"I keeps up my own self all I can. I don't get help."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Iran Nelson 603 E. Fourteenth Ave., Pine Bluff, Ark. Age: 77

"Yes ma'm, they fotch me from Mississippi to Arkansas on the steamboat—you know they didn't have railroads then. They fotch my mother and they went back after grandfather and grandmother too.

"Dr. Noell was our master and he had us under mortgage to his brother-in-law. They fotched us here till he could get straight from that debt, but fore that could be, we got free.

"I knowed slavery times. I member seem' em lash some of the rest but you know I wasn't big enough to put in the fields. Old mistress say when I got big enough, she goin' take me for a house girl. When they fotched mama and grandmother here they had eighty some odd head of niggers. They was gwine carry em back home after they got that mortgage paid but the war come.

"I member when the Yankees come, my white folks would run and hide and hide us colored folks too. Boss man had the colored folks get all the meat out of the smokehouse and hide it in the peach orchard in the grass.

"I used to play with old mistress daughter Addie. We would play in the parlor and after we moved to town some of the little girls would pick up and go home. You know these town folks didn't believe in playin' with the colored folks.

"After mama was free she stayed right there on the place and made a crop. Raised eight hundred bales and the average was nine. Mama plowed and hoed too. I had to work right with her too.

"I never went to school but once. I learned my ABC's but couldn't read. My next ABC's was a hoe in my hand. Mama had a switch right under her belt. I worked but I couldn't keep up. Just seein' that switch was enough. I had a pretty good time when I was young, but I had to go all the time."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: James Henry Nelson 1103 Orange, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 82 Occupation: Gardener

"I member all about the war—why of cose. I saddled many a cavalry hoss. I tell you how I know how old I am. Old master, Henry Stanley of Athens, Alabama, moved to Palaski, Tennessee and left me with young mistress to take care of things. One day we was drivin' up some stock and I said, 'Miss Nannie, how old is you?' And she said, 'I'm seventeen.' I was old enough to have the knowledge she would know how old I was and I said, 'How old am I?' And she said, 'You is seven years old.' That was durin' the war.

"I remember the soldiers comin' and stoppin' at our building—Yankees and Southern soldiers, too. They fit all around our plantation.

"The Yankees taken me when I was a little fellow. About two years after the war started, young Marse Henry went to war and took a colored man with him but he ran away—he wouldn't stay with the Rebel army. So young Marse Henry took me. I reckon I was bout ten. I know I was big enough to saddle a cavalry hoss. We carried three horses—his hoss, my hoss and a pack hoss. You know chillun them days, they made em do a man's work. I studied bout my mother durin' the war, so they let me go home.

"One day I went to mill. They didn't low the chillun to lay around, and while I was at the mill a Yankee soldier ridin' a white hoss captured me and took me to Pulaski, Tennessee and then I was in the Yankee army. I wasn't no size and I don't think he would a took me if it hadn't been for the hoss.

"We come back to Athens and the Rebels captured the whole army. Colonel Camp was in charge and General Forrest captured us and I was carried south. We was marchin' along the line and a Rebel soldier said, 'Don't you want to go home and stay with my wife?' And so I went there, to Millville, Alabama. Then he bound me to a friend of his and I stayed there till the war bout ended. I was getting along very well but a older boy 'suaded me to run away to Decatur, Alabama.

"Oh I seen lots of the war. Bof sides was good to me. I've seen many a scout. The captain would say 'By G——, close the ranks.' Captains is right crabbed. I stayed back with the hosses.

"After the war I worked about for this one and that one. Some paid me and some didn't.

"I can remember back to Breckenridge; and I can remember hearin' em say 'Hurrah for Buchanan!' I'm just tellin' you to show how fur back I can remember. I used to have a book with a picture of Abraham Lincoln with an axe on his shoulder and a picture of that log cabin, but somebody stole my book.

"I worked for whoever would take me—I had no mother then. If I had had parents to make me go to school, but I got along very well. The white folks taught me not to have no bad talk. They's all dead now and if they wasn't I'd be with them.

"I'm a natural born farmer—that's all I know. The big overflow drownded me out and my wife died with pellagra in '87. She was a good woman and nice to white folks. I'm just a bachin' here now. I did stay with my daughter but she is mean to me, so I just picked up my rags and moved into this room where I can live in peace. I'm a christian man, and I can't live right with her. When colored folks is mean, they's meaner than white folks.

"I'm gettin' along very well now. I been with white folks all my day—and it's hard for me to get along with my folks.

"In one way the world is crueler than they used to be. They don't appreciate things like they used to. They have no feelin's and don't care nothin' bout the olden people.

"Well, good-bye, I'm proud of you."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Nelson, Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 76

"My parents was Jazz Nelson and Mahaney Nelson. He come from Louisiana durin' slavery. She come from Richmond, Virginia. I think from what they said he come to Louisiana from there too. They was plain field hands.

"My folks belong to Miss Mary Ann Richardson and Massa Harve Richardson. They had five children and every one dead now. They lived at Duncan Station.

"The white folks told em they was free. They had no place to go and they been workin' the crop. White folks glad for em to stay and work on. And the truth is they was glad to git to stay on cause they had no place to go. They kept stayin' on a long time.

"I was so small I don't know if the Ku Klux ever did come bout our place at tall."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lettie Nelson St. Marys Street, Helena, Arkansas Age: 55 or 56?

"Grandma was Patsy Smith. She said in slavery they had a certain amount of cotton to pick. If they didn't have that amount they would put their heads between the rails of the fences and whoop them. They whooped them in the ebenin' when they weighed up the cotton. Grandma was raised in Virginia. She was light. Mama was light. They was carried from Virginia to Louisiana in wagons. They found clothes along the road people had lost. She said several bundles of good clothes. They thought they had dropped off of wagons ahead of them. They washed and wore the clothes. Some of 'em fit so they wore them. Mama left her husband and brother in Virginia. Ed Smith was her second husband. He was a light man. My grandpa was a field man. I never heard if grandpa was sold. Jimmie Stansberry was the man that bought or brought mama and grandma to Louisiana. Mama cooked and worked in the field both. Grandma did too. She cooked in Louisiana more than mama. They belong to Lou and Jimmie Stansberry and they had two boys. They lived close to Minden, Louisiana. I don't know so much about my parents and grandma talked but we didn't pay enough attention to remember it all. She was old and got things confused.

"They was glad when freedom come but they lived on with Jimmie Stansberry. I remember them. Grandma raised me after my parents died. Then she lived with me till she died. She was awful old when she died. They would talk about how different Virginia and Louisiana was. It took them a long time to make that trip."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mattie Nelson 710 E. Fourth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 72

"I was born in Chicot County, Arkansas in '65. They said I was born on the roadside while we was on our way here from Texas. They had to camp they said. Some people called it emigrate. Now that's the straightest way I can tell it.

"Our mistress and master was named Chapman. I member when I was a child mistress used to be so good to us. After surrender my parents stayed right on there with the Chapmans, stayed right on the place till they died.

"My mudder and pappy neither one of em could read or write, but I went to school. I always was apt. I am now. I always was one to work—yes ma'm—rolled logs, hope clean up new ground—yes ma'm. When we was totin' logs, I'd say, "Put the big end on me" but they'd say, "No, you're a woman." Yes ma'm I been here a long time. I do believe in stirrin' work for your livin', yes ma'm, that's what I believe in.

"I been workin' ever since I was six years old. My daughter was just like me—she had a gift, but she died. I seen all my folks die and that lets me know I got to die too.

"White folks used to come along in buggies, and hoss back too, and stop and watch me plow. Seem like the hotter the sun was the better I liked it.

"Yes ma'm, I done all kinds a work and I feels it now, too."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dan Newborn 1000 Louisiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born in 1860. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee. I suppose it was in the country.

"Solomon Walton was my mother's owner and my father belonged to the Newborns. My grandmother belonged to the Buggs in Richmond, Virginia and she was sold to the Waltons. When my mother died in '65 my grandmother raised me. After she was freed she went to the Powell Clayton place. Her daughter lived there and she sent up the river and got her. I went too. Me and two more boys.

"I never went to school but about thirty days. Hardly learned my alphabet.

"In '66, my grandmother bound two of us to Powell Clayton for our 'vittils' and clothes and schoolin', but I didn't get no schoolin'. I waited in the house. Stayed there three years, then we come back to the Walton place.

"My grandmother said the Waltons treated her mean. Beat her on the head and that was part of her death. Every spring her head would run. She said they didn't get much of somethin' to eat.

"I was married 'fore my grandmother died—to this wife that died two months ago. We stayed together fifty-seven years.

