Gillie Hill is the daughter of Evelyn Jones already interviewed and
reported. The few statements which she hands in make an interesting
supplement to her mother's story. The mother, Evelyn Jones, remembered
very few things in her interview and had to be constantly prompted and
helped by her daughter and son who were present at each sitting. There
was considerable difference of opinion among them over a number of
things, especially the age of the mother, the daughter showing letters
to prove the age of seventy, the mother saying she had been told she was
sixty-eight, and the son arguing that the scattering of the ages of her
nineteen children showed that she must be well over eighty.
Gillie Hill claims to be somewhat clairvoyant. She gave a brief analysis
of my character, stating accurately my regular calling and a few of my
personal traits even indicating roughly my bringing-up and where. She is
not a professional fortune-teller, and merely ventured a few statements.
My impression was that she was an unusually close and alert observer.
Like her mother she is somewhat taciturn. I should have said that her
mother was reserved as well as forgetful. The mother never ventured a
word except in answer to a question, and used monosyllabic answers
whenever possible.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Harriett Hill
Forrest City, Ark.
(Visiting at Brinkley, Ark.)
Age: 84
"I was born in Lithonia, Georgia, at the foot of Little Rock Mountain,
close to Stone Mountain, Georgia. I been sold in my life twice to my
knowing. I was sold away from my dear old mammy at three years old but I
can remember it. I remembers it. It lack selling a calf from the cow.
Exactly, but we are human beings and ought to be better than do sich. I
was too little to remember my price. I was sold to be a nurse maid. They
bought me and took me on away that time. The next time they put me up in
a wagon and auctioned me off. That time I didn't sell. John George
(white man) was in the war; he wanted some money to hire a substitute to
take his place fightin'. So he have Jim George do the sellin'. They was
brothers. They talked 'fore me some bit 'fore they took me off. They
wouldn't take me to Atlanta cause they said some of the people there
said they wouldn't give much price--the Negroes soon be set free. Some
folks in Atlanta was Yankees and wouldn't buy slaves. They 'cluded the
best market to sell me off would be ten or twelve miles from home. I
reckon it was to Augusta, Georgia. They couldn't sell me and start on
back home. A man come up to our wagon and say he'd split the difference.
They made the trade. I sold on that spot for $1400. I was nine or ten
years old. I remembers it. Course I do! I never could forget it. Now
mind you, that was durin' the war.
"Master Jake Chup owned mammy and me too. He sold me to John George. Jim
George sold me to Sam Broadnax. When freedom come on that was my home.
Freedom come in the spring. He got some of the slaves to stay to finish
up the crops for 1/10 at Christmas. When they got through dividin' up
they said they goin' to keep me for a bounty. I been talkin' to
Kitty--all I remembers her name Kitty. She been down there at the stream
washin'. Some children come told me Kitty say come on. She hung out the
clothes. I lit out over the fence and through the field with Kitty and
went to Conniars. She left me at the railroad track and went on down the
road by myself to Lithonia. I walked all night. I met my brother not
long after Kitty left me. He was on a wagon. He knowed me and took me up
with him to Mr. Jake Chup's Jr. He was the young man. Then Chups fed me
till he come back and took me to mammy. Master Chups sold her to Dr.
Reygans. I hadn't seen her since I was three years old. She knowed me.
My brother knowed me soon as ever he saw me. I might a not knowed them
in a gatherin' but I hadn't forgot them. They hear back and forth where
I be but they never could get to see me. I lived with my folks till I
married.
"The first man I lived with ten years. The next one I lived with fifty
years and some days over. He died. They both died. The man I married was
a preacher. We farmed long with his preachin'. We paid $500.00 for forty
acres of this bottom land. Cleared it out. I broke myself plum down and
it got mortgaged. The Planters Bank at Forrest City took it over. I
ain't had nothin' since. I ain't got no home. I ain't had nothin' since
then. My husband died two years ago and I has a hard time.
"My folks was livin' in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin'. We
sure was scared of em. Mighty nigh to death. When freedom come on the
niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers.
Sometimes a white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be
havin' preachin' here come the Ku Klux and run em clear out. If they
hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped
several. They sure had to be mighty particular what they said in the
preachin'. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn't no
use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode
the country every night for I don't know how long and that all niggers
talked bout.
"My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.
"My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They
didn't allow white men to take em off so a white man come and stay round
shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to
Memphis, then we got on a big boat. No, ma'am, we didn't come on no
freight train. We got off at White Hall Landing. They got off all long
the river. We worked on wages out here. Pa wanted to go to Mississippi.
We went and made eighteen bales cotton and got cheated out of all we
made. We never got a cent. The man cheated us was Mr. Harris close to
Trotter's Landing.
