Chapter II: Part 2

"I think the young people of both races are growing wilder and wilder. The parents today are too slack in raising them--too lenient. I don't know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to do, or what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a time trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."

NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet, refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and successful family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none of the brogue that is characteristic of the colored race of the South.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Robert James 4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 66, or older Occupation: Cook

"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David Jones was her old master. That was in Mississippi--the good old country! People hate it because they don't like the name but it was a mighty good country when I was there. The white people there were better to the colored people when I was there than they are here. But there is a whole lots of places that is worse than Arkansas.

"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my brother happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought about me and wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in Chicago following up their information and got in touch with my people. Didn't find them out till the great war started. Had to go to Europe to find my relatives. My sister's people and mine too were born in Illinois, but my mother and two sisters and another brother were born in Mississippi. Their kin born in Illinois were half-brothers and so on.

Refugeeing--Ghosts

"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it must have been true.

"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story house. They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise nobody; so they just camped there for the night. After they went to bed, big balls of fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got scared and run out of the house and camped outside for the night. There wasn't no more sleeping in that house.

"Some people believe in ghosts and some don't. What do you believe? This is what I have seen myself. Mules and horses were running 'round screaming and hollering every night. One day, I was walking along when I saw a mule big as an elephant with ears at least three feet long and eyes as big as auto lamps. He was standing right in the middle of the road looking at me and making no motion to move. I was scared to death, but I stooped down to pick up a stone. It wasn't but a second. But when I raised up, he had vanished. He didn't make a sound. He just disappeared in a second. That was in the broad open daylight. That was what had been causing all the confusion with the mules and horses.

"When I first married I used to room with an old lady named Johnson. Time we went to bed and put the light out, something would open the doors. Finally I got scared and used to tell my wife to get up and close the doors. Finally she got skittish about it. There used to be the biggest storms around there and yet you couldn't see nothin'. There wasn't no rain nor nothin'. Just sounds and noises like storms. My wife comes to visit me sometimes now.

"My mother says there wasn't any such thing as marriage in slave times. Old master jus' said, 'There's your husband, Florida.'"

Little Rock District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson Subject: HISTORY OF ELLIS JEFFERSON--(NEGRO) Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)

This Information given by: Ellis Jefferson (Uncle Jeff) (C) Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas Occupation: Superanuated Minister of the M. E. Church Age: 77 [TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]

He has his second eyesight and his hair is short and white. He is a black skinned, bright-eyed old man. "Uncle Jeff" said he remembered when the Civil War had ended they passed by where he lived with teams, wagons filled, and especially the artillery wagon. They were carrying them back to Washington. His mother was freed from Mrs. Nancy Marshall of Roanoke, Va. She moved and brought his mother, he and his sister, Ann, to Holly Springs, Miss. The county was named for his mistress: Marshall County, Mississippi.

In 1868 they moved to [HW: within] 4 miles of DeWitt and 10 miles of Arkansas Post. Later they moved to Kansas and near Wichita then back to Marshall, Texas. His sister has four sons down there. He thinks she is still living. His Mistress went back to Roanoke, Va., and his mother died at Marshall. Tom Marshall was his Master's name, but he seems to have died in the Civil War. This old Uncle Jeff lived in Alabama and has preached there and in northern Mississippi and near Helena, Arkansas. He helped cook at Helena in a hotel. He preaches some but the WPA supports him now. Uncle Jeff can't remember his dreams he said "The Bible says, young men dream dreams and old men see visions."

He had a real vision once, he was going late one afternoon to get his mules up and he heard a voice "I have a voice I want you to complete. Carry my word." He was a member of the church but he made a profession and a year later was ordained into the ministry. He believes in dreams. Says they are warnings.

Uncle Jeff says he has written some poetry but it has all been lost.

When anyone dies the sexton goes to the church and tolls the bell as many times as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery.

[HW: Marshall County, Miss., named for John Marshall of Virginia, Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, 1801-35. _History of Marshall (County), Mississippi_, by Clayton M. Alexander.]

