was sold to Henry Cargile&mdash;C-a-r-g-i-l-e.</p>
+
+<p>"When they were expecting peace to be declared soon a lot of the
+colored people named Parks took many of the slaves to Texas to escape from
+the Yankees, but when they got to Corpus Christi they found the Yankee
+soldiers there just the same, so they came back to Arkansas. I sure used
+to laugh at my dear old mother when she'd tell about the long trip to
+Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They stopped over at
+Camden as they went through, and one of the colored gals who hated her
+played a prank on her to take out her spite on mother: They had stopped
+at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she sent my mother in to get a gallon
+of buttermilk. After drinking all she could hold she grabbed mother by
+the hair of the head and churned her up and down in the buttermilk till it
+streamed down her face, and on her clothes&mdash;a sight to behold. I laughed
+and laughed until my sides ached when mother told me about this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Old mistis' name (that is, one of the old mistis') was Bettie Young,
+and my mother was named Bettie for her; she was a namesake&mdash;sort of a
+wedding present, I think.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been a member of the Pentecostal church for nineteen years.</p>
+
+<p>"No sir, I never have voted and never expect to. Why? Because I have
+a religious opinion about votin'. I think a woman should not vote; her
+place is in the home raising her family and attending to the household
+duties. We have raised only two boys (stepchildren)&mdash;had no children of
+our own&mdash;but I have decided ideas about women runnin' around among and
+votin'. When I see em settin' around the ballot box at the polls, sometimes
+with a cigarette in their mouths, and again slingin' out a 'damn' or
+two, I want to slap em good and hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the old time religious songs&mdash;I sure remember some of them!
+Used to be able to sing lots of em, but have forgotten the words of many.
+Let's see:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, Daniel in de lion's den;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Daniel in de lion's den.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here's another:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Big bells a-ringin' in de army of de Lord;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Big bells a-ringin' in de army.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'm so glad I'm in de army of de Lord;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My soul's a-shoutin' in de army.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Modern youth? Humph! I think they are just a fulfilling of what
+Christ said: 'They shall grow wiser as they grow older, but weaker.' Where
+is it in the Scripture? Wait a minute and I'll look it up. Now, let's see&mdash;where
+was that passage? It says 'weaker' here and 'weaken'. Never mind&mdash;wait&mdash;I'll
+find it. Well, anyway, I don't know jest how to describe this generation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+I heard a white woman once say that she had to do a little cussin' to
+make herself understood. 'Cussin'?' Why, 'cussin'' is jist a polite word
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, mister. You oughta thank the Lawd you've got a job!"</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<h3>FOLKLORE SUBJECTS<br />
+<br />
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor<br />
+Subject: Biographical Sketch of Robert Lofton<br />
+Story&mdash;Information (If not enough space on this page add page)<br />
+<br />
+This information given by: Robert Lofton<br />
+Place of Residence: 1904 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas<br />
+Occupation: Farmer (no longer able to work)<br />
+Age: 82<br />
+</h3>
+<p>[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>Robert Lofton was born March 11, 1855 in McDonogh, Georgia. His
+master lived in town and owned two Negro women and their children. One
+of these was Lofton's mother.</p>
+
+<p>His father was a Negro who lived back of him and belonged to the
+local postmaster. He had a wagon and did public hauling for his master,
+Dr. Tie. He was allowed to visit his wife and children at nights, and
+was kept plentifully supplied with money by his master.</p>
+
+<p>Lofton's master, Asa Brown, bought, or acquired from time to time
+in payment of debts, other slaves. These he hired out to farmers,
+collecting the wages for their labor.</p>
+
+<p>After the war, the Lofton family came to Arkansas and lived in
+Lee County just outside of Oak Forest. They were share croppers and
+farmers throughout their lives. He has a son, however, a war veteran
+and unusually intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Lofton is a fine looking old man, with silky white hair
+and an octoroon appearance, although the son of two colored persons.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+<p>He remembers scarcely anything because of fading mental powers, but he
+is able to take long walks and contends that only in that way can he
+keep free from rheumatic pains. He speaks of having died recently and
+come back to life, is extremely religious, and is fearful of saying something
+that he should not.</p>
+
+<p>"I was in McDonogh, Georgia when the surrender came. [HW: That is where I was born on March 11, 1855.] There was
+plenty of soldiers in that little town&mdash;Yankees and Rebels. And they
+was sending mail out through the whole country. The Rebels had as good
+chance to know what was in the mail as the Yanks (his mother's husband's
+master was postmaster) did.</p>
+
+
+<h4>How Freedom Came</h4>
+
+<p>"The slaves learned through their masters that they were free. The
+Yankees never told the niggers anything. They could tell those who were
+with them that they were free. And they notified the people to notify
+their niggers that they were free. 'Release him. If he wants to stay
+with you yet, he may. We don't require him to go away but you must let
+him know he is free.'</p>
+
+<p>"The masters said, 'You are free now, Johnnie, just as free as
+I am.' Many of them put their things in a little wagon and moved to
+some other plantation or town or house. But a heap of them stayed
+right where they were.</p>
+
+<p>"My father found out before my mother did. He was living
+across town behind us about one-fourth of a mile. Dr. Tie,
+his master, had a post office, and that post office was where
+they got the news. My father got the news before my master did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+He got on to it through being on with Dr. Tie. So my father got the
+news before my master, Asa Brown, did and he come over and told my
+mother before my master did. But my master came out the next thing and
+told her she could go or come as she pleased. She said she'd stay right
+along. And we got along just as we always did&mdash;until my father came
+and told us he was going to Atlanta with a crew of Yankees.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Employment and Post-War Changes in Residence</h4>
+
+<p>"He got a wagon and a team and run us off to the railroad. He got
+a job at Atlanta directly. After he made a year in Atlanta, he got dissatisfied.
+He had two girls who were big enough to cut cotton. So he
+decided to go farm. He went to Tennessee and we made a crop there.
+Then he heard about Arkansas and came here.</p>
+
+<p>"When he came here, somehow or other, he got in a fight with a
+colored man. He got the advantage of that man and killed him. The
+officers came after him, but he left and I ain't never seen nor heard
+of him since. He went and left my poor mother and her five children
+alone. But I was getting big enough to be some help. And we made
+crops and got along somehow.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what we expected. I never heerd anyone say a word.
+I was children you know, and it was mighty little that children knew
+because the old folks did not talk with them much.</p>
+
+
+<h4>What They Got</h4>
+
+<p>"I never heerd of anything any of them got. I never heerd
+of any of them getting anything except work. I don't recollect
+any pension or anything being given them&mdash;nothing but work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Folks on this place would leave and go over on that place, and folks on
+that place would come over here. They ate as long as the white folks
+ate. We stayed with our old master and mistress, (Mr. Asa Brown and Mrs.
+Sallie Brown).</p>
+
+
+<h4>Good Master and Mistress</h4>
+
+<p>"They did not whip us. They didn't whip nobody they had. They
+were good white folks. My mother never was whipped. She was not whipped
+after the surrender and she wasn't whipped before. [We lived in the same
+house as our master] [HW: (in margin) see p. 6] and we ate what he ate.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Wives and Husbands</h4>
+
+<p>"There was another woman my master owned. Her husband belonged to
+another white man. My father also belonged to another white man. Both
+of them would come and stay with their wives at night and go back to work
+with their masters during the day. My mother had her kin folks who lived
+down in the country and my mother used to go out and visit them. I had a
+grandmother way out in the country. My mother used to take me and go out
+and stay a day or so. She would arrange with mistress and master and go
+down Saturday and she would take me along and leave her other children
+with this other woman. Sunday night she would make it back. Sometimes
+she wouldn't come back until Monday.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't look like she was any freer after freedom than she was
+before. She was free all the time she was a slave. They never whipped
+her. Asa Brown never whipped his niggers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Letting Out Slaves</h4>
+
+<p>"Asa Brown used to rent out his niggers, sometimes. You know, they
+used to rent them. But he never rented my mother though. He needed her
+all the time. She was the cook. He needed her all the time and he kept
+her all the time. He let her go to see grandmother and he let her go to
+church.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes my mother went to the white church and sometimes she went
+to the colored folks church. When we went to the white folks church, we
+took and sat down in the back and behaved ourselves and that was all there
+was to it. When they'd have these here big meetings&mdash;revivals or protracted
+meetings they call them&mdash;she'd go to the white and black. They
+wouldn't have them all at the same time and everybody would have a chance
+to go to all of them.</p>
+
+<p>"They wouldn't allow the colored to preach and they wouldn't even
+call on them to pray but he could sing as good as any of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Generally all colored preachers that I knowed of was slaves. The
+slaves attended the churches all right enough&mdash;Methodists and Baptists
+both white and black. I never heard of the preachers saying anything
+the white folks did not like.</p>
+
+<p>"The Methodists' church started in the North. There was fourteen
+or fifteen members that got dissatisfied with the Baptist church and
+went over to the Methodist church. The trouble was that they weren't
+satisfied with our Baptism. The Baptists were here before the
+Methodists were thought of. These here fourteen or fifteen members
+came out of the North and started the Methodist church going.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Share Cropping</h4>
+
+<p>"Share cropping has been ever since I knowed anything. It was the
+way I started. I was working the white man's land and stock and living
+in his house and getting half of the cotton and corn. We had a garden
+and raised potatoes and greens and so on, but cotton and corn was our
+crop. Of course we had them little patches and raised watermelon and
+such like.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Food and Quarters</h4>
+
+<p>"We ate whatever the white man ate. My mother was the cook. She
+had a cook-room joined to her room [which reached clear over to the white
+folks' house.] [HW: see p. 4] Everything she cooked on that stove, we all ate it, white
+and black&mdash;some of the putting, [HW: pudding] some of the cakes, some of the pies,
+some of the custard, some of the biscuits, some of the corn bread&mdash;we
+all had it, white and black. I don't know no difference at all. Asa
+Brown was a good old man. There was some mean slave owners, but he
+wasn't one.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Whippings</h4>
+
+<p>"You could hear of some mean slave owners taking switches and
+beating their niggers nearly to death. But I never heard of my old
+master doing that. Slaves would run away and it would be a year or
+two before they would be caught. Sometimes they would take him and
+strip him naked and whip him till he wasn't able to stand for running
+away. But I never heard of nothing like that happening with Asa Brown.
+But he sometimes would sell a hand or buy one sometimes. He'd take a
+nigger in exchange for a debt and rent him out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Voting</h4>
+
+<p>"There wasn't any voting by the slaves. But ever since freedom
+they have been voting. None of my friends ever held any office. I
+don't know anything about the niggers not voting now. Don't they vote?</p>
+
+
+<h4>Patter Rollers, K. K. K., White Carmelias, Etc.</h4>
+
+<p>"My mother and father knowed about Patter Rollers, but I don't know
+nothing about them. But they are dead and gone. I have heard of the Ku
+Klux but I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what I used to
+know. No sir, I am out of the question now.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one thing I keep straight. When I wants to drink or when
+I wants to eat&mdash;oh yes, I know how to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"You know I have seen the time when they would get in a close place
+and they would make me preach, but it's all gone from me now. I can't
+recollect."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Mary D. Hudgins<br />
+107 Palm Street,<br />
+Hot Springs, Ark.<br />
+<br />
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins<br />
+Person interviewed: John H. Logan<br />
+Aged: c. 89<br />
+Home: 449 Gaines Avenue.<br />
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>Gaines Avenue was once a "Quality Street".
+It runs on a diagonal from Malvern Avenue, a one-time
+first class residential thorofare to the Missouri
+Pacific Tracks. Time was when Gaines led almost to the
+gates of the fashionable Combes Racetrack.</p>
+
+<p>Built up during the days of bay windows
+Gaines Avenue has preserved half a dozen land marks of
+former genteelity. Long stretches between are filled
+"shot gun" houses, unaquainted for many years with a
+paintbrush.</p>
+
+<p>Within half a block of the streetcar line
+on Malvern an early spring had encouraged plowing of
+a 200 foot square garden. Signs such as "Hand Laundry"
+appear frequently. But by far the most frequent placard
+is "FOR SALE" a study in black and white, the insignia
+of a local real estate firm specializing in foreclosures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The street number sought proved to be two
+doors beyond the red brick church. A third knock brought
+a slight, wrinkled face to the door, its features aquiline,
+in coloring only the mildest of mocha. Its owner Laura
+Burton Logan, after satisfying herself that the visitor
+wasn't just an intruder, opened the door wide and invited
+her to come inside.</p>
+
+<p>"Logan, oh Logan, come on here, come on in
+here," she called to an old man in the next room. "Law,
+I don't know whether he can tell you anything or not.
+He's getting pretty feeble. Now five or six years ago
+he could have told you lots of things. But now&mdash;&mdash;I
+don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Into the "front room" hobbled the old fellow.
+His back was bent, his eyes dimmed with age. His face
+was the sort often called "good"&mdash;not good in the sense
+stupid acquiescence&mdash;but rather evidence of an intelligent,
+non-preditory meeting of the problems of life.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter, handed the old fellow at the beginning
+of the interview remained clutched in his hand throughout
+the entire conversation. Because of events during the talk
+the interviewer reached for her change purse to find and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+offer another quarter. It was not in her purse. Getting up
+from her chair she looked on the floor about her. It wasn't
+there. Mrs. Logan, who had gone back to bed, wanted to
+know what the trouble was, and was worried when she found
+what was missing. By manner the interviewer put over the
+idea that she wasn't suspecting either of the two. But
+Logan, not having heard the entire conversation got to his
+feet and extended his hand&mdash;the one holding the quarter,
+offering it back to the interviewer.</p>
+
+<p>When he rose, there was the purse as it had
+slipped down on the seat of the rocker which the interviewer
+had almost taken and in which she had probably carelessly
+tossed her purse. A second quarter, added to his first,
+brought a beaming smile from the old man. But for the rest
+of the afternoon there was a lump in the interviewer's throat.
+Here was a man, evidently terribly in need of money, ready,
+without even a tiny protest, to return a gift of cash which
+must have meant so much to him&mdash;on the barest notion in his
+mind that the interviewer wanted it back.</p>
+
+<p>"Be patient with me ma'am," Logan began, "I can't
+remember so good. And I want to get it all right. I don't
+want to spoil my record now. I been honest all my life, always
+stood up and told the truth, done what was right. I don't
+want to spoil things and lie in my mouth now. Give me time to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+think.</p>
+
+<p>I was born, on&mdash;&mdash;December&mdash;&mdash;December 15. It was
+in 1848&mdash;&mdash;I think. I was born in the house of Mrs. Cozine.
+She was living on Third Street in Little Rock. It was near
+the old Catholic Church. Was only a little ways from the
+State House. Mrs. Cozine, she was my first mistress.
+Then she sold me, me and my mother and a couple of brothers.</p>
+
+<p>It was Governor Roane she sold me to. Don't know just
+how old I was&mdash;&mdash;good sized boy, though. Guess I was five&mdash;maybe
+six years old. He was a fine man, Governor Roane was&mdash;a
+mighty fine man. He always treated me good. Raised me up
+to be a good man.</p>
+
+<p>I remember when he gives us a free-pass. That was during
+the war. He said, 'Now boys, you be good. You stand for what
+is right, and don't you tell any stories. I've raised you up
+to do right.'</p>
+
+<p>When he wasn't governor any more he went back to Pine
+Bluff. We lived there a long time. I was with Governor Roane
+right up until I was grown. I can't right correct things in
+my mind altogether, but I think I was with him until I was
+about 20.</p>
+
+<p>When the war come on, Governor Roane helped to gather
+up troops. He called us in out of the fields and asked us if
+we wanted to go. I did. Right today I should be getting a
+pension. I was truly in the army. Ought to be getting a
+pension. Once a white man, Mr. Williams, I believe his name
+was, tried to get me to go with him to Little Rock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+Getting me a pension would be easy he said. But somehow we
+never did go.</p>
+
+<p>I worked in the powder factory for a while. Then
+they set me to hauling things&mdash;&mdash;mostly food from the
+Brazos river to Tyler, Texas. We had hard times then&mdash;&mdash;we
+had a time&mdash;&mdash;and don't you let anybody tell you we
+didn't. Sometimes we didn't have any bread. And even
+sometimes we didn't have any water. I wasn't so old, but
+I was a pretty good man&mdash;&mdash;pretty well grown up.</p>
+
+<p>After the war I went back with my pappy. While
+I'd belonged to Governor Roane, Roane was my name. But
+when I went back with father, I took his name. We farmed
+for a while and later I went to Little Rock.</p>
+
+<p>I did lots of things there. Worked in a cabinet maker's
+shop for one thing. Was classed as a good workman, too. I
+worked the lathes. Did a good job of it. I never was the
+sort that had to walk around looking for work. Folks used to
+come and get me and ask me to work for them.</p>
+
+<p>How'd I happen to come to Hot Springs? They got me to
+come to work on the water mains. Worked for the water works
+a long time. Then I worked for a Mr. Smith in the bath house.
+I fired the furnace for him. Then for about 15 years I kept
+the yard at the Kingsway&mdash;&mdash;the Eastman it was then. I kept the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+lawn clean at the Eastman Hotel. That was about the last
+steady work I did.</p>
+
+<p>Yes and in between I used to haul things. Had me
+an express wagon. Used to build rock walls too. Built
+good walls.</p>
+
+<p>Who did you say you was, Miss? Your father was
+Jack Hudgins&mdash;Law, child, law&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A feeble hand reached for the hand of the white
+woman and took it. The old eyes filled with tears and the
+face distorted in weaping. For a few minutes he sat, then
+he rose, and the young woman rose with him. For a moment
+she put a comforting arm around him and soon he was quieter.</p>
+
+<p>"Law, so your father was Jack Hudgins. How well I
+does remember him. Whatever did become of that fine boy?
+Dead did you say? I remembers now. He was a fine man,
+a mighty&mdash;mighty fine man. Jack Hudgins girl!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Miss, I guess you has seen me around a lot. Lots
+of folks know me. They'll come along the street and they'll
+say, 'Hello Logan!' and sometimes I won't know who they are,
+but they'll know me.</p>
+
+<p>I remember once, it's been years and years ago, a man
+come along Central Avenue&mdash;a white man. I was going along
+the street and suddenly he grabbed me and hugged me. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+scared me at first. 'Logan,' he says, 'Logan' he says again.
+'Logan, I'd know you anywhere. How glad I am to see you.'
+But I didn't recognize him. 'Wife,' he says 'wife, come on
+over and speak to Logan, he saved my life once.' Invited me
+to come and see him too, he did.</p>
+
+<p>Things have been mighty hard for the last few years.
+Seems like we could get the pension. First they had a rule
+that we'd have to sign away the home if we got $9.00 a month.
+Well, my wife's daughter was taking care of us. Even if we got
+the $9 she'd still have to help. She wasn't making much, but
+she was dividing everything&mdash;going without shoes and everything.
+So we thought it wasn't fair to her to sign away our home after
+all she'd done for us&mdash;&mdash;so that they'd just kick her out when
+we was dead&mdash;she'd been too good to us. So we says 'No!'
+We been told that they done changed that rule, but we can't seem
+to get help at all. Maybe, Miss, there's somthing you can do.
+We sure would be thankful, if you could help us get on.</p>
+
+<p>All my folks is dead, my mother and my father and
+all my brothers, my first and my second wives and both my
+children. My wife's daughter helps us all she can. She's
+mighty good to us. Don't know what we'd do without her.
+Thank you, glad you come to see us. Glad to know you. If
+you can talk to them over at the Court House, we'd be glad.
+Good-bye. Come to see us ag in."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Elvie Lomack<br />
+Residence: Foot of King Street on river bank,<br />
+no number; Pine Bluff, Arkansas<br />
+Age: 78<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Come right in and I'll tell you what I know. I was born in
+Tennessee in slavery days. No ma'm I do not know what year, because I
+can't read or write.</p>
+
+<p>"I know who my mistress was. She was Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. She
+come from Virginia. She was an old maid and she was very nice. Some
+very good blooded people come from Virginia. She brought my mother
+with her from Virginia before I was born.</p>
+
+<p>"My father belonged to the Crowders and mammy belonged to Miss
+Lucy Ann Dillard. They wouldn't sell pappy to Miss Lucy and she
+wouldn't sell mammy to the Crowders, so mammy lost sight of him and
+never married again. She just married that time by the consent of the
+white folks. In them times they wasn't no such thing as a license for
+the colored folks.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember my mother milked and tended to the cows and issued out
+the milk to the colored folks.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lucy lived in town and come out once a week to see to us.
+When the overseer was there she come out oftener. We stayed right on
+there after the war, till we come to Arkansas. I was betwixt eleven
+and twelve years old.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And we was fooled in this place. A man my mother knowed had been
+here two years. He come back to Tennessee and, oh Lord, you could do
+this and do that, so we come here.</p>
+
+<p>"First year we come here we all got down sick. When we got well we
+had to go to work and I didn't have a chance to go to school.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen my mother wring her hands and cry and say she wished she
+was back in Tennessee where Lucy Ann Dillard was.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got big enough I went to work for Ben Johnson and stayed
+there fifteen years. I never knew when my payday was. Mammy come and
+got my pay and give me just what she wanted me to have. And as for
+runnin' up and down the streets&mdash;why mammy would a died first. She's
+dead and in her grave but I give her credit&mdash;she took the best of
+care of us. She had three girls and they didn't romp up and down the
+big road neither.</p>
+
+<p>"I just looks at the young folks now. If they had been comin'
+along when I was, they'd done been tore all to pieces. They ain't
+raisin' em now, they're just comin' up like grass and weeds. And as
+for speakin' to you now&mdash;just turn their heads. Now I'm just fogy
+nuf that if I meet you out, I'll say good mornin' or good evenin'.</p>
+
+<p>"If it hadn't been for the Yankees, we'd have the yoke on our
+necks right today. The Lord got into their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I don't feel bitter gainst people. Ain't no use to hold
+malice gainst nobody&mdash;got to have a clean heart. Folks does things
+cause they's ignorant and don't know no better and they shouldn't be
+crowned with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I'll tell you the truth&mdash;I've heard my mother say she was
+happier in slavery times than after cause she said the Dillards
+certainly took good care of her. Southerners got a heart in em."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins<br />
+Person interviewed: Henry Long<br />
+Home: 112 East Grand<br />
+Age: c. 71<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, 'um, I owns my own home&mdash;and what's more
+it's on the same street with the Mayor's house. Yes 'um,
+I owns a good home, has my own chickens and my flowers
+and I has a pension of $50 a month.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the other day I got a letter. It wanted me to
+join the National Association of Retired Federal Workers.
+I took the letter to the boss and he told me not to bother.
+Guess I'd better spend my money on myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I got some oil stock too. Been paying pretty good
+dividends since I had it. Didn't pay any this year. They
+are digging a new well. That'll maybe mean more money.
+It's paid pretty good up to now. Yes, me and my wife,
+we're getting along pretty good. Nothing to worry about.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where was I born&mdash;it was in Kentucky, Russellville
+it was, just a few miles from Bowling Green. Yes, 'um,
+Kentucky was a regular slave state&mdash;&mdash;a genuine slave state.
+Lots of 'em there.</p>
+
+<p>"The man we belonged to&mdash;&mdash;his name was Gabe Long.
+I remember hearin' 'em tell how they put him up on one block
+and sold him. They put his wife up on another and sold her
+too. Only they both went in different directions. They
+didn't see each other again for 30 years. By that time he
+had married again twice. My mother was his third wife.
+She lived to be 102 and he lived to be 99. Yes, 'um, I
+comes from a long lived family. There's four of us still
+living. I got two brothers and one sister. They all live
+back in Kentucky&mdash;&mdash;pretty close to where we was all born.
+One time, when I had a vacation&mdash;&mdash;you know they gives
+you a vacation with pay&mdash;&mdash;30 days vacation it was. Well
+one time on my vacation I went back to see my sister. She
+is living with her daughter. She is 78. One brother is
+living with his son. He's 73. My youngest brother owns his
+own farm. He is 64. All of 'em back in Kentucky, they've
+been farmers. I'm the only one who has worked in town. And
+I never worked in town until I come to Arkansas.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Been in Hot Springs for over 50 years. Law,
+when I first come there wasn't any Eastman hotel. There
+wasn't any Park hotel. I don't mean that Park Hotel
+up in Happy Hollow. The one I mean was down on Malvern.
+It burned in the fire of 1913. Law, when I come there
+wasn't nothing but mule street cars. Hot Springs has
+seen lots of changes.</p>
+
+<p>"Back in Kentucky I'd been working around where
+I was born. Worked around the houses mostly. They paid
+me wages and wanted me to go on working for them. But I
+decided I wanted to get away. So I went to Little Rock.
+But didn't find nothing much to do there. Then I went on
+up Cedar Glades way. Then I come to Hot Springs.</p>
+
+<p>"First I worked for a man who had a big garden&mdash;&mdash;it's
+out where South Hot Springs is now&mdash;&mdash;oh you know
+what the man's name was&mdash;&mdash;he was named&mdash;&mdash;he was named&mdash;name
+was Barker, that's it, Barker." (The "Barker
+Place" has been divided up into lots and blocks and is
+one of the more popular residential districts.)</p>
+
+<p>"Then I got a job at the Park hotel. No ma'am. I
+didn't work in the yard. I worked in the refrigerators
+and the pantry. Then about meal times I served the fruit.
+You know how a big, fashionable hotel is&mdash;there's lots of
+things that has to be done around 'em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Finally I got rheumatism and I had to quit that
+kind of work. So I got a job firing the furnace at the
+electric light plant. It was down on Malvern then. That
+was before the fire of 1913. I was working right there when
+the fire come. It was pretty awful. It burned just about
+everything out there on Malvern&mdash;&mdash;and places on lots of
+other streets too.</p>
+
+<p>"After that I got a job at the Eastman hotel. I
+fired the furnace and worked on the boilers. Worked there
+a long time. Then they sent me to the Arlington. You know
+at that time the same company owned both the Eastman and
+the Arlington. It wasn't this new Arlington&mdash;&mdash;it was the
+second one&mdash;the red brick one. Built that second one while
+I was here. The first one was wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Back in the time when I come, there was a creek
+running through most of the town. There wasn't any Great
+Northern hotel. There was just a big creek there.</p>
+
+<p>"But how-some-ever, to go on. After I worked at
+the Arlington on the boilers and the furnace&mdash;I got a job
+at the Army and Navy Hospital. Now that wasn't the new
+hospital either. It was the old one&mdash;it was red brick
+too.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Next, I worked at the LaMar Bath house. I was
+there a long time&mdash;&mdash;for years and years. Then they
+got to building over the bath houses. One by one
+they tore down the old ones and put new ones up.
+I worked on at the LaMar until they tore the old one
+down to build the new one. Then I went up to the
+Quapaw to work. Worked there for quite some time.</p>
+
+<p>"Finally they sent for me to come on down and
+work for the government. I's worked under a lot of
+the Superintendents. I started working for the
+government when Dr.&mdash;&mdash;Dr.&mdash;&mdash;Dr. Warring&mdash;&mdash;Warring
+was his name. He was a nice man. Then there was Dr.
+Bolton. I worked for him too. Then there was&mdash;&mdash;there
+was&mdash;&mdash;oh, what was his name&mdash;&mdash;De&mdash;De&mdash;DeValin&mdash;that's
+it. Then there was Dr. Collins. He was the last of the
+Doctors. Then there was Mr. Allen and now Mr. Libbey.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'um, I worked for a lot of 'em and made a
+HOME RUN with all of 'em. Every one of 'em liked me.
+I always did good work. All of 'em liked the way I worked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes 'um. I been married 41 years&mdash;&mdash;20
+years to the first woman&mdash;&mdash;21 to this one. The first
+one come from Mississippi. Her name was Ula. This
+one's name is Charlotte. She come from Magnolia&mdash;that's
+in Arkansas.</p>
+
+<p>"You know ma'am, I come from Kentucky where
+they raise fine race horses. I worked around 'em a
+lot. But I ain't seen many races. We lived out in the
+country. We had good horses, but they didn't race 'em.
+I worked with the horses around the place, but we didn't
+go in town to see the races. What did we raise? Well
+tobacco and wheat and the usual things. All my folks, but
+me is still working on farms.</p>
+
+<p>"No 'um, I didn't rightly know how old I was.
+I was working along, not thinking much about what I was
+doing. Then the men down at the office" (Hot Springs
+National Park) "started asking me how old I was. I couldn't
+tell 'em. But I thought I was born the year the slaves
+was freed. They said I ought to be retired.</p>
+
+<p>"So they wrote back&mdash;&mdash;or somebody stopped over
+while he was on his vacation&mdash;can't quite remember which.
+Anyhow they found I was old enough to retire&mdash;&mdash;ought to
+have retired several years ago. So now I got my home, got
+my pension and got my time to do what I wants to do."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: Annie Love<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1116 E. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 85?<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I don't know exactly how old I am. I was here when the war was
+goin' on. I know I used to see the soldiers come by and come in, but
+I wasn't big enough to work. I was born in Richmond, Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>"My owners moved from Virginia to Mississippi. My mother and I
+lived on one place and my father lived on another plantation. I
+remember one Sunday he come to see me and when he started home I know
+I tried to go with him. He got a little switch and whipped me. That's
+the onliest thing I can remember bout him.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Cole was my master and I didn't have any mistress cause he
+never was married.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother worked in the field and I was out there with her when
+the cannons commenced shootin' at Helena. We said they was shootin'
+at us and we went to the house. Oh Lord, we said we could see em, Lord
+yes!</p>
+
+<p>"After surrender, our owner, Billy Cole, told us we was free and
+that we could go or stay so we stayed there for four or five years.
+I don't know whether we was paid anything or not. After that we just
+went from place to place and worked by the day.</p>
+
+<p>"I never did see any Ku Klux but they come to my mother's house
+one night and wanted my stepfather to show'em where a man lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+He went down the road with 'em a piece. They wanted a drink and, oh
+Lord, they'd drink mighty nigh a bucket full.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Lord, when I was young goin' to parties and dances, that was
+my rule. Oh Lord, I went to them dances.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to church, too. That was one thing I did do. I ain't
+able to go now but I'll tell anybody when I could, I sure went.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to school mighty little&mdash;off and on bout two years. I
+never learned nothin' though.</p>
+
+<p>"I lived right in Memphis mighty nigh twenty years then I come to
+Arkansas bout thirty-two years ago and I'm mighty near right where I
+come to Pine Bluff.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know of anything else but all my days I believe I've
+worked hard, cookin' and washin' and ironin'."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Needham Love<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1014 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 80, or older<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Old Joe Love sold us to old Jim McClain, Meridian, Mississippi, and
+old McClain brought us down on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. That
+was during the War. It was down there on a big old plantation where the
+cane was high as this house. I was born in Alabama. When the War started,
+he brought us all down to Meridian and sold us. He sold me in my mother's
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"We cut down all that cane and woods and cleared up the place on the
+Tallahatchie. We did all that before we learned we was free.</p>
+
+<p>"They built log houses for the white and black. They sealed the white
+folks' houses and chinked the colored folks'. They didn't have but one
+house for the white folks. There was only one white person down there and
+that was old Jim McClain. Just come down there in time of harvest. He
+lived in Lexington the rest of the time. He told his people, 'When I die,
+bury me in a bale of cotton.' One time he got sick and they thought he
+would die. They gathered all the hands up and all the people about the
+place. There was about three hundred. He come to his senses and said,
+'What's all these people doing here?'</p>
+
+<p>"His son said, 'Papa, they thought you was goin' to die and they come
+up to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>"And he said to his son, 'Well, I ain't dead yet. Tell 'em to git back
+on the job, and chop that cotton.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did not have any work to do in slavery time. When the War ended I
+was only five years old. But I played the devil after the War though. When
+the slaves were freed, I shouted, but I ain't got nothin' yet. I learned a
+lot though. My father used to make a plow or a harrow. They made cotton in
+those days. Potatoes ain't no 'count now. In them days, they made potatoes
+so good and sweet that they would gum up your hands. Mothers used to make
+good old ash cakes. Used to have pot-liquor with grease standin' up on it.
+People don't know nothin' now. Don't know how to cook.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's name was Joe Love and my mother's name was Sophia. I
+don't know any of my grandparents. All of them belonged to old Joe Love. I
+never did know any of them. I know my father and mother&mdash;my mammy and
+pappy&mdash;that's what we called 'em in them days.</p>
+
+<p>"Old man Joe would go out sometimes and come in with a hog way in the
+night. He was a cooper&mdash;made water buckets, pans to make bread up in and
+things like that. Mammy would make us git up in the night and clean our
+mouths. If they didn't, children would laugh at them the next day and say
+the spiders had been biting your mouth, 'cause we were sposed to had so much
+grease on our mouths that the spiders would swing down and bite them.</p>
+
+<p>"I professed religion when I was sixteen years old. It was down in
+the Free Nigger Bend where my father had bought a little place on the public
+road between Greenwood and Shellmount.</p>
+
+<p>"I married that fall. My father had died and I had got to be a man.
+Done better then than I do since I got old. I had one cow and my mother let
+me have another. I made enough money to buy a pair of mules and a wagon.
+My wife was willing to work. She would go out and git some poke greens and
+pepper and things and cook them with a little butter. Night would come,
+we'd go out and cut a cord of wood. Got 'long better then than people do now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I began preaching soon as I joined the church. I began at the prayer-meetings.
+I preached for forty-seven years before I fell. I've had two
+strokes. It's been twenty-eight years or more since I was able to work for
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard about the pateroles but I never did know much about them.
+I have heard my father talk about them. He never would get a new suit and
+go to town but what they would catch him out and say, 'You got a pass?' He
+would show it to them, and they would sit down and chew old nasty tobacco
+and spit the juice out on him all over his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ku Klux never did bother us any. Not after I got the knowledge to
+know what was what. They was scared to bother people 'cause the niggers had
+gone and got them some guns and would do them up.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Jim McClain had one son who was bad. He used to jump on the
+niggers an' 'buse and beat them up. The niggers got tired of it and he
+started gittin' beat up every time he started anything and they didn't have
+no more trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim McClain didn't mistreat his niggers. The boys did after he was
+dead though. He died way after slavery. If a nigger went off his place and
+stole a cow or a hog or something, you better not come 'round there and try
+to do nothin' about it. Jim McClain would be right there to protect him.</p>
+
+<p>"When he died, the horses could hardly pull him up the hill. He
+wanted to stay back down there in the bottoms where that cotton was.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got to realizing, it was after freedom. But they had slavery
+rules then. There was one old woman who used to take care of the children
+while their parents were working in the fields. Sometimes it would be a
+week before I would see my mother and father. Children didn't set up then
+and look in old folks' faces like they do now. They would go to bed early.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+Wake up sometimes way in the middle of the night. Old folks would be holding
+a meeting and singing and praying.</p>
+
+<p>"They used to feed the children pot-liquor and bread and milk. Sometimes
+a child would find a piece of meat big as your two fingers and he would
+holler out, 'Oh look, I got some meat.'</p>
+
+<p>"Fourth of July come, everybody would lay by. Niggers all be gathered
+together dancing and the white folks standin' 'round lookin' at them.</p>
+
+<p>"Right after the surrender, I went to night school a little, but most of
+my schooling was got by the plow. After I come to be a minister I got a
+little schooling.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't get about now. I have had two strokes and the doctor says for
+me not to go about much. I used to be able to go about and speak and the
+churches would give me something, but since this new 'issue' come out,
+theology and dogology and all such as that, nobody cares to pay any 'tention
+to me. Think you are crazy now if you say 'amen.' Don't nobody carry
+on the church now but three people&mdash;the preacher, he preaches a sermon;
+the choir, he sings a song; and another man, he lifts a collection. People
+go to church all the years now and never pray once.</p>
+
+<p>"I get some help from the Welfare. They used to pay me ten dollars
+pension. They cut me down from ten to eight. And now they cut me down to
+four. They cut the breath out of me this time.</p>
+
+<p>"I got some mighty good young brothers never pass me up without givin'
+me a dime or fifteen cents. Then I got some that always pass me up and
+never give me nothing. I have built churches and helped organize churches
+from here back to Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what's goin' to become of our folks. All they
+study is drinking whiskey and gamblin' and runnin' after women.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+They don't care for nothin'. What's ruinin' this country is women votin'.
+When a woman comes up to a man and smiles at him, he'll do what she wants him
+to do whether it's right or wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"The best part of our preachers is got so they are dishonest. Stealing
+to keep up automobiles. Some of them have churches that ain't no bigger
+than this room."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>The statements of Needham Love like those of Ella Wilson are not
+consistent on the subject of age. It is evident, however, that he is eighty
+years old or older. He thinks so. He has memories of slave times. He has
+some old friends who think him older.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor<br />
+Person interviewed: Louis Lucas<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<h4>Masters, Birth, Parents, Grandparents</h4>
+
+<p>"I was born in 1855 down on Bayou Bartholomew near Pine Bluff,
+Jefferson County.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Louisa. She married a man named Bill Cardrelle
+after freedom. Her husband in slavery time was Sam Lucas. He belonged to
+a man by the name of O'Neil. They took him in the War and he never did
+come back to her. (He didn't much believe he was my father, but I went in
+his name anyway.)</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's father's name was Jacob Boyd. I was young, but I know
+that. He was free and didn't belong to nobody. That was right here in
+Arkansas. He had three other daughters besides my mother, and all of them
+were slaves because their mother was a slave. His wife was a woman by the
+name of Barclay. Her master was Antoine Barclay (?). She was a slave
+woman. She died down there in New Cascogne. That was a good while ago.</p>
+
+<p>"The French were very kind to their slaves. The Americans called all
+us people that belonged to the Frenchmen free people. They never gave the
+free Negroes among them any trouble. I mean the Frenchmen didn't give them
+no trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason we finally left the place after freedom was because of
+the meanness of a colored woman, Amanda Sanders. I don't know what she had
+against us. The old mistress raised me right in the house and fed me right
+at the table. When she died, this woman used to beat the devil out of me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+We had had good owners. They never had no overseers until just before the
+War broke out, and they never beat nobody.</p>
+
+<p>"The <span class="u">first</span> overseer was on a boat named the <span class="u">Quapaw</span> when the mate
+knocked him in the head and put him in a yawl and took him to the shore.
+The boss saw it and took four men and went and got him and had the doctor
+attend to him. It was a year before he could do anything. He didn't stay
+there long before they had him in the War. He just got to oversee a short
+time after he got well. He was in the cavalry. The other boys went off
+later. They took the cavalry first. None of them ever came back. They
+were lost in the big fight at Vicksburg. My <span class="u">paran</span>, Mark Noble, he was the
+only one that got back.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember my father's father. But I know that his mother went
+in the name of Rhoda. I don't know her last name. She was my grandma on
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>"I belonged to a man named Brumbaugh. His first name was Raphael. He
+was a all right man. He had a <span class="u">colored man for an overseer</span> before this here
+white man I was tellin' you about came to him. 'Uncle' Jesse was the foreman.
+He was not my uncle. He was related to my wife though; so I call him
+uncle now. Of course, I didn't marry till after freedom came. I married
+in 1875.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Early Days</h4>
+
+<p>"When I was a little child, my duty was to clean up the yard and feed
+the chickens. I cleaned up the yard every Friday.</p>
+
+
+<h4>House, Furniture, and Food</h4>
+
+<p>"My mother lived in a cabin&mdash;log, two rooms, one window, that is one
+window in each room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They didn't have anything but homemade furniture. We never had no bed
+bought from the store&mdash;nothin' like that. We just had something sticking
+against the wall. It was built in a corner with one post out. They made
+their table and used benches&mdash;two-legged and sometimes four-legged. The
+two-legged benches was a long bench with a wide plank at each end for legs.</p>
+
+<p>"For food we got just what the white folks got. We didn't have no
+quarters. They didn't have enough hands for that. They raised their own
+meat. They had about seven or eight. There was Dan, Jess, Bill, Steve.
+They bought Bill and Steve from Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>"Old 'Free Jack' Jenkins, a colored man, sold them two men to ol' master.
+Jenkins was the only <span class="u">Negro slave trader</span> I ever knowed. He brought them
+down one evening and the old man was a long time trading. He made them run
+and jump and do everything before he would buy them. He paid one thousand
+five hundred dollars for each one of them. 'Free Jack' made him pay it part
+in silver and some in gold. He took some Confederate paper. It was
+circulating then. But he wouldn't take much of that paper money.</p>
+
+<p>"He stole those boys from their parents in Kentucky. The boys said he
+fooled them away from their homes with candy. Their parents didn't know
+where they were.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there were my brothers&mdash;two of them, John Alexander and
+William Hamilton. They were half-brothers. That makes six men altogether
+on the place. I might have made a miscount. There was old man Wash
+Pearson and his two boys, Joe and Nathan. That made ten persons with
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Brumbaugh didn't have such a large family. I never did know how large
+it was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>Soldiers</h4>
+
+<p>"The rebel soldiers were often at my place. A bad night the jayhawkers
+would come and steal stock and the slaves too, if they got a chance. They
+cleaned the old man's stock out one night. The Yankees captured them and
+brought them back to the house. They gave him his stallion, a great big
+fine horse. They offered him five thousand dollars for him but he wouldn't
+take it. They kept all the other horses and mules for their own use, but
+they gave the stallion back to the old man. If they hadn't give him back the
+stallion, the old man would have died. That stallion was his heart. The
+Yankees didn't do nobody no harm.</p>
+
+<p>"When the soldier wagons came down to get the feed, they would take one
+crib and leave one. They never bothered the smokehouse. They took all the
+dry cattle to feed the people that were contrabands. But they left the milk
+cows. The quartermaster for the contrabands was Captain Mallory. The contrabands
+were mostly slaves that they kept in camps just below Pine Bluff for
+their own protection.</p>
+
+
+<h4>How Freedom Came</h4>
+
+<p>"It was martial law and twelve men went 'round back and forth through
+the county. They come down on a Monday, and told the children they were
+free and told them they had no more master and mistress and told them what
+to call them. No more master and mistress, but Mr. and Mrs. Brumbaugh.
+Then they came down and told them that they would have to marry over again.
+But my ma never had a chance to see the old man any more. She didn't marry
+him over again because he didn't come back to her. But they advised them
+to stay with their owners if they wanted to. They didn't say for none of
+the slaves to leave their old masters and go off. We wouldn't have left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+but that old colored woman beat me around so all the time, so my mother came
+after me and took me home since I wanted to go. The Yankees' officer told
+her it would be good to move me from that place so I wouldn't be so badly
+treated. The white folks was all right; it was that old colored woman that
+beat on me all the time.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Right After Freedom</h4>
+
+<p>"Right after freedom my mother married Bill Cardrelle. She moved from
+the O'Neil place and went up to a place called the Dr. Jenkins' place. She
+kept house for her husband in the new place. I didn't do much there of anything.
+After they moved away from there when I was twelve years old, they
+taught me to plow (1867). I went to school in the contraband camp. Mrs.
+Clay and Mr. Clay, white folks from the North, were my teachers. At that
+time, the colored people weren't able to teach. I went a while to school
+with them. I got in the second reader&mdash;McGuffy's&mdash;that's far as I
+got.</p>
+
+<p>"I stayed with my mother and stepfather till I was about sixteen years
+old. She sent me away to come up here to my father, Sam Lucas. My oldest
+brother brought me here and I worked with him two years. Then I went to a
+man named Cunningham and stayed with him about six months. He paid me
+fifteen dollars a month and my board. He was going to raise my wages when
+his wife decided she wanted women to do the work. The women would slip
+things away and she wouldn't mention them to her husband till weeks afterwards.
+Then long after the time, she would accuse me. Those women would
+have the keys. When they went in to get soap, they would take out a ham and
+carry it off a little ways and hide. By the time his wife would tell him
+about it, you wouldn't be able to find it nowhere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He owed me for a month's work. She told him not to pay it, but he
+paid it and told me not to let her know he did it. I didn't either.</p>
+
+<p>"When I left him, I came over the river here down here below Fourche
+Dam. I stayed there forty or fifty years in that place. When I was between
+thirty-two and thirty-three years old, I married, and I stayed right on in
+that same place. I farmed all the time down there. I had to go in a lawsuit
+about the last crop I made. Then I came here to Little Rock in 1904
+and followed ditching with the home water company. Then I did gas ditching
+with the gas people. Then I worked on the street car line for old man
+White. I come down then&mdash;got broke down, and couldn't do much. The relief
+folks gave me a labor card; then they took it away from me&mdash;said I was too
+old. I have done a heap of work here in this town. I got old and had to
+stop.</p>
+
+<p>"I get old age assistance from the Welfare. That is where I get my
+groceries&mdash;through them. I wouldn't be able to live if it wasn't for them.</p>
+
+
+<h4>Opinions</h4>
+
+<p>"There is a big difference between the young people now and what they
+used to be. The old folks ain't the same neither."</p>
+
+
+<h4>Interviewer's Comment</h4>
+
+<p>Lucas told his story very fluently but with deliberation and care. The
+statement about his father on the first page was not a slip. He told what
+he wanted to tell but he discouraged too much effort to go into detail on
+those matters. One senses a tragedy in his life and in the life of his mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+that is poignant and appealing. Although he states no connection, one will
+not miss the impression that his stepfather was hostile. Suddenly we find
+his mother sending him to his father. But after he reached his father,
+there is little to indicate that his father did anything for him. Then,
+too, it is evident that his father deliberately neglected to remarry his
+mother after freedom.</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Luckado,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Hazen, Ark.</span><br />
+Age: 71<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born at Duck Hill, Mississippi. There was three
+of us children. All dead now but me. My parents was Molly
+Louden and Jake Porter. One master my parents talked about
+was Missis Molly and Dr. McCaskill. I don't think my mother
+was mixed with Indian. Her father was a white man, but my
+father said he was Indian and African. My father was in the
+Civil War.</p>
+
+<p>"When the war was coming on they had the servants dig
+holes, then put rock on bottom, then planks, then put tin and
+iron vessels with money and silver, then put plank, then rocks
+and cover with dirt and plant grass on top. Water it to make
+it grow. They planted it late in the evening. I don't know
+what become of it.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was eight or nine years old I went to a tent show
+with Sam and Hun, my brothers. We was under the tents looking
+at a little Giraffe; a elephant come up behind me and touched
+me with its snout. I jumped back and run under it between its
+legs. That night they found me a mile from the tents asleep
+under some brush. They woke me up hunting me with pine knot
+torches. I had cried myself to sleep. The show was "Dan Rice
+and Coles Circus" at Dednen, Mississippi. They wasn't as much
+afraid of snakes as wild hogs, wolves and bears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My mother was cooking at the Ozan Hotel at Sardis,
+Mississippi. I was a nurse for a lady in town. I took the
+children to the square sometimes. The first hanging I ever seen
+was on Court Square. One big crowd collected. The men was not
+kin, they called it "Nathaniel and DeBonepart" hanging. They
+was colored folks hung. One killed his mother and the other his
+father. I never slept a wink for two or three nights, I dream
+and jump up crying. I finally wore it off. I was a girl and I
+don't know how old I was. Besides the square full of people,
+Mrs. Hunter's and Mrs. Boo's yards was full of people.</p>
+
+<p>"We cooked for Capt. Salter at Sardis, Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>"The first school I went to was to Mrs. J. P. Settles.
+He taught the big scholars. She sent me to him and he whooped
+me for singing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cleveland is elected<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more I expected."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I was a grown woman. They didn't want him elected I recken the
+reason they didn't want to hear it. Nobody liked em teaching
+but the last I heard of them he was a lawyer in Memphis. If
+folks learned to read a little that was all they cared about."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden<br />
+Person interviewed: John Luckett<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Highway No. 65, Pine Bluff, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 83<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I was born in Mississippi up above Vicksburg. I 'member
+the old Civil War but I was just a little boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've seen the Yankees in Vicksburg where the battle
+was.</p>
+
+<p>"I was 'bout ten when freedom come&mdash;nothin' but a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Clara Luckett was my mother. When the War was in Fort
+Pillow, I was a small boy. I don't know 'bout nothin' else&mdash;that's
+all I know about it.</p>
+
+<p>"I been workin' at these mills ever since surrender. I
+been firin' for 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"I voted the Republican ticket. I voted for General
+Grant and Garfield. I was a young man then. I voted for
+McKinley too. I never did hold no office, I was workin'
+all the time. I knowed Teddy Roosevelt&mdash;I voted for him.</p>
+
+<p>"They wouldn't let me go to school I was so bad. I went
+one day and whipped the teacher. I didn't try&mdash;I whipped him
+and they 'xpelled me from school.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I been in this country, firin' made me
+deaf."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: John Lynch,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 69<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"My mother was a slave of Buck Lynch. They lived close to Nashville,
+Tennessee. My father run away from Buck Lynch before the Civil
+War. He lived in the woods till he nearly went wild. My mother fed him
+at night. I was twenty-one years old before I ever seen him. My mother
+worked several years and didn't know she was free. She come with some
+traders from close to Nashville out here. I was born at Cotton Plant.
+I got two living brothers in Memphis now.</p>
+
+<p>"I was raised a farmer. The first work I ever done away from home
+was here in Brinkley. I worked at the sawmill fur Gun and Black. Then
+I went to Ft. Smith and worked in er oil mill. I come back here and
+farmed frum 1911 till 1915. Then I worked in the Brinkley oil mill. I
+cooked the cotton seed meal. One of my bosses had me catch a small cup
+full fur him every once in awhile. The oil taste something like peanut
+butter. It taste very well while it is hot and smells fine too. I quit
+work when they quit the mill here. It burned up. I do like the work.
+They got some crazy notion and won't hire old fellows like me no more.
+Jobs are hard to get. Younger men can get something seems like pretty
+easy. I make a garden. That is 'bout all I can do or get to do.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's name was Molly Lynch. She cooked some at Cotton
+Plant and worked in the field. She talked a right smart bout
+the way she had to do in slavery times but I don't recollect much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Shes been dead a long time. I heard folks say times was awful hard
+right after the war, that times was easier in slavery for de reason
+when they got sick they got the best of care. She said they had all
+kinds of herbs along the side of the walks in the garden. I don't guess
+after they got settled times was near as hard. She talked about how hard
+it was to get clothes and something to eat. Prices seemed like riz like
+they are now.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know 'bout my father's votin' cause I didn't know him
+till after I was grown and not much then. He was down about Marianna
+when I knowed him. I did vote. I vote the Republican ticket. I like
+the way we voted the best in 1886 or '87. It was called Fair Divide.
+Each side put his man and the one got most votes got elected. I don't
+think it necessary fur the women to vote. Her place is in the home.
+Seem like the women all going to work and the men quit. About 40 years
+ago R. P. Polk was justice of the peace here and Clay Holt was the constable.
+They made very good officers. I don't recollect nothing 'bout
+them being elected. Brinkley is always been a very peaceable town.
+The colored folks have to go clear away from town with any rowdiness."
