When we left de plantation, we had to get a pass to go from one
plantation to another.
We went to church, sat on de back seat of the white folks church. It
was a Baptist. Baptized in pool. White preacher said: "Obey your
master."
When I came to Arkanansas, I was sold to Mr. Larkin.
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
1126 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 77
"Yes ma'm, I was born in slavery times, right about 1860. I was bred
and born in Virginia--belonged to a man named Rhodes. When I was a
little fellow, me and my mother was sold separate. My mother was sent
to Texas and a man named Larkin bought me.
"I member when people was put upon the block and sold. Man and wife
might go together and might not. Yes ma'm, they sho did separate
mother and childen.
"Take a little chile, they would be worth a thousand dollars. Why old
master would just go crazy over a little boy. They knowed what they
would be worth when they was grown, and then they kept em busy.
"I can't remember no big sight in Virginia but I remember when the
hounds would run em. Some of the colored folks had mighty rough
owners.
"I remember when the Yankees come and took the best hoss my old boss
had and left old crippled hoss with the foot evil.
"And they'd get up in a tree with a spyglass and find where old boss
had his cotton hid, come down and go straight and burn it and the corn
crib and take what meat they wanted and then burn the smoke house.
Yes'm, I remember all that. I tell you them Yankees was mean. Used to
shake old mistress and try to make her tell where the money was hid.
If you had a fat cow, just shoot her down and cook what they wanted.
My old boss went to the bottoms and hid. Tried to make old mistress
tell where he was.
"Not all the old bosses was alike. Some fed good and some didn't. But
they clothed em good--heavy cloth. Old man Larkin was pretty good man.
We got biscuits every Sunday morning, other times got shorts. People
was really healthier then.
"I was brought up to work. The biggest trainin' we got was the boss
told us to go there and come here and we learned to do as we was told.
People worked in them days. A deal of em that won't work now.
"During slavery days, colored folks had to go to the same church as
the white folks and sit in the back.
"My father died a long time ago. I don't remember anything bout him
and I never did see my mother any more after she was sold.
"After the war, old boss brought me to Arkansas when I was bout twelve
years old. Biggest education I got, sit down with my old boss and he'd
make me learn the alphabet. In those times they used the old Blue Back
Speller.
"After we come to Arkansas I worked a great deal on the farm.
Farmin'--that was my trade. I staid with him four or five years. He
paid me for my work.
"Well, I hope we'll never have another war, we don't need it.
"I never had trouble votin' but one time. They was havin' a big row
between the parties and didn't want us to vote unless we voted
democratic, but I voted all right. I believe every citizen ought to
have the right to vote. I believe in people havin' the right what
belongs to em.
"I'm the father of thirteen childen by one woman--seven living
some_where_, but they ain't no service to me.
"Younger people not takin' time to study things. They get a little
education and think they can do anything and get by with it. And
there's a lot of em down here on this Cummins farm now."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I
was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.
"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first
old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we
had to take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I
was somewhere between seven and eight years old.
"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to
Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.
"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a
pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it
'fore we went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh,
yes'm.
"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and
he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a
cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like
I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he
never hit me nary a lick.
"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up
brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever'
woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing--shoes
and all.
"Them Yankees sure did bad--burned up the cotton and the corn. I seen
one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all
around; directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that
cotton as a bird to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up
everything. I was a little scared of 'em but they said they wasn't
goin' to hurt us. Old master had done left home and gone to the woods.
It was enough to scare you--all them guns stacked up and bayonets that
long and just as keen. Come in and have old missis cook for 'em.
Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the colored folks and
maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything; try to
make her tell where the money was though.
"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin'
and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em
stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed
there after we was freed 'bout two years. They took care of me; I was
raised motherless.
"I farmed all my life. Never done public work two weeks in my life.
Don't know what it is.
"Old master had them blue back spellers and 'fore freedom sometimes
he'd make us learn our ABC's.
"And he'd let you go to church too. He'd ask if you got 'ligion and
say, 'Now, when the preacher ask you, go up and give him your hand and
then go to the back.' In them days, didn't have any but the white
folks' church. But I was pretty rough in them days and I didn't j'ine.
"But I tell you, you'd better not leave the plantation without a pass
or them paddyrollers would make you shout. If they kotch you and you
didn't have a pass, a whippin' took place right there.
"Oh Lord, that's been a long time. I sits here sometimes and looks
back and think it's been a long time, but I'm still livin'.
