Chapter X: Part 10

"Superstitions? Well, I seen a engineer goin' to work the other day and a black cat run in front of him, and he went back 'cause he said he would have a wreck with his train if he didn't. So you see, the white folks believes in things like that too.

"I never was any hand to play any games 'cept 'Chick. Chick.' You'd ketch 'hold a hands and ring up. Had one outside was the hawk and some inside was the hen and chickens. The old mother hen would say

'Chick-a-ma, chick-a-ma, craney crow,
Went to the well to wash my toe;
When I come back my chicken was gone,
What time is it, old witch?'

One chicken was s'posed to get out and then the hawk would try to ketch him.

"We was more 'ligious than the chillun nowadays. We used to play preachin' and baptisin'. We'd put 'em down in the water and souse 'em and we'd shout just like the old folk. Yes ma'am."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Alfred Peters, 1518 Bell Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born seven miles from Camden.

"I was 'leven months old when they carried us to Texas. First thing I remember I was in Texas.

"Lucius Grimm was old master. He's been dead a long time. His wife died 'bout two years after the Civil War and he died twenty-five years after.

"I 'member durin' of the war he buried his stuff---silverware and stuff--and he never took it up. And after he died his brother's son lived in California, and he come back and dug it up.

"The Yankees burned up four hundred bales of cotton and taken the meat and two cribs of corn.

"I heard 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux but I never did see 'em.

"My mother said old Mars Lucius was good to his folks. She said he first bought her and then she worried so 'bout my father, he paid twenty-five hundred dollars for him.

"Biggest part of my life I farmed, and then I done carpenter work.

"I been blind four years. The doctor says it's cataracts.

"I think the younger generation goin' to cause another war. They ain't studyin' nothin' but pleasure."

Interviewer: S.S. Taylor Person interviewed: Mary Estes Peters, 3115 W. 17th Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 78

Biographical

Mary Estes Peters was born a slave January 30, 1860 in Missouri somewhere. Her mother was colored and her father white, the white parentage being very evident in her color and features and hair. She is very reticent about the facts of her birth. The subject had to be approached from many angles and in many ways and by two different persons before that part of the story could be gotten.

Although she was born in Missouri, she was "refugeed" first to Mississippi and then here, Arkansas. She is convinced that her mother was sold at least twice after freedom,--once into Mississippi, one into Helena, and probably once more after reaching Arkansas, Mary herself being still a very small child.

I think she is mistaken on this point. I did not debate with her but I cross-examined her carefully and it appears to me that there was probably in her mother's mind a confused knowledge of the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Lincoln's Compensation Emancipation plan advocated in March 1863, the Abolition in the District of Columbia in 1862 in April, the announcement of Lincoln's Emancipation intention in July 1862, the prohibition of slavery in present and future territories, June 19, 1862, together with the actual issuance of the Emancipation in September 1862, and the effectiveness of the proclamation in January 1, 1863, would well give rise to an impression among many slaves that emancipation had been completed.

As a matter of fact, Missouri did not secede; the Civil War which nevertheless ensued would find some slaveholders exposed to the full force of the 1862 proclamation in 1863 at the time of its first effectiveness. Naturally it did not become effective in many other places till 1865. It would very naturally happen then that a sale in Missouri in the latter part of 1862 or any time thereafter might be well construed by ex-slaves as a sale after emancipation, especially since they do not as a rule pay as much attention to the dates of occurrences as to their sequence. This interpretation accords with the story. Only such an explanation could make probable a narrative which places the subject as a newborn babe in 1860 and sold after slavery had ceased while still too young to remember. Her earliest recollections are recollections of Arkansas.

She has lived in Arkansas ever since the Civil War and in Little Rock ever since 1879. She made a living as a seamstress for awhile but is now unable to sew because of fading eyesight. She married in 1879 and led a long and contented married life until the recent death of her husband. She lives with her husband's nephew and ekes out a living by fragmentary jobs. She has a good memory and a clear mind for her age.

Slave After Freedom

"My mother was sold after freedom. It was the young folks did all that devilment. They found they could get some money out of her and they did it. She was put on the block in St. Louis and sold down into Vicksburg, Mississippi. Then they sold her into Helena, Arkansas. After that they carried her down into Trenton (?), Arkansas. I don't know whether they sold her that time or not, but I reckon they did. Leastways, they carried her down there. All this was done after freedom. My mother was only fifteen years old when she was sold the first time, and I was a baby in her arms. I don't know nothing about it myself, but I have heard her tell about it many and many a time. It was after freedom. Of course, she didn't know she was free.

