or nothin'. Massa git kilt in a big battle and missy took four slaves
and brung him home and buried him under a big shade tree in the yard.
That the saddes' time I ever seen, nobody there to do anythin' but missy
and neighbor women and some real young niggers like me. She was cryin'
and all us slaves takin' on. It's a wonder we ever did git massa buried.
We carried him on our backs to the grave.
"After that we had to carry missy to the mountains and hide her, 'cause
everything, house and sheds and all, was burnt, and all her stock kilt
by sojers and outlaws. When she come out of hidin' she didn't have a
thing, not even a bed.
"But she was a brave woman, and said, 'Louis, we'll fix some kind of
quarters for you.' She went to work to rebuild the place. She said, 'You
niggers is free, but I need you and I'll pay you $2.00 a month.' She
did, too. She cut some logs and builded her one room and then we all
build us a room and that was the best we could do. I 'lieve the Lawd
blessed that woman. After freedom, that's how I lived the first year,
and she paid me every cent she promised. I stayed with her three years.
"Then I heared of a railroad job in Texas, and married Josie Sewel in a
big weddin' and we had a great time. I gits a job on that railroad for
fifty cents a day and it never lasted more'n a year, so I goes to
farmin'.
"We had fourteen chillun, four dead now, and the rest farmin' all over
Texas. I has more'n a hundred grandchillun. Josie, she done die twenty
years ago.
"I don't know as I 'spected massa's land to be 'vided and give us, but
they was plenty of land for everybody, and missy allus treated us right.
Wages was terrible small for a long time after I married and sometimes
they wouldn't pay us, and we had to beg or steal. I's went a whole two
days without nothin' to eat. If it hadn't been for them there Klu Klux,
sometimes the niggers would have went on the warpath for starvin'. But
the Klu Kluxers wouldn't let 'em roam none, if they tried they stretch
them out over a log and hit them with rawhide, but never say a word.
That was got the niggers--they was so silent, not a sound out of them,
and the nigger he can't stand that.
"I gits a pension and works when I can and gits by. Some the young
niggers is purty sorry, they's had so much and don't 'preciate none of
it. I's glad for what I can git, 'cause I 'members them old times after
the war when it was worse'n now.
420178
JEFF CALHOUN, about 98, was born a slave of the Calhoun family, in
Alton, Alabama. After his master died, a son-in-law, Jim Robinson,
brought Jeff and 200 other slaves to Austin, Texas. Jeff was 22
when the Civil War began. He stayed with his old master, who had
moved to Stewart Mills Texas, after he was freed, and raised 23
children. He says, "I 'spect I has near a thous- children,
grandchildren and great grandchildren." He makes his home among
them, drifting over five states when and as he wishes.
"My name am Jeff Calhoun and I was born in Alton, in Alabama, about
1838, 'cause I's told by my massa. Dat makes me 'bout 98 year old now.
My father was Henry Robinson and my mammy, she Mary Robinson. She was
born in Maryland, in Virginia, but didn't know much 'bout her folks,
'cause she was sold off young. Dere was four of us brothers and ten
sisters, but dey all dead now but me.
"We makes our beds out of forked saplings drove in the ground, 'cause de
floors was dirt. We sets de pole in dat ground and it run to de top of
de cabin and we makes one bed down low and one bed above. De big folks
sleeps in de low beds and de chillun above, 'cause dey can climb.
"My massa had 15 chillun and my mamma suckled every one of dem, 'cause
his wife was no good to give milk.
"We allus had lots to eat, but for meat we has to go to de woods and git
deer and turkey and buffalo and some bear. I have eat hoss and skunk and
crow and hawk.
"We has a big fire to cook on, and to make de corn cakes we put one leaf
down and put batter on dat and put another leaf over it and cover with
hot ashes and by noon it was done. Same thing for supper. We never have
biscuits 'cept on Sunday or Christmas.
