wanted to. She brush us all out wid the broom, tell us go build a play
house. Children made the prettiest kinds of play houses them days. We
mede the walls outer bark sometimes. We jus' marked it off on the ground
out back of the smokehouse. We'd ride and bring up the cows. We'd take
the meal to a mill. It was the best hoecake bread can be made. It was
water ground meal.
"We had a plenty to eat, jus' common eatin'. We had good cane molasses
all the tine. The clothes was thin 'bout all time 'ceptin' when they be
new and stubby. We got new clothes in the fall of the year. They last
till next year.
"I never seed Massa Tom whoop nobody. I seen Miss Liza Jane turn up the
little children's dresses and whoop 'em with a little switch, and
straws, and her hand. She 'most blister you wid her bare hand. Plenty
things we done to get whoopin's. We leave the gates open; we'd run the
calves and try to ride 'em; we'd chunk at the geese. One thing that make
her so mad was for us to climb up in her fruit trees and break off a
limb. She wouldn't let us be eating the green fruit mostly 'cause it
would make us sick. They had plenty trees. We had plenty fruit to eat
when it was ripe. Massa Tom's little colored boys have big ears. He'd
pull 'em every time he pass one of 'em. He didn't hurt 'em but it might
have made their ears stick out. They all had big ears. He never slapped
nobody as ever I heard 'bout.
"I don't know how my parents was sold. I'm sure they was sold. Pa's name
ivas Jim Bradley (Bradly). He come from one of the Carolinas. Ma was
brought to Mississippi from Georgia. All the name I heard fer her was
Ella Logan. When freedom cone on, I heard pa say he thought he stand a
chance to find his folks and them to find him if he be called Bradley.
He did find some of his brothers, and ma had some of her folks out in
Mississippi. They come out here hunting places to do better. They wasn't
no Bradleys. I was little and I don't recollect their names. Seem lack
one family we called Aunt Mandy Thornton. One was Aunt Tillie and Uncle
Mack. They wasn't Thorntons. I knows that.
"My folks was black, black as I is. Pa was stocky, guinea man. Ma was
heap the biggest. She was rawbony and tall. I love to see her wash. She
could bend 'round the easier ever I seed anybody. She could beat the
clothes in a hurry. She put out big washings, on the bushes and a cord
they wove and on the fences. They had paling fence 'round the garden.
"Massa Tom didn't have a big farm. He had a lot of mules and horses at
times. They raised some cotton but mostly corn and oats. Miss Liza Jane
left b'fore us. We all cried when she left. She shut up the house and
give the women folks all the keys. We lived on what she left there and
went on raising more hogs and tending to the cows. We left everything.
We come to Hernando, Mississippi. Pa farmed up there and run his
blacksmith shop on the side. My parents died close to Horn Lake. Mama
was the mother of ten and I am the mother of eight. I got two living,
one here and one in Memphis. I lives wid 'em and one niece in Natches I
live with some.
"I was scared to death of the Ku Klux Klan. They come to our house one
night and I took my little brother and we crawled under the house and
got up in the fireplace. It was big 'nough fer us to sit. We went to
sleep. We crawled out next day. We seen 'em coming, run behind the house
and crawled under there. They knocked about there a pretty good while.
We told the folks about it. I don't know where they could er been. I
forgot it been so long. I was 'fraider of the Ku Klux Klan den I ever
been 'bout snakes. No snakes 'bout our house. Too many of us.
"I tried to get some aid when it first come 'bout but I quit. My
children and my niece take keer or me. I ain't wantin' fer nothin' but
good health. I never do feel good. I done wore out. I worked in the
field all my life.
"A heap of dis young generation is triflin' as they can be. They don't
half work. Some do work hard and no 'pendence to be put in some 'em.
'Course they steal 'fo' dey work. I say some of 'em work. Times done got
so fer 'head of me I never 'speck to ketch-up. I never was scared of
horses. I sure is dese automobiles. I ain't plannin' no rides on them
airplanes. Sure you born I ain't. Folks ain't acting lack they used to.
They say so I got all I can get you can do dout. It didn't used to be no
sich way. Times is heap better but heap of folks is worse 'an ever folks
been before."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: George Benson,
Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
Occupation: Cotton Farmer
"I was here in slavery days--yes ma'm, I was here. When I come here,
colored people didn't have their ages. The boss man had it. After
surrender, boss man told me I ought to keep up with my age, it'd be a
use to me some day, but I didn't do it.