"It was a good while before my mother realized she was free. She noticed the other colored people going to and fro and she wondered about it. They didn't allow you to go round in slave times. She asked them about it and they told her, 'Don't you know you are free?' Some of the white people too told her that she was free. After that, from the way she talked, I guess she stayed around there until she could go some place and get wages for her work. She was a good cook.

Mean Mistress

"I have seen many a scar on my mother. She had mean white folks. She had one big scar on the side of her head. The hair never did grow back on that place. She used to comb her hair over it so that it wouldn't show. The way she got it was this:

"One day her mistress went to high mass and left a lot of work for my mother to do. She was only a girl and it was too much. There was more work than she could get done. She had too big a task for a child to get done. When her old mistress came back and her work was not all done, she beat my mother down to the ground, and then she took one of the skillets and bust her over the head with it--trying to kill her, I reckon. I have seen the scar with my own eyes. It was an awful thing.

"My mother was a house servant in Missouri and Mississippi. Never done no hard work till she came here (Arkansas). When they brought her here they tried to make a field hand out of her. She hadn't been used to chopping cotton. When she didn't chop it fast as the others did, they would beat her. She didn't know nothing about no farmwork. She had all kinds of trouble. They just didn't treat her good. She used to have good times in Missouri and Mississippi but not in Arkansas. They just didn't treat her good. In them days, they'd whip anybody. They'd tie you to the bed or have somebody hold you down on the floor and whip you till the blood ran.

"But, Lawd, my mother never had no use for Catholics because it was a Catholic that hit her over the head with that skillet--right after she come from mass.

Food

"My mother said that they used to pour the food into troughs and give it to the slaves. They'd give them an old, wooden spoon or something and they all eat out of the same dish or trough. They wouldn't let the slaves eat out of the things they et out of. Fed them just like they would hogs.

"When I was little, she used to come to feed me about twelve o'clock every day. She hurry in, give me a little bowl of something, and then hurry right on out because she had to go right back to her work. She didn't have time to stay and see how I et. If I had enough, it was all right. If I didn't have enough, it was all right. It might be pot liquor or it might be just anything.

"One day she left me alone and I was lying on the floor in front of the fireplace asleep. I didn't have no bed nor nothing then. The fire must have popped out and set me on fire. You see they done a whole lot of weaving in them days. And they put some sort of lint on the children.

"I don't reckon children them days knowed what a biscuit was. They just raked up whatever was left off the table and brung it to you. Children have a good time nowadays.

"People goin' to work heard me hollering and came in and put out the fire. I got scars all round my waist today I could show you.

"Another time my mother had to go off and leave me. I was older then. I guess I must have gotten hungry and wanted to get somethin' to eat. So I got up and wandered off into the woods. There weren't many people living round there then. (This was in Trenton (?), Arkansas, a small place not far from Helena.) And the place was [HW: not] built up much then and they had lots of wolves. Wolves make a lot of noise when they get to trailin' anything. I got about a half mile from the road and the wolves got after me. I guess they would have eat me up but a man heard them howling, and he knew there wasn't no house around there but ours, and he came to see what was up, and he beat off the wolves and carried me back home. There wasn't nare another house round there but ours and he knew I must have come from there.

"Mother was working then. It was night though. They brung the news to her and they wouldn't let her come to me. Mother said she felt like getting a gun and killin' them. Her child out like that and they wouldn't let her go home.

"That must have happened after freedom, because it was the last mistress she had. Almost all her beatings and trouble came from her last mistress. That woman sure gave her a lot of trouble.

Age, Good Masters

"All I know about my age is what my mother told me.

"The first people that raised my mother had her age in the Bible. She said she was about fifteen years old when I was born. From what she told me, I must be about seventy-eight years old. She taught me that I was born on Sunday, on the thirtieth of January, in the year before the War.

"My mother's name was Myles. I don't know what her first master's name was. She told me I was born in Phelps County, Missouri; I guess you'd call it St. Louis now. I am giving you the straight truth just as she gave it to me.

"From the way she talked, the people what raised her from a child were good to her. They raised her with their children. Them people fed her just like they fed their own children.

Color and Birth

"There was a light brownskin boy around there and they give him anything that he wanted. But they didn't like my mother and me--on account of my color. They would talk about it. They tell their children that when I got big enough, I would think I was good as they was. I couldn't help my color. My mother couldn't either.