"My mama was de spinner so I has plenty shirts and some britches, and we
raises indigo on de place and makes dye of it. We never wore no shoes in
de summer and some winters neither. We has a good pair of pants and
shirt we wears Sundays and holidays and was married in.
"De way dey done at weddings dem days, you picks out a girl and tell
your boss. If she was from another plantation you had to git her bosses
'mission and den dey tells you to come up dat night and git hitched up.
They says to de girl, 'You's love dis man?' Dey says to de man, 'You
loves dis girl?' If you say you don't know, it's all off, but if you say
yes, dey brings in de broom and holds it 'bout a foot off de floor and
say to you to jump over. Den he says you's married. If either of you
stumps you toe on de broom, dat mean you got trouble comin' 'tween you,
so you sho' jumps high.
"My massa was good to us. He lived in a log house with a floor and was
all fixed up with pretty furniture and mirrors and silver on de table.
De missus was little and frail, but she was good to us and so was de
massa. He wasn't no hand to whip like some of he neighbors. Dey would
tied de slaves' hands to a pole and whip de blood out of them. Dey was
whipped for runnin' away.
"I knowed a slave call Ben Bradley and he was sold on de auction block
and his massa chained him hand and foot and started for Texas. Dey got
to de Red River and was crossin' and de chains helt him down and he
never came up. And I have a uncle what run off and dey took a pack of
hounds--a pack were twelve--and dey got on his trail and I heared dem
runnin' him. Dey run him three days and nights and took a gun loaded
with buck shot but was sposed not to shoot above de legs. Dey come back
and said he got away, but some boys was out huntin' and finds him and he
been shot four times with buck shot.
"De only time we got to rest was Sunday and de fourth of July and
Christmas, and one day Thanksgiving. We got de big dinners on holidays.
After supper was have corn shuckings, or on rainy days, and sometimes we
shucks 500 bushels. We allus picked de cotton in big baskets, and when
we gits it all picked we spreads on big and has a celebration.
"I was in Texas when de war broke out and I hauls corn lots of times to
de gin where was de soldier camp, and I helped cook awhile and would
have been in de battle of Vicksburg only dey takes another man 'stead of
me and he gits kilt. I's glad I's a sorry cook, or I'd got kilt 'stead
of him.
420262
[Illustration: Simp Campbell]
SIMP CAMPBELL was born January 1860, in Harrison County, Texas, He
belonged to W.L. Sloan and stayed with him until 1883, when Simp
married and moved to Marshall. He and his wife live in Gregg
Addition, Marshall, Texas, and Simp works as porter for a loan
company.
"My name is Simpson Campbell, but everybody, white and black, calls me
Simp. I's born right here in Harrison County, on Bill Sloan's place,
nine miles northwest of Marshall. I got in on the last five years of
slavery.
"Pappy was Lewis Campbell, and he was sold by the Florida Campbells to
Marse Sloan and fotched to Texas, but he allus kep' the Campbell name.
Mammy was Mariah and the Sloans brung her out of South Carolina. She
raised a passel of chillen. Besides me there was Flint, Albert and
Clinton of the boys, and--let me count--Dinah, Clandy, Mary, Lula, Liza,
Hannah, Matilda and Millie of the girls.
"The Sloans lived in a big house, but it wasn't no shanty. They was
fixed 'bout as good as anybody in the county and driv as good hosses and
rigs as anybody. They wasn't a mean streak in the whole Sloan family.
"The slave quarters sot in rows right down in the field from the big
house. They had beds made to the wall, and all the cookin' was on the
fireplace. We raised all our meat and corn and garden truck right there
on the place and Marse Sloan brung wheat and other rations from
Shreveport. The nigger women spinned all the cloth and pappy made shoes
by hand, when they kilt a beef. The beef was dried and jetted and hung
in the smokehouse.
"Marse's place civered a thousand acres and he had over a hunderd
slaves, with a overseer, Johnson, and a nigger driver. Us niggers was
treated well but the overseer had order to whip us for fightin'. If the
nigger driver hit too many licks, the overseer sold him off the place.
