"Some of the young people do very well but some of them ain't got no
manners and don't care what they do. I am scared for them. The Man above
ain't scared and he is going to cut them down."
_FOLKLORE SUBJECTS_
Pine Bluff District
Name of interviewer: Martin--Barker
Subject: Ex-Slave
Story:
"Son of Martha and Peter Hinton. Came from N.C. about 12 years ago, at
close of Civil War. Mother had nine children, she belonged to Mr. Sam
Hinton.
"At close of war mistis called us to her, said we were free and could
go. So we went away for about a year, but came back. Sorry we were free.
"We saw about 2000 soldiers. Never went to school. Went to white church
on plantation. White preachers said, servants, obey your marster. I was
valued at $800.00.
"When I was a small boy I lay at marsters feet and he would let us play
with his feet. He always had shiny shoes and we niggers would keep
rubbing them so they would shine more. As I grew older, I cleaned the
yard, later helped pick cotton.
"I am a Baptist. Have behaved myself. Have prayer meeting at my home.
"During the war we had prayer meetings at the different houses on the
plantations. We prayed to be set free. Turned wash pots down in the
house to keep the sound down so white folks wouldn't hear us singing and
praying to be set free.
"Overseer would whip neggers when out of humor. Miss Mary would always
tell them not to mistreat her help.
"Times were so hard during slave times, white marster took them into the
bottoms and hid them, so they wouldn't run off with the Yankee soldiers.
"Talk of war got so hot, brought us out of the woods and put us in
wagons and took us and de older people off to Texas.
"We got up at 4 AM, work all day until 9 or 10 at night. On Sunday we
worked if it was necessary.
"I was tough and strong. I could outrun a wild animal, barefooted and
bare headed.
"We would have a country dance once in awhile. Someone would play the
banjo.
"Miss Mary, white mistis called us all in one day and opened a large
trunk. She showed us money, gold and silver, saying that we had all
helped to make it for them. Thats the first money I ever saw.
"Before Christmas we killed hogs.
"Our white folks didn't like any one wearing blue clothes. Thought they
were Yankees, and that meant freedom for us niggers. Men in blue clothes
came and put a rope around my marsters neck, took him all around the
nigger cabins and asked where he hid them. He told them, Texas. They
said, get them and free them or they would hang him.
"He sent after them and everything was alright.
"I though my white marster was God. He took sick and died.
"I heard the other slaves saying he committed suicide because he had
lost all his money.
"In those times my father saw my mother, decided he wanted her for his
woman. He tol his white folks and they fixed up a cabin for them to live
in together. Was no ceremony. Had nigger midwives for babies.
"I knows every lucky silver pieces of money. I believe in lucky pieces
of silver. I is a dreamer, always been dat way. I have seen my bright
days ahead of me, in dreams and visions. If I hears a woman's voice
calling me, a calling me in my sleep I is bound to move outa dat house.
I dont keer wher I goes, I is got to go some whars."
Information by: Charles Hinton
Place of residence: RFD 5 Old riv. Rd.
Occupation:
Age: 83
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden.
Person interviewed: Charlie Hinton (c)
Age: 89
Home: Old River Road--Pine Bluff, Ark.
"Oh Lordy, lady, I was pickin' cotton durin' the war. I was here before
the first gun was fired. When the war came they sent my mother and
father and all the other big folks to Texas and left us undergrowth here
to make a crop.
"My mother's name was Martha and my father was named Peter Hinton. Now
I'm just goin' to tell you everything--I'm not ashamed. I've got the
marks of slavery on me. My old marster and Miss Mary, they was good to
me, but the old cook woman throwed me off the porch and injured my back.
I ain't never been able to walk just right since.
"Now, here's what I remember. Our marster, we thought he was God.
"They pretty near raised us with the pigs. I remember they would cook a
great big oven of bread and then pour a pan full of buttermilk or
clabber and we'd break off a piece of bread and get around the pan of
milk jest like pigs. Yes mam, they did that.
"Let's see now, what else occurred. Old marster would have my father and
Uncle Jacob and us boys to run foot races. You know--they was testin'
us, and I know I was valued to be worth five hundred dollars.
"But my folks was good to me. They wouldn't have no overseer what would
be cruel. If he was cruel he would have to be gone from there.
