Part III

Dialogue--Colloquy in Church

Alice Richardson and Mollie

Declamation--Lucy Gray

Miss Alice Moore

Dialogue--Matrimony

Miss Willie Lane, M.A. Scruggs, Mary Alexander, Mr. C.C. Riley

Dialogue--Traveler

Morton Hurtt and Scipio Jordan

Declamation--Truth in Parenthesis

Alice Moore.

Dialogue--Forty Years Ago Ales, Scruggs, and J.P. Winfrey

Declamation--The Last Footfall Lizzie Hull

Declamation--Gone with a John E. Bush, Miss Maggie Green, Handsomer Man than Me and H.G. Clay

Declamation--Golden Side Annie Richmond

Declamation--The Union was Swan Jeffries saved by the Colored Volunteers

Dialogue--Relief Aid Saving Maggie Scruggs, Mary Ross, Society Lizzie Hull, Alice Moore, Mary Alexander, Mollie Pryor, Annie Fairchild, Lizzie Wind, Julia Jackson, J.E. Bush, J.W. Jackson

Song-Dutch Band A.C. Richardson, Wm. Emery, J.H. Haney, W.A.M. Cypers, J.O. Alexander, J.E. Bush, J.W. Jackson

Declamation--Number One Alice Richardson

Declamation--What to Wear, and Miss Coren Winfrey How to Wear It

Dialogue--A Desirable J.E. Bush, J.W. Jackson, A.C. Richmond

Dialogue-The Little Bill Marion Henderson, J.E. Bush, Miss Willie Lane, Miss Laura A. Morgan, Asa Richmond, Jr.

Dialogue--Country Aunt's Visit Henry Jackson, Misses Allice and Julia Crawford, Maggie Howell, Julia Jackson

Dialogue--Beauty and the Beast Marion Henderson, Julia Jackson, (six Scenes) Laura Morgan, Mary Scruggs, Mary Ross, Coren Winfrey, Willie Lane, Lizzie Wind, Alice Crawford, J.E. Bush, J.P. Winfrey

Dialogue--How not to Get M.A. Scruggs and Mary Alexander and Answer

Declamation--The Incidents of John Richmond Travel

* * * * *

Interviewer's Comment

This program was given on one night, and the participants doubled right back the next night on another lengthy program celebrating Christmas Eve.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Julia White (Continued) 3003 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 80

"The Commissary was on the northeast corner of Third and Cumberland. They used to call it the government commissary building. It took up a whole half block. Mrs. Farmer, the white woman, was living in what you call the old Henderliter Place, the building on the northwest corner, during the War. She was a Union woman, and was the one that took us in when the Confederate soldiers were passing and wanted to take us to Texas with them.

"I was so small I didn't know much about things then. When peace was declared a preacher named Hugh Brady, a white man, came here and he had my mother and father to marry over again.

"Mrs. Stephens' father was one of the first school-teachers here for colored people. There were a lot of white people who came here from the North to teach. Peabody School used to be called the Union School. Mrs. Stephens has the first report of the school dated 1869. It gives the names of the directors and all. J.H. Benford was one of the Northern teachers. Anna Ware and Louise Coffman and Miss Henley were teachers too.

"Mrs. Stephens is the oldest colored teacher in Little Rock. The A-B-C children didn't want the old men to teach us. So they would teach 'Lottie'--she was only twelve years old then--and she would hear our lessons. Then at recess time, we would all get out and play together. She was my play mama. Her father, William Wallace Andrews, the first pastor of Wesley Chapel M.E. Church, was the head teacher and Mr. Gray was the other. They were teaching in Wesley Chapel Church. It was then on Eighth and Broadway. This was before Benford's time. It was just after peace had been declared. I don't know where Andrews come from nor how much learning he had. Most of the people then got their learning from white children. But I don't know where he got his.

"Wesley was his first church as far as I know. Before the War all the churches were in with the white people. After freedom, they drew out. Whether Wesley was his first church or not, he was Wesley's first pastor. I got a history of the church."

"They had a real Sunday-school in those days. My sister when she was a child about twelve years old said three hundred Bible verses at one time and received a book as a prize. The book was named 'A Wonderful Deliverance' and other Stories, printed by the American Tract Society, New York, 150 Nassau Street. My sister's name was Mollie Jackson."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lucy White, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 74

"I was born on Jim Banks' place close to Felton. His wife named Miss Puss. Mama and all of young master's niggers was brought from Mississippi. I reckon it was 'fore I was born. Old master name Mack Banks. I never heard mama say but they was good to my daddy. They had a great big place in Mississippi and a good big place over here.

"I recollect seeing the soldiers prance 'long the road. I thought they looked mighty pretty. Their caps and brass buttons and canteens shining in the sun. They rode the prettiest horses. One of 'em come in our house one day. He told Miss Puss he was goiner steal me. She say, 'Don't take her off.' He give me a bundle er bread and I run in the other room and crawled under the bed 'way back in the corner. It was dark up under there. I didn't eat the bread then but I et it after he left. It sure was good. I didn't recollect much but seeing them pass the road. I like to watch 'em. My parents was field folks. I worked in the field. I was raised to work. I keep my clothes clean. I washed 'em. I cooked and washed and ironed and done field work all. When I first recollect Marianna, Mr. Lon Tau and Mr. Free Landing (?) had stores here. Dr. Steven (Stephen?) and Dr. Nunnaly run a drug store here. There was a big road here. Folks started building houses here and there. They called the town Mary Ann fo' de longest time.

"Well, the white folks told 'am, 'You free.' My folks worked on fer about twenty years. They'd give 'em a little sompin outer dat crap. They worked all sorter ways--that's right--they sure did. They rented and share cropped together I reckon after the War ended.

"The Ku Klux never bothered us. I heard 'bout 'em other places.

"I never voted and I never do 'sepect to now. What I know 'bout votin'?

"Well, I tell you, these young folks is cautions. They don't think so but they is. Lazy, no'count, spends every cent they gits in their hands. Some works, some work hard. They drink and carouse about all night sometimes. No ma'am, I did not do no sich er way. I woulder been ashamed of myself. I would. Times what done run away wid us all now. I don't know what to look fer now but I know times changing all the time.

"I gets ten dollars and some little things to eat along. I say it do help out. I got rheumatism and big stiff j'ints (enlarged wrist and knuckles)."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden. Person interviewed: David Whiteman (c) Age: 88 Home: 104 N. Kansas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

"How de do lady. Oh yes, I was a pretty good sized boy when the war started. My old marster was sponsible Smith. My young marster was his son-in-law. I member 'bout the Yankees and the "Revels". I member when a great big troop of 'em went to war. Some of 'em was cryin' and some was laughin'. I tried to get young marster to let me go with him, but he wouldn't let me. Old marster was too old to go and his son dodged around and didn't go either. I member he caught hisself a wild mustang and tied hisself on it and rode off and they never did see him again.

"I know when they was fightin' we use to hear the balls when they was goin' over. I used to pick up many a ball.

"I wish my recollection was with me like it used to be." (At this point his wife spoke up and said "Seems like since he had the flu, his mind is kinda frazzled.")

"Yes'm, I member the Ku Klux. They used to have the colored folks dodgin' around tryin' to keep out of their way."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person Interviewed: Dolly Whiteside (c) Age: 81 Home: 103 Oregon Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.

"I reckon I did live in slavery times--look at my hair.

"I been down sick--I been right low and they didn't speck me to live.

"Well, I'll tell you. I was old enough to know when they runned us to Texas so the Yankees couldn't overtaken us. We was in Texas when freedom come, I remember I was sittin on the fence when the soldiers in them blue uniforms with gold buttons come. He said, "I come to tell you you is free". I didn't know what it was all about but everybody was sayin' "Thank God". I thought it was the judgment day and I was lookin' for God. I said to myself, I'm goin' have some buttons like that some day.

"Colonel Williams was my marster. My mother was a nurse and took care of the colored folks when they was sick. I remember when people wasn't given nothin' but blue mass, calomel, castor oil and gruel, and every body was healthier than they is now.

"I'm the only one livin' that my mother birthed in this world. I was born here, but I been travelin', I been to Memphis and around.

"No mam, I don't remember nothin' else. I done tole you all I know."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: J.W. Whitfield 3100 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 60 Occupation: Preacher

"My father's name was Luke Whitfield. He was sixty-three years old when he died in 1902. He was twenty-six years old when the Civil War ended. He was a slave. There were three other boys in the family besides him. No girls.

"His old mars' name was Bill Carraway. They lived at Nubian [HW: New Bern], North Carolina.

"My father said that his work in slavery time was blacksmithing. He had to fix the wagons and the plow too. He said that was his work during the Civil War too. He worked in the Confederate army too.

"I remember him saying how they whipped him when he ran off. The overseer got after him to whip him and he and one of his friends ran off. As they jumped over the fence to go into the woods the old mars hit my daddy with a cat-o-nine tails. You see, they took a strap of harness leather and cut it into four thongs and then they took another and cut it into five thongs, and they tied them together. When you got one blow you got nine and when you got five blows you got forty-five. As his old mars hit him, he said. 'I got him one, sir; it was a good one too, sir, and a go-boy.'[HW: ?] But it was nine.

"My father told me how they married in slavery times. They didn't count marriage like they do now. If one landowner had a girl and another wanted that girl for one of his men, they would give him her to wife. When a boy-child was born out of this marriage they would reserve him for breeding purposes if he was healthy and robust. But if he was puny and sickly they were not bothered about him. Many a time if the boy was desirable, he was put on the stump and auctioned off by the time he was thirteen years old. They called that putting him on the block. Different ones would come and bid for him and the highest bidder would get him.

"My father spoke of a pass. That was when they wanted to see the girls they would have to get a pass from the old mars. My father would speak to his mars and get a pass. If he didn't have a pass, the other mars would give him a whipping and sent him back. I told you about how they whipped them. They used to use those cat-o-nine tails on them when they didn't have a pass.

"They lived in a log cabin dobbed with dirt and their clothes were woven on a loom. They got the cotton, spun it on the spinning-wheel, wove it on the loom on rainy days. The women spun the thread and wove the cloth. For the boys from five to fifteen years old, they would make long shirts out of this cloth. The shirts had deep scallops in them. Then they would take the same cloth and dye it with indigo and make pants out of it. The boys never wore those pants in the field. No young fellow wore pants until he began to court.

"My mother was a girl that was sold in Lenoir County, near Kenston, [HW: Kinston?] North Carolina. My father met her in a place called Buford, [HW: Beaufort? Carteret Co.] North Carolina. My father was sold several times. The owner sold her to his owner and they jumped over a broomstick and were married. My daddy's mars bought my mother for him. Her name was Penny."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sarah Whitmore, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: 100

_Note_--The interviewer found this ex-slave in small quarters. The bed, the room and the Negro were filthy. A fire burned in an ironing bucket, mostly papers and trash for fuel. During the visit of the interviewer a white girl brought a tray with a measuring cup of coffee and two slices of bread with butter and fruit spread between. When asked where she got her dinner she said "The best way I can" meaning somebody might bring it to her. Her hands are too stiff and shaky to cook. Her eye sight is so bad she cannot clean her room. Two WPA county visitors, girls, bathe her at intervals.

"I was born between Jackson and Brandon. Sure I was born down in Mississippi. My mother's name they tole me was Rosie. She died when I was a baby. My father named Richard Chamber. They called him Dick. He was killed direckly after the war by a white man. He was a Rebel scout. The man named Hodge. I seed him. He shot my father. Them questions been called over to me so much I most forgot 'em. Well some jes' lack 'em. My father's master was Hal Chambers and his wife Virginia. Recken I do 'member the Ku Klux. They scared me to death. I go under the bed every time when I see them about. Then was when my father was killed. He went off with a crowd of white men. They said they was Rebel scouts. All I know I never seed him no more since that evening. They killed him across the line, not far from Mississippi. Chambers had two or three farms. I was on the village farm. I had one brother. Chambers sent him to the salt works and I never seed him no more. I was a orphant.

"Chambers make you work. I worked in the field. I come wid a crowd to Helena. I come on a boat. I been a midwife to black and white. I used to cook some. I am master hand at ironin'. I have no children as I knows of. I never born none. I help raise some. I come on a fine big steamboat wid a crowd of people. I married in Arkansas. My husband died ten or twelve years ago. I forgot which years it was. I been livin' in this bery house seben years.

"The Government give me $10 a month. I would wash dishes but I can't see 'bout gettin' 'round no more.

"Don't ax me 'bout the young niggers. They too fast fo me. If I see 'em they talkin' a passel of foolish talk. Whut I knows is times is hard wid me shows you born.

"You come back to see me. If you don't I wanter meet you all in heaben. By, by, by."

Interviewer: Watt McKinney Person interviewed: Dock Wilborn A mile or so from Marvell, Arkansas Age: 95

Dock Wilborn was born a slave near Huntsville, Alabama on January 7, 1843, the property of Dan Wilborn who with his three brothers, Elias, Sam, and Ike, moved to Arkansas and settled near Marvell in Phillips County about 1855.

According to "Uncle Dock" the four Wilborn brothers each owning more than one hundred slaves acquired a large body of wild, undeveloped land, divided this acreage between them and immediately began to erect numerous log structures for housing themselves, their Negroes, and their stock, and to deaden the timber and clear the land preparatory to placing their crops the following season. The Wilborns arrived in Arkansas in the early fall of the year and for several months they camped, living in tents until such time that they were able to complete the erection of their residences. Good, substantial, well constructed and warm cabins were built in which to house the slaves, much better buildings "Uncle Dock" says than those in which the average Negro sharecropper lives today on Southern cotton plantations. And these Negroes were given an abundance of the same wholesome food as that prepared for the master's family in the huge kettles and ovens of the one common kitchen presided over by a well-trained and competent cook and supervised by the wife of the master.

During the period of slavery the more apt and intelligent among those of the younger Negroes were singled out and given special training for those places in which their talents indicated they would be most useful in the life of the plantation. Girls were trained in housework, cooking, and in the care of children while boys were taught blacksmithing, carpentrying, and some were trained for personal servants around the home. Some were even taught to read and to write when it was thought that their later positions would require this learning.

According to "Uncle Dock" Wilborn, slaves were allowed to enjoy many pleasures and liberties thought by many in this day, especially by the descendants of these slaves, not to have been accorded them, were entirely free of any responsibility aside from the performance of their alloted labors and speaking from his own experience received kind and just treatment at the hands of their masters.

The will of the master was the law of the plantation and prompt punishment was administered for any violation of established rules and though a master was kind, he was of necessity invariably firm in the administration of his government and in the execution of his laws. Respect and obedience was steadfastly required and sternly demanded, while indolence and disrespect was neither tolerated or permitted.

In refutation to often repeated expressions and beliefs that slaves were cruelly treated, provided with insufficient food and apparel and subjected to inhuman punishment, it is pointed out by ex-slaves themselves that they were at that time very valuable property, worth on the market no less than from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars each for a healthy, grown Negro and that it is unreasonable to suppose that these slaveowners did not properly safeguard their investments with the befitting care and attention such valuable property demanded or that these masters would by rule or action bring about any condition adversely effecting the health, efficiency or value of their slaves.

The spiritual and religious needs of the slaves received the attention of the same minister who attended the like needs of the master and his family, and services were often conducted on Sunday afternoons exclusively for them at which times the minister exhorted his congregation to live lives of righteousness and to be at all times obedient, respectful and dutiful servants in the cause of both their earthly and heavenly masters.

In the days of slavery, on occasion of the marriage of a couple in which the participants were members of slave-owning families, it was the custom for the father of each to provide the young couple with several Negroes, the number of course depending on the relative wealth or affluence of their respective families. It seems, however, that no less than six or eight grown slaves were given in most instances as well as a like number of children from two to four years of age. This provision on the part of the parents of the newly-wedded pair was for the purpose as "Uncle Dock" expressed it to give them a "start" of Negroes. The children were not considered of much value at such an age and the young master and his wife found themselves possessed with the responsibility attached to their proper care and rearing until such time as they reached the age at which they could perform some useful labor. These responsibilities were bravely accepted and such children received the best of care and attention, being it is said often kept in a room provided for than in the master's own house where their needs could be administered to under the watchful eye and supervision of their owners. The food given these young children according to informants consisted mainly of a sort of gruel composed of whole milk and bread made of whole wheat flour which was set before them in a kind of trough and from which they ate with great relish and grew rapidly.