"We worked from four till six and done a task after that, and sot round
and talked till nine and then had to go to bed. On Saturday night you'd
hear them fiddles and banjoes playin' and the niggers singin'. All them
music gadgets was homemade. The banjoes was made of round pieces of
wood, civered with sheepskin and strung with catgut strings.
"They wasn't no school but Marse Bill larnt some his niggers readin' and
writin' so we could use them bookin' cotton in the field and sich like.
They was a church on the Sloan place and white preachers done most the
'xhorting. Mammy allus say the cullud preachers had to preach what
they's told--obey you master and missus.
"I seed Yankee sojers and wagons comin' home from Mansfield. Marse Tom
sot us free right after surrender, but my folks stayed on with him till
he died, in 1906. I lef when I's twenty-three and marries and made a
livin' from public work in Marshall all my life. I worked as day laborer
and raised two boys and two girls and the boys is farmin' right here in
the county and doin' well.
"When I's eighteen they got up a 'mendment to the Constitution and got
out a "People's Party Ticket." It was a Democratic ticket and control by
Southerners. They told us niggers if we'd vote that ticket we'd be
rec'nized as white folks, but I didn't 'lieve a word of it. Old Man
Sloan told all his niggers that and they all voted that ticket but
two--that was Charley Tang and Simp Campbell.
"I 'lieve the young race of our people is progressin' fine. If they had
priv'lege to use they educations, they'd make more progress, but the
color line holds them back.
420106
[Illustration: James Cape]
JAMES CAPE, centenarian, now living in a dilapidated little shack
in the rear of the stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas, was born a
slave to Mr. Bob Houston, who owned a large ranch in southeast
Texas. James' parents came direct from Africa into slavery. James
spent his youth as a cowboy, fought in the Confederate army, was
wounded and has an ugly shoulder scar. After the war, James
unknowingly took a job with the outlaw, Jesse James, for whom he
worked three years, in Missouri. He then came back to Texas, and
worked in the stockyards until 1928. Documentary proof of James'
age is lacking, but various facts told him by his parents and
others lead him to think he must be over 100 years old.
"I's bo'n in yonder southeast Texas and I don' know what month or de
year for sho', but 'twas more dan 100 years ago. My mammy and pappy was
bo'n in Africa, dats what dey's tol' me. Dey was owned by Marster Bob
Houston and him had de ranch down dere, whar dey have cattle and hosses.
"When I's old 'nough to set on de hoss, dey larned me to ride, tendin'
hosses. 'Cause I's good hoss rider, dey uses me all de time gwine after
hosses. I goes with dem to Mexico. We crosses de river lots of times. I
'members once when we was a drivin' 'bout 200 hosses north'ards. Dey was
a bad hail storm comes into de face of de herd and dat herd turns and
starts de other way. Dere was five of us riders and we had to keep dem
hosses from scatterment. I was de leader and do you know what happens to
dis nigger if my hoss stumbles? Right dere's whar I'd still be! Marster
give me a new saddle for savin' de hosses.
"One day Marster Bob comes to me and says, 'Jim, how you like to jine de
army?' You see, de war had started. I says to him, 'What does I have to
do?' And he says, 'Tend hosses and ride 'em.' I was young den and
thought it would be lots of fun, so I says I'd go. So de first thing I
knows, I's in de army away off east from here, somewhar dis side of St.
Louis and in Tennessee and Arkansas and other places. I goes in de army
'stead of Dr. Carroll.
"After I gits in de army, it wasn' so much fun, 'cause tendin' hosses
and ridin' wasn' all I does. No, sar, I has to do shootin' and git
shooted at! One time we stops de train, takes Yankee money and lots of
other things off dat train. Dat was way up de other side of Tennessee.
"You's heard of de battle of Independence? Dat's whar we fights for
three days and nights. I's not tendin' hosses dat time. Dey gives me a
rifle and sends me up front fightin', when we wasn' running'. We does a
heap of runnin' and dat suits dis nigger. I could do dat better'n
advance. When de order comes to 'treat, I's all ready.
