Lordy, Lordy' like they used to, some Yankee soldiers stationed nearby
tied ropes across the road and killed about twenty-five of the horses
and broke legs and arms of about ten or fifteen. They never used the
ridge any more after that.
Parents
"My father's master was Shep Pope and his wife was named Julia Pope. I
can't remember where my father was born but my mother was born in
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. I don't know the names of my grandfather and
grandmother on either side.
Slave Houses
"The old slave house was a log house built out of hewed logs. The logs
were scalped on each side to give it the appearance of a box house. And
they said the logs would fit together better, too. They would chink up
the cracks with grass and dirt--what they called 'dob'. That is what
they called chinking to keep the wind and rain out.
"I was born in a one-room hut with a clapboard room on one side for the
kitchen and storeroom. They would go out in the woods and split out the
clapboards. My mother had eight of we children in that room at one time.
Furniture
"As to furniture, well, we had benches for chairs. They were made out of
punching four holes in a board and putting sticks in there for legs.
That is what we sat on. Tables generally were nailed up with two legs
out and with the wall to support the other side. The beds were made in a
corner with one leg out and the two walls supporting the other sides.
They called that bed the 'Georgia Horse'. We had an old cupboard made up
in a corner.
Food
"Food was generally kept in the old cupboard my mother had. When she had
too much for the cupboard, she put it in an old chist.
Right After the War
"My mother had eight children to feed. After the emancipation she had to
hustle for all of them. She would go up to work--pick cotton, pull corn,
or what not, and when she came home at night she had on old dog she
called 'Coldy'. She would go out and say, 'Coldy, Coldy, put him up.'
And a little later, we would hear Coldy bark and she would go out and
Coldy would have something treed. And she would take whatever he
had-'possum, coon, or what not-and she would cook it, and we would have
it for breakfast the next morning.
"Mother used to go out on neighboring farms and they would give her the
scraps when they killed hogs and so on. One night she was coming home
with some meat when she was attacked by wolves. Old Coldy was along and
a little yellow dog. The dogs fought the wolves and while they were
fighting, she slipped home. Next morning old Coldy showed up cut almost
in two where the wolves had bitten him. We bandaged him up and took care
of him. And he lived for two or more years. The little yellow dog never
did show up no more. Mother said that the wolves must have killed and
eaten him.
Schooling
"I put in about one month schooling when I was a boy about six or seven
years old. Then I moved into St. Francis County and went two weeks to a
subscription school a few miles below Forrest City. Later I went back
and took the examination in Cross County and passed it, and taught for a
year. I got the bulk of my education by lamp light reading. I have done
some studying in other places--three years in Shorter College where I
got the degreee of B.D. and D.D. at the age of fifty-five. I have
preached for fifty-seven years and actually pastored for forty-four
years. I followed farming in my early days. When I first married my
wife, we farmed there for ten or twelve years before I entered the
ministry. I have been married fifty-seven years.
Marriage
"I was married January 15, 1882. I am now in the fifty-seventh year of
marriage. My wife was named Mary Ellen Stubbs. She was from Baldwyn,
Mississippi. They moved from Mississippi about the winter of 1880 and
they made one crop in Arkansas before we married. They stopped in our
county and attended our church. I met her in that way. The most
remarkable thing was that during the time I was acquainted with her our
pastor became incapacitated and I took charge of the church. I ran a
revival and she was converted during the revival. But she joined the
C.M.E. Church. I belong to the A.M.E.
Slave Sales
"I remember my mother carrying the children from the Bill Neely place to
the Pope place. That Saturday evening after we got there, there came
along some slave traders. They had with them as I remember some ten or
twelve boys and girls and some old folks that were able to work. They
had them chained. I asked my mother what they were going to do with them
and she said they were carrying them to Louisiana to work on a cane
farm. One boy cried a lot. The next morning they put those slaves in the
road and drove them down to Wittsbarg the same as you would drive a
drove of cattle, Wittsburg was where they caught the boat to go down to
Louisiana. That was the best mode of travel in those days.
Opinions
"In a few words, my opinion of the present is that our existence as
Democrats and Republicans is about played out.
