#790
FORM C
_Text of Interview (Unedited)_
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Annie Hill, 3010 Izard Street, Little Rock
"My mother lived to be one hundred years old. She died in 1920. Her name
is Hulda Bruce. She belonged to a man named Leslie during slavery. I
forget his name--his first name. She come from Mississippi. She was sold
there when she was eleven years old. That is where all her people were.
There might be some of them here and I don't know it. She said she had
three sisters but I don't know any of them. The folks raised her--the
Leslie white folks. It was the Leslies that brought her and bought her
in the old country. I don't know the names of the people that sold her.
She wasn't nothing but a kid. I guess she would hardly know.
"The Leslies brought her to Arkansas when she was eleven. That is what
she always told us kids. She was eleven years old when they sold her.
Just like selling mules.
"I don't know what is the first place they come to here. Benton,
Arkansas was the first place I knowed anything about. That is where her
folks were and that is where the young generation of them is now. The
old ones is dead and gone.
"I was born in Nashville. And she had come from Benton to Nashville. She
was living In Benton, Arkansas when she died. She was never able to
send me to school when I was young. When the white folks first turned
them loose they weren't able to do for them as they are now. Children
have a chance now and don't appreciate it. But when I was coming up my
folks weren't able. Mother knew she was one hundred eight years old
because her white folks told her what it was. When her old white folks
died, the young ones hunted it up for her out of the old family Bible
and sent it to me. The Bible was so old that the leaves were yellow and
you could hardly turn them. They were living in Benton, Arkansas and I
guess they are still living there because that is the old home place.
That is the kids is still there, 'cause the old folks is dead and gone.
One girl is named Cora and one of the boys is called Bud, Buddy. Leslie
is the last name of them both.
"I got one of her pictures with her young master's kids--three of
'em--in there with her. Anybody that bothered that picture would git in
it with me, 'cause I values it.
"Mother farmed right after the surrender. She married after freedom but
went back to her old name when her husband left. He was named Richard
Hill. He was supposed to be a bishop down there in Arkadelphia. But he
wasn't no bishop with mama. All them Hills in Arkadelphia are kin to me.
She had four children--one boy and three girls. The boy died before I
was born. She was just married the one time that I know about.
"Her white folks were good to her. You know there was so many of them
that weren't. And you know they bound to be because they were always
good to her. They would be looking for her and sending her something to
eat and sending her shoes and clothes and things like that, and she'd go
to them and stay with them months at a time so they bound to 've been
good to her. All the young kids always called her their Black Mammy.
They thought a heap of her. That is since freedom. Since I been born.
That is somethin' I seen with my own eyes.
"I spect my mother's white folks is mad at me. They come to see her just
before she died and they knew she couldn't live long. They told me to
let them know when there was a chance.
"That was about three days before she died. There come a storm. It broke
down the wire so we couldn't let them know. My boy was too small; I
couldn't send him. He was only nine years old. And you know how it is
out in the country, you can't keep them long. You have to put them away.
You can't keep no dead person in the country. So I had to bury her
without letting 'em know it.
"I do laundry work for a living when I can get any to do. I am living
with my boy but I do laundry work to help myself. It is so good, and
nice to kinda help yourself. I'll do for self as long as I am able and
when I can't, the children can help me more. I have heard and seen so
many mothers whose children would do things for them and it wouldn't
suit so well up the road. You see me hopping along; I'm trying to work
for Annie.
"My mother told me about seein' the pateroles before the War and the Ku
Klux Klan afterwards. She knowed them all right. She never talked much
about the pateroles. It was mostly the Ku Klux. Neither of them never
got after her. She said the Ku Klux used to come in by droves. She said
the Ku Klux were dressed all in white--white caps and white hoods over
their faces, and long white dresses. They come out mostly at night. They
never did bother her, but they bothered others 'round her that she
knowed about. Sometimes they would take people out and beat them and do
'round with them. But she never did know just what it was they did and
just what they did it for. You see, her white folks was particular and
didn't talk much before her. So many colored folks learnt things
because they eavesdropped their white folks, but mother didn't do that.