"I gits shot in de shoulder in dat fight and lots of our soldiers gits
killed and we loses our supply, jus' leaves it and runs. 'Nother time we
fights two days and nights and de Yankees was bad dat time, too, and we
had to run through de river. I sho' thought I's gwine git drowned den.
Dat's de time we tries to git in St. Louis, but de Yankee mans stop us.
"I's free after de war and goes back to Texas, to Gonzales County, and
gits a job doin' cowboy work for Marster Ross herdin' cattle. And right
dere's whar I's lucky for not gittin' in jail or hanged. It was dis
way: I's in town and dat man, Ross, says to me, 'I unnerstan' you's a
good cowhand,' and he hires me and takes me way out. No house for miles
'fore we comes to de ranch with cattle and I goes to work. After I's
workin' a while, I wonders how come dey brings in sich fine steers so
often and I says to myself, 'Marster Ross mus' have heaps of money for
to buy all dem steers.' Dey pays no 'tention to de raisin' of cattle,
jus' brings 'em in and drives dem 'way.
"One time Marster Ross and six mens was gone a week and when dey comes
back, one of 'em was missin'. Dey had no steers dat time and dey talks
'bout gittin' frusterated and how one man gits shot. I says to myself,
'What for was dey chased and shot at?' Den I 'members Marster Bob
Houston done tol' me 'bout rustlers and how dey's hanged when dey's
caught, and I knows den dat's how come all dem fine steers is driv in
and out all de time. But how to git 'way, dere's de puzzlement. I not
know which way to go and dere's no houses anywhere near. I keeps gittin'
scarter, and ever' time somebody comes, I thinks its de law. But Marster
Ross drives de cattle north and I says to him, 'I's good hand at de
drive. Kin I go with you nex' time you goes north?' And not long after
dat we starts and we gits to Kansas City. After Marster Ross gets shut
of de critters, he says. 'We'll res' for couple days, den starts back.'
I says to me, 'Not dis nigger.'
"I sneaks 'way and was settin' on a bench when 'long comes a white man
and he's tall, had dark hair and was fine lookin'. He says to me, 'Is
you a cowhand?' So I tells him I is, and he says he wants a hand on his
farm in Missouri and he says, 'Come with me.' He tells me his name was
James and takes me to his farm whar I tends cattle and hosses for three
years and he pays me well. He gives me more'n I earns. After three years
I leaves, but not 'cause I larned he was outlaw, 'cause I larned dat
long time afterwa'ds. I's lonesome for Texas and dat's how I comes to
Fort Worth and here's whar I's stayed ever' since.
"I's married 'bout 40 years ago to a woman dat had eight chillens. We
sep'rated 'cause dem chillens cause arg'ments. I can fight one, but not
de army.
420180
RICHARD CARRUTHERS, 100 year old ex-slave, was born in Memphis,
Tennessee. Mr. Billy Coats bought him and his mother and brought
them to Bastrop Co., Texas. He came to Houston 20 years ago and
lives in a negro settlement known as Acres Home, about 8 miles
northeast of Houston. It is a wooded section, with a clearing here
and there for a Negro shack and plots of ground for growing
"victuals and co'n."
"I wants to tell the Gospel truf. My mammy's name was Melia Carruthers
and my papa's name was Max. My papa's papa's name was Carruthers, too.
My brothers names was Charlie and Frank and Willie and John and Tom and
Adam.
"When I was still little Mr. Billy Coats bought my mama and us and with
about 500 of his slaves we set out to come to Texas. We goes to Bastrop
County and starts to work. My old missy--her name was Missy Myra--was 99
year old and her head was bald as a egg and had wens on it as big as
eggs, too.
"In them days the boss men had good houses but the niggers had log
cabins and they burned down oftentimes. The chimney would cotch fire,
'cause it was made out of sticks and clay and moss. Many the time we
have to git up at midnight and push the chimney 'way from the house to
keep the house from burnin' up.
