"An somebody can git your track and run you slam crazy. Yasum they kin too. Where you steps in the clay or mud they gits hit and takes hit up with sumpin and does things to you and you goes crazy.

"Now you chillun come with me ovah to Sister Thompson's and she kin tell you fer herself what was done done to her when she wuz hoodooed."

We went to a nearby house and Della called Angelina out. She told us that she was truly hoodoed and what she said was as follows:

"Sister Thompson tell these ladies about bein hoodooed. Oh they is alright. This is some of my white folks I used to work fuh long time ago."

Then Angelina told the following:

"Yasum, I sholey wuz hoodooed. How hit come about I loaned my clothes to a woman. A dress and shoes. She put something on them that looked like snuff. It was brown lookin and I jes though she had spilled snuff on em. That wuz 18 years ago and she done hit outa jealousy. She wanted my ole man and she thought she would hoodoo me and ahd die and she'd get him. And she woulda too ifn hit hadn a been for Mother Dye. You all know she's a doodoo doctor who lived at Newport. An I went to her fer bout two years and she cured me. Mother Dye is daid now but Jess Rogers, a man thar does the docterin now.

"You all ask how hit fected me when ah was hoodooed. I tole you bout the brown stuff bein in my shoes and on mah dress. Well ah put em on and in a little while mah feet itched lak an could claw the bones out. Ah nevah was in such misery. Then ah tuk somethin like the dry rot. The meat come off my fingers and toes. Jest look at them scars. And look at these scars in mah hair. See how mah haid is all scarred up. At times ah had a mind that ah wanted to go and didn' know where. They had to watch me all the time. But ole Mother Dye cured me and that woman didn' git mah ole man aftah all."

Della and Angelina talked among themselves for a moment and Della said "Ah believe ah will." Then she said: "Does you all know Phil Green? He lives about two miles and a half down the Junction City Highway and he is a hoodoo man. He can tell you all things efn you all cares to go ahll go with you. He can tell you what is gwianter happen and what has happened and he can hoodoo." Of course we were in for going right then while we had a car so Della crawled in the back seat and we were away to Phil Green's. Went out the highway about two miles and turned off on a country road. Up hill and down, around this field and that and through a big gate, winding around through a field and orchard. At last we arrived. Phil Green looked to be a prosperous farmer. We drove up to the back of the house and around front. Some negro had just killed a chicken for dinner. Several cars were parked in the yard. One bore a Louisiana license. The porch was full of negroes. Della called and asked if Phil was there. They replied that he was but that he was busy. Della said, "We wants to see him" and a black negro woman came out to the car. My, but she was furious. We had never seen a negro so angry before. The first thing she did was to tell us that they didn't serve white people but the way she expressed it was a scream she said: "We don' use white people. No suh! We don' use em. Hits too dangerous. Ah don't care who tole you Phil used white people. He don'. He is may husban and ah won't let him."

We soon pacified her by telling her that we appreciated her point of view and that it was perfectly alright with us. Della crawled out of the car right now and said: "You all knows the way back to town don' you? Ah's going ter stay."

The next morning we went back to Della's. She told us that the people on Phil's front porch were from Marion Louisiana and they had come to get him to tell them how to get one of the men of the family out of the penitentiary. She apologized for taking us out there and declared that she believed that he once served white people.

Aunt Dilcie Raborn and all her family declared that she would be a hundred this August. She is an ex-slave and Mr. John Wright of Louisiana was her master.

"Yas'm chillun I'se a hunnerd years ole. Ah was one of the las' young niggers on marster's plantation. Mah job was nusin the chillun. Ole Marster's father was livin in them days and he fought in the Resolution War. Yasum he did. He was rail old and my mother chawed fer him jes like she did fer her baby. I'se seen more hardness since I got old than ah ever did in mah life. Slavery wuz the easiest time of all. Mah muthas name was Charity and she wuz the family cook, yasum an ah wuz the nuss girl. I tuk care of the chilluns. Ole marster's wife lost her mind and they had to watch her all the time. Did you ask they send her to the sylum? No man Thar warn't no sylums in them days and anyway ole marster had plenty of niggers to wait on her and take care of her and watch her sos she wouldn't git out and git hurt. She did slip out one time and ah was totin the flour from mill from the gate to the kitchen and she grabbed hit away fum me and throwed hit all ovah me and rubbed hit in mah face good and then laughed at me. Then she run and got in the creek and set down in the watah and the niggas had to git in thar and git her out. Hit made her sick and old marster sho did git them niggers fer lettin her git out.

"I sho wish all times could be slavery times. Ah had everything nice then.

"I had some chillun. Ah cant count em but ah can name em. Joe, Habe, Abram, Billy, Johnny, Charity and Caline. Ah makes mah home here with Charity, she is mah baby chile and she is fifty.

"You asks is ah afeard of haints? Ah'v never taken no frightment off'n em. Ah'v lived in houses other folks couldn't live in but ah'v never lived that way that I had to run from haints.

"Ah lived jes like a millionaire when ah lived in slavery times, seed more hardness since I got old than I ever did in mah life."

Then we left aunt Dilcie with her snuff and went to find Aunt Jane Carter.

After rambling around in Rock Island quarters we at last found Jane Carter. She was living with her grand daughter and was sitting out in the yard with a bunch of her great-grand-children. She was so deaf that we were not able to talk to her, much to our disappointment. The granddaughter told us that she was 106 years old and that Mrs. Roscoe Taunton's granfather was Jane's old master.

We later saw Mrs. Taunton and she told us that Jane had belonged to her grandfather Stephen Manning and was her mother's nurse. Jane was grown when Mrs. Taunton's mother was born.

We were told about old Bill who lives in Barton Quarters and went to find her. She was sitting out on the porch of her cabin and we sat on the edge of the porch much to the dismay of Bill who could not walk because of a sore foot which she told us was caused by the bite of a rattlesnake years ago in slavery time.

"Ah don' want mah white folks to sit on the floo'. Honey go in dah and git dat sheet and spred hit on the floo'. Ole Bill would go herself efn she could walk. Honey you all is gwianter git blistered out in de sun like you is widout no hats on. Don you all know you had orter take keer of thet purty white skin of yourn? My ole missus never would git out in the sun widout somethin on her haid. Ole Mawster thought she was purty and she aimed to stay purty.

"You all says you wants ter heah ole Bill tell about slavery days, lawsy chillun Ah pray ter God ah'll be with mah white chillun agin and play mah harp with em. We'll have plenty to eat and plenty to wear jes as we did when we had our good mawster in slavery days. Marster's grown son used to say: 'Bill she's ruint to death.' Why I used ter git my young mistesses dresses and put em on and git out in the yard and flounce and flip. The young mistess would scole me but young marster would say 'Leave Bill erlone, ah lack to see her dance. Dance some moah Bill.' Mah white folks use ter teach me. Now when white folks taugh me ahm a nigger done taughted.

"Honey ah jes don' like ter see mah white folks sit on the floo' ah wishes ole Bill cud foch some cheers fer yo all ter set on.

"How ole is ah? Ah jes don' member but ah's powerful ole.

"Yas'm ah' wuz nurse girl for marsters chillun. I nevah had ter wuk hard a tall, all ah had ter do was play wid the chillun and take keer of em. Oncet a circus show comed thru and mawster bought a rattle snake fum em fer a pet. Hit nevah did have hits teeth pulled (fangs). Hit wuz a plum pet too, allus followin us about. We would have to knock hit back outn de way sometimes. One time ah wuz comin down de stairs wid a chile in each arm and de snake wuz crawlin erlong sides me. Jest as we got ter the bottom hit crawled roun front of me and ah didn see hit cause of havin the chillun in mah arms and ah stepped slambang on that snake an hit turnt aroun and bit mah foot. Ah nevah drapped them chillun though. My ole man said ifn hit had been him he'd a throwd them chillun down and run but not ole Bill. Marster and Mistess trusted Bill to take keer of them chillun and ole Bill sho did take keer of em. But mah foot nigh bout kilt me and thet foot is whut is the mattah wid me terday.

"You ask haint ah got no folks? No'm. Ah nevah had but one youngun and hit died wid the croup. The man next doo' owns this heah house and lets ole Bill live heah. The guvment lady send me a check ever' month (pension) and Joe Lyons gits hit and fetches hit out ter me.

"You ask does ah know erbout any hainted houses? No'm when ah fin's a house is hainted ah aint gwian in. No'm not ole Bill. But sumpin happened not long ergo that give me a big fright. Hit waz long bout dusk ah seed two women, white as anybody gwian down de road and when they got along thar they quit the road and come aroun the path. Ah said: 'Howdy' and they never even speak jus kep' a goin'. Ah say: 'Whar is you all a goin' and they nevah say a word. Then ah say to em: 'Won't you all come by and set with ole Bill a while.' An still they nevah say nothin. Jus kep' on a goin' roun' that house and down the road. Then ah got skeered and went in the house an ah doan set out late no moah. Efn them ghost had uh come in th house ah would a gone undah the house.