Slaveowners, as a rule, arranged for their Negroes to have all needed pleasure and enjoyment, and in the late summer after cultivation of the crops was complete it was the custom for a number of them to give a large barbecue for their combined groups of slaves, at which huge quantities of beef and pork were served and the care-free hours given over to dancing and general merry-making. "Uncle Dock" recalls that his master, Dan Wilborn, who was a good-natured man of large stature, derived much pleasure in playing his "fiddle" and that often in the early summer evenings he would walk down to the slave quarters with his violin remarking that he would supply the music and that he wished to see his "niggers" dance, and dance they would for hours and as much to the master's own delight and amusement as to theirs.

Dock Wilborn's "pappy" Sam was in some respects disobedient, prompted mainly so it seems by his complete dislike for any form of labor and which Dan Wilborn due to their mutual affection appeared to tolerate for long periods or until such time that his patience was exhausted when he would then apply his lash to Sam a few times and often after these periodical punishments Sam would escape to the dense forests that surrounded the plantation where he would remain for days or until Wilborn would enlist the aid of Nat Turner and his hounds and chase the Negro to bay and return him to his home.

"Uncle Dock" Wilborn and his wife "Aunt Becky" are among the oldest citizens of Phillips County and have been married for sixty-seven years. Dan Wilborn performed their marriage ceremony. The only formality required in uniting them as man and wife was that each jump over a broom that had been placed on the floor between them. This old couple are the parents of four children, the eldest of whom is now sixty-three. They live alone in a small white-washed cabin only a mile or so from Marvell being supported only by a small pension they receive each month from the Social Security Board. They have a garden and a few chickens and a hog or two and are happy and content as they dip their snuff and recall those days long past during which they both contend that life was at its best, "Aunt Becky" is religious and a staunch believer, a long-time member of Mount Moriah Baptist Church while "Uncle Dock" who has never been affiliated with any religious organization is yet as he terms himself "a sinner man" and laughingly remarks that he is going to ride into Heaven on "Aunt Becky's" ticket to which comment she promptly replies that her ticket is good for only one passage and that if he hopes to get there he must arrange for one of his own.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Bell Wilks, Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was raised in Pulaski, Tennessee, Giles County. The post office was at one end of the town, bout half mile was the church down at the other end. Yes'm, that way Pulaski looked when I lived there. My father's master was Peter or Jerry Garn--I don't know which. They brothers? Yes'm.

"My mother's master was John Wilks and Miss Betty. Mama's name was Callie Wilks and papa's name was Freeman. Mama had seven children. She was a field hand. She said all on their place could do nearly anything. They took turns cooking. Seems like it was a week about they took milkin', doin' house work, field work, and she said sometimes they sewed.

"Father told my mother one day he was going to the Yankees. She didn't want him to go much. He went. They mustered out drilling one day. He had to squat right smart. He saw some cattle in the distance looked like army way off. He fell dead. They said it was heart disease. They brought him home and some of dem stood close to him drillin' told her that was way it happened.

"The man what owned my mother was sorter of a Yankee hisself. We all stayed till he wound up the crop. He sold his place and went to Collyoka on the L. and N. Railway. He give us two and one-half bushels corn, three bushels wheat, and some meat at the very first of freedom. When it played out we went and he give us more long as he stayed there.

"When mama left she went to a new sorter mill town and cooked there till 1869. She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom. I stayed wid her till 1876. I sure does remember dem dates. (laughed)

"Yes'm, I was nursin' for Dr. Rothrock when that Ku Klux scare was all bout. They coma to our house huntin' a boy. They didn't find him. I cover up my head when they come bout our house. Some folks they scared nearly to death. I bein' in a strange place don't know much bout what all I heard they done.

"I don't vote. I don't know who to vote for, let people vote know how.

"I get bout $8 and some commodities. It sure do help me out too. I tell you it sure do."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Bell Williams, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 85

"We was owned by Master Rucker. It seems I was about ten years old when the Civil War started. It seems like a dream to me now. Mother was a weaver. They said she was a fine weaver. She wove for all on the place and some special pieces of cloth for outsiders. She wove woolen cloth too. I don't know whether they paid for the extra weaving or not. People didn't look on money like they do now. They was free with one another about eating and visiting and work too when a man got behind with the work. The fields get gone in the grass. Sometimes they would be sick or it rained too much. The neighbor would send all his slaves to work till they caught up and never charge a cent. I don't hear about people doing that way now.

"My parents was named Clinton and Billy Bell. There was nine of us children.

"I never seen nobody sold. Mother was darker. Papa was light--half white. They didn't talk in front of children about things and I never did know. I've wondered.

"After freedom my folks stayed on at Master Rucker's. I got to be a midwife. I nursed and was a house girl after the war. Then the doctors got to sending for me to nurse and I got to be a midwife.

"My father was a good Bible scholar. He preached all around Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He was a Methodist. He died when he was seventy-seven years old. He had read the Bible through seventy-seven times--one time for every year old he was."

Mrs. Mildred Thompson Mrs. Carol Graham El Dorado District Federal Writers Project Union County, Arkansas

Charley Williams, Ex-slave. "Mawnin' Missy. Yo say wha Aint Fanny Whoolah live? She live right down de road dar in dat fust house. Yas'm. Dat wha she live. Yo say whut mah name? Mah name is Charley. Yas'm, Charley Williams. Did ah live in slavery time? Yas'm sho' did. Mah marster wuz Dr. Reed Williams and he live at Kew London (SE part of Union County) or ah speck ah bettuh say near New London caise he live on de Mere-Saline Road, de way de soldiers went and come. Marster died befo' de Civil Wah. Does ah membah hit? Yas'm ah say ah does. Ah wuz bo'n in 1856. Mah ole mutha died befo' de wah too. Huh name wuz Charity. Mah young marster went tuh de wah an come back. He fit at Vicksburg an his name wuz Bennie Williams. But he daid now tho. Dere was a hep uv dem white William Chillun. Dere wuz Miss Narcissi an she am a livin now at Stong. Den dere's Mr. Charley. Ah wuz named fuh him. He am a livin now too. Den dere is Mr. Race Williams. He am a livin at Strong too. Dere wuz Miss Annie, Miss Martha Jane and Miss Madie. Dey is all daid. When young marster would come by home or any uv de udder soldiers us little niggers would steal de many balls (bullets or shot) fum dey saddul bags and play wid em. Ah nevah did see so many soldiers in mah life. Hit looked tuh me like dey wuz enough uv em to reach clear cross de United States. An ah nevah saw de like uv cows as they had. Dey wuz nuff uv em to rech clar to Camden.

Is ah evah been mahried and does ah have any chillun? Yes'm. Yas'm. Ah's been mahried three times. Me an mah fust wife had seven chillun. When we had six chillun me and mah wife moved tuh Kansas. We had only been der 23 days when mah wife birthed a chile and her an de chile both died. Dat left me wid Carey Dee, Lizzie, Arthur, Richmond, Ollie and Lillie to bring back home. Ah mahried agin an me an dat wife had one chile name Robert. Me an mah third wife has three: Joe Verna, Lula Mae an Johnnie B.

Is dey hents? Ah've hearn tell uv em but nevah have seed no hants. One uv mah friens whut lived on the Hommonds place at Hillsboro could see em. His name wuz Elliott. One time me an Elliott wuz drivin along an Elliott said: "Charley, somebody got hole uv mah horse!" Sho nuff dat horse led right off inter de woods an comminced to buckin so Elliott and his hoss both saw de haint but ah couldn' see hit. Yo know some people jes caint see em.

Yas'm right up dere is wha Aint Fannie live. Yas'm. Goodday Missy."

FOLK CUSTOMS

We found Fannie Wheeler at home but not an ex-slave. She was making a bedspread of tobacco sacks.

"Yas'm chillun ah'm piecing mahsef a bedspraid from dese heah backy sacks. Yas'm dey sho does make er nice spraid. See dat'n on mah baid. Aint hit purty. Hit wuz made fum backy sacks. Don yo all think dat yaller bodah (border) set hit off purty? Ah'm aimin to bodah dis'n wid pink er blue.

What am dat up dar in dat picture frame? Why dat am plaits of har (hair). Hits uv mah kin and frien's. When we would move way off dey would cut off a plait and give hit tuh us tuh membah dem by. Mos' uv dem is daid now but ah still membahs dem and ah kin name evah plait now."

We were told that Sallie Sims was an old negress and went to see her she was not an ex-slave either but she told us an interesting little story about

HAINTS and BODY MARKS

"No'm, ah'm purty ole but ah wuz bo'n aftuh surrender. Is ah evah seen a hant? Now ah nevah did but once and mah ma said dat wuz a hant. Ah wuz out in de woods waukin (walking) an ah saw sumpin dat looked lak a squirrel start up a tree and de fudder up hit got the bigger hit got an hit wuz big as a bear when hit got to de top and ma said dat hit was a haint. Dat is de only time ah evah seed one.

Now mah granchillun can all see hants and mah little great gran' chile too. An evah one uv dem wuz bo'n wid a veil ovah dey face. Now when a chile is bo'n wid a veil ovah his face--if de veil is lifted up de sho can see hants and see evah thing but if'n de veil is pulled down stid up bein lifted up de won't see em. After de veil is pulled down an taken off, wrap hit up in a tissue paper and put hit in de trunk and let hit stay dar till hit disappear and de chile won't nevah see hants. Mah grandaughter what lives up north in Missouri come down heah to visit mah son's fambly an me ah an brang huh li'l boy wid huh. Dat chile is bout seben years ole an dat chile could see hants all in de house an he wouldn' go tuh baid till his gran'pappy come home an went tuh baid wid him."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Charlie Williams Brassfield; Ark. Age: 73

"I was born four miles from Holly Springs, Mississippi. My parents was named Patsy and Tom Williams. They had twenty children. Nat Williams and Miss Carrie Williams owned them both. They had four children.

"At freedom he was nice as could be--wanted em to stay on with him and they did. He didn't whip em. They liked that in him. His wife was dead and he come out to Arkansas with us. He died at Lonoke--Mr. Tom Williams at Lonoke.

"I farmed nearly all my life. I worked on a steamboat on White River five or six years--_The Ralph_.

"I never saw a Ku Klux. Mr. Williams kept us well protected.

"My mother's mother couldn't talk plain. My mother talked tolerably plain. She was a 'Molly Glaspy' woman. My father had a loud heavy voice; you could hear him a long ways off.

"I have no home. I am a widower. I have no land. I get a small check and commodities.

"I vote. I haven't voted in a long time. I'm not educated to know how that would serve us best."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Columbus Williams Temporary: 2422 Howard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Permanent: Box 12, Route 2, Ouachita County, Stevens, Arkansas Age: 98

"I was born in Union County, Arkansas, in 1841, in Mount Holly.

"My mother was named Clora Tookes. My father's name is Jordan Tookes. Bishop Tookes is supposed to be a distant relative of ours. I don't know my mother and father's folks. My mother and father were both born in Georgia. They had eight children. All of them are dead now but me. I am the only one left.

"Old Ben Heard was my master. He come from Mississippi, and brought my mother and father with him. They were in Mississippi as well as in Georgia, but they were born in Georgia. Ben Heard was a right mean man. They was all mean 'long about then. Heard whipped his slaves a lot. Sometimes he would say they wouldn't obey. Sometimes he would say they sassed him. Sometimes he would say they wouldn't work. He would tie them and stake them out and whip them with a leather whip of some kind. He would put five hundred licks on them before he would quit. He would buy the whip he whipped them with out of the store. After he whipped them, they would put their rags on and go on about their business. There wouldn't be no such thing as medical attention. What did he care. He would whip the women the same as he would the men.

"Strip 'em to their waist and let their rags hang down from their hips and tie them down and lash them till the blood ran all down over their clothes. Yes sir, he'd whip the women the same as he would the men.

"Some of the slaves ran away, but they would catch them and bring them back, you know. Put the dogs after them. The dogs would just run them up and bay them just like a coon or 'possum. Sometimes the white people would make the dogs bite them. You see, when the dogs would run up on them, they would sometimes fight them, till the white people got there and then the white folks would make the dogs bite them and make them quit fighting the dogs.

"One man run off and stayed twelve months once. He come back then, and they didn't do nothin' to him. 'Fraid he'd run off again, I guess.

"We didn't have no church nor nothing. No Sunday-schools, no nothin'. Worked from Monday morning till Saturday night. On Sunday we didn't do nothin' but set right down there on that big plantation. Couldn't go nowhere. Wouldn't let us go nowhere without a pass. They had the paterollers out all the time. If they caught you out without a pass, they would give you twenty-five licks. If you outrun them and got home, on your master's plantation, you saved yourself the whipping.

"The black people never had no amusement. They would have an old fiddle--something like that. That was all the music I ever seen. Sometimes they would ring up and play 'round in the yard. I don't remember the games. Sing some kind of old reel song. I don't hardly remember the words of any of them songs.

"Wouldn't allow none of them to have no books nor read nor nothin'. Nothin' like that. They had corn huskin's in Mississippi and Georgia, but not in Arkansas. Didn't have no quiltin's. Women might quilt some at night. Didn't have nothin' to make no quilts out of.

"The very first work I did was to nurse babies. After that when I got a little bigger they carried me to the field--choppin' cotton. Then I went to picking cotton. Next thing--pullin' fodder. Then they took me from that and put me to plowin', clearin' land, splittin' rails. I believe that is about all I did. You worked from the time you could see till the time you couldn't see. You worked from before sunrise till after dark. When that horn blows, you better git out of that house, 'cause the overseer is comin' down the line, and he ain't comin' with nothin' in his hand.

"They weighed the rations out to the slaves. They would give you so many pounds of meat to each working person in the family. The children didn't count; they didn't git none. That would have to last till next Sunday. They would give them three pounds of meat to each workin' person, I think. They would give 'em a little meal too. That is all they'd give 'em. The slaves had to cook for theirselves after they come home from the field. They didn't get no flour nor no sugar nor no coffee, nothin' like that.

"They would give the babies a little milk and corn bread or a little molasses and bread when they didn't have the milk. Some old person who didn't have to go to the field would give them somethin' to eat so that they would be out of the way when the folks come out of the field.

"The slaves lived in old log houses--one room, one door, _one window_, one everything. There were _plenty windows_ though. There were windows all [HW: ?] around the house. They had cracks that let in more air than the windows would. They had plank floors. Didn't have no furniture. The bed would have two legs and would have a hole bored in the side of the house where the side rail would run through and the two legs would be out from the wall. Didn't have no springs and they made out with anything they could git for a mattress. Master wouldn't furnish them nothin' of that kind.

"The jayhawkers were white folks. They didn't bother we all much. That was after the surrender. They go 'round here and there and git after white folks what they thought had some money and jerk them 'round. They were jus' common men and soldiers.

"I was not in the army in the War. I was right down here in Union County then. I don't know just when they freed me but it was after the War was over. The old white man call us up to the house and told us now we was free as he was; that if we wanted to stay with him it was all right, if we didn't and wanted to go away anywheres, we could have the privilege to do it.

"Marriage wasn't like now. You would court a woman and jus' go on and marry. No license, no nothing. Sometimes you would take up with a woman and go on with her. Didn't have no ceremony at all. I have heard of them stepping over a broom but I never saw it. Far as I saw there was no ceremony at all.

"When the slaves were freed they expected to get forty acres and a mule. I never did hear of anybody gettin' it.

"Right after the War, I worked on a farm with Ben Heard. I stayed with him about three years, then I moved off with some other white folks. I worked on shares. First I worked for half and he furnished a team. Then I worked on third and fourth and furnished my own team. I gave the owner a third of the corn and a fourth of the cotton and kept the rest. I kept that up several years. They cheated us out of our part. If they furnished anything, they would sure git it back. Had everything so high you know. I have farmed all my life. Farmed till I got so old I couldn't. I never did own my own farm. I just continued to rent.

"I never had any trouble about voting. I voted whenever I wanted to. I reckon it was about three years after the War when I began to vote.

"I never went to school. One of the white boys slipped and learned me a little about readin' in slave time. Right after freedom come, I was a grown man; so I had to work. I married about four or five years after the War. I was just married once. My wife is not living now. She's gone. She's been dead for about twelve years.

"I belong to the A.M.E. Church and my membership is in the New Home Church out in the country in Ouachita County."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank Williams County Hospital, ward eleven, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 100, or more

"I'm a hundred years old. I know I'm a hundred. I know from where they told me. I don't know when I was born.

"I been took down and whipped many a time because I didn't do my work good. They took my pants down and whipped me just the same as if I'd been a dog. Sometimes they would whip the people from Saturday night till Monday morning.

"I run off with the Yankees. I was young then. I was in the Civil War. I don't know how long I stayed in the army. I ain't never been back home since. I wish I was. I wouldn't be in this condition if I was back home.