+(The Negroes live among the whites and at their back doors in every
+part of town.)</p>
+
+<p>"I live with my son-in-law. He works up at the Gazzola Grocery
+Company. He owns this house. He <span class="u">is</span> doing very well but he works
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>"The young generation so far as I knows is getting along fairly
+well. I don't know if times is harder; they is jes' different. When
+folks do right seems there's a way provided for 'em.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I signed up with the PWA. I signed up two or three times but
+they ain't give us nothing much yet. They wouldn't let me work. They
+said I was too old. I works if I can get any work to do."</p>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p>
+<h3>
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson<br />
+Person interviewed: Josephine Scott Lynch,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8.8em;">Brinkley, Arkansas</span><br />
+Age: 69<br />
+</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Josephine Scott Lynch is my name and I sho don't know a thing to
+tell you. I don't remember my father at tall. The first thing I can
+remember about my mama she was fixing to come to Arkansas. She come as
+a immigrant. They paid her fare but she had to pay it back. We come
+on the train to Memphis and on the boat to Gregory Point (Augusta). We
+left her brother with grandma back in Tennessee. There was three
+children younger than me. The old folks talked about old times more than
+they do now but I forgot all she said too much to tell it straight.</p>
+
+<p>"We farmed, cleared land and mama and me washed and ironed and
+sewed all our lives. I cooked for Mr. Gregory at Augusta for a long
+time. I married then I cooked and washed and ironed till I got so
+porely I can't do much no more.</p>
+
+<p>"I never voted and I wouldn't know how so ain't no use to go up
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of the younger generation is better off than they used to be
+and some of them not. It depends a whole heap on the way they do. The
+colored folks tries to do like the white folks far as they's able. Everything
+is changing so fast. The present conditions is harder for po white
+folks and colored folks than it been in a long time. Nearly everything is
+to buy and prices out of sight. Work is so scarce."</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
+Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery
+in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4
+
+Author: Work Projects Administration
+
+Release Date: April 24, 2008 [EBook #25154]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Diane Monico and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress, Manuscript Division)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  +------------------------------------------------------+
+  | This book has been transcribed for Project Gutenberg |
+  |              by Distributed Proofreaders,            |
+  |         in memory of our friend and colleague        |
+  |          Dr. Laura Wisewell, Beloved Emerita.        |
+  +------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 4
+
+
+
+Prepared by
+the Federal Writers' Project of
+the Works Progress Administration
+for the State of Arkansas
+
+
+
+
+INFORMANTS
+
+
+Jackson, Clarice                               1, 3
+Jackson, Israel                                   5
+Jackson, Lula                                 9, 18
+Jackson, Mary                                    20
+Jackson, Taylor                                  22
+Jackson, Virginia                                26
+Jackson, William                                 28
+Jamar, Lawson                                    30
+James, Nellie                                    32
+James, Robert                                    34
+Jefferson, Ellis                                 36
+Jeffries, Moses                                  38
+Jefson, Rev. Ellis                               43
+Jenkins, Absolom                                 47
+Jerman, Dora                                     50
+Johnson, Adaline                                 52
+Johnson, Alice                                   59
+Johnson, Allen                                   63
+Johnson, Annie                                   67
+Johnson, Ben                                 70, 72
+Johnson, Betty                                   73
+Johnson, Cinda                                   76
+Johnson, Ella                                    77
+Johnson, Fanny                                   84
+Johnson, George                                  91
+Johnson, John                                    94
+Johnson, Letha                                   98
+Johnson, Lewis                                  100
+Johnson, Lizzie                                 102
+Johnson, Louis                                  104
+Johnson, Mag                                    107
+Johnson, Mandy                                  110
+Johnson, Marion                       112, 115, 120
+Johnson, Martha                                 122
+Johnson, Millie (Old Bill)                      124
+Johnson, Rosie                                  126
+Johnson, Saint                                  128
+Johnson, Willie                                 130
+Jones, Angeline                                 134
+Jones, Charlie                                  136
+Jones, Cynthia                                  138
+Jones, Edmund                                   141
+Jones, Eliza                                    143
+Jones, Evelyn                                   145
+Jones, John                                     148
+Jones, John                                     149
+Jones, Lidia (Lydia)                       151, 153
+Jones, Liza (Cookie)                            155
+Jones, Lucy                                     158
+Jones, Mary                                     159
+Jones, Mary                                     163
+Jones, Nannie                                   164
+Jones, Reuben                                   166
+Jones, Vergil                                   169
+Jones, Walter                                   171
+Junell, Oscar Felix                             173
+
+Keaton, Sam                                     175
+Kendricks, Tines                           177, 186
+Kennedy, Frank                                  189
+Kerns, Adreanna [TR: Adrianna?] W.              191
+Key, George                                     196
+Key, Lucy                                       198
+King, Anna                                 201, 205
+King, Mose                                      207
+King, Susie                                     210
+Kirk, William                                   214
+Krump, Betty                                    216
+Kyles, Rev. Preston                        220, 222
+
+Lagrone, Susa                                   223
+Laird, Barney A.                                225
+Lamar, Arey                                     228
+Lambert, Solomon                                229
+Larkin, Frank                         235, 236, 239
+Lattimore, William                              242
+Lawsom, Bessie                                  244
+Lee, Henry                                      247
+Lee, Mandy                                      250
+Lee, Mary                                       251
+Lewis, Talitha                                  252
+Lindsay, Abbie                                  255
+Lindsey, Rosa                                   260
+Little, William                                 262
+Lofton, Minerva                                 264
+Lofton, Robert                                  267
+Logan, John H.                                  274
+Lomack, Elvie                                   281
+Long, Henry                                     284
+Love, Annie                                     290
+Love, Needham                                   292
+Lucas, Louis                                    297
+Luckado, Lizzie                                 304
+Luckett, John                                   306
+Lynch, John                                     307
+Lynch, Josephine Scott                          310
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson
+                    Eighteenth and Virginia, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I was six or seven when they begin goin' to the Civil War. We had a
+big old pasture opposite and I know they would bring the soldiers
+there and drill 'em.
+
+"Oh my God, don't talk about slavery. They kept us in so you know we
+couldn't go around.
+
+"But if they kept 'em a little closer now, the world would be a better
+place. I'm so glad I raised my children when they was raisin'
+children. If I told 'em to do a thing, they did it 'cause I would
+always know what was best. I got here first you know.
+
+"People now'days is just shortening their lives. The Lord is pressin'
+us now tryin' to press us back. But thank God I'm saved.
+
+"Did you ever see things like they is now?
+
+"I looks at the young folks and it seems like they is all in a
+hurry--looks like they is on the last round.
+
+"These here seabirds, (a music machine called seaburg--ed.) is ruinin'
+the young folks.
+
+"I feels my age now, but I thank the Lord I got a home and got a
+little income.
+
+"My children can't help me--ain't got nothin' to help with but a
+little washin'. My daughter been bustin' the suds for a livin' 'bout
+thirty-two years now.
+
+"I never went to school. My dad put me to work after freedom and then
+when schools got so numerous, I got too big. Ain't but one thing I
+want to learn this side of the River, is to read the Bible. I wants to
+confirm Jesus' words.
+
+"The fus' place we went after we left the home place durin' of the
+war, we went to Wolf Creek. And then they pressed 'em so close we went
+to Red River. And they pressed 'em so close again we went to Texas and
+that's where we was when freedom come.
+
+"That was in July and they closed the crap (crop) and then six weeks
+'fore Christmas they loaded the wagons and started back to Arkansas.
+We come back to the Johnson place and stayed there three years, then
+my father rented the Alexander place on the Tamo.
+
+"I stayed right there till I married. I married quite young, but I had
+a good husband. I ain't sayin' this just 'cause he's sleepin' but
+ever'body will tell you he was good to me. Made a good livin' and I
+wore what I wanted to.
+
+"He come from South Carolina way before the war. Come from Abbeville.
+They was emigratin' the folks.
+
+"I tell you all I can, but I won't tell you nothin' but the truth."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Owns her home and lives on the income from rental property.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Clarice Jackson
+                    1738 Virginia Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"Was I here in slavery days? Well, I remember when the soldiers went
+to war. Oh, I'm old--I ain't no baby. But I been well taken care of--I
+been treated well.
+
+"I was bred and born right here in Arkansas and been livin' here all
+the time 'cept when they said the Yankees was comin'. I know we was
+just closin' up a crop. They put us in wagons and carried us to Wolf
+Creek in Texas and then they carried us to Red River. That was because
+it would be longer 'fore we found out we was free and they would get
+more work out a us.
+
+"Old master's name was Robert Johnson and they called him Bob.
+
+"After freedom they brought us back to Arkansas and put the colored
+folks to workin' on the shares. Yes'm they said they got their share.
+They looked like they was well contented. They stayed three or four
+years. We was treated more kinder and them that was not big enough to
+work was let go to school. I went to school awhile and then I had a
+hard spell of sickness--it was this slow fever. I was sick five or six
+weeks and it was a long time 'fore I could get my health so I didn't
+try to go to school no more. Seemed like I forgot everything I knowed.
+
+"When I was fifteen I got tired of workin' so hard so I got married,
+but I found out things was wusser. But my husband was good to me. Yes
+ma'm, he was a good man and nice to me. He was a good worker. He was
+deputy assessor under Mr. Triplett and he was a deputy sheriff and
+then he was a magistrate. Oh, he was a up-to-date man. He went to
+school after we was married and wanted me to go but I thought too much
+of my childun. When he died, 'bout two years ago, he left me this
+house and two rent houses. Yes ma'm, he was a good man.
+
+"They ain't nothin' to this here younger generation. Did you ever see
+'em goin' so fast? They won't take time to let you tell 'em anything.
+They is in a hurry. The world is too fast for me, but thank the Lord
+my childun is all settled. I got some nieces and nephews though that
+is goin' too fast.
+
+"Yes'm, I'm gettin' along all right. I ain't got nothin' to complain
+of."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Israel Jackson
+                    3505 Short Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"My name's Israel Jackson. No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas--born
+in Yaller Bush County, Mississippi August de third, 1860.
+
+"My old master? Called him General--General Bradford. I don't know
+where he was but he was gone somewhere. Don't know her name--just
+called her missis.
+
+"Yas'm, I was big enough to work. Dey had me to lead out my young
+master's horse on de grass. I had a halter on it and one time I laid
+down and went to sleep. I had de rope tied to my leg and when it come
+twelve o'clock de horse drag me clear to de house. No ma'am, I didn't
+wake up till I got to de house. It was my young master's saddle horse.
+
+"Yas'm, I knowed dey was a war 'cause de men come past just as thick.
+No'm, I wasn't afraid. I kept out of de way. Old missis wouldn't let
+us get in de way. I 'member dey stopped dere and told us we was free.
+Lots of de folks went off but my mother kept workin' in de field, and
+my father didn't leave.
+
+"Old master had us go by his name. Dat's what dey called 'em--all de
+hands on de place.
+
+"I thought from boyhood he was awful cruel. Didn't 'low us chillun in
+de white folks' house at all. Had one woman dat cooked. Dey was fifty
+or a hundred chillun on de place and dey had a big long trough dug out
+of a log and each chile had a spoon and he'd eat out of dat trough.
+Yas'm, I 'member dat. Eat greens and milk. As for meat, we didn't know
+what dat was. My mother would go huntin' at night and get a 'possum
+to feed us and sometimes old master would ketch her and take it away
+from her and give her a piece of salt meat. But sometimes she'd bury a
+'possum till she had a chance to cook it. And dey'd take sackin' like
+you make cotton sacks and dye it and make us clothes.
+
+"When de conch would blow at four o'clock every mornin' everybody got
+up and got ready for de field. Dey'd take dere chillun up to dat big
+long house. When mother went to de field I'd go along and lead de
+horse till I got to where dey was workin', then I'd sit down and let
+the horse eat. I was young and it's been so long.
+
+"No ma'am, I never went to school. No ma'am, can't read or write.
+Never had no schools as I remember.
+
+"Dey stayed on de place after freedom. No ma'am, dey did not pay 'em.
+I'se old but I ain't forgot dat. Dey fed theirselves by stealin' and
+gettin' things in de woods.
+
+"After dem Blue Jackets come in dere General Bradford never did come
+back and our folks stayed dere and when dey did leave dey went to
+Sunflower County. After dat we got along better.
+
+"How many brothers and sisters? I b'lieve I had five.
+
+"I stayed with my parents till I was grown. No ma'am, dey didn't 'low
+us to marry. When we was twenty we was neither man nor boy; we was
+considered a hobble-de-hoy. And when we got to be twenty-one we was
+considered a man and your parents turned you loose, a man. So I left
+home and went to Louisiana. I stayed dere a year, then I went back to
+Mississippi and worked. I come here to Arkansas twenty-six years ago.
+Is dis Jefferson? Well, I come here to de west end.
+
+"Since I been here I been workin' at de foundry--Dilley's foundry.
+
+"'Bout two years ago I got sick and broke up and not able to work and
+Mr. Dilley give me a pension--ten dollars a month. But de wages and
+hour got here now and I don't know what he's gwine do. When de next
+pay-day comes he might give me somethin' and he might not.
+
+"Miss, de white folks has done so bad here dat I don't know what dey's
+gwine a do. Mr. Ed and his father been takin' care of me for twenty
+years. Dey sure has been takin' care of me. Miss, I can't find no
+fault of Mr. Ed Dilley at all.
+
+"I can do a little light work but when I work half a day I get nervous
+and can't do nothin'.
+
+"No ma'am, I never did vote. Dey didn't 'low us to vote. Well, if dey
+did I didn't know it and I didn't vote.
+
+"Well, Miss, I think de young folks is near to de dogs and de dogs
+ought to have 'em and bury 'em. Miss, I don't 'cept none of 'em. I
+wouldn't want to go on and tell you how dey has treated me. Dey ain't
+no use to ask 'cause I ain't gwine tell you. The people is more wicked
+and more wuss and ever'thing. I don't think nothin' of 'em.
+
+"Miss, let me tell you de only folks dat showed me any friendly is Mr.
+Ed Dilley. I worked out dere night and day, Sunday and Monday--any
+time he called.
+
+"Miss, I ain't never seen any jail house; I ain't never been to police
+headquarters; I ain't never been called a witness in my life. I try to
+live right, all I know, and if I do wrong it's somethin' I don't know.
+I ain't had dat much trouble in my life.
+
+"I went up here to Judge Brewster to see about de pension and he said,
+'Got a home?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Got it paid for?' 'Yes.' 'Got a deed?'
+'Yes.' 'Got a abstract?' 'Yes.' 'Well, bring it up here and sign it
+and go get de pension.'
+
+"But I wouldn't do it. Miss, I would starve till I was as stiff as a
+peckerwood peckin' at a hole 'fore I'd sign anything on my deed. Miss,
+I wouldn't put a scratch on my deed. I wouldn't trust 'em, wouldn't
+trust 'em if dey was behind a Winchester."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson
+                    1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 79?
+
+
+"I was born in Alabama, Russell County, on a place called Sand Ridge,
+about seven miles out from Columbus, Georgia. Bred and born in
+Alabama. Come out here a young gal. Wasn't married when I come out
+here. Married when a boy from Alabama met me though. Got his picture.
+Lula Williams! That was my name before I married. How many sisters do
+you have? That's another question they ask all the time; I suppose you
+want to know, too. Two. Where are they? That's another one of them
+questions they always askin' me. You want to know it, too? I got one
+in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And the other one is in Philadelphia; no,
+I mean in Philipp city, Tallahatchie (county). Her name is Bertha
+Owens and she lives in Philipp city. What state is Philipp city in?
+That'll be the next question. It is in Mississippi, sir. Now is thar
+anything else you'd like to know?
+
+"My mother's name was Bertha Williams and my father's name was Fred
+Williams. I don't know nothing 'bout mama's mother. Yes, her name was
+Crecie. My father's mother was named Sarah. She got killed by
+lightning. Crecie's husband was named John Oliver. Sarah's husband was
+named William Daniel. Early Hurt was mama's master. He had an awful
+name and he was an awful man. He whipped you till he'd bloodied you
+and blistered you. Then he would cut open the blisters and drop
+sealing-wax in them and in the open wounds made by the whips.
+
+"When the Yankees come in, his wife run in and got in the bed between
+the mattresses. I don't see why it didn't kill her. I don't know how
+she stood it. Early died when the Yankees come in. He was already
+sick. The Yankees come in and said, 'Did you know you are on the
+Yankee line?'
+
+"He said, 'No, by God, when did that happen?'
+
+"They said, 'It happened tonight, G----D---- you.'
+
+"And he turned right on over and done everything on hisself and died.
+He had a eatin' cancer on his shoulder.
+
+
+Schooling, Etc.
+
+"My mother had so many children that I didn't get to go to school
+much. She had nineteen children, and I had to stay home and work to
+help take care of them. I can't write at all.
+
+"I went to school in Alabama, 'round on a colored man's place--Mr.
+Winters. That was near a little town called Fort Mitchell and Silver
+Rim where they put the men in jail. I was a child. Mrs. Smith, a white
+woman from the North, was the second teacher that I had. The first was
+Mr. Croler. My third teacher was a man named Mr. Nelson. All of these
+was white. They wasn't colored teachers. After the War, that was. I
+have the book I used when I went to school. Here is the little
+Arithmetic I used. Here is the Blue Back Speller. I have a McGuffy's
+Primer too. I didn't use that. I got that out of the trash basket at
+the white people's house where I work. One day they throwed it out.
+That is what they use now, ain't it?
+
+"Here is a book my husband give me. He bought it for me because I told
+him I wanted a second reader. He said, 'Well, I'll go up to the store
+and git you one.' Plantation store, you know. He had that charged to
+his account.
+
+"I used to study my lesson. I turned the whole class down once. It was
+a class in spelling. I turned the class down on
+'Publication'--p-u-b-l-i-c-a-t-i-o-n. They couldn't spell that. But
+I'll tell the world they could spell it the next day.
+
+"My teacher had a great big crocus sack, and when she got tired of
+whipping them, she would put them in the sack. She never did put me in
+that sack one time. I got a whipping mos' every day. I used to fight,
+and when I wasn't fightin' for myself, I'd be fighting for other
+children that would be scared to fight for theirselves, and I'd do
+their fighting for them.
+
+"That whippin' in your hand is the worst thing you ever got. Brother,
+it hurts. I put a teacher in jail that'd whip one of my children in
+the hand.
+
+
+Occupational History and Family
+
+"My mama said I was six years old when the War ended and that I was
+born on the first day of October. During the War, I run up and down
+the yard and played, and run up and down the street and played; and
+when I would make too much noise, they'd whip me and send me back to
+my mother and tell her not to whip me no more, because they had
+already done it. I would help look after my mother's children. There
+were five children younger than I was. Everywhere she went, the white
+people would want me to nurse their children, because they said, 'That
+little rawboneded one is goin' to be the smartest one you got. I want
+her.' And my ma would say:
+
+"'You ain't goin' to git 'er.' She had two other girls--Martha and
+Sarah. They was older than me, and she would hire them out to do
+nursing. They worked for their master during slave time, and they
+worked for money after slavery.
+
+"My mama's first husband was killed in a rasslin' (wrestling) match.
+It used to be that one man would walk up to another and say, 'You
+ain't no good.' And the other one would say, 'All right, le's see.'
+And they would rassle.
+
+"My mother's first husband was pretty old. His name was Myers. A young
+man come up to him one Sunday morning when they were gettin'
+commodities. They got sorghum, meat, meal, and flour; if what they got
+wasn't enough, then they would go out and steal a hog. Sometime they'd
+steal it anyhow; they got tired of eatin' the same thing all the time.
+Hurt would whip them for it. Wouldn't let the overseer whip them. Whip
+them hisself. 'Fraid the overseer wouldn't give them enough. They
+never could find my grandfather's meat. That was Grandfather William
+Down. They couldn't find his meat because he kept it hidden in a hole
+in the ground. It was under the floor of the cabin.
+
+"Old Myers made this young man rassle with him. The young fellow
+didn't want to rassle with him; he said Myers was too old. Myers
+wasn't my father; he was my mother's first husband. The young man
+threw him. Myers wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted to rassle
+again. The young man didn't want to rassle again. But Myers made him.
+And the second time, the young man threw him so hard that he broke his
+collar-bone. My mother was in a family way at the time. He lived about
+a week after that, and died before the baby was born.
+
+"My mother's second husband was named Fred Williams, and he was my
+father. All this was in slavery times. I am his oldest child. He
+raised all his children and all his stepchildren too. He and my mother
+lived together for over forty years, until she was more than seventy.
+He was much younger than she was--just eighteen years old when he
+married her. And she was a woman with five children. But she was a
+real wife to him. Him and her would fight, too. She was jealous of
+him. Wouldn't be none of that with me. Honey, when you hit me once,
+I'm gone. Ain't no beatin' on me and then sleepin' in the same bed
+with you. But they fit and then they lived together right on. No
+matter what happened, his clean clothes were ready whenever he got
+ready to go out of the house--even if it was just to go to work. His
+meals were ready whenever he got ready to eat. They were happy
+together till she died.
+
+"But when she died, he killed hisself courtin'. He was a young
+preacher. He died of pneumonia. He was visiting his daughter and got
+exposed to the weather and didn't take care of hisself.
+
+"Right after the War, I was hired as a half-a-hand. After that I got
+larger and was hired as a whole hand, me and the oldest girl. I worked
+on one farm and then another for years. I married the first time when
+I was fifteen years old. That was almost right after slave time. Four
+couples of us were married at the same time. They lived close to me. I
+didn't want my husband to git in the bed with me when I married the
+first time. I didn't have no sense. I was a Christian girl.
+
+"Frank Sampson was his name. It rained the day we married. I got my
+feet wet. My husband brought me home and then he turned 'round and
+went back to where the wedding was. They had a reception, and they
+danced and had a good time. Sampson could dance, too, but I didn't. A
+little before day, he come back and said to me--I was layin' in the
+middle of the bed--'Git over.' I called to mother and told her he
+wanted to git in the bed with me. She said, 'Well, let him git in.
+He's yo'r husband now.'
+
+"Frank Sampson and me lived together about twenty years before he got
+killed, and then I married Andrew Jackson. He had children and
+grandchildren. I don't know what was the matter with old man Jackson.
+He was head deacon of the church. We only stayed together a year or
+more.
+
+"I have been single ever since 1923, jus' bumming 'round white folks
+and tryin' to work for them and makin' them give me somethin' to eat.
+I ain't been tryin' to fin' no man. When I can't fin' no cookin' and
+washin' and ironin' to do, I used to farm. I can't farm now, and
+'course I can't git no work to do to amount to nothin'. They say I'm
+too old to work.
+
+"The Welfare helps me. Don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for them. I
+git some commodities too, but I don't git any wood. Some people says
+they pay house rent, but they never paid none of mine. I had to go to
+Marianna and git my application straight before I could git any help.
+They charged me half a dollar to fix out the application. The Welfare
+wanted to know how I got the money to pay for the application if I
+didn't have money to live on. I had to git it, and I had to git the
+money to go to Marianna, too. If I hadn't, I never would have got no
+help.
+
+
+Husband's Death
+
+"I told you my first husband got killed. The mule run away with his
+plow and throwed him a summerset. His head was where his heels should
+have been, he said, and the mule dragged him. His chest was crushed,
+and mashed. His face was cut and dirtied. He lived nine days and a
+half after he was hurt and couldn't eat one grain of rice. I never
+left his bedside 'cept to cook a little broth for him. That's all he
+would eat--just a little broth.
+
+"He said to his friend, 'See this little woman of mine? I hate to
+leave her. She's just such a good little woman. She ain't got no
+business in this world without a husband.'
+
+"And his friend said to him, 'Well, you might as well make up your
+mind you got to leave her, 'cause you goin' to do it.'
+
+"He got hurt on Thursday and I couldn't git a doctor till Friday. Dr.
+Harper, the plantation doctor, had got his house burned and his hands
+hurt. So he couldn't come out to help us. Finally Dr. Hodges come. He
+come from Sunnyside, Mississippi, and he charge me fourteen dollars.
+He just made two trips and he didn't do nothin'.
+
+"Bowls and pitchers were in style then. And I always kept a pitcher of
+clean water in the house. I looked up and there was a bunch of men
+comin' in the house. It was near dark then. They brought Sampson in
+and carried him to the bed and put him down. I said, 'What's the
+matter with Frank?' And they said, 'The mule drug him.' And they put
+him on the bed and went on out. I dipped a handkerchief in the water
+and wet it and put it in his mouth and took out great gobs of dust
+where the mule had drug him in the dirt. They didn't nobody help me
+with him then; I was there alone with him.
+
+"I started to go for the doctor but he called me back and said it
+wasn't no use for me to go. Couldn't git the doctor then, and if I
+could, he'd charge too much and wouldn't be able to help him none
+nohow. So we wasn't able to git the doctor till the next day, and then
+it wasn't the plantation doctor. We had planted fifteen acres in
+cotton, and we had ordered five hundred pounds of meat for our winter
+supply and laid it up. But Frank never got to eat none of it. They
+sent three or four hands over to git their meals with me, and they et
+up all the meat and all the other supplies we had. I didn't want it.
+It wasn't no use to me when Frank was gone. After they paid the
+doctor's bill and took out for the supplies we was supposed to git,
+they handed me thirty-three dollars and thirty-five cents. That was
+all I got out of fifteen acres of cotton.
+
+
+Ravelings
+
+"I sew with rav'lin's. Here is some rav'lin's I use. I pull that out
+of tobacco sacks, flour sacks, anything, when I don't have the money
+to buy a spool of thread. I sew right on just as good with the
+rav'lin's as if it was thread. Tobacco sacks make the best rav'lin's.
+I got two bags full of tobacco sacks that I ain't unraveled yet. There
+is a man down town who saves them for me. When a man pulls out a sack
+he says, 'Save that sack for me, I got an old colored lady that makes
+thread out of tobacco sacks.' These is what he has give me. (She
+showed the interviewer a sack which had fully a gallon of little
+tobacco sacks in it--ed.)
+
+"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
+they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
+didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.
+
+"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
+together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these
+reels? They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent.
+You turn till the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go
+to the loom. It is in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty,
+too.
+
+
+Present Condition
+
+"I used to live in a four-room house. They charged me seven dollars
+and a half a month for it. They fixed it all up and then they wanted
+to charge ten dollars, and it wouldn't have been long before they went
+up to fifteen. So I moved. This place ain't so much. I pays five
+dollars and a half for it. When it rains, I have to go outside to keep
+from gittin' too wet. But I cut down the weeds all around the place. I
+planted some flowers in the front yard, and some vegetables in the
+back. That all helps me out. When I go to git commodities, I walk to
+the place. I can't stand the way these people act on the cars. Of
+course, when I have a bundle, I have to use the car to come back. I
+just put it on my head and walk down to the car line and git on. Lord,
+my mother used to carry some bundles on her head."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+According to the marriage license issued at the time of her last
+marriage in 1922, Andrew Jackson was sixty years old, and sister
+Jackson was fifty-two. But Andrew Jackson was eighty when sister
+Jackson married him, she says. Who can blame him for saying sixty to
+the clerk? Sister Jackson admits that she was six years old during the
+War and states freely and accurately details of those times, but what
+wife whose husband puts only sixty in writing would be willing to
+write down more than fifty-two for herself?
+
+Right now at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty
+and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the
+same.
+
+The McGuffy's Primer which she thinks is used now is a modernized
+McGuffy printed in 1908. The book bought for her by her first husband
+is an original McGuffy's Second Reader.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Lula Jackson (supplement) [HW: cf. 30600]
+                    1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 79
+Occupation: Field hand
+
+
+Whippings
+
+"Early Hurt had an overseer named Sanders. He tied my sister Crecie to
+a stump to whip her. Crecie was stout and heavy. She was a grown young
+woman and big and strong. Sanders had two dogs with him in case he
+would have trouble with anyone. When he started layin' that lash on
+Crecie's back, she pulled up that stump and whipped him and the dogs
+both.
+
+"Old Early Hurt came up and whipped her hisself. Said, 'Oh, you're too
+bad for the overseer to whip, huh?'
+
+"Wasn't no such things as lamps in them days. Jus' used pine knots.
+When we quilted, we jus' got a good knot and lighted it. And when that
+one was nearly burnt out, we would light another one from it.
+
+"We had a old lady named 'Aunt' Charlotte; she wasn't my aunt, we jus'
+called her that. She used to keep the children when the hands were
+working. If she liked you she would treat your children well. If she
+didn't like you, she wouldn't treat them so good. Her name was
+Charlotte Marley. She was too old to do any good in the field; and she
+had to take care of the babies. If she didn't like the people, she
+would leave the babies' napkins on all day long, wet and filthy.
+
+"My papa's mama, Sarah, was killed by lightning. She was ironing and
+was in a hurry to get through and get the supper on for her master,
+Early Hurt. I was the oldest child, and I always was scared of
+lightning. A dreadful storm was goin' on. I was under the bed and I
+heard the thunder bolt and the crash and the fall. I heard mama
+scream. I crawled out from under the bed and they had grandma laid out
+in the middle of the floor. Mama said, 'Child, all the friend you got
+in the world is dead.' Early Hurt was standin' over her and pouring
+buckets of water on her. When the doctor come, he said, 'You done
+killed her now. If you had jus' laid her out on the ground and let the
+rain fall on her, she would have come to, but you done drownded her
+now.' She wouldn't have died if it hadn't been for them buckets of
+water that Early Hurt throwed in her face.
+
+"Honey, they ain't nothin' as sweet to drink out of as a gourd. Take
+the seeds out. Boil the gourd. Scrape it and sun it. There ain't no
+taste left. They don't use gourds now."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Violent death followed Lula Jackson's family like an implacable
+avenger. Her father's mother was struck and killed by lightning. Her
+mother's first husband was thrown to his death in a wrestling match.
+Her own husband was dragged and kicked to death by a mule. Her
+brother-in-law, Jerry Jackson, was killed by a horse. But Sister
+Jackson is bright and cheery and full of faith in God and man, and
+utterly without bitterness.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: Mary Jackson,
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 75?
+
+
+"My name is Mary Jackson, and I was born in Miller Grove, Hunt County,
+Texas during the War. No sir, I do not know the year. Our master's
+name was Dixon, and he was a wealthy plantation owner, had lots of
+property in Hunt County.
+
+"The days after the War--called the Reconstruction days, I
+believe--were sure exciting, and I can 'mind' a lot of things the
+people did, one of them a big barbecue celebration commemoratin' the
+return of peace. They had speeches, and music by the band--and there
+were a lot of soldiers carrying guns and wearing some kind of big
+breastplates. The white children tried to scare us by telling us the
+soldiers were coming to kill us little colored children. The band
+played 'Dixie' and other familiar tunes that the people played and
+sang in those days.
+
+"Yes sir, I remember the Klu Klux Klan. They sure kept us frightened
+and we would always run and hide when we heard they were comin'. I
+don't know of any special harm they done but we were afraid of em.
+
+"I have been a member of the A. M. E. Church for forty years, and my
+children belong to the same church.
+
+"No sir, I don't know if the government ever promised our folks
+anything--money, or land, or anything else.
+
+"Don't ask me anything about this 'new generation' business. They're
+simply too much for me; I cannot understand em at all. Don't know
+whether they are coming or going. In our day the parents were not near
+so lenient as they are today. I think much of the waywardness of the
+youth today should be blamed on the parents for being too slack in
+their training."
+
+
+NOTE: Mrs. Jackson and her son live in a lovely cottage, and her taste
+in dress and general deportment are a credit to the race.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Taylor Jackson,
+                    Edmondson, Arkansas
+Age: 88?
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was born two miles from Baltimore, Maryland. I was a good size boy.
+My father carried me to see the war flag go up. There was an awful
+crowd, one thousand people, there. I had two masters in this country
+besides in Virginia. When war was declared there was ten boats of
+niggers loaded at Washington and shipped to New Orleans. We stayed in
+the 'Nigger Traders Yard' there about three months. But we was not to
+be sold. Master Cupps [Culps?] owned father, mother and all of us. If
+they gained the victory he was to take us back to Virginia. I never
+knowed my grandparents. The yard had a tall brick wall around it. We
+had a bunk room, good cotton pads to sleep on and blankets. On one
+side they had a wall fixed to go up on from the inside and twelve
+platforms. You could see them being sold on the inside and the crowd
+on the outside. When they auctioned them off they would come, pick out
+what they wanted to sell next and fill them blocks again. They sold
+niggers all day long. They come in another drove they had, had men out
+buying over the country. They come in thick wood doors with iron nails
+bradded through, fastened on big hinges, fastened it with chains and
+iron bars. The house was a big red brick house. We didn't get none too
+much to eat at that place. I reckon one side was three hundred yard
+long of the wall and the house was that long. Some of them in there
+cut their hands off with a knife or ax. Well, they couldn't sell
+them. Nobody would buy them. I don't know what they ever done with
+them. Plenty of them would cut their hand off if they could get
+something to cut with to keep from being sold.
+
+"We stayed in that place till Wyley Lions [Lyons?] come and got us in
+wagons. He kept us for Master Cupps. Mother was a house girl in
+Virginia. She was one more good cook. I started hoeing and picking
+cotton in Virginia for master. When I was fourteen years old I done
+the same in Mississippi with Wiley Lyons in Mississippi close to
+Canton. In Canton, Mississippi Wiley Lyons had the biggest finest
+brick house in that country. He had two farms. In Bolivar County was
+the biggest. I could hear big shooting from Canton fifteen miles away.
+He wasn't mean and he didn't allow the overseers to be mean.
+
+"Hilliard Christmas [a neighbor] was mean to his folks. My father
+hired his own time. He raised several ten acre gardens and
+watermelons. He paid Mr. Cupp in Virginia. He come to see our folks
+how they was getting along.
+
+"A Negro on a joining farm run off. They hunted him with the dogs and
+they found him at a log. Heap his legs froze, so the white doctor had
+to cut them off. He was on Solomon's farms. After that he got to be a
+cooper. He made barrels and baskets--things he could do sittin' in his
+chair. They picked him up and made stumps for him. Some folks was
+mean.
+
+"My mother was Rachel and my father was Andrew Jackson. I had three
+brothers fought in the War. I was too young. They talked of taking me
+in a drummer boy the year it ceased. My nephew give me this uniform.
+It is warm and it is good. My breeches needs some repairs reason I
+ain't got them on. [He has worn a blue uniform for years and
+years--ed.]
+
+"There was nine of us children. I got one girl very low now. She's in
+Memphis. I been in Arkansas 45 years. I come here jes' drifting
+looking out a good location. I never had no dealings with the Ku Klux.
+I been farming all my life. Yes, I did like it. I never owned a home
+nor no land. I never voted in my life. I had nine children of my own
+but only my girl living now.
+
+"Nine or ten years ago I could work every minute. Times was good!
+good! Could get plenty work--wood to cut and ditching. It is not that
+way now. I can't do a day's work now. I'm failing fast. I feel it.
+
+"Young folks can make a living if they work and try. Some works too
+hard and some don't hardly work. Work is scarcer than it ever was to
+my knowledge. Times changed and changed the young folks. Mother died
+two or three years after the War. My father died first year we come to
+Mississippi.
+
+[We went by and took the old Negro to West Memphis. From there he
+could take a jitney to Memphis to see his daughter--ed.]
+
+"I ain't never been 'rested. I ain't been to jail. Nearly well be as
+so confined with the mud. [We assured him it was nicer to ride in the
+car than be in jail--ed.]
+
+"I couldn't tell how many I ever seen sold. I seen some sold in
+Virginia, I reckon, or Maryland--one off the boats. They kept them
+tied. They was so scared they might do anything, jump in the big
+waters. They couldn't talk but to some and he would tell white folks
+what he said. [They used an interpreter.] Some couldn't understand one
+another if they come from far apart in the foreign country. Slavery
+wasn't never bad on me. I never was sold off from my folks and I had
+warmer, better clothes 'an I have now. I had plenty to eat, more'an I
+has now generally. I had better in slavery than I have now. That is
+the truth. I'm telling the truth, I did. Some didn't. One neighbor got
+mad and give each hand one ear of corn nine or ten o'clock. They take
+it to the cook house and get it made up in hominy. Some would be so
+hungry they would parch the corn rather 'an wait. He'd give 'em meal
+to make a big kettle of mush. When he was good he done better. Give
+'em more for supper.
+
+"Freedom--soldiers come by two miles long look like. We followed them.
+There was a crowd following. Wiley Lyons had no children; he adopted a
+boy and a girl. Me and the boy was growing up together. Me and the
+white boy (fifteen or sixteen years old, I reckon we was) followed
+them. They said that was Grant's army. I don't know. 'That made us
+free' they told us. The white boy was free, he just went to see what
+was happening. We sure did see! We went by Canton to Vicksburg when
+fighting quit. Folks rejoiced, and then went back wild. Smart ones
+soon got work. Some got furnished a little provisions to help keep
+them from starving. Mr. Wiley Lyons come got us after five months. We
+hung around my brother that had been in the War. I don't know if he
+was a soldier or a waiter. We worked around Master Lyons' house at
+Canton till he died. I started farming again with him.
+
+"I get $8 a month pension and high as things is that is a powerful
+blessing but it ain't enough to feed me good. It cost more to go after
+the commodities up at Marion than they come to [amount to in value]."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Virginia Jackson,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 74
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Mother said I was born the same year peace was declared. I was born
+before the Civil War close, I reckon. I was born in Tunica,
+Mississippi. Mother belong to Mistress Cornelia and Master John Hood.
+He come from Alabama in wagons and brought mother and whole lot of
+'em, she said, to Tunica, Mississippi. My mother and father never
+sold. They told me that. She said she was with the master and he give
+her to father. He ask her did she want him and ask him if he want her.
+They lived on joint places. They slept together on Wednesday and
+Saturday nights. He stayed at Hood's place on Sunday. They was owned
+by different masters. They didn't never say 'bout stepping over no
+broom. He was a Prince. When he died she married a man named Russell.
+I never heard her say what his name was. My father was Mathew Prince.
+They was both field hands. I never knowed my father. I called my
+stepfather popper. I always did say mother.
+
+"Mother said her master didn't tell them it was freedom. Other folks
+got told in August. They passed it 'round secretly. Some Yankees come
+asked if they was getting paid for picking cotton in September. They
+told their master. They told the Yankees 'yes' 'cause they was afraid
+they would be run off and no place to go. They said Master Hood paid
+them well for their work at cotton selling time. He never promised
+them nothing. She said he never told one of them to leave or to stay.
+He let 'em be. I reckon they got fed. I wore cotton sack dresses. It
+wasn't bagging. It was heavy stiff cloth.
+
+"Mother and her second husband come to Forrest City. They hoped they
+could do better. I come too. I worked in the field all my whole life
+'cepting six years I worked in a laundry. I washed and ironed. I am a
+fine ironer. If I was younger I could get all the mens' shirts I could
+do now. I do a few but I got neuralgia in my arms and shoulders.
+
+"I don't believe in talking 'bout my race. They always been lazy folks
+and smart folks, and they still is. The present times is good for me.
+I'm so thankful. I get ten dollars and some help, not much. I don't go
+after it. I let some that don't get much as I get have it. I told 'em
+to do that way."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Jackson
+                    Route 6, Box 81, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"Me? Well, I was born July 12, 1853. Now you can figure that up.
+
+"I was sold four times in slavery times. I was sold through the nigger
+traders and you know they didn't keep you long.
+
+"I was born in Tennessee, raised in Mississippi, and been here in
+Arkansas up and down the Arkansas River ever since I was fifteen.
+
+"A fellow bought me in Tennessee and sold me to a fellow named Abe
+Collins in Mississippi. He sold me to Dr. Maloney and then Winn and
+Trimble in Hempstead County bought me. They run a tanyard.
+
+"I went to school one day in my life. My third master's children
+learned me my ABC's in slavery times. I'm not educated but I can read.
+Read the Bible and something like that.
+
+"The Ku Klux run me one night. They come to the door and I went out
+the window. They went to my master's tanyard in broad open day and
+took leather. Oh, I been all through the roughness. But the Lord has
+blessed me ever since I been in this world. I can see good and hear
+good and get about.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas with some refugees, and I been up and down
+the river ever since.
+
+"In slavery times I had plenty to eat, such as 'twas. Had biscuits on
+Sunday made out of shorts.
+
+"I lived with one man, Dr. Maloney, who was pretty cruel. I run away
+from him once, but he caught me fore night. Put me in a little house
+on bread and water for three or four days and then he sold me. Said he
+wouldn't have a nigger that would run away. Otherwise I been treated
+pretty well.
+
+"I come to Pine Bluff in '82. Last place I farmed was at what they
+call the Nichol place.
+
+"I used to vote Republican--wouldn't let us vote nothin' else. In this
+country they won't let niggers vote in the primary 'cause they can
+vote in the presidential election. I held one office--justice of the
+peace.
+
+"If the younger generation don't change, the Lord goin' to put curses
+on em. That's just what's goin' to come of em. More you do for em the
+worse they is. Don't think about the future--just today."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lawson Jamar,
+                    Edmondson, Arkansas
+Age: 66
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"Papa had twelve children and when he died he lef' two and now I am
+all the big family left.
+
+"Mama was born in Huntsville, Alabama. I was born there too. She was
+Liza, b'long to Tom and Unis Martin. Papa b'long to Mistress Sarah and
+Jack Jamar. They had to work hard. They had to do good work. They had
+to not slight their work. Papa's main job was to carry water to the
+hands. He said it kept him on the go. They had more than one water
+boy. They had to go to the wash hole before they went to bed and wash
+clean. The men had a place and the women had their place. They didn't
+have to get in if it was cold but they had to wash off.
+
+"They hauled a wagon load of axes or hoes and lef' 'em in the field so
+they could get 'em. Then they would haul plows, hoes or axes to the
+shop to be fixed up. They had two or three sets. They worked from
+early till late. They had a cook house. They cooked at their own
+houses when the work wasn't pushing. When they got behind they would
+work in the moonlight. If they got through they all went and help some
+neighbor two or three nights and have a big supper sometimes. They
+done that on Saturday nights, go home and sleep all day Sunday.
+
+"If they didn't have time to wash and clean the houses and the beds
+some older women would do that and tend to the babies. They had a hard
+time during the War. It was hard after the War. Papa brought me to
+this country to farm. He farmed till he started sawmilling for
+Chappman Dewy at Marked Tree. Then he swept out and was in the office
+to help about. He never owned nothing. He come and I farmed. He helped
+a little. He was so old. He talked more about the War and slavery. I
+always have farmed. Farmed all my life.
+
+"I don't farm now. I got asthma and cripple with rheumatism. What my
+wife and children can't do ain't done now. [Three children.] I don't
+get no help but I applied for it.
+
+"Present times is all right where a man can work. The present
+generation rather do on heap less and do less work. They ain't got
+manners and raisin' like I had. They don't know how to be polite. We
+tries to learn 'em [their children] how to do."
+
+
+NOTE: The woman was black and so was the cripple Negro man; their
+house was clean, floors, bed, tables, chairs. Very good warm house.
+They couldn't remember the old tales the father told to tell them to
+me.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: Nellie James,
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"Nellie James is my name. Yes, Mr. D. B. James was my husband, and he
+remembered you very kindly. They call me 'Aunt Nellie.' I was born in
+Starkville, Ouachita County, Mississippi the twenty-ninth of March, in
+1866, just a year after the War closed. My parents were both owned by
+a plantation farmer in Ouachita County, Mississippi, but we came to
+Arkansas a good many years ago.
+
+"My husband was principal of the colored school here at Russellville
+for thirty-five years, and people, both white and black, thought a
+great deal of him. We raised a family of six children, five boys and a
+girl, and they now live in different states, some of them in
+California. One of my sons is a doctor in Chicago and is doing well.
+They were all well educated. Mr. James saw to that of course.
+
+"So far as I remember from what my parents said, the master was
+reasonably kind to all his slaves, and my husband said the same thing
+about his own master although he was quite young at the time they were
+freed. (Yes sir, you see he was born in slavery.)
+
+"I was too young to remember much about the Ku Klux Klan, but I
+remember we used to be afraid of them and we children would run and
+hide when we heard they were coming.
+
+"No sir, I have never voted, because we always had to pay a dollar for
+the privilege--and I never seemed to have the dollar (laughingly) to
+spare at election time. Mr. James voted the Republican ticket
+regularly though.
+
+"All our family were Missionary Baptists. I united with the Baptist
+church when I [HW: was] thirteen years old.
+
+"I think the young people of both races are growing wilder and wilder.
+The parents today are too slack in raising them--too lenient. I don't
+know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to do, or
+what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a time
+trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."
+
+
+NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most
+successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet,
+refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and
+successful family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none
+of the brogue that is characteristic of the colored race of the
+South.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Robert James
+                    4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 66, or older
+Occupation: Cook
+
+
+"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's
+name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David
+Jones was her old master. That was in Mississippi--the good old
+country! People hate it because they don't like the name but it was a
+mighty good country when I was there. The white people there were
+better to the colored people when I was there than they are here. But
+there is a whole lots of places that is worse than Arkansas.
+
+"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with
+nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my
+brother happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought
+about me and wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in
+Chicago following up their information and got in touch with my
+people. Didn't find them out till the great war started. Had to go to
+Europe to find my relatives. My sister's people and mine too were born
+in Illinois, but my mother and two sisters and another brother were
+born in Mississippi. Their kin born in Illinois were half-brothers and
+so on.
+
+
+Refugeeing--Ghosts
+
+"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to
+keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it
+must have been true.
+
+"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to
+driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story
+house. They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise
+nobody; so they just camped there for the night. After they went to
+bed, big balls of fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got
+scared and run out of the house and camped outside for the night.
+There wasn't no more sleeping in that house.
+
+"Some people believe in ghosts and some don't. What do you believe?
+This is what I have seen myself. Mules and horses were running 'round
+screaming and hollering every night. One day, I was walking along when
+I saw a mule big as an elephant with ears at least three feet long and
+eyes as big as auto lamps. He was standing right in the middle of the
+road looking at me and making no motion to move. I was scared to
+death, but I stooped down to pick up a stone. It wasn't but a second.
+But when I raised up, he had vanished. He didn't make a sound. He just
+disappeared in a second. That was in the broad open daylight. That was
+what had been causing all the confusion with the mules and horses.
+
+"When I first married I used to room with an old lady named Johnson.
+Time we went to bed and put the light out, something would open the
+doors. Finally I got scared and used to tell my wife to get up and
+close the doors. Finally she got skittish about it. There used to be
+the biggest storms around there and yet you couldn't see nothin'.
+There wasn't no rain nor nothin'. Just sounds and noises like storms.
+My wife comes to visit me sometimes now.
+
+"My mother says there wasn't any such thing as marriage in slave
+times. Old master jus' said, 'There's your husband, Florida.'"
+
+
+
+
+Little Rock District
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson
+Subject: HISTORY OF ELLIS JEFFERSON--(NEGRO)
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)
+
+This Information given by: Ellis Jefferson (Uncle Jeff) (C)
+Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas
+Occupation: Superanuated Minister of the M. E. Church
+Age: 77
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+He has his second eyesight and his hair is short and white. He is a
+black skinned, bright-eyed old man. "Uncle Jeff" said he remembered
+when the Civil War had ended they passed by where he lived with teams,
+wagons filled, and especially the artillery wagon. They were carrying
+them back to Washington. His mother was freed from Mrs. Nancy Marshall
+of Roanoke, Va. She moved and brought his mother, he and his sister,
+Ann, to Holly Springs, Miss. The county was named for his mistress:
+Marshall County, Mississippi.
+
+In 1868 they moved to [HW: within] 4 miles of DeWitt and 10 miles of
+Arkansas Post. Later they moved to Kansas and near Wichita then back
+to Marshall, Texas. His sister has four sons down there. He thinks she
+is still living. His Mistress went back to Roanoke, Va., and his
+mother died at Marshall. Tom Marshall was his Master's name, but he
+seems to have died in the Civil War. This old Uncle Jeff lived in
+Alabama and has preached there and in northern Mississippi and near
+Helena, Arkansas. He helped cook at Helena in a hotel. He preaches
+some but the WPA supports him now. Uncle Jeff can't remember his
+dreams he said "The Bible says, young men dream dreams and old men see
+visions."
+
+He had a real vision once, he was going late one afternoon to get his
+mules up and he heard a voice "I have a voice I want you to complete.
+Carry my word." He was a member of the church but he made a profession
+and a year later was ordained into the ministry. He believes in
+dreams. Says they are warnings.
+
+Uncle Jeff says he has written some poetry but it has all been lost.
+
+When anyone dies the sexton goes to the church and tolls the bell as
+many times as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church
+for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul
+rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people
+can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery.
+
+[HW: Marshall County, Miss., named for John Marshall of Virginia,
+Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, 1801-35. _History of
+Marshall (County), Mississippi_, by Clayton M. Alexander.]
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
+Subject: [HW: Moses Jeffries]
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)
+
+This information given by: Moses E. Jeffries
+Place of Residence: 1110 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Occupation: Plasterer
+Age: 81 [TR: Age: 75 on 4th page of form.]
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+"I was born in 1856. My age was kept with the cattle. As a rule, you
+know, slaves were chattels. There was a fire and the Bible in which
+the ages were kept was lost. The man who owned me couldn't remember
+what month I was born in. Out of thirteen children, my mother could
+only remember the age of one. I had twelve brothers and sisters--Bob
+Lacy, William Henry, Cain Cecil, Jessie, Charles, Harvey, Johnnie,
+Anna, Rose, Hannah, Lucy, and Thomas. I am the only one living now. My
+parents were both slaves. My father has been dead about fifty-nine
+years and my mother about sixty or sixty-one years. She died before I
+married and I have been married fifty years. I have them in my Bible.
+
+I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said there was
+going to be war. I remember when they had [HW: a] slave market in New
+Orleans. I was living betweeen [TR: between] Pine Bluff and New
+Orleans (living in Arkansas) and saw the slaves chained together as
+they were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of
+the big farms or plantations.
+
+I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the Confederate
+armies when they were retreating near the end of the war. I was just
+about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall, Texas.
+
+The man that owned me said to the old people that they were free,
+that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham Lincoln had set
+them free. Of course, I didn't know what freedom was. They brought the
+news to them one evening, and them niggers danced nearly all night.
+
+I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves first, and
+the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through our field about
+half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs would be trailing them.
+The hunters didn't bother to stop and question us because they knew
+the hounds were on the trail. I have known slaves to run away and stay
+three years at a time. Master would whip them and they would run away.
+They wouldn't have no place to go or stay so they would come back
+after a while. Then they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish
+them much, however, because they might run off again.
+
+
+MARRIAGE
+
+If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would
+ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were
+somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for
+her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all
+the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then.
+You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases,
+however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold
+away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to
+time.
+
+
+INHERITANCE OF SLAVES
+
+If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves should go to
+each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred slaves and they
+divided them up just as you would cattle. Some times there were
+certain slaves that certain children liked, and they were granted
+those slaves.
+
+
+WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED
+
+Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of the niggers got
+anything. They didn't give them anything. The slaves were hired and
+allowed to work the farms on shares. That is where the system of share
+cropping came from. I was hired for fifty dollars a year, but was paid
+only five. The boss said he owed me fourteen dollars but five was all
+I got. I went down town and bought some candy. It was the first time I
+had had that much money.
+
+I couldn't do anything about the pay. They didn't give me any land.
+They hired me to work around the house and I ate what the boss ate.
+But the general run of slaves got pickled pork, molasses, cornmeal and
+sometimes flour (about once a week for Sunday). The food came out of
+the share of the share cropper.
+
+You can tell what they did by what they do now. It (share cropping)
+hasn't changed a particle since. About Christmas was the time they
+usually settled up. Nobody was forced to remain as a servant. I know
+one thing,--Negroes did not go to jail and penitentiary like they do
+now.
