SLAVE NARRATIVES

A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves

TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS’ PROJECT
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Illustrated with Photographs

WASHINGTON 1941

VOLUME XVI

TEXAS NARRATIVES

PART 1

Prepared by
the Federal Writers’ Project of
the Works Progress Administration
for the State of Texas

[Pg 1]

EX-SLAVE STORIES

(Texas)

Will Adams

“My folks allus belongs to the Cavins and wore their name till
after ‘mancipation. Pa and ma was named Freeman and Amelia Cavin and
Massa Dave fotches them to Texas from Alabama, along with ma’s mother,
what we called Maria.

“The Cavins allus thunk lots of their niggers and Grandma Maria
say, ‘Why shouldn’t they—it was their money.’ She say there was plenty
Indians here when they settled this country and they bought and traded
with them without killin’ them, if they could. The Indians was poor folks,
jus’ pilfer and loaf ’round all the time. The niggers was a heap sight
better off than they was, ’cause we had plenty to eat and a place to stay.

“Young Massa Tom was my special massa and he still lives here. Old
Man Dave seemed to think more of his niggers than anybody and we thunk lots
of our white folks. My pa was leader on the farm, and there wasn’t no overseer
or driver. When pa whip a nigger he needn’t go to Massa Dave, but pa
say, ‘Go you way, you nigger. Freeman didn’t whip you for nothin’.’
Massa Dave allus believe pa, ’cause he tells the truth.

“One time a peddler come to our house and after supper he goes to
see ’bout his pony. Pa done feed that pony fifteen ears of corn. The
peddler tell massa his pony ain’t been fed nothin’, and massa git mad
and say, ‘Be on you way iffen you gwine ‘cuse my niggers of lyin’.’[Pg 2]

“We had good quarters and plenty to eat. I ‘members when I’s jus’
walkin’ round good pa come in from the field at night and taken me out
of bed and dress me and feed me and then play with me for hours. Him bein’
leader, he’s gone from ‘fore day till after night. The old heads got out
early but us young scraps slep’ till eight or nine o’clock, and don’t you
think Massa Dave ain’t comin’ round to see we is fed. I ‘members him like
it was yest’day, comin’ to the quarters with his stick and askin’ us, ‘Had
your breakfas’?’ We’d say, ‘Yes, suh.’ Then he’d ask if we had ‘nough or
wanted any more. It look like he taken a pleasure in seein’ us eat. At
dinner, when the field hands come in, it am the same way. He was sho’ that
potlicker was fill as long as the niggers want to eat.

“The hands worked from sun to sun. Massa give them li’l crops and
let them work them on Saturday. Then he bought the stuff and the niggers go
to Jefferson and buy clothes and sech like. Lots saved money and bought
freedom ‘fore the war was over.

“We went to church and first the white preacher preached and then he
larns our cullud preachers. I seed him ordain a cullud preacher and he told
him to allus be honest. When the white preacher laid his hand on him, all
the niggers git to hollerin’ and shoutin’ and prayin’ and that nigger git
scart mos’ to death.

“On Christmas we had all we could eat and drink and after that a big
party, and you ought to see them gals swingin’ they partners round. Then
massa have two niggers wrestle, and our sports and dances was big sport for
the white folks. They’d sit on the gallery and watch the niggers put it on
brown.[Pg 3]

“Massa didn’t like his niggers to marry off the place, but sometimes
they’d do it, and massa tell his neighbor, ‘My nigger am comin’ to you place.
Make him behave.’ All the niggers ‘haved then and they wasn’t no Huntsville
and gallows and burnin’s then.

“Old massa went to war with his boy, Billie. They’s lots of cryin’
and weepin’ when they sot us free. Lots of them didn’t want to be free, ’cause
they knowed nothin’ and had nowhere to go. Them what had good massas stayed
right on.

“I ‘members when that Ku Klux business starts up. Smart niggers causes
that. The carpet-baggers ruint the niggers and the white men couldn’t do a
thing with them, so they got up the Ku Klux and stirs up the world. Them carpet-baggers
come round larnin’ niggers to sass the white folks what done fed them.
They come to pa with that talk and he told them, ‘Listen, white folks, you is
gwine start a graveyard if you come round here teachin’ niggers to sass white
folks.” Them carpet-baggers starts all the trouble at ‘lections in Reconstruction.
Niggers didn’t know anythin’ ’bout politics.

“Mos’ the young niggers ain’t usin’ the education they got now. I’s been
here eighty years and still has to be showed and told by white folks. These
young niggers won’t git told by whites or blacks either. They thinks they done
knowed it all and that gits them in trouble.

“I stays with the Cavins mos’ twenty years after the war. After I
leaves, I allus farms and does odd jobs round town here. I’s father of ten
chillen by one woman. I lives by myself now and they gives me $13.00 a month.
I’d be proud to git it if it wasn’t more’n a dollar, ’cause they ain’t nothin’
a old man can do no more.[Pg 4]

William Adams

“Yous want to know and talk about de power de people tells you
I has. Well, sit down here, right there in dat chair, befo’ we’uns
starts. I gits some ice water and den we’uns can discuss de subject.
I wants to ‘splain it clearly, so yous can understand.

“I’s born a slave, 93 years ago, so of course I ‘members de
war period. Like all de other slaves I has no chance for edumacation.
Three months am de total time I’s spent going to school. I teached
myself to read and write. I’s anxious to larn to read so I could
study and find out about many things. Dat, I has done.

“There am lots of folks, and edumacated ones, too, what says
we’uns believes in superstition. Well, its ’cause dey don’t understand.
‘Member de Lawd, in some of His ways, can be mysterious. De
Bible says so. There am some things de Lawd wants all folks to know,
some things jus’ de chosen few to know, and some things no one should
know. Now, jus’ ’cause yous don’t know ’bout some of de Lawd’s laws,
‘taint superstition if some other person understands and believes in
sich.

“There is some born to sing, some born to preach, and some
born to know de signs. There is some born under de power of de devil[Pg 5]
and have de power to put injury and misery on people, and some born under
de power of de Lawd for to do good and overcome de evil power. Now, dat
produces two forces, like fire and water. De evil forces starts de fire
and I has de water force to put de fire out.

“How I larnt sich? Well, I’s done larn it. It come to me. When
de Lawd gives sich power to a person, it jus’ comes to ’em. It am 40 years
ago now when I’s fust fully realize’ dat I has de power. However, I’s allus
int’rested in de workin’s of de signs. When I’s a little piccaninny, my
mammy and other folks used to talk about de signs. I hears dem talk about
what happens to folks ’cause a spell was put on ’em. De old folks in dem
days knows more about de signs dat de Lawd uses to reveal His laws den de
folks of today. It am also true of de cullud folks in Africa, dey native
land. Some of de folks laughs at their beliefs and says it am superstition,
but it am knowin’ how de Lawd reveals His laws.

“Now, let me tell yous of something I’s seen. What am seen, can’t
be doubted. It happens when I’s a young man and befo’ I’s realize’ dat
I’s one dat am chosen for to show de power. A mule had cut his leg so bad
dat him am bleedin’ to death and dey couldn’t stop it. An old cullud man
live near there dat dey turns to. He comes over and passes his hand over
de cut. Befo’ long de bleedin’ stop and dat’s de power of de Lawd workin’
through dat nigger, dat’s all it am.

“I knows about a woman dat had lost her mind. De doctor say it
was caused from a tumor in de head. Dey took an ex-ray picture, but dere’s
no tumor. Dey gives up and says its a peculiar case. Dat woman was took to
one with de power of de good spirit and he say its a peculiar case for dem
dat don’t understand. Dis am a case of de evil spell. Two days after, de[Pg 6]
woman have her mind back.

“Dey’s lots of dose kind of cases de ord’nary person never
hear about. Yous hear of de case de doctors can’t understand, nor will
dey ‘spond to treatment. Dat am ’cause of de evil spell dat am on de
persons.

“‘Bout special persons bein’ chosen for to show de power,
read yous Bible. It says in de book of Mark, third chapter, ‘and He
ordained twelve, dat dey should be with Him, dat He might send them forth
to preach and to have de power to heal de sick and to cast out devils.’
If it wasn’t no evil in people, why does de Lawd say, ‘cast out sich?’
And in de fifth chapter of James, it further say, ‘If any am sick, let
him call de elders. Let dem pray over him. De prayers of faith shall
save him.’ There ’tis again, Faith, dat am what counts.

“When I tells dat I seen many persons given up to die, and
den a man with de power comes and saves sich person, den its not for
people to say it am superstition to believe in de power.

“Don’t forgit—de agents of de devil have de power of evil.
Dey can put misery of every kind on people. Dey can make trouble with
de work and with de business, with de fam’ly and with de health. So
folks mus’ be on de watch all de time. Folks has business trouble ’cause
de evil power have control of ’em. Dey has de evil power cast out and
save de business. There am a man in Waco dat come to see me ’bout dat.
He say to me everything he try to do in de las’ six months turned out
wrong. It starts with him losin’ his pocketbook with $50.00 in it. He
buys a carload of hay and it catch fire and he los’ all of it. He spends[Pg 7]
$200.00 advertisin’ de three-day sale and it begin to rain, so he los’
money. It sho’ am de evil power.

“‘Well,’ he say, ‘Dat am de way it go, so I comes to you.’

“I says to him, ‘Its de evil power dat have you control and
we’uns shall cause it to be cast out.’ Its done and he has no more
trouble.

“You wants to know if persons with de power for good can be
successful in castin’ out devils in all cases? Well, I answers dat, yes
and no. Dey can in every case if de affected person have de faith. If
de party not have enough faith, den it am a failure.

“Wearin’ de coin for protection ‘gainst de evil power? Dat
am simple. Lots of folks wears sich and dey uses mixtures dat am sprinkled
in de house, and sich. Dat am a question of faith. If dey has de
true faith in sich, it works. Otherwise, it won’t.

“Some folks won’t think for a minute of goin’ without lodestone
or de salt and pepper mixture in de little sack, tied round dey
neck. Some wears de silver coin tied round dey neck. All sich am for
to keep away de effect of de evil power. When one have de faith in sich
and dey acc’dently lose de charm, dey sho’ am miserable.

“An old darky dat has faith in lodestone for de charm told
me de ‘sperience he has in Atlanta once. He carryin’ de hod and de
fust thing he does am drop some brick on he foot. De next thing, he
foot slip as him starts up de ladder and him and de bricks drap to de
ground. It am lucky for him it wasn’t far. Jus’ a sprain ankle and
de boss sends him home for de day. He am ‘cited and gits on de street
car and when de conductor call for de fare, Rufus reaches for he money[Pg 8]
but he los’ it or fergits it at home. De conductor say he let him pay
nex’ time and asks where he live. Rufus tells him and he say, ‘Why,
nigger, you is on de wrong car.’ Dat cause Rufus to walk further with
de lame foot dan if he started walkin’ in de fust place. He thinks there
mus’ be something wrong with he charm, and he look for it and it gone!
Sho’ ‘nough, it am los’. He think, ‘Here I sits all day, and I won’t
make another move till I gits de lodestone. When de chillen comes from
school I sends dem to de drugstore for some of de stone and gits fixed.’

“Now, now, I’s been waitin’ for dat one ’bout de black cat
crossin’ de road, and, sho’ ‘nough, it come. Let me ask you one. How
many people can yous find dat likes to have de black cat cross in front
of ’em? Dat’s right, no one likes dat. Let dis old cullud person inform
yous dat it am sho’ de bad luck sign. It is sign of bad luck ahead,
so turn back. Stop what yous doin’.

“I’s tellin’ yous of two of many cases of failure to took
warnin’ from de black cat. I knows a man call’ Miller. His wife and him
am takin’ an auto ride and de black cat cross de road and he cussed a
little and goes on. Den it’s not long till he turns de corner and his wife
falls out of de car durin’ de turn. When he goes back and picks her up,
she am dead.

“Another fellow, call’ Brown, was a-ridin’ hossback and a
black cat cross de path, but he drives on. Well, its not long till him
hoss stumble and throw him off. De fall breaks his leg, so take a
warnin’—don’t overlook de black cat. Dat am a warnin’.[Pg 9]

“I was bo’n 93 years ago, dat is whut my mother says.
We didn’ keep no record like folks does today. All I know is
I been yere a long time. My mother, she was Julia Adams and
my father he was James Adams. She’s bo’n in Hollis Springs,
Mississippi and my father, now den, he was bo’n in Florida.
He was a Black Creek Indian. Dere was 12 of us chillen. When
I was ’bout seven de missus, she come and gits me for her servant.
I lived in de big house till she die. Her and Marster
Davis was powerful good to me.

“Marster Davis he was a big lawyer and de owner of a
plantation. But all I do was wait on ole missus. I’d light her
pipe for her and I helped her wid her knittin’. She give me money
all de time. She had a little trunk she keeped money in and lots
of times I’d have to pack it down wid my feets.

“I dis’member jus’ how many slaves dere was, but dere was
more’n 100. I saw as much as 100 sold at a time. When dey tuk a
bunch of slaves to trade, dey put chains on ’em.

“De other slaves lived in log cabins back of de big house.
Dey had dirt floors and beds dat was made out of co’n shucks or
straw. At nite dey burned de lamps for ’bout an hour, den de overseers,[Pg 10]
dey come knock on de door and tell ’em put de light out. Lots
of overseers was mean. Sometimes dey’d whip a nigger wid a leather
strap ’bout a foot wide and long as your arm and wid a wooden handle
at de end.

“On Sat’day and Sunday nites dey’d dance and sing all nite long.
Dey didn’ dance like today, dey danced de roun’ dance and jig and do
de pigeon wing, and some of dem would jump up and see how many time he
could kick his feets ‘fore dey hit de groun’. Dey had an ole fiddle
and some of ’em would take two bones in each hand and rattle ’em. Dey
sang songs like, ‘Diana had a Wooden Leg,’ and ‘A Hand full of Sugar,’
and ‘Cotton-eyed Joe.’ I dis’member how dey went.

“De slaves didn’ have no church den, but dey’d take a big sugar
kettle and turn it top down on de groun’ and put logs roun’ it to kill
de soun’. Dey’d pray to be free and sing and dance.

“When war come dey come and got de slaves from all de plantations
and tuk ’em to build de breastworks. I saw lots of soldiers.
Dey’d sing a song dat go something like dis:

“‘Jeff Davis rode a big white hoss,
Lincoln rode a mule;
Jess Davis is our President,
Lincoln is a fool.’

“I ‘member when de slaves would run away. Ole John Billinger,
he had a bunch of dogs and he’d take after runaway niggers. Sometimes
de dogs didn’ ketch de nigger. Den ole Billinger, he’d cuss and kick
de dogs.

“We didn’ have to have a pass but on other plantations dey did,
or de paddlerollers would git you and whip you. Dey was de poor white[Pg 11]
folks dat didn’ have no slaves. We didn’ call ’em white folks
dem days. No, suh, we called dem’ Buskrys.’

“Jus’ fore de war, a white preacher he come to us slaves and
says: ‘Do you wan’ to keep you homes whar you git all to eat, and raise
your chillen, or do you wan’ to be free to roam roun’ without a home,
like de wil’ animals? If you wan’ to keep you homes you better pray
for de South to win. All day wan’s to pray for de South to win, raise
the hand.’ We all raised our hands ’cause we was skeered not to, but
we sho’ didn’ wan’ de South to win.

“Dat night all de slaves had a meetin’ down in de hollow.
Ole Uncle Mack, he gits up and says: ‘One time over in Virginny dere
was two ole niggers, Uncle Bob and Uncle Tom. Dey was mad at one
‘nuther and one day dey decided to have a dinner and bury de hatchet.
So day sat down, and when Uncle Bob wasn’t lookin’ Uncle Tom put some
poison in Uncle Bob’s food, but he saw it and when Uncle Tom wasn’t
lookin’, Uncle Bob he turned de tray roun’ on Uncle Tom, and he gits
de poison food.’ Uncle Mack, he says: ‘Dat’s what we slaves is
gwine do, jus’ turn de tray roun’ and pray for de North to win.’

“After de war dere was a lot of excitement ‘mong de niggers.
Dey was rejoicin’ and singin’. Some of ’em looked puzzled, sorter
skeered like. But dey danced and had a big jamboree.

“Lots of ’em stayed and worked on de halves. Others hired
out. I went to work in a grocery store and he paid me $1.50 a week.
I give my mother de dollar and keeped de half. Den I got married
and farmed for awhile. Den I come to Fort Worth and I been yere since.[Pg 12]

“I was birthed in time of bondage. You know, some people
are ashamed to tell it, but I thank God I was ‘llowed to see them
times as well as now. It’s a pretty hard story, how cruel some of the
marsters was, but I had the luck to be with good white people. But
some I knew were put on the block and sold. I ‘member when they’d
come to John Goodren’s place to buy, but he not sell any. They’d have
certain days when they’d sell off the block and they took chillen ‘way
from mothers, screamin’ for dere chillen.

“I was birthed in ole Virginia in de Blue Ridge Mountains.
When de white people come to Texas, de cullud people come with them.
Dat’s been a long time.

“My maw was named Charlotte, my paw Parks Adams. He’s a
white man. I guess I’m about eighty some years ole.

“You know, in slavery times when dey had bad marsters dey’d
run away, but we didn’ want to. My missus would see her people had
something good to eat every Sunday mornin’. You had to mind your missus
and marster and you be treated well. I think I was about twelve when
dey freed us and we stayed with marster ’bout a year, then went to John
Ecols’ place and rented some lan’. We made two bales of cotton and it
was the first money we ever saw.

“Back when we lived with Marster Goodren we had big candy[Pg 13]
pullin’s. Invite everybody and play. We had good times. De worst
thing, we didn’ never have no schoolin’ till after I married. Den I
went to school two weeks. My husban’ was teacher. He never was a
slave. His father bought freedom through a blacksmith shop, some way.

“I had a nice weddin’. My dress was white and trimmed with blue
ribbon. My second day dress was white with red dots. I had a beautiful
veil and a wreath and ’bout two, three waiters for table dat day.

“My mother was nearly white. Brighter than me. We lef’ my
father in Virginia. I was jus’ as white as de chillen I played with.
I used to be plum bright, but here lately I’m gettin’ awful dark.

“My husban’ was of a mixture, like you call bright ginger-cake
color. I don’ know where he got his learnin’. I feel so bad since
he’s gone to Glory.

“Now I’m ole, de Lord has taken care of me. He put that spirit
in people to look after ole folks and now my chillen look after me.
I’ve two sons, one name James Allen, one R.M. Both live in El Paso.

“After we go to sleep, de people will know these things, ’cause
if freedom hadn’ come, it would have been so miserable.[Pg 14]

“My name am Andy J. Anderson, and I’s born on Massa Jack Haley’s
plantation in Williamson County, Texas, and Massa Haley owned my folks and
’bout twelve other families of niggers. I’s born in 1843 and that makes me
94 year old and 18 year when de war starts. I’s had ‘speriences durin’ dat
time.

“Massa Haley am kind to his cullud folks, and him am kind to everybody,
and all de folks likes him. De other white folks called we’uns de petted
niggers. There am ’bout 30 old and young niggers and ’bout 20 piccaninnies
too little to work, and de nuss cares for dem while dey mammies works.

“I’s gwine ‘splain how it am managed on Massa Haley’s plantation.
It am sort of like de small town, ’cause everything we uses am made right there.
There am de shoemaker and he is de tanner and make de leather from de hides.
Den massa has ’bout a thousand sheep and he gits de wool, and de niggers cards
and spins and weaves it, and dat makes all de clothes. Den massa have cattle
and sich purvide de milk and de butter and beef meat for eatin’. Den massa
have de turkeys and chickens and de hawgs and de bees. With all that, us never
was hongry.

“De plantation am planted in cotton, mostly, with de corn and de
wheat a little, ’cause massa don’t need much of dem. He never sell nothin’
but de cotton.[Pg 15]

“De livin’ for de cullud folks am good. De quarters am built from logs
like deys all in dem days. De floor am de dirt but we has de benches and
what is made on de place. And we has de big fireplace for to cook and we
has plenty to cook in dat fireplace, ’cause massa allus ‘lows plenty good
rations, but he watch close for de wastin’ of de food.

“De war breaks and dat make de big change on de massas place. He
jines de army and hires a man call’ Delbridge for overseer. After dat, de
hell start to pop, ’cause de first thing Delbridge do is cut de rations.
He weighs out de meat, three pound for de week, and he measure a peck of
meal. And ‘twarn’t enough. He half starve us niggers and he want mo’ work
and he start de whippin’s. I guesses he starts to edumacate ’em. I guess
dat Delbridge go to hell when he died, but I don’t see how de debbil could
stand him.

“We’uns am not use’ to sich and some runs off. When dey am cotched
there am a whippin’ at de stake. But dat Delbridge, he sold me to Massa
House, in Blanco County. I’s sho’ glad when I’s sold, but it am short gladness,
’cause here am another man what hell am too good for. He gives me
de whippin’ and de scars am still on my arms and my back, too. I’ll carry
dem to my grave. He sends me for firewood and when I gits it loaded, de wheel
hits a stump and de team jerks and dat breaks de whippletree. So he ties me
to de stake and every half hour for four hours, dey lays ta lashes on my back.
For de first couple hours de pain am awful. I’s never forgot it. Den I’s
stood so much pain I not feel so much and when dey takes me loose, I’s jus’
’bout half dead. I lays in de bunk two days, gittin’ over dat whippin’, gittin’
over it in de body but not de heart. No, suh, I has dat in de heart till dis
day.[Pg 16]

“After dat whippin’ I doesn’t have de heart to work for de massa.
If I seed de cattle in de cornfield, I turns de back, ‘stead of chasin’
’em out. I guess dat de reason de massa sold me to his brother, Massa
John. And he am good like my first massa, he never whipped me.

“Den surrender am ‘nounced and massa tells us we’s free. When dat
takes place, it am ’bout one hour by sun. I says to myself, ‘I won’t be
here long.’ But I’s not realise what I’s in for till after I’s started,
but I couldn’t turn back. For dat means de whippin’ or danger from de
patter rollers. Dere I was and I kep’ on gwine. No nigger am sposed to
be off de massa’s place without de pass, so I travels at night and hides
durin’ de daylight. I stays in de bresh and gits water from de creeks,
but not much to eat. Twice I’s sho’ dem patter rollers am passin’ while
I’s hidin’.

“I’s 21 year old den, but it am de first time I’s gone any place,
‘cept to de neighbors, so I’s worried ’bout de right way to Massa Haley’s
place. But de mornin’ of de third day I comes to he place and I’s so hongry
and tired and scairt for fear Massa Haley not home from de army yit. So I
finds my pappy and he hides me in he cabin till a week and den luck comes to
me when Massa Haley come home. He come at night and de next mornin’ dat Delbridge
am shunt off de place, ’cause Massa Haley seed he niggers was all gaunt
and lots am ran off and de fields am not plowed right, and only half de sheep
and everything left. So massa say to dat Delbridge, ‘Dere am no words can
‘splain what yous done. Git off my place ‘fore I smashes you.’

“Den I kin come out from my pappy’s cabin and de old massa was glad
to see me, and he let me stay till freedom am ordered. Dat’s de happies’
time in my life, when I gits back to Massa Haley.[Pg 17]

Dibble, Fred, P.W., Beehler, Rheba, P.W.,
Beaumont, Jefferson, Dist. #3.

“Mos’ folks call me Wash Anderson, but dey uster
call me George. My whole name’ George Washington Anderson.
I was bo’n in Charleston, Sou’f Ca’lina in 1855. Bill Anderson
was my ol’ marster. Dey was two boy’ and two gal’
in his family. We all lef’ Charleston and come to Orange,
Texas, befo’ freedom come. I was fo’ year’ ol’ when dey
mek dat trip.”

“I don’ ‘member nuttin’ ’bout Charleston. You see
where I was bo’n was ’bout two mile’ from de city. I went
back one time in 1917, but I didn’ stay dere long.”

“My pa was Irvin’ Anderson and my mommer was name’
Eliza. Ol’ marster was pretty rough on his niggers. Dey[Pg 18]
tell me he had my gran’daddy beat to death. Dey never
did beat me.”

“Dey made de trip from Charleston ‘cross de country
and settle’ in Duncan’s Wood’ down here in Orange county.
Dey had a big plantation dere. I dunno if ol’ marster
had money back in Charleston, but I t’ink he must have. He
had ’bout 25 or 30 slaves on de place.”

“Ol’ man Anderson he had a big two-story house. It
was buil’ out of logs but it was a big fine house. De
slaves jis’ had little log huts. Dere warn’t no flo’s to
’em, nuthin’ but de groun’. Dem little huts jis’ had one
room in ’em. Dey was one family to de house, ‘cep’n’ sometime
dey put two or t’ree family’ to a house. Dey jis’
herd de slaves in dere like a bunch of pigs.”

“Dey uster raise cotton, and co’n, and sugar cane, and
sich like, but dey didn’ uster raise no rice. Dey uster
sen’ stuff to Terry on a railroad to sen’ it to market.
Sometime dey hitch up dey teams and sen’ it to Orange and
Beaumont in wagons. De ol’ marster he had a boat, too, and
sometime he sen’ a boatload of his stuff to Beaumont.”

“My work was to drive de surrey for de family and look
atter de hosses and de harness and sich. I jis’ have de
bes’ hosses on de place to see atter.”[Pg 19]

“I saw lots of sojers durin’ de war. I see ’em
marchin’ by, goin’ to Sabine Pass ’bout de time of dat
battle.”

“Back in slavery time dey uster have a white preacher
to come ‘roun’ and preach to de cullud folks. But
I don’t ‘member much ’bout de songs what dey uster sing.”

“I play ‘roun’ right smart when I was little. Dey
uster have lots of fun playin’ ‘hide and seek,’ and ‘hide
de switch.’ We uster ride stick hosses and play ‘roun’
at all dem t’ings what chillun play at.”

“Dey had plenty of hosses and mules and cows on de
ol’ plantation. I had to look atter some of de hosses,
but dem what I hatter look atter was s’pose to be de bes’
hosses in de bunch. Like I say, I drive de surrey and
dey allus have de bes’ hosses to pull dat surrey. Dey had
a log stable. Dey kep’ de harness in dere, too. Eb’ryt’ing
what de stock eat dey raise on de plantation, all
de co’n and fodder and sich like.”

“Atter freedom come I went ‘roun’ doin’ dif’rent kind
of work. I uster work on steamboats, and on de railroad
and at sawmillin’. I was a sawyer for a long, long time.
I work ‘roun’ in Lou’sana and Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as[Pg 20]
well as in Texas. When I wasn’t doin’ dem kinds of work,
I uster work ‘roun’ at anyt’ing what come to han’. I
‘member one time I was workin’ for de Burr Lumber Company
at Fort Townsend up dere in Arkansas.”

“When I was ’bout 36 year’ ol’ I git marry. I been
married twice. My fus’ wife was name’ Hannah and Reverend
George Childress was de preacher dat marry us. He
was a cullud preacher. Atter Hannah been dead some time
I marry my secon’ wife. Her name was Tempie Perkins.
Later on, us sep’rate. Us sep’rate on ‘count of money
matters.”

“I b’longs to de Baptis’ Chu’ch. Sometime’ de preacher
come ‘roun’ and see me. He was here a few days ago
dis week.”[Pg 21]

“UNCLE WILLIS ANDERSON”

REFERENCES

A. Coronado’s Children—J. Frank Dobie,
Pub. 1929, Austin, Tex.

B. Leon County News—Centerville, Texas—Thursday
May 21, 1936.

C. Consultant—Uncle Willis Anderson,
resident of Centerville, Tex,
born April 15, 1844.

An interesting character at Centerville, Texas, is “Uncle Willis”
Anderson, an ex-slave, born April 15, 1844, 6 miles west of Centerville on the
old McDaniels plantation near what is now known as Hopewell Settlement. It
is generally said that “Uncle Willis” is one of the oldest living citizens in
the County, black or white. He is referred to generally for information concerning
days gone by and for the history of that County, especially in the immediate
vicinity of Centerville.

“Uncle Willis” is an interesting figure. He may be found sitting
on the porches of the stores facing Federal Highway No. 75, nodding or conversing
with small groups of white or colored people that gather around him
telling of the days gone by. He also likes to watch the busses and automobiles
that pass through the small town musing and commenting on the swiftness of things
today. Uncle Willis still cultivates a small patch five miles out from the town.

“Uncle Willis” is a tall dark, brown-skinned man having a large
head covered with mixed gray wooly hair. He has lost very few teeth considering
his age. When sitting on the porches of the stores the soles of his farm-shoes[Pg 22]
may be seen tied together with pieces of wire. He supports himself with a
cane made from the Elm tree. At present he wears a tall white Texas Centennial
hat which makes him appear more unique than ever.

“Uncle Willis'” memory is vivid. He is familiar with the older figures
in the history of the County. He tells tales of having travelled by
oxen to West Texas for flour and being gone for six months at a time. He remembers
the Keechi and the Kickapoo Indians and also claims that he can point
out a tree where the Americans hung an Indian Chief. He says that he has
plowed up arrows, pots and flints on the Reubens Bains place and on the McDaniel
farms. He can tell of the early lawlessness in the County. His face
lights up when he recalls how the Yankee soldiers came through Centerville
telling the slave owners to free their slaves. He also talks very low when
he mentions the name of Jeff Davis because he says, “Wha’ man eavesdrops
the niggers houses in slavery time and if yer’ sed’ that Jeff Davis was a good
man, they barbecued a hog for you, but if yer’ sed’ that Abe Lincoln was a
good man, yer’ had to fight or go to the woods.”

Among the most interesting tales told by “Uncle Willis” is the
tale of the “Lead mine.” “Uncle Willis” says that some where along Boggy
Creek near a large hickory tree and a red oak tree, near Patrick’s Lake, he
and his master, Auss McDaniels, would dig lead out of the ground which they
used to make pistol and rifle balls for the old Mississippi rifles during
slavery time. Uncle Willis claims that they would dig slags of lead out of the
ground some 12 and 15 inches long, and others as large as a man’s fist. They
would carry this ore back to the big house and melt it down to get the trash
out of it, then they would pour it into molds and make rifle balls and pistol[Pg 23]
balls from it. In this way they kept plenty of amunition on hand. In recent
years the land has changed ownership, and the present owners live in Dallas.
Learning of the tale of the “lead mine” on their property they went to
Centerville in an attempt to locate it and were referred to “Uncle Willis.”
Uncle Willis says they offered him two hundred dollars if he could locate
the mine. Being so sure that he knew its exact location, said that the $200
was his meat. However, Uncle Willis was unable to locate the spot where they
dug the lead and the mine remains a mystery.[C]

Recently a group of citizens of Leon County including W.D. Lacey,
Joe McDaniel, Debbs Brown, W.H. Hill and Judge Lacey cross questioned Uncle
Willis about the lead mine. Judge Lacey did the questioning while them others
formed an audience. The conversation went as follows:

“Which way would you go when you went to the mine?” Judge Lacey
asked.

“Out tow’hd Normangee.”

“How long would it take you to get there?”

“Two or three hours.”

“Was it on a creek?”

“Yessuh.”

“But you cant go to it now?”

“Nosuh, I just can’t recollect exactly where ’tis.[B]

J. Frank Dobie mentions many tales of lost lead mines throughout Texas
in Coronado’s Children, a publication of the Texas Folk-Lore Society.[Pg 24]
Lead in the early days of the Republic and the State was very valuable,
as it was the source of protection from the Indians and also the means of supplying
food.[A][Pg 25]

Mary Armstrong

“I’s Aunt Mary, all right, but you all has to ‘scuse me if I
don’t talk so good, ’cause I’s been feelin’ poorly for a spell and I
ain’t so young no more. Law me, when I think back what I used to do,
and now it’s all I can do to hobble ’round a little. Why, Miss Olivia,
my mistress, used to put a glass plumb full of water on my head and
then have me waltz ’round the room, and I’d dance so smoothlike, I
don’t spill nary drap.

“That was in St. Louis, where I’s born. You see, my mamma belong
to old William Cleveland and old Polly Cleveland, and they was the meanest
two white folks what ever lived, ’cause they was allus beatin’ on
their slaves. I know, ’cause mamma told me, and I hears about it other
places, and besides, old Polly, she was a Polly devil if there ever was
one, and she whipped my little sister what was only nine months old and
jes’ a baby to death. She come and took the diaper offen my little sister
and whipped till the blood jes’ ran—jes’ ’cause she cry like all
babies do, and it kilt my sister. I never forgot that, but I sot some
even with that old Polly devil and it’s this-a-way.[Pg 26]

“You see, I’s ’bout 10 year old and I belongs to Miss Olivia,
what was that old Polly’s daughter, and one day old Polly devil comes
to where Miss Olivia lives after she marries, and trys to give me a
lick out in the yard, and I picks up a rock ’bout as big as half your
fist and hits her right in the eye and busted the eyeball, and tells
her that’s for whippin’ my baby sister to death. You could hear her
holler for five miles, but Miss Olivia, when I tells her, says, ‘Well,
I guess mamma has larnt her lesson at last.’ But that old Polly was
mean like her husban’, old Cleveland, till she die, and I hopes they
is burnin’ in torment now.

“I don’t ‘member ’bout the start of things so much, ‘cept what
Miss Olivia and my mamma, her name was Siby, tells me. Course, it’s
powerful cold in winter times and the farms was lots different from down
here. They calls ’em plantations down here but up at St. Louis they was
jes’ called farms, and that’s what they was, ’cause we raises wheat and
barley and rye and oats and corn and fruit.

“The houses was builded with brick and heavy wood, too, ’cause
it’s cold up there, and we has to wear the warm clothes and they’s wove
on the place, and we works at it in the evenin’s.

“Old Cleveland takes a lot of his slaves what was in ‘custom’
and brings ’em to Texas to sell. You know, he wasn’t sposed to do that,
’cause when you’s in ‘custom’, that’s ’cause he borrowed money on you,
and you’s not sposed to leave the place till he paid up. Course, old
Cleveland jes’ tells the one he owed the money to, you had run off, or
squirmed out some way, he was that mean.[Pg 27]

“Mamma say she was in one bunch and me in ‘nother. Mamma had been
put ‘fore this with my papa, Sam Adams, but that makes no diff’rence to Old
Cleveland. He’s so mean he never would sell the man and woman and chillen to
the same one. He’d sell the man here and the woman there and if they’s chillen,
he’d sell them some place else. Oh, old Satan in torment couldn’t be no meaner
than what he and Old Polly was to they slaves. He’d chain a nigger up to
whip ’em and rub salt and pepper on him, like he said, ‘to season him up.’
And when he’d sell a slave, he’d grease their mouth all up to make it look
like they’d been fed good and was strong and healthy.

“Well mamma say they hadn’t no more’n got to Shreveport ‘fore some
law man cotch old Cleveland and takes ’em all back to St. Louis. Then my
little sister’s born, the one old Polly devil kilt, and I’s ’bout four year
old then.

“Miss Olivia takes a likin’ to me and, though her papa and mama
so mean, she’s kind to everyone, and they jes’ love her. She marries to Mr.
Will Adams what was a fine man, and has ’bout five farms and 500 slaves, and he
buys me for her from old Cleveland and pays him $2,500.00, and gives him George
Henry, a nigger, to boot. Lawsy, I’s sho’ happy to be with Miss Olivia and
away from old Cleveland and Old Polly, ’cause they kilt my little sister.

“We lives in St. Louis, on Chinquapin Hill, and I’s housegirl, and
when the babies starts to come I nusses ’em and spins thread for clothes on
the loom. I spins six cuts of thread a week, but I has plenty of time for myself
and that’s where I larns to dance so good. Law, I sho’ jes’ crazy ’bout
dancin’. If I’s settin’ eatin’ my victuals and hears a fiddle play, I gets up
and dances.[Pg 28]

“Mr. Will and Miss Olivia sho’ is good to me, and I never calls
Mr. Will ‘massa’ neither, but when they’s company I calls him Mr. Will and
’round the house by ourselves I calls them ‘pappy’ and ‘mammy’, ’cause they
raises me up from the little girl. I hears old Cleveland done took my mamma
to Texas ‘gain but I couldn’t do nothin’, ’cause Miss Olivia wouldn’t have
much truck with her folks. Once in a while old Polly comes over, but Miss
Olivia tells her not to touch me or the others. Old Polly trys to buy me
back from Miss Olivia, and if they had they’d kilt me sho’. But Miss Olivia
say, ‘I’d wade in blood as deep as Hell ‘fore I’d let you have Mary.’ That’s
jes’ the very words she told ’em.

“Then I hears my papa is sold some place I don’t know where. ‘Course,
I didn’t know him so well, jes’ what mamma done told me, so that didn’t worry
me like mamma being took so far away.

“One day Mr. Will say, ‘Mary, you want to go to the river and see
the boat race?’ Law me, I never won’t forget that. Where we live it ain’t far
to the Miss’sippi River and pretty soon here they comes, the Natchez and the
Eclipse, with smoke and fire jes’ pourin’ out of they smokestacks. That old
captain on the ‘Clipse starts puttin’ in bacon meat in the boiler and the
grease jes’ comes out a-blazin’ and it beat the Natchez to pieces.

“I stays with Miss Olivia till ’63 when Mr. Will set us all free. I was
’bout 17 year old then or more. I say I goin’ find my mamma. Mr. Will fixes
me up two papers, one ’bout a yard long and the other some smaller, but both
has big, gold seals what he says is the seal of the State of Missouri. He
gives me money and buys my fare ticket to Texas and tells me they is still[Pg 29]
slave times down here and to put the papers in my bosom but to do whatever the
white folks tells me, even if they wants to sell me. But he say, ‘Fore you gets
off the block, jes’ pull out the papers, but jes’ hold ’em up to let folks see and
don’t let ’em out of your hands, and when they sees them they has to let you alone.’

“Miss Olivia cry and carry on and say be careful of myself ’cause it sho’
rough in Texas. She give me a big basket what had so much to eat in it I couldn’t
hardly heft it and ‘nother with clothes in it. They puts me in the back end a
the boat where the big, old wheel what run the boat was and I goes to New Orleans,
and the captain puts me on ‘nother boat and I comes to Galveston, and that captain
puts me on ‘nother boat and I comes up this here Buffalo Bayou to Houston.

“I looks ’round Houston, but not long. It sho’ was a dumpy little place
then and I gets the stagecoach to Austin. It takes us two days to get there and I
thinks my back busted sho’ ‘nough, it was sich rough ridin’. Then I has trouble
sho’. A man asks me where I goin’ and says to come ‘long and he takes me to a
Mr. Charley Crosby. They takes me to the block what they sells slaves on. I
gets right up like they tells me, ’cause I ‘lects what Mr. Will done told me to
do, and they starts biddin’ on me. And when they cried off and this Mr. Crosby
comes up to get me, I jes’ pulled out my papers and helt ’em up high and when he
sees ’em, he say, ‘Let me see them.’ But I says, ‘You jes’ look at it up here,’
and he squints up and say, ‘This gal am free and has papers,’ and tells me he
a legislature man and takes me and lets me stay with his slaves. He is a good
man.

“He tells me there’s a slave refugee camp in Wharton County but I
didn’t have no money left, but he pays me some for workin’ and when the war’s
over I starts to hunt mamma ‘gain, and finds her in Wharton County near where
Wharton is. Law me, talk ’bout cryin’ and singin’ and cryin’ some more, we
sure done it. I stays with mamma till I gets married in 1871 to John Armstrong,[Pg 30]
and then we all comes to Houston.

“I gets me a job nussin’ for Dr. Rellaford and was all through
the yellow fever epidemic. I ‘lects in ’75 people die jes’ like sheep
with the rots. I’s seen folks with the fever jump from their bed with
death on ’em and grab other folks. The doctor saved lots of folks,
white and black, ’cause he sweat it out of ’em. He mixed up hot water
and vinegar and mustard and some else in it.

“But, law me, so much is gone out of my mind, ’cause I’s 91
year old now and my mind jes’ like my legs, jes’ kinda hobble ’round
a bit.[Pg 31]

Sterlin Arnwine

“I was bo’n ‘fore de war, in 1853, right near this here
town, on Gum Creek. My mammy belonged to Massa Albertus Arnwine,
and he wasn’ ever married. He owned four women, my mammy, Ann, my
grandmother, Gracie, and my Aunt Winnie and Aunt Mary. He didn’
own any nigger men, ‘cept the chillen of these women. Grandma
lived in de house with Massa Arnwine and the rest of us lived in
cabins in de ya’d. My mammy come from Memphis but I don’ know
whar my pappy come from. He was Ike Lane. I has three half brothers,
and their names is Joe and Will and John Schot, and two sisters
called Polly and Rosie.

“Massa Arnwine died ‘fore de war and he made a will and
it gave all he owned to the women he owned, and Jedge Jowell promised
massa on his deathbed he would take us to de free country, but he
didn’. He took us to his place to work for him for ’bout two years
and the women never did get that 900 acres of land Massa Arnwine willed
to’em. I don’ know who got it, but they didn’. I knows I still has a
share in that land, but it takes money to git it in cou’t.

“When war broke I fell into the han’s of Massa John Moseley
at Rusk. They brought the dogs to roun’ us up from the fiel’s whar we
was workin’. I was the only one of my fam’ly to go to Massa John.[Pg 32]

“I never did wo’k in the fiel’s at Massa John’s place. He said
I mus’ be his houseboy and houseboy I was. Massa was sho’ good to me
and I did love to be with him and follow him ‘roun’.

“The kitchen was out in de ya’d and I had to carry the victuals
to the big dinin’-room. When dinner was over, Massa John tuk a nap and
I had to fan him, and Lawsy me, I’d git so sleepy. I kin hear him now,
for he’d wake up and say, ‘Go get me a drink outta the northeast corner
of de well.’

“We had straw and grass beds, we put it in sacks on de groun’ and
slep’ on de sacks. I don’ ‘member how much land Massa John had but it
was a big place and he had lots of slaves. We chillun had supper early
in de evenin’ and mostly cornbread and hawg meat and milk. We all ate
from a big pot. I larned to spin and weave and knit and made lots of
socks.

“Massa John had two step-daughters, Miss Mollie and Miss Laura,
and they wen’ to school at Rusk. It was my job to take ’em thar ev’ry
Monday mornin’ on horses and go back after ’em Friday afternoon.

“I never earnt no money ‘fore freedom come, but once my brother-in-law
give me five dollars. I was so proud of it I showed it to de
ladies and one of ’em said, ‘You don’ need dat,’ and she give me two
sticks of candy and tuk de money. But I didn’ know any better then.

“I seed slaves for sale on de auction block. They sol’ ’em
‘cordin’ to strengt’ and muscles. They was stripped to de wais’.
I seed the women and little chillun cryin’ and beggin’ not to be separated,
but it didn’ do no good. They had to go.[Pg 33]

“The only chu’ch I knowed ’bout was when we’d git together in de
night and have prayer meetin’ and singin.’ We use’ to go way out in de
woods so de white folks wouldn’ hear nothin’. Sometimes we’d stay nearly
all night on Saturday, ’cause we didn’ have to work Sunday.

