"After him, I had a colored man named M.E. Davis as a teacher. He would say to my father, 'Henry, that is a bright boy; he will be a credit to you if you will keep him at school and give him a chance. Don't make him lose so much time.' My father would say, 'Yes, that is right.' But as soon as another job came up, he would keep me out again.

"I soon got so my learning was a help to him in his work. Whenever any figuring was to be done, I had to do it if it was done right. He never had a chance to get any schooling and he couldn't figure well. So they used to beat him out of plenty when he would work for them. One day we had picked cotton for a white man and when the time came to pay off, the man paid father, but I noticed that he didn't give him all he should have. I didn't say anything while we was standing there but after we got away I said, 'Papa, he didn't give you the right money.'

"Papa said, 'How much should he have given me?'

"I told him, and he said to me, 'Will you say that to him?'

"I said, 'Yes, papa.'

"He turned 'round and we went on back to the place and pa said, 'My boy says you didn't pay me all that was comin' to me.'

"The white man turned to me at once and said, 'How much was coming to him?'

"I told him.

"He said, 'What makes you think that?'

"I said, 'We picked so many pounds of cotton at so much per hundred pounds, and that would amount to so many dollars and so many cents.'

"When I said that, he fell over on the ground and like to killed his self laughing. He counted out the right money to my father and said, 'Henry, you better watch that little skinny-eyed nigger; he knows something.'

Present Support

"I don't got anything from the government. I live by what little I make at odd jobs."

Note: In this interview this man used correct English most of the time and the interview is given in his own words. Lapses into dialect will be noticed.



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Ben Parr, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 85 next March (1938)

"I was born in Tennessee close to Ripley. My master was Charles Warpoo and Catherine Warpoo. They had three boys and two girls. They owned my mama and me and Gentry was the oldest child. He died last year. My mama raised twelve children. My papa belong to people over on the Mississippi River. Their name was Parr but I couldn't tell a thing about them. When I come to know about them was after freedom. There was Jim Parr, Dick Parr, Columbus Parr. We lived on their place. Both my parents was farm hands, and all twelve children wid them.

"Well, the first I recollect is that we lived on the five acre lot, the big house, and some of the slaves lived in houses around the big yard all fenced with pailings and nice pickett fence in front of Charlie Warpoo's house. We played around under the trees all day. The soldiers come nearly every day and nearly et us out of house and home. The blue coats seemed the hungriest or greediest pear lack. They both come. Master didn't go to war; his boys was too young to go, so we was all at home. My papa shunned the war. He said he didn't give a pickayune whether he be free or not, it wouldn't do no good if he be dead nohow. He didn't live with us doe (though). They kept papa pretty well hid out with stock in the Mississippi River bottoms. He wasn't scared ceptin' when he come over to see my mama and us. When we come to know anything we was free.

"I never seen nobody sold. None of my folks was sold. The folks raised my mama and they didn't want her to leave. The folks raised papa what had him at freedom. He said him and mama was married long before the war sprung up. I don't know how they married nor where. She was young when they married.

"I remember hearing mama say when you went to preaching you sit in the back of the church and sit still till the preaching was all over. They had no leaving.

"I know when I was a child people raised children, now they let them grow up. Children was sent off or out to play, not sit and listen to what grown folks had to say. Now the children is educated and too smart to listen to good advice. They are going to ruination. Mama used to have our girls knit at night and she spin, weave, sew. They would tell us how to be polite and honest and how to work. Young folks too smart to take advice now.

"Mama was cooking at the Warpoo's house; she cooked breakfast. One morning I woke up and here was a yard full of 'Feds.' I was hungry. I went through the whole regiment—a yard full—to mama hard as I could split. They didn't bother me. I was afraid they would carry me off sometimes. They was great hands to tease and worry the little Negro children.

"Over at Dyersburg, Tennessee the Ku Klux was bad. Jefferie Segress was pretty prosperous, owned his own home. John Carson whooped him, cut his ear off, treated him bad. High Sheriff they said was a 'Fed.' He put twenty-four buck shots in John Carson. That was the last of the Ku Klux at Dyersburg. The Negroes all left Dyersburg. They kept leaving. The 'Feds' was meaner to them than the owners. In 1886, three weeks before Christmas, one hundred head of Negroes got off the train here at Brinkley. The Ku Klux was the tail end of the war, whooping around. It was a fight between the 'Feds' and the old owners—both sides telling the Negroes what to do. The best way was stay at home and work to keep out of trouble.

"The bushwhackers killed Raymond Jones (black man) before the war closed. Well, I don't know what they ambushed for.

"I paid my own way to Arkansas. I brought my wife. Mama was dead.

"If the Negro is a taxpayer he ought to vote like white folks. But they can't run the government. That was tried out after that war we been talking about. Our color has faith in white folks and this is their country. I vote some. We got a good right to vote. We helped clear out the country. It is our home now.

"The present times is too fast. I can't place this young generation.

"This is my second wife I'm living wid now. She's got children. I never had a child. We gets $10 off of the Welfare and I work around at pick-up jobs. I farmed all my whole life."



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank A. Patterson 906 Chester Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 88

"I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1850. My father was born in Baltimore, Maryland. My mother and father was sold into Bibb County, Georgia. I don't know how much they sold for. I don't know how much they paid for them. I don't know how much the speculator asked for them. Used to have them in droves and you would go in and pick 'em out and pay different amounts for them.

"I was never sold. My old boss didn't believe in selling slaves. He would buy 'em but he wouldn't sell 'em. I'll say that much for him.

Master

"I belonged to a man named Thomas Johnson Cater.

Houses

"They lived in log houses. Some of them had weatherboard houses but the majority of them was log houses. Two doors and one window. Some of them had plank floors. Some of them had floors what was hewed, you know, sills. They had stick and dirt chimneys. Some of them had brick chimneys. It depended on the master—on the situation of the master.

Furniture

"They just had bunks built up side the wall. The best experienced colored people had these teester beds. Didn't have no slats. Had ropes. They called 'em cord beds sometimes. They had tables just like we have now what they made themselves. Chairs were long benches made out of planks. Little kids had big blocks to sit on where they sawed off timber.

"They had what they called a cupboard to keep the food in. Some of them had chests made out of planks, you know. That is the way they kept it. They put a hasp and steeple on it so as to keep the children out when they was gone to the field.

Food

"They give 'em three pounds of meat a week, peck of meal, pint of molasses; some of them give 'em three to five pounds of flour on a Sunday morning according to the size of the family. The majority of them had shorts from the wheat. Some of the slaves would clean up a flat in the bottoms and plant rice in it. That was where they would allow the slaves to have truck patches.

"Some few of them had chickens that was allowed to have them. Same of them had owners that wouldn't allow their slaves to own chickens. They never allowed them to have hogs or cows. Wherever there was a family that had a whole lot of children they would allow them to have a cow to milk for to get milk for their children. They claimed the cow, but the master was the owner of it. It belonged to him. He would just let them milk it. He would just let them raise their children off of the milk it gave.

Clothes

"There was no child ever had a pair of shoes until he got old enough to go in the field. That was when he was twelve years old. That is about all I know about it.

Schooling

"I never went to school in my life. I got hold of one of them old blue back spelling books. My young boss gave it to me after I was free. He told me that I was free now and I had to think and act for myself.

Signs of War

"Before the War I saw the elements all red as blood and I saw after that a great comet; and they said there was going to be a war.

Memories of the Pre-War Campaign

"When Fillmore, Buchanan, and Lincoln ran for President one of my old bosses said, 'Hurrah for Buchanan,' and I said, 'Hurrah for Lincoln.' One of my mistresses said, 'Why do you say, 'Hurrah for Lincoln?' And I said, 'Because he's goin' to set me free.'

"During that campaign, Lincoln came to North Carolina and ate breakfast with my master. In those days, the kitchen was off from the house. They had for breakfast ham with cream gravy made out of sweet milk and they had biscuits, poached eggs on toast, coffee and tea, and grits. They had waffles and honey and maple syrup. That was what they had for breakfast.

"He told my old boss that our sons are 'ceivin' children by slaves and buyin' and sellin' our own blood and it will have to be stopped. And that is what I know about that.

Refugeeing

"At the close of the War, we had refugeed down in Houston County in Georgia.

War Memories

"Sherman's army came through there looking for Jeff Davis, and they told me that they wasn't fightin' any more,—that I was free.

"They said, 'You ain't got no master and no mistress.' They et dinner there. All the old folks went upstairs and turned the house over to me and the cook. And they et dinner. One of them said, 'My little man, bring your hat 'round now and we are going to pay you,' and they passed the hat 'round and give me a hat full of money. I thought it wasn't no good and I carried it and give it to my old mistress, but it was good.

"They asked me if I had ever seen Jeff Davis. I said 'No.' Then they said, 'That's him sittin' there.' He had on a black dress and a pair of boots and a mantilla over his shoulders and a Quaker bonnet and a black veil.