+
+
+KU KLUX KLAN
+
+The Ku Klux Klan to the best of my knowledge went into action about
+the time shortly after the war when the amendments to the Constitution
+gave the Negroes the right to vote. I have seen them at night dressed
+up in their uniform. They would visit every Negro's house in the
+comunity [TR: community]. Some they would take out and whip, some they
+would scare to death. They would ask for a drink of water and they had
+some way of drinking a whole bucketful to impress the Negroes that
+they were supernatural. Negroes were very superstitious then. Colonel
+Patterson who was a Republican and a colonel or general of the
+militia, white and colored, under the governorship of Powell Clayton,
+stopped the operation of the Klan in this state. After his work, they
+ceased terrorizing the people.
+
+
+POLITICAL OFFICIALS
+
+Many an ex-slave was elected sheriff, county clerk, probate clerk,
+Pinchback[A] was elected governor in Louisiana. The first Negro
+congressman was from Mississippi and a Methodist preacher Hiram
+Revells[B]. We had a Nigger superintendent of schools of the state of
+Arkansas, J. C. Corbin[C]--I don't remember just when, but it was in
+the early seventies. He was also president of the state school in Pine
+Bluff--organized it.
+
+
+SUFFRAGE
+
+The ex-slave voted like fire directly after the war. That was about
+all that did vote then. If the Niggers hadn't voted they never would
+have been able to elect Negroes to office.
+
+I was elected Alderman once in Little Rock under the administration of
+Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge,
+Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of
+Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of
+public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern
+Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion
+H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all
+aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County, S.
+H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about five feet
+high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of Desha County.
+Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro used to hold good offices
+in this state.
+
+I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter caused it.
+Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern part of the
+state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with the North in the
+war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the North somewheres. When
+Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom the old ex-slaveholders
+supported because he was a Southerner and sided with Baxter against
+Brooks, it put the present Democratic party in power, and they passed
+the Grandfather law barring Negroes from voting.
+
+Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted out. Ballot
+boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally, Negroes got
+discouraged and quit trying to vote."
+
+[Footnote A: [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of
+La. Held office 43 days.]]
+
+[Footnote B: [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of
+Jefferson Davis.]]
+
+[Footnote C: [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of
+public instruction in 1873--served until the end of 1875.]]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher),
+                    Hazen, Ark.
+Age: 77
+
+
+"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and
+he couldn't talk plain.
+
+"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a white
+man. He was a Scotchman.
+
+"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left
+Virginia.
+
+"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em was
+married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly
+Springs, Mississippi in 1867.
+
+"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at
+Holly Springs.
+
+"I had two sisters Ann and Mariah. Old Miss Nancy Marshall had kin
+folks at Marshall, Texas. She took Ann with her and I have never seen
+her since.
+
+"In 1878 we immigrated to Kansas. We soon got back to Helena. Mariah
+died there and in 1881 mother died.
+
+"Old Miss Nancy's boys named Blunt, John, Bill, Harp. I don't know
+where they scattered out to finally.
+
+"All my folks ever expected was freedom. We was nicely taken care of
+till the family split up. My father was suppressed. He belong to
+Master Ernman. He run off and went on with the Yankees when they come
+down from Virginia. We think he got killed. We never heard from him
+after 1863.
+
+"In 1882 my white folks went to Padukah, Kentucky. They was on the run
+from Yellow Fever. They had kin up there. I stayed in Memphis and
+nursed. They put up flags. Negroes didn't have it. They put coffins on
+the porches before the people died. Carried wagons loads of dead
+bodies wrapped in sheets. White folks would meet and pray the disease
+be lifted. When they started vomiting black, there was no more hopes.
+Had to hold them on bed when they was dying. When they have Yellow
+Fever white folks turn yellow. I never heard of a case of Yellow Fever
+in Memphis mong my race. Dr. Stone of New Orleans had better luck with
+the disease than any other doctor. I was busy from June till October
+in Memphis. They buried the dead in long trenches. Nearly all the
+business houses was closed. The boats couldn't stop in towns where
+Yellow Fever had broke out.
+
+"I never seen the Ku Klux.
+
+"I never seen no one sold. My father still held a wild animal instinct
+up in Virginia; they couldn't keep him out of the woods. He would
+spend two or three days back in there. Then the Patty Rollers would
+run him out and back home. He was a quill blower and a banjo picker.
+They had two corn piles and for prizes they give them whiskey. They
+had dances and regular figure callers. This has been told to me at
+night time around the hearth understand. I can recollect when round
+dancing come in. It was in 1880. Here's a song they sung back in
+Virginia: 'Moster and mistress both gone away. Gone down to
+Charleston/ to spend the summer day. I'm off to Charleston/early in
+the mornin'/ to spend nother day.'
+
+"I used to help old Miss Nancy make candles for her little brass lamp.
+We boiled down maple sap and made sugar. We made turpentine.
+
+"I don't know about the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia. We had
+rebellions at Helena in 1875. The white folks put the Negroes out of
+office. They put J. T. White in the river at Helena but I think he got
+out. Several was killed. J. T. White was a colored sheriff in Phillips
+County. In Lee County it was the same way. The Republican party would
+lect them and the Democratic party roust them out of office.
+
+"In 1872 I went to school 2-1/2 miles to Arkansas Post to a white
+teacher. I went four months. Her name was Mrs. Rolling. My white folks
+started me and I could spell to 'Baker' in the Blue Book Speller
+before I started to school. That is the only book I ever had at
+school. I learned to read in the Bible next.
+
+"In 1872 locust was numerous. We had four diseases to break out:
+whooping cough, measles, smallpox; and cholera broke out again. They
+vaccinated for smallpox, first I ever heard of it. They took matter
+out of one persons arm and put it in two dozen peoples arms. It killed
+out the smallpox.
+
+"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and forest
+fires broke out often.
+
+"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We gambled
+and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good raising.
+I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord hailed me in
+wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing in his
+sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to teach a
+Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader. Three
+months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop Lee,
+Johnson, Copeland--all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I
+attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I
+preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee,
+Mississippi, and Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated
+minister.
+
+"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become
+more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the
+home land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some
+work or a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins,
+                    R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 80
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil
+War). I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension
+and he sends me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount
+whatever he can spare me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I
+pick cotton some last year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got
+to raining and so cold my granddaughter said it would make me sick.
+
+"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from
+Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A.
+B. Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was
+name Liddy Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to
+Tennessee from Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than
+ten miles apart. Then they got consent and got married. I don't know
+how they struck up together.
+
+"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins'
+house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His
+daughter lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home
+from the war dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The
+only little children on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no
+kin but jus' like twins. Master would call us up and stick his finger
+in biscuits and pour molasses in the hole. That was sure good eating.
+The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up
+another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got
+them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother
+beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over
+at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us
+biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and
+call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer
+badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to
+whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe
+from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take
+me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get
+my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We walked four miles. He'd
+tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed over there much and
+the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come. They let her
+stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to
+preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to
+come home. Me and papa always walked.
+
+"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't
+know what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the
+best, somebody said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six
+years trying to do as well as they had done in slavery. It was years
+'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing
+well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the
+hardest--eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from
+Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and
+done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the
+girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We
+boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats
+about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we
+rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a
+heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.
+
+"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The
+main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but
+it was carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd
+tell colored folks not to do this and that and it would get them in
+trouble. The Ku Klux would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks
+thought 'cause they was free they ought not work. They got to rambling
+and scattered out.
+
+"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted
+different ways--sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I
+don't believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for
+Cleveland years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the
+last war. I don't believe in war.
+
+"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now.
+Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are
+restless. I see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got
+grown looked so fresh and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried
+now. They fixes up their face but it still show it. Folks quicker than
+they used to be. They acts before they have time to think now. Times
+is good for me but I see old folks need things. I see young folks
+wasteful--both black and white. White folks setting the pace for us
+colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Dora Jerman,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 60?
+
+
+"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father.
+Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee.
+Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around
+handy to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her
+and Aunt Polly both. Aunt Polly was a friend that was sold with her
+every time. They was like sisters and the most pleasure to each other
+in old age.
+
+"My great-great-grandma said to grandma, 'Hurry back wid that pitcher
+of water, honey, so you will have time to run by and see your mama and
+the children and tell them good-bye. Old master says you going to be
+sold early in the morning.' The water was for supper. That was the
+last time she ever seen or heard of any of her own kin folks. Grandma
+said a gang of them was sold next morning. Aunt Polly was no kin but
+they was sold together. Whitfield bought one and Strum bought the
+other.
+
+"They come on a boat from Virginia to Aberdeen, Mississippi. They
+wouldn't sell her mother because she brought fine children. I think
+she said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold
+several times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat
+they had to walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open
+and bled. 'Black Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them
+with hot tallow or mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a
+good girl and mind master and mistress.
+
+"Grandma said she had a hard time all her life. She was my mother's
+mother and she lived to be way over a hundred years old. Aunt Polly
+lived with her daughter when she got old. Grandma died first. Then
+Aunt Polly grieved so. She was old, old when she died. They still
+lived close together, mostly together. Aunt Polly was real black; mama
+was lighter. I called grandma 'mama' a right smart too. They called
+each other 'sis'. Grandma said, 'I love sis so good.' Aunt Polly
+lessened her days grieving for sis. They was both field hands. They
+would tell us girls about how they lived when they was girls. We'd
+cry.
+
+"We lived in the country and we listened to what they said to us. If
+it had been times then like now I wouldn't know to tell you. Folks is
+in such a hurry somehow. Gone or going somewhere all the time.
+
+"All my folks is most all full-blood African. I don't believe in races
+mixing up. It is a sin. Grandma was the brightest one of any of us.
+She was ginger-cake color.
+
+"No, I don't vote. I don't believe in that neither.
+
+"Times is too fast. Fast folks makes fast times. They all fast. Coming
+to destruction."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Adaline Johnson
+                    Joining the Plunkett farms
+                    Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas
+Age: 96
+
+
+"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on
+Strickland's place. My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North
+Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big
+plantations, full of niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where
+my mother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They lived at
+Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old
+master. There was Hue Battle too. Master Joe Battle and Master
+Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to
+whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks
+with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.
+
+"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He
+was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them about it at the hotel. He
+got up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom
+Williams didn't drink. He went to war and got shot. He professed
+religion when he was twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his
+Testament in his pocket and blood run on it. That was when he was shot
+in the Civil War.
+
+"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no
+law to kill a crazy man. They took him to North Carolina where was all
+white folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor
+crazy nigger. They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to
+place all white folks lived.
+
+"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress
+Frankie (Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em be, he ain't goiner
+whoop Fenna, he's kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.'
+They whoop niggers black as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten
+Williams. Fenna was half white. He was John Williams' boy. John was
+Brutten's brother. John Williams went to Mississippi and overseed for
+Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd shoot at anything and call it a
+hawk.
+
+"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to
+sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi learned her how to sew. She
+sewed up bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.
+
+"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe
+Williams. She cooked and wove some in her young life. Rich white folks
+didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they
+changed her about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the
+public.
+
+"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduke
+Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big towns and had a good time.
+Miss Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from
+Mississippi) to North Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it
+all away soon as it ripen. He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy.
+He give some of it out in cups. They said there was some double
+rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.
+
+"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the
+men on his place five dollars and every woman a sow pig to raise from.
+Tole us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one
+and my mother one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever
+had. He got killed. Master Tom was so good to his niggers. He never
+whooped them. His wife ruled him, made him do like she wanted
+everything but mean to his niggers. Her folks slashed their niggers
+and she tried to make him do that too. He wouldn't. They said she wore
+the breeches 'cause she ruled him.
+
+"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away
+from every one of us. We raised 'em up fine big hogs. She took them
+away from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had
+plenty land he left her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen
+Hopkins. They had a boy. He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She
+was so mean. Followed the boy to Texas. They all said she couldn't
+rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom Williams. She didn't.
+
+"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she
+wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had raised a little half white
+boy. 'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's
+little nigger child and give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His
+own black mama beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal Pierce's
+place. They kept Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give
+him to somebody else 'way off. Tom had a brother in Georgia. It was
+Tom's wife wouldn't let Wilks go on living with us.
+
+"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers
+but she was better than any other white women to Wilks and Fenna and
+George.
+
+"'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought
+him a axe, it was a great big axe. They bought him a great big hoe.
+They got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like
+everybody else. 'Big Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim
+Battle was gone off. His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When
+Jim Battle come back he said Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put
+him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big Will'. We never heard or seen him no
+more. His family stayed on the plantation and worked. 'Big Will' could
+split as many more rails as anybody else on the place.
+
+"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy
+babies and raise them.
+
+"The Battles had gins and stores in North Carolina and Williams had
+farms, nothing but farms.
+
+"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after
+the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy, Johnny Williams. He run to
+me, said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was
+when the Yankee soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war.
+I cooked when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded and spun
+then. I had a ounce of cotton to card every night from September till
+March. When I'd be dancing around, Miss Helland Harris Williams say,
+'You better be studying your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop
+dancing.
+
+"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich
+folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the niggers cried and cried and
+bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean
+master.
+
+"They had a mean master right then--Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever
+God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That was in Mississippi. They took
+us back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and
+stage-coaches, wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on
+big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up
+the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.
+
+"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee.
+I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our
+snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night
+so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The
+Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they
+could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina.
+
+"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama--mama was Liza
+Williams--Master Brutten bought her sister three or four years after
+that and they took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now
+they call it Wakefield Post Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid,
+Henry, John was Tom Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.
+
+"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was
+Joe Battle's uncles. Jesse Ford was Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas.
+He come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was
+put on a block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell
+downstairs. I never heard such crying before nor since as I heard that
+day. Said they lost their best master. They knowed how bad they got
+whooped on Ozoo River.
+
+"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big
+towns. He never did marry. My last master was Tom Williams. He was so
+nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard
+times come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks--foot tracks and
+finger tracks both.
+
+"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers
+and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them your finger marks.' Then he
+scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get
+scared, he ain't go to whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not
+goiner hurt him.'
+
+"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of
+white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way they come free
+niggers. Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a
+hog, take it and give it to her. She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto
+baby turned up. Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes
+they did.
+
+"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to
+George to come after them to Ohio. Bill Harris had a baltimore
+trotter. The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open,
+read it, give it to his owner. He got mad and sold George. He was Sam
+Harrises carriage driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned
+him about reading and writing. When the war was over George come
+through on the train. Sam Harris run up there, cracked his heels
+together, hugged him, and give him ten dollars. He sold him when he
+was so mad. I don't know if he went to Ohio to Stinson's or not.
+
+"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after
+freedom.
+
+"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there
+with his leg shot off and was there till he could get on to his folks.
+
+"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was cars
+going different places. We got on Mr. Boyd's car. He paid our way out
+here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd
+brought us right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at
+Raleigh, North Carolina.
+
+"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children
+scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty acres. Some of it in
+woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with
+me--taking care of me. Papa tole my son to take care of me and since
+he died my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go
+hungry nigh all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son
+both. If I could get a cow. We tries to have a garden. They ain't
+making nothing on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I
+ever seen in my life. I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising.
+The doctor put some medicine in my ears--both of them.
+
+"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time
+to take off my shoes and fix the tacks--beat 'em down. They made holes
+in bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and
+stand."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+This is another one of those _terrible_ cases. This old woman is on
+starvation. She had a cow and can't get another one. The son is blind
+but feels about and did milk. The bedbugs are nearly eating her up.
+They scald but can't get rid of them. They have a fairly good house to
+live in. But the old woman is on starvation and away back eight miles
+from Biscoe. I hate to see good old Negroes want for something to eat.
+She acts like a small child. Pitiful, so feeble. The second time I
+went out there I took her daughter who walks out there every week. We
+fixed her up an iron bedstead so she can sleep better. I took her a
+small cake. That was her dinner. She had eaten one egg that morning.
+She was a clean, kind old woman. Very much like a child. Has a rising
+in her head and said she was afraid her head would kill her. She gave
+me a gallon of nice figs her daughter picked, so I paid her
+twenty-five cents for them. She had plenty figs and no sugar.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Alice Johnson
+                    601 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"You want to know what they did in slavery times! They were doin' jus'
+what they do now. The white folks was beatin' the niggers, burning 'em
+and boilin' 'em, workin' 'em and doin' any other thing they wanted to
+do with them. 'Course you wasn't here then to know about nigger dogs
+and bull whips, were you? The same thing is goin' on right now. They
+got the same bull whips and the same old nigger dogs. If you don't
+believe it, go right out here to the county farm and you find 'em
+still whippin' the niggers and tearing them up and sometimes lettin'
+the dogs bite them to save the bull whips.
+
+"I was here in slavery time but I was small and I don't know much
+about it 'cept what they told me. But you don't need to go no further
+to hear all you want to know. They sont you to the right place. They
+all know me and they call me Mother Johnson. So many folks been here
+long as me, but don't want to admit it. They black their hair and
+whiten their faces, and powder and paint. 'Course it's good to look
+good all right. But when you start that stuff, you got to keep it up.
+Tain't no use to start and stop. After a while you got that same color
+hair and them same splotches again. Folks say, 'What's the matter, you
+gittin so dark?' Then you say, 'Uh, my liver is bad.' You got to keep
+that thing up, baby.
+
+"I thank God for my age. I thank God He's brought me safe all the way.
+That is the matter with this world now. It ain't got enough religion.
+
+"I was born in Mississippi way below Jackson in Crystal Springs. That
+is on the I. C. Road near New Orleans. The train that goes there goes
+to New Orleans. I was bred and born and married there in Crystal
+Springs. I don't know just when I was born but I know it was in the
+month of December.
+
+"I remember when the slaves were freed. I remember the War 'cause I
+used to hear them talking about the Yankees and I didn't know whether
+they were mules or horses or what not. I didn't know if they was
+varmints or folks or what not. I can't remember whether I seen any
+soldiers or not. I heard them talking about soldiers, but I didn't see
+none right 'round where we was.
+
+"Now what good's that all goin' to do me? It ain't goin' to do me no
+good to have my name in Washington. Didn't do me no good if he stuck
+my name up on a stick in Washington. Some of them wouldn't know me.
+Those that did would jus' say, 'That's old Alice Johnson.'
+
+"Us old folks, they don't count us. They jus' kick us out of the way.
+They give me 'modities and a mite to spend. Time you go and get lard,
+sugar, meat, and flour, and pay rent and buy wood, you don't have
+'nough to go 'round. Now that might do you some good if you didn't
+have to pay rent and buy wood and oil and water. I'll tell you
+something so you can earn a living. Your mama give you a education so
+you can earn a living and you earnin' it jus' like she meant you to.
+But most of us don't earn it that way, and most of these educated
+folks not earnin' a livin' with their education. They're in jail
+somewheres. They're walkin' up and down Ninth Street and runnin' in
+and out of these here low dives. You go down there to the penitentiary
+and count those prisoners and I'll bet you don't find nary one that
+don't know how to read and write. They're all educated. Most of these
+educated niggers don't have no feeling for common niggers. 'They just
+walk on them like they wasn't living. And don't come to 'em tellin'
+them that you wanting to use them!
+
+"The people et the same thing in slavery time that they eat now. Et
+better then 'n they do now. Chickens, cows, mules died then, they
+throw 'em to the buzzards. Die now, they sell 'em to you to eat.
+Didn't eat that in slavery time. Things they would give to the dogs
+then, they sell to the people to eat now. People et pure stuff in
+slavery. Don't eat pure stuff now. Got pure food law, but that's all
+that is pure.
+
+"My mother's name was Diana Benson and my father's name was Joe Brown.
+That's what folks say, I don't know. I have seen them but I wasn't
+brought up with no mother and father. Come up with the white folks and
+colored folks fust one and then the other. I think my mother and
+father died before freedom. I don't know what the name of their master
+was. All my folks died early.
+
+"The fus' white folks I knowed anything about was Rays. They said that
+they were my old slave-time masters. They were nice to me. Treated me
+like they would their own children. Et and slept with them. They
+treated me jus' like they own. Heap of people say they didn't have no
+owners, but they got owners yet now out there on that government farm.
+
+"The fus' work I done in my life was nussing. I was a child then and I
+stayed with the white folks' children. Was raised up in the house with
+'em. I was well taken care of too. I was jus' like their children.
+That was at Crystal Springs.
+
+"I left them before I got grown and went off with other folks. I never
+had no reason. Jus' went on off. I didn't go for better because I was
+doing better. They jus' told me to come and I went.
+
+"I been living now in Arkansas ever since 1911. My husband and I
+stayed on to work and make a living. I take care of myself. I'm not
+looking for nothin' now but a better home over yonder--better home
+than this. Thank the Lawd, I gits along all right. The government
+gives me a check to buy me a little meat and bread with. Maybe the
+government will give me back that what they took off after a while. I
+don't know. It takes a heap of money to feed thousands and millions of
+people. When the check comes, I am glad to git it no matter how little
+it is. Twarn't for it, I would be in a sufferin' condition.
+
+"I belong to the Arch Street Baptist Church. I been for about twenty
+years. I was married sixteen years to my first husband and
+twenty-eight to my second. The last one has been dead five years and
+the other one thirty-six years. I ain't got none walkin' 'round. All
+my husbands is dead. There ain't nothin' in this quitin' and goin' and
+breakin' up and bustin' up. I don't tell no woman to quit and don't
+tell no man to quit. Go over there and git 'nother woman and she will
+be wuss than the one you got. When you fall out, reason and git
+together. Do right. I stayed with both of my husbands till they died.
+I ain't bothered 'bout another one. Times is so hard no man can take
+care of a woman now. Come time to pay rent, 'What you waiting for me
+to pay rent for? You been payin' it, ain't you?' Come time to buy
+clothes, 'What you waitin' for me to buy clothes for? Where you
+gittin' 'um from before you mai'd me?' Come time to pay the grocery
+bill, 'How come you got to wait for me to pay the grocery bill? Who
+been payin' it?' No Lawd, I don't want no man unless he works. What
+could I do with him? I don't want no man with a home and bank account.
+You can't git along with 'im. You can't git along with him and you
+can't git along with her."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Allen Johnson
+                    718 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: About 82
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia about twelve miles from Cartersville, in Cass
+County, and about the same distance from Cassville. I was a boy about
+eight or nine years old when I come from there. But I have a very good
+memory. Then I have seed the distance and everything in the Geography.
+My folks were dead long ago now. My oldest brother is dead too. He was
+just large enough to go to the mills. In them times, they had mills.
+They would fix him on the horse and he would go ahead.
+
+"My father's name was Clem Johnson, and my mother's name was Mandy.
+Her madam's name I don't know. I was small. I remember my grandma.
+She's dead long long ago. Long time ago! I think her name was Rachel.
+Yes, I'm positive it was Rachel. That is what I believe. I was a
+little bitty fellow then. I think she was my mother's mother. I know
+one of my mother's sisters. Her name was Lucinda. I don't know how
+many she had nor nothin'.
+
+"Johnsons was the name of the masters my mother and father had. They
+go by the name of Johnson yet. Before that I don't know who they had
+for masters. The pastor's name was Lindsay Johnson and the old missis
+was Mary Johnson. People long time ago used to send boys big enough to
+ride to the mill. My brother used to go. It ran by water-power. They
+had a big mill pond. They dammed that up. When they'd get ready to run
+the mill, they'd open that dam and it would turn the wheel. My oldest
+brother went to the mill and played with old master's son and me.
+
+"They used to throw balls over the house and see which could catch
+them first. There would be three or four on a side of the house and
+they would throw the ball over the house to see which side would be
+quickest and aptest.
+
+"My mother and father both belonged to the same man, Lindsay Johnson.
+I was a small boy. I can't tell you how he was to his folks. Seems
+like though he was pretty good to us. Seemed like he was a pretty good
+master. He didn't overwork his niggers. He didn't beat and 'buse them.
+He gave them plenty to eat and drink. You see the better a Negro
+looked and the finer he was the more money he would bring if they
+wanted to sell them. I have heard my mother and father talk about it
+plenty of times.
+
+"My father worked in the field during slavery. My mother didn't do
+much of no kind of work much. She was a woman that had lots of
+children to take care of. She had four children during slavery and
+twelve altogether. Her children were all small when freedom was
+declared. My oldest brother, I don't remember much about slavery
+except playing 'round with him and with the other little boys, the
+white boys and the nigger boys. They were very nice to me.
+
+"I was a great big boy when I heard them talking about the pateroles
+catching them or whipping them. At that time when they would go off
+they would have to have a pass. When they went off if they didn't have
+a pass they would whip and report them to their owners. And they would
+be likely to get another brushing from the owners. The pateroles never
+bothered the children any. The children couldn't go anywhere without
+the consent of the mother and father. And there wasn't any danger of
+them running off. If they caught a little child between plantations,
+they would probably just run them home. It was all right for a child
+to go in the different quarters and play with one another during
+daytime just so they got back before night. I was a small boy but I
+have very good recollections about these things. I couldn't tell you
+whether the pateroles ever bothered my father or not. Never heard him
+say. But he was a careful man and he always knew the best time and way
+to go and come. Them old fellows had a way to git by as well as we do
+now.
+
+"They fed the slaves about what they wanted to. They would give them
+meat and flour and meal. I used to hear my father say the old boss fed
+him well. Then again they would have hog killln' time 'long about
+Christmas. The heads, lights, chittlings and fats would be given to
+the slaves. 'Course I didn't know much about that only what I heard
+from the old folks talking about it. They lived in the way of eating,
+I suppose, better than they do now. Had no expense whatever.
+
+"As to amusements, I'll tell you I don't know. They'd have little
+dances about like they do now. And they give quiltings and they'd have
+a ring play. My mother never knew anything about dances and fiddling
+and such things; she was a Christian. They had churches you know. My
+white folks didn't object to the niggers goin' to meetin'. 'Course
+they had to have a pass to go anywhere. If they didn't they'd git a
+brushin' from the pateroles if they got caught and the masters were
+likely to give them another light brushin' when they got home.
+
+"I think that was a pretty good system. They gave a pass to those that
+were allowed to be out and the ones that were supposed to be out were
+protected. Of course, now you are your own free agent and you can go
+and come as you please. Now the police take the place of the
+pateroles. If they find you out at the wrong time and place they are
+likely to ask you about it.
+
+"A slave was supposed to pick a certain amount of cotton I have heard.
+They had tasks. But we didn't pick cotton. Way back in Georgia that
+ain't no cotton country. Wheat, corn, potatoes, and things like that.
+But in Louisiana and Mississippi, there was plenty of cotton. Arkansas
+wasn't much of a cotton state itself. It was called a 'Hoojer' state
+when I was a boy. That is a reference to the poor white man. He was a
+'Hoojer'. He wasn't rich enough to own no slaves and they called him a
+'Hoojer'.
+
+"The owners would hire them to take care of the niggers and as
+overseers and pateroles. They was hired and paid a little salary jus'
+like the police is now. If we didn't have killing and murderin', there
+wouldn't be no need for the police. The scoundrel who robs and kills
+folks ought to be highly prosecuted.
+
+"I reckon I was along eight or nine years old when freedom came. My
+oldest brother was twelve, and I was next to him. I must have been
+eight or nine--or maybe ten.
+
+"My occupation since freedom has been farming and doing a little job
+work--anything I could git. Work by the day for mechanic and one thing
+and another. I know nothin' about no trade 'ceptin' what I have picked
+up. Never took no contracts 'ceptin' for building a fence or somethin'
+small like that. Mechanic's work I suppose calls for license."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Annie Johnson
+                    804 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"I was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and I was four years old
+when the Civil War closed. My parents died when I was a baby and a
+white lady named Mrs. Mary Peters took me and raised me. They moved
+from there to Champaign, Illinois when I was about six years old. My
+mother died when I was born. Them white people only had two slaves, my
+mother and my father, and my father had run off with the Yankees. Mrs.
+Peters was their mistress. She died when I was eight years old and
+then I stayed with her sister. That was when I was up in Champaign.
+
+"The sister's name was Mrs. Mary Smith. She just taught school here
+and there and around in different places, and I went around with her
+to take care of her children. That kept up until I was twenty years
+old. All of her traveling was in Illinois.
+
+"I didn't get much schooling. I went to school a while and taken sore
+eyes. The doctor said if I continued to go to school, I would strain
+my eyes. After he told me that I quit. I learned enough to read the
+Bible and the newspaper and a little something like that, but I can't
+do much. My eyes is very weak yet.
+
+"When I was twenty years old I married Henry Johnson, who was from
+Virginia. I met him in Champaign. We stayed in Champaign about two
+years. Then we came on down to St. Louis. He was just traveling 'round
+looking for work and staying wherever there was a job. Didn't have no
+home nor nothing. He was a candy maker by trade, but he did anything
+he could get to do. He's been dead for forty years now. He came down
+here, then went back to Champaign and died in Springfield, Illinois
+while I was here.
+
+"I don't get no pension, don't get nothing. I get along by taking in a
+little washing now and then.
+
+"My mother's name was Eliza Johnson and my father's name was Joe
+Johnson. I don't know a thing about none of my grandparents. And I
+don't know what my mother's name was before she married.
+
+"A gentleman what worked on the place where I lived said that if you
+didn't have a pass during slave times, that if the pateroles caught
+you, they would whip you and make you run back home. He said he had to
+run through the woods every which way once to keep them from catching
+him.
+
+"I have heard the old folks talk about being put on the block. The
+colored woman I lived with in Champaign told me that they put her on
+the block and sold her down into Ripley, Mississippi.
+
+"She said that the way freedom came was this. The boss man told her
+she was free. Some of the slaves lived with him and some of them
+picked up and went on off somewhere.
+
+"The Ku Klux never bothered me. I have heard some of the colored
+people say how they used to come 'round and bother the church services
+looking for this one and that one.
+
+"I don't know what to say about these young folks. I declare, they
+have just gone wild. They are almost getting like brutes. A woman come
+by here the other day without more 'n a spoonful of things on and
+stopped and struck a match and lit her cigarette. You can't talk to
+them neither. I don't know what we ought to do about it. They let
+these white men run around with them. I see 'em doing anything. I
+think times are bad and getting worse. Just as that shooting they had
+over in North Little Rock." (Shooting and robbing of Rev. Sherman, an
+A. M. E. minister, by Negro robbers.)
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson
+                    Near Holly Grove and Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 73
+
+
+"My master was Wort Garland. My papa's master was Steve Johnson. Papa
+went off to Louisiana and I never seen him since. I guess he got
+killed. I was born in Madison County, Tennessee. I come to Arkansas
+1889. Mother was here. She come on a transient ticket. My papa come
+wid her to Holly Grove. They both field hands. I worked on the
+section--railroad section. I cut and hauled timber and farms. I never
+own no land, no home. I have two boys went off and a grown girl in
+Phillips County. I don't get no help. I works bout all I able and can
+get to do.
+
+"I have voted. I votes a Republican ticket. I like this President. If
+the men don't know how to vote recken the women will show em how.
+
+"The present conditions is very good. The present generation is beyond
+me.
+
+"I heard my folks set around the fireplace at night and talk about
+olden times but I couldn't tell it straight and I was too little to
+know bout it.
+
+"We looked all year for Christmas to get some good things in our
+stockings. They was knit at night. Now we has oranges and bananas all
+the time, peppermint candy--in sticks--best candy I ever et. Folks
+have more now that sort than we had when I was growing up. We was
+raised on meat and corn bread, milk, and garden stuff. Had plenty
+apples, few peaches, sorghum molasses, and peanuts. Times is better
+now than when I come on far as money goes. Wood is scarce and folks
+can't have hogs no more. No place to run and feed cost so much. Can't
+buy it. Feed cost more 'en the hog. Times change what makes the folks
+change so much I recken."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Ben Johnson (deaf),
+                    Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+Black
+
+
+"Steve Johnson was my owner. Way he come by me was dat he married in
+the Ward family and heired him and my mother too. Louis Johnson was my
+father's name. At one time Wort Garland owned my mother, and she was
+sold. Her name was Mariah.
+
+"My father went to war twice. Once he was gone three weeks and next
+time three or four months. He come home sound. I stayed on Johnson's
+farm till I was a big boy."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Betty Johnson
+                    1920 Dennison Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, within a block of the statehouse.
+We were the only colored people in the neighborhood. I am eighty-three
+years old. I was born free. I have never been a slave. I never met any
+slaves when I was small, and never talked to any. I didn't live near
+them and didn't have any contacts with them.
+
+"My father carried my mother to Pennsylvania before I was born and set
+her free. Then he carried her back to Montgomery, Alabama, and all her
+children were born free there.
+
+"We had everything that life needed. He was one of the biggest
+planters around in that part of the country and did the shipping for
+everybody.
+
+"My mother's name was Josephine Hassell. She had nine children. All of
+them are dead except three. One is in Washington, D. C.; another is in
+Chicago, Illinois, and then I am here. One of my brothers was a mail
+clerk for the government for fifty years, and then he went to
+Washington and worked in the dead letter office.
+
+"My father taken my oldest brother just before the Civil War and
+entered him in Yale and he stayed there till he finished. Later he
+became a freight conductor and lost his life when his train was caught
+in a cyclone. That's been years ago.
+
+"My sisters in Washington and Chicago are the only two living besides
+myself. All the others are dead. All of them were government workers.
+My sister in Washington has four boys and five girls. My sister in
+Chicago has two children--one in Detroit and one in Washington. I am
+the oldest living.
+
+"We never had any kind of trouble with white people in slave time, and
+we never had any since. Everybody in town knowed us, and they never
+bothered us. The editor of the paper in Montgomery got up all our
+history and sent the paper to my brother in Washington. If I had saved
+the paper, I would have had it now. I don't know the name of the
+paper. It was a white paper. I can't even remember the name of the
+editor.
+
+"We were always supported by my father. My mother _did_ [HW: ?] do
+nothing at all except stay home and take care of her children. I had a
+father that cared for us. He didn't leave that part undone. He did his
+part in every respect. He sent every child away to school. He sent two
+to Talladega, one to Yale, three to Fiske, and one to Howard
+University.
+
+"I don't remember much about how freedom came to the slaves. You see,
+we didn't live near any of them and would not notice, and I was young
+anyway. All I remember is that when the army came in, everybody had a
+stick with a white handkerchief on it. The white handkerchief
+represented peace. I don't know just how they announced that the
+slaves were free.
+
+"We lived in as good a house as this one here. It had eight rooms in
+it. I was married sixty years ago. My husband died two years ago. We
+were married fifty-eight years. Were the only colored people here to
+celebrate the fiftieth anniversary. (She is mistaken in this; Waters
+McIntosh has been married for fifty-six years and he and his wife are
+still making it together in an ideal manner--ed.) I am the mother of
+eight children; three girls are living and two boys. The rest are
+dead.
+
+"I married a good man. Guess there was never a better. We lived
+happily together for a long time and he gave me everything I needed.
+He gave me and my children whatever we asked for.
+
+"I was sick for three years. Then my husband took down and was sick
+for seven years before he died.
+
+"I belong to the Holiness Church down on Izard Street, and Brother
+Jeeter is my pastor."
+
+
+INTERVIEWER'S COMMENT
+
+Betty Johnson's memory is accurate, and she tells whatever she wishes
+to tell without hesitation and clearly. She leaves out details which
+she does not wish to mention evidently, and there is a reserve in her
+manner which makes questioning beyond a certain point impertinent.
+However, just what she tells presents a picture into which the details
+may easily be fitted.
+
+Her husband is dead, but he was evidently of the same type she is. She
+lives in a beautiful and well kept cottage. Her husband left a similar
+house for each of her three children. The husband, of course, was
+colored. It is equally evident that the father was white.
+
+Although my questions traveled into corners where they evidently did
+not wish to follow, the mother and son, who was from time to time with
+her, answered courteously and showed no irritation.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Cinda Johnson
+                    506 E. Twenty, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"Yes ma'm, this is Cinda. Yes'm, I remember seein' the soldiers but I
+didn't know what they was doin'. You know old folks didn't talk in
+front of chilluns like they does now--but I been here. I got great
+grand chillun--boy big enuf to chop cotton. That's my daughter's
+daughter's chile. Now you _know_ I been here.
+
+"I heered em talkin' bout freedom. My mother emigrated here drectly
+after freedom. I was born in Alabama. When we come here, I know I was
+big enuf to clean house and milk cows. My mother died when I was bout
+fifteen. She called me to the bed and tole me who to stay with. I been
+treated bad, but I'm still here and I thank the Lord He let me stay.
+
+"I been married twice. My first husband died, but I didn't have no
+graveyard love. I'm the mother of ten whole chillun. All dead but two
+and only one of them of any service to me. That's my son. He's good to
+me and does what he can but he's got a family. My daughter-in-law--all
+she does is straighten her hair and look cute.
+
+"One of my sons what died belonged to the Odd Fellows and I bought
+this place with insurance. I lives here alone in peace. Yes, honey, I
+been here a long time."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Ella Johnson
+                    913-1/2 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: About 85
+
+
+"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Not exactly in the town but in hardly
+not more than three blocks from the town. Have you heard about the
+Grissoms down there? Well, them is my white folks. My maiden name was
+Burke. But we never called ourselves any name 'cept Grissom.
+
+"My mother's name was Sylvia Grissom. Her husband was named Jack
+Burkes. He went to the Civil War. That was a long time ago. When they
+got up the war, they sold out a lot of the colored folks. But they
+didn't get a chance to sell my mother. She left. They tell me one of
+them Grissom boys has been down here looking for me. He didn't find me
+and he went on back.
+
+My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was named
+after the white folks. All the old folks is dead, but the young ones
+is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many
+of them that I forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children
+named after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.
+
+"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena
+and came here. She run off from the Grissoms. They whipped her too
+much, those white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. She
+took all of us with her. All six of us children were born before the
+war. I was the fourth.
+
+"There is a place down here where the white folks used to whip and
+hang the niggers. Baskin Lake they call it. Mother got that far. I
+don't know how. I think that she came in a wagon. She stayed there a
+little while and then she went to Churchill's place. Churchill's place
+and John Addison's place is close together down there. That is old
+time. Them folks is dead, dead, dead. Churchill's and Addison's places
+joined near Horse Shoe Lake. They had hung and burnt people--killed
+'em and destroyed 'em at Baskin Lake. We stayed there about four days
+before we went on to Churchill's place. We couldn't stay there long.
+
+"The ha'nts--the spirits--bothered us so we couldn't sleep. All them
+people that had been killed there used to come back. We could hear
+them tipping 'round in the house all the night long. They would blow
+out the light. You would kiver up and they would git on top of the
+kiver. Mama couldn't stand it; so she come down to General Churchill's
+place and made arrangements to stay there. Then she came back and got
+us children. She had an old man to stay there with us until she come
+back and got us. We couldn't stay there with them ha'nts dancing
+'round and carryin' us a merry gait.
+
+"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know
+what they give her for the work, but I know they paid her. She was a
+hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee.
+He went off and left the plantation in the hands of his oldest son.
+His son was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the
+first war ever got up--the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long
+enough to make two or three crops. I don't know just how long.
+Churchill and them wanted to own her--them and John Addison.
+
+"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field.
+Three--I made four. There was my oldest sister, my brother, and my
+next to my oldest sister, and myself--Annie, John, Martha, and me. I
+chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my
+company walked out ahead. I was young then, but my company helped me
+pick that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res'
+of them could pick anything for looking at him.
+
+"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died
+before the war was over. They paid my mother some money and said she
+would get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it?
+But they didn't no more come. They all died and none of them got the
+balance. I ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to Adams
+and Singfield. I give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged
+Wash Jordan sent to me. They all say he's a big crook, but I didn't
+know it. Adams kept coming to my house until he got my papers and then
+when he got the papers he didn't come no more.
+
+"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's.
+He said I had to be sworn in and it would cost me one dollar.
+Singfield wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he
+got through writing, he said that was all and me and Pearl made up one
+dollar between us and give it to him. And then we come on away. We
+left Mr. Adams and Mr. Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the
+papers there in the office with them. They didn't give me no receipt
+for the papers and they didn't give me no receipt for the dollar.
+Singfield's wife has been to see me several times to sell me
+something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave, but she ain't never
+said nothin' about those papers. You think she doesn't know 'bout 'em?
+I have seen Adams once down to Jim Perry's funeral on Arch Street. I
+asked him about my papers and he said the Government hadn't answered
+him. He said, 'Who is you?' I said, 'This is Mrs. Johnson.' Then he
+went on out. He told me when he got a answer, it will come right to my
+door.
+
+"I never did no work before goin' on Churchill's plantation. Some of
+the oldest ones did, but I didn't. I learned how to plow at John
+Addison's place. The war was goin' on then. I milked cows for him and
+churned and cleaned up. I cooked some for him. Are you acquainted with
+Blass? I nursed Julian Blass. I didn't nurse him on Addison's place; I
+nursed him at his father's house up on Main Street, after I come here.
+I nursed him and Essie both. I nursed her too. I used to have a time
+with them chillen. They weren't nothin' but babies. The gal was about
+three months old and Julian was walkin' 'round. That was after I come
+to Little Rock.
+
+"My mother come to Little Rock right after the war. She brought all of
+us with her but the oldest. He come later.
+
+"She want to work and cooked and washed and ironed here. I don't
+remember the names of the people she worked for. They all dead--the
+old man and the old ladies.
+
+"She sent me to school. I went to school at Philander [HW: (Philander
+Smith College?)] and down to the end of town and in the country. We
+had a white man first and then we had a colored woman teacher. The
+white man was rough. He would fight all the time. I would read and
+spell without opening my book. They would have them blue-back spellers
+and McGuffy's reader. They got more education then than they do now.
+Now they is busy fighting one another and killin' one another. When
+you see anything in the paper, you don't know whether it is true or
+not. Florence Lacy's sister was one of my teachers. I went to Union
+school once. [HW: ---- insert from P. 5]
+
+"You remember Reuben White? They tried to bury him and he came to
+before they got him in the grave. He used to own the First Baptist
+Church. He used to pastor it too. He sent for J. P. Robinson by me. He
+told Robinson he wanted him to take the Church and keep it as long as
+he lived. Robinson said he would keep it. Reuben White went to his
+brother's and died. They brought him back here and kept his body in
+the First Baptist Church a whole week. J. P. carried on the meetin',
+and them sisters was fightin' him. They went on terrible. He started
+out of the church and me and 'nother woman stopped him. At last they
+voted twice, and finally they elected J. P. He was a good pastor, but
+he hurrahed the people and they didn't like that.
+
+"Reuben White didn't come back when they buried him the second time.
+They were letting the coffin down in the grave when they buried him
+the first time, and he knocked at it on the inside, knock, knock.
+(Here the old lady rapped on the doorsill with her knuckles--ed.) They
+drew that coffin up and opened it. How do I know? I was there. I heard
+it and seen it. They took him out of the coffin and carried him back
+to his home in the ambulance. He lived about three or four years after
+that.
+
+"I had a member to die in my order and they sent for the undertaker
+and he found that she wasn't dead. They took her down to the
+undertaker's shop, and found that she wasn't dead. They said she died
+after they embalmed her. That lodge work ran my nerves down. I was in
+the Tabernacle then. Goodrich and Dubisson was the undertakers that
+had the body. Lucy Tucker was the woman. I guess she died when they
+got her to the shop. They say the undertaker cut on her before he
+found that she was dead.
+
+"I don't know how many grades I finished in school. I guess it was
+about three altogether. I had to git up and go to work then. [TR: This
+paragraph was marked with a line on the right; possibly it is the
+paragraph to be inserted on the previous page.]
+
+"After I quit school, I nursed mighty nigh all the time. I cooked for
+Governor Rector part of the time. I cooked for Dr. Lincoln Woodruff. I
+cooked for a whole lot of white folks. I washed and ironed for them
+Anthonys down here. She like to had a fit over me the last time she
+saw me. She wanted me to come back, but my hand couldn't stand it. I
+cooked for Governor Rose's wife. That's been a long time back. I
+wouldn't 'low nobody to come in the kitchen when I was working. I
+would say, 'You goin' to come in this kitchen, I'll have to git out.'
+The Governor was awful good to me. They say he kicked the res' of them
+out. I scalded his little grandson once. I picked up the teakettle.
+Didn't know it had water in it and it slipped and splashed water over
+the little boy's hand. If'n it had been hot as it ought to have been,
+it would have burnt him bad. He went out of that kitchen hollerin'.
+The Governor didn't say nothin' 'cept, 'Ella, please don't do it
+again.' I said, 'I guess that'll teach him to stay out of that kitchen
+now.' I was boss of that kitchen when I worked there.
+
+"We took the lock off the door once so the Governor couldn't git in
+it.
+
+"I dressed up and come out once and somebody called the Governor and
+said, 'Look at your cook.' And he said, 'That ain't my cook.' That was
+Governor Rector. I went in and put on my rags and come in the kitchen
+to cook and he said, 'That is my cook.' He sure wanted me to keep on
+cookin' for him, but I just got sick and couldn't stay.
+
+"I hurt my hand over three years ago. My arm swelled and folks rubbed
+it and got all the swelling down in one place in my hand. They told me
+to put fat meat on it. I put it on and the meat hurt so I had to take
+it off. Then they said put the white of an egg on it. I did that too
+and it was a little better. Then they rubbed the place until it
+busted. But it never did cure up. I poisoned it by goin' out pulling
+up greens in the garden. They tell me I got dew poisoning.
+
+"I don't git no help from the Welfare or from the Government. My
+husband works on the relief sometimes. He's on the relief now.
+
+"I married--oh, Lordy, lemme see when I did marry. It's been a long
+time ago, more 'n thirty years it's been. It's been longer than that.
+We married up here on Twelfth and State Street, right here in Little
+Rock. I had a big wedding. I had to go to Thompson's hall. That was on
+Tenth and State Street. They had to go to git all them people in. They
+had a big time that night.
+
+"I lived in J. P. Robinson's house twenty-two years. And then I lived
+in front of Dunbar School. It wasn't Dunbar then. I know all the
+people that worked at the school. I been living here about six
+months."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Ella Johnson is about eighty-five years old. Her father went to war
+when the War first broke out. Her mother ran away then and went to
+Churchill's farm not later than 1862. Ella Johnson learned to plow
+then and she was at least nine years old she says and perhaps older
+when she learned to plow. So she must be at least eighty-five.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: Fanny Johnson
+Aged: 76
+Home: Palmetto (lives with daughter who owns
+a comfortable, well furnished home)
+
+
+As told by: Mrs. Fanny Johnson
+
+"Yes ma'am. I remembers the days of slavery. I was turned five years
+old when the war started rushing. No ma'am, I didn't see much of the
+Yankees. They didn't come thru but twice. Was I afraid? No ma'am. I
+was too busy to be scared. I was too busy looking at the buttons they
+wore. Until they went in Master's smoke house. Then I quit looking and
+started hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.
+
+My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold to a man named Woodfork
+and brought to Nashville. The Woodfork colored folks was always
+treated good. Master used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he
+bought one in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't
+believe in separating families. He didn't believe in dividing mother
+from her baby.
+
+But they did take them away from their babies. I remember my
+grandmother telling about it. The wagon would drive down into the
+field and pick up a woman. Then somebody would meet her at the gate
+and she would nurse her baby for the last time. Then she'd have to go
+on. Leastwise, if they hadn't sold her baby too.
+
+It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White
+or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing
+against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about. Most of the time
+it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he
+couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the
+Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up
+at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the overseers was good to
+us.
+
+But it wasn't that way on all the plantations. On the next one they
+was mean. Why you could hear the sound of the strap for two blocks. No
+there wasn't any blocks. But you could hear it that far. The "niggah
+drivah" would stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would
+stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some they whipped
+so hard they had to carry them in. Just once did anybody on the
+Woodfork place get whipped that way.
+
+We never knew quite what happened. But my grandmother thought that the
+colored man what took down the ages of the children so they'd know
+when to send them to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else
+couldn't have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said, 'I
+bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And the overseer
+didn't dare do so any more.
+
+No ma'am, I never worked in the field. I wasn't old enough. You see I
+helped my grandmother, she is the one who took care of the babies. All
+the women from the lower end would bring their babies to the upper end
+for her to look after while they was in the field. When I got old
+enough, I used to help rock the cradles. We used to have lots of
+babies to tend. The women used to slip in and nurse their babies. If
+the overseer thought they stayed too long he used to come in and whip
+them out--out to the fields. But they was good to us, just the same.
+We had plenty to wear and lots to eat and good cabins to live in. All
+of them wasn't that way though.
+
+I remember the women on the next plantation used to slip over and get
+somthing to eat from us. The Woodfork colored folks was always well
+took care of. Our white folks was good to us. During the week there
+was somebody to cook for us. On Sunday all of them cooked in their
+cabins and they had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even
+when they was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough
+to eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our place. The
+Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for food. Our white folks
+treated us real good.
+
+Didn't make much difference when the war started rushing. We didn't
+see any fighting. I told you the Yankees come thru twice----let me go
+back a spell.
+
+We had lots of barrels of Louisiana molasses. We could eat all we
+wanted. When the barrels was empty, we children was let scrape them.
+Lawsey, I used to get inside the barrel and scrape and scrape and
+scrape until there wasn't any sweetness left.
+
+We was allowed to do all sorts of other things too. Like there was
+lots of pecans down in the swamps. The boys, and girls too for that
+matter, was allowed to pick them and sell them to the river boats what
+come along. The men was let cut cord wood and sell it to the boats.
+Flat boats they was. There was regular stores on them. You could buy
+gloves and hats and lots of things. They would burn the wood on the
+boat and carry the nuts up North to sell. But me, I liked the sugar
+barrel best.
+
+When the Yankees come thru, I wasn't scared. I was too busy looking at
+the bright buttons on their coats. I edged closer and closer. All they
+did was laugh. But I kept looking at them. Until they went into the
+smoke house. Then I turned loose and hollered. I hollored because I
+thought they was going to take all Master's sirup. I didn't want that
+to happen. No ma'am they didn't take nothing. Neither time they came.
+
+After the war was over they took us down the river to The Bend. It was
+near Vicksburg----an all day's ride. There they put us on a plantation
+and took care of us. It was the most beautifulest place I ever see.
+All the cabins was whitewashed good. The trees was big and the whole
+place was just lovely. It was old man Jeff Davis' place.
+
+They fed us good, gave us lots to eat. They sent up north, the Yankees
+did, and got a young white lady to come down and teach us. I didn't
+learn nothing. They had our school near what was the grave yard. I
+didn't learn cause I was too busy looking around at the tombstones.
+They was beautiful. They looked just like folks to me. Looks like I
+ought have learned. They was mighty good to send somebody down to
+learn us that way. I ought have learned, it looks ungrateful, but I
+didn't.
+
+My mother died on that place. It was a mighty nice place. Later on we
+come to Arkansas. We farmed. Looked like it was all we knowed how to
+do. We worked at lots of places. One time we worked for a man named
+Thomas E. Allen. He was at Rob Roy on the Arkansas near Pine Bluff.
+Then we worked for a man named Kimbroo. He had a big plantation in
+Jefferson county. For forty years we worked first one place, then
+another.
+
+After that I went out to Oklahoma. I went as a cook. Then I got the
+idea of following the resort towns about. In the summer I'd to [TR:
+go?] to Eureka.[D] In the winter I'd come down to Hot Springs.[E] That
+was the way to make the best money. Folks what had money moved about
+like that. I done cooking at other resorts too. I cooked at the hotel
+at Winslow.[F] I done that several summers.
