Part 6

"I seed slaves sold and you has heared cattle bawl when de calves took from de mammy and dat de way de slaves bawls. When massa sell de slave he make 'em wash up and grease de face good and stand up straight and he fatten 'em jus' like you do hawgs to sell. I had de good massa. He was good to black debbils, what he call us niggers. Us could rest when us git to de quarters or go by de big tank and take de bath, and every Saturday night us git de holiday and have banjo and tin pan beatin' and dance. On Christmas massa kilt de big hawg and us fix it jus' like us wants and have big dinner.

"Massa have doctor when us sick. He say us too val'ble. If us sold us brung 'bout $1,000. Old mammy could fix de charm and git us well. She gather bark and make de tea. Most us sickness chill and fever. Sometime a slave git leg broke and massa say he no more 'count and finish him up with de club.

"Massa nearly kilt in de fightin' and he had he doctor write missy to set us free. I had two wives and missy said I couldn't keep but one, so I takes Mary and us starts out for Texas, a-foot. Us most starved to death 'fore us got here and then us have hard time. But dere plenty wild meat and dat what us lived on three, four year. Us had two chillen and den she dies and I marry a half-Indian gal and she died. Us jus' 'greed to live together in dem days, no weddin'. Then I marries Lucie Grant and us have 11 chillen and de preacher calls us man and wife. I's pappy to 17 chillen and I don't know how many grandchillen. Lucie say more'n a hun'erd."

J.W. Terrill

*J.W. Terrill was born in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, and is about 100 years old. His master was his father. He now lives in Madisonville, Texas.*

"My father took me away from my mother when at age of six weeks old and gave me to my grandmother, who was real old at the time. Jus' befo' she died she gave me back to my father, who was my mammy's master. He was a old batchelor and run saloon and he was white, but my mammy was a Negro. He was mean to me.

"Finally my father let his sister take me and raise me with her chillen. She was good to me, but befo' he let her have me he willed I must wear a bell till I was 21 year old, strapped 'round my shoulders with the bell 'bout three feet from my head in steel frame. That was for punishment for bein' born into the world a son of a white man and my mammy, a Negro slave. I wears this frame with the bell where I couldn't reach the clapper, day and night. I never knowed what it was to lay down in bed and get a good night's sleep till I was 'bout 17 year old, when my father died and my missy took the bell offen me.

"Befo' my father gave me to his sister, I was tied and strapped to a tree and whipped like a beast by my father, till I was unconscious, and then left strapped to a tree all night in cold and rainy weather. My father was very mean. He and he sister brung me to Texas, to North Zulch, when I 'bout 12 year old. He brung my mammy, too, and made her come and be his mistress one night every week. He would have kilt every one of his slaves rather than see us go free, 'specially me and my mammy.

"My missy was purty good to me, when my father wasn't right 'round. But he wouldn't let her give me anything to eat but cornbread and water and little sweat 'taters, and jus' 'nough of that to keep me alive. I was allus hongry. My mammy had a boy called Frank Adds and a girl called Marie Adds, what she give birth to by her cullud husban', but I never got to play with them. Missy worked me on the farm and there was 'bout 100 acres and fifteen slaves to work 'em. The overseer waked us 'bout three in the mornin' and then he worked us jus' long as we could see. If we didn't git 'round fast 'nough, he chain us to a tree at night with nothin' to eat, and nex' day. if we didn't go on the run he hit us 39 licks with a belt what was 'bout three foot long and four inches wide.

"I wore the bell night and day, and my father would chain me to a tree till I nearly died from the cold and bein' so hongry. My father didn't 'lieve in church and my missy 'lieved there a Lord, but I wouldn't have 'lieved her if she try larn me 'bout 'ligion, 'cause my father tell me I wasn't any more than a damn mule. I slep' on a chair and tried to res' till my father died, and then I sang all day, 'cause I knowed I wouldn't be treated so mean. When missy took that bell offen me I thinks I in Heaven 'cause I could lie down and go to sleep. When I did I couldn't wake up for a long time and when I did wake up I'd be scairt to death I'd see my father with his whip and that old bell. I'd jump out of bed and run till I give out, for fear he'd come back and git me.

"I was 'bout 17 year old then and I so happy not to have that bell on me. Missy make us work hard but she have plenty to eat and I could sleep. On Christmas she cook us a real dinner of beef meat.

