The old lady's style was kind of cramped by the presence of her husband.
Every once in a while, when she would be about to paint something in
lurid colors, he would drop in a word and she would roll her phrases
around in her mouth, so to speak, and shift and go ahead in a different
direction and on another gear.
Very pleasant couple though--with none of the bitterness that old age
brings sometimes. The daughter's name is Searles.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person Interviewed: Thomas Ruffin
1310 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 82 or 84
"I was born in North Carolina, Franklin County, near Raleigh. My
father's name really I don't know. Folks said my master was my daddy.
That's what they told me. Of course, I don't know myself. But then white
folks did anything they wanted to in slavery times.
"My mother's name was Morina Ruffin. I don't know the names of my
grandparents. That is too far back in slavery for me. Of course, old man
Ruffin my father's father, which would have been my grandfather, he died
way back yonder in slave times before the war. My father gotten kilt in
the war. His name was Tom Ruffin. I was named after him. He died trying
to hold us. That man owned three hundred slaves. He never married.
Carried my mother round everywhere he went. Out of all his niggers, he
didn't have but one with him. That was in slavery time and he was a fool
about her.
"I couldn't tell you exactly when I was born. Up until the surrender I
couldn't tell how old I was. I am somewheres around eighty-two years
old. The old lady is just about the same. We guesses it in part. We
figure it on what we heard the old folks say and things like that. I
remember plenty of things about slavery that I saw.
"I never did much when I was a boy. The biggest thing I remember is a
mule got to kicking and jumped around in a stall. She lost her footing
and fell down and broke her neck right there in the stall. I remember
her name as well as if it was yesterday. Her name was Bird. That was
just before the war. I know I must have been at least four years old
then. You can figure that up and see what it comes to.
"I never did any work when I was a child. I jus went to the spring with
the young Mistress and danced for them sometimes. But they never did
give me any work to do,--like they did the others. I lived right in the
biggest house the biggest portion of my time.
"That day and time, they made compost heaps. Mixed dirt with manure.
They hoed cotton and crops. They didn't know what school was. They
helped with washing and ironing. Did every kind of work they had
strength enough to do till they got big enough to go to the field. That
was what the children did.
"When they were about seven years old, to the best of my recollection
they would go to the field. Seven or eight. They would pick up corn
stalks and brush. And from that on when they were about eight or nine,
they would pick cotton.
"My mother never did have to do anything round the farm. She lived about
seventy-five miles from it, there where the master had his office. He
was a lawyer. After I was born, she didn't come out to see me but once a
year that I recollect. When she did come, she would bring me some candy
or cakes or something like that.
"I didn't see the soldiers during the time of the war. But I saw plenty
of them afterwards--riding round and telling the niggers they were free.
They had some of the finest saddles I ever seed. You could hear them
creaking a block off. No, I didn't see them while they was fighting. We
were close enough to hear the guns crash, and we could see the light
from them, but I didn't actually see the fightin. The Yankees come
through on every plantation where they were working and entered into
every house and told us we was free. The Yankees did it. They told you
you were free as they were, that you didn't have to stay where you was,
that you didn't have no more master, that you could go and come as you
pleased.
"I got along _hard_ after I was freed. It is a hard matter to tell
you what we could find or get. We used to dig up dirt in the smokehouse
and boil it and dry it and sift it to get the salt to season our food
with. We used to go out and get old bones that had been throwed away and
crack them open and get the marrow and use them to season the greens
with. Jus plenty of niggers then didn't have anything but that to eat.
"Even in slavery times, there was plenty of niggers out of them three
hundred slaves who had to break up old lard gourds and use them for
meat. They had to pick up bones off the dung hill and crack them open to
cook with. And then, of course, they'd steal. Had to steal. That the bes
way to git what they wanted.
