"Yes ma'am. I remembers the days of slavery. I was turned five years
old when the war started rushing. No ma'am, I didn't see much of the
Yankees. They didn't come thru but twice. Was I afraid? No ma'am. I
was too busy to be scared. I was too busy looking at the buttons they
wore. Until they went in Master's smoke house. Then I quit looking and
started hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.
My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold to a man named Woodfork
and brought to Nashville. The Woodfork colored folks was always
treated good. Master used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he
bought one in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't
believe in separating families. He didn't believe in dividing mother
from her baby.
But they did take them away from their babies. I remember my
grandmother telling about it. The wagon would drive down into the
field and pick up a woman. Then somebody would meet her at the gate
and she would nurse her baby for the last time. Then she'd have to go
on. Leastwise, if they hadn't sold her baby too.
It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White
or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing
against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about. Most of the time
it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he
couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the
Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up
at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the overseers was good to
us.
But it wasn't that way on all the plantations. On the next one they
was mean. Why you could hear the sound of the strap for two blocks. No
there wasn't any blocks. But you could hear it that far. The "niggah
drivah" would stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would
stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some they whipped
so hard they had to carry them in. Just once did anybody on the
Woodfork place get whipped that way.
We never knew quite what happened. But my grandmother thought that the
colored man what took down the ages of the children so they'd know
when to send them to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else
couldn't have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said, 'I
bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And the overseer
didn't dare do so any more.
No ma'am, I never worked in the field. I wasn't old enough. You see I
helped my grandmother, she is the one who took care of the babies. All
the women from the lower end would bring their babies to the upper end
for her to look after while they was in the field. When I got old
enough, I used to help rock the cradles. We used to have lots of
babies to tend. The women used to slip in and nurse their babies. If
the overseer thought they stayed too long he used to come in and whip
them out--out to the fields. But they was good to us, just the same.
We had plenty to wear and lots to eat and good cabins to live in. All
of them wasn't that way though.
I remember the women on the next plantation used to slip over and get
somthing to eat from us. The Woodfork colored folks was always well
took care of. Our white folks was good to us. During the week there
was somebody to cook for us. On Sunday all of them cooked in their
cabins and they had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even
when they was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough
to eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our place. The
Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for food. Our white folks
treated us real good.
Didn't make much difference when the war started rushing. We didn't
see any fighting. I told you the Yankees come thru twice----let me go
back a spell.
We had lots of barrels of Louisiana molasses. We could eat all we
wanted. When the barrels was empty, we children was let scrape them.
Lawsey, I used to get inside the barrel and scrape and scrape and
scrape until there wasn't any sweetness left.
We was allowed to do all sorts of other things too. Like there was
lots of pecans down in the swamps. The boys, and girls too for that
matter, was allowed to pick them and sell them to the river boats what
come along. The men was let cut cord wood and sell it to the boats.
Flat boats they was. There was regular stores on them. You could buy
gloves and hats and lots of things. They would burn the wood on the
boat and carry the nuts up North to sell. But me, I liked the sugar
barrel best.
When the Yankees come thru, I wasn't scared. I was too busy looking at
the bright buttons on their coats. I edged closer and closer. All they
did was laugh. But I kept looking at them. Until they went into the
smoke house. Then I turned loose and hollered. I hollored because I
thought they was going to take all Master's sirup. I didn't want that
to happen. No ma'am they didn't take nothing. Neither time they came.
After the war was over they took us down the river to The Bend. It was
near Vicksburg----an all day's ride. There they put us on a plantation
and took care of us. It was the most beautifulest place I ever see.
All the cabins was whitewashed good. The trees was big and the whole
place was just lovely. It was old man Jeff Davis' place.
They fed us good, gave us lots to eat. They sent up north, the Yankees
did, and got a young white lady to come down and teach us. I didn't
learn nothing. They had our school near what was the grave yard. I
didn't learn cause I was too busy looking around at the tombstones.
They was beautiful. They looked just like folks to me. Looks like I
ought have learned. They was mighty good to send somebody down to
learn us that way. I ought have learned, it looks ungrateful, but I
didn't.
My mother died on that place. It was a mighty nice place. Later on we
come to Arkansas. We farmed. Looked like it was all we knowed how to
do. We worked at lots of places. One time we worked for a man named
Thomas E. Allen. He was at Rob Roy on the Arkansas near Pine Bluff.
Then we worked for a man named Kimbroo. He had a big plantation in
Jefferson county. For forty years we worked first one place, then
another.
After that I went out to Oklahoma. I went as a cook. Then I got the
idea of following the resort towns about. In the summer I'd to [TR:
go?] to Eureka.[D] In the winter I'd come down to Hot Springs.[E] That
was the way to make the best money. Folks what had money moved about
like that. I done cooking at other resorts too. I cooked at the hotel
at Winslow.[F] I done that several summers.