"You all chillun ain goin is you? Come back ter see ole Bill. Ah sholey hates to have mah white folks sit on the floor but mebby ole Bill's foot will be bettuh next time an she can git her white fokes some cheers."

Aunt Sally Fields said to be 106 years old lived in Mack Quarters about two and a half or three miles south of El Dorado. She is blind and lives with Hattie Moseley. During slavery days she belonged to the Patterson family and came with them from Alabama to Louisiana and later to Caledonia where she was living at the close of the Civil War. Her mind was wandering to such an extent that we could not get very much from her and when asked about slavery times she said:

"Slavery time is gone. The stars are passed. The white folks that raised me said: 'I want you all to get up in the morning and tell me about the stars.' Oh Lordy! The stars fell. Ole Missus would come say: 'Ah want to be standing up behind the door. Ah don' want to be buried.' My ole missus was good to all the niggers.

"There was a big spring on marsters plantation. When we would start to the spring mistress would say: 'Don't go on the left hand side of the spring, go up the right hand side to the chinquapin tree.'"

It took Sally about twenty minutes to say that much so we didn't stay longer.



Interviewer: Carol Graham Person Interviewed: Pinkie Howard (Add) El Dorado, Ark. Age: ?

"Mornin', honey! Here you is to see Aunt Pinkie again. What did you bring me? Didn't you bring old Aunt Pinkie somethin' good to eat?

"Lawsy, honey, its been so long I can't member much bout plantation days. But I members the children on the plantation would ring up and play ring games. And we used to have the best things to eat back in them days. We used to take taters and grate them and make tater pudding. Made it in ovens. Made corn bread and light bread in ovens too and I used to bake the best biscuits anybody ever et and I didn't put my scratchers in them neither. Old Miss taught me how. And we had lasses pone corn bread and them good old tater biscuits. We used to eat parched corn, and cornmeal dumplings was all the go back there.

"I worked all my life and hard, too, but I still is a pretty good old frame.

"He! He! He! Look at that black boy passing, will you? Them brichie legs is half way his thighs. He needs to put sugar in his shoes to sweet talk his brichie legs down. And did you notice he didn't speak to old Aunt Pinkie. Young folks ain't got no manners these days. Now when I was young back there on that plantation at Hillsboro old Miss Aiken taught all her niggers manners. She would say to us, 'Now, you all don' clean your noses, or years, or fingernails before folks; it's ill manners. And don' make no 'marks bout folks. Don' eat onions and go out in company, if you does, eat coffee to kill the taste. Don't talk with yo' mouth full of sumpin' to eat; that ill manners too. Don' eat too fast cause you is liable to git strangled. And don' wear yo' welcome out by staying too long.'

"Ain't it warm and nice today missy? Jus like a spring day. An see that bee after my flower? Wasn't it a bee? You know, bees used to swarm in the springtime back on the plantation. The way they would catch em was to ring a bell or beat on a old plow and keep beatin' and ringin' till they settled on a tree limb. Then they made a bee gum and covered it and left a hole at the bottom of the gum for them to go in and out, then they sawed the limb off and put the bees in the gum and put some sweetened water made from molasses so they can start to makin' honey. Sometimes the bees would sting some of us and we would put a little snuff on it and cure it right up."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Josephine Howell Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 72

"My mother was Rebecca Jones. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Grandma was a cook and a breeding woman. The Jones thought she was very valuable. They prized her high. She was the mother of twenty-one children. Mother was more than half Indian. She was bright color. The Jones wanted to keep her, thought she would be a fine cook and house woman and a fine breeder. She had such a terrible temper they sold her to McAlways, some of their relations close to Augusta, Arkansas.

"Mama said she was eight years old when Gabe McAlway come to Nashville, Tennessee and got her. He bought her. He was a young man and a saloon-keeper at Augusta, Arkansas. He put her out on the farm at his father's. She was a field hand. She was part African and a whole lot Indian. She was fractious and high tempered. The old man McAlway and the overseers would drop her clothes down in the field before all the hands and whoop her. Gabe never even slapped her. His aunt Mrs. Jones didn't want them to put her in the field. She wanted to keep her but couldn't she was so fractious, and she didn't know how bad old man treated her.

"When mother was sold she was brought from twenty brothers and her mother and never saw none of them no more. She left them at Wolf River. They took the boat. Wolf River is close to Memphis. They must have brought them that far but I don't know. This is what all she told me minua and minua time. Her own papa bought her when she was eight years old, Gabe McAlway. When she got to be a young maid he forced motherhood up on her. I was born before freedom. How old I am I don't know. Gabe McAlway was sort of a young bachelor. He got killed in the Civil War. He was a Scotch-Irishman. I never seen my father.

"Mother married then and had five children. She lived in the back yard of Mrs. Will Thompson. Dr. Goodridge stopped her from having children, she raved wild. She had such a bad fractious temper. She suckled both Mrs. Will Thompson's children, old man Nathan McGreggor's grandchildren. She lived in Mrs. Thompson's back yard but she slept in their house to help with the babies.

"Judge Milwee's wife and auntie, Mrs. Baxter, raised me from a baby (infant). Judge Milwee was in Brinkley but he moved to Little Rock. Them is my own dear white folks. Honey, I can't help but love them, they part of me. They raised me. They learned me how to do everything.

"My son live with me and I raising my little great-grandson. We can't throw him away. My baby's mother is way off in St. Louis. He is three years old.

"Mother never talked much about slavery other than I have told you. She said during of the War women split and sawed rails and laid fences all winter like men. Food got scarce. They sent milk to the soldiers. Meat was scarce. After she was free she went on like she had been living at John McAlway's. She said she didn't know how to start doing for herself.

"Some of our young generation is all right and some of them is too thoughtless. Times is too fast. Folks is shortening their days by fast living. Hurting their own bodies. Forty years ago folks lived like we ought to be living now."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Pauline Howell Nickname Pearl Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 65 or 70?

"I was born in Paris, Tennessee and come to Arkansas when I was a child. I don't know how old I am but my mama knowed 'bout when I was born. It warnt long after the war. I past sixty-five and it is nearer seventy from what she said. She ain't been dead long. She was about a hundred years old. I. C. switch killed her. She was going cross there to Fisher Body and the switch engine struck her head. She dropped something and stooped to pick it up or the engine wouldn't touched her. She lived in Memphis.

"She was born at Oaks, Tennessee. She took me down to see the cabin locks where she was born. They had rotted down and somebody lived in the big house. It had gone to rack then pretty bad. My father's master was George Harris. He was Governor of Tennessee. My mother's mistress at Oaks was Miss Ann LaGuion (or maybe Gwion). I never heard her husband's name. They had several farms and on each farm was the cabin locks (little houses all in a row or two rows). The houses was exactly alike. Grandma cooked for the white folks and mama nursed. The baby was a big fat heavy sort, a boy, and it was so heavy she couldn't hardly pick it up. She had to carry it around all day long. When night come she was wore out. There was several of them. When she go to their houses in Memphis they honor her. They take her down town and buy her shoes and dresses. Buy her whatever she say she want. They say they was proud of her. She was a little black guinea woman (low and stocky). Not long go Mr. (_white man_) in Brinkley asked me when my ma coming back here. Said he ain't seed her for so long. I tole him she was dead. He said he have to go tell Mrs. _ (his wife). She come out here and stay and piece quilts. She sewed so nice. Made pretty little stitches. She'd take the most time and pains fixing the pieces together to look pretty. She'd set there and sew and me over there and tell me bout how she was raised and I'd cry. Cry cause she had so hard a time when she was a girl.

"The old master sent my father to Liverpool, England to bury his money. He was his own son anyhow. Sent him with his money to keep the Yankees from taking it. My aunt, my father and Uncle Jesse all his own children. Course old mistress love them little children like her own. She couldn't help herself.

"Mariah Steed went in Governor Harrises name after freedom. So did Randall Travis Harris.

"My mama said she was never sold but her sister and her children were. She was put upon the auction stile and all her little children. A man in Mobile, Alabama bought her. They never did see nor hear tell of her no more. The reason they sold her was she killed two men overseers. They couldn't manage her. The last one was whipping her with a black snake whip and she grabbed him. Grabbed his privates and pulled 'em out by the roots. That the way she killed both the overseers. Cause she knowed that was show death. My mama said that was the nicest little soft man—the last man she killed. She said he just clum the walls in so much misery that night.

"She said they would whisper after they go to bed. They used pine torches for lights. They had to cover up the fire—cover up fire in the ashes so it be coals to kindle a fire in the morning—put out the light pretty early. Old master come stand round outside see if they all gone to bed.

"When freedom—my mama said old master called all of 'em to his house and he said: 'You all free, we ain't got nothing to do wid you no more. Go on away. We don't whoop you no more, go on your way.' My mama said they go on off then they come back and stand around jess lookin' at him an' old mistress. They give 'em something to eat and he say: 'Go on away, you don't belong to us no more you been freed.'

