and chickens and plenty of everything. Mos' times we have biscuits and
bacon and syrup for breakfast and butter too if we wants it but mos'
niggers dey likes dat fat bacon de bes'.
"Our log cabins was good and comfortable. Dey was all along in a row and
built out of de same kind of logs what our marsters house was.
"We had good beds and dey was clean.
"I nev'r had no money when I was a slave 'cause I was jes' a small boy
when de slaves was set free.
"We had lots of fish and rabbits, more den we had 'possum but we sho'
likes dat 'possum when we could git it.
"My marster had about three hundred slaves and a big plantation.
"I seen some slaves sold off dat big auction block and de little chillun
sho' would be a cryin' when dey takes dere mothers away from dem.
"We didn' have no jail 'cause my marster didn' believe dat way, but I's
seen other slaves in dem chains and things.
"We didn' know nothin' 'bout no learnin' nor no church neither and when
de slaves die dey was jes' buried without no singin' or nothin'.
"When de war started, my father, he goes and once I remember he comes
home on a furlough and we was all so glad, den when he goes back he gits
killed and we nev'r see him no mo'.
"We had de doctor and good care when we was sick. I's don't remember
much 'bout what kinds of medicine we took but I's know it was mostly
home-made.
"We all wears dat asafoetida on a string 'round our necks and sometimes
we carry a rabbit's foot in our pockets fer good luck.
"When de war was ended and de slaves was free old Uncle Pete, our oldest
slave, comes a-walkin' up from de woods whar he always go to keeps from
bein' bothered, to read his Bible, and he had dat Bible under his arm
an' he say, 'I's know somethin', me an' de Lawd knows somethin'', and
den he tells us. He say, 'You all is free people now, you can go when
you please and come when you pleases and you can stay here or go some
other place'. Well I had to stay 'cause my mother stayed and I's jes'
keeps on ridin' dem race hosses 'til long after my marster was dead, den
I's gits me some hosses of my own and train other men's hosses too.
"I's worked at dat racin' business 'til I's come to Texas and when I
went to work in hotels dat killed me up. I's done ev'r thing from makin'
soap fer de scrubbin', to cookin' de bes' meals fer de bes' hotels. I
aint been no good since, though, and I had to quit several years ago.
"De first time I was married was to Phillis Reed in Missouri and we jes'
jumps over de broom, and after Phillis die and I comes to Texas I's gits
married again to Susie, here in San Angelo; we jes' jumps ov'r de broom
too. I's nev'r had no chillun of my own so I's jes' a settin' here
a-livin' off de ole age pension."
420029
[Illustration: Julie Francis Daniels]
JULIA FRANCIS DANIELS, born in 1848, in Georgia, a slave of the
Denman family, who moved to Texas before the Civil War. Julia's
memory fails her when she tries to recall names and dates. She
still tries to take part in church activities and has recently
started to learn reading and writing. She lives with a daughter at
2523 Spring St. Dallas, Texas.
"They's lots I disremembers and they's lots I remembers, like the year
the war's over and the fightin' all done with, 'cause that the year I
larned to plow and that the time I got married. That's the very year
they larned me to plow. I larnt all right, 'cause I wasn't one slow to
larn anything. Afore to that time, they ain't never had no hoe in the
field for me a-tall. I jes' toted water for the ones in the field.
"I had plenty brothers and sisters, 'bout ten of 'em, but I disremembers
some they names. There was Tom and George and Marthy and Mandy, and
they's all name' Denman, 'cause my mammy and daddy was Lottie and Boyd
Denman and they come from Georgia to Cherokee County and then to Houston
County, near by to Crockett, with Old Man Denman. He was the one owned
all us till he 'vided some with Miss Lizzie when she marries Mr. Cramer.