"I member the soldiers would play with me when they wasn't on duty. That
was the Yankees.
"I was born down here on Dr. Waters' place. Born right here in Arkansas
and ain't been outa Arkansas since I was born. So far as I know, Dr.
Waters was good to us. I don't know how old I was. I know I used to go
to the house with my mother and piddle around.
"My father jined the Yankees and he died in the army. I heered the old
people talkin', sayin' we was goin' to be free. You _know_ I didn't
have much sense cause I was down on the river bank and the Yankees was
shootin' across the river and I said, 'John, you quit that shootin'!' So
you know I didn't have much sense.
"I can remember old man Curtaindall had these nigger dogs. Had to go up
a tree to keep em from bitin' you. Dr. Waters would have us take the
cotton and hide it in the swamp to keep the Yankees from burnin' it but
they'd find it some way.
"Never went to school over two months in all my goin's. We always lived
in a place kinda unhandy to go to school. First teacher I had was named
Mr. Bell. I think he was a northern man.
"All my life I been farmin'--still do. Been many a day since I sold a
bale a cotton myself. White man does the ginnin' and packin'. All I do
is raise it. I'm farmin' on the shares and I think if I raise four bales
I ought to have two bales to sell and boss man two bales, but it ain't
that way.
"I voted ever since I got to be a man grown. That is--as long as I could
vote. You know--got so now they won't let you vote. I don't think a
person is free unless he can vote, do you? The way this thing is goin',
I don't think the white man wants the colored man to have as much as the
white man.
"When I could vote, I jus' voted what they told me to vote. Oh Lord,
yes, I voted for Garfield. I'se quainted with him--I knowed his name.
Let's see--Powell Clayton--was he one of the presidents? I voted for
him. And I voted for McKinley. I think he was the last one I voted for.
"I been farmin' all my life and what have I got? Nothin'. Old age
pension? I may be in glory time I get it and then what would become of
my wife?"
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Kato Benton
Creed Taylor Place, Tamo Pike
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born in South Carolina before the War. I ain't no baby. I wasn't
raised here. No ma'am.
"My daddy's name was Chance Ayers and my mammy's name was Mary Ayers. So
I guess the white folks was named Ayers.
"White folks was good to us. Had plenty to eat, plenty to wear, plenty
to drink. That was water. Didn't have no whisky. Might a had some but
they didn't give us none.
"Oh, yes ma'am, I got plenty kin folks. Oh, yes ma'am, I wish I was back
there but I can't get back. I been here so long I likes Arkansas now.
"My mammy give me away after freedom and I ain't seed her since. She
give me to a colored man and I tell you he was a devil untied. He was so
mean I run away to a white man's house. But he come and got me and
nearly beat me to death. Then I run away again and I ain't seed him
since.
"I had a hard time comin' up in this world but I'm livin' yet, somehow
or other.
"I didn't work in no field much. I washed and ironed and cleaned up the
house for the white folks. Yes ma'am!
"No ma'am, I ain't never been married in my life. I been ba'chin'. I get
along so fine and nice without marryin'. I never did care anything 'bout
that. I treat the women nice--speak to 'em, but just let 'em pass on by.
"I never went to school in my life. Never learned to read or write. If I
had went to school, maybe I'd know more than I know now.
"These young folks comin' on is pretty rough. I don't have nothin' to do
with 'em--they is too rough for me. They is a heap wuss than they was in
my day--some of 'em.
"I gets along pretty well. The Welfare gives me eight dollars a month."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Bertrand
1501 Maple Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 68
[HW: "Pateroles" Botlund Father]
"I have heard my father tell about slavery and about the Ku Klux Klan
bunch and about the paterole bunch and things like that. I am
sixty-eight years old now. Sixty-eight years old! That would be about
five years after the War that I was born. That would be about 1870,
wouldn't it? I was born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, near Pine Bluff.
"My father's name was Mack Bertrand. My mother's name was Lucretia. Her
name before she married was Jackson. My father's owners were named
Bertrands. I don't know the name of my mother's owners. I don't know the
names of any of my grandparents. My father's owners were farmers.
"I never saw the old plantation they used to live on. My father never
told me how it looked. But he told me he was a farmer--that's all. He
knew farming. He used to tell me that the slaves worked from sunup till
sundown. His overseers were very good to him. They never did whip him. I
don't know that he was ever sold. I don't know how he met my mother.