+
+Somehow I always come back to Hot Springs. Good people in Eureka.
+Finest man I ever worked for--for a rich man was Mr. Rigley, [TR:
+Wrigley] you know. He was the man who made chewing gum. We didn't have
+no gas in Eureka. Had to cook by wood. I remember lots of times Mr.
+Wrigley would come out in the yard where I was splitting kindling.
+He'd laugh and he'd take the ax away from me and split it hisself.
+Finest man----for a rich man I ever see.
+
+Cooking at the hotel at Winslow was nice. There was lots of fine
+ladies what wanted to take me home with them when they went home. But
+I told them, 'No thank you, Hot Springs is my home. I'm going there
+this winter.'
+
+I'm getting sort of old now. My feet ain't so sure as they used to be.
+But I can get about. I can get around to cook and I can still see to
+thread a needle. My daughter has a good home for me." (I was conducted
+into a large living room, comfortably furnished and with a degree of
+taste--caught glimpses of a well furnished dining room and a kitchen
+equipment which appeared thoroughly modern--Interviewer)
+
+"People in Hot Springs is good people. They seem sort of friendly.
+Folks in Eureka did too, even more so. But maybe it was cause I was
+younger then and got to see more of them. But the Lord has blessed me
+with a good daughter. I got nothing to complain about, I don't hold
+grudges against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is doing."
+
+[Footnote D: Eureka Springs, Ark.]
+
+[Footnote E: Hot Springs National Park]
+
+[Footnote F: rustic hotel on mountain near village of Winslow, Ark.]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: George Johnson
+                    814 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 75
+
+
+"I was born in Richmond, Virginia, September 28, 1862, and came to
+this country in 1869. My father was named Benjamin Johnson and my
+mother was named Phoebe Johnson. I don't know the names of my
+grandmother and grandfather. My father's master was named Johnson; I
+forget his first name. He was a doctor and lived on Charleston and
+Morgan Streets. I don't know what my mother's name was before she
+married my father. And I don't know what her master's name was. She
+died when I was just three years old.
+
+"The way my father happened to bring me out here was, Burton Tyrus
+came out here in Richmond stump speaking and telling the people that
+money grew like apples on a tree in Arkansas. They got five or six
+boat loads of Negroes to come out here with them. Father went to share
+cropping on the Red River Bottom on the Chickaninny Farm. He put in
+his crop, but by the time he got ready to gather it, he taken sick and
+died. He couldn't stand this climate.
+
+"Then me and my sisters was supposed to be bound out to Henry Moore
+and his wife. I stayed with them about six years and then I ran off.
+And I been scouting 'round for myself ever since.
+
+"My occupation has been chiefly public work. My first work was rail
+roading and steam boating. I was on the Iron Mountain when she was
+burning wood. That was about fifty some years ago. After that I worked
+on the steamboats _Natchez_ and _Jim Lee_. I worked on them as
+roustabout. After that I would just commence working everywhere I
+could get it. I came here about forty-five years ago because I liked
+the city. I was in and out of the city but made this place my
+headquarters.
+
+"I'm not able to do any work now. I put in for the Old Age Pension two
+years ago. They told me I would have to prove my age but I couldn't do
+it any way except to produce my marriage license. I produced them. I
+got the license right out of this county courthouse here. I was
+married the last time in 1907 and was forty-five years old then. That
+will make me seventy-six years old this year--the twenty-eighth day of
+this coming September. My wife died nine years ago.
+
+"I have heard my father talking a little but old folks then didn't
+allow the young ones to hear much. My daddy sent me to bed at night.
+When night came you went to bed; you didn't hang around waiting to
+hear what the old folks would say.
+
+"My daddy got his leg shot in the Civil War. He said he was in that
+battle there in Richmond. I don't know which side he was on, but I
+know he got his leg shot off. He was one-legged. He never did get any
+pension. I don't know even whether he was really enlisted or not. All
+I know is that he got his leg shot off in the war.
+
+"When the war ended in 1865, the slaves around Richmond were freed. I
+never heard my father give the details of how he got his freedom. I
+was too young to remember them myself.
+
+"I don't know how many slaves Dr. Johnson had but I know it was a good
+many, for he was a tobacco raiser. I don't remember what kind of
+houses his slaves lived in. [And I never heard the kind of food we
+et.] [HW: ?]
+
+"I never heered tell of patrols till I came to Arkansas. I never
+heered much of the Ku Klux either. I guess that was all the same,
+wasn't it? Peace wasn't declared here till 1866. I never heered of
+any of my acquaintances being bothered but I heered the colored people
+was scared. All I know was that you had to come in early. Didn't, they
+get you.
+
+"What little schooling I got, I got it by going to night school here.
+That is been a good many years back--forty years back. I forgot now
+who was teaching night school. It was some kin of Ishes out here I
+know.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"I think times is tight now. Tighter than I ever knowed 'em to be
+before. Quite a change in this world now. There is not enough work now
+for the people and from what I can see, electricity has knocked the
+laboring man out. It has cut the mules and the men out.
+
+"My opinion of these young people is that they got all the education
+in the world and no business qualifications. They are too fast for any
+use."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Johnson
+                    R.F.D., Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 73
+
+
+"I was born sixteen miles on the other side of Jackson, Tennessee. The
+old mistress was Miss Sally, and old master was Mr. Steve Johnson,
+same name as mine. My papa's name was Louis Johnson but my mama
+belonged to the Conleys and befo' she married papa her name was Martha
+Conley. My folks fur as I knowed was field hands. They stayed on at
+Johnsons and worked a long time after freedom. I was born just befo'
+freedom. From what I heard all of my folks talkin' the Ku Klux 'fected
+the colored folks right smart, more than the war. Seemed 'bout like
+two wars and both of 'em tried their best to draw in the black race.
+The black race wanted peace all the time. It was Abraham Lincoln whut
+wanted to free the black race. He was the President. The first war was
+'bout freedom and the war right after it was equalization. The Ku Klux
+muster won it cause they didn't want the colored folks have as much as
+they have. I heard my folks say they knowed some of the Ku Klux. They
+would get killed sometimes and then you hear 'bout it. They would be
+nice as pie in day time and then dress up at night and be mean as they
+could be. They wanted the colored folks think they was hants and
+monsters from the bad place. All the Yankees whut wanted to stay after
+they quit fighting, they run 'em out wid hounds at night. The Ku Klux
+was awful mean I heard 'em say. Mr. Steve Johnson looked after all his
+hands. All that stayed on to work for him. He told 'em long as they
+stayed home at night and behave 'em selves they needn't be scared.
+They wanter go out at night they had to have him write 'em a pass.
+Jess like slavery an' they were free.
+
+"The master didn't give 'em nuthin'. He let 'em live in his
+houses--log houses, and he had 'em fed from the store stead of the
+smoke house. He give 'em a little money in the fall to pay 'em. 'Bout
+all the difference they didn't get beat up. If they didn't work he
+would make 'em leave his place.
+
+"That period--after the Civil War, it sure was hard. It was a
+_de_'pression I'll tell you. I never seed a dollar till I was 'bout
+grown. They called 'em 'wagon wheels.' They was mighty scarce. Great
+big heavy pieces of silver. I ain't seed one fer years. But they used
+to be some money.
+
+"Lady, whut you wanter know was fo my days, fo I was born. My folks
+could answered all dem questions. There was 4 girls and 6 boys in my
+family.
+
+"Course I did vote. I used to have a heap a fun on election day. They
+give you a drink. It was plentiful I tell you. I never did drink much.
+I voted Republican ticket. I know it would sho be too bad if the white
+folks didn't hunt good canidates. The colored race got too fur behind
+to be able to run our govmint. Course I mean education. When they git
+educated they ain't studyin' nuthin' but spendin' all they make and
+havin' a spreein' time. Lady, that is yo job. The young generation
+ain't carin' 'bout no govinment.
+
+"The present conditions--that's whut I been tellin' you 'bout. It is
+hard to get work heap of the time. When the white man got money he
+sure give the colored man and woman work to do. The white man whut
+live 'mong us is our best friend. He stand by our color the best. It
+is a heap my age, I reckon, I can't keep in work. Young folks can pick
+up work nearly all time.
+
+"I started to pay fer my home when I worked at the mill. I used to
+work at a shoe and shettle mill. I got holt of a little cash. I still
+tryin' to pay fer my home. I will make 'bout two bales cotton this
+year. Yes maam they is my own. I got a hog. I got a garden. I ain't
+got no cow.
+
+"No maam I don't get no 'sistance from the govmint. No commodities--no
+nuthin'. I signed up but they ain't give me nuthin'. I think I am due
+it. I am gettin' so no account I needs it. Lady, I never do waste no
+money. I went to the show ground and I seed 'em buyin' goobers and
+popcorn. I seed a whole drove of colored folks pushin' and scrouging
+in there so feared they wouldn't get the best seat an' miss somepin.
+Heap of poor white people scrouging in there too all together. They
+need their money to live on fo cold weather come. Ain't I tellin' you
+right? I sho never moved outer my tracks. I never been to a show in my
+life. Them folks come in here wid music and big tent every year. I
+never been to a show in my life. That what they come here fur, to get
+the cotton pickin' money. Lady, they get a pile of money fore they
+leave. Course folks needs it now.
+
+"When I had my mules and rented I made most and next to that when I
+farmed for a fourth. When I was young I made plenty. I know how cotton
+an' corn is made now but I ain't able to do much work, much hard work.
+The Bible say twice a child and once a man. My manhood is gone fur as
+work concerned.
+
+"I like mighty well if you govmint folks could give me a little
+'sistance. I need it pretty bad at times and can't get a bit."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Letha Johnson
+                    2203 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"I heered the people say I was born in time of slavery. I was born
+durin' of the War.
+
+"And when we went back home they said we had been freed four years.
+
+"My father's last owner was named Crawford. He was a awful large man.
+That was in Monroe County, Mississippi.
+
+"I know they was good to us 'cause we stayed right there after freedom
+till my father died in 1889. And mama stayed a year or two, then she
+come to Arkansas.
+
+"After my husband died in 1919, I went to Memphis. Then this girl I
+raised--her mother willed her to me--I come here to Arkansas to live
+with her after I got down with the rheumatism so I couldn't wash and
+iron.
+
+"In my husband's lifetime I didn't do nothin' but farm. And after I
+went to Memphis I cooked. Then I worked for a Italian lady, but she
+did her own cookin'. And oh, I thought she could make the best
+spaghetti.
+
+"I used to spin and make soap. My last husband and I was married
+fifteen years and eight months and we never did buy a bar of soap. I
+used to be a good soap maker. And knit all my own socks and stockin's.
+
+"I used to go to a school-teacher named Thomas Jordan. I remember he
+used to have us sing a song
+
+    'I am a happy bluebird
+    Sober as you see;
+    Pure cold water
+    Is the drink for me.
+
+    I'll take a drink here
+    And take a drink there,
+    Make the woods ring
+    With my temperance prayer.'
+
+We'd all sing it; that was our school song. I believe that's the
+onliest one I can remember.
+
+"'Bout this younger generation--well, I tell you, it's hard for me to
+say. It just puts me to a wonder. They gone a way back there. Seem
+like they don't have any 'gard for anything.
+
+"I heard 'em 'fore I left Mississippi singin'
+
+    'Everybody's doin' it, doin' it.'
+
+"'Co'se when I was young they was a few that was wild, but seem like
+now they is all wild. But I feels sorry for 'em."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lewis Johnson
+                    713 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 87
+
+
+"I'll be eighty-seven the eighteenth of this month if I live.
+
+"They's a heap of things the human family calls luck. I count myself
+lucky to be livin' as old as I is.
+
+"Some says it is a good deed I've done but I says it's the power of
+God.
+
+"I never had but two spells of sickness when I was spectin' to die.
+Once was in Mississippi. I had a congestis chill. I lay speechless
+twenty-four hours and when I come to myself they had five doctors in
+the house with me.
+
+"But my time hadn't come and I'm yet livin' by the help of the good
+Master.
+
+"I stole off when I was eighteen and got my first marriage license.
+They was a white fellow was a justice of the peace and he took
+advantage of my father and he stood for me 'cause he wanted me to work
+on his place. In them days they'd do most anything to gain labor.
+
+"When they was emigratin' 'em from Georgia to these countries, they
+told 'em they was hogs runnin' around already barbecued with a knife
+and fork in their back. Told 'em the cotton growed so tall you had to
+put little chaps up the stalk to get the top bolls.
+
+"But they tole some things was true. Said in Mississippi the cotton
+growed so tall and spread so it took two to pick a row, and I found
+that true.
+
+"Old master always fed his hands good so they could meet the demands
+when he called on 'em. He worked 'em close but he fed 'em.
+
+"He raised wheat, corn, peas, rye, and oats, and all such like that.
+Oh, he was a round farmer all right. And he raised feed for his stock
+too.
+
+"My old boss used to raise sweet potatoes enough to last three years.
+
+"The people of the South was carried through that sweat of freedom.
+They was compelled to raise cotton and not raise much to eat. They
+told 'em they could buy it cheaper than raise it, but it was a
+mistake.
+
+"I used to have a wood yard on the Mississippi and when the steamers
+come down the river, I used to go aboard and quiz the people from the
+North. Heap of 'em would get chips of different woods and put it away
+to carry home to show. And they'd take cotton bolls and some limbs to
+show the people at home how cotton grows.
+
+"To my idea, the North is wiser than the South. My idea of the North
+is they is more samissive to higher trades--buildin' wagons and
+buggies, etc.
+
+"Years ago they wasn't even a factory here to make cloth. Had to send
+the cotton to the North and then order the cloth from the North, and
+time they got it the North had all the money.
+
+"In the old days they was only two countries they could depend on to
+raise tobacco and that was Virginia and South Carolina.
+
+"I can remember a right smart before the War started. Now I can set
+down and think of every horse's name my old boss had. He had four he
+kept for Sunday business. Had Prince, Bill, Snap, and Puss. And every
+Saturday evening he had the boys take 'em in the mill pond and wash
+'em off--fix 'em up for Sunday."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Johnson,
+                    Biscoe, Arkansas
+Age: 65
+
+
+"I was born at Holly Springs, Mississippi. My mother was fifteen years
+old when the surrender come on. Her name was Alice Airs. Mama said she
+and grandma was sold in the neighborhood and never seen none of her
+folks after they was sold. The surrender come on. They quit and went
+on with some other folks that come by. Mama got away from them and
+married the second year of the surrender. She said she really got
+married; she didn't jump the broom. Mama was a cook in war times.
+Grandma churned and worked in the field. Grandma lived in to herself
+but mama slept on the kitchen floor. They had a big pantry built
+inside the kitchen and in both doors was a sawed-out place so the cats
+could come and go.
+
+"My father was sold during of the War too but he never said much about
+it. He said some of the slaves would go in the woods and the masters
+would be afraid to go hunt them out without dogs. They made bows and
+arrows in the woods.
+
+"I heard my parents tell about the Ku Klux come and made them cook
+them something to eat. They drunk water while she was cooking. I heard
+them say they would get whooped if they sot around with a book in
+their hand. When company would come they would turn the pot down and
+close the shutters and doors. They had preaching and prayed that way.
+The pot was to drown out the sound.
+
+"They said one man would sell off his scrawny niggers. He wanted fine
+looking stock on his place. He couldn't sell real old folks. They kept
+them taking care of the children and raising chickens, turkeys, ducks,
+geese, and made some of them churn and milk.
+
+"My stepfather said he knowed a man married a woman after freedom and
+found out she was his mother. He had been sold from her when he was a
+baby. They quit and he married ag'in. He had a scar on his thigh she
+recollected. The scar was right there when he was grown. That brought
+up more talk and they traced him up to be her own boy.
+
+"Hester Swafford died here in Biscoe about seven years ago. Said she
+run away from her owners and walked to Memphis. They took her up over
+there. Her master sent one of the overseers for her. She rode
+astraddle behind him back. They got back about daylight. They whooped
+her awful and rubbed salt and pepper in the gashes, and another man
+stood by handed her a hoe. She had to chop cotton all day long. The
+women on the place would doctor her sores.
+
+"Grandma said she remembered the stars falling. She said it turned
+dark and seem like two hours sparkles fell. They said stars fell. She
+said it was bad times. People was scared half to death. Mules and
+horses just raced. She said it took place up in the day. They didn't
+have time-pieces to know the time it come on.
+
+"Young folks will be young the way I see it. They ain't much
+different. Times is sure 'nough hard for old no 'count folks. Young
+folks makes their money and spends it. We old folks sets back needing.
+Times is lots different now. It didn't used to be that way."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Louis Johnson
+                    721 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 86
+
+
+"My father said I was fifteen when peace was declared. In slavery days
+they didn't low colored folks to keep their ages and didn't low em to
+be educated. I was born in Georgia. I went to a little night school
+but I never learned to read. I never learned to write my own name.
+
+"I never did see no fightin' a tall but I saw em refugeein' goin'
+through our country night and day. Said they was goin' to the Blue
+Ridge Mountains to pitch battle. They was Rebels gettin' out of the
+way of the Yankees.
+
+"Old master was a pretty tough old fellow. He had work done aplenty.
+He had a right smart of servants. I wasn't old enough to take a record
+of things and they didn't low grown folks to ask too many questions.
+
+"I can sit and study how the rich used to do. They had poor white
+folks planted off in the field to raise hounds to run the colored
+folks. Colored folks used to run off and stay in the woods. They'd
+kill old master's hogs and eat em. I've known em to stay six months at
+a time. I've seen the hounds goin' behind niggers in the woods.
+
+"We had as good a time as we expected. My old master fed and clothed
+very well but we had to keep on the go. Some masters was good to em.
+Yes, madam, I'd ruther be in times like now than slavery. I like it
+better now--I like my liberty.
+
+"In slavery days they made you pray that old master and mistress would
+hold their range forever.
+
+"My old master was Bob Johnson. He lived in Muskoge County where I was
+born. Then he moved to Harris County and that's where the war ketched
+him. He become to be a widower there.
+
+"I member when the Yankees come and took old master's horses and
+mules.
+
+"I had a young boss that went to the war and come home with the
+rheumatism. He was walkin' on crutches and I know they sent him to a
+refugee camp to see to things and when he come back he didn't have no
+crutches. I guess the Yankees got em.
+
+"Childern travels now from one seaport to another but in them days
+they kept the young folks confined. I got along all right 'cept I
+didn't have no liberty.
+
+"I believe it was in June when they read the freedom papers. They told
+us we was free but we could stay if we wanted to. My father left Bob
+Johnson's and went to work for his son-in-law. I was subject to him
+cause I was a minor, so I went with him. Before freedom, I chopped
+cotton, hoed corn and drapped peas, but now I was big enough to follow
+the plows. I was a cowboy too. I tended to the cows. Since I've been
+grown I been a farmer--always was a farmer. I never would live in town
+till I got disabled for farming.
+
+"After we was free we was treated better. They didn't lash us then. We
+was turned loose with the white folks to work on the shares. We always
+got our share. They was more liberal along that line than they is now.
+
+"After I come to this country of Arkansas I bought several places but
+I failed to pay for them and lost them. Now my wife and me are livin'
+on my daughter.
+
+"I been married three times. I married 'fore I left Georgia but me and
+her couldn't get along. Then I married in Mississippi and I brought
+her to Arkansas. She died and now I been married to this woman
+fifty-three years.
+
+"I been belongin' to the church over forty years. I have to belong to
+the church to give thanks for my chance here now. I think the people
+is gettin' weaker and wiser."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Mag Johnson,
+                    Clarendon, Arkansas
+Age: 65 or 70?
+
+
+"Pa was born in North Ca'lina. Ma was born in Virginia. Their names
+George and Liza Fowler.
+
+"Ma's fust owner what I heard her tell 'bout was Master Ed McGehee in
+Virginia. He's the one what brung her in a crowd of nigger traders to
+Somerville, Tennessee. The way it was, a cavalry of Yankees got in
+back of them. The nigger trader gang drive up. They got separated. My
+ma and her gang hid in a cave two weeks an' not much to eat. The
+Yankees overtook 'em hid in the cave and passed on. Ma say one day the
+nigger traders drive up in front McGehee's yard and they main heads
+and Master Ed had a chat. They hung around till he got ready and took
+off a gang of his own slaves wid him. They knowed he was after selling
+them off when he left wid 'em.
+
+"Ben Trotter in Tennessee bought ma and three more nigger girls. The
+Yankees took and took from 'em. They freed a long time b'fore she
+knowed of. She said they would git biscuits on Sunday around. Whoop
+'em if one be gone.
+
+"Ole miss went out to the cow pen an' ma jus' a gal like stole outen a
+piece er pie and a biscuit and et it. The cook out the cow pen too but
+the three gals was doing about in the house and yard. Ma shut polly up
+in the shed room. Then she let it out when she et up the pie and
+biscuit. Ole miss come in. Polly say, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me
+up.' She missed the pie. Called all four the girls and ma said, 'I
+done et it. I was so hungry.' Ole miss said that what polly talking
+'bout, but she didn't understand the bird so very well. Ole miss say,
+'I'm goiner tell Ben and have him whoop you.' That scared all four the
+girls case he did whoop her which he seldom done. She say when Master
+Ben come they stood by the door in a 'joining room. Ma say 'fore God
+ole miss tole him. Master Ben sont 'em out to pick up apples. He had a
+pie a piece cooked next day and a pan of hot biscuits and brown gravy,
+tole 'em to fill up. He tole 'em he knowed they got tired of corn
+batter cakes, milk and molasses but it was best he had to give them
+till the War was done.
+
+"Ma said her job got to be milking, raising and feeding the fowls,
+chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, and turkeys all. The Yankees
+discouraged her. They come so many times till they cleaned 'em out she
+said.
+
+"What they done to shut up polly's mouf was sure funny. He kept on
+next morning saying, 'Liza shut me up, Liza shut me up.' Liza pulled
+up her dress and underskirt and walked back'ards, bent down at him. He
+got scared. He screamed and then he hollered 'Ball-head and no eyes'
+all that day.
+
+"Ma said they had corn shuckings and corn shellings and brush
+burnings. Had music and square dancing plenty times.
+
+"When they got free they didn't know what it was nor what in the world
+to do with it. What they said 'minds me of folks now what got
+education. Seems like they don't know what to do nor where to put it.
+
+"Pa said the nigger men run off to get a rest. They'd take to the
+woods and canebrakes. Once four of the best nigger fellars on their
+master's place took to the woods for to git a little rest. The master
+and paddyrolls took after 'em. They'd been down in there long 'nough
+they'd spotted a hollow cypress with a long snag of a limb up on it.
+It was in the water. They got them some vines and fixed up on the
+snag. They heard the dogs and the horn. They started down in the
+hollow cypress. One went down, the others coming on. He started
+hollering. But he thought a big snake in there. He brought up a cub on
+his nearly bare foot. They clem out and went from limb to limb till
+they got so away the dogs would loose trail. They seen the mama bear
+come and nap four her cubs to another place. His foot swole up so.
+They had to tote my pa about. Next day the dogs bayed them up in the
+trees. Master took them home, doctored his foot. Ast 'em why they
+runed off and so much to be doing. They tole 'em they taking a little
+rest. He whooped them every one.
+
+"Pretty soon the Yankees come along and broke the white folks up. Pa
+went wid the Yankees. He said he got grown in the War. He fed horses
+for his general three years. He got arm and shoulder wounded, scalped
+his head. They mustered him out and he got his bounty. He got sixty
+dollars every three months.
+
+"He died at Holly Grove, Arkansas about fifty years ago. Them was his
+favorite stories."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mandy Johnson
+                    607 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 92
+
+
+"This is me. I'se old and ain't no 'count. I was done grown when the
+war started. You _know_ I was grown when I was washin' and ironin'. I
+stood right there and watched the soldiers goin' to war. I heered the
+big bell go b-o-n-g, b-o-n-g and everybody sayin' 'There's goin' to be
+a war, there's goin' to be a war!' They was gettin' up the force to go
+bless your heart! Said they'd be back by nine tomorrow and some said
+'I'm goin' to bring you a Yankee scalp.' And then they come again and
+want _so many_. You could hear the old drums go boom--boom. They was
+drums on this side and drums on that side and them drums was a
+talkin'! Yes'm, I'se here when it started--milkin' cows, washin' and
+cookin'. Oh, that was a time. Oh my Lord--them Yankees come in just
+like blackbirds. They said the war was to free the folks. Lots of 'em
+got killed on the first battle.
+
+"I was born in Bastrop, Louisiana in February--I was a February colt.
+
+"My old master was John Lovett and he was good to us. If anybody put
+their hands on any of his folks they'd have him to whip tomorrow. They
+called us old John's free niggers. Yes ma'm I had a good master. I
+ain't got a scratch on me. I stayed right in the house and nussed till
+I'se grown. We had a good time but some of 'em seed sights. I stayed
+there a year after we was free.
+
+"I married durin' the war and my husband went to war with my uncle. He
+didn't come back and I waited three years and then I married again.
+
+"You know they used to give the soldiers furloughs. One time one young
+man come home and he wouldn't go back, just hid out in the cane brake.
+Then the men come that was lookin' for them that 'exerted' durin' the
+war and they waited till he come out for somethin' to eat and they
+caught him and took him out in the bayou and shot him. That was the
+onliest dead man I ever seen. I seen a heap of live ones.
+
+"The war was gettin' hot then and old master was in debt. Old mistress
+had a brother named Big Marse Lewis. He wanted to take all us folks
+and sell us in New Orleans and said he'd get 'em out of debt. But old
+master wouldn't do it. I know Marse Lewis got us in the jail house in
+Bastrop and Mars John come to get us out and Marse Lewis shot him
+down. I went to my master's burial--yes'm, I did! Old mistress didn't
+let us go to New Orleans either. Oh Lordy, I was young them days and I
+wasn't afraid of nothin'.
+
+"Oh ho! What you talkin' 'bout? Ku Klux? They come out here just like
+blackbirds. They tried to scare the people and some of 'em they
+killed.
+
+"Yes Lord, I seen a heap. I been through a lot and I seen a heap, but
+I'm here yet. But I hope I never live to see another war.
+
+"When peace was declared, old mistress say 'You goin' to miss me' and
+I sho did. They's good to us. I ain't got nothin' to do now but sit
+here and praise the Lord cause I gwine to go home some day."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Carol Graham
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson
+
+
+"Howdy, Missy, glad to see you again. As you sees I'm 'bout wound up
+on my cotton baskets and now I got these chairs to put bottoms in but
+I can talk while I does this work cause it's not zacting like making
+baskets.
+
+"'Pears like you got a cold. Now let me tell you what to do for it.
+Make a tea out of pine straw and mullein leaves an' when you gets
+ready for bed tonight take a big drink of it an' take some tallow and
+mix snuff with it an' grease the bottom of your feets and under your
+arms an' behind your ears and you'll be well in the mornin'.
+
+"Yes'm hits right in the middle of cotton picking time now. Always
+makes me think of when I was a boy. I picked cotton some but I got
+lots of whippins 'cause I played too much. They was some chinquapin
+trees in the fiel' and I jest natchally couldn' help stopping to pick
+up some 'chanks' now an' then. I likes the fall time. It brings back
+the old times on the plantation. After frost had done fell we would go
+possum huntin' on bright moonlight nights and we would mostly find Mr.
+Possum settin' in the 'simmon tree just helpin' hisself to them good
+old ripe juicy 'simmons. We'd catch the possum an' then we'd help
+ourselves to the 'simmons. Mentionin' 'simmons, my mammy sure could
+make good pies with them. I can most taste them yet and 'simmon bread
+too.
+
+"He! he! he! jes' look at that boy goin' by with that stockin' on his
+head. Niggers used to wear stockings on they legs but now they wear
+them on they heads to make they hair lay down.
+
+"Since this rain we had lately my rheumatism been botherin' me some. I
+is gone to cutting my fingernails on Wednesday now so's I'll have
+health; an' I got me a brand new remedy too an' it's a good one. Take
+live earth worms an' drop them in hot grease an' let them cook till
+there's no 'semblance of a worm then let the grease cool an' grease
+the rheumatic parts. You know that rheumatism done come back cause I
+got out of herbs. I just got to git some High John the Conqueror root
+an' fix a red flannel sack an' put it in the sack along with five
+finger grass, van van oil, controllin' powder, magnetic loadstone an'
+drawin' powder. Now, missy, the way I fixes that sure will ward off
+evil an' bring heaps of good luck. And I just got to fix myself that.
+You better let me fix you one too. If you and me had one of them
+wouldn't neither one of us be ailing. You needs some lucky hand root
+too to carry round with you all the time. Better let Uncle Marion fix
+you up.
+
+"Did I ever tell you I used to tell fortunes with cards? But I stopped
+that cause I got my jack now and it's so much truthfuler than cards.
+You 'members when I answered that question for you and missy last year
+and how what I told you come true. Yes'm I never misses now. Uncle
+Marion can sure help you.
+
+"There goes sister Melissy late with her washin' ergin. You know,
+Missy, niggers is always slow and late. They'll be wantin' God to wait
+on them when they start to heaven. White folks is always on time and
+they sings 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There', and
+niggers sing 'Don't Call The Roll Till I Get There.' You know I hates
+for it to get so cool. I'll have to move in off the gallery to work.
+When I sits on the gallery I sees everybody pass an' changes the time
+of day with them. 'Howdy, Sister Melissy. Late ergin I see.' Yes, I
+sees everything that goes on from my gallery. I hates for cool weather
+to come so's I have to move in.
+
+"Ain't that a cute little feller in long pants? Lawsy me! chillun
+surely dresses diffunt now from when I was a chap. I didn' know
+nothin' 'bout no britches; I went in my shirt tail--didn' wear nothin'
+but a big old long shirt till I was 'bout twelve. You know that little
+fellow's mama had me treat him for worms. I made him a medicine of
+jimson weed an' lasses for his mama to give him every morning before
+breakfast an' that sure will kill 'em. Yes'm, that little fellow is
+all dressed up. 'Minds me of when I used to dress up to go courtin' my
+gal. I felt 'bout as dressed up as that little fellow does. I'd take
+soot out of the chimney and black my shoes then take a biscuit and rub
+over them to shine 'em. You know biscuits have grease in them and my
+shoes looked just like they done been shined by the bootblack.
+
+"Law, missy, I don' know nothin' to tell you this time. Maybe if you
+come back I can think of something 'bout when niggers was in politics
+after the war but now I just can't 'member nothin'."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Carol Graham (Add.)
+Person interviewed: Marion Johnson
+                    El Dorado, Ark.
+Age: ?
+
+
+    "Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,
+     Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars,
+       I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,
+     Dar's golden streets and a pearly gate somewhars.
+
+    "Dar's perfect peace somewhars,
+     Dar's perfect peace somewhars,
+       I gwian ter keep on searchin' till I finds hit,
+     Dar's perfect peace somewhars.
+
+"Good mornin', Missie! Glad to see you again. I is workin' on chairs
+again. Got these five to bottom for Mr. Brown and I sho can talk while
+I does this work.
+
+"Ain't the sunshine pretty this mornin'? I prayed last night that the
+Lord would let today be sunny. I 'clare, Missie, hits rained so much
+lately till I bout decided me and all my things was goin' to mildew.
+Yes'm, me and all-l-l my things. And I done told you I likes to set on
+my gallery to work. I likes to watch the folks go by. It seems so
+natchel like to set here and howdy with em.
+
+"I been in this old world a long time, but just can recollect bein' a
+slave. Since Christmas ain't long past it sets me to thinkin' bout the
+last time old Sandy Claus come to see us. He brought us each one a
+stick of candy, a apple and a orange, and he never did come to see us
+no more after that time cause we peeped. That was the last time he
+ever filt our stockin'. But you knows how chaps is. We just had to
+peep.
+
+"You knows I was born and raised in Louisiana. I done told you that
+many times. And I just wish you could see the vituals on old marster's
+table at Christmas time. Lawdy, but his table jes groaned with good
+things. Old Mistress had the cook cookin' for weeks before time it
+seemed to me. There was hams and turkeys and chickens and cakes of all
+kinds. They sho was plenty to eat. And they was a present for all the
+niggers on the place besides the heaps of pretty things that Marster's
+family got off the tree in the parlor.
+
+"When I first began to work on the farm old master put me to cuttin'
+sprouts, then when I got big enough to make a field hand, I went to
+the field then. I done lots of kinds of work--worked in the field,
+split rails, built fences, cleared new ground and just anything old
+marster wanted me to do. I members one time I got a long old splinter
+in my foot and couldn't get it out, so my mammy bound a piece of fat
+meat round my foot and let it stay bout a couple days, then the
+splinter come out real easy like. And I was always cutting myself too
+when I was a chap. You know how careless chaps is. An soot was our
+main standby for cuts. It would close the gash and heal it. And soot
+and sugar is extra good to stop bleeding. Sometime, if I would be in
+the field too far away from the house or anyplace where we could get
+soot, we would get cobwebbs from the cotton house and different places
+to stop the bleeding. One time we wasn't close to neither and one the
+men scraped some felt off from a old black hat and put it on to stop
+the bleedin'.
+
+"My feets was tough. Didn't wear shoes much till I was grown. Went
+barefooted. My feets was so tough I could step on stickers and not
+feel em. Just to show how tough I was I used to take a blackberry limb
+and take my toes and skin the briers off and it wouldn't hurt my
+feets.
+
+"Did I ever tell you bout my first pair of breeches? I was bout twelve
+then and before that I went in my shirt tail. I thought I was goin' to
+be so proud of my first breeches but I didn't like them. They was too
+tight and didn't have no pockets. They come just below my knees and I
+felt so uncomfortable-like that I tore em off me. And did I get a
+lickin? I got such a lickin' that when my next ones was made I was
+glad to put em on and wear em.
+
+"I stayed round with marster's boys a lot, and them white boys was as
+good to me as if I had been their brother. And I stayed up to the big
+house lots of nights so as to be handy for runnin' for old master and
+mistress. The big house was fine but the log cabin where my mammy
+lived had so many cracks in it that when I would sleep down there I
+could lie in bed and count the stars through the cracks. Mammy's beds
+was ticks stuffed with dried grass and put on bunks built on the wall,
+but they did sleep so good. I can most smell that clean dry grass now.
+Mammy made her brooms from broom sage, and she cooked on a fireplace.
+They used a oven and a fireplace up at the big house too. I never saw
+no cookstove till I was grown.
+
+"I members one time when I was a little shaver I et too many green
+apples. And did I have the bellie ache, whoo-ee! And mammy poured cold
+water over hot ashes and let it cool and made me drink it and it sure
+cured me too. I members seein' her make holly bush tea, and parched
+corn tea too for sickness. Nother time I had the toothache and mammy
+put some axle grease in the hollow of the tooth and let it stay there.
+The pain stopped and the tooth rotted out and we didn't have to pull
+it.
+
+"Whee! Did you see how that car whizzed round the corner? There warn't
+no cars in my young days. They had mostly two-wheeled carts with
+shafts for the horse to be hitched in, and lots of us drove oxen to
+them carts. I plowed oxen many-a-day and rode em to and from the
+field. Let me tell you, Missy, if you don't know nothin' bout
+oxen--they surely does sull on you--you beat them and the more you
+beat the more they sulls. Yes'm, they sure sulls in hot weather, but
+it never gets too cold for em.
+
+"Howdy, Parson. That sho was good preachin' Sunday. Yes suh, it was
+fine.
+
+"That's the pastor of our church, an he sho preached two good sermons
+last Sunday. Sunday mornin' he preached 'Every kind of fish is caught
+in a net' and that night he preached 'Marvel not you must be born
+again.' But that mornin' sermon, it capped the climax. Parson sho told
+em bout it. He say, 'First, they catch the crawfish, and that fish
+ain't worth much; anybody that gets back from duty or one which says I
+will and then won't is a crawfish Christian.' Then he say, 'The next
+is a mudcat; this kind of a fish likes dark trashy places. When you
+catch em you won't do it in front water; it likes back water and wants
+to stay in mud. That's the way with some people in church. You can't
+never get them to the front for nothin'. You has to fish deep for
+them. The next one is the jellyfish. It ain't got no backbone to face
+the right thing. That the trouble with our churches today. Too many
+jellyfishes in em.' Next, he say is the gold fish--good for nothin'
+but to look at. They is pretty. That the way folks is. Some of them go
+to church just to sit up and look pretty to everybody. Too pretty to
+sing; too pretty to say Amen! That what the parson preached Sunday.
+Well, I'm a full-grown man and a full-grown Christian, praise the
+Lord. Yes,'m, parson is a real preacher."
+
+
+
+
+VOODOO MAN
+UNCLE MARION JOHNSON, EX-SLAVE.
+[Date Stamp: OCT 26 1936]
+
+
+"Yes young missey ah'll sho tell yo-all whut yo wants ter know. Yes'm
+ole Uncle Marion sho kin. Mah price is fo' bits fer one question.
+No'm, not fo' bits fo th' two uv yo but fo' bits each. Yo say yo all
+ain't got much money and yo all both wants ter know th' same thing.
+Well ah reckon since yo all is been comin' roun' and tawkin' to ole
+Uncle Marion ah cud make hit answer th' one question fuh both uv yo
+fuh fo' bits 'tween yo. No'm ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will
+haft tuh come inside th' house."
+
+"[TR: " should be (]We went inside the house and Uncle Marion
+unwrapped his voodoo instrument which proved to be a small glass
+bottle about 2-1/2 inches tall wrapped to the neck in pink washable
+adhesive tape and suspended from a dirty twine about six inches long.
+At the top of the twine was a slip knot and in a sly way Uncle Marion
+would twist the cord before asking the question. If the cord was
+twisted in one direction the bottle would swing in a certain direction
+and if the cord was twisted in the other direction the bottle would
+swing in the opposite direction. Uncle Marion thought that we did not
+observe this and of course we played dumb. By twisting the cord and
+slyly working the muscles of his arm Uncle Marion made his instrument
+answer his questions in the way that he wished them answered.)
+
+"Now ifn the answer to huh question is yais swing towards huh and ifn
+taint be still. (The bottle slowly swung toward me.) Now missy see hit
+have done answered yo question and yo done seed hit say yes. Yes'm hit
+sho am yes and yo' jes wait and see ifn ole Uncle Marion aint right.
+Now yo jes answer the same question fuh tother young missy heah. Now
+ifn the answer is yais yo turn toward huh which am the opposite to
+which yo jes turnt and ifn the answer is no sta' still. (The bottle
+then slowly turned around and went in Mrs. Thompson's direction.)
+
+"Yo say whut do ah call dis heah? Ah calls hit a "jack". Yas'm hits a
+jack an' hit sho will answer any question yo wants ter ask hit. No'm
+yo cuden ask hit yo-self. Ah would haft ter ask hit fer yo. An' let me
+tell yo' ole Uncle Marion sho kin help youall chillun. Ah kin help yo
+all ward off evil and jinx; ah kin help yo all git a job; ah kin help
+yo all ovah come the ruination uv yo home. Uncle Marion sho cain give
+yo a helpin good luck hand. Ah cain help yo ovah come yo enemies.
+
+"Now since ah knows yo young misses am in'erested an ah knows yo will
+sen' othah fokes tuh me what am in trouble ah am gointer tell yo all
+whut some uv mah magic remidies is so yo all kin tell fokes that ah
+have them yarbs (herbs) fuh sale. Yes'm ah has them yarbs right hea
+fuh sale and hit sho will work too.
+
+"Now thar is High John the Conquerer Root. If'n yo totes one o' them
+roots in yo pocket yo will nevah be widout money. No mam. And you'll
+always conquer yo troubles an yo enemies. An fokes can sho git them
+yarbs thru me. Efn Uncle Marion don' have non on han' he sho kin git
+em for em.
+
+"Den dar is five finger grass, ah kin git dat fuh yo too. Ifn dat is
+hung up ovah th' bedstid hit brings restful sleep and keeps off evil.
+Each one uv dem five fingahs stans for sumpin too. One stans fuh good
+luck, two fuh money, thee fuh wisdom, fo' fuh power an five fuh love.
+
+"Yas'm an ah kin buil' a unseen wall aroun' yo so as ter keep evil,
+jinx and enemies way fum yo and hit'll bring heaps uv good luck too.
+The way ah does hit is this way: Ah takes High John the Conqueror Root
+and fixes apiece of red flannel so as ter make a sack and puts hit in
+the sack along wid magnetic loadstone, five finger grass, van van oil,
+controllin' powdah and drawin powdah and the seal uv powah. This heah
+mus be worn aroun the neck and sprinkle hit ever mornin fuh seven
+mornins wid three drops uv holy oil. Then theah is lucky han' root.
+Hit looks jes like a human han'. If yo carries hit on yo person hit
+will shake yo jinx and make yo a winnah in all kinds o games and
+hit'll help yo choose winnin numbers."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Martha Johnson,
+                    West Memphis
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was born at Lake Providence, Louisiana second year after the War.
+Mother's mother was left in Jackson, Tennessee. Mother was sold at
+Vicksburg, Mississippi. Father's mother was left at Pittsburg,
+Virginia. Father was brought to Lake Providence and sold to Master
+Ross and Mr. Coleman was his overseer. He was stripped stark naked and
+put up on the block. That was Nigger Traders Rule, he said. He was
+black as men get to be. Mother was three-fourths white. Her master was
+her father. He had two families. They was raised up in the same house
+with his white family. Master's white wife raised her and kept her
+till her death. He was dead I think.
+
+"Then her young white master sold her. He sold his half-sister. She
+met my father at Vicksburg, Mississippi where he mustered out. She was
+chambermaid when the surrender came on, on the Gray Eagle boat from
+Vicksburg to Memphis. Mother died when I was nine years old. Papa had
+no boys, only three girls. I was his 'Tom Boy.' I did the milking and
+out-of-door turns. Papa was a small man. He weighed 150 pounds. He
+carpentered, made and mended shoes, and was a blacksmith. We farmed
+and farmed. I was chambermaid in Haynes, Arkansas hotel three years. I
+washed and ironed. I'm not much cook. I never was fond of cooking.
+
+"I never voted. I'm not starting now. I'm too old.
+
+"Times is hard. You can't get ahead no way. It keeps you hustling all
+the time to live. Times is going pretty fast. In some ways times is
+better for some people and harder for other people.
+
+"These young folks don't want to be advised and I don't advise them
+except my own children. I tell them all they listen to. They listen
+now better than they did when they was younger. They are all grown.
+
+"I don't get no help from nowhere but my children a little. I own my
+home."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
+Person interviewed: Millie Johnson (Old Bill)
+                    El Dorado, Arkansas
+Age: ?
+
+
+"I was born in Caledonia, Arkansas but I don't know when. I just can't
+tell you nothing hardly about when I was a child because my mind goes
+and comes. I was a slave and my white folks were good to me. They let
+me play and have a good time just like their children did.
+
+"After I got grown I run around terrible. My husband quit me a long
+time ago. The white folks let me have my way. They said I was mean and
+if my husband fooled with me, told me to shoot him. I am going back
+home to Caledonia when I get a chance. My sister's boy brought me up
+here; Mack Ford is his name.
+
+"A long time ago--I don't know how long it's been--I came out of the
+back door something hung their teeth in my ankle. I hollered and
+looked down and it was a big old rattlesnake. I cried to my sister to
+get him off of me. She was scared, so all I knew to do was run, jump
+and holler. I ran about--oh, I don't know how far--with the snake
+hanging to my ankle. The snake would not let me go, and it wasn't but
+one thing for me to do and that was stop and pull the snake off of me.
+I stopped and began pulling. I pulled and pulled and pulled and
+pulled. The snake would not let me go. I began pulling again. After
+awhile I got it off. When I pulled the snake away the snake brought
+his mouth full of my meat. You talk about hurting, that like to have
+killed me. That place stayed sore for twenty years before it healed
+up. After it had been healed a couple years I then scratched the
+place on a bob wire that inflamed it. That has been about 25 or 30
+years ago and it's been sore ever since. Lord, I sure have been
+suffering too. As soon as it gets well I am going back to Caledonia. I
+am praying for God to let me live to get back home. Mack Ford is the
+cause of me being up here.
+
+"I was born in slavery time way before the War. My name is Millie
+Johnson but they call me Bill."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Rosie Johnson,
+                    Holly Grove, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+
+
+"I was born and raised on Mr. Dial's place. Mama belong to them. My
+papa belong to Frank Kerr. His old mistress' name Jane Roberts in
+Alabama. His folks come from Alabama. He say Jane Roberts wouldn't
+sell her slaves. They was aired (heired) down mong the children. David
+Dial had sebral children and mama was his house girl and nurse. They
+was married in Dial's yard. My papa name Jacob Kerr. They took me to
+Texas when I warn't but two years old. We rode in the covered wagon
+where they hauled the provisions. They muster stayed a pretty good
+time. I heard em talkin' what all they raised out there and what a
+difference they found in the country. They wanted to go. They didn't
+wanter be in the war they said. It was too close to suit them.
+
+"I recken I was too small to recollect the Ku Klux. I heard em talk
+bout how mean the Jayhaws was.
+
+"I never voted. What business I got votin' I would jes' lak you tell
+me? I don't believe in it no more'n nuthin'.
+
+"I been farmin' all my life. I had fourteen children. Eight livin'
+now. They scattered bout up North. It took meat and bread to put in
+their mouths and somebody workin' to get it there I tell you. There
+ain't a lazy bone in me. I jes' give out purty nigh. I wash and iron
+some when I ken get it.
+
+"I got a hog and a garden. I ain't got nuthin' else. I don't own no
+house, no place. I got a few chickens bout the place what eat up the
+scraps what the pig don't get.
+
+"I signed up three years ago. I don't get nuthin' now. What I scrape
+round and make is all I has.
+
+"I was born in June 1861. I don't recollect what day they said. Pear
+lack it been so long. When it come to work I recken I is had a hard
+time all my life. I never minded nuthin' till I got so slow and no
+count."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Saint Johnson
+                    Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: --
+Occupation: Drayman
+
+
+"As far as slavery is concerned I know nothing about it except as the
+white people told me. My mother would ask me what they told me and I
+would tell her that Miss Annie said I didn't have to call her father
+'Master' any more. And she would say, 'No, you don't.'
+
+"My father's name was Wiley Johnson. He was ninety years old when he
+died. He was born in Cave Spring, Georgia, in Floyd County. My mother
+was born in the same place. Both of them were Johnsons. They were
+married during slavery times. I don't know what her name was before
+she married.
+
+"Anyway, I've told you enough. I've told you too much. How come they
+want all this stuff from the colored people anyway? Do you take any
+stories from the white people? They know all about it. They know more
+about it than I do. They don't need me to tell it to them.
+
+"I don't tell my age. I just say I was born after slavery. Then I
+can't be bothered about all this stuff about records. Colored people
+didn't keep any records. How they goin' to know when they were born or
+anything? I don't believe in all that stuff.
+
+"You know these young people as well as I do. They ain't nothin'.
+
+"I ain't got nothin' to say about politics. You know what the truth
+is. Why don't you say it? You don't need to hide behind my words.
+You're educated and I'm not; you don't need to get anything from me.
+
+"Yes, I had some schoolin'. But you know more about these things than
+I do."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+At first, I thought I wouldn't write this interview up; but afterwards
+I thought: Maybe this interview will be of interest to those who want
+the work done. It represents the attitude of a very small, but
+definite, minority. About five persons out of a hundred and fifty
+contacted and more than eighty written up have taken this attitude.
+
+Johnson is reputed to have been born in slavery, but he says not. He
+had a high school education. He is a good man, wholesome in all his
+contacts, despite the apparent intolerance of his private remarks to
+the interviewer.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Willie Johnson (female)
+                    1007 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 71
+
+
+"My father said he had a real good master. When he got up large enough
+to work, his master learned him a trade. He learned the mechanic's
+trade, such as blacksmithing and working in shops. He learned him all
+of that. And then he learned him to be a shoemaker. You see, he
+learned him iron work and woodworking too. And he never whipped him
+during slavery time. Positively didn't allow that.
+
+"My father's name was Jordan Kirkpatrick. His master was named
+Kirkpatrick also. My father was born in Tennessee in Sumner County.
+
+"My father married in slave time. You know, they married in slave
+time. I have heard people talking about it. I have heard some people
+say they married over 'gain when freedom came. My father had a
+marriage certificate, and I didn't hear him say anything about being
+married after freedom. I have seen the certificate lots of times. I
+don't know the date of it. The certificate was issued in Sumner
+County, Tennessee.
+
+"My father and mother belonged to different masters. My mother's
+master was a Murray. She had a good many people. Her name before she
+married was Mary Murray. I don't know just how my mother and father
+met. The two places weren't far apart. They lived a good distance from
+each other though, and I remember hearing him tell how he had to go
+across the fields to get to her house after he was through with the
+day's work. The pateroles got after him once. They didn't catch him,
+so they didn't do anything to him. He skipped them some way or
+another.
+
+"I have heard them say that before the slaves were set free the
+soldiers were going 'round doing away with everything that they could
+get their hands on. Just a while before they were set free, my father
+took my mother and the children one night and slipped off. He went to
+Nashville. That was during the War. It wasn't long after that till
+everybody was set free. They never did capture him and get him back.
+
+"During the War they went around pressing men into service. Finally
+once, they caught him but they let him go. I don't know how he got
+away.
+
+"I can remember he said once they got after him and there was a white
+man and his family living in the house. He rented a room from the
+white man. That was in Nashville. These pateroles or whatever they was
+got after him and claimed they were coming to get him, and the old man
+and the old woman he stayed with took him upstairs and said they would
+protect him if the pateroles came back. I don't know whether they came
+back or not, but they never got him.
+
+"My father supported himself and his family in Nashville by following
+his trade. He seems to have gotten along all right. He never seemed to
+have any trouble that I heard him speak of.
+
+"I was born in 1867 in Nashville, Tennessee, about half a block from
+the old Central Tennessee College[G]. I think it became Walden
+University later on, and I think that it's out now. That's an old
+school. My oldest sister was graduated from it. I could have been if I
+hadn't taken up the married notion.
+
+"I got part of my schooling in Nashville and part here. When I left
+Nashville, I was only a child nine years old. I only went to school
+four sessions after we came out here. I didn't like out here. I wanted
+to stay back home. My father came out here because he had heard that
+he could make more money with his trade here than he could in
+Nashville, which he did. He was shoeing horses and building wagons and
+so on. Just in this blacksmithing and carpenter work.
+
+"I wanted to learn that. I would stay 'round the shop and help him
+shoe horses. But they wouldn't let me take it up. I got so I could do
+carpenter work pretty good. First I learned how to make a box
+square--that is a hard job when a person doesn't know much.
+
+"I never heard my father say anything about the food the slaves ate. I
+have heard him talk about the good times they had around hog killing.
+His master raised sweet potatoes and corn and wheat and things like
+that. I guess they ate just about what they raised.
+
+"My father never was a sharecropper. He knew nothing of rural work
+except the mechanical side of it. He could make or do anything that
+was needed in fixing up something to do farm work with. I have seen
+him make and sharpen plows. The first cotton stalk cutter that was
+made within ten miles of here was made by my father. The people 'round
+here were knocking off cotton stalks with sticks until my father began
+making the cutter. Then everybody began using his cutter. That is, the
+different farmers and sharecroppers around here began using them. I
+was scared of the first one he made. He made six saws or knives and
+sharpened them and put them on a section of a log so that it could be
+hitched to a mule and pulled through the fields and cut the cotton
+stalks down.
