The ex-slave voted like fire directly after the war. That was about
all that did vote then. If the Niggers hadn't voted they never would
have been able to elect Negroes to office.
I was elected Alderman once in Little Rock under the administration of
Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge,
Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of
Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of
public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern
Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion
H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all
aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County, S.
H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about five feet
high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of Desha County.
Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro used to hold good offices
in this state.
I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter caused it.
Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern part of the
state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with the North in the
war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the North somewheres. When
Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom the old ex-slaveholders
supported because he was a Southerner and sided with Baxter against
Brooks, it put the present Democratic party in power, and they passed
the Grandfather law barring Negroes from voting.
Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted out. Ballot
boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally, Negroes got
discouraged and quit trying to vote."
[Footnote A: [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of
La. Held office 43 days.]]
[Footnote B: [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of
Jefferson Davis.]]
[Footnote C: [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of
public instruction in 1873--served until the end of 1875.]]
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher),
Hazen, Ark.
Age: 77
"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and
he couldn't talk plain.
"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a white
man. He was a Scotchman.
"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left
Virginia.
"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em was
married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly
Springs, Mississippi in 1867.
"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at
Holly Springs.
"I had two sisters Ann and Mariah. Old Miss Nancy Marshall had kin
folks at Marshall, Texas. She took Ann with her and I have never seen
her since.
"In 1878 we immigrated to Kansas. We soon got back to Helena. Mariah
died there and in 1881 mother died.
"Old Miss Nancy's boys named Blunt, John, Bill, Harp. I don't know
where they scattered out to finally.
"All my folks ever expected was freedom. We was nicely taken care of
till the family split up. My father was suppressed. He belong to
Master Ernman. He run off and went on with the Yankees when they come
down from Virginia. We think he got killed. We never heard from him
after 1863.
"In 1882 my white folks went to Padukah, Kentucky. They was on the run
from Yellow Fever. They had kin up there. I stayed in Memphis and
nursed. They put up flags. Negroes didn't have it. They put coffins on
the porches before the people died. Carried wagons loads of dead
bodies wrapped in sheets. White folks would meet and pray the disease
be lifted. When they started vomiting black, there was no more hopes.
Had to hold them on bed when they was dying. When they have Yellow
Fever white folks turn yellow. I never heard of a case of Yellow Fever
in Memphis mong my race. Dr. Stone of New Orleans had better luck with
the disease than any other doctor. I was busy from June till October
in Memphis. They buried the dead in long trenches. Nearly all the
business houses was closed. The boats couldn't stop in towns where
Yellow Fever had broke out.
"I never seen the Ku Klux.
"I never seen no one sold. My father still held a wild animal instinct
up in Virginia; they couldn't keep him out of the woods. He would
spend two or three days back in there. Then the Patty Rollers would
run him out and back home. He was a quill blower and a banjo picker.
They had two corn piles and for prizes they give them whiskey. They
had dances and regular figure callers. This has been told to me at
night time around the hearth understand. I can recollect when round
dancing come in. It was in 1880. Here's a song they sung back in
Virginia: 'Moster and mistress both gone away. Gone down to
Charleston/ to spend the summer day. I'm off to Charleston/early in
the mornin'/ to spend nother day.'
"I used to help old Miss Nancy make candles for her little brass lamp.
We boiled down maple sap and made sugar. We made turpentine.
"I don't know about the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia. We had
rebellions at Helena in 1875. The white folks put the Negroes out of
office. They put J. T. White in the river at Helena but I think he got
out. Several was killed. J. T. White was a colored sheriff in Phillips
County. In Lee County it was the same way. The Republican party would
lect them and the Democratic party roust them out of office.
"In 1872 I went to school 2-1/2 miles to Arkansas Post to a white
teacher. I went four months. Her name was Mrs. Rolling. My white folks
started me and I could spell to 'Baker' in the Blue Book Speller
before I started to school. That is the only book I ever had at
school. I learned to read in the Bible next.
"In 1872 locust was numerous. We had four diseases to break out:
whooping cough, measles, smallpox; and cholera broke out again. They
vaccinated for smallpox, first I ever heard of it. They took matter
out of one persons arm and put it in two dozen peoples arms. It killed
out the smallpox.
"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and forest
fires broke out often.
"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We gambled
and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good raising.
