You see we lived across the river--and I guess--well I just didn't know
nothing about it. But Rockport wasn't no good after the railroad come
in. They moved the court house and most of the folks moved away. There
wasn't nothing much left.
I started farming around there some. I moved about quite a bit. I lived
down sort of by Benton too for quite a spell. I worked around at most
any kind of farming.
'Course most of the time we was working at cotton and corn. I's spent
most of my life farming. I like it. Moved around pretty considerable.
Sometimes I hired out--sometimes I share cropped--sometimes I worked
thirds and fourths. What does I mean by hired out--I means worked for
wages. Which way did I like best--I'll take share-cropping. I sort of
like share-cropping.
I been in Hot Springs for 7 years. Come to be with my daughter." (An
interruption by a small negro girl--neatly dressed and bright-eyed. Not
content with watching from the sidelines she had edged closer and
squatted comfortably within a couple of feet of the interviewer. A wide,
pearly grin, a wee pointing forefinger and, "Granddaddy, that lady's got
a tablet just like Aunt Ellen. See, Granddaddy.") "You mustm't bother
the lady. Didn't your mother tell you not to stop folks when they is
talking."--the voice was kindly and there was paternal pride in it. A
nickle--tendered the youngster by the interviewer--and guaranteed to
produce a similar tablet won a smile and childish silence.
"Yes, ma'am, I lives with my daughter--her name is Lulu Mitchell. She
owns her house--yes ma'am it helps. But it's sure hard to get along.
Seems like it's lots harder now than it used to be when I was gitting
started. Lulu works--she irons. Another daughter lives right over there.
Her name's Ellen. She works too--at what she can get to do. She owns her
house too.
Three of my daughters is living. Been married twice--I has. Didn't stay
with the last one long. Yes ma'am I been coming backwards and forewards
to Hot Springs all my life--you might say. 'Twasn't far over and I kept
a'coming back. Been living all around here. It's pretty nice being with
my daughter. She's good to me. I loves my granddaughter. We has a pretty
hard time--Harder dan what I had when I was young--but then it do seem
like it's harder to earn money dan what it was when I was young."
Interviewer: R.S. Taylor
Person Interviewed: Uncle William Baltimore
Resident: Route #1, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Jefferson County. Age: 103.
"You wants to know how old I is? I'se lived a long time. I'se goin' on
104. My gran'mammy was over 100 years. My mamma was 100. My pappy was
96. They was twelve chilluns. I don't know if any of my sisters or
brothers is livin'. Don't know if one of my friends back in my boy days
is livin'. I'se like a poor old leaf left hangin' to a tree.
"Yes--I sho do member back befo' the war. I was borned on the Dr. Waters
place about twelve miles out of Pine Bluff on the east side of Noble
Lake. My gran'mammy and gran'pappy and my mamma and my pappy were slaves
on de Walker plantation. I was not bought or sold--just lived on de old
plantation. I wasn't whipped neither but once I mighty near got a
beatin'. Want to hear about it? I likes to tell.
"Dr. Waters had a good heart. He didn't call us 'slaves'. He call us
'servants'. He didn't want none of his niggers whipped 'ceptin when
there wasn't no other way. I was grown up pretty good size. Dr. Waters
liked me cause I could make wagons and show mules. Once when he was
going away to be gone all day, he tole me what to do while he was gone.
The overseer wasn't no such good man as old master. He wanted to be boss
and told me what to do. I tole him de big boss had tole me what to do
and I was goin' to do it. He got mad and said if I didn't do what he
said I'd take a beating. I was a big nigger and powerful stout. I tole
the overseer fore he whipped me he's show himself a better man than I
was. When he found he was to have a fight he didn't say no more about
the whipping.
"I worked on de plantation till de war broke. Then I went into the army
with them what called themselves secesh's. I didn't fight none, never
give me a gun nor sword. I was a servant. I cooked and toted things. In
1863 I was captured by the Yankees and marched to Little Rock and sworn
in as a Union Soldier. I was sure enough soldier now. I never did any
fighting but I marched with the soldiers and worked for them whatever
they said.
"We marched from Pine Bluff on through Ft. Smith and the Indian
Territory of Oklahoma. Then we went to Leavenworth Kansas and back to
Jefferson County, Arkansas. And all that walking I did on these same
foots you see right here now.
