I don't know how old I is, but I is a great big half grown gal when
the time of the War come, and I can remember how everything look at
that time, and what all the people do, too.
I'm pretty nigh to blind right now, and all I can do is set on this
little old front porch and maybe try to keep the things picked up
behing my grandchild and his wife, because she has to work and he is
out selling wood most of the time.
But I didn't have to live in any such a house during the time I was
young like they is, because I belonged to old Chief Rolley McIntosh,
and my pappy and mammy have a big, nice, clean log house to live in,
and everything round it look better than most renters got these days.
We never did call old Master anything but the Chief or the General for
that's what everybody called him in them days, and he never did act
towards us like we was slaves, much anyways. He was the mikko of the
Kawita town long before the War and long before I was borned, and he
was the chief of the Lower Creeks even before he got to be the chief
of all the Creeks.
But just at the time of the War the Lower Creeks stayed with him and
the Upper Creeks, at least them that lived along to the south of where
we live, all go off after that old man Gouge, and he take most of the
Seminole too. I hear old Tuskenugge, the big man with the Seminoles,
but I never did see him, nor mighty few of the Seminoles.
My mammy tells me old General ain't been living in that Kawita town
very many years when I was borned. He come up there from down in the
fork of the river where the Arkansas and the Verdigris run together a
little while after all the last of the Creeks come out to the
Territory. His brother old Chili McIntosh, live down in that forks of
the rivers too, but I don't think he ever move up into that Kawita
town. It was in the narrow stretch where the Verdigris come close to
the Arkansas. They got a pretty good sized white folks town there now
they call Coweta, but the old Creek town was different from that. The
folks lived all around in that stretch between the rivers, and my old
Master was the boss of all of them.
For a long time after the Civil War they had a court at the new town
called Coweta court, and a school house too, but before I was born
they had a mission school down the Kawita Creek from where the town
now is.
Earliest I can remember about my master was when he come to the slave
settlement where we live and get out of the buggy and show a preacher
all around the place. That preacher named Mr. Loughridge, and he was
the man had the mission down on Kawita Creek before I was born, but at
that time he had a school off at some other place. He git down out the
buggy and talk to all us children, and ask us how we getting along.
I didn't even know at that time that old Chief was my master, until my
pappy tell me after he was gone. I think all the time he was another
preacher.
My pappy's name was Jackson McInotsh, and my mammy name was Hagar. I
think old Chief bring them out to the Territory when he come out with
his brother Chili and the rest of the Creek people. My pappy tell me
that old Master's pappy was killed by the Creeks because he signed up
a treaty to bring his folks out here, and old Master always hated that
bunch of Creeks that done that.
I think old man Gouge was one of the big men in that bunch, and he
fit in the War on the Government side, after he done holler and go on
so about the Government making him come out here.
Old Master have lots of land took up all around that Kawita place, and
I don't know how much, but a lot more than anybody else. He have it
all fenced in with good rail fence, and all the Negroes have all the
horses and mules and tools they need to work it with. They all live in
good log houses they built themselves, and everything they need.
Old Master's land wasn't all in one big field, but a lot of little
fields scattered all over the place. He just take up land what already
was a kind of prairie, and the niggers don't have to clear up much
woods.
We all live around on them little farms, and we didn't have to be
under any overseer like the Cherokee Negroes had lots of times. We
didn't have to work if they wasn't no work to do that day.
Everybody could have a little patch of his own, too, and work it
between times, on Saturdays and Sundays if he wanted to. What he made
on that patch belong to him, and the old Chief never bothered the
slaves about anything.
Every slave can fix up his own cabin any way he want to, and pick out
a good place with a spring if he can find one. Mostly the slave houses
had just one big room with a stick-and-mud chimney, just like the poor
people among the Creeks had. Then they had a brush shelter built out
of four poles with a roof made out of brush, set out to one side of
the house where they do the cooking and eating, and sometimes the
sleeping too. They set there when they is done working, and lay around
on corn shuck beds, because they never did use the log house much only
in cold and rainy weather.
Old Chief just treat all the Negroes like they was just hired hands,
and I was a big girl before I knowed very much about belonging to him.
I was one of the youngest children in my family; only Sammy and
Millie was younger than I was. My big brothers was Adam, August and
Nero, and my big sisters was Flora, Nancy and Rhoda. We could work a
mighty big patch for our own selves when we was all at home together,
and put in all the work we had to for the old Master too, but after
the War the big children all get married off and took up land of they
own.
Old Chief lived in a big log house made double with a hall in between,
and a lot of white folks was always coming there to see him about
something. He was gone off somewhere a lot of the time, too, and he
just trusted the Negroes to look after his farms and stuff. We would
just go on out in the fields and work the crops just like they was our
own, and he never come around excepting when we had harvest time, or
to tell us what he wanted planted.
Sometimes he would send a Negro to tell us to gather up some chickens
or turkeys or shoats he wanted to sell off, and sometimes he would
send after loads of corn and wheat to sell. I heard my pappy say old
Chief and Mr. Chili McIntosh was the first ones to have any wheat in
the Territory, but I don't know about that.
Along during the War the Negro men got pretty lazy and shiftless, but
my pappy and my big brothers just go right on and work like they
always did. My pappy always said we better off to stay on the place
and work good and behave ourselves because old Master take care of us
that way. But on lots of other places the men slipped off.
