*Dianah Watson, 102, was born a slave of Tom Williams, at New Orleans.
In 1870, Dianah went to Jefferson, Texas. She now lives with a married
daughter in the Macedonia Community, five miles northwest of Marshall,
Tex.*
"My name am Dianah Watson and I used to keep my age, but I done got sick
and can't 'member it now. I can't say 'zactly how old I is but I's a
past-growed woman when the war broke out, and my old missy's daughter
done told me once out the book I's borned in 1835.
"I's borned and bred 'bout a half mile from New Orleans. My mammy was
s*arah Hall and she's borned in Galveston, and my papa was Bill
Williams. My old missy done take me from my mammy when I's a small baby
and raised me to a full-growed woman. I slep' in the same room with my
young missy and had a good time in slavery, didn't suffer for nothin'
and never was cut and slashed like some. Me and Miss Laura come right up
together and I's her own nigger slave.
"Massa Williams treated his black folks with 'spect. They was in the
field from 'fore day till dark, but they was took good care of and fed
and plenty clothes. Old Master Tom done the bossin' hisself and when
he's dyin' he calls all his five boys to his bed and say, 'Boys, when
I's gone, I don*t want no cuttin' and slashin' my niggers. They's got
feelin' same as us.'
"But the oldes' boy, William, got the debbil in him and hires a
overseer, and he rid in the fields with a quirt and rope and chair on
his saddle. When he done take a notion to whip a nigger, he'd make some
the men tie that nigger to the chair and beat him somethin' scand'lous.
He got mad at my mother's sister, Aunt Susie Ann, and beat her till the
blood run off her on the ground. She fall at his feets like she passed
out and he put up the whip and she trips him and gits the whip and whips
him till he couldn't stand up. Then some the niggers throwed him off a
cliff and broke his neck. His folks gits the sheriff but master's boys
orders him off the place with a gun. There warn't no more overseers on
the place after that.
"If niggers of these days done see what I seed in slavery time they'd
pray and thank they Gawd every day. My master's place sot right 'cross
the big road from a place they cut and slashed they niggers. You'd hear
that white man's black folks bellerin' like cows. I's stood many a time
on our front gallery and seed them cut and slash the blood off them
niggers. I seed old women half-bent from beatin's goin' to the field.
They overseer had a wooden paddle with nails in it. I used to say to
missy, 'Why they cuttin' and slashin' them black folks that-a-way?'
Missy say, 'Dianah, that there white man got the debbil in him.'
"I seed them sell my mama. I ask my old missy why and she say, 'To go to
her husband.'
"When the war broke out I's a full-growed woman. New Orleans was full of
sojers and they wouldn't let us go to town. Me and young Mr. Tom used to
git on the roof and watch them. The cannons was roarin' like thunder and
smoke thick and black as clouds. I got scart when they sot the niggers
free, at the niggers shoutin'. I didn't know what 'twas for. Old Miss
say to me, 'They been in slavery but you don't know what slavery is,
Dianah.'
"Two years after that my old miss carries me to Galveston to my mammy.
She tell her to take good care of me and we lived there three years and
moved to Jefferson. Our things come by boat but we come in wagons. I
married John Smith purty soon after that but he died 'fore long. Then I
married Noah Watson and now he's dead. I done raise six chillen but only
one am livin' now and that's my younges' gal and I lives with her here.
"I tells the young race iffen they come up like me they wouldn't act so
smart. They needs somebody to take the smartness outten them. But my gal
am good to me. I gits a pension and pays it to her to take care of me. I
been here a hundred years and more and I won't stay much longer, and I
don't want to be no 'spense to nobody."