firstes thing, I work on the railroad. They was just beginning to come
here. I digged pits out, going along front of where the tracks was to
go. How much I get? I get $1.00 a day. You axes me how it seem to earn
money? Lady, I felt like the richess man in the world! I boarded with a
white fambly. Always I was a watching for my slave pension to begin
coming. 'Fore I left the army my captain, he telled me to file. My file
number, it is 1,115,857. After I keeped them papers for so many years,
white and black folks bofe telled me it ain't never coming--my slave
pension--and I reckon the chilren tored up the papers. Lady, that number
for me is filed in Washington. Iffen you go there, see can you get my
pension.
After the railroad I went steamboating. First one was a little one; they
call her Fort Smith 'cause she go frum Little Rock to Fort Smith. It was
funny, too, her captain was name Smith. Captain Eugene Smith was his
name. He was good, but the mate was sure rough. What did I do on that
boat? Missy, was you ever on a river boat? Lordy, they's plenty to do.
Never is no time for rest. Load, onload, scrub. Just you do whatever you
is told to do and do it right now, and you'll keep outen trouble, on a
steamboat, or a railroad, or in the army, or wherever you is. That's
what I knows.
Yessum, I reckon they was right smart old masters what didn't want to
let they slaves go after freedom. They hated to turn them loose. Just
let them work on. Heap of them didn't know freedom come. I used to hear
tell how the govmint had to send soldiers away down in the far back
country to make them turn the slaves loose. I can't tell you how all
them free niggers was living; I was too busy looking out for myself.
Heaps of them went to farming. They was share croppers.
Yessum, miss, them Ku-Kluxers was turrible,--what they done to people.
Oh, God, they was bad. They come sneaking up and runned you outen your
house and take everything you had. They was rough on the women and
chilren. People all wanted to stay close by where soldiers was. I sure
knowed they was my friend.
Lady, lemme tell you the rest about when I runned away. After peace, I
got with my sister. She's the onliest of all my people I ever seed
again. She telled me she was skeered all that day, she couldn't work,
she shake so bad. She heerd overseer man getting ready to chase me and
Jerry. He saddle his horse, take his gun and pistol, bofe. He gwine kill
me en sight, but Jerry, he say he bring him back, dead er alive, tied to
his horse's tail. But he didn't get us, Ha, Ha, Ha. Yankees got us.
Now you wants to know about this voting business. I voted for Genral
Grant. Army men come around and registered you before voting time. It
wasn't no trouble to vote them days; white and black all voted together.
All you had to do was tell who you was vote for and they give you a
colored ticket. All the men up had different colored tickets. Iffen
you're voting for Grant, you get his color. It was easy. Yes Mam! Gol
'er mighty. They was colored men in office, plenty. Colored legislaturs,
and colored circuit clerks, and colored county clerks. They sure was
some big officers colored in them times. They was all my friends. This
here used to be a good county, but I tell you it sure is tough now. I
think it's wrong--exactly wrong that we can't vote now. The Jim Crow
lay, it put us out. The Constitution of the United States, it give us
the right to vote; it made us citizens, it did.
You just keeps on asking about me, lady. I ain't never been axed about
myself in my _whole_ life! Now you wants to know after railroading
and steamboating what. They was still work the Yankee army wanted done.
The war had been gone for long time. All over every place was bodies
buried. They was bringing them to Little Rock to put in Govmint
graveyard. They sent me all over the state to help bring them here.
Major Forsythe was my quartemaster then. After that was done, they put
me to work at St. John's hospital. The work I done there liked to ruin
me for life. I cleaned out the water closets. After a while I took down
sick from the work--the scent, you know--but I keep on till I get so for
gone I can't stay on my feets no more. A misery got me in the chest,
right here, and it been with me all through life; it with me now. I
filed for a pension on this ailment. I never did get it. The Govmint
never took care of me like it did some soldiers. They said I was not a
'listed man; that I was a employed man, so I couldn't get no pension.
But I filed, like they told me. I telled you my number, didnft I?
1,115,827, Boston Blackwell. I give my whole time to the Govmint for
many years. White and black bofe always telling me I should have a
pension. I stood on the battlefield just like other soldiers. My number
is in Washington. Major Forsythe was the one what signed it, right in
his office. I seed him write it.