“‘Bout the only thing we could play was stick hosses. I made
miles and miles on the stick hosses. After the War Massa John have
his chillun a big roll of Confederate money and they give us some of it
to trade and buy stick hosses with.

“When Massa John tol’ us we was free, he didn’ seem to min’, but
Miss Em, she bawled and squalled, say her prop’ty taken ‘way from her.
After dat, my mammy gathers us togedder and tuk us to the Dr. Middleton
place, out from Jacksonville. From thar to de Ragsdale place whar I’s
been ever since.

“I wore my first pants when I was fourteen years ole, and they stung
’till I was mis’ble. The cloth was store bought but mammy made the pants
at home. It was what we called dog-hair cloth. Mammy made my first shoes,
we called ’em ‘red rippers’.[Pg 34]

Sarah Ashley

“I ain’t able to do nothin’ no more. I’s jus’ plumb give
out and I stays here by myself. My daughter, Georgia Grime, she
used to live with me but she’s been dead four year.

“I was born in Miss’ippi and Massa Henry Thomas buy us
and bring us here. He a spec’lator and buys up lots of niggers
and sells ’em. Us family was sep’rated. My two sisters and my
papa was sold to a man in Georgia. Den dey put me on a block and
bid me off. Dat in New Orleans and I scairt and cry, but dey put
me up dere anyway. First dey takes me to Georgia and dey didn’t
sell me for a long spell. Massa Thomas he travel round and buy and
sell niggers. Us stay in de spec’lators drove de long time.

“After ‘while Massa Mose Davis come from Cold Spring, in
Texas, and buys us. He was buyin’ up little chillen for he chillen.
Dat ’bout four year befo’ da first war. I was 19 year old when de
burst of freedom come in June and I git turn loose.

“I was workin’ in de field den. Jus’ befo’ dat de old Massa
he go off and buy more niggers. He go east. He on a boat what git stove
up and he die and never come back no more. Us never see him no more.[Pg 35]

“I used to have to pick cotton and sometime I pick 300 pound
and tote it a mile to de cotton house. Some pick 300 to 800 pound
cotton and have to tote de bag de whole mile to de gin. Iffen dey
didn’t do dey work dey git whip till dey have blister on ’em. Den
iffen dey didn’t do it, de man on a hoss goes down de rows and whip
with a paddle make with holes in it and bus’ de blisters. I never
git whip, ’cause I allus git my 300 pound. Us have to go early to do
dat, when de horn goes early, befo’ daylight. Us have to take de
victuals in de bucket to de field.

“Massa have de log house and us live in little houses,
strowed in long rows. Dere wasn’t no meetin’s ‘lowed in de quarters
and iffen dey have prayer meetin’ de boss man whip dem. Sometime us
run off at night and go to camp meetin’. I takes de white chillen
to church sometime, but dey couldn’t larn me to sing no songs ’cause
I didn’ have no spirit.

“Us never got ‘nough to eat, so us keeps stealin’ stuff.
Us has to. Dey give us de peck of meal to last de week and two, three
pound bacon in chunk. Us never have flour or sugar, jus’ cornmeal and
de meat and ‘taters. De niggers has de big box under de fireplace, where
dey kep’ all de pig and chickens what dey steal, down in salt.

“I seed a man run away and de white men got de dogs and dey
kotch him and put him in de front room and he jump through de big window
and break de glass all up. Dey sho’ whips him when dey kotches him.

“De way dey whip de niggers was to strip ’em off naked and whip
’em till dey make blisters and bus’ de blisters. Den dey take de salt[Pg 36]
and red pepper and put in de wounds. After dey wash and grease dem and put
somethin’ on dem, to keep dem from bleed to death.

“When de boss man told us freedom was come he didn’t like it, but
he give all us de bale of cotton and some corn. He ask us to stay and he’p
with de crop but we’uns so glad to git ‘way dat nobody stays. I got ’bout
fifty dollars for de cotton and den I lends it to a nigger what never pays
me back yit. Den I got no place to go, so I cooks for a white man name’
Dick Cole. He sposen give me $5.00 de month but he never paid me no money.
He’d give me eats and clothes, ’cause he has de little store.

“Now, I’s all alone and thinks of dem old times what was so bad,
and I’s ready for de Lawd to call me.”[Pg 37]

“Old Marse was Ogis Guidry. Old Miss was Laurentine. Dey had
four chillen, Placid, Alphonse and Mary and Alexandrine, and live in a
big, one-story house with a gallery and brick pillars. Dey had a big
place. I ‘spect a mile ‘cross it, and fifty slaves.

“My mama name was Clarice Richard. She come from South Carolina.
Papa was Dick Richard. He come from North Carolina. He was slave of old
Placid Guilbeau. He live near Old Marse. My brothers was Joe and Nicholas
and Oui and Albert and Maurice, and sisters was Maud and Celestine and
Pauline.

“Us slaves lived in shabby houses. Dey builded of logs and have dirt
floor. We have a four foot bench. We pull it to a table and set on it.
De bed a platform with planks and moss.

“We had Sunday off. Christmas was off, too. Dey give us chicken and
flour den. But most holidays de white folks has company. Dat mean more work
for us.

“Old Marse bad. He beat us till we bleed. He rub salt and pepper
in. One time I sweep de yard. Young miss come home from college. She slap
my face. She want to beat me. Mama say to beat her, so dey did. She took
de beatin’ for me.

“My aunt run off ’cause dey beat her so much. Dey brung her back and
beat her some more.[Pg 38]

“We have dance outdoors sometime. Somebody play fiddle and banjo.
We dance de reel and quadrille and buck dance. De men dance dat. If we go
to dance on ‘nother plantation we have to have pass. De patterrollers come
and make us show de slip. If dey ain’t no slip, we git beat.

“I see plenty sojers. Dey fight at Pines and we hear ball go ‘zing—zing.’
Young marse have blue coat. He put it on and climb a tree to see. De sojers
come and think he a Yankee. Dey take his gun. Dey turn him loose when dey
find out he ain’t no Yankee.

“When de real Yankees come dey take corn and gooses and hosses. Dey
don’t ask for nothin’. Dey take what dey wants.

“Some masters have chillen by slaves. Some sold dere own chillen.
Some sot dem free.

“When freedom come we have to sign up to work for money for a year.
We couldn’t go work for nobody else. After de year some stays, but not long.

“De Ku Klux kill niggers. Dey come to take my uncle. He open de door.
Dey don’t take him but tell him to vote Democrat next day or dey will. Dey
kilt some niggers what wouldn’t vote Democrat.

“Dey kill my old uncle Davis. He won’t vote Democrat. Dey shoot him. Den
dey stand him up and let him fall down. Dey tie him by de feet. Dey drag him
through de bresh. Dey dare his wife to cry.

“When I thirty I marry Tesisfor Babino. Pere Abadie marry us at Grand
Coteau. We have dinner with wine. Den come big dance. We have twelve chillen.
We works in de field in Opelousas. We come here twenty-five year ago. He die
in 1917. Dey let’s me live here. It nice to be near de church. I can go to
prayers when I wants to.[Pg 39]

“My marster and mistress was good to all de slaves dat
worked for dem. But our over-seer, Jimmy Shearer, was sho’
mean. One day he done git mad at me for some little somethin’
and when I take de ashes to de garden he catches me
and churns me up and down on de groun’. One day he got mad[Pg 40]
at my brother and kicked him end over end, jes’ like a stick
of wood. He would whip us ’til we was raw and then put pepper
and salt in de sores. If he thought we was too slow in
doin’ anything he would kick us off de groun’ and churn us
up and down. Our punishment depended on de mood of de over-seer.
I never did see no slaves sold. When we was sick dey
give us medicine out of drug stores. De over-seer would git
some coarse cotton cloth to make our work clothes out of and
den he would make dem so narrow we couldn’ hardly’ walk.

“There was 1800 acres in Marster Slade’s plantation, we
got up at 5:00 o’clock in de mornin’ and de field workers would
quit after sun-down. We didn’ have no jails for slaves. We
went to church with de white folks and there was a place in de
back of de church for us to sit.

“I was jes’ a child den and us chilluns would gather in
de back yard and sing songs and play games and dance jigs.
Song I ‘member most is ‘The Day is Past and Gone.’

“One time marster found out the over-seer was so mean to
me, so he discharged him and released me from duty for awhile.

“We never did wear shoes through de week but on Sunday we
would dress up in our white cotton dresses and put on shoes.

“We wasn’t taught to read or write. Our owner didn’t
think anything about it. We had to work if there was work to be
done. When we got caught up den we could have time off. If any
of us got sick our mistress would ‘tend to us herself. If she
thought we was sick enough she would call de white doctor.

“When de marster done told us we was free we jumped up and[Pg 41]
down and slapped our hands and shouted ‘Glory to God!’ Lord,
child dat was one happy bunch of niggers. Awhile after dat
some of de slaves told marster dey wanted to stay on with him
like dey had been but he told ’em no dey couldn’t, ’cause dey
was free. He said he could use some of ’em but dey would have
to buy what dey got and he would have to pay ’em like men.

“When I was ’bout 18 years old I married John Barclay.
I’s had ten chillun and four gran’-chillun and now I lives by
myself.”[Pg 42]

[Pg 43]

“I was born a slave. I’m a Malagasser (Madagascar) nigger.
I ‘member all ’bout dem times, even up in Ohio, though de Barkers
brought me to Texas later on. My mother and father was call Goodman,
but dey died when I was little and Missy Barker raised me
on de plantation down near Houston. Dey was plenty of work and
plenty of room.

“I ‘member my grandma and grandpa. In dem days de horned
toads runs over de world and my grandpa would gather ’em and lay
’em in de fireplace till dey dried and roll ’em with bottles till
dey like ashes and den rub it on de shoe bottoms. You see, when dey
wants to run away, dat stuff don’t stick all on de shoes, it stick to
de track. Den dey carries some of dat powder and throws it as far as
dey could jump and den jump over it, and do dat again till dey use all
de powder. Dat throwed de common hounds off de trail altogether. But
dey have de bloodhounds, hell hounds, we calls ’em, and dey could pick
up dat trail. Dey run my grandpa over 100 mile and three or four days
and nights and found him under a bridge. What dey put on him was
enough! I seen ’em whip runaway niggers till de blood run down dere
backs and den put salt in de places.

“I ‘spect dere was ’bout 40 or 50 acres in de plantation. Dey
worked and worked and didn’t have no dances or church. Dances nothin![Pg 44]

“My massa and missus house was nice, but it was a log house.
They had big fireplaces what took great big chunks of wood and kep’ fire
all night. We lives in de back in a little bitty house like a chicken
house. We makes beds out of posts and slats across ’em and fills tow
sacks with shucks in ’em for mattress and pillows.

“I seed slaves sold and they was yoked like steers and sold by
pairs sometimes. Dey wasn’t ‘lowed to marry, ’cause they could be sold
and it wasn’t no use, but you could live with ’em.

“We used to eat possums and dese old-fashioned coons and ducks.
Sometimes we’d eat goats, too. We has plenty cornmeal and ‘lasses and
we gets milk sometimes, but we has no fine food, ‘cept on Christmas, we
gits some cake, maybe.

“My grandma says one day dat we all is free, but we stayed
with Massa Barker quite a while. Dey pays us for workin’ but it ain’t
much pay, ’cause de war done took dere money and all. But they was good
to us, so we stayed.

“I was ’bout 20 when I marries de fust time. It was a big blow-out
and I was scared de whole time. First time I ever tackled marryin’.
Dey had a big paper sack of rice and throwed it all over her and I, enough
rice to last three or four days, throwed away jus’ for nothin’. I had on
a black, alpaca suit with frock tail coat and, if I ain’t mistaken, a right
white shirt. My wife have a great train on her dress and one dem things
you call a wreath. I wore de loudest shoes we could find, what you call
patent leather.

“Dis here my third wife. We marries in Eagle Pass and comes up
to de Seminole Reservation and works for de army till we goes to work for[Pg 45]
de Pattersons, and we been here 23 years now.

“Ghosties? I was takin’ care of a white man when he died and
I seed something ’bout three feet high and black. I reckon I must have
fainted ’cause they has de doctor for me. And on dark nights I seed
ghosties what has no head. Dey looks like dey wild and dey is all in different
performance. When I goin’ down de road and feel a hot steam and look
over my shoulder I can see ’em plain as you standin’ dere. I seed ’em when
my wife was with me, but she can’t see ’em, ’cause some people ain’t gifted
to see ’em.[Pg 46]

“Dey calls me Paul Barnes, but my name ain’t Paul, it am Joe.
My massa was Jim Sapp, up here in Tyler County, and missus’ name was
Ann. De Sapp place was big and dey raise’ a sight of cotton and corn.
Old massa Jim he have ’bout 25 or 30 slaves.

“My mammy’s name was Artimisi, but dey call her Emily, and
pa’s name Jerry Wooten, ’cause he live on de Wooten place. My steppa
named Barnes and I taken dat name. My parents, dey have de broomstick
weddin’.

“When I’s a chile us play marbles and run rabbits and ride
de stick hoss and de like. When I gits more bigger, us play ball, sort
of like baseball. One time my brudder go git de hosses and dey lots
of rain and de creek swoll up high. De water so fast it wash him off he
hoss and I ain’t seed him since. Dey never find de body. He’s ’bout
ten year old den.

“Massa live in de big box house and de quarters am in a row
in de back. Some of dem box and some of dem log. Dey have two rooms.
Every day de big, old cowhorn blow for dinner and us have de little tin
cup what us git potlicker in and meat and cornbread and salt bacon. Us
gits greens, too. De chimneys ’bout four feet wide and dey cooks everything
in de fireplace. Dey have pots and ovens and put fire below and
‘bove ’em.[Pg 47]

“I used to wear what I calls a one-button cutaway. It was jis’
a shirt make out of homespun with pleats down front. Dey make dey own
cloth dem time.

“Massa marry de folks in de broomstick style. Us don’ have de
party but sometime us sing and play games, like de round dance.

“Dey give de little ones bacon to suck and tie de string to de
bacon and de other round dey wrists, so dey won’t swallow or lose de
bacon. For de little bits of ones dey rings de bell for dey mommers
to come from de field and nuss ’em.

“After freedom come us stay a year and den move to Beaumont
and us work in de sawmill for Mr. Jim Long. De fust money I git I give
to my mammy. Me and mammy and stepdaddy stays in Beaumont two years
den moves to Tyler and plants de crop. But de next year us move back
to Beaumont on de Langham place and mammy work for de Longs till she die.

“When I git marry I marry Dicey Allen and she die and I never
marry no more. I worked in sawmillin’ and on de log pond and allus gits
by pretty good. I ain’t done no work much de last ten year, I’s too old.

“I sort a looks after my grandchillen and I sho’ loves dem. I
sits ’round and hurts all de time. It am rheumatism in de feets, I reckon.
I got six grandchillen and three great-grandchillen and dat one you hears
cryin’, dat de baby I’s raisin’ in dere.

“I’s feared I didn’t tell you so much ’bout things way back, but
da truth am, I can’t ‘member like I used to.[Pg 48]

“I’s really owned by Massa Stafford Barrett, but my mammy ‘longed
to Massa Ben Walker and was ‘lowed to keep me with her. So after we’uns
got free, I lives with my daddy and mammy and goes by de name of Barrett.
Daddy’s name was Henry Barrett and he’s brung to Texas from Richmond, in
Virginny, and mammy come from Kentucky. Us all lived in Huntsville. I
waited on Miss Ann and mammy was cook.

“Old massa have doctor for us when us sick. We’s too val’ble. Jus’
like to de fat beef, massa am good to us. Massa go to other states and git
men and women and chile slaves and bring dem back to sell, ’cause he spec’lator.
He make dem wash up good and den sell dem.

“Mos’ time we’uns went naked. Jus’ have on one shirt or no shirt
a-tall.

“I know when peace ‘clared dey all shoutin’. One woman hollerin’ and
a white man with de high-steppin’ hoss ride clost to her and I see him git
out and open he knife and cut her wide ‘cross de stomach. Den he put he hat
inside he shirt and rid off like lightnin’. De woman put in wagon and I never
heered no more ’bout her.

“I didn’t git nothin’ when us freed. Only some cast-off clothes.
Long time after I rents de place on halves and farms most my life. Now I’s
too old to work and gits a pension to live on.[Pg 49]

“I seems to think us have more freedom when us slaves, ’cause we have
no ‘sponsibility for sickness den. We have to take care all dat now and
de white man, he beats de nigger out what he makes. Back in de old days,
de white men am hones’. All the nigger knowed was hard work. I think de
cullud folks ought to be ‘lowed more privileges in votin’ now, ’cause dey
have de same ‘sponsibility as white men and day more and more educated and
brighter and brighter.

“I think our young folks pretty sorry. They wont do right, but I
‘lieve iffen dey could git fair wages dey’d do better. Dey git beat out of
what dey does, anyway.

“I ‘member a owner had some slaves and de overseer had it in for
two of dem. He’d whip dem near every day and dey does all could be did to
please him. So one day he come to de field and calls one dem slaves and
dat slave draps he hoe and goes over and grabs dat overseer. Den de other
slave cut dat overseer’s head right slap off and throwed it down one of de
rows. De owner he fools ’round and sells dem two slaves for $800.00 each
and dat all de punishment dem two slaves ever got.[Pg 50]

“Massa Steve Glass, he own my pappy and mammy and me, until the
war freed us. Pappy’s borned in Africy and mammy in Virginy, and brung
to Texas ‘fore de war, and I’s borned in Texas in 1851. I’s heered my
grandpa was wild and dey didn’t know ’bout marryin’ in Africy. My
brother name Steve Glass and I dunno iffen I had sisters or not.

“Dey put me to cookin’ when I’s a li’l kid and people says now dat
Aunt Harriet am de bes’ cook in Madisonville. Massa have great big garden
and plenty to eat. I’s cook big skillet plumb full corn at de time and us
all have plenty meat. Massa, he step out and kill big deer and put in de
great big pot and cook it. Then us have cornbread and syrup.

“Us have log quarters with stick posts for bed and deerskin stretch
over it. Den us pull moss and throw over dat. I have de good massa, bless
he soul. Missy, she plumb good. She sick all de time and dey never have
white chillen. Dey live in big, log house, four rooms in it and de great
hall both ways through it.

“Massa, he have big bunch slaves and work dem long as dey could see
and den lock ’em up in de quarters at night to keep ’em from runnin’ off.
De patterrollers come and go through de quarters to see if all de niggers
dere. Dey walk right over us when us sleeps.

“Some slave run off, gwine to de north, and massa he cotch him and give
him thirty-nine licks with rawhide and lock dem up at night, too, and keep
chain on him in daytime.[Pg 51]

“I have de good massa, bless he soul, and missy she plumb good.
I’ll never forgit dem. Massa ‘low us have holiday Saturday night and
go to nigger dance if it on ‘nother plantation. Boy, oh boy, de tin
pan beatin’ and de banjo pickin’ and de dance all night long.

“When de war start, white missy die, and massa have de preacher.
She was white angel. Den massa marry Missy Alice Long and she de bad
woman with us niggers. She hard on us, not like old missy.

“I larned lots of remedies for sick people. Charcoal and onions
and honey for de li’l baby am good, and camphor for de chills and fever
and teeth cuttin’. I’s boil red oak bark and make tea for fever and make
cactus weed root tea for fever and chills and colic. De best remedy for
chills and fever am to git rabbit foot tie on string ’round de neck.

“Massa, he carry me to war with him, ’cause I’s de good cook. In
dat New Orleans battle he wounded and guns roarin’ everywhere. Dey brung
massa in and I’s jus’ as white as he am den. Dem Yankees done shoot de roof
off de house. I nuss de sick and wounded clean through de war and seed dem
dyin’ on every side of me.

“I’s most scared to death when de war end. Us still in New Orleans
and all de shoutin’ dat took place ’cause us free! Dey crowds on de streets
and was in a stir jus’ as thick as flies on de dog. Massa say I’s free as
him, but iffen I wants to cook for him and missy I gits $2.50 de month, so
I cooks for him till I marries Armstead Barrett, and then us farm for de
livin’. Us have big church weddin’ and I has white loyal dress and black
brogan shoes. Us been married 51 years now.[Pg 52]

“My pappy was Ike Bateman, ’cause his massa’s name am
Mock Bateman, and mammy’s name was Francis. They come from Tennessee
and I had four brothers and six sisters. We jes’ left de last part
of de name off and call it Bates and dat’s how I got my name. Mammy
‘longed to Massa Harry Hogan and while I’s small us move to Texas, to
Limestone County, and I don’t ‘member much ’bout pappy, ’cause I ain’t
never seed him since.

“Massa Hogan was a purty good sort of fellow, but us went
hongry de fust winter in Texas. He lived in de big log house with de
hallway clean through and a gallery clean ‘cross de front. De chimney
was big ‘nough to burn logs in and it sho’ throwed out de heat. It was
a good, big place and young massa come out early and holler for us to
git up and be in de field.

“Missy Hogan was de good woman and try her dead level best to
teach me to read and write, but my head jes’ too thick, I jes’ couldn’t
larn. My Uncle Ben he could read de Bible and he allus tell us some day
us be free and Massa Harry laugh, haw, haw, haw, and he say, ‘Hell, no,
yous never be free, yous ain’t got sense ‘nough to make de livin’ if yous
was free.’ Den he takes de Bible ‘way from Uncle Ben and say it put
de bad ideas in he head, but Uncle gits ‘nother Bible and hides it and
massa never finds it out.[Pg 53]

“We’uns goes to de big baptisin’ one time and it’s at de big
sawmill tank and 50 is baptise’ and I’s in dat bunch myself. But dey
didn’t have no funerals for de slaves, but jes’ bury dem like a cow or
a hoss, jes’ dig de hole and roll ’em in it and cover ’em up.

“War come and durin’ dem times jes’ like today nearly everybody
knows what gwine on, news travels purty fast, and iffen de slaves couldn’t
git it with de pass dey slips out after dark and go in another plantation
by de back way. Course, iffen dem patterrollers cotch dem it jus’ too
bad and dey gits whip.

“When de news comes in dat us free, Massa Harry never call us
up like everybody else did the slaves, us has to go up and ask him ’bout it.
He come out on de front gallery and says we is free and turns ’round and
goes in de house without ‘nother word. We all sho’ feels sorry for him
the way he acts and hates to leave him, but we wants to go. We knowed he
wasn’t able to give us nothin’ so begins to scatter and ’bout ten or fifteen
days Massa Harry dies. I think he jes’ grieve himself to death, all he
trouble comin’ on him to once.

“Us worked on diff’rent farms till I marries and my fust wife
am Emma Williams and a cullud preacher marries us at her house. Us picked
cotton after dat and den I rents a place on de halvers for five year and
after sev’ral years I buys eighty acres of land. Fin’ly us done paid dat
out and done some repairs and den us sep’rate after livin’ twenty-three
year together. So I gives dat place to her and de six chillen and I walks
out ready to start all over ‘gain.[Pg 54]

“Then I meets Sarah Jones and us marries, but she gives me de
divorcement. All dis time I works on a farm for de day wages, den I
rents ‘nother farm on de halvers on de black land and stays dere sev’ral
year. Fin’ly I gits de job workin’ at de cotton oil mill in Corsicana
and stays at dat job till dey says I’s too old. I done buy dis li’l home
here and now has a place to live. Sarah done come back to me and us has
seven chillen. One of de boys works at de cotton oil mill and two works
at de compress right here in Corsicana and one works at de beer place in
Dallas.

“Us raises a li’l on dese two lots and de chillen brings some
from de farm, I mean my fust wife’s chillen, and with de pension check
us manage to live a li’l longer. Us boys pays de taxes and de insurance
for us.[Pg 55]

“I’s ‘mong de culls now, like a hoss what am too old. I’s purty
small yit when ‘mancipation comes and didn’t have no hard work. Old Massa
have me and de other li’l niggers keep de stock out de fields. Us li’l
boogers have to run and keep de cows out de corn and de cotton patch. Dat
ought to been ‘nough to keep us out of debbilment.

“It come to pass my mammy work in de field. Her name Cynthia Thomas
and daddy’s name Isaac Thomas. But after freedom he goes back to Florida and
find out he people and git he real name, and dat am Beckett. Dat ’bout ten
years after ‘mancipation he go back to he old home in Florida. Mammy’s people
was de Polkses, in Georgia. Mammy come in from de field at nine or ten
o’clock at night and she be all wore out and too tired to cook lots of times.
But she have to git some food for us. We all had a tin pan and git round de
table and dat like a feast. But lots of times she’s so tired she go to bed
without eatin’ nothin’ herself.

“My sisters was Ellen and Sani and Georgy-Ann and Cindy and Sidi-Ann.
Dey’s all big ‘nough to work in de field. My brudders name Matthew and Ed and
Henry and Harry, what am me, and de oldes’ one am General Thomas.

“Dey more’n a hundred head of black folks on Massa Thomas’ two farms,
and ’bout a hundred fifty acres in each farm. One de farms in iron ore, what[Pg 56]
am red land, and de other in gray land, half sand and half black dirt.

“Us slaves live in pole houses and some in split log houses,
with two rooms, one for to sleep in and one for to cook in. Day ain’t no
glass windows, jus’ holes in de walls. Dere was jack beds to sleep on,
made out of poles. Dey has four legs and ain’t nail to de walls.

“Old Massa he care for he hands purty well, considerin’ everything.
In ginnin’ time he ‘low de women to pick up cotton from de ground and make
mattresses and quilts. He make some cloth and buy some. A woman weave all
de time and when de shickle jump out on de floor I picks it up. I used to
could knit socks and I was jes’ a li’l boy then, but I keep everything in
‘membrance.

“Dey have some school and de chillen larnt readin’ and writin’, and
manners and behaviour, too. Sometime dey git de broke-down white man to be
teacher. But us didn’t know much and it taken ten years or more after freedom
to git de black men de qualification way he could handle things.

“One time us boys git some watermillions out in de bresh and hit ’em
or drap ’em to break ’em open. Dere come massa and cotch us not workin’, but
eatin’ he watermillions. He tell my daddy to whip me. But lots of times when
us sposed to mind de calves, us am out eatin’ watermillions in de bresh. Den
de calves git out and massa see dem run and cotch us.

“Old massa was kind and good, though. He have partiality ’bout him,
and wouldn’t whip nobody without de cause. He whip with de long, keen switch
and it didn’t bruise de back, but sho’ did sting. When he git real mad, he
pull up you shirt and whip on de bare hide. One time he whippin’ me and I[Pg 57]
busts de button off my shirt what he holdin’ on to, and runs away. I tries
to outrun him, and dat tickle him. I sho’ give de ground fits with my feets.
But dem whippin’s done me good. Dey break me up from thievin’ and make de man
of me.

“De way dey dress us li’l nigger boys den, dey give us a shirt what
come way down ‘tween de knees and ankles. When de weather am too cold, dey
sometimes give us pants.

“De white preachers come round and preach. Dey have de tabernacle
like a arbor and cullud folks come from all round to hear de Gospel ‘spounded.
Most every farm have de cullud man larnin’ to preach. I used to ‘long to de
Methodists but now I ‘longs to de Church of Christ.

“Massa Thomas, he de wholesale merchant and git kilt in New Orleans.
A big box of freight goods fall on him, a box ’bout a yard square on de end
and six yards long. He’s carryin’ back some good for to make exchangement
and dey pullin’ up de box with pulley and rope and it fall on him. De New
Orleans folks say it am de accidentment, but de rest say de rope am cut.
One of massa’s old friends was Lawyer Brooks. He used to firmanize de word.

“Massa have two boys, Mr. Jimmie and Li’l Ide and dey both goes to de
war. Li’l Ide, he go up in Arkansas and dey say when dat first cannon busts
at Li’l Rock, he starts runnin’ and never stops till he gits back home. I
don’t see how he could do dat, ’cause Li’l Rock am way far off, but dat what
dey say. Den de men comes to git ‘serters and dey gits Li’l Ide and takes him
back. Mr. Jimmie, he didn’t break de ranks. He stood he ground.

“Mammy and dem tell me when war am over de boss and he wife, dey calls[Pg 58]
de slaves up in de bunch and tells ’em, ‘You’s free as I is. Keep on or quit,
if you wants. You don’t have to stay no further, you’s free today.’ Dat near
June 19th, and all of ’em stays. Massa say, ‘Go ‘head and finish de crop and
I feed you and pay you.’ Dey all knowed when he kilt de hawgs us git plenty
of meat. Dat young massa say all dat, ’cause old massa done git kilt.

“It’s at Panola County where I first hears of de Klux. Dey call
dem White Caps den. Dey move over in Panola County and ranges at de place call
Big Creek Merval by McFaddin Creek. Dey’s purty rough. De landowners tell
dey niggers not to kill de White Caps but to scare dem ‘way. At night dey
come knock and if you don’t open it dey pry it open and run you out in de field.
Dey run de niggers from Merryville round Longview. Dey some good men in de
Klux and some bad men. But us work hard and go home and dey ain’t bother us
none.

“Dey used to be a nigger round dere, call Bandy Joe. He git kilt
at Nacogdoches fin’ly. He could turn into anything. De jedge of he parish
was Massa Lee and he say dey ought let Bandy Joe live, so dey could larn he art.
Dey done try cotch him de long time, and maybe be holdin’ him and first thing
they know he gone and dey left holdin’ he coat. Dey shoot at him and not hurt
him. He tell he wife dey ain’t no kind bullet can hurt him but de silver bullet.

“Dat Bandy Joe, he say he a spirit and a human both. Iffen he didn’t
want you to see him you jus’ couldn’t see him. Lots of folks liked him. De
jedge say he wish he could’a been brung to town, so he could ‘zamine him ’bout
he gifts. De jedge knowed Bandy Joe could dis’pear jus’ like nothin’, and he
like to hear he quotation how he git out he skin. I’d like to know dat myself.[Pg 59]

“I ‘magines I seed ghosties two, three times. I used to range round at
nighttime. I rides through a old slavery field and de folks tell me, ‘Harry,
you better be careful gwine ‘cross dat old field. They’s things dere what makes
mules run ‘way. One night it am late and my mule run ‘way. I make my mind I
go back and see what he run from and somethin’ am by de fence like de bear stand
up straight. It stand dere ’bout fifteen minutes while I draws my best ‘pinion
of it. I didn’t get any nearer dan to see it. A man down de road tell me
de place am hanted and he dunno how many wagons and mules git pull by dat thing
at dat place.

“One time I’s livin’ ‘nother place and it am ‘twixt sundown and dusk.
I had a li’l boy ‘hind me and I seed a big sow with no head comin’ over de
fence. My ma, she allus say what I see might be ‘magination and to turn my
head and look ‘gain and I does dat. But it still dere. Den I seed a hoss
goin’ down de road and he drag a chain, and cross de bridge and turn down de
side road. But when I git to de side road I ain’t seed no hoss or nothin’.
I didn’t say nothin’ to de li’l boy ‘hind me on de mule till I gits most home,
den asks him did he see anythin’. He say no. I wouldn’t tell him ‘fore dat,
’cause I ‘fraid he light out and outrun me and I didn’t want to be by myself
with dem things. When I gits home and tell everybody, dey say dat a man name
McCoy, what was kilt dere and I seed he spirit.

“I’s ’bout twenty-one when I marries Mandy Green. Us has twelve chillen,
and a world of grandchillen. I travels all over Louisiana and Texas in my time,
and come here three year ago. My son he work in de box fact’ry here, and he
git a bodily injurement while he workin’ and die, and I come here to de burial
and I been here ever since.[Pg 60]

“I was owned by Johnson Bell and born in New Orleans, in Louisiana.
‘Cordin’ to the bill of sale, I’m eighty-six years old, and my master
was a Frenchman and was real mean to me. He run saloon and kept bad women.
I don’t know nothing ’bout my folks, if I even had any, ‘cept mama. They
done tell me she was a bad woman and a French Creole.

“I worked ’round master’s saloon, kep’ everything cleaned up after
they’d have all night drinkin’ parties, men and women. I earned nickels
to tip off where to go, so’s they could sow wild oats. I buried the nickels
under rocks. If master done cotch me with money, he’d take it and beat me
nearly to death. All I had to eat was old stuff those people left, all
scraps what was left.

“One time some bad men come to master’s and gits in a shootin’
scrape and they was two men kilt. I sho’ did run. But master cotch me and
make me take them men to the river and tie a weight on them, so they’d sink
and the law wouldn’t git him.

“The clothes I wore was some master’s old ones. They allus had holes
in them. Master he stay drunk nearly all time and was mean to his slave. I’m
the only one he had, and didn’t cost him nothing. He have bill of sale made,
’cause the law say he done stole me when I’m small child. Master kept me in
chains sometimes. He shot several men.[Pg 61]

“I didn’t have no quarters but stays ’round the place and throw old
sack down and lay there and sleep. I’m ‘fraid to run, ’cause master say he’d
hunt me and kill nigger.

“When I’s ’bout seventeen I marries a gal while master on drunk spell.
Master he run her off, and I slips off at night to see her, but he finds it out.
He takes a big, long knife and cuts her head plumb off, and ties a great, heavy
weight to her and makes me throw her in the river. Then he puts me in chains
and every night he come give me a whippin’, for long time.

“When war come, master swear he not gwine fight, but the Yankees they
captures New Orleans and throws master in a pen and guards him. He gets a
chance and ‘scapes.

“When war am over he won’t free me, says I’m valuable to him in his
trade. He say, ‘Nigger, you’s suppose to be free but I’ll pay you a dollar
a week and iffen you runs off I’ll kill you.’ So he makes me do like befo’
the war, but give me ’bout a dollar a month, ‘stead week.

“He say I cost more’n I’m worth, but he won’t let me go. Times I don’t
know why I didn’t die befo’ I’m growed, sleepin’ on the ground, winter and
summer, rain and snow. But not much snow there.

“Master helt me long years after the war. If anybody git after him, he
told them I stay ’cause I wants to stay, but told me if I left he’d kill him
‘nother nigger. I stayed till he gits in a drunk brawl one night with men
and women and they gits to shootin’ and some kilt. Master got kilt. Then I’m
left to live or die, so I wanders from place to place. I nearly starved to
death befo’ I’d leave New Orleans, ’cause I couldn’t think master am dead and
I’m ‘fraid. Finally I gits up nerve to leave town, and stays the first night[Pg 62]
in white man’s barn. I never slep’. Every time I hears something, I jumps up
and master be standin’ there, lookin’ at me, but soon’s I git up he’d leave.
Next night I slep’ out in a hay field, and master he git right top of a tree
and start hollerin at me. I never stays in that place. I gits gone from that
place. I gits back to town fast as my legs carry me.

“Then I gits locked up in jail. I don’t know what for, never did know.
One the men says to me to come with him and takes me to the woods and gives me
an ax. I cuts rails till I nearly falls, all with chain locked ’round feet, so
I couldn’t run off. He turns me loose and I wanders ‘gain. Never had a home.
Works for men long ‘nough to git fifty, sixty cents, then starts roamin’ ‘gain,
like a stray dog like.

“After long time I marries Feline Graham. Then I has a home and we has
a white preacher marry us. We has one boy and he farms and I lives with him.
I worked at sawmill and farms all my life, but never could make much money.

“You know, the nigger was wild till the white man made what he has out
of the nigger. He done ed’cate them real smart.[Pg 63]

“Well, suh, the fus’ question you ask me, ’bout how old
I is, I don’ know ‘zactly. You see it ain’t like things is today.
The young folks can tell you their ‘zact age and everything,
but in those days we didn’ pay much ‘tention to such things. But
I knows I was bo’n in slavery times and my pappy tol’ me I was bo’n
on a Christmas Day, but didn’ ‘member jus’ what year.

“We was owned by Massa Lewis. Thomas Lewis was his name, and
he was a United States lawyer. I ain’t gwineter talk ‘gainst my
white folks like some cullud folks do, ’cause Massa Lewis was a
mighty fine man and so was Miss Mary, and they treated us mighty
good.

“Massa had a big plantation near Opelousas and I was bo’n
there. I ‘member the neighbor folks used to bring their cotton to
the gin on his farm for ginnin’ and balin’. My mother’s name was
Della. That was all, jus’ Della. My pappy’s name was Jim Blair.
Both of them was from Virginny, but from diff’rent places, and was
brought to Louisiana by nigger traders and sold to Massa Lewis. I
know my pappy was lots older than my mother and he had a wife and
five chillen back in Virginny and had been sold away from them out
here.[Pg 64]
Then he and my mother started a family out here. I don’ know what
become of his family back in Virginny, ’cause when we was freed he
stayed with us.

“When I got old enough I was housegirl and used to carry
notes for Miss Mary to the neighbors and bring back answers. Miss
Mary would say, ‘Now, Virginny, you take this note to sech and sech
place and be sure and be back in sech and sech time,’ and I allus
was.

“Massa Lewis had four or five families of us slaves, but we
used to have some fun after work and us young folks would skip rope
and play ring games. Durin’ week days the field hands would work
till the sun was jus’ goin’ down and then the overseer would holler
‘all right’ and that was the signal to quit. All hands knocked off
Sat’day noon.

“We didn’ have no schoolin’ or preachin’. Only the white
folks had them, but sometimes on Sundays we’d go up to the house and
listen to the white folks singin’.

“Iffen any of the slave hands wanted to git married, Massa
Lewis would git them up to the house after supper time, have the man
and woman jine hands and then read to them outen a book. I guess it
was the Scriptures. Then he’d tell ’em they was married but to be
ready for work in the mornin’. Massa Lewis married us ‘cordin’ to
Gospel.

“Massa used to feed us good, too, and we had plenty clothes.[Pg 65]
Iffen we got took sick, we had doctor treatment, too. Iffen a hand
took sick in the field with a misery, they was carried to their
quarters and Massa or Miss Mary would give them a dose of epecac and
make them vomit and would sen’ for the doctor. They wouldn’ fool
none iffen one of us took sick, but would clean us out and take care
of us till we was well.

“There was mighty little whippin’ goin’ on at our place, ’cause
Massa Lewis and Miss Mary treated us good. They wasn’t no overseer
goin’ to whip, ’cause Massa wouldn’ ‘low him to. Le’s see, I don’
rec’lec’ more than two whippin’s I see anyone git from Massa, and that
has been so long ago I don’ rec’lec’ what they was for.

“When the War done come ‘long it sho’ changed things, and we
heerd this and that, but we didn’ know much what it was about. Then
one day Massa Lewis had all the wagons loaded with food and chairs and
beds and other things from the house and our quarters, and I heerd him
say we was movin’ to Polk County, way over in Texas. I know it took
us a long time to git there, and when we did I never see so much woods.
It sho’ was diff’rent from the plantation.

“I had to work in the fields, same as the res’, and we stayed
there three years and made three crops of cotton, but not so much as
on our old place, ’cause there wasn’t so much clearin’. Then one day
Massa Lewis tol’ us we was free, jus’ as free as he was—jus’ like
you take the bridle offen a hoss and turn him loose. We jus’ looked[Pg 66]
‘roun as iffen we hadn’ good sense. We didn’ have nothin’ nor nowhere
to go, and Massa Lewis say iffen we finish makin’ de crop, he
would take us back to Opelousas and give us a place to stay and feed
us. So after pickin’ we goes back and when we git there we sees
where those rascal Yankees ‘stroyed everything—houses burned, sugar
kettles broke up. It looked mighty bad.

“Massa Lewis hadn’ no money, but he fixed us up a place to
stay and give us what he could to eat, but things was mighty hard for
a while. I know pappy used to catch rabbits and take them to town
and sell them or trade them for somethin’ to eat, and you know that
wasn’t much, ’cause you can’t git much for a little ol’ rabbit.

“Then the Provo’ Marshal, that was his name, give us a order
for things to put in a crop with and to live till we made the crop.
‘Course, I guess we wasn’ as bad off as some, ’cause white folks
knew we was Massa Lewis’ folks and didn’ bother us none.

Then I got married to John Bell, and it was a scripture
weddin’, too. He died 28 years ago, but I has stayed married to him
ever since. We had thirteen chillen, but they is all dead now ‘cept
four, but they was raised up right and they is mighty good to they
ol’ mammy.[Pg 67]

Edgar and Minerva Bendy

“I’s a good size’ boy when de war gwine on and I seed de soldiers
come right here in Woodville. A big bunch of dem come through and dey
have cannons with dem. My marster he didn’t go to war, ’cause he too old,
I guess.

“I’s born right here and done live hereabouts every since. Old
man Henry Bendy, he my marster and he run de store here in Woodville and
have de farm, too. I didn’t do nothin’ ‘cept nuss babies. I jes’ jump
dem up and down and de old marster hire me out to nuss other white folks
chillen, big and little.

“My daddy name’ Jack Crews and my mammy was Winnie. Both of
dem worked on de farm and I never seed dem much. I didn’t have no house
of my own, ’cause de marster, he give me de room in he house. He have
lots of slaves and ’bout 100 acres in cult’vation. He gave dem plenty
to eat and good homespun clothes to wear. He was mighty good.

“Marster have de plank house and all de things in it was home-made.
De cook was a old cullud woman and I eat at de kitchen table and
have de same what de white folks eats. Us has lots of meat, deer meat
and possum and coon and sich, and us sets traps for birds.[Pg 68]

“Dey ain’t nothin’ better dat go in de wood dan de big, fat
possum. Dey git fat on black haws and acorns and chinquapin and sich.
Chinquapin is good for people to eat and to roast. I used to be
plumb give up to be de best hunter in Tyler and in de whole country.
I kilt more deer dan any other man in de county and I been guide for
all de big men what comes here to hunt. My wife, Minerva, she used to
go huntin’ with me.

“I kep’ on huntin’ and huntin’ till de Jack-a-my-lanterns git
after me. Dat a light you sees all ’round you. Dey follow all ‘long
and dey stop you still. Den one time it git all over me. Come like
de wind, blow, blow, and come jes’ like fire all on my arm and my
clothes and things. When dat git after me I quit huntin’ at nighttime
and ain’t been huntin’ since.

“One time I fishin’ on de creek and I ain’t got no gun, and
I look up and dere a big, wild cat. He never pay me no mind, no more
dan nothin’, but dat ain’t made no diff’rence to me. I jes’ flew in
dat creek!

“I used to belong to de lodge but when I git so old I couldn’t
pay my jews, I git unfinancial and I ain’t a member no more.[Pg 69]

“My earlies’ ‘membrance was de big, white sandy road what
lead ‘way from de house. It was clean and white and us chillen love
to walk in de soft, hot sand. Dat in Henry County, Alabama, where
I’s born and my old marster was Lazarus Goolsby and he have de big
plantation with lots of nigger folks. I ‘member jus’ as good as
yesterday wigglin’ my toes in dat sandy road and runnin’ ‘way to de
grits mill where dey grind de meal. Dat have de big water wheel dat
sing and squeak as it go ’round.