"I've always tried to keep out of trouble. 'Co'se I've had some pretty
tough times. I ain't never been 'rested fer nothin'. I ain't never
been inside of a jail house. I've had some kin folks in there though.
"I've been a preacher forty years. Don't preach much now. My lungs
done got decayed and I can't hold up. Some people thinks preachin' is
an easy thing but it's not.
"Prettiest thing I ever saw when the Yankees was travelin' was the
drums and kettledrums and them horses. It was the prettiest sight I
ever saw. Them horses knowed their business, too. You couldn't go up
to 'em either. They had gold bits in their mouths and looked like
their bridles was covered with gold. And Yankees sittin' up there with
a sword.
"Old boss had a fine saddle horse and you know the Yankees had a old
horse with the footevil and you know they turned him loose and took
old boss's saddle horse. He didn't know it though; he was in the
woods.
"I believe there is people that can give you good luck. I know a woman
that told me that I was goin' to have some good luck and it worked
just like she said. She told us I would be the onliest man on the
place that would pay out my mule and sure 'nough I was. I cleared
forty dollars outside my mule and my corn. She said I was born to be
lucky. Told me they would be lots of people work agin me but it
wouldn't do no good."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: William Lattimore
606 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"Yes'm I was a slave--I was born in 1859 in Mississippi. During the
war I wasn't grown but I can remember when the Yankee soldiers come to
Canton, Mississippi. We was sittin' out in the yard and the white
folks was on the porch when they was bombardin' Jackson. We could hear
the cannons. The white people said the Yankees was tryin' to whip the
rebellion and set the niggers free. When they got done I didn't know
what had happened but I remember the colored people packed up and we
all went to Vicksburg. My father ran off and jined the Yankee army. He
was in Colonel Zeigler's regiment in the infantry. I knowed General
Grant when I seed him. I know when Abraham Lincoln died the soldiers
(Yankees) all wore that black band around their arms.
"After my father was mustered out we went to Warren County,
Mississippi to live. He worked on the halves with a schoolteacher
named Mr. Hannum. He said he was my godfather.
"One time after the war Mr. Lattimore came and wanted my father to
live with him but I didn't want him to because before the surrender
old master whipped my father over the head with a walking stick 'cause
he stayed too long and I was afraid he would whip him again.
"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes ma'm I voted. I don't remember who I
voted for first--my 'membrance don't serve me--I ain't got that fresh
enough in my memory. I served eight years as Justice of the Peace
after I come to Arkansas. I remember one time they put one colored man
in office and I said that's pluckin' before it is ripe. We elected a
colored sheriff in Warren County once. The white men went on his bond,
but after awhile the Ku Klux compelled them to get off and then he
couldn't make bond. He appealed to the citizens to let him stay in
office without bond but they wouldn't do it. When a man is trying to
get elected they promise a lot of things but afterwards they is just
like a duck--they swim off on the other side.
"I went to school after freedom and kept a goin' till I was married. I
was a school director when I was eighteen. I didn't have any children
and the superintendent who was very rigid and strict said 'Boy you is
not even a patron of the school.' But he let me serve. I used to visit
the school 'bout twice a week and if the teacher was not doin' right,
I sure did lift my voice against it.
"I lived in Chicot County when I first come to Arkansas and when I
moved to Jefferson County, Judge Harry E. Cook sent my reputation up
here. I ain't never peeped into a jailhouse or had handcuffs on these
hands.
"We've got to do something 'bout this younger generation. You never
saw anything sicker. They is degenerating.
"I hold up my right hand, swear to uphold the Constitution and
preserve the flag and I don't think justice is being done when they
won't let the colored folks vote. We'd like to harmonize things here.
God made us all and said 'You is my chillun.'"
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Bessie Lawsom,
Helena, Arkansas
Age: 76
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
"I was born in Georgia. My mama was brought from Virginia to one of
the Carolina states, then to Georgia. She was sold twice. I don't
recollect but one of her masters. I heard her speak of Master
Bracknell. His wife, now I remember her well. She nursed me. I was
sickly and they needed her to work in the crop so bad. She done had a
baby leetle older than I was, so I nursed one breast and Jim the
other. She raised me and Jim together. Mama was name Sallie and papa
Mathew Bracknell. They called him Mat Bracknell. I don't know my
master's name. They had other children.