"They go way and they kept coming back. They didn't have no place to go and nothing to eat. From what she said they had a terrible time. She said it was bad times. Some took sick and had no 'tention and died. Seemed like it was four or five years before they got to places they could live. They all got scattered.

"She said they did expect something from freedom but the only thing old master give Jesse was a horse and bridle and saddle. It was new. Old master every time they go back say: 'You all go on away. You been set free. You have to look out for your selves now.'

"The only way I know this is I remembers from hearin' my dear old mama tell me when she come here to see me. I was too little. I guess I wasn't born till two or three years, maybe longer than that, after freedom.

"After my son died here I get $2.50 a month, just my house rent. I work out when I can get something to do. Work is so scarce I hardly get a living.

"If you could see my brother in Little Rock he could tell you a heap he remembers. He is white headed, keeps his hair cut close and goes dressed up all the time. They say he is a good old man. He does public work in Little Rock. Henry Travis is his son. His phone is 4-5353. His street is 3106 Arch. My brother is really born a slave, I ain't. Ask for E. K. Travis, that is his name. He can tell you bout all you want to know."



JAN 29 1938 Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Molly Hudgens DeValls Bluff, Arkansas Age: Born in 1868

"I was born in Clarendon in 1868. My mother was sold to Judge Allen at Bihalia, N. C. and brought to Arkansas. The Cunninghams brought father from Tennessee when they moved to this State. His mother died when he was three months old and the white mistress had a baby three weeks older en him so she raised my father. She nursed him with Gus Cunningham. My father had us call them Grandma, Aunt Indiana, and Aunt Imogene.

"When I was seven or eight years old I went to see them at Roe. When I first come to know how things was, father had bought a place—home and piece of land west of Clarendon and across the river. I don't know if the Cunninghams ever give him some land or a mule or cow or not. He never said. His owner was Moster John Henry Cunningham.

"My father was a medium light man but not as light as I am. My mother was lighter than I am. I heard her say her mother did the sewing for all on her owner's place in North Carolina. My mother was a house girl. The reason she was put up to be sold she was hired out and they put her in the field to work. A dispute rose over her some way so her owner sold her when she was eighteen years old. Her mother was crying and begging them not to sell her but it didn't do no good she said. After the war was over she got somebody to write back and ask about her people. She got word about her sister and aunt and uncle. She never seen none of them after she was sold. Never did see a one of her people again. She was sold to Judge Allen for a house girl. His wife was dead. My mother sewed at Judge Allen's and raised two little colored children he bought somewhere cheap. He had a nephew that lived with him.

"Mr. Felix Allen and some other of his kin folks, one of them made me call him 'Tuscumby Bob.' I said it funny and they would laugh at me. Judge Allen went to Memphis and come home and took smallpox and died. I heard my mother say she seen him crying, sitting out under a tree. He said he recken he would give smallpox to all the colored folks on his place. Some of them took smallpox.

"We have been good living colored folks, had a right smart. I farmed, cooked, sewed a little along. I washed. I been living in DeValls Bluff 38 years. I got down and they put me on the relief. Seems I can't get back to going agin.

"Don't get me started on this young generation. I don't want to start talking about how they do. Times is right smartly changed somehow. Everybody is in a hurry to do something and it turns out they don't do nuthin'. Times is all in a stir it seem like to me.

"I don't vote. I get $8 and demodities and I make the rest of my keepin'."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Charlie Huff Brinkley, Arkansas Age: Born 1864

"I was born close to Charlotte, North Carolina. Alex Huff owned my parents and me. My pa was a dark man. He was named Alex Huff too. Ma was named Sarah Huff. She was ginger cake color they called it. Both her parents was part Creek Indian. I seen the block at Richmond, Virginia where they sold pa. They kept him three weeks away from me before he was sold. They sold him at the last of slavery for $1,500. Ma never seen him no more. After freedom she brought me and immigrated to Arkansas. My sister wouldn't come, she was fixing to marry. We come on the train, paid our own way. We heard it was a fine country and ma heard somebody out here bought pa. We kept inquiring till after she died. I heard where he was. I went to see him. He told me what I told you. He was sold and brought to Louisiana. He was a cross-eyed man and named Alex the best way I found him. My ma never was sold as she remembered.

"Master Alex Huff owned a turpentine factory and pa worked at it. Ma washed and cooked. Master Alex Huff raised Palmer Christy beans. I think he sold the seed to keep moles out of the land. Moles was bad in new cleared land. When they found a mole hill they opened it and put in a few beans so the mole would eat them and die. He sold the beans.

"The Ku Klux never bothered us.

"We come to Arkansas as soon as we could after freedom. We wanted to find pa. When we first come I worked on a steamboat, then I mined at Pratt City, Tennessee—coal mines—a year and a half. Then for forty-five years I worked on the railroad section as a hand. I made two crops in all my life. The first year I did fine and not so bad the next. But since three years ago I had these two strokes. I am here and not able to work. My wife draws $12 from the Welfare Order.

"It has been a long time since I voted. I voted last time for President McKinley. I didn't like the strict franchise laws."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Louvenia Huff Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 64

"I was born third year after the surrender. There was thirteen children in my family when I was a child. We was different sizes and the grown children helped look after the little ones. My parents was field hands. My parents belong to Dr. Hatch. He lived in Aberdeen, Mississippi. We lived in the country on his place. He had five or six children. Ben and Needham come out to the farm. He was an old man and we stayed on the son's place—same place—till I come to Arkansas. We come in 1885. We heard it was a better country and open stock range. Dr. Hatch was very good to my folks.

"I don't think the Ku Klux bothered my folks but we was afraid of them.

"My father voted a Republican ticket. I never voted.

"My grandmother was real light skin. Mother was mixed with white. She told us she was sold away from her mother when she was a little bitter of a girl and never seen her no more till she was the mother of six children. They didn't know one another when they met. Her mother knowed who bought her and after freedom she kept asking about her and finally heard where she was and come to her. There was no selling place at Aberdeen so I don't know where she was bought. Dr. Hatch lived to be an old man. He owned a lot of slaves and lots of land.

"Father's old master was Whitfield. He sold him to Dr. Hatch when he was a young man. Father was a driver in the Civil War. He hauled soldiers and dumped them in the river. The Union soldiers wouldn't give them time to bury the other side. He took rations all but the times he hauled dead soldiers. He got shot in his arm above the wrist. He died before they give him a pension. He was a Union soldier. He talked a lot but that is all I can tell straight. I don't know if he mustered out or not.

"I worked in the field, wash, iron, and cooked. We get $12 from the Welfare. My husband had two strokes. He has been sick three years.

"My parents' name Simpson Hatch and Jacob Hatch. They had thirteen children."



Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins Person Interviewed: Mrs. Anna Huggins Home: Pleasant at John Street.

"Miss Huggins? (pronounced hew—gins) Yes, ma'am she lives here. Oh Miss Huggins, Miss Huggins. They's somebody to see you."

The interviewer had approached an open door of an "L" kitchen attached to a "shot gun house". Thru the dining room and a bed room she was conducted to the front bedroom. This was furnished simply but with a good deal of elaboration. The bed was gay with brightly colored pillows. Most of them had petal pillow tops made from brilliant crepe paper touched with silver and guilt. The room was evidently not occupied by Mrs. Huggins herself for late in the interview a colored girl entered the room. "Do you want your room now?" Mrs. Huggins inquired. "No indeed, there's lots of time," the girl replied politely. But the interviewer managed to terminate the interview quickly.

"So you knew Fanny McCarty. Well, well, so you knew Fanny. I don't know when I've heard anybody speak about her. She's not so much on looks, but Fanny is a good little woman, a mighty good little woman. She's up in Michigan. You know she worked at one of the big hotels here—the Eastman it was. When they closed in the summer they sent her up to the big hotel on Mackinac. For a while she was here in the winter and up there for the summer season. Then she stayed on up there.

"You say she worked for you when you were a little girl? Before the fire of 1913? Now, I remember, you were just a little girl and you used to come over to my house sometimes with her. I remember." (A delighted smile.) "Now I remember.

"No, I don't remember very much about the war. It is mostly what I heard the older ones say. My grandmother used to tell me a lot about it. I was just a little thing in my mother's arms when the war was over. Guess I was about four years old. We lived in St. Francis County and as soon as we were free pappa sent for us. He sent for us to come by boat to where he was. We went to Helena. I remember they were all lined up—the colored soldiers were. But I knew pappa. They all wondered how, hadn't seen him in a long time. But I picked him out of all the line of men and I said, 'There's my pappa.' Yes, my pappa was a soldier in the war. He was gone from home most of the time. I only saw him once in a while.

"My grandmother told me lots of things about slavery. She was born a free girl. But when she was just a little girl somebody stole her and brought her to Arkansas and sold her. No, from the things they told me—especially grandmother—they weren't very good to them. Lots of times I've gone down on my knees to my grandmother to hear her tell about how mean they were to them.