I never did see many soldiers during the War, and there wasn't any
fighting close to where we live. It was kind of down in the bottoms,
not far from the Verdigris and that Gar Creek, and the soldiers would
have bad crossings if the come by our place.
We did see some whackers riding around sometimes, in little bunches
of about a dozen, but they never did bother us and never did stop.
Some of the Negro girls that I knowed of mixed up with the poor Creeks
and Seminoles, and some got married to them after the War, but none of
my family ever did mix up with them that I knows of.
Along towards the last of the War I never did see old Chief come
around any more, and somebody say he went down into Texas. He never
did come back that I knows of, and I think he died down there.
One day my pappy come home and tell us all that the Creek done sign up
to quit the War, and that old Master send word that we all free now
and can take up some land for our own selves or just stay where we is
if we want to. Pappy stayed on that place where he was at until he
died.
I got to be a big girl and went down to work for a Creek family close
to where they got that Checotah town now. At that time it was just all
a scattered settlement of Creeks and they call it Eufaula town. After
while I marry a man name Joe Johnson, at a little settlement they call
Rentesville. He have his freedmen's allotment close to that place, but
mine is up on the Verdigris, and we move up there to live.
We just had one child, named Louisa, and she married Tom Armstrong.
They had three-four children, but one was named Ton, and it is him I
live with now. My husband's been dead a long, long time now.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]
MS. JOSIE JORDAN
Age 75 yrs.
840 East King St.,
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I was born right in the middle of the War on the Mark Lowery
plantation at Sparta, in White County, Tennessee, so I don't know
anything much about them slave days except what my mammy told me long
years ago. 'Course I mean the Civil War, for to us colored folks they
just wasn't no other war as meanful as that one.
My mother she come from Virginia when a little girl, but never nobody
tells me where at my pappy is from. His name was David Lowery when I
was born, but I guess he had plenty other names, for like my mammy he
was sold lots of times.
Salina was my mammy's name, and she belonged to a Mister Clark, who
sold her and pappy to Mark Lowery 'cause she was a fighting,
mule-headed woman.
It wasn't her fault 'cause she was a fighter. The master who owned her
before Mister Clark was one of them white mens who was always whipping
and beating his slaves and mammy couldn't stand it no more.
That's the way she tells me about it. She just figgured she would be
better off dead and out of her misery as to be whipped all the time,
so one day the master claimed they was something wrong with her work
and started to raise his whip, but mammy fought back and when the
ruckus was over the Master was laying still on the ground and folks
thought he was dead, he got such a heavy beating.
Mammy says he don't die and right after that she was sold to Mister
Clark I been telling you about. And mammy was full of misery for a
long time after she was carried to Mark Lowery's plantation where at
I was born during of the War.
She had two children while belonging to Mister Clark and he wouldn't
let them go with mammy and pappy. That's what caused her misery. Pappy
tried to ease her mind but she jest kept a'crying for her babies, Ann
and Reuban, till Mister Lowery got Clark to leave them visit with her
once a month.
Mammy always says that Mark Lowery was a good master. But he'd heard
things about mammy before he got her and I reckon was curious to know
if they was all true. Mammy says he found out mighty quick they was.
It was mammy's second day on the plantation and Mark Lowery acted like
he was going to whip her for something she'd done or hadn't, but mammy
knocked him plumb through the open cellar door. He wasn't hurt, not
even mad for mammy says he climbed out the cellar a'laughing, saying
he was only fooling to see if she would fight.
But mammy's troubles wasn't over then, for Mark Lowery he got himself
a new young wife (his first wife was dead), and mammy was round of the
house most of the time after that.
Right away they had trouble. The Mistress was trying to make mammy
hurry up with the work and she hit mammy with the broom stick. Mammy's
mule temper boiled up all over the kitchen and the Master had to stop
the fighting.
He wouldn't whip mammy for her part in the trouble, so the Mistress
she sent word to her father and brothers and they come to Mister
Lowery's place.
They was going to whip mammy, they was good and mad. Master was good
and mad, too, and he warned 'em home.
"Whip your own slaves." He told them. "Mine have to work and if
they're beat up they can't do a days work. Get on home--I'll take care
of this." And they left.
My folks didn't have no food troubles at Mark Lowery's like they did
somewheres else. I remember mammy told me about one master who almost
starved his slaves. Mighty stingy I reckon he was.
Some of them slaves was so poorly thin they ribs would kinder rustle
against each other like corn stalks a-drying in the hot winds. But
they gets even one hog-killing time, and it was funny too, mammy said.
They was seven hogs, fat and ready for fall hog-killing time. Just the
day before old master told off they was to be killed something
happened to all them porkers. One of the field boys found them and
come a-telling the master: "The hogs is all died, now they won't be
any meats for the winter."
When the master gets to where at the hogs is laying, they's a lot of
Negroes standing round looking sorrow-eyed at the wasted meat. The
master asks: "What's the illness with 'em?"
"Malitis." They tell him, and they acts like they don't want to touch
the hogs. Master says to dress them anyway for they ain't no more meat
on the place.
He says to keep all the meat for the slave families, but that's
because he's afraid to eat it hisself account of the hogs' got
malitis.
"Don't you-all know what is malitis?" Mammy would ask the children
when she was telling of the seven fat hogs and seventy lean slaves.