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor Subject: [HW: Moses Jeffries] Story--Information (If not enough space on this page add page.)

This information given by: Moses E. Jeffries Place of Residence: 1110 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Occupation: Plasterer Age: 81 [TR: Age: 75 on 4th page of form.] [TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]

"I was born in 1856. My age was kept with the cattle. As a rule, you know, slaves were chattels. There was a fire and the Bible in which the ages were kept was lost. The man who owned me couldn't remember what month I was born in. Out of thirteen children, my mother could only remember the age of one. I had twelve brothers and sisters--Bob Lacy, William Henry, Cain Cecil, Jessie, Charles, Harvey, Johnnie, Anna, Rose, Hannah, Lucy, and Thomas. I am the only one living now. My parents were both slaves. My father has been dead about fifty-nine years and my mother about sixty or sixty-one years. She died before I married and I have been married fifty years. I have them in my Bible.

I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said there was going to be war. I remember when they had [HW: a] slave market in New Orleans. I was living betweeen [TR: between] Pine Bluff and New Orleans (living in Arkansas) and saw the slaves chained together as they were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of the big farms or plantations.

I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the Confederate armies when they were retreating near the end of the war. I was just about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall, Texas.

The man that owned me said to the old people that they were free, that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham Lincoln had set them free. Of course, I didn't know what freedom was. They brought the news to them one evening, and them niggers danced nearly all night.

I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves first, and the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through our field about half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs would be trailing them. The hunters didn't bother to stop and question us because they knew the hounds were on the trail. I have known slaves to run away and stay three years at a time. Master would whip them and they would run away. They wouldn't have no place to go or stay so they would come back after a while. Then they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish them much, however, because they might run off again.

MARRIAGE

If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then. You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases, however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to time.

INHERITANCE OF SLAVES

If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves should go to each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred slaves and they divided them up just as you would cattle. Some times there were certain slaves that certain children liked, and they were granted those slaves.

WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED

Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of the niggers got anything. They didn't give them anything. The slaves were hired and allowed to work the farms on shares. That is where the system of share cropping came from. I was hired for fifty dollars a year, but was paid only five. The boss said he owed me fourteen dollars but five was all I got. I went down town and bought some candy. It was the first time I had had that much money.

I couldn't do anything about the pay. They didn't give me any land. They hired me to work around the house and I ate what the boss ate. But the general run of slaves got pickled pork, molasses, cornmeal and sometimes flour (about once a week for Sunday). The food came out of the share of the share cropper.

You can tell what they did by what they do now. It (share cropping) hasn't changed a particle since. About Christmas was the time they usually settled up. Nobody was forced to remain as a servant. I know one thing,--Negroes did not go to jail and penitentiary like they do now.

KU KLUX KLAN

The Ku Klux Klan to the best of my knowledge went into action about the time shortly after the war when the amendments to the Constitution gave the Negroes the right to vote. I have seen them at night dressed up in their uniform. They would visit every Negro's house in the comunity [TR: community]. Some they would take out and whip, some they would scare to death. They would ask for a drink of water and they had some way of drinking a whole bucketful to impress the Negroes that they were supernatural. Negroes were very superstitious then. Colonel Patterson who was a Republican and a colonel or general of the militia, white and colored, under the governorship of Powell Clayton, stopped the operation of the Klan in this state. After his work, they ceased terrorizing the people.

POLITICAL OFFICIALS

Many an ex-slave was elected sheriff, county clerk, probate clerk, Pinchback[A] was elected governor in Louisiana. The first Negro congressman was from Mississippi and a Methodist preacher Hiram Revells[B]. We had a Nigger superintendent of schools of the state of Arkansas, J. C. Corbin[C]--I don't remember just when, but it was in the early seventies. He was also president of the state school in Pine Bluff--organized it.

SUFFRAGE

The ex-slave voted like fire directly after the war. That was about all that did vote then. If the Niggers hadn't voted they never would have been able to elect Negroes to office.

