I jest lay there fer a minute and didn't say nothing and purty soon he
say, "Have you got any water?"
I told him the water was on the porch and he got up and went outside
and I set in to calling Ed. He come hurrying and I asked him why he
didn't lock the door when he went out and I told him to go see if he
could see the little man and find out what he wanted. He went out and
looked everywhere but he couldn't find him nor he couldn't even find
his tracks.
I always keep a butcher-knife near me but it was between the mattress
and the feather bed and I couldn't get to it. I don't guess it would
have done any good though fer I guess it was jest a sperit.
The funniest thing that ever happened to me was when I was a real
young gal. Master and Miss Julie was going to see one of his sisters
that was sick. I went along to take care of the baby fer Miss Julie.
The baby was about a year old. I had a bag of clothes and the baby to
carry. I was riding a pacing mule and it was plumb gentle. I was
riding along behind Master Frank and Miss Julie and I went to sleep. I
lost the bag of clothes and never missed it. Purty soon I let the baby
slip out of my lap and I don't know how far I went before I nearly
fell off myself and jest think how I felt when I missed that baby! I
turned around and went back and found the baby setting in the trail
sort of crying. He wasn't hurt a mite as he fell in the grass. I got
off the mule and picked him up and had to look fer a log so I could
get back on again.
Jest as I got back on Master Frank rode up. He had missed me and come
back to see what was wrong. I told him that I had lost the bag of
clothes but I didn't say anything about losing the baby. We never did
find the clothes and I sho' kept awake the rest of the way. I wasn't
going to risk losing that precious baby again! I guess the reason he
didn't cry much was because he was a Indian baby. He was sho' a sweet
baby though.
Jest before the War people would come through the Territory stealing
niggers and selling 'em in the states. Us women dassent git fur from
the house. We wouldn't even go to the spring if we happened to see a
strange wagon or horsebacker. One of Master Sam Love's women was stole
and sold down in Texas. After freedom she made her way back to her
fambly. Master Frank sent one of my brothers to Sherman on an errand.
After several days the mule come back but we never did see my brother
again. We didn't know whether he run off or was stole and sold.
I was glad to be free. What did I do and say? Well, I jest clapped my
hands together and said, "Thank God Almighty, I'se free at last!"
I live on the forty acres that the government give me. I have been
blind for nine years and don't git off my bed much. I live here with
my son, Ed. Isom has been dead for over forty years. I had fifteen
children, but only ten of them are living.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
DANIEL WILLIAM LUCAS
Age 94 yrs.
Red Bird, Okla.
I remember them slave days well as it was yesterday, and when I get to
remembering the very first thing comes back to me is the little log
cabin where at I lived when I was a slave boy back 'fore the War.
Just like yesterday--I see that little old cabin standing on a bit of
hill about a quarter-mile from the Master's brick mansion, and I see
into the cabin and there's the old home-made bed with rope cords
a-holding up the corn shuck bedding where on I use to sleep after
putting in the day at hoeing cotton or following a slow time mule team
down the corn rows 'till it got so dark the old overseer just
naturally had to call it a day.
And then I see the old baker swinging in the fireplace. That cooked up
the corn pone to go with the fat side meats the Master Doctor (didn't
I tell you the Master was a doctor?) give us for the meals of the week
day. But on a Sunday morning we always had flour bread, excepting
after the War is over and then we is lucky do we get anything.
Just like yesterday--I hear the old overseer making round of the
cabins every day at four, and I means in the morning, too, when the
night sleep is the best, and the folkses tumbling out of the door
getting ready for the fields.
All the mens dressed about the same. Just like me. Wearing the grey
jeans with the blue shirt stuck in loose around the belt, brogan shoes
that feels like brakes on the feet about the hot time of day when the
old sun's a-grinning down like he was saying: "work, niggers, work!"
And the overseer is saying the same thing, only we pays more attention
to him 'cause of the whip he shakes around when the going gets kinder
slow down the row.
Now I sees them getting ready for the slave auction. Many of 'em there
was. The Master Doctor done owned about two hundred slaves and
sometimes he sell some for to beat the bad crops.
There they'd stand on the wooden blocks, their faces greased and
shiny, their arms and bodies pretty well greased too; seemed like they
looked better and stronger that way, maybe some other reason, I dunno.
And when the auction was over lots of the slaves would try to figger
out when would the next one be and worry some afraid they'd be
standing up there waiting for the buyers to punch and slap to see is
they sound of limb and able to do the days work without loafing down
the rows.
There's the old white preacher who tried to tell the slaves about the
Lord. He had a mighty hard job sometimes, 'cause of the teaching was
hard to understand. And then--then he'd just seem to be riled with
anger and lay down the law of the Lord between cuss-words that all the
slaves could understand. So finally I guess everybody was religionized
even it was cussed into 'em right from the pulpit!
That old preacher always makes me think of haunts, 'cause every
evening when I drive up the cows for milking, there's a old, old log
cabin right on the way that I pass every night--and it's so haunted
won't nobody pass it after the darkness covers in the daylight.
I didn't always get by 'fore then, and the sounds I hear! Like they
was people inside jumping and knocking on the floor, maybe they was
dancing, I dunno. But they was a light in the big room. Wasn't the
moon a-shining through the windows either, 'cause sometimes I would
stop at the gate and say HELLO, then out go the light and the noises
would stop quick, like them haunts was a-scairt as me--and then, then
I run like the old preacher's Devil is after me with all his forks.
Then along come the War. The slaves would go around from cabin to
cabin telling each other about how mean and cruel was the master or
the overseer, and maybe some of them would make for the North. They
was the unlucky ones, 'cause lots of times they was caught.
And when the patrollers get 'em caught, they was due for a heavy
licking that would last for a long time.
The slaves didn't know how to travel. The way would be marked when
they'd start North, but somehow they'd get lost, 'cause they didn't
know one direction from another, they was so scairt.
Just like yesterday--I remember the close of the War. Nothing exciting
about it down on the plantation. Just the old overseer come around and
say:
"The Yankees has whipped the Rebels and the War is over. But the Old
Master don't want you to leave. He just wants you to stay right on
here where at is your home. That's what the Master say is best for you
to do."
That's what I do, but some of them other slaves is kinder filled up
with the idea of freedom and wants to find out is it good or bad, so
they leave and scatter round.
But I stays, and the Master Doctor he pays me ten dollars every month,
gives me board and my sleeping place just like always, and when I gets
sick there he is with the herb medicine for my ailment and I is well
again.
It's long after the War before I leaves the old place. And that's when
I gets married in 1885. That was my first licensed wife and we is
married in Holly Springs. Her name was Josephine and we has maybe
eight-ten children, I dunno.
And I is thankful they ain't none of my children born slaves and have
to remember all them terrible days when we was ruled by the whip--like
I remember it, just like it was yesterday.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
BERT LUSTER
Age 85 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
I'll be jest frank, I'm not for sho' when I was born, but it was in
1853. Don't know the month, but I was sho' born in 1853 in Watson
County, Tennessee. You see my father was owned by Master Luster and my
mother was owned by Masters Joe and Bill Asterns (father and son). I
can remember when Master Astern moved from Watson County, Tennessee he
brought me and my mother with him to Barnum County Seat, Texas. Master
Astern owned about twelve slaves, and dey was all Astern 'cept Miriah
Elmore's son Jim. He owned 'bout five or six hundred acres of ground,
and de slaves raised and shucked all de corn and picked all de cotton.
De whites folks lived in a big double log house and we slaves lived in
log cabins. Our white folks fed us darkies! We ate nearly ever'thing
dey ate. Dey ate turkey, chickens, ducks, geese, fish and we killed
beef, pork, rabbits and deer. Yes, and possums too. And whenever we
killed beef we tanned the hide and dere was a white man who made shoes
for de white folks and us darkies. I tell you I'm not gonna lie, dem
white folks was good to us darkies. We didn't have no mean overseer.
Master Astern and his son jest told us niggers what to do and we did
it, but 50 miles away dem niggers had a mean overseer, and dey called
him "poor white trash", "old whooser", and sometime "old red neck",
and he would sho' beat 'em turrible iffen dey didn't do jest like he
wanted 'em to.
Seem like I can hear dem "nigger hounds" barking now. You see whenever
a darky would get a permit to go off and wouldn't come back dey would
put de "nigger hounds" on his trail and run dat nigger down.
