Chapter VIII: Part 8

"The white folks ain't got no reason to mistreat the colored people. They need us all the time. They don't want no food unless a nigger cooks it. They want niggers to do all their washing and ironing. They want niggers to do their sweeping and cleaning and everything around their houses. The niggers handle everything they wears and hands them everything they eat and drink. Ain't nobody can get closer to a white person than a colored person. If we'd a wanted to kill 'em, they'd a all done been dead. They ain't no reason for white people mistreating colored people."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Alice Bratton, Wheatley, Arkansas Age: 56

"I was born a few miles from Martin, Tennessee. Mama was born in Virginia. She and her sister was carried off from the Witherspoon place and sold. She was Betty and her sister was named Addie.

"Their mama had died and some folks said they would raise them and then they sold them. She said they never did know who it was that carried them off in a big carriage. They brought them to Nashville, Tennessee and sold them under a big oak tree. They was tied with a hame string to a hitching ring. Addie wanted to set down and couldn't. She said, 'Betty, wouldn't our mama cry if she could see us off like this?' Mama said they both cried and cried and when the man come to look at them he said he would buy them. They felt better and quit crying. He was such a kind looking young man.

"They lived out from Nashville a piece then. He took them home with him, on a plank across the wagon bed. He was Master Davy Fuller. He had a young wife and a little baby. Her name was Mistress Maude and the baby was Carrie. She was proud of Betty and Addie. They told her their mama died. Mama said she was good to them. She died the year of the surrender and Master Davy took them all to his mother's and his papa put them out to live with a family that worked on his place.

"They went to see Carrie and played with her till Addie married and mama come close to Martin to live with them. Addie took consumption and died, then mama married Frank Bane and he died and I was born.

"My pa was a white man. He was a bachelor, had a little store, and he overcome mama. She never did marry no more. I was her only child. I don't remember the man but mama told me how she got tripped up and nearly died and for me never to let nobody trip me up that way. I sorter recollect the store. It burned down one night. We lived around over there till I was sixteen years old. We moved to a few miles of Corinth, Mississippi on a farm. Mr. Cat Madford was the manager. I got married. I married Will Bratton. We had a home wedding on Sunday evening. It was cold and freezing and the freeze lasted over a week. Will Bratton was black as night. I had one little boy. After mama died Will Bratton went off with another woman. He come back but the place was mine. Mama left it to me. I wouldn't let him stay there. I let him go on where he pleased.

"Times been growing slacker for a long time. People live slack. Young folks coming on slacker and slacker every day. Don't know how to do, don't want to know. They get by better 'en I did. I work in the field and I can't hardly get by. I see folks do nothing all the time. Seem like they happy. Times is hard for some, easy for some. I want to live in the country like I is 'cause I belongs there. I can work and be satisfied! I did own my home. I reckon I still do. I got a little cow and some chickens."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank Briles 817 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 82 or 83

[HW: Gives up the Ghost]

"I was born right here in Arkansas. My father's name was Moses Briles. My mother's name was Judy Briles. Her name before she was married I don't know. They belonged to the Briles. I don't know their first name either.

"My father was under slavery. He chopped cotton and plowed and scraped cotton. That is where I got my part from. He would carry two rows along at once. I was little and couldn't take care of a row by myself. I was born down there along the time of the War, and my father didn't live long afterwards. He died when they was settin' them all free. He was a choppin' for the boss man and they would set them up on blocks and sell them. I don't know who the man was that did the selling, but they tell me they would sell them and buy them.

"I am sick now. My head looks like it's goin' to bust open.

"I have heard them tell about the pateroles. I didn't know them but I heard about them. Them and the Ku Klux was about the same thing. Neither one of them never did bother my folks. It was just like we now, nobody was 'round us and there wasn't no one to bother you at all at Briles' plantation. Briles' plantation I can't remember exactly where it was. It was way down in the west part of Arkansas. Yes, I was born way back south--east--way back. I don't know what the name of the place was but it was in Arkansas. I know that. I don't know nothing about that. My father and mother came from Virginia, they said. My father used to drive cattle there, my mother said. I don't know nothin' except what they told me.

"I learnt a little some thing from my folks. I think of more things every time I talk to somebody. I know one thing. The woman that bossed me, she died. That was about--Lord I was a little bitty of a fellow, didn't know nothin' then. She made clothes for me. She kept me in the house all the time. She was a white woman. I know when they was setting them free. I was goin' down to get a drink of water. My father said. 'Stop, you'll be drowned.' And I said, 'What must I do?' And he said, 'Go back and set down till I come back.' I don't know what my father was doing or where he was going. There was a man--I don't know who--he come 'round and said, 'You're all free.' My mama said, 'Thank God for that. Thank God for that.' That is all I know about that.

"When I got old enough to work they put me in the woods splitting rails and plowing. When I grew up I scraped cotton and worked on the farm. That is where my father would come and say, 'Now, son, if anybody asks you how you feel, tell them the truth.'