Then what did I do? You always asking me that. I was low er long time.
When I finally get up I went to farming right here in Pulaski county.
Lordy, no, miss, I didn't buy no land. Nothing to buy with. I went share
cropping with a white man, Col. Baucum. You asking me what was the
shares? Worked on halvers. I done all the work and fed myself. No'um, I
wasn't married yit. I took the rheumatiz in my legs, and got short
winded. Then I was good for nothing but picking cotton. I kept on with
that till my eyes, they got so dim I couldn't see to pick the rows
clean. Heap o' times I needed medicine--heap o' times I needed lots of
things I never could get. Iffen I could of had some help when I been
sick, I mought not be so no account now. My daughter has taked keer of
me ever since I not been able to work no more.
I never did live in no town; always been a country nigger. I always
worked for white folks, nearly. Never mixed up in big crowds of colored;
stayed to myself. I never been arrested in my whole life; I never got
jailed for nothing. What else you want to know, Miss?
About these days, and the young folks! Well, I ain't saying about the
young folks; but they--no, I wouldn't say. (He eyed a boy working with a
saw.) Well, I will say, they don't believe in hard work. Iffen they can
make a living easy, they will. In old days, I was young and didn't have
nothing to worry about. These days you have to keep studying where you
going to get enough to eat.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Tayler
Person interviewed: Henry Blake
Rear of 1300 Scott Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 80, or more Occupation: Farming and junk, when able
[HW: Drove a "Horsepower Gin Wagon"]
"I was born March 16, 1863, they tell me. I was born in Arkansas right
down here on Tenth and Spring Streets in Little Rock. That was all woods
then. We children had to go in at night. You could hear the wolves and
the bears and things. We had to make a big fire at night to keep the
wolves and varmints away.
"My father was a skiffman. He used to cross the Arkansas River in a
ferry-boat. My father's name was Doc Blake. And my mother's name was
Hannah Williams before she morried.
"My father's mother's name was Susie somethin'; I done forgot. That is
too far back for me. My mother's mother was named Susie--Susie Williams.
"My father's master was named Jim Paty. My father was a slavery man. I
was too. I used to drive a horsepower gin wagon in slavery time. That
was at Pastoria Just this side of Pine Bluff--about three or four miles
this side. Paty had two places-one about four miles from Pine Bluff and
the other about four miles from England on the river.
"When I was driving that horsepower gin wagon. I was about seven or
eight years old. There wasn't nothin' hard about it. Just hitch the
mules to one another's tail and drive them 'round and 'round. There
wasn't no lines. Just hitch them to one another's tail and tell them to
git up. You'd pull a lever when you wanted them to stop. The mule wasn't
hard to manage.
"We ginned two or three bales of cotton a day. We ginned all the summer.
It would be June before we got that cotton all ginned. Cotton brought
thirty-five or forty cents a pound then.
"I was treated nicely. My father and mother were too. Others were not
treated so well. But you know how Negroes is. They would slip off and go
out. If they caught them, he would put them in a log hut they had for a
jail. If you wanted to be with a woman, you would have to go to your
boss man and ask him and he would let you go.
"My daddy was sold for five hundred dollars--put on the block, up on a
stump--they called it a block. Jim Paty sold him. I forget the name of
the man he was sold to--Watts, I think it was.
"After slavery we had to get in before night too. If you didn't, Ku Klux
would drive you in. They would come and visit you anyway. They had
something on that they could pour a lot of water in. They would seem to
be drinking the water and it would all be going in this thing. They was
gittin' it to water the horses with, and when they got away from you
they would stop and give it to the horses. When he got you good and
scared he would drive on away. They would whip you if they would catch
you out in the night time.
"My daddy had a horse they couldn't catch. It would run right away from
you. My daddy trained it so that it would run away from any one who
would come near it. He would take me up on that horse and we would sail
away. Those Ku Klux couldn't catch him. They never did catch him. They
caught many another one and whipped him. My daddy was a pretty mean man.
He carried a gun and he had shot two or three men. Those were bad times.
I got scared to go out with him. I hated that business. But directly it
got over with. It got over with when a lot of the Ku Klux was killed up.
"In slavery time they would raise children just like you would raise
colts to a mare or calves to a cow or pigs to a sow. It was just a
business It was a bad thing. But it was better than the county farm.