"Out in the field, the man had to pick three hundred pounds of cotton,
and the women had to pick two hundred pounds. I used to hear my mother
talk about weaving the yarn and making the cloth and making clothes out
of the cloth that had been woven. They used to make everything they
wore--clothes and socks and shoes.
"I am the youngest child in the bunch and all the older ones are dead.
My mother was the mother of about thirteen children. Ten or more of them
were born in slavery. My mother worked practically all the time in the
house. She was a house worker mostly.
"My father was bothered by the pateroles. You see they wouldn't let you
go about if you didn't have a pass. Father would often get out and go
'round to see his friends. The pateroles would catch him and lash him a
little and let him go. They never would whip him much. My mother's
people were good to her. She never did have any complaint about them.
"For amusement the slaves used to dance and go to balls. Fiddle and
dance! I never heard my father speak of any other type of amusement.
"I don't remember what the old man said about freedom coming. Right
after the War, he farmed. He stayed right on with his master. He left
there before I was born and moved up near Pine Bluff where I was born.
The place my father was brought up on was near Pine Bluff too. It was
about twenty miles from Pine Bluff.
"I remember hearing him say that the Ku Klux Klan used to come to see us
at night. But father was always orderly and they never had no clue
against him. He never was whipped by the Ku Klux.
"My father never got any schooling. He never could read or write. He
said that they treated him pretty fair though on the farms where he
worked after freedom. As far as he could figure, they didn't cheat him.
I never had any personal experience with the Ku Klux. I never did do any
sharecropping. I am a shoemaker. I learned my trade from my father. My
father was a shoemaker as well as a farmer. He used to tell me that he
made shoes for the Negroes and for the old master too in slavery times.
"I have lived in Little Rock thirty years. I was born right down here in
Pine Bluff like I told you. This is the biggest town--a little bigger
than Pine Bluff. I run around on the railroad a great deal. So after a
while I just come here to this town and made it my home."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Alice Biggs
Holly Grove, Ark.
Age: "Bout 70"
"My mother come from Kentucky and my father from Virginia. That where
they born and I born close to Byihalia, Mississippi. My father was Louis
Anthony and mama name Charlotte Anthony.
"Grandma and her children was sold in a lump. They wasn't separated.
Grandpa was a waiter on the Confederate side. He never come back. He
died in Pennsylvania; another man come back reported that. He was a
colored waitin' man too. Grandma been dead 49 years now.
"Mama was a wash woman and a cook. They liked her. I don't remember my
father; he went off with Anthony. They lived close to Nashville,
Tennessee. He never come back. Mama lived at Nashville a while. The
master they had at the closin' of the war was good to grandma and mama.
It was Barnie Hardy and Old Kiss, all I ever heard her called. They
stayed on a while. They liked us. Held run us off if he'd had any
bother.
"The Ku Klux never come bout Barnie Hardy's place. He told em at town
not to bother his place.
"I never wanted to vote. I don't know how. I am too old to try tricks
new as that now.
"Honey, I been workinr in the field all my life. I'm what you call a
country nigger. I is a widow--just me an my son in family. Our home is
fair. We got two hundred acres of land, one cow and five hogs--pigs and
all.
"The present conditions is kind of strange. With us it is just
up-and-down-hill times. I ain't had no dealins with the young
generation. Course my son would tell you about em, but I can't. He goes
out a heap more an I do.
"I don't get no pension. I never signed up. I gets long best I can."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mandy Billings
3101 W. 14th Highland Add., Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 84
"Now I was born in 1854. That was in slavery times. That wasn't yistiday
was it? Born in Louisiana, in Sparta--that was the county seat.
"Bill Otts was my last owner. You see, how come me sold my mother was my
grandfather's baby chile and his owner promised not to separate him nary
time again. It was in the time of the Old War. Charles McLaughlin--that
was my old master--he was my father and Bill Otts, he bought my mother,
and she was sold on that account. Old Master Charles' wife wouldn't 'low
her to stay. I'm tellin' it just like they told it to me.
"We stayed with Bill Otts till we was free, and after too. My
grandfather had to steal me away. My stepfather had me made over to Bill
Otts. You know they didn't have no sheriff in them days--had a provost
marshal.
"As near as I can come at it, Miss, I was thirteen or fourteen. I know I
was eighteen years and four days old when I married. That was in '74,
wasn't it? '72? Well, I knowed I was strikin' it kinda close.