"I went to school one session and then the man give down. He got sick and couldn't carry it no longer. His pupils were catching up with him I reckon. It was time to get sick or somethin'.

"I never did marry. I was promised to marry a woman and she died. So I said, 'Well, I will give up the ghost. I won't marry at all.'

"I ain't able to do no work now 'cept a little pittling here and there. I get a pension. It's been cut a whole lot."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mary Ann Brooks James Addition, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 90

"I was born here in Arkansas. Durin' the war we went to Texas and stayed one year and six months.

"My old master was old Dr. Brewster. He bought me when I was a girl eight yeers old. Took me in for a debt. He had a drug store. I was a nurse girl in the house. Stayed in the house all my life.

"I stayed here till Dr. Brewster--Dr. Arthur Brewster was his name--stayed here till he carried me to his brother-in-law Dr. Asa Brunson. Stayed there awhile, then the war started and he carrled us all to Texas.

"I seen some Yankeee after we come back to Arkansas. I wes scared of em.

"I don't knew nothln' bout the war. I wasn't in it. I was livin' but we was in Texas.

"The Ku Klux got after us twice when we was goin' to Texas. We had six wagons, a cart, and a carriage. Old Dr. Brunson rode in the carriage. He'd go ahead and pilot the way. We got lost twice. When we come to Red River it was up and we had to camp there three weeks till the water fell.

"We took some sheep and some cows so we could kill meat on the way. I member we forded Saline River. Dr. Brunson carried us there and stayed till he hired us out.

"After the war ceasted he come after us. Told as we didn't belong to him no more--said we was free as he was. Yankees sent him after us. All the folks come back--all but one famlly.

"I had tolerable good owners. Miss Fanny Brewster good to me.

"Old master got drunk so much. Come home sometimes muddy as a hog. All his chillun was girls. I nursed all the girls but one.

"I was a mighty dancer when I was young--danced all night long. Paddyrollers run us home from dancin' one night.

"I member one song we used to sing:

'Hop light lady
Cake was all dough--
Never mind the weather,
So the wind don't blow.'

"How many chillun I have? Les see--count em up. Ida, Willie, Clara--had six.

"Some of the young folks nowadays pretty rough. Some of em do right and some don't.

"Never did go to school. Coulda went but papa died and had to go to work.

"I thinks over old times sometimes by myself. Didn't know what freedom was till we was free and didn't hardly know then.

"Well, it's been a long time. All the Brewsters and the Bransons dead and I'm still here--blind. Been blind eight years."

Waters Brooks 1814 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Ark. Retired railroad worker, No. Pac. 75 [TR: Information moved from bottom of each page.]

[HW: A Railroad Work History]

I was only three years old when peace (1865) was declared. I was born in 1862. Peace was declared in 1865. I remember seeing plenty of men that they said the white folks never whipped. I remember seeing plenty of men that they said bought their own freedom.

I remember a woman that they said fought with the overseer for a whole day and stripped him naked as the day he was born. She was Nancy Ward. Her owner was named Billie Ward. He had an overseer named Roper. Her husband ran away from the white folks and stayed three years. He was in the Bayou in a boat and the bottom dropped out of it. He climbed a tree and hollered for someone to tel his master to come and get him if he wanted him.

FATHER

My father's master was John T. Williams. He went into the army--the rebel army--and taken my father with him. I don't know how long my father stayed in the army but I was only 6 months old when he died. He had some kind of stomach trouble and died a natural death.

MOTHER

My mother and father both belonged to Joe Ward at first but Ward died and his widow married Williams. My mother told me and not only told me but showed me knots across her shoulder where they whipped her from seven in the morning until nine at night. She went into the smoke house to get some meat and they closed in on her and shut the door and strung her up by her hands (her arms were crossed and a rope run from her wrists to the hook in the ceiling on which meat was hung). There were three of them. One would whip until he was tired, and then the other would take it up.

Some years after she got that whipping, her master's child was down to the bayou playing in the water. She told the child to stop playing in the water, and it did not. Instead it threw dirt into the water that had the bluing in it. Then she took the child and threw it into the Bayou. Some way or other the child managed to scramble out. When the child's aunt herd it from the child, she questioned my mother and asked her if she did it. My mother told her "Yes". Then she said. "Well what do you want to own it for? Don't you know if they find it out they will kill you?"

HOW FREEDOM CAME

My mother said that an old white man came through the quarters one morning and said that they were all free--that they could go away or stay where they were or do what they wanted to. If you will go there, I can send you to an old man eighty-six years old who was in General Sherman's army. He came from Mississippi. I don't know where he was a slave. But he can tell you when peace was declared aad what they said and everything.