De white women wove and spin our clothes. You know dey had looms,
spins, and weavers. Us darkies would stay up all night sometime
sep'rating cotton from the seed. When dem old darkies got sleepy dey
would prop their eyes open wid straws.
Sho', we wore very fine clothes for dem days. You know dey dyed the
cloth with poke berries.
We cradled de wheat on pins, caught the grain, carried it to de mill
and had it ground. Sho', I ate biscuits and cornbread too. Keep
telling you dat we ate.
We got de very best of care when we got sick. Don't you let nobody
tell you dem white folks tried to kill out dem darkies 'cause when a
darkey took sick dey would send and git de very best doctors round dat
country. Dey would give us ice water when we got sick. You see we put
up ice in saw dust in winter and when a slave got sick dey give him
ice water, sometimes sage tea and chicken gruel. Dey wanted to keep
dem darkies fat so dey could git top price for 'em. I never saw a
slave sold, but my half brother's white folks let him work and buy
hisself.
I was about 14, and I milked the cows, packed water, seeded cotton,
churned milk up at de Big House and jest first one chore and den
another. My mother cooked up at de Big House.
Dey was a lot of talk 'bout conjure but I didn't believe in it. Course
dem darkies could do everything to one another, and have one another
scared, but dey couldn't conjure dat overseer and stop him from
beating 'em near to death. Course he didn't flog 'em till dey done
sumping.
I married my woman, Nannie Wilkerson, 58 years ago. Dat was after
slavery, and I love her, honest to God I does. Course in dem days we
didn't buy no license, we jest got permits from old Master and jumped
over a broom stick and jest got married.
I sho' did hate when de Yanks come 'cause our white folks was good to
us, and jest take us right along to church with 'em. We didn't work on
Sad'days or Christmas.
We raised gardens, truck patches and such for spending change.
I sho' caught hell after dem Yanks come. Befo' de war, you see de
patroller rode all nite but wouldn't bother a darkey iffen he wouldn't
run off. Why dem darkeys would run off I jest couldn't see.
Dose Yanks treated old master and mistress so mean. Dey took all his
hams, chickens, and drove his cattle out of the pasture, but didn't
bother us niggers honest. Dey drove old master Aster off'n his own
plantation and we all hid in de corn field.
My mother took me to Greenville, Texas, 'cause my step-pappy was one
of dem half smart niggers round dere trying to preach and de Ku Klux
Klan beat him half to death.
Dere was some white folks who would take us to church wid 'em--dis dis
[TR: sic] was aftah the war now--and one night we was all sitting up
thar and one old woman with one leg was dah and when dem Klans shot in
amongst us niggers and white folks aunt Mandy beat all of us home. Yes
suh.
My first two teachers was two white men, and dem Klans shot in de
hotel what dey lived in, but dey had school for us niggers jest de
same. After dat, dose Klans got so bad Uncle Sam sent soljers down
dere to keep peace.
After de soljers come and run de Klans out we worked hard dat fall and
made good crops. 'Bout three years later I came to Indian Territory in
search of educating my kids.
I landed here 46 years ago on a farm not far from now Oklahoma City. I
got to be a prosperous farmer. My bale of cotton amongst 5,000 bales
won the blue ribbon at Guthrie, Oklahoma, and dat bale of cotton and
being a good democrat won for me a good job as a clerk on the
Agriculture Board at the State Capitol. All de white folks liked me
and still like me and called me "cotton king."
I have jest three chillun living. Walter is parcel post clerk here at
de post office downtown. Delia Jenkins, my daughter is a housewife and
Cleo Luckett, my other daughter, a common laborer.
Have been a christian 20 years. Jest got sorry for my wicked ways. I
am a member of the Church of God. My wife is a member of the Church of
Christ. I'm a good democrat and she is a good republican.
My fav'rite songs is: "Dark Was the Nite, and Cold the Ground" and
"Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray."
I'm glad slavery is over, but I don't think dem white folks was
fighting to free us niggers. God freed us. Of course, Abraham Lincoln
was a pretty fine man. Don't know much about Jeff Davis. Never seen
him. Yes, and Booker T. Washington. He was one of the Negro leaders.
The first Negro to represent the Negroes in Washington. He was a great
leader.
During slavery time never heerd of a cullud man committing 'sault on a
white woman. The white and cullud all went to church together too.
Niggers and white shouted alike.
I remember some of the little games we played now: "Fox in the wall",
"Mollie, Mollie Bride", and "Hide and go seek."
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
STEPHEN McCRAY
Age 88 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in Huntsville County, Alabama, right where the Scottsboro
boys was in jail, in 1850.
My parents was Wash and Winnie McCray. They was the mother and father
of 22 chillun. Jest five lived to be grown and the rest died at baby
age. My father's mother and father was named Mandy and Peter McCray,
and my mother's mother and father was Ruthie and Charlie McCray. They
all had the same Master, Mister McCray, all the way thoo'.
We live in log huts and when I left home grown, I left my folks living
in the same log huts. Beds was put together with ropes and called rope
beds. No springs was ever heard of by white or cullud as I knows of.
All the work I ever done was pick up chips for my grandma to cook
with. I was kept busy doing this all day.
The big boys went out and got rabbits, possums and fish. I would sho'
lak to be in old Alabama fishing, 'cause I am a fisherman. There is
sho' some pretty water in Alabama and as swift as cars run here. Water
so clear and blue you can see the fish way down, and dey wouldn't bite
to save your life.
Slaves had their own gardens. All got Friday and Sadday to work in
garden during garden time. I liked cornbread best and I'd give a
dollar to git some of the bread we had on those good old days and I
ain't joking. I went in shirt tail all the time. Never had on no pants
'til I was 15 years old. No shoes, 'cept two or three winters. Never
had a hat 'til I was a great big boy.
Marriage was performed by getting permission from Master and go where
the woman of your choice had prepared the bed, undress and flat-footed
jump a broom-stick together into the bed.
Master had a brick house for hisself and the overseer. They was the
only ones on the place. The overseer woke up the slaves all the way
from 2 o'clock till 4 o'clock of mornings. He wasn't nothing but white
trash. Nothing else in the world but that. They worked till they
couldn't see how to work. I jest couldn't jedge the size of that big
place, and there was a mess of slaves, not less'n three hundred.
I doesn't have no eggycation, edgecation, or ejecation, and about all
I can do is spell. I jest spell till I get the pronouncements.
We had church, but iffen the white folks caught you at it, you was
beat most nigh to death. We used a big pot turned down to keep our
voices down. When we went to hear white preachers, he would say, "Obey
your master and mistress." I am a hard shell-flint Baptist. I was
baptised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Our baptizing song was mostly "On
Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand" and our funeral song was "Hark From The
Tomb."
We had some slaves who would try to run off to the North but the white
folks would catch 'em with blood hounds and beat 'em to death. Them
patrollers done their work mostly at night. One night I was sleeping
on cotton and the patrollers come to our house and ask for water.
Happen we had plenty. They drunk a whole lot and got warm and told my
father to be a good nigger and they wouldn't bother him at all. They
raided till General Grant come thoo'. He sent troops out looking for
Klu Klux Klanners and killed 'em jest lak killing black birds. General
Grant was one of the men that caused us to set heah free today and
able to talk together without being killed.
I didn't and don't believe in no conjure. No sensible person do
either. We had a doctor on the place. Ever master had a doctor who
waited on his slaves, but we wore asafetida or onion 'round our necks
to keep off diseases. A dime was put 'round a teething baby's neck to
make it tooth easy, and it sho' helped too. But today all folks done
got 'bove that.
The old folks talked very little of freedom and the chillun knew
nothing at all of it, and that they heard they was daresome to mention
it.
Bushwhacker, nothing but poor white trash, come thoo' and killed all
the little nigger chillun they could lay hands on. I was hid under the
house with a big rag on my mouf many a time. Them Klu Klux after
slavery sho' got enough from them soldiers to last 'em.
I was married to Kan Pry in 1884. Two chillun was born. The girl is
living and the boy might be, but I don't know. My daughter works out
in service.
I wish Lincoln was here now. He done more for the black face than any
one in that seat. Old Jeff Davis kept slavery up till General Grant
met him at the battle. Lincoln sho' snowed him under. General Grant
put fire under him jest lak I'm fixing to do my pipe. Booker T.