"The chairs was mostly chunks of cordwood put on end, or slabs, just
rough, and the beds was built like scaffoldin'. We made a sort of
mattress out of corn shucks or moss.
"My missy, she was good, but the overseer, he rough. His temper born of
the debbil, himse'f. His name was Tom Hill, but us called him 'Debbil
Hill.'
Old Debbil Hill, he used to whup me and the other niggers if we don't
jump quick enough when he holler and he stake us out like you stake out
a hide and whup till we bleed. Many the time I set down and made a
eight-plait whup, so he could whup from the heels to the back of the
head 'til he figger he get the proper ret'ibution. Sometime he take salt
and rub on the nigger so he smart and burn proper and suffer mis'ry.
They was a caliboose right on the plantation, what look like a
ice-house, and it was sho' bad to git locked up in it.
"Us got provisions 'lowanced to us every Saturday night. If you had two
in the family, they 'lowanced you one-half gallon 'lasses and 12 to 15
pounds bacon and a peck of meal. We have to take the meal and parch it
and make coffee out of it. We had our flours. One of them we called
biscuit flour and we called it 'shorts.' We had rye and wheat and buck
grain.
"If they didn't provision you 'nough, you jus' had to slip 'round and
git a chicken. That easy 'nough, but grabbin' a pig a sho' 'nough
problem. You have to cotch him by the snoot so he won't squeal, and
clomp him tight while you knife him. That ain't stealin', is it? You has
to keep right on workin' in the field, if you ain't 'lowanced 'nough,
and no nigger like to work with his belly groanin'.
"When the white preacher come he preach and pick up his Bible and claim
he gittin the text right out from the good Book and he preach: 'The Lord
say, don't you niggers steal chickens from your missus. Don't you steal
YOUR MARSTER'S hawgs.' That would be all he preach.
"Us niggers used to have a prayin' ground down in the hollow and
sometime we come out of the field, between 11 and 12 at night, scorchin'
and burnin' up with nothin' to eat, and we wants to ask the good Lawd to
have mercy. We puts grease in a snuff pan or bottle and make a lamp. We
takes a pine torch, too, and goes down in the hollow to pray. Some gits
so joyous they starts to holler loud and we has to stop up they mouth. I
see niggers git so full of the Lawd and so happy they draps unconscious.
"I kep' a eye on the niggers down in the cotton patch. Sometime they
lazy 'round and if I see the overseer comin' from the big house I sings
a song to warn 'em, so they not git whupped, and it go like this:
"'Hold up, hold up, American Spirit!
Hold up, hold up, H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!'
"We used to go huntin' and they was lots of game, bears and panthers and
coons. We have bear dawgs, fox dawg and rabbit dawg that mostly jus' go
by the name of houn' dawg. Then they have a dawg to run niggers.
"I never tried the conjure, but they would take hair and brass nails and
thimbles and needles and mix them up in a conjure bag. But I knows one
thing. They was a old gin between Wilbarger and Colorado and it was
hanted with spirits of kilt niggers. Us used to hear that old mill
hummin' when dark come and we slip up easy, but it stop, then when you
slip away it start up.
"I 'member when the stars fell. We runs and prays, 'cause we thinks it
jedgment day. It sure dumb old Debbil Hill, them stars was over his
power.
"On Sundays we put shoes on our feet and they was brass toed. They was
so hard and stiff they go 'tump, tump, tump,' when we walk. That's the
only day we got 'cept Christmas and we jus' got somethin' extry to eat.
All them women sho' knowed how to cook! I often tell my wife how glad I
was one mornin' when my missy give me a hot, butter biscuit. I goes down
and shows it to all the other boys. We didn't git them hot, butter
biscuits in them days.
"I used to dance the pigeon wing and swing my partners 'round. Was them
womenfolks knock-kneed? You sho' couldn't tell, even when you swung 'em
'round, 'cause they dresses was so long.