WHAT THE SLAVES EXPECTED

The slaves were not expecting much but they were expecting more than they got. I am not telling you anything I read in history but I have heard that there was a bounty in the treasury for the ex-slaves, and them alone. And some reason or other they did not pay it off, but the time was coming when they would pay it off. And every man or woman living that was born a slave would benefit from it. They say that Abraham Lincoln principally was killed because he was going to pay this money to the ex-slaves end before they would permit it they killed him. Old man White who lives out in the west part of town was an agent for some Senator who was in Washington, and he charged a dime and took your name and age and the place where you lived.

KU KLUX KLAN

They called the K.K.K. "White Cape". Right there in my neighborhood, there was a colered man who hadn't long come in. The colored man was late coming into the lot to get the mule for the white man and woman he was working for. The white man hit him. The Negro knocked the white man down and was going to kill him when the white man begged him off, telling him that he wouldn't let anybody else hurt him. He (the Negro) went on off and never came back. That night there were two hundred White Caps looking for him but they didn't find him.

Another man got into an argument. They went to work and it started to rain. The Negro thought that they would stop working because of the rain; so he started home. The man he was working for met him and asked him where he was going. When he told him he started to hit him with the butt end of the gun he was wearing. The Negro knocked his gun up, took it away from him, and drawed down and started to kill him when another Negro knocked the gun up, and saved the white man's life. But the Nigger might as well have killed him because that night seventy-five masked men hunted him. He was hid away by his friends until he got a chance to get away. This man was named Matthew Collins.

There was another case. This was a political one. The colored man wanted to run for representative of some kind. He had been stump speaking. He lived on a white man's place, and the owner came to him and told him he had better get away because a mob was coming after him (not just K.K.K.). He told his wife to go away and stay with his brother but she wouldn't. He hid himself in a trunk and his wife was under the floor with his two children. The white men fired into the house and that didn't do anything, so they throwed a ball of fire into the house and burned his wife and children. Then he rose up and came out of the trunk and hollered, "Look out I'm coming", and he fired a load of buck shot and tore one man nearly in two and ran away in the confusion. The next day he went to the man on whose place he lived, but he told him he couldn't do anything about it.

Another man by the name of Bob Sawyer had a farm near my home and another farm down near Maginty's place. He worked the ????[TR: Illegible] Niggers from one farm to the other.

His boy would ride in front with a rifle and he would be in the rear with a big gun swinging down from his hip. There wae one Nigger who got out and went down to Alexandria (Louisiana). He wrote to the officers and they caught the Nigger and put him into the stocks and brought him back, and the man hadn't done a thing but run away. After that they worked him with a chain holding his legs together so that he could only make short steps.

They had an old white man who worked there and they treated him so mean he ran away and left his wife. They treated the poor whites about as bad as they treated the colored.

If Bob met a Negro carrying cotton to the Gin, he would ask "Whose cotton is that?", and if the Nigger said it was some white man's, he would let him alone. But if he said. "Mine", Bob would tell him to take it to some Gin where he wanted it taken. He was the kind of man that if you seen him first, you wouldn't meet him.

One night he slipped up on a Nigger man that had left his place and killed him as he sat at supper. I had an aunt with five or six children who worker with him. He married my young Mistress after I was freed.

I saw him do this. The white folks had a funeral at the church down there one Sunday. He came along and young Billie Ward (white man) was sitting in a buggy driving with his wife. When he saw Billie, he jumped down out of his buggy and horse-whipped him until he ran away. All the while, Sawyer's mother-in-law was sitting in his buggy calling out, "Shoot him, Bob, shoot him." this was because Billie and another man had done some talk about Bob.

OCCUPATIONS

I came to Brinkley, Arkansas, March 4, 1900, and have been in Arkansas ever since. Why I came, the postmaster where I was rented farm on which I was farming. In March he put hands in my field to pick my cotton. All that was in the field was mine. I knew that I couldn't do anything about it so I left. A couple of years before that I rented five acres of land from him for three dollars as acre (verbal agreement) sowed it down in cotton. It done so well I made five bales of cotton on it. He saw the prospects were so good that he went to the man who furnished me supplies and told him that I had agreed to do my work on a third and fourth (one-third of the seed and one-fourth of the cotton to go to the owner). He get this although if he had stuck to the agreement he would not have gotten but fifteen dollars. So he dealt me a blow there, but I got over it.

Before this I had bought a piece of timber land in Moorehouse parish (Louisiana) and was expecting to get the money to finish paying for it from my cotton. The cost was $100.00. So when he put hands in my field, it made me mad, and I left. (Brooks would have lost most of his cotton if the hands had picked it.)

At Brinkley, I farmed on halves with Will Carter, one of the richest men in Monroe County (Arkansas). I done $17.50 worth of work for Carter and he paid me for it. Then he turned around and charged me up with it. When we came to settle up, we couldn't settle. So finally, he said, "Figures don't lie." and I said, "No, figures don't lie but men do." When I sed that I stepped out and didn't get scared until I was half way home. But nobody did anything. He sent for me but I wouldn't go back because I knew what he was doing.