“Aunt Mary, she make all us little chillen sleep in de
heat of de day under de big, spreadin’ oak tree in de yard. My
mama have 17 chillen. Her name Dollie and my daddy name Herd.

“I’s jus’ a little chile in dem days and I stay in de
house with de white folks. Dey raise me a pet in de family. Missus
Goolsby, she have two gals and dey give me to de oldest. When she die
dey put me in de bed with her but iffen I knowed she dyin’ dey wouldn’t
been able to cotch me. She rub my head and tell her papa and mama, ‘I’s
gwine ‘way but I wants you promise you ain’t never whip my little nigger.’
Dey never did.

“I’s jus’ ’bout five year old when us make de trip to Texas.
Us come right near Woodville and make de plantation. It a big place
and dey raise corn and cotton and cane. We makes our own sugar and has[Pg 70]
many as six kettle on de furnace at one time. Dey raise dey tobacco, too.
I’s sick and a old man he say he make me tobacco medicine and dey dry de
leafs and make dem sweet like sugar and feed me like candy.

“I ‘member old marster say war broke out and Capt. Collier’s men
was a-drillin’ right dere south of Woodville. All de wives and chillen
watch dem drill. Dey was lots of dem, but I couldn’t count. De whole
shebang from de town go watch dem.

“Four of the Goolsby boys goes to dat war and dey call John and
Ziby and Zabud and Addison. Zabud, he git wounded, no he git kilt, and
Addison he git wounded. I worry den, ’cause I ain’t see no reason for
dem to have to die.

“After us free dey turn us loose in de woods and dat de bad time,
’cause most us didn’t know where to turn. I wasn’t raise to do nothin’
and I didn’t know how. Dey didn’t even give us a hoecake or a slice of
bacon.

“I’s a June bride 59 year ago when I git married. De old white
Baptist preacher name Blacksheer put me and dat nigger over dere, Edgar
Bendy, togedder and us been togedder ever since. Us never have chick or
chile. I’s such a good nuss I guess de Lawd didn’t want me to have
none of my own, so’s I could nuss all de others and I ‘spect I’s nussed
most de white chillen and cullud, too, here in Woodville.[Pg 71]

“I is Sarah Benjamin and is 82 year old, ’cause my mammy told
me I’s born in 1855 in Clavin Parish in Louisiana. Her name was
Fannie and my pappy’s name Jack Callahan. There was jus’
three of us chillen and I’s de oldest.

“Marse Gilbert was tol’able good to we’uns, and give us plenty
to eat. He had a smokehouse big as a church and it was full, and in
de big kitchen we all et, chillen and all. De grown folks et first
and den de chillen. Did we have plenty of possums and fish by de
barrels full! All dis was cooked in de racks over de fireplace and
it were good.

“Our clothes was all homespun and de shoes made by de shoemaker.
Old marse wanted all us to go to church and if dey didn’t have shoes
dey have something like de moccasin.

“I don’t know how many slaves there was, but it was a lot, maybe
60 or 70. Dey worked hard every day ‘cept Sunday. Iffen they was bad
they might git whuppin’s, but not too hard, not to de blood. Iffen
dey was still bad, dey puts chains on dem and puts dem in de stocks,
’cause there wasn’t no jail there.

“Once when I’s little, marse stripped me stark modern naked and
puts me on de block, but he wouldn’t sell me, ’cause he was bid only
$350.00 and he say no, ’cause I was good and fat.[Pg 72]

“Dey didn’t larn us nothin’ and iffen you did larn to write,
you better keep it to yourse’f, ’cause some slaves got de thumb or finger
cut off for larnin’ to write. When de slaves come in from de fields dey
didn’t larn nothin’, they jus’ go to bed, ‘lessen de moonshine nights come
and dey could work in de tobacco patch. De marster give each one de little
tobacco patch and iffen he raised more’n he could use he could sell it.

“On Christmas we all has de week vacation and maybe de dance.
We allus have de gran’ dinner on dat day, and no whuppin’s. But dey couldn’t
leave de plantation without de pass, even on Christmas.

“De women had to run de gin in de daytime and de man at night.
Dey fed de old gin from baskets and my mammy fed from dose baskets all day
with de high fever and died dat night. She wouldn’t tell de marster she sick,
fer fear she have to take de quinine.

“De day we was freed, de slaves jus’ scattered, ‘cepting me.
Missy Gilbert says I wasn’t no slave no more but I had to stay and he’p her
for my board ’till I’s grown. I stayed ’till I was ’bout 16, den I runs
away and marries Cal Benjamin, and we comes to Texas. Cal and me has six
chillen, but he died ‘fore dey was grown.[Pg 73]

Jack Bess

Jack Bess’ House

Jack who was assisted out of bed and dressed by his
grandson, hobbled in on his cane and said, “I was jes’ a
small boy workin’ on de ranch when I hear talk ’bout conscription’[Pg 74]
de men for de war what was agoin’ to set de slaves
free. We didn’ know hardly what dey was a talkin’ ’bout ’cause
we knowed dat would be too good to be true. I jes’ keeps on
workin’ wid my hosses and my cattle (dere wasn’t no sheep den)
jes’ like dere wasn’t no war, ’cause dat was all I ever knowed
how to do.

“Our ole marster, he wasn’t so very mean to us, course
he whips us once and awhile but dat wasn’t like de slave
holders what had dem colored drivers. Dey sho’ was rough on
de slaves. I’s been told lots ’bout de chains and de diffe’nt
punishments but our treatment wasn’t so bad. Our beds was
pretty good when we uses dem. Lots of de time we jes’ sleeps
on de groun’, ‘specially in summer.

“Our log huts was comfortable and we had some kind of
floors in all of dem. Some was plank and some was poles
but dat was better den de dirt floors some cabins have.

“De eats we have was jes’ good eats, lots of meats and
vegetables and de like; ‘possum and coon and beef and pork
all cooked good. Our clothes was jes’ home spun like all de
others.

“We didn’ have such a big ranch and not many slaves
but we all gits along. We learns a little ’bout readin’
and writin’.

“I don’t ‘member any camp meetin’s ’til after de war.
We had a few den and on Christmas times we jes’ tears up
de country. Lawdy! Lawd! Dat fiddlin’ went on all night,
and we dance awhile den lay down and sleeps, den gits up and
dances some mo’e. We would have big cakes and everything[Pg 75]
good to eat.

“When we gits sick dey jes’ gives us some kind of tea,
mostly made from weeds. Mos’ of de time we gits well.

“When de news comes dat we was free our boss, he say,
‘You free now.’ Course we was glad but we didn’ know nothin’
to do but jes’ stay on dere, and we did ’bout three years and
de boss pays us a little by de month for our work.

“I’s lef’ dere den and comes to old Ben Ficklin to
work on a ranch. Dat was before dere was any San Angelo, Texas.
I’s been here ever since, jes’ a workin’ from one ranch
to another long as I was able. Now I’s jes’ stayin’ ’round
wid my chillun and dey takes good care of me.”[Pg 76]

“I got borned on de Bayou Teche, clost to Opelousas. Dat in
St. Mary’s Parish, in Louisiana, and I belonged to Tolas Parsons, what
had ’bout 500 slaves, countin’ de big ones and de little ones, and
he had God know what else. When my eyes jes’ barely fresh open, Marse
Tolas die and will de hull lot of us to he brother, William Tolas. And
I tells you dat Marse William am de greates’ man what ever walk dis
earth. Dat’s de truth. I can’t lie on him when de pore man’s in he
grave.

“When a whuppin’ got to be done, old Marse do it heself. He
don’t ‘low no overseer to throw he gals down and pull up dere dress and
whup on dere bottoms like I hear tell some of ’em do. Was he still
livin’ I ‘spect one part of he hands be with him today. I knows I would.

“When us niggers go down de road folks say, ‘Dem’s Parson’s niggers.
Don’t hit one dem niggers for God’s sake, or Parsons sho’ eat your jacket
up.’

“Aunt Rachel what cook in de big house for Miss Cornelia had four
young’uns and dem chillen fat and slick as I ever seen. All de niggers
have to stoop to Aunt Rachel jes’ like dey curtsy to Missy. I mind de[Pg 77]
time her husband, Uncle Jim, git mad and hit her over de head with de poker.
A big knot raise up on Aunt Rachel’s head and when Marse ‘quire ’bout it, she
say she done bump de head. She dassn’t tell on Uncle Jim or Marse sho’ beat
him. Marse sho’ proud dem black, slick chillen of Rachels. You couldn’t
find a yaller chile on he place. He sho’ got no use for mixin’ black and
white.

“Marse William have de pretties’ place up and down dat bayou, with de
fine house and fine trees and sech. From where we live it’s five mile to
Centerville one way and five mile to Patterson t’other. Dey hauls de lumber
from one place or t’other to make wood houses for de slaves. Sometime Marse
buy de furniture and sometime de carpenter make it.

“Miss Sidney was Marse’s first wife and he had six boys by her. Den
he marry de widow Cornelius and she give him four boys. With ten chillen
springin’ up quick like dat and all de cullud chillen comin’ ‘long fast as
pig litters, I don’t do nothin’ all my days, but nuss, nuss, nuss. I nuss
so many chillen it done went and stunted my growth and dat’s why I ain’t
nothin’ but bones to dis day.

“When de cullud women has to cut cane all day till midnight come and
after, I has to nuss de babies for dem and tend de white chillen, too. Some dem
babies so fat and big I had to tote de feet while ‘nother gal tote de head.
I was sech a li’l one, ’bout seven or eight year old. De big folks leave
some toddy for colic and cryin’ and sech and I done drink de toddy and let de
chillen have de milk. I don’t know no better. Lawsy me, it a wonder I ain’t
de bigges’ drunker in dis here country, countin’ all de toddy I done put in
my young belly![Pg 78]

“When late of night come, iffen dem babies wake up and bawl, I set
up a screech and out-screech dem till dey shut dere mouth. De louder day
bawl de louder I bawl. Sometime when Marse hear de babies cry, he come down
and say, ‘Why de chillen cry like dat, Ellen?’ I say, ‘Marse, I git so hongry
and tired I done drink de milk up.’ When I talk sassy like dat, Marse jes’
shake he finger at me, ’cause he knowed I’s a good one and don’t let no little
mite starve.

“Nobody ever hit me a lick. Marse allus say bein’ mean to de young’uns
make dem mean when dey grows up and nobody gwineter buy a mean nigger. Marse
don’t even let de chillen go to de big cane patch. He plant little bitty patches
close to de house and each li’l nigger have a patch and he work it till it got
growed. Marse have de house girls make popcorn for ’em and candy.

“I nuss de sick folks too. Sometime I dose with Blue Mass pills and
sometime Dr. Fawcett leave rhubarb and ipicac and calomel and castor oil and
sech. Two year after de war, I git marry and git chillen of my own and den I
turn into de wet nuss. I wet nuss de white chillen and black chillen, like dey
all de same color. Sometime I have a white’un pullin’ de one side and a black
one de other.

“I wanted to git de papers for midwifin’ but, law, I don’t never have
no time for larnin’ in slave time. If Marse cotch a paper in you hand he sho’
whop you. He don’t ‘low no bright niggers ’round, he sell ’em quick. He allus
say, ‘Book larnin’ don’t raise no good sugar cane.’ De only larnin’ he ‘low was
when dey larn de cullud chillen de Methodist catechism. De only writin’ a nigger
ever git, am when he git born or marry or die, den Marse put de name in de
big book.[Pg 79]

Law, I ‘lect de time Marse marry Miss Cornelia. He went on de
mail boat and brung her from New Orleans. She de pretties’ woman in de world
almost, ‘ceptin’ she have de bigges’ mouth I nearly ever seed. He brung her
up to de house and all de niggers and boys and girls and cats and dogs and sech
come and salute her. Dere she stand on de gallery, with a purty white dress on
with red stripes runnin’ up and down. Marse say to her, ‘Honey, see all de
black folks, dey ‘longs to you now.’ She wave to us and smile on us and nex’
day she give her weddin’ dress to my ma. Dat de fines’ dress I ever seen. It
was purple and green silk and all de nigger gals wear dat dress when dey git
marry. My sister Sidney wore it and Sary and Mary.

“Miss Cornelia was de fines’ woman in de world. Come Sunday mornin’ she
done put a bucket of dimes on de front gallery and stand dere and throw dimes to
de nigger chillen jes’ like feedin’ chickens. I sho’ right here to test’fy,
’cause I’s right dere helpin’ grab. Sometime she done put da washtub of buttermilk
on de back gallery and us chillen bring us gourds and dip up dat good, old
buttermilk till it all git drunk up. Sometime she fotch bread and butter to
de back gallery and pass it out when it don’t even come mealtime.

“Miss Cornelia set my ma to cuttin’ patterns and sewin’ right away. She
give all de women a bolt or linsey to make clothes and ma cut de pattern. Us all
have de fine drawers down to de ankle, buttoned with pretty white buttons on de
bottom. Lawsy, ma sho’ cut a mite of drawers, with sewin’ for her eleven gals
and four boys, too. In de summertime we all git a bolt of blue cloth and white
tape for trimmin’, to make Sunday dresses. For de field, all de niggers git
homespun what you make jumpers out of. I ‘lect how Marse say, ‘Don’t go into de
field dirty Monday mornin’. Scrub youself and put on de clean jumper.’[Pg 80]

“Marse sho’ good to dem gals and bucks what cuttin’ de cane. When
dey git done makin’ sugar, he give a drink call ‘Peach ‘n Honey’ to de women
folk and whiskey and brandy to de men. And of all de dancin’ and caperin’
you ever seen! My pa was fiddler and we’d cut de pigeon wing and cut de buck
and every other kind of dance. Sometime pa git tired and say he ain’t gwineter
play no more and us gals git busy and pop him corn and make candy, so to ‘tice
him to play more.

“Marse sho’ turn over in he grave did he know ’bout some dat ‘lasses.
Dem black boys don’t care. I seen ’em pull rats out de sugar barrel and dey
taste de sugar and say, ‘Ain’t nothin’ wrong with dat sugar. It still sweet.’
One day a pert one pull a dead scorpion out de syrup kettle and he jes’ laugh
and say, ‘Marse don’t want waste none dis syrup,’ and he lick de syrup right
off dat scorpion’s body and legs.

“Lawsy me, I seen thousands and thousands sugar barrels and kettles of
syrup in my day. Lawd knows how much cane old Marse have. To dem cuttin’ de
cane it don’t seem so much, but to dem what work hour in, hour out, dem sugar
cane fields sho’ stretch from one end de earth to de other. Marse ship hogs
and hogs of sugar down de bayou. I seen de river boats go down with big signs
what say, ‘Buy dis here ‘lasses’ on de side. And he raise a world of rice and
‘taters and corn and peanuts, too.

“When de work slight, us black folks sho have de balls and dinners and
sech. We git all day to barbecue meat down on de bayou and de white folks come
down and eat long side de cullud.

“When a black gal marry, Marse marry her hisself in de big house.
He marry ’em Saturday, so dey git Sunday off, too. One time de river boat come[Pg 81]
bearin’ de license for niggers to git marry with. Marse chase ’em off and
say, ‘Don’t you come truckin’ no no-count papers roun’ my niggers. When I
marry ’em, dey marry as good as if de Lawd God hisself marry ’em and it don’t
take no paper to bind de tie.’ Marse don’t stand no messin’ ’round, neither.
A gal have to be of age and ask her pa and ma and Marse and Missy, and if dey
‘gree, dey go ahead and git marry. Marse have de marry book to put de name
down.

“One time Marse take me ‘long to help tote some chillen. He done
write up to Virginny for to buy fresh hands. Dey a old man dat hobble ‘long de
road and de chillen start to throw rocks and de old man turn ’round to one
prissy one and say, ‘Go on, young’un, you’ll be where dogs can’t bark at you
tomorrow. Nex’ mornin’ us cookin’ in de kitchen and all a sudden dat li’l boy
jes’ crumple up dead on de floor. Law, we’s scairt. Nobody ever bother dat
old man no more, for he sho’ lay de evil finger on you.

“Marse’s brother, Conrad, what was a widdyman, come to live on de
plantation and he had a li’l gal ’bout eight year old. One day she in de plum
orchard playin’ with a rattlesnake and Marse Conrad have de fit. De li’l gal
won’t let nobody hurt dat snake and she play with him. He won’t bite her.
She keeps him ’bout three year, and she’d rub and grease him. One day he got
sick and dey give him some brandy, but he die and old Doc pickle him in de
bottle of brandy. Dat gal git so full of grief dey take her to de infirm’ry
in New Orleans and den one day she up and die.

“Dat snake ain’t all what Doc Fawcett pickle. A slave woman give
birth to a baby gal what have two faces with a strip of hair runnin’ ‘tween.
Old Doc Fawcett pickle it in de jar of brandy. Old doc start to court Miss[Pg 82]
Cornelia when Marse die, but she don’t have none of him and he done went
straight ‘way and kill hisself.

“One day a li’l man come ridin’ by on a li’l dun hoss so fast you
couldn’t see dat hoss tail a-switchin’. He whoopin’ and hollerin’. Us niggers
‘gun whoop and holler, too. Den first thing you know de Yanks and de
Democrats ‘gun to fight right dere. Dey a high old mountain front Marse’s
house and de Yanks ‘gun pepper cannon ball down from de top dat hill. De
war met right dere and dem Yanks and Democrats fit for twenty-four hours
straight runnin’.

“When de bullets starts rainin’ down, Marse call us and slip us way
back into de woods, where it so black and deep. Next day, when de fight over,
Marse come out with great big wagons piles full of mess-poke for us to eat.
Dat what us call hog meat. Us sho’ glad to ‘scape from de Yankees.

“When us driv back to de plantation, sech a sight I never seen. Law,
de things I can tell. Dem Yanks have kilt men and women. I seed babies pick
up from de road with dere brains bust right out. One old man am drawin’ water
and a cannon ball shoots him right in de well. Dey draws him up with de fishin’
line. Dey’s a old sugar boat out on de bayou with blood and sugar runnin’ long
side de busted barrels. ‘Lasses run in de bayou and blood run in de ditches.
Marse have de great big orchard on de road and it wipe clean as de whistle.
Bullets wipe up everythin’ and bust dat sugar cane all to pieces. De house sot
far back and ‘scape de bullets, but, law, de time dey have!

“Dey’s awful, awful times after dat. A old cotton dress cost five dollars
and a pound of coffee cost five dollars and a pint cup flour cost six bits.[Pg 83]
De Yanks ’round all de time and one day they comes right in de house where
Miss Cornelia eatin’ her dinner. Dey march ’round de table, jes’ scoopin’
up meat and ‘taters and grabbin’ cornpone right and left. Miss Cornelia
don’t say a word, jes’ smile sweet as honey-cake. I reckon dem sojers might
a took de silver and sech only she charm ’em by bein’ so quiet and ladylike.
First thing you know dem sojers curtsy to Missy and take dereself right out
de door and don’t come back.

“Den it seem like Marse have all de trouble in de world. He boy,
Ned, die in de war and William, what name for he pa, drink bad all de time.
And after de war dem Ku Kluxers what wear de false faces try to tinker with
Marse’s niggers. One day Uncle Dave start to town and a Kluxer ask him where
am he pass. Dat Kluxer clout him but Uncle Dave outrun him in de cane. Marse
grab de hoss and go ‘rest dat man and Marse a jedge and he make dat man pay
de fine for hittin’ Uncle Dave. After dey hears of dat, dem old poky faces
sho’ scairt of old Marse and dey git out from Opelousas and stays out. When
me and my husband, John, come to Texas de folks say dat Louisiana masters de
meanes’ in de world and I say right back at ’em dat dey is good and mean in
every spot of de earth. What more, de Louisiana masters free dere niggers
a year befo’ any Texas nigger git free.

“When ‘mancipation come, Marse git on de big block and say,
‘You all is as free as I is, standin’ right here. Does you want to stay
with me, you can, and I’ll pay you for de work.’ All de niggers cheer and
say dey want to stay, but Marse die not long after and all us niggers scatter.

“I sho’ ‘lect dat day old Marse die. He won’t die till ma gits
there. He keep sayin’, “Where’s Charity, tell Charity to come.” Dey fotch[Pg 84]
ma from de cane patch and she hold Marse’s hand till he die. Us niggers
went to de graveyard and us sho’ cry over old Marse.

“Marse’s brother, Goldham, carries all he hands back to de free
country to turn ’em loose. He say de free country am de ones what’s yellin’
’bout slave times, so dey could jes’ take care of de niggers. Marse Goldham
so big dat when he stand in de door you couldn’t git by him, ‘thout he stand
sideways.

“Law, times ain’t like dey was in slave days. All my ten chillen
is dead and my old man gone, and now I reckon my time ’bout ‘rive. All I got
to do now am pray de Lawd to keep me straight, den when de great day come,
I can march de road to glory.[Pg 85]

Charlotte Beverley

“I’s born in Montgomery County and I’s the mudder of eleven
chillen, four gals and seven boys. My grandma come from Alabama
and my daddy was Strawder Green and he belong to Col. Hughes. My
maw named Phyllis and she belong to Capt. Pankey.

“There was ’bout forty niggers, big and little, on the
plantation. Lawd, they was good to us. Us didn’ know nothin’ ’bout
bad times and cutting and whipping and slashing. I had to work in
the house and I ‘member one thing I has to do was scrub Mistus’ gol’
snuffbox twict a week. She kep’ sweet, Scotch snuff and sometimes
I takes a pinch out.

“We used to go to the white folks church and if us couldn’ git
in we’d stand round by the door and sing. Mistus wouldn’ ‘low us
dance on the place but they give us pass to go to dance on nex’ plantation,
where my daddy live.

“Every year they have big Christmas dinner and ham and turkey
and allus feed us good. Us have Christmas party and sing songs. That
was sweet music.

“Marster have a lovely house, all ceiled and plastered. It was
a log house but it was make all beautiful inside with mirrors and on
the board was lots of silver and china and silver spoons with the gol’
linin’s and part of my job was to keep ’em sparklin’.[Pg 86]

“Folks in them times cooks in the fireplace and my auntie, she cook.
She make ‘simmon bread and ‘tater pone and the like. She mash up ‘simmons
with butter and pour sweet milk and flour in it. That make good ‘simmon
bread. We has skillets what was flat and deep and set on three legs.

“The slaves lived in little log houses and sleep on wood beds. The
beds was make three-legged. They make augur hole in side of the house and
put in pieces of wood to make the bed frame, and they put straw and cotton
mattress on them bed.

“Old marster used to let he slaves have a extry cotton patch to theyselves
and they work it by the moonlight. They could sell that cotton and
have the money for theyselves.

“My white mistus was a Christian and she’d own her God anywhere. She
used to shout, jus’ sit and clap her hands and say, ‘Hallalujah.’ Once I
seed her shout in church and I thinks something ail her and I run down the
aisle and goes to fannin’ her.

“One of the slaves was a sort-a preacher and sometimes marster ‘lowed
him to preach to the niggers, but he have to preach with a tub over his
head, ’cause he git so happy he talk too loud. Somebody from the big
house liable to come down and make him quit ’cause he makin’ ‘sturbance.

“I brings water from the well and they have what they call piggins,
and they was little tubs with two handles. Mistus wouldn’ ‘low me to
do any heavy work.

“I see sojers and knits socks for ’em by moonshine. Me and my husban’
was married by a Yankee sojer. I was dress in white Tarleyton weddin’
dress and I didn’ wear no hoop skirt. I had a pretty wreath of little
white flowers, little bitty, little dainty ones, the pretties’ little[Pg 87]
things. When I marry, my sister marry too and our husban’s was brudders.
My husban’ dress in suit of white linen. He sho’ look handsome. He
give me a gol’ ring and a cup and saucer for weddin’ gif’. We git married
in Huntsville and us didn’ go no weddin’ journey trip. We was so poor we
couldn’ go round the house! I’s ’bout twenty some year when I marries, but
I don’ know jus’ how old. We has a big dance that night and the white folks
come, ’cause they likes to see the niggers dance.

“The white folks had interes’ in they cullud people where I live. Sometimes
they’s as many as fifty cradle with little nigger babies in ’em and
the mistus, she look after them and take care of them, too. She turn them
and dry them herself. She had a little gal git water and help. She never
had no chillen of her own. I’d blow the horn for the mudders of the little
babies to come in from the fields and nurse ’em, in mornin’ and afternoon.
Mistus feed them what was old enough to eat victuals. Sometimes, they
mammies take them to the field and fix pallet on ground for them to lay
on.

“The las’ word my old Mistus Pankey say when she die was, ‘You take
care of Charlette.’[Pg 88]

Francis Black

“My name am Francis Black, and I don’t know jes’ how old I is,
but ‘members lots ’bout them slave days. I was a big gal, washin’ and
ironin’, when they sot the darkies free. From that, I cal’late I’m in
my eighties.

“I was born in Grand Bluff, in Mississippi, on Old Man Carlton’s
plantation, and I was stole from my folks when I was a li’l gal and
never seed them no more. Us kids played in the big road there in Mississippi,
and one day me and ‘nother gal is playin’ up and down the
road and three white men come ‘long in a wagon. They grabs us up and
puts us in the wagon and covers us with quilts. I hollers and yells and
one the men say, ‘Shet up, you nigger, or I’ll kill you.’ I told him,
‘Kill me if you wants to—you stole me from my folks.’

“Them men took us to New Orleans to the big slave market. I had
long hair and they cut it off like a boy and tried to sell me, but I
told them men what looks at me, the men cut my hair off and stole me.
The man what cut my hair off cursed me and said if I didn’t hush he’d
kill me, but he couldn’t sell us at New Orleans and took us to Jefferson.[Pg 89]

“I never knowed what they done with the other gal, but they sold me to
Marse Bill Tumlin, what run a big livery stable in Jefferson, and I ‘longed
to him till surrender. I lived in the house with them, ’cause they had a boy
and gal and I did for them. They bought me clothes and took good care of me
but I never seed no money till surrender. I et what they et, after they got
through. Missy say she didn’t ‘lieve in feedin’ the darkies scraps, like
some folks.

“I played with them two chillen all day, then sot the table. I was so
small I’d git in a chair to reach the dishes out of the safe. I had to pull
a long flybrush over the table whilst the white folks et.

“Marse Tumlin had a farm ’bout four mile from town, and a overseer,
and I seed him buckle the niggers crost a log and whip them. Marse lived
in Jefferson, heself, and when he’d go to the farm he allus took his boy
with him. We’d be playin’ in the barn and Marse call from the house,
‘Come on, Jimmie, we’re gwine to the farm.’ Jimmie allus say to me, ‘Come
on, nigger, let’s ride round the farm.’ I’d say, ‘I ain’t no nigger.’
He’d say, ‘Yes, you is, my pa paid $200 for you. He bought you for to play
with me.’

“Jefferson was a good town till it burned up. I ‘members the big
fire what looked like the whole town gwineter burn up. Marse Bill lost
his livery stable in the fire.

“The Yankee soldiers, all dressed in blue, come to run the town
after the war. Marse Tumlin done told me I’m free, but I stays on till
I’m most growed. Then I works round town and marries Dave Black, and we
moved to Cass County. I raises six chillun but my old man done git so triflin’
and mean I quit him and worked for myself. I come to Texarkana to work, and
allus could earn my own livin’ till ’bout a year ago I lost my seein’, and
Albert Ragland done took me in his home for the old folks. They gives me a
$10 a month pension now. They is good to me here and feeds us good.[Pg 90]

“I was plowing and hoeing before the freedom and I talk more
of the French ’cause I comes from St. Martinville Parish. I was born
there in Louisiana and my mama was Angeline Jean Pierre and she was
slave born. My papa was Olivier Blanchard and he white man carpenter
on old plantation. We belong to Clairville La San and all live on
that place. My papa just plain carpenter but could draw patterns for
houses. I don’t know where he larn that work.

“I was count freeborn and still have one white half sister
alive. When freedom come my mama and papa split up and mama get marry.

“I pick cotton and mama cook. She make koosh-koosh and cyayah—that
last plain clabber. Mama cook lots of gaspergou and carp and
the poisson ami fish, with the long snout—what they call gar now.
I think it eel fish they strip the skin off and wrap round the hair
and make it curly.

“The Bayou Teche, it run close by and the women do all the
clothes with a big paddle with holes in it to clean them in the bayou.
They paddle them clean on the rocks and then wash them in the water.[Pg 91]

“One time one big bayou ‘gator come up and bite a woman’s
arm off. She my sister in law. But they keep on washing the clothes
in the bayou just the same.

“We have plenty to eat and peaches and muscadines and pecans,
’cause there right smart woods and swamp there. We play in the woods
and most time in the bayou on boats with planks what would float. We
had the good time and had a little pet coon. You know, the coon like
sweet things and he steal our syrup and when we chase him with the
switch he hide under the bed.

“My old missus was good Catholic and she have us christened
and make the first communion. That not registered, ’cause it before the
freedom, but it were in old St. Martin’s church, same old church what
stand now. There was a statue of Pere Jean, the old priest, in front
the church and one of St. Martin, too.

“Plenty men from St. Martinville go to the war and Archie
DeBlieu, he go to Virginia and fight. The first one to pass our place
was John Well Banks and he was a Yankee going up the Red River.

“The yellow fever came durin’ that war and kill lots. All
the big plantation have the graveyard for the cullud people. That fever
so bad they get the coffin ready before they dead and they so scared
that some weren’t dead but they think they are and bury them. There was
a white girl call Colene Sonnier what was to marry Sunday and she take
sick Friday before. She say not to bury her in the ground but they put
her there while they got the tomb ready. When they open the ground grave
to put her in the tomb they find she buried alive and she eat all her own
shoulder and hand away. Her sweetheart, Gart Berrild, he see that corpse,[Pg 92]
and he go home and get took with yellow fever and die.

“They was the old lady what die. She was a terrible soul. One
time after she die I go to get water out of her rain barrel and I had
a lamp in one hand. That old lady’s ghost blowed out the lamp and slapped
the pitcher out my hand. After she first die her husband put black
dress on her and tie up the jaw with a rag and my girl look in the room
and there that old lady, Liza Lee, sittin’ by the fire. My girl tell
her mama and after three day she go back, and Liza Lee buried but my
wife see her sittin’ by the fire. Then she sorry she whip the chile for
sayin’ she saw Liza Lee. That old lady, Liza Lee, was a tart and she
stay a tart for a long time.

“I marry 72 year ago in the Catholic Church in St. Martinville.
My wife call Adeline Chretien and she dead 37 year. We have seven
children but four live now. Frank my only boy live now, in Iowa, in
Louisiana, and my two girls live, Enziede De Querive and Rose Baptiste.[Pg 93]

“I was born in San Antonio, in 1862. My mother’s name
was Rachael Miller. I don’t know if she was born in Tennessee
or Mississippi. I heard her talk of both places. I don’t know
nothing about my father, because he run off when I was about
three months old. He was three-quarter Cherokee Indian. They
were lots of Indians then, and my husband’s people come from
Savannah, Georgia, and he said they was lots of Indians there.
I had two sisters and one brother and the sisters are dead but
my brother lives somewhere in Arizona. My mother’s master’s
name was John. G. Wilcox.

“When we was small chillen, they hired my sisters out, but
not me. My grandfather bought my grandmother’s time and they run
a laundry house. They hired my mother out, too.

“You see, my grandmother was free born, but they stole her
and sold her to Miss Donaldson. She was half French. She looked[Pg 94]
jes’ like a French woman. She wasn’t a slave, but she and her
brother were stolen and sold. She said the stage coach used to
pass her aunt’s house, and one day she and her brother went down
to town to buy some buns, and when they were comin’ back, the
stage stopped and asked ’em to ride. She wanted to ride, but her
brother didn’t. But they kep’ coaxin’ ’em till they got ’em in.
They set her down between the two women that was in there and
set her brother between two men, and when they got close to the
house, they threw cloaks over their heads and told the driver to
drive as fast as he could, and he sure drove. They taken ’em to
Washin’ton, to the White House, and made her a present to Mary
Wilcox (Miss Donaldson) and her brother to somebody else. Then
this woman married John C. Wilcox and they come to Texas.

“She saw a cousin of hers when they got to Washin’ton, and
she knew, after that, he had somethin’ to do with her and her
brother bein’ stolen. One day she found a piece of yellow money
and took it to her cousin and he told her it wasn’t no good and
gave her a dime to go get her some candy. After that, she saw
gold money and knew what it was.

“She said she had a good time, though, when she was growing
up. They were pretty good to her, but after they came to San
Antonio, Mrs. Wilcox began bein’ mean. She kep’ my mother hired
out all the time and gave me to her daughter and my sister to
her son. My mother was kep’ hired out all the time, cooking;
and after freedom, she just took to washin’ and ironin’. My
grandfather bought his time and my grandmother’s time out. They
didn’t stay with her.[Pg 95]

“I’ve heard my mother talk about coffee. They roasted beans
and made coffee. She says, out on the plantation, they would
take bran and put it in a tub and have ’em stir it up with water
in it and let all the white go to the bottom and dip it off and
strain it and make starch. I have made starch out of flour over
and often, myself. I had four or five little girls; and I had
to keep ’em like pins. In them days they wore little calico
dresses, wide and full and standin’ out, and a bonnet to match
every dress.

“I used to hear my grandmother tell about the good times
they used to have. They would go from one plantation to another
and have quiltin’s and corn huskin’s. And they would dance. They
didn’t have dances then like they do now. The white people would
give them things to eat. They would have to hoof it five or six
miles and didn’t mind it.

“They had what they called patros, and if you didn’t have
a pass they would whip you and put you in jail. Old Man Burns
was hired at the courthouse, and if the marsters had slaves that
they didn’t want to whip, they would send them to the courthouse
to be whipped. Some of the marsters was good and some wasn’t.
There was a woman, oh, she was the meanest thing! I don’t know
if she had a husband—I never did hear anything about him.
When she would get mad at one of her slave women, she would make
the men tie her down, and she had what they called cat-o’-nine-tails,
and after she got the blood to come, she would dip it in
salt and pepper and whip her again. Oh, she was mean! My[Pg 96]
mother’s marster was good; he wouldn’t whip any of his slaves.
But his wife wasn’t good. If she got mad at the women, when he
would come home she would say: ‘John, I want you to whip Liza.’
Or Martha. And he would say, ‘Them are your slaves. You whip
them.’ He was good and she was mean.

“When my aunt would go to clean house, she (Mrs. Wilcox)
would turn all the pictures in the house but one, the meanest
looking one—you know how it always looks like a picture is
watching you everywhere you go—and she would tell her if
she touched a thing or left a bit of dirt or if she didn’t do
it good, this picture would tell. And she believed it.

“My grandmother told a tale one time. You know in slave
time they had an old woman to cook for the chillen. One day
they were going to have company. This woman that was the boss
of the place where the chillen was kept told the old cullud
woman to take a piece of bacon and grease the mouths of all the
chillen. Then she told a boy to bring them up to these people,
and the woman said: ‘Oh, you must feed these chillen good, just
look at their mouths!’ And the woman said, ‘Oh, that’s the way
they eat.’ They didn’t get meat often. That was just to make
them believe they had lots to eat.

“No. They were cut off from education. The way my stepfather
got his learning was a cullud blacksmith would teach
school at night, and us chillen taught our mother. She didn’t
know how to spell or read or nothin’. She didn’t know B from
bull’s foot. Some of them were allowed to have church and some
didn’t. Mighty few read the Bible ’cause they couldn’t read. As[Pg 97]
my mother used to say, they were raised up as green as cucumbers.
That old blacksmith was the onlyist man that knew how to read
and write in slavery time that I knew of. My grandmother or none
of them knew how to read; they could count, but that was all.
That’s what makes me mad. I tell my grandchillen they ought to
learn all they can ’cause the old people never had a chance. My
husband never did have any schooling, but he sure could figger.
Now, if you want me to get tangled up, just give me a pencil and
paper and I don’t know nothing.” She tapped her skull. “I
figger in my head! The chillen, today, ought to appreciate an
education.

“Oh, yes, they were good to the slaves when they were sick.
They would have the doctor come out and wait on them. Most
plantations had what they called an old granny cullud woman that
treated the chillen with herbs and such things.

“Games? I don’t know. We used to play rap jacket. We
would get switches and whip one another. You know, after you was
hit several times it didn’t hurt much. I’ve played a many time.
In slave time the men used to go huntin’ at night, and hunt
‘possums and ‘coons. They would have a dog or two along. They
used to go six or seven miles afoot to corn huskin’s and quiltin’s.
And those off the other plantations would come over and join in
the work. And they would nearly always have a good dinner.
Sometimes some of the owners would give ’em a hog or somethin’
nice to eat, but some of ’em didn’t.

“No’m, I don’t know if they run off to the North, but[Pg 98]
some of them runned off and stayed in the swamps, and they was
mean. They called them runaways. If they saw you, they would
tell you to bring them something to eat. And if you didn’t do
it, if they ever got you they sure would fix you.

“I don’t know when my mother was set free. My husband’s
marster’s name was King. He was from Savannah, Georgia, but at
the time was living close to Boerne. My husband’s father was
killed in the war. When my husband was about ten years old, his
marster hadn’t told them they was free. You know some of them
didn’t tell the slaves they was free until they had to. After
freedom was declared, lots of people didn’t tell the slaves they
were free. One morning, my husband said, he happended to look
out and he saw a big bunch of men coming down the road, and he
thought he never saw such pretty men in his life on them horses.
They had so many brass buttons on their clothes it looked like
gold. So he run and told his mama, and she looked and saw it
was soldiers, and some of ’em told the boss, and he looked and
saw them soldiers comin’ in the big gate and he called ’em in
quick, and told them they were free. So when the soldiers come,
they asked him if he had told his slaves they were free, and he
said yes. They asked the Negroes if they lived there, and they
said yes. One said, ‘He just told us we was free.’ The soldiers
asked him why he had just told them, and he said they wasn’t all
there and he was waiting for them all to be there.

“My husband said he thought them was the prettiest bunch
of men he ever saw, and the prettiest horses. Of course, he[Pg 99]
hadn’t never saw any soldiers before. I know it looked pretty
to me when I used to see the soldiers at the barracks and hear
the band playin’ and see them drillin’ and ever’thing. You see,
we lived on a little cross-street right back of St. Mary’s Church
in San Antonio, I don’t know how that place is now. Where the
post office is now, there used to be a blacksmith shop and my
father worked there. I went back to San Antonio about fifteen
years ago and jes’ took it afoot and looked at the changes.

“I was fifteen years old the first time I married. It was
almost a run-a-way marriage. I was married in San Antonio. My
first husband’s name was Henry Hall. My first wedding dress was
as wide as a wagon sheet. It was white lawn, full of tucks, and
had a big ruffle at the bottom. I had a wreath and a veil, too.
The veil had lace all around it. We danced and had a supper.
We danced all the dances they danced then; the waltz, square,
quadrille, polka, and the gallopade—and that’s what it was,
all right; you shore galloped. You’d start from one end of the
hall and run clear to the other end. In those days, the women
with all them long trains—the man would hold it over his arm.
No, Lord! Honeymoons wasn’t thought of then. No’m, I never
worked out a day in my life.” Jokingly, “I guess they thought
I was too good looking. I was about twenty years old when I
married the second time. I was married in Leon Springs the
second time.

“Before we come out to this country from Leon Springs,
they was wild grapes, dewberries, plums and agaritas, black haws,[Pg 100]
red haws. M-m-m! Them dewberries, I dearly love ’em! I never
did see wild cherries out here. I didn’t like the cherries much,
but they make fine wine. We used to gather mustang grapes and
make a barrel of wine.

“After I married the second time, we lived on the Adams
ranch on the Frio and stayed on that ranch fifteen years. We
raised all our chillen right on that ranch. I am taken for a
Mexkin very often. I jes’ talk Mexkin back to ’em. I learned
to talk it on the ranch. As long as I have lived at this place,
I have never had a cross word about the chillen. All my neighbors
here is Mexkins. They used to laugh at me when I tried to talk
to the hands on the ranch, but I learned to talk like ’em.

“We used to have big round-ups out on the Adams ranch.
They had fences then. The neighbors would all come over and get
out and gather the cattle and bring ’em in. Up at Leon Springs
at that time they didn’t have any fences, and they would have
big round-ups there. But after we come out here, it was different.
He would notify his neighbors they were goin’ to gather
cattle on a certain day. The chuck wagon was right there at the
ranch, that is, I was the chuck wagon. But if they were goin’
to take the cattle off, they would have a chuck wagon. They
would round up a pasture at a time and come in to the ranch for
their meals. Now on the Wallace ranch, they would always take
a chuck wagon. When they were gettin’ ready to start brandin’
at the ranch, my husband always kep’ his brandin’ irons all in
the house, hangin’ up right where he could get his hands on ’em.[Pg 101]
Whenever they would go off to other ranches to gather cattle,
you would see ever’ man with his beddin’ tied up behind him on
his horse. He’d have jes’ a small roll. They would always have
a slicker if nothin’ else. That slicker answered for ever’thing
sometimes. My husband slep’ many a night with his saddle under
his head.

“He used to carry mail from San Antonio to Dog Town, horseback.
That was the town they used to call Lodi (Lodo), but I
don’t know how to spell it, and don’t know what it means. It
was a pretty tough town. The jail house was made out of ‘dobe
and pickets. They had a big picket fence all around it. They
had a ferry that went right across the San Antonio River from
Floresville to Dog Town. I know he told me he come to a place
and they had a big sign that said, ‘Nigga, don’t let the sun go
down on you here.’ They was awful bad down in there. He would
leave Dog Town in the evenin’ and he would get to a certain place
up toward San Antonio to camp, and once he stopped before he got
to the place he always camped at. He said he didn’t know what
made ‘im stop there that time, but he stopped and took the saddle
off his horse and let ‘im graze while he lay down. After a
while, he saw two cigarette fires in the dark right up the road
a little piece, and he heard a Mexkin say, ‘I don’t see why he’s
so late tonight. He always gets here before night and camps right
there.’ He knew they was waylayin’ ‘im, so he picked his saddle
up right easy and carried it fu’ther back down the road in the
brush and then come got his horse and took him out there and
saddled ‘im up and went away ’round them Mexkins. He went on in[Pg 102]
to San Antonio and didn’t go back any more. A white man took the
mail to carry then and the first trip he made, he never come back.
He went down with the mail and they found the mail scattered
somewhere on the road, but they never found the man, or the horse,
either.