"Plenty time I listens to the cannon popping till I mos' deaf, and I was messenger boy and spy on the blue bellies. When I'd git back to the Southern sojers I he'ped 'em bury they dead and some what was jus' wounded I he'ped carry home.

"When we heered was was over and we's free, we all jus' jumped up and hollers and dances. Missy, she cries and cries, and tells us we is free and she hopes we starve to death and she'd be glad, 'cause it ruin her to lose us. They was a big bunch of us niggers in town and we stirrin' 'round like bees workin' in and out a hive. We was jus' that way. I went wild and the first year I went north, but I come back 'gain to Texas.

"After 'while I marries a Indian maid. It was nothin' much but Indians 'round and there wasn't much law. I lived with her 'bout two year and then the Indians come and captured her jus' befo' she was to give birth. They kilt her or carried her 'way and lef' me for dead, and I never seed or heered of her since. While I was sick a outlaw, what was Tomas Jafferies, he'ped me git well and then I turns outlaw and follows all signs of Indians, all over the earth. But I never could git word of my wife.

"It mus' be 'bout 15 year after that, I marries Feline Ford, by a preacher. My first weddin' was common weddin' with the Indian maid. I jus' give her deerskin in front of Tomas Jefferies and she my wife."

Allen Thomas

*Allen Thomas, 97, was owned by several ranchers of Jefferson and Orange Counties, Texas, but recalls Moise Broussard of Hamshire the best. Ill health has affected his memory and his story is not coherent. He is a familiar figure on the streets of Beaumont, Texas, a small man clad in none too clean and somewhat ragged clothes, with a tow sack across his shoulders, into which he puts such things as he finds in his wanderings about the city. Rumor has it that Allen is fairly well to do and that his begging attitude is assumed, for reasons of his own.*

"I figgers I's gwine be 97 year old on de fourth of August, I's borned over in Duncan Woods, over in Orange County. My daddy's name was Lockin Thomas. I never see my daddy. He git drown in de river here at Beaumont. My mammy's Hetty Anderson.

"I 'longed to three masters. One John Adam and he was mean. One Stowers, and he was mean but not so mean to me. Den dere Moise Broussard, he was purty mean, but he never beat me. De las' man what finish raise me was Amos Harrison and he purty good man. He wife name Mag and dey lives on Turtle Bayou over in Chambers County. He buy me from Lewis Pinder. He was good. My brudder was Kelly Idonia and I had a sister Lessie Williams. Dey beat her with clubs. I's walk over many a dead person. Dey beat 'em to death.

"Us had tins dishes dem times, master and slaves, too. Dey have wooden paddles what us take de food out de dishes with. De white folks sot at one table and de cullud folks have table to deyself, but 'bout what de white folks has.

"Us have watermilion and sugar cane and milk and butter. Den us have de possum. Us clean him and put him top de house and 'low de frost fall on him. Den us fill him full salt and pepper and put him in de oven. Sometime put sweet 'taters all 'round him. Us have de long, square oven with de lid on it.

"Us wore knitted shirt make on dem looms and dey gives us boots with brass toes on 'em. Me and mammy work on de spinnin' wheel many a night up to one or two o'clock. I used to card de bats.

"Dere plenty hawgs and hosses and dem cattle what am longhorn. Us have plenty meat and raise veg'tables, too.

"I never seed no sojers but I heared de cannons. I disremember when peace am corral'. I come up here to Beaumont when I thank I's a man and I's been here every Gawd's since.

"I see some sperrits, but I see 'em only special times. You see 'em twict a year, 'tween spring and summer and den 'gain 'twixt fall and winter. Sometime dey comes right 'long and den sometime dey jis' standin' still. When you looks at 'em dey looks kinder vagueish. I can allus tell when sperrits 'round. Dey got a queer scent. When you walk 'bout 20 feet, steam gwineter hit you in de face. I can tell dey dere iffen I can't see 'em. Dey look like men. Dey ain't white but dey got a pale look."