Washington was jest all right.
Every time I think of slavery and if it done the race any good, I
think of the story of the coon and dog who met. The coon said to the
dog "Why is it you're so fat and I am so poor, and we is both
animals?" The dog said: "I lay round Master's house and let him kick
me and he gives me a piece of bread right on." Said the coon to the
dog: "Better then that I stay poor." Them's my sentiment. I'm lak the
coon, I don't believe in 'buse.
I used to be the most wicked man in the world but a voice converted me
by saying, "Friend, friend, why is you better to everybody else than
you is to your self? You are sending your soul to hell." And from that
day I lived like a Christian. People here don't live right and I don't
lak to 'tend church. I base my Christian life on: "Believe in me,
trust my work and you shall be saved, for I am God and beside me there
is no other."
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
HANNAH McFARLAND
Age 85 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, February 29, 1853. My father
was name James Gainey and my mother was name Katie Gainey. There was
three chillun born to my folks doing slavery. My father was a free
man, but my mother was de slave of the Sampsons, some Jews. My father
was de richest Negro in South Carolina doing this time. He bought all
three of we chillun for $1,000 apiece, but dem Jews jest wouldn't sell
mamma. Dey was mighty sweet to her. She come home ever night and
stayed with us. Doing the day a Virginian nigger woman stayed with us
and she sho' was mean to we chillun. She used to beat us sumpin'
terrible. You know Virginia people is mean to cullud people. My father
bought her from some white folks too.
We lived in town and in a good house.
It was a good deal of confusion doing de War. I waited on the Yankees.
Dey captured mamma's white people's house. Dey tried to git mamma to
tell dem jest whut de white folks done done to her and all she could
say was dey was good to her. Shucks, dey wouldn't sell her. She jest
told them she had a free husband.
My father was a blockader. He run rafts from one place to another and
sho' made a lot of money. He was drowned while doing this while I was
a good size child.
Dem patrollers tied you to a whipping post iffen dey caught you out
after 10 o'clock. They 'tempted to do my mother that way, but my papa
sho' stopped dat. I can't say I lak white people even now, 'cause dey
done done so much agin us.
I was free, but I couldn't go to school, 'cause we didn't had none. I
been in Oklahoma over 40 years. Have done some traveling and could go
some whar else, but I jest stays here 'cause I ain't got no desire to
travel.
All we ever wore to keep off diseases was asafetida, nothing else.
I done heard more 'bout conjure in Oklahoma than I ever heerd in South
Carolina. All dat stuff is in Louisiana. I didn't heah nothing 'bout
the Klu Klux Klan till I come to Oklahoma neither. More devilment in
Oklahoma than any place I know. South got more religion too. I jest as
soon be back with the Rebels.
Bushwhackers whipped you iffen you stayed out late, and sho' nuff if
dey didn't lak you.
I felt sorry for Jeff Davis when the Yankees drilled him through the
streets. I saw it all. I said, "Mama, Mama, look, dey got old Jeff
Davis." She said, "Be quiet, dey'll lynch you." She didn't know no
better! She was a old slave nigger. I showed the Yankees where the
white folks hid their silver and money and jewelry, and Mamma sho'
whipped me about it too. She was no fool 'bout slavery. Slavery sho'
didn't he'p us none to my belief.
I didn't care much 'bout Lincoln. It was nice of him to free us, but
'course he didn't want to.
The overseer was sho' nothing but poor white trash, the kind who
didn't lak niggers and dey still don't, old devils. Don't let 'em fool
you, dey don't lak a nigger a'tall.
I'm a Methodist. People ought to praise God 'cause he done done so
much for dese sinners. Dey was heap more religious in my early days. I
jined church in 1863. I jined the Holiness so I could git baptized and
the Methodist wouldn't baptize you. After my baptism, I went back to
the Methodist Church. You know my pastor, Reverend Miller, is the
first Methodist preacher I ever knowed that was baptized, and that
baptizes everybody.
I was married in Akin, South Carolina to Andrew Pew. We had 12
chillun. Jest one boy is my only living child today.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
MARSHALL MACK
Age 83 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born September 10, 1854. I am the second child of five. My
mother was named Sylvestus Mack and my father Booker Huddleston. I do
not remember my mother's master, 'cause he died before I was born. My
Mistress was named Nancy Mack. She was the mother of six children,
four boys and two girls. Three of dem boys went to the War and one
packed and went off somewhar and nobody heard from him doing of the
whole War. But soon as the War was over he come home and he never told
whar he had been.
I never saw but one grown person flogged during slavery and dat was my
mother. The younger son of my mistress whipped her one morning in de
kitchen. His name was Jack. De slaves on Mistress' place was treated
so good, all de people round and 'bout called us "Mack's Free
Niggers." Dis was 14 miles northwest of Liberty, county seat of
Bedford County, Virginia.
One day while de War was going on, my Mistress got a letter from her
son Jim wid jest one line. Dat was "Mother: Jack's brains spattered on
my gun this morning." That was all he written.
Jack Huddleston owned my father, who was his half-brother, and he was
the meanest man I ever seen. He flogged my father with tobacco sticks
and my mother after these floggings (which I never seen) had to pick
splinters out of his back. My father had to slip off a night to come
and visit us. He lived a mile and a half from our house on the south
side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it sho' is a rocky country. He'd
oversleep hisself and git up running. We would stand in our door and
hear him running over them rocks til he got home. He was trying to git
dere before his master called him.
It was a law among the slave-holders that if you left your master's
place, you had to have a pass, for if the patroller caught you without
one, he would give you 9 and 30 lashes and carry you to your master,
and if he was mean, you got the same again!
On the 3-foot fireplace my mother and father cooked ash cakes and my
father having to run to work, had to wash his cakes off in a spring
betwixt our house and his. My mother was the cook in the Big House.
All the time we would see "nigger traders" coming through the country.
I have seen men and women cuffed to 60-foot chains being took to
Lynchburg, Va., to the block to be sold. Now I am talking 'bout what I
know, for it would not mean one thing for me to lie. I ain't jest
heard dis. My uncle John was a carpenter and always took Mistress'
chillun to school in a two-horse surrey. On sech trips, the chillun
learned my uncle to read and write. Dey slipped and done this, for it
was a law among slave-holders that a slave not be caught wid a book.
One morning when I was on my way to de mill with a sack of corn, I had
to go down de main pike. I saw sech a fog 'til I rid close enough to
see what was gwine on. I heard someone say "close up." I was told
since dat it was Hood's Raid. They took every slave that could carry a
gun. It was at dis time, Negroes went into de service. Lee was
whipping Grant two battles to one 'til them raids, and den Grant
whipped Lee two battles to one, 'cause he had Negroes in the Union
Army. Dey took Negroes and all de white people's food. Dey killed
chickens and picked dem on horseback. I never will forgit that time
long as I live.
Ever day I had to get the mail for three families. I carried it around
in a bag and each family took his'n out. I guess I was one of the
first Negro mailmen.
We had church on the place and had right good meetings. Everybody went
and took part in the service. We had to have passes to go off the
place to the meetings.
The children wore just one garment from this time of year (spring)
till the frost fell. Mistress' daughters made dese. We sure kept
healthy and fat.
I will be 83 years of age September 10, 1937 and am enjoying my second
eyesight. I could not see a thing hardly for some few years, but now I
can read sometimes without glasses. I keep my lawn in first class
shape and work all the time. I think this is 'cause I never was
treated bad during slavery.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
ALLEN V. MANNING
Age 87
Tulsa, Okla.
I always been somewhar in the South, mostly in Texas when I was a
young man, and of course us Negroes never got much of a show in court
matters, but I reckon if I had of had the chance to set on a jury I
would of made a mighty poor out at it.
No sir, I jest can't set in judgement on nobody, 'cause I learned when
I was jest a little boy that good people and bad people--makes no
difference which--jest keep on living and doing like they been taught,
and I jest can't seem to blame them none for what they do iffen they
been taught that way.
I was born in slavery, and I belonged to a Baptist preacher. Until I
was fifteen years old I was taught that I was his own chattel-property,
and he could do with me like he wanted to, but he had been taught that
way too, and we both believed it. I never did hold nothing against him
for being hard on Negroes sometimes, and I don't think I ever would of
had any trouble even if I had of growed up and died in slavery.