"My daddy worked in the fields with Uncle Lot and my brothers, and my
Uncle Joe, he's driver. But Briscoe am overseer and he a white man. He
can't never whup the growed mens like he wants, 'cause they don't let
him unless he ask Old Man Denman. I seed him whup 'em, though. He make
'em take off the shirt and whup with the strap.
"Now, my mammy was cook in the Denman house and for our family and Uncle
Joe's family. She didn't have much time for anythin' but cookin' all the
time. But she's the bestes' cook. Us had fine greens and hawgs and beef.
Us et collard greens and pork till us got skittish of it and then they
quit the pork and kilt a beef. When they done that, they's jus' pourin'
water on our wheels, 'cause us liked best of anythin' the beef, and I do
to this day, only I can't never git it.
"Old Man Denman had a boy what kilt squirrels and throwed 'em in the
kitchen. The white folks et them. You ain't never seen no white folks
then would eat rabbit. I had a brother who hunted. Mostly on Sundays.
He'd leave for the swamps 'fore daybreak and we'd know when we'd hear
him callin', 'O-o-o-o-o-da-da-ske-e-e-e-t,' he had somethin'. That jus'
a make-up of he own, but we knowed they's rabbits for the pot.
"All the mens don't hunt on Sunday, 'cause Uncle Joe helt meetin' in
front he house. Us look out the door and seed Uncle Joe settin' the
benches straight and settin' he table out under the trees and sweepin'
clean the leaves and us know they's gwine be meetin'. They's the
loveliest days that ever they was. Night times, too, they'd make it
'tween 'em whether it'd be at our house or Uncle Joe's. We'd ask niggers
from other farms and I used to say, 'I likes meetin' jus' as good as I
likes a party.'
"When crops is laid by us have the most parties and dence and sing and
have play games. The reels is what I used to like but I done quit that
foolishness many a year ago. I used to cut a step or two. I remembers
one reel call the 'Devil's Dream.' It's a fast song
"'Oh, de Devil drempt a dream,
He drempt it on a Friday--
He drempt he cotch a sinner.'
"Old Man Denman am the great one for 'viding he property and when Miss
Lizzie marries with Mr. Creame Cramer, which am her dead sister's
husband, Old Man Denman give me and two my sisters to Miss Lizzie and he
gives two more my sisters to he son. Us goes with Miss Lizzie to the
Cramer place and lives in the back yard in a little room by the back
door.
"Everything fine and nice there till one day Miss Lizzie say to me,
'Julia, go down to the well and fetch me some water,' and I goes and I
seed in the road a heap of men all in gray and ridin' hosses, comin' our
way. I runs back to the house and calls Miss Lizzie. She say, 'What you
scairt for?' I tells her 'bout them men and she say they ain't gwine
hurt me none, they jus' wants some water. I goes back to the well and
heared 'em talk 'bout a fight. I goes back to the house and some of the
mens comes to the gate and says to Mr. Cramer, 'How're you, Creame?' He
say, 'I's all right in my health but I ain't so good in my mind.' They
says, 'What the matter, Creame?' He say, 'I want to be in the fight so
bad.'
"When they goes I asks Miss Lizzie what they fightin' 'bout and she say
it am 'bout money. That all I knows. Right after that Mr. Cramer goes
and we don't never see him no more. Word come back from the fightin' he
makes some the big, high mens mad and they puts chains 'round he ankles
and make him dig a stump in the hot sun. He ain't used to that and it
give him fever to the brain and he dies.
"When Mr. Cramer goes 'way, Miss Lizzie takes us all and goes back to
Old Man Denman's. The sojers used to pass and all the whoopin' and
hollerin' and carryin' on, you ain't never heered the likes! They
hollers, 'Who-o-o-o, Old Man Denman, how's your chickens?' And they
chunks and throws at 'em till they cripples 'em up and puts 'em in they
bags, for cookin'. Old Man Denman cusses at 'em somethin' powerful.