I was elected Alderman once in Little Rock under the administration of Mayer Kemer. We had Nigger coroner, Chief of Police, Police Judge, Policemen. Ike Gillam's father was coroner. Sam Garrett was Chief of Police; Judge M. W. Gibbs was Police Judge. He was also a receiver of public lands. So was J. E. Bush, who founded the Mosaics [HW: (Modern Mosaic Templars of America)]. James W. Thompson, Bryant Luster, Marion H. Henderson, Acy L. Richardson, Childress' father-in-law, were all aldermen. James P. Noyer Jones was County Clerk of Chicot County, S. H. Holland, a teacher of mine, a little black nigger about five feet high, as black as ink, but well educated was sheriff of Desha County. Augusta had a Negro who was sheriff. A Negro used to hold good offices in this state.

I charge the change to Grant. The Baxter-Brooks matter caused it. Baxter was a Southern Republican from the Northeastern part of the state, Batesville, a Southern man who took sides with the North in the war. Brooks was a Methodist preacher from the North somewheres. When Grant recognized the Baxter faction whom the old ex-slaveholders supported because he was a Southerner and sided with Baxter against Brooks, it put the present Democratic party in power, and they passed the Grandfather law barring Negroes from voting.

Negroes were intimidated by the Ku Klux. They were counted out. Ballot boxes were burned and ballots were destroyed. Finally, Negroes got discouraged and quit trying to vote."

[Footnote A: [HW: P. B. S. Pinchback, elected Lieutenant-Governor of La. Held office 43 days.]]

[Footnote B: [HW: Hiram Revells, elected to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.]]

[Footnote C: [HW: J. C. Corbin appointed state superintendent of public instruction in 1873--served until the end of 1875.]]

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Ellis Jefson (M. E. Preacher), Hazen, Ark. Age: 77

"My father was a full blood African. His parents come from there and he couldn't talk plain.

"My great grandma was an Indian squaw. Mother was crossed with a white man. He was a Scotchman.

"My mother belong to old man John Marshall. He died before I left Virginia.

"Old Miss Nancy Marshall and the boys and their wives, three of em was married, and slaves set out in three covered wagons and come to Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1867.

"Blunt Marshall was a Baptist preacher. In 1869 my grandma died at Holly Springs.

"I had two sisters Ann and Mariah. Old Miss Nancy Marshall had kin folks at Marshall, Texas. She took Ann with her and I have never seen her since.

"In 1878 we immigrated to Kansas. We soon got back to Helena. Mariah died there and in 1881 mother died.

"Old Miss Nancy's boys named Blunt, John, Bill, Harp. I don't know where they scattered out to finally.

"All my folks ever expected was freedom. We was nicely taken care of till the family split up. My father was suppressed. He belong to Master Ernman. He run off and went on with the Yankees when they come down from Virginia. We think he got killed. We never heard from him after 1863.

"In 1882 my white folks went to Padukah, Kentucky. They was on the run from Yellow Fever. They had kin up there. I stayed in Memphis and nursed. They put up flags. Negroes didn't have it. They put coffins on the porches before the people died. Carried wagons loads of dead bodies wrapped in sheets. White folks would meet and pray the disease be lifted. When they started vomiting black, there was no more hopes. Had to hold them on bed when they was dying. When they have Yellow Fever white folks turn yellow. I never heard of a case of Yellow Fever in Memphis mong my race. Dr. Stone of New Orleans had better luck with the disease than any other doctor. I was busy from June till October in Memphis. They buried the dead in long trenches. Nearly all the business houses was closed. The boats couldn't stop in towns where Yellow Fever had broke out.

"I never seen the Ku Klux.

"I never seen no one sold. My father still held a wild animal instinct up in Virginia; they couldn't keep him out of the woods. He would spend two or three days back in there. Then the Patty Rollers would run him out and back home. He was a quill blower and a banjo picker. They had two corn piles and for prizes they give them whiskey. They had dances and regular figure callers. This has been told to me at night time around the hearth understand. I can recollect when round dancing come in. It was in 1880. Here's a song they sung back in Virginia: 'Moster and mistress both gone away. Gone down to Charleston/ to spend the summer day. I'm off to Charleston/early in the mornin'/ to spend nother day.'