“On the Adams ranch, in the early days, we used to have to
pack water up the bank. You might not believe it, but one of
these sixty-pound lard cans full of water, I’ve a-carried it on
my head many a time. We had steps cut into the bank, and it was
a good ways down to the water, and I’d pack that can up to the
first level and go back and get a couple a buckets of water, and
carry a bucket in each hand and the can on my head up the next
little slantin’ hill before I got to level ground. I carried
water that way till my chillen got big enough to carry water,
then they took it up. When I was carryin’ water in them big cans
my head would sound like new leather—you know how it squeaks,
and that was the way it sounded in my head. But, it never did
hurt me. You see, the Mexkins carry loads on their heads, but
they fix a rag around their heads some way to help balance it.
But I never did. I jes’ set it up on my head and carried it
that way. Oh, we used to carry water! My goodness! My mother
said it was the Indian in me—the way I could carry water.

“When we were first married and moved to the Adams ranch,
we used to come here to Uvalde to dances. They had square dances
then. They hadn’t commenced all these frolicky dances they have
now. They would have a supper, but they had it to sell. Every
fellow would have to treat his girl he danced with.[Pg 103]

“I can remember when my grandfather lived in a house with
a dirt floor, and they had a fireplace. And I can remember just
as well how he used to bake hoecakes for us kids. He would rake
back the coals and ashes real smooth and put a wet paper down on
that and then lay his hoecake down on the paper and put another
paper on top of that and the ashes on top. I used to think that
was the best bread I ever ate. I tried it a few times, but I
made such a mess I didn’t try it any more. One thing I have seen
’em make, especially on the ranch. You take and clean a stick
and you put on a piece of meat and piece of fat till you take and
use up the heart and liver and sweetbread and other meat and put
it on the stick and wrap it around with leaf fat and then put the
milk gut, or marrow gut, around the whole thing. They call that
macho (mule), and I tell you, it’s good. They make it out of a
goat and sheep, mostly.

“Another thing, we used to have big round-ups, and I have
cooked great pans of steak and mountain orshters. Generally, at
the brandin’ and markin’, I cooked up many a big pan of mountain
orshters. I wish I had a nickel for ever’ one I’ve cooked, and
ate too! People from up North have come down there, and, when
they were brandin’ and cuttin’ calves there, they sure did eat
and enjoy that dinner.

“The men used to go up to the lake, fishin’, and catch big
trout, or bass, they call ’em now; and we’d take big buckets of
butter—we didn’t take a saucer of butter or a pound; we taken
butter up there in buckets, for we sure had plenty of it—and[Pg 104]
we’d take lard too, and cook our fish up there, and had corn
bread or hoe cakes and plenty of butter for ever’thing, and it
sure was good. I tell you—like my husband used to say—we
was livin’ ten days in the week, then.

“When we killed hogs, the meat from last winter was hung outside
and then new meat, salted down and then smoked, put in there,
and we would cook the old bacon for the dogs. We always kep’ some
good dogs there, and anybody’ll tell you they was always fat. We
had lots of wild turkeys and I raised turkeys, too, till I got
sick of cookin’ turkeys. Don’t talk about deer! You know, it
wasn’t then like it is now. You could go kill venison any time
you wanted to. But I don’t blame ’em for passin’ that law, for
people used to go kill ’em and jes’ take out the hams and tenderloin
and leave the other layin’ there. I have saved many a sack
of dried meat to keep it from spoilin’.

“We would raise watermelons, too. We had a big field three
mile from the house and a ninety-acre field right in the house.
We used to go get loads of melons for the hogs and they got to
where they didn’t eat anything but the heart.

“I used to leave my babies at the house with the older
girl and go out horseback with my husband. My oldest girl used
to take the place of a cowboy, and put her hair up in her hat.
And ride! My goodness, she loved to ride! They thought she was
a boy. She wore pants and leggin’s. And maybe you think she
couldn’t ride!

“After we left that ranch, we took up some state land. I
couldn’t tell you how big that place was. We had 640 in one place[Pg 105]
and 640 in another place; it was a good big place. After my
husband got sick, we had to let it go back. We couldn’t pay it
out. We only lived on it about four years.

“My husband has been dead about nineteen years. I had a pen
full and a half of chillen. I have four livin’ chillen, two girls
and two boys. I have a girl, Carrie, in California, workin’ in
the fruit all the time; one boy, George, in Arizona, workin’ in
the mines; and a girl in Arizona, Lavinia, washes and irons and
cooks and ever’thing else she can get at. And I have one boy here.
I have ten grandchillen and I’ve got five great grandchillen.

“I belong to the Methodist Church. I joined about twenty-five
years ago. My husband joined with me. But here, of late
years, when I go to church, it makes me mad to see how the people
do the preacher up there trying to do all the good he can do and
them settin’ back there laughin’ and talkin’. I was baptized.
There was about five or six of us baptized in the Leona down here.

“People tell that I’ve got plenty and don’t need help. Even
the Mexkins here and ever’body say I’ve got money. Jes’ because
we had that farm down there they think I come out with money. But
what in the world would I want with money if I didn’t use it? I
can’t take it with me when I die and I could be gettin’ the use of
it now while I need it. I could have what I want to eat, anyway.
I’m gettin’ a little pension, but it ain’t near enough to keep us.
I’ve got these two grandchillen here, and things is so high, too,
so I don’t have enough of anything without skimpin’ all the time.[Pg 106]

“I jus’ ‘member my first marster and missus, ’cause she don’
want me there. I’se a child of the marster. Dey didn’ tell me
how old I was when dey sold me to Boles. My missus sold me to
Boles. Dey tuk us to where dere was a heap of white folks down
by the court house and we’d be there in lots and den de whites
‘ud bid for us. I don’ know how old I was, but I washed dishes
and den dey put me to work in de fields. We don’ git a nickel in
slavery.

“Marster Boles didn’ have many slaves on de farm, but lots
in brickyard. I toted brick back and put ’em down where dey had
to be. Six bricks each load all day. That’s de reason I ain’t
no ‘count, I’se worked to death. I fired de furnace for three
years. Stan’in’ front wid hot fire on my face. Hard work, but
God was wid me. We’d work ’till dark, quit awhile after sundown.
Marster was good to slaves, didn’ believe in jus’ lashin’ ’em. He’d
not be brutal but he’d kill ’em dead right on the spot. Overseers
‘ud git after ’em and whop ’em down.[Pg 107]

“I’se seventeen, maybe, when I married to slave of Boles.
Married on Saturday night. Dey give me a dress and dey had things to eat,
let me have something like what you call a party. We just had common
clothes on. And then I had to work every day. I’d leave my baby cryin’
in de yard and he’d be cryin’, but I couldn’ stay. Done everything but
split rails. I’ve cut timber and ploughed. Done everything a man could
do. I couldn’ notice de time, but I’d be glad to git back to my baby.

“Log cabins had dirt floor, sometimes plankin’ down. I
worked late and made pretty quilts. Sometimes dey’d let us have a party.
Saturday nights, de white people give us meat and stuff. Give us syrup
and we’d make candy, out in de yard. We’d ask our frien’s and dance all
night. Den go to work next day. We’d clean off de yard and dance out
dere. Christmas come, dey give us a big eggnog and give us cake. Our
white folks did. White folks chillen had bought candy. We didn’ git any,
but dey let us play wid de white chillen. We’d play smut. Whoever beat
wid de cards, he’d git to smut you. Take de smut from fireplace and rub
on your face.

“Doctor take care of us iffen we sick, so’s git us well to
git us to work.

“Iffen dey had a pretty girl dey would take ’em, and I’se one
of ’em, and my oldest child, he boy by Boles, almost white.

“We had to steal away at night to have church on de ditch bank,
and crawl home on de belly. Once overseers heered us prayin’, give us
one day each 100 lashes.[Pg 108]

“Den when de Yankees come through, dey ‘ud be good to de slaves,
to keep ’em from tellin’ on ’em. Freedom was give Jan. 1, 1865, but de
slaves didn’ know it ’till June 19. We’se refugees. Boles, our marster,
sent us out and we come from Holmes County to Cherokee County in a wagon.
We was a dodgin’ in and out, runnin’ from de Yankees. Marster said dey
was runnin’ us from de Yankees to keep us, but we was free and didn’ know
it. I lost my baby, its buried somewhere on dat road. Died at Red River
and we left it. De white folks go out and buy food ‘long de road and hide
us. Dey say we’d never be free iffen dey could git to Texas wid us, but
de people in Texas tol’ us we’s free. Den marster turn us loose in de
world, without a penny. Oh, dey was awful times. We jus’ worked from
place to place after freedom.

“When we started from Mississippi, dey tol’ us de Yankees ‘ud
kill us iffen dey foun’ us, and dey say, ‘You ain’t got no time to take
nothin’ to whar you goin’. Take your little bundle and leave all you has
in your house.’ So when we got to Texas I jus’ had one dress, what I had
on. Dat’s de way all de cullud people was after freedom, never had nothin’
but what had on de back. Some of dem had right smart in dere cabins, but
they was skeered and dey lef’ everything. Bed clothes and all you had was
lef’. We didn’ know any better den.”[Pg 109]

Betty Bormer (Bonner)

“I’se bo’n April 4th, in 1857, at Johnson Station. It was
named after my marster. He had a big farm, I’se don’ know how
many acres. He had seven chillen; three boys, Ben, Tom and Mart,
and four girls, Elizabeth, Sally, Roddy and Veanna.

“Marster Johnson was good to us cullud folks and he feeds us
good. He kep’ lots of hawgs, dat makes de meat. In de smokehouse
am hung up meat enough for to feed de army, it looks like. We’uns
have all de clothes we need and dey was made on de place. My mammy
am de sewing woman and my pappy am de shoemaker. My work, for to
nuss de small chillen of de marster.

“On Sat’day we’s let off work and lots de time some of us come
to Fort Worth wid de marster and he gives us a nickel or a dime for
to buy candy.

“Dey whips de niggers sometimes, but ‘twarn’t hard. You know,
de nigger gits de devilment in de head, like folks do, sometimes, and
de marster have to larn ’em better. He done dat hisself and he have
no overseer. No nigger tried run away, ’cause each family have a cabin[Pg 110]
wid bunks for to sleep on and we’uns all live in de quarters. Sich
nigger as wants to larn read and write, de marster’s girls and boys
larns ’em. De girls larned my auntie how to play de piano.

“Dere am lots of music on dat place; fiddle, banjo and de
piano. Singin’, we had lots of dat, songs like Ole Black Joe and
‘ligious songs and sich. Often de marster have we’uns come in his
house and clears de dinin’ room for de dance. Dat am big time, on
special occasion. Dey not calls it ‘dance’ dem days, dey calls it de
‘ball.’

“Sho’, we’uns goes to church and de preacher’s name, it was
Jack Ditto.

“Durin’ de war, I notices de vittles am ’bout de same. De
soldiers come dere and dey driv’ off over de hill some of de cattle
for to kill for to eat. Once dey took some hosses and I hears marster
say dem was de Quantrell mens. Dey comes several times and de marster
don’ like it, but he cain’t help it.

“When freedom come marster tells all us to come to front of de
house. He am standin’ on de porch. Him ‘splains ’bout freedom and
says, ‘You is now free and can go whar you pleases.’ Den he tells us
he have larned us not to steal and to be good and we’uns should ‘member
dat and if we’uns gets in trouble to come to him and he will help us.
He sho’ do dat, too, ’cause de niggers goes to him lots of times and
he always helps.

“Marster says dat he needs help on de place and sich dat stays,
he’d pay ’em for de work. Lots of dem stayed, but some left. To dem[Pg 111]
dat leaves, marster gives a mule, or cow and sich for de start. To
my folks, marster gives some land. He doesn’t give us de deed, but
de right to stay till he dies.

“Sho’, I seen de Klux after de war but I has no ‘sperience
wid ’em. My uncle, he gits whipped by ’em, what for I don’ know
‘zactly, but I think it was ’bout a hoss. Marster sho’ rave ’bout dat,
’cause my uncle weren’t to blame.

“When de Klux come de no ‘count nigger sho make de scatterment.
Some climb up de chimney or jump out de winder and hide in de
dugout and sich.

“De marster dies ’bout seven years after freedom and everybody
sorry den. I never seen such a fun’ral and lots of big men from
Austin comes. He was de blessed man!

“I married de second year after de T.P. railroad come to
Fort Worth, to Sam Jones and he work on de Burk Burnett stock ranch.
I’se divorseted from him after five years and den after 12 more years
I marries Rubbin Felps. My las’ husban’s named Joe Borner, but I’se
never married to the father of my only chile. His name am George Pace.

“I allus gits long fair, ’cause after freedom I keeps on workin’
doin’ de nussin’. Now I’se gittin’ ‘leven dollars from de state for
pension, and gits it every month so now I’se sho’ of somethin’ to eat
and dat makes me happy.[Pg 112]

“I was fifteen years when they says we’re free. That’s the age my
Old Missy done give me when the war stopped. She had all us niggers’ ages
in a book, and told me I was born near Henderson. My Old Marse was Wash
Trammel and he brunged me and my mama and papa from Alabama. Mama was
named Juliet and papa, Amos. Marse Trammel owned my grandpa and grandma,
too, and they was named Jeanette and Josh.

“The plantation was two made into one, and plenty big, and more’n
a hundred slaves to work it. Marse lived in a hewed log house, weather-boarded
out and in, and the quarters was good, log houses with bed railin’s
hewed out of logs. We raised everything we et, ‘cept sugar, and Marse
bought that in big hogsheads. We got our week’s rations every Sunday, and
when we went to eat, everybody’s part was put out to them on a tin plate.

“Marse Trammel give a big cornshucking every fall. He had two bottom
fields in corn. First we’d gather peas and cushaws and pumpkins out the
corn field, then get the corn and pile it front the cribs. They was two
big cribs for the corn we kep’ to use and five big cribs for sale corn.
My uncle stayed round the sale corn cribs all spring, till ginnin’ time,
’cause folks come for miles after corn. Marse had five wheat cribs and
one rye crib. We went ten mile to Tatum to git our meal and flour ground.

“The patterrollers darsn’t come ’bout our place or bother us niggers.
Marse Wash allus say, ‘I’ll patterroller my own place.’ Marse was good to[Pg 113]
us and only once a overseer beat a woman up a trifle, and Marse Trammel fired
him that same day.

“The sojers ‘fiscated lots of corn from Marse and some more owners
in Rusk County piled corn up in a big heap and made me go mind it till the
rest the sojers got there. I was settin’ top that corn pile, me and my big
bulldog, and the General rode up. My dog growled and I made him hush. The
General man say to me, ‘Boy, you is ‘scused now, go on home.’ I got to a fence
and looked back, and that General was hewin’ him a hoss trough out a log. The
sojers come in droves and set up they camp. I sot on a stump and watched them
pass. They stayed three, four days till the corn was all fed up.

“While they’s camped there they’d cotch chickens. They had a fishin’
pole and line and hook. They’d put a grain of corn on the hook and ride on
they hoss and pitch the hook out ‘mong the chickens. When a chicken swallowed
the corn they’d jerk up the line with that chicken and ride off.

“Marse had six hundred bales cotton in the Shreveport warehouse when war
was over. He got word them Yankees done take it on a boat. He got his brother
to take him to Shreveport and say, ‘I’ll follow that cotton to Hell and back.’
He followed his cotton to Alabama and got it back, but he died and was buried
there in Alabama ‘fore Old Missy knowed it.

“I stayed with her four years after surrender and then went to farmin’
with my folks, for $10.00 a month. After a year or two I went to railroadin’,
helping cut the right-of-way for the T.& P. Railroad, from Marshall to Longview.
They paid us $1.50 the day and three drinks of whiskey a day.

“I marries four times but had only one child, but I never done nothin’
‘citin’. I lives by myself now, and gits $11.00 pension to eat on.[Pg 114]

Issabella Boyd

“Lemme see, I come from Richmond, Virginy, to Texas. Massa
Gus Wood was my owner and I kin recollect my white folks. I’s born
in dat country and dey brought me over to Richmond and my papa and
mama, too. I was jus’ ’bout big ‘nough to begin to ‘member.

“I come from Richmond yere on de boat, sometime de steamboat,
sometime de big boat. When we left New Orleans dat evenin’ we struck
a big storm. Us git on dat boat in Richmond and went floatin’ down
to de big boat dat mornin’. Looks like it jus’ fun for us, but every
time we look back and think ’bout home it make us sad.

“I had a dear, good mistus and my boss man, he furnish a house
for he servants, a purty good house. And dey had a place for de Sunday
School. Dem was good times. De mistus cook dinner and send it down
for de old folks and chillen to have plenty.

“My mistus kep’ me right in de house, right by her, sewing.
I could sew so fast I git my task over ‘fore de others git started
good.

“Lots of times when de gals wants to go to de dance I he’p
make de dresses. I ‘member de pretties’ one like yesterday. It
have tucks from de waist to de hem and had diamonds cut all in de
skirt.[Pg 115]

“Our boss man was ‘ticular ’bout us being tended to and we
was well took care of. He brung us to Beaumont when it was de plumb
mud hole, and he settle down and try to build up and make it a go.

“Massa Wood he allus takes de paper and one night they set
up da long time and do dey readin’. Next mornin’ de old cook woman,
she say, ‘Well, dey have de big war, and lots of dem wounded.’ Befo’
long us has to take care of some dem wounded soldiers, and dey has de
camp place near us. Dey all camp ’round dere and I don’t know which
was de Yankees and de ‘federates.

“When we all gits free, dey’s de long time lettin’ us know.
Dey wants to git through with de corn and de cotton befo’ dey let’s
de hands loose. Dey was people from other plantations say. ‘Niggers,
you’s free and yere you workin’.’ Us say, ‘No, de gov’ment tell us when
we’s free.’ We workin’ one day when somebody from Massa Grissom place
come by and tell us we’s free, and us stop workin’. Dey tell us to go
on workin’ and de boss man he come up and he say he gwine knock us off
de fence if we don’t go to work. Mistus come out and say, ‘Ain’t you
gwine make dem niggers go to work?’ He send her back in de house and
he call for de carriage and say he goin’ to town for to see what de
gov’ment goin’ do. Nex’ day he come back and say, ‘Well, you’s jus’
as free as I is.’

“He say to me I could stay and cook for dem, and he give me
five dollar a month and a house to stay in and all I kin eat. I stays
de month to do dere work.[Pg 116]

“After dat I wishes sometimes dat old times is back ‘gain.
I likes to be free, but I wasn’t used to it and it was hard to know how
to do. I ‘members de dances we has in de old times, when we makes de
music with banjo and other things. Some de good massas ‘lowed de niggers
dance in de back yard and if we goes over dere without de pass de patterroles
gits us maybe. One time my papa he runnin’ from dem patterroles and
he run slap into de young massa and he say, ‘Oh, you ain’t no nigger, I
kin tell by de smell.’

“Dat mind me of de ghost story dey used to tell ’bout de ghosties
what live in de big bridge down in de hollow. De niggers day say dat
ghostie make too much noise, with all he hollerin’ and he rattlin’ dem
chain. So dat night one us niggers what dey call Charlie, he say he ain’t
‘fraid and he gwineter git him a ghostie, sho’ ‘nough. Us didn’t believe
him but purty soon us hears right smart wrastlin’ with de chains and hollerin’
down by de bridge and after ‘while he come and say he git de best
of dat ghostie, ’cause he ain’t got strength like de man.

“Me and my old man us have twelve chillens altogedder. My
husban’ he come from South Car’lina whar dey eats cottonseed. I used to
joke him ’bout it. I allus say Virginny de best, ’cause I come from dere.[Pg 117]

James Boyd

James Boyd

“I’s born in dat Phantom Valley, in de Indian Territory, what
am now call Oklahoma. Us live in a Indian hut. My pappy Blue Bull Bird
and mammy Nancy Will. She come to de Indian Territory with Santa Anna,
from Mississippi, and pappy raise in de Territory. I don’ ‘member much
’bout my folks, ’cause I stole from dem when I a real li’l feller. I’s
a-fishin’ in de Cherokee River and a man name Sanford Wooldrige come by.
You see, de white folks and de Indians have de fight ’bout dat day. I’s
on de river and I heared yellin’ and shootin’ and folkses runnin’ and I
slips into some bresh right near. Den come de white man and he say,
‘Everybody kilt, nigger, and dem Indians gwine kill you iffen day cotch
you. Come with me and I ain’t ‘low dem hurt you.’ So I goes with him.

“He brung me to Texas, but I don’t know jus’ where, ’cause I
didn’t know nothin’ ’bout dat place. Massa Sanford good to us, but look
out for he missus, she sho’ tough on niggers. Dere ’bout 1,600 acres
in de plantation and de big house am nice. When de niggers wouldn’t
work dey whup ’em. Us work all week and sometime Sunday, iffen de crops
in a rush. Massa not much on presents or money but us have warm clothes
and plenty to eat and de dry place to live, and dat more’n lots of
niggers has now.[Pg 118]

“Sometime us have de corn huskin’ and dere a dollar for de one
what shuck de mos’ corn. Us have de big dance ’bout twict a year, on
Christmas and sometime in de summer. When de white folks have dere big
balls us niggers cook and watch dem dance. Us have fun den.

“I likes to think of dem times when us fish all de hot day or hunts
or jus’ lazed ’round when de crops am laid by. I likes to shet de eyes
and be back in old times and hear ’em sing, “Swing, low, Sweet Chariot.”
I can’t sing, now you knows can’t no old man sing what ain’t got no teef
or hair. I used to like to swing dat ‘Ginia Reel and I’s spry and young
den.

“Dere’s lots I can’t ‘member, ’cause my mem’ry done gone weak like
de res’ of me, but I ‘member when us free us throw de hats in de air and
holler. Old massa say, ‘How you gwine eat and git clothes and sech?’
Den us sho’ scairt and stays with us white folks long as us can. But ’bout
a year after dat I gits de job punchin’ cattle on a ranch in South Texas.
I druv cattle into Kansas, over what de white folks calls de Chissum Trail.
I worked lots of cattle and is what dey call a top hand. I’s workin’ for
Massa Boyd den, and he gits me to drive some cattle to Mexico. He say
he ain’t well no more and for me to sell de cattle and send him de money
and git de job down dere. I goes on down to Mexico and do what he say.
I marries a gal name Martina in 1869, down in Matamoras. Us have four
chillen and she die. Dat break me up and I drifts back to Huntsville.

“I done change my name from Scott Bird, what it am up in de Territory,
and make it James Boyd, ’cause I done work for Massa Boyd. I’s gwine be
’bout 108 year old in next January, iffen de Lawd spare me dat long.[Pg 119]

“After I been in Huntsville awhile, I marries Emma Smith but us
only stay together ’bout a year and a half. Wasn’t no chillen. Den I
drifts to Fort Bend County and dere I marries Mary McDowd and us have
two chillen. She die with de yellow fever and off I goes for Burleson
County. Dere I marries Sally McDave and she quits me after us have three
chillen. Down in old Washington County I marries Frances Williams and
us lived together till 1900. Dere am no chillen dere. Den I goes to
Austin after she die and marries Eliza Bunton in 1903. Us have eight
chillen and she die in 1911. Den I comes to Hill County and marries
Mittie Cahee in 1916. She quit me. In 1924 I marries Hegar Price clost
to Milford. Us live together now, in Itasca. Us didn’t have no chillen,
but dat don’t matter, ’cause I’s de daddy of ’bout twenty already.

“I mos’ allus wore de black suit when I marries. Jes’ seemed
more dressed up like. Some my wives wear white and some colors, didn’t
make much diff’rence, so dey a likely lookin’ gal for me. Sometime it
am a preacher and sometime it am Jestice of Peace, but de fust time it
am Catholic and priest and all.

“Talkin’ ’bout all dis marryin’, I mos’ forgit to show you my
scar. I fit in dat freedom war ‘long side Massa Sanford and got shot.
Dat bullet go through de breast and out de back and keep me six months
in de bed. De fust battle I’s in am at Halifax, in North Car’lina.
Us git de news of freedom when us at Vicksburg, in Mississippi. Mos’
us niggers ‘fraid say much. De new niggers ‘spect de gov’ment give
dem de span of mules and dey be rich and not work. But dey done larn[Pg 120]
a lot dese past years. Us am sho’ slaves now to hard work, and lucky iffen
us git work. Lots dem niggers figgers dey’d git dere massa’s land, but
dey didn’t. Dey oughta of knowed dey wouldn’t. Warn’t no plantation ever
divided I knowed of, but some de massas give de oldest slaves a li’l piece
land.

“After de cattle days done gone, I farms in Hill County. I works
twelve year for Massa Claude Wakefield, right near Milford, too. De old
man ain’t due to live nowhere long and I’s gittin’ ’bout ready to cross
de river. I’s seed a heap of dis here earth and de people in it, but I
tells you it am sho’ hard time now. Us is old and cripple’ and iffen
de white folks don’t holp us I don’t know what us gwine do.

“Some dese young niggers gone plumb wild with dere cigars and
cars and truckin’ and jazzin’ and sech. Some go to school and larn like
white folks and teach and be real helpful. But talk ’bout workin’ in
slave time—’twarn’t so hard as now. Den you fuss ’cause dere’s work,
now you fuss ’cause dere ain’t no work. But den us have somethin’ to
eat and wear and a place to sleep, and now us don’t know one day what
gwine fill us tomorrow, or nothin’.

“I’d sho’ like to shake Massa Boyd’s hand again and hear him
come singin’ down de lane. Us hear him sing or whistle long ‘fore he
git dere and it mighty good to see him. De slaves allus say, ‘I’s gwine
‘way tomorrow,’ and I guess I’s gwine ‘way pretty soon tomorrow.[Pg 121]

“I been well taken care of durin’ my life. When I was
young I lived right in de big house with my marster. I was houseboy.
My mother’s name was Betsy Ann Boykin and she was cook for Old Missus.
My grandpa was blacksmith. I slept on a pallet in de kitchen and in
winter time on cold nights I ‘members how cold I would get. I’d wake
up and slip in by marsters bed and den I’d say, ‘Marster John, I’s
about to freeze.’ He’d say, ‘You ought to freeze, you little black
devil. What you standin’ dere for?’ I’d say, ‘Please, marster John,
jes’ let me crawl in by your feet.’ He’d say, ‘Well, I will dis one
time,’ and dat’s de way I’d do every cold night.

“I was full of mischief and I’d tu’n de mules out of de lot,
jus’ to see de stableboy git a lickin’. One time I wanted a fiddle a
white man named Cocoanut Harper kep’ tryin’ to sell me for $7.50. I
didn’ never have any money, ‘cept a little the missie give me, so I kep’
teasin’ her to buy de fiddle for me. She was allus on my side, so she
tol’ me to take some co’n from de crib and trade in for de fiddle. In
de night I slips out and hitch up de mules and fetched de co’n to old
Harper’s house and traded for dat fiddle. Den I hides out and play it,
so’s marster wouldn’ fin’ out, but he did and he whip all de daylight[Pg 122]
outta me. When de missie try to whip me, I jes’ wrop up in her big
skirts and she never could hurt me much.

“I allus ate my meals in de house at de white folks table, after
dey done et. Iffen I couldn’ sit in de marster’s chair, I’d swell up
like a toad.

“De marster done all de whippin’, ’cause dey had been two overseers
killed on de plantation for whippin’ slaves till de blood run out
dey body.

“Was I bovered with haints and spooks? I been meetin’ up with ’em
all my life. When I was younger I was such an old scratch I’d meet ’em
right in de road, some without heads. I’d take to my heels and then I’d
stop and look ’round and they’d be gone.

“I wore home-weaved shirts till I was grown, then I had some pants
and dey was homemade, too. The women gathered womack leaves to dye de
goods black.

“I well rec’lects when my marster went to war. He called all us in
de kitchen and telled us he had to go over dere and whip those sons-of-bitches
and would be back ‘fore breakfast. He didn’ return for two years.
I says, ‘Marster, we sho’ would have waited breakfast on you a long time.’
He said, ‘Yes; deys de hardes’ sons-of-bitches to whip I ever had dealins’
with.’

“When war was over, he called us together and tol’ us we were free.
He said, ‘Now, I’m goin’ to give you a big day and after that you can stay
and work for pay or you can go.’ So he rolled out two barrels of whiskey
and killed hogs and spread a big day.[Pg 123]

“I wants to tell you ’bout how we killed hogs in my day.
We digged a deep pit in de groun’ and heated big rocks red hot and
filled up de pit with water and dropped dem hot rocks in and got de
water hot; den we stuck de hogs and rolled ’em in dat pit.

“Soon after I’s free a man come for me from Louisville
to hire me as foreman in his cotton mule barn. So I went there and
I worked in Kentucky for 18 year. Fifty-one years ago I married my
ol’ woman, Rachel Taylor, at Corsicana, Texas, and I think she’s jes’
as fine as the day I married her. We has six chillen and all works
hard for a livin’ and we got one lil’ grandbaby 10 years ol’. She
lives here at our house and we’re educatin’ her.

“I knows I’s goin’ to live to be over 100 years ol’, ’cause
my marster done tol’ me so.”[Pg 124]

Monroe Brackins

Monroe Brackins

“I was bo’n in Mississippi, Monroe County. I’m 84 years old.
My master, George Reedes, brought me, my father and mother
and my two sisters to Texas when I was two years old. My father
was Nelson Brackins and my mother was Rosanna.

“My master settled here at a place called Malone, on the Hondo
River. He went into the stock business. Our house there was
a little, old picket house with a grass roof over it out of the
sage grass. The bed was made with a tick of shucks and the
children slept on the floor. The boss had just a little lumber
house. Later on he taken us about 20 miles fu’ther down on the
Hondo, the Old Adams Ranch, and he had a rock house.

“I was about six years old then. I had some shoes, to keep the
thorns outa my feet, and I had rawhide leggin’s. We just had
such clothes as we could get, old patched-up clothes. They just
had that jeans cloth, homemade clothes.

“I was with George Reedes 10 or 12 years. It was my first
trainin’ learnin’ the stock business and horse breakin.’ He was
tol’able good to us, to be slaves as we was. His brother had a[Pg 125]
hired man that whipped me once, with a quirt. I’ve heard my father
and mother tell how they whipped ’em. They’d tie ’em down on a log
or up to a post and whip ’em till the blisters rose, then take a paddle
and open ’em up and pour salt in ’em. Yes’m, they whipped the
women. The most I remember about that, my father and sister was in
the barn shuckin’ co’n and the master come in there and whipped my
sister with a cowhide whip. My father caught a lick in the face and
he told the master to keep his whip offen him. So the master started
on my father and he run away. When he finally come in he was so wild
his master had to call him to get orders for work, and finally the
boss shot at him, but they didn’t whip him any more. Of course, some
of ’em whipped with more mercy. They had a whippin’ post and when
they strapped ’em down on a log they called it a ‘stroppin’ log.’

“I remember they tasked the cotton pickers in Mississippi. They had
to bring in so many pounds in the evenin’ and if they didn’t they
got a whippin’ for it. My sister there, she had to bring in 900 pounds
a day. Well, cotton was heavier there. Most any of ’em could pick
900 pounds. It was heavier and fluffier. We left the cotton country
in Mississippi, but nobody knew anything about cotton out here that I
knew of.

“I’ve heard my parents say too, them men that had plantations and a
great lot of slaves, they would speculate with ’em and would have a
chain that run from the front ones to the back ones. Sometimes they
would have 15 or 20 miles to make to get them to the sale place, but
they couldn’t make a break. Where they expected to make a sale, they[Pg 126]
kept ’em in corrals and they had a block there to put ’em up on and bid
’em off. The average price was about $500, but some that had good practice,
like a blacksmith, brought a good price, as high as $1,500.

“I heard my mother and father say they would go 15 or 20 miles to a dance,
walkin’, and get back before daylight, before the ‘padderollers’ got ’em.
The slaves would go off when they had no permission and them that would
ketch ’em and whip ’em was the ‘padderollers.’ Sometimes they would have
an awful race.

“If they happened to be a slave on the plantation that could jes’ read a
little print, they would get rid of him right now. He would ruin the niggers,
they would get too smart. The’ was no such thing as school here for
culluds in early days. The white folks we was raised up with had pretty
good education. That’s why I don’t talk like most cullud folks. I was
about grown and the’ was an English family settled close, about half a mile,
I guess. They had a little boy, his name was Arthur Ederle, and he come
over and learned me how to spell ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ and ‘hen’ and such like.
I was right around about 20 years old. I couldn’t sign my name when I was
18 years old.

“I can remember one time when I was young, I saw something I couldn’t
‘magine what it was, like a billygoat reared up on a tree. But I knew
the’ wasn’t a billygoat round there near, nor no other kinds of goats.
It was in the daytime and I was out in a horse pasture, I was jes’ walkin’
along, huntin’, when I saw that sight. I guess I got within 50 steps of
it, then I turned around and got away. I never did think much about a
ghost, but I think it could be possible.[Pg 127]

“I don’t remember scarcely anything about the war because I was so little
and times was so different; the country wasn’t settled up and everything
was wild, no people, hardly. Of course, my life was in the woods, you
might say, didn’t hardly know when Sunday come.

“The northern soldiers never did get down in here that I know of. I know
once, when they was enlisting men to go to battle a whole lot of ’em didn’t
want to fight and would run away and dodge out, and they would follow ’em
and try to make ’em fight. They had a battle up here on the Nueces once
and killed some of ’em. I know my boss was in the bunch that followed ’em
and he got scared for fear this old case would be brought up after the war.
The company that followed these men was called Old Duff Company. I think
somewhere around 40 was in the bunch that they followed, but I don’t know
how many was killed. They was a big bluff and a big water hole and they
said they was throwed in that big water hole.

“We had possums and ‘coons to eat sometimes. My father, he gen’rally cooked
the ‘coons, he would dress ’em and stew ’em and then bake ’em. My mother
wouldn’t eat them. There was plenty of rabbits, too. Sometimes when they
had potatoes they cooked ’em with ’em. I remember one time they had just
a little patch of blackhead sugar cane. After the freedom, my mother had
a kind of garden and she planted snap beans and watermelons pretty much
every year.

“The master fed us tol’bly well. Everything was wild, beef was free, just
had to bring one in and kill it. Once in awhile, of a Sunday mornin’, we’d get
biscuit flour bread to eat. It was a treat to us. They measured the flour out
and it had to pan out just like they measured. He give us a little somethin’[Pg 128]
ever’ Christmas and somethin’ good to eat. I heard my people say coffee was
high, at times, and I know we didn’t get no flour, only Sunday mornin’. We
lived on co’nbread, mostly, and beef and game outta the woods. That was durin’
the war and after the war, too.

“I was around about 6 or 7 years old when we was freed. We worked for George
Reedes awhile, then drifted on down to the Frio river and stayed there about a
year, then we come to Medina County and settled here close to where I was raised.
We didn’t think it hard times at all right after the war. The country was wild
and unsettled, with ranches 15 or 20 miles apart. You never did see anybody
and we didn’t know really what was goin’ on in the rest of the country. Sometimes
something could happen in 5 miles of us and we didn’t know it for a month.

“I was on the Adams Ranch on the Hondo when my master come out and told us we
were as free as he was. He said we could stay on and work or could go if we
wanted to. He gave my mother and father 50 cents apiece and 25 cents for the
children. We stayed awhile and then went west to the Frio.

“I used to be along with old man Big-foot Wallace in my early days. He was a
mighty fine man. I worked for the people that was gathering stock together
there. Big Foot raised nice horses, old reg’lar Texas horses, and they was better
than the reg’lar old Spanish bronco. I used to go to his camp down on the
San Miguel. He lived in one part and his chickens in the rest of his house.
His friends liked to hear him talk about his travels. He used to run stock
horses and had a figger 7 on the left shoulder for his brand and the tip of each
ear split was his earmark.

“The last man I broke horses for was Wilson Bailey. I was there about 12 years.
He raised just cavi-yard—we called it a cavi-yard of horses, just the same
thing as a remuda. We called ’em that later, but we got that from the Spanish.[Pg 129]
We would get up in a tree with our loop till the horse come under and drop
it down on him. When they were so spoilt, we got ’em in a sort of cavi-yard
and drove ’em under trees and caught ’em in a snare. We had lots of
wild horses, just this side of Pearsall. ‘Bout the only way I’d get throwed
was to get careless. We’d ketch ‘im up, hackamore ‘im up, saddle ‘im up
and get on ‘im and let ‘im go. Sometimes he’d be too wild to pitch, he’d
break and run and you had to let ‘im run himself down. I used to rather
ketch up a wild horse and break ‘im than to eat breakfast.

“When I first started farmin’ I taken up some state land, about 80 acres,
down on Black Creek, in Medina County. I stayed there ten or twelve years.
Cotton hadn’t got in this country and I raised some corn, sugar cane and
watermelons. I commenced with horses, but ‘long ‘way down the line I used
oxen some, too. I used one of those old walking plows.

“I sold that place and moved to a place on the Tywaukney Creek (Tonkawa).
I come up to church and met my wife then. Her name was Ida Bradley and I
was 38 years old. We lived down on the Tywaukney right about 23 years and
raised our children there. We jes’ had a little home weddin’. I wore a
suit, dark suit. We got married about 8 o’clock in the evenin’ and we had
barbecue, cake and ice cream. You see, in them times I wasn’t taught anything
about years and dates, but I judge it was about 25 years after the
war before I settled on the Tywaukney.”[Pg 130]

“I was born at Keecheye, Alabama, and belonged to old man David
Cavin. The only statement I can make ’bout my age is I knows I was ’bout
twenty years old when us slaves was freed. I never knowed my daddy, but
my mammy was Amelia Cavin. I’s heard her say she’s born in Alabama more
times than I got fingers and toes. Our old master brung us to Texas when
I’s a good sized kid. I ‘members like it am yesterday, how we camped more’n
a week in New Orleans. I seed ’em sell niggers off the block there jus’ like
they was cattle. Then we came to old Port Caddo on Caddo Lake and master
settles a big farm close to where the boats run. Port Caddo was a big shipping
place then, and Dud and John Perry run the first store there. The
folks hauled cotton there from miles away.

“Mammy’s folks was named Maria and Joe Gloster and they come to Texas
with the Cavins. My grandma say to me, ‘Gus, don’t run you mouth too much
and allus have manners to whites and blacks.’ Chillen was raise right then,
but now they come up any way. I seed young niggers turn the dipper up and
drink ‘fore old folks. I wouldn’t dare do that when I’s comin’ up.

“Maria say to me one day, ‘Son, I’s here when the stars fell.’
She tell me they fell like a sheet and spread over the ground. Ike Hood, the[Pg 131]
old blacksmith on our place, he told me, too. I says, ‘Ike, how old was you when
the stars fell?’ He say, ‘I’s thirty-two.’

“Massa David had big quarters for us niggers, with chimneys and fireplaces.
They use to go round and pick up old hawg or cow bones to bile with greens and cabbage.
They was plenty of wild game, and deer and wolves howlin’ right through this
country, but you can’t even find the track of one now.

“The first work I done was pickin’ cotton. Every fellow was out at daylight
pickin’ cotton or hoein’ or plowin’. They was one overseer and two nigger
drivers. But at night you could hear us laughin’ and talkin’ and singin’ and
prayin’, and hear them fiddles and things playin’. It look like darkies git ‘long
more better then than now. Some folks says niggers oughtn’t to be slaves, but I
says they ought, ’cause they jus’ won’t do right onless they is made to do it.

“Massa David allus give us eggnog and plenty good whiskey at Christmas.
We had all day to eat and drink and sing and dance. We didn’t git no presents,
but we had a good time.

“I don’t know much ’bout the war, only Massa Bob Perry come over one day
and say to Grandma Maria, ‘They is surrender, Maria, you is free.’ She say to
him, ‘I don’t care, I gwine stay with my white folks.’

“The Klu Klux done lots of cuttin’ up round there. Two of ’em come to
Dr. Taylor’s house. He had two niggers what run off from the Klux and they want
to whip ’em, but Dr. Taylor wouldn’t ‘low ’em. I knowed old Col. Alford, one of
the Klux leaders, and he was a sight. He told me once, ‘Gus, they done send me
to the pen for Kluxing.’ I say, ‘Massa Alford, didn’t they make a gentleman of
you?’ He say, ‘Hell, no!’[Pg 132]

“I knowed old Col. Haggerdy, too. He marries a widow of a rich old Indian
chief, name McIntosh. He broke a treaty with his people and had to hide out in
a cave a long time, and his wife brung food to him. One time when she went to the
cave he was gone. She knowed then the Indians done git him and kilt him for
vi’latin’ the treaty. So she marries old Col. Haggerdy.

“The only time I votes was against whiskey. I voted for it. Some white
folks done say they’d whip me if I voted for it, but Mr. Joe Strickland done told
me they jus’ tryin’ scare me, so I voted for it. I don’t think niggers ought to
vote. If some niggers had things in hand ‘stead of white folks, I couldn’t stay
here. These eddicated niggers am causin’ the devilment. The young niggers ain’t
got no ‘spect for old age.

“I bought and paid for fifty acres land here in Harrison County and I has
lived on it sixty years. I lived with my wife fifty years ‘fore she died and
done raise two chillen. These young niggers don’t stay married fifty days, sometimes.
I don’t mess with ’em, but if I needs help I goes to the white folks.
If you ‘have youself, they allus help you if you needs it.[Pg 133]

Wes Brady

“I was born and raised in Harrison County, and I was eighty-eight
years old this July past and has wore myself out here in this county.
I was born on Massa John Jeem’s place, on the old Jefferson Road, and my
father was Peter Calloway, and he was born in Alabama and his whole fam’ly
brought to Texas by nigger traders. My mother was Harriet Ellis and I
had two brothers named George and Andrew, and four sisters, Lula and Judy
and Mary and Sallie. My old Grandpa Phil told me how he helped run the
Indians off the land.

“Grandpa Phil told me ’bout meetin’ his massa. Massa Jeems had
three or four places and grandpa hadn’t seed him and he went to one of the
other farms and meets a man goin’ down the road. The man say, ‘Who you
belong to?’ Grandpa Phil say, ‘Massa Jeems.’ The man say, ‘Is he a mean
man?’ Grandpa say, ‘I don’t know him, but they say he’s purty tight.’ It
was Massa Jeems talkin’ and he laughs and gives Grandpa Phil five dollars.

“We niggers lived in log houses and slep’ on hay mattress with
lowell covers, and et fat pork and cornbread and ‘lasses and all kinds
garden stuff. If we et flour bread, our women folks had to slip the flour
siftin’s from missy’s kitchen and darsn’t let the white folks know it.
We wore one riggin’ lowell clothes a year and I never had shoes on till
after surrender come. I run all over the place till I was a big chap[Pg 134]
in jes’ a long shirt with a string tied round the bottom for a belt.
I went with my young massa that way when he hunted in the woods, and toted
squirrels for him.