"My sister Mandy and me am down in the woods a good, fur piece from the
house and us keeps heerin' a noise. My brother comes down and finds me
and say, 'Come git your dinner.' When I gits there dinner am top the
gate post and he say they's sojers in the woods and they has been
persecutin' a old woman on a mule. She was a nigger woman. I gits so
scairt I can't eat my dinner. I ain't got no heart for victuals. My
brother say, 'Wait for pa, he comin' with the mule and he'll hide you
out.' I gits on the mule front of pa and us pass through the sojers and
they grabs at us and says, 'Gimme the gal, gimme the gal.' Pa say I
faints plumb 'way.
"Us heered guns shootin' round and 'bout all the time. Seems like they
fit every time they git a chance. Old Man Denman's boy gits kilt and two
my sisters he property and they don't know what to do, 'cause they has
to be somebody's property and they ain't no one to 'heritance 'em. They
has to go to the auction but Old Man Denman say not to fret. At the
auction the man say, 'Goin' high, goin' low, goin' mighty slow, a little
while to go. Bid 'em in, bid 'em in. The sun am high, the sun am hot, us
got to git home tonight.' An old friend of Old Man Denman's hollers out
he buys for William Blackstone. Us all come home and my sisters too and
Old Man Denman laugh big and say, 'My name allus been William Blackstone
Denman.'
"I's a woman growed when the war was to a end. I had my first baby when
I's fourteen. One day my sister call me and say, 'They's fit out, and
they's been surrenderin' and ain't gwine fight no more.' That dusk Old
Man Denman call all us niggers together and stand on he steps and make
he speech, 'Mens and womans, you is free as I am. You is free to go
where you wants but I is beggin' yous to stay by me till us git the
crops laid by.' Then he say, 'Study it over 'fore you gives me you
answer. I is always try as my duty to be fair to you.'
"The mens talks it over a-twixt theyselves and includes to stay. They
says us might as well stay there as go somewhere else, and us got no
money and no place to go.
"Then Miss Lizzie marries with Mr. Joe McMahon and I goes with her to he
house near by and he say he larn me to plow. Miss Lizzie say, 'Now,
Julia, you knows how to plow and don't make no fool of yourself and act
like you ain't never seed no plow afore.' Us make a corn crop and goes
on 'bout same as afore.
"I gits married that very year and has a little fixin' for the weddin',
bakes some cakes and I have a dress with buttons and a preacher marries
me. I ain't used to wearin' nothin' but loring (a simple one piece
garment made from sacking). Unnerwear? I ain't never wore no unnerwear
then.
"My husband rents a little piece of land and us raise a corn crop and
that's the way us do. Us raises our own victuals. I has 17 chillen
through the year and they done scatter to the four winds. Some of them
is dead. I ain't what I used to be for workin'. I jus' set 'round. I
done plenty work in my primer days.
420015
[Illustration: Katie Darling]
KATIE DARLING, about 88, was born a slave on the plantation of
William McCarty, on the Elysian Fields Road, nine miles south of
Marshall, Texas. Katie was a nurse and housegirl in the McCarty
household until five years after the end of the Civil War. She then
moved to Marshall and married. Her husband and her three children
are dead and she is supported by Griffin Williams, a boy she found
homeless and reared. They live in a neat three-room shack in Sunny
South addition of Marshall, Texas.
"You is talkin' now to a nigger what nussed seven white chillen in them
bullwhip days. Miss Stella, my young missy, got all our ages down in she
Bible, and it say I's born in 1849. Massa Bill McCarty my massa and he
live east and south of Marshall, clost to the Louisiana line. Me and my
three brudders, Peter and Adam and Willie, all lives to be growed and
married, but mammy die in slavery and pappy run 'way while he and Massa
Bill on they way to the battle of Mansfield. Massa say when he come back
from the war, 'That triflin' nigger run 'way and jines up with them damn
Yankees.'