"I used to help old Miss Nancy make candles for her little brass lamp. We boiled down maple sap and made sugar. We made turpentine.

"I don't know about the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia. We had rebellions at Helena in 1875. The white folks put the Negroes out of office. They put J. T. White in the river at Helena but I think he got out. Several was killed. J. T. White was a colored sheriff in Phillips County. In Lee County it was the same way. The Republican party would lect them and the Democratic party roust them out of office.

"In 1872 I went to school 2-1/2 miles to Arkansas Post to a white teacher. I went four months. Her name was Mrs. Rolling. My white folks started me and I could spell to 'Baker' in the Blue Book Speller before I started to school. That is the only book I ever had at school. I learned to read in the Bible next.

"In 1872 locust was numerous. We had four diseases to break out: whooping cough, measles, smallpox; and cholera broke out again. They vaccinated for smallpox, first I ever heard of it. They took matter out of one persons arm and put it in two dozen peoples arms. It killed out the smallpox.

"In 1873 I saw a big forest fire. It seemed like prairie and forest fires broke out often.

"When I growed up and run with boys my color I got wicked. We gambled and drunk whiskey, then I seen how I was departing from good raising. I changed. I stopped sociating with bad company. The Lord hailed me in wide open day time and told me my better life was pleasing in his sight. I heard him. I didn't see nuthin'. I was called upon to teach a Sunday School class. Three months I was Sunday School leader. Three months more I was a licensed preacher. Ordained under Bishop Lee, Johnson, Copeland--all colored bishops at Topeka, Kansas. Then I attended conference at Bereah, Kentucky. Bishop Dizney presided. I preached in Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. I am now what they call a superannuated minister.

"One criticism on my color. They will never progress till they become more harmonious in spirit with the desires of the white people in the home land of the white man. I mean when a white person come want some work or a favor and he not go help him without too much pay."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Absolom Jenkins, R.F.D., Helena, Arkansas Age: 80 [Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]

"I was born a few years before the break out of the old war (Civil War). I had a boy fit in this last war (World War). He gets a pension and he sends me part of it every month. He don't send me no amount whatever he can spare me. He never do send me less than ten dollars. I pick cotton some last year. I pick twenty or thirty pounds and it got to raining and so cold my granddaughter said it would make me sick.

"I was born durin' slavery. I was born 'bout twenty-five miles from Nolan, Tennessee. They call me Ab Jenkins for my old master. He was A. B. Jenkins. I don't know if his name was Absolom or not. Mother was name Liddy Strum. They was both sold on the block. They both come to Tennessee from Virginia in a drove and was sold to men lived less than ten miles apart. Then they got consent and got married. I don't know how they struck up together.

"They had three families of us. We lived up close to A. B. Jenkins' house. He had been married. He was old man when I knowed him. His daughter lived with him. She was married. Her husband was brought home from the war dead. I don't know if he got sick and died or shot. The only little children on the place was me and Jake Jenkins. We was no kin but jus' like twins. Master would call us up and stick his finger in biscuits and pour molasses in the hole. That was sure good eating. The 'lasses wouldn't spill till we done et it up. He'd fix us up another one. He give us biscuits oftener than the grown folks got them. We had plenty wheat bread till the old war come on. My mother beat biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get my clean long shirt and a little to eat. We walked four miles. He'd tote me. She had a girl with her. I never stayed over there much and the girl never come to my place 'cepting when mama come. They let her stand on the surrey and Eloweise stand inside when they went to preaching. She'd ride Master Jenkins' mare home and turn her loose to come home. Me and papa always walked.

"When freedom come on, the country was tore to pieces. Folks don't know what hard times is now. Some folks said do one thing for the best, somebody said do another way. Folks roved around for five or six years trying to do as well as they had done in slavery. It was years 'fore they got back to it. I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the hardest--eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a heap. He got some little children now and got one grown and married.