"Me and Jim dug wells out in the yard and buried all the little ducks
and chickens and made graves. We had a regular burying ground we made.
They treated us pretty good as fur as I knowed. I never heard mama
complain. She lived till I was forty years old. Papa died a few years
after freedom. He had typhoid fever. He was great to fish. I believe
now he got some bad water to drink out fishing. There was six of us
and three half children. I'm the onliest one living as I knows of. One
sister died in 1923 in Atlanta. She come to see me. She lived with big
rich folks there. She was a white man's girl. She never had so much
bad luck as we dark skin children the way it was. My papa had to go to
war with some of Master Bracknell's kin folks, maybe his wife's kin
folks, and they took him to wait on them at the battle-fields. Some
soldiers camped by at the last of the war. They stole her out. She
went to take something to a sick widow woman for old mistress. She
never got back for a week. She said she was so scared and one day when
her man, the man that claimed her, went off on a scout trip she asked
a man, seemed to be a big boss, could she go to that thicket and get
some black gum toothbrushes. He let her ride a little old broken down
horse out there. She had a bridle but she was bare back. She come home
through the pasture and one of the colored boys took the horse back
nearly to the camps and turned him loose. 'Fo'e my own papa got back
she had a white chile. Master Bracknell was proud of her. Papa didn't
make no difference in her and his children. After the War he bought a
whole bolt of cloth when he went to town. Mama would make us all a
dress alike. The Yankees whooped mama at their camp. She said she was
afraid to try to get away and that come in her mind. Old mistress
thought that widow woman was keeping her to wait on her and take care
of her small children. She wasn't uneasy and they took care of me.
"I don't recollect freedom. I heard mama say a drove come by and ask
her to come go to Atlanta; they said Yankees give 'em Atlanta. She
said she knowed if she went off papa wouldn't know where she was. She
told 'em she had two young children she couldn't leave. They went on.
She told old mistress and she said she done right not to go.
"The Yankees stole mama's feather bed. Old mistress had great big high
feather beds and big pillows. Mama had a bed in a shed room open out
on the back piazza. They put them big beds across their horses and
some took pillows and down the road they went. It was cold and the
ground froze. They made cotton beds then and the Yankees done got all
the geese and chickens. They nearly starved. The Yankees took all the
cows and stock.
"Master Bracknell was cripple. He had a store at Cross Roads. It was
twenty-five miles from Marietta, Georgia. They never troubled him like
they did old mistress. She was scared of them. She knowed if they come
and caught her gone they would set fire to the house. No, they never
burned nothing on our place but they did some in sight. I can remember
seeing big fires about at night and day time too.
"We lived on Master Bracknell's place till I was eight years old and
my sister five. We come to South, Alabama, then to Mississippi and
then up the river to Helena. I married in Jackson, Mississippi. A
white boy married us. We lived on his place and he was going to
preach. He wasn't a preacher then. Richard Moore was his name. It took
him several weeks to learn what to say. He practiced on us. He thought
a heap of me and he ask Jesse if he could marry us. He brought us a
big fine cake his mother cooked for us when he come. My husband named
Jesse Lawsom. He was raised in Louisiana. We lived together till he
died. My mother went blind before she died. His mother lived there,
then we took care of them and after he died his mother lived with me.
Now I lives with this niece here some and my daughter in Jackson. I
had fourteen children. I just got one left and grandchildren I go to
see. I make the rounds. Some of 'em good and some of them ain't no
account at tall.
"I used to take advice. They get up and leave the place. They don't
want old folks to advise 'em. If they can't get their price they sit
around and go hungry. They won't work for what I used to be glad to
get. I keep my girl on the right path and that is all I can do. My
niece don't work out but her husband works on the farm all the time.
She helps him. They go out and live till the work is done. He is off
now ploughing. Times is fast sure as you born, girl. Faster 'an ever I
seen."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Henry Lee
R.F.D., two and one-half miles, Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 87
"I was born close to Huntsville, Alabama during slavery. My master was
Tom Laughinghouse and Miss Fannie, his wife. They had two children,
Jarman and Mattie. He was Dr. George Laughinghouse's brother. Dr.
George lived at Forrest City.
"He brung us to the old Pope place close to Forrest City after
'mancipation. We didn't know we was free. Finally we kept hearing
folks talk, then Master Tom told us we was free. We cleared land right
on after freedom like we was slaves.
"General Lee, a white man, owned a boat on the Mississippi River. He
owned my father. We took on his name way after freedom. Mother was
Becky Laughinghouse and father was Willis Lee. They had six children.