"I's been all 'round the mountain and up on top of it in my day. Durin'
slave time I been so cold I mos' turn white and they sot me 'fore the
fire and poultice me with sliced turnips. Come a norther and it blow
with snow and sleet and I didn't have 'nough clothes to keep me warm.
"When a nigger marry, he slick up his lowers and put on his brass-toed
shoes, then the preacher marry him out of the Bible. My pappy have a
pass to visit my mammy and if he don't have one, the paddle roller conk
him on the head. My grandma and grandpa come here in a steamboat. The
man come to Africa and say, 'Man and woman, does you want a job?' So
they gits on the boat and then he has the 'vantage.
"When I was 21 and some more, I don't know jus' how old, I was a free
man. That the day I shouted. We niggers scattered like partridges. I had
a fiddle and I'd play for the white folks wherever I went, when they has
the balls. I marries after 'while, but I don't know what year, 'cause we
never done paid no 'tention to years. My first wife died after a long
time, I think 'bout 34 year and I married another and she died this very
year. Jus' three months later I marries my housekeeper, named Luvena
Dixon, cause I allus lived a upright life and I knowed the Lawd wouldn't
like it if I went on livin' in the same house with Luvena without we was
married. She is 52 year old, and we is happy.
420216
[Illustration: Cato Carter]
CATO CARTER was born in 1836 or 1837, near Pineapple, Wilcox
County, Alabama, a slave of the Carter family. He and his wife live
at 3429 Booth St., Dallas, Texas.
"I'm home today 'cause my li'l, old dog is lost and I has to stay 'round
to hunt for him. I been goin' every day on the truck to the cotton
patches. I don't pick no more, 'count my hands git too tired and begin
to cramp on me. But I go and set in the field and watch the lunches for
the other hands.
"I am a hunerd one years old, 'cause I's twenty-eight, goin' on
twenty-nine, a man growned, when the breakin' up come. I'm purty old,
but my folks live that way. My old, black mammy, Zenie Carter, lived to
be a hunerd twenty-five, and Oll Carter, my white massa--which was the
brother of my daddy--lived to be a hunerd four. He ain't been so long
died. Al Carter, my own daddy, lived to be very ageable, but I don't
know when he died.
"Back in Alabama, Missie Adeline Carter took me when I was past my
creepin' days to live in the big house with the white folks. I had a
room built on the big house, where I stayed, and they was allus good to
me, 'cause I's one of their blood. They never hit me a lick or slapped
me once, and told me they'd never sell me away from them. They was the
bes' quality white folks and lived in a big, two-story house with a big
hall what run all the way through the house. They wasn't rough as some
white folks on their niggers.
"My mammy lived in a hewn-oak log cabin in the quarters. There was a
long row of cabins, some bigger than t'others, 'count of fam'ly size. My
massa had over eighty head of slaves. Them li'l, old cabins was cozy,
'cause we chinked 'em with mud and they had stick chimneys daubed with
mud, mixed with hawg-hair.
"The fixin's was jus' plain things. The beds was draw-beds--wooden
bedsteads helt together with ropes drawed tight, to hold them. We
scalded moss and buried it awhile and stuffed it into tickin' to make
mattresses. Them beds slep' good, better'n the ones nowadays.
"There was a good fireplace for cookin' and Sundays the Missie give us
niggers a pint of flour and a chicken, for to cook a mess of victuals.
Then there was plenty game to find. Many a time I've kilt seventy-five
or eighty squirrels out of one big beech. There was lots of deer and
bears and quails and every other kind of game, but when they ran the
Indians out of the country, the game jus' followed the Indians. I've
seed the bigges' herds of deer followin' the way the Indians drifted.
Whenever the Indians lef', the game all lef' with them, for some reason
I dunno.
"Talkin' 'bout victuals, our eatin' was good. Can't say the same for all
places. Some of the plantations half starved their niggers and 'lowanced
out their eatin' till they wasn't fittin' for work. They had to slip
about to niggers on other places to piece out their meals. They had
field calls and other kinds of whoops and hollers, what had a meanin' to
'em.