"I'd say to her, 'Grandmother, why didn't you fight back?' 'You couldn't fight back,' she said, 'you just had to take it.' 'I wouldn't,' I said, 'I wouldn't take it.' Guess there's too much Indian blood in me. A white person never struck me but once. I was a girl—not so very big and I was taking care of a white lady's little girl. She and a friend of hers were talking and I sneaked up to the door and tried to listen to what they were saying. She caught me and she scolded me—she struck at me with her fan—it was just a light tap, but it made me mad. I fought her and I ran off home, she came to get me too. I never would have gone back otherways. She said she never did see a girl better with children.

"I remember my grandmother telling about once when she was cooking in the kitchen, her back was turned and an old hound dog got in and started to take the chicken which was on the table. He had even got part of it in his mouth. But she turned and saw him—she choked the dog—and choked him until she choked the chicken out of him. You can see she must have been pretty scared to be afraid to let them know the chicken had been tampered with. Then we always thought my mother's death was caused by her being beat by an overseer—she caused that overseer's death, she got him while he was beating her. They had to hide her out to save her life—but a long time afterwards she died—we always laid it to that hard beating.

"We lived in Helena after the war. My father was the marrying kind. He was a wild marrying man. He had lots of wives. But Mother and grandmother wouldn't let us call them Mother—she made us call them Aunt. It really was my grandmother who reared me. She was a good cook, had good jobs all the time.

"When I grew up I married. Mr. Huggins was a bar tender in a saloon. He made good money. We had a good home and I took care of the home. I had it mighty easy. Then one day he fell in the floor paralyzed. I brought him to Hot Springs. That was back in 1905. We stayed on and he lived for 18 years.

"I got a house there and I kept roomers. That was where Fanny stayed with me. It was at 311 Pleasant. You remember the place, tho. When I was young, I had it easy. But now I'm old and I don't have it so well. A few years ago I was out in California on a visit. There was a man shining up to me and I wrote my niece 'What would you think if your aunty married?' 'Law,' she wrote back to me, 'you've lived by yourself so long now, you couldn't stand a man.' Maybe she was right."

(At this point the girl passed into the room.) "Look Maggie! three pretty handkerchiefs. Miss Hudgins brought them. And I was just writing to my sister—my half sister today, I didn't even expect to much as a handkerchief for Christmas. And my initials embroidered on them two. One with A on it and two with H. I'm really proud of them.

"I'm going to write to Fanny to tell her about your coming to see me. She'll be so glad to know about you. I'll tell her about the handkerchiefs. You know, for a while Fanny had it pretty hard while she was here. She stayed at my house and I kept her for a long time without pay. I knew Fanny was a good girl and that when she got work she would pay me back. Do you know what Fanny has done? When she heard I was hard up she wrote me and told me to come up to Michigan to her and she would take care of me just as I had taken care of her. But I didn't want to go. Wasn't it nice of her, though?

"Yes, when I was young I had it easy. I had my home and took care of it. If I needed more money, I mortgaged my home and paid it back. Then I'd mortgage it and pay it back. But I mortgaged it once too often. That time I couldn't pay it back. I lost it.

"Well, I'm so glad you came to see me. I remember the pretty little girl who used to come to my house with Fanny. Be sure to write to her, she'll appreciate it, and thank you for the handkerchiefs."



Interviewer: Mrs. Annie L. LaCotts Person interviewed: Margret Hulm, Humphrey, Arkansas Age: 97

(Story of Abraham Lincoln as a spy)

In the west edge of Humphrey in a small house beneath huge old trees lives an aged Negro woman with her boy (61 years old) and his wife. This woman is Margret Hulm who says she was born March 5, 1840 in Hardeman County, Tennessee. When asked if she remembered anything about the war and slavery days she said:

"Oh yes mam. I was 24 years old when the slaves were set free. My folks belonged to Master Jimmie Pruitt, who owned lots of other slaves. When they told him his niggers were free, he let them go or let them stay on with him and he'd give them a place to live and some of the crops. I guess that's what folks call a share crop now. I was what folks called a house girl. I didn't work in the field like some of the other slaves. I waited on my mistress and her chillun, answered the door, waited on de table and done things like that. I remember Mr. Lincoln. He came one day to our house (I mean my white folks' house). They told me to answer the door and when I opened it there stood a big man with a gray blanket around him for a cape. He had a string tied around his neck to hold it on. A part of it was turned down over the string like a ghost cape. How was he dressed beneath the blanket? Well, he had on jeans pants and big mud boots and a big black hat kinda like men wear now. He stayed all night. We treated him nice like we did everybody when they come to our house. We heard after he was gone that he was Abraham Lincoln and he was a spy. That was before the war. Oh, yes, I remember lots about the war. I remember dark days what we called the black days. It would be so dark you couldn't see the sun even. That was from the smoke from the fighting. You could just hear the big guns going b-o-o-m, boom, all day. Yes, I do remember seeing the Yankees. I saw 'em running fast one day past our house going back away from the fighting place. And once they hung our master. They told him they wanted his money. He said he didn't have but one dollar. They said 'we know better than that.' Then they took a big rope off of one de Yankee's saddle and took de master down in de horse lot and hung him to a big tree. The rope must a been old, for it broke. Our master was a big man though. Then they hung him again. He told 'em he didn't have but one dollar and they let him down and said 'Well, old man, maybe you haven't got any more money.' So they let him go when the mistress and her little chillun come down there. He didn't have but one dollar in his pockets but had lots buried about the place in two or three places."

While Margret was giving this information she was busily sewing together what looked like little square pads. When examined they proved to be tobacco sacks stuffed with cotton and then sewed together which would make a quilt already quilted when she got enough of them sewed together to cover a bed.



Interviewer: S. S. Taylor Person interviewed: John Hunter 3200 W. 17th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 74

Biographical

John Hunter claims to be only seventy-four years old, but when he is talking he has the manner of an eye-witness to the things he relates. In this connection, many of the ex-slaves seem to be sensitive concerning oldness.

Hunter is blind. He lives with Mrs. Alston, herself the widow of an old ex-slave. His relation to her is simply that of a renter, although where he gets the rent from I don't know.

His father fought in the Confederate army until disabled by disease.

Hunter was born in North Carolina but has lived in this state something like fifty years.

Houses

"Slave houses were old log huts. Some made log houses and some made tent harbors. Just any sort of way on dirt. Some of them didn't have any floors.

"One with a floor was built with one room. Cooked and et and everything in that one room. About 16 x 16. One window. No glass panes in it. Shutter window. Some niggers just built up a log house and dobbed it with dirt to keep the air from coming through.

"Food was kept in an old chest. There weren't no such things as trunks and cupboards. I brought one from North Carolina with me—old-fashioned chest. Bed was homemade and nailed to the side of the wall. Some of them had railings on both sides when they were trying to make it look nice. Mattress was made out of straw or shucks. You could hear it rattling like a hog getting in his bed at night. I have slept on 'em many a time. Those with floors and those without were made alike. A box or anything was used for a table. If his master would give him anything he would make it out of a plank. Make it at night. Boxes and homemade stools were used for chairs. No chairs like there is now. People are blessed now. Didn't go asking for no chairs then. They'd give you a chair—over your head.

"They et anything—any way they could get it,—in pans, old wooden trays, pots, anything. Fed you just like little pigs. Poured it all out in something and give them an old wooden spoon and telled them to get down and eat. Sometimes get down on your belly and eat. No dishes for niggers like now. No dishes till after freedom, and often none then."

Tent Harbors

"Sometimes they'd have a great long place with walls in it with logs and planks and divided into stalls just like a man would have a great long place for mules and divide it into stalls. They were called stockades. You can see them in Tensas Parish in Louisiana. Now, each man would take his family and live in his stall. No doors between the rooms. Each room had a door leading into the open. They called 'em 'tent harbors' because they were built more like a tent. Some of them were covered with boards. People would go into the woods and rive out boards with a fro. A fro is a piece of iron about a foot and a half long with an eye in it and a wooden handle in the eye. You would drive it into the log and then work it along until you rived out the board.

"Slave quarters were built right straight on down so that the master could look right down the avenue when he would walk out. Little houses one right after the other."

Food

"The niggers had anything to eat that the master give 'em. He would give plenty such as it was. Certain days they would go up and get it. Give it to 'em just like they go draw rations now. But they'd give it to you not you say what you wanted. So much meal and so much meat, and so on. Some of 'em raised flour. You had to take whatever you could get."

Father and Mother

"My father was a soldier (Confederate). He got sick with the scrofula and they sent him back to his old master, Dr. Harris, in Enfield, North Carolina. [HW: He was a field hand at first, but after he come back with the scrofula, they just made him a carriage driver.] That's how I came to be born in 1864. My father married Betsy Judge right after he came back. They didn't marry then as they do now. Just jumped over the broom."