Bill and Ellen Thomas

*Bill and Ellen Thomas live in the Old Slave Settlement, 3 miles north of Hondo. Bill is 88 and Ellen is 81. They seem to be happy; their fields are tilled, a horse and a cow graze near the house; a kitchen garden is under way and several broods of baby chicks are in the yard. They were dressed in simple, clean clothes, and Ellen wears a string of nutmegs around her neck, to 'make yer eyes strong.'*

Uncle Bill's Story

"Does you want me to start right at the beginnin'? Well, I'll tell you jes' how I went to this country. I left Falls County where I belonged to the man there that kept the post office. He was named Chamlin. He had lots of land, I reckin about 50 acres. They kep' us in a little house right in their yard. Reckin how old I was when he bought me? Jus' five years old! He give $500 for me, but he bought my mother and my sisters, too. He had to buy me, 'cause my mother, she wouldn't go without me. No, suh, she tol' 'em she wouldn't go if they didn' buy me, too. An' the man he bought us f'om, he wanted to keep me, so he wouldn't take less than $500 for me. Massa Chamblin bought the whole family, 'cept my father. They sold him and we never laid eyes on him again.

"My mother cooked. Massa Chamlin, he always fed us plenty, an' whatever they had, we had. If he cooked sausage, you had it too; if he cooked ham, you got it too; if he cooked lye hominy, you got it; an' if he had puddin', you got some.

"When I was 6 or 7 years old I chopped cotton and I plowed too, and I could lay as straight rows with oxen as any you ever saw.

"The massa whipped me with a dogwood switch, but he never did bring no blood. But it taken 7 men to whip my father.

"I'll tell you how I got away f'om there. Massa bought cotton and carried it to Mexico. He taken his 2 boys with him and we had 3 wagons and I drove one. I had 4 oxen and I had 3 bales of cotton on my wagon; he had 6 oxen and 6 bales of cotton, and the last wagon, it had 10 bales on it and 6 oxen. He had to ship it acrost the Rio Grande. If a Mexican bought it, he come across and took it over hisself. Reckin how much he got for that cotton? He got 60c a pound. Yes'm, he sho' did. Cotton was bringin' that then.

"I was freed over there in Mexico. I was about 14 years old. Massa Chamlin, he stayed over there till the country was free. He didn't believe in that fightin'.

"I cooked in a hotel over there in Mexico. I cooked two years at $1.00 a day.

"When Massa owned me, he always give us good clothes. Our pants was made out of duckin' like wagon sheets, but my mother took some kind of bark and dyed 'em. I think it was blackjack bark. He give us shoes, too. They was half-tan leather brogans."

"I used to play the fiddle for dances when I was young, but not after I joined the church. I played for the white people. Oh, yes'm, the cullud folks had dances, they sho' did dance.

"Yes'm, I saw a ghost onct. One night after I was livin' down here, I was goin' to Sabinal, me and another man, and a great long thing passed right in front of us. It was the blackest thing you ever saw. It was about six feet long. Yes'm, it sho' was a ghost or sumpin; it disappeared, and me lookin' at it. The other fellow that was with me, he seen it, too.

"Yes, they was lots of panthers and bears here. If this ghost was a bear, he sho' was a big 'un. We had a ghost down here on the creek we called the 'Ball Water Hole Ghost.' He was seen lots of times. He used to stay down there, but he ain't been seen lately. My wife, she seen him."

Aunt Ellen's Story

"Yes'm, I seen him walkin' 'long the trail ahead of us. He had on a black hat, like a tall stovepipe hat, and a long black coat, and when we got up close he jes' disappeared. He was a big man, and tall, too. We didn' know which way he went; he jes' seemed to disappear. My oldest daughter saw him too. Lots of folks did. He was always seen down at that water hole somewhere.

"Another time, I was stayin' with Mrs. Reedes. Mr. Reedes was killed and all night long he'd come back and grind coffee and sprinkle it all over us. I was so bad scared I nearly died. Next mornin' there'd be coffee all over the floor. We supposed it was Mr. Reede's ghost. They say if a person was wicked they come back like that. Onct he pulled Mrs. Reedes outta bed and pitched her on the floor, and he would take the dishes out of the shelves and throw 'em down. I couldn't stand it but a night or two and I said I was goin' home. Yes, ma'am, it sho' was a ghost. He sho' did tear up that house every night. Why, they'd be a light shine in that room just as plain as daylight, nearly. They say ghosties will run you, but I never had any to run me."

"I was born in Mississippi. We come to Texas and my mother died, so grandma raised me. I was jes' a baby when we come to Texas. Mr. Harper owned us. I remember the war, but it's so long ago I don't remember much. I remember when John Harper read the free paper to us. He had a big lot of slaves, but

when he read, the free papers they jes' flew out like birds. But I didn't. I was stickin' to my grandmother. She was on crutches and she stayed on at the Harper place.