"One time old marster say 'Charlie how come this yard so dirty?' You
know there would be a little track around. I said, will you give me that
old gray horse after I clean it and he said 'Yes'. So I call up the boys
and we'd clean it up, and then the old gray horse was mine. It was just
the old worn out stock you understand.
"I want to tell you when the old folks got sick they would bleed them,
and when the young folks got sick they give you some blue mass and turn
you loose.
"I remember when old marster's son Sam went to war and got shot in the
leg. Old marster was cryin' 'Oh, my Sam is shot'. He got in a scrummage
you know. He got well but he never could straighten out his leg.
"When freedom come, I heard 'em prayin' for the men to come back home.
Miss Mary called us all up and told us our age and said, 'You all are
free and can go where you want to go, or you can stay here.'
"Oh yes, the Ku Klux use to run my daddy if they caught him out without
a pass, but I remember he could outrun them--he was stout as a mule.
"I been here so long and what little I've picked up is just a little
fireside learnin'. I can read and write my name. I can remember when we
thought a newspaper opened out was a bed-cover. But a long time after
the war when the public school come about, I had the privilege of going
to school three weeks. Yes mam, I was swift and I think I went nearly
through the first reader.
"I am a great lover of the Bible and I'm a member of Mount Calvary
Baptist Church.
"I'm glad to give you some kind of idea 'bout my age and life. I really
am glad. Goodbye."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Ben Hite
1515 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 74
"Well, I didn't zactly live in slavery times. I was born in 1864, the
4th of July. They said it was on the William Moore place four miles from
Chattanooga but I was in Georgia when I commenced to remember--in Fort
Valley--just a little town.
"I been in Arkansas sixty-five years the first day of January. Come to
the old Post of Arkansas in 1873. I been right here on this spot
forty-three years. Made a many a bale of cotton on the Barrow place.
"Went to school three weeks right down here in 'Linkum' County. I could
read a little but couldn't write any much.
"I been married to this wife forty years. My fust wife dead.
"I lived in 'Linkum' County eight years and been in Jefferson County
ever since.
"Three years ago I was struck by a car and I been blind two years. I can
just 'zern' the light. When I was able to be about I used to vision what
it would be like to be blind and now I know.
"Yes'm, I just come here on the eve of the breakin' up. I seed the
Yankees in Georgia after freedom. They called em Bluejackets.
"All my life I have farmed--farmed."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Betty Hodge
Hazen, Ark.
Age: 63
"Uncle Billy Hill used to visit us. He was Noah's uncle. He was a slave
and one thing I remembers hearing him tell was this: He was the hostler
for his old master. The colored folks was having a jubilee. He wanted to
go. He stole one of the carriage horses out--rode it. It started
snowing. He said he went out to see bout the horse and it seemed be
doin' all right. After a while here come somebody and told him that
horse he rode was dead. He didn't believe it, but went out there and it
was sho dead. He said he took that horse by the tail and started runnin'
up the road. They drug that horse home and put him in the stable where
he belong at. It was snowing so hard and fast they couldn't see their
hands 'fo em he said. It snowed so much it covered up where they drug
the horse and their tracks. He said the snow saved his life. They found
the horse dead and never thought bout him having him out at the jubilee.
He said none of em ever told a word bout it but for long time he was
scared to death fear the old master find out bout it.
"Grandma Frances was born in West Virginia. She was papa's mama. She
purt nigh raised us. Mama and papa went to the field to work. She cooked
and done the housework. She had a good deal of Indian blood in her. I
heard em say. She had high cheeks and the softest, prettiest hair. She
told about the stars falling. She said they never hit the ground, that
they was like shooting stars 'cepting they all come down like. Everybody
was scared to death. She talked a good deal about Haywood County--I
believe that was in Tennessee--that was where they lived durin' of the
war. Papa made her a livin' long as she lived. When she got old noises
bothered her, so then we growed up and she lived by herself in front of
our house in a house.