"They got up from the dining table and Sherman ordered them to 'Recover arms.' He had on a big black hat full of eagles and he had stars and stripes all over him. That was Sherman's artillery. They had mules with pots and skillets, and frying pans, and axes, and picks, grubbing hoes, and spades, and so on, all strapped on those mules. And the mules didn't have no bridles but they went on just as though they had bridles. One of the Yanks started a song when he picked up his gun.

'Here's my little gun His name is number one Four and five rebels We'll slay 'em as they come Join the ban' The rebels understan' Give up all the lan' To my brother Abraham Old Gen'l Lee Who is he? He's not such a man As our Gen'l Grant Snap Poo, Snap Peter Real rebel eater I left my ply stock Standin' in the mould I left my family And silver and gold Snap Poo, Snap Peter Real rebel eater Snap Poo, Snap Peter.'

"And General Sherman gave the comman', 'Silence', and 'Silence' roared one man, and it rolled all down the line, 'Silence, silence, silence, silence.' And they all got silent.

How Freedom Came

"They had a notification for a big speaking and that was in Perry, Georgia. Everybody that was able throughout the State went to that convention where that speaking was. And that is where peace was declared. Every man was his own free agent. 'No more master, no more mistress. You are your own free moral agent. Think and act for yourself.' That is how it was declared. I didn't go to the meeting. I was right there in the town. There was too many people there. You couldn't stir them with hot fire. But my mother and father went.

What the Slaves Expected

"They didn't expect anything but freedom. Some of them didn't have sense enough to secure a home for themselves. They didn't have no sense. Some of them wasn't eligible to speak for themselves. They wanted somebody to speak for them.

What They Got

"I don't know that they got anything.

Immediately After the War

"Right after the War, I stayed with the people that owned me and worked. They give me two dollars a month and my food and clothes. I stayed with them five years and then I quit. I had sense enough to quit and I went to work for wages. I got five dollars a month. And I thought that was a big salary. I didn't know no better. I learnt better by experience.

Negroes in Politics

"Just after the War, the Republicans used to have representatives at the state convention. After the Democrats got in power, they knocked all that in the head. Colored people used to be on juries. But they won't let them serve now. (Negroes served on local grand jury last year.)

"I knew one nigger politician in Georgia named I.B. Simons. He was a school-teacher. He never held any office. I knowed a nigger politician here by the name of John Bush. He had the United States Land Office. When the Democrats got in power they put him out. I knowed another fellow used to be here named Crockett Brown. He lived in Lee County, Arkansas. He was a Congressman. I don't know whether he ever got to the White House or not. I ain't never seen no account of it. I can't tell you all any more now.

Memories of Fred Douglass

"I knowed Fred Douglass. I shook hands with him and talked with him here in Little Rock. They give him the opera house. We had the first floor. The white folks had the gallery. That was when the Republicans were in power.

"He said: 'They all seem to be amazed and dumbfounded over me having a white woman for a wife.' He said, 'You all don't know that my father was my mother's master and she was as black as a crow. Don't it seem natural that history should repeat itself? have often wondered why he liked such a black woman as my mother. I was jus' a chip off the old block.'

Voting

"I voted for U.S. Grant. He was the first President we had after the Civil War. I shook hands with him twice in Little Rock. He put up at the Capitol Hotel and I was a-cooking there.

"I voted for McKinley. I saw him too. I had a walking cane with his head on it. That is about all I remember right now. He was the one that got up this gold standard. He liked to put this state under bayonet laws when he was working under that gold standard. The South was bitterly against him.

Occupation

"I followed cooking all my life. I have had the white peoples' lives in my hand all my life. I worked on the Government boat, Wichita. It went out of season and they built a boat called the Arkansas. I cooked on it. Captain Griffin was the master of it. When it went out of service, Captain Newcome from the War Department transferred me over to the Mississippi River on the Arthur Hider (?). My headquarters were in Greenville, Mississippi. It was far from home, so after nine months I quit and came home (Little Rock). Captain Van Frank give me a position on a dredge boat and the people were so bad on there I wouldn't stay. I came away. I wouldn't stay 'mongst 'em.

Religion

"I want you to know that I am a Christian and I want you to know I ain't got no compromise with nobody on God's word. I ain't got but one way and that is the way Jesus said:

Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He that believeth on me shall be saved.

You all fix anything anyway you want. I ain't bothered 'bout you.

"My people were good Christian people."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Patterson, Helena, Arkansas Age: 74

"I was born near Paducah, Kentucky. Mother was never sold. She belong to Master Arthur Patterson. Mother was what folks called black folks. I never seen a father to know. I never heard mother say a thing about my father if I had one. He never was no use to me nor her neither. Mother brought me here in time of the Civil War. I was four years old. We come here to be kept from the Yankee soldiers. We was sent with some of the Pattersons. At the end of the war mother cooked for Nick Rightor (?) and his wife here in North Helena. He was a farmer but his son is a ear, eye, nose specialist.

"I farmed, cleaned house and yards for these Helena people. I was janitor at the Episcopal church in Helena sixteen years and four months. They paid me forty-five dollars a month.

"Yes ma'am, I have heard about the Ku Klux. Heard talk but never seen one.

"I never been in jail. I never been drunk. Folks in Helena will tell you John Patterson can be trusted.

"I saved up one thousand dollars, just let it slip. The present times are hard. Times are hard. I get ten dollars and comissary helps. I got one in family.

"I think mother said she was treated very good in slavery. She didn't tell me much about it.

"I own a home. It come through a will from my aunt. My uncle was a drayman here in Helena and a close liver. I want to hold to it if I can.

"If you'd ask me what all ain't took place since I been here I could come nigh telling you. We had colored officers here. Austin Barrer was sheriff. Half of the officers was colored at one time. John Jones was police. No, they wasn't friends of mine. I seen these levies built. One was here in 1897. It was rebuilt then.

"It seems to me the country is going down. When they put in the Stock Law people had to sell so much stock. Milch cows sold for six dollars a head. People that want and need stock have no place to raise it. People are not as industrious as they was and they accumolate more it seems to me. We used to make our living at home. I think that is the best way.

"I voted a Republican ticket years ago. I don't believe in women voting. The Lord don't believe in that. I belong to the Baptist church.

"Young folks don't act on education principles. Folks used to fight with fist. Now one shoots the other down. Times are not improving morally. Folks don't even think it is wrong to take things; that is stealing. They drink up all the money they can get. I don't see no colored folks ever save a dollar. They did long time ago. Thaes worse in some ways.

"I forgot our plough songs:

'I wonder where my darling is.'

'Nigger makes de cotton and de White man gets the money.'

"Everybody used to sing. We worked from sun to sun; we courted and was happy. People not happy now. They are craving now. About four o'clock we all start up singing. Sing till dark."



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Sarah Jane Patterson 2611 Orange Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 90

"I was born in Bartow County, Georgia, January 17, 1848. You can go there and look in that Bible over there and you will find it all written down. My mama kept a record of all our ages. Her old mistress kept the record and gave it to my mother after freedom.

Parents

"My parents were Joe Patterson and Mary Adeline Patterson. My mother's name before she married was Mary Adeline Huff. My grandfather on my mother's side was named Huff. My mother's sisters were Mahala, and Sallie. And them's the onliest two I remember. She had two brothers but I don't remember their names.

How Freedom Came

"I was living in Bartow County in north Georgia when freedom came. I don't remember how the slaves found it out. I remember them saying, 'Well, they's all free.' And that is all I remember. And I remember some one saying—asking a question, 'You got to say master?' And somebody answered and said, 'Naw.' But they said it all the same. They said it for a long time. But they learned better though.

Family

"I have brother Willis, Lizzie, Mary, Maud, and myself. There was four sisters and one brother. I had just one child—a boy. He lived to be a grown man and raised a family. His wife had three children and all of them is gone. The father, the mother, and the children. I was a woman. I wasn't no man. I just had one child, but the Lord blessed me. I have three sisters and a brother dead.

Master

"My old master's name was John Patterson and my old mistress was named Lucy Patterson. She had a son named Bill and a son named Tommy and a son named Charles, and a boy named Bob, and a girl named Marion. We are so for apart they can't help me none. I know Bob's boys are dead because they got killed in a fight in Texas.

Crippled in Slave Time

"I been crippled all my life. We was on the lawn playing and the white boy had been to the pond to water the horses. He came back and said he was going to run over us. We all ran and climbed up on the top of a ten rail fence. The fence gave 'way and broke and fell down with us. I caught the load. They all fell on me. It knocked the knee out of place. They carried me to Stilesboro to Dr. Jeffrey, a white doctor in slavery time. I don't know what he did, but he left me with my knee out of joint after he treated it. I can't work my toes and I have to walk with that stick.

Soldiers

"I was a tot when I seen the soldiers coming dressed in blue, and I run. They was very nice to the colored people, never beat 'em or nothin'. I was in Bartow County when they come through. They took a lot of things, but I can't remember exactly what it was. I 'tended to the children then—both the white and colored children, but mostly the white.

Good Masters

"My old master, John Patterson, never beat up the women and men he bossed.

Patrollers

"I have heard people talk about the pateroles raising sand with the niggers. Some of the niggers would say they got whipped. I was small. I would hear 'em say, 'The pateroles is out tonight.'