After that I went to Wheatley, Arkansas, about five miles west of Brinkley. I made a crop for Goldberg. Jake Readus was Goldberg's agent. The folks had told the white folks I wasn't no account, so I couldn't get nothing only just a little fat meat and bread, and I got as naked as a jaybird. About the last part of August, when I had done laid by and everything. Jake Readus came by and told me what the Niggers had said and said he knowed it was a lie because I had the best crop on the place.

When Goldberg went to pay me off, he told Dr. Beauregard to come and get his money. I said. "You give me my money; I pay my own debts. You have nothing to do with it." When I said that you could have heard a pin drop. But he gave it to me. Then I called the Doctor and gave him his money and he receipted me. I never stayed there but one year.

I moved then down to Napel[TR: Possibly Kapel] Slough on Dr. West's place. I wanted to rent but Dr. West wouldn't advance me anything unless he took a mortgage on my place; so I wouldn't stay there. I chartered a car and took my things back to Brinkley at a cost of ten dollars. I stayed around Brinkley all the winter.

While I was at Wheatley, there was a man by the name of Will Smith who married the daughter of Dr. Paster, druggist at Brinkley. Now Jim Smith, poor white trash, attempted to assault Will Thomas' daughter. Negro girl. When Thomas heard it, he hunted Jim with a Winchester. When that got out, Deputy Sheriff arrested Will and they said that he was chained when he was brought to trial. He got away from them somehow and went to Jonesboro. I took my horse and rid seven or eight miles to carry his clothes. Another Nigger who had promised to make a crop when he left had the blood beat out of his back because he didn't do it.

The winter, I worked at the Gin and Black Saw Mills. That spring I pulls up and goes to Brises. That was in the year 1903. I made a crop with old man Wiley Wormley one of the biggest Niggers there. I fell short. George Walker furnished what I had.

Then I left and went back to Brinkley and worked at the Sawmill again. That was in 1904. I went to Jonesboro. I had just money enough to go to Jonesboro, and I had a couple of dollars over. I had never been out before that; so I spent that and didn't get any work. I stayed there three days and nights and didn't get anything to eat. Lived in a box car. Then I went to work with the Cotton Belt.

My boarding mistress decided to go up to fifteen dollars for board. I told her I couldn't pay her fifteen dollars for that month, but would begin next month. She wouldn't have that and got the officers to look for my money so I caught the train and went back to Brinkley and worked on the railroad again from the Cotton Belt to the Rock Island.

I was getting along all right and I done my job, but when the foreman wanted me to work on the roof and I told him if that was all he had for me to do he could pay me off because that was off the ground and I was fraid of falling. He said that I was a good hand and that he hated to lose me.

In March, 4, 1907, I came here (Little Rock) and at first rolled concrete in Niemeyer's at $1.50 a day where the other men were getting from two to two and a half dollars. They quit for more wages and I had to quit with them. Then I worked around till May 24 when I was hired at the Mountain Shops as Engine wiper for about six or eight months, then painted flues for three or four months, then was wood hauler for about thirteen or more years, then took care of the situation with shavings and oil, then stayed in wash room six or seven years until I was retired. I had control of the ice house, too.

IDEAS ABOUT THE PRESENT

Young people are just going back to old Ante-Bellum days. They are going to destruction. They got a way of their own and you can't tell them anything. They don't educate anything but their heads. The heart isn't educated and if my heart is black as my hat, can I do anything for God? The old people are not getting a square deal. Some of them are being moved.

SCHOOLING

I did not get much schooling. Between the time I was old enough to go to school and the time I went to the field, I got a little. I would go to school from July to September, and also about six weeks in January.

They had public school taught by some of the people. I went to a white man once. An old white woman taught there before him. I went to a Negro woman, Old Lady Abbie Lindsay. She lives here now down on State Street. She is about ninety years old. I went to Jube Williams (white), Current Lewis, Abbie Lindsay, and A.G. Mertin. They did n't paas you by grades then. I got through the fourth reader. If you got through, they would go back and carry you through again. They had the old Blue Back Speller. I got ready for the fifth reader but I quit. I had just begun to cipher, in arithmetic, but I had to quit because they could n't spare me out of the field. In fact they put me into the field when I was eight years old, but I managed to go to school until I was about twelve years old or something like that. I never got a year's schooling all put together. My mother was a widow and had five or six children, none of them able or big enough to work but my oldest sister. She raised five of us.

If I had done as she told me, I might have been a good scholar. But I played around and went off with the other children. I learnt way afterwards when I was grown how to write my name. I could work addition and I could work some in multiplication, but I couldn't work division and couldn't work subtraction. Come around any time, specially on Sunday afternoons.