"Mississippi was my home. I come up here with the Yankees and I ain't never been back since. Laconia, Mississippi was the place I used to be down there. I been wanting to go home, but I couldn't git off. I want to git you to write there for me. I belong to the Baptist church. Write to the elders of the church. I belong to the Mission Baptist Church on the other side of Rock Creek here.

"They just lived in log houses in slave time.

"I want to go back home. They made me leave Laconia.

"Pateroles!! Oh, my God!!! I know 'nough 'bout them. Child, I've heard 'em holler, 'Run, nigger, run! The pateroles will catch you.'

"The jayhawkers would catch people and whip them.

"I would be back home yet if they hadn't made me come away.

"They didn't have no church in slavery time. They jus' had to hide around and worship God any way they could.

"I used to live in Laconia. I ain't been back there since the war. I want to go back to my folks."

Interviewer's Comment

Frank Williams is like a man suffering from amnesia. He is the first old man that I have interviewed whose memory is so far gone. He remembers practically nothing. He can't tell you where he was born. He can't tell you where he lived before he came to Little Rock. Only when his associates mention some of the things he formerly told them can he remember that little of his past that he does state in any remote approach to detail.

There is a strong emotional set which relates to his slave time experiences. The emotion surges up in his mind at any mention of slave time matters. But only the emotion remains. The details are gone forever. Names, times, places, happenings are gone forever. He does not even recall the name of his father, the name of his mother, or the name of any of his relatives or masters, or old-time friends. No single definite thing rises above the horizon of his mind and defines itself clearly to him.

And always after every sentence he utters, there rises the old refrain: "I want to go back home. I wouldn't be in this condition if I was back home. I live in Laconia. They made me come away." And that is the substance of the story he remembers.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Gus Williams, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 80

"Was you lookin' for me t'oder day? Sure, my name's Williams--Gus Williams--not Wilson. Dey gits me mixed up wid dat young guy, Wilson.

"Yes, I remembers you--sure--talks to yo' brother sometimes.

"I was born in Chatham County, Georgia--Savannah is de county seat. My marster's name was Jim Williams. Never seen my daddy cause de Yankees carried him away durin' de War, took him away to de North. Old marster was good to his slaves, I was told, but don't ricollect anything about em. Of course I was too young. Was born on Christmas day, 1857--but I don't see anything specially interestin' in bein' a Christmas present; never got me nothin', and never will.

"Was workin' on WPA--this big Tech. buildin'--but got laid off t'other day.

"My mamma brought us to Arkansas in 1885, but we stopped and lived for several years in Tennessee. Worked for twelve years out of Memphis on the old Anchor Line steamboats on de Mississippi, runnin' from St. Louis to N'Orleans. Plenty work in dem days.

"No, I ain't voted in a long time; can't afford to vote because I never have the dollar. No dollar--no vote. Depression done fixed my votin'.

"Jest me and my wife, but it takes pluggin' away to get along. We belongs to the C.M.E. Church since 1915. I was janitor at the West Ward School for seven years, and sure liked dat job.

"Don't ask me anything about dese boys and gals livin' today. Much difference in dem and de young folks livin' in my time as between me and you. No dependence to be put in em. My _estimony_ is dat de black servants today workin' for de whites learns things from dem white girls dat dey never knowed before, and den goes home and does things dey never done before.

"Don't ricollect many of de old-time songs, but one was somep'n like--"Am I Born to Die?" And--oh, yes,--lots of times we sung 'Amazin' Grace, how sweet de soun' dat saves a _race_ like me.'

"No suh, I ain't got no education--never had a chance to git one."

NOTE: The underscored words are actual quotations. "Estimony" for "opinion" was a characteristic in Gus' vocabulary; "race" for the original "wretch" in the song may have been a general error in some local congregations.

Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson Person interviewed: Henrietta Williams B. Avenue, El Dorado, Arkansas Age: About 82

"I am about 82 years old. I was born in Georgia down in the cotton patch. I did not know much about slavery, for I was raised in the white folks' house, and my old mistress called me her little nigger, and she didn't allow me to be whipped and drove around. I remember my old master whipped me one time and old mistress fussed with him so much he never did whip me any more.

"I never had to get out and do any real hard work until I was nearly grown. My mother did not have but one child. My father was sold from my mother when I was about two years old and he was carried to Texas and I did not see him any more until I was 35 years old. So my mother married again when she was set free. I didn't stay with my mother very much. She stayed off in a little log house with a dirt floor, and she cooked on the fireplace with a skillet and lid, and the house had one window with a shutter. She had to cut logs and roll them like a man and split rails and plow. I would sometimes ask old mistress to let me go out where my mother was working to see her plow and when I got to be a big girl about nine years she began learning me how to plow.

"I often told the niggers the white folks raised me. The niggers tell me, 'Yes, the white folks raise you but the niggers is going to kill you.'

"After freedom my mistress and master moved to Louisiana. They farmed. They owned a big plantation. I did the housework.

"The biggest snow I remember was the big centennial snow. Oh, that's been years ago. The snow was so deep you couldn't get out of the house. The boys had to take the shovel and the hoe and keep the snow raked away from around the door.

"There was a big old oak tree that stood in the corner of the yard. People say that tree was a hundred years old. We could not get no wood, so master had the boys to cut the big old oak tree for wood.

"Rabbits had a scant time. The boys would go out and track six or eight rabbits at a time. We had rabbits of all descriptions. We had rabbits for breakfast, rabbits for dinner, rabbits for supper time. We had fried rabbits, baked rabbits, stewed rabbits, boiled rabbits. Had rabbits, rabbits, rabbits the whole six or eight weeks the snow stayed on the ground.

"I remember when I was about twelve years old a woman had two small children. She went away from home and for fear that the children would get hurt on the outside she put them in the house and locked the door. In some way they got a match and struck it and the house caught fire. All the neighbors were a long ways off and by the time they reched the house it had fallen in. Finally the mother came and looked for her children and asked the neighbors did they save them. They said no, they did not know they were in the house. In fact they were too late anyway. So the fire was still hot and they had to wait for the ashes to cool and when the ashes got cool they went looking for the children and found the burned buttons that were on their little clothes, so they began raking around in the ashes and at last found each of their little hearts that had not burned, but the little hearts were still jumping and the man who found the hearts picked them up in his hand and stood speechless. He became so nervous he could not move. Their little hearts just quivered. They let their hearts lay out for a couple of days and when they buried their hearts they was still jumpin'. That was a sad time. From that day to this day I never lock no one up in the house."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Henry Andrew (Tip) Williams Biscoe, Arkansas Age: Born in 1854, 86

"I was born three and one-half miles from Jackson, North Carolina. I was born a slave. I was put to work at six years old. They started me to cleaning off new ground. I thinned corn on my knees with my hands. We planted six or seven acres of cotton and got four or five cents a pound. Balance we planted was something to live on. My master was Jason and Betsy Williams. He had a small plantation; the smaller the plantation the better they was to their slaves.

"Jim Johnson's farm joined. He had nine hundred ninety-nine niggers. It was funny but every time a nigger was born one died. When he bought one another one would die. He was noted as having nine hundred ninety-nine niggers. It happened that way. He was rough on his place. He had a jail on his place. It was wood but close built. Couldn't get out of there. Put them in there and lock them up with a big padlock. He kept a male hog in the jail to tramp and walk over them. They said they kept them tied down in that place. Five hundred lashes and shot 'em up in jail was light punishment. They said it was light brushing. I lived up in the Piney Woods. It was big rich bottom plantations from Weldon Bridge to Halifax down on the river. They was rough on 'em, killed some. No, I never seen Jim Johnson to know him. He lived at Edenton, North Carolina. I recollect mighty well the day he died we had a big storm, blowed down big trees. That jail was standing when I come to Arkansas forty-seven years ago. It was a 'Bill brew' (stocks) they put men in when they put them in jail. Turned male hog in there for a blind.

"Part of Jim Johnson's overseers was black and part white. Hatterway was white and Nat was black. They was the head overseers and both bad men. I could hear them crying way to our place early in the morning and at night.

"Lansing Kahart owned grandma when I was a little boy.

"They took hands in droves one hundred fifty miles to Richmond to sell them. Richmond and New Orleans was the two big selling blocks. My uncle was sold at Richmond and when I come to Arkansas he was living at Helena. I never did get to see him but I seen his two boys. They live down there now. I don't know how my uncle got to Helena but he was turned loose down in this country at 'mancipation. They told me that.

"When a man wanted a woman he went and axed the master for her and took her on. That is about all there was to it. No use to want one of the women on Jim Johnson's, Debrose, Tillery farms. They kept them on their own and didn't want visitors. They was big farms. Kershy had a big farm.

"The Yankees never went to my master's house a time. The black folks knowd the Yankees was after freedom. They had a song no niggers ever made up, 'I wanter be free.'

"My master was too old to go to war but Bill went. I think it was better times in slavery than now but I'm not in favor of bringing it back on account of the cruelty and dividing up families. My master was good to us. He was proud of us. We fared fine. He had a five or six horse farm. His land wasn't strong but we worked and had plenty. Mother cooked for white and colored. We had what they et 'cepting when company come. When they left we got scraps. Then when Christmas come we had cakes and pies stacked up setting about for us to cut. They cut down through a whole stack of pies. Cut them in halves and pass them among us. We got hunks of cake a piece. We had plain eating er plenty all the time. You see I'm a big man. I wasn't starved out till I was about grown, after the War was over. Times really was hard. Hard, hard times come on us all.

"Mama got one whooping in her life. I seen that. Jason Williams whipped only two grown folks in my life, mama and my brother. Mama sassed her mistress or that what they called it then. Since then I've heard worse jawing not called sassing, call it arguing now. Sassing was a bad trait in them days. Brother was whooped in the field. He was seven years older than me. I didn't see none of that. They talked a right smart about it.

"The Williams was good to us all. Master's wife heired two women and a girl. Mama cooked, ironed, and worked in the field in time of a push (when necessary).

"I was hauling for the Rebel soldiers one rainy evening. It was dark and lightning every now and then. General Ransom was at the hotel porch when Sherman turned the bend one mile to come in the town. It was about four o'clock in the evening I judge. General Ransom's company was washing at Boom's Mill three miles. About one thousand men was out there cooking and in washing, resting. General Ransom went hollering, 'Yankees!' Went to his men. They got away I reckon. Sherman killed sixty men in that town I know. General Ransom went on his horse hollering, 'Yankees coming!' He went to his home eight miles from there. They went on through rough as could be.

"I hauled when it was so dark the team had to take me in home at night. My circuit was ten miles a day.

"My young master Bill Williams come in April soon as he got home and told us we was free but didn't have to leave. We stayed on and worked. He said he had nothing but the land and we had nothing. At the end of the year he paid off in corn and a little money. Us boys left then and mother followed us about. We ain't done no better since then. We didn't go far off.

"Forty-seven years ago I went to Weldon, North Carolina in a wagon, took the train to Gettysburg and from there come to Biscoe, Arkansas. I been about here ever since. Mr. Biscoe paid our way. We worked three years to pay him back. I cleared good money since I cone out here. I had cattle I owned and three head of horses all my own. Age crept up on me. I can't work to do much good now. I gets six dollars--Welfare money.

"Times is a puzzle to me. I don't know what to think. Things is got all wrong some way but I don't know whether it will get straightened out or not. Folks is making the times. It's the folks cause of all this good or bad. People not as good as they was forty years ago. They getting greedy."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: James Williams, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 72

"I come from close to Montgomery, Alabama. Man named John G. Elliott sent and got a number famlees to work his land. He was the richest man in them parts round Fryers Point, Mississippi. I was born after the Civil War. They used to say we what was raisin' up havin' so much easier time an what they had in slavery times. That all old folks could talk about. Said the onlies time the slaves had to comb their hair was on Sunday. They would comb and roll each others hair and the men cut each others hair. That all the time they got. They would roll the childerns hair or keep it cut short one. Saturday mornin' was the time the men had to curry and trim up the horses and mules. Clean out the lot and stalls. The women would sweep and scour the floors for Sunday.

"I haven't voted for a long time. It used to be some fun votin'. Din in Mississippi the whites vote one way and us the other. My father was a Republican. I was too.

"I have cataracts growing on my eyes. That hinders my work now. I got a little garden. It help out. I ain't got no propety no kind.

"The young folks seem happy. I guess they gettin' long fine. Some folks jes' lucky bout gettin' ahead and stayin' ahead. I can't tell no moren nothin' how times goiner serve this next generation they changein' all time seems lack. If the white folks don't know what goiner become of the next generation, they need not be asking a fellow lack me. I wish I did know.

"I ain't been on the PWA. I don't git no help ceptin' when I can work a little for myself."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: John Williams County Hospital, ward 11, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 75

"I was born in 1863 in Texas right in the city of Dallas right in the heart of the town. After the War our owners brought us back to Little Rock. That is where they left from. They left here on account of the War. They run off their slaves to keep the Yankees from freeing them. All the old masters were dead. But the young ones were Louis Fletcher, John Fletcher, Dick Fletcher, Jeff Fletcher, and Len Fletcher. Five brothers of them. Their home was here in Little Rock. The War was going on. It went on four years and prior to the end of it I was born.

"My mother's name was Mary Williams. My father's name was John Williams. I was named after him.

"It is funny how they changed their names. Now, his name was John Scott before he went into the army. But after he went in, they changed his name into John Williams.

"His master's name was Scott but I don't know the other part of it. All five of the brothers was named for their mother's masters. She raised them. She always called all of them master. 'Cordin' to what I hear from the old folks, when one of them come 'round, you better call him master.

"In slave time, my father was a field hand, I know that. But I know more about my mother. I heard her say she was always a cook.

"I heard her speak about having cruel treatment from her first masters; I don't know who they were. But after the Fletchers bought them, they had a good time. They come all the way out of Louisiana up here. My mother was sold from her mother and sister-sold some two or three times. She never did get no trace of her sister, but she found her grandmother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and brought her here. Her sister's name was Fannie and her grandmother's name was Crecie Lander. That is an Indian name. I couldn't understand nothing she would say hardly. She was bright. All my folks were bright but me. My mother had hair way down her shoulders and you couldn't tell my uncle from a dago. My grandmother was a regular Indian color. She spoke Indian too. You couldn't understand nothing she said.

"When I woke up, they had these homemade beds. I couldn't hardly describe them, but they put the sides into the posts with legs. They were stout things too what I am talkin' 'bout. They made cribs for us little children and put them under the bed. They would pull the cribs out at night and run them under the bed during the day. They called them cribs trundles. They called them trundles because they run them under the bed. For chairs and tables accordin' to what I heard my mother say, she was cook and they had everything in the big house and et pretty much what the white folks et. But we just had boxes in the cabins.

"Them that was in the white folks' house had pretty good meals, but them that was in the field they would feed just about like they would the hogs. They had little wooden trays and they would put little fat meat and pot-liquor and corn bread in the tray, and hominy and such as that. Biscuits came just on Sunday.

"They had old ladies to cook for the slave children and old ladies to cook for the hands. What was in the big house stayed in the big house. All the slave men ate in one place and all the slave women ate in one place. They weren't supposed to have any food in their homes unless they would go out foraging. Sometimes they would get it that way. They'd go out and steal ol' master's sweet potatoes and roast them in the fire. They'd go out and steal a hog and kill it. All of it was theirn; they raised it. They wasn't to say stealin' it; they just went out and got it. If old master caught them, he'd give 'em a little brushin' if he thought they wouldn't run off. Lots of times they would run off, and if he thought they'd run off because they got a whippin', he was kinda slow to catch 'em. If one run off, he'd tell the res', 'If you see so and so, tell 'im to come on back. I ain't goin' to whip 'im.' If he couldn't do nothin' with 'em, he'd sell 'em. I guess he would say to hisself, 'I can't do nothin' with this nigger. If I can't do nothing with 'im, I'll sell him and git my money outa him.'

"I have heard my mother say that some of the slaves that ran away would get destroyed by the wild animals and some of them would even be glad to come back home. Right smart of them got clean away and went to free states.

"After the War was over, they all was brought back here and the owners let them know they was free. They had to let them know they were free. I never heard my mother tell the details. I never heard her say just who brought her word or how it was told to her when they was freed.

"I never heard her say much about the church because she was a sinner. After they was freed, I would go many a night and set down in a corner where they was having a big dance.

"The pateroles and jayhawkers were bad. Many of them got hurt too. They tried to hurt the niggers and sometimes the niggers hurt them.

"Right after the War, my folks farmed for a living. They farmed on shares. They didn't have nothing of their own. They never did get nothing out of their work. I know they didn't get a thing. They farmed at first about seven miles out from Little Rock, below Fourche Dam on the Fletcher place. There ain't but one of the Fletchers living now, and that is Molly Daniels. She is old Louis Fletcher's daughter. All their brothers is dead. She's owning all the land now we used to till. It's over a thousand acres. She [HW: mother] stayed down there for about twenty or thirty years. Then she moved here to town. Here she cooked for white folks. My mother died about forty years ago--forty-two or three years; she's been dead sometime. My wife has been dead now for twelve years.