"They had a great big kitchen for the slaves. They had what you call pot
racks they could push them big pots in and out on. They cooked hog slop
there. They had trays and bowls to eat out of that were made out of gum
wood. It was a long house used as a kitchen for the hands to go in
and eat. They et dinner there and for supper they would be there. But
breakfast, they would have to eat in the field. The young niggers would
bring it out to them. They would bring it about an hour after the sun
rose and the slave hands would eat it right out in the field; that was
the breakfast. You see the hands went to the field before sunup, and
they didn't get to eat breakfast in the kitchen and it had to be et in
the field. Little undergrowth of children--they had plenty of them on
the place--had to carry their meals to them.
"They would usually give them collars [HW: collards] in green times,
potatoes in potato time. Bread,--they didn't know what that was. White
folks hardly knew theirselves. They didn't have butter and they didn't
have no sugar. Didn't know much about what meat was yet. They would give
the little bits of children pot liquor. That's the most I ever seed them
git. Of course I was treated differently. You couldn't judge them by
me. I was the only half-white youngun round there, and they said I was
half-brother to ol Marse's chillun. And the white chillen would git me
up to the house to dance for them and all like, and they would give me
biscuits or anything good they had. I never seed the others eatin nothin
but pot liquor.
"Most of the slaves lived in log cabins. You know they never had but
one door. In general where they had large families, they would have two
rooms with a chimney in the middle of the house. The chimney was built
out of mud and straw. I can remember them sawin the timber. Two pulled a
big ol crosscut saw. Didn't have no saw mills then. This world has come
from a long ways. They used to didn't have no plows. It was without
form. You made it at home.
"They had ol homemade bedsteads to sleep in. They had a little rope
that ran back and forth instead of slats. That was called a corded bed.
Cheers were all made at home and were split bottoms.
"They didn't many of the slaves have food in their homes. But when they
did, they would jus have a little wooden box and they would put their
food in it.
"It seems like the white people got to burying their money during the
time of the war. That never come out till after the war. Then they got
to wantin that money and started looking for it. There never was any
talk of buried treasure before the war.
"My folks didn't give me any schoolin before the surrender. I never
got any before the surrender and a mighty little afterwards. No nigger
knowed anything. I started to farming when I was thirteen years old. I
used to be a fertilizer, and then a cotton sower. That was the biggest
I knowed about farming when I was a boy. My mother lived about fifteen
years after slavery. I reckon.
"In the time of slavery, you couldn't marry a woman. You just took up
with her. Mother married the same man she had been going with after
freedom. She had four children after the surrender as fer as I can
tell--three girls and two boys.
"I moved from North Carolina to Louisiana. Stayed there one year and
then moved here. Bought forty acres of land. Bought it after I'd been
here a year. It took me four years to pay for that. Then next time I
bought eighty acres and paid for them. Paid them out in two years. Then
I bought eighty acres more and paid for them in two years. Couldn't pay
for them cash at first, but could have paid for the last eighty when I
bought them if I had a wanted to. Then I bought eighty more and then I
bought eighty again and then forty and on till I had five hundred and
three acres of farm land. I got the three over when I got the sorghum
mill.
"I left my farm and come to the city for doctor's treatment. My old
lady and I worked out five hundred and three acres of land. I got five
children living. I gave each one of them forty acres of land. Most of
the rest I sold. I got a fellow here that owes me for one of the places
now. He lives over on Third and Dennison. His name is Wright. My old
lady an me held on to that and didn't lose it even in all these hard
years.
"My daughter kept after me to come here and she built this little house
out here where I could holler or do anything I wanted to do and not
disturb nobody. I couldn't feel at home up in a big house with other
people. Four or five months ago it would take two people to put me to
bed. I would get off from home and have to carry me back. But I
am gettin along fine now. This high blood pressure keeps me from
remembering so well. Ol lady where's my pipe? You didn't find it up to
daughter's? Ain't it in the kitchen? Can't you find it nowheres? What
_didju_ do with it? Well, you needn't look for it no longer. It's
here in my pocket. That's my high blood pressure workin. That whut it
does to you.
"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church and have been belonging to it
altogether about sixty-three years. I used to be a Missionary. I been a
member of the church a long time.