"On this long march we camped thirty miles from Ft. Smith. We had gone
without food three days and was powerful hongry. I started out to get
something to eat. I found a sheep, I was tickled. I laughed. I could
turn the taste of that sheep meat under my tongue. When I got to camp
with the sheep I had to leave for picket duty. Hungrier than ever, I
thought of that sheep all the time. When I got back I wanted my chunk of
meat. It had been killed, cooked, eat up. Never got a grease spot on my
finger from my sheep.
"When time come for breaking up the army I went back to Jefferson county
and set to farmin'. I was free now. I didn't do so well on the land as I
didn't have mules and money to live on. I went to Dersa County and
opened up a blacksmith shop. I learned how to do this work when I was
with Dr. Waters. He had me taught by a skilled man. I learned to build
wagons too.
"I made my own tools. Who showed me how? Nobody. When I needed a hack
saw I made it out of a file--that was all I had to make it of. I had to
have it. Once I made a cotton scraper out of a piece of hardwood. I put
a steel edge on it. O yes I made everything. Can I build a wagon--make
all the parts? Every thing but the hubs for the wheels.
"You say I don't seem to see very well. Ha-ha! I don't see nuthin' at
all. I'se been plum blind for 23 years. I can't see nothin'. But I
patches my own clothes. You don't know how I can thread the needle? Look
here." I asked him to let me see his needle threader. He felt around in
a drawer and pulled out a tiny little half arrow which he had made of a
bit of tin with a pair of scissors and fine file. He pushed this through
the eye of the needle, then hooked the thread on it and pulled it back
again threading his needle as fast as if he had good eyesight. "This is
a needle threader. I made it myself. Watch me thread a needle. Can't I
do it as fast as if I had a head full of keen eyes? My wife been gone
twenty years. She went blind too. I had to do something. My patches may
not look so pretty but they sure holt (hold).
"You wants to know what I think of the way young folks is doing these
days? They'se goin' to fast. So is their papas and mammas. Dey done
forgot dey's a God and a day of settlin'. Den what dances pays de
fiddler. I got religion long time ago--jined de Baptist church in 1870
and haven't never got away from it. I'se tried to tote fair with God and
he's done fair by me.
"Does I get a pension? I shure do. It was a lucky day when de Yankees
got me. Ef they hadn't I don't know what'd become of me. After I went
blind I had hard times. Folks, white folks and all, brought me food. But
that wasn't any good way to get along. Sometimes I ate, sometimes I
didn't. So some of my white, friends dug up my record with the Yankees
and got me a pension. Now I'm setting pretty for de rest of my life.
Yes--O yes I'se older dan most folks get. Still I may be still takin' my
grub here when some of these young whiskey drinkin razzin' around young
chaps is under the dirt. It pays to I don know of any bad spots in me
yet. It pays to live honest, work hard, stay sober. God only knows what
some of these lazy, triflin' drinkin' young folks is comin' to."
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Mose Banks
Douglas Addition, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 69
"My name is Mose Banks and I am sixty-nine years old. I was born in
1869. I was born four years after freedom but still I was a slave in a
way. My papa stayed with his old miss and master after freedom until he
died and he just died in 1918, so we all stayed with him too. I had one
of the best easiest times in my life. My master was name Bob Stevenson
and he was a jewel. Never meaned us, never dogged, never hit one of us
in his life. He bought us just like he bought my papa. He never made any
of the girls work in the field. He said the work was too hard. He always
said splitting rails, bushing, plowing and work like that was for men.
That work makes no count women.
"The girls swept yards, cleaned the house, nursed, and washed and
ironed, combed old miss' and the children's hair and cut their finger
and toe nails and mended the clothes. The womens' job was to cook,
attend to the cows, knit all the socks for the men and boys, spin
thread, card bats, weave cloth, quilt, sew, scrub and things like that.
"The little boys drove up the cows, slopped the hogs, got wood and pine
for light, go to the spring and get water. After a boy was twelve then
he let him work in the fields. My main job was hitching the horse to the
buggy for old Miss Stevenson, and put the saddle on old master's saddle
horse.