"The Ku Klux was hot in Tennessee. They whooped a heap of people. The main thing was to make the colored folks go to work and not steal, but it was carpet-baggers stealing and go pack it on colored folks. They'd tell colored folks not to do this and that and it would get them in trouble. The Ku Klux would whoop the colored folks. Some colored folks thought 'cause they was free they ought not work. They got to rambling and scattered out.

"I voted a long time. The voting has caused trouble all along. I voted different ways--sometimes Republican and sometimes Independent. I don't believe women ought to vote somehow. I don't vote. I voted for Cleveland years ago and I voted for Wilson. I ain't voted since the last war. I don't believe in war.

"Times have changed so much it is lack living in another world now. Folks living in too much hurry. They getting too fast. They are restless. I see a heaps of overbearing folks now. Folks after I got grown looked so fresh and happy. Young folks look tired, mad, worried now. They fixes up their face but it still show it. Folks quicker than they used to be. They acts before they have time to think now. Times is good for me but I see old folks need things. I see young folks wasteful--both black and white. White folks setting the pace for us colored folks. It's mighty fast and mighty hard."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Dora Jerman, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 60?

"I was born at Bow-and-arrow, Arkansas. Sid McDaniel owned my father. Mother was Mary Miller and she married Pete Williams from Tennessee. Grandma lived with us till she died. She used to have us sit around handy to thread her needles. She was a great hand to piece quilts. Her and Aunt Polly both. Aunt Polly was a friend that was sold with her every time. They was like sisters and the most pleasure to each other in old age.

"My great-great-grandma said to grandma, 'Hurry back wid that pitcher of water, honey, so you will have time to run by and see your mama and the children and tell them good-bye. Old master says you going to be sold early in the morning.' The water was for supper. That was the last time she ever seen or heard of any of her own kin folks. Grandma said a gang of them was sold next morning. Aunt Polly was no kin but they was sold together. Whitfield bought one and Strum bought the other.

"They come on a boat from Virginia to Aberdeen, Mississippi. They wouldn't sell her mother because she brought fine children. I think she said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold several times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat they had to walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open and bled. 'Black Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them with hot tallow or mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a good girl and mind master and mistress.

"Grandma said she had a hard time all her life. She was my mother's mother and she lived to be way over a hundred years old. Aunt Polly lived with her daughter when she got old. Grandma died first. Then Aunt Polly grieved so. She was old, old when she died. They still lived close together, mostly together. Aunt Polly was real black; mama was lighter. I called grandma 'mama' a right smart too. They called each other 'sis'. Grandma said, 'I love sis so good.' Aunt Polly lessened her days grieving for sis. They was both field hands. They would tell us girls about how they lived when they was girls. We'd cry.

"We lived in the country and we listened to what they said to us. If it had been times then like now I wouldn't know to tell you. Folks is in such a hurry somehow. Gone or going somewhere all the time.

"All my folks is most all full-blood African. I don't believe in races mixing up. It is a sin. Grandma was the brightest one of any of us. She was ginger-cake color.

"No, I don't vote. I don't believe in that neither.

"Times is too fast. Fast folks makes fast times. They all fast. Coming to destruction."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Adaline Johnson Joining the Plunkett farms Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 96

"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on Strickland's place. My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big plantations, full of niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where my mother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They lived at Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old master. There was Hue Battle too. Master Joe Battle and Master Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.

"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them about it at the hotel. He got up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom Williams didn't drink. He went to war and got shot. He professed religion when he was twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his Testament in his pocket and blood run on it. That was when he was shot in the Civil War.

"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no law to kill a crazy man. They took him to North Carolina where was all white folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor crazy nigger. They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to place all white folks lived.

"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress Frankie (Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em be, he ain't goiner whoop Fenna, he's kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.' They whoop niggers black as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten Williams. Fenna was half white. He was John Williams' boy. John was Brutten's brother. John Williams went to Mississippi and overseed for Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd shoot at anything and call it a hawk.

"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi learned her how to sew. She sewed up bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.