"My mother's mistress had three boys, one twenty-one, one nineteen, and one seventeen. Old mistress had gone away to spend the day one day. Mother always worked in the house. She didn't work on the farm in Missouri. While she was alone, the boys came in and threw her down on the floor and tied her down so she couldn't struggle, and one after the other used her as long as they wanted for the whole afternoon. Mother was sick when her mistress came home. When old mistress wanted to know what was the matter with her, she told her what the boys had done. She whipped them and that's the way I came to be here.

Sales and Separations

"My mother was separated from her mother when she was three years old. They sold my mother away from my grandmother. She don't know nothing about her people. She never did see her mother's folks. She heard from them. It must have been after freedom. But she never did get no full understanding about them. Some of them was in Kansas City, Kansas. My grandmother, I don't know what became of her.

"When my mother was sold into St. Louis, they would have sold me away from her but she cried and went on so that they bought me too. I don't know nothing about it myself, but my mother told me. I was just nine months old then. They would call it refugeeing. These people that had raised her wanted to get something out of her because they found out that the colored people was going to be free. Those white people in Missouri didn't have many slaves. They just had four slaves--my mother, myself, another woman and an old colored man called Uncle Joe. They didn't get to sell him because he bought hisself. He made a little money working on people with rheumatism. They would ran the niggers from state to state about that time to keep them from getting free and to get something out of them. My mother was sold into Mississippi after freedom. Then she was refugeed from one place to another through Helena to Trenton (?), Arkansas.

Marriages

"My mother used to laugh at that. The master would do all the marryin'. I have heard her say that many a time. They would call themselves jumpin' the broom. I don't know what they did. Whatever the master said put them together. I don't know just how it was fixed up, but they helt the broom and master would say, 'I pronounce you man and wife' or something like that.

Ku Klux

"My mother talked about the Ku Klux but I don't know much about them. She talked about how they would ride and how they would go in and destroy different people's things. Go in the smoke house and eat the people's stuff. She said that they didn't give the colored people much trouble. Sometimes they would give them something to eat.

"When they went to a place where they didn't give the colored people much to eat, what they didn't destroy they would say, 'Go get it.' I don't know how it was but the Ku Klux didn't have much use for certain white people and they would destroy everything they had.

"I have lived in Arkansas about all my life. I have been in Little Rock ever since January 30, 1879. I don't know how I happened to move on my birthday. My husband brought me here for my rheumatism.

"I married in 1879 and moved here from Marianna. I had lived in Helena before Marianna.

Voting

"The niggers voted in Marianna and in Helena. They voted in Little Rock too. I didn't know any of them. It seems like some of the people didn't make so much talk about it. They did, I guess, though. Many of the farmers would tell their hands who they wanted them to vote for, and they would do it.

"Them was critical times. A man would kill you if he got beat. They would say, 'So and so lost the lection,' and then somebody would go to Judgment. I remember once they had a big barbecue in Helena just after the 'lection. They had it for the white and for the colored alike. We didn't know there was any trouble. The shooting started on a hill where everybody could see. First thing you know, one man fell dead. Another dropped down on all fours bleeding, but he retch in under him and dragged out a pistol and shot down the man that shot him. That was a sad time. Niggers and white folks were all mixed up together and shooting. It was the first time I had ever been out. My mother never would let me go out before that.

Seamstress

"I ain't able to do much of anything now. I used to make a good living as a dressmaker. I can't sew now because of my eyes. I used to make many a dollar before my eyes got to failing me. Make pants, dresses, anything. When you get old, you fail in what you been doing. I don't get anything from the government. They don't give me any kind of help."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: John Peterson, 1810 Eureka Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was small but I can remember some 'bout slavery days. I was born down here in Louisiana.

"I seed dem Yankees come through. Dey stopped dere and broke up all de bee gums. Just tore 'em up. And took what dey could eat and went on. Dey was doin' all dey _could_ do. No tellin' what dey _didn't_ do. People what owned de place just run off and left. Yankees come dere in de night. I 'member dat. Had ever'thing excited, so my white folks just skipped out. Oh, yes, dey come back after the Yankees had gwine on.

"You could hear dem guns shootin' around. I heered my mother and father say de Yankees was fightin' to free slavery.

"Run off? Oh Lawd, yes ma'am, I heered 'em say dey was plenty of 'em run off.

"George Swapsy was our owner. I know one thing, dey beat me enough. Had me watchin' de garden to keep de chickens out. And sometimes I'd git to playin' and fergit and de chickens would git in de garden, and I'd pay for it too. I can 'member dat. Yes'm, dat was before freedom. Dey was whippin' all de colored people--and me too.