They didn't whip you if you worked. Out there at the county farm, they
bust you open. They bust you up till you can't work. There's a lot of
people down at the state farm at Cummins--that's where the farm is ain't
it--that's raw and bloody. They wouldn't let you come down there and
write no history. No Lawd! You better not try it. One half the world
don't know how the other half lives. I'll tell you one thing, if those
Catholics could get control there would be a good time all over this
world. The Catholics are good folks.
"That gang that got after you if you let the sun go down while you were
out--that's called the Pateroles. Some folks call 'em the Ku Klux. It
was all the same old poor white trash. They kept up that business for
about ten years after the War. They kept it up till folks began to kill
up a lot of 'em. That's the only thing that stopped them. My daddy used
to make his own bullets.
"I've forgot who it is that told us that we was free. Somebody come and
told us we're free now. I done forgot who it was.
"Right after the War, my father farmed a while and after that he pulled
a skiff. You know Jim Lawson's place. He stayed on it twenty years. He
stayed at the Ferguson place about ten years. They're adjoining places.
He stayed at the Churchill place. Widow Scott place, the Bojean place.
That's all. Have you been down in Argenta to the Roundhouse? Churchill's
place runs way down to there. It wasn't nothing but farms in Little Rock
then. The river road was the only one there at that time. It would take
a day to cone down from Clear Lake with the cotton. You would start
'round about midnight and you would get to Argenta at nine o'clock the
next morning. The roads was always bad.
"After freedom, we worked on shares a while. Then we rented. When we
worked on shares, we couldn't make nothing--Just overalls and something
to eat. Half went to the other man and you would destroy your half if
you weren't careful. A man that didn't know how to count would always
lose. He might lose anyhow. They didn't give no itemized statement. No,
you just had to take their word. They never give you no details. They
just say you owe so much. No matter how good account you kept, you had
to go by their account and now, Brother, I'm tellin' you the truth about
this. It's been that way for a long time. You had to take the white
man's work on notes and everything. Anything you wanted, you could git
if you were a good hand. You could git anything you wanted as long as
you worked. If you didn't make no money, that's all right; they would
advance you more. But you better not leave him--you better not try to
leave and get caught. They'd keep you in debt. They were sharp.
Christmas come, you could take up twenty dollars in somethin' to eat and
much as you wanted in whiskey. You could buy a gallon of whiskey.
Anything that kept you a slave because he was always right and you were
always wrong if there was difference. If there was an argument, he would
get mad and there would be a shooting take place.
"And you know how some Negroes is. Long as they could git somethin',
they didn't care. You see, if the white man came out behind, he would
feed you, let you have what you wanted. He'd just keep you on, help you
get on your feet--that is, if you were a good hand. But if you weren't a
good hand, he'd just let you have enough to keep you alive. A good hand
could take care of forty or fifty acres of land and would have a large
family. A good hand could git clothes, food, whiskey, whenever he wanted
it. My father had nine children and took care of them. Not all of them
by one wife. He was married twice. He was married to one in slavery time
and to another after the War. I was a child of the first one. I got a
sister still living down here in Galloway station that is mighty nigh
ninety years old. No, she must be a hundred. Her name is Frances
Dobbins. When you git ready to go down there, I'll tell you how to find
that place jus' like I told you how to fin' this one. Galloway is only
'bout four miles from Rose City.
"I been married twice in my life. My first woman, she died. The second
lady, she is still living. We dissolved friendship in 1913. Least-wise,
I walked out and give her my home. I used to own a home at twenty-first
and Pulaski.
"I belong to the Baptist Church at Wrightsville. I used to belong to
Arch Street. Was a deacon there for about twelve years. But they had too
much splittin' and goin' on and I got out. I'll tell you more sometime."
Interviewer's Comment
Henry Blake's age appears in excess of eighty. His idea of seventy-five
is based on what someone told him. He is certain that he drove a
"Horsepower Gin Wagon" during "slavery times", and that he was seven or
eight when he drove it. Even if that were in '65, he would be at least
eighty years old--seventy-three years since the War plus seven years of
his life. His manner of narration would indicate that he drove earlier.
The interview was held in a dark room, and for the first time in my life
I took notes without seeing the paper on which I was writing.