"I didn't get but a little schooling, for my father used to send me after the mules. One day the wheelbarrow had a load of bricks on it. It was upset. They had histed the bricks up on a high platform. It turned over as I was passing underneath, and one fell on me and struck my head. It was a long time after that before they would let me go to school again. After that I never got used to studying any more.

"My first teacher was Lottie Andrews (Charlotte Stephens). I had some more teachers too. Lemme see--Professor Fish was a white man. We had colored teachers under him. Then we had R.B. White. He was Reuben White's brother. R.B. White's wife was a teacher. Professor Fish was the superintendent. There ain't no truth to the tale that Reuben White was put in a coffin before he was dead. Reuben White built the First Baptist Church here and Milton White built a big church in Helena. They were brothers. Them was two sharp darkies.

"When I first started working, I drove teams. I raised crops a while and farmed. Then I left the country and come to town and got up to be a quarry man for years. Then I quit that and went to driving teams for the Merchant Transfer Company for years. Then I quit that and run on the road--the Mountain--for four years. Then I taken a coal chute on the Rock Island and run it for four years. Then I quit and went to working as an all-'round man in the shop. I stayed with them about nine years. Then I taken down in the shape that I am now.

"I have been out here to this hospital for twenty-four years going on twenty-five. Been down so that I couldn't hit a lick of work for twenty-five years. I have been in this building for eleven years. I get along tolerable fair. As the old man says, we can just live.

"I think the young people are going wild and if something isn't done to head them off pretty soon, they'll go too far. They ain't looking at what's going on up the road; they just call theirselves having a good time. They ain't looking to have nothing. They ain't looking to be nothing. They ain't looking to get nothing for the future. Don't know what they would do if they had to work part of the time for nothing like we did. I see men working now for ten dollars a month. I could take a fishing line and go fishing and beat that when I was young. Times is getting back almost as hard as they used to be.

"I am a Christian. I belong to Shiloh Baptist Church in North Little Rock. I helped build that church. Brother Hawkins was the pastor."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lillie Williams, Madison, Arkansas Age: 69

"I was born some place down in Mississippi. My papa's papa come from Georgia. He had a tar kiln; he cut splinters put them on it. It would smoke blackest smoke and drip for a week. He used it to grease the hubs of the wagons. We drunk pine tar tea for coughs. He split rails, made boards and shingles all winter. He had a draw-knife, a mall and wedges to use in his work. He learned that where he come from in Georgia. He sold boards, pailings when I can recollects. Grandma made tallow candles for everybody on our place in the fall when they killed the first yearling. They cooked up beeswax when they robbed bees. When I was a child I picked up pine knots for torches to quilt and knit by. We raised everything we lived on. I pulled sage grass to cure for brooms. Grandpa planted some broom corn and we swept the yards and lots with brooms made out of brush.

"Grandma kept a barrel to make locust and persimmon beer in. We dried apples and peaches all summer and put chinaberry seed 'mongst them to keep out worms.

"If we rode to church, it was in a steer wagon (ox wagon). Our oxen named Buck, Brandy Barley.

"Grandma raised me, two more girls, and a boy. Mama worked out. Our pa died. Mama worked 'mongst the white folks. Grandma was old-timey. She made our dresses to pick cotton in every summer. They was hot and stubby. They looked pretty. We was proud of them. Mama washed and ironed. She kept us clean, too. Grandma made us card and spin. I never could learn to spin but I was a good knitter. I could reel. I did love to hear it crack. That was a cut. We had a winding blade. We would fill the quills for our grandma to weave. Grandma was mighty quiet and particular. She come from Kenturkey. We all ploughed. I've ploughed and ploughed.

"I had three little children to raise and now I have nine grandchildren. I got five here now to look after when their mother is out at work. I have worked. We farmed in 1923 up till 1931 and got this house paid out. (Fairly good square-boxed, unpainted house--ed.)

"My mother-in-law was sold in Aberdeen, Mississippi on a tall stump. She clem up a ladder. Her ma was at the sale and said she was awful uneasy. But she was sold to folks close by. She could go to see her.

"Freedom come on. The colored folks slip about from place to place and whisper, 'We goiner be set free.' I think my mama left at freedom and come to twenty or twenty-two miles from Oxford, Mississippi. I don't know where I was born. But in Mississippi somewheres.

"There is something wrong about the way we are doing somehow. It is from hand to mouth. We buys too many paper sacks. They say work is hard to get. One thing now didn't used to be, you have to show the money before you can buy a thing. Seem like we all gone money crazy. Automobiles and silk stockings done ruined us all. White folks ought to straighten this out."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mary Williams, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: Born 1872 Light color

"My father was a slavery man two and one-half miles from Somerville, Tennessee. Colonel Rivers owned him. Argile Rivers was papa's name.

"He went to war. His job was hauling food to the soldiers. He lay out in the woods getting to his soldiers with provisions. He'd run hide under the feed wagon from the shot. Him and old master would be together sometimes. His master died, or was hurt and died after the War a long while.

"He said his master was good to him all time. They had to work hard. He raised one boy and me."

[HW: Ex-slave]

Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson Subject: Ex-Slave--Herbs "Hant" experiences Story:--Information

This information given by: Mary Williams Place of residence: Hazen, Arkansas Occupation: Field Worker Age: 69 [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

Mary Williams mother's name was Mariah and before she married her master forced her to go wrong and she had a son by him. They all called him Jim Rob. He was a mulatta. Then Mariah married Williams on General Garretts farm. The Rob Roy farm and the Garrett farm joined. Mary was born at Rob Roy, Arkansas near Humphrey. Mary said the master married her mother and father after her mother was stood up on a stump and auctioned off. Her mother was a house girl. Soon there were rumors of freedom but their family lived on where they were. Her father said when he was a boy he attended the draw bars and met the old master to get a ride up behind him.

Once when her father was real small he was eating biscuit with a hole in it made by a grown person sticking finger down in it, then fill the hole with molasses. That was a rarity they had just cooked molasses. He was sitting in front of the fire place. Big White Bobby stuck his nose and mouth to take a bite of his bread. He picked the cat up and threw it in the fire. The cat ran out, smutty, just flying. The old mistress came in there and got after him about throwing the cat in the fire.

One time when my father was going to see my mother. Before they got married, across the field. He had a bag of potatoes. He felt something, felt like some one had caught his bag and was pulling him back. He was much off a man and thought he could whip nearly every body around but he was too scared to run and couldn't hardly get away.

* * * * *

Mary's mother, Mariah two children had been gone off. They were coming in on the boat some time in the night. The master sent two of the big boys down to build a fire and wait at the landing till they came. They went in the wagon. There was an old empty house up on the hill. So they went up there and built a fire and put their quilts down for pallets by the fire place. They heard hants outside, they peeped out the log cracks. They saw something white out there all the doors were buttoned and propped. When the boat came it blew and blew. The master wondered what in the world was the matter down there. The captian said he hated to put them out and nobody to meet them. It was after midnight. So some of the boat crew built them a fire and next morning when they got up on the hill they noticed somebody asleep as they peeped through the cracks and called them. Saw their wagon and knew it too. They said they was afraid of them hants around the house, too afraid to go down to the boat landing if they did hear the boat. Hants can't be seen in daytime only by people "what born with veils over their faces."

Her father was going to mill to have corn ground. It was before day light. He was driving an ox wagon.

In front of him he saw a sweet maple limb moving up and down over the road in front of him. He went on and the ox butted and kicked at it and it followed them nearly to the mill. It sounded like somebody crying. It turned and went back still crying. Her father said there were hants up in the tree and cut the limb off and followed him carrying it between themselves so he couldn't see what they looked like.

* * * * *

It is a sign of death for a hoot owl to come hollow in your yard.

* * * * *

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mary Williams 409 North Hickory, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 82

"Yes mam, I sure would be glad to talk to you 'bout slavery times. I can sure tell about it--I certainly can, lady.

"I am so proud 'bout my white folks 'cause they learned me how to work and tell the truth. I had a good master and mistress. Yes'm, I sure did.

"I was borned in middle Georgia and I just love the name of Georgia. I was the second born of 'leven children and they is all dead 'cept me--I'm the only one left to tell the tale.

"When the ginnin' started I was always glad 'cause I could ride the crank they had the mules hitched to. And then after the cotton was ginned they took it to the press and you could hear that screw go z-m-m-m and dreckly that 'block and tickle' come down. Yes mam, I sure did have good times.

"You ain't never seen a spinnin' wheel has you? Well, I used to card and spin. I never did weave but I hope dye the hanks. They weaved it into cloth and called it muslin.

"I can 'member all I want to 'bout the war. I 'member when the Yankees come through Georgia. I walked out in the yard with 'em and my white people just as scared of 'em as they could be. I heered the horses feet, then the drums, and then 'bout twenty-five or thirty bugles. I was so amazed when the Yankees come. I heered their songs but I couldn't 'member 'em.

"One thing I 'member jest as well as if 'twas this mornin'. That was the day young master Henry Lee went off to war. Elisha Pearman hired him to go and told him that when the war ceasted he would give him two or three darkies and let him marry his daughter. Young master Henry (he was just eighteen) he say he goin' to take old Lincoln the first thing and swing him to a limb and let him play around awhile and then shoot his head off. But I 'member the morning old mistress got a letter that told how young master Henry was in a pit with the soldiers and they begged him not to stick his head up but he did anyway and they shot it off. Old mistress jest cry so.

"One thing I know, the Yankees took a lot of things. I 'member they took Mrs. Fuller to the well and said they goin' hang her by the thumbs--but they just done it for mischievous you know. They didn't take nothin' from my white people 'cept some chickens and a hog, and cut down the hams. They put the old rooster in the sack and he went to squawkin' so they took him out and wrung his neck.

"My white people used to carry me with 'em anywhere they go. That's how come I learn so much. I sure did learn a heap when I was small. I 'member the first time my old mistress and my young mistress carried me to church. When the preacher got through preachin' (he was a big fine lookin' man with white gray hair) he come down from the pulpit and say 'Come to me, you sinners, poor and needy.' And he told what Jesus said to Nicodemus how he must be born again. I wanted to go to the mourners' bench so bad, but old mistress wouldn't let me. When I got home I told my mother to borned me again. You see I was jest little and didn't know no better.

"I never seen no Ku Klux but I could have. They never bothered us but they whipped the shirttails off some of 'em. Some darkies is the meanest things God ever put breath in.

"Most generally the white folks was good to their darkies. My young master used to sneak out his Blue Back Speller and learned my father how to read, and after the war he taught school. He started me off and then a teacher from the North come down and taught us.

"I've done pitty near every kind a work there is to do. There is some few white people here can identify me. I most always work for 'ristocratic people. It seems that was just my luck.

"I don't think nothin' of this here younger generation. They ain't nothin' to 'em. They say to me 'Why don't you have your hair straightened' but I say 'I've got along this far without painted jaws and straight hair.' And I ain't goin' wear my dresses up to my knees or trail 'em in the mud, either.

"I been married four times and every one of 'em is dead and buried. My las' husband was in the Spanish-American War and now I gets a pension. Yes'm it sure does help.

"I only had two children is all I is had. They is both dead and when God took my last one, I thought he wasn't jest but I see now God knows what's best cause if I had my grandchildren now I'd sure beat 'em. I'd love 'em, but I sure wouldn't let 'em run around.

"The biggest part of these niggers puts their mistakes on the white folks. It's easier to do right than wrong cause right whips wrong every time into a frazzle.

"I don't read much now since my eyes ain't so good but tell me whatever become of Teddy Roosevelt?

"I'm sorry I can't offer you no dinner but I'm just cookin' myself some peas.

"Well, lady, I sure am glad you come. I jest knew the Lord was goin' send somebody for me to talk to. I loves to talk so well. Good bye and come back again sometime."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mary Williams 409 Hickory, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84 [TR: Apparently a second interview with same person despite age discrepancy.]

"Yes ma'am, I know all about slavery. I'll be eighty-four the twenty-fifth of this month. I was born in 1855.

"My mother had eleven children and they all said I could remember the best of all. I'm the second oldest. And they all dead but me.

"I used to spin and on Friday I'd set aside my wheel and on Saturday morning we'd sweep yards. And Saturday evening was our holiday.

"I belonged to the Lees and my white folks was good to me. I was the aptest one among 'em, so they'd give me a basket and a ginger cake and I'd go to the Presly's after squabs. They'd be just nine days old 'cause they said if they was any older they'd be tough.

"Now, when the Yankees come through ever'body was up in the house 'cept me. I was out in the yard with the Yankees. No, I wasn't scared of 'em--I had better sense.

"This is all the 'joyment I have now is to think back in slavery times.

"In slavery times white folks used to carry me to church. They'd carry me to church in preference to anybody else. When they'd sing I'd be so happy I'd hop and skip. I'm one of the stewardess sisters of St. John's Methodist Church. We takes care of the sacrament table.

"I believe in visions. I'm a great revisionist. I don't have to be asleep either. Now if I see a vision of a black snake, it's a sign I got a black enemy. And if it's a light colored snake, it's a sign I got a white enemy. And if it's a kinda of a yellow snake, I got a enemy is a yellow nigger.

"Now, here's a true sign of death. If you dream of seen' nakedness, somebody sure goin' to die in your family or maybe your neighbors'.

"In slavery times they mostly wove their own dresses. Wove goods called muslin.

"And they wore bonnets in slavery times made out of bull rush grass. Called 'em bull rush bonnets. I knowed how to weave but they had me spinnin' all the time.

"I've always worked for the 'ristocrat white people--lawyers, doctors, and bankers. Mr. Frank Head was cashier of that old Merchant and Planters Bank. He was a northern man. Oh, from away up North.

"When I cooked, the greatest trouble I had was gettin' away. Nobody wanted me to leave. And I tell you those northern ladies wanted to call me Mrs. Williams. I'd say, 'Don't do that. You know these southern people don't like that--don't believe in that.' But you know she would call me Miss Mary. But I said, 'Don't do that.'

"I'm just an old darky and can't 'spress myself but I try to do what's right and I think that's the reason the Lord has let me live so long."

Interviewer's Comment

Husband was a soldier in the Spanish-American War and she receives a pension.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Rosena Hunt Williams R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 56

"My mother was Amanda McVey. She was born two years, six months after freedom in Corinth, Mississippi. My father was born in slavery. Grandma lived with us at her death. Her name was Emily McVey. She was sold in her girlhood days. Uncle George was sold to a man in the settlement named Lee. His name was Joe Lee (Lea?). Another of my uncles was sold to a man named Washington. His name was George Washington. They were sold at different times. Being sold was their biggest dread. Some of them wanted to be sold trusting to be treated better.

"Mother and grandma didn't have a hard time like my father said he come up under. He said he was brought up hard. He was raised (reared) at Jackson, Tennessee. He was never sold. Master Alf Hunt owned him and his young master, Willie Hunt, inherited him. He said they never put him in the field till he was twelve years old. He started ploughing a third part of a day. A girl about grown and another boy a little older took turns to do a 'buck's' (a grown man) work. They was lotted of a certain tract and if it stay clear a certain time to get it all done. He said they got whooped and half fed. When the War was on, his white folks had to half feed their own selves. He talked like if the War had lasted much longer it would been a famine in the land. He hit this world in time to have a hard time of it. After freedom was worse time in his life.

"In August when the crops was laid by Master Hunt called them to the house at one o'clock by so many taps of the farm bell. It hung in a great big tree. He read a paper from his side porch telling them they free. They been free several months then and didn't a one of them know it."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: "Soldier" Williams, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 98

"My name is William Ball Williams III. I was born in Greensburg. My owners was Robert and Mary Ball. They had four children I knowd. Old man Ball bought ma and two children for one thousand five hundred dollars. I never was sold. I want to live to be a hundred years old. I'm ninety-eight years old now.

"Ma was Margarett Ball. Pa was William Anderson. Ma was a cook and pa a field hand. They whooped a plenty on the place where I come up. Some of 'em run off. Some they tied to a tree. Bob Ball didn't use no dogs. When they got starved out they'd come outen the woods. Of course they would. Bob Ball raised fine tobacco, fine Negroes, fine horses. He made us go to church. Four or five of us would walk to the white folks' Baptist church. The master and his family rode. It was a good piece. We had dances in the cabins every once in a while. We dance more in winter time so we could turn a pot down in the door to drown out the noise. We had plenty plain grub to eat.