"Yes'm, dey give us plenty to eat, but dey didn't give us no clothes. I was naked half my time. Dat was when I was a little fellow.

"We all belonged to de same man. Dey never did 'part us. But my mother was sold away from her people--and my father, too. He come from Virginia.

"No ma'am, dey didn't have a big plantation--just a little place cleared up in the woods.

"He didn't have no wife--just two grown sons and dey bof went to the war.

"Mars George died 'fore peace declared. He was a old fellow--and mean as he could be.

"I never went to school till I was sixteen or seventeen years old. Dere was a colored fellow had a little learnin' and we hired him two nights in de week for three dollars a month. Did it for three years. I can read a little and write my own name and sort of 'tend to my own business.

"Yes'm, I used to vote after I got grown. Yes'm, I did vote Republican. But de white people stopped us from votin'. Dat was when Seymour and Blair was runnin', and I ain't voted none since--I just quit. I've known white people to go to the polls wif der guns and keep de colored folks from votin'.

"Oh, dey was plenty of Ku Klux. I've known 'em to ketch people and whip 'em and kill 'em. Dey didn't bother me--I didn't give 'em a chance. Ku Klux--I sure 'member dem.

"Younger generation? Well, Miss, you're a little too hard for me. Hard to tell what'll become of 'em. I know one thing--dey is wiser. Oh, my Lawd! A chile a year old know more'n I did when I was ten. We didn't have no chance. Didn't have nobody to learn us nothin'. People is just gittin' wuss ever' day. Killin' 'em up ever' day. Wuss now than dey was ten years ago."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Louise Pettis, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 59

"My mama was born at Aiken, South Carolina. She was Frances Rotan. I was born at Elba, South Carolina, forty miles below Augusta, Georgia. My papa was born at Macon, Georgia. Both my parents was slaves. He farmed and was a Baptist preacher. Mama was a cook.

"Mama was owned by some of the Willis. There was three; Mike, Bill, and Logie Willis, all brothers, and she lived with them all but who owned her I don't know. She never was sold. Papa wasn't either. Mama lived at Aiken till papa married her. She belong to some of the Willis. They married after freedom. She had three husbands and fifteen children.

"Mama had a soldier husband. He took her to James Island. She runned off from him. Got back across the sea to Charleston to Aunt Anette's. She was mama's sister. Mama sent back to Aiken and they got her back to her folks. Aunt Anette had been sold to folks at Charleston.

"Grandma was Rachel Willis. She suckled some of the Willis children. Mama suckled me and Mike Willis together. His mama got sick and my mama took him and raised him. She got well but their names have left me. When we got sick the Willis women would send a hamper basket full of provisions, some cooked and some to be cooked. I used to sweep their yards. They was white sand and not a sprig of grass nor a weed in there.

"Mama and papa was both slavery niggers and they spoke mighty well of their owners.

"Papa said in slavery times about two nights in a week they would have a dance. He would slip off and go. Sometimes he would get a pass. He was a figger caller till he 'fessed religion. One time the pattyrollers come in. They said, 'All got passes tonight.' When they had about danced down my daddy got a shovelful of live coals and run about scattering it on the floor. All the niggers run out and he was gone too. It was a dark night. A crowd went up the road and here come the pattyrollers. One run into grapevines across the road and tumbled off his horse. The niggers took to the woods then. Pa tole us about how he studied up a way to get himself and several others outer showing their passes that night. Master never found that out on him.

"During the War they sent a lot of the meat to feed the soldiers on and kept the skins and sides. They tole them if the Yankees ask them if they had enough to eat say, 'See how greasy and slick I is.' They greased their legs and arms to make them shine and look fat. The dust made the chaps look rusty.

"Papa saved his young mistress' life. His master was gone to war. He had promised with others to take care of her. The Yankees come and didn't find meat. It was buried. They couldn't find much. They got mad and burned the house. Pa was a boy. He run up there and begged folks not to burn the house; they promised to take care of everything. Papa begged to let him get his mistress and three-day-old baby. They cursed him but he run in and got her and the baby. The house fell in before they got out of the yard. He took her to the quarters. Papa was overstrained carrying a log and limped as long as he lived.

"Pa was hired out and they was goner whoop him and he run off and got back to the master. Ma nor pa was never sold.