The young Negroes don't know nothing 'bout that today, and lots of
them are rising up and amounting to something, and all us Negroes is
proud of them. You see, it's because they been taught that they got as
good a show to be something as anybody, if they tries hard.
Well, this old Negro knows one thing: they getting somewheres 'cause
the young whitefolks is letting them and helping them to do it, 'cause
the whitefolks has been taught the same way, and I praise God its
getting to be that way, too. But it all go to show, people do like
they been taught to do.
Like I say, my master was a preacher and a kind man, but he treated
the Negroes jest like they treated him. He been taught that they was
jest like his work hosses, and if they act like they his work hosses
they git along all right. But if they don't--Oh, oh!
Like the Dixie song say, I was born "on a frosty mornin'" at the
plantation in Clarke County, Mississippi, in the fall of 1850 they
tell me. The old place looked the same all the time I was a child,
clean up to when we pull out and leave the second year of the War.
I can shet my eyes and think about it and it seem to come right up in
front of me jest like it looked. From my Pappy's cabin the Big House
was off to the west, close to the big road, and most of the fields
stretched off to the north. They was a big patch of woods off to the
east, and no much open land between us and the Chickasawhay River. Off
to the southwest a few miles was the Bucatunna Creek, and the
plantation was kind of in the forks between them, a little ways east
of Quitman, Mississippi.
Old Master's people been living at that place a mighty long time, and
most the houses and barns was old and been repaired time and time
again, but it was a mighty pretty place. The Big House was built long,
with a lot of rooms all in a row and a long porch, but it wasn't fine
like a lot of the houses we seen as we passed by when we left that
place to go to Louisiana.
Old Master didn't have any overseer hired, but him and his boys looked
after the place and had a Negro we called the driver. We-all shore
hated that old black man, but I forget his name now. That driver never
was allowed to think up nothing for the slaves to do, but jest was
told to make them work hard at what the master and his boys told them
to do. Whitefolks had to set them at a job and then old driver would
whoopity and whoopity around, and egg them and egg them until they
finish up, so they can go at something else. He worked hard hisself,
though, and set a mighty hard pattern for the rest to keep up with.
Like I say, he been taught he didn't know how to think, so he didn't
try.
Old Mistress name was Mary, and they had two daughters, Levia and
Betty. Then they had three sons. The oldest was named Bill Junior, and
he was plumb grown when I was a boy, but the other two, Jedson and
Jim, was jest a little older then me.
Old Master didn't have but two or three single Negroes, but he had
several families, and most of them was big ones. My own family was
pretty good size, but three of the children was born free. Pappy's
name was William and Mammy's was Lucy. My brother Joe was the oldest
child and then come Adeline, Harriet, and Texana and Betty before the
surrender, and then Henry, Mattie and Louisa after it.
When the War come along old Master jest didn't know what to do. He
always been taught not to raise his hand up and kill nobody--no matter
how come--and he jest kept holding out against all them that was
talking about fighting, and he wouldn't go and fight. He been taught
that it was all right to have slaves and treat them like he want to,
but he been taught it was sinful to go fight and kill to keep them,
and he lived up to what he been taught.
They was some Choctaw people lived 'round there, and they flew up and
went right off to the War, and Mr. Trot Hand and Mr. Joe Brown that
had plantations on the big road towards Quitman both went off with
their grown boys right at the start, but old Master was a preacher and
he jest stayed out of it. I remember one day I was sent up to the Big
House and I heard old Master and some men out at the gate 'xpounding
about the War. Some of the men had on soldier clothes, and they acted
like they was mad. Somebody tell me later on that they was getting up
a home guard because the yankees done got down in Alabama not far
away, but old Master wouldn't go in with them.
Two, three days after that, it seems like, old Master come down to the
quarters and say git everything bundled up and in the wagons for a
long trip. The Negroes all come in and everybody pitch in to help pack
up the wagons. Then old Master look around and he can't find Andy.
Andy was one Negro that never did act like he been taught, and old
Master's patience about wore out with him anyways.
We all know that Andy done run off again, but we didn't know where to.
Leastwise all the Negroes tell old Master that. But old Master soon
show us we done the work and he done the thinking! He jest goes ahead
and keeps all the Negroes busy fixing up the wagons and bundling up
the stuff to travel, and keeps us all in his sight all the time, and
says nothing about Andy being gone.
Then that night he sends for a white man name Clements that got some
blood hounds, and him and Mr. Clements takes time about staying awake
and watching all the cabins to see nobody slips out of them. Everybody
was afraid to stick their head out.
Early next morning we has all the wagons ready to drive right off, and
old Master call Andy's brother up to him. He say, "You go down to that
spring and wait, and when Andy come down to the spring to fill that
cedar bucket you stole out'n the smokehouse for him to git water in
you tell him to come on in here. Tell him I know he is hiding out way
down the branch whar he can come up wading the water clean up to the
cornfield and the melon patch, so the hounds won't git his scent, but
I'm going to send the hounds down there if he don't come on in right
now." Then we all knowed we was for the work and old Master was for
the thinking, 'cause pretty soon Andy come on in. He'd been right whar
old Master think he is.
About that time Mr. Sears come riding down the big road. He was a
deacon in old Master's church, and he see us all packed up to leave
and so he light at the big gate and walk up to whar we is. He ask old
Master where we all lighting out for, and old Master say for
Louisiana. We Negroes don't know where that is. Then old deacon say
what old Master going to do with Andy, 'cause there stood Mr. Clements
holding his bloodhounds and old Master had his cat-o-nine-tails in his
hand.
Old Master say just watch him, and he tell Andy if he can make it to
that big black gum tree down at the gate before the hounds git him he
can stay right up in that tree and watch us all drive off. Then he
tell Andy to git!
Poor Andy jest git hold of the bottom limbs when the blood hounds grab
him and pull him down onto the ground. Time old Master and Mr.
Clements git down there the hounds done tore off all Andy's clothes
and bit him all over bad. He was rolling on the ground and holding his
shirt up 'round his throat when Mr. Clements git there and pull the
hounds off of him.
Then old Master light in on him with that cat-o-nine-tails, and I
don't know how many lashes he give him, but he jest bloody all over
and done fainted pretty soon. Old Deacon Sears stand it as long as he
can and then he step up and grab old Master's arm and say, "Time to
stop, Brother! I'm speaking in the name of Jesus!" Old Master quit
then, but he still powerful mad. I don't think he believe Andy going
to make that tree when he tell him that.
Then he turn on Andy's brother and give him a good beating too, and we
all drive off and leave Andy setting on the ground under a tree and
old Deacon standing by him. I don't know what ever become of Andy, but
I reckon maybe he went and live with old Deacon Sears until he was
free.
When I think back and remember it, it all seems kind of strange, but
it seem like old Master and old Deacon both think the same way. They
kind of understand that old Master had a right to beat his Negro all
he wanted to for running off, and he had a right to set the hounds on
him if he did, but he shouldn't of beat him so hard after he told him
he was going let him off if he made the tree, and he ought to keep his
word even if Andy was his own slave. That's the way both them white
men had been taught, and that was the way they both lived.
Old Master had about five wagons on that trip down into Louisiana, but
they was all full of stuff and only the old slaves and children could
ride in them. I was big enough to walk most of the time, but one time
I walked in the sun so long that I got sick and they put me in the
wagon for most the rest of the way.
We would come to places where the people said the Yankees had been and
gone, but we didn't run into any Yankees. They was most to the north
of us I reckon, because we went on down to the south part of
Mississippi and ferried across the big river at Baton Rouge. Then we
went on to Lafayette, Louisiana, before we settled down anywhere.
All us Negroes thought that was a mighty strange place. We would hear
white folks talking and we couldn't understand what they said, and
lots of the Negroes talked the same way, too. It was all full of
French people around Lafayette, but they had all their menfolks in the
Confederate Army just the same. I seen lots of men in butternut
clothes coming and going hither and yon, but they wasn't in bunches.
They was mostly coming home to see their folks.