Name of Interviewer: Velma Sample Subject: NEGRO LORE--THE STORY OF CASIE JONES BROWN

Casie Jones Brown was a dearly loved Negro servant. He was known for his loving kindness toward children, both black and white. Lots of the white children would say, "Casie sure is smart" because Casie was a funny and witty old darkie. Casie has a log house close to his master, Mr. Brown. They live on what is called the Brown Plantation. The yard had large old cedars planted all around it. They were planted almost a century ago. The plantation is about six miles from Paragould, [TR: possibly Baragould] Arkansas, where the hills are almost mountains. There have been four generations living in the old house. They have the big sand stone fireplaces. Casie has a spiritual power that makes him see and hear things. He says that sometimes he can hear sweet voices somewhere in his fireplace. In the winter time he does all of his cooking in a big black kettle with three legs on it, or a big iron skillet. And when he first settled there he did not have a stove to cook on except the fireplace. He says the singing that comes from somewhere about the fireplace is God having his angels entertain him in his lonely hours. Casie is 91 years old and has been in that settlement as long as he can remember.

The little white boys and girls like to be entertained by Casie. He tells them stories about the bear and peter rabbit. Also he has subjects for them to ask questions about and he answers them in a clever way. He was kind enough to let me see the list and the answers. He cannot write but he has little kids to write them for him. He cannot read, but they appoint one to read for him, and he has looked at the list so much that he has it memorized.

Casie, what does hat mean or use hat for a subject. "De price ob your hat ain't de medjer ob your brain."

Coat--"Ef your coat tail catch afire don't wait till you kin see de blaze 'fo' you put it out."

Graveyard--"De graveyard is de cheapes' boardin' house."

Mules--"Dar's a fam'ly coolness 'twix' de mule an' de single-tree."

Mad--"It pesters a man dreadful when he git mad an' don' know who to cuss."

Crop--"Buyin' on credit is robbin' next 'er's crop."

Christmas--"Christmas without holiday is like a candle without a wick."

Crawfish--"De crawfish in a hurry look like he tryin' to git dar yastiddy."

Lean houn'--"Lean houn' lead de pack when de rabbit in sight."

Snow Flakes--"Little flakes make de deepes' snow."

Whitewash--"Knot in de plank will show froo de whitewash."

Yardstick--"A short yardstick is a po' thing to fight de debbul wid."

Cotton--"Dirt sho de quickes' on de cleanes' cotton."

Candy--"De candy-pullin' din call louder dan de log-rollin'."

Apple--"De bes' apple float on de top o' 'ligion heaps de half-bushel."

Hoe--"De steel hoe dat laughs at de iron one is like de man dat is shamed of his grand-daddy."

Mule--"A mule kin tote so much goodness in his face dat he don't hab none lef' for his hind legs."

Walks--"Some grabble walks may lead to de jail."

Cow bell--"De cow bell can't keep a secret."

Tree--"Ripe apples make de tree look taller."

Rose--"De red rose don't brag in de dark."

Billy-goat--"De billy-goat gits in his hardes' licks when he looks like he gwine to back out of de fight."

Good luck--"Tis hard for de bes' an' smartes' fokes in de wul' to git 'long widout a little tech o' good luck."

Blind horse--"Blind horse knows when de trough empty."

Wagon--"De noise of de wheels don't medjer de load in de wagon."

Hot--"Las' 'ear's hot spell cools off mighty fast."

Hole--"Little hole in your pocket is wusser'n a big one at de knee."

Tim o' day--"Appetite don't regerlate de time o' day."

Quagmire--"De quagmire don't hang out no sign."

Needle--"One pusson kin th'ead a needle better than two."

Pen--"De pint o' de pin is de easier in' to find."

Turnip--"De green top don't medjer de price o' de turnip."

Dog--"Muzzle on de yard dog unlocks de smokehouse."

EQUAL TO THE EMERGENCY

Hebe: "Unc Isrul, mammy says, hoocume de milk so watery on top in de mornin'."

Patriarch: "Tell you' mammy dat's de bes' sort o' milk, dat's de dew on it, de cows been layin' in de dew."

Hebe: "An' she tell me to ax you what meck it so blue."

Patriarch: "You ax your mammy what meck she so black."

Here are some of Casie's little rhymes that he entertained the neighbor children with:

Look at dat possum in dat holler log. He hidin' he know dis nigger eat possum laik a hog.

Hear dat hoot owl in dat tree. Dat old hoot owl gwine hoot right out at yew.

Rabbit, rabbit, do you know; I can track you in de snow.

One young man lingered at the gate after a long visit, but a lots ob sweethearts do det. His lady love started to cry. He said, "Dear, don't cry; I will come to see you again." But she cried on. "Oh, darling don't cry so; I will come back again, I sure will." Still she cried. At last he said: "Love, did I not tell you that I would soon come again to see you?" And through her tears she replied: "Yes, but I am afraid you will never go; that is what is the matter with me. We must all go."