"To my idea, this younger generation is too wild—not near as settled as when I was comin' up. They used to obey. Why, I slept in the bed with my grandmother till I was married. She whipped me the day before I was married. It was 'cause I had disobeyed her. Children will resist their mothers now.

"I think the colored people is better off now 'cause they got more privilege, but the way some of 'em use their privilege, I think they ought to be slaves.

"My grandmother taught me not to steal. My white folks here have trusted me with two and three hundred dollars. I don't want nothin' in the world but mine.

"I been workin' here for Fox Brothers thirty-eight years and they'll tell you there's not a black mark against me.

"I used to be a mortar maker and used to sample cotton. Then I worked at the Cotton Belt Shops eight years.

"I've bought me a home that cost $780.

"I don't mind tellin' about myself 'cause I've been honest and you can go up the river and get my record.

"Out of all due respect to everybody, the Yankees is the ones I like.

"Vote? Oh yes, Republican ticket. I like Roosevelt's administration. If I could vote now, I'd vote for him. He has done a whole lot of good."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Sallie Newsom Brinkley, Ark. Age 75?

"Miss, I don't know my age, but I know I is old. I'm sick now.

"My grandma's mistress and mama's mistress and my mistress was Miss Jennie Brawner at Thomasville, Georgia. Me and my oldest sister was born in Atlanta. Then freedom come on. My own papa wanted mama to follow him to Mississippi. He had a wife there. She wouldn't go. She stayed on a while with Mr. Acy and Miss Jennie. They come from Virginia. Her name was Catherine.

"Grandma toted her big hoop dresses about and carried her trains up off the floor. Combed her long glossy hair. Mama was a house girl too, but then grandma took to the kitchen. She was the cook then.

"Old Miss Jennie wanted mama to give her my oldest sister Lulu, so mama gave her to her. Then when we started to come to Holly Grove, Mississippi, Miss Jennie still wanted her. Mama didn't want to part from her. She was married again and brought me but my aunts told mama to leave her there, she would have a good home and be educated, so she 'greed to leave her two years. She sent back for her at the end of two years; she wrote and didn't want to come. She was still at Miss Jennie's. I haben seen her from the day we left Atlanta till this very day. A woman, colored woman, was here in Brinkley once seen her. Said she was so fine and nice. Had nice soft skin and was well to do. I have wrote but my letters come back. I know Miss Jennie is dead, and my sister may be by now.

"My papa was Abe Brooks. His master was Mars Jonas Brooks. Old master give him to the young master. He was rich, rich, and traveled all time. His pa give him a servant. He cooked for him, drove his carriage—they called it a brake in them days—followed him to the hotels and bar-rooms. He drink and give him a dram. When he was freed he come to Mississippi with the Brooks to farm for them. I went to see my papa at Waterford, Miss.

"When we was at Holly Springs, Mississippi my cousin was a railroad man so he helped me run away. He paid my way. I come to Clarendon. I cooked, washed and ironed. In two or three years I went back to see mama. They was glad to see me. They had eight children.

"I couldn't guarantee you about the eight younger children, but there ain't a speck of no kind of blood about me and Lulu Violet but African. We are slick black Negroes. (She is very black, large and bony.)

"Miss Jennie Brawner had one son—Gus Brawner—and he may be living now in Atlanta.

"My uncle said he seen the Yankees come through Thomasville, Georgia. I never seen an army of them. I seen soldiers, plenty of em. None of the Brooks or Brawners went to war that I heard of. I was kept close and too young to know much of what happened. I heard about the Ku Klux but I never seen them.

"I know Miss Jennie Brawner come from Virginia but I don't brought grandma with her or bought her. She never did say.

"I don't vote. My husband voted, I don't know how he voted.

"Since I been sick, I get a check and commodities."



Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller Person interviewed: Pete Newton, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 83 [TR: 85?] Occupation: Farmer and day laborer

"My white folks was as good to me as they could be. I ain't got no kick to make about my white people. The boys was all brave. I was raised on the farm. I staid with my boss till I was nearly grown. When the war got so hot my boss was afraid the 'Feds' would get us. He sent my mammy to Texas and sent me in the army with Col. Bashom, to take care of his horses. I was about eleven or twelve years old. Col. Bashom was always good to me. He always found a place for me to sleep and eat. Sometimes after the colonel left the folks would run as off and not let me stay but I never told the colonel. I went to Boston, Texas with the colonel and his men and when he went on the big raid into Missouri he left me in Sevier County, Arkansas with his horses 'Little Baldy' and 'Orphan Boy'. They was race horses. The colonel always had race horses. He was killed at Pilot Knob, Missouri. After the colonel was killed his son George (I shore did think a lot of George) come after me and the horses and brough' us home.

"While I was in Arkadelphia with Col. Bashom's horses, I went down to the spring to water the horses. The artillery was there cleaning a big cannon they called 'Old Tom'. Of course I went up to watch them. One of the men saw me and hollered, 'Stick his head in the cannon.' It liked to scared me to death. I jumped on that race horse and run. I reconed I would have been killed but my uncle was there and saw me and stopped the horse.

"Another time we went to a place and me and another colored boy was taking care of the horses while our masters eat dinner. I saw some watermelons in the garden with a paling fence around it. I said if the other boy would pull a paling off I would crawl through and get us a watermelon. He did but the man who owned the place saw me just as I got the melon and whipped us and told us if we hollered he would kill us. We didn't holler and we never told Col. Bashom either.

"After the war my mammie come back from Texas and took me over to Dover to live but my old boss told her if she would let him have me he would raise and educate me like his own children. When I got back the old boss already had a boy so I went to live with one of his sons. He told me it was time for me to learn how to work. My boss was rough but he was good to me and taught me how to work. The old boss had five sons in the army and all was wounded except one. One of them was shot through and through in the battle of Oak Hill. He got a furlough and come back and died. I left my white folks in 1869 and went to farming for myself up in Hartman bottom. I married when I was about seventeen years old.

"They though' a house near us was hainted. Nobody wanted to live in it so they went to see what the noise was. They found a pet coon with a piece of chain around his neck. The coon would run across the floor and drag the chain.

"The children now are bad. No telling that will be in the next twenty or thirty years everything is so changed now.

"I learnt to sing the hymns but never sang in the choir. We sang 'Dixie', 'John Brown's Body Lies, etc.', 'Juanita', 'Just Before the Battle, Mother', 'Old Black Joe'."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Charlie Norris 122 Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"Born in slavery times? That's me, I reckon. I was born October 1, 1857 in Arkansas in Union County. Tom Murphy was old master's name.

"Yes ma'am, I remember the first regiment left Arkansas—went to Virginia. I member our white folks had us packin' grub out in the woods cause they was spectin' the Yankees.

"I member when the first regiment started out. The music boat come to the landin' and played 'Yankee Doodle.' They carried all us chillun out there.

"After they fit they just come by from daylight till dark to eat. They was death on bread. My mother and Susan Murphy, that was the old lady herself, cooked bread for em.

"I stayed with the Murphys—round on the plantation amongst em for five or six years after freedom. Andrew Norris, my father's old master, was the first sheriff of Ouachita County.

"My mother belonged to the Murphys and my father belonged to the Norrises and after freedom they never did go back together.

"My mother told me that Susan Murphy would suckle me when my mother was out workin' and then my mother would suckle her daughter.

"I was raised up in the house you might say till I was a big nigger. Had plenty to eat. That's one thing they did do. I lived right amongst a settlement of what they called free niggers cause they was treated so well.

"Sometimes Susan Murphy got after me and whipped me and old Marse Tom would tell me to run and not let her whip me. You see, I was worth $1,500 to him and he thought a lot of us black kids.

"Old man Tom Murphy raised me up to a big nigger and never did whip me but twice and that was cause I got drunk on tobacco and turned out his horse.

"Yes ma'am, I voted till bout two or three years ago. Oh Lawd, the colored used to hold office down in the country. I've voted for white and black.

"Some of the colored folks better off free and some not. That's what I think but they don't."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Emma Oats (Mulatto) Holly Grove, Ark. Age: 90 or older

"I was born in St. Louis. My mother died when I was little. I never knowed no father. (He was probably a white man.) Jack Oats raised me. Jim Oats at Helena was his son. He is still living. He come through here (Holly Grove) not long ago. I was raised on the Esque place.