"We had a reason to come out here to Arkansas. A woman had a white husband and a black one too. The black husband told the white husband not come about there no more. He come on. The black man killed the white man at his door. They lynched six or seven niggers. They sure did kill him. That dissatisfied all the niggers. That took place in Barnwell County, South Carolina. Three train loads of us left. There was fifteen in our family. We was doing well. My pa had cattle and money. They stopped the train befo' and behind us--the train we was on. Put the Arkansas white man in Augusta jail. They stopped us all there. We got to come on. We was headed for Pine Bluff. We got down there 'bout Altheimer and they was living in tents. Pa said he wasn't goiner tent, he didn't run away from South Carolina and he'd go straight back. Mr. Aydelott got eight families on track at Rob Roy to come to Biscoe. We got a house here. Pa was old and they would listen at what he said. He made a speech at Rob Roy and told them let's come to Biscoe. Eleven families come. He had two hundred or three hundred dollars then in his pocket to rattle. He could get more. He grieved for South Carolina, so he went back and took us but ma wanted to coma back. They stayed back there a year or two. We made a crop. Pa was the oldest boss in his crowd. We all come back. There was more room out here and so many of us.

"The schools was better out there. I went to Miss Scofield's College. All the teachers but three was colored. There was eight or ten colored teachers. It was at Aiken, South Carolina. Miss Criley was our sewing mistress. Miss Criley was white and Miss Scofield was too. I didn't have to pay. Rich folks in the North run the school. No white children went there. I think the teachers was sent there.

"I taught school out here at Blackton and Moro and in Prairie County about. I got tired of it. I married and settled down.

"We owns my home here. My husband was a railroad man. We lives by the hardest.

"I don't know what becoming of the young generation. They shuns the field work. Times is faster than I ever seen them. I liked the way times was before that last war (World War). Reckon when will they get back like that?"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Henry C. Pettus, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was born in Wilkes County, near Washington, Georgia. My mother's owners was Dr. Palmer and Sarah Palmer. They had three boys; Steve, George, and Johnie. They lived in Washington and the farm I lived on was five miles southeast of town. It was fifty miles from Augusta, Georgia. He had another farm on the Augusta Road. He had a white man overseer. His name was Tom Newsom and his nephew, Jimmie Newsom, helped. He was pretty smooth most of the time. He got rough sometimes. Tom's wife was named Susie Newsom.

"Dick Gilbert had a place over back of ours. They sent things to the still at Dick Gilbert's. Sent peaches and apples and surplus corn. The still was across the hill from Dr. Palmer's farm. He didn't seem to drink much but the boys did. All three did. Dr. Palmer died in 1861. People kept brandy and whiskey in a closet and some had fancy bottles they kept, one brandy, one whiskey, on their mantel. Some owners passed drinks around like on Sunday morning. Dr. Palmer didn't do that but it was done on some places before the Civil War. It wasn't against the law to make spirits for their own use. That is the way it was made. Meal and flour was made the same way then.

"Mother lived in Dr. Palmer's office in Warren County. It was a very nice log house and had a fence to make the front on the road and the back enclosed like. Inside the fence was a tanyard and house at some distance and a very nice log house where Mr. Hudson lived. Dr. Palmer and Mr. Hudson had that place together. The shoemaker lived in Washington in Dr. Palmer's back yard. He had his office and home all in the same. Mr. Anthony made all the shoes for Dr. Palmer's slaves and for white folks in town. He made fine nice shoes. He was considered a high class shoemaker.

"Mother was a field hand. She wasn't real black. My father never did do much. He was a sort of a foreman. He rode around. He was lighter than I am. He was old man Pettus' son. Old man Pettus had a great big farm--land! land! land! Wiley and Milton Roberts had farms between Dr. Palmer and old man Pettus' farm. Mother originally belong to old man Pettus. He give Miss Sarah Palmer her place on the Augusta Road and his son the place on which his own home was. They was his white children. He had two. Mother was hired by her young mistress, Dr. Palmer's wife, Miss Sarah. Father rode around, upheld by the old man Pettus. He never worked hard. I don't know if old man Pettus raised grandma or not; he never grandpa. He was a Terral. He died when I was small. Grandpa was a field hand. He was the only colored man on the place allowed to have a dog. He was Dr. Palmer's stock man. They raised their own stock; sheep, goats, cows, hogs, mules, and horses.