+
+"My mother's old master was her father. I think my father's father was
+a Negro and his mother was an Indian. My mother's mother was an
+American woman, that is, a slavery woman. My mother and father were
+lucky in having good people. My mother was treated just like one of
+her master's other children. My father's master had an overseer but
+he never was allowed to touch my father. Of course my mother never was
+under an overseer."
+
+[Footnote G: [HW: Central Tennessee College estab. about 1866-7.]]
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Angeline Jones
+                    Near Biscoe and Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 79
+[Date Stamp: May 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Mother was cooking. Her name was
+Marilla Harris and she took my pa's name, Brown. He was Francis Brown.
+I was three years old when the surrender come on. Then grandma, my
+mama and pa and me and my brother come with a family to Biscoe. There
+wasn't no Biscoe but that's where we come to anyhow. Mama and grandma
+cooked for a woman. They bought a big farm and started clearing. Some
+of it was cleared. Mama's been dead forty years. I farmed all my whole
+life. I don't know nothing else.
+
+"Grandma had a right smart to say during slavery times. She was
+cooking for her mistress and had a family. She'd hide good things to
+take to her children. The mistress kept a polly parrot about in the
+kitchen. Polly would tell on grandma. Caused grandma to get whoopings.
+She talked like a good many of 'em. She got sick. The woman what
+married grandma's brother was to take her place. She wasn't going to
+be getting no whoopings. She sewed the parrot up. He got to dwindling.
+They doctored him. She clipped his tongue at the same time so he never
+could do no good talking. He died. They never found out his trouble.
+Grandma said they worried about the parrot but she never did; she
+knowed what been done. Grandma come from Paris, Tennessee but I think
+the same folks fetched 'er. I don't think she said she was sold. She
+said slavery times was hard. Mama didn't see as hard times as grandma
+had. Grandma shielded her in the work part a whole heap to get to
+live where she did. They loved to be together. She's been dead and
+left me forty odd years. I works and support myself, and my kin folks
+help all they can."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Charlie Jones
+                    1303 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+
+
+"I was borned in '61 in the State of Mississippi August the 15th.
+
+"I member just a little bout the War. Yes'm, I member seein' the
+soldiers. They was walkin'--just a long row of em. Had guns across
+their shoulders and had them canteens. I member we chilluns run out to
+the road and got upon the bars and watched em go by. I think it was
+after they had fought in Vicksburg and was comin' back towards
+Memphis.
+
+"My mother belonged to the Harrises and we stayed with her and my
+father belonged to the Joneses.
+
+"I member how they used to feed us chillun. They had a big cook
+kitchen at the big house and we chillun would be out in the yard
+playin'. Cook had a big wooden tray and she'd come out and say
+'Whoopee!' and set the tray on the ground. Sometimes it was milk and
+sometimes it would be potlicker. We'd fall down and start eatin'. Get
+out [TR: our?] heads in and crowd just like a lot of pigs.
+
+"After freedom we went to old Colonel Jones and worked on the shares.
+I wasn't big enough to work but I member when we left the Harris
+place. I know they wasn't so cruel to em. Didn't have no overseer.
+Some of the people had cruel overseers.
+
+"I went to school after the War a right smart. I got as far as the
+third grade. Studied McGuffy's Reader and the old Blue Back Speller.
+Yes'm, sure did.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas wid my parents in '78. Come right here to
+Jefferson County, down at Fairfield on the Lambert place.
+
+"All my life I've farmed. I worked on the shares and rented too. Could
+make the most money rentin'. I got everywhere from 4c to 50c a pound
+for cotton. I had cows and hogs and chickens and raised some corn.
+
+"I made a garden and made a little cotton and corn last year on
+government land on the old river bank.
+
+"I heered of the Klu Klux but they never did bother me.
+
+"I voted the Publican ticket and never had no trouble.
+
+"I been right around this town fifteen years and I own this home. I
+worked about six months at the shops but the rest of the time I
+farmed.
+
+"Heap of things I'd do when I was young the young folks won't do
+now."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Cyntha Jones
+                    3006 W. Tenth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 88
+
+
+"Well, here's one of em. Born down in Drew County.
+
+"Simpson Dabney was old master and his wife named Miss Adeline.
+
+"I reckon I do remember bout the War. Yes ma'am, the Yankees come and
+they had me scared. I wouldn't know when they got in the yard till
+they was all around me. Had me holdin' the bridles.
+
+"My young missis' husband was in the War and when they fought the last
+battle at Princeton, she had me drive the carriage. When I heard them
+guns I said we better go back, so I turned round and made them horses
+step so fast my dress tail stood out straight. I thought they was
+goin' to kill us all. And when we got home all the windows was broke.
+Miss Nancy say, 'Cyntha, somebody come and broke all my windows,' but
+it was them guns broke em.
+
+"Old master was a doctor but my young missis' husband wasn't nothin'
+but a hunter till they carried him to war. He was so skeered they had
+to most drag him.
+
+"I seen two wars and heered tell of another.
+
+"I member when the Yankees come and took things I just fussed at em. I
+thought what was my white folks' things was mine too. But when they
+got my old master's horse my daddy went amongst em and got it back
+cause he had charge of the stock. I don't know whether he got em at
+night or not but I know he went in the daytime and come back in the
+daytime.
+
+"Old master's children and my father's children worked in the field
+just alike. He wouldn't low a overseer on the place, or a patroller
+either.
+
+"Dr. Dabney and his sister raised my mother. They brought her from
+some furrin' country to Arkansas. And when he married, my mother
+suckled every one of his children.
+
+"I just worked in the house and nussed. Never worked in the field till
+I was grown and married. I was nineteen when I married the fust time.
+I stayed right there in that settlement till the second year of
+surrender.
+
+"When I was twenty-one they had me fixed up for a midwife. Old Dr.
+Clark was the one started me. I never went to school a minute in my
+life but the doctors would read to me out of their doctor books till I
+could get a license. I got so I could read print till my eyes got so
+bad. Old Dr. Clark was the one learned me most and since he died I
+ain't never had a doctor mess with me.
+
+"In fifteen years I had 299 babies on record right there in Rison.
+That's where I was fixed up at--under five doctors. And anybody don't
+believe it, they can go down there and look up the record.
+
+"We had plenty to eat in slave times. Didn't have to go to the store
+and buy it by the dribble like they does now. Just go to the
+smokehouse and get it.
+
+"I got such a big mind and will I wants to get about and raise
+something to eat now so we wouldn't have to buy everything, but I
+ain't able now. I've had twenty-one children but if I had em now
+they'd starve to death.
+
+"I been married four times but they all dead--every one of em.
+
+"When freedom come my old master give my mother $500 cause she saved
+his money for him when the Yankees come. She put it in the bed and
+slept on it. He had four farms and he told her she could have ary one
+of em and any of the stock, but my father had done spoke for a place
+in Cleveland County--he had done bought him a place.
+
+"And old master on his dying bed, he asked my mother to take his two
+youngest children and raise em cause their mother was sickly, but she
+didn't do it.
+
+"I don't know hardly what to think of this younger generation. Used to
+be they'd go to Sunday school barefooted but now'days, time they is
+born they got shoes and stockin's on em.
+
+"I used to spin, knit and weave. I even spun thread to make these
+ropes they use to plow. I could spin a thread you could sew with, and
+weave cloth with stripes and flowers. Have to know how to dye the
+thread. That's all done in the warp. Call the other the filler.
+
+"Now let me tell you, when that was goin' on and you raised your meat
+and corn and potatoes, that was livin'!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Edmond Jones
+                    1824 W. Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 75
+
+
+"I growed up in the war. I remember seein' the soldiers--hundreds and
+thousands of em. Oh, yes'm, I growed up in the war. I was born under
+Abraham Lincoln's administration and then Grant.
+
+"I remember when that old drum beat everbody had to be in bed at nine
+o'clock. That was when they had martial law. Hays knocked that out you
+know. That was when they had the Civil Rights Bill. I growed up in
+that.
+
+"Abraham Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Freedom in January and I
+was born in May so you might say I was born right into freedom.
+
+"I always say I was born so close to slavery I could smell it, just
+like you cookin' somethin' for dinner and I smelled it.
+
+"I tell these young people I can look back to my boy days quick as
+they can.
+
+"Yes'm, I don't know anything bout slavery. My people say they come
+from North Carolina, but I been right here on this spot of ground for
+forty-four years. I come here when they was movin' the cemetery.
+
+"My mother was a cook here for Mrs. Reynolds. After I growed up here I
+went out to my father where he was workin' on the shares and stayed
+there a year. I married quite young and bought a place out there. I
+said I was twenty-one when I got the license but I wasn't but twenty.
+
+"In old times everbody thought of the future and had all kinds of
+things to eat. First prayer I was taught was the Lord's Prayer--'Give
+us this day our daily bread.' I said sure was a long time bein'
+answered cause now we're gettin' it--just our daily bread.
+
+"I never had no luck farmin'--ever' time I farmed river overflowed. I
+raised everthing I needed or I didn't have it. Had as high as thirty
+head of cows at one time.
+
+"I went to work as janitor at Merril School to take the regular
+janitor's place for just two months and how long you reckon I stayed
+there? Twenty years. Then I come here and sit down and haven't done
+anything since.
+
+"The first school I went to was in the First Baptist Church on Pullen
+Street. They had it there till they could put up a building.
+
+"I went to nine different teachers and all of em was white. They was
+sent here from the North. We studied McGuffy's reader and you stayed
+with it till you learned it. I got it till today--in my head you
+understand.
+
+"Sure, Lord, I used to vote and hold ever' kind of office. Used to be
+justice of the peace six years. I said I been in everthing but a bull
+fight.
+
+"I've traveled ever' place--Niagara Falls, Toronto, Canada. I been in
+two World's Fairs and in several inaugurations. Professor Cheney says
+I know more history than any the teachers at the college."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Eliza Jones
+                    610 E. Eighteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 89
+
+
+"Yes ma'am, this is Eliza. I was born in slave times and I knowed how
+to work good.
+
+"You know I was grown in time of the War 'cause I married the first
+year of freedom.
+
+"Belonged to a widow named Edna Mitchell. That was in Tennessee near
+Jackson. Oh Lawd, my missis was good to all her niggers--if you should
+call 'em that.
+
+"She had two men and three women. My mother was the cook. Let's
+see--Sarah was one, Jane was two, and Eliza was three. (I was Eliza.)
+Then there was Doc and Uncle Alf. I reckon he was our uncle. Anyway we
+all called him Uncle Alf. He managed the business--he was the head man
+and Doc was next. And Miss Edna raised us all to grown.
+
+"Now I'm tellin' you right straight along. I try to tell the truth. I
+forgits and I can't remember ever'thing like it ought to be but I hit
+at it.
+
+"Things is hard this year and I don't know how come. I guess it's
+'cause folks is so wicked. They is livin' fast--black and white.
+
+"How many chillun? Now, you'd be s'prised. I hardly ever tell folks
+how many. I had fifteen; I was a good breeder. But they is all dead
+but one, and they ain't doin' me no good. Never raised but two. Most
+of 'em just died when they was born.
+
+"I'd a been better off if I had stayed single a while longer and went
+to school and learned how to read and write and figger. But I went to
+another kind of a school.
+
+"But I sure has been blest. I been here a long time, got a chile to
+cook me a little bread--don't have to worry 'bout dat.
+
+"I had to send clean back to where I j'ined the Metropolitan to get my
+age. That was in Cairo, Illinois 'cause I'd lived there fifteen years.
+But when my daughter and her husband come here and got settled, why I
+come to finish it out.
+
+"Yes ma'am, I sure have worked hard. I've plowed, split wood, and done
+a little bit of ever'thing. But it was all done since freedom. In
+slavery times I was a house girl. I tell you I was a heap better off a
+slave than I was free.
+
+"After freedom we had to go and get what we could get to do and work
+hard.
+
+"They used to talk 'bout ha'nts and squinch owls. Say it was a sign of
+somebody dead. But I don't believe in that. 'Course what I don't
+believe in somebody else does."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Evelyn Jones
+                    815 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: Between 68 and 78?
+
+
+"I was born in Lonoke County right here in Arkansas. My father's
+name--I don't know it. I don't know nothin' 'bout my father. My
+mother's name was Mary Davis.
+
+"My daddy died when I was five weeks old. I don't know nothin' 'bout
+'im. Just did manage to git here before he left. I don't know the date
+of my birth. I don't know nothin' 'bout it and I ain't goin' to tell
+no lie.
+
+"I have nineteen children. My youngest living child is twenty-eight
+years old. My oldest living is fifty-three. I have four dead. I don't
+know how old the oldest one is. That one's dead.
+
+"I have a cousin named Harry Jordan. He lives 'round here somewheres.
+You'll find him. I don't know where he lives. He says he knows just
+how old I am, and he says that I'm sixty-eight. My daughter here says
+I'm seventy. And my son thinks I'm older. Don't nobody know. My daddy
+never told me. My mama was near dead when I was born; what could she
+tell me? So how am I to know?
+
+"My mother was born in slavery. She was a slave. I don't know nothin'
+'bout it. My mother came from Tennessee. That's what she told me. I
+was born in a log cabin right here in Arkansas. I was born in a log
+cabin right in front of the white folks' big house. It was not far
+from the white folks' graveyard. You know they had a graveyard of
+their own. Old Bill Pemberton, that was the name of the man owned the
+place I was born on. But he wasn't my mother's owner.
+
+"I don't know where my father come from. My mother said she had a good
+time in slavery. She spoke of lots of things but I don't remember
+them.
+
+"My grandma told me about when she went to church she used to carry
+her good clothes in a bundle. When she got near there, she would put
+them on, and hide her old clothes under a rock. When she come out from
+the meeting, she would have to put on her old clothes again to go home
+in. She didn't dare let the white folks see her in good clothes.
+
+"I think my mother's white people were named Jordans. My mother and
+them all belonged to the young mistress. I think her name was Jordan.
+Yes, that's what it was--Jordan.
+
+"Grandmammy had so many children. She had nineteen children--just like
+me. My grandmammy was a great big old red woman. She had red hair too.
+I never heard her say nothin' 'bout nobody whippin' her and my
+granddaddy. They whipped all them children though. My mama just had
+six children.
+
+"Mama said her master tried to keep her in slavery after freedom. My
+mama worked at the spinning-wheel. When she heard the folks say they
+was through with the War, she was at the spinning-wheel. The white
+folks ought a tol' them they was free but they didn't. Old Jordan
+carried them down in De Valla Bluff. He carried them down
+there--called hisself gittin' away from the Yankees. But the Yankees
+told mama to quit workin'. They tol' her that she was free. My mama
+said she was in there at the wheel spinning and the house was full of
+white men settin' there lookin' at her. You don't see that sort of
+thing now.
+
+"They had a man--I don't know what his name was. He stalled them
+steers, stalled 'em twice a day. They used to pick cotton. I dreamed
+about cotton the other night.
+
+"My father farmed after slavery. I never heard them say they were
+cheated out of nothin'. I don't know whether they was or not. I'll
+tell you the truth. I didn't pay them no 'tention. Mighty little I can
+remember."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was raised an orph'_ant_ but I was born in Tennessee. I lived over
+there and farmed till 'bout fifty year ago. I come out here wid Mr.
+Woodson to pick cotton. He dead now and I still tryin' to work all I
+can.
+
+"I haben voted in thirty-five year. Because I couldn't vote in the
+Primary, then I say I wouldn't vote 'tall. I don't care if the women
+want to vote. Don't do no good nohow.
+
+"I farmed all my life 'ceptin' 'bout ten years I worked on the
+section. I got so I couldn't stand up to it every day and had to farm
+again.
+
+"I never considered times hard till I got disabled to work. It mighty
+bad when you can't get no jobs to do. My hardest time is in the
+winter. I has a garden and chickens but I ain't able to buy a cow. Man
+give me a little pig the other day. He won't be big enough to eat till
+late next spring. Every winter times is hard for me. It's been thater
+wa's ever since I begin not to be able to get about. Helped by the
+PWA."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: John Jones
+                    3109 W. 10th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I come here in 1856--you can figure it out for yourself. I was born
+in Arkansas, fifty miles below here.
+
+"I remember the soldiers. I know I was a little boy drivin' the gin.
+Had to put me upon the lever. You see, all us little fellows had to
+work.
+
+"I remember seein' the Indians goin' by to fight at Arkansas Post.
+They fought on the southern side. When I heard the cannons, I asked my
+mama what it was and she said 'twas war.
+
+"John Dye--that was my young master--went to the War but Ruben had a
+kind of afflicted hand and he didn't go.
+
+"Our plantation was on the river and I used to see the Yankee boats go
+down the river.
+
+"My papa belonged to the Douglases and mama belonged to the Dyes. I
+was born on the Douglas place and I ain't been down there in over
+fifty years. They said I was born in March but I don't know any more
+bout it than a rabbit.
+
+"Papa said he was raised up in the house. Said he didn't do much
+work--just tended to the gin.
+
+"I remember one night the Ku Klux come to our house. I was so scared I
+run under the house and stayed till ma called me out. I was so scared
+I didn't know what they had on.
+
+"I remember when some of the folks come back from Texas and they said
+peace was declared.
+
+"I think my brother run off and jined the Yankees and come here when
+they took Pine Bluff. War is a bad thing. I think they goin' keep on
+till they hatch up another one.
+
+"I didn't go to school much. I was the oldest boy at home and I had to
+plow. I went seven days all told and since then I learned ketch as
+ketch can. I can read and write pretty well. It's a consolation to be
+able to read. If you can't get all of it, you can get some of it.
+
+"Been here in Jefferson County ever since 1867. I come here from
+Lincoln County.
+
+"After freedom my papa moved my mama down on the Douglas place where
+he was and stayed one year, then moved on the Simpson place in Lincoln
+County, and then come up here in Jefferson County. I remember all the
+moves.
+
+"I remember down here where Kientz Bros, place is was the gallows
+where they hung folks in slavery times. You know--when they had
+committed some crime.
+
+"Yes'm, I voted but I never held any office.
+
+"I know I don't look my age but I can tell you a heap of things
+happened before emancipation.
+
+"I think the people are better off free--they got liberty."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lidia Jones
+                    228 N. Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 94
+Occupation: None--blind
+
+
+"I was born in Mississippi and emigrated to Arkansas. Born on the
+Peacock place. Old John Patterson was my old master.
+
+"My first goin' out was to the cow pen, then to the kitchen, and then
+they moved me to Mrs. Patterson's dining-room.
+
+"I helped weave cloth. Dyed it? I wish you'd hush! My missis went to
+the woods and got it. All I know is, she said it was indigo. She had a
+great big kittle and she put her thread in that. No Lord, she never
+bought _her_ indigo--she _raised_ it.
+
+"Oh, Miss Fannie could do most anything. Made the prettiest
+counter-panes I ever saw. Yes ma'am, she could do it and _did_ do it.
+
+"She had a loom half as big as this house. Lord a mercy, a many a time
+I went dancin' from that old spinnin'-wheel.
+
+"They made all the clothes for the colored folks. They'd be sewin' for
+weeks and months.
+
+"Miss Fannie and Miss Frances--that was her daughter--they wove such
+pretty cloth for the colored. You know, they went and made themselves
+dresses and the white and colored had the same kind of dresses.
+
+"Yes Lord, they _had_ some folks.
+
+"Miss Frances wore hoops but Miss Fannie didn't.
+
+"During of the War them Yankees come down the river; but to tell the
+truth, we run and hid and never seen 'em no more.
+
+"They took Mars John's fine saddle horse named Silver Heels. Yes
+ma'am, took saddle and bridle and the horse on top of 'em. And he had
+a mare named Buchanan and they took her too. He had done moved out of
+the big house down into the woods. Called hisself hidin' I reckon. And
+he had his horses tied down by the river and the Yankees slipped up on
+him and took the horses.
+
+"Yankees burned his house and gin house too and set fire to the
+cotton. Oh Lord, I don't like to talk about it. Them Yankees was
+rough.
+
+"Right after freedom our white folks left this country and went to
+Missouri and the last account I heard of 'em they was all dead.
+
+"After freedom, folks scattered out just like sheep.
+
+"I'm tryin' to study 'bout some songs but I can't think of nothin' but
+Dixie."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Lydia Jones
+                    228 North Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 93
+
+
+"My name's Lydia--Lydia Jones. Oh my God I'se born in Mississippi. I
+wish you'd hush--I know all about slavery.
+
+"I never had but one master. That was old John Patterson. No he want
+good to me. I wish you'd hush! I had two young masters--Marse John and
+Marse Edward. Marse John go off to war and say he gwine whip them
+Yankees with his pocket knife, but he didn't _do_ it. They said the
+war was to keep the colored folks slaves. I tell you I've heard them
+bull whips a ringin' from sun to sun.
+
+"After the war when they told us we is free, they said to hire
+ourselves out. They didn't give us a nickel when we left.
+
+"I heered talk of the Ku Klux and they come close enough for us to be
+skeered but I never seen none of 'em. We never had no slave uprisin's
+on our plantation--old John Patterson would a shot 'em down. I tell
+you he was a rabid man.
+
+"I used to pick cotton and chop cotton and help weave the cloth. My
+old mistress--Miss Fannie--used to go to the woods and get things to
+dye the cloth. She would dye some blue and some red.
+
+"Only song I 'member is Dixie. I heered talk of some others but God
+knows I never fooled with 'em.
+
+"Yes'm I believes in hants. Let me tell you something. My mama seen my
+daddy after he been dead a long time. He come right up through the
+crack by the fireplace and he said 'Don't you be afraid Emmaline' but
+she was agoin'. They had to sing and pray in the house 'fore my mama
+would go back but she never seen him again.
+
+"I'se been blind now for three years and I lives with my granddaughter
+but lady, I'll tell you the truth--I been around. Yes, madam, I is."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Liza Jones (Cookie)
+                    610 S. Eighteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 88
+
+
+"Come in, this is Cookie. Well, I do know a heap about slavery, cause
+I worked. I stayed in the house; I was house girl. They called me
+Cookie cause I used to cook so much.
+
+"That was in Madison County, near Jackson, Tennessee. My mistress was
+good to me. Yes'm, I got along all right but a heap of others got
+along all wrong.
+
+"Mistress took care of us in the cold and all kinds of weather. She
+sho did.
+
+"She had four women and four men. We had plenty to eat. She had hogs
+and sheep and geese and always cooked enough for all of us. Whatever
+she had to eat we had.
+
+"We clothed our darkies in slavery times. I was a weaver for four
+years and never done nothin' else. Yes ma'm, I was a house woman and I
+am now.
+
+"Yes ma'm, I member seein' different kinds of soldiers. I member once
+some Rebels come to old mistress to get somethin' to eat but before it
+was ready the Yankees come and run em off. They didn't have time to
+eat it all so us colored folks got the rest of it.
+
+"Old mistress had a son Mac and he was in the war. The Yankees
+captured him and carried him to Chicago and put him in a warehouse
+over the water.
+
+"Old mistress was a good old Christian woman. All the darkies had to
+come to her room to prayermeetin' every night. She didn't skip no
+nights. And her help didn't mind workin'. They'd go the length for
+her, Miss.
+
+"After I was grown I went most anywhere, but when I was little I sho
+set on old mistress' dress tail. I used to go to church with her.
+She'd say, "Open your mouf and sing" and I'd just holler and sing. I
+can member now how loud I used to holler.
+
+"Aint no use in talkin', I had a good mistress. I never was sold. Old
+mistress wouldn't sell. There was a speculator come there and wanted
+to buy us. When we was free, old mistress say, "Now I could a sold you
+and had the money, and now you is goin' to leave." But they didn't,
+they stayed. Some stayed with old mistress till she died, but I
+didn't. I married the first year of freedom.
+
+"My mistress and me spin a many a cut of cotton together. She couldn't
+beat me neither. If that old soul was livin' today, I'd be right with
+her. I was gettin' along. I didn't know nothin' but freedom.
+
+"I had freedom then and I ain't been free since, didn't have no
+sponsibility. But when they turned you loose, you had your doctor bill
+and your grub bill--now wasn't you a slave then?
+
+"My mammy was a cook and her name was Katy.
+
+"After I was married we went to live at Black Ankle. I learned to cook
+and I sho did cook for the white folks twenty-one years. I used to go
+back and see old mistress. If I stay away too long, she send for me.
+
+"How many childen I had? You want the truth? Well, fifteen, but never
+had but three to live any length of time.
+
+"Well, I told you the best I know and the straightest I know. If I
+can't tell you the truth, I'm not goin' to tell you nothin'.
+
+"Yes, honey, I saw the Ku Klux."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lucy Jones,
+                    Marianna, Arkansas
+Age: Born 1866
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+"I was raised second year after the surrender. I don't know a father
+or mother. They was dead when I was five years old. I had no sisters
+nor brothers. Mrs. Cynthia Hall raised me. She raised my mother.
+Master Hall was her husband. They was old people and they was so good
+to me. They had no children and I lived in the house with them. I
+never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count
+money.
+
+"My mother was dark. I married when I was fifteen years old. I have
+four children living. They are all dark. They are about the same color
+but darker than I am.
+
+"No ma'am, I don't believe one could be voodooed. I lived nearly all
+my life with white folks and they don't heed no foolishness like that,
+do they? I cooked, worked in the field, washed and ironed.
+
+"I married three times. The first time at Raymond, Mississippi. I
+never had no big weddings.
+
+"Seems like some folks have lost their grip and ain't willing to start
+over. I don't know much to say for the young people. They are not
+smart. They got more schooling. They try to shirk all the work they
+can. I never seen no Ku Klux in my life. People used to raise nearly
+all their living at home and now they depend on buying nearly
+everything. Well, I think it is bad."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones
+                    1017 Dennison, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"I was born on the twenty-second of March, 1866, in Van Buren,
+Arkansas. I had six children. All of them were bred and born at the
+same place.
+
+"I was born in a frame house. My father used to live in the country,
+but I was born in the town. He bought it just as soon as he come out
+of the army and married right away and bought this home. I don't know
+where he got his money from. I guess he saved it. He served in the
+Union army; he wasn't a servant. He was a soldier, and drawed his pay.
+He never run through his money like most people do. I don't know
+whether he made any money in slavery or not but he was a carpenter
+during slave times and they say he always had plenty of money. I guess
+he had saved some of that too.
+
+"My mother was married twice. Her name was Louisa Buchanan. My father
+was named Abraham Riley. My stepfather was named Moses Buchanan. My
+father was a soldier in the old original war (the Civil War)--the war
+they ended in 1865.
+
+"I disremember who my mother's master was but I think it was a man
+named Johnson. I didn't know my father's people. She married him from
+White County up here. Her and him, they corresponded mostly in letters
+because he traveled lots. He looked like an Indian. He had straight
+hair and was tall and rawboned and wore a Texas hat. I had his picture
+but the pictures fade away. My father was a sergeant. He died sometime
+after the war. I don't remember when because I wasn't old enough. I
+can just remember looking at the corpse. I was too small to do any
+grieving.
+
+"My mother was a nurse in slavery times. She nursed the white folks
+and their children. She did the housework and such like. She was a
+good cook too. After freedom, when the old folks died out, she cooked
+for Zeb Ward--you know him, head of the penitentiary. She used to cook
+for the Jews and gentiles. That her kind of work. That was her
+occupation--good cook. She could make all kinds of provisions. She
+could make preserves and they had a big orchard everywhere she worked.
+
+"I have heard my mother talk about pateroles, jayhawkers, and Ku Klux,
+but I never knew of them myself. I have heard say they were awful
+bad--the Ku Klux or somethin'.
+
+"My mother's white folks sold her. I don't know who they sold her to
+or from. They sold her from her mother. I don't know how she got free.
+I think she got free after the war ceased. But she had a good time all
+her life. She had a good time because she was a good cook, and a good
+nurse, and she had good white folks. My grandma, she had good folks
+too. They was free before they were free, my ma and grandma. They was
+just as free before freedom as they were afterwards. My mother had
+seven children and two sets of twins among them. But I am the only one
+living.
+
+
+Occupation
+
+"They say that I'm too old to work now; so I can't make nothin' to
+keep my home goin'. I have five children living. Two are away from
+here--one in Michigan, and another in Illinois. I have three others
+but they don't make enough to help me much. I used to work 'round the
+laundries. Then I used to work 'round with these colored restaurants.
+I worked with a colored woman down by the station for twelve or
+fifteen years. I first helped her wash and iron. She ironed and hired
+other girls to wait table and wash dishes and so on. Them times wasn't
+like they are now. They'd hire you and keep you. Then I worked at a
+white boarding house on Second and Cross. I quit working at the
+laundries because of the steady work in the restaurants. After the
+restaurants I went to work in private families and worked with them
+till I got so I couldn't work no more. Maybe I could do plenty of
+things, but they won't give me a chance.
+
+"I have been married twice. My second husband was John Jones. He
+always went by the name of his white folks. They were named Ivory. He
+came from up in Searcy. I got acquainted with him and we started going
+together. He'd been married before and had children up in Searcy. He
+got his leg cut off in a accident. He was working over to the shop
+lifting ties with another helper and this man helping him gave way on
+his side and let his end fall. It fell across my husband's foot and
+blood poison set in and caused him to lose his foot and leg. He had
+his foot cut off at the county hospital and made himself a peg-leg. He
+cut it out hisself while he was at the hospital. He lived a long while
+after that. He died on Tenth and Victory. My first husband was Henry
+White. He was a shop worker too--the Iron Mountain.
+
+"We went to school together. I lost my health before I married, and I
+had to stop going to school. The doctor was a German and lived on
+Cross between Fifth and Sixth. He said that he ought to have written
+the history of my life to show what I was cured of because I was
+paralyzed two years. My head was drawed 'way back between my
+shoulders. I lived with my first husband about six years. He died with
+T.B. in Memphis, Tennessee. He had married again when he died. We got
+so we couldn't agree, so I thought it was best for him to live with
+his mother and me to live with mine. We quit under good conditions. I
+had a boy after he was separated from me.
+
+"I don't know what to say about the people now. I don't get 'round
+much. They aren't like they used to be. The young people don't like to
+have you 'round them. I never did object to any of my children gettin'
+married because my mother didn't object to me.
+
+"I know Mr. Gillespie. (He passed at the time--ed.) He comes to see me
+now and then. All my people are dead now 'cept my children."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Brother Gillespie has a story turned in previously. Evidently he is
+making eyes at the old lady; but the romance is not likely to bud. She
+has lost the sight of one eye apparently through a cataract which has
+spread over the larger part of the iris. Nevertheless, she is more
+active than he is, and apparently more competent, and she isn't
+figuring on making her lot any harder than it is.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mary Jones
+                    509 E. 23rd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born three weeks 'fore Christmas in South Carolina.
+
+"I 'member one time the Yankees come along and I run to the door. I
+know ma made me go back but I peeped out the window. You know how
+children is. They wore great big old hats and blue coats.
+
+"'Nother time we saw them a comin' and said, 'Yonder come the Yankees'
+and we run. Ma said, 'Don't run, them's the Yankees what freed you.'
+
+"Old mis' was named Joanna Long and old master was Joe Long. I can't
+remember much, I just went by what ma said.
+
+"I went to school now and then on account we had to work.
+
+"We had done sold out in South Carolina and was down at the station
+when some of the old folks said if we was goin' to the Mississippi
+bottoms where the panthers and wolves was we would never come back. We
+thought we was comin' to Arkansas but when we found out we was in the
+Mississippi bottoms. We stayed there and made two crops, then we come
+to Arkansas.
+
+"The way the younger generation is livin' now, the Lord can't bless
+'em. They know how to do right but they won't do it. Yes ma'am."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Nannie Jones
+                    1601 Saracen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 81
+
+
+"Good morning. Come in. I sure is proud to see you. Yes ma'am, I sure
+is.
+
+"I was born in Chicot County. I heerd Dr. Gaines say I was four years
+old in slavery times. I know I ain't no baby. I feels my age, too--in
+my limbs.
+
+"I heerd 'em talk about a war but I wasn't big enough to know about
+it. My father went to war on one side but he didn't stay very long. I
+don't know which side he was on. Them folks all dead now--I just can
+remember 'em.
+
+"Dr. Gaines had a pretty big crew on the place. I'm gwine tell you
+what I know. I can't tell you nothin' else.
+
+"Now I want to tell it like mama said. She said she was sold from
+Kentucky. She died when I was small.
+
+"I remember when they said the people was free. I know they jumped up
+and down and carried on.
+
+"Dr. Gaines was so nice to his people. I stayed in the house most of
+the time. I was the little pet around the house. They said I was so
+cute.
+
+"Dr. Gaines give me my age but I lost it movin'. But I know I ain't no
+baby. I never had but two children and they both livin'--two girls.
+
+"Honey, I worked in the field and anywhere. I worked like a man. I
+think that's what got me bowed down now. I keeps with a misery right
+across my back. Sometimes I can hardly get along.
+
+"Honey, I just don't know 'bout this younger generation. I just don't
+have no thoughts for 'em, they so wild. I never was a rattlin' kind of
+a girl. I always was civilized. Old people in them days didn't 'low
+their children to do things. I know when mama called us, we'd better
+go. They is a heap wusser now. So many of 'em gettin' into trouble."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Reuben Jones
+                    Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"Well, I'm one of em. I can tell you bout it from now till sundown.
+
+"I was born at Senatobia, Mississippi, this side of Jackson. Born in
+'52 on April the 16th. That's when I was born.
+
+"Old man Stephen Williams was my master in time of the war and before
+the war, too. He was pretty good to me. Give me plenty of something to
+eat, but he whipped me. Oh, I specked I needed it. Put me in the field
+when I was five years old. Put a tar cap on my head. I was so young
+the sun made my hair come out so they put that tar cap on my head.
+
+"I member when they put the folks on blocks as high as that house and
+sell em to the highest bidder. No ma'm, I wasn't sold cause my mother
+had three or four chillun and boss man wouldn't sell dem what had
+chillun cause dem chillun was hands for him.
+
+"They made me hide ever'thing they had from the Yankees. Yes'm, I seen
+em come out after the fodder and the corn. We hid the meat and the
+mules and the money. Drove the mules in the cave. Kept em der till the
+Yankees left. We dug the hole for the meat but old marse dug the hole
+for the money.
+
+"I used to help put timbers on the bridge to keep the Yankees out but
+dey come right on through just the same. Took the ox wagon but dey
+sent it back.
+
+"Couldn't go nowhere without a pass. Had a whippin' block right at the
+horse trough. Yes ma'm, they'd eat you up. I mean they'd whip you, but
+they give you plenty of somethin' to eat.
+
+"My mother was the weaver and they had a tanyard on the place.
+
+"In slavery days couldn't go see none of your neighbors without a
+pass. People had meetin' right at the house. Dey'd have prayer and
+singin'. I went to em. I could sing--Lord yes. I used to know a lot of
+old songs--'Am I A Soldier of the Cross?'.
+
+"Lord yes, ma'm, don't talk! When the soldiers come out where we was I
+could hear the guns. Had a battle right in town. Rebels just as scared
+of the Yankees as if twas a bear. I seed one or two of em come to town
+and scare the whole business.
+
+"I never knowed but one man run off and jined the Yankees. Carried his
+master's finest ridin' hoss and a mule. He always had a fine hoss and
+Yankees come and took it. When the Yankees come out the last time, my
+owners cleaned out the smoke house and buried the meat.
+
+"I helped gin cotton when I wasn't big enough to stand up to the
+breast. Stood upon a bench and had a lantern hung up so I could see
+fore daylight. Yes ma'm, great big gin house. Yes ma'm, I sho has
+worked--all kinds and plowin'.
+
+"Now my old boss called me Tony--that's what he called me.
+
+"When peace come, we had done gathered our crop and we left there a
+week later. You know people usually hunts their kinfolks and we went
+to Hernando. Come to Arkansas in '77. Got offin de boat right der at
+de cotehouse. Pine Bluff wasn't nothin' when I come here.
+
+"I used to vote. I aimed to vote the Republican ticket--I don't know.
+
+"Oh yes ma'm, I seed the Ku Klux, yes ma'm. They're bad, too. Lord I
+seed a many of them. They come to my house. I went to the door and
+that's as far as I went. That was in Hernando. I went back to my old
+home in Hernando bout three months ago. Went where I was bred and born
+but I didn't know the place it was tore up so.
+
+"This younger generation whole lot different from when I was comin'
+up. Yes'm, it's a whole lot different. They ain't doin' so well. I
+have always tended to my own business. Cose I been arrested for
+drivin' mules with sore shoulders. Didn't put me in jail, but the
+officers come up. That was when I was workin' on the Lambert place. I
+told em they wasn't my mules so they let me go.
+
+"I can't tell you bout the times now. I hope it'll get better--can't
+get no wusser."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Vergil Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 70
+
+
+"My parents was Jane Jones and Vergil Jones. Their owner was Colonel
+Jones in Alabama. Papa went to the war and served four years. He got a
+$30 a month Union pension long as he lived. He was in a number of
+places. He fought as a field man. He had a long musket he brought home
+from the war. He told us a heap of things long time ago. Seem lack
+folks set down and talked wid their children more'n they do nowdays.
+
+"Papa come to this State after the surrender. He married here. I am
+the oldest of seven children. Mama was in this State before the war.
+She was bought when she was a girl and brought here. I don't know if
+Colonel Jones owned her or if papa had seen her somewhere else. He
+come to her and they married. My mama was a house girl some and she
+washed and ironed for Miss Fannie Lambert. They had a big family and a
+big farm. Their farm was seven miles this side of Indian Bay, eight
+miles to Clarendon. They had thirteen in family and mama had seven
+children made nine in her family. She had a bed piled full of starched
+clothes white as snow. Lamberts had three sets of twins. Our family
+lived with the Lamberts 23 or 24 years. We started working for Mr. B.
+J. Lambert and Miss Fannie (his wife). Mama nursed me and R. T. from
+the same breast. We was raised up grown together and I worked for R.
+T. till he died. We played with J. L. Black too till he was grown. He
+was county judge and sheriff of this county (Monroe).
+
+"Folks that helped me out is about all dead. I pick cotton but I can't
+pick very much. Now I don't have no work till chopping cotton times
+comes on. It is hard now. I would do jobs but I don't hear of no jobs
+to be done. I asked around but didn't find a thing to do.
+
+"I heard about the Ku Kluxes. My papa used to dodge the Ku Kluxes. He
+lay out in the bushes from them. It was bad times. Some folks would
+advise the black folks to do one way and then the Ku Kluxes come and
+make it hot for them. One thing the Ku Kluxes didn't want much big
+gatherings among the black folks. They break up big gatherings. Some
+white folks tell them to do one thing and then some others tell them
+to do some other way. That is the way it was. The Ku Kluxes was hot
+headed. Papa wasn't a bad man but he was afraid they did do so much.
+He was on the lookout and dodged them all the time.
+
+"I haven't voted for a long time. I couldn't keep my taxes up.
+
+"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house--not so
+good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that
+nobody would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between
+farming. I still farm. They hire mostly by the day--day labor. Them
+two things and my dis'bility is making it mighty hard for me to live.
+I work at any jobs I can get.
+
+"I signed up for the Old Age Pension. They said I couldn't work, I was
+too old. I wanted to work on the government work. I never got nothing.
+I don't get no kind of help. I thought I didn't know how to get into
+the Old Age Pension reason I didn't get it. It would help keep in wood
+this wet weather when work is scarce."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Walter Jones,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 72
+
+
+"My father run away scared of the Yankees. He got excited and left. My
+mother didn't want him to leave her. She was crying when he left. My
+father belong to the Wilsons. Mother was sold on the block in
+Richmond, Virginia when she was twelve years old and never seen her
+mother again. Mother belong to Charles Hunt. Her name was Lucy Hunt.
+She married three times. Charles Hunt went to market to buy slaves. We
+lived in Hardeman County, Tennessee when I was born but he sent us to
+Mississippi. She worked in the field then but before then she was a
+house girl. No, she was black. We are all African.
+
+"I got eight children. When my wife died they finished scattering out.
+I come here from Grand Junction, Mississippi. I eat breakfast on
+Christmas day 1883 at Forrest City and spent the day at Hazen. I come
+with friends. We paid our own ways. We come on the train and boat and
+walked some.
+
+"No, I don't take stock in voting. I never did. I have voted so long
+ago I forgot it all.
+
+"The biggest thing I can tell you ever happened to us more than I told
+you was in 1878 I had yellow fever. Dr. Milton Pruitt come to see me.
+The next day his brother come to see me. Dr. Milton died the next day.
+I got well. At Grand Junction both black and white died. Some of both
+color got well. A lot of people died.
+
+"How am I making a living? I don't make one. Mr. Ashly lets me live in
+a house and gives me scrap meat. I bottom chairs or do what I can. I
+past heavy work. The Welfare don't help me. I farmed, railroaded
+nearly all my life. Public work this last few years."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Oscar Felix Junell
+                    1720 Brown Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 60
+
+
+"My father's name was Peter Junell, Peter W. Junell. I don't know what
+the W. was for. He was born in Ouachita County near Bearden, Arkansas.
+Bearden is an old town. It is fourteen miles from Camden. My dad was
+seventy-five years old when he died. He died in 1924. He was very
+young in the time of slavery. He never did do very much work.
+
+"His master was named John Junell. That was his old master. He had a
+young master too, Warren Junell. His old master given him to his young
+master, Warren. My father's mother and father both belonged to the
+Junells. His mother's name was Dinah, and his father's name was
+Anthony. All the slaves took their last names after their owners. They
+never was sold, not in any time that my father could remember.
+
+"As soon as my father was large enough to go to walkin' about, his old
+master given him to his son, Master Warren Junell. Warren would carry
+him about and make him rassle (wrestle). He was a good rassler. As far
+as work was concerned, he didn't do nothing much of that. He just
+followed his young master all around rasslin.
+
+"His masters was good to him. They whipped slaves sometimes, but they
+were considered good. My father always said they was good folks. He
+never told me how he learnt that he was free.
+
+"Pretty well all the slaves lived in log cabins. Even in my time,
+there was hardly a board house in that county. The food the slaves ate
+was mostly bread and milk--corn bread. Old man Junell was rich and
+had lots of slaves. When he went to feed his slaves, he would feed
+them jus like hogs. He had a great long trough and he would have bread
+crumbled up in it and gallons of milk poured over the bread, and the
+slaves would get round it and eat. Sometimes they would get to
+fighting over it. You know, jus like hogs! They would be eatin and
+sometimes one person would find somethin and get holt of it and
+another one would want to take it, and they would get to fightin over
+it. Sometimes blood would get in the trough, but they would eat right
+on and pay no 'tention to it.
+
+"I don't know whether they fed the old ones that way or not. I jus
+heered my father tell how he et out of the trough hisself.
+
+"I have heered my father talk about the pateroles too. He talked about
+how they used to chase him. But he didn't have much experience with
+them, because they never did catch him. That was after the war when
+the slaves had been freed, but the pateroles still got after them. My
+father remember how they would catch other slaves. One night they went
+to an old man's house. It was dark and the old man told them to come
+on in. He didn't have no gun, but he took his ax and stood behind the
+door on the hinge side. It was after slavery. When he said for them to
+come in, they rushed right on in and the old man killed three or four
+of them with his ax. He was a old African, and they never had been
+able to do nothin' with him, not even in slavery time. I never heard
+that they did nothin' to the old man about it. The pateroles was
+outlaws anyway.
+
+"I heard my father say that in slavery time, they took the finest and
+portlies' looking Negroes--the males--for breeding purposes. They
+wouldn't let them strain themselves up nor nothin like that. They
+wouldn't make them do much hard work."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Sam Keaton,
+                    Brinkley, Ark.
+Age: 78
+
+
+"I was born close to Golden Hill down in Arkansas County. My parents
+names was Louana and Dennis Keaton. They had ten children. Their
+master was Mr. Jack Keaton and Miss Martha. They had four boys. They
+all come from Virginia in wagons the second year of the war--the Civil
+War. I heard 'em tell about walking. Some of em walked, some rode
+horse back and some in wagons. I don't know if they knowed bout slave
+uprisings or not. I know they wasn't in em because they come here wid
+Mr. Jack Keaton. It was worse in Virginia than it was down here wid
+them. Mr. Keaton didn't give em nothing at freedom. They stayed on
+long as they wanted to stay and then they went to work for Mr. Jack
+Keaton's brother, Mr. Ben Keaton. They worked on shares and picked
+cotton by the hundred. My parents staid on down there till they died.
+I been working for Mr. Floria for thirty years.
+
+"My father did vote. He voted a Republican ticket. I haven't voted for
+fifty years. They that do vote in the General election know very
+little bout what they doing. If they could vote in the Primary they
+would know but a mighty little about it. The women ain't got no
+business voting. Their place is at home. They cain't keep their houses
+tidied up and like they oughter be and go out and work regularly.
+That's the reason I think they oughter stay at home and train the
+children better than it being done.
+
+"I think that the young generation is going to be lost. They killing
+and fighting. They do everything. No, they don't work much as I do.
+They don't save nothing! They don't save nothing! Times is harder than
+they used to be some. Nearly everybody wants to live in town. My age
+is making times heap harder for me. I live with my daughter. I am a
+widower. I owns 40 acres land, a house, a cow. I made three bales
+cotton, but I owe it bout all. I tried to get a little help so I could
+get out of debt but I never could get no 'sistance from the Welfare."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Watt McKinney
+Person interviewed: Tines Kendricks,
+                    Trenton, Arkansas
+Age: 104
+
+
+"My name is Tines Kendricks. I was borned in Crawford County, Georgia.
+You see, Boss, I is a little nigger and I really is more smaller now
+dan I used to be when I was young 'cause I so old and stooped over. I
+mighty nigh wore out from all these hard years of work and servin' de
+Lord. My actual name what was give to me by my white folks, de
+Kendricks, was 'Tiny'. Dey called me dat 'cause I never was no size
+much. Atter us all sot free I just changed my name to 'Tines' an' dats
+what I been goin' by for nigh on to ninety years.
+
+"'Cordin' to what I 'member 'bout it, Boss, I is now past a hundred
+and four year old dis past July de fourth two hours before day. What I
+means is what I 'member 'bout what de old mars told me dat time I
+comed back to de home place atter de War quit an' he say dat I past
+thirty then. My mammy, she said I born two hours before day on de
+fourth of July. Dat what dey tole me, Boss. I is been in good health
+all my days. I ain't never been sick any in my life 'scusin' dese last
+years when I git so old and feeble and stiff in de joints, and my teef
+'gin to cave, and my old bones, dey 'gin to ache. But I just keep on
+livin' and trustin' in de Lord 'cause de Good Book say, 'Wherefore de
+evil days come an' de darkness of de night draw nigh, your strength,
+it shall not perish. I will lift you up 'mongst dem what 'bides wid
+me.' Dat is de Gospel, Boss.
+
+"My old mars, he was named Arch Kendricks and us lived on de
+plantation what de Kendricks had not far from Macon in Crawford
+County, Georgia. You can see, Boss, dat I is a little bright an' got
+some white blood in me. Dat is 'counted for on my mammy's side of de
+family. Her pappy, he was a white man. He wasn't no Kendrick though.
+He was a overseer. Dat what my mammy she say an' then I know dat
+wasn't no Kendrick mixed up in nothin' like dat. Dey didn't believe in
+dat kind of bizness. My old mars, Arch Kendricks, I will say dis, he
+certainly was a good fair man. Old mis' an' de young mars, Sam, dey
+was strickly tough an', Boss, I is tellin' you de truth dey was cruel.
+De young mars, Sam, he never taken at all atter he pa. He got all he
+meanness from old mis' an' he sure got plenty of it too. Old mis', she
+cuss an' rare worse 'an a man. Way 'fore day she be up hollerin' loud
+enough for to be heered two miles, 'rousin' de niggers out for to git
+in de fields even 'fore light. Mars Sam, he stand by de pots handin'
+out de grub an' givin' out de bread an' he cuss loud an' say: 'Take a
+sop of dat grease on your hoecake an' move erlong fast 'fore I lashes
+you.' Mars Sam, he was a big man too, dat he was. He was nigh on to
+six an' a half feet tall. Boss, he certainly was a chile of de debbil.
+All de cookin' in dem days was done in pots hangin' on de pot racks.
+Dey never had no stoves endurin' de times what I is tellin' you 'bout.
+At times dey would give us enough to eat. At times dey wouldn't--just
+'cordin' to how dey feelin' when dey dishin' out de grub. De biggest
+what dey would give de field hands to eat would be de truck what us
+had on de place like greens, turnips, peas, side meat, an' dey sure
+would cut de side meat awful thin too, Boss. Us allus had a heap of
+corn-meal dumplin's an' hoecakes. Old mis', her an' Mars Sam, dey real
+stingy. You better not leave no grub on your plate for to throw away.
+You sure better eat it all iffen you like it or no. Old mis' and Mars
+Sam, dey de real bosses an' dey was wicked. I'se tellin' you de truth,
+dey was. Old mars, he didn't have much to say 'bout de runnin' of de
+place or de handlin' of de niggers. You know all de property and all
+the niggers belonged to old mis'. She got all dat from her peoples.
+Dat what dey left to her on their death. She de real owner of
+everything.
+
+"Just to show you, Boss, how 'twas with Mars Sam, on' how contrary an'
+fractious an' wicked dat young white man was, I wants to tell you
+'bout de time dat Aunt Hannah's little boy Mose died. Mose, he sick
+'bout er week. Aunt Hannah, she try to doctor on him an' git him well
+an' she tell old mis' dat she think Mose bad off an' orter have de
+doctor. Old mis', she wouldn't git de doctor. She say Mose ain't sick
+much, an' bless my Soul, Aunt Hannah she right. In a few days from
+then Mose is dead. Mars Sam, he come cussin' an' tole Gabe to get some
+planks an' make de coffin an' sont some of dem to dig de grave over
+dere on de far side of de place where dey had er buryin'-groun' for de
+niggers. Us toted de coffin over to where de grave was dug an' gwine
+bury little Mose dar an' Uncle Billy Jordan, he was dar and begun to
+sing an' pray an' have a kind of funeral at de buryin'. Every one was
+moanin' an' singin' an' prayin' and Mars Sam heard 'em an' come
+sailin' over dar on he hoss an' lit right in to cussin' an' rarein'
+an' say dat if dey don't hurry an' bury dat nigger an' shut up dat
+singin' an' carryin' on, he gwine lash every one of dem, an' then he
+went to cussin' worser an' 'busin' Uncle Billy Jordan. He say iffen he
+ever hear of him doin' any more preachin' or prayin' 'round 'mongst de
+niggers at de grave-yard or anywheres else, he gwine lash him to
+death. No suh, Boss, Mars Sam wouldn't even 'low no preachin' or
+singin' or nothin' like dat. He was wicked. I tell you he was.
+
+"Old mis', she ginrally looked after de niggers when dey sick an' give
+dem de medicine. An' too, she would get de doctor iffen she think dey
+real bad off 'cause like I said, old mis', she mighty stingy an' she
+never want to lose no nigger by dem dyin'. How-some-ever it was hard
+some time to get her to believe you sick when you tell her dat you
+was, an' she would think you just playin' off from work. I have seen
+niggers what would be mighty near dead before old mis' would believe
+them sick at all.