"I was fraid of my grandma. I wouldn't live with her. I know'd her. She was a big woman, big white eyes, big thick lips, and had 'Molly Glaspy hair,' long straight soft hair. She was a African woman. She made my clothes. I was fraid of her. I never lived with her. My folks was all free folks. When my mother died my uncle took us—me and brother. He hired us out and we got stole. Gene Oglesby stole us and brought us to Memphis to Joe Nivers. I recken he sold us then. Then they stood me up in the parlor and sold me to Jack Oats. They said I was 'good pluck.' Joe Nivers sold me to Jack Oats for $1,150.00 when I was four years old. My brother was name Milton Smith. I ain't seen him from that day till this. Joe Nivers kept him, I recken. I come here on a 'legal tender'—name of the boat I recken. I know that. I recken it was name of a boat. I got off and Thornton Walls, old colored man, toted me cross every mud hole we come to. He belong to Bud Walls' (white man at Holly Grove) daddy. When we got home Jack Oats and all of em was there.

"I slept on a pallet and lounge and took care of their children. I played round. Done bout as I pleased. They had a cook they called Aunt Joe—Joe Oats. We had plenty to eat and wear. They dressed me like one their children. We had good flannel clothes. When she washed her children she washed me too. When she combed their hair she combed mine too. She kept working with it till I had pretty hair. Some of her children died. It hurt me bad as it did them. All I done was play with em and see after em. Their names was Sam, John, Dixie, Sallie, Jim. I went in the hack to church; if she took the children, she took me. I was a good size girl when she died. The last word she spoke was to me; she said, 'Emma, take care of my children.' Dr. John Chester was her doctor.

"Oats come here from North Alabama. Will Oats, Wyatt Oats, and Jack Oats—all brothers.

"When mistress living we took a bath every Friday in a sawed-intwo barrel (wooden tub). The cook done our washing. We had clean fresh clothes. We had to dress up every few days. If we get dirty she say she would give us lashes. She never give me none, I never was sassy (saucy). That what most of em got 10 lashes, 25, 50 lashes for.

"When I was bout grown I went to school a little bit to James A. Kerr here at Holly Grove. I was good and grown too.

"I was settin' on the gate post—they had a picket fence. I seen some folks coming to our house. I run in the house and says, 'Miss Mai Liza, the Yankees coming here!' She told her husband to get in the bed. He says, 'Oh God, what she know bout Yankees?' Miss Mai Liza say, 'I don't know; she's one of em, I speck she knows em.' One of the officers come in and asked him what was the matter. He said he was sick. He had boils bout on him. He had a Masonic pin on his shirt. He showed it to the officer. He asked Lou and Becky and all the servants if he hadn't been bushwhacking. They all said, 'No.' He said he wanted something to eat. They went to the well house and got him some milk.

"They camped below the house. They went to their store house and brought more rations up there in a wagon. Lou cooked and she had help. She set a big table and they had the biggest dinner. They had more hams. They had 'Lincoln Coffee' there that day. It was a jolly day. They never et up there no more or bothered round our house no more. The officer had something on his bare arm he showed. He said, when he went to leave, 'Aunt Lou, you shall not be hurt.'

"Mr. Oats had taken long before that day all his slaves to Texas. He took all but Wash Martin. They went in wagons and none of them ever come back.

"Miss Callie Edwards was older than Miss Henrietta Jackson. They kept Wash Martin going through the bottoms nearly all time from their houses at Golden Hill to Indian Bay. They kept him from one place to the other to keep him out of the war. They hired him out to school Miss Henrietta. Miss Callie Edwards died then they give him to Miss Henrietta.

"During the war Mrs. Keeps come up to our house. They heard a gun. She was jes visiting Mrs. Oats. Mrs. Keeps went home and the bushwhackers had killed him. He was dead.

"I never seen no Ku Klux in my whole life.

"I remember the stage coach that run every two or three days from Helena to Clarendon.

"I don't remember bout freedom. Dr. Green, Hall Green's daddy, told his colored folks they was free. They told our folks. I heard em talking bout it. I was kept quiet. It was done freedom, fore I knowed it. I stayed on and done like I been doin'. I stayed on and on.

"When I was grown I come here to school and soon married. I washed and ironed and cooked all over Holly Grove. I was waiting on the table at the boarding house here at Holly Grove. Mr. Oats was talking bout naming the town. They had put the railroad through. I ask em why didn't they name the town Holly Grove. It was thick with holly trees. They named it that, and put it up on the side of the depot. That way I named the town.

"My folks give me five acres of land and Julia Woolfolk give a blind woman on the place five acres. I didn't know what to do wid it. I didn't have no husband. I was young and foolish. I let it be.

"My husband farmed. I raised my family, chopped and picked cotton and done other things along with that. I have worked all my life till way after my husband died.

"My husband could jump up, knock heels together three times before he come down. He died May 12, 1909. He was 83 years old February 16, 1909.

"I never voted. I never heard my husband say much bout voting. I know some colored folks sold their voting rights. That was wrong.

"I lived at Baptist Bottoms two years. It lack to killed me."

Wyatt Oats and Miss Callie Edwards owned the husband of Emma Oats. She was married once and had two girls and two boys—one boy dead now. Emma lives at one of her daughters' homes.



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Helen Odom and mother, Sarah Odom Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 30?

"Great-grandmother was part African, Indian, and Caucasian. She had two girls before slavery ended by her own master—Master Temple. He was also Caucasian (white). She was cook and housemaid at his home. He was a bachelor. Grandmother's name was Rachael and her sister's name was Gilly. Before freedom Master Temple had another wife. By her he had one boy and two girls. He never had a Caucasian wife. In fact he was always a bachelor. Grandmother was a field hand and so was her sister, Gilly.

"But after freedom grandmother married a Union soldier. His took-on name was George Washington Tomb. He was generally called Parson Tomb (preacher). He met Grandmother Rachael in Arkansas.

"When Master Temple died his nearest relative was Jim McNeilly. He made a will leaving everything he possessed to Master McNeilly. The estate had to be settled, so he brought the two sisters to Little Rock we think to be sold. They rode horseback and walked and brought wagons with bedding and provisions to camp along the road. The blankets were frozen and stood alone. It was so cold. Grandmother was put up on the block to be auctioned off and freedom was declared! Aunt Gilly never got to the block. Grandmother married and was separated from her sister.

"Whether the other three children were brought to Arkansas then I don't know but this I know that they went by the name McNeilly. They changed their names or it was done for them. They are all dead now and my own mother is the only one now living. Their names were John, Tom, and Netline. Mother says they were sold to Johnson, and went by that name too as much as McNeilly. They remained with Johnson till freedom, in Tennessee.

"My mother's name is Sarah.

"They seem to think they were treated good till Master Temple died. They nearly froze coming to Arkansas to be sold.

"I heard this told over and over so many, many times before grandmother died. Seemed it was the greatest event of her life. She told other smaller things I can't remember to tell with sense at all. Nothing so important as her master and own father's death and being sold.

"Times are good, very good with me. Our African race is advancing with the times."

Interviewer's Comment

Teacher in Biscoe school. Father was a graduate doctor of medicine and in about 1907, '08, '09 school director at Biscoe.



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Jane Oliver Route 4, near airport, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"I'm certainly one of em, cause I was in the big house. When Miss Liza married they give sister to her and I stayed with Miss Netta. Her name was Drunetta Rawls. That was in Mississippi. We come to Arkansas when I was small.

"I remember when they run us to Texas, and we stayed there till freedom come. I remember hearin' em read the free papers. Mama died in Texas and they buried her the day they read the free papers. I know. I was out playin' and Miss Lucy, that was my young mistress, come out and say, 'Jane, you go in and see your mother, she wants you.' I was busy playin' and didn't want to go in and I member Miss Lucy say, 'Poor little fool nigger don't know her mother's dyin'.' I went in then and said, 'Mama, is you dyin'?' She say, 'No, I ain't; I died when you was a baby.' You know, she meant she had died in sin. She was a christian.

"Me and Lucy played together all the time—round about the house and in the kitchen. Little Marse Henry, that was big old Marse Henry's son, he was a captain in the army. We all called him Little Marse Henry. Old mistress was good to us. Us chillun called her Miss Netta. Best woman I ever seed. Me and Lucy growed up together. Looks like I can see just the way the house looked and how we used to go down to the big gate and play. I sits here and studies and wonders if I'd know that place today. That's what I study bout.

"I used to hear em say we only stayed in Texas nine months and the white folks brought us back.

"My uncle Simon Rawls, he took me after the war. Then I worked for Mrs. Adkins.

"I went to school a little and learned to read prints. The teacher tried to get me to write but I wouldn't do it. And since then I have wished so much I had learned to write. Oh mercy! Old folks would tell me, 'Well, when you get up the road, you'll wish you had.' I didn't know what they meant but I know now they meant when I got old.