"None of us was ever sold that I know of. Mother had three boys and three girls. One sister died in infancy. One sister was married and remained in Georgia. Two of my brothers and one sister come to Arkansas. Mother brought us boys to a new country. Father got shot and died from the womb. He was a captain in the war. He was shot accidentally. Some of them was drinking and pranking with the guns. We lived on at Dr. Palmer's place till 1866. That was our first year in Arkansas. That was nearly two years. We never was abused. My early life was very favorable.

"The quarters was houses built on each side of the road. Some set off in the field. They must have had stock law. We had pastures. The houses was joining the pasture. Mr. Pope had a sawmill on his place. The saw run perpendicularly up and down. He had a grist mill there too. I like to go to mill. It was dangerous for young boys. Mr. Pope's farm joined us on one side. Oxen was used as team for heavy loads. Such a contrast in less than a century as trucks are in use now. I learned about oxen. They didn't go fast 'ceptin' when they ran away. They would run at the sight of water in hot weather. They was dangerous if they saw the river and had to go down a steep bank, load or no load the way they went. If it was shallow they would wade but if it was deep they would swim unless the load was heavy enough to pull them down. Oxen was interesting to me always.

"Children didn't stay in town like they do now. They was left to think more for themselves. They hardly ever got to go to town.

"We raised a pet pig. Nearly every year we raised a pet pig. When mother would be out that pig would get my supper in spite of all I could do. The pig was nearly as large as I was. I couldn't do anything. We had a watermelon patch and sometimes sold Dr. Palmer melons. He let us have a melon patch and a cotton patch our own to work. Mother worked in moonlight and at odd times. They give that to her extra. We helped her work it. They give old people potato patches and let the children have goober rows. Land was plentiful. Dr. Palmer wasn't stingy with his slaves--very liberal. He was a man willing to live and let live so far as I can know of him.

"During the Civil War things was quiet like where I was. The soldiers didn't come through till after the war was over. Then the Union soldiers took Washington. They come there after the surrender.

Freedom

"The Union soldiers came in a gang out from Washington all over the surrounding country, scouting about, and notified all the black folks of freedom. My folks made arrangements to stay on. Two colored men went through the country getting folks to move to southwest Georgia but before mother decided to move anywhere along come two men and they had a helper, Mr. Allen. It was Mr. William H. Wood and Mr. Peters over here on Cat Island. They worked from Washington, Georgia. We consented to leave and come to Arkansas. We started and went to Barnetts station to Augusta, to Atlanta. There was so many tracks out of order, bridges been burnt. We crossed the river at Chattanooga, then to Nashville, then to Johnsonville. We took a boat to Cairo, then to Memphis, then on to some landing out here. Well, I never heard. We went to the Woods' place and made a crop here in Arkansas in 1866. I worked with John I. Foreman till 1870 and went back to the Woods' farm till 1880. Then I went to the Bush place (now McCullough farm). I farmed all along through life till the last twelve years. I started preaching in 1875. I preach yet occasionally. I preached here thirty-six years in the Marianna Baptist church. I quit last year. My health broke down.

"Chills was my worst worry in these swamps. We made fine crops. In 1875 yellow fever come on. Black folks didn't have yellow fever at first but they later come to have it. Some died of it. White folks had died in piles. It was hard times for some reason then. It was hard to get something to eat. We couldn't get nothing from Memphis. Arrangements was made to get supplies from St. Louis to Little Rock and we could go get them and send boats out here.

"In 1875 was the tightest, hardest time in all my life, A chew of tobacco cost ten cents. In 1894-'95 hard times struck me again. Cotton was four and five cents a pound, flour three dollars a barrel, and meat four and five cents a pound. We raised so much of our meat that didn't make much difference. Money was so scarce.

"Ku Klux--I never was in the midst of them. They was pretty bad in Georgia and in northeast part of this county. They was bad so I heard. They sent for troops at Helena to settle things up at about Marion, Arkansas now. I heard more of the Ku Klux in Georgia than I heard after we come here. And as time went on and law was organized the Ku Klux disbanded everywhere.

"Traveling conditions was bad when we came to Arkansas. We rode in box cars, shabby passenger coaches. The boats was the best riding. As I told you we went way around on account of burnt out and torn up bridges. The South looked shabby.

"I haven't voted since 1927 except I voted in favor of the Cotton Control Saturday before last.

"Times has come up to a most deplorable condition. Craving exists. Ungratefulness. People want more than they can make. Some don't work hard and some won't work at all. I don't know how to improve conditions except by work except economical living. Some would work if they could. Some can work but won't. Some do work hard. I believe in bread by the sweat of the brow, and all work.