“Some white folks might want to put me back in slavery if I tells how
we was used in slavery time, but you asks me for the truth. The overseer was
‘straddle his big horse at three o’clock in the mornin’, roustin’ the hands
off to the field. He got them all lined up and then come back to the house
for breakfas’. The rows was a mile long and no matter how much grass was in
them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats you nearly to death.
Lots of times they weighed cotton by candlelight. All the hands took dinner
to the field in buckets and the overseer give them fifteen minutes to git
dinner. He’d start cuffin’ some of them over the head when it was time to
stop eatin’ and go back to work. He’d go to the house and eat his dinner
and then he’d come back and look in all the buckets and if a piece of anything
that was there when he left was et, he’d say you was losin’ time and
had to be whipped. He’d drive four stakes in the ground and tie a nigger
down and beat him till he’s raw. Then he’d take a brick and grind it up in
a powder and mix it with lard and put it all over him and roll him in a sheet.
It’d be two days or more ‘fore that nigger could work ‘gain. I seed one nigger
done that way for stealin’ a meat bone from the meathouse. That nigger got
fifteen hundred lashes. The li’l chaps would pick up egg shells and play with
them and if the overseer seed them he’d say you was stealin’ eggs and give you
a beatin’. I seed long lines of slaves chained together driv by a white man
on a hoss, down the Jefferson road.[Pg 135]

“The first work I done was drappin’ corn, and then cow-pen boy
and sheep herder. All us house chaps had to shell a half bushel corn every
night for to feed the sheep. Many times I has walked through the quarters
when I was a little chap, cryin’ for my mother. We mos’ly only saw her on
Sunday. Us chillen was in bed when the folks went to the field and come back.
I ‘members wakin’ up at night lots of times and seein’ her make a little
mush on the coals in the fireplace, but she allus made sho’ that overseer
was asleep ‘fore she done that.

“One time the stock got in the field and the overseer ‘cuses a
old man and jumps on him and breaks his neck. When he seed the old man dead,
he run off to the woods, but massa sent some nigger after him and say for
him to come back, the old man jus’ got overhet and died.

“We went to church on the place and you ought to heared that
preachin’. Obey your massa and missy, don’t steal chickens and eggs and
meat, but nary a word ’bout havin’ a soul to save.

“We had parties Saturday nights and massa come out and showed us
new steps. He allus had a extra job for us on Sunday, but he gave us Christmas
Day and all the meat we wanted. But if you had money you’d better hide it,
’cause he’d git it.

“The fightin’ was did off from us. My father went to war to wait on
Josh Calloway. My father never come back. Massa Jeems cussed and ‘bused us
niggers more’n ever, but he took sick and died and stepped off to Hell ’bout
six months ‘fore we got free. When we was free, they beat drums in Marshall.
I stayed on ’bout seven months and then my mother and me went to farmin’ for[Pg 136]
ourselves.

“I wore myself out right in this county and now I’m too old to work.
These folks I lives with takes good care of me and the gov’ment gives me
$11.00 a month what I is proud to git.[Pg 137]

“I’s bought and fotched here to Double Bayou when I’s jes’
three year old. I and my half-brother, Eleck, he de baby, was both
born in Louisiana on de Van Loos place, but I go by de name of Branch,
’cause my daddy name Branch. My mama name Renee. Dey split up us
family and Elisha Stevenson buy my mama and de two chillen. I ain’t
never see my daddy no more and don’t ‘member him at all.

“Old ‘Lisha Stevenson he a great one for to raise pigs. He sell
sometime 500 hawgs at one time. He take he dogs and drive dem hawgs ‘cross
de Neches River all by hisself, to sell dem. Dat how he git money to buy
de niggers, sellin’ hawgs and cowhides.

“Old massa he sho’ a good old man, but de old missy, she a tornado!
Her name Miss ‘Liza. She could be terrible mean. But sometime she take
her old morrel—dat a sack make for to carry things in—and go out
and come back with plenty joints of sugar cane. She take a knife and
sit on de gallary and peel dat cane and give a joint to every one de
li’l chillen.

“Mama, she work up in de big house, doin’ cookin’ and washin’.
Old massa go buy a cullud man name Uncle Charley Fenner. He a good
old cullud man. Massa brung him to de quarters and say, ‘Renee, here
you husband,’ and den he turn to Uncle and say, ‘Charley, dis you woman.’[Pg 138]
Den dey consider marry. Dat de way dey marry den, by de massa’s word. Uncle
Charley, he good step-pa to us.

“De white folks have de good house with a brick chimney. Us quarters
de good, snug li’l house with flue and oven. Dey didn’t bother to have
much furn’chure, ’cause us in dere only to sleep. Us have homemake bench
and ‘Georgia Hoss’ bed with hay mattress. All us cookin’ and eatin’ done in
de kitchen de big house. Us have plenty to eat, too. De smokehouse allus
full white ‘taters and cracklin’s hangin’ on de wall. Us git dem mos’ any
time us want, jes’ so long us didn’t waste nothin’. Dey have big jar with
buttermilk and ‘low us drink all us want.

“Old lady ‘Liza, she have three women to spin when she git ready
make de clothes for everybody. Dey spin and weave and make all us clothes.
Us all wear shirt tail till us ’bout twelve or fourteen, boys and gals, too.
You couldn’t tell us apart.

“Us chillen start to work soon’s us could toddle. First us gather
firewood. Iffen it freezin’ or hot us have to go to toughen us up. When us
git li’l bigger us tend de cattle and feed hosses and hawgs. By time us good
sprouts us pickin’ cotton and pullin’ cane. Us ain’t never idle. Sometime
us git far out in de field and lay down in de corn row and nap. But, Lawdy,
iffen dey cotch you, dey sho’ wore you out! Sunday de onliest rest day and
den de white folks ‘low us play.

“Massa never whup Uncle Charley, ’cause he good nigger and work hard.
It make missy mad and one time when massa gone she go down in de field. Uncle
Charley hoein’ corn jes’ like massa done told him, jes’ singin’ and happy.
Old missy she say, ‘Nigger, I’s sho gwineter whup you.’ He say, ‘What for you[Pg 139]
whup me. I doin’ every bit what old massa done tell me.’ But missy think
he gittin’ it too good, ’cause he ain’t never been whupped. She clumb over
de fence and start down de row with de cowhide. Uncle Charley, he ain’t
even raise he voice, but he cut de las’ weed outen dat corn and commence
to wave he hoe in de air, and he say, ‘Missy, I ain’t ‘vise you come any
step closeter.’ Dat sho’ make her mad, but she ‘fraid to do nothin’.

“One time she have ‘nother nigger name Charlie. Massa go on de trip
and she tell dis Charley iffen he ain’t finish grindin’ all de cornmeal
by Monday she gwineter give him a t’ousand lashes. He try, but he ain’t
able make dat much meal, so come Monday he runned off in de bayou. Dat
night come de big freeze and he down dere with water up to he knees and
when massa come home and go git him, he so froze he couldn’t walk. Dey
brung him in de kitchen and old missy cuss him out. Soon’s he thaw out,
he done die right dere on de spot.

“My pore mama! Every washday old missy give her de beatin’. She
couldn’t keep de flies from speckin’ de clothes overnight. Old missy git up
soon in de mornin’, ‘fore mama have time git dem specks off. She snort and
say, ‘Renee, I’s gwineter teach you how to wash.’ Den she beat mama with
de cowhide. Look like she cut my mama in two. Many’s de time I edges up
and tries take some dem licks off my mama.

“Slavery, one to ‘nother, was purty rough. Every plantation have
to answer for itself.

“I used to know lots of songs, but I don’t know many now. Spiritual
songs, dey comes through visions. Dat’s why cullud folks can make dem better[Pg 140]
dan white folks. I knowed one song what start out—

“‘De Jews done kill pore Jesus,
And bury him in de sepulchur;
De grave wouldn’t hold him,
Dey place guards all ’round him,
But de angels move de stone,
De Jews done kill pore Jesus,
But de grave it wouldn’t hold him.’

“Dey ‘nother song what say—

“‘Run, sinner, run,
Gawd is a-callin’ you.
Run, sinner, run,
De fire’ll overtake you.’

“When I ’bout ten dey sets me ginnin’ cotton. Old massa he done make
de cotton with de hand crank. It built on a bench like. I gin de cotton by
turnin’ dat crank. When I gits a lapful I puts it in de tow sack and dey
take it to Miss Susan to make de twine with it. I warm and damp de cotton
‘fore de fireplace ‘fore I start ginnin’ it.

“Dere school for de white chillen in Double Bayou and I used to go meet
de chillen comin’ home and dey stop longside de way and teach me my ABC. Dey
done carry me as far as Baker in de book when old missy find it out and make
dem stop. De war comin’ on den and us daren’t even pick up a piece of paper.
De white folks didn’t want us to larn to read for fear us find out things.

“Us livin’ down by de Welborn’s den and I seed dem haul de logs out of
Pine Island to make dat Welborn house. Old man Hamshire and old man Remington
builded dat Welborn house. It ‘cross de bayou, left hand side Smith’s ferry.
Dat house still standin’ in parts.

“One mornin’ Eleck and me git up at crack of dawn to milk. All at once
come a shock what shake de earth. De big fish jump clean out de bay and turtles[Pg 141]
and alligators run out dere ponds. Dey plumb ruint Galveston! Us runned in
de house and all de dishes and things done jump out de shelf. Dat de first
bombardment of Galveston. De sojers put powder under people’s houses and
blowin’ up Galveston.

“Young massa Shake Stevenson he vol’teer and git kilt somewheres in
Virginny. Young massa Tucker Stevenson, he ain’t ‘lieve in war and he say
he never gwine fight. He hide in de woods so de conscrip’ men can’t find
him. Old man LaCour come ’round and say he have orders for find Tucker
and bring him in dead or ‘live. But ’cause he old massa’s friend, he say,
‘Why don’t you buy de boy’s services off?’ So old massa take de boat, ‘Catrig,’
us calls it, and loads it with corn and sich and us pole it down to
Galveston. De people need dat food so much, dat load supplies done buy
off Massa Tucker from fightin’.

“After war starts lots of slaves runned off to git to de Yankees.
All dem in dis part heads for de Rio Grande river. De Mexicans rig up flat-boats
out in de middle de river, tied to stakes with rope. When de cullud
people gits to de rope dey can pull deyself ‘cross de rest de way on dem
boats. De white folks rid de ‘Merican side dat river all de time, but plenty
slaves git through, anyway.

“I wait on lots of sojers. I have to get smartweed and bile it in
salt water to bath dem in. Dat help de rheumatism. Dem sojers have rheumatism
so bad for standin’ day and night in de water.

“Us sho’ in good health dem days. Iffen a cullud man weak dey move
de muscles in he arms, bleed him and give him plenty bacon and cornbread,
and he git so strong he could lift a log. Dey didn’t go in for cuttin’,[Pg 142]
like dey do now. Dey git herbs out de woods, blue mass and quinine and calomel.
I think people jes’ die under pills, now. Old lady Field she make medicine
with snakeroot and larkspur and marshroot and redroot.

“After war am over Massa Tucker brung de freedom papers and read dem.
He say us all am free as Hell. Old man Charley so happy he jes’ roll on de
floor like a hoss and kick he heels. De nex’ mornin’ mama start do somethin’
and missy cuss her out. I runned to missy and say, ‘Us free as de bird.’ She sho’
whup me for dat, but no more, ’cause she so mean us all leave.

“Dat funny. Old man LaFour, what de head de patterrollers and so mean,
he de first to help us niggers after freedom. He loan us he ox team and pay
Uncle Charley a dollar de day for work and a dollar every time my mama wash for
he wife.

“Old massa and missy split up. She so bad she ain’t give him no better
show dan she done us. Old massa gittin’ some peaches one day and she come after
him with de buggy whip. He git on he hoss and say, ‘Liz, you’s gittin’ broad
as de beef. You too big for me.’ She so mad she spit fire. Lightenin’ done
kill her, she upstairs and de big streak hits her. It knock her under de bed.

“De first freedom work I done am pullin’ up potato hills at two bits
a hunnerd. ‘Bout two bits de most us could make in one day. I work two days
to buy mama de turkey hen for Christmas. Anything mama want I think she got to
have. I’s growed ‘fore I gits much as four bits a day. I’s done earn as much
as $1.50 in my time, though.

“When I’s 25 year old I marries Betty Baker but she dead now. De Rev.
Patterson he marry us. Us has four chillen livin’. Turah and Renee, dat my gals,
and Enrichs and Milton, dat my boys. Milton work in Houston and Enrich help me
farm. I’s a Mason 30 year. De lodge split up now, but it answer.[Pg 143]

William Branch

William Branch

“Yahsur, I was a slave. I was bo’n May 13, 1850, on
the place of Lawyer Woodson in Lunenburg County, Virginia. It
was ’bout 75 miles southwest of Richmond. They was two big plantations,
one on one side the road, yother the yother. My marster
owned 75 slaves. He raised tobacco and cotton. I wukked tobacco
sometime, sometime cotton. Dere wasn’t no whippin’ or switchin’.
We had to wuk hard. Marster Woodson was a rich man. He live in a
great big house, a lumber house painted white. And it had a great
big garden.

“De slaves lives in a long string of log houses. Dey had dirt
floors and shingle roofs. Marster Woodson’s house was shingle roof
too. We had home cured bacon and veg’tables, dried co’n, string
beans and dey give us hoe cakes baked in hot ashes. Dere always was
lots of fresh milk.

“How’d us slaves git de clothes? We carded de cotton, den de
women spin it on a spinnin’ wheel. After dat day sew de gahment
togeddah on a sewin’ machine. Yahsur, we’s got sewin’ machine, wid
a big wheel and a handle. One woman tu’n de handle and de yuther
woman do de sewin’.[Pg 144]

“Dat’s how we git de clothes for de 75 slaves. Marster’s clothes?
We makes dem for de whole fam’ly. De missis send de pattren and de slaves
makes de clothes. Over nigh Richmond a fren’ of Marster Woodson has 300
slaves. Dey makes all de clothes for dem.

“I was with Marster twel de Yankees come down to Virginia in 1861.
De sergeant of de Yankees takes me up on his hoss and I goes to Washington
wid de Yankees. I got to stay dere ’cause I’d run away from my marster.

“I stay at de house of Marse Frank Cayler. He’s an ole time hack
driver. I was his houseboy. I stay dere twel de year 1870, den I goes to
Baltimore and jines de United States Army. We’s sent to Texas ‘count of de
Indians bein’ so bad. Dey put us on a boat at Baltimore and we landed at
Galveston.

“Den we marches from Galveston to Fort Duncan. It was up, up, de
whole time. We ties our bedclothes and rolls dem in a bundle wid a strap.
We walks wid our guns and bedclothes on our backs, and de wagons wid de
rations follows us. Dey is pulled by mules. We goes 15 miles ev’ry day.
We got no tents, night come, we unrolls de blankets and sleeps under de
trees, sometime under de brush.

“For rations we got canned beans, milk and hardtack. De hard tacks
is 3 or 4 in a box, we wets ’em in water and cooks ’em in a skillet. We gits
meat purty often. When we camps for de night de captain say, ‘You’all kin
go huntin’.’ Before we git to de mountains dere’s deer and rabbits and dey
ain’t no fences. Often in de dark we sees a big animal and we shoots. When
we bring ‘im to camp, de captain say, ‘Iffen de cow got iron burns de rancher
gwineter shoot hisself a nigger scout.’ But de cow ain’t got no iron, it’s—what
de name of de cow what ain’t feel de iron? Mavrick, yahsur. We eats lots[Pg 145]
of dem Mavricks. We’s goin’ ‘long de river bottom, and before we comes to
Fort Duncan we sees de cactus and muskeet. Dere ain’t much cattle, but one
colored scout shoots hisself a bear. Den we eats high. Fort Duncan were
made of slab lumber and de roof was gravel and grass.

“Den we’s ordered to Fort Davis and we’s in de mountains now. Climb,
climb all day, and de Indians give us a fit ev’ry day. We kills some Indians,
dey kills a few soldiers. We was at Fort Clark a while. At Fort Davis I jines
de colored Indian Scouts, I was in Capt. George L. Andrew’s Co. K.

“We’s told de northern Cheyennes is on a rampus and we’s goin’ to Fort
Sill in Indian Territory. Before we gits to Fort Concho (San Angelo) de Comanches
and de Apaches give us a fit. We fitten’ ’em all de time and when we gits away
from de Comanches and Apaches we fitten de Cheyennes. Dey’s seven feet tall.
Dey couldn’t come through that door.

“When we gits to Fort Sill, Gen. Davidson say de Cheyennes is off de reservation,
and he say, ‘You boys is got to git dem back. Iffen you kill ’em, dey
can’t git back to de reservation.’ Den we goes scoutin’ for de Cheyennes and
dey is scoutin’ for us. Dey gits us first, on de Wichita River was 500 of ’em,
and we got 75 colored Indian Scouts. Den Red Foot, de Chief of de Cheyennes,
he come to see Capt. Lawson and say he want rations for his Indians. De captain
say he cain’t give no rations to Indians off de reservation. Red Foot say he
don’t care ’bout no reservation and he say he take what we got. Capt. Lawson
‘low we gotter git reinforcements. We got a guide in de scout troop, he call
hisself Jack Kilmartin. De captain say, ‘Jack, I’se in trouble, how kin I git
a dispatch to Gen. Davidson?’ Jack say, ‘I kin git it through.’ And Jack, he
crawl on his belly and through de brush and he lead a pony, and when he gits[Pg 146]
clear he rides de pony bareback twel he git to Fort Sill. Den Gen. Davidson,
he soun’ de gin’ral alarm and he send two companies of cavalry to reinforce us.
But de Cheyennes give ’em a fit all de way, dey’s gotter cut dere way through
de Cheyennes.

“And Col. Shafter comes up, and goes out in de hills in his shirt sleeves
jus’ like you’s sittin’ dere. Dey’s snow on de groun’ and de wind’s cole, but
de colonel don’t care, and he say, ‘Whut’s dis order Gen. Davidson give? Don’
kill de Cheyennes? You kill ’em all from de cradle to de Cross.’

“And den we starts de attack. De Cheyennes got Winchesters and rifles
and repeaters from de government. Yahsur, de government give ’em de guns dey
used to shoot us. We got de ole fashion muzzle loaders. You puts one ball in
de muzzle and shove de powder down wid de ramrod. Den we went in and fit ’em,
and ’twas like fightin’ a wasp’s nest. Dey kills a lot of our boys and we nearly
wipes ’em out. Den we disarms de Cheyennes we captures, and turns dere guns in
to de regiment.

“I come to San Antonio after I’se mustered out and goes to work for de
Bell Jewelry Company and stays dere twel I cain’t work no more. Did I like de
army? Yahsur, I’d ruthuh be in de army dan a plantation slave.”[Pg 147]

Clara Brim

“Old massa’s name was William Lyons. I didn’t have no old missus,
’cause he was a bachelor. He had a big plantation. I don’t know how big
but dey somethin’ like twenty fam’lies of slaves and some dem fam’lies
had plenty in dem. My ma was Becky Brim and pa, he name Louis Brim. She
come from Old Virginny. Dey work in de field. I had two sister name Cass
and Donnie and a brudder name Washington. He went off to de war. When it
break out dey come and take him off to work in de army. He lost in dat war.
He didn’t come back. Nobody ever know what happen to him.

“Some de houses log house and some plank, but dey all good. Dey
well built and had brick chimneys. Dey houses what de wind didn’t blow in.
Us had beds, too, not dem built in de wall. Us sho’ treat good in slavery
times, yes, suh. Old massa give us plenty clothes to keep us good and
warm. He sho’ did.

“Old massa, he wasn’t marry and eat de same things de slaves eat.
He didn’t work dem in de heat of de day. ‘Bout eleven o’clock, when dat
sun git hot, he call dem out de field. He give dem till it git kind of
cool befo’ he make dem go back in de field. He didn’t have no overseer.
He seed ’bout de plantation hisself. He raise cotton and corn and sweet
‘taters and peas and cane, didn’t fool with rice. He didn’t go in for
oats, neither.[Pg 148]

“When Sunday come Old Massa ask who want to go to church. Dem what wants
could ride hoss-back or walk. Us go to de white folks church. Dey sot in front
and us sot in back. Us had prayer meetin’, too, reg’lar every week. One old
cullud man a sort of preacher. He de leader in ‘ligion.

“When de slaves go to work he give dem de task. Dat so much work, so
many rows cotton to chop or corn to hoe. When dey git through dey can do what
dey want. He task dem on Monday. Some dem git through Thursday night. Den
dey can hire out to somebody and git pay for it.

“Old Massa even git de preacher for marryin’ de slaves. And when a slave
die, he git de preacher and have Bible readin’ and prayin’. Mostest de massas
didn’t do dat-a-way.

“I as big in war time as I is now. I used to do anything in de field what
de men done. I plow and pull fodder and pick cotton. But de hardes’ work I
ever done am since I free. Old Massa, he didn’t work us hard, noway.

“He allus give us de pass, so dem patterrollers not cotch us. Dey ’bout
six men on hoss-back, ridin’ de roads to cotch niggers what out without de pass.
Iffen dey cotch him it am de whippin’. But de niggers on us place was good and
civ’lized folks. Dey didn’t have no fuss. Old Massa allus let dem have de garden
and dey can raise things to eat and sell. Sometime dey have some pig and chickens.

“I been marry his’ one time and he been dead ’bout forty-one years now. I stay
with Old Massa long time after freedom. In 1913 I come live with my youngest girl
here in Beaumont. You see, I can’t ‘member so much. I has lived so long my
‘memberance ain’t so good now.[Pg 149]

Sylvester Brooks

“I’s born ’bout de year 1850, near de Tom Bigbee river in Alabama, on
a plantation own by Marse Josiah Collier. My folks was Henderson and Martha
Brooks and I’s de only child den.

“Marse Collier owned seventy fam’lies of slaves and dey all lived in
dey quarters ’bout a mile from de big house. When freedom come Marse Collier
sent for all de slaves and lines us up in a row, two deep, and helt up he
hands and say, ‘Boys, you is free as I is. All of you what wants to can go,
and all of you what wants to can work for me on wages dis year. Next year
I’ll give you a crop or work for wages.’ Dey all stays but two, and one of
dem two my daddy, and he lef’ mammy and six chillen and never come back.

“Us stays on till Marse Collier and Missus both dies, and den stays
with he oldes’ gal, and didn’t go ‘way till we’s growed and has fam’lies of
our own.

“I ‘members best de Fourth of July. De white folks have lots to eat
for dem and us and we plays games and goes swimmin’.

“Next thing I ‘members is de patterrollers, ’cause dey whip me every time
dey cotches me without my pass. Dat de way dey make us stay home at night,
and it made good niggers out of us, ’cause we couldn’t chase round and git in
no meanness.

“Old Marse often told me ’bout de stars fallin’. It was ‘long ’bout sundown
and growed dark all a sudden and de chickens goes to roost. Den some stars with[Pg 150]
long tails ‘gins to shoot, den it look like all de stars had come out of Heaven,
and did dey fall! De stars not all what fell. De white folks and de niggers
fell on dere knees, prayin’ to Gawd to save dem iffen de world comin’ to a end,
and de women folks all run down in de cellar and stayed till mornin’. Old Marse
say it was in 1833, and he say dem stars fall awhile and quit awhile, like de
showers when it rains.

“‘Bout a year after freedom Old Marse give us a piece of land for a church
and dis was de school, too. De preacher’s name was Christmas Crawford, and dat
de reason I ‘members it, it so funny to us. De nigger teacher named Nimron.
De niggers has de blueback spellers and larns ‘rithmetic, too.

“On Thanksgivin’ Day de niggers goes round to de white folks houses and
gives a ser’nade, like dis:

“‘De old bee make de honeycomb,
De young bee make de honey—
De nigger make de cotton and corn,
And de white folks git de money.

“‘De raccoon he a curious man,
He never works till dark;
Nothin’ ever ‘sturbs he mind,
Till he hear old Towser bark.’

“Den de white folks asks us in and help ourselves to de cake or wine
or whatever dey has, and we does dis on Christmas, too.

“We had a song we’d sing when we’s thinkin’ of comin’ to Texas:

“‘We’ll put for de South, for seven-up and loo,
Chime in, niggers, won’t you come ‘long, too?
No use talkin’ when de nigger wants to go,
Where de corn top blossoms and canebrakes grow.
Come ‘long, Cuba, and dance de polka juba,
Way down South, where de corn tops grow.’

“I’d like to be in old Alabama to die, but Old Marse and Missus gone, and
it ain’t no use goin’ dere no more.[Pg 151]

Donaville Broussard

“My mama was daughter of one of the Carmouche boys. One of
M’sieur Francois’ sons. She call herself Armance Carmouche. She
was house servant for the family and I worked around the house. I
remember my Madame brought me the little basket and it had a strap
on it. I put the strap over the shoulder and went round with the
sharp stick and picked up the leaves on the ground with the stick.

“It was a great house with trees and flowers. Madame liked
all clean and pretty. I never worked hard. The ladies and my mama,
too, petted me as if I was the white child.

“M’sieur had a widow sister. She made us learn the prayers.
We were glad to go where she was for she always had something good
in her bag for us. I never saw the baptizing. In those days all
the slaves had the religion of the master and the Catholics didn’t
have no baptizing. They didn’t have to half-drown when they got
their religion. The church was 15 or 20 miles off. The priest came
and held Mass for the white folks sometimes.

“I remember one wedding. My aunt got married. M’sieur
Caramouche killed a big pig. The white folks ate in the house. The[Pg 152]
slaves sat under the trees and ate in the yard. At four o’clock the
justice of the peace came. He was the friend of M’sieur Caramouche.
He made my aunt and the man hold hands and jump over the broom handle.
When the priest came he made M’sieur sign some papers.

“A slave always had to ask M’sieur to marry. He always let
the women slaves marry who they wanted. He didn’t loose by that. He was
so good the men would come to his plantation.

“We all wore the long chemise. Made out of heavy cloth. They
made the cloth on the place and the women sewed it up. We didn’t wear
the shoes. We didn’t like them when we had them.

“Each slave could have the little garden. They raised vegetables
and had a couple of beehives for the honey.

“When the Yankees came they told us we could be free, but I
don’t know of any slaves that left. Old M’sieur died of the fever in
the second year of the war. His wife died before he did. No children.
They sold us, the house and everything. M’sieur Cyprien Arceneaux of
Lafayette bought me and Madame Arvillien Bernard of St. Pierre bought
the mama. They used to call it St. Pierre. They call it Carenero now.
When war was finished I left M’sieur Arceneaux and lived with mama.

“A year and a half after that the mama married a black man
and us three farmed the little farm. My steppapa didn’t like me. I was
light. He and me couldn’t get along. So when I had 20 years I left
there and hired myself out. I saved till I bought a little piece of
land for myself. Then I married and raised the family. Me and my wife
and the children farmed that place up to ten years ago and then she died.
My son farms the place now and I came to Beaumont. I live with my girl.[Pg 153]

“I remember me in time of war we danced. Round dances. We sang
and danced La Boulangere in time of war. De song go:

“‘La Boulangere ait ta victoire
Et nous, qui sont en guerre,
Voici le jour que je dois partir.

“‘Mon cher ami, tu pars,
Tu me laisses un enfant dans les bras
et prend tes armes.
Et moi, je vais dans le moment
verser des larmes.

“‘Quand je serai en le guerre, [Handwritten Note: à la guerre?]
Tu serais de garnison,
Et tu m’oublirais moi,
Qui serai en les haillons.

“‘J’entends le tombour qui m’appelle
A les points de jour.
Mon cher Armande, si tu m’aimes
Tu penserais à moi, quand tu serais,
Dans tes plaisir.
Moi—que serai au bout du fusil!’

“I got one real scare. I was with M’sieur Arceneaux in Lafayette.
There was the battle. Lots of fighting. Lots of killing. The Yankees came
right inside the house. I stayed hid.

“I don’t know whether it’s been better since the war. At all times
one has his miseries. We managed to get along on the farm. But now I have
nothing. Oh, I don’t mean slavery was better than to be free. I mean times
were better.

“The reason I’m so light is, my mama was half-white. My papa was
Neville Broussard and he was all white.[Pg 154]

Fannie Brown

“I was borned near Richmond, over in Virginy, but Massa Koonce
sold me. When I was five year old he brung me to Belton and sold me to
Missy Margaret Taylor, and she kep’ me till she died. I was growed den
and sold to Massa Jim Fletcher and dere I stayed till I was freed.

“Dere no spring near Massa Fletcher’s place and us have to git
water out de well, what dey call de sweep well. Dey cut down a young
saplin’ and weight it on one end with rocks and tie de bucket on a rope
on de other end and brace de pole over de well.

“While de big house bein’ built dey slep’ in a big wagon and
cook over a fireplace make out of rock what us niggers pick up in de
woods. Us cook lots of good eatin’ out on dat fireplace, dem wild
turkeys and wild meat sho’ tasted good.

“Massa trades ten yards of red calico and two hatchets to
de Indians for some skins and take de skins to Austin and traded dem
fer de spinnin’ wheel and loom, and hauls dem to Belton in de ox carts.

“My missy larnt me to spin and weave and did dis child git many
a whuppin’ ‘fore I could do it good. Den she larnt me to cook and start
me cookin’ two or three days ‘fore company come. Dat when us have de
good old pound cake. De li’l chillen stand round when I bake, so as to
git to lick de spoons and pans, and how dey pop dere lips when dey
lickin’ dat good dough![Pg 155]

“Massa have garden seed he brung to Texas, but he didn’t think it
would grow, so he kep’ it several months, but den he plants it and up it come,
jus’ like in de old states. Us used dem tomatoes for flowers, ’cause us
thunk dem pretty red things would kill us or put de spell on us. But de
white folks et dem and us larn to.

“I was growed and have chillen ‘fore de freedom war. I never did
have no special husban’ ‘fore de war. I marries after de war.

“My, how dem niggers could play de fiddle back in de good old
days. On de moonlight nights, us dance by de light of de moon under a big
oak tree, till most time to go to work next mornin’.

“De fus’ barb wire us ever seen, us scairt of it. Us thunk
lightnin’ be sho’ to strike it. It sho’ keep de stock in, though.

“I seed men ridin’ hosses with dead men tied ‘cross dey hoss,
endurin’ de freedom war. But I can’t tell much ’bout dat war, ’cause
I couldn’t read and I never git any place ‘cept home at my work. I love
dem days better dan I do dese times now, but I’m too old to ‘member much.[Pg 156]

Fred Brown

“Sho’, I has time to talk to you ’bout my life, ’cause
I can’t work any more and I has nothin’ but time. It am de rhumatis’
in de leg, it ketch me dat way, from de hip to de knee,—zip—dat
pain goes!

“I’s bo’n in ole Louisiana, in Baton Rouge Parish, on de
16th of November, in 1853. I knows, ’cause massa give dis nigger a
statement. You see, dey don’ larn de niggers to read in dem days,
nor figger, but I can read figgers. See dem on dat car? Dat am 713.
Dat am bad figgers, I never has any truck with sich numbers as de 7
or de 13.

“Massa have quite pert a plantation in Louisiana, dis side
de Mississippi River. De slaves him own am from 40 to 50 sometimes.
In our family am pappy, mammy and three brudders and one sister, Julia,
and six cousins. Dat am 13 and dat’s why massa had so much trouble
with niggers runnin’ ‘way!

“Everyone have dere certain wo’k and duties for to do. Mammy
am de family cook and she he’p at de loom, makin’ de cloth. My daddy[Pg 157]
am de blacksmith and shoemaker and de tanner. I ‘spains how he do tannin.’
He puts de hides in de water with black-oak bark and purty soon de hair come
off and den he rolls and poun’s de hides for to make dem soft.

“When I’s ’bout 8 years old, or sich, dey starts me to he’pin’ in
de yard and as I grows older I he’ps in de fields. Massa, him raises cane
and co’n mostly, no cotton.

“De buildings on de place am de resident of de massa and de quarters
for de niggers. Dey am built from logs and de quarters has no floors
and no windows, jus’ square holes whar de windows ought to be. Dey have
bunks for sleepin’ and a table and benches, and cooks in de fireplace.

“We allus have plenty for to eat, plenty co’nmeal, ‘lasses and
heavy, brown sugar. We gits flour bread once de week, but lots of butter
and milk. For de coffee, we roasts meal bran and for de tea, de sassafras.
Den we has veg’tables and fruit dat am raised on de place. De meat mostly
am de wil’ game, deer and de turkey, but sometimes hawg meat.

“Massa have overseer and overlooker. De overseer am in charge of
wo’k and de overlooker am in charge of de cullud women. De overseer give
all de whippin’s. Sometimes when de nigger gits late, ‘stead of comin’
home and takin’ de whippin’ him goes to de caves of de river and stays
and jus’ comes in night time for food. When dey do dat, de dawgs is put
after dem and den it am de fight ‘tween de nigger and de dawg. Jus’ once
a nigger kills de dawg with de knife, dat was close to freedom and it come
‘fore dey ketches him. When dey whips for runnin’ off, de nigger am tied
down over a barrel and whipped ha’d, till dey draws blood, sometimes.

“Dem fool niggers what sneak off without de pass, have two things
for to watch, one is not to be ketched by de overseer and de other am[Pg 158]
de patter-rollers. De nigger sho’ am skeert of de patters. One time my
pappy and my mammy goes out without de pass and de patters takes after dem.
I’se home, ’cause I’s too young to be pesterin’ roun’. I sees dem comin,’
and you couldn’ catched dem with a jackrabbit. One time anoudder nigger am
runnin’ from de patters and hides under de house. Dey fin’ him and make him
come out. You’s seen de dawg quaver when him’s col’? Well, dat nigger
have de quaverment jus’ like dat. De patters hits him five or six licks
and lets him go. Dat nigger have lots of power—him gits to de quarters
ahead of his shadow.

“Now, I tell ’bout some good times. We is ‘lowed to have parties
and de dance and we has for music, sich as de banjo and de jew’s harp and
a ‘cordian. Dey dance de promenade and de jeg. Sometimes day have de
jiggin’ contest and two niggers puts a glass of water on dere heads and
den see who can dance de longes’ without spillin’ any water. Den we has
log-rollin’. Dere was two teams, ’bout three to de team, and dey see
which can roll de log de fastes’. Den sometimes a couple am ‘lowed to
git married and dere am extry fixed for supper. De couple steps over de
broom laid en de floor, dey’s married den.

“Sometimes de overlooker don’ let dem git married. I ‘splains
it dis way. He am used for to father de chillun. Him picks de portly,
and de healthy women dat am to rear de portly chillen. De overlooker,
he am portly man. Dem dat him picks he overlooks, and not ‘low dem to
marry or to go round with other nigger men. If dey do, its whippin’ sho.’
De massa raises some fine, portly chillen, and dey sel’ some, after dey’s
half-grown, for $500 and sometimes more.[Pg 159]

“De war didn’ make no diff’runce, dat I notices, ‘cept massa and
one overseer jines de army. Massa come back, but de overseer am captured
by de Yankees, so massa says, and we never hears ’bout him after dat. De
soldiers passes by lots of times, both de ‘federates and de ‘blue bellies’,
but we’s never bothered with dem. De fightin’ was not close enough to
make trouble. Jus’ ‘fore freedom come, de new overseer am ‘structed to
take us to Texas and takes us to Kaufman County and we is refugees dere.
De Yankee mans tells us we am free and can do sich as we pleases. Dat lef’
us in charge of no one and we’uns, jus’ like cattle, wen’ wanderin’.

“Pappy, him goes back to Lousiana to massa’s place. Dat am de las’
we hears from him. Mammy and I goes to Henderson and I works at dis and
dat and cares for my mammy ten years, till she dies. Den I gits jobs as
cook in Dallas and Houston and lots of other places.

“I gits married in 1901 to Ellen Tilles and I cooks till ’bout four
years ago, till I gits de rhumatis’. Dat’s all I can tell you ’bout de
ole days.[Pg 160]

James Brown

“My fust Marster was named Marster Berney. I’se don’
‘member hims fust name nor nothin’ ’bout him. I’se don’ know
nothin’ ’bout my pappy, but Marster Blair told me hims name
was John Brown.

“Marster Blair have hims farm four miles south of Waco.
We’uns lived in de cabins and have de fiddle and de banjoes.
We’uns sing and have music on Sundays. Marster never whups
we’uns and him was allus good to us. Him gives us plenty to
eat, and meat, too. Hims keeps ’bout 20 hawgs dere all de time.
De women makes de clothes and we’uns have all we need.

“De fust work I does is drivin’ de Marster to town.
Marster have fine hosses. Marster have hims office in Waco and
we drive dere every day. I’se stays all day ready to drive him
home. Mos’ every day hims give me five cents or maybe de dime.
Hims was a big law man and went to de legislature down in Austin.
His picture am in Austin, ’cause I’se down dere years ago and seen
his picture in a case wid Gov’ner Ross’ picture.

“Anudder thing dat Marster does powe’ful good am trade[Pg 161]
de niggers. He buys and sells ’em all de time. You see, dere was
traders dat traveled from place to place dem days and dey takes sometimes
as much as 100 niggers for to trade. Dere was sheds outside of
town, whar dey keeps de niggers when dey comes to town.

“De Marster and de trader talks dis away: ‘How you trade?’
‘I’se gives you even trade.’ ‘No, I’se wants $25.00 for de diff’runce.’
‘I’se gives you $5.00.’ Dat’s de way dey talks on and on. Maybe dey
makes de trade and maybe dey don’.

“Dey have auction sometime and Marster allus tend ’em. At
de auction I’se seen dem sell a family. Maybe one man buy de mammy,
anudder buy de pappy and anudder buy all de chillens or maybe jus’
one, like dat. I’se see dem cry like dey at de funeral when dey am
parted. Dey has to drag ’em away.

“When de auction begin, he says: ‘Dis nigger is so and so
ole, he never ‘bused, he soun’ as a dollar. Jus’ look at de muscle
and de big shoulders. He’s worth a thousan’ of any man’s money. How
much am I offered?’ Den de biddin’ starts. It goes like dis: ‘$200
I’se hear, does I’se hear $250, does I hear $300.’ Den de nigger
takes hims clothes—dey have one extry suit—and goes wid de man dat
buys him.

“De day befo’ Marster gives we’uns freedom, he says to we’uns,
‘I’se wants all you niggers to come to de front of de house Sunday
mornin!’ We’uns was dere and he was standin’ on de gallery, holdin’ a
paper in hims han’ and readin’. Dere was tears in hims eyes and some
drap on de paper. I’se have tears in my eyes, too; mos’ of ’em have.
When hims done readin’, hims says: ‘You darkies is as free as I’se is.[Pg 162]
You can go or you can stay. Those dat stay till de crops laid by,
I’se will give $5.00 a month.’

“Den he takes de little niggers and says, ‘De little fellows
who I’se have sold dere mammies will stay wid me till dey am 21 years
ole. You little fellows, I’se know you’s age and I’se give yous de
statement.’

“Mos’ of de niggers stays wid him, but dey lef’ fust one and
den tudder. I’se stays on wid him for many years and works as coachman.
When I lef’ de Marster, ’twas to work for a farmer for one year,
den I’se comes to Fort Worth. I’se works in lumberya’d for long time.

“For de las’ 12 years I’se been blin’. I’se had hard time after
dat till de las’ year but I’se gits de pension each month, dat am a heap
of help. Dis nigger am thankful for what de Lawd have blessed me wid.[Pg 163]

Josie Brown

“I’s bo’n on Christmas day, in Victoria. Got here jus’ in
time for de eggnog! Dat ’bout 1859, ’cause I’s six year ole de
Christmas ‘fore freedom. My mudder was a free bo’n Injun woman.
Jus’ like any ole, demmed Choctaw down in de woods. She was stole
and sol’ by a spec’lator’s gang. Us move to Tyler when I one mont’
ole.

“We lib on a big farm and my mudder suckle her thirteen
chillun and ole mistus seven. Bob, my brudder, he go to Mansfiel’
and we never hear of him no more. He wen’ with young marster,
Wesley Heard. I ‘member de mornin’ dey lef’, dey had to wait for
him, ’cause he’d been out seein’ his gal.

“De marstar hab a big log house close to de road. De quarters
was ‘cordin’ to de family what live dere. De stage line through
Woodville pass close by. I ‘member sittin’ on de rail fence to see
de stage go by. Dat was a fine sight! De stage was big, rough
carriage and dey was four or five hosses on de line. De bugle blow
when dey go by, with de dus’ behin’ dem. Dey was comin’ from
Jasper, in Louisian’, and everywhere.

“When us little dey hab to keep us in de house ’cause de
bald eagle pick up chillen jus’ like de hawk pick up chicken. Dey
was lots of catamoun’ and bears and deer in de woods. Us never[Pg 164]
‘llowed play ‘lone in de woods.

“I didn’ do nothin’ ‘cep’ eat and sleep and foller ole mistus
’round. She giv me good clothes ’cause my mudder was de weaver. De
clothes jus’ cut out straight down and dyed with all kinds of bark.
I hab to keep de head comb and grease with lard. De lil’ white chillun
play with me but not de udder nigger chilluns much. Us pull de long,
leaf grass and plait it and us make rag doll and playhouse and grapevine
swing. Dere’s plenty grapes, scudlong, sour blue grape and sweet, white
grape. Dey make jelly and wine outta dem. Dey squeeze de grapes and put
de juice in a jimmijohn(demijohn) to fo’men’.

“My mudder name was Keyia. Dat Injun. Daddy’s name was Reuben.
I ‘member when I’s lil’ us goes visit my uncle, Major Scott. He lib in
Polk County and he wore earring in he ears and beads and everyt’ing. He’s
a Injun. He dead now, many year.

“My daddy work in de fiel’. He sow de rice and raise t’baccy. Dey
have fiel’s of it. Dey put it in de crack of de fence to press, den dey
dry it on de barn roof. Dat was smokin’ t’baccy! For de chewin’ t’baccy,
dey soak it in sugar and honey. Us never see snuff den.

“On Sunday us didn’ work. We has chu’ch meetin’. But dey has to
have it in de ya’d, so de white folks could see de kin’ of religion ‘spounded.

“I seed some bad sight in slavery, but ain’ never been ‘bused myself.
I seed chillun too lil’ to walk from dey mammies sol’ right off de block
in Woodville. Dey was sol’ jus’ like calfs. I seed niggers in han’ locks.

“After freedom dey wuk a whole year and den Major Sangers, he
finally come and make de white folks tu’n us loose. I stay on for years,
’till ole mistus die. She larn me to knit and spin and sich like.[Pg 165]

“In de early day, us hab to be keerful. Dey say witches ride
dey hosses on de da’k nights. Us allus put hossshoes over de door
to keep de witch out. Iffen us go out at night, us go roun’ de house
three time so de witch not come in while us gone.

“I’s fifteen year ole when I marry. Giles Paul was from de
Wes’. He was de fus’ husban’. Us hab a real weddin’ with a bride
veil. My weddin’ dress hang ‘way back on de flo’, and shine like
silver. Dey hab big dance and eat supper.

