Teacher in Biscoe school. Father was a graduate doctor of medicine and
in about 1907, '08, '09 school director at Biscoe.
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jane Oliver
Route 4, near airport, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I'm certainly one of em, cause I was in the big house. When Miss Liza
married they give sister to her and I stayed with Miss Netta. Her name
was Drunetta Rawls. That was in Mississippi. We come to Arkansas when I
was small.
"I remember when they run us to Texas, and we stayed there till freedom
come. I remember hearin' em read the free papers. Mama died in Texas and
they buried her the day they read the free papers. I know. I was out
playin' and Miss Lucy, that was my young mistress, come out and say,
'Jane, you go in and see your mother, she wants you.' I was busy playin'
and didn't want to go in and I member Miss Lucy say, 'Poor little fool
nigger don't know her mother's dyin'.' I went in then and said, 'Mama,
is you dyin'?' She say, 'No, I ain't; I died when you was a baby.' You
know, she meant she had died in sin. She was a christian.
"Me and Lucy played together all the time--round about the house and in
the kitchen. Little Marse Henry, that was big old Marse Henry's son, he
was a captain in the army. We all called him Little Marse Henry. Old
mistress was good to us. Us chillun called her Miss Netta. Best woman I
ever seed. Me and Lucy growed up together. Looks like I can see just the
way the house looked and how we used to go down to the big gate and
play. I sits here and studies and wonders if I'd know that place today.
That's what I study bout.
"I used to hear em say we only stayed in Texas nine months and the white
folks brought us back.
"My uncle Simon Rawls, he took me after the war. Then I worked for Mrs.
Adkins.
"I went to school a little and learned to read prints. The teacher tried
to get me to write but I wouldn't do it. And since then I have wished so
much I had learned to write. Oh mercy! Old folks would tell me, 'Well,
when you get up the road, you'll wish you had.' I didn't know what they
meant but I know now they meant when I got old.
"I was married when I was young--I don't think I was fifteen.
"Yes ma'am, I've worked hard. I've always lived in the country.
"I can remember when the white folks refugeed us to Texas. Oh we did
hate the Yankees. If I ever seed a Yankee I didn't know it but I heard
the white folks talkin' bout em.
"I used to hear em talk bout old Jeff Davis and Abe Lincoln.
"Bradley County was where we lived fore we went to Texas and afterward.
Colonel Ed Hampton's plantation jined the Rawls plantation on the
Arkansas River where it overflowed the land. I loved that better than
any place I ever seed in my life.
"I couldn't say what I think of the young folks now. They is different
from what we was. Yes, Lord, they is different. Sometimes I think they
is better and sometimes wuss. I just thanks the Lord that I'm here--have
come this far.
"When I bought this place from Mr. R.M. Knox he said, 'When I'm in my
grave you'll thank me that you took my advice and put your savings in a
Home.' I do thank him. I been here thirty years and I get along. God
bless you."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Ivory Osborne
Route 5, Box 158, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Know about slavery? Sho I do--I was born in '52. Born in Arkansas? No
ma'm, born in Texas.
"Oh yes, indeed, I had a good master. Good to me, indeed. I was that
high when the war started. I member everything. Take me from now till
dark to tell you everything I know bout slavery.
"I put in three years and five months, choppin' cotton and corn. I
member the very day, on the 10th of May, old mistress blowed the conk
and told us we was free.
"Oh Lord, I had a good time.
"I never was whipped.
"Ku Klux used to run me. Run me clear from the plum orchard bout a mile
from the house. Run to my mistress at the big house.
"Miss Ann had eight darkies and told her stepmother, 'Don't you put your
hand on em.' She didn't either.
"I went to school since 'mancipation in Nacitosh. Learned to read and
write. Was in the eighth grade when I left. Stood at the head of every
class. They couldn't get me down. I done got old and forgot now.
"I didn't know the difference between slavery and free, I never was
whipped.
"Did I ever vote? You know I voted, old as I am. Ain't voted in over
forty years. I ain't nobody. My wife's eighty. I've had her forty years.
_Cose_ I voted the Republican ticket. You never seed a colored person a
Democrat in your life.
"In slavery days we killed seventy-five or eighty hogs every year. And I
don't mean shoats, I mean hogs. I ain't lost my membrance."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jane Osbrook
602 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 90
"Yes ma'm, I was livin' in slavery days. I was borned in Arkansas I
reckon. I was borned within three, miles of Camden but I wasn't raised
there. We moved to Saline County directly after peace was declared.
"I don't know what year I was born because you see I'm not educated but
I was ninety the 27th of this last past May. Yes ma'm, I'm a old bondage
woman. I can say what a heap of em can't say--I can tell the truth bout
it. I believe in the truth. I was brought up to tell the truth. I'm no
young girl.
"My old master was Adkison Billingsly. My old mistress treated us just
like her own children. She said we had feelin's and tastes. I visited
her long after the war. Went there and stayed all night.
"I member when they had the fight at Jenkins Ferry. Old Steele had
30,000 and he come down to take Little Rock, Pine Bluff and others.
Captain Webb with 1,500 Rebels was followin' him and when they got to
Saline River they had a battle.