"The slaves didn't expect anything. They didn't expect war. It was going on a while before my parents heard of it. I was a little boy. They didn't know what it was for except their freedom. They didn't know what freedom was. They couldn't read. They never seen a newspaper like I take the Commercial Appeal now. I went to school a little in Arkansas. My father being old man Pettus' son as he was may have been given something by Miss Sarah or Dr. Palmer or by his white son, but the old man was dead and I doubt that. Father was killed and mother left. Mother knew she had a home on Dr. Palmer's land as long as she needed one but she left to do better. In some ways we have done better but it was hard to live in these bottoms. It is a fine country now.

"I own eighty acres of land and this house. (Good house and furnished well.) We made six bales of cotton last year. My son lives here and his wife--a Chicago reared mulatto, a cook. He runs my farm. I live very well."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Dolly Phillips, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: 67

"I ain't no ex-slave. I am 67 years old. I was born out here on the Mullins place. My mother's master was Mr. Ricks and Miss Emma Ricks.

"My mother named Diana and my father Henry Mullins. I never saw my grand fathers and I seen one grandma I remembers. My mother had ten children. My father said he never owned nuthin' in his life but six horses. When they was freed they got off to their selves and started farming. See they belong to different folks. My father's master was a captain of a mixed regiment. They was in the war four years. I heard 'em say they went to Galveston, Texas. The Yankees was after 'em. But I don't know how it was.

"I heard 'em say they put their heads under big black pot to pray. They say sing easy, pray easy. I forgot whut all she say.

"I lives wid my daughter. I gets commodities from the Welfare some. The young folks drinks a heap now. It look lack a waste of money to me."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Tony Piggy Brinkley, Ark. Age: 75

"I was born near Selma, Alabama, but I was raised in Mississippi. My grandpa was sold from South Carolina to Moster Alexander Piggy. He didn't talk plain but my papa didn't nother. Moster Piggy bought a gang of black folks in South Carolina and brought em into the state of Alabama. My papa was mighty near full-blood African, I'll tell you. Now ma was mixed.

"I'm most too young to recollect the war. Right after the war we had small pox. My uncle died and there was seven children had em at one time. The bushwhackers come in and kicked us around--kicked my uncle around. We lived at Union Town, Alabama then.

"Aunt Connie used to whip us. Mama had no time; she was a chambermaid (housewoman). The only thing I recollect bout slavery time to tell is Old Mistress pour out a bushell of penders (peanuts) on the grass to see us pick em up and set out eating em. When they went to town they would bring back things like cheese good to eat. We got some of what they had most generally. She wasn't so good; she whoop me with a cow whip. She'd make pull candy for us too. I got a right smart of raisin' in a way but I growed up to be a wild young man. I been converted since then.

"Well, one day pa come to our house and told mama, 'We free, don't have to go to the house no more, git ready, we all goin' to Mississippi. Moster Piggy goiner go. He goner rent us twenty acres and we goner take two cows and a mule.' We was all happy to be free and goin' off somewhere. Moster Piggy bought land in Mississippi and put families renters on it. Moster Piggy was rough on the grown folks but good to the children. The work didn't let up. We railly had more clearin' and fences to make. His place in Alabama was pore and that was new ground.

"There was all toll nine children in my family. Ma was named Matty Piggy. Papa was named Ezra Piggy. Moster Alexander Piggy's wife named Harriett. I knowed Ed, Charley, Bowls, Ells, and Liza. That's all I ever knowd.

"I have done so many things. I run on a steamboat from Cairo to New Orleans--Kate Adams and May F. Carter. They called me a Rouster--that means a working man. I run on a boat from Newport to Memphis. Then I farmed, done track work on the railroad, and farmed some more.

"The young generation ain't got respect for old people and they tryin' to live without work. I ain't got no fault to find with the times if I was bout forty years younger than I is now I could work right ahead."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Ella Pittman 2409 West Eleventh Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84

"Yes ma'm, I was born in slavery days. I tell you I never had no name. My old master named me--Just called me 'Puss? and said I could name myself when I got big enough.

"My old master was named Mac Williams. But where I got free at was at Stricklands. Mac Williams' daughter married a Strickland and she drawed me. She was tollable good to me but her husband wa'nt.

"In slavery times I cleaned up the house and worked in the house. I worked in the field a little but she kept me busy in the house. I was busy night and day.

"No ma'm, I never did go to school--never did go to school.

"After I got grown I worked in the farm. When I wasn't farmin' I was doin' other kinds of work. I used to cut and sew and knit and crochet. I stayed around the white folks so much they learned me to do all kinds of work. I never did buy my children any stockins--I knit 'em myself.