"If Mr. Roosevelt is elected for a third term, I think we will go into a
dictatorship just as Russia, Germany, and Italy have already done. I
think we are nearer to that now than we heve ever been before. I do not
think that Mr. Roosevelt will become a dictator, but I do believe that
his being elected a third time will cause some one else to become
dictator. My opinion is that he is neither Democrat nor Republican.
"Our young people are advancing from a literary point of view, but I
claim that they are losing out along moral lines. I don't believe that
we value morals as well as the people did years ago who didn't know so
much. I believe that the whole nation, white and black, is losing moral
stamina. They do not think it is bad to kill a man, take another man's
wife or rob a bank, or anything else. They desecrate the churches by
carrying anything into the church. There is no sacred place now.
Carnivals and everything else are carried to the church.
"If Mr. Roosevelt is not reelected again, the country is going to have
one of the bloodiest wars it has ever had because we have so many
European doctrines coming into the United States. I have been living
seventy-eight years, and I never thought that I would live to see the
day when the government would reach out and take hold of things like it
has done--the WPA, the FERA, and the RFC, and other work going on today.
We are headed for communism and we are going to get in a bloody war.
There are hundreds of men going 'round who believe in communism but who
don't want it to be known now."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Maggie Broyles. Forrest City. Arkansas
Age: About 80?
"I was born in Decatur, Tennessee. Mother was sold on the block at
public auction in St. Louis. Master Bob Young bought a boy and a girl.
My father was a full-blood Irishman. His name was Lassiter. She didn't
have no more children by him. He was hired help on Bob Young's place.
"Bob Young had one thousand five hundred acres of land. He had several
farms. Little Hill and Creek farms. They had a rock walk from the
kitchen to the house. I slept in a little trunnel bed under my mother's
mistress' bed. The bed was corded and had a crank. They used no slats in
them days. We called Master Bob Young's wife Miss Nippy; her name was
Par/nel/i/py. They was good old people. His boys was rough. They drunk
and wasted the property.
"The white folks had feather beds and the slaves had grass beds. We'd
pull grass and cure it. It made a'good bed. Miss Nippy learnt us to
work. I know how to do near 'bout anything now. She kept an ash hopper
dripping all the time. We made all our soap and lye hominy by the
washpots full. Mother cooked and washed and kept house. She took the
lead wid the house-work. Miss Nippy ride off when she got ready. Mother
went right on wid the work. I took care of the chickens and took the
cows to the pasture. I helped to wash clothes. I stood on a block to
turn meat. We had a brick stove and a grill to fry meat on. We had good
clothes and good to eat. After I was grown I'd go back to see Miss
Nippy. She raised me. She say, 'I thought so much of your mama. I love
you. I hope you live a long time.' Mama had a hard time and Miss Nippy
knowd all about it.
"After Bob Young bought mother he went back and bought Aunt Sarah. They
growed up together. They could dance with a glass of water on their
heads and never spill a drap.
"Ma said when she married they had a corn shucking and a big dinner four
o'clock in the morning. Her name was Luiza. She had two children by him.
Aunt Jane on Welches place took him away from her. He quit mother cold
to go wid her. After freedom she married Ben Pitts. The way she married
at the corn shucking, they jumped over the broom back'ards and Master
Bob Young 'nounced it. She was killed no time after freedom, but she had
had six children. Miss Nippy kept me. She was good to me and trained me
to read. We all never left after freedom. I never left till I was good
and grown.
"I always thought Master Bob Young buried his money during the War.
Children wasn't allowed to watch and ask questions. I was standing in
the chimney corner and seen him bury a box of something in the flower
garden. I was in Miss Nippy's room. I never did know if it was money or
what. He had a old yaller dog followed him all the time. Truman was a
speckled dog set about on the front porch to bark.
"Sam, the boy that was bought when I was in St. Louis, was hard to
control. Bob Young beat him. He died. They said he killed him. They
buried him in the white folks' cemetery.
"They celebrated Christmas visiting and big parties. We would have
eggnog and ten or fifteen cakes. Master Bob Young was a consumptive. He
had it thirty-five years. They all died out with it. They kept a big ten
or fifteen gallon demijohn with willow woven around the bottom full of
whiskey, all the time upstairs. They kept the door locked.
"I stole miny ah drink. Find the door unlocked. I got too much one time.