"Mr. Anderson, the poor white man we worked for, jumped in the river and
drowned his self. The turns (returns) didn't come in for the first batch
we sold at all, then when the turns come they said we done took it
up--owed it all. We knowed we hadn't took it up but couldn't get
nothin'. We come back to Arkansas.
"I been to Detroit, short time, and been way, but I comes back.
"I forgot to say this: My mammy was born in South Carolina. Marbuts
owned her and sold her. My pa lived to be 114 or 115 years old. He died
in Arkansas. She did too.
"Of course I don't vote! Women ain't got no business runnin' the
government!
"I nursed, worked in the field. When I was a slave they raised a little
cotton in Georgia but mostly corn. I chopped cotton and thinned out
corn.
"The present times is too fast. Somethin' goin' to happen. The present
generation too fast. Folks racin'. Ridin' in cars too fast. They ain't
kind no more.
"I rent a house where I can and I get $10.00 from the government. That
all the support I got. I farmed in the field mighty hard and lost all we
had."
MAY 11 1938
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Hattie Hill
Route 2, Main Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Yes ma'am, I was raised a house gal. Me and another cousin and I was
borned in Georgia. My old master's name was Edward Maddox. Yes ma'am.
"I had a good master but I didn't have such a good missis. Her name was
Fannie Maddox. We belonged to the old man and he was good to his
niggers. He didn't 'low 'em to be cut and slashed about. But when he was
gone that's when old mis' would beat on us.
"I've seen a many a one of the soldiers. They used to march by our
place.
"I can remember one of my old missis' neighbors. Her name was Miss
Phipps. Old mis' would send me there to borry meal. Yes ma'am, I'd go
and come. She'd always send me. I met the soldiers a many a time. I'd
hide behind a tree and as they'd go by I'd go 'round the tree--I was so
scared.
"But thank the Lawd, we is free now.
"I heered old master pray a many a prayer that he would live to see his
slaves sot free. And he died the same year they was sot free. He sent
for all his hands to come and see him 'fore he died. Even the little
chillun. I can remember it jus' as well as if 'twas yesterday. Old mis'
died 'fore he did.
"Our folks stayed on the place two years. Old master told 'em he wanted
'em to take care of themselves and said, 'I want you to get you a place
of your own.' He said, 'I raised you honest and I want you to stay on
the place as long as you live or as long as the boys treat you right.'
"I seed the patrollers all right. I 'member that old song 'Run Nigger
Run' and a heap of 'em run too.
"Them Ku Klux was hateful too, but they never bothered my father's
house. They beat one man--Steve McLaughlin--till he couldn't get back to
the house. They beat him from the soles of his feet to the top of his
head.
"We had a plenty to eat in slave times. They fed us good. I never did
work in the field--I was raised up a house gal.
"After freedom my father had me in the field.
"I used to cut and split a many a hundred rails in a day and didn't mind
it neither.
"I used to like to work--would work now if I was able. And I'd rather
work in the field any day as work in the house. The people where I lived
can tell you how I worked. I didn't make my living by rascality. I
worked like my father raised me. Oh, I haven't forgot how my old father
raised me.
"Never went to school but one day in my life. I can't read.
"I didn't come to Arkansas till after I was free. I been livin' here so
long I can't tell you how many years.
"I married young and I'm the mother of six chillun.
"I think a heap of the colored folks is better off free, but a heap of
'em don't appreciate their freedom.
"Heap of the younger generation is all right and then they's a heap of
'em all wrong.
"I can't remember nothin' else 'cause I was too young then and I'm too
old now."
OCT 18 19--
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Oliver Hill
1101 Kentucky Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 94
Oliver Hill is ninety-four years old, erect, walks briskly with the aid
of a cane, only slightly hard of hearing and toothless.
He was born and lived in the state of Mississippi on the plantation of
Alan Brooks where he said his father was an overseer and not a slave.
Said his mother was a full-blooded Indian. (I have never talked to a
Negro who did not claim to be part Indian.) He cannot read or write and
made rather conflicting statements about the reason why. "White folks
wouldn't let us learn." Later on in the conversation he said he went to
school about one month when his "eyes got sore and they said he didn't
have to go no more."
"I was nineteen years old when de wa' begun. De white folks never tole
us nothin' 'bout what it was fo' till after de surrender. Dey tole us
then we was free. They didn't give us nothin'."
After the surrender most of the slaves left the plantations and were
supported by the Bureau. In the case of Oliver Hill, this lasted five
months and then he went back to his former master who gave him one-fifth
of what he made working in the field. Alan Brooks grieved for the loss
of his slaves but at no time were they under any compulsion to remain
slaves. After a long time about half of them came back to work for pay.
The Ku Klux Klan was "de devil", but about all they wanted, according to
Oliver, was to "make a Democrat" of the ex-slaves. They were allowed to
vote without any trouble, but "de Democrats robbed de vote. Yes'm I
knowed they did."