“My second husban’ name’ Robert Brown and I’s mudder of ten
chillun. ‘Sides dat, I raises six or seven day I pick up on de street
’cause dey orfums and hab nobody to care for dem. Some dem chillun
drif’ ’bout now and I wouldn’ know ’em if I seed ’em![Pg 166]

Zek Brown

“My name am Zek Brown and Massa Green Brown owned me. He have
a plantation in Tennessee and own all my folks, what was my pappy and mammy
and two sisters. I never seed any of dem since I ran ‘way from there, when
I’s ten years old.

“I sometimes wishes I’s back on de plantation. I’s took good care
of dere and massa am awful good. Each fam’ly have dere own cabin and it
warn’t so much for niceness but we lives comfor’ble and has plenty to eat
and wear. My mammy work de loom, makin’ cloth, and us chillen wears linsey
cloth shirts till dey gives us pants. Massa buy he fam’ly nice clothes but
dey wears linsey clothes everyday. Same with shoes, dey am made on de
plantation and de first store shoes I has am after surrender. My mammy
buys me a pair with brass tips on de toe, and am I dress up den!

“De food am bester dan what I’s had since dem days. Dey raises it
all but de salt and sich. You wouldn’t ‘lieve how us et den. It am ham
and bacon, ’cause dey raises all de hawgs. It am cornmeal and some white
flour and fruit and honey and ‘lasses and brown sugar. De ‘lasses am black
as I is and dat am some black. I wishes I was dere and mammy call me, and
I can smell dat ham fryin’ right now.

“Not once does I know of de massa whippin’ and him don’t talk rough
even. Jus’ so de work am done we does as we pleases, long as us reas’ble.
Us have parties and dancin’ and singin’. De music am de banjo and de fiddle.[Pg 167]

“I don’t ‘member when de war start but I ‘member when it stop and
massa call all us together and tell us we’s no more slaves. Him talk lots
’bout what it mean and how it am diff’rent and we’uns have to make our own
way and can’t ‘pend on him like. He say if us stay dere’ll be wages or
we can share crop and everybody stay. My folks stays one year and den moves
to ‘nother he farms. Pappy keep de farm and mammy teach school. Her missie
done larnt her to read and sich from time she a young’un, so she have eddication
so good dey puts her to teachin’.

“De way I leaves home am dis. One day mammy teachin’ school and
me and my sister am home, and I ‘cides she need de haircut. She want it, too.
So I gits de shears and goes to work and after I works a while de job don’t
look so good, so I cuts some more and den it look worse and I tries to fix it
and first thing I knows dere ain’t no hair left to cut. When mammy come home
she pays me for de work with de rawhide whip and dat hurts my feelin’s so bad
I ‘cides to git even by runnin’ ‘way a few days. It am ’bout sundown and I
starts to go and comes to Massa Sam Bragg’s place. I’s tired den and not so
strong ’bout de idea and ‘cides to rest. I walks into he yard and dere am
a covered wagon standin’ and loaded with lots of stuff and de front end open.
I finds de soft place in de back and goes to sleep, and when I wakes up it am
jus’ gittin’ daylight and dat wagon am a-movin’.’

“I don’t say nothin’. I’s skeert and waits for dat wagon to stop,
so’s I can crawl out. I jus’ sits and sits and when it stop I crawls out and
Massa Bragg say, ‘Good gosh, look what am crawlin’ out de wagon! He look at
me a while and den he say, ‘You’s too far from home for me to take you back[Pg 168]
and you’ll git lost if you tries to walk home. I guesses I’ll have to take you
with me.’ I thinks him am goin’ some place and comin’ back, but it am to Texas
him come and stop at Birdville. Dat am how dis nigger come to Texas.

“I’s often wish my mammy done whip me so hard I couldn’t walk off de
place, ’cause from den on I has mighty hard times. I stays with Massa Bragg
four years and then I hunts for a job where I can git some wages. I gits it
with Massa Joe Henderson, workin’ on he farm and I’s been round these parts
ever since and farmed most my life.

“I gits into a picklement once years ago. I’s ‘rested on de street.
I’s not done a thing, jus’ walkin’ ‘long de street with ‘nother fellow and dey
claim he stole somethin’. I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout since. Did dey turn me
a-loose? Dey turn me loose after six months on de chain gang. I works on de
road three months with a ball and chain on de legs. After dat trouble, I sho’
picks my comp’ny.

“I marries onct, ’bout forty years ago, and after four years she drops
dead with de heart mis’ry. Us have no chillen so I’s alone in de world. It am
all right long as I could work, but five years ago dis right arm gits to shakin’
so bad I can’ work no more. For a year now dey pays me $9.00 pension. It am
hard to live on dat for a whole month, but I’s glad to git it.[Pg 169]

“I’s a old Kentucky man. I’s born in Fayette County, ’bout
five miles from Lexington, right where dere lots of fine hosses. My old
massa was name Jack Curtis and de old missus was Miss Addie. My mother
name Mary and she die in 1863 and never did see freedom. I don’t ‘member
my daddy a-tall.

“De place was jis’ a farm, ’cause dey didn’t know nothin’
’bout plantations up dere in Kentucky. Dey raise corn and wheat and garlic
and fast hosses. Dey used to have big hoss races and dey had big tracks
and I’s stood in de middle of dat big track in Lexington and watch dem
ex’cise de hosses. Sometimes I got to help dem groom some dem grand hosses
and dat was de big day for me. I don’t ‘member dem hosses names, no, suh,
but I knowed one big bay hoss what won de race nearly every time.

“I had two sisters name Jeanette and Fanny and a brother, Henry,
and after my daddy die, my mother marries a man name Paris and I had one
half-brother call Alfred Paris.

“Old massa was good to us and give us plenty food. He never
beat us hard. He had a son what jis’ one month older’n me and we run ’round
and play lots. Old massa, he whip me and he own son jis’ de same when we[Pg 170]
bad. He didn’t whip us no more’n he ought to, though. Dey was good massas
and some mean ones, and some worthless cullud folks, too.

“Durin’ de war de cholera broke out ‘mongst de people and everybody
scairt dey gwine cotch it. Dey say it start with de hurtin’ in de stomach
and every time us hurt in de stomach, missus make us come quick to de big
house. Dat suit us jis’ right and when dey sends Will and me to hoe or do
somethin’ us didn’t want to do, pretty soon I say, ‘Willie, I think my
stomach ‘ginnin to hurt. I think dis mis’ry a sign I gittin’ de cholera.’
Den him say, ‘Us better go to de big house like ma say,’ and with dat, us
quit workin’. Us git out lots of work dat way, but us ain’t ever took de
cholera yit.

“Durin’ de war John Morgan’s men come and took all de hosses. Dey
left two and Willie and me took dem to hide in de plum thicket, but us jis’
git out de gate when de sojers come ‘gain and dey head us off and take de
last two hosses.

“My mother she wore de Yankee flag under her dress like a petticoat
when de ‘federates come raidin’. Other times she wore it top de dress.
When dey hears de ‘federates comin’ de white folks makes us bury all de
gold and de silver spoons out in de garden. Old massa, he in de Yankee
army, ’cause dey ‘script him, but he sons, John and Joe, dey volunteers.

“Old massa he never sold none of he slaves. I used to hear him
and missus fussin’ ’bout de niggers, ’cause some ‘long to her and some to
him and dey have de time keepin’ dem straighten’ out.

Us boys have good time playin’. Us draw de line and some git on
one side and some de other. Den one sing out[Pg 171]

“‘Chickama, Chickama, craney crow,
Went to de well to wash my toe;
When I git back my chicken was gone,
What time, old witch?’

“Den somebody holler out, ‘One o’clock’ or ‘Two o’clock’ or any time,
and dem on one side try to cotch dem on de other side.

“When I’s young I didn’t mind plowin’, but I didn’t like to ride at
fust, but dey make me larn anyhow. Course, dat white boy and me, us like
most anything what not too much work. Us go down to de watermelon patch
and plug dem melons, den us run hide in de woods and eat watermelon. Course,
dey lots of time dey ‘low us to play jis’ by ourselves. Us play one game
where us choose sides and den sing:

“‘Can, can, candio,
Old man Dandio,
How many men you got?
More’n you’re able to cotch.’

“Endurin’ de war us git whip many a time for playin’ with shells
what us find in de woods. Us heered de cannons shootin’ in Lexington and
lots of dem shells drap in de woods.

“What did I think when I seed all dem sojers? I wants to be one,
too. I didn’t care what side, I jis’ wants a gun and a hoss and be a sojer.
John Morgan, he used to own de hemp factory in Lexington. When young massa
jine Woolford’s 11th Kentucky Cavalry, dey come to de place and halt befo’ de
big house in de turnpike. Dey have shotguns and blind bridles on dere hosses,
not open bridle like on de race hosses. Dey jis’ in reg’lar clothes but next
time dey come through dey in blue uniforms. All my white folks come back
from de war and didn’t git kilt. Nobody ever telt me I’s free. I’s happy
dere and never left dem till 1872. All de others gone befo’ dat, but I[Pg 172]
gits all I wants and I didn’t need no money. I didn’t know what paper money
was and one time massa’s son give me a paper dime to git some squab and I
didn’t know what money was and I burned it up.

“Dey’s jis’ one thing I like to do most and dat’s eat. Dey allus
had plenty of everything and dey had a big, wooden tray, or trough and dey
put potlicker and cornbread in dat trough and set it under de big locust
tree and all us li’l niggers jis’ set ’round and eat and eat. Jis’ eat all
us wants. Den when us git full us fall over and go to sleep. Us jis’ git
fat and lazy. When us see dat bowl comin’, dat bowl call us jis’ like hawgs
runnin’ to de trough.

“Dey was great on gingerbread and us go for dat. Dey couldn’t
leave it in de kitchen or de pantry so old missus git a big tin box and hide
de gingerbread under her bed and kept de switch on us to keep us ‘way from it.
But sometime us sneak up in de bedroom and git some, even den.

“When I ’bout 17 I left Kentucky and goes to Indiana and white folks
sends me to school to larn readin’ and writin’, but I got tired of dat and
run off and jine de army. Dat in 1876 and dey sends me to Arizona. After
dat I’s at Fort Sill in what used to be Indian Territory and den at Fort
Clark and Fort Davis, dat in Garfield’s ‘ministration, den in Fort Quitman
on de Rio Grande. I’s in skirmishes with de Indians on Devil’s River and
in de Brazos Canyon, and in de Rattlesnake Range and in de Guadalupe Mountains.
De troops was de Eighth Cavalry and de Tenth Infantry. De white and de cullud
folks was altogether and I have three hosses in de cavalry. De fust one plays
out, de next one shot down on campaign and one was condemn. On dat campaign
us have de White Mountain ‘paches with us for scouts.[Pg 173]

“When I git discharge’ from de Army I come to Texas and work on
de S.P. Railroad and I been in Texas ever since, and when I’s in Dallas
I got ‘flicted and got de pension ’cause I been in de army. I ain’t done
much work in ten year.

“I gits married in San Antonio on December 14, 1882 and I marries
Dolly Gross and dat her right dere. Us have de nice weddin’, plenty to eat
and drink. Us have only one chile, a gal, and she dead, but us ‘dopt sev’ral
chillen.

“Us come to Beaumont in 1903 and I works ’round Spindletop and
I works for de gas people and de waterworks people. I’s been a carpenter
and done lots of common work wherever I could find it.

“It’s been long time since slavery and I’s old, but me and my
old lady’s in good health and us manage to git ‘long fairly well. Dat’s
’bout all I can ‘member ’bout de old times.[Pg 174]

Martha Spence Bunton

“I was born on New Year’s Day. Yes, suh, in 1856, on Massa
Bell’s plantation over in Tennessee. De name of de town was Murphreesboro,
and my mammy and my four sisters and me all ‘longed to Massa John Bell,
but he done sold us to Massa Joseph Spence, and dat how I come by my name.

“I ‘members how Massa Spence brung us to Texas in wagons, and the
way we knowed when we hit Texas am ’cause massa ‘gin to talk ’bout a
norther. When dat norther done strike, all de weeds and leaves jus’
starts rollin’. Us poor, ig’rant niggers thunk at first dey was rabbits,
’cause we’d never seed a rabbit den. Massa Spence rid his hoss and Missie
Spence come ‘long in de richer way, in a coach. De chillen walked mornin’s
and de older folks walked afternoons.

“Massa Spence come to Montopolis, right nigh to Austin, and settled
down. I helped carry dinner pails to de field workers, and dey was full of
meat and cabbage and biscuit. Pappy wasn’t dere then, ’cause he was own
by Massa Burrows, over in Tennessee. But when his massa died, my massa
bought pappy and he come out to Texas. Befo’ I’s a sizeable child, mammy
took sick with diphtheria and died and pappy had to be mammy and pappy to us.[Pg 175]
Pappy was a big-bodied man and on Sunday mornin’ he’d git out of bed and make
a big fire and say, ‘Jiminy cripes! You chillen stay in you beds and I’ll make
de biscuits.’ He would, too. I laughs when I thinks ’bout dem big, rye biscuits,
what was so big we called dem ‘Nigger heels.’ Dey sho’ was big biscuits,
but dey was good. We never did git no butter, though, and sometimes we’d ask
the white chillen to give us a piece of biscuit with butter on it. We got plenty
other eats—sliced meat and roastin’ ears and sweet milk.

“After freedom pappy sent us to school to de white teacher, and dat’s why
I can read and write. I went to de sixth grade and quit. Pappy was drinkin’ a
lot then. He’d take alcohol and mix it with ‘lasses and water. But he was good
to us. Sometimes a Texas norther come up and we’d be on the way home and we’d
see something comin’ what look like a elephant and it was pappy, with a bundle
of coats.

“I was twenty-four years old when I married Andy Bunton and he jes’ rented
farms here and yonder. We had a big weddin’ and pork and turkey and cake. Aunt
Lucy Hubbard, what weighed three hundred pounds, done de cookin’ dat day. We had
such a good time nobody knowed when one de guests stole a whole turkey.

“I was mother of nine chillen and three of dem is livin’ now. Andy made a
purty good livin till he had a paral’sis stroke. Poor old feller! In de end, I
took care of him and had to work like I was young again. I cut wood and carried
water and washed and cooked. I had to feed him.

“I owns my place here. It am twelve acres and pappy bought it long ago for
$25.00 de acre. My sister lives here too, and my son, Howard, comes home sometimes,
but he’s got eight houn’ dogs he can’t feed. I sho’ can’t feed dem on dat $11.00
pension what I gits.[Pg 176]

Ellen Butler

“My old massa was name Richmond Butler and he used to have a
big plantation over on Whiska Chitto, in Louisiana, and that’s where
I was born. They used to call the place Bagdad. I was his slave till
I six year old and then freedom come.

“I don’t ‘member my daddy, but my mammy was name Dicey Ann Butler.
I have seven sister and three brudder, and they was Anderson and
Charlie and Willie, and the girls was Laura and Rosa and Rachel and Fannie
and Adeline and Sottie and Nora.

“Us used to live in a li’l log house with one room. The floor was
dirt and the house was make jus’ like they used to make ‘tater house.
They was a little window in the back. When I was a baby they wrop me
up in cotton and put me in a coffee pot—that how li’l I was. But I
grows to be more sizable.

“The plantation were a good, big place and they have ’bout 200
head of niggers. When I gets big enough they start me to totin’ water
to the field. I gits the water out the spring and totes it in gourds.
They cut the gourds so that a strip was left round and cross the top
and that the handle. They was about a foot ‘cross and a foot deep.
Us used to have one good gourd us kep’ lard in and li’l gourds to
drink out of.[Pg 177]

“Massa never ‘lowed us slaves go to church but they have big
holes in the fields they gits down in and prays. They done that way
’cause the white folks didn’t want them to pray. They used to pray
for freedom.

“When the white folks go off they writes on the meal and flour
with they fingers. That the way they know if us steal meal. Sometime
they take a stick and write in front of the door so if anybody go out
they step on that writin’ and the massa know. That the way us larn how
to write.

“Old massa didn’t give ’em much to eat. When they comes in out
of the field they goes work for other folks for something to eat.

“They jus’ have a old frame with planks to sleep on and no mattress
or nothin’. In winter they have to keep the fire goin’ all night
to keep from freezin’. They put a old quilt down on the floor for the
li’l folks. They have a li’l trough us used to eat out of with a li’l
wooden paddle. Us didn’t know nothin’ ’bout knives and forks.

“I never did git nothin’ much to eat. My sister she de cook and
sometime when the white folks gone us go up to the big house and she give
us somethin’. But she make us wash the mouth after us finish eatin’, so
they won’t be no crumbs in our mouth.

“Massa used to beat ’em all the time. My brudder tell old massa
sometime he git hongry and gwine have to come ask de niggers for somethin’
to eat. He say he never do that, but he did, ’cause after freedom he go
to West Texas and some niggers with him and he los’ everything and, sho’
‘nough, old massa have to go to my brudder and ask him for food and a
shelter to sleep under. Then he say if he had it to do over, he wouldn’t[Pg 178]
treat the hands so bad.

“One time my brudder slip off de plantation and they almost
beat him to death. He told ’em he had to do somethin’ to git somethin’
to eat. They used to put ’em ‘cross a log or barrel to beat ’em. My
mammy had a strop ’bout eight inch wide they used to beat ’em with.

“Most clothes what we git is from the Iles, what was rich
folks and lives close by. They folks lives in DeRidder, in Louisiana,
I hears. They treated the slaves like white folks.

“On Christmas time they give us a meal. I ‘member that.
I don’t ‘member no other holidays.

“When us git sick us go to the woods and git herbs and
roots and make tea and medicine. We used to git Blackhaw root and
cherry bark and dogwood and chinquapin bark, what make good tonic.
Black snakeroot and swamproot make good medicine, too.

“My mammy told us we was free and we starts right off and
walks to Sugartown, ’bout 8 mile away. I ‘member my brudder wades ‘cross
a pool totin’ me.

“I used to nuss Dr. Frasier. He used to be the high sheriff
in DeRidder.[Pg 179]

“My name is Henry H. Buttler and I am past 87 years of age.
That figure may not be accurate, but you must realize that there were
no authentic records made of slave births. I estimate my age on the
work I was doing at the commencement of the Civil War and the fact
that I was large enough to be accepted as a soldier in the Union Army,
in the year of 1864.

“I was born on the plantation of George Sullivan, in Farquier Co.,
Virginia. The plantation was situated in the valley at the base of Bull
Mountain, and presented a beautiful picture. The plantation consisted
of about 30 acres, with about 30 slaves, though this number varied and
sometimes reached 50. Mr. Sullivan owned my mother and her children,
but my father was owned by Mr. John Rector, whose place was adjacent to
ours.

“The slave quarters consisted of a group of one-room log cabins,
with no flooring, and very crude furnishings. There were bunks and
benches and a table and the fireplace provided the means for cooking
and heating.

“The food was wholesome and of sufficient quantity. In that period
about all the food was produced and processed on the plantation, which
eliminated any reason for failure to provide ample food. The meat[Pg 180]
was home cured and the ham and bacon had a superior flavor.

“On the Sullivan place there existed consideration for human feelings
but on the Rector place neither the master nor the overseer seemed to understand
that slaves were human beings. One old slave called Jim, on the Rector
place, disobeyed some rule and early one morning they ordered him to strip.
They tied him to the whipping post and from morning until noon, at intervals,
the lash was applied to his back. I, myself, saw and heard many of the lashes
and his cries for mercy.

“One morning a number of slaves were ordered to lay a fence row on the
Rector place. The overseer said, ‘This row must be laid to the Branch and
left in time to roll those logs out in the back woods.’ It was sundown when
we laid the last rail but the overseer put us to rolling logs without any
supper and it was eleven when we completed the task. Old Pete, the ox driver,
became so exhausted that he fell asleep without unyoking the oxen. For that,
he was given 100 lashes.

“The slaves were allowed to marry but were compelled to first obtain
permission from the master. The main factor involved in securing the master’s
consent was his desire to rear negroes with perfect physiques. On neither
plantation was there any thought or compassion when a sale or trade was in
question. I have seen the separation of husband and wife, child and mother,
and the extreme grief of those involved, and the lash administered to a grieving
slave for neglecting their work. All this made the marriages a farce.

“In 1863 Mr. Sullivan transported about 40 of us slaves to Arkansas,
locating us on a farm near Pine Bluff, so we would not be taken by the Federal
soldiers. The general faithfulness of the slave was noticeable then, as they
had a chance to desert and go to free states. But I think I was the only one[Pg 181]
who deserted Mr. Sullivan. I went to Federal Headquarters at Fort Smith,
Arkansas, and was received into the army. We campaigned in Arkansas and
nearby territory. The major battle I fought in was that of Pine Bluff,
which lasted one day and part of one night.

“After I was mustered out of the army, I set out to get an education
and entered a grade school at Pine Bluff. I worked after school at
any job I could secure and managed to enter Washburn College, in Topeka,
Kansas. After I graduated I followed steam engineering for four years,
but later I went to Fort Worth and spent 22 years in educational work
among my people. I exerted my best efforts to advance my race.

“I married Lucia Brown in 1880 and we had three children, all of
whom are dead. There is just my wife and me left of the family, and we
have a $75.00 per month Union soldier’s pension.[Pg 182]

“I has a bill of sale what say I’s born in 1840, so I knows I’s
ninety-seven years old, and I’s owned by Marse Sam Byrd. My mother’s
name was Fannie and I dunno pappy’s name, ’cause my mother allus say
she found me a stray in the woods. I allus ‘lieves my master was my
pappy, but I never did know for sho’.

“Our quarters was log and the bed built with poles stuck in the
cracks and cowhide stretched over, and we’d gather moss ’bout once a
month and make it soft. When it was real cold we’d git close together
and I don’t care how cold it got, we’d sleep jes’ as warm as these here
feather beds.

“I split rails and chopped cotton and plowed with a wooden plow and
druv Marse Byrd lots, ’cause he was a trader, slave trade most the time.
He was good to us and give us lots to eat. He had a big garden and plenty
sugar cane, and brown sugar. We’d press the juice out the cane ‘tween two
logs and cook it in the big washpot.

“We had sheepskin clothes in cold weather, with the fur part inside,
no shoes less’n we wropped our feet in fur hides. But them clothes was
warmer than these here cotton overalls. They’re plumb cold!

Marse Sam was full of life and Missus Josie was real good. They had
a nice home of that day, made out split logs and four rooms and a hall
two ways through it.[Pg 183]

“That great iron piece hung jes’ outside the door and Marse Sam hit it
at 3:30 every mornin’. If we didn’t muster out he come round with that cat-o-nine-tails
and let us have it, and we knowed what that bell was for nex’ mornin’.
Sometimes when Marse Sam was gone, we’d have a overseer. He’d let us go swimmin’
in the creek when the work was done.

“If a nigger was mean Marse Sam give him fifty licks over a log the first
time and seventy-five licks the second time and ’bout that time he most gen’rally
had a good nigger. If they was real mean and he couldn’t do nothin’ with ’em, he
put them in the jail with a chain on the feets for three days, and fed ’em through
a crack in the wall.

“On Christmas Marse Sam had a great big eggnog and kilt a big beef and had
fireworks, and the nigger, he know Christmas was come. We had plenty to eat and
eggnog and did ’bout what we pleased that day and New Year’s. The white folks
allus said what we’d do on them days we’d do all year. That’s all foolishment,
but some still believes in it.

“They give a big dance and all night supper when war started. Then Marse
Sam, he carries me for waterboy and cook and to tend his hosses. He had two,
and rid one this day and the other nex’ day. He was ‘fraid one git kilt and
then he wouldn’t be slam a-foot.

“When them big guns went to poppin’, I jes’ couldn’t stand it without gittin’
in a brush top. Then marse goes and gits shot and I has to be his nuss. But,
Lawd-a-me, one them Yankee gals, she falls in love with marse whilst he lays
nearly dead, and she say, ‘William, he’s mine, so you got to take good care of
him.’ And him with a plumb good wife back home![Pg 184]

“When Marse Sam git well, he say he’s goin’ to ‘nother place to fight.
He was with General Lee when that old war was over and that there Yankee General
Grant takes General Lee prisoner, and Marse Sam won’t leave his general, and he say
to me, ‘William, you got to go home alone.’

“I lights out a-foot to Texas and it’s most a year befo’ I gits home.
I travels day and night at first. I buys some things to eat but every time I
goes by a farmhouse I steals a chicken. Sometimes I sho’ gits hongry. When I
git to the house, Missus Josie faints, ’cause she thunk Marse Sam ain’t with me
and he mus’ be dead. I tells her he’s in prison and she say she’ll give me $2.00
a month to stay till he gits back. I’s plumb crazy ’bout a little gal called
‘Cricket,’ ’cause she so pert and full of live, so I stays. We gits us a cabin
and that’s all to our weddin’. We stays a year befo’ Marse Sam comes back.

“He was the plumb awfulest sight you ever done seed! His clothes is tore
offen his body and he ain’t shaved in three months and he’s mos’ starved to death.
Missus Josie she don’t even rec’nize him and wouldn’t ‘low him in till I tells
her dat am Marse Sam, all right. He stays sick a whole year.

“I thinks if them Yankees didn’t ‘tend to fix some way for us pore niggers,
dey oughtn’t turn us a-loose. Iffen de white folks in de South hadn’t been jes’
what they is, us niggers been lots worser off than we was. In slavery time when
the nigger am sick, his master pay de bills, but when nigger sick now, that’s his
own lookout.

“I never done nothin’ but farm and odd jobs. I been married five times, but
only my las’ wife am livin’ now. My four boys and two gals is all farmin’ right
here in the county and they helps us out. We gits by somehow.[Pg 185]

“I knows I’s birthed in 1849, ’cause I had a bill of sale. It say
that. My master traded me to Massa Joe Cutt for a hundred acres of land.
That’s in 1861, and I ‘members it well. My daddy was Sam Cain, name after
old Massa Cain, and mammy was Josie Jones, ’cause she owned by ‘nother master.
Mammy was birthed in North Carolina, but daddy allus say he come from Africy.
He say they didn’t work hard over there, ’cause all they et come out the
jungle, and they had all the wives they wanted. That was the ‘ligion over
there.

“Our quarters was made of logs, in a long shed six rooms long, like
cowsheds or chicken houses, and one door to each room. The bed was a hole
dug in a corner and poles around and shucks and straw. We’d sleep warm all
night long, but it wouldn’t do in this country in summertime.

“Massa give us plenty to eat. Our cornbread was what you calls water pone
bread and cooked in the ashes. We didn’t have no stove. Massa was a great
hunter and allus had venison and game. They was plenty fish, too.

“Massa Cain was purty good to his slaves and mean to them if they didn’t
behave. Missy was a good woman. They lived in a two-story rock house with
plenty trees all ’round.

“We worked long as we could see, from four o’clock in the mornin’, and
them milked twenty cows and fed the work stock. They was fifty acres and
not ‘nough niggers to work it easy.[Pg 186]

“If some niggers was mean they’d git it. Massa tied they hands to they
feet and tied them to a tree and hit ’bout twenty-five or fifty licks with
a rawhide belt. Hide and blood flew then. Next mornin’ he’d turn them loose
and they’d have to work all day without nothin’ to eat. He had a cabin called
jail for the nigger women, and chain them in with cornbread and one glass of
water.

“One nigger run to the woods to be a jungle nigger, but massa cotched him
with the dogs and took a hot iron and brands him. Then he put a bell on him,
in a wooden frame what slip over the shoulders and under the arms. He made
that nigger wear the bell a year and took it off on Christmas for a present to
him. It sho’ did make a good nigger out of him.

“In the summer time they had camp meetin’ and baptized in the creek, white
folks first while the old nigger mammies shouts, and then the niggers.

“On Saturday mornin’ us men grated corn for bread the next week and the
women washed massa’s clothes and our’n. On Saturday night we’d have a dance
all night long, and Sunday the men went to see they wives or sweethearts and
us young’uns went swimmin’ in the creek. Every night but Saturday we had to
go to bed at nine o’clock. Massa hit the big steel piece and we knowed it
was time to put out the torches and pile in.

“On Christmas I’d stand by the gate, to open it for the company, and
they’d throw nuts and candy to me. That night all the slaves what could
brung they banjoes and fiddles and played for the white folks to dance all
night. Them great old days are done gone. Most the men be full that good,
old eggnog.[Pg 187]

“After war come they ain’t no more dances and fun, and not much to eat or
nothin’. Massa git kilt in a big battle and missy took four slaves and brung
him home and buried him under a big shade tree in the yard. That the saddes’
time I ever seen, nobody there to do anythin’ but missy and neighbor women
and some real young niggers like me. She was cryin’ and all us slaves takin’
on. It’s a wonder we ever did git massa buried. We carried him on our backs
to the grave.

“After that we had to carry missy to the mountains and hide her, ’cause
everything, house and sheds and all, was burnt, and all her stock kilt by
sojers and outlaws. When she come out of hidin’ she didn’t have a thing, not
even a bed.

“But she was a brave woman, and said, ‘Louis, we’ll fix some kind of
quarters for you.’ She went to work to rebuild the place. She said, ‘You
niggers is free, but I need you and I’ll pay you $2.00 a month.’ She did, too.
She cut some logs and builded her one room and then we all build us a room
and that was the best we could do. I ‘lieve the Lawd blessed that woman.
After freedom, that’s how I lived the first year, and she paid me every cent
she promised. I stayed with her three years.

“Then I heared of a railroad job in Texas, and married Josie Sewel in a
big weddin’ and we had a great time. I gits a job on that railroad for fifty
cents a day and it never lasted more’n a year, so I goes to farmin’.

“We had fourteen chillun, four dead now, and the rest farmin’ all over
Texas. I has more’n a hundred grandchillun. Josie, she done die twenty years
ago.[Pg 188]

“I don’t know as I ‘spected massa’s land to be ‘vided and give us,
but they was plenty of land for everybody, and missy allus treated us right.
Wages was terrible small for a long time after I married and sometimes they
wouldn’t pay us, and we had to beg or steal. I’s went a whole two days without
nothin’ to eat. If it hadn’t been for them there Klu Klux, sometimes
the niggers would have went on the warpath for starvin’. But the Klu Kluxers
wouldn’t let ’em roam none, if they tried they stretch them out over a log
and hit them with rawhide, but never say a word. That was got the niggers—they
was so silent, not a sound out of them, and the nigger he can’t stand
that.

“I gits a pension and works when I can and gits by. Some the young
niggers is purty sorry, they’s had so much and don’t ‘preciate none of it.
I’s glad for what I can git, ’cause I ‘members them old times after the
war when it was worse’n now.

“My name am Jeff Calhoun and I was born in Alton, in Alabama,
about 1838, ’cause I’s told by my massa. Dat makes me ’bout 98 year
old now. My father was Henry Robinson and my mammy, she Mary Robinson.
She was born in Maryland, in Virginia, but didn’t know much ’bout her
folks, ’cause she was sold off young. Dere was four of us brothers
and ten sisters, but dey all dead now but me.

“We makes our beds out of forked saplings drove in the ground,
’cause de floors was dirt. We sets de pole in dat ground and it run
to de top of de cabin and we makes one bed down low and one bed above.
De big folks sleeps in de low beds and de chillun above, ’cause dey
can climb.

“My massa had 15 chillun and my mamma suckled every one of
dem, ’cause his wife was no good to give milk.

“We allus had lots to eat, but for meat we has to go to de
woods and git deer and turkey and buffalo and some bear. I have eat
hoss and skunk and crow and hawk.[Pg 189]

“We has a big fire to cook on, and to make de corn cakes
we put one leaf down and put batter on dat and put another leaf over
it and cover with hot ashes and by noon it was done. Same thing for
supper. We never have biscuits ‘cept on Sunday or Christmas.

“My mama was de spinner so I has plenty shirts and some
britches, and we raises indigo on de place and makes dye of it.
We never wore no shoes in de summer and some winters neither. We has
a good pair of pants and shirt we wears Sundays and holidays and was
married in.

“De way dey done at weddings dem days, you picks out a girl
and tell your boss. If she was from another plantation you had to
git her bosses ‘mission and den dey tells you to come up dat night and
git hitched up. They says to de girl, ‘You’s love dis man?’ Dey says
to de man, ‘You loves dis girl?’ If you say you don’t know, it’s all
off, but if you say yes, dey brings in de broom and holds it ’bout a
foot off de floor and say to you to jump over. Den he says you’s married.
If either of you stumps you toe on de broom, dat mean you got trouble
comin’ ‘tween you, so you sho’ jumps high.

“My massa was good to us. He lived in a log house with a floor
and was all fixed up with pretty furniture and mirrors and silver on
de table. De missus was little and frail, but she was good to us and
so was de massa. He wasn’t no hand to whip like some of he neighbors.
Dey would tied de slaves’ hands to a pole and whip de blood out of them.
Dey was whipped for runnin’ away.[Pg 190]

“I knowed a slave call Ben Bradley and he was sold on de
auction block and his massa chained him hand and foot and started for
Texas. Dey got to de Red River and was crossin’ and de chains helt him
down and he never came up. And I have a uncle what run off and dey took
a pack of hounds—a pack were twelve—and dey got on his trail and I
heared dem runnin’ him. Dey run him three days and nights and took a
gun loaded with buck shot but was sposed not to shoot above de legs.
Dey come back and said he got away, but some boys was out huntin’ and
finds him and he been shot four times with buck shot.

“De only time we got to rest was Sunday and de fourth of July
and Christmas, and one day Thanksgiving. We got de big dinners on holidays.
After supper was have corn shuckings, or on rainy days, and sometimes
we shucks 500 bushels. We allus picked de cotton in big baskets,
and when we gits it all picked we spreads on big and has a celebration.

“I was in Texas when de war broke out and I hauls corn lots of
times to de gin where was de soldier camp, and I helped cook awhile and
would have been in de battle of Vicksburg only dey takes another man
‘stead of me and he gits kilt. I’s glad I’s a sorry cook, or I’d got
kilt ‘stead of him.[Pg 191]

Simp Campbell

“My name is Simpson Campbell, but everybody, white and black, calls
me Simp. I’s born right here in Harrison County, on Bill Sloan’s place,
nine miles northwest of Marshall. I got in on the last five years of slavery.

“Pappy was Lewis Campbell, and he was sold by the Florida Campbells
to Marse Sloan and fotched to Texas, but he allus kep’ the Campbell name.
Mammy was Mariah and the Sloans brung her out of South Carolina. She raised
a passel of chillen. Besides me there was Flint, Albert and Clinton of the
boys, and—let me count—Dinah, Clandy, Mary, Lula, Liza, Hannah, Matilda
and Millie of the girls.

“The Sloans lived in a big house, but it wasn’t no shanty. They was
fixed ’bout as good as anybody in the county and driv as good hosses and rigs
as anybody. They wasn’t a mean streak in the whole Sloan family.

“The slave quarters sot in rows right down in the field from the big
house. They had beds made to the wall, and all the cookin’ was on the fireplace.
We raised all our meat and corn and garden truck right there on the
place and Marse Sloan brung wheat and other rations from Shreveport. The
nigger women spinned all the cloth and pappy made shoes by hand, when they
kilt a beef. The beef was dried and jetted and hung in the smokehouse.

“Marse’s place civered a thousand acres and he had over a hunderd
slaves, with a overseer, Johnson, and a nigger driver. Us niggers was
treated well but the overseer had order to whip us for fightin’. If the[Pg 192]
nigger driver hit too many licks, the overseer sold him off the place.

“We worked from four till six and done a task after that, and sot
round and talked till nine and then had to go to bed. On Saturday night
you’d hear them fiddles and banjoes playin’ and the niggers singin’. All
them music gadgets was homemade. The banjoes was made of round pieces of
wood, civered with sheepskin and strung with catgut strings.

“They wasn’t no school but Marse Bill larnt some his niggers readin’
and writin’ so we could use them bookin’ cotton in the field and sich like.
They was a church on the Sloan place and white preachers done most the ‘xhorting.
Mammy allus say the cullud preachers had to preach what they’s told—obey you
master and missus.

“I seed Yankee sojers and wagons comin’ home from Mansfield. Marse Tom
sot us free right after surrender, but my folks stayed on with him till he died,
in 1906. I lef when I’s twenty-three and marries and made a livin’ from public
work in Marshall all my life. I worked as day laborer and raised two boys and
two girls and the boys is farmin’ right here in the county and doin’ well.

“When I’s eighteen they got up a ‘mendment to the Constitution and got out
a “People’s Party Ticket.” It was a Democratic ticket and control by Southerners.
They told us niggers if we’d vote that ticket we’d be rec’nized as white folks,
but I didn’t ‘lieve a word of it. Old Man Sloan told all his niggers that and
they all voted that ticket but two—that was Charley Tang and Simp Campbell.

“I ‘lieve the young race of our people is progressin’ fine. If they had
priv’lege to use they educations, they’d make more progress, but the color line
holds them back.[Pg 193]

James Cape

“I’s bo’n in yonder southeast Texas and I don’ know what
month or de year for sho’, but ’twas more dan 100 years ago. My
mammy and pappy was bo’n in Africa, dats what dey’s tol’ me. Dey
was owned by Marster Bob Houston and him had de ranch down dere,
whar dey have cattle and hosses.

“When I’s old ‘nough to set on de hoss, dey larned me to
ride, tendin’ hosses. ‘Cause I’s good hoss rider, dey uses me all
de time gwine after hosses. I goes with dem to Mexico. We crosses
de river lots of times. I ‘members once when we was a drivin’ ’bout
200 hosses north’ards. Dey was a bad hail storm comes into de face
of de herd and dat herd turns and starts de other way. Dere was five
of us riders and we had to keep dem hosses from scatterment. I was
de leader and do you know what happens to dis nigger if my hoss stumbles?
Right dere’s whar I’d still be! Marster give me a new saddle for savin’
de hosses.[Pg 194]

“One day Marster Bob comes to me and says, ‘Jim, how you
like to jine de army?’ You see, de war had started. I says to him,
‘What does I have to do?’ And he says, ‘Tend hosses and ride ’em.’
I was young den and thought it would be lots of fun, so I says I’d go.
So de first thing I knows, I’s in de army away off east from here,
somewhar dis side of St. Louis and in Tennessee and Arkansas and other
places. I goes in de army ‘stead of Dr. Carroll.

“After I gits in de army, it wasn’ so much fun, ’cause tendin’
hosses and ridin’ wasn’ all I does. No, sar, I has to do shootin’ and
git shooted at! One time we stops de train, takes Yankee money and lots
of other things off dat train. Dat was way up de other side of Tennessee.

“You’s heard of de battle of Independence? Dat’s whar we fights for
three days and nights. I’s not tendin’ hosses dat time. Dey gives me a
rifle and sends me up front fightin’, when we wasn’ running’. We does a
heap of runnin’ and dat suits dis nigger. I could do dat better’n advance.
When de order comes to ‘treat, I’s all ready.

“I gits shot in de shoulder in dat fight and lots of our soldiers
gits killed and we loses our supply, jus’ leaves it and runs. ‘Nother time
we fights two days and nights and de Yankees was bad dat time, too, and we
had to run through de river. I sho’ thought I’s gwine git drowned den.
Dat’s de time we tries to git in St. Louis, but de Yankee mans stop us.

“I’s free after de war and goes back to Texas, to Gonzales County,
and gits a job doin’ cowboy work for Marster Ross herdin’ cattle. And
right dere’s whar I’s lucky for not gittin’ in jail or hanged. It was dis[Pg 195]
way: I’s in town and dat man, Ross, says to me, ‘I unnerstan’ you’s a
good cowhand,’ and he hires me and takes me way out. No house for miles
‘fore we comes to de ranch with cattle and I goes to work. After I’s
workin’ a while, I wonders how come dey brings in sich fine steers so
often and I says to myself, ‘Marster Ross mus’ have heaps of money for
to buy all dem steers.’ Dey pays no ‘tention to de raisin’ of cattle,
jus’ brings ’em in and drives dem ‘way.

“One time Marster Ross and six mens was gone a week and when dey
comes back, one of ’em was missin’. Dey had no steers dat time and dey
talks ’bout gittin’ frusterated and how one man gits shot. I says to
myself, ‘What for was dey chased and shot at?’ Den I ‘members Marster
Bob Houston done tol’ me ’bout rustlers and how dey’s hanged when dey’s
caught, and I knows den dat’s how come all dem fine steers is driv in
and out all de time. But how to git ‘way, dere’s de puzzlement. I not
know which way to go and dere’s no houses anywhere near. I keeps gittin’
scarter, and ever’ time somebody comes, I thinks its de law. But Marster
Ross drives de cattle north and I says to him, ‘I’s good hand at de
drive. Kin I go with you nex’ time you goes north?’ And not long after
dat we starts and we gits to Kansas City. After Marster Ross gets shut of
de critters, he says. ‘We’ll res’ for couple days, den starts back.’ I
says to me, ‘Not dis nigger.’

“I sneaks ‘way and was settin’ on a bench when ‘long comes a white
man and he’s tall, had dark hair and was fine lookin’. He says to me, ‘Is
you a cowhand?’ So I tells him I is, and he says he wants a hand on his
farm in Missouri and he says, ‘Come with me.’ He tells me his name was[Pg 196]
James and takes me to his farm whar I tends cattle and hosses for
three years and he pays me well. He gives me more’n I earns. After
three years I leaves, but not ’cause I larned he was outlaw, ’cause
I larned dat long time afterwa’ds. I’s lonesome for Texas and dat’s
how I comes to Fort Worth and here’s whar I’s stayed ever’ since.

“I’s married ’bout 40 years ago to a woman dat had eight chillens.
We sep’rated ’cause dem chillens cause arg’ments. I can fight one,
but not de army.[Pg 197]

“I wants to tell the Gospel truf. My mammy’s name was
Melia Carruthers and my papa’s name was Max. My papa’s papa’s
name was Carruthers, too. My brothers names was Charlie and Frank
and Willie and John and Tom and Adam.

“When I was still little Mr. Billy Coats bought my mama
and us and with about 500 of his slaves we set out to come to Texas.
We goes to Bastrop County and starts to work. My old missy—her
name was Missy Myra—was 99 year old and her head was bald as a
egg and had wens on it as big as eggs, too.

“In them days the boss men had good houses but the niggers
had log cabins and they burned down oftentimes. The chimney would
cotch fire, ’cause it was made out of sticks and clay and moss. Many
the time we have to git up at midnight and push the chimney ‘way from
the house to keep the house from burnin’ up.

“The chairs was mostly chunks of cordwood put on end, or slabs,
just rough, and the beds was built like scaffoldin’. We made a sort
of mattress out of corn shucks or moss.

“My missy, she was good, but the overseer, he rough. His temper
born of the debbil, himse’f. His name was Tom Hill, but us called him
‘Debbil Hill.’[Pg 198]

Old Debbil Hill, he used to whup me and the other niggers if we don’t
jump quick enough when he holler and he stake us out like you stake out
a hide and whup till we bleed. Many the time I set down and made a eight-plait
whup, so he could whup from the heels to the back of the head ’til
he figger he get the proper ret’ibution. Sometime he take salt and rub
on the nigger so he smart and burn proper and suffer mis’ry. They was
a caliboose right on the plantation, what look like a ice-house, and it
was sho’ bad to git locked up in it.