"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe Williams. She cooked and wove some in her young life. Rich white folks didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they changed her about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the public.

"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduke Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big towns and had a good time. Miss Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from Mississippi) to North Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it all away soon as it ripen. He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy. He give some of it out in cups. They said there was some double rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.

"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the men on his place five dollars and every woman a sow pig to raise from. Tole us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one and my mother one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever had. He got killed. Master Tom was so good to his niggers. He never whooped them. His wife ruled him, made him do like she wanted everything but mean to his niggers. Her folks slashed their niggers and she tried to make him do that too. He wouldn't. They said she wore the breeches 'cause she ruled him.

"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away from every one of us. We raised 'em up fine big hogs. She took them away from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had plenty land he left her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen Hopkins. They had a boy. He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She was so mean. Followed the boy to Texas. They all said she couldn't rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom Williams. She didn't.

"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had raised a little half white boy. 'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's little nigger child and give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His own black mama beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal Pierce's place. They kept Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give him to somebody else 'way off. Tom had a brother in Georgia. It was Tom's wife wouldn't let Wilks go on living with us.

"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers but she was better than any other white women to Wilks and Fenna and George.

"'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought him a axe, it was a great big axe. They bought him a great big hoe. They got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like everybody else. 'Big Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim Battle was gone off. His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When Jim Battle come back he said Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big Will'. We never heard or seen him no more. His family stayed on the plantation and worked. 'Big Will' could split as many more rails as anybody else on the place.

"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy babies and raise them.

"The Battles had gins and stores in North Carolina and Williams had farms, nothing but farms.

"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy, Johnny Williams. He run to me, said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was when the Yankee soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war. I cooked when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded and spun then. I had a ounce of cotton to card every night from September till March. When I'd be dancing around, Miss Helland Harris Williams say, 'You better be studying your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop dancing.

"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the niggers cried and cried and bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean master.

"They had a mean master right then--Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That was in Mississippi. They took us back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and stage-coaches, wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.

"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee. I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina.

"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama--mama was Liza Williams--Master Brutten bought her sister three or four years after that and they took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now they call it Wakefield Post Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid, Henry, John was Tom Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.

"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was Joe Battle's uncles. Jesse Ford was Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas. He come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was put on a block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell downstairs. I never heard such crying before nor since as I heard that day. Said they lost their best master. They knowed how bad they got whooped on Ozoo River.

"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big towns. He never did marry. My last master was Tom Williams. He was so nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard times come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks--foot tracks and finger tracks both.

"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them your finger marks.' Then he scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get scared, he ain't go to whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not goiner hurt him.'

"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way they come free niggers. Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a hog, take it and give it to her. She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto baby turned up. Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes they did.

"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to George to come after them to Ohio. Bill Harris had a baltimore trotter. The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open, read it, give it to his owner. He got mad and sold George. He was Sam Harrises carriage driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned him about reading and writing. When the war was over George come through on the train. Sam Harris run up there, cracked his heels together, hugged him, and give him ten dollars. He sold him when he was so mad. I don't know if he went to Ohio to Stinson's or not.

"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after freedom.

"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there with his leg shot off and was there till he could get on to his folks.

"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was cars going different places. We got on Mr. Boyd's car. He paid our way out here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd brought us right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at Raleigh, North Carolina.

"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty acres. Some of it in woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with me--taking care of me. Papa tole my son to take care of me and since he died my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go hungry nigh all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son both. If I could get a cow. We tries to have a garden. They ain't making nothing on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I ever seen in my life. I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising. The doctor put some medicine in my ears--both of them.

"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time to take off my shoes and fix the tacks--beat 'em down. They made holes in bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and stand."