Interviewer: Mary D. Eudgins
Person Interviewed: Miss Adeline Blakeley Age: 87
Home: 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
There is no hint of elision in the speech of Adeline Blakeley, scarcely
a trace of vernacular. All of her life her associations have been with
white persons. She occupies a position, rare in post-slavery days, of
negro servant, confidant and friend. After the death of Mrs. Hudgins,
family intimates, wives of physicians, bankers' wives and other
Fayetteville dowagers continued periodically to come to see Adeline.
They came not in the spirit of Lady Bountifuls condescending to a
hireling, but because they wanted to chat with an old time friend.
Interviewer's note.
As told by:
Adeline Blakeley
"Honey, look in the bible to get the date when I was born. We want to
have it just right. Yes, here's the place, read it to me. July 10, 1850?
Yes, I remember now, that's what they've always told me. I wanted to be
sure, though. I was born in Hickman County, Tenn. and was about a year
when they brought me to Arkansas. My mother and her people had been
bought by Mr. John P. Parks when they were just children--John and
Leanna and Martha. I was the first little negro in the Parks kitchen.
From the first they made a pet out of me. I was little like a doll and
they treated me like a plaything--spoiled me--rotten.
After Mr. Parks came to Arkansas he lived near what is now Prarie Grove,
but what do you think it was called then--Hog Eye. Later on they named
it Hillingsley for a man who settled there. We were two miles out on the
Wire Road, the one the telegraph line came in on, Honey. Almost every
conmunity had a 'Wire Road'.
It was the custom to give a girl a slave when she was married. When Miss
Parks became Mrs. Blakeley she moved to Fayetteville and chose me to
take with her. She said since I was only 5 she could raise me as she
wanted me to be. But I must have been a lot of trouble and after she had
her baby she had to send me back to her father to grow up a little. For
you might say she had two babies to take care of since I was too little
to take care of hers. They sent a woman in my place.
Honey, when I got back, I was awful: I had been with the negroes down in
the country and said 'hit' and 'hain't' and words like that. Of course
all the children in the house took it up from me. Mrs. Blakeley had to
teach me to talk right. Your Aunt Nora was born while I was away. I was
too little to take full charge of her, but I could sit in a chair and
hold her on my lap.
Mrs. Blakeley taught her children at home. Her teaching was almost all
they had before they entered the University. When I was little I wanted
to learn, learn all I could, but there was a law against teaching a
slave to read and write. One woman--she was from the North did it
anyway. But when folks can read and write its going to be found out. It
was made pretty hard for that woman.
After the war they tried to get me to learn, but I tossed my head and
wouldn't let them teach me. I was about 15 and thought I was grown and
wouldn't need to know any more. Mary, it sounds funny, but if I had a
million dollars I would give it gladly to be able to read and write
letters to my friends.
I remember well when the war started. Mr. Blakeley, he was a cabinet
maker and not very well, was not considered strong enough to go. But if
the war had kept up much longer they would have called him. Mr. Parks
didn't believe in seceding. He held out as long as it was safe to do so.
If you didn't go with the popular side they called you 'abolitionist' or
maybe 'Submissionist'. But when Arkansas did go over he was loyal. He
had two sons and a son-in-law in the Confederate army. One fought at
Richmond and one was killed at Gettysburg.
The little Blakeley boy had always liked to play with the American flag.
He'd march with it and carry it out on the porch and hang it up. But
after the trouble began to brew his mother told him he would have to
stay in the house when he played with the flag. Even then somebody saw
him and scolded him and said 'Either burn it or wash it.' The child
thought they meant it and he tried to wash it. Dyes weren't so good in
those days and it ran terribly. It was the awfulest thing you ever saw.
Fayetteville suffered all thru the war. You see we were not very far
from the dividing line and both armies were about here a lot. The
Federals were in charge most of the time. They had a Post here, set up
breast works and fortified the square. The court house was in the middle
of it then. It was funny that there wasn't more real fighting about
here. There were several battles but they were more like
skirmishes--just a few men killed each time. They were terrible just the
same. At first they buried the Union soldiers where the Confederate
Cemetery is now. The Southerners were placed just anywhere. Later on
they moved the Northern caskets over to where the Federal Cemetery is
now and they took up the Southern men when they knew where to find them
and placed them over on the hill where they are today.