"After I come to Arkansas I went to school three days to a white man.
He was sont here from the North somewhere.
"My folks was all black pure stock niggers and field folks same as I
is.
"Mother's owners was good to her. They give them all day Saturday to
wash and iron and cook for her folks. They got a whooping if they went
to the field Monday morning dirty. They was very good to us. I can
recollect that. They was a reasonable set of white folks. They weighed
out everything. They whooped their hands. They had a white overseer
but he wasn't hired to whoop Laughinghouse's slaves.
"They 'lowed mother to weave at her home at night. He had seven or
eight families on his farm.
"The well was a curiosity to me then and would sure be one now. We had
a walled and curbed well. A long forked pole, a short chain and a long
rope. We pulled up the water by the long forked pole. Cold! It was
good cold water. Beats our water all to pieces.
"The soldiers come up in a drove one day and ask mother for me. She
didn't let any of us go.
"Our master got killed over here close to Forrest City. We all picked
cotton, then we all went to gin. A coupling pin broke and let a wooden
block come down on him. It weighed one thousand pounds I expect. He
was spreading a sheet and smoothing the cotton. It mashed and
smothered him both. That was first of our scattering.
"The colored folks raised gardens in the fence corners. They raised a
heap of stuff that way. We lived a heap better then than now.
"My father died and mother started sharecropping. First, one-half and
then, one-third went to us. Things went on very well till the
commissary come about. The nigger got figured clean out.
"Nearly all the women of them days wore bonnets or what they called
hoods one the other. Boys wore long shirts to calf of their legs.
"We rode oxen to church. Many time rode to church and home in ox
wagon.
"Ku Kluxes followed Pattyrollers, then come on White Caps. If the
Pattyrollers kilt a slave he had to pay the master the price. The Ku
Kluxes rode at night. All of 'em's main business was to keep the
slaves at their own places and at work. Iffen the master instructed
them to keep offen his place they kept off. They never come on our
place. But though I was feared of 'em.
"I needs help and I don't git it. I applied. 'Cause a grandson helps
us a little I don't git the welfare pension. I need it and I think I
ought to git it. I worked hard, bought this house, paid my
taxes--still trying. Still they don't aid me now and I passed aiding
my own self. I think I oughten to git lef' out 'cause I help myself
when I could. I sure is left out. Been left out.
"A part of the people is accountable for the way the times is going
on. Some of them is getting it all and don't give the others no show a
tall. Times is powerful hard for some and too easy for others. Some is
turned mean and some cowed down and times hard for them what can't
work hard."
Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
Person interviewed: Mandy Lee,
Coal Hill, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Yes'm I was a slave. I been here. I heard the bugles blowing, the
fife beat, the drums beat, and the cannons roar. We started to Texas
but never got across the river. I don't know what town it was but it
was just across the river from Texas. My white folks was good to me. I
staid with them till they died. Missy died first, then master died. I
never was away from them. They was both good. My mammy was sold but I
never was. They said they was surrendered when we come back from
Texas. I heard the drums beat at Ft. Smith when we come back but I
don't know what they was doing. I worked in the house with the
children and in the field too. I help herd the horses. I would card
and spin and eat peaches. No, that wasn't all I had to eat. I didn't
have enough meat but I had plenty of milk and potatoes. I was born
right here in Coal Hill. I ain't never lived anywhere else except when
we went South during the war.
"Law woman I can't tell you what I think of the present generation.
They are good in their way but they don't do like we did. I never did
go naked. I don't see how they stand it.
"I could sing when I was young. We sang everything, the good and
bad."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Lee
1308 Texas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 74
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
"I was born in 1864, March the fourth, the year before the Civil War
ended. All I know is what they told me and what I read.
"Born in Texas, but my mother and father was both born in Georgia.
"My mother said her white folks was good to her. She was the house
girl, she didn't have to work in no field.
"I went to school when I was six or eight. I don't remember which. I
had right smart schooling.
"I remember my mother's young missis run off and got married. She was
just a young girl, 'bout seventeen. That's been a long time.
"I got a book sent to me a while back. It's a Catholic book--'History
of Church and State.' Yes'm, I'm a Catholic. Used to belong to the
Methodist church, but I wouldn't be a Methodist no more. I like the
Catholics. You would too if you was one of 'em.
"I been here in Arkansas since 1891. That's goin' right on up the
road.