Uncle Joshua was once asked a great question. It was: "If you had to be blown up which would you choose, to be blown up on the railroad or the steamboat?" "Well," said Uncle Joshua, "I don't want to be blowed up no way; but if I had to be blowed up I would rather be blowed up on de railroad, because, you see, if you is blowed up on de railroad, dar you is, but if you is blowed up on de steamboat, whar is you?"

Casie tells me of some of his superstitions:

If you are the first person a cat looks at after he has licked hisself, you are going to be married.

If you put a kitten under the cover of your bed and leave it until it crawls out by itself, it will never leave home.

If you walk through a place where a horse wallows, you will have a headache.

If a woodpecker raps on the house, someone is going to die.

If an owl screeches, turn the pocket of your apron inside out, tie a knot in your apron string, and he will stop.

If a rabbit runs across the road in front of you, to the left, it is a sign of bad luck; if it goes to the right, it is a sign of good luck.

If you cut a child's finger nails before it is a year old, it will steal when it grows up.

If you put your hand on the head of a dead man, you will never worry about him; he will never haunt you, and you will never fear death.

If the pictures are not turned toward the wall after a death, some other member of the family will die.

If you see a dead man in the mirror, you will be unlucky the rest of your life.

Name of Interviewer: Velma Sample Subject: Slavery Days

THE ATTACK THE YANKEES MADE ON JOHNNIE REAVES PLACE GIVEN BY AUNT ELCIE BROWN

Aunt Elcie Brown (a negro girl age nine years old) was living in the clay hills of Arkansas close to Centerville, and Clinton in Amid County on Johnnie Reeves Place. Johnnie Reeves was old and had a son named Henry L. Reeves who was married. Young Reeves got the news that they were to be attacked by the Yankees at a certain time and he took his family and all the best stock such as horses, cattle, and sheep to a cave in a bluff which was hid from the spy-glasses of the Yankees, by woods all around it. Johnnie Reeves was left to be attacked by the soldiers. He was blind and almost paralyzed. He had to eat dried beef shaved real fine and the negro children fed him. They ate as much of it as he did. Aunt Elcie and her brother fed him most of the time. They would get on each side of him and lead him for a walk most every day. The natives thought they would bluff the soldiers and cut the bridge into and thought that the soldiers would be unable to cross Beavers Creek, but the Yankees was prepared. They had made a long bridge for the soldiers to come marching right over. This bridge was just a mile from Reeves farm. Then the soldiers came they were so many that they could not all come up the big road but part of them came over the hill by the sheeps spring and through the pasture.

All the negroes came out of their shacks and watched them march toward their houses. Elcie and her brother got scared and ran in the house, crawled in bed and thought they were hid, as they had scrutched down in the middle of the bed with the door locked. But the soldiers bursted in and moved the bed from the corner. One stood over the bed and laughed, then asked the other man to look, then threw the covers off of them. He first took her brother by one arm and one leg and stood him on his feet, patted his head and told him not to be afraid, that they would not hurt them. Then took Elcie and stood her up. He reached in a bag lined with fur which was strapped on them and gave them both a stick of candy. Elcie says she thinks that is why she has always liked stick candy. She also says that that day has stood out to her and she can see everything just like it was yesterday. All the negro homes were close together and the soldiers raided them in small bunches. They were kind to the negro children. Wnen they started to the big house where Johnnie Reeves lived all the negro children followed them. When they entered the house Mr. Reeves was sitting by the side of the fire-place and every one that passed him kicked him brutely. They ransacked the place all over and when they got up stairs they kicked out all the window pains and tore off all the window-shutters. They took all the things they wanted out of the house, such as silver-ware, and jewelry. The smoke-house, milk-house and store-house was three separate buildings in a row. The first one they entered was the milk-house. It had seven shelves of milk, cream and butter in it. There was eleven crocks of sweet milk larger than a waterbucket. They had forty gallons of butter milk, and over three gallons of butter in a large flat crock. They also had over five gallons of cream. The Yankee soldiers ate all the butter and cream and set the milk in the yard and ask the negro kids to finish the milk.

They drank it like pigs without a cup, just stuck their heads down and drank like pigs. When they were full the balance of the milk was so dirty it looked like pigs had been in it.

The soldiers entered the next building which was the store-room where they stored rice, flour, sugar, coffee, and such like, and they took what they wanted, then destroyed the rest. Mr. Reeves had just been to town and bought a hogshead of sugar and they took it out and burst it and invited the negro children to help themselves. Elcie says that when the kids all got full there was not a half bushel left. The last raid was the smoke-house where stuffed sausage was hanging by the hundred and hams by the dozens. They didn't leave a thing, took lard and everything. It took over two wagons to hold everything. Then they crossed over to the next place owned by Bill Gunley.