"Grandma Frances and our family come to Arkansas 'reckly after the Civil
War. They come with Mr. John and Miss Olivia Cooper. Miss Olivia was his
wife, but Miss Presh was a old maid. Folks used to think it was sort of
bad if a woman didn't marry. Thought she have no chances. It sort of be
something like a disgrace if a woman was a old maid. Don't seem
that-a-way no more. I never heard much about Miss Presh but I heard mama
tell this: Grandma Mary Lea come on a visit to see mama and she brought
her some sweet potatoes in a bag. Had nothing else and wanted to bring
her something. Miss Olivia picked out the biggest ones and took em. Said
she was mean. Said she had a plenty of everything. Just left mama the
smallest ones. She said Miss Olivia was stingy. Mama was the house girl
and nurse and they had a cook. Mama was a girl then she belong to the
Coopers, but mama belong to somebody else. She hadn't married then.
"One day Miss Olivia called her and she didn't get there soon as Miss
Olivia wanted her to. Miss Olivia say, 'You getting mean, Lucy. You like
your ma.' She said, 'I just like you if I'm mean.' But Miss Olivia
didn't understand it. She ask the cook and the cook told her she was
talking to her. She told Mr. John Cooper to whoop em but he didn't. He
kind of laughed and ask the cook what Lucy said to Miss Olivia. Miss
Olivia told him if he didn't whoop em both she was going back home. He
told her he would take her and she wouldn't come back neither when she
left. He didn't whoop neither one of em and she never left him till she
died, cause I been over to Des Arc and seen all of em since I come in
this world.
"Mama was Lucy Lea till she married Will Holloway, my papa. Then she
married Isarel Thomas the preacher here at Hazen. He come from Tennessee
with old Dr. Hazen (white man). Mama's mama was Mary Lea; she lived out
here at Green Grove. I don't know where she was born, but she was owned
by the Lea's round Des Arc. She come and stay a month or two with us on
a visit.
"Old folks was great hands to talk bout olden times. I forgot bout all
they told.
"In old times folks had more principal, now they steal and fight and
loud as they can be. Folks used to be quiet, now they be as loud as they
can all the time. They dance and carouse all night long--fuss and fight!
Some of our young folks got to change. The times have changed so much
and still changing so fast I don't know what goin' to be the end. I
study bout it a lot."
#647
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Minnie Hollomon
R.F.D., Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 75
"My parents was Elsie and Manuel Jones. They had five children. The
Jones was farmers at Hickory Plains. Auntie was a cook and her girl,
Luiza, was a weaver and a spinner and worked about in the house.
"I heard auntie talk about the soldiers come and make them cook up
everything they had and et it up faster 'en it took 'er to fix it ready
for 'em to guttle down. Dems her very words. They took the last barrel
er flour and the last scrap er meat they had outen the smokehouse.
"Uncle Sebe Jones was Massa Jones' boss and wagoner (wagon man and
overseer). Auntie said Uncle Sebe drunk too much. He drunk long as he
lived 'cause old Massa Jones trained to that.
"Uncle Whit Jones was more pious and his young massa learned him to read
and write. He was onliest one of the Jones niggers knowed how er had any
learning er tall.
"The women folks spun and wove all winter while the nights be long.
"Pa said Massa Jones was pretty fair to his black folks. He fed 'em
pretty good and seen they was kept warm in rainy bad weather. He watch
see if the men split plenty wood to keep up the fires. Jones didn't
allow the neighbors to slash up his black folks. He whooped them if he
thought they needed it and he knowed when and where to stop. Mama didn't
b'long to the same people.
"Grandma was a native of South Ca'lina. Her name was Malindy Fortner.
She died over at Alex Hazen's place. She come to some of her people's
after the War. I think ma come with her. Her own old mistress come sit
on a cushion one day. The parrot say, 'Cake under cushion, burn her
bottom.' Grandma made the parrot fly on off but the cake was warm and it
was mashed flat under the cushion when she got up. She took it to her
little children. She said piece of cake was a rarity. They had plenty
corn bread, peas and meat.
"Grandma said after they had a baby it would be seben weeks b'fore they
would let them put their hands in a washtub. They all had tasks in
winter time. They sit by the fire and talk and sing. Ma said in slavery
a girl had a baby and her hugging around a tree. Said her mistress come
to the cabin to see about her and brought corn bread and pea pot-liquor.
Said that would kill folks but it didn't hurt her.
"Pa b'long to the Jones and Whitlocks both but he never told us about
ever being sold. He told us about it took nearly two weeks one time in
the bad weather to meet the boat and get provisions. His wagon was
loaded and when the rain and freeze set in it caught him. He like never
got back. His white folks was proud when he got back."