“Us got provisions ‘lowanced to us every Saturday night. If
you had two in the family, they ‘lowanced you one-half gallon ‘lasses
and 12 to 15 pounds bacon and a peck of meal. We have to take the meal
and parch it and make coffee out of it. We had our flours. One of them
we called biscuit flour and we called it ‘shorts.’ We had rye and wheat
and buck grain.

“If they didn’t provision you ‘nough, you jus’ had to slip ’round
and git a chicken. That easy ‘nough, but grabbin’ a pig a sho’ ‘nough
problem. You have to cotch him by the snoot so he won’t squeal, and clomp
him tight while you knife him. That ain’t stealin’, is it? You has to keep
right on workin’ in the field, if you ain’t ‘lowanced ‘nough, and no nigger
like to work with his belly groanin’.

“When the white preacher come he preach and pick up his Bible and
claim he gittin the text right out from the good Book and he preach: ‘The
Lord say, don’t you niggers steal chickens from your missus. Don’t you steal
YOUR MARSTER’S hawgs.’ That would be all he preach.[Pg 199]

“Us niggers used to have a prayin’ ground down in the hollow and
sometime we come out of the field, between 11 and 12 at night, scorchin’
and burnin’ up with nothin’ to eat, and we wants to ask the good Lawd to
have mercy. We puts grease in a snuff pan or bottle and make a lamp. We
takes a pine torch, too, and goes down in the hollow to pray. Some gits
so joyous they starts to holler loud and we has to stop up they mouth. I
see niggers git so full of the Lawd and so happy they draps unconscious.

“I kep’ a eye on the niggers down in the cotton patch. Sometime they
lazy ’round and if I see the overseer comin’ from the big house I sings a
song to warn ’em, so they not git whupped, and it go like this:

“‘Hold up, hold up, American Spirit!
Hold up, hold up, H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!’

“We used to go huntin’ and they was lots of game, bears and panthers
and coons. We have bear dawgs, fox dawg and rabbit dawg that mostly jus’
go by the name of houn’ dawg. Then they have a dawg to run niggers.

“I never tried the conjure, but they would take hair and brass nails
and thimbles and needles and mix them up in a conjure bag. But I knows one
thing. They was a old gin between Wilbarger and Colorado and it was hanted
with spirits of kilt niggers. Us used to hear that old mill hummin’ when
dark come and we slip up easy, but it stop, then when you slip away it start up.

“I ‘member when the stars fell. We runs and prays, ’cause we thinks
it jedgment day. It sure dumb old Debbil Hill, them stars was over his
power.

“On Sundays we put shoes on our feet and they was brass toed. They
was so hard and stiff they go ‘tump, tump, tump,’ when we walk. That’s
the only day we got ‘cept Christmas and we jus’ got somethin’[Pg 200]
extry to eat. All them women sho’ knowed how to cook! I often tell my
wife how glad I was one mornin’ when my missy give me a hot, butter biscuit.
I goes down and shows it to all the other boys. We didn’t git them hot,
butter biscuits in them days.

“I used to dance the pigeon wing and swing my partners ’round.
Was them womenfolks knock-kneed? You sho’ couldn’t tell, even when you
swung ’em ’round, ’cause they dresses was so long.

“I’s been all ’round the mountain and up on top of it in my day.
Durin’ slave time I been so cold I mos’ turn white and they sot me ‘fore
the fire and poultice me with sliced turnips. Come a norther and it
blow with snow and sleet and I didn’t have ‘nough clothes to keep me warm.

“When a nigger marry, he slick up his lowers and put on his
brass-toed shoes, then the preacher marry him out of the Bible. My pappy
have a pass to visit my mammy and if he don’t have one, the paddle roller
conk him on the head. My grandma and grandpa come here in a steamboat.
The man come to Africa and say, ‘Man and woman, does you want a job?’ So
they gits on the boat and then he has the ‘vantage.

“When I was 21 and some more, I don’t know jus’ how old, I was a
free man. That the day I shouted. We niggers scattered like partridges.
I had a fiddle and I’d play for the white folks wherever I went, when they
has the balls. I marries after ‘while, but I don’t know what year, ’cause
we never done paid no ‘tention to years. My first wife died after a long[Pg 201]
time, I think ’bout 34 year and I married another and she died this
very year. Jus’ three months later I marries my housekeeper, named
Luvena Dixon, cause I allus lived a upright life and I knowed the
Lawd wouldn’t like it if I went on livin’ in the same house with Luvena
without we was married. She is 52 year old, and we is happy.[Pg 202]

Cato Carter

Cato Carter

“I’m home today ’cause my li’l, old dog is lost and I has to stay
’round to hunt for him. I been goin’ every day on the truck to the cotton
patches. I don’t pick no more, ‘count my hands git too tired and begin to
cramp on me. But I go and set in the field and watch the lunches for the
other hands.

“I am a hunerd one years old, ’cause I’s twenty-eight, goin’ on
twenty-nine, a man growned, when the breakin’ up come. I’m purty old, but
my folks live that way. My old, black mammy, Zenie Carter, lived to be
a hunerd twenty-five, and Oll Carter, my white massa—which was the brother
of my daddy—lived to be a hunerd four. He ain’t been so long died. Al
Carter, my own daddy, lived to be very ageable, but I don’t know when he
died.

“Back in Alabama, Missie Adeline Carter took me when I was past my
creepin’ days to live in the big house with the white folks. I had a room
built on the big house, where I stayed, and they was allus good to me, ’cause
I’s one of their blood. They never hit me a lick or slapped me once, and told
me they’d never sell me away from them. They was the bes’ quality white folks
and lived in a big, two-story house with a big hall what run all the way
through the house. They wasn’t rough as some white folks on their niggers.

“My mammy lived in a hewn-oak log cabin in the quarters. There was
a long row of cabins, some bigger than t’others, ‘count of fam’ly size. My
massa had over eighty head of slaves. Them li’l, old cabins was cozy, ’cause[Pg 203]
we chinked ’em with mud and they had stick chimneys daubed with mud, mixed
with hawg-hair.

“The fixin’s was jus’ plain things. The beds was draw-beds—wooden
bedsteads helt together with ropes drawed tight, to hold them. We scalded
moss and buried it awhile and stuffed it into tickin’ to make mattresses.
Them beds slep’ good, better’n the ones nowadays.

“There was a good fireplace for cookin’ and Sundays the Missie give
us niggers a pint of flour and a chicken, for to cook a mess of victuals.
Then there was plenty game to find. Many a time I’ve kilt seventy-five or
eighty squirrels out of one big beech. There was lots of deer and bears and
quails and every other kind of game, but when they ran the Indians out of
the country, the game jus’ followed the Indians. I’ve seed the bigges’ herds
of deer followin’ the way the Indians drifted. Whenever the Indians lef’, the
game all lef’ with them, for some reason I dunno.

“Talkin’ ’bout victuals, our eatin’ was good. Can’t say the same for
all places. Some of the plantations half starved their niggers and ‘lowanced
out their eatin’ till they wasn’t fittin’ for work. They had to slip about
to niggers on other places to piece out their meals. They had field calls and
other kinds of whoops and hollers, what had a meanin’ to ’em.

“Our place was fifteen hunerd acres in one block, and ‘sides the crops
of cotton and corn and rice and ribbon cane we raised in the bottoms, we had
veg’tables and sheep and beef. We dried the beef on scaffolds we built and I
used to tend it. But bes’ of anythin’ to eat, I liked a big, fat coon, and I
allus liked honey. Some the niggers had li’l garden patches they tended for
themselves.[Pg 204]

“Everythin’ I tell you am the truth, but they’s plenty I can’t tell
you. I heard plenty things from my mammy and grandpappy. He was a fine diver
and used to dive in the Alabama river for things what was wrecked out of boats,
and the white folks would git him to go down for things they wanted. They’d
let him down by a rope to find things on the bottom of the riverbed. He used
to git a piece of money for doin’ it.

“My grandmammy was a juksie, ’cause her mammy was a nigger and her daddy
a Choctaw Indian. That’s what makes me so mixed up with Indian and African and
white blood. Sometimes it mattered to me, sometimes it didn’t. It don’t no
more, ’cause I’m not too far from the end of my days.

“I had one brother and one sister I helped raise. They was mostly nigger.
The Carters told me never to worry ’bout them, though, ’cause my mammy was of
their blood and all of us in our fam’ly would never be sold, and sometime they’d
make free man and women of us. My brother and sister lived with the niggers,
though.

“I was trained for a houseboy and to tend the cows. The bears was so bad
then, a ‘sponsible pusson who could carry a gun had to look after them.

“My massa used to give me a li’l money ‘long, to buy what I wanted. I allus
bought fine clothes. In the summer when I was a li’l one, I wore lowerin’s, like
the rest of the niggers. That was things made from cotton sackin’. Most the
boys wore shirttails till they was big yearlin’s. When they bought me red russets
from the town, I cried and cried. I didn’t want to wear no rawhide shoes. So
they took ’em back. They had a weakness for my cryin’. I did have plenty fine
clothes, good woolen suits they spinned on the place, and doeskins and fine[Pg 205]
linens. I druv in the car’age with the white folks and was ’bout the mos’
dudish nigger in them parts.

“I used to tend the nurslin’ thread. The reason they called it that
was when the mammies was confined with babies havin’ to suck, they had to spin.
I’d take them the thread and bring it back to the house when it was spinned.
If they didn’t spin seven or eight cuts a day, they’d git a whuppin’. It was
consid’ble hard on a woman when she had a frettin’ baby. But every mornin’
them babies had to be took to the big house, so the white folks could see
if they’s dressed right. They was money tied up in li’l nigger young’uns.

“They whupped the women and they whupped the mens. I used to work
some in the tan’ry and we made the whips. They’d tie them down to a stob,
and give ’em the whuppin’. Some niggers, it taken four men to whup ’em,
but they got it. The nigger driver was meaner than the white folks. They’d
better not leave a blade of grass in the rows. I seed ’em beat a nigger
half a day to make him ‘fess up to stealin’ a sheep or a shoat. Or they’d
whup ’em for runnin’ away, but not so hard if they come back of their own
‘cordance when they got hungry and sick in the swamps. But when they had
to run ’em down with the nigger dogs, they’d git in bad trouble.

“The Carters never did have any real ‘corrigible niggers, but I heard
of ’em plenty on other places. When they was real ‘corrigible, the white
folks said they was like mad dogs and didn’t mind to kill them so much as
killin’ a sheep. They’d take ’em to the graveyard and shoot ’em down and
bury ’em face downward, with their shoes on. I never seed it done, but they
made some the niggers go for a lesson to them that they could git the same.

“But I didn’t even have to carry a pass to leave my own place, like
the other niggers. I had a cap with a sign on it: ‘Don’t bother this nigger,[Pg 206]
or there will be Hell to pay.’ I went after the mail, in the town. It come
in coaches and they put on fresh hosses at Pineapple. The coachman run the
hosses into Pineapple with a big to-do and blowin’ the bugle to git the fresh
hosses ready. I got the mail. I was a trusty all my days and never been
‘rested by the law to this day.

“I never had no complaints for my treatment, but some the niggers hated
syrup makin’ time, ’cause when they had to work till midnight makin’ syrup,
its four o’clock up, jus’ the same. Sun-up to sundown was for fiel’ niggers.

“Corn shuckin’ was fun. Them days no corn was put in the cribs with shucks
on it. They shucked it in the fiel’ and shocked the fodder. They did it by
sides and all hands out. A beef was kilt and they’d have a reg’lar picnic
feastin’. They was plenty whiskey for the niggers, jus’ like Christmas.

“Christmas was the big day at the Carter’s. Presents for every body, and
the bakin’ and preparin’ went on for days. The li’l ones and the big ones
were glad, ‘specially the nigger mens, ‘count of plenty good whiskey. Mr.
Oll Carter got the bes’ whiskey for his niggers.

“We used to have frolics, too. Some niggers had fiddles and played the
reels, and niggers love to dance and sing and eat.

“Course niggers had their ser’ous side, too. They loved to go to church
and had a li’l log chapel for worship. But I went to the white folks church.
In the chapel some nigger mens preached from the Bible, but couldn’t read a
line no more than a sheep could. The Carters didn’t mind their niggers prayin’
and singin’ hymns, but some places wouldn’t ‘low them to worship a-tall, and
they had to put their heads in pots to sing or pray.

“Mos’ the niggers I know, who had their mar’age put in the book, did it
after the breakin’ up, plenty after they had growned chillen. When they got[Pg 207]
married on the places, mostly they jus’ jumped over a broom and that made ’em
married. Sometimes one the white folks read a li’l out of the Scriptures to
’em and they felt more married.

“Take me, I was never one for sickness. But the slaves used to git
sick. There was jaundice in them bottoms. First off they’d give some castor oil,
and if that didn’t cure they’d give blue mass. Then if he was still sick they’d
git a doctor.

“They used to cry the niggers off jus’ like so much cattle, and we
didn’t think no diff’rent of it. I seed them put them on the block and brag on
them somethin’ big. Everybody liked to hear them cry off niggers. The cryer was
a clown and made funny talk and kep’ everybody laughin’.

“When massa and the other mens on the place went off to war, he called
me and said, ‘Cato, you’s allus been a ‘sponsible man, and I leave you to look
after the women and the place. If I don’t come back, I want you to allus stay by
Missie Adeline! I said, ‘Fore Gawd, I will, Massa Oll.’ He said, ‘Then I can
go away peaceable.’

“We thought for a long time the sojers had the Fed’rals whupped to pieces,
but there was plenty bad times to go through. I carried a gun and guarded the
place at nighttime. The paddyrollers was bad. I cotched one and took him to the
house more’n once. They wore black caps and put black rags over their faces and
was allus skullduggerying ’round at night. We didn’t use torches any more when
we went ’round at night, ’cause we was afeared. We put out all the fires ’round
the house at nighttime.

“The young mens in grey uniforms used to pass so gay and singin’, in the
big road. Their clothes was good and we used to feed them the best we had on the[Pg 208]
place. Missie Adeline would say, ‘Cato, they is our boys and give them the best this
place ‘fords.’ We taken out the hams and the wine and kilt chickens for them. That
was at first.

“Then the boys and mens in blue got to comin’ that way, and they was fine
lookin’ men, too. Missie Adeline would cry and say, ‘Cato, they is just mens and
boys and we got to feed them, too.’ We had a pavilion built in the yard, like they
had at picnics, and we fed the Fed’rals in that. Missie Adeline set in to cryin’
and says to the Yankees, ‘Don’t take Cato. He is the only nigger man I got by me now.
If you take Cato, I just don’t know what I’ll do.’ I tells them sojers I got to stay
by Missie Adeline so long as I live. The Yankee mens say to her, ‘Don’t ‘sturb youself,
we ain’t gwine to take Cato or harm nothin’ of yours.’ The reason they’s all
right by us, was ’cause we prepared for them, but with some folks they was rough
somethin’ ter’ble. They taken off their hosses and corn.

“I seed the trees bend low and shake all over and heard the roar and poppin’
of cannon balls. There was springs not too far from our place and the sojers used
to camp there and build a fire and cook a mule, ’cause they’d got down to starvation.
When some of the guerillas seed the fire they’d aim to it, and many a time they
spoiled that dinner for them sojers. The Yankees did it and our boys did it, too.
There was killin’ goin’ on so ter’ble, like people was dogs.

“Massa Oll come back and he was all wore out and ragged. He soon called all
the niggers to the front yard and says, ‘Mens and womens, you are today as free as
I am. You are free to do as you like, ’cause the damned Yankees done ‘creed you are.
They ain’t a nigger on my place what was born here or ever lived here who can’t stay
here and work and eat to the end of his days, as long as this old place will raise
peas and goobers. Go if you wants, and stay if you wants.’[Pg 209]
Some of the niggers stayed and some went, and some what had run away to the North
come back. They allus called, real humble like, at the back gate to Missie Adeline,
and she allus fixed it up with Massa Oll they could have a place.

“Near the close of the war I seed some folks leavin’ for Texas. They said
if the Fed’rals won the war they’d have to live in Texas to keep slaves. So plenty
started driftin’ their slaves to the west. They’d pass with the womens ridin’ in
the wagons and the mens on foot. Some took slaves to Texas after the Fed’rals
done ‘creed the breakin’ up.

“Long as I lived I minded what my white folks told me, ‘cept one time.
They was a nigger workin’ in the fiel’ and he kept jerkin’ the mules and Massa
Oll got mad, and he give me a gun and said, ‘Go out there and kill that man.’
I said, ‘Massa Oll, please don’t tell me that. I ain’t never kilt nobody and
I don’t want to.’ He said, ‘Cato, you do what I tell you.’ He meant it. I
went out to the nigger and said, ‘You has got to leave this minute, and I is, too,
’cause I is ‘spose to kill you, only I ain’t and Massa Oll will kill me.’ He
drops the hanes and we run and crawled through the fence and ran away.

“I hated to go, ’cause things was so bad, and flour sold for $25.00 a
barrel, and pickled pork for $15.00 a barrel. You couldn’t buy nothin’ lessen
with gold. I had plenty of ‘federate money, only it wouldn’t buy nothin’.

“But today I is a old man and my hands ain’t stained with no blood.
I is allus been glad I didn’t kill that man.

“Mules run to a ter’ble price then. A right puny pair of mules sold
for $500.00. But the Yankees give me a mule and I farmed a year for a white man
and watched a herd of mules, too. I stayed with them mules till four o’clock
even Sundays. So many scoundrels was goin’ ’bout, stealin’ mules.[Pg 210]

“That year I was boun’ out by ‘greement with the white man, and I made
$360.00. The bureau come by that year lookin’ at nigger’s contracts, to see
they didn’t git skunt out their rightful wages. Missie Adeline and Massa Oll
didn’t stay mad at me and every Sunday they come by to see me, and brung me
li’l del’cate things to eat.

“The Carters said a hunerd times they regretted they never larned me to
read or write, and they said my daddy done put up $500.00 for me to go to the
New Allison school for cullud folks. Miss Benson, a Yankee, was the teacher.
I was twenty-nine years old and jus’ startin’ in the blueback speller. I
went to school a while, but one mornin’ at ten o’clock my poor old mammy come
by and called me out. She told me she got put out, ’cause she too old to work
in the fiel’. I told her not to worry, that I’m the family man now, and she
didn’t never need to git any more three-quarter hand wages no more.

“So I left school and turnt my hand to anything I could find for years.
I never had no trouble findin’ work, ’cause all the white folks knowed Cato was
a good nigger. I lef’ my mammy with some fine white folks and she raised a whole
family of chillen for them. Their name was Bryan and they lived on a li’l bayou.
Them young’uns was crazy ’bout mammy and they’d send me word not to worry about
her, ’cause she’d have the bes’ of care and when she died they’d tend to her
buryin’.

“Finally I come to Texas, ’cause I thought there was money for the takin’
out here. I got a job splittin’ rails for two years and from then on I farmed,
mostly. I married a woman and lived with her forty-seven years, rain or shine.
We had thirteen chillen and eight of them is livin’ today.[Pg 211]

“Endurin’ the big war I got worried ’bout my li’l black mammy and I
wanted to go back home and see her and the old places. I went, and she was
shriveled up to not much of anything. That’s the last time I saw her. But
for forty-four years I didn’t forget to send her things I thought she’d want.
I saw Massa Oll and he done married after I left and raised a family of chillen.
I saw Missie Adeline and she was a old woman. We went out and looked at the
tombstones and the rock markers in the graveyard on the old place, and some of
them done near melted away. I looked good at lots of things, ’cause I knowed
I wouldn’t be that way ‘gain. So many had gone on since I’d been there befo’.

“After my first wife died I married ‘gain and my wife is a good woman
but she’s old and done lost her voice, and has to be in Terrell most the time.
But I git ‘long all right, ‘cept my hands cramps some.

“You goin’ take my picture? I lived through plenty and I lived a long
time, but this is the first time I ever had my picture took. If I’d knowed
you wanted to do that, I’d have tidied up and put on my best.[Pg 212]

“My master was Dick Townes and my folks come with him from Alabama.
He owned a big plantation fifteen miles from Austin and worked lots of
slaves. We had the best master in the whole county, and everybody called
us “Townes’ free niggers,” he was so good to us, and we worked hard for
him, raisin’ cotton and corn and wheat and oats.

“Most the slaves lived in two-room log cabins with dirt floors, over
in the quarters, but I lived in master’s yard. That’s where I was born.
There was a tall fence ‘tween the yard and the quarters and the other
nigger boys was so jealous of me they wouldn’t let me cross that fence
into the quarters. They told me I thinked I was white, jes’ for livin’ in
master’s yard.

“Me and young master had the good times. He was nigh my age and we’d
steal chickens from Old Miss and go down in the orchard and barbecue ’em. One
time she cotched us and sho’ wore us out! She’d send us to pick peas, but
few peas we picked!

“Old Miss was good to her cullud folks. When she’d hear a baby cryin’
in the night she’d put on boots and take her lantern and go see about it.
If we needed a doctor she’d send for old Dr. Rector and when I had the
measles he give me some pills big as the end of my finger.[Pg 213]

“We went to church all the time. Young Miss come over Sunday mornin’
and fotched all us chillen to the house and read the Bible to us. She was kind
of a old maid and that was her pleasure. We had baptisin’s, too. One old cullud
man was a preacher. Lawd, Lawd, we had shoutin’ at them camp meetin’s!

“I guess we was glad to be free. Old master done die and Old Miss was
managin’ the plantation. She had the whole bunch in the yard and read the freedom
paper. The old slaves knowed what it meant, but us young ones didn’t. She told
everybody they could stay and work on shares and most of ’em did, but some went
back to they old homes in Alabama.

“I stayed a while and married, and came to San Angelo. The reason I come,
times was dull in Travis County and I done hear so much talk ’bout this town I
said I was comin’ and see for myself. That was in 1900 and it was jes’ a forest
here then. I worked eighteen years in McCloskey’s saloon, and he gave me ten
dollars every Christmas ‘sides my pay and a suit every year. I wish he was
livin’ now. My wife and I was together fifty-two years and then she died.
After a long time I married again, and my wife is out pickin’ cotton now.

“It seem mighty hard to me now by side of old times, but I don’t know if
it was any better in slavery days. It seems mighty hard though, since I’m old
and can’t work.[Pg 214]

“Befo’ I marry de first time my name am Sally Banks, and I’s
borned in de old states, over in Louisiana, round Oakland. I ain’t ‘member
nothin’ ’bout dat place, ’cause I’s so small when dey brung me to Texas.

“Old massa name Jim Moore. He a fair old gen’man, with a big bald
place on he head, and he am good to de slaves. Not even as stric’ as old
missus, what was de big, stout woman. She am terrible stric’, but she whip
de li’l white chillen too, so dey be good.

“My daddy name John Moore and mama name Car’line, and dey borned in
Louisiana. My grandpa was Lewis Moore and grandma name Polly, but dey wasn’t
reg’lar Africy people. My grandma, she have right smart good blood in her.

“When old massa come to Texas he brung us over first by wagon, a
mule wagon with a cover over de top, and he rent de house clost to Liberty.
But de nex’ year he find a place on de river bottom near Grand Cane and it
jes’ suit him for de slaves he have, so he brung all de rest over from Louisiana.

“My mama have four chillen when us come to Texas, but she have
eleven more after freedom. When war broke out she have six, but she multiply
after dat. She de milker and washwoman and spinner, and make de good, strong
clothes.[Pg 215]

“Dey have li’l separate houses make outten logs for us slaves. De white
folks house was one dese big, old double-pen house, with de hall down de middle.
Dey have right nice things in it.

“De white folks ‘lowance out de food every Saturday night and dat spose
last de week. All de cullud folks cook for deyself ‘cept’n de single mens, and
dey eats up in de big kitchen. Us have syrup and cornbread and lots of sweet
‘taters and homecure’ meat what dey salt down and hang in de smokehouse.

“De old missus, she ain’t ‘low no dancin’ or huzzawin’ round dat place,
’cause she Christian. Dey ‘low us Saturday and Sunday off, and de women do dey
own washin den’. De menfolks tend to de gardens round dey own house. Dey raise
some cotton and sell it to massa and git li’l money dat way. Us don’t never
have no presents, but dey give eatments mostly.

“De young massas both go to war. Dey John Calhoun Moore and William.
De oldes’ goes crazy, kind of shellshock like. As far as I knowed, he ain’t
never git no more better. Young William and de old man comes back without no
scratch, but dey ain’t serve long. All dey three ‘lists by deyselfs, ’cause
dey didn’t have no truck with dem conscrip’ers. One my uncles, Levy Moore,
he go to war to wait on de massas, and he struck with de fever at Sabine Pass
and die right dere.

“After freedom riz up, old massa come home. Den he call all de growed
folks and tell dem dey’s free. A heap left, dey jes’ broke ranks and left.
My daddy and mama both stay. Dey de fav’rites. Old missus make present to
my mama of a heap of things she need. But de white folks was jus’ rentin’
and when dey have no slaves no more dey give it up and move to Tarkington
Prairie. Us lost track of dem and ain’t never seed dem no more.

“My daddy come back to Liberty den and work in de woodyard. Mama, she[Pg 216]
larn me to work and cook and sich and hire me out to nuss a white baby.
I ain’t knowed how much dey pay, ’cause mama she collec’ de money.

“I’s 19 year old when I marry de first time. You know I got two
dead men, dat Dick Owens and Nero Williams, both of Liberty. I has two
gals, Alice and Airy, for Dick, and five chillen for Nero. Dey all dead
but Adlowyer and Mamie, and dey lives right here. I been marry some thirty
odd year to Ben Chambers but us ain’t never have no chillen.

“Goodness, I dunno how many grandchillen I has. I jedge ’bout
54 in all and 13 great ones.

“I loves to work and I ain’t gwineter beg, though I’s got too
old to do much. I can’t take it but a li’l at a time, but I gits by somehow.[Pg 217]

“I’ll be 102 years old, come fall, ’cause my mother told me I was
born on Oct. 17, 1835, and besides, I was about 30 years old at the end
of the Civil War. We belonged to the Choices and I was born on their
plantation. My mother’s name was Martha and she had been brought here
from Serbia. My father’s name was John and he was from the East Indies.
They was brought to this country in a slave boat owned by Captain Adair
and sold to someone at New Orleans before Master Jezro Choice bought
them. I had five sisters and one brother but they are all dead, ‘cepting
one brother who lives near Henderson.

“Master Jezro was right kind. He had 50 or 60 slaves and a grist
mill and tannery besides the plantation. My white folks sort of picked
me out and I went to school with the white children. I went to the
fields when I was about 20, but I didn’t do much field works, ’cause they
was keepin’ me good and they didn’t want to strain me.

“On Sunday we just put an old Prince Albert coat on some good nigger
and made a preacher out of him. We niggers had our band, too, and I was[Pg 218]
one of the players.

“The master was mighty careful about raisin’ healthy nigger families
and used us strong, healthy young bucks to stand the healthy nigger
gals. When I was young they took care not to strain me and I was as handsome
as a speckled pup and was in demand for breedin’. Later on we niggers
was ‘lowed to marry and the master and missus would fix the nigger and gal
up and have the doin’s in the big house. The white folks would gather
round in a circle with the nigger and gal in the center and then master
laid a broom on the floor and they held hands and jumped over it. That
married ’em for good.

“When babies was born old nigger grannies handled them cases, but
until they was about three years old they wasn’t ‘lowed round the quarters,
but was wet nursed by women who didn’t work in the field and kept in separate
quarters and in the evenin’ their mammies were let to see ’em.

“We was fed good and had lots of beef and hawg meat and wild game.
Possum and sweet yams is mighty good. You parboil the possum about half done
and put him in a skewer pan and put him in a hot oven and just ‘fore he is
done you puts the yams in the pan and sugar on ’em. That’s a feast.

“Sometimes when they’s short of bread the old missus would say, ‘How
’bout some ash cakes?’ Then they’d mix cornmeal and water and sweep ashes
out of the open hearth and bake the ash cakes.

“The master and his boys was all kilt in the war and after freedom
I stayed all summer. It was pretty tough on us niggers for a while, ’cause
the womenfolks what was left after the war didn’t have money. But Colonel
Jones, the master’s son-in-law, took me to live in Henderson and paid twenty-five
cents a week for more schoolin’ for me and I learned through fractions.[Pg 219]
Then I got me a job teachin’ school about six months a year and in off
times I’d farm. I did lots of different kinds of work, on the narrow
gauge railroad out of Longview and I learned to be a barber, too. But
I had to give it up a few years back ’cause I can’t stand up so long any
more and now I’m tryin’ to help my people by divine healing.[Pg 220]

Amos Clark’s Sorghun Mill

Amos Clark

“I was borned on the second of April, in 1841. Mammy say dat
de year, ’cause Marse Bob’s brother, Tom, done go tradin’ and has a
lot of trouble with de Indians, and come back with scars all over he
arms. It warn’t all dey fault, ’cause Marse Tom allus gittin’ in
trouble with somebody.

“When I was still half-growed, Marse Bob traded me to Marse Ed
Roseborough, and we come to Belton to live. Us piled ox wagons high
with beddin’ and clothes and sich, and Old Marse had he books in a
special horsehair trunk, what de hide still had hair on. It had brass
tacks all trimmin’ it up, and it was sho’ a fine trunk, and he say,
‘Amos, you black rascal, keep you eye on dat trunk, and don’t git it
wet crossin’ de water and don’t let no Indian git it.’ Us had a sizeable
drove of cattle and some sheep and pigs and chickens and ducks.

“Marse and Missis finds where dey wants de house and us gits dem
axes out and in a few days dere am a nice log house with two big rooms
and a hall ‘tween dem, mos’ as big as de rooms. Us been on de road
’bout six weeks and Missis sho’ proud of her new house. Den us makes
logs into houses for us and a big kitchen close to de big house. Den
us builds a office for Old Marse and makes chairs and beds and tables
for everybody. Old Miss brung her bed and a spindly, li’l table, and
us make all de rest.[Pg 221]

“For eatin’ de good shooters and scouters gits birds and rabbits
and wild turkeys and sometimes a lot of wild eggs or honey, when dey chops a
bee tree down. A old Indian come to holp us hunt. He’d work a week if Marse
Ed give him some red calico or a hatchet. Old Miss done bring a dozen hens and
a bag of seeds, and folks come ridin’ twenty miles to swap things.

“Dere warn’t no mill to grind corn, so de boss carpenter, he hollows
out a log and gits some smooth, hard rocks and us grind de corn like it was a
morter. Old Man Stubblefield builded a watermill on de creek ’bout eight miles
from us, and den us tooken de corn dere.

“Dere was three hundred acres and more’n fifty slaves, and lots of
work, clearin’ and buildin’ and plantin’. Some de cabins didn’t git no floor
for two years. Jes’ quick as dey could, de men gits out clapboards for de
walls and split puncheon slabs for floors and palin’s for fences.

“Missis, she takes two de likelies’ young slaves and makes a garden,
come spring. Somehow she git herself roses and posies and vegetables.

“Dere warn’t no overseer. Marse Ed, he jes’ ride round on he big hoss
and see to things. Us didn’t know nothin ’bout de war much, ’cause none us could
read or write.

“Dere was two fiddlers ‘mongst us, Jim Roseborough and Tom. Dey’d have
de big barbecue for folks come from miles round, and coffee and chicken and turkey
and dancin’ and fiddlin’ all night. Come daybreak, dey jes’ goin’ good. Us niggers
dance back de quarters, and call

“‘All eight balance and all eight swing,
All left allemond and right hand grand,
Meet your partner and prom’nade, eight,
[Pg 222]Den march till you come straight.

“‘First lady out to couple on de right,
Swing Mr. Adam and swing Miss Eve,
Swing Old Adam befo’ you leave,
Don’t forgit your own—now you’re home.’

“Two, three years after dat I marries Liza Smith. Us has four chillen
and all dead ‘cept John, and he lives out west.

“After freedom Old Marse say kill a yearlin’ and have de big dinner and
dance. De young ones he told to scatter out and hunt work, not to steal and
work hard. Some de oldes’ ones he give a cabin and a patch of land. He say
de niggers what want to stay on and work for him can, iffen he make enough to
feed dem. I stays with Marse Ed, but he give me a patch of twenty acres and a
sorghum mill to make a livin’ on. Dat how I gits on my way after freedom.

“I gits dat sorghum mill to workin’ good and works de Roseborough land
and my patch, and raises corn and cotton and wheat. I was plumb good at farmin’.
I allus had a piece or two of money in my pocket since I can ‘member, but now
de old man’s too old. De gov’ment gives me seven or eight dollars a month and
I has a few chickens and gits by, and de good white folks nigh by sees dat dis
old boy don’t git cold.[Pg 223]

Anne Clark

Anne Clark

“I’ll be 112 years old, come first day of June (1937).
Bo’n in Mississippi. I had two marsters, but I’ve been free
nearly 80 years. I was freed in Memphis.

“My marster was a Yankee. He took me to Louisiana and
made a slave outta me. But he had to go to war. He got in
a quarrel one day and grabbed two six-shooters, but a old
white man got him down and nearly kilt him. Our men got him
and gave him to the Yankees.

“Capt. Clark, my second marster, took a shot at him and
he couldn’ come south no more. You don’ know what a time I
seen! I don’ wanna see no more war. Why, we made the United
States rich but the Yankees come and tuk it. They buried money
and when you bury money it goes fu’ther down, down, down, and
then you cain’t fin’ it.

“You know, the white folks hated to give us up worse thing
in the world. I ploughed, hoed, split rails. I done the hardest
work ever a man ever did. I was so strong, iffen he needed me
I’d pull the men down so the marster could handcuff ’em.[Pg 224]
They’d whop us with a bullwhip. We got up at 3 o’clock, at 4 we done
et and hitched up the mules and went to the fiel’s. We worked all day
pullin’ fodder and choppin’ cotton. Marster’d say, ‘I wan’ you to lead
dat fiel’ today, and if you don’ do it I’ll put you in de stocks.’ Then
he’d whop me iffen I didn’ know he was talkin’ to me.

“My poppa was strong. He never had a lick in his life. He
helped the marster, but one day the marster says, ‘Si, you got to have a
whoppin’, and my poppa says, ‘I never had a whoppin’ and you cain’t whop
me.’ An’ the marster says, ‘But I kin kill you,’ an’ he shot my poppa
down. My mama tuk him in the cabin and put him on a pallet. He died.

“My mama did the washin’ for the big house. She tuk a big tub
on her head and a bucket of water in her hand. My mama had two white
chillen by marster and they were sold as slaves. I had two chillen, too.
I never married. They allus said we’d steal, but I didn’ take a thing.
Why, they’d put me on a hoss with money to take into town and I’d take
it to the store in town, and when I’d git back, marster’d say, ‘Anne,
you didn’ take a thing.’

“When women was with child they’d dig a hole in the groun’ and put
their stomach in the hole, and then beat ’em. They’d allus whop us.”

“Don’ gring me anything fine to wear for my birthday. I jus’
wan’ some candy. I’m lookin’ for Him to take me away from here.”[Pg 225]

“I might as well begin far back as I remember and tell you all
about myself. I was born over in Jackson County, in Alabama, on August
8, 1845. My mother was Elizabeth Cole, her bein’ a slave of Robert Cole,
and my father was Alex Gerrand, ’cause he was John Gerrand’s slave. I
was sposed to take my father’s name, but he was sech a bad, ornery, no-count
sech a human, I jes’ taken my old massa’s name. My mother was
brung from Virginny by Massa Dr. Cole, and she nussed all his six chillen.
My sister’s name was Sarah and my brother’s name was Ben and we lived in
one room of the big house, and allus had a good bed to sleep in and good
things to eat at the same table, after de white folks gits through.

“I played with Massa Cole’s chillen all de time, and when I got
older he started me workin’ by totin’ wood and sech odd jobs, and feedin’
de hawgs. Us chillen had to pick cotton every fall. De big baskets weigh
about seventy-five to a hundred pounds, but us chillen put our pickin’s
in some growed slave’s basket. De growed slaves was jes’ like a mule.
He work for grub and clothes, and some of dem didn’t have as easier a time
as a mule, for mules was fed good and slaves was sometimes half starved.[Pg 226]
But Massa Cole was a smart man and a good man with it. He had ‘spect for
the slaves’ feelin’s and didn’t treat dem like dumb brutes, and ‘lowed dem
more privileges dan any other slaveholder round dere. He was one of de
best men I ever knows in my whole life and his wife was jes’ like him. Dey
had a big, four-room log house with a big hall down the center up and down.
De logs was all peeled and de chinkin’ a diff’rent color from de logs and
covered with beads. De kitchen am a one-room house behin’ de big house with
de big chimney to cook on. Dat where all de meals cooked and carry to de house.

“In winter massa allus kill from three to four hundred hawgs, de
two killin’s he done in November and January. Some kill and stick, some scald
and scrape, and some dress dem and cut dem up and render de lard. Dey haul
plenty hick’ry wood to de smokehouse and de men works in shifts to keep de
smoke fire goin’ sev’ral days, den hangs de meat in de meathouse. First us eat
all de chitlin’s, den massa begin issuin’ cut-back bones to each fam’ly, and
den ‘long come de spareribs, den de middlin’ or a shoulder, and by dat time
he kill de second time and dis was to go all over ‘gain. Each fam’ly git de
same kind of meat each week. Iffen one git a ham, dey all git a ham. All de
ears and feet was pickle and we eats dem, too. If de meat run out ‘fore killin’
time, us git wild turkeys or kill a beef or a goat, or git a deer.

“Massa let us plant pumpkins and have a acre or two for watermelons,
iffen us work dem on Saturday evenin’s. Dere a orchard of ’bout five or six
acres peaches and apples and he ‘low us to have biscuits once a week. Yes, we
had good eatin’ and plenty of it den.

“Massa had one big, stout, healthy lookin’ slave ’bout six foot, four
inches tall, what he pay $3,000 for. He bought six slaves I knows of and give[Pg 227]
from $400 up for dem. He never sold a slave ‘less he git onruly.

“Massa allus give us cotton clothes for summer and wool for winter,
’cause he raised cotton and sheep. Den each fam’ly have some chickens and
sell dem and de eggs and maybe go huntin’ and sell de hides and git some
money. Den us buy what am Sunday clothes with dat money, sech as hats and
pants and shoes and dresses.

“We’d git up early every day in de year, rain or shine, hot or
cold. A slave blowed de horn and dere no danger of you not wakin’ up when dat
blowed long and loud. He climb up on a platform ’bout ten feet tall to blow
dat bugle. We’d work till noon and eat in de shade and rest ’bout a hour or
a little more iffen it hot, but only a hour if it cold. You is allus tired
when you makes de day like dat on de plantation and you can’t play all night
like de young folks does now. But us lucky, ’cause Massa Cole don’t whip us.
De man what have a place next ours, he sho’ whip he slaves. He have de cat-o-nine
tails of rawhide leather platted round a piece of wood for a handle.
De wood ’bout ten inches long and de leather braided on past de stock quite
a piece, and ’bout a foot from dat all de strips tied in a knot and sprangle
out, and makes de tassle. Dis am call de cracker and it am what split de hide.
Some folks call dem bullwhips, ‘stead of cat-o-nine tails. De first thing dat
man do when he buy a slave, am give him de whippin’. He call it puttin’ de
fear of Gawd in him.

“Massa Cola ‘low us read de Bible. He awful good ’bout dat. Most
de slaveowners wouldn’t ‘low no sech. Uncle Dan he read to us and on Sunday
we could go to church. De preacher baptize de slaves in de river. Dat de[Pg 228]
good, old-time ‘ligion, and us all go to shoutin’ and has a good time. Dis
gen’ration too dig’fied to have de old-time ‘ligion.

“When baptizin’ comes off, it almost like goin’ to de circus.
People come from all over and dey all singin’ songs and everybody take dere
lunch and have de good time. Massa Cole went one time and den he git sick,
and next summer he die. Missy Cole, she moves to Huntsville, in Alabama.
But she leave me on de plantation, ’cause I’m big and stout den. She takes
my mother to cook and dat de last time I ever seed my mother. Missy Cole
buys de fine house in Huntsville my mother tells me to be good and do all
de overseer tells me. I told her goodbye and she never did git to come back
to see me, and I never seed her and my brother and sister ‘gain. I don’t
know whether dey am sold or not.

“I thinks to myself, dat Mr. Anderson, de overseer, he’ll give me
dat cat-o-nine tails de first chance he gits, but makes up my mind he won’t
git de chance, ’cause I’s gwine run off de first chance I gits. I didn’t
know how to git out of dere, but I’s gwine north where dere ain’t no slaveowners.
In a year or so dere am ‘nother overseer, Mr. Sandson, and he give me de log
house and de gal to do my cookin’ and sich. Dere am war talk and we ‘gins
gwine to de field earlier and stayin’ later. Corn am haul off, cotton am haul
off, hawgs and cattle am rounded up and haul off and things ‘gins lookin’ bad.
De war am on, but us don’t see none of it. But ‘stead of eatin’ cornbread,
us eats bread out of kaffir corn and maize. ““We raises lots of okra and dey
say it gwine be parch and grind to make coffee for white folks. Dat didn’t
look good either. Dat winter, ‘stead of killin’ three or four hundred hawgs[Pg 229]
like we allus done befo’, we only done one killin’ of a hundred seventy-five, and
dey not all big ones, neither. When de meat supply runs low, Mr. Sandson sends some
slaves to kill a deer or wild hawgs or jes’ any kind of game. He never sends me
in any dem bunches but I hoped he would and one day he calls me to go and says not
to go off de plantation too far, but be sho’ bring home some meat. Dis de chance
I been wantin’, so when we gits to de huntin’ ground de leader says to scatter out,
and I tells him me and ‘nother man goes north and make de circle round de river
and meet ’bout sundown. I crosses de river and goes north. I’s gwine to de free
country, where dey ain’t no slaves. I travels all dat day and night up de river
and follows de north star. Sev’ral times I thunk de blood houn’s am trailin’ me
and I gits in de big hurry. I’s so tired I couldn’t hardly move, but I gits in a
trot.

“I’s hopin’ and prayin’ all de time I meets up with dat Harriet Tubman woman.
She de cullud women what takes slaves to Canada. She allus travels de underground
railroad, dey calls it, travels at night and hides out in de day. She sho’ sneaks
dem out de South and I thinks she’s de brave woman.