And she would laugh, remembering how they fooled the old master so's
to get all them good meats.
"One of the strongest Negroes got up early in the morning," Mammy
would explain, "long 'fore the rising horn called the slaves from
their cabins. He skitted to the hog pen with a heavy mallet in his
hand. When he tapped Mister Hog 'tween the eyes with that mallet
'malitis' set in mighty quick, but it was a uncommon 'disease', even
with hungry Negroes around all the time."
Mammy had me three sisters and a brother while on the Lowery
plantation. They was Lisa, Addie, Alice and Lincoln. It was a long
time after the War and we was all freed before we left old Master
Lowery.
Stayed right there where we was at home, working in the fields, living
in the same old cabins, just like before the War. Never did have no
big troubles after the War, except one time the Ku Klux Klan broke up
a church meeting and whipped some of the Negroes.
The preacher was telling about the Bible days when the Klan rode up.
They was all masked up and everybody crawled under the benches when
they shouted: "We'll make you damn niggers wish you wasn't free!"
And they just about did. The preacher got the worst whipping, blood
was running from his nose and mouth and ears, and they left him laying
on the floor.
They whipped the women just like the men, but Mammy and the girls
wasn't touched none and we run all the way back to the cabin. Layed
down with all our clothes on and tried to sleep, but we's too scairt
to close our eyes.
Mammy reckoned old Master Lowery was a-riding with the Klan that
night, else we'd got a flogging too.
We first moved about a mile from Master Lowery's place and ever week
we'd ask mammy if we children could go see old Master and she'd say:
"Yes, if you-all are good niggers."
The old Master was always glad to see us children and he would give us
candy and apples and treat us mighty fine.
The old plantations gone, the old Masters gone, the old slaves is
gone, and I'll be a going some of these days, too, for I been here a
mighty long time and they ain't nobody needs me now 'cause I is too
old for any good.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
"UNCLE" GEORGE G. KING
Age 83 yrs
Tulsa, Oklahoma
"Prayers for sale.... Prayers for sale...." Uncle George chants in
sing-song fashion as he roams around Tulsa's Greenwood Negro
district--pockets filled with prayer papers that are soiled and dirty
with constant handling.
But they are potent, Uncle George tells those who fear the coming of
some trouble, disaster or just ordinary misery, and there's a special
prayer for each and every trouble--including one to keep away the bill
collector when the young folks forget to make payments on the radio,
the furniture, the car, or the Spring outfit purchased months ago from
the credit clothier.
Its all in the Bible and the Bible is his workshop--'cause folks don't
know how to pray.
He's mighty old, is Uncle George King, and he'll tell you that he was
born on two-hundred acres of Hell, but the whitefolks called it Samuel
Roll's plantation (six miles N.E. of Lexington, South Carolina).
Kinder small for a plantation, Uncle George explains, but plenty room
for that devil overseer to lay on the lash, and plenty room for the
old she-devil Mistress to whip his mammy til' she was just a piece of
living raw meat!
The old Master talked hard words, but the Mistress whipped. Lot's of
difference, and Uncle George ought to know, 'cause he's felt the lash
layed on pretty heavy when he was no older than kindergarten children
of today.
The Mistress owned the slaves and they couldn't be sold without her
say-so. That's the reason George was never sold, but the Master once
tried to sell him 'cause the beatings was breaking him down. Old
Mistress said "No", and used it for an excuse to whip his Mammy. Uncle
George remembers that, too.
They crossed her wrists and tied them with a stout cord. They made her
bend over so that her arms was sticking back between her legs and
fastened the arms with a stick so's she couldn't straighten up.
He saw the Mistress pull his Mammy's clothes over her head so's the
lash would reach the skin. He saw the overseer lay on the whip with
hide busting blows that left her laying, all a shiver, on the ground,
like a wounded animal dying from the chase.
He saw the Mistress walk away, laughing, while his Mammy screamed and
groaned--the old Master standing there looking sad and wretched, like
he could feel the blows on Mammy's bared back and legs as much as she.
The Mistress was a great believer in the power of punishment, and
Uncle George remembers the old log cabin jail built before the War,
right on the plantation, where runaway slaves were stowed away 'till
they would promise to behave themselves.
The old jail was full up during most of the War. Three runaway slaves
were still chained to its floor when the Master gave word the Negroes
were free.
They were Prince, Sanovey (his wife), and Henry, who were caught and
whipped by the patrollers, and then brought back to the plantation for
another beating before being locked in jail.
The Mistress ordered them chained, and the overseer would come every
morning with the same question: "Will you niggers promise not to
runaway no more?"
But they wouldn't promise. One at a time the overseer would loosen the
chains, and lead them from the jail to cut them with powerful blows
from the lash, then drag them back to be chained until the next day
when more lickings were given 'cause they wouldn't promise.
The jail was emptied on the day Master Roll called together all the
men, women and children to tell them they wasn't slaves no more. Uncle
George tells it this way:
"The Master he says we are all free, but it don't mean we is white.
And it don't mean we is equal. Just equal for to work and earn our own
living and not depend on him for no more meats and clother." [TR: clothes?]
Food was scarce before the War; it was worse after the shooting and
killing was over, and Uncle George says: "There wasn't no corn bread,
no bacon--just trash eating trash, like when General Sherman marched
down through the country taking everything the soldiers could lug
away, and burning all along the way.