Concerning the present restricted suffrage, he thinks the colored people
should be allowed to vote. In general, his attitude toward the white
people is one of resentment. Frequent comments were:
"Dey won't let de colored people bury in de same cemetery with de white
people."
"Dey don't like it if a colored man speak to a white woman."
"Dey kill a colored man and de law don't do nothin' 'bout it."
"Old Man Brooks" when referring to his former master.
He lived with the Brooks family for five years after freedom, and seems
to have been rather a favored one with not much to do but "ride around"
and going to dances and parties at night. When Alan Brooks died he left
Oliver $600 in cash, a cow and calf, horse, saddle and bridle and two
hogs. He went to live with his father taking his wife whom he had
married at the age of twenty-one.
As soon as the inheritance was gone, the scene changed. In his words, "I
thought it gwine last forever." But it didn't and then he began to hold
a succession of jobs--field hand, sorghum maker, basket weaver, gardener
and railway laborer--until he was too old to work. Now he is supported
by the Welfare Department and the help a daughter and granddaughter can
give.
About the younger generation--"I don't know what gwine come of 'em. The
whites is as bad as the blacks." He thinks that present conditions are
caused by the sinfulness of the people.
There were no slave uprisings but sometimes when they did not work fast
enough or do the task right, they were "whupped" by the overseer and
given no food until it was done right.
Oliver came to Arkansas in 1910. He has had two wives and "de Lawd took
both of 'em." His second wife was "'ligious" and they "got along fine."
All in all he had a good time during his active days "and didn't have no
trouble with de white folks". He does not believe God ever intended some
of the people to be slaves.
MAY 31 1938
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Rebecca Brown Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born October 18, 1859 in northeast Mississippi in Chickasaw
County. It was close to the Fulton Road to Houston, Mississippi. My
folks belong to C. B. Baldwin. After 'mancipation papa stop calling
himself Jacob Baldwin and called himself Jacob Brown in his own pa's
name. Mama was named Catherine Brown. The same man owned them both. They
had twelve children. They lost a child born in 1866. I had two brothers
sent to Louisiana as refugees. The place they was sent to was taken by
the Yankees and they was taken and the Yankees made soldiers out of
them. Charlie died in 1922 in Mobile, Alabama and Lewis after the War
joined the United States army. I never saw any grandparents. Mama was
born in Baltimore and her mother was born there too as I understood them
to say. Mama's father was a white Choctaw Indian. He was a cooper by
trade. His name was John Abbot. He sold Harriett, my grandma, and kept
mama and her brother. Then he married a white woman and had a white
family. Her brother died. That left her alone to wait on that white
family. They cut her hair off. She hated that. She loved her long
straight black hair. Then her papa, John Abbot (Abbott?), died. Her
brother run off and was leaving on a ship on the Potomac River. A woman
lost her trunk. They was fishing for it and found mama's brother
drowned. He had fell overboard too.
"Mama took a bucket on her arm to keep the stealers from gagging her.
She knowed if she had a bucket or basket they would not bother, they
would know she went out on turn (errand) and would be protected. They
didn't bother her then. She went down to the nigger trader's yard to
talk awhile but she was making her way off then. Sometimes she went down
to the yard to laugh and talk with some she knowed down there. She said
them stealers would kill 'em and insect (dissect) 'em. But they didn't
get her. But might as well, Jim Williams owned that nigger yard. He put
her on a sailboat named Big Humphries. She was on there hard sailing,
she said, twenty-four days and nights. Jim Williams stole her! On that
sailboat is where she seen my papa. When they got to New Orleans a white
man from Baltimore was passing. He seen my mama. He ask her about her
papers. She told him she had been stole. He said without papers Jim
Williams couldn't sell her. He told Jim Williams he better not sell that
woman. Jim Williams knowed she was crazy about my papa. He hired him out
and ask her if she wanted to go with him. He got pay for both of them
hired out. It was better for him than if he owned her. When they had two
children, Jim Williams come back out to Chambers County, Alabama where
he had them hired out. He ask her if he would agree to let him sell her.
He was going to sell papa and the two children. She said she had seen
them whooped to death in the yards because they didn't want to be sold.
She was scared to contrary him. She had nobody to take her part. So she
let him sell her with papa and the two children. Jim Williams sold her
and papa and the two children to Billy Gates of Mississippi. Jim
Williams said, 'Don't never separate Henry and Hannah 'cause I don't
have the papers for Hannah.' Then they lived in the prairies eighteen
miles from Houston, where Billy Gates lived. Mama done well. She worked
and they treated her nice. Eight of us was born on that place includin'
me.
"I was raised up in good living conditions and kept myself so till
twelve years ago this next August this creeping neuritis (paralasis)
come on. I raised my niece. I cooked, washed and ironed, and went to the
field in field time.