"I think times are jus fulfilling the Bible. The people are wiser now
than we ever known them to be and wickeder. I don't believe the times
you see now will be always. People are getting so wise and so wicked
that I think the end is near at hand. You notice the Germans now are
trying to make slaves out of the Jews. There's the Japans that is jus
slaughtering up the Chinese like they was nothin but dumb brutes. The
world is wickeder than it ever has been before.
"The young people today! I'd hate to tell you what I do think of them.
The business is going to fall."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Casper Rumple, De Valls Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I will be, providin' the good Lord spare me, 79 years old the first day
of January. I was born in Lawrence County, South Carolina. The Big road
was the dividing line between that and Edgefield County. My mother
belonged to John Griffin. His wife named Rebecca. My father was a
Irishman. Course he was a white man--Irishman. Show I did know him. He
didn't own no slaves. I don't guess he have any land. He was a overseer
in Edgefield County. His name was Ephraim Rumple. What become of him?
He went off to fight the Yankees and took Malaria fever and died on Red
River. I could show you bout where he died.
"My mother had a big family. I can't tell you much bout them. I was the
youngest. She cooked up at John Griffins. He was a old man and the land
was all his wife's. She was old too. She had some grown girls. He had
no children. They called him Pa and I did too. I stayed round with him
nearly all the time helping him.
"He had a room and she had a room. I slept on a bed--little
bed--home-made bed--in the room wid him and she slept in the room with
her two girls and my mother slept in the kitchen a whole heap so she
be there to get breakfast early. They riz early every mornin'. John
Griffins wife owned four plantations more than 160 acres in each one,
but I couldn't say how much.
"My mother was a field hand in busy times too. Miss Rebecca had all the
slaves clothes made. She seed to that. She go to the city, Augusta, and
bring back bolts cloth. One slave sewed for Miss Rebecca and her family.
She didn't do all the sewing but she sewed all the time. One woman done
all the weavin'. At night after they work in the field Miss Rebecca give
em tasks--so many bats to card or so much spinnin' to do.
"Master John didn't want em to work at night but she made em work all
the same. They b'long to her. Another thing the women had to do was work
in the garden. It was a three acre garden. They always had plenty in
thar. Had it palinged so the young chickens couldn't squeeze through the
cracks.
"They had plenty stock and made all the fertilizer needed in the garden
and patches. They had goober patch, popcorn patch, sorghum patches,
several of em, pea patches but they was field cabbage patch and
watermellon patch. They had chicken house, goose house, duck house and
way off a turkey pen. It had a cover on it. They had to be cleaned and
all that manure moved to the garden and patches. Old man John Griffin
was a good man. Things went on pretty quiet bout the place. They had
to do their own cooking. They got for the grown ups 3 pounds meat, 1
pk.[TR:?] meal a week. They fed the young chaps plenty so they wouldn't
get stunted. They keep em chunky till they get old nough to grow up tall
and that make big women and big men. They stunt em then when they
start runnin' up, it cause em to be low. The owners was mighty careful
(not)[HW: ?] to feed the chaps nough to eat so they make strong hands.
"Men come long the road peddlin' from out the cities, men come long with
droves of horses and mules. They was called horse traders. Then once in
a while they come long tradin' and selling slaves. Nother way they sell
em was at public auction. Iffen a slave steal from another master, like
go in his smoke house or crib and steal, the sheriff have to whip him.
They would have public whippin'.
"How'd they know was freedom? How'd they not know it was freedom?
Everybody went wild. They was jes' crazy cause they was free. Way I
knowd for certain it was freedom Mr. John Griffin had all the slaves
that hadn't done went off come to the house and he told them they was
all free. Some of em just started walking the roads till they nearly
starved. The government didn't start feeding the slaves till so many
nearly starved. My mother cooked on nearly a year. Then she went to work
for Vaughn in Edgefield County.
"They didn't give them no land. The white folks was land pore.
"They didn't have no money. When the masters had money they give the
slaves a little spending money. Nearly all the slaves had a little money
long. They get a pass to split rails for a neighbor and make money.
That was befo freedom. After freedom nobody had money but the Yankee
soldiers. They keep it closer than the folks you been livin' with.