I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord hailed me in
wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing in his
sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to teach a
Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader. Three
months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop Lee,
Johnson, Copeland--all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I
attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I
preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated
minister.
"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become
more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the
home land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some
work or a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins,
R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas
Age: 80
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil
War). I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension
and he sends me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount
whatever he can spare me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I
pick cotton some last year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got
to raining and so cold my granddaughter said it would make me sick.
"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from
Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A.
B. Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was
name Liddy Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to
Tennessee from Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than
ten miles apart. Then they got consent and got married. I don't know
how they struck up together.
"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins'
house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His
daughter lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home
from the war dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The
only little children on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no
kin but jus' like twins. Master would call us up and stick his finger
in biscuits and pour molasses in the hole. That was sure good eating.
The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up
another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got
them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother
beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over
at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us
biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and
call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer
badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to
whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe
from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take
me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get
my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We walked four miles. He'd
tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed over there much and
the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come. They let her
stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to
preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to
come home. Me and papa always walked.
"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't
know what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the
best, somebody said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six
years trying to do as well as they had done in slavery. It was years
'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing
well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the
hardest--eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from
Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and
done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the
girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We
boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats
about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we
rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a
heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.
"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The
main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but
it was carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd
tell colored folks not to do this and that and it would get them in
trouble. The Ku Klux would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks
thought 'cause they was free they ought not work. They got to rambling
and scattered out.
"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted
different ways--sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I
don't believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for
Cleveland years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the
last war. I don't believe in war.
"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now.
Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are
restless. I see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got
grown looked so fresh and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried
now. They fixes up their face but it still show it. Folks quicker than
they used to be. They acts before they have time to think now. Times
is good for me but I see old folks need things. I see young folks
wasteful--both black and white. White folks setting the pace for us
colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Dora Jerman,
Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 60?
"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father.
Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee.
Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around
handy to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her
and Aunt Polly both. Aunt Polly was a friend that was sold with her
every time. They was like sisters and the most pleasure to each other
in old age.
"My great-great-grandma said to grandma, 'Hurry back wid that pitcher
of water, honey, so you will have time to run by and see your mama and
the children and tell them good-bye. Old master says you going to be
sold early in the morning.' The water was for supper. That was the
last time she ever seen or heard of any of her own kin folks. Grandma
said a gang of them was sold next morning. Aunt Polly was no kin but
they was sold together. Whitfield bought one and Strum bought the
other.
"They come on a boat from Virginia to Aberdeen, Mississippi. They
wouldn't sell her mother because she brought fine children. I think
she said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold
several times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat
they had to walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open
and bled. 'Black Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them
with hot tallow or mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a
good girl and mind master and mistress.
"Grandma said she had a hard time all her life. She was my mother's
mother and she lived to be way over a hundred years old. Aunt Polly
lived with her daughter when she got old. Grandma died first. Then
Aunt Polly grieved so. She was old, old when she died. They still
lived close together, mostly together. Aunt Polly was real black; mama
was lighter. I called grandma 'mama' a right smart too. They called
each other 'sis'. Grandma said, 'I love sis so good.' Aunt Polly
lessened her days grieving for sis. They was both field hands. They
would tell us girls about how they lived when they was girls. We'd
cry.
"We lived in the country and we listened to what they said to us. If
it had been times then like now I wouldn't know to tell you. Folks is
in such a hurry somehow. Gone or going somewhere all the time.
"All my folks is most all full-blood African. I don't believe in races
mixing up. It is a sin. Grandma was the brightest one of any of us.
She was ginger-cake color.
"No, I don't vote. I don't believe in that neither.
"Times is too fast. Fast folks makes fast times. They all fast. Coming
to destruction."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Adaline Johnson
Joining the Plunkett farms
Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 96
"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on
Strickland's place. My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North
Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big
plantations, full of niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where
my mother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They lived at
Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old
master. There was Hue Battle too. Master Joe Battle and Master
Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to
whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks
with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.
"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He
was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them about it at the hotel. He
got up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom
Williams didn't drink. He went to war and got shot. He professed
religion when he was twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his
Testament in his pocket and blood run on it. That was when he was shot
in the Civil War.
"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no
law to kill a crazy man. They took him to North Carolina where was all
white folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor
crazy nigger. They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to
place all white folks lived.
"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress
Frankie (Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em be, he ain't goiner
whoop Fenna, he's kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.'