"After we was free I worked for them a long time. I cooked, washed, ironed, milked the cows. He was pretty good to us, Judge Harper was. I went along with him when he went to war, his wife and chillun did too, and I nursed them, I'd give a young baby shuck tea to break him out with the hives. For chills and fever I give quinine weed. It don't grow here.

"When Judge Harper went up to Hondo my grandma grabbed me and kept me. So I stayed and worked. I was still a young girl, but I plowed, hauled and grubbed. I used to wear 'cotton stripes.' I remember 'em well. It was a homespun cloth. I know how to spin and weave and I could knit a pair of socks in two nights.

"I never did hear much about hard times. I was treated good but I got switched many a time. Oh, yes'm. I've been whipped, but not like some of 'em was. They used to tie some of 'em down. I've heered tell, they shore whopped 'em. They used to be a runaway that got away and went to Mexico now and then, and if they caught him they shore whopped him awful.

"That old piano in there, my daughter bought a long time ago. The varnish is off, but a man tol' us it could be sandpapered and refinished and it would be a beautiful thing. It's about 75 years old."

Lucy Thomas

*Lucy Thomas,86, was born in Harrison Co., Texas, a slave of Dr. William Baldwin. She stayed with her master until 1868. In 1869 she married Anthony Thomas. She now lives with her son at Baldwin Switch, sixteen miles northeast of Marshall, Texas, on part of the land originally owned by the Baldwins.*

"My name am Lucy Baldwin Thomas and I's birthed right here in Harrison County, on the old Baldwin place at Fern Lake. The log cabin where I's birthed sot in a grove of trees right by the lake. The Baldwin place jined the Haggerty and Major Andrews places.

"The best statement I can make of my age am I's 'bout fourteen the last year of Abe Lincoln's war. It was true, 'cause I starts hoein' in the field when I's nine years old and I'd been hoein' a long time.

"They called my papa, Ike. The Baldwins bought him out of Alabama, and mama's name was Nancy and she's birthed in Virginny, and the Baldwins bought her out the New Orleans slave market for $1,100.00. I's heared my gran'ma, Barbara, tell how some Alabama owners drug they niggers with a mule and laid dem face down in a hole and beat dem till they's raw as beefsteak. But her folks wasn't like that and the Baldwins wasn't neither. They was good white folks, and Missy was named May Amelia and then there was Old Marse Doctor William. He was a doctor but he worked a hundred acres land and owned 'bout eighty-five niggers, what lived in log quarters. They had son-of-a-gun beds peg to the walls, and wore bachelor brogan shoes and blue and stripe lowel clothes made on the place, and had lots to eat. My mama say she had a lots better time in slavery than after.

"All hands was up and in the field by daylight and Marse Baldwin allus kep' a fifty gallon barrel whiskey on the place and a demijohn on the front porch all the time for the niggers to git they drink on way to the field. But nobody ever got drunk.

"Marse's brother-in-law, Marse Lewis Brantly, was overseer, but never kicked and beat the niggers. He give us a light breshin' when we needed it. We would go mos' anywhere but had to git a pass first, and had play parties on Saturday night.

"I went to school three months. A Yankee named Old Man Mills run a school and I quit workin' in the field to go. Them days, the Klu Kluxers was runnin' round and I seed big bunches of niggers with they heads tied up, goin' to report the Kluxers to the Progee Marshal.

"Three years after it was all over, my folks moved to the Haggerty place. I know lots 'bout old Col. Haggerty's widow. She was an Indian and her first husband was a big chief of the Caddo Indians on Caddo Lake. He betrayed the Indians to the white folks and he and her hid on a cave on the lake, and she slipped out to git food, and the Indians took him away. They say they scalped him like they done white folks. Then she married Col. Haggerty and he got kilt on a gamblin' spree and left her a lot of land and 'bout three hundred slaves. She kept a nigger woman chained to a loom for a year and when she knew the slaves was gittin' free, she poisoned a lot of dem and buried dem at night. We'd hear the other slaves moanin' and cryin' at night for the dead ones. That widow Haggerty was somthin'!

"I seed the 'Mattie Stephens' boat the day after it burned and kilt sixty people. Me and Anthony Thomas went to Marshall and married the day 'fore it burnt. That was on February 12th, in 1869. I lived with him fifty-five years and raised seven chillen, and after he died I kep' on farmin' until 'bout three years ago. Then I come to live with one my son's here and this land we're on right now was part the land old Marse Baldwin owned. I gits $10.00 a month from the gov'ment. They sho' is good to me, and my son is good, too, so I's happy in my old age."