"Mr. Griffin, he was called General by all the young men. He was too old
to fight so he trained soldiers. He didn't wear a uniform but they did.
They met certain days every week. They wore gray uniforms.
"They had a battle at Lawrence. It was 17 miles. The soldiers passed
long the Big road. I didn't see the battles. I heard plenty talk about
that conflict at Lawrence though.
"I heard the slaves was goin' to get 40 acres and a mule. I tell you
they didn't wait to see if they was going to get another meal. They went
wild, walking and hooping up and down the road. They found out when they
nearly starved they had got the bad end of the game somehow. Then to
keep em from starvin' they had certain days to go to Lawrence and get a
little rations. Not much I tell you. They started stealin' and the Ku
Klux started up bout that.
"The President got killed (Abraham Lincoln). Then they knowed the gig
was up. They had to go to work hard as ever and mighty little to eat.
The slaves did vote. It was the color of the paper they used way they
knowed how to vote. The Republican government had full sway 12 years.
All the offices at Edgefield nearly was Negroes cept the sheriff. The
Yankees tell em what to do way they knowed how. Butler went to Congress.
He was a Negro--(???). That was what the Ku Klux was mad bout. They run
the Yankees out and took holt of the offices soon as they could.
"Our master had no Ku Klux comin' on our place. He protected us, It
wasn't no different than slavery till I was nearly grown and a drove was
walking going west to better place. I got in with them and come on. The
Ku Klux had killed several Negroes. That scared them all up. I remember
Tuscaloosa, Alabama when we cone through there. We was walking--a line
a mile long--marching and singing. They was building back in a hurry
seemed like to me. The town had been burned up. Some dropped out to get
work along. Some fell out sick. Some so weak they died long the road.
Had to keep up. Some stopped; they never caught up no more. Mostly old
folks or half starved folks couldn't keep going. The Ku Klux whoop and
shoot you down for any little thing. They started at night, fraid of the
Yankees but they whooped and run them out and the Negroes left. The Ku
Klux got so bold they didn't dress up nor go at night neither. At first
they was careful then they got bold. The Yankee soldiers bout all they
was afraid of. The Negroes found out who some of the Ku Klux was and
told the Yankees but it didn't do much good. After bout twelve years all
the Yankees gone back home. The white folks down in Carolina thought
bout as little of them as Negroes. They wouldn't let them have no land
if they did have money to pay any price for it. They didn't want them
living amongst them. They say they rether have a Negro family.
"The biggest Negro uprisin' I ever seed was at freedom. They riz up in a
hurry.
"I had to stop and work all along. I got to Arkansas in 1881. I never
went no further. I been all my life farmin'. I cut and sell wood, clear
land. The best living was when I farmed and sold wood. I bought a 10
acre farm and cleared it up graduly, then I sold it fer $180.00 cause I
got blind and couldn't see to farm it. I had a house on it. I own this
here house (a splendid home). My daughter and her husband come to take
care me. They come from Cincinatti here. She made $15.00 a week up there
three years. I get $8.00 a month now from the Social Welfare. If I could
see I could make money.
"I never seen times like this. Sin is causin' it. Unrest and
selfishness. No neighborly spirit. I don't bother no young folks. I
don't know how they will come out. If they caint get a big price they
won't work and the white folks are doing their own work, and don't help
like they did. I could get along if I could see. I had a light stroke
keeps me from talkin' good, I hear that."
Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: Henry Russell, Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 72
"My father's name was Ed Russell, and he was owned by Dr. Tom Russell,
de first pioneer settler of Russellville--de' man de town got its name
from.
"My name is Henry, and some folks call me 'Bud.' I was born at Old
Dwight de 28th of October, 1866. Yes suh, dat date is correct.
"I was too young to remember much about happenings soon after de War,
but I kin ricollect my father belongin' to de militia for awhile during
de Reconstruction days. Both Negroes and whites were members of de
militia.