Everybody was scared all the time, and two--three times when old
Master hired his Negroes out to work the man that hired them quit his
place and went on west before they got the crop in. But old Master
got a place and we put in a cotton crop, and I think he got some money
by selling his place in Mississippi. Anyway, pretty soon after the
cotton was all in he moves again and goes to a place on Simonette Lake
for the winter. It aint a bit cold in that place, and we didn't have
no fire 'cepting to cook, and sometimes a little charcoal fire in some
crock pots that the people left on the place when they went on out to
Texas.
The next spring old Master loaded up again and we struck out for
Texas, when the Yankees got too close again. But Master Bill didn't go
to Texas, because the Confederates done come that winter and made him
go to the army. I think they took him to New Orleans, and old Master
was hopping mad, but he couldn't do anything or they would make him go
too, even if he was a preacher.
I think he left out of there partly because he didn't like the people
at that place. They wasn't no Baptists around anywheres, they was all
Catholics, and old Master didn't like them.
About that time it look like everybody in the world was going to
Texas. When we would be going down the road we would have to walk
along the side all the time to let the wagons go past, all loaded with
folks going to Texas.
Pretty soon old Master say git the wagons loaded again, and this time
we start out with some other people, going north. We go north a while
and then turn west, and cross the Sabine River and go to Nachedoches,
Texas. Me and my brother Joe and my sister Adeline walked nearly all
the way, but my little sister Harriet and my mammy rid in a wagon.
Mammy was mighty poorly, and jest when we got to the Sabine bottoms
she had another baby. Old Master didn't like it 'cause it was a girl,
but he named her Texana on account of where she was born and told us
children to wait on Mammy good and maybe we would get a little brother
next time.
But we didn't. Old Master went with a whole bunch of wagons on out to
the prairie country in Coryell County and set up a farm where we just
had to break the sod and didn't have to clear off much. And the next
baby Mammy had the next year was a girl. We named her Betty because
Mistress jest have a baby a little while before and its name was
Betty.
Old Master's place was right at the corner where Coryell and McLennan
and Bosque Counties come together, and we raised mostly cotton and
jest a little corn for feed. He seem like he changed a lot since we
left Mississippi, and seem like he paid more attention to us and
looked after us better. But most the people that already live there
when we git there was mighty hard on their Negroes. They was mostly
hard drinkers and hard talkers, and they work and fight jest as hard
as they talk, too!
One day Old Master come out from town and tell us that we all been set
free, and we can go or stay jest as we wish. All of my family stay on
the place and he pay us half as shares on all we make. Pretty soon the
whitefolks begin to cut down on the shares, and the renters git only a
third and some less, and the Negroes begin to drift out to other
places, but old Master stick to the halves a year or so after that.
Then he come down to a third too.
It seem like the white people can't git over us being free, and they
do everything to hold us down all the time. We don't git no schools
for a long time, and I never see the inside of a school. I jest grow
up on hard work. And we can't go 'round where they have the voting,
unless we want to ketch a whipping some night, and we have to jest
keep on bowing and scraping when we are 'round white folks like we did
when we was slaves. They had us down and they kept us down. But that
was the way they been taught, and I don't blame them for it none, I
reckon.
When I git about thirty years old I marry Betty Sadler close to Waco,
and we come up to the Creek Nation forty years ago. We come to
Muskogee first, and then to Tulsa about thirty seven years ago.
We had ten children but only seven are alive. Three girls and a boy
live here in Tulsa and we got one boy in Muskogee and one at
Frederick, Oklahoma.
I sells milk and makes my living, and I keeps so busy I don't think
back on the old days much, but if anybody ask me why the Texas Negroes
been kept down so much I can tell them. If they set like I did on the
bank at that ferry across the Sabine, and see all that long line of
covered wagons, miles and miles of them, crossing that river and going
west with all they got left out of the War, it aint hard to
understand.
Them whitefolks done had everything they had tore up, or had to run
away from the places they lived, and they brung their Negroes out to
Texas and then right away they lost them too. They always had them
Negroes, and lots of them had mighty fine places back in the old
states, and then they had to go out and live in sod houses and little
old boxed shotguns and turn their Negroes loose. They didn't see no
justice in it then, and most of them never did until they died. The
folks that stayed at home and didn't straggle all over the country had
their old places to live on and their old friends around them, but
them Texans was different.
So I says, when they done us the way they did they was jest doing the
way they was taught. I don't blame them, because anybody will do that.
Whitefolks mighty decent to me now, and I always tried to teach my
children to be respectful and act like they think the whitefolks they
dealing with expects them to act. That the way to git along, because
some folks been taught one way and some been taught another, and folks
always thinks the way they been taught.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
BOB MAYNARD, AGE 79
23 East Choctaw
Weleetka, Oklahoma.
I was born near what is now Marlin, Texas, Falls County. My father was
Robert Maynard and my mother was Chanie Maynard, both born slaves. Our
Master, Gerard Branum, was a very old man and wore long white
whiskers. He sho' was a fine built man, and walked straight and tall
like a young man.
I was too little to do much work so my job was to carry the key basket
for old Mistress. I sho' was proud of that job. The basket held the
keys to the pantry, the kitchen, the linen closet, and extra keys to
the rooms and smokehouse. When old Mistress started out on her rounds
every morning she'd call to me to get de basket and away we'd go. I'd
run errands for all the house help too, so I was kept purty busy.
The "big house" was a fine one. It was a big two-story white house
made of pine lumber. There was a big porch or veranda across the front
and wings on the east and west. The house faced south. There was big
round white posts that went clean up to the roof and there was a big
porch upstairs too. I believe the house was what you'd call colonial
style. There was twelve or fifteen rooms and a big wide stairway. It
was a purty place, with a yard and big trees and the house that set in
a walnut and pecan grove. They was graveled walks and driveways and
all along by the driveway was cedars. There was a hedge close to the
house and a flower garden with purty roses, holly hocks and a lot of
others I don't know the name of.
Back to the right of the house was the smokehouse, kept full of meat,
and further back was the big barns. Old Master kept a spanking pair of
carriage horses and several fine riding horses. He kept several pairs
of mules, too, to pull the plow. He had some ox teams too.
To the left and back of the "big house" was the quarters. He owned
about two thousand acres of land and three hundred slaves. He kept a
white overseer and the colored overlooker was my uncle. He sho' saw
that the gang worked. He saw to it that the cotton was took to the
gin. They used oxen to pull the wagons full of cotton. There was two
gins on the plantation. Had to have two for it was slow work to gin a
bale of cotton as it was run by horse power.
Old Master raised hundreds of hogs; he raised practically all the food
we et. He gave the food out to each family and they done their own
cooking except during harvest. The farm hands was fed at the "big
house." They was called in from the farm by a big bell.
Sunday was our only day for recreation. We went to church at our own
church, and we could sing and shout jest as loud as we pleased and it
didn't disturb nobody.
During the week after supper we would all set round the doors outside
and sing or play music. The only musical instruments we had was a jug
or big bottle, a skillet lid or frying pan that they'd hit with a
stick or a bone. We had a flute too, made out of reed cane and it'd
make good music. Sometimes we'd sing and dance so long and loud old
Master'd have to make us stop and go to bed.
The Patrollers, Ku Kluxers or night riders come by sometimes at night
to scare the niggers and make 'em behave. Sometimes the slaves would
run off and the Patroller would catch 'em and have 'em whipped. I've
seen that done lots of times. They was some wooden stocks (a sort of
trough) and they'd put the darky in this and strap him down, take off
his clothers and give him 25 to 50 licks, 'cording to what he had
done.
I reckon old Master had everything his heart could wish for at this
time. Old Mistress was a fine lady and she always went dressed up. She
wore long trains on her skirts and I'd walk behind her and hold her
train up when she made de rounds. She was awful good to me. I slept on
the floor in her little boy's room, and she give me apples and candy
just like she did him. Old Master gave ever chick and child good warm
clothes for winter. We had store boughten shoes but the women made our
clothes. For underwear we all wore 'lowers' but no shirts.
After the war started old Master took a lot of his slaves and went to
Natchez, Mississippi. He thought he'd have a better chance of keeping
us there I guess, and he was afraid we'd be greed [TR: freed?] and he
started running with us. I remember when General Grant blowed up
Vicksburg. I had a free born Uncle and Aunt who sometimes visited in
the North and they'd till us how easy it was up there and it sho' made
us all want to be free.