Ku Klux Klan

"I have seed the old Ku Klux. That was after freedom. They came 'round to my old master where my mama stayed. They were just after whipping folks. Some of them they couldn't whip.

Support

"I used to get a little money from Mr. Dent long as he was living. I would go over there and he would give me a dollar or two. Since he's been dead, his wife don't have much to give me. She gives me something to eat sometimes but she doesn't have any money now that her husband is dead.

"I can't get up to the Welfare. Crippled as I am, I can't walk up and down those stairs, and I can't git there nohow. I been tryin' to git some one to take me up there.

"Mr. Pratt helps me from time to time, but he ain't sent me nothin' now in a good while. He's right smart busy, but if I go to him, I spect he'll stir up somethin' for me.

Travels

"I wouldn't never a left Bartow County, but the white people made out that this was a rich country and you could make so much out here, and we moved out here. We was young then. We came out on the train. It was a long time back but it was too far to came on a wagon. I don't remember just how long ago it was.

Occupation

"I used to quilt until my fingers got too stiff. I got some patterns in there now if you want to see them."

Interviewer's Comment

The old lady took me in the house and showed me about a dozen quilts, beautifully patterned and made. She had also some unfinished tops. She says that she does not have much of a sale for them now because the "quality of folks" who liked such things well enough to buy them "is just about gone."

She is crippled and unable to walk with facility. She has a great deal of difficulty in getting off and on her porch. Still she does not impress one as feeble so much as just disabled in one or two particulars. She has a crippled knee, and both of her hands are peculiarly stiff in the finger joints, one more so than the other. If it were not for the disabilities, as old as she is, I believe that she could give a good account of herself.

I didn't have the heart to tell the old lady that her Bible record is not what she thinks it is. It is not the old original record which her mistress possessed. Neither is it the copy of the record of her mistress which her mother kept. From questioning, I gather that the old mistress dictated the original record to some one connected with her mother, might have written it out herself on a sheet of paper. From time to time, as new deaths and births occurred, scraps of paper containing them were added to the first paper, and as the papers got worn, blurred, and dog-eared, they were copied—probably not without errors. Time came when the grandchildren up in the grades and with semi-modern[HW:?] ideas copied the scraps into the family Bible. By that time aging and blurring of the original lead pencil notes, together with recopying, had invalidated the record till it is no longer altogether reliable.

The births recorded in the Bible are as follows and in the exact order given below:

Mary Patterson 10-11-1866 Harris Donesson 3-13- 72 Lilley Donesson 7-21- 85 Pearly Donesson 3-29- 92 Silvay Williams 8-29- 84 Beney Williams 11-24- 85 Millia A. Williams 12-30- 88 Joe Patterson 10- 3- 77 H. Patterson 7-29- 79 Maria E. Patterson 11-19- 81 Jennie Patterson 12-24- 84 Alex Patterson 7- 5- 86 James Patterson 6-20- 90 Janie Patterson 1-27- 60 Amanda Patterson 1-28- 63 James Rafield Walker 8-11- 99 Cornelius Walker 7-21-1902 Willie Walker 11-20- 03 Elias Walker 7-21- 11 Emmet Brown 1-23- 22 Leon Harris 12-13- 21

The following marriages were given:

May Lee Brown 2-26-1926 James Walker Brown 2-21- 35 Jennie Walker 6-20- 15 Lillie Jean Walker 12-6- 36

The name of Sarah Jane Patterson is not in the list. The list itself is not chronological. It is written in ink but in the stiff cramped hand to be expected of a school child not yet thoroughly familiar with the pen. The eye fixes on the name of Janie Patterson, 1-27-1860. It does not seem probable that this is correct if it is meant to be Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane could give no help except to answer questions about the manner in which the record was made.

These considerations led me to set the record aside in my own mind so far as Sarah Jane Patterson's age is concerned and to take her word. She has a very clear conception of the change from slavery to freedom. Her memories are blurred and indistinct, but she recollects that this matter was during slavery times and that during freedom. It seems that she had the care of the smaller children during slavery time—at the time she saw the soldiers marching through. This was not during the time of freedom, because she distinguished clearly the Ku Klux time. She would have to be at least eighty to have cared for children. Her tenacious memory of ninety may have some foundation, therefore.

Moreover where writing is done in lead pencil and hurriedly, six is often made to look like four and a part of eight may become blurred till it looks like a zero. That would account for 1848 being transcribed as 1860. There would be nothing unusual, however, in a Sarah Jane and a Jane. I neglected to cover that point in a question.



Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Solomon P. Pattillo 1502 Martin Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 76 Occupation: Formerly farmer, teacher, and small dealer—now blind

"I was born November 1862. I was three years old at the time of the surrender. I was born right here in Arkansas—right down here in Tulip, Dallas County, Arkansas. I have never been out of the state but twice.

Refugeeing

"My daddy carried me out once when they took him to Texas during the war to keep the Yanks from setting him free.

"Then I went out once long after slavery to get a load of sand. On the way back, my boat nearly sank. Those are the only two times I ever left the state.

Parents

"My father's name was Thomas Smith, but the Pattillos bought him and he took the name of Pattillo. I don't know how much he sold for. That was the only time he was ever sold. I believe that my father was born in North Carolina. It seems like to me I recollect that is where he said he was born.

"My mother was born in Virginia. I don't know how she got here unless she was sold like my father was. I don't know her name before she got married. Yes, I do; her name was Fannie Smith, I believe.

Houses

"We lived in old log cabins. We had bedsteads nailed to the wall. Then we had them old fashioned cordboard springs. They had ropes made into springs. That was a high class bed. People who had those cord springs felt themselves. They made good sleeping. My father had one. Ropes were woven back and forth across the bed frame.

"We had those old spinning wheels. Three cuts was a day's work. A cut was so many threads. It was quite a day to make them. They had hanks too. The threads were all linked together.

"My mother was a spinner. My father was a farmer. Both of them worked for their master,—old Massa, they called him, or Massa, Mass Tom, Mass John or Massta.

War Recollections

"I remember during the war when I was in Texas with a family of Moody's how old Mistiss had me packing rocks out of the yard in a basket and cleaning the yard. I didn't know it then, but my daddy told me later that that was when I was in Texas,—during the war. I remember that I used to work in my shirt tail.

"The soldiers used to come in the house somewhere and take anything they could get or wanted to take.

Pateroles

"When I was a boy they had a song, 'Run, Nigger, run; The Pateroles will get you.' They would run you in and I have been told they would whip you. If you overstayed your time when your master had let you go out, he would notify the pateroles and they would hunt you up and turn you over to him.

Church Meetings

"Way long then, my father and mother used to say that man doesn't serve the Lord—the true and living God and let it be known. A bunch of them got together and resolved to serve Him any way. First they sang in a whisper, 'Come ye that love the Lord.' Finally they got bold and began to sing in tones that could be heard everywhere, 'Oh for a thousand tongues to sing my Great Redeemer's praise.'

After the War

"After the war my father fanned—made share crops. I remember once how some one took his horse and left an old tired horse in the stable. She looked like a nag. When she got rested up she was better than the one that was took.

"His first farm was down here in Dallas County. He made a share crop with his former master, Pattillo. He never had no trouble with him.

Ku Klux

"I heard a good deal of talk about the Ku Klux Klan, but I don't know anything much about it. They never bothered my father and mother. My father was given the name of being an obedient servant—among the best help they had.

"My father farmed all his life. He died at the age of seventy-two in Tulip, near the year 1885, just before Cleveland's inauguration. He died of typhoid pneumonia. My mother was ninety-six years old when she died in 1909.

Little Rock

"I came to Little Rock in 1894. I came up here to teach in Fourche Dam. Then I moved here. I taught my first school in this county at Cato. I quit teaching because my salary was so poor and then I went into the butcher's business, and in the wood business. I farmed all the while.

"I taught school for twenty-one years. I always was a successful teacher. I did my best. If you contract to do a job for ten dollars, do as much as though you were getting a hundred. That will always help you to get a better job.

"I have farmed all my life in connection with my teaching. I went into other businesses like I said a moment ago. I was a caretaker at the Haven of Rest Cemetery for sometime.

"I was postmaster from 1904 to 1911 at Sweet Home. At one time I was employed on the United States Census.

"I get a little blind pension now. I have no other means of support.

Loss of Eyes

"The doctor says I lost my eyesight on account of cataracts. I had an operation and when I came home, I got to stirring around and it caused me to have a hemorrhage of the eye. You see I couldn't stay at the hospital because it was costing me $3 a day and I didn't have it. They had to take one eye clean out. Nothing can be done for them, but somehow I feel that the lord's going to let me see again. That's the way I feel about it.

"I have lived here in this world this long and never had a fight in my life. I have never been mistreated by a white man in my life. I always knew my place. Some fellows get mistreated because they get out of their place.