Patrollers

"A slave couldn't go nowhere without a pass. If they caught you out without a pass, they'd whip you. Jus' like if I wanted to go to a girl's house, my master would hand me a pass. If he didn't, they'd ketch me and whip me if I got out and wasn't able to run away from them."

What the Freedmen Expected

"When the slave was freed, he was looking to get a home. They were goin' to do this and goin' to do that but they didn't do nothin'. They let us stay on the place until we made the crop, told us we was free to go wherever we wanted to go. That is all they give us and all we got. Some said, 'You promised to give us a home', and they said to them, 'Well, you can stay here as long as you live.'"

How Freedom Came

"The old master called them together and told them they was free. 'Peace declared. You all have to go for yourselves. Won't whip no more now. You are all free.'"

Runaways and Mean Masters

"My father's master was right smart mean to him. It was partly my father's fault. He wouldn't take no whipping much. If they would get after him he would run off. Whenever there was anything they wanted him to do and he didn't go and do it just that minute, they wanted to whip him. Jus' like a child, you know. He had to move when he was told. If he didn't do it then he got a whipping. He would run away in the woods and stay a week or two before he'd come back. Sometimes some of the boys would see him and they would say to him, 'Old master says for you to come back home; he ain't goin' to do nothin' to you.' Nobody would go in the woods and hunt him. Some of them would go in there and get hurt.

"There was some masters that would go in the woods hunting their niggers. Sometimes they'd carry bloodhounds with them. They never did run my father with the bloodhounds though.

"My mother's master and mistress was good to her. They never drove her around. Old man Judge died and left her mistress and she lived a widow the balance of her life. But she never gave my mother no trouble."

Sales and Separations

"There was plenty of slaves being put up on the block and sold. My mother was sold. Her father was a Cooper and she was sold to Judge. He bought my mother's mother and her both, so that made her a Judge. He bought her and she had to go in his name. Her husband was left with the Coopers. She was put up on the block. 'Who will give me a bid on this woman?' The old man was bid back. The Coopers bid him back."

School

"My mother didn't get no schooling no more'n what I learned her after freedom. She never went to school in her life. Still she saw she could read the Bible, the hymn-book, and such things like that as she wanted to before she died."

What the Slaves Got

"They said that the President and the Governor was going to give land to the niggers—going to take it off the owners that they worked for. But they never did get it."

Ku Klux Klan

"I heered talk of the Ku Klux. I can remember once when they come through there (Enfield). That was eight or ten years after the War. They would ketch some of the niggers and whip them. The young niggers got their guns and rigged up a plan to kill them and laid out in a place for them, but they got wind of it and stopped coming."

Mother's Occupation

"My mother was a great weaver. She would weave cloth for the hands on the place. Some days she would work around the house and some other days she'd go out and weave. When they wasn't any weaving or spinning to be done, she'd go out in the field. The weaving and the spinning was right in the white folks' house."

Own Occupation

"I used to be a preacher. Don't do much of nothin' now. Ain't able. Get a little help from the Welfare—a little groceries sometimes. Don't get any pension. You see, I can't do much on account of my blindness."

Opinions of Young People

"I can't tell you what I think of the young people. Times have got to be so fast. It is just terrible to think how this life is. So much change from forty to fifty years ago. Just as much difference on both sides, white and colored, as there is between chalk and cheese."

Praying Under Pots

"When they'd go to have a church meeting, they turn up the pot so that the noise wouldn't come out. They could go to the white folks' church. But the spirit would come on them sometimes to have service themselves. Then they'd go down to the house at night and turn up those big old iron pots and master never would hear. They wouldn't put the washpot flat on the ground. They'd put sticks under it and raise it up about a foot from the ground. If they'd put it flat on the ground the ground would carry the sound."

Voting

"There weren't no voting at all in slavery times (in his locality—ed.) that is, far as the niggers were concerned. But after everybody was free you could vote up until they stopped the people from voting. They kept a Republican ticket in then. There wasn't no Democrat. None like they is now. I don't know how this thing got mixed up like it is now.

"I remember once in North Carolina a man named Bryant got away with a lot of votes in the boxes. He was seen to go out with two boxes under his arms. And when they counted up the votes, the Democrats was ahead. In them days, they counted up the votes before they left the polls. They wanted to kill him. They sent him to the penitentiary to stay five years. When he went in he was a young man, and when he came back he was gray.

"There was some fighting down there that night. My father was a constable. It was the white folks got to fighting each other. They got to 'resting them and they filled the calaboose full that night. Didn't have but one jail and that was in Halifax. The penitentiary was in Raleigh. Raleigh was about 85 miles from Halifax, and Halifax about 75 from Enfield. The jail was twelve miles from Enfield."

Mulattoes

"There were mixed bloods then just like there are now. Them came by the old master, you know. They treated the mulatto a little better than they did the other slaves. You know you would have more respect for your own blood. My Aunt Rena was half-sister to my father. They had the same mother but different fathers and they always gave her a little better treatment than they give him. They didn't sell her. When slavery broke she was still with her master, Old Tom Hollis. The old lady (her mother) was there too. They hadn't sold her neither. But they never give none of them nothin' when they was freed.

"My father was a field hand at first. But after he went to war and come back with the scrofula, they just made him a carriage driver. But he wasn't no mulatto though."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: William Hunter, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 70

"John McBride was my mother's last owner. His wife died in slavery. I never heard her name called. My mother come from Abbeville, South Carolina, a Negro trading point. When she was put on the block my father went to McBride and asked him to buy that woman for him a wife. He said she was a mighty pretty young woman. McBride bought her. I don't know how they got to Carroll County, Mississippi but that is where I was born. My mother raised Walter and Johnny McBride (white). She nursed one of them along with my brother May—May McBride was his name. That was at Asme, Alabama before I was born. I heard my mother say she never worked in the field but two years in her whole life. It must have been just after the war, for I have seen a ditch she and another woman cut. When they cut it, it was 4 ft. x 4 ft. I don't know the length. When I seed it, it was a creek 100 ft. wide. I don't know how deep. I recollect hearing my father talk about clearing land before freedom but I don't know if he was in Alabama or Mississippi then.

"My mother was mixed with the white race. She was a bright woman. My father was a real dark man. He was a South Carolina gutchen—soft water folks, get mad and can't talk. He was crazy about yellow folks.

"McBride died fifty-one years ago. When I was a boy he carried me with him—right in the buggy or oxcart with him till I was up nineteen years old. He went to the saloon to get a dram. I got one too. When he went to a big hotel to eat something he sent out the kitchen door to me out to our buggy or wagon. We camped sometimes when we went to town. It took so long to go over the roads.

"When freedom was declared McBride called up all his slaves and told em they was free; they could go or stay on. My father moved off two years after freedom and then he moved back and we stayed till the old man died. Then my father went to Varden, Mississippi and worked peoples gardens. He was old then too.

"I never seen a 'white cap' (Ku Klux). I heard a heap of talk about em. The people in Mississippi had respect for colored worship.

"I farmed till we went to Varden, Mississippi. I started working on the section. I was brakeman on the train out from Water Valley. Then I come to Wheatley, Arkansas. I worked on the section. All told, I worked forty years on the section. I worked on a log wagon, with a tire company, at the oil mill and in the cotton mill. I had a home till it went in the Home Loan. I have to pay $2.70 a month payments. I get commodities, no money, from the Welfare. My wife is dead now."



MAY 11 1938 Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Ida Blackshear Hutchinson 2620 Orange Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 73

Birth

"I was born in 1865 in Alabama in Sumter County on Sam Scale's place near the little town called Brushville (?)." [HW: Bushville or Brushville(?)]

Parents and Grandparents

"My father's name was Isom Blackshear. Some people call it Blackshire, but we call it Blackshear. His master was named Uriah Blackshear. I have heard him say so many times the year he was born. He died (Isom) in 1905 and was in his eighty-first year then. That would make him born in 1824. His birth was on the fourth day of May. People back in them days lived longer than we do now. My grandfather, Jordan Martin, lived to be one hundred sixteen years old. Grandpa died about nine years ago in Sumter County, Alabama. He was my grandfather on my mother's side.

"My grandfather on my father's side was Luke Blackshear. He was born in Alabama too, and I suppose in Sumter County too. He died in Sumter County. He died about five years before the Civil War.

"My mother was born in North Carolina. Her name was Sylvia Martin before she married my father. She was a Blackshear when she died. She died in 1885. The white people went out in North Carolina and bought her, her mother, Nancy, and her father, Jordan, and brought them to Sumter County, Alabama. My mother's mother was an Indian; her hair came down to her waist."

Luke Blackshear (Breeder)

"My grandfather on my father's side, Luke Blackshear, was a 'stock' Negro.

"Isom Blackshear, his son, was a great talker. He said Luke was six feet four inches tall and near two hundred fifty pounds in weight. He was what they called a double-jointed man. He was a mechanic,—built houses, made keys, and did all other blacksmith work and shoemaking. He did anything in iron, wood or leather. Really he was an architect as well. He could take raw cowhide and make leather out of it and then make shoes out of the leather.