"I was married when I was young—I don't think I was fifteen.

"Yes ma'am, I've worked hard. I've always lived in the country.

"I can remember when the white folks refugeed us to Texas. Oh we did hate the Yankees. If I ever seed a Yankee I didn't know it but I heard the white folks talkin' bout em.

"I used to hear em talk bout old Jeff Davis and Abe Lincoln.

"Bradley County was where we lived fore we went to Texas and afterward. Colonel Ed Hampton's plantation jined the Rawls plantation on the Arkansas River where it overflowed the land. I loved that better than any place I ever seed in my life.

"I couldn't say what I think of the young folks now. They is different from what we was. Yes, Lord, they is different. Sometimes I think they is better and sometimes wuss. I just thanks the Lord that I'm here—have come this far.

"When I bought this place from Mr. R.M. Knox he said, 'When I'm in my grave you'll thank me that you took my advice and put your savings in a Home.' I do thank him. I been here thirty years and I get along. God bless you."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Ivory Osborne Route 5, Box 158, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 85

"Know about slavery? Sho I do—I was born in '52. Born in Arkansas? No ma'm, born in Texas.

"Oh yes, indeed, I had a good master. Good to me, indeed. I was that high when the war started. I member everything. Take me from now till dark to tell you everything I know bout slavery.

"I put in three years and five months, choppin' cotton and corn. I member the very day, on the 10th of May, old mistress blowed the conk and told us we was free.

"Oh Lord, I had a good time.

"I never was whipped.

"Ku Klux used to run me. Run me clear from the plum orchard bout a mile from the house. Run to my mistress at the big house.

"Miss Ann had eight darkies and told her stepmother, 'Don't you put your hand on em.' She didn't either.

"I went to school since 'mancipation in Nacitosh. Learned to read and write. Was in the eighth grade when I left. Stood at the head of every class. They couldn't get me down. I done got old and forgot now.

"I didn't know the difference between slavery and free, I never was whipped.

"Did I ever vote? You know I voted, old as I am. Ain't voted in over forty years. I ain't nobody. My wife's eighty. I've had her forty years. Cose I voted the Republican ticket. You never seed a colored person a Democrat in your life.

"In slavery days we killed seventy-five or eighty hogs every year. And I don't mean shoats, I mean hogs. I ain't lost my membrance."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Jane Osbrook 602 E. 21st Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 90

"Yes ma'm, I was livin' in slavery days. I was borned in Arkansas I reckon. I was borned within three, miles of Camden but I wasn't raised there. We moved to Saline County directly after peace was declared.

"I don't know what year I was born because you see I'm not educated but I was ninety the 27th of this last past May. Yes ma'm, I'm a old bondage woman. I can say what a heap of em can't say—I can tell the truth bout it. I believe in the truth. I was brought up to tell the truth. I'm no young girl.

"My old master was Adkison Billingsly. My old mistress treated us just like her own children. She said we had feelin's and tastes. I visited her long after the war. Went there and stayed all night.

"I member when they had the fight at Jenkins Ferry. Old Steele had 30,000 and he come down to take Little Rock, Pine Bluff and others. Captain Webb with 1,500 Rebels was followin' him and when they got to Saline River they had a battle.

"The next Sunday my father carried all us children and some of the white folks to see the battle field. I member the dead was lyin' in graves, just one row after another and hadn't even been covered up.

"Oh yes, I can tell all bout that. Nother time there was four hundred fifty colored and five white Yankee soldiers come and ask my father if old mistress treated us right. We told em we had good owners. I never was so scared in my life. Them colored soldiers was so tall and so black and had red eyes. Oh yes ma'm, they had on the blue uniforms. Oh, we sure was fraid of em—you know them eyes.

"They said, 'Now uncle, we want you to tell the truth, does she feed you well?' My ma did all the cookin' and we had good livin'. I tole my daughter we fared ten thousand times better than now.

"I come up in the way of obedience. Any time I wanted to go, had to go to old mistress and she say, 'Don't let the sun go down on you.' And when we come home the sun was in the trees. If you seed the sun was goin' down on you, you run.

"I ain't goin' tell nothin' but the truth. Truth better to live with and better to die with.

"Some of the folks said they never seed a biscuit from Christmas to Christmas but we had em every day. Never seed no sodie till peace was declared—used saleratus.

"In my comin' up it was Whigs and Democrats. Never heard of no Republicans till after the war. I've seed a man get upon that platform and wipe the sweat from his brow. I've seed em get to fight in' too. That was done at our white folks house—arguin' politics.

"I never did go to school. I married right after the war you know. What you talkin' bout—bein' married and goin' to school? I was housekeepin': Standin' right in my own light and didn't know it."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Annie Page 412-1/2 Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 86

"I was born 1852, they tell me, on the fifteenth of March. I was workin' a good while 'fore surrender.

"Bill Jimmerson was my old master. He was a captain in Marmaduke's army. Come home on thirty days furlough once and he and Daniel Carmack got into some kind of a argument 'bout some whisky and Daniel Carmack stabbed him with a penknife. Stabbed him three times. He was black as tar when they brought him home. The blood had done settled. Oh Lawd, that was a time.

"My eyes been goin' blind 'bout six years till I got so I can't excern (discern) anything.

"Old miss used to box me over the head mightily and the colored folks used to hit me over the head till seem like I could hear a bell for two or three days. Niggers ain't got no sense. Put 'em in authority and they gits so uppity.

"My brother brought me here and left me here with a colored woman named Rachael Ross. And oh Lawd, she was hard on me. Never had to do in slavery times what I had to do then.

"But the devil got her and all her chillun now I reckon. They tell me when death struck her, they asked if the Lawd called her, and they say she just turned over and over in the bed like a worm in hot ashes."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Annie Page 400 Block West Pullen, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 85

"Yes'm I 'member the war. I never knowed why they called it the Civil War though.

"I was born in Union County, Arkansas, 'bout a mile from Bear Creek, in 1852. That's what my old mistress tole me the morning we was sot free.

"My mistress was a Democrat. Old master was a captain in Marmaduke's army.

"I used to hope (help) spin the thread to make the soldiers' clothes. Old mistress cared for me. Lacy Jimmerson—the onliest mistress I ever had. She wanted to send us away to Texas but old master say it want no use. Cause if the Yankees won, they have to bring us back, so we didn't go.

"Did they whip us? Why I bet I can show you scars now. Old Miss whip me when she feel like fightin'. Her granddaughter, Mary Jane, tried to learn me my ABC's out of the old Blue Back Speller. We'd be out on the seesaw, but old Miss didn't know what we doin'. Law, she pull our hair. Directly she see us and say 'What you doin'? Bring that book here!'

"One day old master come home on a thirty-day furlough. He was awful hot-headed and he got into a argument with Daniel Carmack and old Daniel stobbed him right in the heart. Fore he die he say to bury him by the side of the road so he can see the niggers goin' to work.

"I never seen no Ku Klux but I heard of 'em 'rectly after the war.

"I'se blind. I jest can see enough to get around. The Welfare gives me eight dollars a month.

"My mother died soon after the war ended and after that I was jest knocked over the head. I went to Camblin and worked for Mrs. Peters. Then I runned away and married my first husband Mike Samson. I been married twice and had two children but they all dead now.

"Law, I jest scared of these young ones as I can be. I don't have no dealins with 'em."



FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Apparitions Subject: Superstitions Subject: Birthmarks Story:—Information

This information given by: Annie Page Place of residence: 412-1/2 Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Occupation: None Age: 86 [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.] [TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

"I told 'bout old master's death. Mama had done sent me out to feed the chickens soon of a morning.

"Here was the smokehouse and there was a turkey in a coop. And when I throwed it the feed I heard somethin' sounded just like you was draggin' a brush over leaves. It come around the corner of the smokehouse and look like a tall woman. It kept on goin' toward the house till it got to the hickory nut tree and still sound like draggin' a brush. When it got to the hickory nut tree it changed and look like a man. I looked and I said, 'It's old master.' And the next day he got killed. I run to the house and told mama, 'Look at that man.' She said, 'Shut your mouth, you don't see no man.' Old miss heard and said, 'Who do you s'pose it could be?' But mama wouldn't let me talk.

"But I know it was a sign that old master was goin' to die."

Superstitions

"I was born with a caul over my face. Old miss said it hung from the top of my head half way to my waist.

"She kept it and when I got big enough she said, 'Now that's your veil, you play with it.'

"But I lost it out in the orchard one day.

"They said it would keep you from seein' ha'nts."