"I was told I couldn't stay in Benton because that was a white man's town. I went there and they treated me white. I tried to stay with a colored family way out. They were scared to take me. I had gone there to attend to some business. Then I went to the sheriff and he told me that if they were scared to have me stay at their home, I could stay at the hotel and put my horse in the livery stable. I stayed out in the wagon yard. But I was invited into the hotel. They took care of my horse and fed it and they brought me my meals. The next morning, they cleaned and curried and hitched my horse for me.

"I have voted all my life. I never had any trouble about it.

"The Ku Klux never bothered me. Nobody else ever did. If we live so that everybody will respect us, the better class will always try to help us."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Carry Allen Patton Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 71

"I was born in Shelby County, Tennessee. My parents was Tillie Watts and Pierce Allen. He come from Louisiana reckly (directly) after the surrender. My mother come from Virginia. She was sold in Virginia and brought to middle Tennessee close to Murfreesboro and then brought to Memphis and sold. She was dark and my father was too. They was living close to Wilmar, Arkansas when the yellow fever was so bad. I don't remember it. Heard them talk about it.

"I heard my mother say how Mr. Jake Watts saved his money from the Yankees. They had a great big rock flat on both sides. They put on the joints of big meat to weight it down when they salted it down in a barrel. They didn't unjoint the meat and in the joint is where it started to spoil. Well, he put his silver and gold in a pot. It was a big round pot and was smaller around the top. He dug a hole after midnight. He and his two boys James and Dock put the money in this hole in the back yard. They covered the pot with the big flat rock and put dirt on that and next morning they planted a good big cedar tree over the rock, money and all.

"Old Master Jake died during the War and their house was burned but James lived in one of the cabins in the yard. Dock went to the War. My mother said when they left, that tree was standing.

"My mother run off. She thought she would go cook for the men in the camps but before she got to the camps a wagon overtook her and they stole her. They brought her to Memphis and sold her on a block. They guarded her. She never did know who they was nor what become of them. They kept her in the wagon on the outskirts of the city nearly a month. One man always stayed to watch her. She was scared to death of both of them. One of the men kept a jug of whiskey in the wagon and drunk it but he never would get dead drunk so she could slip off.

"Mr. Johnson bought her and when the surrender come on, Master Johnson took his family and went to Texas. She begged him to take her to nurse but he said if it wasn't freedom he would send her back to Master James Watts and he would let her go back then. He give her some money but she never went back. She was afraid to start walking and before her money give clear out she met up with my father and he talked her out of going back.

"She had a baby pretty soon. It was by them men that stole her. He was light. He died when he got nearly grown. I recollect him good. I was born close to Memphis, the boy died of dysentery.

"When my mother was sold in Virginia she was carried in a wagon to the block and thought she was going to market. She never seen her folks no more. They let them go along to market sometimes and set in the wagon. She had a little pair of gloves she wore when she was sold her grandma had knit for her. They was white, had half thumb and no fingers. When she died I put them in her coffin. She had twins born dead besides me. They was born close to Wilmar, Arkansas.

"We farmed all my life in Arkansas and Mississippi. I married in Mississippi and we come back here before Joe died. I live out here and in Memphis. My son is a janitor at the Sellers Brothers Store in Memphis. My daughter cooks about here in town and I keep her children. I rather farm if I was able.

"I think young folks, both colors, shuns work. Times is running away with itself. Folks is living too fast. They ride too fast and drinks and do all kinds of meanness.

"My father was a mighty poor hand at talking. He said he was sold in a gang shipped to Memphis from New Orleans. Master Allen bought him. He was a boy. I don't know how big. He cleaned fish—scaled them. He butchered and in a few months Mr. Allen set him free. It was surrender when he was sold but Mr. Allen didn't know it or else he meant to keep him on a few years. When he got loose he started farming and farmed till he died. He farmed in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. He owned a place but a drouth come along. He got in debt and white folks took it.

"I married in Mississippi. My husband immigrated from South Carolina. He was Joe Patton. I washed and ironed and farmed. I rather farm now if I was able.

"I never got no gov'ment help. I ain't posing it. It is a fine thing. I was in Tennessee when it come on. They said I'd have to stay here six months. I never do stay."



Interviewer: Mrs. Annie L. LaCotts Person interviewed: Harriett McFarlin Payne Dewitt, Arkansas Age: 83

"Aunt Harriett, were you born in slavery time?"

"Yes, mam! I was big enough to remember well, us coming back from Texas after we refugeed there when the fighting of the war was so bad at St. Charles. We stayed in Texas till the surrender, then we all come back in lots of wagons. I was sick but they put me on a little bed and me and all the little chillun rode in a 'Jersey' that one of the old Negro mammies drove, along behind the wagons, and our young master, Colonel Bob Chaney rode a great big black horse. Oh! he nice-looking on dat horse! Every once and awhile he'd ride back to the last wagon to see if everything was all right. I remember how scared us chillun was when we crossed the Red River. Aunt Mandy said, 'We crossin' you old Red River today, but we not going to cross you any more, cause we are going home now, back to Arkansas.' That day when we stopped to cook our dinner I picked up a lot little blackjack acorns and when my mammy saw them she said, 'Throw them things down, chile. They'll make you wormy.' (I cried because I thought they were chinquapins.) I begged my daddy to let's go back to Texas, but he said, 'No! No! We going with our white folks.' My mama and daddy belonged to Col. Jesse Chaney, much of a gentleman, and his wife Miss Sallie was the best mistress anybody ever had. She was a Christian. I can hear her praying yet! She wouldn't let one of her slaves hit a tap on Sunday. They must rest and go to church. They had preaching at the cabin of some one of the slaves, and in the Summertime sometimes they had it out in the shade under the trees. Yes, and the slaves on each plantation had their own church. They didn't go galavanting over the neighborhood or country like niggers do now. Col. Chaney had lots and lots of slaves and all their houses were in a row, all one-room cabins. Everything happened in that one room,—birth, sickness, death and everything, but in them days niggers kept their houses clean and their door yards too. These houses where they lived was called 'the quarters'. I used to love to walk down by that row of houses. It looked like a town and late of an evening as you'd go by the doors you could smell meat a frying, coffee making and good things cooking. We were fed good and had plenty clothes to keep us dry and warm.

"Along about time for de surrender, Col. Jesse, our master, took sick and died with some kind of head trouble. Then Col. Bob, our young master, took care of his mama and the slaves. All the grown folks went to the field to work and the little chillun would be left at a big room called the nursing home. All us little ones would be nursed and fed by an old mammy, Aunt Mandy. She was too old to go to the field, you know. We wouldn't see our mammy and daddy from early in the morning till night when their work was done, then they'd go by Aunt Mandy's and get their chillun and go home till work time in the morning.

"Some of the slaves were house negroes. They didn't go to work in the fields, they each one had their own job around the house, barn, orchard, milk house, and things like that.

"When washday come, Lord, the pretty white clothes! It would take three or four women a washing all day.

"When two of de slaves wanted to get married, they'd dress up nice as they could and go up to the big house and the master would marry them. They'd stand up before him and he'd read out of a book called the 'discipline' and say, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy strength, with all thy might and thy neighbor as thyself.' Then he'd say they were man and wife and tell them to live right and be honest and kind to each other. All the slaves would be there too, seeing the 'wedden'.

"Our Miss Sallie was the sweetest best thing in the world! She was so good and kind to everybody and she loved her slaves, too. I can remember when Uncle Tony died how she cried! Uncle Tony Wadd was Miss Sallie's favorite servant. He stayed in a little house in the yard and made fires for her, brought in wood and water and just waited on the house. He was a little black man and white-headed as cotton, when he died. Miss Sallie told the niggers when they come to take him to the grave yard, to let her know when they got him in his coffin, and when they sent and told her she come out with all the little white chillun, her little grandchillun, to see Uncle Tony. She just cried and stood for a long time looking at him, then she said, 'Tony, you have been a good and faithful servant.' Then the Negro men walked and carried him to the graveyard out in a big grove in de field. Every plantation had its own graveyard and buried its own folks, and slaves right on the place.

"If all slaves had belonged to white folks like ours, there wouldn't been any freedom wanted."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Payne Brinkley, Ark. Age: 74

"I was born in Georgia, close to Bowles Spring, in Franklin County. My mama's master was Reverend David Payne. He was a Baptist preacher. My mama said my father was Monroe Glassby. He was a youngster on a neighboring plantation. He was white. His father was a landowner. I think she said it was 70 miles east of Atlanta where they went to trade. They went to town two or three times a year. It took about a week to go and come.

"From what Mama said they didn't know it was freedom for a long time. They worked on I know till that crop was made and gathered. Somebody sent word to the master, Rev. David, he better turn them slaves loose. Some of the hands heard the message. That was the first they knowed it was freedom. My mama said she seen soldiers and heard fighting. She had heard that if the Yankees won the war all the slaves be free. She set to studyin' what she would do. She didn't know what to do. So when she heard it she asked If she had to be free. She told Rev. David she wanted to stay like she had been staying. After I was up a good size boy we went to Banks County. She done house work and field work too and I done farm work. All kinds and from sun-up till dark every day. Sometimes I get in so late I have to make a torch light to see how to put the feed in the troughs. We had plenty litard—pine knots—they was rich to burn.