"Luke was the father of fifty-six children and was known as the GIANT BREEDER. He was bought and given to his young mistress in the same way you would give a mule or colt to a child.

"Although he was a stock Negro, he was whipped and drove just like the other Negroes. All of the other Negroes were driven on the farm. He had to labor but he didn't have to work with the other slaves on the farm unless there was no mechanical work to do. He was given better work because he was a skilled mechanic. He taught Isom blacksmithing, brickmaking and bricklaying, shoemaking, carpentry, and other things. The ordinary blacksmith has to order plow points and put than on, but Luke made the points themselves, and he taught Isom to do it. And he taught him to make mats, chairs, and other weaving work. He died sometime before the War."

Isom Blackshear

"Isom Blackshear, Luke's son and my father, farmed until he was eighteen years old, and was a general mechanic as mentioned when I was telling about my grandfather Luke, for sixty odd years. Up to within seven months of his death, he was making chairs and baskets and other things. He never was in bed in his life until his last sickness. That was his first and his last. Never did he have a doctor's bill to pay or for his master to pay,—until he died. He worked on the batteries at Vicksburg during the War.

"Isom ran away three times. He was a field hand up to eighteen years. The overseer wanted to whip him. Isom would help his wife in the field because she couldn't keep up with the others and he would help her to keep the overseer from whipping her. He'd take her beside him and row his row and hers too. He was the fastest worker on the place. The overseer told him to not do that. But Isom just kept on doing it anyway. Then the overseer asked Isom for his shirt. When they whipped you them days they didn't whip you on your clothes because they didn't want to wear them out. Isom said he was not going to take off his shirt because his mistress gave it to him and he wasn't going to give it to anybody else. Then the overseer stepped 'round in front of him to stop him, because Isom had just kept on hoeing. Isom just caught the overseer's feet in his hoe and dumped him down on the ground and went on hoeing his own row and his wife's. He called his hoe 'One Eyed Aggie.'

"The overseer said, 'You think you done something smart' and he went for his master. The overseer was named Mack Hainey. His master came out the next morning and caught Isom. Isom has often told us about it.

"'First thing I knowed, he had his feet on my hoe and he said, "Isom, they tell me you can't be whipped." "I'd be willing to be whipped if I'd done anything." "Huh!" said my master, "Right or wrong, if my overseer asked you for your shirt give it to him."'

"He held a pistol on him. They made him pull off his shirt and tied him up to a gin post. The overseer hit him five times and kept him there till noon trying to get him to say that he would give his shirt to him the next time. Finally Isom promised and the overseer untied him. When the overseer untied him, Isom took his shirt in one hand and the overseer's whip in the other and whipped him almost all the way to the big house. Then he ran away and stayed in the woods for three or four days until his old master sent word for him to come on back and he wouldn't do nothing to him.

"When he went back, his master took him off the farm because he and my father was nursed together and he didn't want Isom killed. So from that time on, my father never worked as a field hand any more. And they put Isom's wife as a cook. She couldn't chop cotton fast enough and they couldn't handle Isom as long as she was in the field; so they put her to washing, and ironing, and cooking, and milking.

"The second time father ran away was once when they missed some groceries out of the storeroom. Master asked him if he took them because he made the keys to the place and not a person on the place but him could know anything about getting in there. He didn't own it, so they tied him up and whipped him two days. When night come they took him and tied him in his house and told his wife that if he got loose they would put the portion on her. He didn't try to get loose because he knowed if he did they would whip her, so he stayed. At noon time when they went to get the dinner they poured three buckets of water in his face and almost drowned him. Then after dinner they came back and whipped him again. Finally he said, 'I didn't do it but nothing will suit you but for me to say I did, so I will say I did it.' So he owned up to it.

"A few days later Mr. Horn who owned the adjoining plantation came over and asked him if he had missed anything,—any rations he said. Old master told him 'Yes' and went on to explain what had been taken and what he had done about it. Then Mr. Horn took Mr. Blackshear over to his house and showed him the rations and they were the one he had whipped my old father about. Then Blackshear came back and told my father that he was sorry, that he never had known him to steal anything. He turned him loose and apologized to him but he made him work with the bloody shirt that they whipped him in sticking to his back.

"The third time he ran off he was in the army working on the batteries at Vicksburg. He worked there till he got to thinking about his wife and children, and then he ran off. He got tired and hungry and he went to Mopilis and give himself up. The jailer written to his master, that is to his mistress, about it, and she got her father to go and see about him and bring him home. They'd had a big storm. The houses were in bad shape. The fences was blown down. The plows was broken or dull and needed fixin'. And they were so glad to see Isom that they didn't whip him nor nothin' for runnin' away.

"Isom's mother was named Winnie Blackshear. She was Luke's wife. She was a light brownskin woman and weighed about one hundred fifty pounds. I have seen her, but Luke was dead before I was born. Grandmother Winnie has been dead about twenty years now. She labored in the field.

"My mother's mother was named Nancy Martin and her father was named Jordan Martin. We kept a Jordan in the family all the way down. Both of them farmed. They were slaves.

"There were fourteen children of us,—eleven sisters and three brothers. The brothers were Jordan, Prince, and John. The sisters were Margaret, Eliza, Nancy, Tempy, Bell, Abbie, Caroline, Frances, Dosia, Mattie, Lucy, Louisa, Ida."

Suicide

"They say Negroes won't commit suicide, but Isom told us of a girl that committed suicide. There was a girl named Lu who used to run off and go to the dances. The patrollers would try to catch her but they couldn't because she was too fast on her feet. One day they got after her in the daytime. She had always outran them at night. She ran to the cabin and got her quarter which she had hid. She put the quarter in her mouth. The white folks didn't allow the slaves to handle no money. The quarter got stuck in her throat, and she went on down to the slough and drowned herself rather than let them beat her, and mark her up. Then patrollers sure would get you and beat you up. If they couldn't catch you when you were running away from them, they would come on your master's place and get you and beat you. The master would allow them to do it. They didn't let the patrollers come on the Blackshear place, but this gal was so hard-headed 'bout goin' out that they made a 'ception to her. And they intended to make her an example to the rest of the slaves. But they didn't get Lucy."

Death of Sixty Babies

"Once on the Blackshear place, they took all the fine looking boys and girls that was thirteen years old or older and put them in a big barn after they had stripped them naked. They used to strip them naked and put them in a big barn every Sunday and leave them there until Monday morning. Out of that came sixty babies.

"They was too many babies to leave in the quarters for some one to take care of during the day. When the young mothers went to work Blackshear had them take their babies with them to the field, and it was two or three miles from the house to the field. He didn't want them to lose time walking backward and forward nursing. They built a long old trough like a great long old cradle and put all these babies in it every morning when the mother come out to the field. It was set at the end of the rows under a big old cottonwood tree.

"When they were at the other end of the row, all at once a cloud no bigger than a small spot came up, and it grew fast, and it thundered and lightened as if the world were coming to an end, and the rain just came down in great sheets. And when it got so they could go to the other end of the field, that trough was filled with water and every baby in it was floating 'round in the water drownded. They never got nary a lick of labor and nary a red penny for ary one of them babies."

Experiences just after the War

"Mother had been a cook and she just kept on cooking, for the same people. My father he went to farming."

Patrollers

"My father said that the patrollers would run you and ketch you and whip you if you didn't have a pass, when you was away from the pass.[HW: place?] But they didn't bother you if you had a pass. The patrollers were mean white people who called themselves making the niggers stay home. I think they were hired. They called their selves making the niggers stay home. They went all through the community looking for people, and whipping them when they'd leave home without a pass. They said you wasn't submissive when you left home without a pass. They hounded Lucy to death. She wouldn't let 'em get her, and she wouldn't let 'em get her quarter."

Ku Klux Klan

"I have seen the Ku Klux. I have washed their regalia and ironed it for them. They wouldn't let just anybody wash and iron it because they couldn't do it right. My son's wife had a job washing and ironing for them and I used to go down and help her. I never did take a job of any kind myself because my husband didn't let me. The regalia was white. They were made near like these singing robes the church choirs have. But they were long—come way down to the shoe tops. That was along in the nineties,—about 1890. It was when they revived the Ku Klux the last time before the World War. In the old days the patrollers used to whip them for being out without a pass but the Ku Klux used to whip them for disorderly living.

"Way back yonder when I was in Alabama, too, I can remember the Ku Klux riding. I was a little child then. The Republicans and Democrats were at war with each other then and they was killing everybody. My brother was one of them they run. He could come out in the daytime, but in the night he would have to hide. They never got him. He dodged them. That was 'round in 1874. In 1875, him and my uncle left Alabama and went to Louisiana. They called him a stump speaker. They wanted to kill him. They killed Tom Ivory. He was the leader of the Republicans—he was a colored man. His father was white but his mother was a Negro. His father educated him in slavery time. He had been up North and was coming back. They knew he was coming back, so they went up the creek and waited for him—his train. They flagged it down, and some one on the train commenced hollering, 'Look yonder.' Ivory stepped out on the platform to see what they were hollering about, and all them guns started popping and Ivory fell over the end of the platform and down on the ground. He was already leaning over the gate when they fired. Then they come up and cut his tongue out before he died. They said if they got him that would stop all the rest of the niggers. You see, he was a leader.