Birthmarks

"William Jimmerson's wife had a daughter was born blind, and she said it was her husband's fault. She was delicate, you know, and one afternoon she was layin' down and I was sittin' there fannin' her with a peafowl fan. Her husband was layin' there too and I guess I must a nodded and let the fan drop down in his face. He jumped up and pressed his thumbs on my eyes till they was all bloodshot and when he let loose I fell down on the floor. Miss Phenie said, 'Oh, William, don't do that.' I can remember it just as well.

"My eyes like to went out and do you know, when her baby was born it was blind. It's eyes just looked like two balls of blood. It died though, just lived 'bout two weeks."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Fannie Parker 1908 W. Sixth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 90?

"Yes, honey, this is old Fannie. I'se just a poor old nigger waitin' for Jesus to come and take me to Heaven.

"I was just a young strip of a girl when the war come. Dr. M.C. Comer was my owner. His wife was Elizabeth Comer. I said Marse and Mistis in them days and when old mistress called me I went runnin' like a turkey. They called her Miss Betsy. Yes Lord, I was in slavery days. Master and mistress was bossin' me then. We all come under the rules. We lived in Monticello—right in the city of Monticello.

"All I can tell you is just what I remember. I seed the Yankees. I remember a whole host of 'em come to our house and wanted something to eat. They got it too! They cooked it them selves and then they burned everything they could get their hands on. They said plenty to me. They said so much I don't know what they said. I know one thing they said I belonged to the Yankees. Yes Lord, they wanted me to tell 'em if I was free. I told 'em I was free indeed and that I belonged to Miss Betsy. I didn't know what else to say. We had plenty to eat, plenty of hog meat and buttermilk and cornbread. Yes ma'm—don't talk about that now.

"Don't tell me 'bout old Jeff Davis—he oughta been killed. Abraham Lincoln thought what was right was right and what was wrong was wrong. Abraham was a great man cause he was the President. When the rebels ceded from the Union he made 'em fight the North. Abraham Lincoln studied that and he had it all in his mind. He wasn't no fighter but he carried his own and the North give 'em the devil. Grant was a good man too. They tried to kill him but he was just wrapped up in silver and gold.

"I remember when the stars fell. Yes, honey, I know I was ironin' and it got so dark I had to light the lamp. Yes, I did!

"It's been a long time and my mind's not so good now but I remember old Comer put us through. Good-bye and God bless you!"



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Subject: Ex-slavery Story: Birth, Parents, Master.

Person Interviewed: J.M. Parker, (dark brown) Address: 1002 Ringo Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Occupation: Formerly a carpenter Age: 76 [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

"I was born in South Carolina, Waterloo, in Lawrence County, [HW: Laurens Co.] in 1861, April 5th. Waterloo is a little town in South Carolina. I believe that fellow shot the first gun of the war when I was born. I knew then I was going to be free. Of course that is just a lie. I made that up. Anyway I was born in 1861.

"Colonel Rice was our master. He was in the war too. The name Parker came in by intermarriage, you see. My mother belonged to Rice. She could have been a Simms before she married. My father's name was Edmund Parker. He belonged to the Rices also. That was his master; Colonel Rice and him were boys together. He went down there to Charleston, South Carolina to build breastworks. While down there, he slipped off and brought a hundred men away from Charleston back to Lawrence County where the men was that owned them. He was a business man, father was. Brought 'em all through the swamps. They were slaves and he brought 'em all back home. They all followed his advice.

"My mother's name was Rowena Parker after she married.

"Colonel Rice was a pretty fair man—a pretty good fellow. He was a colonel in the war and stood pretty high. Bound to be that way by him being a colonel. Seemed like him and my father had about the same number of kids. He thought there was nobody like my mother. He never whipped the slaves himself but his overseer would sometimes jump on them. The Rice family was very good to our people. The men being gone they were left in the hands of the mistress. She never touched anybody. She never had no reason to.

Pateroles

"Patterollers didn't bother us, but we were in that country. During the war, most of the men that amounted to anything were in the war and the patrolers didn't bother you much. The overseer didn't have so much power over me than. That pretty well left the colored people to come up without being abused during the war. The white folks was forced to go to the war. They drafted them just like they do now. They'd shoot a po' white man if he didn't come.

Breeding

"My master didn't force men and women to marry. He didn't put 'em together just to get more slave. Some times other people would have women and men just for that purpose. But there wasn't much of it in my country.

House, Stock, Parents' Occupations

"Our house was a frame building, boxed in with one-by-twelve like we have here in the country. That was a good house with regular flooring, tongue and groove. We was raised up in a good house. Old Colonel Rice had to protect his standing. He had good stock. My father was a carriage man. He had to keep those horses clean and they always looked good. That carriage had to shine too. Colonel Rice was a high stepper. He'd take his handkerchief and rub it over the horses hair to see if they were really clean. He would always find 'em clean though when the old man got through with them. He would drive fine stock. Had some fine horses. Couldn't trust 'em with just anybody.

"My mother was cook. She helped Mrs. Rice take care of the kids, and cooked around the house. She took care of her kids, too.

"The house we was born and bred in was built for a carriage house, but somehow or 'nother they give it to us to live in. My mother being a cook, she got what she wanted. That was a good house too. It was sealed. It had good floors. It had two rooms. It had about three windows and good doors to each room.

"We had just common furniture. Niggers didn't have much then. My father was a good mechanic though and he would make anything he wanted. We didn't have much, just common things. But all my people were mechanics, harness makers, shoemakers,—they could make anything. Young Sam Parker could make any kind of shoe. He made shoes for the white folks; Young Jacob was a blacksmith; he made horseshoes and anything else out of iron. He may still be living. In fact, he made anything he could get his hands on. My young uncles on my mother's side, I don't know much about them, because they were all mechanics. My grandfather on my mother's side could make baskets—any kind—could make baskets that would hold water.

"My father had thirteen children. Three of them are living now. My brother lives here in the city. He was born during the war and his mother was supposed to be free when he was born.

Right After the War

"That's what my mother told me. I can remember a long ways back myself. After the war, it wasn't long before they began to open up schools. They used to run school three or four months a year. Both white and colored in the country had about three or four months. That is all they had. There weren't so very many white folks that took an interest in education during slave time. Colored people got just about as much as they did right after the war. What time we went to school we went the whole day. We would come home and work in the evening like. We had pretty fair teachers. All white then at first. They didn't have no colored till afterwards. If they did, they had so few, I never heard of them.

"The first teacher I had was Katie Whitefold (white). That was in Waterloo. Miss Richardson was our next teacher. She was white too. We went to school two terms under white women. After that we began to get teachers from Columbia, South Carolina, where the normal school was.

"The white teachers who taught us were people who had been raised right around Waterloo. We never had no Northern teachers as I knows of. Our first colored teacher was Murry Evans. He a preacher. He was one of our leading preachers too. After him our colored women began to come in and stand examination wasn't so hard at that time, but they made a good showing. There were good scholars.

"I went to school too much. I went to school at Philander Smith College some, too. I went a good piece in school. Come pretty near finishing the English course (high school). I finished Good[HW: sp.?] Brown's 'Grammer of Grammers'. Professor Backensto (the spelling is the interviewer's) sent away and got it and sold it to us. We was his students. He was a white man from the North and a good scholar. We got in those grammars and got the same lessons they give him when he was in school—nine pages a lesson and we had to repeat that lesson three times. When my mother died, I was off in the normal school.

"Right after the war, my parents farmed. He followed his trade. That always gave us something to eat you know. When we farmed, we sharecropped—a third and a fourth—that is, we got a third of the cotton and a fourth of the corn. Potatoes and things like that went free. All women got an acre free. My mother always got an acre and she worked it good too. She always had her bale of cotton. And if she didn't have a bale, she laid it next to the white folks' and made it out. They knew it and they didn't care. She stood well with the white people. Helped all of 'em raise their children, and they all liked that.

"I went along with my father whenever he had a big job and needed help. I got to be as good a carpenter as he was.

"I married out here. About eighty-five. People were emigrating to this country. There was a boom to emigrating then. Emigrating was a little dangerous when a man was trying to get hands. White folks would lay traps and kill men that were taking away their hands—they would kill white just as quick as they would black. I started out under a white man—I can't remember his name. He turned me over to Madden, a colored man who was raised in Waterloo. We came from there to Greenwood, South Carolina where everything was straight. After that we had nothing to do but get on the train and keep coming. We was with our agent then and we had no more trouble after that.

"I got off at Brinkley over at Minor Gregory's farm. He needed hands then and was glad to get us. He is dead now. I stayed in Brinkley the space of about a year. Then he gave us transportation to Little Rock. The train came from Memphis, and we struck out for Little Rock. I married after I come to Little Rock. I forget what year. But anyway my wife is dead and gone and all the children. So I'm single now.