"My folks come here from Alabama, but I don't know much about them
except dat my grandmother, Charlotte Edwards, give me an old wash pot
dat has been in de family over one hundred years. Yes suh, it's out here
in de ya'd now. Also, I owns an old ax handle dat I keep down at de
store jist for a relic of old days. It's about a hundred years old, too.
"My wife was Sallie Johnson of Little Rock, and she was a sister of Mrs.
Charley Mays, de barber you used to know, who was here sich a long time.
"For a long time I worked at different kinds of odd jobs, sometimes in
de coal mines and sometimes on de farms, but for several years I've run
a little store for de colored folks here in Russellville. Ain't able to
do very much now.
"I remember very well de first train dat was ever run into Russellville.
Must have been 68 or 69 years ago. A big crowd of people was here from
all over de country. Of course dere was only a few families living in de
town, and only one or two families of colored folks. People come in from
everywhere, and it was a great sign. Little old train was no bigger dan
de Dardanelle & Russellville train. (You remember de little old train
dey used to call de 'Dinkey' don't you?) Well, it wasn't no bigger dan
de Dinkey, and it didn't run into de depot at all, stopped down where de
dump is now. Sure was a sight. Lot of de folks was afraid and wouldn't
go near it, started to run when two men got off. I saw only two man
working in front of it, but I remember it very plain. Dey was working
with wheelbarrows and shovels to clear up de track ahead.
"Another thing I remember as a boy was de 'sassination of President
Gyarfield. I can't read or write but very little, but I remember about
dat. It was a dull, foggy mornin', and I was crossin' de bayou with Big
Bob Smith. (You remember 'Big Bob' dat used to have the merry-go-'round
and made all de county fairs.) Well, he told me all about de killing of
de President. It was about 1881 wasn't it?
"I think times was better in de old days because people was better. Had
a heap more honor in de old days dan dey have now. Not many young folks
today have much character.
"All right. Come back again. Whenever I kin help you out any way, I'll
be glad to."
NOTE: Henry Russell is quite proud of the fact that his ancestors were
the first families of Russellville. He is a polite mulatto, uneducated,
and just enough brogue to lend the Southern flavor to his speech, but is
a fluent conversationalist.
Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
Person interviewed: Katie Rye, Clarksville, Arkansas
Age: 82
"We lived in Greenbrier, Faulkner County, Arkansas. All stayed at home
and got along very well. We had enough to eat and wear. Mistress was
awful mean to us but we stayed with them until after the war. After the
war master moved us off to another place he had and my father farmed for
his self, master and his pa and ma, and mistress' pa and ma. They awful
good to us, but mistress was so high tempered she would get mad and whip
some of the slaves but she never whipped any of us. She worried so over
the loss of her slaves after the war she went crazy. We had two white
grand pas and grand mas. We colored children called them grandpa and ma
and uncle and aunt like the white children did and we didn't know
the difference. The slaves was only allowed biscuit on Christmas and
sometimes on Sundays but we had beef and plenty of honey and everything
after we moved from the big house. Mistress used to come down to see
us an' my mother would cook dinner for her and master. He was such a
_good_ man and the best doctor in the State. He would come in and
take the babies up (mother had nine children) and get them to sleep for
my mother. His mother would come to the kitchen and ask for a good cup
of coffee and mother would make it for her. The master and his family
were Northern people and my mother was given to the mistress by her
father and mother when she married.
"After my father bought his own farm about ten miles from the big house,
father would put us all in an ox wagon and take us back to see our white
folks.
"The mistress claimed to be a Christian and church member but I don't
see how she could have been she was so mean.
"I think the present day generation mighty wicked. Seems like they get
worse instead of better, even the members of the church are not as good
as they used to be. They don't raise the children like they used to.
They used to go to Sunday School and church and take the children, now
the children do as they please, roam the streets. It is sad to see how
the parents are raising the children, just feed them and let them go.
The children rule the parents now.
"We sang the old hymns and 'Dixie', 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia',
'When You and I Were Young, Maggie'."
Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Miss Hazel Horn
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--Last of April, 1936
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
1. Name and address of informant--Uncle Bob Samuels, Washington,
Arkansas