"My white folks lived in town. When they bought my mother, Miss Katie
took me in the house. My mother died durin' of the War--yes ma'am.
"I member when the bloodhounds used to run em and tree em up.
"Yes'm, niggers used to run away in slavery times. Some of em was
treated so mean they couldn't help it.
"Yes ma'am, I've seen the Ku Klux. Seen em takin' the niggers out and
whip em and kick em around. I'm talkin' bout Ku Klux. I know bout the
patrollers too. Ku Klux come since freedom but the patrollers was in
slavery times. Had to get a pass. I used to hear the niggers talkin'
bout when the patrollers got after em and they was close to old master's
field they'd jump over the fence and say, 'I'm at home now, don't you
come in here.'
"I farmed in Louisiana after I was married, but since I been here I
mostly washed and ironed.
"When I worked for the white folks, I found em a cook cause I didn't
like to be bound down so tight of a Sunday.
"I been treated pretty well. Look like the hardest treatment I had was
my grandfather's, Jake Nabors. Look like he hated me cause I was
white--and I couldn't help it. If he'd a done the right thing by me, he
could of sent me to school. He had stepchillun and sent them to school,
but he kep' me workin' and plowin'."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jane Birch, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 74
"I was three years old when the Yankees come through. I can't recollect
a thing about them. Ma told us children if we don't be quiet the Ku
Kluck come take us clean off but I never seed none. When we be working
she say if we don't work the grass out pretty soon the Ku Kluck be
taking us out whooping us. So many of us she have to scare us up to get
us to do right. There was fifteen children, nearly all girls. Ma said
she had good white folks. She was Floy Sellers. She belong to Mistress
Mary Sellers. She was a widow. Had four boys and a girl. I think we
lived in Chester County, South Carolina. I am darky to the bone. Pa was
black. All our family is black. My folks come to Arkansas when I was so
young I jes' can't tell nothing about it. We farmed. I lived with my
husband forty years and never had a child.
"Black folks used to vote more than I believe they do now. The men used
to feel big to vote. They voted but I don't know how. No ma'am, reckon I
don't vote!
"The times been changing since I was born and they going to keep
changing. Times is improving. That is all right.
"I think the young generation is coming down to destruction. You can't
believe a word they speak. I think they do get married some. They have a
colored preacher and have jes' a witness or so at home. Most of them
marry at night. They fuss mongst theirselves and quit sometimes. I don't
know much about young folks. You can't believe what they tell you. Some
work and some don't work. Some of them will steal."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Beatrice Black, Biscoe. Arkansas
Age: 48 Occupation: Store and "eating joint"
"I was born below the city pump here in Biscoe. My husband is a twin and
the youngest of thirteen children. His twin brother is living. They are
fifty years old today (August 6, 1938). His mother lived back and forth
with the twins. She died year before last. She was so good. She was sure
good to me. She helped me raise my three children. I misses her till
this very day. Her name was Dedonia Black when she died.
"She said master brought her, her father and mother and two sisters,
Martha and Ida, from Brownsville, Tennessee at the commencement of the
old war to Memphis in a covered ox wagon, and from there on a ship to
Cavalry Depot at De Valla Bluff. They was all sold. Her father was sold
and had to go to Texas. Her mother was sold and had to go back to
Tennessee, and the girls all sold in Arkansas. Master Mann bought my
mother-in-law (Dedonia). She was eighteen years old. They sold them off
on Cavalry Depot where the ship landed. They put her up to stand on a
barrel and auctioned them off at public auction.
"Her father got with the soldiers in Texas and went to war. He enlisted
and when the war was over he come on hunt of my mother-in-law. He found
her married and had three children. He had some money he made in the war
and bought forty acres of land. It was school land (Government land).
She raised all her thirteen children there. They brought grandma back
out here with them from Tennessee. They all died and buried out here. My
mother-in-law was married three times. She had a slavery husband named
Nathan Moseby. After he died she married Abe Ware. Then he died. She
married Mitchell Black and he died long before she died. She was
ninety-two years old when she died and could outdo me till not but a few
years ago. Her strength left her all at once. She lived on then a few
years.
"She always told me Master Mann's folks was very good to her. She said
she never remembered getting a whooping. But then she was the best old
thing I ever seen in my life. She was really good.