"Wasn't nothing to eat after he march by. Darkies search 'round the
barns, maybe find some grains of corn in the manure, and they'd parch
the grains--nothing else to eat, except sometimes at night Mammy would
skit out and steal scraps from the Master's house for the children.
"She had lots of hungry mouths, too. They was seven of us then, six
boys and a girl, Eliza. The boys was Wesley, Simeon, Moses, Peter,
William and me, George. This pappy's name was Griffin.
"But they was other pappys (Mammy told him) when Eva was born long
before any of us, and Laura come next, but from a white daddy. Mammy
lost them when she was sold around on the markets.
"The Klan they done lots of riding round the country. One night the
come down to the old slave quarters where the cabins is all squared
round each other, and called everybody outdoors. They's looking for
two women.
"They picks 'em out of the crowd right quick and say they been with
white men. Says their children is by white men, and they're going to
get whipped so's they'll remember to stay with their own kind. The
women kick and scream, but the mens grab them and roll them over a
barrel and let fly with the whip."
It was a long time after the Civil War that Uncle George got his first
schooling or attended regular church meetings. Like he says:
"Getting up at four o'clock in the morning, hoeing in the fields all
day, doing chores when they come in from the fields, and then piddling
with the weaver 'til nine or ten every night--it just didn't leave no
time for reading and such, even if we was allowed to."
And religion, that came later too, for during the old plantation days
Uncle George's white folks didn't think a Negro needed religion--there
wasn't a Heaven for Negroes anyhow.
Finally, though, the Master gave them right to hold meetings on the
plantation, and old Peter Coon was the preacher. The overseer was
there with guards to keep the Negroes from getting too much riled up
when old Peter started talking about Paul or some of the things in the
Old Testament. That's all he would talk about; nothing 'bout Jesus,
just Paul and the Old Testament.
His Mammy went to every meeting. Like he says: "She knew them good
things was good for her children and she told us about the Bible."
Like his old Mammy, Uncle George is a firm believer in the power of
the word. "Prayers are saving!" Uncle George says, "But they's lots of
folks' don't know how to pray."
That's why he has prayers for sale--and he knows they are never
failing, "If you tack 'em up on the wall and say 'em over and over
every day they's sure to be answered."
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
MARTHA KING
Age 85 yrs.
McAlester, Oklahoma
"They hung Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
They hung Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
They hung Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!
While we go marching on!"
Dat was de song de Yankees sang when they marched by our house. They
didn't harm us in any way. I guess de War was over then 'cause a few
days after dat old Master say, "Matt", and I say, "Suh?" He say, "Come
here. You go tell Henry I say come out here and to bring the rest of
the niggers with him." I went to the north door and I say, "Henry,
Master Willis say ever one of you come out here." We all went outside
and line up in front of old Master. He say, "Henry". Henry say, "Yes
sah". Old Master say, "Every one of you is free--as free as I am. You
all can leave or stay 'round here if you want to."
We all stayed on for a long time 'cause we didn't have no other home
and didn't know how to take keer of ourselves. We was kind of scared I
reckon. Finally I heard my mother was in Walker County, Alabama, and I
left and went to live with her.
My mother was Harriet Davis and she was born in Virginia. I don't know
who my father was. My grandmother was captured in Africa when she was
a little girl. A big boat was down at the edge of a bay an' the people
was all excited about it an' some of the bravest went up purty close
to look at it. The men on the boat told them to come on board and they
could have the pretty red handkerchiefs, red and blue beads and big
rings. A lot of them went on board and the ship sailed away with them.
My grandmother never saw any of her folks again.
When I was about five years old they brought my grandmother, my mother
and my two aunts and two uncles to Tuskaloosa from Fayettesville,
Alabama. We crossed a big river on a ferry boat. They put us on the
"block" and sold us. I can remember it well. A white man "cried" me
off just like I was a animal or varmint or something. He said, "Here's
a little nigger, who will give me a bid on her. She will make a good
house gal someday." Old man Davis give him $300.00 for me. I don't
know whether I was afraid or not; I don't think I cared just so I had
something to eat. I was allus hungry. Miss Davis' grandmother and one
of my aunts and uncles. Old man Davis bought the rest of us. Uncle
Henry looked after me when he could. I could see my mother once in
awhile but not often.
I had a purty easy time. I didn't have to work very hard 'till I was
about ten years old. I started working in the field and I had to work
in the weaving room too. We made all our own clothes. I spun and wove
cotton and wool. Old Master bought our shoes. We made fancy cloth. We
could stripe the cloth or check it or leave it plain. We also wove
coverlids and jeans to make mens suits out of. I could still do that
if I had to.
We all went to church with the white folks. We didn't have no colored
preachers. The niggers would get happy and shout all over the place.
Sometimes they'd fall out doors.
The Big House was a double log, two story house, not very fine but
awful comfortable. They was four big fireplace rooms downstairs and
two upstairs. Then they was two sort of shed rooms. There was a big
piazza across the front. The kitchen was a way off from the house,
seems like it was 200 feet at least. Our quarters were close by at the
back. He didn't have many slaves and they was nearly all my kinfolks.
There was Aunt Emmy and Phillis, Uncles Henry, Mitchell, Louis and
Andy, and the others were Uncle Logan and Uncle Nathan. They was old
Mistress' slaves when she done married.