"I used to vote but I quit since I come to Arkansas. I come in 1902. I paid my own way and wrote back for my family. I paid their way too. I got one little grandaughter, 20 years old. She is off trying to make her way through college. My wife had a stroke and she can't do much no more. I got a piece of a house. It need repairs. I can't hardly pay my taxes. I can't work much. I got two cows and six little pigs. I got eighty acres land. I worked fourteen years for John Gazolla and that is when I made enough to buy my place. I am in debt but I am still working. Seems like one old man can't make much."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Larkin Payne Brinkley, Ark. Age: 85

"I was born in North Carolina. I don't recall my moster's name. My parents was Sarah Hadyn and John Payne. They had seven children. None of them was sold. My pa was sold. He had three sons in the Civil War. None of em was killed. One was in the war four years, the others a good portion of two years. They was helpers.

"Grandma bought grandpa's, freedom. My great grandma was an Indian woman. My mother was dark brown. My father was tolerable light. When I was small child they come in and tell bout people being sold. I heard a whole lot about it that way. It was great grandma Hadyn that was the Indian. My folks worked in the field or anywhere as well as I recollect.

"When freedom come on my folks moved to East Tennessee. I don't know whether they got good treatment or not. They was freedom loving folks. The Ku Klux never bothered us at home. I heard a lot of em. They was pretty hot further south. I had two brothers scared pretty bad. They went wid some white men to South Carolina and drove hogs. The white men come back in buggies or on the train—left them to walk back. The Ku Klux got after them. They had a hard time getting home. I heard the Ku Klux was bad down in Alabama. They had settled down fore I went to Alabama. I owned a home in Alabama. I took stock for it. Sold the stock and come to Arkansas. I had seven children. We raised three.

"When my folks was set free they never got nothing. The mountain folks raised corn and made whiskey. They made red corn cob molasses; it was good. They put lye in the whiskey; it would kill you. They raised hogs plenty. My folks raised hogs and corn. They didn't make no whiskey. I seen em make it and sell it too.

"I heard folks say they rather be under the home men overseers than Northern overseers. They was kinder to em it seem like. I was jes beginnin' to go to the field when freedom come on. I helped pile brush to be burned before freedom. I farmed when I was a boy; pulled fodder and bundled it. I shucked corn, slopped pigs, milked, plowed a mule over them rocks, thinned out corn. I worked twenty days in East Tennessee on the section. I cut and haul wood all winter.

"My parents both died in Arkansas. We come here to get to a fine farmin' country. We did like it fine. I'm still here.

"I have voted. I vote if I'm needed. The white folks country and they been runnin' it. I don't want no enemies. They been good to me. I got no egercation much. I sorter follows bout votin'. We look to the white folks to look after our welfare.

"I get $8.00 and commodities. I work all I can git to do."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Cella Perkins Marvell and Palestine, Arkansas Age: 67

"I was born close to Macon, Georgia. Mama's old mistress, Miss Mari (Maree) Beth Woods, brung her there from fifteen miles outer Atlanta.

"After emancipation Miss Mari Beth's husband got killed. A horse kicked him to death. It shyed at something and it run in front of the horse. He held the horse so it couldn't run. It kicked the foot board clean off, kicked him in the stomach. His boy crawled out of the buggy. That's the way we knowed how it happened. She didn't hurt the boy. His name was Benjamin Woods.

"Pa went to war with his master and he never come back to mama. She never heard from him after freedom. He got captured and got to be a soldier and went 'way off. She didn't never know if he got killed or lost his way back home.

"Mama cooked and kept up the house. Miss Mari Beth kept a boarding house in Macon till way after I was a big girl. I stood on a box and washed dishes and dried them for mama.

"Mr. Ben was grown when we come to Arkansas. He got his ma to go to Kentucky with him and I heard about Arkansas. Me and mama come to Palestine. We come in a crowd. A man give us tickets and we come by our lone selves till we got to Tennessee. A big crowd come from Dyersburg, Tennessee. Ma got to talking and found out we was headed fo' the same place in Arkansas.

"Ma talked a whole heap at tines more 'an others (times) about slavery times. Her master didn't take on over her much when he found out she was a barren woman. The old man Crumpton give her to his youngest daughter, Miss Mari Beth. She always had to do all kinds of work and house turns.

"After mama's slavery husband didn't come back and she was living in Macon, she fell in love with another man and I was a picked-up baby. Mama said Miss Mari Beth lost faith in her when I was born but she needed her and kept her on. Said seem like she thought she was too old to start up when she never had children when her papa owned her. They didn't like me. She said she could trust mama but she didn't know my stock. He was a black man. Mama was black as I is.

"Miss Mari Beth had a round double table. The top table turned with the victuals on it. I knocked flies three times a day over that table.

"I never had a store-bought dress in my life till mama bought me one at Madison, Arkansas. I wanted a pure white dress. She said if we made a good crop she was going to give me a dress. All the dresses I ever had was made out of Miss Mari Beth's dresses but I never had a pure white one. I never had one bought for me till I was nearly grown. I was so proud of it. When I would go and come back, I would pull it off and put it away. I wore it one summer white and the next summer I blued it and had a new dress. I had a white dress nearly every year till I got too old to dress up gay now. I got a white bonnet and apron I wears right now.

"Mama said Master Crumpton bought up babies to raise. She was taken away from her folks so soon she never heard of them. Aunt Mat raised her up in Atlanta and out on his place. He had a place in town but kept them on a place in the country. He had a drove of them. He hired them out. He hired mama once to a doctor, Dr. Willbanks. Mama said old master thought she would learn how to have children from him the reason he sent her there so much. When they had big to-dos old master sent mama over there. She never seen no money till about freedom. She loved to get hired out to be off from him. They all had young babies about but her. He was cross and her husband was cross. She had pleasure hired out. She said he didn't whoop much. He stamped his foot. They left right now.

"I hab three girls living; one here (Palestine), one at Marvell, and one in St. Louis. My youngest girl teaches music at a big colored school. She sends me my money and I lives with these girls. I been up there and I sure don't aim to live in no city old as I is. It's too dangerous slow as I got to be and so much racket I never slept a night I was there. I was there a month. She brung me home and I didn't go back.

"I cooked and washed and ironed and worked in the field. I do some work yet. I helps out where I am.

"The times is better I think from accounts I hear. This generation all living too fast er lives. They don't never be still a minute."



Pine Bluff District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of Interviewer: Martin & Barker Subject: Ex-Slaves—Slavery Times

This Information given by: Maggie Perkins Place of Residence: W. 6th. St. [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

My folks lived in S. Carolina and belonged to Col. Bob Baty and his family.

If I should lay down tonight I could tell when my folks were going to die, because the Lawd would tell me in a vision.

Just before my grandmother died, I got up one morning and told my aunt that granma was dead. Aunt said she did not want me telling lies.

Then I saw another aunt laying on the bed, and she had her hand under her jaw. She was smiling. The house was full of people. After awhile they heard that her aunt was dead too, and after that they paid attention to me when I told them somebody was going to die.

I'se a member of the Holiness Church. I believes step up right and keep the faith.

I seen my aunt walking up and down on a glass. The Lawd tells me in a vision to step right up and see the faith.

I am living in Jesus. He is coming to Pine Bluff soon. He is going to separate the lions from the sheep.

I was born in slavery times. I member folks riding around on horses.

Them days I used to wash my mistis feet and legs, and sometimes I would fall asleep against my mistis knees. I tells the young fry to give honor to the white folks, and my preacher tell 'em to obey the white folks, dat dey are our best friends, dey is our dependence and it would be hard getting on if we didn't have em to help us.

Spirits—Me and my husband moved into a house that a man, "uncle Bill" Hearn died in, and we wanted dat house so bad we moved right in as soon as he was taken out, we ate supper and went to bed.

By the time we got to sleep we heard sounds like someone was emptying shelled corn, and I hunched up under my husband scared to death and then moved out the next day. The dead haven't gone to Heaven. When death comes, he comes to your heart. He has your number and knows where to find you. He won't let you off, he has the key.

Death comes and unlocks the heart and twists the breath out of that heart and carries it back to God.

Nobody has gone to Heaven, no one can get pass Jesus until the day of his redemption, which is judgement day.

We can't pass the door without being judged. On the day of ressurection the trumpet will sound and us will wake up out of he graveyard, and come forth to be judged. The sea shall give up its dead. Every nation will have to appear before God and be judged in a twinklin of an eye. If you aren't prepared before Jesus comes, it will be too late. God is everywhere, he is the almight. God is a nice God, he is a clean God, he is a good God. I would be afraid to tell you a lie for God would strike me down.

Eight years ago I couldn't see, I wore specs 3 years. I forgot my specs one morning, I prayed for my eyesight and it was restored that morning.

Our marster was a good man. De overseers sometimes wuz bad, but dey did not let marsters know how dey treated their girl slaves. My grandmother was whipped by de overseers one time, it made welts on her back. My sister Mary had a child by a white man.

To get joy in de morning, get up and pray and ask Him to bless you. God will feed all alike, he is no respector of persons. He shows no extra favors twixt de rich and de poor.



Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Marguerite Perkins West Sixth and Catalpa Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"I was born in slavery times, Miss. I was born in South Carolina, Union County. I was born in May.

"I know I 'member old Missy. I just been washin' her feet and legs when they said the Yankees was comin. Old Miss' name was Miss Sally. Her husband was a colonel. What is a colonel?

"I got some white cousins. They tell me they was the boss man's chillun.

"Yes'm, I reckon Miss Sally was good to me. I'm a old nigger. All us niggers belonged to Colonel Beatty. I went to school a little while but I didn't learn nothin'.

"I use to be a nurse girl and sleep right upstairs.

"Missus, you know people just walkin along the street droppin dead with heart trouble and white women killin men. I tell you lady it's awful.

"I been married just once. The Lord took him out o' my house one Sunday morning 'fore day.

"The thing about it is I got that high blood pressure. Well, Missus, I had it five years ago and I went to Memphis and the Lord healed me. All we got to do is believe in the Lord and He will put you on your feet.

"I had four sisters and three brothers and all of 'em dead but me, darlin.

"Now let me tell you somethin'. Old as I is, I ain't never been to but one picture show in my life. Old as I is, I never was on a base ball ground in my life. The onliest place I go now is to church."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Rachel Perkins, Goodwin, Arkansas Age: ? Baby during the Civil War

"I was born in Greensboro, Alabama. Sallie Houston and Peter Houston was my parents. They had two girls and a boy. They died when they was small, but me. They always told me mother died when I was three days old in the cradle. I don't fur a fact know much about my own people. Miss Agnes took me to raise me fur a house girl. She nursed me wid her Mary. My mother's and father's owners was Alonso Brown and Miss Agnes Brown. Their two girls was Mary and Lucy and their three boys was Bobby, Jesse, and Frank. Miss Agnes rocked the babies to sleep in a big chair out on the gallery. We slept there all night. Company come and say, 'Where the babies?' Miss Agnes take them back and show us off. They say, 'Where the little black chile?' They'd try to get me to come go live wid them. They say they be good to me. I'd tell 'em, 'No, I stay here.' It was good a home as I wanted. We slept on the front gallery till Lucy come on, then we had sheep skin pallets. She got the big chair. She put us out there because it was cool.

"I left Miss Agnes when I got to be my own woman. Didn't nobody toll me off. I knowed I ought to go to my own race of people. They come after me once. Then they sent the baby boy after me what I had nursed. I wanted to go but I never went. Miss Lucy and Miss Mary both in college. It was lonesome for me. I wanted to go to my color. I jus' picked up and walked on off.

"My girl is half Indian. I'm fifteen years older than my girl. Then I married Wesley Perkins, my husband. He is black fur a fact. He died last fall. I married at my husband's brother's by a colored preacher. Tom Screws was his name. He was a Baptist preacher.

"I never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count money. Seem lack it jus' come natural. I never learned it at no one time. It jus' come to me.

"In warm weather I slept on the gallery and in cold weather I slept by the fire. I made down my own bed. I cleaned the house. I took the cows off to the pasture. I nursed the babies, washed and dried the dishes. I made up the beds and cleaned the yards.

"Master Brown owned two farms. He had plenty hands on his farms. I did never go down to the farms much but I knowed the hands. On Saturday little later than other days they brought the stock to the house and fed. Then they went to the smokehouse for their rations. He had a great big garden, strawberries, and grape arbors.

"One thing I had to do was worm the plants. I put the worms in a bottle and leave it in the row where the sun would dry the worms up. When a light frost come I would water the plants that would wilt before the sun riz and ag'in at night. Then the plants never felt the frost. Certainly it didn't kill 'em. It didn't hurt 'em.

"Julane was the regular milk woman. She milked and strained the milk. I churned and 'tended to the chickens. Miss Agnes sot the hens her own self. She marked the eggs with a piece of charcoal to see if other hens laid by the setting hen. If they did she'd take the new egg out of the nest.

"We had flower gardens. We had mint, rosemary, tansy, sage, mullen, catnip, horseradish, artichokes, hoarhound—all good home remedies.

"I never knowed when we moved to that farm. I was so small. I heard Miss Agnes Brown say I was a baby when they moved to Boldan depot, not fur from Clinton, Mississippi.

"When I left Miss Agnes I went to some folks my own color on another farm 'joining to their farm. Of course I took my baby. I took Anna and I been living with Anna ever since. What I'd do now without her. (Anna is an Indian and very proud of being half Indian.) My husband done dead.

"I get eight dollars welfare help. And I do get some commodities. Anna does all right but she got hit on the shoulder and about lost use of her arm. One of the railroad hands up here got mad and hit her. I had doctors. They done it a little good. It's been hurt three years or more now.

"I wisht I knowd where to find a bed of mullen. Boil it down to a syrup and add some molasses, boil that down. It makes a good syrup for coughs and colds.

"I never went to white folks' church none hardly. Miss Agnes sent me along with her cook to my own color's church.

"My husband sure was good to me. We never had but one fight. Neither one whooped.

"This young generation is going backward. They tired of training. They don't want no advice. They don't want to work out no more. They don't know what they want. I think folks is trifling than they was when I come on. The times is all right and some of the people. I'm talking about mine and yo' color both."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dinah Perry 1800 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"Yes ma'am, I lived in slavery times. They brought me from Alabama, a baby, right here to this place where I am at, Mr. Sterling Cockril.

"I don't know zackly when I was born but I member bout the slave times. Yes ma'am, I do. After I growed up some, I member the overseer—I do. I can remember Mr. Burns. I member when he took the hands to Texas. Left the chillun and the old folks here.

"Oh Lord, this was a big plantation. Had bout four or five hundred head of niggers.

"My mother done the milkin' and the weavin'. After free times, I wove me a dross. My mother fixed it for me and I wove it. They'd knit stockin's too. But now they wear silk. Don't keep my legs warm.

"I member when they fit here in Pine Bluff. I member when 'Marmajuke' sent word he was gain' to take breakfast with Clayton that mornin' and they just fit. I can remember that was 'Marmajuke.' It certainly was 'Marmajuke.' The Rebels tried to carry me away but the wagon was so full I didn't get in and I was glad they didn't. My mother was runnin' from the Rebels and she hid under the cotehouse. After the battle was over she come back hero to the plantation.

"I had three brothers and three sisters went to Texas and I know I didn't know em when they come back.

"I member when they fit here a bum shell fell right in the yard. It was big around as this stovepipe and was all full of chains and things.

"After free time my folks stayed right here and worked on the shares. I was the baby chile and never done no work till I married when I was fifteen.

"After the War I went to school to white teachers from the North. I never went to nothin' but them. I went till I was in the fifth grade.

"My daddy learned me to spell 'lady' and 'baker' and 'shady' fore I went to school. I learned all my ABC's too. I got out of the first reader the second day. I could just read it right on through. I could spell and just stand at the head of the class till the teacher sent me to the foot all the time.

"My daddy was his old mistress' pet. He used to carry her to school all the time and I guess that's where he got his learnin'.

"After I was married I worked in the field. Rolled logs, cut brush, chopped and picked cotton.

"I member when they had that 'Bachelor' (Brooks-Baxter) War up here at Little Rock.

"After my chillun died, I never went to the field no more. I just stayed round mongst the white folks nussin'. All the chillun I nussed is married and grown now.

"All this younger generation—white and colored—I don't know what's gwine come of em. The poet says:

'Each gwine a different way And all the downward road.'"



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dinah Perry 1002 Indiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78 [TR: Appears to be same as last informant despite different address.]

"I'se bawn in Alabama and brought here to Arkansas a baby. I couldn't tell what year I was bawn 'cause I was a baby. A chile can't tell what year he was bawn 'less they tells him and they sure didn't tell me.

"When I'd wake up in the mawnin' my mother would be gone to the field.

"Some things I can remember good but you know old folks didn't 'low chillun to stand around when they was talkin' in dem days. They had to go play. They had to be mighty particular or they'd get a whippin'.

"Chillun was better in them days 'cause the old folks was strict on 'em. Chillun is raisin' theirselves today.

"I 'member one song they used to sing

'We'll land over shore We'll land over shore; And we'll live forever more.'

"They called it a hymn. They'd sing it in church, then they'd all get to shoutin'.

"Superstitions? Well, I seen a engineer goin' to work the other day and a black cat run in front of him, and he went back 'cause he said he would have a wreck with his train if he didn't. So you see, the white folks believes in things like that too.

"I never was any hand to play any games 'cept 'Chick. Chick.' You'd ketch 'hold a hands and ring up. Had one outside was the hawk and some inside was the hen and chickens. The old mother hen would say

'Chick-a-ma, chick-a-ma, craney crow, Went to the well to wash my toe; When I come back my chicken was gone, What time is it, old witch?'

One chicken was s'posed to get out and then the hawk would try to ketch him.

"We was more 'ligious than the chillun nowadays. We used to play preachin' and baptisin'. We'd put 'em down in the water and souse 'em and we'd shout just like the old folk. Yes ma'am."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Alfred Peters, 1518 Bell Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born seven miles from Camden.