Opinions of the Present

"I think times are about dead now. Things ought to get better. I believe things are going to get better for all of us. People have got to think more. People have got to get together more. War doesn't always make thing better. It didn't after the Civil War. And it didn't after the World War. The young people are all right in their way. It would just take another war to learn 'em a lesson.

Support

"I can't do any work now. I get a little help from the welfare. It doesn't come regular. I need a check right now. I think it's due now. But they haven't sent it out yet. That is, I haven't got it.

"I'm a Christian. All my family were Methodists. I belong to Wesley.



Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins Person Interviewed: Judy Parker Home: 618 Wade Street, Hot Springs, Ark. Aged: 77

For location of Wade Street, see interview with Emma Sanderson.

As the interviewer walked down Silver Street a saddle colored girl came out on a porch for a load of wood.

"I beg your pardon," she began, pausing, "can you tell me where I will find Emma Sanderson?"

"I sure can." The girl left the porch and came out to the street. "I'll walk down with you and show you. That way it'll be easier. Kind of cold, ain't it?"

"It surely is," this from the interviewer. "Isn't it too cold for you, can't you just tell me? I think I can find it." The girl had expected to be only on the porch and didn't have a coat.

"No, ma'am. It's all right. Now we're far enough for you to see. You see those two houses jam up against one and 'tother? Well Miz Parker lives in the one this way. I goes down to look after her most every day. That's where you'll find her.—No ma'am—'twaren't no bother."

The gate sagged slightly at the house "this way" of the "two jam up against one and 'tother." A large slab from an oak log in the front yard near a woodpile bore mute evidence of many an ax blow. (Stove wood is generally split in the rural South—one end of the "stick" resting against the ground, the other atop a small log.)

Up a couple of rickety steps the interviewer climbed. She knocked three times. When she was bade to enter she opened the door to find an old woman sitting near a wood stove combing her long, white hair.

Mrs. Parker was expecting the visit. A few days before the interviewer had had a visit from a couple of colored women who had "heard tell how you is investigating the old people.—been trying to get on old age pension for a long time—glad you come to get us on.——No? Oh, I see you is the Townsend woman." (An explanation of her true capacity was almost impossible for the interviewer.)

Mrs. Parker, however, seemed to comprehend the idea perfectly. She expected nothing save the chance to tell her story. Her joy at the gift of a quarter (the amount the interviewer set aside from her salary for each interviewee) was pitiful. Evidently it had been a long time since she had possessed a similar sum to spend exactly as she pleased.

"I don't rightly know how old I is. My mother used to tell me that I was a little baby, six months old when our master, Joe Potts was his name, got ready to clear out of Florida. You see he had heard tell of the war scare. So he started drifting out of the way. Bet it didn't take him long after he made up his mind. He was a right decided man. Mister Joe was.

"How did we like him? Well, he was always good to us. He was well thought of. Seemed to be a pretty clever man, Mr. Joe did." ("Clever" in plantation language like "smart" refers more to muscular than mental activity. They might almost be used as synonyms for "hard working" on the labor level.)

"So Mr. Joe got ready to go to Texas. Law, Miss, I don't rightly know whether he had a family or not. Never heard my Mother say. Anyhow he come through Arkansas intending to drift on out into Texas. But when he got near the border 'twix't and between Arkansas and Texas he stopped. The talk about war had about settled down. So he stopped. He stopped near where the big bridge is. You know where Little River County is don't you? He stopped and he started to work. Started to make a crop. 'Course I can't remember none about that. Just what my Mother told me. But I remembers him from later.

"He went at it the good way. Settled down and tried to open up a home. They put in a crop and got along pretty good. Time passed and the war talk started floating again. That time he didn't pay much attention and it got him. It was on a Sunday morning when he went away. I never knew whether they made him go or not. But I kind of think they must of. Cause he wouldn't have moved off from Florida if he had wanted to go to war.

"He took my daddy with him! Ma'am—did he take him to fight or to wait on him—Don't know ma'am, but I sort of think he took him to wait on him. But he didn't bring him back. My daddy got killed in the war. No ma'am. I don't rightly know how he got killed. Never heard nobody say. I was just a little girl—nobody bothered to tell me much.

"Yes, that we did. We stayed on on the farm and we made a crop—the old folks did. Mr. Joe, when he went off, said "Now you stay on here, you make a crop and you use all you need. Then you put up the rest and save for me." He was a right good man, Mr. Joe was.

"No, we didn't never see no fighting. There wasn't nothing to be scared of. Didn't see no Yankees until the war was through. Then they started passing. Lawsey, I couldn't tell how many of them there was. More than you could count.

"We had all stayed on. I was the oldest of my mother's children. But she had two more after me. There was our family and my two uncles and my grandmother. Then there was some other colored folks. But we wasn't scared of the Yankees. Mr. Joe was there by that time. They camped all around in the woods near us. They got us to do their washing. Lawsey they was as filthy as hogs. I never see such folks. They asked Mr. Joe if we could do their washing. Everything on the place that come near those clothes got lousey. Those men was covered with them. I never see nothing like it. We got covered with them. No, ma'am, we got rid of 'em pretty easy. They ain't so hard to get rid of, if you keep clean.

"After it was all over Master Joe got ready to go back to Florida. He took Warley and Jenny with him. They was children he had had by a black woman—you know folks did such things in them days. He asked the rest of us if they wanted to go back too. But my folks made up their minds they didn't. You see, they didn't know how they'd get along and how long it would take them to pay for the trip back, so they stayed right where they was.

"Lots of 'em went to Rondo and some of us worked for Herb Jeans—he lived farther up Red River. After my mother died I was with my grandmother. She washed and cooked for Herb Jeans's family. I stayed on with her, helped out until I got married. I was about fifteen when that time come.

"My man owned his place. Sure he did. Owned it when I married him. He owned it himself and farmed it good. Yes ma'am we stayed with the land. He made good crops—corn and cotton, mostly. Course we raised potatoes and the truck we needed—all stuff like that. Yes, ma'am we had thirteen children. Just three of them's living. All of them is boys.

"Yes ma'am we got along good. My husband made good crops and we got along just good. But 'bout eight years ago my husband he got sick. So he sold out the farm—sold out everything. Then he come here.

"Before he died he spent every last cent—every last cent—left me to get along the very best way I kin. I stays with my son. He takes care of me. He don't make much, but he does the best he kin.

"No ma'am, I likes living down in the country. Down there near Red River it's soft and sandy. Up here in Hot Springs the rocks tear up your feet. If you's country raised—you like the country. Yes ma'am, you like the country."

As she left the interviewer handed her a quarter. At first the old woman's face was expressionless. But she moved the coin nearer to her eyes and a smile broke and widened until her whole face was a wrinkle of joy. When she turned in the doorway, the interviewer noticed that the hand jammed into an apron pocket was clutched into a possessive fist, cradling the precious twenty five cents.



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: R.F. Parker 619 N. Hickory, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 76

"I was born in '62. I reckon I was born in slavery times. Born in Ripley County, Missouri. Old man Billy Parker was my master, and my young master was Jim Parker.

"They bought my mother in Tennessee when she was a child. I wasn't big enough to remember much about slavery but I was big enough to know when they turned my mother loose, and we come to Lawrence County, Arkansas.

"I remember my mother sayin' she had to plow while her young master, Jim Parker, was off to war, but I don't know what side he was on.

"I remember seein' some soldiers ridin' down the road, about seventy-five of 'em. I know I run under a corn pen and hid. I thought they was after me. They stopped right there and turned their horses loose 'round that pen. I can remember that all right. They went in the white folks' house and took a shotgun. I know I remember hearin' mama talk about it. I think they had on blue clothes.

"I was goin' on seven when we come to Arkansas. I know I'd walk a while and she'd tote me a while. But we was lucky enough to get in with some white people that was movin' to Arkansas. We was comin' to a place called 'The Promised Land.' We stayed there till '92.

"I have farmed and done public work. I worked nine years at that heading factory in the east end (of Pine Bluff).

"I used to vote. When I was in north Arkansas, I voted in all kinds of elections. But after I come down here to Jefferson County, I couldn't vote in nothin' but the presidential elections.

"I don't think the young people are goin' to amount to much. They are a heap wilder than when I was young. They got a chance to graduate now—something I didn't get to do.

"I never went to school a day in my life, but the white people where I worked learned me to read and write."

Interviewer's Comment

This man could easily pass for a white person.



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Annie Parks 720 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 80 Occupation: Formerly house and field work

"I was born and raised in Mer Rouge, Louisiana. That is between here and Monroe. I have been here in Little Rock more than twenty-five years.