Old Master and old Mistress had three boys, Eli, Billy and Dock. They
had to go to war and old Mistress sho' did cry. She say they might get
killed and she might not see 'em any more. I wonder why all dem white
folks didn't think of that when they sold mothers away from they
chillun. I had to be sold away from my mother. Two of her boys was
badly wounded but they all come back.
Abe Lincoln done everything he could for the niggers. We lost our best
friend when he got killed.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
GEORGE KYE
Age 110 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Okla.
I was born in Arkansas under Mr. Abraham Stover, on a big farm about
twenty miles north of Van Buren. I was plumb grown when the Civil War
come along, but I can remember back when the Cherokee Indians was in
all that part of the country.
Joe Kye was my pappy's name what he was born under back in Garrison
County, Virginia, and I took that name when I was freed, but I don't
know whether he took it or not because he was sold off by old Master
Stover when I was a child. I never have seen him since. I think he
wouldn't mind good, leastways that what my mammy say.
My mammy was named Jennie and I don't think I had any brothers or
sisters, but they was a whole lot of children at the quarters that I
played and lived with. I didn't live with mammy because she worked all
the time, and us children all stayed in one house.
It was a little one room log cabin, chinked and daubed, and you
couldn't stir us with a stick. When we went to eat we had a big pan
and all ate out of it. One what ate the fastest got the most.
Us children wore homespun shirts and britches and little slips, and
nobody but the big boys wore any britches. I wore just a shirt until I
was about 12 years old, but it had a long tall down to my calves. Four
or five of us boys slept in one bed, and it was made of hewed logs
with rope laced acrost it and a shuck mattress. We had stew made out
of pork and potatoes, and sometimes greens and pot liquor, and we had
ash cake mostly, but biscuits about once a month.
In the winter time I had brass toed shoes made on the place, and a
cloth cap with ear flaps.
The work I done was hoeing and plowing, and I rid a horse a lot for
old Master because I was a good rider. He would send me to run chores
for him, like going to the mill. He never beat his negroes but he
talked mighty cross and glared at us until he would nearly scare us to
death sometimes.
He told us the rules and we lived by them and didn't make trouble, but
they was a neighbor man that had some mean negroes and he nearly beat
them to death. We could hear them hollering in the field sometimes.
They would sleep in the cotton rows, and run off, and then they would
catch the cat-o-nine tails sure nuff. He would chain them up, too, and
keep them tied out to trees, and when they went to the field they
would be chained together in bunches sometimes after they had been
cutting up.
We didn't have no place to go to church, but old Master didn't care if
we had singing and praying, and we would tie our shoes on our backs
and go down the road close to the white church and all set down and
put our shoes on and go up close and listen to the service.
Old Master was baptized almost every Sunday and cussed us all out on
Monday. I didn't join the church until after freedom, and I always was
a scoundrel for dancing. My favorite preacher was old Pete Conway. He
was the only ordained colored preacher we had after freedom, and he
married me.
Old Master wouldn't let us take herb medicine, and he got all our
medicine in Van Buren when we was sick. But I wore a buckeye on my
neck just the same.
When the War come along I was a grown man, and I went off to serve
because old Master was too old to go, but he had to send somebody
anyways. I served as George Stover, but every time the sergeant would
call out "Abe Stover", I would answer "Here".
They had me driving a mule team wagon that Old Master furnished, and I
went with the Sesesh soldiers from Van Buren to Texarkana and back a
dozen times or more. I was in the War two years, right up to the day
of freedom. We had a battle close to Texarkana and another big one
near Van Buren, but I never left Arkansas and never got a scratch.
One time in the Texarkana battle I was behind some pine trees and the
bullets cut the limbs down all over me. I dug a big hole with my bare
hands before I hardly knowed how I done it.
One time two white soldiers named Levy and Briggs come to the wagon
train and said they was hunting slaves for some purpose. Some of us
black boys got scared because we heard they was going to Squire Mack
and get a reward for catching runaways, so me and two more lit out of
there.
They took out after us and we got to a big mound in the woods and hid.
Somebody shot at me and I rolled into some bushes. He rid up and got
down to look for me but I was on t'other side of his horse and he
never did see me. When they was gone we went back to the wagons just
as the regiment was pulling out and the officer didn't say nothing.
They was eleven negro boys served in my regiment for their masters.
The first year was mighty hard because we couldn't get enough to eat.
Some ate poke greens without no grease and took down and died.
How I knowed I was free, we was bad licked, I reckon. Anyways, we quit
fighting and a Federal soldier come up to my wagon and say: "Whose
mules?" "Abe Stover's mules," I says, and he tells me then, "Let me
tell you, black boy, you are as free now as old Abe Stover his own
self!" When he said that I jumped on top of one of them mules' back
before I knowed anything!
I married Sarah Richardson, February 10, 1870, and had only eleven
children. One son is a deacon and one grandson is a preacher. I am a
good Baptist. Before I was married I said to the gal's old man, "I'll
go to the mourners bench if you'll let me have Sal," and sure nuff I
joined up just a month after I got her. I am head of the Sunday School
and deacon in the St. Paul Baptist church in Muskogee now.
I lived about five miles from Van Buren until about twelve years ago
when they found oil and then they run all the negroes out and leased
up the land. They never did treat the negroes good around there
anyways.