“I eats all de nuts and kills a few swamp rabbits and cotches a few fish.
I builds de fire and goes off ’bout half a mile and hides in de thicket till it
burns down to de coals, den bakes me some fish and rabbit. I’s shakin’ all de time,
‘fraid I’d git cotched, but I’s nearly starve to death. I puts de rest de fish in
my cap and travels on dat night by de north star and hides in a big thicket de nex’
day and along evenin’ I hears guns shootin’. I sho’ am scart dis time, sho’ ‘nough.
I’s scart to come in and scart to go out, and while I’s standin’ dere, I hears two
men say, ‘Stick you hands up, boy. What you doin?’ I says, ‘Uh-uh-uh, I dunno.[Pg 230]
You ain’t gwine take me back to de plantation, is you?’ Dey says, ‘No. Does
you want to fight for de North?’ I says I will, ’cause dey talks like northern
men. Us walk night and day and gits in Gen. Rosecran’s camp and dey thunk I’s
de spy from de South. Dey asks me all sorts of questions and says dey’ll whip me
if I didn’t tell dem what I’s spyin’ ’bout. Fin’ly dey ‘lieves me and puts me to
work helpin’ with de cannons. I feels ‘portant den, but I didn’t know what was
in front of me, or I ‘spects I’d run off ‘gain.

“I helps sot dem cannons on dis Chickamauga Mountain, in hidin’ places. I has
to go with a man and wait on him and dat cannon. First thing I knows, bang, bang,
boom, things has started, and guns am shootin’ faster dan you can think, and I looks
round for de way to run. But dem guns am shootin’ down de hill in front of me and shootin’
at me, and over me and on both sides of me. I tries to dig me a hole and
git in it. All dis happen right now, and first thing I knows, de man am kickin’ me
and wantin’ me to holp him keep dat cannon loaded. Man, I didn’t want no cannon,
but I has to help anyway. We fit till dark and de Rebels got more men dan us, so
Gen. Rosecran sends de message to Gen. Woods to come help us out. When de messenger
slips off, I sho’ wish it am me slippin’ off, but I didn’t want to see no Gen. Woods.
I jes’ wants to git back to dat old plantation and pick more cotton. I’d been willin’
to do mos’ anything to git out that mess, but I done told Gen. Rosecran I wants to
fight de Rebels and he sho’ was lettin’ me do it. He wasn’t jes’ lettin’ me do it,
he was makin’ me do it. I done got in dere and he wouldn’t let me out.

“White folks, dere was men layin’ wantin’ help, wantin’ water, with blood
runnin’ out dem and de top or sides dere heads gone, great big holes in dem. I
jes’ promises de good Lawd if he jes’ let me git out dat mess, I wouldn’t run off
no more, but I didn’t know den he wasn’t gwine let me out with jes’ dat battle.[Pg 231]
He gwine give me plenty more, but dat battle ain’t over yet, for nex’ mornin’ de
Rebels ‘gins shootin’ and killin’ lots of our men, and Gen. Woods ain’t come,
so Gen. Rosecran orders us to ‘treat, and didn’t have to tell me what he said,
neither. De Rebels comes after us, shootin’, and we runs off and leaves dat
cannon what I was with settin’ on de hill, and I didn’t want dat thing nohow.

“We kep’ hotfootin’ till we gits to Chattanooga and dere is where we
stops. Here comes one dem Rebel generals with de big bunch of men and gits right
on top of Look Out Mountain, right clost to Chattanooga, and wouldn’t let us out.
I don’t know jes’ how long, but a long time. Lots our hosses and mules starves
to death and we eats some de hosses. We all like to starve to death ourselves.
Chattanooga is in de bend de Tennessee River and on Look Out Mountain, on de east,
am dem Rebels and could keep up with everything we done. After a long time a Gen.
Thomas gits in some way. He finds de rough trail or wagon road round de mountain
‘long de river and supplies and men comes by boat up de river to dis place and
comes on into Chattanooga. More Union men kep’ comin’ and I guess maybe six or
eight generals and dey gits ready to fight. It am long late in Fall or early winter.

“Dey starts climbin’ dis steep mountain and when us gits three-fourths de
way up it am foggy and you couldn’t see no place. Everything wet and de rocks am
slick and dey ‘gins fightin’. I ‘spect some shoots dere own men, ’cause you couldn’t
see nothin’, jes’ men runnin’ and de guns roarin’. Fin’ly dem Rebels fled and we
gits on Look Out Mountain and takes it.

“Dere a long range of hills leadin’ ‘way from Look Out Mountain, nearly
to Missionary Ridge. Dis ridge ‘longside de Chickamauga River, what am de Indian
name, meanin’ River of Death. Dey fights de Rebels on Orchard Knob hill and I
wasn’t in dat, but I’s in de Missionary Ridge battle. We has to come out de timber[Pg 232]
and run ‘cross a strip or openin’ up de hill. Dey sho’ kilt lots our men when we
runs ‘cross dat openin’. We runs for all we’s worth and uses guns or anything we
could. De Rebels turns and runs off and our soldiers turns de cannons round what
we’s capture, and kilt some de Rebels with dere own guns.

“I never did git to where I wasn’t scart when we goes into de battle.
Dis de last one I’s in and I’s sho’ glad, for I never seed de like of dead and
wounded men. We picks dem up, de Rebels like de Unions, and doctors dem de bes’
we could. When I seed all dat sufferin’, I hopes I never lives to see ‘nother
war. Dey say de World War am worse but I’s too old to go.

“I sho’ wishes lots of times I never run off from de plantation. I begs
de General not to send me on any more battles, and he says I’s de coward and
sympathizes with de South. But I tells him I jes’ couldn’t stand to see all dem
men layin’ dere dyin’ and hollerin’ and beggin’ for help and a drink of water, and
blood everywhere you looks. Killin’ hawgs back on de plantation didn’t bother me
none, but dis am diff’rent.

“Fin’ly de General tells me I can go back to Chattanooga and guard de supplies
in camp dere and take care de wounded soldiers and prisoners. A bunch of men
is with me and we has all we can do. We gits de orders to send supplies to some
general and it my job to help load de wagons or box cars or boats. A train of wagons
leaves sometimes. We gits all dem supplies by boat, and Chattanooga am de ‘stributing
center. When winter comes, everybody rests awhile and waits for Spring to open.
De Union general sends in some more cullud soldiers. Dere ain’t been many cullud
men but de las’ year de war dere am lots. De North and de South am takin’ anything
dey can git to win de war.[Pg 233]

“When Spring breaks and all de snow am gone, and de trees ‘gins puttin’
out and everything ‘gins to look purty and peaceable-like, makin’ you think you ought
to be plowin’ and plantin’ a crop, dat when de fightin’ starts all over ‘gain, killin’
men and burnin’ homes and stealin’ stock and food. Den dey sends me out to help
clear roads and build temp’rary bridges. We walks miles on muddy ground, ‘cross
rivers, wadin’ water up to our chins. We builds rafts and pole bridges to git de
mules and hosses and cannons ‘cross, and up and down hills, and cuts roads through
timber.

“But when dey wants to battle Gen. Thomas allus leaves me in camp to tend
de supplies. He calls me a coward, and I sho’ glad he thunk I was. I wasn’t no
coward, I jes’ couldn’t stand to see all dem people tore to pieces. I hears ’bout
de battle in a thick forest and de trees big as my body jes’ shot down. I seed
dat in de Missionary Ridge battle, too.

“I shifts from one camp to ‘nother and fin’ly gits back to Chattanooga. I
bet durin’ my time I handles ‘nough ammunition to kill everybody in de whole United
States. I seed mos’ de mainest generals in de Union Army and some in de Rebel Army.

“After de war am over we’s turned loose, nowhere to go and nobody to help us.
I couldn’t go South, for dey calls me de traitor and sho’ kill me iffen dey knows I
fit for de North. I does any little job I can git for ’bout a year and fin’ly gits
work on de railroad, in Stevenson, in Alabama. I gits transfer to Chattanooga
and works layin’ new tracks and turn tables and sich.

“In ’bout two weeks I had saw a gal next door, but I’s bashful. But after
payday I dresses up and takes her to a dance. We sparks ’bout two months and den
we’s married at her uncles. Her name am Nancy. We buys a piece of land and I
has a two-room house built on it. We has two chillen and I’s livin’ with de baby
gal now.[Pg 234]

“I ‘lieve de slaves I knowed as a whole was happier and better off
after ‘mancipation dan befo’. Of course, de first few years it was awful
hard to git ‘justed to de new life. All de slaves knowed how to do hard work,
and dat de old slaves life, but dey didn’t know nothin’ ’bout how to ‘pend
on demselves for de livin’. My first year was hard, but dere was plenty
wild game in dem days. De south was broke and I didn’t hear of no slaves
gittin’ anything but to crop on de halves. Dey too glad to be free and didn’t
want nothin’.

“Things ‘gin to git bad for me in Chattanooga as de white men finds
out I run off from de South and jined de North. Some de brakemen try to git
my job. I fin’ly quits when one of dem opens a switch I jus’ closed. I seed
him and goes back and fixes de switch, but I quits de job. I goes up north
but dey ain’t int’rested, so I comes back and sells my home and buys me a
team and wagon. I loads it with my wife and chillen and a few things and starts
for Texas. We’s on de road ’bout six weeks or two months. We fishes and hunts
every day and de trip didn’t cost much. I buys ninety acres in timber in Cass
County and cuts logs for a house and builds a two-room house and log crib. My
wife built a stomp lot for de team and cow and a rail fence.

“We got ‘nough land cleared for de small crop, ’bout thirty acres, and
builds de barn and sheds outselves. We lived there till de chillen am growed.
My wife died of chills and fever and den my boy and I built a four-room house
of planks from our timber. Den I gits lonesome, ’cause de chillen gone, and
sells de place. I bought it for fifty cents de acre and sold it for $12.00
de acre.[Pg 235]

“I buys sixty acres in Henderson County for $15.00 a acre and marries
de second time. I didn’t care for her like Nancy. All she think ’bout
am raisin’ de devil and never wants to work or save anything. She like to
have broke me down befo’ I gits rid of her. I stayed and farmed sev’ral years.

“My son-in-law rents land in Chambers Creek bottom, and he usually
gits he crop ‘fore de flood gits it. We has some hawgs to kill ev’ry winter
and we has our cornmeal and milk and eggs and chickens, so de ‘pression ain’t
starved us yit. We all got might’ nigh naked durin’ de ‘pression. I feeds
de hawgs and chickens night and mornin’. I can’t see dem, but I likes to listen
to dem eatin’ and cackle. People don’t know how dey’s blessed with good eyes,
till dey loses dem. Everybody ought to be more thankful dan they is.

“I ain’t never voted in my life. I leans to de ‘publicans. I don’t
know much ’bout politics, though.

“Today I is broke, ’cause I spent all my money for med’cine and
doctors, but I gits a small pension and I spends it mos’ careful.[Pg 236]

“I has a old bill of sale, and it shows I’s born in 1846 and
my massa am George Brady. I know my pappy’s name was same as mine,
and mammy was Ella, and I had one brother named Sam, and my sisters
was Sadie and Rosa and Viola. They’s all dead now.

“Pappy was owned by Massa Coleman, what was brother to Massa
Brady. Pappy could only see mammy once a week when he’s courtin’ for
her. I heard pappy tell ’bout his pappy, over in Africy, and he had
near a hundred wives and over three hundred chillen.

“Pappy never did work. All he ever did was trade. He’d make one
thing and ‘nother and trade it for something to eat. He could get lots of
fruit and game out of the woods them days, and there was lots of fish.

“Our log house was built of logs, trimmed, and had six rooms. It was
long, like a cowbarn or chicken house, and my room was third. We had one
door to each room, covered over with hides. We dug out one corner for the
bed and fenced it up and gathered straw and moss and tore-up corn shucks,
and put in the corner to sleep on. What I mean, it was a warm bed.

“We did all kinds of work, choppin’ cotton and split rails and cut
rock, and work in the tobacco field. We’d cut that tobacco and hang it in
the shed to dry. It had to be hanged by the stubble end.

“We had plenty to eat, sech as corn pones. The corn was grated by
hand and cooked in ashes, and no salt or soda or fancy things like they put
in bread now.[Pg 237]

“There was possum and rabbit and we cooked them different to now.
A great big, old pot hung over the old rock fireplace. Food cooked that way
still eats good. Massa Brady allus give us lots out of the garden. He fed
us reg’lar on good, ‘stantial food, jus’ like you’d tend to you hoss, if you
had a real good one.

“Massa Brady, he was one these jolly fellows and a real good man, allus
good to his black folks. Missy, she was plumb angel. They lived in a old stone
house with four big rooms. It was the best house in the whole county and lots
of shade trees by it.

“We had ’bout a hundred acres in our plantation and started to the field
‘fore daylight and worked long as we could see, and fed ane stock and got to
bed ’bout nine o’clock. Massa whopped a slave if he got stubborn or lazy. He
whopped one so hard that slave said he’d kill him. So Massa done put a chain
round his legs, so he jus’ hardly walk, and he has to work in the field that
way. At night he put ‘nother chain round his neck and fastened it to a tree.
After three weeks massa turnt him loose and that the proudes’ nigger in the
world, and the hardes’ workin’ nigger massa had after that.

“On Saturday night we could git a pass or have a party on our own place.
Through the week we’d fall into our quarters and them patterrollers come walk
all over us, and we’d be plumb still, but after they done gone some niggers
gits up and out.

“On Christmas Day massa make a great big eggnog and let us have all we
wants with a big dinner. He kilt a yearlin’ and made plenty barbecue for us.[Pg 238]

“Massa was a colonel in the war and took me along to care for his hoss
and gun. Them guns, you couldn’t hear nothin’ for them poppin’. Us niggers
had to go all over and pick up them what got kilt. Them what was hurt we carried
back. Them what was too bad hurt we had to carry to the burying place
and the white man’d finish killin’ them, so we could roll them in the hole.

“When massa say we’re free, we all ‘gun to take on. We didn’t have
no place to go and asked massa could we stay, but he say no. But he did let
some stay and furnished teams and something to eat and work on the halves.
I stayed and was sharecropper, and that was when slavery start, for when we
got our cop made it done take every bit of it to pay our debts and we had
nothing left to buy winter clothes or pay doctor bills.

“‘Bout a year after the war I marries Nora Brady, jus’ a home weddin’.
I asks her to come live with me as my wife and she ‘greed and she jus’ moved
her clothes to my room and we lived together a long time. One mornin’ Nora
jus’ died, and there warn’t no chillen, so I sets out for Texas. I done hear
the railroad is buildin’ in Texas and they hires lots of niggers. I gits a hoss
from massa and rolls up a few clothes and gits my gun.

“I never got very far ‘fore the Indians takes my hoss away from me.
It was ’bout fifty mile to a train and I didn’t have no money, but I found a
white man what wants wood cut and I works near a month for him and gits $2.00.
I gits on a train and comes a hundred mile from where that railroad was goin’
‘cross the country, and I has to walk near all that hundred miles. Once and
now a white man comin’ or goin’ lets me ride. But I got there and the job pays
me sixty cents a day. That was lots of money them days. Near as I ‘member, it[Pg 239]
was 1867 or 1868 when I comes to Texas.

“Then I marries Agnes Frazer, and we has a big weddin’ and a preacher
and a big supper for two or three weeks. Her pappy kilt game and we et barbecue
all the time. We had eleven chillen, one a year for a long time, five boys and
six gals. One made a school teacher and I ain’t seen her nearly forty-five
years, ’cause she done took a notion to go north and they won’t let her back in
Texas ’cause she married a white man in New York. I don’t like that. She don’t
have no sense or she wouldn’t done that, no, sir.

“Since the nigger been free it been Hell on the poor old nigger. He has
advance some ways, but he’s still a servant and will be, long as Gawd’s curse still
stay on the Negro race. We was turnt loose without nothin’ and done been under
the white man rule so long we couldn’t hold no job but labor. I worked most two
years on that railroad and the rest my life I farms. Now I gits a little pension
from the gov’ment and them white folks am sho’ good to give it to me, ’cause I
ain’t good for work no more.[Pg 240]

Preely Coleman

“I’m Preely Coleman and I never gits tired of talking. Yes,
ma’am, it am Juneteenth, but I’m home, ’cause I’m too old now to
go on them celerabrations. Where was I born? I knows that ‘zactly,
’cause my mammy tells me that a thousand times. I was born down on
the old Souba place, in South Carolina, ’bout ten mile from New Berry.
My mammy belonged to the Souba family, but its a fact one of the Souba
boys was my pappy and so the Soubas sells my mammy to Bob and Dan Lewis
and they brung us to Texas ‘long with a big bunch of other slaves.
Mammy tells me it was a full month ‘fore they gits to Alto, their new
home.

“When I was a chile I has a purty good time, ’cause there was
plenty chillen on the plantation. We had the big races. Durin’ the war
the sojers stops by on the way to Mansfield, in Louisiana, to git somethin’
to eat and stay all night, and then’s when we had the races. There
was a mulberry tree we’d run to and we’d line up and the sojers would
say, ‘Now the first one to slap that tree gits a quarter,’ and I nearly
allus gits there first. I made plenty quarters slappin’ that old mulberry
tree!

“So the chillen gits into their heads to fix me, ’cause I wins
all the quarters. They throws a rope over my head and started draggin
down the road, and down the hill, and I was nigh ’bout choked to[Pg 241]
death. My only friend was Billy and he was a-fightin’, tryin’ to git me
loose. They was goin’ to throw me in the big spring at the foot of that
hill, but we meets Capt. Berryman, a white man, and he took his knife and
cut the rope from my neck and took me by the heels and soused me up and
down in the spring till I come to. They never tries to kill me any more.

“My mammy done married John Selman on the way to Texas, no
cere’mony, you knows, but with her massa’s consent. Now our masters, the
Lewises, they loses their place and then the Selman’s buy me and mammy.
They pays $1,500 for my mammy and I was throwed in.

“Massa Selman has five cabins in he backyard and they’s built
like half circle. I grows big ‘nough to hoe and den to plow. We has to
be ready for the field by daylight and the conk was blowed, and massa
call out, ‘All hands ready for the field.’ At 11:30 he blows the conk,
what am the mussel shell, you knows, ‘gain and we eats dinner, and at
12:30 we has to be back at work. But massa wouldn’t ‘low no kind of work
on Sunday.

“Massa Tom made us wear the shoes, ’cause they’s so many snags
and stumps our feets gits sore, and they was red russet shoes. I’ll never
forgit ’em, they was so stiff at first we could hardly stand ’em. But
Massa Tom was a good man, though he did love he dram. He kep’ the bottle
in the center of the dining table all the time and every meal he’d have
the toddy. Us slaves et out under the trees in summer and in the kitchen
in winter and most gen’rally we has bread in pot liquor or milk, but sometimes
honey.

“I well ‘members when freedom come. We was in the field and massa
comes up and say, ‘You all is free as I is.’ There was shoutin’ and singin’
and ‘fore night us was all ‘way to freedom.[Pg 242]

“My birthday done come in January, on de tenth. I’s birthed in
Houston, in 1870, and Gov. Richard Coke allus had owned my daddy and
mammy, and dey stayed with him after freedom. Mammy, what was Julia
Collins, didn’t die till 1910, and she was most a hundred year old.

“She done told me many a time ’bout how folkses git all worked up
over Marse Coke’s ‘lection. Mammy took lunch to de Capitol House to
Marse Richard, and dere he am on de top floor with all he congressmen
and dat Davis man and he men on de bottom floor, tryin’ to say Marse
Richard ain’t got no right to be governor dis here State. Old Miss
and de folkses didn’t sleep a wink dat night, ’cause dey thunk it sho’
be a fight. Dat in 1873, Mammy allus say.

“De old place at Houston was like most all old places. Dere was
little, small dormer windows, dey call ’em, in upstairs, and big porches
everywhere. Dere was ‘hogany furniture and rosewood bedsteads, and big,
black walnut dressers with big mirrors and little ones down de side. Old
Miss allus have us keep de drapes white as drifted snow, and polish de
furniture till it shine. Dere was sofies with dem claw foots, and lots
of purty chiny and silver.

“On de farm out from town dere was de log house, with quarters and[Pg 243]
de smokehouse and washhouse and big barns and carriage house. De quarters
was little, whitewashed, log houses, one for de family, and a fence of de
split palin’s round most of dem.

“De white and cullud chillen played together, all over de place. Dey
went fishin’ and rode de plough hosses and run de calves and colts and sech
devilment. De little white gals all had to wear sunbonnets, and Old Miss, she
sew dem bonnets on every day, so dey not git sunburnt. Us niggers weared de
long, duckin’ shirts till us git ’bout growed, and den us weared long, dark
blue dresses. Dey had spinnin’ and weavin’ rooms, where de cullud women makes
de clothes.

“Old Miss, she sho’ a powerful manager. She knowed jes’ how much meal
and meat and sorghum it gwine take to run de plantation a year. She know jes’
how much thread it take for spinnin’, and she bossed de settin’ hens and turkeys
and fixin’ of ‘serves and soap. She was sho’ good to you iffen you work and do
like she tell you. Many a night she go round to see dat all was right. She a
powerful good nuss, too, and so was mammy.

“De white folks had good times. Dey’d go hossback ridin’ and on picnics,
and fishin’ and have big dinners and balls. Come Christmas, dey have us slaves
cut a big lot of wood and keep fires all night for a week or two. De house be
lit with candles from top to toe, and lots of company come. For dinner us have
turkey and beef roast and a big ‘ginny ham and big bowls of eggnog and a pitcher
of apple cider and apple toddy. All us git somethin’ on Christmas and plenty
eggnog, but no gittin’ drunk.

“I can jes’ see Marse Dick, tall and kinder stooped like, with de big
flop hat and longtail coat and allus carryin’ a big, old walkin’ stick. He[Pg 244]
was sho’ a brave man and de big men say dey likes dat flop hat, ’cause dey
done follow it on de battlefield. He had a big voice and dey do tell how, in
de war, he’d holler, ‘Come on, boys,’ and de bullets be like hail and men
fallin’ all round, but dat don’t stop Marse Dick. He’d take off dat flop hat
and plunge right on and dey’d foller he bald head where de fight was hottes’.
He was sho’ a man!

“When I gits married it was eight folkses dere, I jus’ walks off and
goes to housekeepin’. I had a calico dress and a Baptist preacher marries us.

“Dere been some queer things white folks can’t understand. Dere am folkses
can see de spirits, but I can’t. My mammy larned me a lots of doctorin’, what
she larnt from old folkses from Africy, and some de Indians larnt her. If you has
rheumatism, jes’ take white sassafras root and bile it and drink de tea. You
makes lin’ment by bilin’ mullein flowers and poke roots and alum and salt.
Put red pepper in you shoes and keep de chills off, or string briars round de
neck. Make red or black snakeroot tea to cure fever and malaria, but git de
roots in de spring when de sap am high.

“When chillen teethin’ put rattlesnake rattles round de neck, and alligator
teeth am good, too. Show de new moon money and you’ll have money all month. Throw
her five kisses and show her money and make five wishes and you’ll git dem. Eat
black-eyed peas on New Year and have luck all dat year:

“‘Dose black-eyed peas is lucky,
When et on New Year’s Day;
You’ll allus have sweet ‘taters
And possum come you way.’

“When anybody git cut I allus burns woolen rags and smokes de wound or
burns a piece fat pine and drops tar from it on scorched wool and bind it on de
wound. For headache put a horseradish poultice on de head, or wear a nutmeg on[Pg 245]
a string round you neck.

If you kills de first snake you sees in spring, you enemies ain’t gwine git
de best of you dat year. For a sprain, git a dirt dauber’s nest and put de clay
with vinegar and bind round de sprain. De dime on de string round my ankle keeps
cramps out my leg, and tea from red coon-root good, too. All dese doctorin’
things come clear from Africy, and dey allus worked for mammy and for me, too.[Pg 246]

“I was bo’n a slave of Master John Ellington, who lived
in Davis County (now Cass Co.), Texas. Master John had a big house
and close by was a long, double row of slave quarters. It looked
like a town. There was four boys and two girls in Master’s fam’ly
and one daughter, Miss Lula, married Lon Morris, that run the Lon
Morris School.

“Master John was one white man that sho’ took care of his
niggers. He give us plenty warm clothes and good shoes, and come
see us and had Dr. Hume doctor us when we was sick. The niggers et
ham and middlin’ and good eats as anybody. Master John’s place
joined the Haggard place, where they was lots of wild turkey and
the slaves could go huntin’ and fishin’ when they wanted.

“We had a church and a school for the slaves and the white
folks helped us git book learnin’. Mos’ of the niggers allus went
to preachin’ on Sunday.

“The hands didn’t work Saturday afternoons. That’s when we’d
wash our clothes and clean up for Sunday. There was parties and[Pg 247]
dances on Saturday night for them as wanted them. But there wasn’t
no whiskey drinkin’ and fightin’ at the parties. Mammy didn’t go to
them. She was religious and didn’t believe in dancin’ and sech like.
On Christmas Master John allus give the slaves a big dinner and it
didn’t seem like slavery time. The niggers had a sight better time
than they do now.

“Master John did all the bossin’ hisself. None of his niggers
ever run off ’cause he was too good for them to do that. I only got
one whippin’ from him and it was for stealin’ eggs from a hen’s nest.
My pappy was carriage driver for Master. I didn’t do much of the work
when I was a boy, jes’ stayed round the house.

“Master John raised lots of cotton and after it was baled he
hauled it to Jefferson on ox wagons. I’d allus go with him, ridin’ on
top of the bales. I’ll never forgit how scared I was when we’d cross
Black Cypress on Roger’s Ferryboat and it’d begin to rock.

“I don’t remember much about the War. When it was over Master
John calls all his slaves together and says, ‘You’se free now and you
can go or stay.’ He told the men who wanted to leave they could have
a wagon and team, but most of them stayed. Pappy took a wagon and team
and left but mammy and us children stayed and lived with Master Ellington
’bout 15 years after the war was over.

“When I left Master John I moved to Jefferson and married Cora
Benton and we had three boys and two girls. While I was in Jefferson
Sheriff Vine goes to Cincinnati after Abe Rothchild, for killin’ ‘Diamond
Bessie.’ Abe shot hisself in the forehead when he heared Sheriff[Pg 248]
Vine was after him, but it didn’t kill him. There was sho’ some
stirrin’ about when the sheriff fotch Abe back to Jefferson.

“Mr. Sam Brown was the jailer. Abe wouldn’t eat the jail
food and hired me to bring his meals to him from the hotel. His
cell was fixed up like a hotel room, with a fine brussels rug and
nice tables and chairs. He kep’ plenty of whiskey and beer to drink.
He’d allus give me a drink when I took his meals.

“I worked 37 years for Mr. Tom Armistead, who helped W.T.
Crawford and his brother defend Rothchild. Mr. Eppenstadt, he was
mayor of Jefferson then and acted as a go-between man in the case.

“Master Tom Armistead never married and I kep’ house and cooked
for him. He give me lots of fine clothes. I bet I owned more fine
shirts than any nigger in Texas. He got me a job as porter in the
Capitol at Austin while he was senator. I was workin’ there when they
moved in the new Capitol in 1888. They was gonna put on a big party
and say all the porters had to wear cutaway suits. I didn’t have one,
so the day ‘fore the party I goes over to Mr. Tom’s room at the Bristol
Hotel and git one of his. I didn’t know then it was a right new
one he had made for the party. When I goes back to the Capitol all
dressed up in that cutaway suit, I meets Mr. Templeton Houston and he
recognises the suit and says. ‘You sho’ look fine in Mr. Tom’s new suit,’
’bout that time Mr. Tom walks up and, you know, he give me that suit
and had him another one made for the party! I wouldn’t live where there
wasn’t no good white folks.[Pg 249]

Steve Conally

Steve Conally’s House

“I was born in Murray County, Georgia, and was a slave of Massa
Tom Connally, but they called him Massa “Cushi” Connally. He was a member
of de Georgia Legislature. I stayed with Missy Mary Connally till I was
sixty-seven and Massa Cushi died when I was sixty-nine.

“My mother, Mandy, weighed two hundred pounds and she was de Connally
cook. When I was born, she took de fever and couldn’t raise me, so Missy
Mary took and kep’ me in a li’l cot by her bed. After dat, I’m with her
nearly all de time and follows her. When she go to de garden I catches her
dresstail and when she go to de doctor, ’bout eighty miles away, I goes with
her.

“I mus’ tell you why everybody call Massa Connally Cushi. Dere am
allus so many Tom Connallys in de fam’ly, dey have to have de nickname to
tell one from de other.

“Back dere in Georgia, us have lots and lots of fruit. Come time, de
women folks preserves and cans till it ain’t no use. My mammy take de prize
any day with her jelly and sech, and her cakes jes’ nachelly walk off and
leave de whole county. Missy Mary sho’ de master hand hersef at de fine
bakin’ and I’d slip round and be handy to lick out de pans.

“Dey didn’t have no ‘frigerators den, but dey built log houses without
a floor over de good, cold spring, and put flat rocks dere to keep de milk
and cream and butter cold. Or dey dig out de place so de crock be down in[Pg 250]
de wet dirt. Dey sho’ have to make de latch up high, so de bad chillen
couldn’t open dat door!

“De plantation in Georgia was de whopper. I don’t know ‘zactly how
many acres, but it a big one. Us make everything and tan hides and make
shoes, jes’ like all de big places did. De big house and de weavin’ house
and de tannin’ yard and de sugar mill and slave quarters made a li’l town.
Dere used to be some mighty big doin’s dere. De Connally men and women am
allus good lookers and mighty pop’lar, and folkses come from far and near
to visit dem. All de ‘portant men come and all de sassiety belles jes’
drift to our place. Dere sho’ lots of big balls and dinners and de house
fix mighty fine dem times. De women wore de hoop skirts and de ribbons
and laces. My missy was de bes’ lookin’ from far and near, and all de
gem’mans want to dance with her. She sho’ look like de queen you see in
de picture books and she have mighty high ways with folks, but she’s mighty
good to dis here li’l black boy.

“I goes in de buggy with Massa Cushi, up to Tennessee, to git his sons
what been kilt or wounded. Massa Ned, he dead, and Massa Charles, he shot
in de hip, and die after he git brung home. Massa Dick hurt, too, but he
didn’t die.

“Right after de Civil War, when I’m ’bout nineteen, I comes to Texas
with de Connallys, all what didn’t git kilt in de war. I stays with Missy
Mary till she die in Georgia. Her son, Jones Connally, come to Brazos County,
near Bryan, and after dat removes to Eddy. I works for him two years and
has lived round Eddy ever since. De Connallys give me a house and lot in Eddy.
Some de fool niggers ‘spected a lot, but I wasn’t worryin’ none. All I wanted[Pg 251]
was to stay near de Connallys. Mos’ gen’ly all de slaves what I knowed
was found places for and holp git a start at jobs and places to live. All
de Connally slaves loved dem. Some de timber land give to Mrs. Rose Staten
and when she go up dere a old nigger woman name Lucy sees her. She so
happy to see one dem Connally chillen she laugh and cry.

“Massa Jones Connally have de twin gals, name Ola and Ella. Olla
born with de lef’ arm off at de elbow and she allus follow me round. When
I go to milk I puts her in de trough. I saved her life lots of times. One
time she’s on de cone of de two-story house, when she’s ’bout two years old.
I eases up and knocks de window out and coaxes her to come to me. ‘Nother
time, I’s diggin’ de well and some clods falls down and I looks up and dere
am dat Missy Ola leanin’ over, mos’ tumblin’ in de well on her head. I gives
de loud yell and her brother-in-law come runnin’ and grabs her legs.

“Senator Tom Connally, what am a son of Jones Connally, often says he’d
like to visit his grandpa’s old home in Georgia. I’d like mighty well to go
with him and take him all over de old home place and out to de old cemetary.”[Pg 252]

Valmar Cormier

“I ‘member de day my old marster go to de war. I kin ‘member
dat jes’ like yesterday. He used to like to play de fiddle and make
me dance when I was li’l, but he went to de war and got kilt. He name
Duplissent Dugat. Mary, my sister, she don’t ‘member de old marster.

“De slaves did de work on dat farm. Dey was two growed-ups,
my mama, Colaste, and my uncle, and dere was us two chillen. My father
was a white man, a white Creole man. I never carry he name till after
freedom.

“Marster was jes’ a poor man and he have jes’ a ordinary house.
De slave house was jes’ a old plank house ’bout twelve feet by twenty
feet and have dirt floor. Us cook in de big fireplace and take a log
’bout four foot long and have a big iron pot with a iron lid. Dey put
red hot coals under de pot and on top de lid and dey have a big iron
poker with a hook on it what dey took de lid off with.

“Befo’ dey have coal oil lamp dey used to use homemake candles.
Dey’d kill de brutes and keep and save all de tallow and one day was
set off to make de candles. All de neighbors come and dey have kind
of party and eat and things. Sometime dey make three, four hunnerd
candles in one day and lay dem in a big box, so dey won’t git break.

“Us make soap on de plantation, too. Dey melt de tallow and
cracklin’s and git lye out de fireplace ash. We have cotton and corn[Pg 253]
and potatoes growin’, so we has plenty to eat. Us have
coosh-coosh, dat cornbread and meat, and some fish to eat. Snails
us jes’ go through de woods and pick dem up and eat dem jes’ like dat.
Us eat plenty crawfish. De chillen git string and old piece fat meat
and tie on de end, and us go to de bog and drap de string down dat
crawfish hole. When de old man grab de meat with he pincher, den us
jerk us up a crawfish, and bile him in hot water, or make de gumbo.

“Us drink French coffee befo’ de war, but endurin’ de war
us couldn’t git de good kind. Den us make coffee out of coffee weed.
Dey parch dat weed in de iron oven, grind it and put it in de iron pot.

“I seed de sojers and I run under de house, I was so scared.
Mary, she hide under de bed in de house. De Yankees come take de
cattle and went ‘way with dem. I kin sho’ rec’lect when dose sojers
come and de road was full goin’ day and night. De Yankees find a lot
of Confed’rate sojers close to Duson, de other side of Rayne and dey
captures lots and brung dem back by dere.

“After while it all over and dey told us we free, but my
mama kep’ working for old missus after freedom, ’cause old marster,
he kilt in dat war. Den old missus die and left three li’l chillen,
but I don’t know what happen to them, ’cause us go to another place
and I plow and Mary she he’p pick cotton.

“I git marry at 20 and my first wife de French gal. We
marry by de priest in de church. Us have so many chillen us have to
keep a map to account for all dem, dere was 19 in all. We stays in
Louisiana long time, den come to Texas.[Pg 254]

“Lawd have mercy ‘pon me, when you calls me Aunt Laura it seems
jes’ like you must be some of my white folks, ’cause dat what dey calls
me. I mean Papa Day’s chillen and dere younguns, when dey comes to see
me. But it been de long time since any of dem come to see old Aunt Laura,
and I reckon dey most all gone now.

“You know where Dayton is at? Well, dat’s where Papa Day’s plantation
was at and where I’s borned. I don’t know when dat am, ‘zactly, but
when all de cullud folks was made free, I reckons I’s ’bout twelve or thirteen
years old.

“Mama’s name was Maria Dunlap and daddy’s name was Saul. Mamma was
de seamstress and don’t do nothin’ but weave cloth on de spinnin’ wheel
and make clothes. Daddy from Lake Providence, I heared him say, but I don’t
know where at dat is. He do all de carpenter work. I has five sisters and
two brothers, but dey heaps older dan me and I don’t know much ’bout dem.

“We ‘longs to Papa Day, his name Isaiah, but us all call him Papa Day,
’cause he won’t ‘low none he cullud folks to call him master. He say us
is born free as he is, only de other white folks won’t tell us so, and our
souls is jes’ as white, and de reason us am darker on de outside is ’cause
us is sunburnt. I don’t reckon dere am anybody as good to dere cullud folks
as he was.[Pg 255]

“Miss Martha, he wife, was mighty good, too. Does any us chillen git
hurt or scratched, she fix us up and give us a hug. I knows dey has two boys and
a gal, and dey comes to see me long time after I’s free and brings dere own chillen.
But my mem’ry am sort of foggy-like and I can’t ‘member dere names now.

“De only work Papa Day ‘lows us chillen do am pick de boles close to de
ground, and dat mostly fun, and us ride to de house on de wagon what takes de
pickin’ at night. Papa Day don’t make he cullud folks work Saturdays and Sundays
and dey can visit round on other plantations, and he say nobody better bother us
none, either.

“One time us chillen playin’ out in de woods and seed two old men what
look like wild men, sho’ ‘nough. Dey has long hair all over de face and dere shirts
all bloody. Us run and tell Papa Day and he makes us take him dere and he goes in
de briar patch where dem men hidin’. Dey takes him round de knees and begs him do he
not tell dere massa where dey at, ’cause dey maybe git kilt. Dey say dey am old
Lodge and Baldo and dey run ‘way ’cause dere massa whips dem, ’cause dey so old dey
can’t work good no more. Papa Day has tears comin’ in he eyes. Dey can’t hardly
walk, so he sends dem to de house and has Aunt Mandy, de cook, fix up somethin’ to
eat quick. I never seed sech eatin’, dey so hongry. He puts dem in a house and
tells us not to say nothin’. Den he rides off on he hoss and goes to dere massa
and tells him ’bout it, and jes’ dares him to come git dem. He pays de man some
money and Lodge and Baldo stays with Papa Day and I guess day thunk dey in Heaven.

“One mornin’ Papa Day calls all us to de house and reads de freedom
papers and say, ‘De gov’ment don’t need to tell you you is free, ’cause you been
free all you days. If you wants to stay you can and if you wants to go, you can.
But if you go, lots of white folks ain’t gwine treat you like I does.’[Pg 256]

“For de longest time, maybe two years, dey wasn’t none of Papa Day’s
cullud folks what left, but den first one fam’ly den ‘nother gits some land to
make a crop on, and den daddy gits some land and us leaves, too. Maybe he gits
de land from Papa Day, ’cause it an’t far from his plantation. Us sho’ work
hard on dat place, but I heared mama say lots of times she wishes we stay on
Papa Day’s place.

“I ‘member one year us don’t make no crop hardly and daddy say he gwine
git out ‘fore us starves to death, and he moves to Houston. He gits a job doin’
carpenter work and hires me out for de housegirl. But mama dies and daddy takes
sick and dies, too. Lawd have mercy, dat sho’ de hard time for me when I loses
my mama and daddy, and I has to go to Dayton and stay with my sister, Rachel.
Both my husbands what I marries done been dead a long time now, and de only child
I ever had died when he jes’ a baby. Now I’s jes’ alone, sittin’ and waitin’ for
de Lawd to call me.”[Pg 257]

John Crawford

“John Crawford am me. It am eighty-one years since I’s borned
and dat’s on de old Rector plantation where Manor am now. It wasn’t
dere den. I knowed the man it was named after.

“Ma’s name was Viney Rector and the old judge brung her from
Alabama. She milked all the cows two times a day and I had to turn out
all de calves. Sometimes dey’d git purty rough and go right to dere
mammies.

“Pap’s name was Tom Townes, ’cause he ‘longed on de Townes place.
He was my step-pap and when I’s growed I tooken my own pap’s name, what
was Crawford. I never seed him, though, and didn’t know nothin’ much
’bout him. He’s sold away ‘fore I’s borned.

“Pap Townes could make most everythin’. He made turnin’ plows and
hossshoe nails and a good lot of furniture. He was purty good to me,
‘siderin’ he wasn’t my own pap. I didn’t have no hard time, noway. I
had plenty bacon and side-meat and ‘lasses. Every Sunday mornin’ the
jedge give us our rations for de week. He wasn’t short with dem, neither.

“Many was de time Injuns come to Jedge Rector’s place. Dem Injuns
beg for somethin’ and the jedge allus give dem somethin’. They wasn’t
mean Injuns, jes’ allus beggin’.[Pg 258]

“I can’t read and write to this day. Nobody ever larnt me my
A B C’s and I didn’t git no chance at school.

“On Christmas mornin’ Massa Rector come out and give each man and
woman a big, red pocket handkerchief and a bottle of liquor. He buyed dat
liquor by de barrel and liked it hisself. Dat why he allus had it on de
place.

“One mornin’ the jedge done send word down by de cook for nobody
to go to de fields dat day. We all want up to de big house and de jedge
git up to make de speech, but am too choke up to talk. He hated to lose
he slaves, I reckon. So his son-in-law has to say, ‘You folks am now free
and can go where you wants to go. You can stay here and pick cotton and git
fifty cents de hunerd.’ But only two families stayed. De rest pulled out.

“After freedom we rented land on de halves. Some niggers soon got
ahead and rented on de third or fourth. When you rent that-a-way you git
three bales and de boss git one. But you has to buy you own teams and
seed and all on dat plan.

“Its a fac’ we was told we’d git forty acres and a mule. Dat de talk
den, but we never did git it.

“De Ku Klux made a lot of devilment round-about dat county. Dey allus
chasin’ some nigger and beatin’ him up. But some dem niggers sho’ ‘serve
it. When dey gits free, dey gits wild. Dey won’t work or do nothin’ and
thinks dey don’t have to. We didn’t have no trouble, ’cause we stays
on de farm and works and don’t have no truck with dem wild niggers.[Pg 259]

“In 1877 I marries Fannie Black at de town of Sprinkle. It wasn’t
sech a town, jes’ a li’l place. Me and her stayed married fifty-two years and
four months. She died and left me eight year ago. We had seven chillen
and they is all livin’. Four is here in Austin and two in California and one
in Ohio.

“I gits a li’l pension, $9.00 de month, and my gal, Susie, takes
care of me. I ain’t got long to go now ‘fore de Lawd gwine call me.[Pg 260]

Green Cumby

“Durin’ slavery I had purty rough times. My grandfather,
Tater Cumby, was cullud overseer for forty slaves and he called us
at four in de mornin’ and we worked from sun to sun. Most of de
time we worked on Sunday, too.

“De white overseers whupped us with straps when we didn’t do
right. I seed niggers in chains lots of times, ’cause there wasn’t
no jails and they jus’ chained ’em to trees.

“Spec’lators on hosses drove big bunches of slaves past our
place from one place to another, to auction ’em at de market places.
De women would be carryin’ l’il ones in dere arms and at night dey
bed ’em down jus’ like cattle right on de ground ‘side of de road.
Lots of l’il chillun was sold ‘way from de mammy when dey seven or
eight, or even smaller. Dat’s why us cullud folks don’t know our
kinfolks to dis day.

“De best times was when de corn shuckin’ was at hand. Den you
didn’t have to bother with no pass to leave de plantation, and de
patter rolls didn’t bother you. If de patter rolls cotch you without
de pass any other time, you better wish you dead, ’cause you
would have yourself some trouble.[Pg 261]

“But de corn shuckin’, dat was de gran’ times. All de marsters
and dere black boys from plantations from miles ’round would be dere.
Den when we got de corn pile high as dis house, de table was spread
out under de shade. All de boys dat ‘long to old marster would take
him on de packsaddle ’round de house, den dey bring him to de table and
sit by he side; den all de boys dat ‘long to Marster Bevan from another
plantation take him on de packsaddle ’round and ’round de house, allus
singin’ and dancin’, den dey puts him at de other side de table, and
dey all do de same till everybody at de table, den dey have de feast.