Interviewer's Comment

This is another one of those _terrible_ cases. This old woman is on starvation. She had a cow and can't get another one. The son is blind but feels about and did milk. The bedbugs are nearly eating her up. They scald but can't get rid of them. They have a fairly good house to live in. But the old woman is on starvation and away back eight miles from Biscoe. I hate to see good old Negroes want for something to eat. She acts like a small child. Pitiful, so feeble. The second time I went out there I took her daughter who walks out there every week. We fixed her up an iron bedstead so she can sleep better. I took her a small cake. That was her dinner. She had eaten one egg that morning. She was a clean, kind old woman. Very much like a child. Has a rising in her head and said she was afraid her head would kill her. She gave me a gallon of nice figs her daughter picked, so I paid her twenty-five cents for them. She had plenty figs and no sugar.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Alice Johnson 601 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 77

"You want to know what they did in slavery times! They were doin' jus' what they do now. The white folks was beatin' the niggers, burning 'em and boilin' 'em, workin' 'em and doin' any other thing they wanted to do with them. 'Course you wasn't here then to know about nigger dogs and bull whips, were you? The same thing is goin' on right now. They got the same bull whips and the same old nigger dogs. If you don't believe it, go right out here to the county farm and you find 'em still whippin' the niggers and tearing them up and sometimes lettin' the dogs bite them to save the bull whips.

"I was here in slavery time but I was small and I don't know much about it 'cept what they told me. But you don't need to go no further to hear all you want to know. They sont you to the right place. They all know me and they call me Mother Johnson. So many folks been here long as me, but don't want to admit it. They black their hair and whiten their faces, and powder and paint. 'Course it's good to look good all right. But when you start that stuff, you got to keep it up. Tain't no use to start and stop. After a while you got that same color hair and them same splotches again. Folks say, 'What's the matter, you gittin so dark?' Then you say, 'Uh, my liver is bad.' You got to keep that thing up, baby.

"I thank God for my age. I thank God He's brought me safe all the way. That is the matter with this world now. It ain't got enough religion.

"I was born in Mississippi way below Jackson in Crystal Springs. That is on the I. C. Road near New Orleans. The train that goes there goes to New Orleans. I was bred and born and married there in Crystal Springs. I don't know just when I was born but I know it was in the month of December.

"I remember when the slaves were freed. I remember the War 'cause I used to hear them talking about the Yankees and I didn't know whether they were mules or horses or what not. I didn't know if they was varmints or folks or what not. I can't remember whether I seen any soldiers or not. I heard them talking about soldiers, but I didn't see none right 'round where we was.

"Now what good's that all goin' to do me? It ain't goin' to do me no good to have my name in Washington. Didn't do me no good if he stuck my name up on a stick in Washington. Some of them wouldn't know me. Those that did would jus' say, 'That's old Alice Johnson.'

"Us old folks, they don't count us. They jus' kick us out of the way. They give me 'modities and a mite to spend. Time you go and get lard, sugar, meat, and flour, and pay rent and buy wood, you don't have 'nough to go 'round. Now that might do you some good if you didn't have to pay rent and buy wood and oil and water. I'll tell you something so you can earn a living. Your mama give you a education so you can earn a living and you earnin' it jus' like she meant you to. But most of us don't earn it that way, and most of these educated folks not earnin' a livin' with their education. They're in jail somewheres. They're walkin' up and down Ninth Street and runnin' in and out of these here low dives. You go down there to the penitentiary and count those prisoners and I'll bet you don't find nary one that don't know how to read and write. They're all educated. Most of these educated niggers don't have no feeling for common niggers. 'They just walk on them like they wasn't living. And don't come to 'em tellin' them that you wanting to use them!

"The people et the same thing in slavery time that they eat now. Et better then 'n they do now. Chickens, cows, mules died then, they throw 'em to the buzzards. Die now, they sell 'em to you to eat. Didn't eat that in slavery time. Things they would give to the dogs then, they sell to the people to eat now. People et pure stuff in slavery. Don't eat pure stuff now. Got pure food law, but that's all that is pure.

"My mother's name was Diana Benson and my father's name was Joe Brown. That's what folks say, I don't know. I have seen them but I wasn't brought up with no mother and father. Come up with the white folks and colored folks fust one and then the other. I think my mother and father died before freedom. I don't know what the name of their master was. All my folks died early.