"I was very small but when the first railroad come through old master
took us to see the train. I guess it was about forty or fifty miles
because it took us around four days to make the round trip. The trains
were not like they are now. The engine was smaller and they burned wood
and they had what they called a drum head and they didn't run very fast,
and could not carry many cars. It was a narrow gauge road and the rails
were small and the road was dirt. It was not gravel and rocks like it is
now. It was a great show to me and we all had something to talk about
for a long time. People all around went to see it and we camped out one
night going and coming and camped one night at the railroad so we could
see the train the next day. A man kept putting wood in the furnace in
order to keep a fire. Smoke come out of the drum head. The drum head was
something like a big washpot or a big old hogshead barrel. An ox team
was used for most all traveling. You did not see very many horses or
mules.
"The white children taught us how to read and I went to school too.
"I went to church too. We did not have a church house; we used a brush
arbor for service for a long time. In the winter we built a big fire in
the middle and we sat all around the fire on small pine logs. Later they
built a log church, so we had service in there for years.
"We did not live near a school, so old mistress and the children taught
us how to read and write and count. I never went to school in my life
and I bet you, can't none of these children that rub their heads on
college walls beat me reading and counting. You call one and ask them to
divide ninety-nine cows and one bob-tailed bull by two, and they can't
answer it to save their lives without a pencil and paper and two hours'
figuring when it's nothing to say but fifty.
"Wasn't no cook stoves and heaters until about 1890 or 1900. If there
was I did not know about them. They cooked on fireplace and fire out in
the yard on what they called oven and we had plenty of plain grub. We
stole eggs from the big house because we never got any eggs.
"The custom of marrying was just pack up and go on and live with who you
wanted to; that is the Negroes did--I don't know how the white people
married. This lawful marrying came from the law since man made law.
"When anybody died everybody stopped working and moaned and prayed until
after the burying.
"I can say there is as much difference between now and sixty years ago
as it is in day and night."
Interviewer: S. S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Henry Banner
County Hospital
Little Rock, Ark.
Age: ?
[HW: Forty Acres and a Mule]
"I was sold the third year of the war for fifteen years old. That would
be in 1864. That would make my birthday come in 1849. I must have been
12 year old when the war started and sixteen when Lee surrendered. I was
born and raised in Russell County, Ol' Virginny. I was sold out of
Russell County during the war. Ol' Man Menefee refugeed me into
Tennessee near Knoxville. They sold me down there to a man named Jim
Maddison. He carried me down in Virginny near Lynchburg and sold me to
Jim Alec Wright. He was the man I was with in the time of the surrender.
Then I was in a town called Liberty. The last time I was sold, I sold
for $2,300,--more than I'm worth now.
"Police were for white folks. Patteroles were for niggers. If they
caught niggers out without a pass they would whip them. The patteroles
were for darkies, police for other people.
"They run me once, and I ran home. I had a dog at home, and there wasn't
no chance them gettin' by that dog. They caught me once in Liberty, and
Mrs. Charlie Crenchaw, Ol' John Crenchaw's daughter, came out and made
them turn me loose. She said, 'They are our darkies; turn them loose.'
"One of them got after me one night. I ran through a gate and he
couldn't get through. Every time I looked around, I would see through
the trees some bush or other and think it was him gaining on me. God
knows! I ran myself to death and got home and fell down on the floor.
"The slaves weren't expecting nothing. It got out somehow that they were
going to give us forty acres and a mule. We all went up in town. They
asked me who I belonged to and I told them my master was named Banner.
One man said, 'Young man, I would go by my mama's name if I were you.' I
told him my mother's name was Banner too. Then he opened a book and told
me all the laws. He told me never to go by any name except Banner. That
was all the mule they ever give me.
"I started home a year after I got free and made a crop. I had my gear
what I had saved on the plantation and went to town to get my mule but
there wasn't any mule.
"Before the war you belonged to somebody. After the war you weren't
nothin' but a nigger. The laws of the country were made for the white
man. The laws of the North were made for man.
"Freedom is better than slavery though. I done seed both sides. I seen
darkies chained. If a good nigger killed a white overseer, they wouldn't
do nothin' to him. If he was a bad nigger, they'd sell him. They raised
niggers to sell; they didn't want to lose them. It was just like a mule
killing a man.
"Yellow niggers didn't sell so well. There weren't so many of them as
there are now. Black niggers stood the climate better. At least,
everybody thought so.
"If a woman didn't breed well, she was put in a gang and sold. They
married just like they do now but they didn't have no license. Some
people say that they done this and that thing but it's no such a thing.
They married just like they do now, only they didn't have no license.
"Ol' man came out on April 9, 1865. and said, 'General Lee's whipped now
and dam badly whipped. The war is over. The Yankees done got the
country. It is all over. Just go home and hide everything you got.