I never had a hard time as a slave, but I'm glad we was set free.
Sometimes we can't figger out the best thing to do, but anyways we can
lead our own life now, and I'm glad the young ones can learn and get
somewhere these days.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: NOV 5 1937]
BEN LAWSON
Age 84 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in Danville, Illinois. De best I can get at my age I is 84
years old. My father dey tell me was name Dennis Lawson and died
before I was born. My mother's name was Ann Lawson, who I saw once. I
was given by her to my Mistress, Mrs. Jane Brazier, when a kid and she
was too. My mother raised me, she and her son to manhood. I got no
brothers or sisters to my knowledge. I was de only slave dey had and
dey raised me to be humble and fear dem as a slave and servant. As I
was de only slave I slept in de same room wid my Mistress and her son
who was grown, her husband and father being dead.
I worked on the farm doing general farm work, hoeing, plowing,
harvesting the crop of wheat, corn, barley, oats, rice, peas, etc. To
make and harvest the crops dey would hire poor white help and as dey
was grown and I was a lad, dey kept me in a strain in order to keep up
wid dem for if I didn't it was just too bad for my back. So's dere
would be work for me to do during the bad days of winter dey built a
pen under a shed and dey would lay a cloth on de ground covering the
ground in the pen and wid small mesh wire on top of de pen on which de
wheat was laid and wid a wooden maul I would pounder out wheat all day
long, even though dey could have thrashed it as dey did de biggest
part of it.
At meal time dey would give me what was left of de scraps off dey
table in a plate, which I would eat most de time on de back porch in
warm weather and in de kitchen in winter.
For summer I wore a lowell shirt and for winter I wore de same old
lowell shirt only wid outing slips and a pair of brogan shoes or a
pair of old shoes dat was thrown away by my Mistress' son.
Their house was a 3-room log house unpainted, wid only one bed room
and a dining room and kitchen.
The plantation had 'bout 160 acres and was worked by my Mistress' son
and myself plus poor white hired help, my being de only slave.
I was treated most harshly 'mongst a group of just white people and
who seemed to think me de old work ox for all de hardest work. De
nearest other Negro slaves were 'bout 15 or 20 miles from me.
When I was grown I ran away one night and walked and rode de rods
under stage coaches to Paducah, Kentucky. I got me a job and worked as
a roustabout on a boat where I learned to gamble wid dice. I fought
and gambled all up and down de Mississippi River, and in de course of
time I had 'bout $3,000, but I lost it.
I don't know de month or de year I was born in but I can 'member de
sinking of de biggest circus show in de Mississippi River at Mobile,
Alabama when I was 10 to 14 years old, I ain't sure which.
There wasn't no children for me to play with and it seem like I never
was a child but was just always a man. I wasn't never told dat I was
free, and I didn't know nothing 'bout de War much dat brought my
freedom. Dey kept all of dat away from me and I couldn't read or write
so I didn't know.
I've been married only once. My wife is 54 years old, and her name is
Hattie Lawson. We have no children. Since we married after freedom
there wasn't nothing unusual at our wedding.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]
MARY LINDSAY
Age 91 yrs.
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
My slavery days wasn't like most people tell you about, 'cause I was
give to my young Mistress and sent away to Texas when I was jest a
little girl, and I didn't live on a big plantation a very long tine.
I got an old family Bible what say I was born on September 20, in
1846, but I don't know who put de writing in it unless it was my
mammy's mistress. My mammy had de book when she die.
My mammy come out to the Indian country from Mississippi two years
before I was born. She was the slave of a Chickasaw part-breed name
Sobe Love. He was the kinsfolks of Mr. Benjamin Love, and Mr. Henry
Love what bring two big bunches of the Chickasaws out from Mississippi
to the Choctaw country when the Chickasaws sign up de treaty to leave
Mississippi, and the whole Love family settle 'round on the Red River
below Fort Washita. There whar I was born.
My mammy say dey have a terrible hard time again the sickness when
they first come out into that country, because it was low and swampy
and all full of cane brakes, and everybody have the smallpox and the
malaria and fever all the time. Lots of the Chickasaw families nearly
died off.
Old Sobe Love marry her off to a slave named William, what belong to a
full-blood Chickasaw man name Chick-a-lathe, and I was one of de
children.
De children belong to the owner of the mother, and me and my brother
Franklin, what we called "Bruner", was born under the name of Love and
then old Master Sobe bought my pappy William, and we was all Love
slaves then. My mammy had two more girls, name Hatty and Rena.
My mammy name was Mary, and I was named after her. Old Mistress name
was Lottie, and they had a daughter name Mary. Old Master Sobe was
powerful rich, and he had about a hundred slaves and four or five big
pieces of that bottom land broke out for farms. He had niggers on all
the places, but didn't have no overseers, jest hisself and he went
around and seen that everybody behave and do they work right.
Old Master Sobe was a mighty big man in the tribe, and so was all his
kinfolks, and they went to Fort Washita and to Boggy Depot all the
time on business, and leave the Negroes to look after old Mistress and
the young daughter. She was almost grown along about that time, when I
can first remember about things.
'Cause my name was Mary, and so was my mammy's and my young Mistress'
too. Old Master Sobe called me Mary-Ka-Chubbe to show which Mary he
was talking about.