"Niggers was voting the Republican ticket 'long about that time. They just went in gangs riding every night—the Ku Klux did. Ku Kluxing and killing them they got hold of.

"The police arrested all the men that had anything to do with Tom Ivory's killing. The leader of the killers was a white man they called Captain Hess. I never knowed how the trial came out because we left there while they was still in jail."

How Freedom Came

"I heard my mother say that when the Refugees came through Sumter County, Alabama, she wasn't free but was 'sot' free later. The refugees came through along in February. Then the papers was struck and it went out that the niggers all was free. Mother's master and my oldest brother who had stayed in the War with his master four years came home. The refugees was in there when he got home. They went on through. They didn't tarry long there. Then the papers came out and the next day, master called all the hands up to the big house and told them they was free. Mother was set free in the latter part of February and I was born June 5, 1865, so I was born free."

Leaving Alabama

"We left Alabama in the same year Tom Ivory got killed. More than fifty colored people left on the train and come off when we did. People was leaving Alabama something terrible. I never did know what happened to Tom's killers. I heard afterwards that Alabama got broke, they had to pay for so many men they killed."



Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Cornelia Ishmon 3319 W. Second Avenue Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born in Mississippi and I can member seein' the Yankees goin' by. I was a little bit of a girl and Betsy Hardy, that was old Miss, she kep' the Yankees from gettin' me. She told me many a time if it hadn't been for her I'd a had my brains beat out against a tree. When I didn't do to suit her, she'd tell me bout dat. I stayed right in the house.

"I member when they was lookin' for Johnson's brigade and when they saw it was the Yankees they just flew. The Yankees was goin' through there doin' what they wanted.

"I never got no further than the third grade."



FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

El Dorado District Name of interviewer: Mildred Thompson & Carol Graham. Subject: Uncle Jack Island—Ex-Slave. Story—Information (If not enough space on this page add page)

"Yas'm ah membuhs a lil'l bit bout slavery days. Ah wuz jes a chap den. Ah'm 73 now. Ah wuz such a chap dat ah didn' do much work. Day use tuh cook on de fiuh place an ah'd tote in bark an wood fuh em tuh cook wid an git up de aigs (eggs) an sich li'l things as dat.

"Mah ole marster was Marse Bullock an we lived in de Lisbon community.

"Mistress' baby chile wuz a boy an he wuz jes six months olduh dan ah wuz. Ah wuz de only boy chile in de whole business uv slaves. Evah evenin bout a hour by de sun dey would feed us an by sundown we bettuh be in baid. Dat wuz tuh git us outn de way when de grown fokes come in. Dey wuz six uv us chillun an dey would feed us in a big wooden tray. Dey'd po' hot pot liquor in de tray an crumble braid in hit. Den dey'd give us each a spoon an we would all git roun an eat. Dere wuz Lizzie, Nancy, Sistuh Julia, Sistuh Lu and Martha. Der wuz six uv us. Aftuh dey fed us we would go tuh baid an tuh sleep. Dey had ole fashion wheels. Some nights de women would spin. We wouldn' heah dem when dey come in but when dat ole wheel started tuh goin hit'd wake me up an ah'd lie der a while an watch em spin den ah'd go tuh sleep ergin, an leave em spinnin'. Sometimes we wouldn' see our mamas fum Sunday night till next Sunday mornin. Mah mistress wove cloth. Bout de biggest thing ah done wuz help huh wid huh weavin. Ah would pick up de shickle (shuttle) an run hit through fuh huh. Dat bout de biggest thing ah'd do sides feedin the chickens an bringin in bark. In dem days wuznt no buckets much. We used hand gourds dat would hold two or three gallons uv watuh. An ah'd carry one uv dem gourds uv watuh tuh de fiel' tuh em while day was pickin cotton. One yeah de cotton worms wuz so bad an ah hadn' nevah seen none. Ah'd started tuh de fiel' wid de gourd uv watuh an saw dem worms an oh, ah jes bawled. Mah mama had tuh come an git me. Ah didn' know nothin bout dem worms.

"De nearest battle in de wah was at Vicksburg. Ah membuh one day hit got so smoky an ah could heah de guns. Ah thought hit wuz thunderin an said tuh ole missus dat hit wuz gointer rain soon but ole missus say: 'Oh Lawdy, dat aint thunder. Ah wish hit wuz. Dat's guns and dat, dat yo sees is smoke an not clouds.' Aftuh de wah wuz ovah we stayed on wid ole marster. Soon aftuh de wah wuz ovah marster died an missus mahried Ed Oakley, a spare built man. Dey lives in Arcadia, Louisiana now. Ah stayed on thar till ah wuz bout fo'teen an ah lef' dere. Wuz gone bout a yeah an ah learnt sumpin too. When ah got off ah had tuh go to work. Bout all ah had tuh do at home wuz tuh take keer uv de stock aftuh ah got big nough tuh but ah sho nuff worked den. Ah stayed way bout a year den ah went back an stayed dere too till ah was bout twenty-one. Ah been mahried three times. Ah had five chillun by mah fust wife an dem is all de chillun ah evah had. One uv dem lives in town, one in Texas, one Dubach, La., one is daid an ah don' know de where-bouts uv de othuh one. De las' time ah heerd anything bout him he wuz in Hot Springs. Mah present wife's name is Talitha. We has one gran'chile livin wid us. He bout fifteen an is at school ovah dar crost de road wha yo sees dat house. Oh Missy dem times we been tawkin bout wuz de good times. Dese times are hard."



#792 FORM A Circumstances of Interview

STATE—Arkansas NAME OF WORKER—Mrs. Carol Graham ADDRESS—El Dorado, Arkansas DATE—December, 1938 SUBJECT—Ex-slave

1. Name and address of informant—Jack and Talitha Island, Route 1, El Dorado, Arkansas.

2. Date and time of interview—December, 1938

3. Place of interview—Route 1, El Dorado, Arkansas.

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—

#792 FORM B Personal History of Informant

STATE—Arkansas NAME OF WORKER—Mrs. Carol Graham ADDRESS—EL Dorado, Arkansas DATE—December, 1938 SUBJECT—Ex-slave NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANTS—Jack and Talitha Island, Route 1, El Dorado.

1. Ancestry—

2. Place and date of birth—Talitha was born April 14, 1864 in Arcadia, Louisiana. Jack was born in 1863.

3. Family—Talitha had three children and Jack had three children.

4. Places lived in, with dates—Talitha lived in Arcadia, Louisiana until freedom. Jack and Talitha now live in El Dorado.

5. Education, with dates—

6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—

7. Special skills and interests—

8. Community and religious activities—Goes to church in schoolhouse across the road.

9. Description of informant—

10. Other points gained in interview—They tell some of their childhood days.

#792 FORM C Text of Interview (Unedited)

Talitha: "Howdy, chillun, come in. Naw suh, Jack ain't heah right now. He down tuh the thicket back uv de house gittin' some wood. Naw suh, he won't be gone long. He soon be back. You all come in and set on the gallery. Here's a cheer, missy. He be back in no time tall.

"You wants to know how old I am? I was born April 14, 1864 before the niggers was freed in '65.

"My mother was a field woman (worked in the field) and had seven chillun when set free. Her mistress raised her from three weeks old. Her mother burned to death in a house on the plantation. Our home was 'bout four miles east of Arcadia, Louisiana, or rather Miss Sarah Given's house was, and we stayed on wid her until I was a big girl, plowin' and hoeing.

"No ma'am, I never did go to no parties. I was never 'lowed to go. I been a member of the church since I was ten and now I'm seventy-three.

"I first married a man by the name of Williams and had three chillun by him, two boys and one girl. Then I was a widow fifteen years before I married Jack. We ain't never had no chillun, but Jack had three chillun and I helped to raise them and I've helped raise a bunch of his gran'chillun.

"I believes I hear Jack back there now."

Jack: "Howdy, howdy! So you is back for more tales 'bout long ago. I'se seventy-three and I been in this world a long time I tell you."

Talitha: "Now, Jack, you knows you is heap older 'n me and I'm seventy-three and I was born jes 'bout a year befo the War closed and you say you was a big chap then."

Jack: "Well, I guess I was around six years old when the War started. I was a good big chap. I 'member one evening 'bout three o'clock I was settin' out in the yard playin' with a mate of mine—Johnnie Cook. I guess you would call him my mate; he was my mistress's boy and 'bout my age and we played together all the time even if I was black. I was the only black boy on the place, all the other cullud chillun was gals. Us chaps was out in the yard making frog nesties with our bare feet in the sand. They was fightin' in Vicksburg then. They was doing a whole lot of shooting. You could hear it one right after the other and it got so smoky. I thought it was thunder and said something 'bout hit. Mistress was setting on the gallery sewing and when I said that she said, 'Aw Lawd, that ain't no thunder,' but she didn' tell us what hit wuz."