She didn't learn nothin' but what they talked before her, and they were
careful. But they protected her. They never did allow nobody to bother
her no way.
"She was a Baptist. She belonged to the white folks' church before she
was freed. Then she joined the Methodist church at Benton because there
wasn't no other church there. But she was a full-blood Baptist."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Clark Hill
715 E. 17th Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 82
"Good morning. My name is Clark Hill. My name goes by my white folks. I
was born in Georgia--in Americus, Georgia. My old master was Will G.
Hill and they called my young master Bud. I never did know what his name
was--they just called him Bud.
"It was my job to sweep the yard, keep smoke on the meat and fire under
the kiln. Yes mam! Old master had a big orchard and he dried all the
fruit in the kiln--peaches, apples, and pears. Then he had lots a
watermelons too. When they got ripe they'd get all the childun big
enough to tote a melon and we'd carry 'em to the house. I would like to
be with my white folks now.
"Old master raised pigeons too and it used to be my job to go down to
the pigeon house and ketch the squalls (squabs).
"I used to go to church with my white folks too. I was the gate opener.
They put me on the little seat at the back of the carriage. When we got
there they'd let us childun sit in the back. The preacher would tell us
to obey our master and not take anything that belonged to him.
"Oh, my white folks was good to me. He never hit me but once and that
was one time when my brother went into the kitchen, went into some peas
the cook had and she told on him. Old master come down and told my
brother to eat the whole dish full. He never hit him or nothin' but just
stood there and made him eat 'em. I thought I'd help him out a little
and said to my brother, 'Give me some.' Old master just took his walking
stick and hit me over the head, and that's the onliest time he ever hit
me.
"When you got big enough to marry and was courtin' a woman on another
plantation, you couldn't bring her home with you. Old master would marry
you. He'd say 'I give this man to you' and say 'Clark, I give this woman
to you and now you is man and wife.' They never had no book of
matrimony--if they did I never seen it. Then you could go over to see
her every Saturday and stay all night.
"I used to work in the field. They didn't farm then like they do now.
They planted one row a cotton and one row a corn. That was to keep the
land from gettin' poor.
"I remember when the Yankees was comin' through I got scared because
some of the folks said they had horns. I know old master took all his
meat and carried it to another plantation.
"When freedom come old master give us all our ages. I think when they
say we was free that meant every man was to be his own boss and not be
bossed by a taskmaster. Cose old master was good to us but we wanted to
have our own way 'bout a heap a things.
"I come to Arkansas the second year of surrender. Yes'm, I voted when
Clayton was sheriff and I voted for Governor Baxter. I voted several
tickets. I was here when they had the Brooks-Baxter War. They fit not
far from where I was livin'.
"Well, that's 'bout all I can remember. My mind ain't so good now and I
got the rheumatism in my legs."
#665
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Clark Hill
818 E. Fifteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 84
"I was workin' 'round the house when freedom come. I was eleven.
"Born in Georgia--Americus, Georgia. Used to go with my young master to
Corinth after the mail. We'd ride horseback with me right behind him. He
used to carry me to church too on the back seat to open the gates.
"They worked me in the loom room too. Had to hold the broche at the
reel. I was glad when my young master called me out to go after the
mail. Then they worked me in the smokehouse.
"I never had no schoolin' a tall. What little I know I learned since I
married. My wife was a good scholar.
"I thank the Lord he spared me. Eighty-four is pretty old.
"I come here to Pine Bluff in '66. Wasn't no town here then. Just some
little shacks on Barraque. And Third Street was called Catfish Street.
"They was fifty carloads come here to Arkansas when I come.
"I've farmed mostly. Then I've cooked four or five years in railroad
camps, when they was puttin' in this Cotton Belt track. Then I've cooked
on a steamboat.
"Yes ma'am, I've voted. I voted teeth and toe-nail for one man, and he
got it and then they shot him down. He was about to get on to the fraud.
He was 'testin' the election. That was John M. Clayton. They can do most
anything in these here elections. I know 'cause I done been in so many
campaigns."