"I run away to Louisville to j'ine the Yankees one day. I was scared to death all the time. They put us in front to shield themselves. They said they was fighting for us--for our freedom. Piles of them was killed. I got a flesh wound. I'm scarred up some. We got plenty to eat. I was in two or three hot battles. I wanted to quit but they would catch them and shoot them if they left. I didn't know how to get out and get away. I mustered out at Jacksonville, Florida and walked every step of the way back. When I got back it was fall of the year. My folks still at my master's. I was on picket guard at Jacksonville, Florida. We fought a little at Pensacola, Florida.

"At the end of the War provisions got mighty scarce. If we didn't have enough to eat we took it. They hadn't raised nothing to eat the last two years. Before I got back to Kentucky the Ku Klux was about and it was hard to get enough to eat to keep traveling on. I was scared nearly to death all the time. I'm not in favor of war. I didn't stay on with the master but my folks lived on. They didn't want to hire Negro soldiers. I traveled about hunting a good place and got to Osceola, Arkansas. I been here in Forrest City twenty ard years. The best people in the world live in Arkansas.

"I'm going to try to go to the Yankee Reunion. They sent me a big letter (invitation). They going to send me a ticket and pay all my expenses. It is at Gettysburg. It is from June 29th to July 6th. My grandson is going to take care of me.

"I get one hundred dollars a month pension. It keeps us mighty well. I want to live to be a hundred years old."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Anna Williamson, Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: Between 75 and 80

"Grandma come from North Carolina. Her master was Rodes Herndon, then Cager Booker. He owned my mama. My name is Anna Booker. I married Wes Williamson.

"My papa's master was Calvin Winfree. He come from Virginia. Me and Bert Winfree (white) raised together close to Somerville, Tennessee.

"Grandma and grandpa was named Maria and Allen. Her master was Rodes Herndon. I was fourth to the oldest of mama's children. She give me to grandma. That who raised me. Mama took to the field after freedom. Mama had seven or eight children.

"Mama muster been a pretty big sorter woman when she young. A ridin' boss went to whoopin' her once and she tore every rag clothes he had on offen him. I heard em say he went home strip start naked. I think they said he got turned off or quit, one.

"When mama was in slavery she had three girl babies and long wid them she nursed some of the white babies. She cooked some but wasn't the regular white folks' cook. Another black woman was the regular cook. I heard her say she was a field hand mostly durin' slavery.

"Folks was free two or three years fore they knowed it. Nobody told em.

"I used to have to go up the road to get milk for the old mistress. She boxed my ears. That when I was a child reckly after the war.

"They had a latch and a hart bar cross the door. I never was out but once after dark. I never seen no Ku Klux. My folks didn't know they was free.

"Dr. Washington lived in Somerville, Tennessee and brought us to Arkansas to farm. He owned acres and acres of land here. I was grown and had a house full of children. I got five living now.

"I don't vote. I don't know who to vote for. I would vote for the worst kinder officers maybe and I wouldn't wanter make times harder on us all 'an they is.

"I been cookin' and farmin' all my life. Now I get $10 a month from the Sociable Welfare.

"I used to pick up chips at Mrs. Willforms--pick up a big cotton basket piled up fore I quit. I seen the Yankees, they camped at the fair grounds. I thought they wore the prettiest clothes and the brass buttons so pretty on the blue suits. I hear em beat the drum. I go peep out when they come by.

"My old mistress slapped me till my eye was red cause one day I says 'Ain't them men pretty?' They camped at what is now the Fair Grounds at Somerville, Tennessee, at sorter right of town. My papa was a ox driver. That is all he done bout. Seem like there was haulin' to be done all the time.

"The folks used to be heap better than they is now. Some of the masters was mean to the slaves but they mortally had plenty to eat and wear and a house to live in. Some of the houses was sorry and the snow come in the cracks but we had big fire places and plenty wood to cook and keep warm by. The children all wore flannel clothes then to keep em warm. They raised sheep.

"It is a shame what folks do now. These young darky girls marries a boy and they get tired each other. They quit. They ain't got no sign of divorce! Course they ain't never been married! They jes' take up and live together, then they both go on livin' with some other man an' woman. It ain't right! Folks ain't good like they used to be. We old folks ain't got no use for such doin's. They done too smart to be told by us old folks. I do best I can an' be good as I knows how to be.

"The times is fine as I ever seen in my life. I wish I was young and strong. I wouldn't ask nobody for sistance. Tey ain't nuthin' wrong wid this year's crop as I sees. Times is fine."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Callie Halsey Williamson, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 60?

"Mother was born in Alabama during slavery. Her name was Levisa Halsey. Neither of my parents were sold. Mother was tranferred (transferred) to her young mistress. She had no children and still lived in the home with her people. Her mother, Emaline, was the cook. Master Bradford owned grandmother and grandfather both and my own father all. Mother was the oldest and only child.

"I don't know whether they was mean to all the slaves or not. Seems they were not to my folks. The old man died sometime before freedom. The young master went to get a overseer. He brought a new man to take his own place. He whooped grandma and auntie and cut grandma's long hair off with his pocket-knife.

"During that time grandpa slip up on the house top and take some boards off. Grandma would sit up in her bed and knit by moonlight through the hole. He had to put the boards back. She had to work in the field in daytime.

"During the War they were scared nearly to death of the soldiers and would run down in their master's big orchard and hide in the tall broom sage. They rode her young master on a rail and killed him. A drove of soldiers come by and stopped. They said, 'Young man, can you ride a young horse?' They gathered him and took him out and brought him in the yard. He died. They hurt him and scared him to death.

"Another train come and loaded up all the slaves and somehow when freedom come on, my folks was here at Arkadelphia. They said they lived in fear of the soldiers all the time.

"Mother said a woman come first and stuck a flag out a upstairs window and the Yankees shot the guns off and some of them made talks on freedom to the Negroes and white folks. They seen that at Arkadelphia.

"Mama, grandma, and grandpa started on their way back home following soldier camps. They never got back to their homes. They never did like the Yankees and grieved about the way they done their young master. He was like one of my father's own children. They seen hard times after freedom. It was hard to live and they was used to work but they had a good living. They had to die in Arkansas. How come I'm here now."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Charlotte Willis, Madison, Arkansas Age: 63

"Grandpa said he walked every step of the way from old Virginia to Mississippi. They camped at night, cooked and fed them. They didn't eat no more till they camped next night. They was walked in a peart pace and the guards and traders rode. They stop every now and then for to be cried off and some more be took on.

"Grandpa said he didn't wanter be sold but they never ax 'em no diffurence. Sold 'em and took 'em right along. They better keep their feelings hid, for them traders was same kind er stock these cattle men is today judging from the way he say it was then. Grandpa loved Virginia long as he have breath in him.

"We used to sing

'Old Virginia nigger say he love hot mush; Alabama nigger say, good God, nigger, hush.'

(She sang it very fast and in a fashion Negroes only can do--ed.) He wore a big straw hat and he'd get up and fan us out the way.

"Grandma was brought from South Carolina by the Willises to Mississippi. I heard her say her and him was made to jump over the broom. Called that getting 'em married. Grandpa said that was the way white folks had of showing off the couples. Then it would be 'nounced from the big house steps they was man and wife. Sometimes more than two be 'nounced at the gatherin'.

"They had good times sometimes. They talked 'bout corn shuckings, corn shellings, cotton traumpin's, (packing cotton in wagon beds by walking on it over and over, she said--ed.) and dances.

"Mother said she never was sold. She b'long to the Willises in Mississippi.

"I reckon I sure do 'members my grandpa and grandma bof. Seventeen of us all lived at Grandpa Wash Hollivy's home. He was paying on it and died. The house have three rooms in it. In the fall of the year grandma took all the rancid grease and skins and get the drippings from the ash hopper and make soap 'nough to do 'er till sometime next year. She made it in the iron washpot. He raised meat to do us till sometime next year. We never run short on nothing to eat.

"We never had but 'bout two dresses at the same time. When I come on, dresses was scarce. If we tore our dresses, we wore patches. We was sorter 'shamed to have our dresses patched up.

"I heard 'em say grandpa's house was guarded to keep off the Ku Kluck one night. They come all right 'nough but went to another house. They started whooping. The guards left grandpa's house and went down there and shot into them. Some of them was killed and the horses run off. Some run off quick and got out the way. I never caught on to what they guarded grandpa for.

"I had one girl baby what died. I been married once in my life. We rents our house. I never 'plied to the Welfare yit. We been farming my enduring life. Still farming; I says we is.

"Old folks give out and can't run on wid the work. Young folks no 'count and works to sorter git by their own selfs. Way I see it. We got so far off the track and can't git back. Starve 'fore we git back like we used to be. We used to git credit. Now there ain't no place to git it. We down and can't git up. Way I sees it. Young generation is so uneasy, ain't still a minute. They wanter be going all the time. They don't marry; they goes lives together. Then they quits and take up wid somebody else. I don't know what make 'em do thater way. That the way the right young ones doing now.

"My pa looked on me when I was three days old and left us. I ain't never seen him since."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Ella Wilson 1611 McGowan Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: Claims 100

"I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. I don't remember the month. But when the Civil War ceased I was here then and sixteen years old. I'm a hundred years old. Some folks tries to make out like it ain't so. But I reckon I oughter know.

"The white folks moved out from Georgia and went to Louisiana. I was raised in Louisiana, but I was born in Georgia. I have had several people countin' up my age and they all say I is a hundred years old. I had eight children. All of them are free born. Four of them died when they were babies. I lost one just a few days ago.

"I had such a hard time in slavery. Them white folks was slashing me and whipping me and putting me in the buck, till I don't want to hear nothin' about it.

"An old man named Dr. Polk got a dime from me and said it was for the Old Age Pension. He lived in Magnolia, Arkansas. They ran him out of Magnolia for ruining a colored girl and I don't know where he is now. I know he got ten cents from me.

"The first work I ever did was nursing the white children. My old mis' called me in the house and told me that she wanted me to take care of her children and from then till freedom came, I stayed in the house nursing. I had to get up every morning at five when the cook got up and make the coffee and then I had to go in the dining-room and set the table. Then I served breakfast. Then I went into the house and cleaned it up. Then I 'tended to the white children and served the other meals during the day. I never did work in the fields much. My old mars said I was too damned slow.

"They carried me out to the field one evening. He never did show me nor tell me how to handle it and when I found myself, he had knocked me down. When I got up, he didn't tell me what to do, but when I picked up my things and started droppin' the seeds ag'in, he picked up a pine root and killed me off with it. When I come to, he took me up to the house and told his wife he didn't want me into the fields because I was too damned slow.

"My mars used to throw me in a buck and whip me. He would put my hands together and tie them. Then he would strip me naked. Then he would make me squat down. Then he would run a stick through behind my knees and in front of my elbows. My knees was up against my chest. My hands was tied together just in front of my shins. The stick between my arms and my knees held me in a squat. That's what they called a buck. You could [TR: sic: couldn't] stand up an' you couldn't git your feet out. You couldn't do nothin' but just squat there and take what he put on you. You couldn't move no way at all. Just try to. You jus' fall over on one side and have to stay there till you turned over by him.

"He would whip me on one side till that was sore and full of blood and then he would whip me on the other side till that was all tore up. I got a scar big as the place my old mis' hit me. She took a bull whip once--the bull whip had a piece of iron in the handle of it--and she got mad. She was so mad she took the whip and hit me over the head with the butt end of it, and the blood flew. It ran all down my back and dripped off my heels. But I wasn't dassent to stop to do nothin' about it. Old ugly thing! The devil's got her right now!! They never rubbed no salt nor nothin' in your back. They didn't need to.

"When the war come, they made him serve. He would go there and run away and come back home. One day after he had been took away and had come back, he was settin' down talkin' to old mis', and I was huddled up in the corner listenin', and I heered him tell her, 'Tain't no use to do all them things. The niggers'll soon be free.' And she said, 'I'll be dead before that happens, I hope.' And she died just one year before the slaves was freed. They was a mean couple.

"Old mars used to strip my sister naked and make her lay down, and he would lift up a fence rail and lay it down on her neck. Then he'd whip her till she was bloody. She wouldn't get away because the rail held her head down. If she squirmed and tried to git loose, the rail would choke her. Her hands was tied behind her. And there wasn't nothin' to do but jus' lay there and take it.

"I am almost a stranger here in Little Rock. My father was named Lewis Hogan and I had one sister named Tina and one named Harriet. His white folks what he lived with was Mrs. Thomas. He was a carriage driver for her. Pleas Collier bought him from her and took him to Louisiana. All the people on my mother's side was left in Georgia. My grandmother's name was Rachel. Her white folks she lived with was named Dardens. They all lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember the train we got on when we left Georgia. Grandma Rachel had one daughter named Siney. Siney had a son named Billie and a sister named Louise. And my grandmother was free when I first got big enough to know myself. I don't know how come she was free. That was a long time before the war. The part of Georgia we lived in was where chestnuts grow, but they wasn't no chinkapins. All my grandmother's people stayed in Atlanta, and they were living at the time I left there.

"My mother's name was Dinah Hogans and my father's name was Lewis Hogans. I don't know where they were borned. But when I knowed him, they was in Georgia. My mother's mars bought my father 'cause my mother heard that Collier was goin' to break up and go to Louisiana. My father told his mars that if he (Collier) broke up and left, he never would be no more good to him. Then my mother found out what he said to Collier, so she told her old mis' if Collier left, she never would do her no more good. You see, my mother was give to Mrs. Collier when old Darden who was Mrs. Collier's father died. So Collier bought my father. Collier kept us all till we all got free. White folks come to me sometimes about all that.

"You jus' oughter hear me answer them. I tells them about it just like I would colored folks.

"'Them your teeth in your mouth?'

"'Whose you think they is? Suttinly they're my teeth.'

"'Ain't you sorry you free?'

"'What I'm goin' to be sorry for? I ain't no fool.'

"'How old is you?'

"I tells them. Some of 'em want to argue with me and say I ain't that old. Some of 'em say, 'Well, the Lawd sure has blessed you.' Sure he's blessed me. Don't I know that?

"I've seen 'em run away from slavery. There was a white man that lived close to us who had just one slave and he couldn't keep him out the woods to save his soul. The white man was named Jim Sales and the colored boy was named--shucks, I can't remember his name. But I know Jim Sales couldn't keep that nigger out the woods nohow.

"I was freed endurin' the Civil War. We was in at dinner and my old mars had been to town. Old man Pleas Collier, our mean mars, called my daddy out and then he said, 'All you come out here.' I said to myself, 'I wonder what he's a goin' to do to my daddy,' and I slipped into the front room and listened. And he said, 'All of you come.' Then I went out too. And he unrolled the Government paper he had in his hand and read it and told us it meant that all of us was free. Didn't tell us we was free as he was. Then he said the Government's going to send you some money to live on. But the Government never did do it. I never did see nobody that got it. Did you? They didn't give me nothin' and they didn't give my father nothin'. They just sot us free and turned us loose naked.

"Right after they got through reading the papers and told us we was free, my daddy took me to the field and put me to work. I'd been workin' in the house before that.

"Then they wasn't payin' nobody nothin'. They just hired people to work on halves. That was the first year. But we didn't get no half. We didn't git nothin'. Just time we got our crop laid by, the white man run us off and we didn't get nothin'. We had a fine crop too. We hadn't done nothin' to him. He just wanted all the crop for hisself and he run us off. That's all.

"Well, after that my daddy took and hired me out up here in Arkansas. He hired me out with some old poor white trash. We was livin' then in Louisiana with a old white man named Mr. Smith. I couldn't tell what part of Louisiana it was no more than it was down there close to Homer, about a mile from Homer. My mother died and my father come and got me and took me home to take care of the chillen.

"I have been married twice. I married first time down there within four miles of Homer. I was married to my first husband a number of years. His name was Wesley Wilson. We had eight children. My second husband was named Lee somepin or other. I married him on Thursday night and he left on Monday morning. I guess he must have been taking the white folks' things and had to clear out. His name was Lee Hardy. That is what his name was. I didn't figure he stayed with me long enough for me to take his name. That nigger didn't look right to me nohow. He just married me 'cause he thought I was a working woman and would give him money. He asked me for money once but I didn't give 'im none. What I'm goin' to give 'im money for? That's what I'd like to know.

"After my first husband died, I cooked and went on for them white folks. That was the only thing I could do. I was cooking before he died. I can't do no work now. I ain't worked for more than twenty years. I ain't done no work since I left Magnolia.

"I belong to the Collins Street Baptist Church--Nichols' church.

"I don't git no pension. I don't git nothin'. I been down to see if I could git it but they ain't give me nothin' yit. I'm goin' down ag'in when I can git somebody to carry me."