"I was 'leven months old when they carried us to Texas. First thing I remember I was in Texas.

"Lucius Grimm was old master. He's been dead a long time. His wife died 'bout two years after the Civil War and he died twenty-five years after.

"I 'member durin' of the war he buried his stuff—-silverware and stuff—and he never took it up. And after he died his brother's son lived in California, and he come back and dug it up.

"The Yankees burned up four hundred bales of cotton and taken the meat and two cribs of corn.

"I heard 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux but I never did see 'em.

"My mother said old Mars Lucius was good to his folks. She said he first bought her and then she worried so 'bout my father, he paid twenty-five hundred dollars for him.

"Biggest part of my life I farmed, and then I done carpenter work.

"I been blind four years. The doctor says it's cataracts.

"I think the younger generation goin' to cause another war. They ain't studyin' nothin' but pleasure."



Interviewer: S.S. Taylor Person interviewed: Mary Estes Peters, 3115 W. 17th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 78

Biographical

Mary Estes Peters was born a slave January 30, 1860 in Missouri somewhere. Her mother was colored and her father white, the white parentage being very evident in her color and features and hair. She is very reticent about the facts of her birth. The subject had to be approached from many angles and in many ways and by two different persons before that part of the story could be gotten.

Although she was born in Missouri, she was "refugeed" first to Mississippi and then here, Arkansas. She is convinced that her mother was sold at least twice after freedom,—once into Mississippi, one into Helena, and probably once more after reaching Arkansas, Mary herself being still a very small child.

I think she is mistaken on this point. I did not debate with her but I cross-examined her carefully and it appears to me that there was probably in her mother's mind a confused knowledge of the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Lincoln's Compensation Emancipation plan advocated in March 1863, the Abolition in the District of Columbia in 1862 in April, the announcement of Lincoln's Emancipation intention in July 1862, the prohibition of slavery in present and future territories, June 19, 1862, together with the actual issuance of the Emancipation in September 1862, and the effectiveness of the proclamation in January 1, 1863, would well give rise to an impression among many slaves that emancipation had been completed.

As a matter of fact, Missouri did not secede; the Civil War which nevertheless ensued would find some slaveholders exposed to the full force of the 1862 proclamation in 1863 at the time of its first effectiveness. Naturally it did not become effective in many other places till 1865. It would very naturally happen then that a sale in Missouri in the latter part of 1862 or any time thereafter might be well construed by ex-slaves as a sale after emancipation, especially since they do not as a rule pay as much attention to the dates of occurrences as to their sequence. This interpretation accords with the story. Only such an explanation could make probable a narrative which places the subject as a newborn babe in 1860 and sold after slavery had ceased while still too young to remember. Her earliest recollections are recollections of Arkansas.

She has lived in Arkansas ever since the Civil War and in Little Rock ever since 1879. She made a living as a seamstress for awhile but is now unable to sew because of fading eyesight. She married in 1879 and led a long and contented married life until the recent death of her husband. She lives with her husband's nephew and ekes out a living by fragmentary jobs. She has a good memory and a clear mind for her age.

Slave After Freedom

"My mother was sold after freedom. It was the young folks did all that devilment. They found they could get some money out of her and they did it. She was put on the block in St. Louis and sold down into Vicksburg, Mississippi. Then they sold her into Helena, Arkansas. After that they carried her down into Trenton (?), Arkansas. I don't know whether they sold her that time or not, but I reckon they did. Leastways, they carried her down there. All this was done after freedom. My mother was only fifteen years old when she was sold the first time, and I was a baby in her arms. I don't know nothing about it myself, but I have heard her tell about it many and many a time. It was after freedom. Of course, she didn't know she was free.

"It was a good while before my mother realized she was free. She noticed the other colored people going to and fro and she wondered about it. They didn't allow you to go round in slave times. She asked them about it and they told her, 'Don't you know you are free?' Some of the white people too told her that she was free. After that, from the way she talked, I guess she stayed around there until she could go some place and get wages for her work. She was a good cook.

Mean Mistress

"I have seen many a scar on my mother. She had mean white folks. She had one big scar on the side of her head. The hair never did grow back on that place. She used to comb her hair over it so that it wouldn't show. The way she got it was this:

"One day her mistress went to high mass and left a lot of work for my mother to do. She was only a girl and it was too much. There was more work than she could get done. She had too big a task for a child to get done. When her old mistress came back and her work was not all done, she beat my mother down to the ground, and then she took one of the skillets and bust her over the head with it—trying to kill her, I reckon. I have seen the scar with my own eyes. It was an awful thing.

"My mother was a house servant in Missouri and Mississippi. Never done no hard work till she came here (Arkansas). When they brought her here they tried to make a field hand out of her. She hadn't been used to chopping cotton. When she didn't chop it fast as the others did, they would beat her. She didn't know nothing about no farmwork. She had all kinds of trouble. They just didn't treat her good. She used to have good times in Missouri and Mississippi but not in Arkansas. They just didn't treat her good. In them days, they'd whip anybody. They'd tie you to the bed or have somebody hold you down on the floor and whip you till the blood ran.

"But, Lawd, my mother never had no use for Catholics because it was a Catholic that hit her over the head with that skillet—right after she come from mass.

Food

"My mother said that they used to pour the food into troughs and give it to the slaves. They'd give them an old, wooden spoon or something and they all eat out of the same dish or trough. They wouldn't let the slaves eat out of the things they et out of. Fed them just like they would hogs.

"When I was little, she used to come to feed me about twelve o'clock every day. She hurry in, give me a little bowl of something, and then hurry right on out because she had to go right back to her work. She didn't have time to stay and see how I et. If I had enough, it was all right. If I didn't have enough, it was all right. It might be pot liquor or it might be just anything.

"One day she left me alone and I was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace asleep. I didn't have no bed nor nothing then. The fire must have popped out and set me on fire. You see they done a whole lot of weaving in them days. And they put some sort of lint on the children.

"I don't reckon children them days knowed what a biscuit was. They just raked up whatever was left off the table and brung it to you. Children have a good time nowadays.

"People goin' to work heard me hollering and came in and put out the fire. I got scars all round my waist today I could show you.

"Another time my mother had to go off and leave me. I was older then. I guess I must have gotten hungry and wanted to get somethin' to eat. So I got up and wandered off into the woods. There weren't many people living round there then. (This was in Trenton (?), Arkansas, a small place not far from Helena.) And the place was [HW: not] built up much then and they had lots of wolves. Wolves make a lot of noise when they get to trailin' anything. I got about a half mile from the road and the wolves got after me. I guess they would have eat me up but a man heard them howling, and he knew there wasn't no house around there but ours, and he came to see what was up, and he beat off the wolves and carried me back home. There wasn't nare another house round there but ours and he knew I must have come from there.

"Mother was working then. It was night though. They brung the news to her and they wouldn't let her come to me. Mother said she felt like getting a gun and killin' them. Her child out like that and they wouldn't let her go home.

"That must have happened after freedom, because it was the last mistress she had. Almost all her beatings and trouble came from her last mistress. That woman sure gave her a lot of trouble.

Age, Good Masters

"All I know about my age is what my mother told me.

"The first people that raised my mother had her age in the Bible. She said she was about fifteen years old when I was born. From what she told me, I must be about seventy-eight years old. She taught me that I was born on Sunday, on the thirtieth of January, in the year before the War.

"My mother's name was Myles. I don't know what her first master's name was. She told me I was born in Phelps County, Missouri; I guess you'd call it St. Louis now. I am giving you the straight truth just as she gave it to me.

"From the way she talked, the people what raised her from a child were good to her. They raised her with their children. Them people fed her just like they fed their own children.

Color and Birth

"There was a light brownskin boy around there and they give him anything that he wanted. But they didn't like my mother and me—on account of my color. They would talk about it. They tell their children that when I got big enough, I would think I was good as they was. I couldn't help my color. My mother couldn't either.

"My mother's mistress had three boys, one twenty-one, one nineteen, and one seventeen. Old mistress had gone away to spend the day one day. Mother always worked in the house. She didn't work on the farm in Missouri. While she was alone, the boys came in and threw her down on the floor and tied her down so she couldn't struggle, and one after the other used her as long as they wanted for the whole afternoon. Mother was sick when her mistress came home. When old mistress wanted to know what was the matter with her, she told her what the boys had done. She whipped them and that's the way I came to be here.

Sales and Separations

"My mother was separated from her mother when she was three years old. They sold my mother away from my grandmother. She don't know nothing about her people. She never did see her mother's folks. She heard from them. It must have been after freedom. But she never did get no full understanding about them. Some of them was in Kansas City, Kansas. My grandmother, I don't know what became of her.

"When my mother was sold into St. Louis, they would have sold me away from her but she cried and went on so that they bought me too. I don't know nothing about it myself, but my mother told me. I was just nine months old then. They would call it refugeeing. These people that had raised her wanted to get something out of her because they found out that the colored people was going to be free. Those white people in Missouri didn't have many slaves. They just had four slaves—my mother, myself, another woman and an old colored man called Uncle Joe. They didn't get to sell him because he bought hisself. He made a little money working on people with rheumatism. They would ran the niggers from state to state about that time to keep them from getting free and to get something out of them. My mother was sold into Mississippi after freedom. Then she was refugeed from one place to another through Helena to Trenton (?), Arkansas.