+
+"Before de War broke out, I can 'member there was some few of de white
+folks what said dat niggers ought to be sot free, but there was just
+one now an' then that took that stand. One of dem dat I 'member was de
+Rev. Dickey what was de parson for a big crowd of de white peoples in
+dat part of de county. Rev. Dickey, he preached freedom for de niggers
+and say dat dey all should be sot free an' gived a home and a mule.
+Dat preachin' de Rev. Dickey done sure did rile up de folks--dat is de
+most of them like de Kendricks and Mr. Eldredge and Dr. Murcheson and
+Nat Walker and such as dem what was de biggest of the slaveowners.
+Right away atter Rev. Dickey done such preachin' dey fired him from de
+church, an' 'bused him, an' some of dem say dey gwine hang him to a
+limb, or either gwine ride him on a rail out of de country. Sure
+enough dey made it so hot on dat man he have to leave clean out of de
+state so I heered. No suh, Boss, they say they ain't gwine divide up
+no land with de niggers or give them no home or mule or their freedom
+or nothin'. They say dey will wade knee deep in blood an' die first.
+
+"When de War start to break out, Mars Sam listed in de troops and was
+sent to Virginny. There he stay for de longest. I hear old mis'
+tellin' 'bout de letters she got from him, an' how he wishin' they
+hurry and start de battle so's he can get through killin' de Yankees
+an' get de War over an' come home. Bless my soul, it wasn't long
+before dey had de battle what Mars Sam was shot in. He writ de letter
+from de hospital where they had took him. He say dey had a hard fight,
+dat a ball busted his gun, and another ball shoot his cooterments
+(accouterments) off him; the third shot tear a big hole right through
+the side of his neck. The doctor done sew de wound up; he not hurt so
+bad. He soon be back with his company.
+
+"But it wasn't long 'fore dey writ some more letters to old mis' an'
+say dat Mars Sam's wound not gettin' no better; it wasn't healin' to
+do no good; every time dat they sew de gash up in his neck it broke
+loose again. De Yankees had been puttin' poison grease on the bullets.
+Dat was de reason de wound wouldn't get well. Dey feared Mars Sam
+goin' to die an' a short time atter dat letter come I sure knowed it
+was so. One night just erbout dusk dark, de screech owls, dey come in
+er swarm an' lit in de big trees in de front of de house. A mist of
+dust come up an' de owls, dey holler an' carry on so dat old mars get
+he gun an' shot it off to scare dem erway. Dat was a sign, Boss, dat
+somebody gwine to die. I just knowed it was Mars Sam.
+
+"Sure enough de next day dey got de message dat Mars Sam dead. Dey
+brung him home all de way from Virginny an' buried him in de
+grave-yard on de other side of de garden wid his gray clothes on him
+an' de flag on de coffin. That's what I'se telling you, Boss, 'cause
+dey called all de niggers in an' 'lowed dem to look at Mars Sam. I
+seen him an' he sure looked like he peaceful in he coffin with his
+soldier clothes on. I heered atterwards dat Mars Sam bucked an' rared
+just 'fore he died an' tried to get outen de bed, an' dat he cussed to
+de last.
+
+"It was this way, Boss, how come me to be in de War. You see, they
+'quired all of de slaveowners to send so many niggers to de army to
+work diggin' de trenches an' throwin' up de breastworks an' repairin'
+de railroads what de Yankees done 'stroyed. Every mars was 'quired to
+send one nigger for every ten dat he had. Iffen you had er hundred
+niggers, you had to send ten of dem to de army. I was one of dem dat
+my mars 'quired to send. Dat was de worst times dat dis here nigger
+ever seen an' de way dem white men drive us niggers, it was something
+awful. De strap, it was goin' from 'fore day till 'way after night. De
+niggers, heaps of 'em just fall in dey tracks give out an' them white
+men layin' de strap on dey backs without ceastin'. Dat was zackly way
+it was wid dem niggers like me what was in de army work. I had to
+stand it, Boss, till de War was over.
+
+"Dat sure was a bad war dat went on in Georgia. Dat it was. Did you
+ever hear 'bout de Andersonville prison in Georgia? I tell you, Boss,
+dat was 'bout de worstest place dat ever I seen. Dat was where dey
+keep all de Yankees dat dey capture an' dey had so many there they
+couldn't nigh take care of them. Dey had them fenced up with a tall
+wire fence an' never had enough house room for all dem Yankees. They
+would just throw de grub to 'em. De mostest dat dey had for 'em to eat
+was peas an' the filth, it was terrible. De sickness, it broke out
+'mongst 'em all de while, an' dey just die like rats what been
+pizened. De first thing dat de Yankees do when dey take de state 'way
+from de Confedrits was to free all dem what in de prison at
+Andersonville.
+
+"Slavery time was tough, Boss. You Just don't know how tough it was. I
+can't 'splain to you just how bad all de niggers want to get dey
+freedom. With de 'free niggers' it was just de same as it was wid dem
+dat was in bondage. You know there was some few 'free niggers' in dat
+time even 'fore de slaves taken outen bondage. It was really worse on
+dem dan it was with dem what wasn't free. De slaveowners, dey just
+despised dem 'free niggers' an' make it just as hard on dem as dey
+can. Dey couldn't get no work from nobody. Wouldn't airy man hire 'em
+or give 'em any work at all. So because dey was up against it an'
+never had any money or nothin', de white folks make dese 'free
+niggers' sess (assess) de taxes. An' 'cause dey never had no money for
+to pay de tax wid, dey was put up on de block by de court man or de
+sheriff an' sold out to somebody for enough to pay de tax what dey say
+dey owe. So dey keep these 'free niggers' hired out all de time most
+workin' for to pay de taxes. I 'member one of dem 'free niggers'
+mighty well. He was called 'free Sol'. He had him a little home an' a
+old woman an' some boys. Dey was kept bounded out nigh 'bout all de
+time workin' for to pay dey tax. Yas suh, Boss, it was heap more
+better to be a slave nigger dan er free un. An' it was really er
+heavenly day when de freedom come for de race.
+
+"In de time of slavery annudder thing what make it tough on de niggers
+was dem times when er man an' he wife an' their chillun had to be
+taken 'way from one anudder. Dis sep'ration might be brung 'bout most
+any time for one thing or anudder sich as one or tudder de man or de
+wife be sold off or taken 'way to some other state like Louisiana or
+Mississippi. Den when a mars die what had a heap of slaves, these
+slave niggers be divided up 'mongst de mars' chillun or sold off for
+to pay de mars' debts. Then at times when er man married to er woman
+dat don't belong to de same mars what he do, then dey is li'ble to git
+divided up an' sep'rated most any day. Dey was heaps of nigger
+families dat I know what was sep'rated in de time of bondage dat tried
+to find dey folkses what was gone. But de mostest of 'em never git
+togedder ag'in even after dey sot free 'cause dey don't know where one
+or de other is.
+
+"Atter de War over an' de slaves taken out of dey bondage, some of de
+very few white folks give dem niggers what dey liked de best a small
+piece of land for to work. But de mostest of dem never give 'em
+nothin' and dey sure despise dem niggers what left 'em. Us old mars
+say he want to 'range wid all his niggers to stay on wid him, dat he
+gwine give 'em er mule an' er piece er ground. But us know dat old
+mis' ain't gwine agree to dat. And sure enough she wouldn't. I'se
+tellin' you de truth, every nigger on dat place left. Dey sure done
+dat; an' old mars an' old mis', dey never had a hand left there on
+that great big place, an' all that ground layin' out.
+
+"De gov'ment seen to it dat all of de white folks had to make
+contracts wid de niggers dat stuck wid 'em, an' dey was sure strict
+'bout dat too. De white folks at first didn't want to make the
+contracts an' say dey wasn't gwine to. So de gov'ment filled de jail
+with 'em, an' after that every one make the contract.
+
+"When my race first got dey freedom an' begin to leave dey mars', a
+heap of de mars got ragin' mad an' just tore up truck. Dey say dey
+gwine kill every nigger dey find. Some of them did do dat very thing,
+Boss, sure enough. I'se tellin' you de truth. Dey shot niggers down by
+de hundreds. Dey jus' wasn't gwine let 'em enjoy dey freedom. Dat is
+de truth, Boss.
+
+"Atter I come back to de old home place from workin' for de army, it
+wasn't long 'fore I left dar an' git me er job with er sawmill an'
+worked for de sawmill peoples for about five years. One day I heered
+some niggers tellin' about er white man what done come in dar gittin'
+up er big lot of niggers to take to Arkansas. Dey was tellin' 'bout
+what a fine place it was in Arkansas, an' how rich de land is, an' dat
+de crops grow without working, an' dat de taters grow big as er
+watermelon an' you never have to plant 'em but de one time, an' all
+sich as dat. Well, I 'cided to come. I j'ined up with de man an' come
+to Phillips County in 1875. Er heap er niggers come from Georgia at de
+same time dat me an' Callie come. You know Callie, dats my old woman
+whats in de shack dar right now. Us first lived on Mr. Jim Bush's
+place over close to Barton. Us ain't been far off from dere ever since
+us first landed in dis county. Fact is, Boss, us ain't been outen de
+county since us first come here, an' us gwine be here now I know till
+de Lord call for us to come on home."
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+Name of interviewer: Watt McKinney
+Subject: Superstitious beliefs
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page, add page)
+
+This information given by: Tines Kendricks (C)
+Place of residence: Trenton, Arkansas
+Occupation: None
+Age: 104
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+There is an ancient and traditional belief among the Southern Negroes,
+especially the older ones, that the repeated and intermitted cries of
+a whippoorwill near a home in the early evenings of summer and
+occurring on successive days at or about the same time and location;
+or the appearance of a highly excited redbird, disturbed for no
+apparent reason, is indicative of some imminent disaster, usually
+thought to be the approaching death of some member of the family.
+
+Tines Kendricks, who says that he was born the slave of Arch Kendricks
+in Crawford County, Georgia, two hours before day on a certain Fourth
+of July, one hundred and four years ago, recalls several instances in
+his long and eventful life in which he contends the accuracy of these
+forecasts was borne out by subsequent occurrences. The most striking
+of these he says was the time his young master succumbed from the
+effect of a wound received at the first battle of Manassas after
+hovering between life and death for several days. The young master,
+Sam Kendricks, who was the only son of his parents, volunteered at the
+beginning of the War and was attached to the army in Virginia. He was
+a very impetuous, high-spirited young man and chafed much under the
+delay occasioned between the time of his enlistment and first battle,
+wanting to have the trouble over with and the difficulties settled
+which he honestly thought could be accomplished in the first
+engagement with that enemy for whom he held such profound contempt.
+Sam Kendricks, coming as he did from a long line of slave-owning
+forebears, was one of those Southerners who felt that it was theirs to
+command and the duty of others to obey. They would brook no
+interference with the established order and keenly resented the
+attitude and utterances of Northern press and spokesmen on the slavery
+question. Tines Kendricks recalls the time his young master took leave
+of his home and parents for the war and his remarks on departing that
+his neck was made to fit no halter and that he possessed no mite of
+fear for Yankee soldier or Yankee steel. Soon after the battle of
+Manassas, Arch Kendricks was advised that Sam had suffered a severe
+wound in the engagement. It was stated, however, that the wound was
+not expected to prove fatal. This sad news of what had befallen the
+young master was soon communicated throughout the entire length and
+breadth of the great plantation and in the early evening of that day
+Tines sitting in the door of his cabin in the slave quarters a short
+distance from the master's great house heard the cry of a whippoorwill
+and observed that the voice of this night bird seemed to arise from
+the dense hedge enclosing the spacious lawn in front of the home.
+Disturbed and filled with a sense of foreboding at this sound of the
+bird, he earnestly hoped and prayed that the cry would not be repeated
+the following evening, but to his great disappointment it was heard
+again and nearer the house than before. On each succeeding evening
+according to Tines Kendricks the call of the bird came clearly through
+the evening's stillness and each time he noticed that the cry came
+from a spot nearer the home until at last the bird seemed perched
+beneath the wide veranda and early on the morning following, a very
+highly excited redbird darted from tree to tree on the front lawn.
+The redbird continued these peculiar actions for several minutes after
+which it flew and came to rest on the roof of the old colonial mansion
+directly above the room formerly occupied by the young master. Tines
+was convinced now that the end had come for Sam Kendricks and that his
+approaching death had been foretold by the whippoorwill and that each
+evening as the bird approached nearer the house and uttered his night
+cry just so was the life of young Sam Kendricks slowly nearing its
+close and the actions of the redbird the following day was revealing
+evidence to Tines that the end had come to his young master which
+indeed it had as proven by a message the family received late in the
+morning of this same day.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Frank Kennedy,
+                    Holly Grove, Arkansas
+Age: 65 or 70?
+
+
+"My parents' name was Hannah and Charles Kennedy. They b'long to
+Master John Kennedy. I was raised round Aberdeen, Mississippi but they
+come in there after freedom. I heard em talk but I couldn't tell you
+much as where they come from. They said a young girl bout got her
+growth would auction off for more than any man. They used em for cooks
+and house women. I judge way they talked she be fifteen or sixteen
+years old. They brought $1,600 and $2,000. If they was scared up,
+where they been beat, they didn't sell off good. I knowed Master John
+Kennedy.
+
+"The Ku Klux come round but they didn't bother much. They would bother
+if you stole something. Another thing they made em stay close bout
+their own places and work. I don't know bout freedom.
+
+"I been farmin' and sawmillin' at Clarendon. I gets jobs I can do on
+the farms now. I got rheumatism so I can't get round. I had this
+trouble five years or longer now.
+
+"The times is worse, so many folks stealin' and killin'. The young
+folks don't work steady as they used to. Used to get figured out all
+you raised till now they refuse to work less en the money in sight.
+They don't work hard as I allers been workin'.
+
+"I got one girl married. I don't have no land nor home. I works for
+all I have yet.
+
+"I have voted--not lately. I think my color outer vote like the white
+folks do long as they do right. The women takin' the mens' places too
+much it pears like. But they may be honester. I don't know how it will
+be."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns
+                    800 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"When they first put me in the field, they put me and Viney to pick up
+brush and pile it, to pick up stumps, and when we got through with
+that, she worked on her mother's row and I worked on my aunt's row
+until we got large enough to have a row to ourselves. Me and Viney
+were the smallest children in the field and we had one row each. Some
+of the older people had two rows and picked on each row.
+
+"My birthday is on the fourth of November, and I am eighty-five years
+old. You can count back and see what year I was born in.
+
+
+Relatives
+
+"My mother's first child was her master's child. I was the second
+child but my father was Reuben Dortch. He belonged to Colonel Dortch.
+Colonel Dortch died in Princeton, Arkansas, Dallas County, about
+eighty-six miles from here. He died before the War. I never saw him.
+But he was my father's first master. He used to go and get goods, and
+he caught this fever they had then--I think it was cholera--and died.
+After Colonel Dortch died, his son-in-law, Archie Hays, became my
+father's second master. Were all with Hays when we were freed.
+
+"My father's father was a white man. He was named Wilson Rainey. I
+never did see him. My mother has said to me many a time that he was
+the meanest man in Dallas County. My father's mother was named Viney.
+That was her first name. I forget the last name. My mother's name was
+Martha Hays, and my grandmother's name on my mother's side was Sallie
+Hays. My maiden name was Adrianna Dortch.
+
+
+A Devoted Slave Husband
+
+"I have heard my mother tell many a time that there was a slave man
+who used to take his own dinner and carry it three or four miles to
+his wife. His wife belonged to a mean white man who wouldn't give them
+what they needed to eat. He done without his dinner in order that she
+might have enough. Where would you find a man to do that now? Nowadays
+they are taking the bread away from their wives and children and
+carrying it to some other woman.
+
+
+Patrollers
+
+"A Negro couldn't leave his master's place unless he had a pass from
+his master. If he didn't have a pass, they would whip him. My father
+was out once and was stopped by them. They struck him. When my father
+got back home, he told Colonel Dortch and Colonel Dortch went after
+them pateroles and laid the law down to them--told them that he was
+ready to kill 'em.
+
+"The pateroles got after a slave named Ben Holmes once and run him
+clean to our place. He got under the bed and hid. But they found him
+and dragged him out and beat him.
+
+
+Work
+
+"I had three aunts in the field. They could handle a plow and roll
+logs as well as any man. Trees would blow down and trees would have to
+be carried to a heap and burned.
+
+"I been whipped many a time by my mistress and overseer. I'd get
+behind with my work and he would come by and give me a lick with the
+bull whip he carried with him.
+
+"At first when the old folks cut wood, me and Viney would pick up
+chips and burn up brush. We had to pick dry peas in the fall after the
+crops had been gathered. We picked two large basketsful a day.
+
+"When we got larger we worked in the field picking cotton and pulling
+corn as high as we could reach. You had to pull the fodder first
+before you could pull the corn. When we had to come out of the field
+on account of rain, we would go to the corn crib and shuck corn if we
+didn't have some weaving to do. We got so we could weave and spin.
+When master caught us playing, he would set us to cutting jackets. He
+would give us each two or three switches and we would stand up and
+whip each other. I would go easy on Viney but she would try to cut me
+to pieces. She hit me so hard I would say, 'Yes suh, massa.' And she
+would say, 'Why you sayin' "Yes suh, massa," to me? I ain't doin'
+nothin' to you.'
+
+"My mother used to say that Lincoln went through the South as a beggar
+and found out everything. When he got back, he told the North how
+slavery was ruining the nation. He put different things before the
+South but they wouldn't listen to him. I heard that the South was the
+first one to fire a shot.
+
+"Lemme tell you how freedom came. Our master came out where we was
+grubbing the ground in front of the house. My father was already in
+Little Rock where they were trying to make a soldier out of him.
+Master came out and said to mother, 'Martha, they are saying you are
+free but that ain't goin' to las' long. You better stay here. Reuben
+is dead.'
+
+"Mother then commenced to fix up a plan to leave. She got the oxen
+yoked up twice, but when she went to hunt the yoke, she couldn't find
+it. Negroes were all going through every which way then. Peace was
+declared before she could get another chance. Word came then that the
+government would carry all the slaves where they wanted to go. Mother
+came to Little Rock in a government wagon.
+
+"She left Cordelia. Cordelia was her daughter by Archie Hays. Cordelia
+was supposed to join us when the government wagon came along but she
+went to sleep. One colored woman was coming to get in the wagon and
+her white folks caught her and made her go back. Them Yankees got off
+their horses and went over there and made them turn the woman loose
+and let her come on. They were rough and they took her on to Little
+Rock in the wagon.
+
+"The Yankees used to come looking for horses. One time Master Archie
+had sent the horses off by one of the colored slaves who was to stay
+at his wife's house and hide them in the thicket. During the night,
+mother heard Archie Hays hollering. She went out to see what was the
+matter. The Yankees had old Archie Hays out and had guns poked at his
+breast. He was hollering, 'No sir. I don't.' And mother came and said,
+'Reuben, get up and go tell them he don't know where the horses is.'
+Father got up and did a bold thing. He went out and said, 'Wait,
+gentlemen, he don't know where the horses is, but if you'll wait till
+tomorrow morning, he'll send a man to bring them in.' I don't know how
+they got word to him but he brought them in the next morning and the
+Yankees taken them off.
+
+"Once a Rebel fired a shot at a Yankee and in a few minutes, our place
+was alive with them. They were working like ants in a heap all over
+the place. They took chickens and everything on the place.
+
+Master Archie didn't have no sons large enough for the army. If he
+had, they would have killed him because they would have thought that
+he was harboring spies."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns is a sister to Charles Green Dortch. Cross
+reference; see his story.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: George Key,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 70 plus
+
+
+"I was born in Fayette County, Tennessee. My mother was Henrietta
+Hair. She was owned by David Hair. He had a gang of children. I was
+her only child. She married just after the surrender she said. She
+married Henry Key.
+
+"One thing I can tell you she told me so often. The Yankees come by
+and called her out of the cabin at the quarters. She was a brown girl.
+They was going out on a scout trip--to hunt and ravage over the
+country. They told her to get up her clothes, they would be by for
+her. She was grandma's and grandpa's owners' nurse girl. She told them
+and they sent her on to tell the white folks. They sent her clear off.
+She didn't want to leave. She said her master was plumb good to her
+and them all. They kept her hid out. The Yankees come slipping back to
+tole her off. They couldn't find her nowhere. They didn't ax about
+her. They was stealing her for a cook she thought. She couldn't cook
+to do no good she said. She wasn't married for a long time after then.
+She said she was scared nearly to death till they took her off and hid
+her.
+
+"I have voted but not for a long time. I'm too old to get about and
+keep too sick to go to the polls to vote. I got high blood pressure.
+
+"Times is fair. If I was a young man I would go to work. I can't
+grumble. Folks mighty nice to me. I keeps in line with my kin folks
+and men my age.
+
+"The young age folks don't understand me and I don't know their ways
+neither. They may be all right, but I don't know."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lucy Key,
+                    Forrest City, Arkansas
+Age: 70 plus
+
+
+"I was born in Marshall County, Mississippi. I seen Yankees go by in
+droves. I was big enough to recollect that. Old mis', Ellis Marshall's
+mother, named all the colored children on the place. All the white and
+colored children was named for somebody else in the family. Aunt Mary
+Marshall stayed in the house wid old mis'.
+
+"Old mis' had a polly parrot. That thing got bad 'bout telling on us.
+Old mis' give us a brushing. Her son was a bachelor. He lived there.
+He married a girl fourteen or fifteen years old and Lawrence Marshall
+is their son. His sister was in Texas. They said old man Marshall was
+so stingy he would cut a pea in two. Every time we'd go in the orchard
+old polly parrot tell on us. We'd eat the turning fruit. One day Aunt
+Mary (colored) scared polly with her dress and apron till he took bad
+off sick and died. Mr. Marshall was rough. If he'd found that out he'd
+'bout whooped Aunt Mary to death. He didn't find it out. He'd have
+crazy spells and they couldn't handle him. They would send for Wallace
+and Tite Marshall (colored men on his place). They was all could do
+anything wid 'em. He had plenty money and a big room full of meat all
+the time.
+
+"I recollect what we called after the War a 'Jim Crow.' It was a
+hairbrush that had brass or steel teeth like pins 'ceptin' it was
+blunt. It was that long, handle and all (about a foot long). They'd
+wash me and grease my legs with lard, keep them from looking ashy and
+rusty. Then they'd come after me with them old brushes and brush my
+hair. It mortally took skin, hair, and all.
+
+"The first shoe I ever wore had a brass toe. I danced all time when I
+was a child. We wore cotton dresses so strong. They would hang you if
+you got caught on 'em. We had one best dress.
+
+"One time I went along wid a colored girl to preaching. Her fellar
+walked home wid 'er. I was coming 'long behind. He helped her over the
+rail fence. I wouldn't let him help me. I was sorter bashful. He
+looked back and I was dangling. I got caught when I jumped. They got
+me loose. My homespun dress didn't tear.
+
+"I liked my papa the best. He was kind and never whooped us. He belong
+to Master Stamps on another place. He was seventy-five years old when
+he died.
+
+"I milked a drove of cows. They raised us on milk and they had a
+garden. I never et much meat. I went to school and they said meat
+would make you thick-headed so you couldn't learn.
+
+"I think papa was in the War. We cut sorghum cane with his sword what
+he fit wid.
+
+"Stamps was a teacher. He started a college before the War. It was a
+big white house and a boarding house for the scholars. He had a
+scholar they called Cooperwood. He rode. He would run us children.
+Mama went to Master Stamps and he stopped that. He was the teacher. I
+think that was toreckly after the War. Then we lived in the boarding
+house. Four or five families lived in that big old house. It had
+fifteen rooms. That was close to Marshall, Mississippi.
+
+"Me and the Norfleet children drove the old mule gin together. There
+was Mary, Nell, Grace. Miss Cora was the oldest. Miss Cora Marshall
+married the old bachelor I told you about. She didn't play much.
+
+"When the first yellow fever broke out, Master George Stamps sent papa
+to Colliersville from Germantown. The officers stayed there. While he
+was waiting for meat he would stay in the bottoms. He'd bring meat
+back. Master George had a great big heavy key to the smokehouse. He'd
+cut meat and give it out to his Negroes. That meat was smuggled from
+Memphis. He'd go in a two-horse wagon. I clem up and look through the
+log cracks at him cutting up the meat fer the hands on his place.
+
+"I had the rheumatism but I cured it. I cupped my knee. Put water in a
+cup, put a little coal oil (kerosene) on top, strike a match to it and
+slap the cup to my knee. It drawed a clear blister. I got it well and
+the rheumatism was gone. I used to rub my legs from my waist down'ards
+with mule water. They say that is mighty good for rheumatism. I don't
+have it no more.
+
+"No sir-ree-bob, I ain't never voted and I don't aim to long as I'm in
+my mind.
+
+"Times ain't hard as they was when I was coming on. (Another Negro
+woman says Aunt Lucy Key will wash or do lots of things and never take
+a cent of pay for it--ed.) Money is scarce but this generation don't
+know how to work. My husband gets relief 'cause he's sick and wore
+out. My nephew gives us these rooms to live in. He got money. (We saw
+a radio in his room and modern up-to-date furnishings--ed.) He is a
+good boy. I'm good to him as I can be. Seems like some folks getting
+richer every day, other folks getting worse off every day. Times look
+dark that way to me.
+
+"I been in Arkansas eight years. I tries to be friendly wid
+everybody."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Bernice Bowden.
+Person interviewed: Anna King (c)
+Home: 704 West Fifth, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 80
+
+
+"Yes honey, I was here in slavery times. I'se gittin' old too, honey.
+I was nine years old goin' on ten when the war ceasted. I remember
+when they was volunteerin'. I remember they said it wasn't goin' to be
+nothin' but a breakfus' spell.
+
+"My fust marster was Nichols Lee. You see I was born in slavery
+times--and I was sold away from my mother. My mother never did tell us
+nothin' 'bout our ages. My white people told me after freedom that I
+was 'bout nine or ten.
+
+"When the white chillun come of age they drawed for the colored folks.
+Marse Nichols Lee had a girl named Ann and she drawed me. She didn't
+keep me no time though, and the man what bought me was named Leo
+Andrew Whitley. He went to war and died before the war ceasted. Then I
+fell to his brother Jim Whitley. He was my last marster. I was with
+him when peace was declared. Yes mam, he was good to me. All my white
+folks mighty good to me. Co'se Jim Whitley's wife slap my jaws
+sometimes, but she never did take a stick to me.
+
+"Lord honey, its been so long I just can't remember much now. I'se
+gittin' old and forgitful. Heap a things I remember and heap a things
+slips from me and is gone.
+
+"Well honey, in slavery times, a heap of 'em didn't have good owners.
+When they wanted to have church services and keep old marster from
+hearin', they'd go out in the woods and turn the wash-pot upside down.
+You know that would take up all the sound.
+
+"I remember Adam Heath--he was called the meanest white man. I
+remember he bought a boy and you know his first marster was good and
+he wasn't used to bein' treated bad.
+
+One day he asked old Adam Heath for a chew of tobacco, so old Adam
+whipped him, and the boy ran away. But they caught him and put a bell
+on him. Yes mam, that was in slavery times. Honey, I had good owners.
+They didn't believe in beatin' their niggers.
+
+"You know my home was in North Carolina. I was bred and born in
+Johnson County.
+
+"I remember seein' the soldiers goin' to war, but I never seed no
+Yankee soldiers till after freedom.
+
+"When folks heard the Yankees was comin' they run and hide their
+stuff. One time they hide the meat in the attic, but the Yankees found
+it and loaded it in Everett Whitley's wife's surrey and took it away.
+She died just 'fore surrender.
+
+"And I remember 'nother time they went to the smokehouse and got
+something to eat and strewed the rest over the yard. Then they went in
+the house and jest ramshacked it.
+
+"My second marster never had no wife. He was courtin' a girl, but when
+the war come, he volunteered. Then he took sick and died at Manassas
+Gap. Yes'm, that's what they told me.
+
+"My furst marster had a whiskey still. Now let me see, he had three
+girls and one boy and they each had two slaves apiece. Ann Lee drawed
+me and my grandmother.
+
+"No mam, I never did go to school. You better _not_ go to school. You
+better not ever be caught with a book in your hand. Some of 'em
+slipped off and got a little learnin'. They'd get the old Blue Back
+book out. Heap of 'em got a little learnin', but I didn't.
+
+"When I fell to Jim Whitley's wife she kept me right in the house with
+her. Yes mam, she was one good mistis to me when I was a child. She
+certainly did feed me and clothe me. Yes mam!
+
+"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? Let me see, honey, if I can give you
+a guess. I been here about forty years. I remember they come to the
+old country (North Carolina) and say, if you come to Arkansas you wont
+even have to cook. They say the hogs walkin' round already barbecued.
+But you know I knowed better than that.
+
+"We come to John M. Gracie's plantation and some to Dr. Blunson
+(Brunson). I remember when we got off the boat Dr. Blunson was sittin'
+there and he said "Well, my crowd looks kinda puny and sickly, but I'm
+a doctor and I'll save 'em." I stayed there eight years. We had to pay
+our transportation which was fifty dollars, but they sure did give you
+plenty of somethin' to eat--yes mam!
+
+"No'm my hair ain't much white. My set o'folks don't get gray much,
+but I'm old enough to be white. I done a heap a hard work in my life.
+I hope clean up new ground and I tells folks I done everything 'cept
+Maul rails.
+
+"Lord honey, I don't know chile. I don't know _what_ to think, about
+this here younger generation. Now when they raised me up, I took care
+of myself and the white folks done took care of me.
+
+"Yes mam, honey, I seed the Ku Klux. I remember in North Carolina when
+the Ku Klux got so bad they had to send and get the United States
+soldiers. I remember one come and joined in with the Ku Klux till he
+found out who the head man was and then he turned 'em up and they
+carried 'em to a prison place called Gethsemane. No mam! They never
+come back. When they carried you to Gethsemane, you never come back.
+
+"I say the Lord blest me in my old age. Even though I can't see, I set
+here and praise the Lord and say, Lord, you abled me to walk and hear.
+Yes, honey, I'm sure glad you come. I'm proud you thought that much of
+me.
+
+"Good bye, and if you are ever passin' here again, stop and see me."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Anna King
+                    704 W. Fifth (rear), Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 82
+
+
+"I used to 'member lots but you know, my remembrance got short.
+
+"I was bred and born in Johnston County, North Carolina. I was sold
+away from my mother but after freedom I got back. I had a brother was
+sold just 'fore I was. My mother had two boys and three girls and my
+oldest sister was sold.
+
+"And then you know, in slavery times, when the white children got
+grown, their parents give 'em so many darkies. My young Missis drawed
+me.
+
+"My fust master was such a drinker. Named Lee. Lawd a mercy, I knowed
+his fust name but I can't think now. Young Lee, that was it.
+
+"He sold me, and Leo Andrew Whitley bought me. Don't know how
+much--all I know is I was sold.
+
+"After freedom I scrambled back to the old plantation and that's the
+way I found my mother.
+
+"My last master never married. He had what they called a northern
+trotter.
+
+"Wish I was able to get back to the old country and find some of my
+kin folks. If they ain't none of the old head livin', the young folks
+is. I got oceans of kin folks in Sampson County.
+
+"My husband was a preacher and he come to the old country from this
+here Arkansas. He always said he was going to bring me out to this
+country. He was always tellin' me 'bout Little Rock and Hot Springs.
+So I was anxious to see this country. So after he died and when they
+was emigratin' the folks here, I come. I 'member Dr. Blunson counted
+us out after we got off the boat and he said, 'Well, my crowd looks
+kinda sickly, but I'm a doctor and I'll save you.' Lawd, they
+certainly come a heap of 'em. When the train uncoupled at Memphis,
+some went to Texas, some to Mississippi, and some to Louisiana and
+Arkansas. People hollerin' 'Goodbye' made you feel right sad.
+
+"Some of 'em stayed in Memphis but I wouldn't stay 'cause dat's the
+meanest place in the world.
+
+"John M. Gracie had paid out his money for us and I believe in doin'
+what's right. That was a plantation as sure as you bawn."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Mose King,
+                    Lexa, Arkansas
+Age: 81
+
+
+"I was born in Richmond, Virginia. My master was Ephriam Hester. He
+had a wife and little boy. We called her mistress. I forgot their
+names. It's been so long ago.
+
+"My parents named Lizzie Johnson and Andrew Kent. I had seven sisters
+and there was two of us boys. When mistress died they sold mother and
+my eldest sister and divided the money. I don't know her master's name
+in Virginia. Mother was a cook at Ephriam Hester's. Sister died soon
+as they come 'way from Virginia. I heard her talk like she belong to
+Nathan Singleterry in Virginia. They put mother and Andrew Kent
+together. After the surrender she married Johnson. I heard her say my
+own father was 'cross the river in a free state.
+
+"There was two row of houses on the side of a road a quarter mile long
+and that is the place all the slaves lived. Ephriam Hester had one
+hundred acres of wheat. Mother was the head loom. He wasn't cruel but
+he let the overseers be hard. He said he let the overseers whoop 'em,
+that what he hired 'em for. They had a whooping stock. It was a table
+out in the open. They moved it about where they was working. They put
+the heads and hands and feet in it. I seen a heap of 'em get mighty
+bad whoopings. I was glad freedom come on fer that one reason. Long as
+he lived we had plenty to eat, plenty to wear. We had meal, hogs,
+goat, sheep and cows, molasses, corn hominy, garden stuff. We did have
+potatoes. I said garden stuff.
+
+"Ephriam Hester come to a hard fate. A crowd of cavalrymen from
+Vicksburg rode up. He was on his porch. He went in the house to his
+wife. One of the soldiers retched in his pocket and got something and
+throwed it up on top of the house. The house burned up and him and her
+burned up in it. The house was surrounded. That took place three miles
+this side of Natchez, Mississippi. They took all his fine stock, all
+the corn. They hauled it off. They took all the wagons. They sot all
+they didn't take on fire and let it burn up. They burnt the gin and
+some cotton. They burnt the loom house, the wheat house; they robbed
+the smokehouse and burned it. We never got nothing. We come purt nigh
+starving after then. After that round we had no use fer the Yankees. I
+was learned young two wrongs don't make a right. That was wrong. They
+done more wrong than that. I heard about it. We stayed till after
+freedom. It was about a year. It was hard times. Seemed longer. We
+went to another place after freedom. We never got a chance to get
+nothing. Nothing to get there.
+
+"In slavery times they had clog dances from one farm to another.
+Paddyrollers run 'em in, give them whoopings. They had big nigger
+hounds. They was no more of them after the War. The Ku Klux got to
+having trouble. They would put vines across the narrow roads. The
+horses run in and fell flat. The Ku Klux had to quit on that account.
+
+"We didn't know exactly when freedom was. I went to school at
+Shaffridge, two miles from Clarks store. That was what is Clarksdale,
+Mississippi now. He had a store, only store in town. Old man Clark run
+it. He was old bachelor and a all right fellow, I reckon. I thought
+so. I went to colored teachers five or six months. I learned in the
+Blue Back books. I stopped at about 'Baker (?)'.
+
+"I farmed all my life. I got my wife and married her in 1883. We got a
+colored preacher, Parson Ward. I had four children. They all dead but
+one. I got two lots and a house gone back to the state. I come to see
+'bout 'em today. I going to redeem 'em if I can. I made the money to
+buy it at the round house. I worked there ten or twelve years. I got
+two dollars ninety-eight cents a day. I hates to loose it. I have a
+hard time now to live, Miss.
+
+"I votes Republican mostly. I have voted on both sides. I tries to
+live like this. When in Rome, do as Romans. I want to be peaceable wid
+everybody.
+
+"The present times is hard. I can't get a bit of work. I tries. Work
+is hard fer some young folks to get yet.
+
+"I love to be around young folks. Fer as I know they do all right. The
+world looks nicer 'an it used to look. All I see wrong, times is
+hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Zillah Cross Peel
+Information given by: Aunt Susie King, Ex-slave.
+Residence: Cane Hill, Arkansas. Washington County.
+Age: about 93.
+
+
+Across the Town Branch, in what is dubbed "Tin-cup" lives one of the
+oldest ex-slaves in Washington county, "Aunt Susie" King, who was born
+at Cane Hill, Arkansas about 1844.
+
+"Aunt Susie" doesn't know just how old she is, but she thinks she is
+over ninety, just how much she doesn't know. Perhaps the most accurate
+way to get near her age would be go to the county records where one
+can find the following bill of sale:
+
+    "State of Arkansas, County of Washington, for and in
+    consideration of natural affection that I have for my
+    daughter, Rebecca Rich, living in the county aforesaid above
+    mentioned, and I do hereby give and bequath unto her one negro
+    woman named Sally and her children namely Sam, and Fill, her
+    lifetime thence to her children her lawful heirs forever and I
+    do warrant and forever defend said negro girl and her children
+    against all lawful claims whatsoever.
+
+    July, 1840.                           Tom Hinchea Barker,
+    Witness, J. Funkhouser.
+
+                                          Filed for record,
+                                          Feb. 16, 1841.
+
+When this bill of sale was read to "Aunt Susie" she said with great
+interest,
+
+"Yes'm, yes'm that sure was my Ma and my two brothers, Sam and Fill,
+then come a 'nother brother, Allan, and then Jack and then I'm next
+then my baby sister Milly Jane. Yes'm we's come 'bout every two
+years."
+
+"Yes'm, ole Missy was rich; she had lots of money, lots of lan'. Her
+girl, she jes' had one, married John Nunley, Mister Ab, he married
+Miss Ann Darnell, Mister Jack he married Miss Milly Holt, and Mister
+Calvin he married Miss Lacky Foster. Yes'm they lived all 'round 'bout
+us. Some at Rhea's Hill and some at Cane Hill," and to prove the
+keenness of this old slave's mind, as well as her accuracy, one need
+only to go to the county deed records where in 1849, Rebecca Rich
+deeded several 40 acres tracts of land to her sons, James, Calvin,
+William Jackson and Absaolum. This same deed record gives the names of
+the wives of these sons just as "Aunt Susie" named them. However, Miss
+Lacky Foster was "Kelika Foster."
+
+Then Aunt Susie started remembering:
+
+"Yes'm, my mother's name was Sally. She'd belonged to Mister Tom H.
+Barker and he gived her to Miss Becky, his daughter. I think of them
+all lots of days. I know a heap of folks that some times I forgot.
+When the War came, we lived in a big log house. We had a loom room
+back of the kitchen. I had a good mother. She wove some. We all wove
+mos' all of the blankets and carpets and counterpans and Old Missey
+she loved to sit down at the loom and weave some", with a gay chuckle
+Aunty Susie said, "then she'd let me weave an' Old Missey she'd say I
+takes her work and the loom away from her. I did love to weave, all
+them bright colores, blue and red and green and yellow. They made all
+the colors in the back yard in a big kettle, my mother, Sally did the
+colorin'".
+
+"We had a heap of company. The preacher came a lot of times and when
+the War come Ole Missey she say if we all go with her, she'd take us
+all to Texas. We's 'fraid of the Yankees; 'fraid they get us.
+
+"We went in wagons. Ole Missey in the carriage. We never took nothin'
+but a bed stead for Ole Missey. They was a great drove of we darkies.
+Part time we walked, part time we rode. We was on the road a long
+time. First place we stopped was Collins County, and stayed awhile I
+recollect. We had lots of horses too. Some white folks drove 'long and
+offered to take us away from Ole Missey but we wouldn't go. We didn't
+want to leave Ole Missey, she's good to us. Oh Lord, it would a nearly
+kilt her effen any body'd hit one of her darkies; I'd always stay in
+the house and took care of Ole Miss. She was pretty woman, had light
+hair. She was kinda punny tho, somethin' matter with her mos' all the
+time, headache or toothache or something'."
+
+"Mister Rich went down to the river swimmin' one time I heard, and got
+drowned."
+
+"Yes'm, they was good days fo' the War."
+
+"Yes'm we stayed in Texas until Peace was made. We was then at
+Sherman, Texas. Peace didn't make no difference with us. We was glad
+to be free, and we com'd back to Arkansas with Ole Missey. We didn't
+want to live down there. Me and my man, Charlie King, was married
+after the War, and we went to live on Mister Jim Moores place. Ole
+Miss giv'd my ma a cow. I made my first money in Texas, workin' for a
+woman and she giv'd me five dollars."
+
+"Yes'm after Peace the slaves all scattered 'bout."
+
+"The colored folks today lak a whole heap bein' like they was fo' the
+War. They's good darkies, and some aint so good." Me and my man had
+seven children all dead but two, Bob lives with me. I don't worry
+'bout food. We ain't come no ways starvin'. I have all I want to eat.
+Bob he works for Missus Wade every mornin' tendin' to her flowers and
+afternoons works for him self. She owns this house, lets us live in
+it. She's good all right, good woman."
+
+"I like flowers too, but ain't got no water, no more. Water's scarce.
+Someone turned off the hydrant."
+
+"I belong to the Baptist church a long while."
+
+"Do you know Gate-eye Fisher?" When I said "yes, I went down to talk
+to him last week," she said, "well, law me, Gate-eye ain't no fool.
+He's the best cook as ever struck a stove. He married my baby sister,
+Milly Jane's child. Harriet Lee Ann, she's my niece. She left him,
+said she'd never go back no more to him. She's somewhere over in
+Oklahoma."
+
+"And did you see Doc Flowers? Yes'm, I was mos' a mother to him.
+
+"One time my man and me heard a peckin' at the do'. We's eatin'
+supper. I went to the do' and there was Doc. He and his step-pa, Ole
+Uncle Ike, had a fight and Doc come to us and stayed 'bout three
+years. He started cryin'."
+
+"Yes'm my Pa and Ma had belonged to Mister John Barker, before he
+giv'd my Ma to Miss Becky, my Pa was a leather worker. He could make
+shoes, and boots and slippers."
+
+"Yes'm, Good bye. Come back again honey. Yes'm I'd like a little
+snuff--not the sweet kind. It makes my teeth feel better to have
+snuff. I ain't got much but snags, and snuff, a little mite helps
+them."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Kirk
+                    1910 W. Sixth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+
+
+"I been here ever since 1853--yes ma'm! Cose I 'member the war! I tell
+you I've seen them cannon balls goin' up just like a balloon. I wasn't
+big enough to work till peace was declared but they had my mammy and
+daddy under the lash. One good thing 'bout my white folks, they give
+the hands three months' schoolin' every year. My mammy and daddy got
+three months' schoolin' in the old country. Some said that was General
+Washington's proclamation, but some of 'em wouldn't hear to it. When
+peace was declared, some of the niggers had as good education as the
+white man. That was cause their owners had 'lowed it to 'em.
+
+"They used to put us in cells under the house so the Yankees couldn't
+get us. Old master's name was Sam Kirk and he had overseers and nigger
+dogs (bloodhounds) that didn't do nothin' but run them niggers.
+
+"I 'member one time when they say the Yankees was comin' all us
+chillun, boys and girls, white and black, got upon the fence and old
+master come out and say 'Get in your holes!'
+
+"The war went on four years. Them was turrible times. I don't never
+want to see no more war. Them that had plenty, time the regiment went
+by they didn't have nothin'. Old mistress had lots a turkeys and hogs
+and the Yankees just cleaned 'em out. Didn't have time to pick
+'em--just skinned 'em. They had a big camp 'bout as long as from here
+to town.
+
+"They burned up the big house as flat as this floor. They wasn't
+nothin' left but the chimneys. Oh the Yankees burned up plenty. They
+burned Raleigh and they burned Atlanta--that was the southern capital.
+I've seen the Yankees go right out in people's fields and make 'em
+take the horses out. Then they'd saddle 'em and ride right off.
+
+"General Grant had ten thousand nigger soldiers outside of the
+Irishmen and the Dutchmen. I know General Grant looked fearful when he
+come by. After surrender he had a corps pass through and notify the
+people that the war was over.
+
+"Abraham Lincoln was a war captain. He was a man that believed in
+right. He was seven feet four inches high.
+
+"I was born in North Carolina and I come here in 'sixty seven. I
+worked too!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Betty Krump,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: --
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Mother come to Helena, Arkansas from Lake Charles, Louisiana. I was
+born here since freedom. She had twelve children, raised us two. She
+jus' raised me en my sister. She lives down the street on the corner.
+She was a teacher here in Helena years and years. I married a doctor.
+I never had to teach long as he lived, then I was too old. I never
+keered 'bout readin' and books. I rather tomboy about. Then I set up
+housekeepin'. I don't know nothin' 'bout slavery. I know how they come
+here. Two boats named Tyler and Bragg. The Yankees took 'em up and
+brought 'em up to their camps to pay them to wait on them. They come.
+Before 'mancipation my mammy and daddy owned by the very same old
+fellar, Thomas Henry McNeil. He had a big two-story stone house and
+big plantation. Mother said she was a field hand. She ploughed. He
+treated 'em awful bad. He overworked 'em. Mother said she had to work
+when she was pregnant same as other times. She said the Yankees took
+the pantry house and cleaned it up. They broke in it. I'm so glad the
+Yankees come. They so pretty. I love 'em. Whah me? I can tell 'em by
+the way they talk and acts. You ain't none. You don't talk like 'em.
+You don't act like 'em. I watched you yeste'd'y. You don't walk like
+'em. You act like the rest of these southern women to me.
+
+"Mother said a gang of Yankees came to the quarters to haul the
+children off and they said, 'We are going to free you all. Come on.'
+She said, 'My husband in the field.' They sent for 'im. He come hard
+as he could. They loaded men and all on them two gunboats. The boat
+was anchored south of Tom Henry McNeill's plantation. He didn't know
+they was gone. When they got here old General Hindman had forty
+thousand back here in the hills. They fired in. The Yankees fired! The
+Yankees said they was goin' to drive 'em back and they scared 'em out
+of here and give folks that brought in them gunboat houses to live in.
+Mammy went to helping the Yankees. They paid her. That was 'fore
+freedom. I loves the Yankees. General Hindman's house was tore down up
+there to build that schoolhouse (high school). The Yankees said they
+was goin' to water their horses in the Mississippi River by twelve
+o'clock or take hell. I know my mammy and daddy wasn't skeered 'cause
+the Yankees taking keer of 'em and they was the ones had the cannons
+and gunboats too. I jus' love the Yankees fer freeing us. They run
+white folks outer the houses and put colored folks in 'em. Yankees had
+tents here. They fed the colored folks till little after 'mancipation.
+When the Yankees went off they been left to root hog er die. White
+folks been free all der lives. They got no need to be poor. I went to
+school to white teachers. They left here, folks didn't do 'em right.
+They set 'em off to theirselves. Wouldn't keep 'em, wouldn't walk
+'bout wid 'em. They wouldn't talk to 'em. The Yankees sont 'em down
+here to egercate us up wid you white folks. Colored folks do best
+anyhow wid black folks' children. I went to Miss Carted and to Mrs.
+Mason. They was a gang of 'em. They bo'ded at the hotel, one of the
+hotels kept 'em all. They stayed 'bout to theirselves. 'Course the
+white folks had schools, their own schools.
+
+"Ku Klux--They dressed up and come in at night, beat up the men 'bout
+here in Helena. Mammy washed and ironed here in Helena till she died.
+I never did do much of that kinder work. I been housekeeping purty
+near all my days.
+
+"Mammy was Fannie Thompson in Richmond, Virginia. She was took to New
+Orleans on a boat and sold. Sold in New Orleans. She took up wid
+Edmond Clark. Long as you been going to school don't you know folks
+didn't have no marryin' in slavery times? I knowed that. They never
+did marry and lived together all their lives. Preacher married
+me--colored preacher. My daddy, Edmond Clark, said McNeil got him at
+Kentucky.
+
+"I done told you 'nough. Now what are you going to give me? The
+gover'ment got so many folks doin' so much you can't tell what they
+after. Wish I was one of 'em.
+
+"The present times is tough. We ain't had no good times since dem
+banks broke her. Three of 'em. Folks can't get no credit. Times ain't
+lack dey used to be. No use talking 'bout this young generation. One
+day I come in my house from out of my flower garden. I fell to sleep
+an' I had $17.50 in little glass on the table to pay my insurance. It
+was gone when I got up. I put it in there when I lay down. I know it
+was there. It was broad open daytime. Folks steals and drinks whiskey
+and lives from hand to mouth now all the time. I sports my own self.
+Ain't nobody give me nothin' since the day I come here. I rents my
+houses and sells flowers."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+This old woman lives in among the white population and rents the house
+next to her own to a white family. The lady down at the corner store
+said she tells white people, the younger ones, to call her Mrs. Krump.
+She didn't pull that on me. She once told this white lady storekeeper
+to call her Mrs. No one told me about her, because the lady said they
+all know she is impudent talking. She is old, black, wealthy, and
+arrogant. I passed her house and spied her.
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkans Dist.]
+Name of Interviewer: Mrs. W. M. Ball
+Subject: Folk Tales.
+
+Information given by: Preston Kyles
+Place of Residence: 800 Block. Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark.
+Occupation: Minister. (Age) 81
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+One of the favorite folk songs sung to the children of a half century
+ago was "Run Nigger Run, or the Patty Roll Will Get You." Few of the
+children of today have ever heard this humorous ditty, and would,
+perhaps, be ignorant of its meaning. To the errant negro youths of
+slave times, however, this tune had a significant, and sometimes
+tragic, meaning. The "patty rolls" were guards hired by the
+plantations to keep the slaves from running away. The following story
+is told by an ex-slave:
+
+"When I wuz a boy, dere wuz lotsa Indians livin' about six miles frum
+de plantation on which I wuz a slave. De Indians allus held a big
+dance ever' few months, an' all de niggers would try to attend. On one
+ob dese osten'tious occasions about 50 of us niggers conceived de idea
+of goin', without gettin' permits frum de Mahster. As soon as it gets
+dark, we quietly slips outen de quarters, one by one, so as not to
+disturb de guards. Arrivin' at de dance, we jined de festivities wid a
+will. Late dat nite one ob de boys wuz goin' down to de spring fo' to
+get a drink ob water when he notice somethin' movin' in de bushes.
+Gettin' up closah, he look' again when--Lawd hab mersy! Patty rollers!
+A whole bunch ob 'em! Breathless, de nigger comes rushin' back, and
+broke de sad news. Dem niggers wuz scared 'mos' to death, 'cause dey
+knew it would mean 100 lashes for evah las' one ob dem effen dey got
+caught. After a hasty consultation, Sammy, de leader, suggested a plan
+which wuz agreed on. Goin' into de woods, we cuts several pieces of
+grape vine, and stretches it across de pathway, where we knowed de
+patty rollers would hab to come, tien' it to trees on both sides. One
+ob de niggers den starts down de trail whistlin' so as to 'tract de
+patty rollers 'tention, which he sho did, fo' here dey all cum,
+runnin' jus' as hard as dey could to keep dem niggers frum gettin'
+away. As de patty rollers hit de grape vine, stretched across de
+trail, dey jus' piles up in one big heap. While all dis commotion wuz
+goin' on, us niggers makes fo' de cotton fiel' nearby, and wends our
+way home. We hadn' no more'n got in bed, when de mahster begin
+knockin' on de door. "Jim", he yell, "Jim, open up de doah!" Jim gets
+up, and opens de doah, an de mahster, wid several more men, comes in
+de house. "Wheres all de niggers?" he asks. "Dey's all heah," Jim
+says. De boss walks slowly through de house, countin' de niggers, an'
+sho' nuf dey wuz all dere. "Mus' hab been Jim Dixon's negroes," he
+says finally.