Interviewer's Comment

Ella Wilson insists that she is one hundred years old and that she was born sixteen years before freedom. The two statements conflict. From her appearance and manner, either might be true.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Robert Wilson 811 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 101

"My name is Robert Wilson. I was born in Halifax County, Virginia. How old am I? Accordin' to my recollection I was twenty-three years old befo' the war started. Old master tole me how old I was. I'm a hundred and one now. Yes'm I _knows_ I am.

"Yes'm I been sold. They put us up on the auction block jest like we was a hoss. They put me up and white man ax 'Who want to buy this boy?' One man say 'ten dollars' and then they run it up to a hundred. And they buy a girl to match you and raise you up together. When you want to get married you jump over the broomstick. I used to weigh one hundred and fifty-six pounds and a half, standin' weight. I could pick four and five hundred pounds of cotton in a day.

"When the Yankees come, old master make us boys take the sack of money and hide it in the big pond. Yes'm, we drove the buggy right in the water.

"Durin' the time of the war I used to ride 'long side of the Yankees. They give me a blue coat with brass buttons and a blue cap and brass-toed boots. I used to saddle and curry the bosses. I member Company Fifth and Sixth.

"They tole us the war was to make things better. We didn't know we was free till 'bout six months after the war was over. I didn't care whether I was free or not.

"'Bout slavery--well, I thinks like this. I think they fared better then. They didn't have to worry 'bout spenses. We had plenty chicken and everything. Nowdays when you pay the rent you ain't got nothin' left to buy somethin' to eat.

"Yes'm, I been to school. I'se a preacher (showing me his certificate of ordination). I lives close to the Lord. The Lord done left me here for a purpose.

"When we used to pray we put our heads under the wash pot to keep old master from hearin' us. Old master make us put the chillun to bed fo' dark. I 'member one song he make us sing--

'Down in Mobile, down in Mobile How I love dat pretty yellow gal, She rock to suit me-- Down in Mobile, down in Mobile.'

"You 'member when Grant took the fort at Vicksburg? I 'member he and that general on the white hoss--yes'm, General Lee, they eat dinner together and then after dinner they go to fightin'.

"Oh lord! Don't talk about them Ku Klux.

"Cose I believes in spirits. Don't you? Well you ain't never been skeered.

"After freedom my folks refugeed from Virginia to Tennessee so I went to Memphis. We got things from the Bureau. Yes, Lord! I had everything I wanted. I wouldn't care if that time would come back now.

"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes'm I voted. Never had no trouble 'tall. I voted for Garfield. I 'member when Garfield was shot. I was settln' out in the yard. The moon was in the 'clipse. I'll never forget it.

"I think the colored folks should have a legal right to vote, cause if ever they come another war--now listen--them darkies ain't never goin' to France again. The nigger ain't got no country--this is white man's town.

"What I been doin' since the war? Well, I'm a good cook. When I puts on the white apron, I knows what to do. Then I preaches. The Lord done revealed things to me.

"I'll tell you 'bout this younger generation. They is goin' to destruction. They is not envelopin (developing) their education.

"Well I done tole you all I know. Guess I tole you 'bout a book, ain't I?"

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Tom Windham, 723 Missouri, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 98

"I was twenty-one years old when the war was settled. My mother and my grandmother kep' my age up and after the death of them I knowed how to handle it myself.

"My old master's name was Butler and he was pretty fair to his darkies. He give em plenty to eat and wear.

"I was born and raised in Indian Territory and emigrated from there to Atlanta, Georgia when I was about twelve or thirteen. We lived right in Atlanta. I cleaned up round the house. Yes ma'm, that's what I followed. When the Yankees come to Atlanta they just forced us into the army. After I got into the army and got used to it, it was fun--just like meat and bread. Yankees treated me good. I was sorry when it broke up. When the bugle blowed we knowed our business. Sometimes, the age I is now, I wish I was in it. Father Abraham Lincoln was our President. I knowed the war was to free the colored folks. I run away from my white folks is how come I was in the Yankee army. I was in the artillery. That deefened me a whole lot and I lost these two fingers on my left hand--that's all of my joints that got broke.

"Before the war my white folks was good to us. I had a better time than I got now.

"My father and mother was sold away from me, but old mistress couldn't rest without em and went and got em back. They stayed right there till they died. Us folks was treated well. I think we should have our liberty cause us ain't hogs or horses--us is human flesh.

"When I was with the Yankees, I done some livin'.

"I went to school two months in my life. I should a gone longer but I found where I could get next to a dollar so I quit. If I had education now it might a done me some good.

"I used to be in a brass band. I like a brass band, don't make no difference where I hear it.

"There was one song we played when I was in the army. It was:

'Rasslin Jacob, don't weep Weepin' Mary, don't weep. Before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave, Go home to my father and be saved.'

The Rebels was hot after us then. Another one we used to sing was:

'My old mistress promised me When she die, she'd set me free.'

"After the war I continued to work around the white folks and yes ma'm, I seen the Ku Klux many a time. They bothered me sometimes but they soon let me alone. They was a few Yankees about and they come together and made the Ku Klux stay in their place.

"One time after the war I went to Ohio and stayed three months but it was too cold for me. Man I worked for was named Harper and as good a man as ever broke a piece of bread.

"I come back South and learned how to farm. I been here in this country of Arkansas a long time. I hoped clean up this place (Pine Bluff) and make a town of it.

"I got a daughter and two sisters alive in Africa today--in Liberia. I went there after we was free. I liked it. Just the thoughts of bein' where Christ traveled--that's the good part of it. They furnished us transportation to go to Africa after the war and a lot of the colored folks went. I come back cause I had a lot of kin here, but I sent my daughter and two sisters there and they're alive there today."

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Subject: Apparitions

This information given by: Tom Windham Place of Residence: 723 Missouri St. Pine Bluff, Ark. Occupation: None (Age 92) [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

"Yes ma'm, I believe in spirits--you got two spirits--one bad and one good, and when you die your bad spirit here on this earth.

Now my mother comes to see me once in awhile at night. She been dead till her bones is bleached, but she comes and tells me to be a good boy. I always been obedient to old and young. She tell me to be good and she banish from me.

My grandmother been to see me once.

Old Father Abraham Lincoln, I've seen him since he been dead too. I got a gun old Father Abraham give me right out o' his own hand at Vicksburg. I'm goin' to keep it till I die too.

Yes ma'm, I know they is spirits."

Pine Bluff District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of interviewer: Martin - Barker Subject: Ex-Slave Story.

Information by: Tom Windham Place of residence: 1221 Georgia St. Age: 87 [TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]

My master was an Indian. Lewis Butler of Oklahoma. I was born and raised in Muskogee, Okla.

All of marse Butler's people were Creek Indians. They owned a large plantation and raised vegetables. They lived in tepees, had floors and were set on a lot and a wall boarded up around them. This was done so that they could hide the slaves they had stolen.

I was twelve or thirteen years old, when the Indians had a small war. They wouldn't allow us to fight. If we did, we were punished. They had a place and made us work. I went to school two months also a little at night. Cant read nor write. I am all alone now here in America. I have a daughter in Ethiopia, teaching school, also two sisters.

I served in several wars and I have been to Ethiopia. We left Monroe, La., took water, then went back by gun-boat to Galveston. The Government took us over and brought us back. After the Civil war was over the Indians let the slaves go.

I had an Indian wife and wore Indian dress and when I went to Milford, Tenn., I had to send the outfit home to Okla. I had long hair until 1931.

My Indians believed in our God. They held their meetings in a large tent. They believed in salvation and damnation, and in Heaven and Hell.

My idea of Heaven is that it is a holy place with God. We will walk in Heaven just as on earth. As in him we believe, so shall we see.

The earth shall burn, and the old earth shall pass away and the new earth will be created. The saints will return and live on, that is the ones who go away now.

The new earth is when Jesus will cone to earth and reign. Every one has two spirits. One that God kills and the other an evil spirit. I have had communication with my dead wife twice since I been in Pine Bluff. Her spirit come to me at night, calling me, asking whar wuz baby?

That meant our daughter whut is across the water.

My first wifes name was Arla Windham. My second wife was just part Indian. I have seen spirits of friends just as they were put away. I shore believe in ghosts. Their language is different from ours. I knew my wife's voice cause she called me "Tommy".

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Alice Wise 1112 Indiana Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"I was born in South Carolina, and I sent and got my age and the man sent me my age. He said he remembered me. He said, 'You married Marcus Wise. I know you is seventy-nine 'cause I'm seventy-four and you're older'n me. Why, I got a boy fifty-three years old.

"We belonged to Daniel Draft. His wife was named Maud. And my father's people was named Wesley Caughman and his wife was Catherine Caughman.

"I can recollect hearin' the folks hollerin' when the Yankees come through and singin' this old cornfield song

'I'm a goin' away tomorrow Hoodle do, hoodle do.'

That's all I can recollect.

"I can recollect when we moved from the white folks. My father driv' a wagon and hauled lumber to Columbia from Lexington.

"I don't know how old I was when I come here. My age got away from me, that's how come I had to write home for it, but I had three chillun when I come to this country; I know that.

"I went to school a little, but chillun in them days had to work. I was always apt about washin' and ironin' and sewin' and so if anybody was stopped from school I was stopped. I used to set pockets in pants for mama. In them days they weaved and made their own.

"They'd do better if they had a factory here now. Things wouldn't be so high.

"Oh Lord, yes, I could knit. I'd sit up some nights and knit a half a sock and spin and card.

"My mother's boys would card and spin a broach when they wasn't doin' nothin' else, but nowadays you can't get 'em to bring you a bucket of water.

"They say they is weaker and wiser, but I say they is weaker and foolisher. That's what I think. You know they ain't like the old folks was. Folks works nowadays and keeps their chillun in school till they're grown, and it don't do 'em much good-some of 'em."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank Wise, 1006 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 81 to 85

Birth and Parents

"I was born in Burch County, Georgia, in 1854. I came to this state in 1871; I think I was about sixteen years old then.

"My father was named Jim Wise and my mother was named Harriet Wise. My father belonged to the Wises, and my mother to the Crawfords. They didn't live on the same plantation. When they married, she was a Crawford. Her old master was named Jim Crawford. I don't know how she and my father happened to meet up. Wise and Crawford had adjoining plantations. Both of them was in Burch County. My father's father was named Jacob Wise and his mother was named Martha. I don't remember the names of their master. I don't remember the names of my mother's people.

War Memories

"I remember the year the War ended. I remember when the Yankees came on the place that day the War ended. We children was all settin' out in the yard. Some of them ran under the house when they saw the soldiers. They were shooting the chickens and everything, taking the horses, and anything else they thought they could use. They said to the old lady, 'Lemme kill them little niggers.' Old miss said, 'No, wait till you set them free.' He said, 'No, when we set them free, we ain't goin' to kill them.' They got around in the house, under the house, and in the yard. They asked the old lady, 'Where is the horses?' She said, 'I don't know.' They said, 'Go down in the woods and get them.' Somebody went down and brought back a mare and a mule and a colt. They knocked the colt in the head and shot him. They took the mare and the mule. They took all the meat out of the smokehouse. They didn't set us free, and they didn't tell us anything about freedom. Not then.

How Freedom Came

"I don't remember how we got the news of freedom. I don't remember what the slaves expected to get. I don't know what they got, if they got anything. I don't remember nothin' about that.

Schooling

"I went to school about eight days. That's all the schooling I ever got. I had a brother and sister who went to school, but I never went much. I went to school what little I did right here in Lonoke County, Arkansas. My teacher was Tom Fuller. He was a colored man. He came from down in Texas. I learned everything I know by watching people and listenin' to them.

Occupational Experiences

"The first thing I ever did was farming. I farmed all up till 1879. I worked on steamboat till 1881, and then I went out railroading. I worked at that a long time. I married in 1883. I was about twenty-seven years old then, and a few months over.

"While I was farming, I did some sharecropping, but I never got cheated out of anything.

Ku Klux

"I remember the folks had been off to see their people and the Ku Klux taken the stock while they were gone. I don't remember the Ku Klux Klan interfering with the Negroes much. I never saw them.

Voting

"I never voted till Cleveland began his campaign for President. I voted for eight presidents. Nobody ever bothered me about it.

Family

"There were six children in my mother's family. My father had six brothers. He made the seventh. I had nine children in all. Four of them are living now. One is here; one, in St. Louis; and two, in Chicago. My boy is in Chicago.

Opinions

"The majority of the young people are just growing up. Lots of them are not getting any raising at all."

Interviewer's Comment

Wise is between eighty-one and eighty-five years old. The data he gives conflict, some of it indicating the earlier and some of it later years.

He doesn't talk much and has to be pumped. He doesn't lose the thread of the discourse. His failure to talk on details of his early life seem to the interviewer due to unwillingness rather than lack of memory. While his age is advanced, his mind is sharp for one who has had such limited training.

He has no definite means of support, but states that he has been promised a pension in September--he means old age assistance.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lucy Withers, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 86

I was born 5-1/2 miles from Abbeville, South Carolina, in sight of Little Mountain. I do remember the Civil War. I never seen them fight. They come to about twenty or thirty miles from where I lived. They didn't bother much in the parts where I lived. All the white men folks went to war. My mama's master was Edward Roach and his wife was Miss Sarah Roach. My papa's master was Peter Radcliff and Miss Nancy Radcliff. They give me to her niece, Miss Jennie Shelitoe. When she married she wanted me. After freedom I married. In 1866 we come to a big farm close to Pine Bluff. Then we lived close to Memphis and I been living here in Brinkley a long time.

The Ku Klux put down a Governor in South Carolina right after the war. They rode everywhere night and day scaring everybody. They wouldn't let no colored people hold office. That governor was a colored man. The Ku Klux whipped both black and white folks. They run the Yankees plumb out er that country.

No sir ree I never voted and I ain't never goner vote! Women is tearing dis world up.

The ex-slaves was told that they would got things, different things. I don't know what all. I know they didn't got nothing and when freedom came they took their clothes and left. They scattered out and went to different places. It was hard to get work and there was no money cept what the Yankees give em. When they all got run off there was no money.

My husband was a Yankee soldier and he decided he wanter come to this country. We come on the train and on the boat to Pine Bluff. We farmed. I got three children but just two living. One boy lives at Fargo and the girl lives at Chicago. My husband died. Me and my sister lives here. I bought a place with my pension money. That since my husband died.

The present times is hard. I don't know nithin about these young folks. I tends to my own business. I ain't got nothing to do with the young folks. I don't know what causes the times to be so hard. Folks used to wear more clothes than they do and let colored folks have more ironing and bigger washings too. The washings bout played out. Some few folks hire cooks.

I farmed and washed and ironed and I have cooked along some here in Brinkley.

I am supported by my pension my husband left me. It ain't much but I make out with it. It is Union Soldiers Pension.

[HW: Hot Springs]

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins Person Interviewed: Anna Woods, 426 Grand Avenue

"Yes ma'am. Come on in. Is you taking lists of folks for old age pensions? Can you tell us what we going to get and when it's going to come? No? Then--Oh, I see you is writing us up. Well maybe that will help us to get attention. Cause we sure does need the pension.

To be sure I remembers slave days. My grandmother--she was give away in the trading yard. She was aflicted. What was the matter with her? Was she lame? No ma'am, she had the scrofula. So her mother was sold away from her, but she was give away. She was give away to a woman named Glover.

Mrs. Glover was a old woman when I knowed her. She was an old, old woman. She sort of studied before she'd say anything. She was a pretty good old woman though, Mrs. Glover was. She wouldn't let her colored folks be whipped. She wouldn't let me work in the field. Old Donovan wanted me to work in the field--but she wouldn't let him make me. Donovan was Mary's husband. Mary was Mrs. Glover's girl's girl. Mrs. Glover's girl was named Kate.

Mrs. Glover had a whole flock of slaves. My mother and another woman named Sallie cooked and did the washing. Fannie, she was my sister, was old Mrs. Glover's maid. Robert and Sally and Lucy--they was my brother and sisters--all of them worked in the field. They had to begin early and work late. They got them out way fore day. They worked them til dark.

I remembers that Sally and Lucy used to wear boots and roll their skirts up nearly to their waistses. Why--well you see sometimes it was muddy. Did we raise rice--No, ma'am. We mostly raised corn and cotton, like everybody else.

We lived near Natchez. No ma'am, I never see but one colored person whipped. His name was Robert. They laid him down on his stomach to whip him. Never did hear what he had done. Maybe he run off. They usually whipped them for that. No ma'am. I was right. Mrs. Glover didn't let her colored folks be whipped. Robert, you see, was Donovan's man. He didn't belong to Mrs. Glover. Her folks never got whipped.