They whoop niggers black as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten
Williams. Fenna was half white. He was John Williams' boy. John was
Brutten's brother. John Williams went to Mississippi and overseed for
Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd shoot at anything and call it a
hawk.
"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to
sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi learned her how to sew. She
sewed up bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.
"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe
Williams. She cooked and wove some in her young life. Rich white folks
didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they
changed her about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the
public.
"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduke
Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big towns and had a good time.
Miss Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from
Mississippi) to North Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it
all away soon as it ripen. He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy.
He give some of it out in cups. They said there was some double
rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.
"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the
men on his place five dollars and every woman a sow pig to raise from.
Tole us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one
and my mother one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever
had. He got killed. Master Tom was so good to his niggers. He never
whooped them. His wife ruled him, made him do like she wanted
everything but mean to his niggers. Her folks slashed their niggers
and she tried to make him do that too. He wouldn't. They said she wore
the breeches 'cause she ruled him.
"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away
from every one of us. We raised 'em up fine big hogs. She took them
away from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had
plenty land he left her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen
Hopkins. They had a boy. He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She
was so mean. Followed the boy to Texas. They all said she couldn't
rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom Williams. She didn't.
"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she
wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had raised a little half white
boy. 'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's
little nigger child and give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His
own black mama beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal Pierce's
place. They kept Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give
him to somebody else 'way off. Tom had a brother in Georgia. It was
Tom's wife wouldn't let Wilks go on living with us.
"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers
but she was better than any other white women to Wilks and Fenna and
George.
"'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought
him a axe, it was a great big axe. They bought him a great big hoe.
They got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like
everybody else. 'Big Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim
Battle was gone off. His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When
Jim Battle come back he said Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put
him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big Will'. We never heard or seen him no
more. His family stayed on the plantation and worked. 'Big Will' could
split as many more rails as anybody else on the place.
"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy
babies and raise them.
"The Battles had gins and stores in North Carolina and Williams had
farms, nothing but farms.
"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after
the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy, Johnny Williams. He run to
me, said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was
when the Yankee soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war.
I cooked when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded and spun
then. I had a ounce of cotton to card every night from September till
March. When I'd be dancing around, Miss Helland Harris Williams say,
'You better be studying your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop
dancing.
"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich
folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the niggers cried and cried and
bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean
master.
"They had a mean master right then--Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever
God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That was in Mississippi. They took
us back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and
stage-coaches, wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on
big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up
the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.
"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee.
I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our
snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night
so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The
Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they
could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina.
"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama--mama was Liza
Williams--Master Brutten bought her sister three or four years after
that and they took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now
they call it Wakefield Post Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid,
Henry, John was Tom Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.
"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was
Joe Battle's uncles. Jesse Ford was Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas.
He come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was
put on a block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell
downstairs. I never heard such crying before nor since as I heard that
day. Said they lost their best master. They knowed how bad they got
whooped on Ozoo River.
"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big
towns. He never did marry. My last master was Tom Williams. He was so
nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard
times come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks--foot tracks and
finger tracks both.
"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers
and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them your finger marks.' Then he
scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get
scared, he ain't go to whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not
goiner hurt him.'
"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of
white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way they come free
niggers. Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a
hog, take it and give it to her. She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto
baby turned up. Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes
they did.
"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to
George to come after them to Ohio. Bill Harris had a baltimore
trotter. The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open,
read it, give it to his owner. He got mad and sold George. He was Sam
Harrises carriage driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned
him about reading and writing. When the war was over George come
through on the train. Sam Harris run up there, cracked his heels
together, hugged him, and give him ten dollars. He sold him when he
was so mad. I don't know if he went to Ohio to Stinson's or not.
"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after
freedom.
"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there
with his leg shot off and was there till he could get on to his folks.
"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was cars
going different places. We got on Mr. Boyd's car. He paid our way out
here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd
brought us right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at
Raleigh, North Carolina.
"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children
scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty acres. Some of it in
woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with
me--taking care of me. Papa tole my son to take care of me and since
he died my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go
hungry nigh all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son
both. If I could get a cow. We tries to have a garden. They ain't
making nothing on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I
ever seen in my life. I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising.
The doctor put some medicine in my ears--both of them.
"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time
to take off my shoes and fix the tacks--beat 'em down. They made holes
in bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and
stand."