+
+"Yes, suh, Cap'n, dey wuz a lot happen in dem times dat de mahsters
+didn't know nuthin' about."
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+[HW: Ex-slave, Texarkana Dist., 9/5/31]
+Name of Interviewer: Cecil Copeland
+Subject: Apparition and Will-o'-the-Wisp.
+Story--Information:
+
+Information given by: Preston Kyles / Occupation: Minister
+Place of Residence: 800 Block, Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark. (Age) 81
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+The negro race is peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations. Most any
+old negro can recall having had several experiences with "de spirits."
+Some of these apparitions were doubtless real, as the citizens during
+Reconstruction Days employed various methods in keeping the negro in
+subjection. The organizers of the Ku Klux Klan, shortly after the
+Civil War, recognized and capitalized on the superstitious nature of
+the negro. This weakness in their character doubtless prevented much
+bloodshed during this hectic period.
+
+The following is a story as told by a venerable ex-slave in regard to
+the "spirits":
+
+"One day, when I wuz a young man, me an' a nigger, by de name ov
+Henry, wuz huntin' in an' old field. In dem days bear, deer, turkey,
+and squirrels wuz plentiful an' 'twant long befo' we had kilt all we
+could carry. As we wuz startin' home some monstrous thing riz up right
+smack dab in front ov us, not more'n 100 feet away. I asked Henry:
+"Black Boy, does yo' see whut I see?" an' Henry say, "Nigger I hopes
+yo' don't see whut I see, 'cause dey ain't no such man." But dere it
+stood, wid its sleeves gently flappin' in de wind. Ovah 8 feet tall,
+it wuz, an' all dressed in white. I yells at it, "Whut does yo' want?"
+but it didn't say nuthin'. I yells some mo' but it jus' stands there,
+not movin' a finger. Grabbin' de gun, I takes careful aim an' cracks
+down on 'em, but still he don't move. Henry, thinkin' maybe I wuz too
+scared to shoot straight, say: "Nigger, gib me dat gun!" I gibs Henry
+de gun but it don't take but one shot to convince him dat he ain't
+shootin' at any mortal bein'. Throwin' down de gun, Henry say,
+"Nigger, lets get away frum dis place," which it sho' didn't take us
+long to do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Susa Lagrone
+                    25th and Texas Streets, Pine Bluff, Ark.
+Age: 79
+
+
+"I don't know exactly how old I am but I know I was here at surrender.
+I was born in Mississippi. I seen the soldiers after they come home.
+They camped right there at our gate.
+
+"I think--now I don't know, but I think I was bout six or seven when
+they surrendered. I went down to the gate with Miss Sally and the
+children. Old mistress' name was Sally Stanton. She was a widow woman.
+
+"I learned to knit durin' the war. They'd give me a task to do, so
+much to do a day, and then I'd have all evenin' to play.
+
+"My father was a mechanic. He laid brick and plaster. You know in them
+days they plastered the houses. He belonged to old man Frank Scott. He
+was such a good worker Mr. Scott would give him all the work he could
+after he was free. That was in Mississippi.
+
+"I went to school right smart after freedom. Fore freedom the white
+folks learned me my ABC's. My mistress was good and kind to me.
+
+"When we went down to the gate to see the soldiers, I heard Miss Judy
+say (she was old mistress' sister), I heard her say, 'Well, you let em
+beat you' and started cryin'. I cried too and mama said, 'What you
+cryin' for?' I said, 'Miss Judy's cryin'.' Mama said, 'You fool, you
+is _free_!' I didn't know what freedom was, but I know the soldiers
+did a lot of devilment. Had guards but they just run over them
+guards.
+
+"I think Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the people some land after
+they was free, but they didn't give em nothin'--just turned em loose.
+
+"Course we ought to be free--you know privilege is worth everything.
+
+"After surrender my mother stayed with old mistress till next year.
+She thought there wasn't nobody like my mother. When she got sick old
+mistress come six miles every day to see her and brought her things
+till she died.
+
+"My mother learned to weave and spin and after we was free the white
+folks give her the loom. I know I made a many a yard of cloth after
+surrender. My mother was a seamstress and she learned me how to sew.
+
+"I never did hire out--just worked at home. My mother had six boys and
+six girls and they're all dead but me and my sister.
+
+"Somebody told me I was twenty-five when I married. Had three
+children--all livin'.
+
+"I used to see the white folks lookin' at a map to see where the
+soldiers was fightin' and I used to wonder how they could tell just
+lookin' at that paper.
+
+"Old mistress said after freedom, 'Now, Susa, I don't want you to
+suffer for nothin.' I used to go up there and stay for weeks at a
+time.
+
+"I just got down with rheumatism here bout three or four years ago,
+and you know it goes hard with me--I always been used to workin' all
+my life."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Barney A. Laird
+                    Brinkley, (near Moroe) Arkansas
+Age: 79
+
+
+"I was born in Pinola County, Mississippi. I remembers one time
+soldiers come by on all black horses and had a bundle on one shoulder
+strapped around under the other arm. They wore blue jackets. Their
+horses was trained so they marched good as soldiers. They camped not
+far from our house. There was a long string of soldiers. It took them
+a long time to go by.
+
+"One time they had a dinner in a sorter grove on a neighbor's farm.
+All us children went up there to see if they left anything. We et up
+the scraps. I say it was good eating. The fust Yankee crackers I ever
+et was there that day. They was fine for a fact.
+
+"Our owner was Dr. Laird. When I come to know anything his wife was
+dead but his married daughter lived with him. Her husband's name was
+John Balentine. My parents worked in the field and I stayed up at the
+house with my old grandpa and grandma. Their house was close to the
+white folks. Our houses was about on the farm. Some of the houses was
+pole houses, some hewed out. The fireplace in our house burned long
+wood and the room what had the fireplace was a great big room. We had
+shutters at the windows. The houses was open but pretty stout and
+good. We had plenty wood.
+
+"My parents both lived on the same farm. They had seven children. My
+mother's name was Caroline and my father's name was Ware A. Laird.
+Mother never told us if she was ever sold. Father never was sold. He
+never talked much.
+
+"One thing I know is: My wife's pa was sold, Squire Lester, so him and
+Adeline could be on the same farm. Them my wife's parents. They never
+put him on no block, jes' told him to get his belongings and where to
+go. I never seen nobody sold.
+
+"Dr. Laird was good to his darkies. My whole family stayed on his
+place till he died. I don't know how long. I don't know if I ever
+knowed when freedom come on. We had a hard time durin' the Civil War.
+That why I hate to hear about war. The soldiers tore down houses,
+burnt houses. They burnt up Dr. Laird's gin. I think it burned some
+cotton. They tore down fences and hauled em off to make fires at their
+camps. That let the stock out what they maybe did leave an old snag.
+Fust cussin' I ever heard done was one of them soldiers. I don't know
+what about but he was going at it. I stopped to hear what he saying. I
+never heard nobody cuss so much over nothing as ever I found out. They
+had cleaned us out. We didn't have much to eat nor wear then. We did
+have foe then from what they told us. The old folks got took care of.
+That don't happen no more.
+
+"I never seen a Ku Klux. I heard tell of them all my life.
+
+"Dr. Laird was old man and John Balentine was a peaceable man. He
+wanted his farm run peaceable. He was kind as could be.
+
+"I been farming all my life. I still be doing it. I do all I can. It
+is the young boys' place to take the plough handle--the making a man
+out of their young strength. They don't want to do it. Some do and
+some won't stay on the farm. Go to town is the cry. I got a wife and
+two boys. They got families. They are on the farm. I tell them to
+stay.
+
+"I get help from the Welfare if I'm able to come get what they give
+me.
+
+"I used to pay my taxes and vote. Now if I have a dollar I have to buy
+something to eat. Us darkies satisfied with the best the white folks
+can do. Darkies good workers but poor managers is been the way I seen
+it all my life. One thing we don't want no wars."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Arey Lamar
+                    612 E. 14th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"Yes'm, I was born in slavery days but I don't know what day. But you
+know I been hustlin' 'round here a long time.
+
+"My mother said I was a great big girl when surrender come.
+
+"I was born in Greenville, Mississippi but I was raised down at Lake
+Dick.
+
+"I was a servant in Captain Will Nichols' house. I got a cup here now
+that was Captain Nichols' cup. Now that was away back there. That's a
+slavery time cup. After the handle got broke my mother used it for her
+coffee cup.
+
+"My mother's name was Jane Condray. After everything was free, a lot
+of us emigrated from the old country to Arkansas. When we come here we
+come through Memphis and I know I saw a pair of red shoes and cried
+for mama to buy 'em for me, but she wouldn't do it.
+
+"After I was grown and livin' in Little Rock, I bought me a pair of
+red shoes. I know I wore 'em once and I got ashamed of 'em and blacked
+'em.
+
+"My brother run away when they was goin' to have that Baxter-Brooks
+War and ain't been seen since.
+
+"I was the oldest girl and never did get a education, and I hate it. I
+learned to work though.
+
+"I don't know 'bout this younger generation. It looks like they're
+puttin' the old folks in the background. But I think it's the old
+christian people is holdin' the world together today."
+
+
+
+
+Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson.
+Person interviewed: Solomon Lambert,
+                    Holly Grove, Ark., R.F.D.
+Age: 89
+Subject: EX-SLAVERY
+Story:
+
+
+"My parents belong to Jordon and Judy Lambert. They (the Jordon
+family) had a big family. They never was sold. I heard 'em say that.
+They hired their slaves out. Some was hired fer a year. From New Year
+day to next New Year day. That was a busy day. That was the day to set
+in workin' overseers and ridin' bosses set in on New Year day. My
+parents' name was Fannie and Ben Lambert. They had eight children.
+
+"How did they marry? They say they jump the broomstick together! But
+they had brush brooms so I reckon that whut they jumped. Think the
+moster and mistress jes havin' a little fun outen it then. The brooms
+the sweep the floor was sage grass cured like hay. It grows four or
+five feet tall. They wrap it with string and use that for a handle.
+(Illustration-- [TR: not finished] The way they married the man ask
+his moster then ask her moster. If they agree it be all right. One of
+'em would 'nounce it 'fore all the rest of the folks up at the house
+and some times they have ale and cake. If the man want a girl and ther
+be another man on that place wanted a wife the mosters would swop the
+women mostly. Then one announce they married. That what they call a
+double weddin'. Some got passes go see their wife and family 'bout
+every Sunday and some other times like Fourth er July. They have a
+week ob rest when they lay by the crops and have some time not so busy
+to visit Christmas.
+
+"I never seen no Ku Klux. There was Jay Hawkers. They was folks on
+neither side jess goin' round, robbin' and stealin', money, silver,
+stock or anything else they wanted. We had a prutty good time we have
+all the hands on our place at some house and dance. We made our music.
+Music is natur'l wid our color. They most all had a juice (Jew's)
+harp. They make the fiddle and banjo. White folks had big times too.
+They had mo big gatherins than they have now. They send me to Indian
+Bay once or twice a week to get the mail. I had no money. They give my
+father little money long and give him some 'bout Christmas. White
+folks send their darkies wid a order to buy things. I never seen a big
+town till I started on that run to Texas. They took the men 450 miles
+to Indian Nation to make a crop. We went in May and came back in
+October. They hired us out. Mr. Jo Lambert and Mr. Beasley took us.
+One of 'em come back and got us. That kept us from goin' to war. They
+left the women, children and old men, too old fer war.
+
+"How'd I know 'bout war? That was the big thing they talk 'bout. See
+'em. The first I seen was when I was shuckin' corn at the corn pin
+(crib) a man come up in gray clothes. (He was a spy). The way he talk
+you think he a southern man 'cept his speech was hard and short. I
+noticed that to begin wid. They thought other rebels in the corn pin
+but they wasn't. Wasn't nobody out there but me. Then here come a man
+in blue uniform. After while here come the regiment. It did scare me.
+Bob and Tom (white boys) Lambert gone to war then. They fooled round a
+while then they galloped off. I show was glad when the last man rid
+off!
+
+Moster Lambert then hid the slaves in the bottoms. We carried
+provisions and they sent more'long. We stay two or three days or a
+week when they hear a regiment comin' through or hear 'bout a scoutin
+gang comin' through. They would come one road and go back another
+road. We didn't care if they hid us. We hear the guns. We didn't
+wanter go down there. That was white man's war. In 1862 and 1863 they
+slipped off every man and one woman to Helena. I was yokin' up oxen.
+Man come up in rebel clothes. He was a spy. I thought I was gone then
+but and a guard whut I didn't see till he left went on. I dodged round
+till one day I had to get off to mill. The Yankees run up on me and
+took me on. I was fifteen years old. I was mustered in August and let
+out in 1864 when it was over. I was in the Yankee army 14 months. They
+told me when I left I made a good soldier. I was with the standing
+army at Helena. They had a battle before I went in. I heard them say.
+You could tell that from the roar and cannons. They had it when I was
+in Texas. I wasn't in a battle. The Yankees begin to get slim then
+they made the darkies fill up and put them in front. I heard 'em say
+they had one mighty big battle at Helena. I had to drill and guard the
+camps and guard at the pickets (roads into Helena). They never let me
+go scoutin'. I walked home from the army. I was glad to get out. I
+expected to get shot 'bout all the time. I aint seen but mighty little
+difference since freedom. I went back and stayed 45 years on the
+Lambert place. I moved to Duncan. Moster died foe the Civil War. Some
+men raised dogs-hounds. If something got wrong they go get the dogs
+and use 'em. If some of the slaves try to run off they hunt them with
+the dogs. It was a big loss when a hand run off they couldn't ford
+that thing. They whoop 'em mostly fer stealin'. They trust 'em in
+everything then they whoop 'em if they steal. They know it wrong.
+Course they did. The worse thing I ever seen in slavery was when we
+went to Texas we camped close to Camden. Camden, Arkansas! On the way
+down there we passed by a big house, some kind. I seen mighty little
+of it but a big yard was pailened in. It was tall and fixed so they
+couldn't get out. They opened the big gate and let us see. It was full
+of darkies. All sizes. All ages. That was a _Nigger Trader Yard_ the
+worst thing I ever seen or heard tell of in my life. I heard 'em say
+they would cry 'em off certain times but you could buy one or two any
+time jes by agreement. I nearly fell out wid slavery then. I studied
+'bout that heap since then. I never seen no cruelty if a man work and
+do right on my moster's place he be honored by both black and white.
+Foe moster died I was 9 year old, I heard him say I valued at $900.00.
+I never was sold.
+
+"When I was small I minded the calves when they milk, pick up chips to
+dry fer to start fires, then I picked up nuts, helped feed the stock,
+learned all I could how to do things 'bout the place. We thought we
+owned the place. I was happy as a bird. I didn't know no better than
+it was mine. All the home I ever knowed. I tell you it was a good
+home. Good as ever had since. It was thiser way yo mama's home is your
+home. Well my moster's home was my home like dat.
+
+"We et up at the house in the kitchen. We eat at the darkey houses. It
+make no diffurence--one house clean as the other. It haft to be so.
+They would whoop you foe your nasty habits quick as anything and
+quicker. Had plenty clothes and plenty to eat. Folk's clothes made
+outer more lastin' cloth than now. They last longer and didn't always
+be gettin' more new ones. They washed down at the spring. The little
+darkies get in (tubs) soon as they hang out the clothes on the ropes
+and bushes. The suds be warm, little darkies race to get washed. Folks
+raced to get through jobs then and have fun all time.
+
+"Foe I jined the Yankees I had hoed and I had picked cotton. Moster
+Lambert didn't work the little darkies hard to to stunt them. See how
+big I am? I been well cared fur and done a sight er work if it piled
+up so it could be seen.
+
+(Solomon Lambert is a large well proportioned negro.) In 1870 the
+railroad come in here by Holly Grove. That the first I ever seen. The
+first cars. They was small.
+
+"I never knowd I oughter recollect what all they talked but she said
+they both (mother and father) come from Kentucky to Tennessee, then to
+Arkansas in wagons and on boats too I recken. The Lamberts brought
+them from Kentucky. For show I can't tell you no more 'bout them. I
+heard 'em say they landed at the Bay (Indian Bay).
+
+"Fine reports went out if you jin the army whut all you would get. I
+didn't want to be there. I know whut I get soon as ever I got way from
+them. Course I was goin' back. I had no other place to go. The
+government give out rations at Indian Bay after the war. I didn't need
+none. I got plenty to eat. Two or three of us colored folks paid Mr.
+Lowe $1.00 a month to teach us at night. We learned to read and
+calculate better. I learned to write. We stuck to it right smart
+while.
+
+"I been married twice. Joe Yancey (white) married me to my first wife
+at the white folks house. The last time Joe Lambert (white) married me
+in the church. I had 2 boys they dead now and 1 girl. She is living.
+
+During slavery I had a cart I drove a little mule to. I took a barrel
+of water to the field. I got it at the well. I put it close by in the
+shade of a tree. Trees was plentiful! Then I took the breakfast and
+dinner in my cart. I done whatever come to my lot in Indian Nation.
+After the war I made a plowhand. "_Say there_, _from 1864 to 1937 Sol
+Lambert farmed._" Course I hauled and cut wood, but my job is farmin'.
+I share croppe. I worked fer 1/3 and 1/4 and I have rented. Farmin' is
+my talent. That whar all the darkey belong. He is made so. He can
+stand the sun and he needs meat to eat. That is where the meat grows.
+
+"I got chickens and a garden. I didn't get the pigs I spoke fer. I got
+a fine cow. I got a house--10-1/2 acres of ground. That is all I can
+look after. I caint get 'bout much. I rid on a wagon (to town) my mare
+is sick I wouldn't work her. I got a buggy. Good nough fer my ridin' I
+don't come to town much. I never did.
+
+I get a Federal soldier's pension. I tell you 'bout it. White folks
+tole me 'bout it and hope me see 'bout gettin' it. I'm mighty proud of
+it. It is a good support for me in my old helpless days. I'm mighty
+thankful for it. I'm glad you sent me word to come here I love to help
+folks. They so good to me.
+
+"I vote a Republican ticket. I don't vote. I did vote when I was 21
+years old. It was stylish then and I voted some since then along. I
+don't bother with votin' and I don't know nuthin 'bout how it is done
+now. I tried to run my farm and let them hired run the governmint. I
+knowed my job like he knowed his job.
+
+I come back to tell you one other thing. My Captain was Edward
+Boncrow.
+
+"I told you all I know 'bout slavery less you ask me 'bout somethin' I
+might answer: We ask if we could go to white church and they tell us
+they wanted certain ones to go today so they could fix up. It was
+after the war new churches and schools sprung up. Not fast then.
+
+Prices of slaves run from $1600 to $2000 fer grown to middle age. Old
+ones sold low, so did young ones. $1600 was a slow bid. That is whut I
+heard.
+
+
+
+
+Name of Interviewer: Martin-Barker
+Subject: Ex-Slave
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page)
+
+This information given by: Frank Larkin
+Place of Residence: RFD #1--Bx. 73
+Age --
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+I was born a slave, my owner was Mr. Rhodes of Virginia. On a large
+plantation, my white folks gave a big to do, and served wine. Had corn
+shuckings. Swapped help around harvesting time. I was sold when 6 or 7
+years old. Sold to highest bidder. First marster gave my mother to his
+white daughter and let her keep me.
+
+I was raised as a house boy. I was always a mean boy. When I was sold
+I split another boys head open with an axe. Then I runned off. They
+caught me with blood hounds. My master whipped me with a cowhide whip.
+He made me take my clothes off and tied me to a tree. He would use the
+whip and then take a drink out of a jug and rest awhile, then he would
+whip me again.
+
+Sometimes we would set up until midnight pickin' wool. I would get so
+sleepy, couldn't hardly pick de wool.
+
+I hung up my stocking at Christmas to get gifts.
+
+When we left de plantation, we had to get a pass to go from one
+plantation to another.
+
+We went to church, sat on de back seat of the white folks church. It
+was a Baptist. Baptized in pool. White preacher said: "Obey your
+master."
+
+When I came to Arkanansas, I was sold to Mr. Larkin.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
+                    1126 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 77
+
+
+"Yes ma'm, I was born in slavery times, right about 1860. I was bred
+and born in Virginia--belonged to a man named Rhodes. When I was a
+little fellow, me and my mother was sold separate. My mother was sent
+to Texas and a man named Larkin bought me.
+
+"I member when people was put upon the block and sold. Man and wife
+might go together and might not. Yes ma'm, they sho did separate
+mother and childen.
+
+"Take a little chile, they would be worth a thousand dollars. Why old
+master would just go crazy over a little boy. They knowed what they
+would be worth when they was grown, and then they kept em busy.
+
+"I can't remember no big sight in Virginia but I remember when the
+hounds would run em. Some of the colored folks had mighty rough
+owners.
+
+"I remember when the Yankees come and took the best hoss my old boss
+had and left old crippled hoss with the foot evil.
+
+"And they'd get up in a tree with a spyglass and find where old boss
+had his cotton hid, come down and go straight and burn it and the corn
+crib and take what meat they wanted and then burn the smoke house.
+Yes'm, I remember all that. I tell you them Yankees was mean. Used to
+shake old mistress and try to make her tell where the money was hid.
+If you had a fat cow, just shoot her down and cook what they wanted.
+My old boss went to the bottoms and hid. Tried to make old mistress
+tell where he was.
+
+"Not all the old bosses was alike. Some fed good and some didn't. But
+they clothed em good--heavy cloth. Old man Larkin was pretty good man.
+We got biscuits every Sunday morning, other times got shorts. People
+was really healthier then.
+
+"I was brought up to work. The biggest trainin' we got was the boss
+told us to go there and come here and we learned to do as we was told.
+People worked in them days. A deal of em that won't work now.
+
+"During slavery days, colored folks had to go to the same church as
+the white folks and sit in the back.
+
+"My father died a long time ago. I don't remember anything bout him
+and I never did see my mother any more after she was sold.
+
+"After the war, old boss brought me to Arkansas when I was bout twelve
+years old. Biggest education I got, sit down with my old boss and he'd
+make me learn the alphabet. In those times they used the old Blue Back
+Speller.
+
+"After we come to Arkansas I worked a great deal on the farm.
+Farmin'--that was my trade. I staid with him four or five years. He
+paid me for my work.
+
+"Well, I hope we'll never have another war, we don't need it.
+
+"I never had trouble votin' but one time. They was havin' a big row
+between the parties and didn't want us to vote unless we voted
+democratic, but I voted all right. I believe every citizen ought to
+have the right to vote. I believe in people havin' the right what
+belongs to em.
+
+"I'm the father of thirteen childen by one woman--seven living
+some_where_, but they ain't no service to me.
+
+"Younger people not takin' time to study things. They get a little
+education and think they can do anything and get by with it. And
+there's a lot of em down here on this Cummins farm now."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
+                    618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I
+was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.
+
+"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first
+old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we
+had to take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I
+was somewhere between seven and eight years old.
+
+"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to
+Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.
+
+"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a
+pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it
+'fore we went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh,
+yes'm.
+
+"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and
+he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a
+cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like
+I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he
+never hit me nary a lick.
+
+"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up
+brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever'
+woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing--shoes
+and all.
+
+"Them Yankees sure did bad--burned up the cotton and the corn. I seen
+one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all
+around; directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that
+cotton as a bird to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up
+everything. I was a little scared of 'em but they said they wasn't
+goin' to hurt us. Old master had done left home and gone to the woods.
+It was enough to scare you--all them guns stacked up and bayonets that
+long and just as keen. Come in and have old missis cook for 'em.
+Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the colored folks and
+maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything; try to
+make her tell where the money was though.
+
+"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin'
+and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em
+stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed
+there after we was freed 'bout two years. They took care of me; I was
+raised motherless.
+
+"I farmed all my life. Never done public work two weeks in my life.
+Don't know what it is.
+
+"Old master had them blue back spellers and 'fore freedom sometimes
+he'd make us learn our ABC's.
+
+"And he'd let you go to church too. He'd ask if you got 'ligion and
+say, 'Now, when the preacher ask you, go up and give him your hand and
+then go to the back.' In them days, didn't have any but the white
+folks' church. But I was pretty rough in them days and I didn't j'ine.
+
+"But I tell you, you'd better not leave the plantation without a pass
+or them paddyrollers would make you shout. If they kotch you and you
+didn't have a pass, a whippin' took place right there.
+
+"Oh Lord, that's been a long time. I sits here sometimes and looks
+back and think it's been a long time, but I'm still livin'.
+
+"I've always tried to keep out of trouble. 'Co'se I've had some pretty
+tough times. I ain't never been 'rested fer nothin'. I ain't never
+been inside of a jail house. I've had some kin folks in there though.
+
+"I've been a preacher forty years. Don't preach much now. My lungs
+done got decayed and I can't hold up. Some people thinks preachin' is
+an easy thing but it's not.
+
+"Prettiest thing I ever saw when the Yankees was travelin' was the
+drums and kettledrums and them horses. It was the prettiest sight I
+ever saw. Them horses knowed their business, too. You couldn't go up
+to 'em either. They had gold bits in their mouths and looked like
+their bridles was covered with gold. And Yankees sittin' up there with
+a sword.
+
+"Old boss had a fine saddle horse and you know the Yankees had a old
+horse with the footevil and you know they turned him loose and took
+old boss's saddle horse. He didn't know it though; he was in the
+woods.
+
+"I believe there is people that can give you good luck. I know a woman
+that told me that I was goin' to have some good luck and it worked
+just like she said. She told us I would be the onliest man on the
+place that would pay out my mule and sure 'nough I was. I cleared
+forty dollars outside my mule and my corn. She said I was born to be
+lucky. Told me they would be lots of people work agin me but it
+wouldn't do no good."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: William Lattimore
+                    606 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"Yes'm I was a slave--I was born in 1859 in Mississippi. During the
+war I wasn't grown but I can remember when the Yankee soldiers come to
+Canton, Mississippi. We was sittin' out in the yard and the white
+folks was on the porch when they was bombardin' Jackson. We could hear
+the cannons. The white people said the Yankees was tryin' to whip the
+rebellion and set the niggers free. When they got done I didn't know
+what had happened but I remember the colored people packed up and we
+all went to Vicksburg. My father ran off and jined the Yankee army. He
+was in Colonel Zeigler's regiment in the infantry. I knowed General
+Grant when I seed him. I know when Abraham Lincoln died the soldiers
+(Yankees) all wore that black band around their arms.
+
+"After my father was mustered out we went to Warren County,
+Mississippi to live. He worked on the halves with a schoolteacher
+named Mr. Hannum. He said he was my godfather.
+
+"One time after the war Mr. Lattimore came and wanted my father to
+live with him but I didn't want him to because before the surrender
+old master whipped my father over the head with a walking stick 'cause
+he stayed too long and I was afraid he would whip him again.
+
+"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes ma'm I voted. I don't remember who I
+voted for first--my 'membrance don't serve me--I ain't got that fresh
+enough in my memory. I served eight years as Justice of the Peace
+after I come to Arkansas. I remember one time they put one colored man
+in office and I said that's pluckin' before it is ripe. We elected a
+colored sheriff in Warren County once. The white men went on his bond,
+but after awhile the Ku Klux compelled them to get off and then he
+couldn't make bond. He appealed to the citizens to let him stay in
+office without bond but they wouldn't do it. When a man is trying to
+get elected they promise a lot of things but afterwards they is just
+like a duck--they swim off on the other side.
+
+"I went to school after freedom and kept a goin' till I was married. I
+was a school director when I was eighteen. I didn't have any children
+and the superintendent who was very rigid and strict said 'Boy you is
+not even a patron of the school.' But he let me serve. I used to visit
+the school 'bout twice a week and if the teacher was not doin' right,
+I sure did lift my voice against it.
+
+"I lived in Chicot County when I first come to Arkansas and when I
+moved to Jefferson County, Judge Harry E. Cook sent my reputation up
+here. I ain't never peeped into a jailhouse or had handcuffs on these
+hands.
+
+"We've got to do something 'bout this younger generation. You never
+saw anything sicker. They is degenerating.
+
+"I hold up my right hand, swear to uphold the Constitution and
+preserve the flag and I don't think justice is being done when they
+won't let the colored folks vote. We'd like to harmonize things here.
+God made us all and said 'You is my chillun.'"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Bessie Lawsom,
+                    Helena, Arkansas
+Age: 76
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia. My mama was brought from Virginia to one of
+the Carolina states, then to Georgia. She was sold twice. I don't
+recollect but one of her masters. I heard her speak of Master
+Bracknell. His wife, now I remember her well. She nursed me. I was
+sickly and they needed her to work in the crop so bad. She done had a
+baby leetle older than I was, so I nursed one breast and Jim the
+other. She raised me and Jim together. Mama was name Sallie and papa
+Mathew Bracknell. They called him Mat Bracknell. I don't know my
+master's name. They had other children.
+
+"Me and Jim dug wells out in the yard and buried all the little ducks
+and chickens and made graves. We had a regular burying ground we made.
+They treated us pretty good as fur as I knowed. I never heard mama
+complain. She lived till I was forty years old. Papa died a few years
+after freedom. He had typhoid fever. He was great to fish. I believe
+now he got some bad water to drink out fishing. There was six of us
+and three half children. I'm the onliest one living as I knows of. One
+sister died in 1923 in Atlanta. She come to see me. She lived with big
+rich folks there. She was a white man's girl. She never had so much
+bad luck as we dark skin children the way it was. My papa had to go to
+war with some of Master Bracknell's kin folks, maybe his wife's kin
+folks, and they took him to wait on them at the battle-fields. Some
+soldiers camped by at the last of the war. They stole her out. She
+went to take something to a sick widow woman for old mistress. She
+never got back for a week. She said she was so scared and one day when
+her man, the man that claimed her, went off on a scout trip she asked
+a man, seemed to be a big boss, could she go to that thicket and get
+some black gum toothbrushes. He let her ride a little old broken down
+horse out there. She had a bridle but she was bare back. She come home
+through the pasture and one of the colored boys took the horse back
+nearly to the camps and turned him loose. 'Fo'e my own papa got back
+she had a white chile. Master Bracknell was proud of her. Papa didn't
+make no difference in her and his children. After the War he bought a
+whole bolt of cloth when he went to town. Mama would make us all a
+dress alike. The Yankees whooped mama at their camp. She said she was
+afraid to try to get away and that come in her mind. Old mistress
+thought that widow woman was keeping her to wait on her and take care
+of her small children. She wasn't uneasy and they took care of me.
+
+"I don't recollect freedom. I heard mama say a drove come by and ask
+her to come go to Atlanta; they said Yankees give 'em Atlanta. She
+said she knowed if she went off papa wouldn't know where she was. She
+told 'em she had two young children she couldn't leave. They went on.
+She told old mistress and she said she done right not to go.
+
+"The Yankees stole mama's feather bed. Old mistress had great big high
+feather beds and big pillows. Mama had a bed in a shed room open out
+on the back piazza. They put them big beds across their horses and
+some took pillows and down the road they went. It was cold and the
+ground froze. They made cotton beds then and the Yankees done got all
+the geese and chickens. They nearly starved. The Yankees took all the
+cows and stock.
+
+"Master Bracknell was cripple. He had a store at Cross Roads. It was
+twenty-five miles from Marietta, Georgia. They never troubled him like
+they did old mistress. She was scared of them. She knowed if they come
+and caught her gone they would set fire to the house. No, they never
+burned nothing on our place but they did some in sight. I can remember
+seeing big fires about at night and day time too.
+
+"We lived on Master Bracknell's place till I was eight years old and
+my sister five. We come to South, Alabama, then to Mississippi and
+then up the river to Helena. I married in Jackson, Mississippi. A
+white boy married us. We lived on his place and he was going to
+preach. He wasn't a preacher then. Richard Moore was his name. It took
+him several weeks to learn what to say. He practiced on us. He thought
+a heap of me and he ask Jesse if he could marry us. He brought us a
+big fine cake his mother cooked for us when he come. My husband named
+Jesse Lawsom. He was raised in Louisiana. We lived together till he
+died. My mother went blind before she died. His mother lived there,
+then we took care of them and after he died his mother lived with me.
+Now I lives with this niece here some and my daughter in Jackson. I
+had fourteen children. I just got one left and grandchildren I go to
+see. I make the rounds. Some of 'em good and some of them ain't no
+account at tall.
+
+"I used to take advice. They get up and leave the place. They don't
+want old folks to advise 'em. If they can't get their price they sit
+around and go hungry. They won't work for what I used to be glad to
+get. I keep my girl on the right path and that is all I can do. My
+niece don't work out but her husband works on the farm all the time.
+She helps him. They go out and live till the work is done. He is off
+now ploughing. Times is fast sure as you born, girl. Faster 'an ever I
+seen."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Henry Lee
+                    R.F.D., two and one-half miles, Palestine, Arkansas
+Age: 87
+
+
+"I was born close to Huntsville, Alabama during slavery. My master was
+Tom Laughinghouse and Miss Fannie, his wife. They had two children,
+Jarman and Mattie. He was Dr. George Laughinghouse's brother. Dr.
+George lived at Forrest City.
+
+"He brung us to the old Pope place close to Forrest City after
+'mancipation. We didn't know we was free. Finally we kept hearing
+folks talk, then Master Tom told us we was free. We cleared land right
+on after freedom like we was slaves.
+
+"General Lee, a white man, owned a boat on the Mississippi River. He
+owned my father. We took on his name way after freedom. Mother was
+Becky Laughinghouse and father was Willis Lee. They had six children.
+
+"After I come to Arkansas I went to school three days to a white man.
+He was sont here from the North somewhere.
+
+"My folks was all black pure stock niggers and field folks same as I
+is.
+
+"Mother's owners was good to her. They give them all day Saturday to
+wash and iron and cook for her folks. They got a whooping if they went
+to the field Monday morning dirty. They was very good to us. I can
+recollect that. They was a reasonable set of white folks. They weighed
+out everything. They whooped their hands. They had a white overseer
+but he wasn't hired to whoop Laughinghouse's slaves.
+
+"They 'lowed mother to weave at her home at night. He had seven or
+eight families on his farm.
+
+"The well was a curiosity to me then and would sure be one now. We had
+a walled and curbed well. A long forked pole, a short chain and a long
+rope. We pulled up the water by the long forked pole. Cold! It was
+good cold water. Beats our water all to pieces.
+
+"The soldiers come up in a drove one day and ask mother for me. She
+didn't let any of us go.
+
+"Our master got killed over here close to Forrest City. We all picked
+cotton, then we all went to gin. A coupling pin broke and let a wooden
+block come down on him. It weighed one thousand pounds I expect. He
+was spreading a sheet and smoothing the cotton. It mashed and
+smothered him both. That was first of our scattering.
+
+"The colored folks raised gardens in the fence corners. They raised a
+heap of stuff that way. We lived a heap better then than now.
+
+"My father died and mother started sharecropping. First, one-half and
+then, one-third went to us. Things went on very well till the
+commissary come about. The nigger got figured clean out.
+
+"Nearly all the women of them days wore bonnets or what they called
+hoods one the other. Boys wore long shirts to calf of their legs.
+
+"We rode oxen to church. Many time rode to church and home in ox
+wagon.
+
+"Ku Kluxes followed Pattyrollers, then come on White Caps. If the
+Pattyrollers kilt a slave he had to pay the master the price. The Ku
+Kluxes rode at night. All of 'em's main business was to keep the
+slaves at their own places and at work. Iffen the master instructed
+them to keep offen his place they kept off. They never come on our
+place. But though I was feared of 'em.
+
+"I needs help and I don't git it. I applied. 'Cause a grandson helps
+us a little I don't git the welfare pension. I need it and I think I
+ought to git it. I worked hard, bought this house, paid my
+taxes--still trying. Still they don't aid me now and I passed aiding
+my own self. I think I oughten to git lef' out 'cause I help myself
+when I could. I sure is left out. Been left out.
+
+"A part of the people is accountable for the way the times is going
+on. Some of them is getting it all and don't give the others no show a
+tall. Times is powerful hard for some and too easy for others. Some is
+turned mean and some cowed down and times hard for them what can't
+work hard."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
+Person interviewed: Mandy Lee,
+                    Coal Hill, Arkansas
+Age: 85
+
+
+"Yes'm I was a slave. I been here. I heard the bugles blowing, the
+fife beat, the drums beat, and the cannons roar. We started to Texas
+but never got across the river. I don't know what town it was but it
+was just across the river from Texas. My white folks was good to me. I
+staid with them till they died. Missy died first, then master died. I
+never was away from them. They was both good. My mammy was sold but I
+never was. They said they was surrendered when we come back from
+Texas. I heard the drums beat at Ft. Smith when we come back but I
+don't know what they was doing. I worked in the house with the
+children and in the field too. I help herd the horses. I would card
+and spin and eat peaches. No, that wasn't all I had to eat. I didn't
+have enough meat but I had plenty of milk and potatoes. I was born
+right here in Coal Hill. I ain't never lived anywhere else except when
+we went South during the war.
+
+"Law woman I can't tell you what I think of the present generation.
+They are good in their way but they don't do like we did. I never did
+go naked. I don't see how they stand it.
+
+"I could sing when I was young. We sang everything, the good and
+bad."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Mary Lee
+                    1308 Texas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 74
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I was born in 1864, March the fourth, the year before the Civil War
+ended. All I know is what they told me and what I read.
+
+"Born in Texas, but my mother and father was both born in Georgia.
+
+"My mother said her white folks was good to her. She was the house
+girl, she didn't have to work in no field.
+
+"I went to school when I was six or eight. I don't remember which. I
+had right smart schooling.
+
+"I remember my mother's young missis run off and got married. She was
+just a young girl, 'bout seventeen. That's been a long time.
+
+"I got a book sent to me a while back. It's a Catholic book--'History
+of Church and State.' Yes'm, I'm a Catholic. Used to belong to the
+Methodist church, but I wouldn't be a Methodist no more. I like the
+Catholics. You would too if you was one of 'em.
+
+"I been here in Arkansas since 1891. That's goin' right on up the
+road.
+
+"I can't do much work now, my breath gets short.
+
+"I used to make thirty-five dollars a month washin' and ironin'. Oh,
+that was a long time 'fore the depression.
+
+"I don't think nothin' of this younger generation. All goin' the same
+way. Oh lord, you better let 'em alone, they won't take no
+foolishness."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Talitha Lewis
+                    300 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 86
+[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
+
+
+"I should say I was born in slavery times! Now if you ask me something
+I don't know, I couldn't tell you, honey, 'cause I believe in people
+tellin' the truth.
+
+"In a way I know how old I is. I give what my white folks give me.
+They told me I was born in 1852. Yes ma'am, my young missis used to
+set down and work on me. She'd say, 'Get it in your head' 'cause I
+ain't got no education.
+
+"I 'member my old missis. Know her name as good as I do mine. Name was
+Maria Whitley. After old master died, his property was divided and Jim
+Whitley drawed me and my mother and my sister. Yes ma'am, it was my
+sister.
+
+"Goldsboro, North Carolina is where I was born, in Johnston County.
+
+"Do I 'member anything 'bout peace declared? I should say I
+do--'member long time 'fore it come.
+
+"I seed so many different regiments of people I didn't know which was
+which. I know the Yankees called ever'body Dinah. They'd say to me,
+'Dinah, hold my horse,' and my hands would be full of bridles. And
+they'd say, 'You got anything buried?' The white folks had done buried
+the meat under my mother's house. And say, 'Is they good to you?' If
+they hadn't a been we wouldn't a known any better than to tell it.
+
+"I 'member they found where the meat was buried and they ripped up my
+mother's feather bed and filled it full of hams and shoulders, and
+there wasn't a middlin' in the lot. And kill chickens and geese! They
+got ever'thing and anything they wanted.
+
+"There was a battle-field about four miles from us where they fit at.
+
+"Honey, I can't tell it like I know it, but I _know_ it.
+
+"Old master was a good man. You had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
+And on Monday morning all his colored folks had clean clothes. I wish
+I could tell it like I know. He was a good man but he had as mean a
+wife as I ever saw. She used to be Nettie Sherrod and she _did_ _not_
+like a black face. Yes ma'am, Jim Whitley was a good man but his
+father was a devil.
+
+"If Massa Jim had a hand he couldn't control, he sold him. He said he
+wasn't goin' to beat 'em or have 'em run off and stay in the woods.
+Yes'm, that was my master, Jim Whitley.
+
+"His overseer was Zack Hill when peace declared.
+
+"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in
+1889. They emigranted us here. They sure said they had fritter trees
+and a molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters
+would fall in the pond. You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't
+believe that. Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was
+times when you could make good money here.
+
+"I know I is a slave time chile. I fared well but I sure did see some
+that didn't.
+
+"Our white folks had hands that didn't do nothin' but make clothes and
+sheets and kivers.
+
+"Baby, them Ku Klux was a pain. The paddyrollers was bad enough but
+them Ku Klux done lots of devilment. Yes ma'am, they _done_ some
+devilment.
+
+"I worked for a white man once was a Ku Klux, but I didn't know it for
+a long time. One time he said, 'Now when you're foolin' around in my
+closet cleanin' up, I want you to be pertickler.' I seed them rubber
+pants what they filled with water. I reckon he had enough things for a
+hundred men. His wife say, 'Now, Talitha, don't let on you know what
+them things is.'
+
+"Now my father belonged to the Adkins. He and my mother was married
+with a stiffcate 'fore peace declared and after peace declared they
+got a license and was married just like they marry now.
+
+"My master used to ask us chillun, 'Do your folks pray at night?' We
+said 'no' 'cause our folks had told us what to say. But the Lawd have
+mercy, there was plenty of that goin' on. They'd pray, 'Lawd, deliver
+us from under bondage.'
+
+"Colored folks used to go to the white folks' church. I was raised up
+under the old Primitive Baptist feet washin' church. Oh, that's a
+time, baby!
+
+"What I think of the younger generation? I don't know what to think of
+'em. I don't _think_--I know they is goin' too fast.
+
+"I learned how to read the Bible after I 'fessed religion. Yes ma'am,
+I can read the Bible, praise the Lawd!"
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Abbie Lindsay
+                    914 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 84
+[HW: cf. Will Glass' story, No. ----?]
+
+
+"I was born June 1, 1856; the place at that time was called Lynngrove,
+Louisiana. It was just about a mile from the post office, and was in
+Morehouse Parish in the first ward--in the tenth ward I mean.
+
+
+Relatives
+
+"My father was named Alec Summerville. He named himself after the
+Civil War. They were going around letting the people choose their
+names. He had belonged to Alec Watts; but when they allowed him to
+select his own name after the war, he called himself Summerville after
+the town Summerville (Somerville), Alabama. His mother was named
+Charlotte Dantzler. She was born in North Carolina. John Haynes bought
+her and brought her to Arkansas. My father was an overseer's child.
+You know they whipped people in those days and forced them. That is
+why he didn't go by the name of Watts after he got free and could
+select his own name.
+
+"The name of my mother's mother was Celia Watts. I don't know my
+grandfather's first name. Old man Alec Watts' father gave my mother to
+him. I didn't know anything about that except what was told to me.
+They bought her from South Carolina. They came to Louisiana. My father
+was bought in South Carolina too. After the Haynes met the Watts,
+Watts married old man Haynes' daughter. He gave my father to his
+daughter, Mary Watts. She was Mary Watts after she was married. She
+was Mary Haynes before. Watts' father gave my mother to Alec Watts.
+That is just the way it was.
+
+"My mother and father had three children to live. I think there were
+about thirteen in all. There are just two of us living now. I couldn't
+tell you where Jeffrey Summerville, my living brother, is living now.
+
+
+Slave Houses
+
+"The slaves lived in hewed-log houses. I have often seen hewed-log
+houses. Have you ever seen one? You cut big logs and split them open
+with a maul and a wedge. Then you take a pole ax and hack it on both
+sides. Then you notch it--cut it into a sort of tongue and groove
+joint in each end. Before you cut the notches in the end, you take a
+broad ax and hew it on both sides. The notch holds the corners of the
+house-ties every corner. You put the rafters up just like you do now.
+Then you lathe the rafters and then put boards on top of the rafters.
+Sometimes shingles were used on the rafters instead of boards.
+
+"You would finish off the outside of the walls by making clay cakes
+out of mud and filling up the cracks with them. When that clay got
+hard, nothing could go through the walls. Sometimes thin boards were
+nailed on the inside to finish the interior.
+
+
+Furniture and Food
+
+"They had planks--homemade wooden beds. They made tables and chairs.
+They caned the chairs. They made the tables with four legs. You made
+it just like you would make a box, adding the legs.
+
+"A little house called the smokehouse was built in one of the corners
+of the yard. They would weigh out to each one so much food for the
+week's supply--mostly meat and meal, sometimes rice. They'd give you
+parched meal and rye too.
+
+"Sometimes they had the slaves cook their food in the cabins. Mostly
+all the time. My people ate in the kitchen because my mother was the
+cook and my father was the yard man. The others mostly cooked at
+home--in their cabins.
+
+
+Work
+
+"My mother and father worked around the house and yard. Slaves in the
+field had to pick a certain amount of cotton. The man had to pick from
+two to three hundred pounds of cotton a day if he wasn't sick, and the
+woman had to pick about one hundred fifty. Of course some of them
+could pick more. They worked in a way of speaking from can till can't,
+from the time they could see until the time they couldn't. They do
+about the same thing now.
+
+
+Recreation
+
+"I remember the time the white folks used to make the slaves all come
+around in the yard and sing every Sunday evening. I can't remember any
+of the songs straight through. I can just remember them in spots.
+
+    'Give me Jesus, you can have all the world
+    In the morning when I arise, Give me Jesus.'
+                                             (Fragment)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Lie on him if you sing right
+    Lie on him if you pray right
+    God knows that your heart is not right
+    Come, let us go to heaven anyhow.'
+                                       (Fragment)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'The ark was seen at rest upon the hill
+    On the hills of Calvary
+    And Great Jehovah spoke
+    Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
+                                    (First verse)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    'Peter spied the promised land
+    On the hill of Calvary
+    And Great Jehovah spoke
+    Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
+                                     (Second verse)
+
+There was lots more that they sung.
+
+"They could go to parties too, but when they went to them or to
+anything else, they had to have a pass. When they went to a party the
+most they did was to play the fiddle and dance. They had corn huskings
+every Friday night, and they ground the meal every Saturday. The corn
+husking was the same as fun. They didn't serve anything on the place
+where I was. I never knew them to serve anything at the corn shuckings
+or at the parties. Sometimes they would give a picnic, and they would
+kill a hog for that.
+
+
+Life Since Freedom
+
+"Right after the war, my father hired me out to nurse. Then I stayed
+around the house and helped my stepmother, and the white girls taught
+me a little until I got to be thirteen years old. Then I got three
+months' schooling in a regular school. I came here in 1915. I had been
+living in Newport before that. Yes, I been married, and that's all you
+need to know about that. I got two children: one fifty-three years
+old, and the other sixty.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"I don't have much thinking to do about the young people. It's a lost
+race without a change."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+"Mother" Lindsay is a Bible-reading, neat and clean-appearing,
+pleasant-mannered business woman, a little bulky, but carrying herself
+like a woman thirty years. She runs a cafe on Ninth Street and manages
+her own business competently. She refers to it as "Hole in the Wall."
+I had been trying for sometime to catch her away from her home. It was
+almost impossible for me to get a story from her at her restaurant or
+at her home.
+
+She doesn't like to sit long at a time and doesn't like to tell too
+much. When she feels quarters are a little close and that she is
+telling more than she wants to, she says, "Honey, I ain't got no more
+time to talk to you; I got to get back to the cafe and get me a cup of
+coffee."
+
+Will Glass, who has a story of his own, collaborated with her on her
+story. He has an accurate and detailed memory of many things. He is
+too young to have any personal memories. But he remembers everything
+he has been told by his grandparents and parents, and they seem to
+have talked freely to him unlike the usual parents of that period.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Rosa Lindsey
+                    302 S. Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born in Georgia and I'm 83.
+
+"My white folks was named Abercrombie.
+
+"I don't remember my mother and I hardly remember my father. My white
+folks raised me up. I 'member my missis had me bound to her when I was
+twelve. I know when my grandma come to take me home with her, I run
+away from her and went back to my white folks.
+
+"My white folks was rich. I belonged to my young missis. She didn't
+'low nobody to hit me. When she went to school she had me straddle the
+horse behind her. The first readin' I ever learned was from the white
+folks.
+
+"I think the Yankees took Columbus, Georgia on a Sunday morning. I
+know they just come through there and tore up things and did as they
+pleased.
+
+"I stayed there a long time after the Yankees went back.
+
+"Old master wasn't too old to go to war but he didn't go. I think he
+had to dodge around to keep the Yankees from gettin' him. I think he
+went to Texas but we didn't go.
+
+"I loved my white folks 'cause I knowed more about them than anybody
+else.
+
+"I come here to Arkansas with a young white lady just married. She
+'suaded me to come with her and I just stayed.
+
+"Biggest thing I have did is washin' and ironin'. But now I am doing
+missionary work in the Sanctified church.
+
+"I don't know 'bout the younger generation. Looks like 'bout near
+ever'body lost now. There's some few young people is saved now but
+they ain't many."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: William Little,
+                    Atkins, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born on the plantation of Dr. Andrew Scott, but my old ma'ster
+was Col. Ben T. Embry. The 14th of March, in the year 1855, was my
+birthday. Yes suh, I was born right here at old Galla Rock! My old
+Ma'ster Embry had a good many slaves. He went to Texas and stayed
+about three years. Took a lot of us along, and de first work I ever
+done after I was set free was pickin' cotton at $2 a hundred pounds.
+Dere was seventy-five or a hundred of us freed at once. Yes suh! Den
+we drove five hundred miles back here from Texas, and drove five
+hundred head of stock. We was refigees--dat's de reason we had to go
+to Texas.
+
+"Father and mother both passed away a good many years ago. Oh, yes,
+dey was mighty well treated while dey was in slavery; never was a
+kinder mas'r anywhere dan my old mas'r. And he was wealthy, too--had
+lots of land, and a store, and plenty of other property. Many of the
+slaves stayed on as servants long after the War, and lived right
+around here at old Galla Rock.
+
+"No suh, I never belonged to no chu'ch; dey thought I done too much of
+the devil's work--playin' the fiddle. Used to play the fiddle for
+dances all around the neighborhood. One white man gave me $10 once for
+playin' at a dance. Played lots of the old-time pieces like 'Turkey in
+the Straw', 'Dixie', and so on.
+
+"We owns our home here, and I has another one. Been married twice and
+raised eighteen chillun. Yes suh, we've lived here eighteen years, and
+had fine health till last few years, but my health is sorter po'ly
+now. Got a swellin' in my laigs.
+
+"(Chuckling) I sure remembers lots of happy occasions down here in
+days before the War. One day the steamboat come up to the landin'. It
+was named the Maumelle--yes suh, Maumelle, and lots of hosses and
+cattle was unloaded from the steamer. Sure was busy days then. And our
+old mas'r was mighty kind to us."
+
+
+NOTE: "Uncle Bill" did not know how he came about the name "Little."
+Perhaps it was a nickname bestowed upon him to distinguish him from
+some other William of larger stature. However, he stands fully six
+feet in height, and has a strong, vigorous voice. He is the sole
+surveying ex-slave of the Galla Rock community.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
+Person interviewed: "Aunt Minerva" Lofton
+                    Russellville, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"Come in! Yes, my name's Minerva Lofton--at least it was yistiddy.