"I can't do much work now, my breath gets short.
"I used to make thirty-five dollars a month washin' and ironin'. Oh,
that was a long time 'fore the depression.
"I don't think nothin' of this younger generation. All goin' the same
way. Oh lord, you better let 'em alone, they won't take no
foolishness."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Talitha Lewis
300 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 86
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]
"I should say I was born in slavery times! Now if you ask me something
I don't know, I couldn't tell you, honey, 'cause I believe in people
tellin' the truth.
"In a way I know how old I is. I give what my white folks give me.
They told me I was born in 1852. Yes ma'am, my young missis used to
set down and work on me. She'd say, 'Get it in your head' 'cause I
ain't got no education.
"I 'member my old missis. Know her name as good as I do mine. Name was
Maria Whitley. After old master died, his property was divided and Jim
Whitley drawed me and my mother and my sister. Yes ma'am, it was my
sister.
"Goldsboro, North Carolina is where I was born, in Johnston County.
"Do I 'member anything 'bout peace declared? I should say I
do--'member long time 'fore it come.
"I seed so many different regiments of people I didn't know which was
which. I know the Yankees called ever'body Dinah. They'd say to me,
'Dinah, hold my horse,' and my hands would be full of bridles. And
they'd say, 'You got anything buried?' The white folks had done buried
the meat under my mother's house. And say, 'Is they good to you?' If
they hadn't a been we wouldn't a known any better than to tell it.
"I 'member they found where the meat was buried and they ripped up my
mother's feather bed and filled it full of hams and shoulders, and
there wasn't a middlin' in the lot. And kill chickens and geese! They
got ever'thing and anything they wanted.
"There was a battle-field about four miles from us where they fit at.
"Honey, I can't tell it like I know it, but I _know_ it.
"Old master was a good man. You had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
And on Monday morning all his colored folks had clean clothes. I wish
I could tell it like I know. He was a good man but he had as mean a
wife as I ever saw. She used to be Nettie Sherrod and she _did_ _not_
like a black face. Yes ma'am, Jim Whitley was a good man but his
father was a devil.
"If Massa Jim had a hand he couldn't control, he sold him. He said he
wasn't goin' to beat 'em or have 'em run off and stay in the woods.
Yes'm, that was my master, Jim Whitley.
"His overseer was Zack Hill when peace declared.
"How long I been in Arkansas? Me? We landed at Marianna, Arkansas in
1889. They emigranted us here. They sure said they had fritter trees
and a molasses pond. They said to just shake the tree and the fritters
would fall in the pond. You know anybody that had any sense wouldn't
believe that. Yes ma'am, they sure told that lie. 'Course there was
times when you could make good money here.
"I know I is a slave time chile. I fared well but I sure did see some
that didn't.
"Our white folks had hands that didn't do nothin' but make clothes and
sheets and kivers.
"Baby, them Ku Klux was a pain. The paddyrollers was bad enough but
them Ku Klux done lots of devilment. Yes ma'am, they _done_ some
devilment.
"I worked for a white man once was a Ku Klux, but I didn't know it for
a long time. One time he said, 'Now when you're foolin' around in my
closet cleanin' up, I want you to be pertickler.' I seed them rubber
pants what they filled with water. I reckon he had enough things for a
hundred men. His wife say, 'Now, Talitha, don't let on you know what
them things is.'
"Now my father belonged to the Adkins. He and my mother was married
with a stiffcate 'fore peace declared and after peace declared they
got a license and was married just like they marry now.
"My master used to ask us chillun, 'Do your folks pray at night?' We
said 'no' 'cause our folks had told us what to say. But the Lawd have
mercy, there was plenty of that goin' on. They'd pray, 'Lawd, deliver
us from under bondage.'
"Colored folks used to go to the white folks' church. I was raised up
under the old Primitive Baptist feet washin' church. Oh, that's a
time, baby!
"What I think of the younger generation? I don't know what to think of
'em. I don't _think_--I know they is goin' too fast.
"I learned how to read the Bible after I 'fessed religion. Yes ma'am,
I can read the Bible, praise the Lawd!"
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Abbie Lindsay
914 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 84
[HW: cf. Will Glass' story, No. ----?]
"I was born June 1, 1856; the place at that time was called Lynngrove,
Louisiana. It was just about a mile from the post office, and was in
Morehouse Parish in the first ward--in the tenth ward I mean.