It made me sick. I thought I had a chill. She thought I been upstairs.
They was particular with the children, both black and white then. They
put the children to bed by sundown and they would set around the fire
and talk. She raised Elnora and the baby Altona after mother got killed.
She give them good clothes and good to eat. Their papa took the boy. He
left after mother got killed. We took a pride in the place like it was
our own. We didn't know but what it was our very own.
"We had a acre in garden. We raised everything. We had three or four
thousand pounds of meat and three cribs of corn. I ketched it when I
left them. I made thirty-three crops in my life. My children all grown
and gone. My son-in-law died. He had dropsy eight months. He had a dead
liver. I've wanted since he died. I've had a hard time since he died. He
was a worker and so good to us all.
"Mother worked with a white woman. Mother was full-blood Indian herself.
The woman's husband got to dealing with his daughter. She had three
babies in all. They said they put them up in the ceiling, up in a loft.
This old man got mad with Bob Young and burnt his gin. Mother seen him
slipping around. They ask her but she wouldn't tell on him, for she
didn't see him set it on fire. They measured the tracks. He got scared
mother would tell on him. One night a colored man on the place come
over. Her husband was gone somewhere and hadn't got home. She was
cooking supper. They heard somebody but thought it was a pig come
around. Hogs run out all time. The step was a big limestone rock. She
opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood
it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So
she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the
side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there
and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge
of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move.
The moon come up. I couldn't get her on the bed. I put a pillow under
her head and a quilt over her, but I didn't think she was dead. The baby
cried in the night. I was so scared I put the eight-months-old baby down
under there to nurse. It nursed. She was dead then, I think now. When
four o'clock come it was daylight. The little brother said, 'I know
what's the matter, our mama's dead.' I went up to Mr. Bob Young's. He
brought the coroners. I was so young I was afraid they was going to take
us to jail. I asked little brother what they said they was going to do.
He said, 'They are going to bury mama in a heep (deep) hole. They set
out after her husband and chased him clear off. They thought he shot her
by him not coming home that night and her cooking supper for him.
"This white man left and went to Texas. His wife said the best woman in
Decatur had been killed. They put him on the gallows for killing his
daughter's babies, three of them and put them in the loft. He told how
he killed mother. He had murdered four. He was afraid mother would tell
about him. She knowd so much. She didn't tell. Indians don't tell. She
was with his girl when the first baby was born, but she thought it died
and she thought the girl come home visiting, so his wife said she had
told her to keep her from telling. It was a bad disgrace. His wife was a
good, humble, kind woman.
"Master Bob Young sent for Ben Pitts after they'd run him off, and he
let him have his pick of us. He took the boy and lived on the place. Her
other husband come and got his two children. Miss Nippy took our baby
girl and the other little girl. I was raised up at her house, so she
kept me on. Kept us all till we married off.
"I'd feel foolish to go try to vote. I'm too old now.
"I don't get help from the government yet. We are having a hard time to
scratch around and not go hungry."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ida Bryant, Hazea. Arkansas
(Very very black Negro woman)
Age: 61
"My mother was Hulda Williams. Grandpa was Jack Williams. Her mistress
was a widow woman in slavery times. They lived in Louisiana. I was born
close to Bastrop in Morehouse Parish. My father died when I was ten
years old. He was old. I was a child. Things look different to you then
you know. Grandpa was Hansen Terry, grandma Aggie Terry. They called pa
Major Terry but he belong to Bill Talbot. Hansen Terry was a free man.
_He molded his own money._ He died in South Carolina. Pa come from
Edgefield, South Carolina to Alabama. Stayed there awhile then come on
to Louisiana. He slipped off from his master. Between South Carolina and
Louisiana he walked forty miles. He rode all the other time. My folks
always farmed.
"Times have been getting some better all along since I was a chile.
Times is a heap better now than I ever seen in my life. The young men
depends on their wives to cook and make a living. They don't work
much--none of em. We old niggers doin' the wash in' and the young women
doin' cookin' and easy jobs. None of the men ain't workin' to do no
good! A few months in the year ain't no workin'.