Maybe Robert run off. I don't know. The folks did one thing special to keep them from running. They fastened a sort of yoke around they necks. From it there run up a sort of piece and there was a bell on the top of that. It was so high the folks who wore it couldn't reach the bell. But if they run it would tinkle and folks could find them. I don't quite know how it worked--I just slightly remembers.

No, ma'am, I was just sort of a little girl before the war. You might say I was never a slave. Cause I didn't have to work. Mrs. Glover wouldn't let me work in the field and I didn't have much work to do in the house either. Mrs. Glover was an old widow woman, but she was shore good. Miss Kate was her onliest child. Kate's daughter was named Mary.

Was I afraid of the soldiers? No ma'am. I wasn't.

Lots of them that came through were colored soldiers. I remember that they wore long tailed coats. They had brass buttons on they coats. But we had to move from Natchez.

First the soldiers run us off to Tennisaw Parish--an island there." (A check on maps in the atlas of Encyclopedia Britannica reveals a Tenses Parish, Louisiana--across the river and a few miles north of Natchez.) "We couldn't even stay there. They drove us along, and finally we wound up in Texas.

We wasn't there in Texas long when the soldiers marched in to tell us that we was free. Seems to me like it was on a Monday morning when they come in. Yes, it was a Monday. They went out to the field and told them they was free. Marched them out of the fields. They come a'shouting. I remembers one woman, she jumped up on a barrell and she shouted. She jumped off and she shouted. She jumped back on again and shouted some more. She kept that up for a long time, just jumping on a barrell and back off again.

Yes ma'am, we children played. I remembers that the grown folks used to have church--out behind an old shed. They'd shout and they'd sing. We children didn't know what it all meant. But every Monday morning we'd get up and make a play house in an old wagon bed--and we'd shout and sing too. We didn't know what it meant, or what we was supposed to be doing. We just aped our elders.

When the war was over my brother, he drove the carriage, he drove the white folks back to Natchez. But we didn't go--my family. We stopped part way to Natchez. Never did see Miss Kate or Mrs. Glover again. Never did see them again. Lots later my brother learned where we was. He came back for us and took us to Natchez. But we never did see Mrs. Glover again.

I lived on in Natchez. I worked for white folks--cooked for them. I did a lot of traveling. Even went up into Virginia. Traveled most of the time. I'd go with one family and when we'd get back, there'd be another one who wanted me to go and take care of their children.

Been in Hot Springs since 1905. Worked for Dr. ---- first. Stayed right in the house. Never did see such fine folks as Dr. ----" (prominent local surgeon) "and his wife. Then I worked for Mr. ----" (prominent realtor) "Yes, and I's worked at the Army and Navy Hospital too. Mighty nice up there. Worked in the officer's mess--finest place up there. I's worked for the officers too. Then I's worked for the Levi Hospital. Worked for lots of folks.

I's worked for lots of folks and in lots of places. But I haven't got anything now. How soon do you think they will begin paying us? I get just $10 from the county every month. $5 of that goes for my house. Folks gives me clothes, but if they'd only give me groceries too, I could get along. When do you think they will begin to pay us?"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Cal Woods; R.F.D., Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 85?

"I don't know zactly how old I is. I was good size boy when the war come on. We all belonged to a man named John Woods. We lived in South Carolina during slavery. Slavery was prutty bad itself but the bad time come after the war. The land was hilly some red and some pore and sandy. Had to plough a mule or horse. Hard to make a living. Some folks was rich, had heap of slaves and some bout one family. Small farmer have 160 acres and one family of slaves. When a man had one or two slave families he treated em better an if he had a great big acreage and fifteen or twenty families. The white folks trained the black man and woman. If he have so many they didn't learn how to do but one or two things. Mas generally they all worked in the fields in the busy seasons and sometimes the white folks have to work out there too. Sometimes they get in debt and have to sell off some slave to pay the debt.

"Things seemed heap mo plentiful. Before the war folks wore fine clothes. They go to their nearest tradin point and sell cotton. They had fine silk clothes and fine knives and forks. They would buy a whole case o cheese at one time and a barrel of molasses. Folks eat more and worked harder than they do now.

"Some folks was mean to their slaves and some slaves mean. It is lack it is now, some folks good no matter what dey color, other folks bad. Black folks never knowed there was freedom till they was fighting and going to war. Some say they was fightin to save their slaves, some say the Union broke. The slave never been free since he come to dis world, didn't know nuthin bout freedom till they tole em bout it.

"I recollect bout the Ku Klux after the war. Some folks come over the country and tell you you free and equal now. They tell you what to do an how to run the country and then if you listen to them come the Ku Klux all dressed half mile down the road. That Ku Klux sprung up after the war bout votin an offis-holdin mong the white folks. The white folks ain't then nor now havin no black man rulin over him. Them Ku Klux walked bout on high sticks and drink all the water you have from the spring. Seem lack they meddled a whole heap. Course the black folks knowed they was white men. They hung some slaves and white Yankees too if they be very mean. They beat em. Hear em hollowing and they hollow too. They shoot all directions round and up an down the road. That's how you know they comin close to yo house. If you go to any gatherins they come break it up an run you home fast as you could run and set the dogs on you. Course the dogs bite you. They say they was not goiner have equalization if they have to kill all the Yankees and niggers in the country. The masters sometime give em a home. My mother left John Woods then. The family went back. He give her an my papa twenty acres their lifetime. Where dey stayed on the old folks had a little at some places. They didn't divide up no plantations I ever heard of. They never give em no mules. If some tole em they would I know they sho didn't. Didn't give em nuthin I tell you. My mother's name was Sylvia and papa's name was Hack Woods.

"I come to Arkansas so my little boys would have a home. I had a little home an sold it to come out here. Agents come round showin pictures how big the cotton grow. They say it grow like trees out here. The children climb the stalks an set on the limb lack birds to pick it. They show pictures like that. Cotton basket way down under it on the ground. See droves of wild hogs coming up, look big as mules. Men ridin em. No I didn't know they said it was so fine. We come in freight cars wid our furniture and everything we brought. We had our provision in baskets and big buckets. It lasted till we passed Atlanta. We nearly starved the rest of the way. When we did stop you never hear such a hollein. We come two days and nights hard as we could come. We stayed up and eat, cooked meat an eggs on the stove in the store till daybreak. Then they showed us wha to go to our places the next day. I been here ever since.

"I hab voted. I done quit lettin votin bother me up. All I see it do is give one fellow out of two or three a job both of them maybe ought to have. The meanest man often gets lected. It the money they all after not the work in it. I heard em say what all they do and when they got lected they forgot to do all they say they would do.

"I never knowed bout no slave uprisins. Thed had to uprose wid rocks an red clods. The black man couldn't shoot. He had no guns. They had so much work they didn't know how to have a uprisin. The better you be to your master the better he treat you. The white preachers teach that in the church."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Maggie Woods, Brassfield, Ark. Deaner Farm. Age: 70

"My parents was Fannie and Alfred Douglas. They had three children, then he died and my mother married a man name Thompson. My parents belong to the Douglasses at Summerville, Tennessee. They had six children in their family.

"I was born the second year of the surrender that make me seventy years old. My folks was all field hands. They was all pure African stock. All black folks like me. Grandma Liney Douglass said she was sold and Grandpa was sold too. My own parents never was sold. The Douglass men-folks whooped the slaves but they was good masters outside of that.

"They would steal off and have preachin' at night. Had preachin' nearly all night sometimes. They'd hurry and get in home fore the day be breakin'. From the way they talked they done more prayin' than preachin'.

"Whenever they be sick they would send to the Douglasses to know what to do. They would take them up to their house and doctor them or come down to the quarters and wait on whoever be sick. They had some white doctors about but not near enough. They trained black women to be midwives.

"I think my folks had enough to eat and clothes too I recken. They eat meat to give them strength to work. My old stepdaddy always make us eat piece of meat if we eat garden stuff. He say the meat have strength in it. Cornbread, meat, peas and potatoes used to be the biggest part of folks livin' in olden days. They had plenty milk.

"Children when I come on didn't have no use for money. We eat molasses. Had a little candy once in a while. That be the best thing Santa Claus would bring me. We get ginger cakes in our new stockings too. Santa Claus been comin' ever since I been in the world. Seem like Christmas never would come round agin. It don't seem near so long now.

"I was too young to know about freedom. We was livin' on Douglas farm when George Flenol (white) come and brought us to Indian Bay. We worked on Dick Mayo's place. I don't know what they expected from freedom but I'm pretty sure they never got nothing.

"When the black folks come free then the Ku Klux took it up and made 'em work and stay at home. I heard that some folks wanted to stay in the road all the time. The Ku Klux nearly scared me to death to see pass by. They never did bother us.

"I don't vote. Don't know nothing about it. I don't like the way that is fixed for us to live now. We pay house rent and works as day laborers. It makes the work too heavy at some times and no work to do nearly all the time. It is making times hard. Cotton and corn choppin' time and cotton pickin' time is all the times a woman like me can work. I raised a shoat. I got no room for garden and chickens.

"I got one girl, she way from here, she sent me $2.00 for my Christmas.

"The young generation is weaker in body than us old folks has been. They ain't been raised to hard work and they don't hold out.

"That is salve I'm making. What do it smell like? It smell like chitlings. In that sack is the inside of the chitlings (hog manure). I boil it down and strain it, then boll it down, put camphor gum and fresh lard in it, boil it down low and pour it up. It is a green salve. It is fine for piles, rub your back for lumbago, and swab out your throat for sore throat. It is a good salve. I had a sore throat and a black woman told me how to make it. It cures the sore throat right now.

"I live on what I am able to work and make. I never have got no help from the government."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Sam Word, 1122 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"I'm a sure enough Arkansas man, born in Arkansas County near De Witt. Born February 14, 1859, and belonged to Bill Word. I know Marmaduke come down through Arkansas County and pressed Bill Word's son Tom into the service.

"I 'member one song they used to sing called the 'Bonnie Blue Flag.'

'Jeff Davis is our President And Lincoln is a fool; Jeff Davis rides a fine white horse While Lincoln rides a mule.'

'Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights, Hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag That bears a Single Star!'"

(The above verse was sung to the tune of "The Bonnie Blue Flag." From the Library of Southern Literature I find the following notation about the original song and its author, Harry McCarthy: "Like Dixie, this famous song originated in the theater and first became popular in New Orleans. The tune was borrowed from 'The Irish Jaunting Car', a popular Hibernian air. Harry McCarthy was an Irishman who enlisted in the Confederate army from Arkansas. The song was written in 1861. It was published by A.E. Blackmar who declared General Ben Butler 'made it very profitable by fining every man, woman, or child who sang, whistled or played it on any instrument twenty-five dollars.' Blackmar was arrested, his music destroyed, and a fine of five hundred dollars imposed upon him.")

"I stayed in Arkansas County till 1866. I was about seven years old and we moved here to Jefferson County. Then my mother married again and we went to Conway County and lived a few years, and then I come back to Jefferson County, so I've lived in Jefferson County sixty-eight years.

"In Conway County when I was a small boy livin' on the Milton Powell place, I 'member they sent me out in the field to get some peaches about a half mile from the slave quarters. It was about three o'clock, late summer, and I saw something in the tree--a black lookin' concern. Seem like it got bigger the closer I got, and then just disappeared all of a sudden and I didn't see it go. I know I went back without any peaches.

"And another thing I can tell you. In the spring of the year we was hoein' and when they quit at night they'd leave the hoes in the field, stickin' down in the ground. And next morning they wouldn't be where you left 'em. You'd have to look for 'em and they'd be lyin' on top of the ground and crossed just like sticks.

"I'll tell you what I do know. When we was livin' in Conway County old man Powell had about ten colored families he had emigrated from Jefferson County. Our folks was the only colored people in that neighborhood. And he had a white man that was a tenant on the place and he died. Now my mother and his wife used to visit one another. In them days the white folks wasn't like they are now. And so mother went there to sit up with his wife. And while she was sittin' up the house was full of people--white and colored. They begin to hear a noise about the coffin. So they begin to investigate the worse it got and moved around the room and it lasted till he was took out of the house. Now I've heard white and colored say that was true. They never did see it but they heard it.

"I don't think there is any ghosts now but they was in the past generation.

"I know many times me and my stepfather would be pickin' cotton and my dog would be up at the far end of the row and just before dark he'd start barkin' and come towards us a barkin' and we never could see anything. He'd do that every day. It was a dog named Natch--an English bull terrier. He was give to me a puppy. He was a sure enough bulldog and he could whip any dog I ever saw. He was an imported dog.

"I remember a house up in Conway County made out of logs--a two-story one just this side of Cadron Creek on the Military Road. Then they called it the Wire Road because the telegraph wire run along it. The house was vacant after the people that owned it had died, and people comin' along late at night would stop to spend the night, and in the middle of the night they'd have to get out. Now I've heard that with my own ears. There was a spring not far from the house. It had been a fine house and was a beautiful place to stop. But in the night they'd hear chairs rattlin' and fall down. It's my belief they had spooks in them old days.

"Now I'll tell you another incident. This was in slave times. My mother was a great hand for nice quilts. There was a white lady had died and they were goin' to have a sale. Now this is true stuff. They had the sale and mother went and bought two quilts. And let me tell you, we couldn't sleep under 'em. What happened? Well, they'd pinch your toes till you couldn't stand it. I was just a boy and I was sleepin' with my mother when it happened. Now that's straight stuff. What do I think was the cause? Well, I think that white lady didn't want no nigger to have them quilts. I don't know what mother did with 'em, but that white lady just wouldn't let her have 'em.

"Now I'm puttin' the oil out of the can--I mean that what I say is true. People now will say they ain't nothin' to that story. At that time the races wasn't 'malgamated. But people are different now--ain't like they was seventy-five years ago.

"Visions? Well, now I'm glad you asked me that. I'll take pleasure in tellin' you. Two years before I moved to this place I had a vision and I think I saw every colored person that was ever born in America, I believe. I was on the east side of my house and this multitude of people was about four feet from me and they was as thick as sardines in a box and they was from little tots up. Some had on derby hats and some was bareheaded. I talked with one woman--a brown skinned woman. They was sitting on seats just like circus seats just as far as my eyes could behold. Looked like they reached clear up in the sky. That was when I fust went blind. You've read about how John saw the multitude a hundred forty and four thousand and I think that was about one-fourth of what I saw. They was happy and talkin' and nothin' but colored people--no white people.

"Another vision I had. I dreamed that the day that I lived to be sixty-five, that day I would surely die. I thought the man that told me that was a little old dried-up white man up in the air and he had scales like the monkey and the cat weighed the cheese. I thought he said, 'That day you will surely die,' and one side of the scales tipped just a little and then I woke up. You know I believed this strong. That was in 1919 and I went out and bought a lot in Bellwood Cemetery. But I'm still livin'.

"Old Major Crawley who owned what they called the Reader place on this side of the river, four miles east of Dexter, he was supposed to have money buried on his place. He owned it during slavery and after he died his relatives from Mississippi come here and hired a carriage driver named Jackson Jones. He married my second cousin. And he took 'em up there to dig for the money, but I don't know if they ever found it. Some people said the place was ha'nted."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Sam Word 1122 Missouri, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born February 14, 1859. My birthplace was Arkansas County. Born in Arkansas and lived in Arkansas seventy-eight years. I've kept up with my age--didn't raise it none, didn't lower it none.

"I can remember all about the war, my memory's been good. Old man Bill Word, that was my old master, had a son named Tom Word and long about in '63 a general come and pressed him into the Civil War. I saw the Blue and the Gray and the gray clothes had buttons that said C.S., that meant secessioners. Yankees had U.S. on their buttons. Some of em come there so regular they got familiar with me. Yankees come and wanted to hang old master cause he wouldn't tell where the money was. They tied his hands behind him and had a rope around his neck. Now this is the straight goods. I was just a boy and I was cryin' cause I didn't want em to hang old master. A Yankee lieutenant comes up and made em quit--they was just the privates you know.

"My old master drove a ox wagon to the gold fields in California in '49. That's what they told me--that was fore I was born.

"Good? Ben Word good? My God Amighty, I wish I had one-hundredth part of what I got then. I didn't exist--I lived.

"Ben Word bought my mother from Phil Ford up in Kentucky. She was the housekeeper after old mistress died. I'll tell you something that may be amusing. Mother had lots of nice things, quilts and things, and kept em in a chest in her little old shack. One day a Yankee soldier climbed in the back window and took some of the quilts. He rolled em up and was walking out of the yard when mother saw him and said, 'Why you nasty, stinkin' rascal. You may you come down here to fight for the niggers, and now you're stealin' from em.' He said, 'You're a G-D--liar, I'm fightin' for $14 a month and the Union.'