"Master Billy Gates' daughter married Cyrus Brisco Baldwin. He was a
lawyer. He give mama, papa and one child to them. Master Billy Gates'
daughter died and left Miss Bessie. Mr. C. B. Baldwin married again. He
went to war in the 'Six Day Crowd.' Miss Bessie Baldwin married Bill
Buchannan at Okolona, Mississippi. Mama went and cooked for her. They
belong to her. She was good as she could be to her and papa both. One
time the overseer was going to whip them both. Miss Bessie said, 'Tell
Mr. Carrydine to come and let us talk it over.' They did and she said,
'Give Mr. Carrydine his breakfast and let him go.' They never got no
whippings.
"Mama was white as any white woman and papa was my color (light
mulatto). After freedom they lived as long as they lived at Houston and
Okolona, Mississippi. She said she left Maryland in 1839.
"Some blue dressed Yankees come to our shack and told mama to bake him
some bread. I held to her dress. She baked them some. They put it in
their nap sacks. That was my first experience seeing the Yankees.
"They come back and come back on and on. One time they come back hunting
the silverware. They didn't find it. It was in the old seep well. The
slaves wasn't going to tell them where it was. We washed out of the seep
well and used the cistern water to drink. It was good silver. They put
it in sacks, several of them, to make it strong. Uncle Giles drapped it
down in there. He was old colored man we all called Uncle Giles. He was
no kin to me. He was good as could be. I loved him. Me and his girl
played together all the time. Her name was Roxana. We built frog houses
in the sand and put cool sand on our stomachs. We would lie under big
trees and watch and listen to the birds.
"When Mr. Billy Gates died they give Henry, my youngest brother, to his
son, John Gates. Henry, a big strong fellow, could raise a bale of
cotton over his head.
"One time the Yankees come took the meat and twenty-five cows and the
best mules. They left some old plugs. They had two mares in fold. Uncle
Giles told them one mare had buck-eye poison and the other distemper.
They left them in their stalls. We had to tote all that stuff they give
out back when they was gone. All they didn't take off they handed out to
the slaves. There was some single men didn't carry their provisions back
to the smokehouse. Everybody else did. They kept on till they swept us
all out of victuals. The slaves had shacks up on the hill. There was six
or eight pretty houses all met. Mr. Gates' house was one of them.
"Freedom--Capt. Gehu come and sent for all the slaves to come to Mr.
John Gates. We all met there. He said it was free times now. We lived on
and raised peas, corn, pumpkins, potatoes. The Yankees come and took off
some of it. That was the year of the surrender. Mama moved off the hill
in a man's home what moved to town to look after the house for them. It
was across the road from Master John Gates' house. We worked for the
Gates a long, long time after that. We worked for the Baldwins and
around till the old heads all dead. I come to Clarendon, Arkansas,
eleven o'clock, eleventh of May 1890. I have no children. I raised my
sister's baby. She died. I live wid her now. She's got grandchildren. I
get ten dollars from the Welfare a month. I buy what I needs to eat with
it. I helps out a sight. I had a baby girl. It died an infant.
"The place they refugeed Charlie and Lewis was to Opelousas, Louisiana.
It was about the first part of the country the Yankees took.
"Ku Klux--They never bothered us but in 1876 I seen them pass. My nephew
was a little boy. He said when they passed there was Jack Slaughter on
his horse. He knew the big horse. They went on. The colored men had left
their wives and children at home and went up to Red Bud Church
(colored). We seen five pass but others joined on. They had bad times. A
colored man killed a Ku Klux named Tom Middlebrook. One man got his foot
cut off wid a ax. Some called them 'white caps.' I was scared of
whatever they called theirselves.
"The younger set of folks seems more restless than they used to be. I
noticed that since the last war (World War). They ain't never got
settled. The women is bad as the men now it seems. Times is better than
I ever had them in my life."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Tanny Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 56? No record of age
"'Uncle Solomon' we all called him but he wasn't no kin to us, he was
the funniest old man I ever heard tell of. He was a slave. He belong to
Sorrel Crockell I heard him say. He didn't go to no war.
"When the War ended he was a fisherman in Arkansas. He used to tie his
own self to a tree keep the fish from pulling him in the river. He
caught big fish in the early times. He'd come to our house when I was
nothing but a child and bring 'nough fish for all our supper. Ma would
cook 'em. Pa would help him scale 'em. We'd love to see him come. He
lived thater way from house to house.
"One time he made me mad. I never had no more use for him. We'd give him
tomatoes and onions. He told us to go bring him thater watermelon out of
the garden. He cut and eat it before us. Never give us a bite. He was
saying, 'You goiner get your back and belly beat black and blue.' I
didn't know what he was saying. Grandma found the watermelon was gone. I
owned up to it. Ma got switches and whooped us. I was singing what he
was saying. Grandma tole me what he meant. From that on we had no more
of his good fish."