I think Abe Lincoln was next to de Lawd. He done all he could for de
slaves; he set 'em free. People in the South knowed they'd lose their
slaves when he was elected president. 'Fore the election he traveled
all over the South and he come to our house and slept in old Mistress'
bed. Didn't nobody know who he was. It was a custom to take strangers
in and put them up for one night or longer, so he come to our house
and he watched close. He seen how the niggers come in on Saturday and
drawed four pounds of meat and a peck of meal for a week's rations. He
also saw 'em whipped and sold. When he got back up north he writ old
Master a letter and told him he was going to have to free his slaves,
that everybody was going to have to, that the North was going to see
to it. He also told him that he had visited at his house and if he
doubted it to go in the room he slept in and look on the bedstead at
the head and he'd see where he'd writ his name. Sho' nuff, there was
his name: A. Lincoln.
Didn't none of us like Jeff Davis. We all liked Robert E. Lee, but we
was glad that Grant whipped him.
When the War was over, old Master called all the darkies in and lined
'em up in a row. He told 'em they was free to go and do as they
pleased. It was six months before any of us left him.
Darkies could vote in Mississippi. Fred Douglas, a colored man, came
to Natchez and made political speeches for General Grant.
After the war they was a big steam boat line on the Mississippi River
known as the Robert E. Lee Line. They sho' was fine boats too.
We used to have lots of Confederate money. Five cent pieces, two bit
pieces, half dollar bills and half dimes. During the war old Master
dug a long trench and buried all de silver ware, fine clothes, jewelry
and a lot of money. I guess he dug it up, but I don't remember.
Master died three years after the War. He took it purty good, losing
his niggers and all. Lots of men killed theirselves. Old Master was a
good old man.
I'm getting old, I reckon. I've been married twice and am the father
of 19 chillun. The oldest if 57 and my youngest is two boys, ten and
twelve. I has great grandchillun older than them two boys.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
JANE MONTGOMERY
Age 80 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
I was born March 15, 1857, in Homer, Louisiana. I claim to be 75 years
old, but that's jest my way of counting. My mother was Sarah Strong
and my father was Edmond Beavers. We lived in a log cabin that had
jest one door. I had two sisters named Peggy and Katie. Mammy was
bought from the Strong family and my pappy was bought from Beavers by
Mister Eason.
We slept on wooden slabs which was jest make-shift beds. I didn't do
no work in slave times 'cause I was too little. You jest had to be
good and husky to work on that place. I listened and told mammy
everything I heerd. I ate right side dat old white woman on the flo'.
I was a little busy-body. I don't recollect eating in our quarters on
Sunday and no other time.
I don't remember no possums and rabbits being on our place, 'cause
when white folks killed a chicken for their selves, dey killed one for
the niggers. My pappy never ate no cornbread in all his put-together.
Meat was my favorite food. I never ate no dry bread without no meat.
We wore homespun clothes. My first pair of shoes was squirrel skin.
Mammy had 'em made. We wore clothes called linsey that was wool and
cotton mixed.
My father was the onliest overseer. It was sho' a great big old place.
My master jest seen the place on Sundays. They was jest seven Niggers
on our plantation. No working late at night but we had to git up at
daylight. When our day's work was done, we went to bed, but sometimes
they sung. Sadday was a holiday from working on the plantation. You
had Sadday to wash for yourself. We didn't do nothing on Christmas and
all holidays.
Mistress never whip us and iffen master would start, mistress would
git a gun and make him stop. She said, "Let ever bitch whip her own
chillun." I never seen no patrollers, I jest heerd of 'em. They never
come on our place. I guess they was scared to. The Klu Klux whipped
niggers when so never they could catch 'em. They rid at night mostly.
I am a Baptist. I belong to Calvary Baptist Church. I was baptized in
a creek. Our favorite hymn was "Dark Was the Night an' Cold the
Ground." Our favorite revival hymn was "Lord I'd Come to Thee, a
Sinner Undefiled." Our favorite funeral song was "Hark From the Tomb."
My family didn't believe in conjure an' all that stuff, 'though they's
a heap of it was going on and still is for that matter. They had
"hands" that was made up of all kinds of junk. You used 'em to make
folks love you more'n they did. We used asafetida to keep off smallpox
and measles. Put mole foots round a baby's neck to make him teethe
easy. We used to use nine red ants tied in a sack round they neck to
make 'em teethe easy and never had no trouble with 'em neither.
I think I seen a haunt once, 'cause when I looked the second time,
what I seen the first time was gone.
When the War was over, mistress' son come home and he cleaned his guns
on my dress tail. It sho' stunk up my dress and made me sick too. He
told old mistress that niggers was free now. I went and told mammy
that old Betsy's son told her the niggers was free and what did he
mean. She said, "Shhhhhh!" They never did jest come out and tell us we
was free. We was free in July and mammy left in September. We lived in
Jordan Saline, out from Smith County. Then my mother give me to my
father 'cause she was married to another man. Her and my step-father
moved to Gilmore, Texas. They sent for me round 'bout Christmas and we
lived on Sampers' farm.
We lived so far out, we couldn't go to school, 'though they was for
us. We didn't own no land. Didn't nobody learn me to read and write.
Abe Lincoln was a good man. It was through Mr. Lincoln that God fit to
free us. I don't know much 'bout Jeff Davis and don't care nothing
'bout him. Booker T. Washington built that school through God. He used
to live in a cabin jest lak I done. He was sho' a great man.
I married Trole Kemp in 1883. I 'mind you they didn't marry in
slavery, they jest took up. Master jest give a permit. I am the mother
of 10 chillun and 5 grandchillun. Four of my chillun died young. Them
what's living is doing different things sech as: writing policy,
working on made work, housework, government clerk and hotel maid. One
is in the pen.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 13 1937]
AMANDA OLIVER
Age 80 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I 'membuh what my mother say--I was born November 9, 1857, in
Missouri. I was 'bout eight years old, when she was sold to a master
named Harrison Davis. They said he had two farms in Missouri, but when
he moved to northern Texas he brought me, my mother, Uncle George,
Uncle Dick and a cullud girl they said was 15 with 'im. He owned 'bout
6 acres on de edge of town near Sherman, Texas, and my mother and 'em
was all de slaves he had. They said he sold off some of de folks.
We didn't have no overseers in northern Texas, but in southern Texas
dey did. Dey didn't raise cotton either; but dey raised a whole lots
of corn. Sometime de men would shuck corn all night long. Whenever dey
was going to shuck all night de women would piece quilts while de men
shuck de corn and you could hear 'em singing and shucking corn. After
de cornshucking, de cullud folks would have big dances.
Master Davis lived in a big white frame house. My mother lived in the
yard in a big one-room log hut with a brick chimney. De logs was
"pinted" (what dey call plastered now with lime). I don't know whether
young folks know much 'bout dat sort of thing now.
I slept on de floor up at de "Big House" in de white woman's room on a
quilt. I'd git up in de mornings, make fires, put on de coffee, and
tend to my little brother. Jest do little odd jobs sech as that.
We ate vegetables from de garden, sech as that. My favorite dish is
vegetables now.
I don't remember seeing any slaves sold. My mother said dey sold 'em
on de block in Kentucky where she was raised.
I don't remembuh when de War broke out, but I remembuh seeing the
soldiers with de blue uniforms on. I was afraid of 'em.
Old mistress didn't tell us when he was free, but another white woman
told my mother and I remembuh. One day old mistress told my mother to
git to that wheel and git to work, and my mother said, "I ain't
gwineter, I'm jest as free as you air." So dat very day my mother
packed up all our belongings and moved us to town, Sherman, Texas. She
worked awful hard, doing day work for 50c a day, and sometimes she'd
work for food, clothes or whatever she could git.
I don't believe in conjuring though I heard lotta talk 'bout it.
Sometimes I have pains and aches in my hands, feel like sometime dat
somebody puts dey hands on me, but I think jest de way my nerves is.
I can't say much 'bout Abe Lincoln. He was a republican in favor of de
cullud folk being free. Jeff Davis? Yeah, the boys usta sing a song
'bout 'im:
Lincoln rides a fine hoss,
Jeff Davis rides a mule,
Lincoln is de President,
Jeff Davis is de fool.
Booker T. Washington--I guess he is a right good man. He's for the
cullud people I guess.