"I member there was a young man named Dan Brown and they called him Red Fox. He'd slip up on the Yankees and shoot em, so the Yankees was always lookin' for him. He used to go over to Dr. Allen's to get a shave and his wife would sit on the front porch and watch for the Yankees. One day the Yankees slipped up in the back and his wife said, 'Lord, Dan, there's the Yankees.' Course he run and they shot him. One of the Yankees was tryin' to help him up and he said, 'Don't you touch me, call Dr. Allen.' Yes ma'm, that was in Arkansas County.

"I never been anywhere 'cept Arkansas, Jefferson, and Conway Counties. I was in Conway County when they went to the precinct to vote for or against the Fort Smith & Little Rock Railroad. The precinct where they went to vote was Springfield. It used to be the county seat of Conway County.

"While the war was goin' on and when young Tom Word would come home from school, he learned me and when the war ended, I could read in McGuffy's Third Reader. After that I went to school three months for about four years.

"Directly after Emancipation, the white men in the South had to take the Oath of Allegiance. Old master took it but he hated to do it. Now these are stubborn facts I'm givin' you but they's true.

"After freedom mother brought me here to Pine Bluff and put me in the field. I picked up corn stalks and brush and carried water to the hands. Children in them days worked. After they come from school, even the white children had work to do. Trouble with the colored folks now, to my way of thinkin', is they are top heavy with literary learning and feather light with common sense and domestic training.

"I remember a song they used to sing daring the war:

'Jeff Davis is our President Lincoln is a fool; Jeff Davis rides a fine white horse While Lincoln rides a mule.'

"And here's another one:

'Hurrah for Southern rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonny Blue Flag That bore the single star.'

"Yes, they was hants sixty years ago. The generation they was interested has bred em out. Ain't none now.

"I never did care much for politics, but I've always been for the South. I love the Southland. Only thing I don't like is they don't give a square deal when it comes between the colored and the Whites. Ten years ago, I was worth $15,000 and now I'm not worth fifteen cents. The real estate men got the best of me. I've been blind now for four years and all my wife and I have is what we get from the Welfare."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Ike Worthy 2413 W. 11th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age 74

"I was born in Selma, Alabama on Christmas day and I'm goin' on 75.

"I can 'member old missis' name Miss Liza Ann Bussey. I never will forget her name. Fed us in a trough--eighteen of us. Her husband was named Jim Bussey, but they all dead now.

"When I got large enough to remember we went to Louisiana. I was sixteen when we left Alabama--six hundred head of us. Dr. Bonner emigrated us there for hisself and other white men.

"There was nine of us boys in my parents' family. We worked every day and cleared land till twelve o'clock at night. On Saturday we played ball and on Sunday we went to Sunday school.

"We worked on the shares--got half--and in the fall we paid our debts. Sometimes we had as much as $150 in the clear.

"Most money I ever had was farmin'. I farmed 52 years and never did buy no feed. Raised my own meat and lard and molasses. Had four milk cows and fifteen to twenty hogs. You see, I had eight children in the family.

"Never went to school but one day in my life, then my father put us to work. Never learned to read. You see everybody in the pen now'days got a education. I don't think too much education is good for 'em.

"I was 74 Christmas day.

"Garland, Brewster--the sheriff and the judge--I missed them boys when they was little. Worked at the brickyard.

"I got shot accidental and lost my right leg 32 years ago when I was farmin'. I've chopped cotton and picked cotton with this peg-leg. Mr. Emory say he don't see how I can do it but I goes right along. I made $21 pickin' and $18 choppin' last year. I picked up until Thanksgiving night.

"I worked at the Long-Bell Lumber Company since I had this peg-leg too. I stayed in Little Rock 23 years. Had a wood yard and hauled wood.

"Yes ma'am, I voted the 'Publican ticket. No ma'am, I never did hold any office.

"I don't know what goin' come of the younger generation. To my idea I don't think there's anything to 'em. They is goin' to suffer when all the old ones is dead.

"I goes to the Zion Methodist Church. No ma'am, I'm not a preacher--just a bench member."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Alice Wright 2418 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 74

"I was born way yonder in slavery time. I don't know what part of Alabama nor exactly when, but I was born in slavery time and it was in Alabama. My oldest boy would be fifty-six years old if he were living. My father said he was born in slavery time and that I was born in slavery time. I was a baby, my papa said, when he ran off from his old master and went to Mississippi. He lived in the thickets for a year to keep his old master from finding out where he was.

Father, Mother and Family

"My father's name was Jeff Williams. He's been dead a long time. Nobody living but me and my children. My mother's name was Malinda Williams. My father had seven children, four girls and five boys. Four of the boys were buried on the Cummins (?) place. It used to be the old place of old Man Flournoy's. My oldest brother was named Isaac.

"I had sixteen children; four of them are still living--two boys and two girls. The boys is married and the daughters is sick. No, honey, I can't tell how many of em all was boys and girls.

House

"My folks lived right in the white folks' yard. I don't know what kind of house it was. My mother used to cook and do for the white folks. She caught her death of cold going backward and forward milking and so on.

How the Children were Fed

"They'd put a trough on the floor with wooden spoons and as many children as could get around that trough got there and eat, they would.

How Freedom Came

"Dolly and Evelyn were upstairs spinning thread and overheard the old master saying that peace was declared but they didn't want the niggers to know it. Father had them to throw their clothes out the windows. Then he slipped out with them. Malinda Williams, my mother, came with them. Dolly and Evelyn were my sisters. I don't know my master's name, but it must have been Williams because all the slaves took their old master's names when they were freed. I was a baby in my daddy's arms when he ran away.

Patrollers

"I heard my papa talk about the patrollers. He said they used to run them in many a time. That is the reason he had to cross the bridge that night going over the Mississippi into Georgia. The slaves had been set free in Georgia, and he wanted to get there from Alabama.

What the Slaves Got

"The slaves never got nothin' when they were freed. They just got out and went to work for themselves.

Marriage

"My father tended to the white folks' mules. He wasn't no soldier. When he married my mother, he was only fifteen years old. His master told him to go pick himself out a wife from a drove of slaves that were passing through, and he picked out my mother. They married by stepping over the broom. The old master pronounced them master and wife.

Slave Droves

"The drove passed through Alabama, but my father didn't know where it came from nor where it went. They were selling slaves. They would pick up a big lot of them somewhere, and they would drive them across the country selling some every place they stopped. My master bought my mother out of the drove. Droves came through very often. I don't know where they came from.

War Memories

"My father remembered coming through Alabama. He remembered the soldiers coming through Alabama. They didn't bother any colored people but they killed a lot of white people, tore up the town and took some white babies out and busted their brains out. That is what my father said. My father died in 1910. He was pushing eighty then and maybe ninety. He had a house full of grown children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. He wasn't able to do no work when he died. It was during the War that my father ran away into Georgia with me, too.

Breeding

"My father said they put medicine in the water (cisterns) to make the young slaves have more children. If his old master had a good breeding woman he wouldn't sell her. He would keep her for himself.

Worship

"When they were praying for peace they used to turn down the wash kettles to keep the sound down. In the master's church, the biggest thing that was preached to them was how to serve their master and mississ.

Indians

"My grandmother was a full-blood Indian. I don't know from what tribe.

Buried Treasure

"People used to bury their money in iron pots and chests and things in order to keep the soldiers from getting it. In Wabbaseka [HW: Ark.] there they had money buried. They buried their money to keep the soldiers from getting it.

Ku Klux

"The Ku Klux Klan came after freedom. They used to take the people out and whip them.

Just After the War

"Immediately after the War, papa farmed. Most of it was down at the Cummins place. When he ran away to Georgia, he didn't stay there. He left and came back to Mississippi. I don't know just when my papa came to the Cummins' place. It was just after the War. After be left the Cummins' place he worked at the Smith place. Then he was farming agent for sometime for old man Cook in Jefferson County. He would see after the hands.

Voting

"I ain't never voted in my life. I know plenty men that used to vote but I didn't. I never heard of no women voting.

Occupation

"I used to do field work. I washed and ironed until I got too old to do anything. I can't do anything now. I ain't able.

Support

"I get the old age pension and the Welfare give me some commodities for myself and my sick daughter. She ain't been able to walk for a year.

Marriage

"I married Willis Wright in July 1901. He did farming mostly. When he died in 1928, he was working at the Southern Oil Mill. He didn't leave any property."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Hannah Brooks Wright W. 17th, Highland Addition, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 85 Occupation: Laundress

"Yes ma'am, I was born in slavery times. I was born on Elsa Brooks' plantation in Mississippi. I don't know what year 'twas but I know 'twas in slavery times.

"I was a great big gal when the Yankees come through. I was Elsa Brooks' house gal.

"I remember when a man come through to 'vascinate' all the chillun that was born in slavery times. I cut up worse than any of 'em--I bit him. I thought he was gwine cut off my arm. Old missis say our names gwine be sent to the White House. Old missis was gwine around with him tryin' to calm 'em down.

"And the next day the Yankees come through. The Lord have mercy! I think I was 'bout twelve years old when freedom come. We used to ask old missis how old we was. She'd say, 'Go on, if I tell you how old you is, your parents couldn't do nothin' with you. Jus' tell folks you was born in slavery times!' Gramma wouldn't tell me neither. She'd say, 'You hush, you wouldn't work if you knowed how old you is.'

"I used to sit on the lever a many a day and drive the mule at the gin. You don't know anything 'bout that, do you?

"I remember one time when the Yankees was comin' through. I was up on top of a rail fence so I could see better. I said, 'Just look a there at them bluebirds.' When the Yankees come along one of 'em said, 'You get down from there you little son of a b----.' I didn't wait to climb down, I jus' fell down from there. Old missis come down to the quarters in her carriage--didn't have buggies in them days, just carriages--to see who was hurt. The Yankees had done told her that one of her gals had fell off the fence and got hurt. I said, 'I ain't hurt but I thought them Yankees would hurt me.' She said, 'They won't hurt you, they is comin' through to tell you you is free.' She said if they had hurt me she would jus' about done them Yankees up. She said Jeff Davis had done give up his seat and we was free.

"Our folks stayed with old missis as long as they lived. My mammy cooked and I stayed in the house with missis and churned and cleaned up. Old master was named Tom Brooks and her name was Elsa Brooks. Sometimes I jus' called her 'missis.'

"Old missis told the patrollers they couldn't come on her place and interfere with her hands. I don't know how many hands they had but I know they had a heap of 'em.

"Sometimes missis would say it looked like I wanted to get away and she'd say, 'Why, Hannah, you don't suffer for a thing. You stay right here at the house with me and you have plenty to eat.'

"I was the oldest one in my mammy's family.

"I just went to school a week and mammy said they needed me at the house.

"Then my daddy put me in the field to plow. Old missis come out one day and say, 'Bill, how come you got Hannah plowin'? I don't like to see her in the field.' He'd say, 'Well, I want to learn her to work. I ain't gwine be here always and I want her to know how to work.'

"They had me throwin' the shickles (shuttles) in slavery times. I used to handle the cyards (cards) too. Then I used to help clean up the milk dairy. I'd be so tired I wouldn't know what to do. Old missis would say, 'Well, Hannah, that's your job.'

"We used to have plenty to eat, pies and cakes and custards. More than we got now.

"I own this place if I can keep payin' the taxes.

"Old missis used to say, 'You gwine think about what I'm tellin' you after I'm dead and gone.'

"Young folks call us old church folks 'old _ism_ folks,' 'old fogies.' They say, 'You was born in slavery times, you don't know nothin.' You can't tell 'em nothin'.

"I follows my mind. You ain't gwine go wrong if you does what your mind tells you."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Tom Yates, Marianna. Arkansas Age: 66

"I was born in 1872 in Mississippi, on Moon Lake. Mama said she was orphan. She was sold when she was a young woman. She said she come from Richmond, Virginia to Charleston, South Carolina. Then she was brought to Mississippi and married before freedom. She had two husbands. Her owners was Master Atwood and Master Curtis Burk. I don't know how it come about nor which one bought her. She had four children and I'm the youngest. My sister lives in Memphis.

"My father was sold in Raleigh, North Carolina. His master was Tom Yeates. I'm named fer some of them. Papa's name was William Yeates. He told us how he come to be sold. He said they was fixing to sell grandma. He was one of the biggest children and he ask his mother to sell him and let grandma raise the children. She wanted to stay with the little ones. He said he cried and cried long after they brought him away. They all cried when he was sold, he said. I don't know who bought him. He must have left soon after he was sold, for he was a soldier. He run away and want in the War. He was a private and mustered out at DeValls Bluff, Arkansas. That is how come my mother to come here. He died in 1912 at Wilson, Arkansas. He got a federal pension, thirty-six dollars, every three months. He wasn't wounded, or if he was I didn't hear him speak of it. He didn't praise war."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Annie Young, 913 West Scull Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 76

"My old master's name was Sam Knox. I 'members all my white people. My mother was the cook.

"We had a good master and a good mistress too. I wish I could find some of my master's family now. But after the war they broke up and went up North.

"I 'member well the day my old master's son got killed. My mother was workin' in the field and I know she come to the house a cryin'. I 'member well when we was out in the plum nursery and could hear the cannons. My white girl Nannie told me 'Now listen, that's the war a fightin'.'

"The soldiers used to come along and sometimes they were in a hurry and would grab something to eat and go on and then sometimes they would sit down to a long table.

"I could hear my great grandmother and my mother talkin' 'We'll be free after awhile.'

"After the war my stepfather come and got my mother and we moved out in the piney woods. My stepfather was a preacher and sometimes he was a hundred miles from home. My mother hired out to work by the day. I was the oldest of seven chillun and when I got big enough to work they worked me in the field. When we cleaned up the new ground we got fifty cents a day.

"I was between ten and twelve years old when I went to school. My first teacher was white. But I tell you the truth, I learned most after my children started to school.

"I worked twenty-three years for the police headquarters. I was janitor and matron too. I washed and ironed too. I been here in Pine Bluff about fifty or sixty years.

"If justice was done everybody would have a living. I earned the money to buy this place and they come and wanted me to sign away my home so I could get the old age pension but I just had sense enough not to do it. I'm not goin' sign away my home just for some meat and bread."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: John Young 925 E. 15th Ave., Pine Bluff, Ark. Age: 92

"Well, I don't know how old I is. I was born in Virginia, but my mother was sold. She was bought by a speculator and brought here to Arkansas. She brought me with her and her old master's name was Ridgell. We lived down around Monticello. I was big enough to plow and chop cotton and drive a yoke of oxen and haul ten-foot rails.

"Oh Lord, I don't know how many acres old master had. He had a territory--he had a heap a land. I remember he had a big old carriage and the carriage man was Little Alfred. The reason they called him that was because there was another man on the place called Big Alfred. They won't no relation--just happen to be the same name.

"I remember when the Yankees come and killed old master's hogs and chickens and cooked 'em. There was a good big bunch of Yankees. They said they was fightin' to free the niggers. After that I runned away and come up here to Pine Bluff and stayed awhile and then I went to Little Rock and jined the 57th colored infantry. I was the kittle drummer. We marched right in the center of the army. We went from Little Rock to Fort Smith. I never was in a big battle, just one little scrummage. I was at Fort Smith when they surrendered and I was mustered out at Leavenworth, Kansas.

"My grandfather went to war as bodyguard for his master, but I was with the Yankees.

"I remember when the Ku Klux come to my grandmother's house. They nearly scared us to death. I run and hid under the bed. They didn't do nothin', just the looks of 'em scared us. I know they had the old folks totin' water for 'em. Seemed like they couldn't get enough.

"After the war I come home and went to farmin'. Then I steamboated for four years. I was on the Kate Adams, but I quit just 'fore it burned, 'bout two or three weeks.

"I never went to school a minute in my life. I had a chance to go but I just didn't.

"No'm I can't remember nothin' else. It's been so long it done slipped my memory."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: John Young 923 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 89

"I know I was born in Arkansas. The first place I recollect I was in Arkansas.

"I was a drummer in the Civil War. I played the little drum. The bass drummer was Rheuben Turner.

"I run off from home in Drew County. Five or six of us run off here to Pine Bluff. We heard if we could get with the Yankees we'd be free, so we run off here to Pine Bluff and got with some Yankee soldiers--the twenty-eighth Wisconsin.

"Then we went to Little Rock and I j'ined the fifty-seventh colored infantry. I thought I was good and safe then.

"We went to Fort Smith from Little Rock and freedom come on us while we was between New Mexico and Fort Smith.

"They mustered us out at Fort Leavenworth and I went right back to my folks in Drew County, Monticello.

"I've been a farmer all my life till I got too old."