"My mother's name was Sarah Mitchell. That was her married name. I don't know what her father's name was. My father's name was Willis Clapp. He was killed in the first war—the Civil War. My father went to the war from Mer Rouge, Louisiana. I don't remember him at all. But that is what my mother told me about him. My mother said he had very good people. After he married my mother, old man Offord bought him. Offord's name was Warren Offord. They buried him while I was still there in Mer Rouge. He was a old-time Mason. That was my mother's master—in olden days.

"His grandmother took my mother across the seas with her. She (his grandmother) died on shipboard, and they throwed her body into the water. There's people denies it, but my mother told me it was so. Young Davenport is still living. He is a relative of Offords. My mother never did get no pension for my father.

Slave House and Occupation

"I was born in a log house. There were two doors—a front and a back—and there were two windows. My mother had no furniture 'cept an old-time wooden bed—big bed. She was a nurse all the time in the house. I heard her say she milked and waited on them in the house. My father's occupation was farming during slavery times.

"My mother always said she didn't have no master to beat on her. I like to tell the truth. My mother's master never let no overseer beat his slaves around. She didn't say just what we had to eat. But they always give us a plenty, and there wasn't none of us mistreated.

"My father could have an extra patch and make a bale of cotton or whatever he wanted to on it. That was so that he could make a little money to buy things for hisself and his family. And if he raised a bale of cotton on his patch and wanted to sell it to the agent, that was all right.

Family

"I have a brother named Manuel Clayton. If he's living still, he is younger than I am. He is the baby boy. I doesn't remember his father at all. I had five sisters with myself and two brothers. All of them were older than me except Manuel. My mother had one brother and two sisters. Her brother's name was Lin Urbin. We always called him Big Buddy. He hasn't been so long died. My older brother is named Willis Clayton—if he's still living. Willis has a half dozen sons. He is my oldest brother. He lives way out in the country 'round Mer Rouge.

Freedom

"My mother said they promised to them money when they were freed. Some of them gave them something, and some of them didn't. My mother's folks didn't give her nothin'. The Government didn't give her nothin' either. I don't know just who told her she was free nor how. I don't remember myself.

Patrollers and Ku Klux

"I never heard much about pateroles. My mother said they used to whip you if they would catch you out without a pass. I heard her talk about the Ku Klux after freedom.

Slave Worship

"My mother could always go to church on Sunday. Her slave-time preacher was Tom Johnson. Henry Soates and Watt Taylor were slavery-time preachers too. Old man Jacob Anderson too was a great preacher in slave time. There was a big arbor where they held church. That was outdoors. There was just a wood frame and green leaves laid over it. Hundreds of people sat under there and heard the Gospel preached. The Offords didn't care how much you worshipped. If I was with them, I wouldn't have no trouble.

"In the winter time they had a small place to meet in. They built a church after the war. When I went home, eight or nine years ago, I walked all 'round and looked at all the old places.

Health

"You know my remembrance comes and goes. I ain't had no good remembrance since I been sick. I been mighty sick with high blood pressure. I can't work and I can't even go out. I'm 'fraid I'll fall down and get myself hurt or run over.

Support

"I don't get no help 'cept what my daughter gives me. I can't get no Old Age Pension. I never did get nothin' for my father. My mother didn't either. He was killed in the war, but they didn't give nobody nothin' for his death. They told me they'd give me something and then they told me they wouldn't. I'm dependent on what my daughter does for me. If I was back in Mer Rouge, I wouldn't have no trouble gettin' a pension, nor nothin' else.

Slave Marriages on the Offord Plantation

"My mother said they just read 'em together, slavery times. I think she said that the preacher married them on the Offord plantation. They didn't get no license.

Amusements

"They had quiltings and corn shuckings. I don't know what other amusements they had, but I know everything was pleasant on the Offord plantation.

"If slaves went out without a pass, my mother said her master wouldn't allow them to beat on them when they come in. They had plenty to eat, and they had substantial clothes, and they had a good fire.

Age

"I don't know how old I am. I was born before the war. My father went to the war when it begun. I had another brother that was born before the war. He don't remember nothin' about my father. I don't neither. I was too young."

Interviewer's Comment

Allowing for a year's difference between the two youngest children, and allowing that the boy was born immediately before the War, the girl could not be younger than seventy-eight. She could be older. She states all facts as through her mother, but she seems to have experienced some of the things she relates. Her memory is fading. Failure to get pension or old age assistance oppresses her mind. She comes back to it again and again. She carries her card and her commodity order with her in her pocketbook.

She had asked me to write some letters for her when her daughter interfered and said that she didn't want it done. She said that she had told the case worker that her husband worked at the Missouri Pacific Shop and that the case worker had asked her if she wouldn't provide for her mother. They live in a neat rented house. The mother weighs about a hundred and ten pounds and is tall. The daughter is about the same height but weighs about two hundred and fifty. Time and again, the old lady tried to convey to me a message that she didn't want her daughter to hear, but I could not make it out. The daughter was belligerent, as is sometimes the case, and it was only by walking in the very middle of the straight and narrow path that I managed to get my story.



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Austin Pen Parnell 4314 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 73 Occupation: Carpenter

Birth and General Fact About Life

"I was born April fifteenth, 1865, the day Lincoln was assassinated, in Carroll County, Mississippi, about ten miles from Grenada. It's about half the distance between Grenada and Carrollton. Carrollton is our county seat but we went to Grenada more than we went to Carrollton.

"When I got older, I moved to Grenada and I come from there here. I was about thirty-five years old when I moved to Grenada. About 160 acres of land in Grenada was mine. I bought it, but heirs claimed the place and I had to leave. I had no land then, only a lot here and I came over here to look it over. A lady had come to Mississippi selling property and she had a plat which she said was in Little Rock not far from the capitol. Her name was Mrs. Putman. The place was on the other side of the Fourche. But I didn't know that until I came here. She misguided me. I came to Arkansas and looked at the lot and didn't want it. I made a trip over here twice before I settled on living in Little Rock. I told the others who had bought property from her the truth about its location. They asked me and I hate to lie. I didn't knock; I just answered questions and didn't volunteer nothing. They all quit making their payments, Just like I did. My land had a rock on it as big as a bale of cotton.

"Mr. Herring thought hard of me because I told the others the truth. I went into the office one day and Mr. Herring said, 'Parnell, I understand you have been knocking on me.' I said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Herring, if telling the truth about things is knocking on them, I certainly did.' He never said anything more about it, and I didn't either.

"I rented a place on Twelfth and Maple and then rented around there two or three times, and finally bought a place at 3704 West Twelfth Street. I moved to Little Rock March 18, 1911. That was twenty-seven years ago.

Parents

"My father was named Henry Parnell. He died in the year 1917 in the time of the great war. He was ninety-five years old when he died. His master had the same name. My mother's name was Priscilla Parnell. She belonged to the same family as he did. They married before freedom. My father was a farmer and my mother was a housewife and she'd work in the field too.

"My grandmother on my mother's side was named Hester Parnell. I don't know what her husband's name was. My mother, father, and grandmother were all from North Carolina. My grandmother did house and field work.

House

"My mother and father lived in a two-room house hewed out of big logs—great big logs. The logs were about four inches thick and twelve inches wide. It didn't take many of them to build a wall—about ten or twelve of them on a side. They were notched down so as to almost come together. They chinked up the cracks with mud and covered it with a board.

"I laid in bed many a night and looked up through the cracks in the roof. Snow would come through there when it snowed and cover the bed covers. We thought you couldn't build a roof so that it would keep out rain and snow, but we were mistaken. Before you would make a fire in them days, you had to sweep out the snow so that it wouldn't melt up in the house and make a mess. But we kept healthy just the same. Didn't have no pneumonia in those days.

"The house had two rooms about eight feet apart. The rooms were connected by a hall which we called a gallery in those days. The hall was covered by the same roof as the house and it had the same floor. The house sot east and west and had a chimney in each end. The chimneys were made out of sticks and mud. I can build a chimney now like that.

"It was large at the bottom and tapered at the top. It was about six or seven feet square at the bottom. It grew smaller as it went toward the top. You could get a piece of wood three and a half or four feet long in the boddom of it. Sometimes the wood would be too large to carry and you would just have to roll it in.

"The floors was boards about one by twelve. There were two doors in each room—one leading outside and the other to the hall. If there were any windows, I can't remember them. We didn't need no windows for ventilation.