General Lee's army is coming this way and stealing everything they can
get their hands on.' But General Lee's army went the other way.
"I saw a sack of money setting near the store. I looked around and I
didn't see nobody. So I took it and carried it home. Then I hid it. I
heard in town that Jeff Davis was dead and his money was no good. I took
out some of the money and went to the grocery and bought some bread and
handed her five dollar bill. She said, 'My goodness, Henry, that money
is no good; the Yankees have killed it.' And I had done gone all over
the woods and hid that money out. There wasn't no money. Nobody had
anything. I worked for two bits a day. All our money was dead.
"The Yankees fed the white people with hard tacks (at Liberty,
Virginia). All around the country, them that didn't have nothin' had to
go to the commissary and get hard tacks.
"I started home. I went to town and rambled all around but there wasn't
nothin' for me.
"I was set free in April. About nine o'clock in the morning when we went
to see what work we would do, ol' man Wright called us all up and told
us to come together. Then he told us we were free. I couldn't get
nothing to do; so I jus' stayed on and made a crop."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John W. H. Barnett, Marianna, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born at Clinton Parish, Louisiana. I'm eighty-one years old. My
parents and four children was sold and left six children behind. They
kept the oldest children. In that way I was sold but never alone. Our
family was divided and that brought grief to my parents. We was sold on
a block at New Orleans. J.J. Gambol (Gamble?) in north Louisiana bought
us. After freedom I seen all but one of our family. I don't recollect
why that was.
"For three weeks steady after the surrender people was passing from the
War and for two years off and on somebody come along going home. Some
rode and some had a cane or stick walking. Mother was cooking a pot of
shoulder meat. Them blue soldiers come by and et it up. I didn't get any
I know that. They cleaned us out. Father was born at Eastern Shore,
Maryland. He was about half Indian. Mother's mother was a squaw. I'm
more Indian than Negro. Father said it was a white man's war. He didn't
go to war. Mother was very dark. He spoke a broken tongue.
"We worked on after freedom for the man we was owned by. We worked crops
and patches. I didn't see much difference then. I see a big change come
out of it. We had to work. The work didn't slacken a bit. I never owned
land but my father owned eighty acres in Drew County. I don't know what
become of it. I worked on the railroad section, laid crossties, worked
in stave mills. I farmed a whole lot all along. I hauled and cut wood.
"I get ten dollars and I sells sassafras and little things along to help
out. My wife died. My two sons left just before the World War. I never
hear from them. I married since then.
"Present times--I can't figure it out. Seems like a stampede. Not much
work to do. If I was young I reckon I could find something to do.
"Present generation--Seem like they are more united. The old ones have
to teach the young ones what to do. They don't listen all the time. The
times is strange. People's children don't do them much good now seems
like. They waste most all they make some way. They don't make it regular
like we did farming. The work wasn't regular farming but Saturday was
ration day and we got that."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Josephine Ann Barnett,
R.F.D., De Valls Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 75 or 80
"I do not knows my exact age. I judge I somewhere between 75 and 80
years old. I was born close to Germantown, Tennessee. We belong, that is
my mother, to Phillip McNeill and Sally McNeill. My mother was a milker.
He had a whole heap of hogs, cattle and stock. That not all my mother
done. She plowed. Children done the churnin'.
"The way it all come bout I was the onliest chile my mother had. Him and
Miss Sallie left her to help gather the crop and they brought me in the
buggy wid them. I set on a little box in the foot of the buggy. It had a
white umbrella stretched over it. Great big umbrella run in between
them. It was fastened to the buggy seat. When we got to Memphis they
loaded the buggy on the ship. I had a fine time coming. When we got to
Bucks Landing we rode to his place in the buggy. It is 13 miles from
here (De Valls Bluff). In the fall nearly all his slaves come out here.
Then when my mother come on. I never seen my papa after I left back home
[TR: Crossed out: (near Germantown)]. My father belong to Boston Hack.
He wouldn't sell and Mr. McNeill wouldn't sell and that how it come.
"I muster been five or six years old when I come out here to Arkansas.
My grandma was a midwife. She was already out here. She had to come with
the first crowd cause some women was expecting. I tell you it sho was
squally times. This country was wild. It was different from Tennessee or
close to Germantown where we come from. None of the slaves liked it but
they was brought.