"Massa have six chillen when war come on and I nussed all of 'em. I
stays in the house with 'em and slep' on a pallet on the floor, and soon
I's big 'nough to tote the milk pail they puts me to milkin', too. Massa
have more'n 100 cows and most the time me and Violet do all the milkin'.
We better be in that cowpen by five o'clock. One mornin' massa cotched
me lettin' one the calves do some milkin' and he let me off without
whippin' that time, but that don't mean he allus good, 'cause them cows
have more feelin' for than massa and missy.
"We et peas and greens and collards and middlin's. Niggers had better
let that ham alone! We have meal coffee. They parch meal in the oven and
bile it and drink the liquor. Sometime we gits some of the Lincoln
coffee what was lef' from the nex' plantation.
"When the niggers done anything massa bullwhip them, but didn't skin
them up very often. He'd whip the man for half doin' the plowin' or
hoein' but if they done it right he'd find something else to whip them
for. At night the men had to shuck corn and the women card and spin. Us
got two pieces of clothes for winter and two for summer, but us have no
shoes. We had to work Saturday all day and if that grass was in the
field we didn't git no Sunday, either.
"They have dances and parties for the white folks' chillen, but missy
say, 'Niggers was made to work for white folks,' and on Christmas Miss
Irene bakes two cakes for the nigger families but she darsn't let missy
know 'bout it.
"When a slave die, massa make the coffin hisself and send a couple
niggers to bury the body and say, 'Don't be long,' and no singin' or
prayin' 'lowed, jus' put them in the ground and cover 'em up and hurry
on back to that field.
"Niggers didn't cou't then like they do now, massa pick out a po'tly man
and a po'tly gal and jist put 'em together. What he want am the stock.
"I 'member that fight at Mansfield like it yes'day. Massas's field am
all tore up with cannon holes and ever' time a cannon fire, missy go off
in a rage. One time when a cannon fire, she say to me, 'You li'l black
wench, you niggers ain't gwine be free. You's made to work for white
folks.' 'Bout that time she look up and see a Yankee sojer standin' in
the door with a pistol. She say, 'Katie, I didn't say anythin', did I?'
I say, 'I ain't tellin' no lie, you say niggers ain't gwine git free.'
"That day you couldn't git 'round the place for the Yankees and they
stays for weeks at a time.
"When massa come home from the war he wants let us loose, but missy
wouldn't do it. I stays on and works for them six years after the war
and missy whip me after the war jist like she did 'fore. She has a
hun'erd lashes laid up for me now, and this how it am. My brudders done
lef' massa after the war and move nex' door to the Ware place, and one
Saturday some niggers come and tell me my brudder Peter am comin' to git
me 'way from old missy Sunday night. That night the cows and calves got
together and missy say it my fault. She say, 'I'm gwine give you one
hun'erd lashes in the mornin', now go pen them calves.'
"I don't know whether them calves was ever penned or not, 'cause Peter
was waitin' for me at the lot and takes me to live with him on the Ware
place. I's so happy to git away from that old devil missy, I don't know
what to do, and I stays there sev'ral years and works out here and there
for money. Then I marries and moves here and me and my man farms and
nothin' 'citin' done happened."
420046
[Illustration: Carey Davenport]
CAREY DAVENPORT, retired Methodist minister of Anahuac, Texas,
appears sturdy despite his 83 years. He was reared a slave of Capt.
John Mann, in Walker Co., Texas. His wife, who has been his devoted
companion for 60 years, was born in slavery just before
emancipation. Carey is very fond of fishing and spends much time
with hook and line. He is fairly well educated and is influential
among his fellow Negroes.
"If I live till the 13th of August I'll be 82 years old. I was born in
1855 up in Walker County but since then they split the county and the
place I was born is just across the line in San Jacinto County now. Jim
and Janey Davenport was my father and mother and they come from
Richmond, Virginia. I had two sisters, Betty and Harriet, and a half
brother, William.