* * * * *

Dr. Levy tells me of his father being partial to the southerners although he lived in Evansville, Indiana, and fought as a Yankee. He was accused of being partial and they would turn over his wagons and cause him trouble. He had fine wagons and sometimes when he would be turning his wagons back up after them being turned over to contrary him, he would curse Gen. Grant and call him that G.D. Old Tobacco spitter. Although Henry Levy seldom did swear as he was French, sometimes they would make him mad and he would do so.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: F. H. Brown 701 Hickory Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 75

[HW: Builds Church and School]

"I was born in Marion County, Mississippi. Columbus is the county-seat. My father's name was Hazard Brown, and my mother's name was Willie Brown. She was a Rankin before she married. My mother was born in Lawrence County, Mississippi, and married father there. My father was born in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. I was born in three feet of the line in Louisiana. I was born in the old slave quarters. The house was just across the line between Mississippi and Louisiana. The lower room was in Louisiana and the other was in Mississippi. There was a three foot hall between the rooms. It was a matter of convenience that I was born in Mississippi. I might have been just as well born in Louisiana. The house was in both states.

"My father's master was Black Bill Warren. Black Bill was just a title they give him. I think that his name was Joe Warren, but they nicknamed him Black Bill, and everybody called him that. My mother belonged to the Rankinses.

"My mother's mother was named Dolly Ware. My father's mother was named Maria. Their papa's father was named Thomas, and I forget my mother's father's name. I know it but I forget it just now. I haven't thought over it for a long time.

"My father when he died was eighty-five years old. He was treated pretty good in slavery time. He did farm work. His mars had about ninety slaves, that is, counting children and all. When I was a boy, I was in those quarters and saw them. I went back there and though it was some time afterward, taught in them. And later on, I preached in them, since I have been a preacher, of course. I have a cousin there now. He is about a hundred years old. He belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"My father lived to see freedom. He has been dead more than twelve years. He died at my home.

"He was so close to the fighting that he could hear the guns and the firing. When they was freed, some white people told him, 'You are just as free as we are.' I was born after the Emancipation proclamation. The proclamation was issued in September and I was born in October. It didn't become effective till January first. So I was born a slave any way you take it.

"The farm my father worked on was on the Pearl River. It was very fertile. It was in Mississippi. A very big road runs beside the farm. The road is called the Big Road. The nigger quarters were across the road on the south side.

"My mother's folks treated her nicely too. Mr. Rankins didn't have any slaves but Mrs. Rankins had some. Her people gave them to her. My grandma who belonged to her had twenty-six children. She got her start off of the slaves her parents gave her, and finally she had about seventy-five. She ran a farm. My mother's work was house woman. She worked in the house. Her mistress was good to her. The overseer couldn't whip the niggers, except in her presence, so that she could see that it wasn't brutal. She didn't allow the women to be whipped at all. When an overseer got rough, she would fire him. Slaves would run away sometimes and stay in the woods if they thought that they would get a whipping for it. But she would send word for them to come on back and they wouldn't be whipped. And she would keep her word about it. The slaves on her place were treated so good that they were called free niggers by the other white people. When they were whipped, they would go to the woods.

"I have heard them speak of the pateroles often. They had to get a pass and then the pateroles wouldn't bother them. They would whip you and beat you if you didn't have a pass. Slavery was an awful low thing. It was a bad system. You had to get a pass to go to see your wife. If you didn't have that pass, they would whip you. The pateroles carried on their work for a good while after slavery was over, and the Civil War had ended.

"I was pretty good when I was a boy. So I never had any trouble then. I was right smart size when I saw the Ku Klux. They would whip men and women that weren't married and were living together. On the first day of January, they would whip men and boys that didn't have a job. They kept the Negroes from voting. They would whip them. They put up notices, 'No niggers to come out to the polls tomorrow.' They would run them off of government land which they had homesteaded. Sometimes they would just persuade them not to vote. A Negro like my father, they would say to him, 'Now, Brown, you are too good to get messed up. Them other niggers 'round here ain't worth nothing, but you are, and we don't want to see you get hurt. So you stay 'way from the polls tomorrow.' And tomorrow, my father would stay away, under the circumstances. They had to depend on the white people for counsel. They didn't know what to do themselves. The other niggers they would threaten them and tell them if they came out they would kill them.

"Right after the war, we farmed on shares. When we made our last share-crop, father farmed on Senator Bilbo's mother's farm on the State line. I nursed Senator Bilbo when he was a baby. Theoda Bilbo. He is the one who says Negroes should be sent to Africa. Then there wouldn't be nobody here to raise people like him. He fell into the mill pond one day and I pulled him out and kept him from drowning. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't be here to say, 'Send all the Negroes to Africa.' If I'd see him right now, he'd give me ten dollars.

"Mrs. Bilbo's first husband was a Crane. He killed himself. He didn't intend to. It was in a horse race. The horse ran away with him and killed him. Then Theoda's father married her. He was a poor man. He married that widow and got up in the world. They had a gin mill, and a grist mill, and a sawmill. They got business from everybody. That was Theoda's daddy--old man Bilbo.