Talitha: "Course I wasn't old enough to know anything 'bout hit but I heard my mother say it got so smoky the chickens didn't get off the roost while they was bustin' all them big cannons."

Jack: "All us chillun was just as fat and healthy as hogs. Warn't never sick. They'd feed 'bout this time every evening (4 p.m.) and by sundown I was in bed. My mother worked in the field and I've heard her say that sometime she didn't see her chillun from Sunday to Sunday. Old lady Hannah Banks done the cooking for everybody and she cooked on a big fireplace. They didn't have no stove. Why, I got here before the stoves did. Ma and pa and all the grown ones would get up at four o'clock and eat breakfast and be in the field workin' by sunup. They had a box with shelves drove up on the side of the wall to the cabin where we slept and old lady Hannah Banks would put our breakfast in that and when we woke up we would get it and eat. One morning I woke up before the other chillun did and 'cided I'd git my breakfast first 'fore they did. I clem up, rech up and got holt of that box and I was so heavy I pulled it down and broke all the old blue edge plates. That woke the other chillun up all right, and I can jes see them old blue edge plates now. For dinner they would give us boiled greens or beans wid bread and for supper they would save the slop (liquor), cram it full of bread, pour it in a tray and give it to all the chilluns and me, sister Julia, Nancy, Lizzie, Marthy, and all the little nigger chillun."

Talitha: "Huh! Old man Givens had so many little nigger chillun couldn' feed 'em in no tray. Had to have troughs. They'd take a log and hollow it out and make three tubs in a row and put peg legs on it and a hole in the bottom of each one with a pin in it. They would use these tubs to wash the clothes in and pull the stem up to let all the water run out, clean 'em out real good, fill with bread and pot-licker or bread and milk, and feed the nigger chillun."

Jack: "You say our nephew wants to come out and bring a bunch of young folks and wants me to take them 'possum hunting some moonlight night? Sho, sho, I'll go."

Talitha: "I don't know how he'd go lessen we totes him. Why, he got the rheumatism so bad he can't hardly git 'round in the daytime much less at night. Why, the other day he was out in the field follerin' the boy that was plowin' up the potatoes and we was goin' on pickin' them up. First thing I know I hear somethin' behind me go 'plop' and I looked roun and there lay Jack jes stretched out. Fell down over his own feet. So what would he do out nights? And you sees that knot on his ankle. Hit was broke when he was a boy an' hit still gives him trouble when his rheumatism starts up."

_Jack_: "You say how did I do it? I was jumpin'. A bunch of us boys was jumpin' 'cross a ditch jes to see how far we could jump. I was a young chap 'bout seventeen or eighteen then. I was doin' purty well with my jumpin' when I made a misjump an' jumped crooked and hit my ankle on a big old iron rock. My but hit hurt bad. I didn' do no more jumpin' that day. The next day I was down in the woods getting a load of lider. Had put on a few pieces on the wagon when I started to turn aroun and down I went. I jes lay there and hollered till someone come an' got me. That was in the winter just before Christmas and I didn't get out no more till in the spring. The woods looked right purty to me when I got out. The leaves was great big. And that ain't all, I ain't jumped no more since. 'Sides that I ain't never been sick to 'mount to anything. Had the whooping cough at the same time that Joe and Tom Snyder had hit. Still got my natchel teeth, lost four up here and got one that bothers me some, 'sides that I have 'em all. Yas suh, that the schoolhouse 'cross the road there. We has preachin' there sometimes too. Does Ab preach there? He, he, he! sometime he do. Did I ever tell you 'bout the time Ab was preaching out here at _ and got to stampin' roun wid that peg-leg of his'n an' hit went through the rotten floor and we had to pull him out? He, he, he!"

Talitha: "Now, Jack Island, you knows that is jes 'nother one uv yo tales. I is been to hear Ab preach lots of times and he does storm roun mighty bad and I ain't got no faith in his religion tall but I warn't there when he fell through the floo'."



Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson Person interviewed: Mary Island 626 Nelson Street, El Dorado, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was born in Union Parish, Louisiana in the year of 1857, so the white folks told me, and I am eighty years old. My mama died when I was two years old and my aunty raised me. She started me out washing dishes when I was four years old and when I was six she was learning me how to cook. While the other hands was working in the field I carried water. We had to cook out in the yard on an old skillet and lid, so you see I had to tote brush and bark and roll up little logs such as I could to keep the fire from one time of cooking to the other. I was not but six years old either. When I got to be seven years old I was cutting sprouts almost like a man and when I was eight I could pick one hundred pounds of cotton. When it rained and we could not go to the field my aunty had me spinning thread to make socks and cloth, then I had to card the bats and make the rolls to spin.

"My auntie was a slave and she lived in the edge of the field. Of course I was born a slave but didn't know much about it because my aunty did the bossing of me but I had a pretty hard time. Our wash tubs, water buckets, bread trays and such were made out of tupelo gum logs dug out with some kind of an axe and when aunty would wash I had to use the battling stick. I would carry the wet clothes to a stump and beat them with that battling stick and we hung the clothes out on bushes and on the fence. We used water from a spring.

"In my young days all we wore was homespun and lowel.[HW: ?] We lived in a log house with a dirt floor and the cracks was chinked with mud and our bed was some poles nailed against the wall with two legs out on the dirt floor, and we pulled grass and put in a lowel[HW: ?] bed tick. My aunty would get old dresses, old coats, and old pants and make quilts.

"I never went to school a day in my life. No, the back of my head has never rubbed against the walls of a schoolhouse and I never did go to Sunday School and I never did like it. And I didn't go to church until I was grown and the church that I did attend was called the Iron Jacket Church. Now they call it the Hard Shell Church. I believe in foot washing. I don't go to church now because there is no Hard Shell church close around here."



Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Henrietta Isom, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 81

"I was born in Mississippi. It wasn't far from Memphis, Tennessee. I heard em talking bout it then. When I first knowed anything we lived way down in Mississippi. It was on a big farm not close to no place much. My ma's and pa's master was named Thornton. Seems lack it was Jack and her name was Miss Lucretia. They show did have a big family, little ones on up. I have three sisters and a brother all dead—ma was a farm hand. She left us wid a real old woman—all the little children stayed right wid her. We minded her lack our ma's. She switch our legs if we didn't. She carded and sewed about all the time.

"I don't know much about master and mistress; their house was way over the field. They lived on a hill and had the finest well of water. It was so cold. They had two buckets on a chain to pull it up by. The cabins down closer to the creek. There was two springs one used mostly for washing and the other for house use.

"I don't know how many cabins they was scattered. He had a lot of hands about all I remembers—on Saturdays we get to go up to the house to fetch back something; some provisions. They tell us if we be good we could go. They done their own cooking. When they work their dinners was sent to the shade trees from white folks house and the childrens was sent too. We would all stand around Miss Rachel (white) when she bring it then we go sit on the steps and eat. We show did have plenty to eat. We wear the dresses new in cold weather then they wear thin for summer. They be lighter in color too when they fade.

"I remember when the white folks left an went to war. They worked on. They had a white man and a colored man boss. When freedom was declared nearly all of them walked off so glad they was free. I don't know where they all went. My folks went to another big place. We had a hard time. We all farmed. I don't know what they expected from freedom. Nobody didn't ask for nuthin. I remembers when some new hands was bought and put on the place. I think they sold em off in town.

"After de war at the church they talked bout if they didn't get freedom they would clang together for der rights but they never did do nuthin. Times was so hard they had to work harder than before.

"The Yankees nor none of the soldiers ever come to our cabins—I seen them along the roads. They show did clean up Miss Leucretia's calves and hogs. Took em all off at one time. Rations show did get mighty scarce.

"They sing, I recken they did sing, go off to work singin and the men whistlin. Mostly sung religious songs. Master Thornton had a white man preach sometimes. Down in front of the cabins in the shade. Sometimes somebody get to go to white church with the family. They held the baby. They didn't have no school.

"I seed the Ku Klux Klans in the road light nights—when they pass we all peep out the cracks. They didn't bother nobody I knowed. We was scared they would turn in an come to the house.

"I farmed all my life, hoed cotton and corn. No maam I aint never voted—I jess lives wid my children here and my son in Memphis and my other daughter at Helena. My daughter do farm work and my son railroads. He works in the yards.

"I don't know what to say bout the generations comin on. They is smarter in their books and sees more than older folks, but they ain't no better. You kaint depend on what they says. I don't know what to say would make the country better lessen the folks all be better.

"I never heard of no rebellions. I jess lived in Mississippi till I comes here and Memphis and stay around wid the children and grandchildren. They all do fairly well for the fast times I guess."

THE END