"Our old master's name was John Mann but they called him Capt. Mann. Old
missus' name was Sarah. I'd say old master treated us slaves bad and
there was one thing I couldn't understand, 'cause he was 'ligious and
every Sunday mornin' everybody had to git ready and go for prayer. I
never could understand his 'ligion, 'cause sometimes he git up off his
knees and befo' we git out the house he cuss us out.
"All my life I been a Methodist and I been a regular preacher 43 years.
Since I quit I been livin' here at Anahuac and seems like I do 'bout as
much preachin' now as I ever done.
"I don't member no cullud preachers in slavery times. The white
Methodist circuit riders come round on horseback and preach. There was a
big box house for a church house and the cullud folks sit off in one
corner of the church.
"Sometimes the cullud folks go down in dugouts and hollows and hold they
own service and they used to sing songs what come a-gushin' up from the
heart.
"They was 'bout 40 slaves on the place, but I never seed no slaves
bought or sold and I never was sold, but I seen 'em beat--O, Lawd, yes.
I seen 'em make a man put his head through the crack of the rail fence
and then they beat him till he was bloody. They give some of 'em 300 or
400 licks.
"Old man Jim, he run away lots and sometimes they git the dogs after
him. He run away one time and it was so cold his legs git frozen and
they have to cut his legs off. Sometimes they put chains on runaway
slaves and chained 'em to the house. I never knowed of 'em puttin' bells
on the slaves on our place, but over next to us they did. They had a
piece what go round they shoulders and round they necks with pieces up
over they heads and hung up the bell on the piece over they head.
"I was a sheep minder them days. The wolves was bad but they never
tackled me, 'cause they'd ruther git the sheep. They like sheep meat
better'n man meat. Old Captain wanted me to train he boy to herd sheep
and one day young master see a sow with nine pigs and want me to catch
them and I wouldn't do it. He tried to beat me up and when we git to the
lot we have to go round to the big gate and he had a pine knot, and he
catch me in the gate and hit me with that knot. Old Captain sittin' on
the gallery and he seed it all. When he heered the story he whipped
young master and the old lady, she ain't like it.
"One time after that she sittin' in the yard knittin' and she throwed
her knittin' needle off and call me to come git it. I done forgot she
wanter whip me and when I bring the needle she grab me and I pull away
but she hold on my shirt. I run round and round and she call her mother
and they catch and whip me. My shirt just had one button on it and I was
pullin' and gnawin' on that button and directly it come off and the
whole shirt pull off and I didn't have nothin' on but my skin. I run and
climb up on the pole at the gate and sot there till master come. He say,
'Carey, why you sittin' up there?' Then I tell him the whole
transaction. I say, 'Missus, she whip me 'cause young marse John git
whip that time and not me.' He make me git down and git up on his horse
behin' him and ride up to the big house. Old missus, she done went to
the house and go to bed with her leg, 'cause when she whippin' me she
stick my head 'tween her knees and when she do that I bit her.
"Old master's house was two-story with galleries. My mother, she work in
the big house and she have a purty good house to live in. It was a plank
house, too, but all the other houses was make out of hewed logs. Then my
father was a carpenter and old master let him have lumber and he make he
own furniture out of dressed lumber and make a box to put clothes in. We
never did have more'n two changes of clothes.
"My father used to make them old Carey plows and was good at makin' the
mould board out of hardwood. He make the best Carey plows in that part
of the country and he make horseshoes and nails and everything out of
iron. And he used to make spinning wheels and parts of looms. He was a
very valuable man and he make wheels and the hub and put the spokes in.
"Old master had a big farm and he raised cotton and corn and 'taters and
peanuts and sorghum cane and some ribbon cane. The bigges' crops was
cotton and corn.