I been a Christian thirty some odd years. I've been here some thirty
odd years. Had to come when my husband did. He died in 1902. We
married in 18--I've forgot, but we went to de preacher and got
married. We did more than jump over de broom stick.
In those days we went to church with de white folks. Dey had church at
eleven and the cullud folks at three, but all of us had white
preachers. Our church is standing right there now, at least it was de
last time I was there.
I don't have a favorite song, theys so many good ones, but I like,
"Bound for the Promised Land." I'm a Baptist, my mother was a Baptist,
and her white folks was Baptist.
I have two daughters, Julia Goodwin and Bertha Frazier, and four
grandchildren, both of 'ems been separated. Dey do housework.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
SALOMON OLIVER
Age 78 yrs.
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
John A. Miller owned the finest plantation in Washington County,
Mississippi, about 12-mile east of Greenville. I was born on this
20,000-acre plantation November 17, 1859, being one of about four
hundred slave children on the place.
About three hundred negro families living in box-type cabins made it
seem like a small town. Built in rows, the cabins were kept
whitewashed, neat and orderly, for the Master was strict about such
things. Several large barns and storage buildings were scattered
around the plantation. Also, two cotton gins and two old fashioned
presses, operated by horses and mules, made Miller's plantation one of
the best equipped in Mississippi.
Master John was quite a character. The big plantation didn't occupy
all his time. He owned a bank in Vicksburg and another in New Orleans,
and only came to the plantation two or three times a year for a week
or two visit.
Things happened around there mighty quick when the Master showed up.
If the slaves were not being treated right--out go the white overseer.
Fired! The Master was a good man and tried to hire good boss men.
Master John was bad after the slave women. A yellow child show up
every once in a while. Those kind always got special privileges
because the Master said he didn't want his children whipped like the
rest of them slaves.
My own Mammy, Mary, was the Master's own daughter! She married Salomon
Oliver (who took the name of Oliver after the War), and the Master
told all the slave drivers to leave her alone and not whip her. This
made the overseers jealous of her and caused trouble. John Santhers
was one of the white overseers who treated her bad, and after I was
born and got strong enough (I was a weakling for three-four years
after birth), to do light chores he would whip me just for the fun of
it. It was fun for him but not for me. I hoped to whip him when I grew
up. That is the one thing I won't ever forget. He died about the end
of the War so that's one thing I won't ever get to do.
My mother was high-tempered and she knew about the Master's orders not
to whip her. I guess sometimes she took advantage and tried to do
things that maybe wasn't right. But it did her no good and one of the
white men flogged her to death. She died with scars on her back!
Father use to preach to the slaves when a crowd of them could slip off
into the woods. I don't remember much about the religious things, only
just what Daddy told me when I was older. He was caught several times
slipping off to the woods and because he was the preacher I guess they
layed on the lash a little harder trying to make him give up
preaching.
Ration day was Saturday. Each person was given a peck of corn meal,
four pounds of wheat flour, four pounds of pork meat, quart of
molasses, one pound of sugar, the same of coffee and a plug of
tobacco. Potatoes and vegetables came from the family garden and each
slave family was required to cultivate a separate garden.
During the Civil War a battle was fought near the Miller plantation.
The Yankees under General Grant came through the country. They burned
2,000 bales of Miller cotton. When the Yankee wagons crossed Bayou
Creek the bridge gave way and quite a number of soldiers and horses
were seriously injured.
For many years after the War folks would find bullets in the ground.
Some of the bullets were 'twins' fastened together with a chain.
Master Miller settled my father upon a piece of land after the War and
we stayed on it several years, doing well.
I moved to Muskogee in 1902, coming on to Tulsa in 1907, the same year
Oklahoma was made a state. My six wives are all dead,--Liza, Lizzie,
Ellen, Lula, Elizabeth and Henrietta. Six children, too. George,
Anna, Salomon, Nelson, Garfield, Cosmos--all good children. They
remember the Tulsa riot and don't aim ever to come back to Oklahoma.
When the riot started in 1922 (I think it was), I had a place on the
corner of Pine and Owasso Streets. Two hundred of my people gathered
at my place, because I was so well known everybody figured we wouldn't
be molested. I was wrong. Two of my horses was shot and killed. Two of
my boys, Salomon and Nelson, was wounded, one in the hip, the other in
the shoulder. They wasn't bad and got well alright. Some of my people
wasn't so lucky. The dead wagon hauled them away!
White men came into the negro district and gathered up the homeless.
The houses were most all burned. No place to go except to the camps
where armed whites kept everybody quiet. They took my clothes and all
my money--$298.00--and the police couldn't do nothing about my loss
when I reported it to them.
That was a terrible time, but we people are better off today that any
time during the days of slavery. We have some privileges and they are
worth more than all the money in the world!
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
PHYLLIS PETITE
Age 83 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Okla.
I was born in Rusk County, Texas, on a plantation about eight miles
east of Belleview. There wasn't no town where I was born, but they had
a church.
My mammy and pappy belonged to a part Cherokee named W. P. Thompson
when I was born. He had kinfolks in the Cherokee Nation, and we all
moved up here to a place on Fourteen-Mile Creek close to where Hulbert
now is, 'way before I was big enough to remember anything. Then, so I
been told, old master Thompson sell my pappy and mammy and one of my
baby brothers and me back to one of his neighbors in Texas name of
John Harnage.
Mammy's name was Letitia Thompson and pappy's was Riley Thompson. My
little brother was named Johnson Thompson, but I had another brother
sold to a Vann and he always call hisself Harry Vann. His Cherokee
master lived on the Arkansas river close to Webber's Falls and I never
did know him until we was both grown. My only sister was Patsy and she
was borned after slavery and died at Wagoner, Oklahoma.
I can just remember when Master John Harnage took us to Texas. We went
in a covered wagon with oxen and camped out all along the way. Mammy
done the cooking in big wash kettles and pappy done the driving of the
oxen. I would set in a wagon and listen to him pop his whip and
holler.
Master John took us to his plantation and it was a big one, too. You
could look from the field up to the Big House and any grown body in
the yard look like a little body, it was so far away.
We negroes lived in quarters not far from the Big House and ours was a
single log house with a stick and dirt chimney. We cooked over the hot
coals in the fireplace.
I just played around until I was about six years old I reckon, and
then they put me up at the Big House with my mammy to work. She done
all the cording and spinning and weaving, and I done a whole lot of
sweeping and minding the baby. The baby was only about six months old
I reckon. I used to stand by the cradle and rock it all day, and when
I quit I would go to sleep right by the cradle sometimes before mammy
would come and get me.
The Big House had great big rooms in front, and they was fixed up
nice, too. I remember when old Mistress Harnage tried me out sweeping
up the front rooms. They had two or three great big pictures of some
old people hanging on the wall. They was full blood Indians it look
like, and I was sure scared of them pictures! I would go here and
there and every which-a-way, and anywheres I go them big pictures
always looking straight at me and watching me sweep! I kept my eyes
right on them so I could run if they moved, and old Mistress take me
back to the kitchen and say I can't sweep because I miss all the dirt.
We always have good eating, like turnip greens cooked in a kettle with
hog skins and crackling grease, and skinned corn, and rabbit or possum
stew. I liked big fish tolerable well too, but I was afraid of the
bones in the little ones.
That skinned corn aint like the boiled hominy we have today. To make
it you boil some wood ashes, or have some drip lye from the hopper to
put in the hot water. Let the corn boil in the lye water until the
skin drops off and the eyes drop out and then wash that corn in fresh
water about a dozen times, or just keep carrying water from the spring
until you are wore out, like I did. Then you put the corn in a crock
and set it in the spring, and you got good skinned corn as long as it
last, all ready to warm up a little batch at a time.
Master had a big, long log kitchen setting away from the house, and we
set a big table for the family first, and when they was gone we
negroes at the house eat at that table too, but we don't use the china
dishes.
The negro cook was Tilda Chisholm. She and my mammy didn't do no
out-work. Aunt Tilda sure could make them corn-dodgers. Us children
would catch her eating her dinner first out of the kettles and when we
say something she say: "Go on child, I jest tasting that dinner."
In the summer we had cotton homespun clothes, and in winter it had
wool mixed in. They was dyed with copperas and wild indigo.