"I get commodities. I owns this house now. I bout paid it out. I washes
three washin's a week. The rest of the time I pieces up quilts for
myself. I need cover."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Belle Buntin, Marianne, Arkansas
Age: Up in 80's
"I never was sold. I was born in Oakland, Mississippi. My master said he
wanted all he raised. He never sold one. He bought my mother in
Lexington County. She was a field hand. Our owners was Master Johnson
Buntin and Mistress Sue Buntin. They had two children--Bob and Fannie.
He had a big plantation and four families of slaves. Charlotte was the
cook. Myra worked at the house and in the field. He had seven little
colored boys and two little colored girls. I spent most of my time up at
the house playing with Bob and Fannie. When mistress whooped one she
whooped all three. She would whoop us for stealing her riding horse out.
We would bridle it and all three ride and ride. We got several whoopings
about that.
"I have seen colored folks sold at Oakland. They had a block and nigger
traders come. One trader would go and see a fine baby. He keep on till
he got it. I've seen them take babies from the mother's arm and if the
mother dare cry, they would git a beatin'. They look like they bust over
their grief.
"If you was out after seven o'clock the patrollers git you. They would
beat and take you home. Some masters say to them, 'You done right,' and
some say, 'You bring my hands home; I'll whoop them myself.'
"The patrollers caught one of Gaddises women and whooped her awful for
coming to town on Sunday. I never did know why she went to town that
way.
"That selling was awful and crowds come to see how they sell. They acted
like it was a picnic. Some women was always there, come with their
husbands. Some women sold slaves and some bought them.
"I never did see none sell naked. I seen men took from their wives and
mothers and children. Let me tell you they didn't have no squalling
around or they would get took off and a beating.
"Master Alex Buntin was Dr. Buntin. He said, 'I worked like one of my
slaves and bought my slaves with what I made and I am not going to have
them 'bused by the patrollers. George and Kit and Johnson was his
cousins. Kit wasn't so good to his slaves.
"It was my job to brush the flies off the table. I had a fly brush. I
would eat out of Bob's and Fannie's plates. Miss Sue say, 'Bell, I'm
going to whoop you.' I say, 'Miss Sue, please don't, I'm hungry too.'
She say, 'You stop playing and eat first next time.' Then she'd put some
more on their plates. We sat on a bench at the table. We et the same the
white folks did all cooked up together.
"One time Dr. Buntin got awful mad. The dogs found some whiskey in a
cave one of his slaves had hid there. They would steal and hide it in a
cave. He got a beating and they washed it in salt water to keep them
from getting sore and stiff.
"Some folks kept dogs trained to hunt runaway niggers. They was fat, and
you better not hit one or hurt it if it did bite or you would git a
awful beating.
"Master Alex was a legislator. He had to leave when the Yankees come
through. They killed all the legislators. I loved him. He run a store
and we three children went to the store to see him nearly every day. He
took us all three on his knees at the some time. I loved him. When he
was gone, I said, 'Miss Sue, where is Master Alex?' She say, 'Maybe he
be back pretty soon.' While he was gone they had a battle in a little
skirt of woods close by. We hung to Miss Sue's skirt tail. I seen the
Yankees run by on horses and some walking. Mr. Jordan, a southern
soldier, was shot in his ribs. Mr. Buford was shot in his knee. Some of
the other southern soldiers drug them up to our house. Miss Sue nursed
them. I think they got well and went home.
"Three days before Master Alex left they sent all the stock off and put
the turkeys and geese under the house, and chickens too. It was dark so
they kept pretty quiet. When the Yankees got there they stripped the
smoke-house. We had a lots of meat and they busted the storehouse open
and strowed (strewed) meat and flour all along the road. They hired
Mammy (Charlotte) to cook a big meal for them. She told the man she was
'fraid Miss Sue whoop her. He said, 'Whooping time near 'bout out.' He
asked her 'bout some chickens but she wasn't goin' to tell him 'cause it
was her living too for them to waste up. They never found the geese,
turkeys, and chickens. They rambled all through the house looking for
Master Alex and went through every drawer and closet upstairs and down.
It was scandalous. They had Miss Sue walking and crying and us three
children clinging to her skirt tail scared to death and crying too. When
they left, the big lieutenant rode off ahead on a fine gray horse. They
come back when we just got the table sot and et every crumb of our
dinner. They was a lively gang. I hate 'em. I was hungry. Rations was
scarce. They wasted the best we had. Master Alex hod three stores and he
kept the middle one.