"The war come on direckly after we got here. Several families had the
slaves drove off to Texas to save them. Keep em from following the
Yankee soldiers right here at the Bluff off. I remember seein' them come
up to the gate. My mother and two aunts went. His son and some more men
drove em. After freedom them what left childern come back. I stayed with
my grandma while they gone. I fed the chickens, shelled corn, churned,
swept. I done any little turns they sent me to do.
"One thing I remember happened when they had scrimmage close--it mighter
been the one on Long Prairie--they brought a young boy shot through his
lung to Mr. Phillip McNeill's house. He was a stranger. He died. I felt
so sorry for him. He was right young. He belong to the Southern army.
The Southern army nearly made his place their headquarters.
"Another thing I remember was a agent was going through the country
settin' fire to all the cotton. Mr. McNeill had his cotton--all our crop
we made. That man set it afire. It burned more than a week big. He
burned some left at the gin not Mr. McNeill's. It was fun to us children
but I know my grandma cried and all the balance of the slaves. Cause
they got some Christmas money and clothes too when the cotton was sold.
"The slaves hated the Yankees. They treated them mean. They was having a
big time. They didn't like the slaves. They steal from the slaves too.
Some poor folks didn't have slaves.
"After freedom my mother come back after me and we come here to De Valls
Bluff and I been here ever since. The Yankee soldiers had built shacks
and they left them. They would do. Some was one room, log, boxed and all
sorts. They give us a little to eat to keep us from starvin'. It sho was
a little bit too. My mother got work about.
"The first schoolhouse was a colored school. We had two rooms and two
teachers sent down from the North to teach us. If they had a white
school I didn't know it. They had one later on. I was bout grown. Mr.
Proctor and Miss Rice was the first teachers. We laughed bout em. They
was rough looking, didn't look like white folks down here we'd been used
to. They thought they sho was smart. Another teacher come down here was
Mr. Abner. White folks wouldn't have nothin' to do with em. We learned.
They learned us the ABC's and to write. I can read. I learned a heap of
it since I got grown just trying. They gimme a start.
"Times is hard in a way. Prices so high. I never had a hard time in my
life. I get $40 a month. It is cause my husband was a soldier here at De
Valls Bluff.
"I do not vote. I ain't goiner vote.
"I don't know what to think of the young generation. They are on the
road to ruin seems like. I speakln' of the real young folks. They do
like they see the white girls and boys doin'. I don't know what to
become of em. The women outer stay at home and let the men take care of
em. The women seems like taking all the jobs. The colored folks cookin'
and making the living for their men folks. It ain't right--to me. But I
don't care how they do. Things ain't got fixed since that last war."
(World War).
Interviewer: Mrs. Rosa B. Ingram
Person interviewed: Lizzie Barnett; Conway, Arkansas
Age: 100?
"Yes; I was born a slave. My old mammy was a slave before me. She was
owned by my old Miss, Fanny Pennington, of Nashville, Tennessee. I was
born on a plantation near there. She is dead now. I shore did love Miss
Fanny.
"Did you have any brothers and sisters, Aunt Liz.?"
"Why, law yes, honey, my mammy and Miss Fanny raised dey chillun
together. Three each, and we was jes' like brothers and sisters, all
played in de same yard. No, we did not eat together. Dey sot us niggers
out in de yard to eat, but many a night I'se slept with Miss Fanny.
"Mr. Pennington up and took de old-time consumption. Dey calls it T.B.
now. My mammy nursed him and took it from him and died before Mr. Abe
Lincoln ever sot her free.
"I have seen hard times, Miss, I shore have.
"In dem days when a man owned a plantation and had children and they
liked any of the little slave niggers, they were issued out to 'em just
like a horse or cow.
"'Member, honey, when de old-time war happened between the North and
South, The Slavery War. It was so long ago I just can 'member it. Dey
had us niggers scared to death of the Bluejackets. One day a man come to
Miss Fanny's house and took a liking to me. He put me up on a block an'
he say, 'How old is dis nigger?' An' she say 'five' when she know well
an' good I was ten. No, he didn't get me. But I thought my time had
come.
"Yes, siree, I was Miss Fanny's child. Why wouldn't I love her when I
sucked titty from her breast when my mammy was working in the field? I
shore did love Miss Fanny.
"When de nigger war was over and dey didn't fit (fight) any longer, Abe
Lincoln sot all de niggers free and den got 'sassinated fer doin it.