+Now, whatcha gonna ask me? Hope you ain't saying something that'll git
+me in bad. Don't want to git in any more trouble. Hard times' bad
+enough.
+
+"I was born in the country nine miles from Clarendon, Monroe County,
+December 3, 1869. Father died before I was born. My mother came from
+Virginia, and her mistress' name was Bettie Clark. They lived close to
+Richmond, and people used to say 'Blue Ridge,' so I think it was Blue
+Ridge County, Virginia. Mother was sold to Henry
+Cargile--C-a-r-g-i-l-e.
+
+"When they were expecting peace to be declared soon a lot of the
+colored people named Parks took many of the slaves to Texas to escape
+from the Yankees, but when they got to Corpus Christi they found the
+Yankee soldiers there just the same, so they came back to Arkansas. I
+sure used to laugh at my dear old mother when she'd tell about the
+long trip to Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They
+stopped over at Camden as they went through, and one of the colored
+gals who hated her played a prank on her to take out her spite on
+mother: They had stopped at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she
+sent my mother in to get a gallon of buttermilk. After drinking all
+she could hold she grabbed mother by the hair of the head and churned
+her up and down in the buttermilk till it streamed down her face, and
+on her clothes--a sight to behold. I laughed and laughed until my
+sides ached when mother told me about this.
+
+"Old mistis' name (that is, one of the old mistis') was Bettie Young,
+and my mother was named Bettie for her; she was a namesake--sort of a
+wedding present, I think.
+
+"I've been a member of the Pentecostal church for nineteen years.
+
+"No sir, I never have voted and never expect to. Why? Because I have a
+religious opinion about votin'. I think a woman should not vote; her
+place is in the home raising her family and attending to the household
+duties. We have raised only two boys (stepchildren)--had no children
+of our own--but I have decided ideas about women runnin' around among
+and votin'. When I see em settin' around the ballot box at the polls,
+sometimes with a cigarette in their mouths, and again slingin' out a
+'damn' or two, I want to slap em good and hard.
+
+"Yes, the old time religious songs--I sure remember some of them! Used
+to be able to sing lots of em, but have forgotten the words of many.
+Let's see:
+
+    'I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, Daniel in de lion's den;
+    I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord, I'm a-goin' to tell my Lord,
+          Daniel in de lion's den.'
+
+Here's another:
+
+    'Big bells a-ringin' in de army of de Lord;
+    Big bells a-ringin' in de army.
+    I'm so glad I'm in de army of de Lord;
+    My soul's a-shoutin' in de army.'
+
+"Modern youth? Humph! I think they are just a fulfilling of what
+Christ said: 'They shall grow wiser as they grow older, but weaker.'
+Where is it in the Scripture? Wait a minute and I'll look it up. Now,
+let's see--where was that passage? It says 'weaker' here and 'weaken'.
+Never mind--wait--I'll find it. Well, anyway, I don't know jest how to
+describe this generation. I heard a white woman once say that she had
+to do a little cussin' to make herself understood. 'Cussin'?' Why,
+'cussin'' is jist a polite word for it.
+
+"Good-bye, mister. You oughta thank the Lawd you've got a job!"
+
+
+
+
+FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
+
+Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
+Subject: Biographical Sketch of Robert Lofton
+Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page)
+
+This information given by: Robert Lofton
+Place of Residence: 1904 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Occupation: Farmer (no longer able to work)
+Age: 82
+[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
+
+
+Robert Lofton was born March 11, 1855 in McDonogh, Georgia. His master
+lived in town and owned two Negro women and their children. One of
+these was Lofton's mother.
+
+His father was a Negro who lived back of him and belonged to the local
+postmaster. He had a wagon and did public hauling for his master, Dr.
+Tie. He was allowed to visit his wife and children at nights, and was
+kept plentifully supplied with money by his master.
+
+Lofton's master, Asa Brown, bought, or acquired from time to time in
+payment of debts, other slaves. These he hired out to farmers,
+collecting the wages for their labor.
+
+After the war, the Lofton family came to Arkansas and lived in Lee
+County just outside of Oak Forest. They were share croppers and
+farmers throughout their lives. He has a son, however, a war veteran
+and unusually intelligent.
+
+Robert Lofton is a fine looking old man, with silky white hair and an
+octoroon appearance, although the son of two colored persons.
+
+He remembers scarcely anything because of fading mental powers, but
+he is able to take long walks and contends that only in that way can
+he keep free from rheumatic pains. He speaks of having died recently
+and come back to life, is extremely religious, and is fearful of
+saying something that he should not.
+
+"I was in McDonogh, Georgia when the surrender came. [HW: That is
+where I was born on March 11, 1855.] There was plenty of soldiers in
+that little town--Yankees and Rebels. And they was sending mail out
+through the whole country. The Rebels had as good chance to know what
+was in the mail as the Yanks (his mother's husband's master was
+postmaster) did.
+
+
+How Freedom Came
+
+"The slaves learned through their masters that they were free. The
+Yankees never told the niggers anything. They could tell those who
+were with them that they were free. And they notified the people to
+notify their niggers that they were free. 'Release him. If he wants to
+stay with you yet, he may. We don't require him to go away but you
+must let him know he is free.'
+
+"The masters said, 'You are free now, Johnnie, just as free as I am.'
+Many of them put their things in a little wagon and moved to some
+other plantation or town or house. But a heap of them stayed right
+where they were.
+
+"My father found out before my mother did. He was living across town
+behind us about one-fourth of a mile. Dr. Tie, his master, had a post
+office, and that post office was where they got the news. My father
+got the news before my master did. He got on to it through being on
+with Dr. Tie. So my father got the news before my master, Asa Brown,
+did and he come over and told my mother before my master did. But my
+master came out the next thing and told her she could go or come as
+she pleased. She said she'd stay right along. And we got along just as
+we always did--until my father came and told us he was going to
+Atlanta with a crew of Yankees.
+
+
+Employment and Post-War Changes in Residence
+
+"He got a wagon and a team and run us off to the railroad. He got a
+job at Atlanta directly. After he made a year in Atlanta, he got
+dissatisfied. He had two girls who were big enough to cut cotton. So
+he decided to go farm. He went to Tennessee and we made a crop there.
+Then he heard about Arkansas and came here.
+
+"When he came here, somehow or other, he got in a fight with a colored
+man. He got the advantage of that man and killed him. The officers
+came after him, but he left and I ain't never seen nor heard of him
+since. He went and left my poor mother and her five children alone.
+But I was getting big enough to be some help. And we made crops and
+got along somehow.
+
+"I don't know what we expected. I never heerd anyone say a word. I was
+children you know, and it was mighty little that children knew because
+the old folks did not talk with them much.
+
+
+What They Got
+
+"I never heerd of anything any of them got. I never heerd of any of
+them getting anything except work. I don't recollect any pension or
+anything being given them--nothing but work.
+
+Folks on this place would leave and go over on that place, and folks
+on that place would come over here. They ate as long as the white
+folks ate. We stayed with our old master and mistress, (Mr. Asa Brown
+and Mrs. Sallie Brown).
+
+
+Good Master and Mistress
+
+"They did not whip us. They didn't whip nobody they had. They were
+good white folks. My mother never was whipped. She was not whipped
+after the surrender and she wasn't whipped before. [We lived in the
+same house as our master] [HW: (in margin) see p. 6] and we ate what
+he ate.
+
+
+Wives and Husbands
+
+"There was another woman my master owned. Her husband belonged to
+another white man. My father also belonged to another white man. Both
+of them would come and stay with their wives at night and go back to
+work with their masters during the day. My mother had her kin folks
+who lived down in the country and my mother used to go out and visit
+them. I had a grandmother way out in the country. My mother used to
+take me and go out and stay a day or so. She would arrange with
+mistress and master and go down Saturday and she would take me along
+and leave her other children with this other woman. Sunday night she
+would make it back. Sometimes she wouldn't come back until Monday.
+
+"It didn't look like she was any freer after freedom than she was
+before. She was free all the time she was a slave. They never whipped
+her. Asa Brown never whipped his niggers.
+
+
+Letting Out Slaves
+
+"Asa Brown used to rent out his niggers, sometimes. You know, they
+used to rent them. But he never rented my mother though. He needed her
+all the time. She was the cook. He needed her all the time and he kept
+her all the time. He let her go to see grandmother and he let her go
+to church.
+
+"Sometimes my mother went to the white church and sometimes she went
+to the colored folks church. When we went to the white folks church,
+we took and sat down in the back and behaved ourselves and that was
+all there was to it. When they'd have these here big
+meetings--revivals or protracted meetings they call them--she'd go to
+the white and black. They wouldn't have them all at the same time and
+everybody would have a chance to go to all of them.
+
+"They wouldn't allow the colored to preach and they wouldn't even call
+on them to pray but he could sing as good as any of them.
+
+"Generally all colored preachers that I knowed of was slaves. The
+slaves attended the churches all right enough--Methodists and Baptists
+both white and black. I never heard of the preachers saying anything
+the white folks did not like.
+
+"The Methodists' church started in the North. There was fourteen or
+fifteen members that got dissatisfied with the Baptist church and went
+over to the Methodist church. The trouble was that they weren't
+satisfied with our Baptism. The Baptists were here before the
+Methodists were thought of. These here fourteen or fifteen members
+came out of the North and started the Methodist church going.
+
+
+Share Cropping
+
+"Share cropping has been ever since I knowed anything. It was the way
+I started. I was working the white man's land and stock and living in
+his house and getting half of the cotton and corn. We had a garden and
+raised potatoes and greens and so on, but cotton and corn was our
+crop. Of course we had them little patches and raised watermelon and
+such like.
+
+
+Food and Quarters
+
+"We ate whatever the white man ate. My mother was the cook. She had a
+cook-room joined to her room [which reached clear over to the white
+folks' house.] [HW: see p. 4] Everything she cooked on that stove, we
+all ate it, white and black--some of the putting, [HW: pudding] some
+of the cakes, some of the pies, some of the custard, some of the
+biscuits, some of the corn bread--we all had it, white and black. I
+don't know no difference at all. Asa Brown was a good old man. There
+was some mean slave owners, but he wasn't one.
+
+
+Whippings
+
+"You could hear of some mean slave owners taking switches and beating
+their niggers nearly to death. But I never heard of my old master
+doing that. Slaves would run away and it would be a year or two before
+they would be caught. Sometimes they would take him and strip him
+naked and whip him till he wasn't able to stand for running away. But
+I never heard of nothing like that happening with Asa Brown. But he
+sometimes would sell a hand or buy one sometimes. He'd take a nigger
+in exchange for a debt and rent him out.
+
+
+Voting
+
+"There wasn't any voting by the slaves. But ever since freedom they
+have been voting. None of my friends ever held any office. I don't
+know anything about the niggers not voting now. Don't they vote?
+
+
+Patter Rollers, K. K. K., White Carmelias, Etc.
+
+"My mother and father knowed about Patter Rollers, but I don't know
+nothing about them. But they are dead and gone. I have heard of the Ku
+Klux but I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what I used to
+know. No sir, I am out of the question now.
+
+"There is one thing I keep straight. When I wants to drink or when I
+wants to eat--oh yes, I know how to go to bed.
+
+"You know I have seen the time when they would get in a close place
+and they would make me preach, but it's all gone from me now. I can't
+recollect."
+
+
+
+
+Mary D. Hudgins
+107 Palm Street,
+Hot Springs, Ark.
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: John H. Logan
+Aged: c. 89
+Home: 449 Gaines Avenue.
+[Date Stamp: MAY 11 1938]
+
+
+Gaines Avenue was once a "Quality Street". It runs on a diagonal from
+Malvern Avenue, a one-time first class residential thorofare to the
+Missouri Pacific Tracks. Time was when Gaines led almost to the gates
+of the fashionable Combes Racetrack.
+
+Built up during the days of bay windows Gaines Avenue has preserved
+half a dozen land marks of former genteelity. Long stretches between
+are filled "shot gun" houses, unaquainted for many years with a
+paintbrush.
+
+Within half a block of the streetcar line on Malvern an early spring
+had encouraged plowing of a 200 foot square garden. Signs such as
+"Hand Laundry" appear frequently. But by far the most frequent placard
+is "FOR SALE" a study in black and white, the insignia of a local real
+estate firm specializing in foreclosures.
+
+The street number sought proved to be two doors beyond the red brick
+church. A third knock brought a slight, wrinkled face to the door, its
+features aquiline, in coloring only the mildest of mocha. Its owner
+Laura Burton Logan, after satisfying herself that the visitor wasn't
+just an intruder, opened the door wide and invited her to come inside.
+
+"Logan, oh Logan, come on here, come on in here," she called to an old
+man in the next room. "Law, I don't know whether he can tell you
+anything or not. He's getting pretty feeble. Now five or six years ago
+he could have told you lots of things. But now----I don't know."
+
+Into the "front room" hobbled the old fellow. His back was bent, his
+eyes dimmed with age. His face was the sort often called "good"--not
+good in the sense stupid acquiescence--but rather evidence of an
+intelligent, non-preditory meeting of the problems of life.
+
+A quarter, handed the old fellow at the beginning of the interview
+remained clutched in his hand throughout the entire conversation.
+Because of events during the talk the interviewer reached for her
+change purse to find and offer another quarter. It was not in her
+purse. Getting up from her chair she looked on the floor about her. It
+wasn't there. Mrs. Logan, who had gone back to bed, wanted to know
+what the trouble was, and was worried when she found what was missing.
+By manner the interviewer put over the idea that she wasn't suspecting
+either of the two. But Logan, not having heard the entire conversation
+got to his feet and extended his hand--the one holding the quarter,
+offering it back to the interviewer.
+
+When he rose, there was the purse as it had slipped down on the seat
+of the rocker which the interviewer had almost taken and in which she
+had probably carelessly tossed her purse. A second quarter, added to
+his first, brought a beaming smile from the old man. But for the rest
+of the afternoon there was a lump in the interviewer's throat. Here
+was a man, evidently terribly in need of money, ready, without even a
+tiny protest, to return a gift of cash which must have meant so much
+to him--on the barest notion in his mind that the interviewer wanted
+it back.
+
+"Be patient with me ma'am," Logan began, "I can't remember so good.
+And I want to get it all right. I don't want to spoil my record now. I
+been honest all my life, always stood up and told the truth, done what
+was right. I don't want to spoil things and lie in my mouth now. Give
+me time to think.
+
+I was born, on----December----December 15. It was in 1848----I think.
+I was born in the house of Mrs. Cozine. She was living on Third Street
+in Little Rock. It was near the old Catholic Church. Was only a little
+ways from the State House. Mrs. Cozine, she was my first mistress.
+Then she sold me, me and my mother and a couple of brothers.
+
+It was Governor Roane she sold me to. Don't know just how old I
+was----good sized boy, though. Guess I was five--maybe six years old.
+He was a fine man, Governor Roane was--a mighty fine man. He always
+treated me good. Raised me up to be a good man.
+
+I remember when he gives us a free-pass. That was during the war. He
+said, 'Now boys, you be good. You stand for what is right, and don't
+you tell any stories. I've raised you up to do right.'
+
+When he wasn't governor any more he went back to Pine Bluff. We lived
+there a long time. I was with Governor Roane right up until I was
+grown. I can't right correct things in my mind altogether, but I think
+I was with him until I was about 20.
+
+When the war come on, Governor Roane helped to gather up troops. He
+called us in out of the fields and asked us if we wanted to go. I did.
+Right today I should be getting a pension. I was truly in the army.
+Ought to be getting a pension. Once a white man, Mr. Williams, I
+believe his name was, tried to get me to go with him to Little Rock.
+Getting me a pension would be easy he said. But somehow we never did
+go.
+
+I worked in the powder factory for a while. Then they set me to
+hauling things----mostly food from the Brazos river to Tyler, Texas.
+We had hard times then----we had a time----and don't you let anybody
+tell you we didn't. Sometimes we didn't have any bread. And even
+sometimes we didn't have any water. I wasn't so old, but I was a
+pretty good man----pretty well grown up.
+
+After the war I went back with my pappy. While I'd belonged to
+Governor Roane, Roane was my name. But when I went back with father, I
+took his name. We farmed for a while and later I went to Little Rock.
+
+I did lots of things there. Worked in a cabinet maker's shop for one
+thing. Was classed as a good workman, too. I worked the lathes. Did a
+good job of it. I never was the sort that had to walk around looking
+for work. Folks used to come and get me and ask me to work for them.
+
+How'd I happen to come to Hot Springs? They got me to come to work on
+the water mains. Worked for the water works a long time. Then I worked
+for a Mr. Smith in the bath house. I fired the furnace for him. Then
+for about 15 years I kept the yard at the Kingsway----the Eastman it
+was then. I kept the lawn clean at the Eastman Hotel. That was about
+the last steady work I did.
+
+Yes and in between I used to haul things. Had me an express wagon.
+Used to build rock walls too. Built good walls.
+
+Who did you say you was, Miss? Your father was Jack Hudgins--Law,
+child, law----"
+
+A feeble hand reached for the hand of the white woman and took it. The
+old eyes filled with tears and the face distorted in weaping. For a
+few minutes he sat, then he rose, and the young woman rose with him.
+For a moment she put a comforting arm around him and soon he was
+quieter.
+
+"Law, so your father was Jack Hudgins. How well I does remember him.
+Whatever did become of that fine boy? Dead did you say? I remembers
+now. He was a fine man, a mighty--mighty fine man. Jack Hudgins girl!
+
+Yes, Miss, I guess you has seen me around a lot. Lots of folks know
+me. They'll come along the street and they'll say, 'Hello Logan!' and
+sometimes I won't know who they are, but they'll know me.
+
+I remember once, it's been years and years ago, a man come along
+Central Avenue--a white man. I was going along the street and suddenly
+he grabbed me and hugged me. It scared me at first. 'Logan,' he says,
+'Logan' he says again. 'Logan, I'd know you anywhere. How glad I am to
+see you.' But I didn't recognize him. 'Wife,' he says 'wife, come on
+over and speak to Logan, he saved my life once.' Invited me to come
+and see him too, he did.
+
+Things have been mighty hard for the last few years. Seems like we
+could get the pension. First they had a rule that we'd have to sign
+away the home if we got $9.00 a month. Well, my wife's daughter was
+taking care of us. Even if we got the $9 she'd still have to help. She
+wasn't making much, but she was dividing everything--going without
+shoes and everything. So we thought it wasn't fair to her to sign away
+our home after all she'd done for us----so that they'd just kick her
+out when we was dead--she'd been too good to us. So we says 'No!' We
+been told that they done changed that rule, but we can't seem to get
+help at all. Maybe, Miss, there's somthing you can do. We sure would
+be thankful, if you could help us get on.
+
+All my folks is dead, my mother and my father and all my brothers, my
+first and my second wives and both my children. My wife's daughter
+helps us all she can. She's mighty good to us. Don't know what we'd do
+without her. Thank you, glad you come to see us. Glad to know you. If
+you can talk to them over at the Court House, we'd be glad. Good-bye.
+Come to see us ag in."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Elvie Lomack
+Residence: Foot of King Street on river bank,
+                    no number; Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 78
+
+
+"Come right in and I'll tell you what I know. I was born in Tennessee
+in slavery days. No ma'm I do not know what year, because I can't read
+or write.
+
+"I know who my mistress was. She was Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. She come
+from Virginia. She was an old maid and she was very nice. Some very
+good blooded people come from Virginia. She brought my mother with her
+from Virginia before I was born.
+
+"My father belonged to the Crowders and mammy belonged to Miss Lucy
+Ann Dillard. They wouldn't sell pappy to Miss Lucy and she wouldn't
+sell mammy to the Crowders, so mammy lost sight of him and never
+married again. She just married that time by the consent of the white
+folks. In them times they wasn't no such thing as a license for the
+colored folks.
+
+"I remember my mother milked and tended to the cows and issued out the
+milk to the colored folks.
+
+"Miss Lucy lived in town and come out once a week to see to us. When
+the overseer was there she come out oftener. We stayed right on there
+after the war, till we come to Arkansas. I was betwixt eleven and
+twelve years old.
+
+"And we was fooled in this place. A man my mother knowed had been here
+two years. He come back to Tennessee and, oh Lord, you could do this
+and do that, so we come here.
+
+"First year we come here we all got down sick. When we got well we had
+to go to work and I didn't have a chance to go to school.
+
+"I've seen my mother wring her hands and cry and say she wished she
+was back in Tennessee where Lucy Ann Dillard was.
+
+"When I got big enough I went to work for Ben Johnson and stayed there
+fifteen years. I never knew when my payday was. Mammy come and got my
+pay and give me just what she wanted me to have. And as for runnin' up
+and down the streets--why mammy would a died first. She's dead and in
+her grave but I give her credit--she took the best of care of us. She
+had three girls and they didn't romp up and down the big road neither.
+
+"I just looks at the young folks now. If they had been comin' along
+when I was, they'd done been tore all to pieces. They ain't raisin' em
+now, they're just comin' up like grass and weeds. And as for speakin'
+to you now--just turn their heads. Now I'm just fogy nuf that if I
+meet you out, I'll say good mornin' or good evenin'.
+
+"If it hadn't been for the Yankees, we'd have the yoke on our necks
+right today. The Lord got into their hearts.
+
+"Now I don't feel bitter gainst people. Ain't no use to hold malice
+gainst nobody--got to have a clean heart. Folks does things cause
+they's ignorant and don't know no better and they shouldn't be crowned
+with it.
+
+"But I'll tell you the truth--I've heard my mother say she was happier
+in slavery times than after cause she said the Dillards certainly took
+good care of her. Southerners got a heart in em."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
+Person interviewed: Henry Long
+Home 112 East Grand
+Age: c. 71
+
+
+"Yes, 'um, I owns my own home--and what's more it's on the same street
+with the Mayor's house. Yes 'um, I owns a good home, has my own
+chickens and my flowers and I has a pension of $50 a month.
+
+"Just the other day I got a letter. It wanted me to join the National
+Association of Retired Federal Workers. I took the letter to the boss
+and he told me not to bother. Guess I'd better spend my money on
+myself.
+
+"I got some oil stock too. Been paying pretty good dividends since I
+had it. Didn't pay any this year. They are digging a new well. That'll
+maybe mean more money. It's paid pretty good up to now. Yes, me and my
+wife, we're getting along pretty good. Nothing to worry about.
+
+"Where was I born--it was in Kentucky, Russellville it was, just a few
+miles from Bowling Green. Yes, 'um, Kentucky was a regular slave
+state----a genuine slave state. Lots of 'em there.
+
+"The man we belonged to----his name was Gabe Long. I remember hearin'
+'em tell how they put him up on one block and sold him. They put his
+wife up on another and sold her too. Only they both went in different
+directions. They didn't see each other again for 30 years. By that
+time he had married again twice. My mother was his third wife. She
+lived to be 102 and he lived to be 99. Yes, 'um, I comes from a long
+lived family. There's four of us still living. I got two brothers and
+one sister. They all live back in Kentucky----pretty close to where we
+was all born. One time, when I had a vacation----you know they gives
+you a vacation with pay----30 days vacation it was. Well one time on
+my vacation I went back to see my sister. She is living with her
+daughter. She is 78. One brother is living with his son. He's 73. My
+youngest brother owns his own farm. He is 64. All of 'em back in
+Kentucky, they've been farmers. I'm the only one who has worked in
+town. And I never worked in town until I come to Arkansas.
+
+"Been in Hot Springs for over 50 years. Law, when I first come there
+wasn't any Eastman hotel. There wasn't any Park hotel. I don't mean
+that Park Hotel up in Happy Hollow. The one I mean was down on
+Malvern. It burned in the fire of 1913. Law, when I come there wasn't
+nothing but mule street cars. Hot Springs has seen lots of changes.
+
+"Back in Kentucky I'd been working around where I was born. Worked
+around the houses mostly. They paid me wages and wanted me to go on
+working for them. But I decided I wanted to get away. So I went to
+Little Rock. But didn't find nothing much to do there. Then I went on
+up Cedar Glades way. Then I come to Hot Springs.
+
+"First I worked for a man who had a big garden----it's out where South
+Hot Springs is now----oh you know what the man's name was----he was
+named----he was named--name was Barker, that's it, Barker." (The
+"Barker Place" has been divided up into lots and blocks and is one of
+the more popular residential districts.)
+
+"Then I got a job at the Park hotel. No ma'am. I didn't work in the
+yard. I worked in the refrigerators and the pantry. Then about meal
+times I served the fruit. You know how a big, fashionable hotel
+is--there's lots of things that has to be done around 'em.
+
+"Finally I got rheumatism and I had to quit that kind of work. So I
+got a job firing the furnace at the electric light plant. It was down
+on Malvern then. That was before the fire of 1913. I was working right
+there when the fire come. It was pretty awful. It burned just about
+everything out there on Malvern----and places on lots of other streets
+too.
+
+"After that I got a job at the Eastman hotel. I fired the furnace and
+worked on the boilers. Worked there a long time. Then they sent me to
+the Arlington. You know at that time the same company owned both the
+Eastman and the Arlington. It wasn't this new Arlington----it was the
+second one--the red brick one. Built that second one while I was here.
+The first one was wood.
+
+"Back in the time when I come, there was a creek running through most
+of the town. There wasn't any Great Northern hotel. There was just a
+big creek there.
+
+"But how-some-ever, to go on. After I worked at the Arlington on the
+boilers and the furnace--I got a job at the Army and Navy Hospital.
+Now that wasn't the new hospital either. It was the old one--it was
+red brick too.
+
+"Next, I worked at the LaMar Bath house. I was there a long
+time----for years and years. Then they got to building over the bath
+houses. One by one they tore down the old ones and put new ones up. I
+worked on at the LaMar until they tore the old one down to build the
+new one. Then I went up to the Quapaw to work. Worked there for quite
+some time.
+
+"Finally they sent for me to come on down and work for the government.
+I's worked under a lot of the Superintendents. I started working for
+the government when Dr.----Dr.----Dr. Warring----Warring was his name.
+He was a nice man. Then there was Dr. Bolton. I worked for him too.
+Then there was----there was----oh, what was his
+name----De--De--DeValin--that's it. Then there was Dr. Collins. He was
+the last of the Doctors. Then there was Mr. Allen and now Mr. Libbey.
+
+"Yes, 'um, I worked for a lot of 'em and made a HOME RUN with all of
+'em. Every one of 'em liked me. I always did good work. All of 'em
+liked the way I worked.
+
+"Yes 'um. I been married 41 years----20 years to the first woman----21
+to this one. The first one come from Mississippi. Her name was Ula.
+This one's name is Charlotte. She come from Magnolia--that's in
+Arkansas.
+
+"You know ma'am, I come from Kentucky where they raise fine race
+horses. I worked around 'em a lot. But I ain't seen many races. We
+lived out in the country. We had good horses, but they didn't race
+'em. I worked with the horses around the place, but we didn't go in
+town to see the races. What did we raise? Well tobacco and wheat and
+the usual things. All my folks, but me is still working on farms.
+
+"No 'um, I didn't rightly know how old I was. I was working along, not
+thinking much about what I was doing. Then the men down at the office"
+(Hot Springs National Park) "started asking me how old I was. I
+couldn't tell 'em. But I thought I was born the year the slaves was
+freed. They said I ought to be retired.
+
+"So they wrote back----or somebody stopped over while he was on his
+vacation--can't quite remember which. Anyhow they found I was old
+enough to retire----ought to have retired several years ago. So now I
+got my home, got my pension and got my time to do what I wants to
+do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: Annie Love
+                    1116 E. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 85?
+
+
+"I don't know exactly how old I am. I was here when the war was goin'
+on. I know I used to see the soldiers come by and come in, but I
+wasn't big enough to work. I was born in Richmond, Virginia.
+
+"My owners moved from Virginia to Mississippi. My mother and I lived
+on one place and my father lived on another plantation. I remember one
+Sunday he come to see me and when he started home I know I tried to go
+with him. He got a little switch and whipped me. That's the onliest
+thing I can remember bout him.
+
+"Billy Cole was my master and I didn't have any mistress cause he
+never was married.
+
+"My mother worked in the field and I was out there with her when the
+cannons commenced shootin' at Helena. We said they was shootin' at us
+and we went to the house. Oh Lord, we said we could see em, Lord yes!
+
+"After surrender, our owner, Billy Cole, told us we was free and that
+we could go or stay so we stayed there for four or five years. I don't
+know whether we was paid anything or not. After that we just went from
+place to place and worked by the day.
+
+"I never did see any Ku Klux but they come to my mother's house one
+night and wanted my stepfather to show'em where a man lived. He went
+down the road with 'em a piece. They wanted a drink and, oh Lord,
+they'd drink mighty nigh a bucket full.
+
+"Oh Lord, when I was young goin' to parties and dances, that was my
+rule. Oh Lord, I went to them dances.
+
+"I went to church, too. That was one thing I did do. I ain't able to
+go now but I'll tell anybody when I could, I sure went.
+
+"I went to school mighty little--off and on bout two years. I never
+learned nothin' though.
+
+"I lived right in Memphis mighty nigh twenty years then I come to
+Arkansas bout thirty-two years ago and I'm mighty near right where I
+come to Pine Bluff.
+
+"I don't know of anything else but all my days I believe I've worked
+hard, cookin' and washin' and ironin'."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Needham Love
+                    1014 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 80, or older
+
+
+"Old Joe Love sold us to old Jim McClain, Meridian, Mississippi, and
+old McClain brought us down on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.
+That was during the War. It was down there on a big old plantation
+where the cane was high as this house. I was born in Alabama. When the
+War started, he brought us all down to Meridian and sold us. He sold
+me in my mother's arms.
+
+"We cut down all that cane and woods and cleared up the place on the
+Tallahatchie. We did all that before we learned we was free.
+
+"They built log houses for the white and black. They sealed the white
+folks' houses and chinked the colored folks'. They didn't have but one
+house for the white folks. There was only one white person down there
+and that was old Jim McClain. Just come down there in time of harvest.
+He lived in Lexington the rest of the time. He told his people, 'When
+I die, bury me in a bale of cotton.' One time he got sick and they
+thought he would die. They gathered all the hands up and all the
+people about the place. There was about three hundred. He come to his
+senses and said, 'What's all these people doing here?'
+
+"His son said, 'Papa, they thought you was goin' to die and they come
+up to see you.'
+
+"And he said to his son, 'Well, I ain't dead yet. Tell 'em to git back
+on the job, and chop that cotton.'
+
+"I did not have any work to do in slavery time. When the War ended I
+was only five years old. But I played the devil after the War though.
+When the slaves were freed, I shouted, but I ain't got nothin' yet. I
+learned a lot though. My father used to make a plow or a harrow. They
+made cotton in those days. Potatoes ain't no 'count now. In them days,
+they made potatoes so good and sweet that they would gum up your
+hands. Mothers used to make good old ash cakes. Used to have
+pot-liquor with grease standin' up on it. People don't know nothin'
+now. Don't know how to cook.
+
+"My father's name was Joe Love and my mother's name was Sophia. I
+don't know any of my grandparents. All of them belonged to old Joe
+Love. I never did know any of them. I know my father and mother--my
+mammy and pappy--that's what we called 'em in them days.
+
+"Old man Joe would go out sometimes and come in with a hog way in the
+night. He was a cooper--made water buckets, pans to make bread up in
+and things like that. Mammy would make us git up in the night and
+clean our mouths. If they didn't, children would laugh at them the
+next day and say the spiders had been biting your mouth, 'cause we
+were sposed to had so much grease on our mouths that the spiders would
+swing down and bite them.
+
+"I professed religion when I was sixteen years old. It was down in the
+Free Nigger Bend where my father had bought a little place on the
+public road between Greenwood and Shellmount.
+
+"I married that fall. My father had died and I had got to be a man.
+Done better then than I do since I got old. I had one cow and my
+mother let me have another. I made enough money to buy a pair of mules
+and a wagon. My wife was willing to work. She would go out and git
+some poke greens and pepper and things and cook them with a little
+butter. Night would come, we'd go out and cut a cord of wood. Got
+'long better then than people do now.
+
+"I began preaching soon as I joined the church. I began at the
+prayer-meetings. I preached for forty-seven years before I fell. I've
+had two strokes. It's been twenty-eight years or more since I was able
+to work for myself.
+
+"I have heard about the pateroles but I never did know much about
+them. I have heard my father talk about them. He never would get a new
+suit and go to town but what they would catch him out and say, 'You
+got a pass?' He would show it to them, and they would sit down and
+chew old nasty tobacco and spit the juice out on him all over his
+clothes.
+
+"The Ku Klux never did bother us any. Not after I got the knowledge to
+know what was what. They was scared to bother people 'cause the
+niggers had gone and got them some guns and would do them up.
+
+"Old Jim McClain had one son who was bad. He used to jump on the
+niggers an' 'buse and beat them up. The niggers got tired of it and he
+started gittin' beat up every time he started anything and they didn't
+have no more trouble.
+
+"Jim McClain didn't mistreat his niggers. The boys did after he was
+dead though. He died way after slavery. If a nigger went off his place
+and stole a cow or a hog or something, you better not come 'round
+there and try to do nothin' about it. Jim McClain would be right there
+to protect him.
+
+"When he died, the horses could hardly pull him up the hill. He wanted
+to stay back down there in the bottoms where that cotton was.
+
+"When I got to realizing, it was after freedom. But they had slavery
+rules then. There was one old woman who used to take care of the
+children while their parents were working in the fields. Sometimes it
+would be a week before I would see my mother and father. Children
+didn't set up then and look in old folks' faces like they do now. They
+would go to bed early. Wake up sometimes way in the middle of the
+night. Old folks would be holding a meeting and singing and praying.
+
+"They used to feed the children pot-liquor and bread and milk.
+Sometimes a child would find a piece of meat big as your two fingers
+and he would holler out, 'Oh look, I got some meat.'
+
+"Fourth of July come, everybody would lay by. Niggers all be gathered
+together dancing and the white folks standin' 'round lookin' at them.
+
+"Right after the surrender, I went to night school a little, but most
+of my schooling was got by the plow. After I come to be a minister I
+got a little schooling.
+
+"I can't get about now. I have had two strokes and the doctor says for
+me not to go about much. I used to be able to go about and speak and
+the churches would give me something, but since this new 'issue' come
+out, theology and dogology and all such as that, nobody cares to pay
+any 'tention to me. Think you are crazy now if you say 'amen.' Don't
+nobody carry on the church now but three people--the preacher, he
+preaches a sermon; the choir, he sings a song; and another man, he
+lifts a collection. People go to church all the years now and never
+pray once.
+
+"I get some help from the Welfare. They used to pay me ten dollars
+pension. They cut me down from ten to eight. And now they cut me down
+to four. They cut the breath out of me this time.
+
+"I got some mighty good young brothers never pass me up without givin'
+me a dime or fifteen cents. Then I got some that always pass me up and
+never give me nothing. I have built churches and helped organize
+churches from here back to Mississippi.
+
+"I don't know what's goin' to become of our folks. All they study is
+drinking whiskey and gamblin' and runnin' after women. They don't
+care for nothin'. What's ruinin' this country is women votin'. When a
+woman comes up to a man and smiles at him, he'll do what she wants him
+to do whether it's right or wrong.
+
+"The best part of our preachers is got so they are dishonest. Stealing
+to keep up automobiles. Some of them have churches that ain't no
+bigger than this room."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+The statements of Needham Love like those of Ella Wilson are not
+consistent on the subject of age. It is evident, however, that he is
+eighty years old or older. He thinks so. He has memories of slave
+times. He has some old friends who think him older.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
+Person interviewed: Louis Lucas
+                    1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+Masters, Birth, Parents, Grandparents
+
+"I was born in 1855 down on Bayou Bartholomew near Pine Bluff,
+Jefferson County.
+
+"My mother's name was Louisa. She married a man named Bill Cardrelle
+after freedom. Her husband in slavery time was Sam Lucas. He belonged
+to a man by the name of O'Neil. They took him in the War and he never
+did come back to her. (He didn't much believe he was my father, but I
+went in his name anyway.)
+
+"My mother's father's name was Jacob Boyd. I was young, but I know
+that. He was free and didn't belong to nobody. That was right here in
+Arkansas. He had three other daughters besides my mother, and all of
+them were slaves because their mother was a slave. His wife was a
+woman by the name of Barclay. Her master was Antoine Barclay (?). She
+was a slave woman. She died down there in New Cascogne. That was a
+good while ago.
+
+"The French were very kind to their slaves. The Americans called all
+us people that belonged to the Frenchmen free people. They never gave
+the free Negroes among them any trouble. I mean the Frenchmen didn't
+give them no trouble.
+
+"The reason we finally left the place after freedom was because of the
+meanness of a colored woman, Amanda Sanders. I don't know what she had
+against us. The old mistress raised me right in the house and fed me
+right at the table. When she died, this woman used to beat the devil
+out of me. We had had good owners. They never had no overseers until
+just before the War broke out, and they never beat nobody.
+
+"The _first_ overseer was on a boat named the _Quapaw_ when the mate
+knocked him in the head and put him in a yawl and took him to the
+shore. The boss saw it and took four men and went and got him and had
+the doctor attend to him. It was a year before he could do anything.
+He didn't stay there long before they had him in the War. He just got
+to oversee a short time after he got well. He was in the cavalry. The
+other boys went off later. They took the cavalry first. None of them
+ever came back. They were lost in the big fight at Vicksburg. My
+_paran_, Mark Noble, he was the only one that got back.
+
+"I don't remember my father's father. But I know that his mother went
+in the name of Rhoda. I don't know her last name. She was my grandma
+on his side.
+
+"I belonged to a man named Brumbaugh. His first name was Raphael. He
+was a all right man. He had a _colored man for an overseer_ before
+this here white man I was tellin' you about came to him. 'Uncle' Jesse
+was the foreman. He was not my uncle. He was related to my wife
+though; so I call him uncle now. Of course, I didn't marry till after
+freedom came. I married in 1875.
+
+
+Early Days
+
+"When I was a little child, my duty was to clean up the yard and feed
+the chickens. I cleaned up the yard every Friday.
+
+
+House, Furniture, and Food
+
+"My mother lived in a cabin--log, two rooms, one window, that is one
+window in each room.
+
+"They didn't have anything but homemade furniture. We never had no bed
+bought from the store--nothin' like that. We just had something
+sticking against the wall. It was built in a corner with one post out.
+They made their table and used benches--two-legged and sometimes
+four-legged. The two-legged benches was a long bench with a wide plank
+at each end for legs.
+
+"For food we got just what the white folks got. We didn't have no
+quarters. They didn't have enough hands for that. They raised their
+own meat. They had about seven or eight. There was Dan, Jess, Bill,
+Steve. They bought Bill and Steve from Kentucky.
+
+"Old 'Free Jack' Jenkins, a colored man, sold them two men to ol'
+master. Jenkins was the only _Negro slave trader_ I ever knowed. He
+brought them down one evening and the old man was a long time trading.
+He made them run and jump and do everything before he would buy them.
+He paid one thousand five hundred dollars for each one of them. 'Free
+Jack' made him pay it part in silver and some in gold. He took some
+Confederate paper. It was circulating then. But he wouldn't take much
+of that paper money.
+
+"He stole those boys from their parents in Kentucky. The boys said he
+fooled them away from their homes with candy. Their parents didn't
+know where they were.
+
+"Then there were my brothers--two of them, John Alexander and William
+Hamilton. They were half-brothers. That makes six men altogether on
+the place. I might have made a miscount. There was old man Wash
+Pearson and his two boys, Joe and Nathan. That made ten persons with
+myself.
+
+"Brumbaugh didn't have such a large family. I never did know how large
+it was.
+
+
+Soldiers
+
+"The rebel soldiers were often at my place. A bad night the jayhawkers
+would come and steal stock and the slaves too, if they got a chance.
+They cleaned the old man's stock out one night. The Yankees captured
+them and brought them back to the house. They gave him his stallion, a
+great big fine horse. They offered him five thousand dollars for him
+but he wouldn't take it. They kept all the other horses and mules for
+their own use, but they gave the stallion back to the old man. If they
+hadn't give him back the stallion, the old man would have died. That
+stallion was his heart. The Yankees didn't do nobody no harm.
+
+"When the soldier wagons came down to get the feed, they would take
+one crib and leave one. They never bothered the smokehouse. They took
+all the dry cattle to feed the people that were contrabands. But they
+left the milk cows. The quartermaster for the contrabands was Captain
+Mallory. The contrabands were mostly slaves that they kept in camps
+just below Pine Bluff for their own protection.
+
+
+How Freedom Came
+
+"It was martial law and twelve men went 'round back and forth through
+the county. They come down on a Monday, and told the children they
+were free and told them they had no more master and mistress and told
+them what to call them. No more master and mistress, but Mr. and Mrs.
+Brumbaugh. Then they came down and told them that they would have to
+marry over again. But my ma never had a chance to see the old man any
+more. She didn't marry him over again because he didn't come back to
+her. But they advised them to stay with their owners if they wanted
+to. They didn't say for none of the slaves to leave their old masters
+and go off. We wouldn't have left but that old colored woman beat me
+around so all the time, so my mother came after me and took me home
+since I wanted to go. The Yankees' officer told her it would be good
+to move me from that place so I wouldn't be so badly treated. The
+white folks was all right; it was that old colored woman that beat on
+me all the time.
+
+
+Right After Freedom
+
+"Right after freedom my mother married Bill Cardrelle. She moved from
+the O'Neil place and went up to a place called the Dr. Jenkins' place.
+She kept house for her husband in the new place. I didn't do much
+there of anything. After they moved away from there when I was twelve
+years old, they taught me to plow (1867). I went to school in the
+contraband camp. Mrs. Clay and Mr. Clay, white folks from the North,
+were my teachers. At that time, the colored people weren't able to
+teach. I went a while to school with them. I got in the second
+reader--McGuffy's--that's far as I got.
+
+"I stayed with my mother and stepfather till I was about sixteen years
+old. She sent me away to come up here to my father, Sam Lucas. My
+oldest brother brought me here and I worked with him two years. Then I
+went to a man named Cunningham and stayed with him about six months.
+He paid me fifteen dollars a month and my board. He was going to raise
+my wages when his wife decided she wanted women to do the work. The
+women would slip things away and she wouldn't mention them to her
+husband till weeks afterwards. Then long after the time, she would
+accuse me. Those women would have the keys. When they went in to get
+soap, they would take out a ham and carry it off a little ways and
+hide. By the time his wife would tell him about it, you wouldn't be
+able to find it nowhere.
+
+"He owed me for a month's work. She told him not to pay it, but he
+paid it and told me not to let her know he did it. I didn't either.
+
+"When I left him, I came over the river here down here below Fourche
+Dam. I stayed there forty or fifty years in that place. When I was
+between thirty-two and thirty-three years old, I married, and I stayed
+right on in that same place. I farmed all the time down there. I had
+to go in a lawsuit about the last crop I made. Then I came here to
+Little Rock in 1904 and followed ditching with the home water company.
+Then I did gas ditching with the gas people. Then I worked on the
+street car line for old man White. I come down then--got broke down,
+and couldn't do much. The relief folks gave me a labor card; then they
+took it away from me--said I was too old. I have done a heap of work
+here in this town. I got old and had to stop.
+
+"I get old age assistance from the Welfare. That is where I get my
+groceries--through them. I wouldn't be able to live if it wasn't for
+them.
+
+
+Opinions
+
+"There is a big difference between the young people now and what they
+used to be. The old folks ain't the same neither."
+
+
+Interviewer's Comment
+
+Lucas told his story very fluently but with deliberation and care. The
+statement about his father on the first page was not a slip. He told
+what he wanted to tell but he discouraged too much effort to go into
+detail on those matters. One senses a tragedy in his life and in the
+life of his mother that is poignant and appealing. Although he states
+no connection, one will not miss the impression that his stepfather
+was hostile. Suddenly we find his mother sending him to his father.
+But after he reached his father, there is little to indicate that his
+father did anything for him. Then, too, it is evident that his father
+deliberately neglected to remarry his mother after freedom.
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Lizzie Luckado,
+                    Hazen, Ark.
+Age: 71
+
+
+"I was born at Duck Hill, Mississippi. There was three of us children.
+All dead now but me. My parents was Molly Louden and Jake Porter. One
+master my parents talked about was Missis Molly and Dr. McCaskill. I
+don't think my mother was mixed with Indian. Her father was a white
+man, but my father said he was Indian and African. My father was in
+the Civil War.
+
+"When the war was coming on they had the servants dig holes, then put
+rock on bottom, then planks, then put tin and iron vessels with money
+and silver, then put plank, then rocks and cover with dirt and plant
+grass on top. Water it to make it grow. They planted it late in the
+evening. I don't know what become of it.
+
+"When I was eight or nine years old I went to a tent show with Sam and
+Hun, my brothers. We was under the tents looking at a little Giraffe;
+a elephant come up behind me and touched me with its snout. I jumped
+back and run under it between its legs. That night they found me a
+mile from the tents asleep under some brush. They woke me up hunting
+me with pine knot torches. I had cried myself to sleep. The show was
+"Dan Rice and Coles Circus" at Dednen, Mississippi. They wasn't as
+much afraid of snakes as wild hogs, wolves and bears.
+
+"My mother was cooking at the Ozan Hotel at Sardis, Mississippi. I was
+a nurse for a lady in town. I took the children to the square
+sometimes. The first hanging I ever seen was on Court Square. One big
+crowd collected. The men was not kin, they called it "Nathaniel and
+DeBonepart" hanging. They was colored folks hung. One killed his
+mother and the other his father. I never slept a wink for two or three
+nights, I dream and jump up crying. I finally wore it off. I was a
+girl and I don't know how old I was. Besides the square full of
+people, Mrs. Hunter's and Mrs. Boo's yards was full of people.
+
+"We cooked for Capt. Salter at Sardis, Mississippi.
+
+"The first school I went to was to Mrs. J. P. Settles. He taught the
+big scholars. She sent me to him and he whooped me for singing:
+
+    "Cleveland is elected
+    No more I expected."
+
+I was a grown woman. They didn't want him elected I recken the reason
+they didn't want to hear it. Nobody liked em teaching but the last I
+heard of them he was a lawyer in Memphis. If folks learned to read a
+little that was all they cared about."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
+Person interviewed: John Luckett
+                    Highway No. 65, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
+Age: 83
+
+
+"I was born in Mississippi up above Vicksburg. I 'member the old Civil
+War but I was just a little boy.
+
+"Oh, I've seen the Yankees in Vicksburg where the battle was.
+
+"I was 'bout ten when freedom come--nothin' but a boy.
+
+"Clara Luckett was my mother. When the War was in Fort Pillow, I was a
+small boy. I don't know 'bout nothin' else--that's all I know about
+it.
+
+"I been workin' at these mills ever since surrender. I been firin' for
+'em.
+
+"I voted the Republican ticket. I voted for General Grant and
+Garfield. I was a young man then. I voted for McKinley too. I never
+did hold no office, I was workin' all the time. I knowed Teddy
+Roosevelt--I voted for him.
+
+"They wouldn't let me go to school I was so bad. I went one day and
+whipped the teacher. I didn't try--I whipped him and they 'xpelled me
+from school.
+
+"Since I been in this country, firin' made me deaf."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: John Lynch,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"My mother was a slave of Buck Lynch. They lived close to Nashville,
+Tennessee. My father run away from Buck Lynch before the Civil War. He
+lived in the woods till he nearly went wild. My mother fed him at
+night. I was twenty-one years old before I ever seen him. My mother
+worked several years and didn't know she was free. She come with some
+traders from close to Nashville out here. I was born at Cotton Plant.
+I got two living brothers in Memphis now.
+
+"I was raised a farmer. The first work I ever done away from home was
+here in Brinkley. I worked at the sawmill fur Gun and Black. Then I
+went to Ft. Smith and worked in er oil mill. I come back here and
+farmed frum 1911 till 1915. Then I worked in the Brinkley oil mill. I
+cooked the cotton seed meal. One of my bosses had me catch a small cup
+full fur him every once in awhile. The oil taste something like peanut
+butter. It taste very well while it is hot and smells fine too. I quit
+work when they quit the mill here. It burned up. I do like the work.
+They got some crazy notion and won't hire old fellows like me no more.
+Jobs are hard to get. Younger men can get something seems like pretty
+easy. I make a garden. That is 'bout all I can do or get to do.
+
+"My mother's name was Molly Lynch. She cooked some at Cotton Plant and
+worked in the field. She talked a right smart bout the way she had to
+do in slavery times but I don't recollect much.
+
+Shes been dead a long time. I heard folks say times was awful hard
+right after the war, that times was easier in slavery for de reason
+when they got sick they got the best of care. She said they had all
+kinds of herbs along the side of the walks in the garden. I don't
+guess after they got settled times was near as hard. She talked about
+how hard it was to get clothes and something to eat. Prices seemed
+like riz like they are now.
+
+"I don't know 'bout my father's votin' cause I didn't know him till
+after I was grown and not much then. He was down about Marianna when I
+knowed him. I did vote. I vote the Republican ticket. I like the way
+we voted the best in 1886 or '87. It was called Fair Divide. Each side
+put his man and the one got most votes got elected. I don't think it
+necessary fur the women to vote. Her place is in the home. Seem like
+the women all going to work and the men quit. About 40 years ago R. P.
+Polk was justice of the peace here and Clay Holt was the constable.
+They made very good officers. I don't recollect nothing 'bout them
+being elected. Brinkley is always been a very peaceable town. The
+colored folks have to go clear away from town with any rowdiness."
+(The Negroes live among the whites and at their back doors in every
+part of town.)
+
+"I live with my son-in-law. He works up at the Gazzola Grocery
+Company. He owns this house. He _is_ doing very well but he works
+hard.
+
+"The young generation so far as I knows is getting along fairly well.
+I don't know if times is harder; they is jes' different. When folks do
+right seems there's a way provided for 'em.
+
+"I signed up with the PWA. I signed up two or three times but they
+ain't give us nothing much yet. They wouldn't let me work. They said I
+was too old. I works if I can get any work to do."
+
+
+
+
+Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
+Person interviewed: Josephine Scott Lynch,
+                    Brinkley, Arkansas
+Age: 69
+
+
+"Josephine Scott Lynch is my name and I sho don't know a thing to tell
+you. I don't remember my father at tall. The first thing I can
+remember about my mama she was fixing to come to Arkansas. She come as
+a immigrant. They paid her fare but she had to pay it back. We come on
+the train to Memphis and on the boat to Gregory Point (Augusta). We
+left her brother with grandma back in Tennessee. There was three
+children younger than me. The old folks talked about old times more
+than they do now but I forgot all she said too much to tell it
+straight.
+
+"We farmed, cleared land and mama and me washed and ironed and sewed
+all our lives. I cooked for Mr. Gregory at Augusta for a long time. I
+married then I cooked and washed and ironed till I got so porely I
+can't do much no more.
+
+"I never voted and I wouldn't know how so ain't no use to go up there.
+
+"Some of the younger generation is better off than they used to be and
+some of them not. It depends a whole heap on the way they do. The
+colored folks tries to do like the white folks far as they's able.
+Everything is changing so fast. The present conditions is harder for
+po white folks and colored folks than it been in a long time. Nearly
+everything is to buy and prices out of sight. Work is so scarce."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
+Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4, by Work Projects Administration
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVE NARRATIVES ***
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