Miss Mary have a black woman name Vici what wait on her all the time,
and do the carding and spinning and cooking 'round the house, and Vici
belong to Miss Mary. I never did go 'round the Big House, but jest
stayed in the quarters with my mammy and pappy and helped in the field
a little.
Then one day Miss Mary run off with a man and married him, and old
Master Sobe nearly went crazy! The man was name Bill Merrick, and he
was a poor blacksmith and didn't have two pair of britches to his
name, and old Master Sobe said he jest stole Miss Mary 'cause she was
rich, and no other reason. 'Cause he was a white man and she was
mostly Chickasaw Indian.
Anyways old Master Sobe wouldn't even speak to Mr. Bill, and wouldn't
let him set foot on the place. He jest reared and pitched around, and
threatened to shoot him if he set eyes on him, and Mr. Bill took Miss
Mary and left out for Texas. He set up a blacksmith shop on the big
road between Bonham and Honey Grove, and lived there until he died.
Miss Mary done took Vici along with her, and pretty soon she come back
home and stay a while, and old Master Sobe kind of soften up a little
bit and give her some money to git started on, and he give her me too.
Dat jest nearly broke my old mammy's and pappy's heart, to have me
took away off from them, but they couldn't say nothing and I had to go
along with Miss Mary back to Texas. When we git away from the Big
House I jest cried and cried until I couldn't hardly see, my eyes was
so swole up, but Miss Mary said she gwine to be good to me.
I ask her how come Master Sobe didn't give her some of the grown boys
and she say she reckon it because he didn't want to help her husband
out none, but jest wanted to help her. If he give her a man her
husband have him working in the blacksmith shop, she reckon.
Master Bill Merrick was a hard worker, and he was more sober than most
the men in them days, and he never tell me to do nothing. He jest let
Miss Mary tell me what to do. They have a log house close to the shop,
and a little patch of a field at first, but after awhile he git more
land, and then Miss Mary tell me and Vici we got to help in the field
too.
That sho' was hard living then! I have to git up at three o'clock
sometimes so I have time to water the hosses and slop the hogs and
feed the chickens and milk the cows, and then git back to the house
and git the breakfast. That was during the times when Miss Mary was
having and nursing her two children, and old Vici had to stay with her
all the time. Master Bill never did do none of that kind of work, but
he had to be in the shop sometimes until way late in the night, and
sometimes before daylight, to shoe peoples hosses and oxen and fix
wagons.
He never did tell me to do that work, but he never done it his own
self and I had to do it if anybody do it.
He was the slowest one white man I ever did see. He jest move 'round
like de dead lice falling off'n him all the time, and everytime he go
to say anything he talk so slow that when he say one word you could
walk from here to way over there before he say de next word. He don't
look sick, and he was powerful strong in his arms, but he act like he
don't feel good jest the same.
I remember when the War come. Mostly by the people passing 'long the
big road, we heard about it. First they was a lot of wagons hauling
farm stuff into town to sell, and then purty soon they was soldiers on
the wagons, and they was coming out into the country to git the stuff
and buying it right at the place they find it.
Then purty soon they commence to be little bunches of mens in soldier
clothes riding up and down the road going somewhar. They seem like
they was mostly young boys like, and they jest laughing and jollying
and going on like they was on a picnic.
Then the soldiers come 'round and got a lot of the white men and took
them off to the War even iffen they didn't want to go. Master Bill
never did want to go, 'cause he had his wife and two little children,
and anyways he was gitting all the work he could do fixing wagons and
shoeing hosses, with all the traffic on de road at that time. Master
Bill had jest two hosses, for him and his wife to ride and to work to
the buggy, and he had one old yoke of oxen and some more cattle. He
got some kind of a paper in town and he kept it with him all the time,
and when the soldiers would come to git his hosses or his cattle he
would jest draw that paper on 'em and they let 'em alone.
By and by the people got so thick on the big road that they was
somebody in sight all the time. They jest keep a dust kicked up all
day and all night 'cepting when it rain, and they git all bogged down
and be strung all up and down the road camping. They kept Master Bill
in the shop all the time, fixing the things they bust trying to git
the wagons out'n the mud. They was whole families of them, with they
children and they slaves along, and they was coming in from every
place because the Yankees was gitting in their part of the country,
they say.
We all git mighty scared about the Yankees coming but I don't reckon
they ever git thar, 'cause I never seen none, and we was right on the
big road and we would of seen them. They was a whole lot more soldiers
in them brown looking jeans, round-about jackets and cotton britches
a-faunching up and down the road on their hosses, though. Them hoss
soldiers would come b'iling by, going east, all day and night, and the
two-three days later on they would all come tearing by going west! Dey
acted like dey didn't know whar dey gwine, but I reckon dey did.
Den Master Bill git sick. I reckon he more wore out and worried than
anything else, but he go down with de fever one day and it raining so
hard Mistress and me and Vici can't neither one go nowhar to git no
help.
We puts peach tree poultices on his head and wash him off all the
time, until it quit raining so Mistress can go out on de road, and
then a doctor man come from one of the bunches of soldiers and see
Master Bill. He say he going be all right and jest keep him quiet, and
go on.
Mistress have to tend de children and Vici have to take care of Master
Bill and look after the house, and dat leave me all by myself wid all
the rest of everything around the place.