"This was the house that I remember first after freedom. I remember living in it. That was about seven or eight years after freedom. My father rented it from the big man named Alf George for whom he worked. Mr. George used to come out and eat breakfast with us. We'd get that hoecake out of the ashes and wash it off until it looked like it was as clean as bread cooked in a skillet. I have seen my grandmother cook a many a one in the fire. We didn't use no skillet for corn bread. The bread would have a good firm crust on it. But it didn't get too hard to eat and enjoy.

"She'd take a poker before she put the bread in and rake the ashes off the hearth down to the solid stone or earth bottom, and the ashes would be banked in two hills to one side and the other. Then she would put the batter down on it; the batter would be about an inch thick and about nine inches across. She'd put down three cakes at a time and let 'em stay there till the cakes were firm—about five minutes on the bare hot hearth. They would almost bake before she covered them up. Sometimes she would lay down as many as four at a time. The cakes had to be dry before they were covered up, because if the ashes ever stuck to them while they were wet, there would be ashes in them when you would take them out to eat. She'd take her poker then and rake the ashes back on the top of the cakes and let 'em stay there till the cakes were done. I don't know just how long—maybe about ten or twelve minutes. She knew how long to cook them. Then she'd rake down the hearth gently, backward and forward, with the poker till she got down to them and then she'd put the poker under them and lift them out. That poker was a kind of flat iron. It wasn't a round one. Then we'd wash 'em off like I told you and they be ready to eat.

"Mr. George would eat the ash cake and drink sweet milk. 'Auntie, I want some of that ash cake and some of that good sweet milk.' We had plenty of cows.

"Two-thirds of the water used in the ash cake was hot water, and that made the batter stick together like it was biscuit dough. She could put it together and take it in her hand and pat it out flat and lay it on the hearth. It would be just as round! That was the art of it!

"When I go back to Mississippi, I'm going back to that house again. I don't remember seeing the house I was born in. But I was told it was an ordinary log house just like those all the other slaves had,—just a one-room log house.

Freedom

"My father went to the War. He was on the Confederate side. They carried him there as a worker. They cut down all the timber 'round the place where they were to keep the Yankee gunboats from shelling them and knocking the logs down on them. But them Yankees were sharp. They stayed away till everything got dry as a chip. Then they come down and set all that wood afire with their shells, and the wind seemed to be in their favor. The Rebels had to get away from there.

"He got sick before the War closed and he had to come home. His young master and the other folks stayed there four or five months longer. His young master was named Tom. When Tom came home, he waited about five or six months before he would tell them they was free. Then he said, 'You all free as I am. You can stay here if you want or you can go. You are free.' They all got together and told him that if he would treat them right he wouldn't have to do no work. They would stay and do his work and theirs too. They would work the land and he would give them their part. I don't know just what the agreement was. I think it was about a third. Anyway, they worked on shares. When the landlord furnished a team usually it was halves. But when the worker furnished his own team, it was usually two-thirds or three-fourths that the worker got. But none of them owned teams at that time. They were just turned loose. We stayed there with them people a good while. I don't know just how long, but it was several years.

Catching a Hog

"One time a slave went to steal a hog. I don't know the name of the man; I just hear my father tell what happened, and I'm repeating it. It was a great big hog and kind of wild. His plan to catch the hog was to climb a tree and carry a yeer of corn up the tree and at the same time he'd carry a long rope. He had put a running noose in the end of the rope and laid it on the ground and shelled the corn into the ring. He had the other end of the rope tied around himself; he was up the tree. About the time he got the noose pulled up around the hog so that he could tighten up on it, he dropped his hat and scared the hog. The hog didn't know he was around until the hat fell, and the falling of the hat scared it so that it made a big jump and ran a little ways off. That jerked the man out of the tree. Him falling scared the hog a second time and got him to running right. He was a big stout hog, and the man's weight didn't hold him back much. The man didn't know what to do to stop the hog. The hog was running draggin' him along, snatching him over logs. There was nothin' else he could do, so he tried prayer. But the hog didn't stop. Seemed like even the Lord couldn't stop him. Then he questioned the Lord; he said, 'Lawd, what sawt [HW: sort] of a Lawd is you? You can stop the wind; you can stop the rain; you can stop the ocean; but you can't stop this hog.'

"The hog ran till he came to a big ditch. He jumped the ditch, but the man fell in it, and that compelled the hog to stop. The man's hollering made somebody hear him and come and git him loose from the hog. He was so glad to git loose, he didn't mind losing the hog and gettin' punished. He didn't get the hog. He just got a lot of bruises. I don't remember just how they punished him.

Ku Klux Klan

"Once after the War there was a lot of colored people at a prayer meeting. It was in the winter and they had a fire. The Ku Klux come up. They just stood outside the door, but the people thought they were coming in and they got scared. They didn't know hardly how to get out. One man got a big shovelful of hot coals and ashes out of the fireplace and threw it out over them, and while they was dusting off the ashes and coals, the niggers all got away.

Patrollers

"I remember my father telling tales about the patrollers, but I can't remember them just now. There was an old song about them. Part of it went like this:

'Run, nigger, run The pateroles'll get you.

That nigger run That nigger flew That nigger bust His Sunday shoe.

Run, nigger, run The pateroles'll get you.'

That's all I know of that. There is more to it. I used to hear the boys sing it, and I used to hear 'em pick it out on the banjo and the guitar.

Old Massa Goes 'Way

"Old massa went off one time and left the niggers. He told 'em that he was goin' to New York. He jus' wanted to see what they would do if they thought he was away. The niggers couldn't call the name New York, and they said, 'Old massa's gone to PhilameYawk.'

"They went in the pantry and got everything they wanted to eat. And they had a big feast. While they were feasting, the old man came in disguised as a tramp—face smutty and clothes all dirty and raggedy. They couldn't tell who he was. He walked up just as though he wanted to eat and begged the boys for something to eat. The boys said to him, 'Stan' back, you shabby rascal, you; if'n they's anything left, you get some; if'n they ain't none left, you get none. This is our time. Old massa done gone to PhilameYawk and we're having a big time.'

"After they were through, they did give him a little something but they still didn't know him. I never did learn the details about what happened after they found out who the tramp was. My father told me about it.

Whipping a Slave

"I heard my father say his old master give him two licks with a whip once. Him and another man had been off and they came in. Master drove up in a double surrey. He had been to town and had bought the boys a pair of boots apiece. He told them as he got out of the surrey to take his horses out and feed them. My father's friend was there with him and he said: 'Le's get our boots before we feed the horses.' After that the master walked out on the porch and he had on crying boots. The horses heard them squeaking and they nickered.

"Master said, 'Henry, I thought I told you to feed them horses. Henry was so taken aback that he couldn't say a thing. Henry was my father, you know. Master went and got his cowhide. He said, 'Are you going to obey my orders?' About the time he said that, he hit my father twice with the cowhide, and my father said, 'Oh pray, master, oh pray,' and he let him go. He beat the other fellow pretty bad because he told him to 'Le's get the boots first.'

"Old master would get drunk sometimes and get on the niggers and beat them up. He would have them stark naked and would be beating them. Then old missis would come right out there and stop him. She would say, 'I didn't come all the way here from North Carolina to have my niggers beat up for nothin'.' She'd take hold of the cowhide, and he would have to quit. My father had both her picture and the old man's.

Prayer

"I can remember how my mother used to pray out in the field. We'd be picking cotton. She would go off out there in the ditch a little ways. It wouldn't be far, and I would listen to her. She would say to me: 'Pray, son,' and I would say, 'Mother, I don't know how to pray,' and she would say, 'Well, just say Lord have mercy.' That gave me religious inclinations. I cultivated religion from that time on. I would try to pray and finally I learned. One day I was out in the field and it was pouring down rain, and I was standing up with tears in my eyes trying to pray as she taught me to. We weren't picking cotton then. I was just walking out. My mother was dead. I would be walking out and whenever I would get the notion I would stop right there and go to praying.

"In slave times, they would have a prayer meeting out in some of the places and they would turn a pot down out in front of the door. It would be on a stick or something and raised up a short distance from the ground so that it wouldn't set flat on the ground. It seems that that would catch the sound and keep it right around there. They would sing that old song:

'We will camp awhile in the wilderness And then I'm going home.'

I don't know any more of the words of that song.

Early Schooling

"I started to school when I was about six or seven years old. I didn't get to school regular because my father had plenty of work and he had a habit of taking me out to help him when he needed me in his work.

"My first teacher was a white man named Jones. I don't remember his first name. He was a northerner and a Republican. He taught in the public school with us. His boy, John, and his girl, Louisa, went to the same school, and were in classes with us. The kids would beat them up sometimes but he didn't cut up about it. He was pretty good man.