"The fus' white folks I knowed anything about was Rays. They said that they were my old slave-time masters. They were nice to me. Treated me like they would their own children. Et and slept with them. They treated me jus' like they own. Heap of people say they didn't have no owners, but they got owners yet now out there on that government farm.

"The fus' work I done in my life was nussing. I was a child then and I stayed with the white folks' children. Was raised up in the house with 'em. I was well taken care of too. I was jus' like their children. That was at Crystal Springs.

"I left them before I got grown and went off with other folks. I never had no reason. Jus' went on off. I didn't go for better because I was doing better. They jus' told me to come and I went.

"I been living now in Arkansas ever since 1911. My husband and I stayed on to work and make a living. I take care of myself. I'm not looking for nothin' now but a better home over yonder--better home than this. Thank the Lawd, I gits along all right. The government gives me a check to buy me a little meat and bread with. Maybe the government will give me back that what they took off after a while. I don't know. It takes a heap of money to feed thousands and millions of people. When the check comes, I am glad to git it no matter how little it is. Twarn't for it, I would be in a sufferin' condition.

"I belong to the Arch Street Baptist Church. I been for about twenty years. I was married sixteen years to my first husband and twenty-eight to my second. The last one has been dead five years and the other one thirty-six years. I ain't got none walkin' 'round. All my husbands is dead. There ain't nothin' in this quitin' and goin' and breakin' up and bustin' up. I don't tell no woman to quit and don't tell no man to quit. Go over there and git 'nother woman and she will be wuss than the one you got. When you fall out, reason and git together. Do right. I stayed with both of my husbands till they died. I ain't bothered 'bout another one. Times is so hard no man can take care of a woman now. Come time to pay rent, 'What you waiting for me to pay rent for? You been payin' it, ain't you?' Come time to buy clothes, 'What you waitin' for me to buy clothes for? Where you gittin' 'um from before you mai'd me?' Come time to pay the grocery bill, 'How come you got to wait for me to pay the grocery bill? Who been payin' it?' No Lawd, I don't want no man unless he works. What could I do with him? I don't want no man with a home and bank account. You can't git along with 'im. You can't git along with him and you can't git along with her."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Allen Johnson 718 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 82

"I was born in Georgia about twelve miles from Cartersville, in Cass County, and about the same distance from Cassville. I was a boy about eight or nine years old when I come from there. But I have a very good memory. Then I have seed the distance and everything in the Geography. My folks were dead long ago now. My oldest brother is dead too. He was just large enough to go to the mills. In them times, they had mills. They would fix him on the horse and he would go ahead.

"My father's name was Clem Johnson, and my mother's name was Mandy. Her madam's name I don't know. I was small. I remember my grandma. She's dead long long ago. Long time ago! I think her name was Rachel. Yes, I'm positive it was Rachel. That is what I believe. I was a little bitty fellow then. I think she was my mother's mother. I know one of my mother's sisters. Her name was Lucinda. I don't know how many she had nor nothin'.

"Johnsons was the name of the masters my mother and father had. They go by the name of Johnson yet. Before that I don't know who they had for masters. The pastor's name was Lindsay Johnson and the old missis was Mary Johnson. People long time ago used to send boys big enough to ride to the mill. My brother used to go. It ran by water-power. They had a big mill pond. They dammed that up. When they'd get ready to run the mill, they'd open that dam and it would turn the wheel. My oldest brother went to the mill and played with old master's son and me.

"They used to throw balls over the house and see which could catch them first. There would be three or four on a side of the house and they would throw the ball over the house to see which side would be quickest and aptest.

"My mother and father both belonged to the same man, Lindsay Johnson. I was a small boy. I can't tell you how he was to his folks. Seems like though he was pretty good to us. Seemed like he was a pretty good master. He didn't overwork his niggers. He didn't beat and 'buse them. He gave them plenty to eat and drink. You see the better a Negro looked and the finer he was the more money he would bring if they wanted to sell them. I have heard my mother and father talk about it plenty of times.