"My father told us when freedom come. He'd been a free man, 'cause he
was bodyguard to the old, old master and when he died he give my father
he freedom. That was over in Richmond, Virginia. But young master steal
him into slavery again. So he was glad when freedom come and he was free
again. Old master made arrangement for us to stay with him till after
the harvest and then we go to the old Rawls house what 'long to Mr. Chiv
Rawls. He and my father and mother run the place and it was a big farm.
"I git marry when I was 'bout 22 years old and that's her right there
now. We's been married more'n 60 years and she was 17 years old then.
She was raised in Grant's colony and her father was a blacksmith.
"We had it all 'ranged and we stop the preacher one Sunday mornin' when
he was on the way to preachin' and he come there to her pa's house and
marry us. We's had 11 children and all has deceased but three.
"I was educated since freedom, 'cause they wasn't no schools in slavery
days, but after I was freed I went to public schools. Most my learnin' I
got from a German man what was principal of a college and he teach me
the biggest part of my education.
"When I was 14 a desperado killed my father and then I had my mother and
her eight children to take care of. I worked two months and went to
school one month and that way I made money to take care of 'em.
420215
[Illustration: Campbell Davis]
CAMPBELL DAVIS, 85, was born in Harrison Co., Texas, a slave of
Henry Hood. He remained on the Hood place about three years after
he was freed, then farmed in Louisiana. In 1873 he married and
moved back to Harrison Co., where he farmed until old age forced
him to stop. He now lives with his nephew, Billie Jenkins, near
Karnack. Campbell receives a $12.00 per month old age pension.
"I's big 'nough in slavery time to hear dem tell de darkies to get up
and go in the mornin', and to hear the whistlin' of dem whips and
howlin' of de dogs. I's birthed up in the northeast part of this county
right on the line of Louisiana and Texas, and 'longed to old man Henry
Hood. My mammy and daddy was Campbell and Judy Davis and dey both come
from Alabama, and was brung here by de traders and sold to Massa Hood.
They was nine of us chillen, name Ellis and Hildaman and Henderson and
Henrietta and Georgia and Harriet and Patsy.
"Massa Henry didn't have de fine house but it a big one. Us quarters sot
off 'cross de field in de edge of a skit of woods. Dey have dirt floors
and a fireplace and old pole and plank bunks nail to de walls.
"Dey fed us beef and veg'tables--any kind, jus' name it--and 'low us sop
bread in potlicker till de world look level. Dat good eatin' and all my
life I ain't have no better.
"Massa didn't 'low no overseer on he place. One my uncles de driver, and
massa blow de old conk shell long 'fore day, and if de darkies didn't
git goin' you'd hear dem whips crackin'.
"I seed one my sisters whip 'cause she didn't spin 'nough. Dey pull de
clothes down to her waist and laid her down on de stomach and lash her
with de rawhide quirt. I's in de field when dey whips my Uncle Lewis for
not pickin' 'nough cotton. De driver pull he clothes down and make him
lay on de groun'. He wasn't tied down, but he say he scart to move.
"De women am off Friday afternoon to wash clothes and all de hands git
Saturday afternoon and mos' de man go huntin' or fishin'. Sometimes dey
have parties Saturday night and couples git on de floor and have music
of de fiddle and banjo. I only 'members one ring play:
"Hop light, li'l lady,
The cakes all dough,
Don't mind de weather,
Jus' so de wind don't blow.
"De bigges' day to blacks and whites was fourth of July. De hands was
off all day and massa give de big dinner out under de trees. He allus
barbecue de sheep or beef and have cakes and pies and fancy cookin'.
He's one de bes' bosses round dat country. He 'lieve in makin' dem work
and when dey need whippin' he done it, but when it come to feedin' he
done dat right, too. And on Christmas he give us clothes and shoes and
nuts and things and 'nother big dinner, and on Christmas night de
darkies sing songs for de white folks.
"Us git some book larnin' 'mongst ourselves, round de quarters, and have
our own preacher. Mos' de time us chillen play, makin' frog holes in de
sand and mud people and things.