Freedom
"Mistress told all Master Alex's slaves they had been freed. The men all
left. My mother left and took me. I got mad and went back and lived
there till I married. Master Alex come back after two weeks. My mother
soon died after the surrender. She died at Batesville, Mississippi. Lots
of the slaves died. Their change of living killed lots of 'em. My father
lived on Sam Bronoy's (Branough's) place. Master Alex wanted to buy him
but he took him on to Texas before I was born. I never did see him.
"I been farming, cooking, wash and iron along. I been in Arkansas twelve
or fourteen years.
"How am I supported? I'm not much supported. My boy don't have work much
of the time. I don't get the pension. I trusts in the Lord. I belong to
New Bethel Baptist Church down here.
"Times--I don't know what to think. My race is the under folks and I
don't never say nothing to harm 'em. I'm one of 'em. Times is hardest in
my life. I have to sit. I can't walk a step--creeping paralysis."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Parson interviewed: Jeff Burgess, Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: Born in 1664 or 1865, forgot which
"I was born in Granville, Texas. My master was Strathers Burgess and
mistress Polly Burgess. My master died 'fore I was born. He died on the
way to Texas, trying to save his slaves. Keep them from leaving him and
from going into the war. They didn't want to fight. His son was killed
in the war. My folks didn't know they was free till three years after
the war was over. They come back to Caloche Bay, the old home place.
There was a bureau at De Valls Bluff. They had to let the slaves go and
they was citizens then. My folks wasn't very anxious to leave the white
owners because times was so funny and they didn't have nowhere to go.
The courts was torn up powerful here in Arkansas.
"Heap of meanness going on right after the war. One man tell you do this
and another man say you better not do that you sho get in trouble. It
was hard to go straight. They said our master was a good man but awful
rough wid his slaves and the hands overseeing too. Guess he was rough
wid his family too.
"Times is hard with me, I gits $10 pension every month. I got no home
now. I got me three hogs. I lives three miles from here (Clarendon).
"If I wasn't so old and no account I'd think the times the best ever.
It's bad when you get old. I jess sees the young folks. I don't know
much about them. Seems lack they talk a lot of foolish chat to me. I got
a lot and a half in town. They tore down my house and toted it off for
fire wood. It was rented. Then they moved out and wouldn't pay no rent.
They kept doing that way. I never had a farm of my own.
"I was good with a saw and axe. I cleared land and farmed. Once I worked
on the railroad they was building. I drove pile mostly. Farming is the
best job and the best place to make a living. I found out that myself."
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Norman Burkes
2305 West Eleventh Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I didn't quite make slavery. Me and freedom came here together.
"I was born in Union County, Arkansas. My mother was born in Virginia
and my father was an Alabamian.
"I've heered 'em say how they done in slavery times. Whupped 'em and
worked 'em and didn't feed 'em much. Said they'd average about three
pounds of meat a week and a peck of meal, a half gallon of molasses.
That was allowed the hands for a week. No sugar and no coffee. And
they'd issue flour on Saturday so they could have Sunday morning
biscuits.
"My father was sold to Virginia and he and my mother was married there
and they moved with their white people here to Arkansas.
"They called their owner old Master. Yes'm, I can remember him. Many
times as he whipped me I ought to remember him. I never will forget that
old man. They claimed he was pretty good to 'em. He didn't whup 'em
much, I don't think.
"If my mother was livin' she could tell you everything about Virginia.
She was one hundred and two when she died. My folks is long livers.
"My oldest brother was sold in Virginia and shipped down into Texas
about ten years before I was born and I ain't never seen him.
"They sold wives from their husbands and children from their parents and
they couldn't help it. Just like this war business. Come and draft 'em
and they couldn't help it.
"I think the way things is now, they're goin to build up another war."
Extra Comment
I was interviewing this man on the front porch and at this point, he got
up and went into the house, so the interview was ended as far as he was
concerned.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertaon
Person interviewed: Will Burks, Sr.
Pine City, Ark.--5 mi. from Holly Grove
Age: 75