Marriages

"My mother used to laugh at that. The master would do all the marryin'. I have heard her say that many a time. They would call themselves jumpin' the broom. I don't know what they did. Whatever the master said put them together. I don't know just how it was fixed up, but they helt the broom and master would say, 'I pronounce you man and wife' or something like that.

Ku Klux

"My mother talked about the Ku Klux but I don't know much about them. She talked about how they would ride and how they would go in and destroy different people's things. Go in the smoke house and eat the people's stuff. She said that they didn't give the colored people much trouble. Sometimes they would give them something to eat.

"When they went to a place where they didn't give the colored people much to eat, what they didn't destroy they would say, 'Go get it.' I don't know how it was but the Ku Klux didn't have much use for certain white people and they would destroy everything they had.

"I have lived in Arkansas about all my life. I have been in Little Rock ever since January 30, 1879. I don't know how I happened to move on my birthday. My husband brought me here for my rheumatism.

"I married in 1879 and moved here from Marianna. I had lived in Helena before Marianna.

Voting

"The niggers voted in Marianna and in Helena. They voted in Little Rock too. I didn't know any of them. It seems like some of the people didn't make so much talk about it. They did, I guess, though. Many of the farmers would tell their hands who they wanted them to vote for, and they would do it.

"Them was critical times. A man would kill you if he got beat. They would say, 'So and so lost the lection,' and then somebody would go to Judgment. I remember once they had a big barbecue in Helena just after the 'lection. They had it for the white and for the colored alike. We didn't know there was any trouble. The shooting started on a hill where everybody could see. First thing you know, one man fell dead. Another dropped down on all fours bleeding, but he retch in under him and dragged out a pistol and shot down the man that shot him. That was a sad time. Niggers and white folks were all mixed up together and shooting. It was the first time I had ever been out. My mother never would let me go out before that.

Seamstress

"I ain't able to do much of anything now. I used to make a good living as a dressmaker. I can't sew now because of my eyes. I used to make many a dollar before my eyes got to failing me. Make pants, dresses, anything. When you get old, you fail in what you been doing. I don't get anything from the government. They don't give me any kind of help."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: John Peterson, 1810 Eureka Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was small but I can remember some 'bout slavery days. I was born down here in Louisiana.

"I seed dem Yankees come through. Dey stopped dere and broke up all de bee gums. Just tore 'em up. And took what dey could eat and went on. Dey was doin' all dey could do. No tellin' what dey didn't do. People what owned de place just run off and left. Yankees come dere in de night. I 'member dat. Had ever'thing excited, so my white folks just skipped out. Oh, yes, dey come back after the Yankees had gwine on.

"You could hear dem guns shootin' around. I heered my mother and father say de Yankees was fightin' to free slavery.

"Run off? Oh Lawd, yes ma'am, I heered 'em say dey was plenty of 'em run off.

"George Swapsy was our owner. I know one thing, dey beat me enough. Had me watchin' de garden to keep de chickens out. And sometimes I'd git to playin' and fergit and de chickens would git in de garden, and I'd pay for it too. I can 'member dat. Yes'm, dat was before freedom. Dey was whippin' all de colored people—and me too.

"Yes'm, dey give us plenty to eat, but dey didn't give us no clothes. I was naked half my time. Dat was when I was a little fellow.

"We all belonged to de same man. Dey never did 'part us. But my mother was sold away from her people—and my father, too. He come from Virginia.

"No ma'am, dey didn't have a big plantation—just a little place cleared up in the woods.

"He didn't have no wife—just two grown sons and dey bof went to the war.

"Mars George died 'fore peace declared. He was a old fellow—and mean as he could be.

"I never went to school till I was sixteen or seventeen years old. Dere was a colored fellow had a little learnin' and we hired him two nights in de week for three dollars a month. Did it for three years. I can read a little and write my own name and sort of 'tend to my own business.

"Yes'm, I used to vote after I got grown. Yes'm, I did vote Republican. But de white people stopped us from votin'. Dat was when Seymour and Blair was runnin', and I ain't voted none since—I just quit. I've known white people to go to the polls wif der guns and keep de colored folks from votin'.

"Oh, dey was plenty of Ku Klux. I've known 'em to ketch people and whip 'em and kill 'em. Dey didn't bother me—I didn't give 'em a chance. Ku Klux—I sure 'member dem.

"Younger generation? Well, Miss, you're a little too hard for me. Hard to tell what'll become of 'em. I know one thing—dey is wiser. Oh, my Lawd! A chile a year old know more'n I did when I was ten. We didn't have no chance. Didn't have nobody to learn us nothin'. People is just gittin' wuss ever' day. Killin' 'em up ever' day. Wuss now than dey was ten years ago."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Louise Pettis, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 59

"My mama was born at Aiken, South Carolina. She was Frances Rotan. I was born at Elba, South Carolina, forty miles below Augusta, Georgia. My papa was born at Macon, Georgia. Both my parents was slaves. He farmed and was a Baptist preacher. Mama was a cook.

"Mama was owned by some of the Willis. There was three; Mike, Bill, and Logie Willis, all brothers, and she lived with them all but who owned her I don't know. She never was sold. Papa wasn't either. Mama lived at Aiken till papa married her. She belong to some of the Willis. They married after freedom. She had three husbands and fifteen children.

"Mama had a soldier husband. He took her to James Island. She runned off from him. Got back across the sea to Charleston to Aunt Anette's. She was mama's sister. Mama sent back to Aiken and they got her back to her folks. Aunt Anette had been sold to folks at Charleston.

"Grandma was Rachel Willis. She suckled some of the Willis children. Mama suckled me and Mike Willis together. His mama got sick and my mama took him and raised him. She got well but their names have left me. When we got sick the Willis women would send a hamper basket full of provisions, some cooked and some to be cooked. I used to sweep their yards. They was white sand and not a sprig of grass nor a weed in there.

"Mama and papa was both slavery niggers and they spoke mighty well of their owners.

"Papa said in slavery times about two nights in a week they would have a dance. He would slip off and go. Sometimes he would get a pass. He was a figger caller till he 'fessed religion. One time the pattyrollers come in. They said, 'All got passes tonight.' When they had about danced down my daddy got a shovelful of live coals and run about scattering it on the floor. All the niggers run out and he was gone too. It was a dark night. A crowd went up the road and here come the pattyrollers. One run into grapevines across the road and tumbled off his horse. The niggers took to the woods then. Pa tole us about how he studied up a way to get himself and several others outer showing their passes that night. Master never found that out on him.

"During the War they sent a lot of the meat to feed the soldiers on and kept the skins and sides. They tole them if the Yankees ask them if they had enough to eat say, 'See how greasy and slick I is.' They greased their legs and arms to make them shine and look fat. The dust made the chaps look rusty.

"Papa saved his young mistress' life. His master was gone to war. He had promised with others to take care of her. The Yankees come and didn't find meat. It was buried. They couldn't find much. They got mad and burned the house. Pa was a boy. He run up there and begged folks not to burn the house; they promised to take care of everything. Papa begged to let him get his mistress and three-day-old baby. They cursed him but he run in and got her and the baby. The house fell in before they got out of the yard. He took her to the quarters. Papa was overstrained carrying a log and limped as long as he lived.

"Pa was hired out and they was goner whoop him and he run off and got back to the master. Ma nor pa was never sold.

"We had a reason to come out here to Arkansas. A woman had a white husband and a black one too. The black husband told the white husband not come about there no more. He come on. The black man killed the white man at his door. They lynched six or seven niggers. They sure did kill him. That dissatisfied all the niggers. That took place in Barnwell County, South Carolina. Three train loads of us left. There was fifteen in our family. We was doing well. My pa had cattle and money. They stopped the train befo' and behind us—the train we was on. Put the Arkansas white man in Augusta jail. They stopped us all there. We got to come on. We was headed for Pine Bluff. We got down there 'bout Altheimer and they was living in tents. Pa said he wasn't goiner tent, he didn't run away from South Carolina and he'd go straight back. Mr. Aydelott got eight families on track at Rob Roy to come to Biscoe. We got a house here. Pa was old and they would listen at what he said. He made a speech at Rob Roy and told them let's come to Biscoe. Eleven families come. He had two hundred or three hundred dollars then in his pocket to rattle. He could get more. He grieved for South Carolina, so he went back and took us but ma wanted to coma back. They stayed back there a year or two. We made a crop. Pa was the oldest boss in his crowd. We all come back. There was more room out here and so many of us.

"The schools was better out there. I went to Miss Scofield's College. All the teachers but three was colored. There was eight or ten colored teachers. It was at Aiken, South Carolina. Miss Criley was our sewing mistress. Miss Criley was white and Miss Scofield was too. I didn't have to pay. Rich folks in the North run the school. No white children went there. I think the teachers was sent there.