Somehow I always come back to Hot Springs. Good people in Eureka.
Finest man I ever worked for--for a rich man was Mr. Rigley, [TR:
Wrigley] you know. He was the man who made chewing gum. We didn't have
no gas in Eureka. Had to cook by wood. I remember lots of times Mr.
Wrigley would come out in the yard where I was splitting kindling.
He'd laugh and he'd take the ax away from me and split it hisself.
Finest man----for a rich man I ever see.
Cooking at the hotel at Winslow was nice. There was lots of fine
ladies what wanted to take me home with them when they went home. But
I told them, 'No thank you, Hot Springs is my home. I'm going there
this winter.'
I'm getting sort of old now. My feet ain't so sure as they used to be.
But I can get about. I can get around to cook and I can still see to
thread a needle. My daughter has a good home for me." (I was conducted
into a large living room, comfortably furnished and with a degree of
taste--caught glimpses of a well furnished dining room and a kitchen
equipment which appeared thoroughly modern--Interviewer)
"People in Hot Springs is good people. They seem sort of friendly.
Folks in Eureka did too, even more so. But maybe it was cause I was
younger then and got to see more of them. But the Lord has blessed me
with a good daughter. I got nothing to complain about, I don't hold
grudges against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is doing."
[Footnote D: Eureka Springs, Ark.]
[Footnote E: Hot Springs National Park]
[Footnote F: rustic hotel on mountain near village of Winslow, Ark.]
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: George Johnson
814 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 75
"I was born in Richmond, Virginia, September 28, 1862, and came to
this country in 1869. My father was named Benjamin Johnson and my
mother was named Phoebe Johnson. I don't know the names of my
grandmother and grandfather. My father's master was named Johnson; I
forget his first name. He was a doctor and lived on Charleston and
Morgan Streets. I don't know what my mother's name was before she
married my father. And I don't know what her master's name was. She
died when I was just three years old.
"The way my father happened to bring me out here was, Burton Tyrus
came out here in Richmond stump speaking and telling the people that
money grew like apples on a tree in Arkansas. They got five or six
boat loads of Negroes to come out here with them. Father went to share
cropping on the Red River Bottom on the Chickaninny Farm. He put in
his crop, but by the time he got ready to gather it, he taken sick and
died. He couldn't stand this climate.
"Then me and my sisters was supposed to be bound out to Henry Moore
and his wife. I stayed with them about six years and then I ran off.
And I been scouting 'round for myself ever since.
"My occupation has been chiefly public work. My first work was rail
roading and steam boating. I was on the Iron Mountain when she was
burning wood. That was about fifty some years ago. After that I worked
on the steamboats _Natchez_ and _Jim Lee_. I worked on them as
roustabout. After that I would just commence working everywhere I
could get it. I came here about forty-five years ago because I liked
the city. I was in and out of the city but made this place my
headquarters.
"I'm not able to do any work now. I put in for the Old Age Pension two
years ago. They told me I would have to prove my age but I couldn't do
it any way except to produce my marriage license. I produced them. I
got the license right out of this county courthouse here. I was
married the last time in 1907 and was forty-five years old then. That
will make me seventy-six years old this year--the twenty-eighth day of
this coming September. My wife died nine years ago.
"I have heard my father talking a little but old folks then didn't
allow the young ones to hear much. My daddy sent me to bed at night.
When night came you went to bed; you didn't hang around waiting to
hear what the old folks would say.
"My daddy got his leg shot in the Civil War. He said he was in that
battle there in Richmond. I don't know which side he was on, but I
know he got his leg shot off. He was one-legged. He never did get any
pension. I don't know even whether he was really enlisted or not. All
I know is that he got his leg shot off in the war.
"When the war ended in 1865, the slaves around Richmond were freed. I
never heard my father give the details of how he got his freedom. I
was too young to remember them myself.
"I don't know how many slaves Dr. Johnson had but I know it was a good
many, for he was a tobacco raiser. I don't remember what kind of
houses his slaves lived in. [And I never heard the kind of food we
et.] [HW: ?]
"I never heered tell of patrols till I came to Arkansas. I never
heered much of the Ku Klux either. I guess that was all the same,
wasn't it? Peace wasn't declared here till 1866. I never heered of
any of my acquaintances being bothered but I heered the colored people
was scared. All I know was that you had to come in early. Didn't, they
get you.
"What little schooling I got, I got it by going to night school here.
That is been a good many years back--forty years back. I forgot now
who was teaching night school. It was some kin of Ishes out here I
know.