My brother, Johnson Thompson, would get up behind old Master Harnage
on his horse and go with him to hunt squirrels so they would go 'round
on Master's side so's he could shoot them. Master's old mare was named
"Old Willow", and she knowed when to stop and stand real still so he
could shoot.
His children was just all over the place! He had two houses full of
them! I only remember Bell, Ida, Maley, Mary and Will, but they was
plenty more I don't remember.
That old horn blowed 'way before daylight, and all the field negroes
had to be out in the row by the time of sun up. House negroes got up
too, because old Master always up to see everybody get out to work.
Old Master Harnage bought and sold slaves most all the time, and some
of the new negroes always acted up and needed a licking. The worst
ones got beat up good, too! They didn't have no jail to put slaves in
because when the Masters got done licking them they didn't need no
jail.
My husband was George Petite. He tell me his mammy was sold away from
him when he was a little boy. He looked down a long lane after her
just as long as he could see her, and cried after her. He went down to
the big road and set down by his mammy's barefooted tracks in the sand
and set there until it got dark, and then he come on back to the
quarters.
I just saw one slave try to get away right in hand. They caught him
with bloodhounds and brung him back in. The hounds had nearly tore him
up, and he was sick a long time. I don't remember his name, but he
wasn't one of the old regular negroes.
In Texas we had a church where we could go. I think it was a white
church and they just let the negroes have it when they got a preacher
sometimes. My mammy took me sometimes, and she loved to sing them
salvation songs.
We used to carry news from one plantation to the other I reckon,
'cause mammy would tell about things going on some other plantation
and I know she never been there.
Christmas morning we always got some brown sugar candy or some
molasses to pull, and we children was up bright and early to get that
'lasses pull, I tell you! And in the winter we played skeeting on the
ice when the water froze over. No, I don't mean skating. That's when
you got iron skates, and we didn't have them things. We just get a
running start and jump on the ice and skeet as far as we could go, and
then run some more.
I nearly busted my head open, and brother Johnson said: "Try it
again," but after that I was scared to skeet any more.
Mammy say we was down in Texas to get away from the War, but I didn't
see any war and any soldiers. But one day old Master stay after he eat
breakfast and when us negroes come in to eat he say: "After today I
ain't your master any more. You all as free as I am." We just stand
and look and don't know what to say about it.
After while pappy got a wagon and some oxen to drive for a white man
who was coming to the Cherokee Nation because he had folks here. His
name was Dave Mounts and he had a boy named John.
We come with them and stopped at Fort Gibson where my own grand mammy
was cooking for the soldiers at the garrison. Her name was Phyllis
Brewer and I was named after her. She had a good Cherokee master. My
mammy was born on his place.
We stayed with her about a week and then we moved out on Four Mile
Creek to live. She died on Fourteen-Mile Creek about a year later.
When we first went to Four Mile Creek I seen negro women chopping wood
and asked them who they work for and I found out they didn't know they
was free yet.
After a while my pappy and mammy both died, and I was took care of by
my aunt Elsie Vann. She took my brother Johnson too, but I don't know
who took Harry Vann.
I was married to George Petite, and I had on a white underdress and
black high-top shoes, and a large cream colored hat, and on top of all
I had a blue wool dress with tassels all around the bottom of it. That
dress was for me to eat the terrible supper in. That what we called
the wedding supper because we eat too much of it. Just danced all
night, too! I was at Mandy Foster's house in Fort Gibson, and the
preacher was Reverend Barrows, I had that dress a long time, but its
gone now. I still got the little sun bonnet I wore to church in Texas.
We had six children, but all are dead but George, Tish, and Annie
now.
Yes, they tell me Abraham Lincoln set me free, and I love to look at
his picture on the wall in the school house at Four Mile branch where
they have church. My grand mammy kind of help start that church, and I
think everybody ought to belong to some church.
I want to say again my Master Harnage was Indian, but he was a good
man and mighty good to us slaves, and you can see I am more than six
feet high, and they say I weighs over a hundred and sixty, even if my
hair is snow white.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
MATILDA POE
Age 80 yrs.
McAlester, Okla.
I was born in Indian Territory on de plantation of Isaac Love. He was
old Master, and Henry Love was young Master. Isaac Love was a full
blood Chickasaw Indian but his wife was a white woman.
Old Master was sure good to his slaves. The young niggers never done
no heavy work till dey was fully grown. Dey would carry water to de
men in de field and do other light jobs 'round de place.
De Big House set way back from de road 'bout a quarter of a mile. It
was a two-story log house, and the rooms was awful big and they was
purty furniture in it. The furniture in de parlor was red plush and I
loved to slip in and rub my hand over it, it was so soft like. The
house was made of square logs and de cracks was filled out even with
the edges of de logs. It was white washed and my but it was purty.
They was a long gallery clean across de front of de house and big
posts to support de roof. Back a ways from de house was de kitchen and
nearby was de smokehouse. Old Master kept it well filled with meat,
lard and molasses all de time. He seen to it that we always had plenty
to eat. The old women done all de cooking in big iron pots that hung
over the fire. De slaves was all served together.
The slave quarters was about two hundred yards back of de Big House.
Our furniture was made of oak 'cepting de chairs, and dey was made out
of hackberry. I still have a chair dat belonged to my mammy.
The boys didn't wear no britches in de summer time. Dey just wore long
shirts. De girls wore homespun dresses, either blue or gray.
Old Master never hired no overseer for his slaves, but he looked after
'em hisself. He punished dem hisself too. He had to go away one time
and he hired a white man to oversee while he was gone. The only orders
he left was to keep dem busy. Granny Lucy was awful old but he made
her go to the field. She couldn't hold out to work so he ups and whips
her. He beat her scandalous. He cut her back so bad she couldn't wear
her dress. Old Master come home and my, he was mad when he see Granny
Lucy. He told de man to leave and iffen he ever set foot on his ground
again he's shoot him, sure!
Old Master had a big plantation and a hundred or more slaves. Dey
always got up at daylight and de men went out and fed de horses. When
de bell rang dey was ready to eat. After breakfast dey took de teams
and went out to plow. Dey come in 'bout half past 'leven and at twelve
de bell rung agin. Dey eat their dinner and back to plowing dey went.
'Bout five o'clock dey come in again, and den they'd talk, sing and
jig dance till bedtime.
Old Master never punished his niggers 'cepting dey was sassy or lazy.
He never sold his slaves neither. A owner once sold several babies to
traders. Dey stopped at our plantation to stay awhile. My mammy and de
other women had to take care of dem babies for two days, and teach dem
to nuss a bottle or drink from a glass. Dat was awful, dem little
children crying for they mothers. Sometimes dey sold de mothers away
from they husbands and children.
Master wasn't a believer in church but he let us have church. My we'd
have happy times singing an shouting. They'd have church when dey had
a preacher and prayer meeting when dey didn't.
Slaves didn't leave de plantation much on 'count of de Patrollers. De
patroller was low white trash what jest wanted a excuse to shoot
niggers. I don't think I ever saw one but I heard lots of 'em.
I don't believe in luck charms and things of the such. Iffen you is in
trouble, there ain't nothing gonna save you but de Good Lawd. I heard
of folks keeping all kind of things for good luck charms. When I was a
child different people gave me buttons to string and we called them
our charm string and wore 'em round our necks. If we was mean dey
would tell us "Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones" would git us. Grand
mammy told us ghost stories after supper, but I don't remember any of
dem.
I never did know I was a slave, 'cause I couldn't tell I wasn't free.
I always had a good time, didn't have to work much, and allus had
something to eat and wear and that was better than it is with me now.
When de War was over old Master told us we was free. Mammy she say,
"Well, I'm heading for Texas." I went out and old Master ask me to
bring him a coal of fire to light his pipe. I went after it and mammy
left pretty soon. My pappy wouldn't leave old Master right then but
old Master told us we was free to go where we pleased, so me an' pappy
left and went to Texas where my mammy was. We never saw old Master any
more. We stayed a while in Texas and then come back to de Indian
Territory.
Abe Lincoln was a good man, everybody liked him. See, I've got his
picture. Jeff Davis was a good man too, he just made a mistake. I like
Mr. Roosevelt, too.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
HENRY F. PYLES
Age 81 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.
Little pinch o' pepper----
Little bunch o' wool----