"In 1870, we stayed on Elisha McGhee's farm. We called him Elisha but his name was Elijah. I began to remember them. The next year, we farmed for old man William Bilbo. But we didn't get along so well there because daddy wouldn't let anybody beat him out of anything that was his. That was Theoda's gran'daddy. Then we went to (Mississippi) Miss Crane's. The next year she married Theoda Bilbo's daddy and in 1874, my daddy moved up on his own place at Hurricane Creek. There he built a church and built a school, and I went to the school on our own place. He stayed there till 1880. In 1880, we moved to Holly Springs. That was right after the yellow fever epidemic. I went to school there at Shaw University. I stayed in that school a good while. It's called Rust College now. It's named after the Secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society. Rust was the greatest donor and they named the school after him. I went to the state school in my last year because they would give you a lifetime certificate when you finished there. I mean a lifetime teaching certificate for Mississippi. I finished the course and got the certificate. There is the diploma up there on the wall. J.H. Henderson was the principal and he was one of my teachers too. Henderson was a wonderful man. You know he died out here in the county hospital sometime ago. Sometime I'll tell you all about him. He was a remarkable man. He taught there behind Highgate, a Northern man. I'll tell you all about him sometime.

"I farmed with my father in the early part of my life. When I went to Holly Springs in 1881, I worked for Dr. T.J. Malone, a banker there, and a big farmer--President of the Holly Springs Bank. I worked for him mornings and evenings and slept at home of nights. I would work in vacation times too at whatever I could find to do till I got about able to teach. When I first commenced to teach, I taught in several counties--Lincoln, Simpson, Pike, Marion (the place I went to school), and Copiah. I built the school at Lawrence County. I organized the Folsom High School there. It was named after President Cleveland's wife. I taught there nine years. I married there. My wife's name was Narcissa Davis. She was a teacher and graduated from the same school I did. She lived in Calhoun County. She died in 1896, in Conway.

"I taught school at Conway in Faulkner County, and joined the ministry as a local preacher, in 1896. I moved from there to White County and taught in Searcy one term. Taught at Beebe ten years. Married again in 1898--Annie Day. I taught at Beebe and lived in White County. Then I bought me a home at Higginson, and went into the ministry solely. I left Higginson and taught and pastored seven years at Des Arc. I know practically everybody in Des Arc. I was thinking today about writing Brick Williams. He is the son of old man Williams, the one you know I think. Then I come to what is called Sixteen Section three miles from Galloway and taught there seven years and pastored. I presided too as Elder some of those years--North Little Rock District. Then I went back and pastored there and taught at West Point, Arkansas four years. Then I pastored at Prescott and was on the Magnolia District as Presiding Elder two years. Then I presided over the North Little Rock District again. Pastored St. Luke Circuit in southwest part of Arkansas below Washington. Then I built a church at Jonesboro. I pastored twenty-nine years altogether, built five churches, and have been responsible for five hundred conversions.

"I think the prospects of the country and the race are good. I don't see much dark days ahead. It is just a new era. You are doing something right now I never saw done before in my life. Even when they had the census, I didn't see any colored people taking it.

"I don't get any assistance in the form of money from the government. I have been trying to get it but I can't. Looks like they cut off a lot of them and can't reach it. Won't let me teach school. Say I am too old for WPA teaching. Superannuate me in the church, and say I'm too old to preach, and still I haven't gotten anything from my church since last January. I get some commodities from the state. I belong to the C.M.E. Church. I have lived in this community twenty-five years."

Interviewer's Comment

Hanging on the wall was the old man's diploma from the Mississippi State Normal School for colored persons. It was dated May 30, 1888, and it bore the signatures of J.R. Preston, State Superintendent; E.D. Miller, County Superintendent (both members of the Board of Directors); J.H. Henderson, Principal; Narcissa Hill and Maria Rabb, faculty members.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: George Brown Route 4; Box 159, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84

"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times. I was born in 1854. How old does that leave me?

"No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas, born in Alabama.

"Jim Hart was my white folks. Good to me? I'd rather let that alone. Plenty to eat? I'll have to let that alone too. I used to say my old missis was 'Hell a mile.' Her name was Sarah. She was a Williams but she married Jim Hart. They had about a hundred and seventy head, little and big together.

"Me? I was a servant at the house. I didn't do any field work till after surrender.

"Some women was pretty mean and old miss was one of 'em.

"You'll get the truth now--I ain't told you half.

"We lived in Marengo County. The Tombigbee River divided it and Sumter County. The War didn't get down that far. It just got as far as Mobile.

"Oh yes'm, I knowed they was a war gwine on. I'd be waitin' on the table and I'd hear the white folks talkin'. I couldn't keep all I heard.