"The next Sunday my father carried all us children and some of the white
folks to see the battle field. I member the dead was lyin' in graves,
just one row after another and hadn't even been covered up.
"Oh yes, I can tell all bout that. Nother time there was four hundred
fifty colored and five white Yankee soldiers come and ask my father if
old mistress treated us right. We told em we had good owners. I never
was so scared in my life. Them colored soldiers was so tall and so black
and had red eyes. Oh yes ma'm, they had on the blue uniforms. Oh, we
sure was fraid of em--you know them eyes.
"They said, 'Now uncle, we want you to tell the truth, does she feed you
well?' My ma did all the cookin' and we had good livin'. I tole my
daughter we fared ten thousand times better than now.
"I come up in the way of obedience. Any time I wanted to go, had to go
to old mistress and she say, 'Don't let the sun go down on you.' And
when we come home the sun was in the trees. If you seed the sun was
goin' down on you, you run.
"I ain't goin' tell nothin' but the truth. Truth better to live with and
better to die with.
"Some of the folks said they never seed a biscuit from Christmas to
Christmas but we had em every day. Never seed no sodie till peace was
declared--used saleratus.
"In my comin' up it was Whigs and Democrats. Never heard of no
Republicans till after the war. I've seed a man get upon that platform
and wipe the sweat from his brow. I've seed em get to fight in' too.
That was done at our white folks house--arguin' politics.
"I never did go to school. I married right after the war you know. What
you talkin' bout--bein' married and goin' to school? I was housekeepin':
Standin' right in my own light and didn't know it."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Annie Page
412-1/2 Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 86
"I was born 1852, they tell me, on the fifteenth of March. I was workin'
a good while 'fore surrender.
"Bill Jimmerson was my old master. He was a captain in Marmaduke's army.
Come home on thirty days furlough once and he and Daniel Carmack got
into some kind of a argument 'bout some whisky and Daniel Carmack
stabbed him with a penknife. Stabbed him three times. He was black as
tar when they brought him home. The blood had done settled. Oh Lawd,
that was a time.
"My eyes been goin' blind 'bout six years till I got so I can't excern
(discern) anything.
"Old miss used to box me over the head mightily and the colored folks
used to hit me over the head till seem like I could hear a bell for two
or three days. Niggers ain't got no sense. Put 'em in authority and they
gits so uppity.
"My brother brought me here and left me here with a colored woman named
Rachael Ross. And oh Lawd, she was hard on me. Never had to do in
slavery times what I had to do then.
"But the devil got her and all her chillun now I reckon. They tell me
when death struck her, they asked if the Lawd called her, and they say
she just turned over and over in the bed like a worm in hot ashes."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Annie Page
400 Block West Pullen, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Yes'm I 'member the war. I never knowed why they called it the Civil
War though.
"I was born in Union County, Arkansas, 'bout a mile from Bear Creek, in
1852. That's what my old mistress tole me the morning we was sot free.
"My mistress was a Democrat. Old master was a captain in Marmaduke's
army.
"I used to hope (help) spin the thread to make the soldiers' clothes.
Old mistress cared for me. Lacy Jimmerson--the onliest mistress I ever
had. She wanted to send us away to Texas but old master say it want no
use. Cause if the Yankees won, they have to bring us back, so we didn't
go.
"Did they _whip_ us? Why I bet I can show you scars now. Old Miss whip
me when she feel like fightin'. Her granddaughter, Mary Jane, tried to
learn me my ABC's out of the old Blue Back Speller. We'd be out on the
seesaw, but old Miss didn't know what we doin'. Law, she pull our hair.
Directly she see us and say 'What you doin'? Bring that book here!'
"One day old master come home on a thirty-day furlough. He was awful
hot-headed and he got into a argument with Daniel Carmack and old Daniel
stobbed him right in the heart. Fore he die he say to bury him by the
side of the road so he can see the niggers goin' to work.
"I never seen no Ku Klux but I heard of 'em 'rectly after the war.
"I'se blind. I jest can see enough to get around. The Welfare gives me
eight dollars a month.
"My mother died soon after the war ended and after that I was jest
knocked over the head. I went to Camblin and worked for Mrs. Peters.
Then I runned away and married my first husband Mike Samson. I been
married twice and had two children but they all dead now.
"Law, I jest scared of these young ones as I can be. I don't have no
dealins with 'em."
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Subject: Apparitions
Subject: Superstitions
Subject: Birthmarks
Story:--Information
This information given by: Annie Page
Place of residence: 412-1/2 Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Occupation: None Age: 86
[TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
"I told 'bout old master's death. Mama had done sent me out to feed the
chickens soon of a morning.
"Here was the smokehouse and there was a turkey in a coop. And when I
throwed it the feed I heard somethin' sounded just like you was draggin'
a brush over leaves. It come around the corner of the smokehouse and
look like a tall woman. It kept on goin' toward the house till it got to
the hickory nut tree and still sound like draggin' a brush. When it got
to the hickory nut tree it changed and look like a man. I looked and I
said, 'It's old master.' And the next day he got killed. I run to the
house and told mama, 'Look at that man.' She said, 'Shut your mouth, you
don't see no man.' Old miss heard and said, 'Who do you s'pose it could
be?' But mama wouldn't let me talk.
"But I know it was a sign that old master was goin' to die."