Once an officer came into our home and liked a table he saw, so he took
it. Mrs. Blakeley followed his horse as far as she could pleading with
him to give it back because her husband had made it. The next day a
neighbor returned it. He hod found it in the road and recognized it. The
man who stole it had been killed and dropped it as he fell.
Just before the Battle of Prairie Grove the Federal men came thru. Some
officers stopped and wanted us to cook for them. Paid us well, too. One
man took little Nora on his lap and almost cried. He said she reminded
him of his own little girl he'd maybe never see again. He gave her a
cute little ivory handled pen knife. He asked Mrs. Blakeley if he
couldn't leave his pistols with her until he came back thru
Fayetteville. She told him it was asking too much, what would happen to
her and her family if they found those weapons in her possession? But
he argued that it was only for a few days. She hid them under a tub in
the basement and after waiting a year gave them to her brother when he
came through. The Yankees met the Southerners at Prairie Grove. The
shots sounded just like popcorn from here in Fayetteville. We always
thought the man got killed there.
The soldiers camped all around everywhere. Lots of them were in tents
and some of the officers were in houses. They didn't burn the
college--where Miss Sawyer had taught, you know. The officers used it
for their living quarters. They built barracks for the men of upright
logs. See that building across the street. It's been lots of things, a
livery stable, veterinary barn, apartment house. But it was one of the
oldest buildings in Arkansas. They've kept on remodeling it. The Yankees
made a commissary out of it. Later on they moved the food up on the
square and used it for a hospital. I can remember lots of times seeing
the feet of dead men sticking out of the windows.
Your Aunt Nora's mother saved that building from being burned. How did
it happen? Well you see both sides were firing buildings--the
Confederates to keep the Yankees from getting them, and the other way
about. But the Southerners did most of the burning. Mrs. Blakeley's
little boy was sick with fever. She and a friend went up, because they
feared burnings. They sat there almost all night. Parties of men would
come along and they would plead with them. One sat in one doorway and
the other in the building next. Mrs. Blakely was a Southerner, the other
woman a Northerner. Between them they kept the buildings from being
burned: saved their own homes thereby and possibly the life of the
little sick boy.
It was like that in Fayetteville. There were so many folks on both sides
and they lived so close together that they got to know one another and
were friends. Things like this would happen. One day a northern officer
came over to our house to talk to his wife who was visiting. He said he
would be away all day. He was to go down to Prarie Grove to get 'Old Man
Parks, dead or alive'. Not until he was on his way did somebody tell him
that he was talking about the father of his wife's hostess. Next day he
came over to apologize. Said he never would have made such a cruel
remark if he had known. But he didn't find his man. As the officers went
in the front door, Mr. Parks went out of the back and the women
surrounded him until he got away.
There was another time when the North and South took refuge together.
During the war even the little children were taught to listen for bugle
calls and know what they meant. We had to know--and how to act when we
heard them. One day, I remember we were to have peas for dinner, with
ham hock and corn bread. I was hungry that day and everything smelled so
good. But just as the peas were part of them out of the pot and in a
dish on the table the signal came 'To Arms'. Cannon followed almost
immediately. We all ran for the cellar, leaving the food as it was.
The cellar was dug out only a little way down. It had been raining and
snowing all day--melted as it fell. It was about noon and the seep water
had filled a pool in the middle of the cellar. They placed a tub in the
water and it floated like a little boat. They put Nora and a little girl
who was visiting her, and me in it. The grown folks clung to the damp
sides of the cellar floor and wall. After the worst bombing was over we
heard someone upstairs in the house calling. It was the wife of a
Northern officer. He had gotten away so fast he had forgotten his
pistols. She had tried to follow him, but the shots had frightened her.
We called to her to come to the basement. She came, but in trying to
climb up the slick sides she slid down and almost into our tub. She
looked so funny with her big fat legs that I giggled. Mrs. Blakeley
slapped me--it was one of the few times she struck me. I was glad she
did, for I would have laughed out. And it didn't do to laugh at
Northerners.
It wes night before the fighting was over. An old man who was in the
basement with us went upstairs because he heard someone groan. Sure
enough a wounded man had dragged himself to our door. He laid the man,
almost fainting down before the fireplace. It was all he could do. The
man died. When we finally came up there wasn't a pea, nor a bit of ham,
not a crum of cornbread. Floaters had cleaned the pot until it shone.