Philles Thomas

*Philles Thomas, 77, was born a slave of Dave Miles, who owned a plantation in Brazoria Co., Texas. Philles does not remember her father, but was told by her mother that he was sent to the Confederate Army and was fatally injured at Galveston, Texas. Philles stayed with her family until she was seventeen, then married William Thomas. They now live at 514 Hayes St., Fort Worth, Tex.*

"I don't 'member much 'bout de war, 'cause I's jus' a young'un when it start and too small to have much mem'randum when it stop. I's still on de place where I's born when surrender come, de Lowoods Place, own by Massa Dave Miles, 'twixt Brazoria and Columbia. Massa Dave sho' have de big plantation but I don' know how many slaves.

"When I's a young'un, us kids didn't run round late. We'uns am put to bed. When sundown come, my mammy see dat my feets am wash and de gown put on, and in de bunk I goes.

"I can't 'member my daddy, but mammy told me him am sent to de 'Federate Army and am kilt in Galveston. She say dey puttin' up breastworks and de Yanks am shootin' from de ships. Well, daddy am watchin' de balls comin' from dem guns, fallin' round dere, and a car come down de track loaded with rocks and hit him. Dat car kilt him.

"Mammy marries Bill Bailey after freedom and moves to de Barnum Place, what Massa John Miles own. I stays with mammy till I's seventeen and holp dem share crop. Den I leaves. Dat de way with chillen, dey gives you lots of trouble raisin' dem and den off dey goes. When my chillen am young'uns dey's on my lap, and when dey's growed up, dey's on my heart.

"Us have de hard time share croppin'. Times was hard den and de niggers didn't know much 'bout takin' care demselves. Course, dey better off free, but dey have to larn. Us work hard and make 'nough to live on de first year us free. Us raise cotton and veg'tables and when I's not helpin' mammy I goes out and gits a li'l work here and yonder.

"I marries in Galveston, to dat old cuss, settin' right dere, William Thomas am he name and I's stood for him ever since. Him am dock wallopin' when I's marry to him. Sho', him am a dock walloper. If you wants to talk big, you calls it stev'dore on de wharf.

"Dat cullud gen'man of mine allus brung in de bacon. We'uns am never rich, but allus eats till de last few years. Us goes on de farm and it hand and mouth livin', but us eats someway. After while, us come to Fort Worth and he works as mortar man and cement mixer. We'uns live good till de few years back, when him break down in de back and can't work no more.

"It am ten chillun us raise but only five livin' now. One live at Stop Six, right here in Fort Worth, and de others am all over de world. Us don't know where dey am. Since Bill can't work no more, us git de pension from de State and dat $26.00 de month for de two of us.

"Does I ever vote? Christ for 'mighty! No. Why yous talk dat foolishment. Why for dis igno'mous old woman want to vote? No, sar, and no tother womens ought to vote. Dat am for de mens to do. My Bill votes couple times, when us in Galveston, and I tells you 'bout dat.

"Dey gives de eddication with a couple cups whiskey and de cheroot. When de whiskey and de cheroot works on Bill's brain, dere am den de smart nigger, and he votes 'telligent. I asks him what he votes for and him say, 'I's vote for what am on de ticket.' 'What am on de ticket,' I says. 'How does I know, I can't read.' Den I says, 'Better yous not vote, 'cause maybe yous vote to put youself in de jailhouse.' So I guess him think 'bout dat and him see what foolishment and troublement him maybe git into, and him quit votin'. We'uns am lucky with de trouble. Guess it 'cause we'uns knows how to 'have. When I's young my mammy larn me how to 'have and where I 'long, so de patterrollers and de Ku Klux never bother we'uns. Now, we'uns so old us can't git round, so us double safe now.

"Gosh for 'mighty! What yous want next? Now it for me to sing. Well, yous can't put de bluff on dis old nigger, so here it am:

"'Put on my long white robe, Put on de golden crown, Put on de golden slipper, And forever be Jesus' lamb.'

"But I likes 'nother song better, like dis:

"'Herodias go down to de river one day, Want to know what John Baptist have to say, John spoke de words at risk of he life, Not lawful to marry yous brudder's wife.'

"Not dat am 'nough. If I's here much longer, yous have dis old woman dancin'."

William M. Thomas