I got to feed all the stock and milk the cows and work in the field
too. Dat the first time I ever try to plow, and I nearly git killed,
too! I got me a young yoke of oxens I broke to pull the wagon, 'cause
Vici have to use the old oxens to work the field. I had to take the
wagon and go 'bout ten miles west to a patch of woods Master Bill
owned to git fire wood, 'cause we lived right on a flat patch of
prairie, and I had to chop and haul the wood by myself. I had to git
postoak to burn in the kitchen fireplace and willow for Master Bill to
make charcoal out of to burn in his blacksmith fire.
Well, I hitch up them young oxen to the plow and they won't follow the
row, and so I go git the old oxens. One of them old oxens didn't know
me and took in after me, and I couldn't hitch 'em up. And then it
begins to rain again.
After the rain was quit I git the bucket and go milk the cows, and it
is time to water the hosses too, so I starts to the house with the
milk and leading one of the hosses. When I gits to the gate I drops
the halter across my arm and hooks the bucket of milk on my arm too,
and starts to open the gate. The wind blow the gate wide open, and it
slap the hoss on the flank. That was when I nearly git killed!
Out the hoss go through the gate to the yard, and down the big road,
and my arm all tangled up in the halter rope and me dragging on the
ground!
The first jump knock the wind out of me and I can't git loose, and
that hoss drag me down the road on the run until he meet up with a
passel of soldiers and they stop him.
The next thing I knowed I was laying on the back kitchen gallery, and
some soldiers was pouring water on me with a bucket. My arm was broke,
and I was stove up so bad that I have to lay down for a whole week,
and Mistress and Vici have to do all the work.
Jest as I gitting able to walk 'round here come some soldiers and say
they come to git Master Bill for the War. He still in the bed sick,
and so they leave a parole paper for him to stay until he git well,
and then he got to go into Bonham and go with the soldiers to
blacksmith for them that got the cannons, the man said.
Mistress take on and cry and hold onto the man's coat and beg, but it
don't do no good. She say they don't belong in Texas but they belong
in the Chickasaw Nation, but he say that don't do no good, 'cause they
living in Texas now.
Master Bill jest stew and fret so, one night he fever git way up and
he go off into a kind of a sleep and about morning he died.
My broke arm begin to swell up and hurt me, and I git sick with it
again, and Mistress git another doctor to come look at it.
He say I got bad blood from it how come I git so sick, and he git out
his knife out'n his satchel and bleed me in the other arm. The next
day he come back and bleed me again two times, and the next day one
more time, and then I git so sick I puke and he quit bleeding me.
While I still sick Mistress pick up and go off to the Territory to her
pappy and leave the children thar for Vici and me to look after. After
while she come home for a day or two and go off again somewhere else.
Then the next time she come home she say they been having big battles
in the Territory and her pappy moved all his stuff down on the river,
and she home to stay now.
We git along the best we can for a whole winter, but we nearly starve
to death, and then the next spring when we getting a little patch
planted Mistress go into Bonham and come back and say we all free and
the War over.
She say, "You and Vici jest as free as I am, and a lot freer, I
reckon, and they say I got to pay you if you work for me, but I ain't
got no money to pay you. If you stay on with me and help me I will
feed and home you and I can weave you some good dresses if you card
and spin the cotton and wool."
Well, I stayed on, 'cause I didn't have no place to go, and I carded
and spinned the cotton and wool and she make me just one dress. Vici
didn't do nothing but jest wait on the children and Mistress.
Mistress go off again about a week, and when she come back I see she
got some money, but she didn't give us any of it.
After while I asked her ain't she got some money for me, and she say
no, ain't she giving me a good home? Den I starts to feeling like I
aint treated right.
Every evening I git done with the work and go out in the back yard and
jest stand and look off to the west towards Bonham, and wish I was at
that place or some other place.
Den along come a nigger boy and say he working for a family in Bonham
and he git a dollar every week. He say Mistress got some kinfolks in
Bonham and some of Master Sobe Love's niggers living close to there.
So one night I jest put that new dress in a bundle and set foot right
down the big road a-walking west, and don't say nothing to nobody!
Its ten miles into Bonham, and I gits in town about daylight. I keeps
on being afraid, 'cause I con't git it out'n my mind I still belong to
Mistress.
Purty soon some niggers tells me a nigger name Bruner Love living down
west of Greenville, and I know that my brother Franklin, 'cause we all
called him Bruner. I don't remember how all I gits down to Greenville,
but I know I walks most the way, and I finds Bruner. Him and his wife
working on a farm, and they say my sister Hetty and my sister Rena
what was little is living with my mammy way back up on the Red River.
My pappy done died in time of the War and I didn't know it.
Bruner taken me in a wagon and we went to my mammy, and I lived with
her until she died and Hetty was married. Then I married a boy name
Henry Lindsay. His people was from Georgia and he live with them way
west at Cedar Mills, Texas. That was right close to Gordonville, on
the Red River.
We live at Cedar Mills until three my children was born and then we
come to the Creek Nation in 1887. My last one was born here.
My oldest is named Georgia on account of her pappy. He was born in
Georgia and that was in 1838, so his whitefolks got a book that say.
My next child was Henry. We called him William Henry, after my pappy
and his pappy. Then come Donie, and after we come here we had Madison,
my youngest boy.