"One story she tole more than others was: Up at Des Arc country the
Yankees come and made them give up their something-to-eat. Took and
wasted together. Drunk up their milk and it turning, (blinky--ed.).
She'd laugh at that. They kept their groceries in holes in the ground.
The Yankees jumped on the colored folks to make them tell where was
their provision. Some of them had to tell where some of it was. They was
scared. They didn't tell where it all was.
"When they went to Des Arc and the gates was closed they had to wait
till next day to get their provisions. They had to start early to get
back out of the pickets before they closed."
Name of Interviewer: Beulah Sherwood Hagg
Name of Ex-Slave; Boston Blackwell Age: 98
Residence: 520 Plum, North Little Rock
Story told by Boston Blackwell
Make yourself comfoble, miss. I can't see you much 'cause my eyes, they
is dim. My voice, it kinder dim too. I knows my age, good. Old Miss, she
told me when I got sold--"Boss, you is 13--borned Christmas. Be sure to
tell your new misses and she put you down in her book." My borned name
was Pruitt 'cause I got borned on Robert Pruitt's plantation in
Georgia,--Franklin County, Georgia. But Blackwell, it my freed name. You
see, miss, after my mammy got sold down to Augusta--I wisht I could tell
you the man what bought her, I ain't never seed him since,--I was sold
to go to Arkansas; Jefferson county, Arkansas. Then was when old Miss
telled me I am 13. It was before the Civil War I come here. The onliest
auction of slaves I ever seed was in Memphis, coming on to Arkansas. I
heerd a girl bid off for $800. She was about fifteen, I reckon. I heerd
a woman--a breeding woman, bid off for $1500. They always brought good
money. I'm telling you, it was when we was coming from Atlanta.
Do you want to hear how I runned away and jined the Yankees? You know
Abraham Lincoln 'claired freedom in '63, first day of January. In
October '63, I runned away and went to Pine Bluff to get to the Yankees.
I was on the Blackwell plantation south of Pine Bluff in '63. They was
building a new house; I wanted to feel some putty in my hand. One early
morning I clim a ladder to get a little chunk and the overseer man, he
seed me. Here he come, yelling me to get down; he gwine whip me 'cause
I'se a thief, he say. He call a slave boy and tell him cut ten willer
whips; he gwine wear every one out on me. When he's gone to eat
breakfas', I runs to my cabin and tells my sister, "I'se leaving this
here place for good." She cry and say, "Overseer man, he kill you." I
says, "He kill me anyhow." The young boy what cut the whips--he named
Jerry--he come along wif me, and we wade the stream for long piece.
Heerd the hounds a-howling, getting ready for to chase after us. Then we
hide in dark woods. It was cold, frosty weather. Two days and two nights
we traveled. That boy, he so cold and hungry, he want to fall out by the
way, but I drug him on. When we gets to the Yankee camp all our troubles
was over. We gets all the contraband we could eat. Was they more
run-aways there? Oh, Lordy, yessum. Hundreds, I reckon. Yessum, the
Yankees feeds all them refugees on contraband. They made me a driver of
a team in the quatamasters department. I was always keerful to do
everything they telled me. They telled me I was free when I gets to the
Yankee camp, but I couldn't go outside much. Yessum, iffen you could get
to the Yankee's camp you was free right now.
That old story 'bout 40 acres and a mule, it make me laugh. Yessum, they
sure did tell us that, but I never knowed any pusson which got it. The
officers telled us we would all get slave pension. That just exactly
what they tell. They sure did tell me I would get a passel (parcel) of
ground to farm. Nothing ever hatched out of that, neither.
When I got to Pine Bluff I stayed contraband. When the battle come,
Captain Manly carried me down to the battle ground and I stay there till
fighting was over. I was a soldier that day. No'um, I didn't shoot no
gun nor cannon. I carried water from the river for to put out the fire
in the cotton bales what made the breas'works. Every time the 'Federates
shoot, the cotton, it come on fire; so after the battle, they transfer
me back to quartemaster for driver. Captain Dodridge was his name. I
served in Little Rock under Captain Haskell. I was swored in for during
the war (Boston held up his right hand and repeated the words of
allegiance). It was on the corner of Main and Markham street in Little
Rock I was swored in. Year of '64. I was 5 feet, 8 inches high. You says
did I like living in the army? Yes-sum, it was purty good. Iffen you
obeyed them Yankee officers they treated you purty good, but iffen you
didn't, they sure went rough on you.