"After old Master died old Miss hired us out to Ben Deans, but he was so cruel mama run away and went back to old Miss. I know we stayed at Ben Deans till they was layin the crop by and I think he whipped mama that morning so she run away.

"Yes ma'm, I sho do member bout the Klu Klux--sho do. They looked dreadful--nearly scare you to death. The Klu Klux was bad, and the paddyrollers too.

"I can't think of nothin' much to tell you now but I know all about slavery. They used to build 'little hell', made something like a barbecue pit and when the niggers didn't do like they wanted they'd lay him over that 'little hell'.

"I've done ever kind of work--maulin rails, clearin up new ground. They was just one kind of work I didn't do and that was workin' with a grubbin' hoe. I tell you I just worked myself to death till now I ain't able to do nothin'."

Interviewer's Comment

Ella Pittman's son, Almira Pittman was present when I interviewed his mother. He was born in 1884. He added this information to what Ella told me:

"She is the mother of nine children--three living. I use to hear mama tell about how they did in slavery times. If she could hear good now she could map it out to you."

I asked him why he didn't teach his mother to read and write and he said, "Well, I tell you, mama is high strung. She didn't have no real name till she went to Louisiana."

These people live in a well-furnished home. The living room had a rug, overstuffed furniture and an organ. Ella was clean.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Ella Pittman 2417 W. Eleventh Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84 [TR: Appears to be same as last informant despite different address.]

"Here's one that lived then. I can remember fore the Civil War started. That was in the State of North Carolina where I was bred and born in March 1853. Mac Williams, he was my first owner and John Strickland was my last owner. That was durin' of the war. My white folks told me I was thirteen when peace was declared. They told me in April if I make no mistake. That was in North Carolina. I grewed up there and found my childun there. That is--seven of them. And then I found two since I been down in here. I been in Arkansas about forty years.

"When the war come I heard em say they was after freein' the people.

"My mother worked in the field and old mistress kep' me in the house. She married a widow-man and he had four childun and then she had one so there was plenty for me to do. Yes ma'm!

"I ain't never been to school a day in my life. They didn't try to send me after freedom. I had a very, very bad, cruel stepfather and he sent all his childun to school but wouldn't send me. I stayed there till I was grown. I sho did. Then I married. Been married just once. Never had but that one man in my life. He was a very good man, too. Cose he was a poor man but he was good to me.

"Yes ma'm, I sho did see the Ku Klux and the paddyrollers, too. They done em bad I tell you.

"I know they was a white man they called Old Man Ford. He dug a pit just like a barbecue pit, and he would burn coals just like you was goin' to barbecue. Then he put sticks across the top and when any of his niggers didn't do right, he laid em across that pit. I member they called it Old Ford's Hell.

"I had a bad time fore freedom and a bad time after freedom till after I married. I'm doin' tollably well now. I lives with my son and his wife and she treats me very well. I can't live alone cause I'se subject to inagestin' and I takes sick right sudden.

"I'm just as thankful as I can be that I'm gettin' along as well as I is.

"I stayed in the North in Detroit one year. I liked it very well. I liked the white people very well. They was so sociable. My son lives there and works for Henry Ford. My oldest son stays in Indiana.

"It was so cold I come back down here. I'se gettin' old and I needs to be warm. Good-bye."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Sarah Pittman 1320 W. Twentieth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 82

"I never saw nothing between white folks and colored folks. My white folks were good to us. My daddy's white folks were named Jordan--Jim Jordan--and my mama's folks were Jim Underwood. And they were good. My mama's and father's folks both were good to the colored folks. As the song goes, 'I can tell it everywhere I go.' And thank the Lord, I'm here to tell it too. I raised children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren you see there. That is my great-grandson playing there. He is having the time of his life. I raised him right too. You see how good he minds me. He better not do nothin' different. He's about two years old.

"I was born in Union Parish, Louisiana way up yonder in them hills, me and my folks, and they come down here.

"Jim Jordan married one of the Taylor girls--Jim Taylor's daughter. The old folks gave mama to them to do their housework. My father and mama didn't belong to the same masters. He died the first year of the surrender. He was a wonderful man. He was a Jackson. On Saturday night he would stay with us till Sunday. On Sunday night he would go home. He would play with us. Now he and mama both are dead. They are gone home and I am waiting to go. They're waiting for me in the kingdom there. As the song says, 'I am waiting on the promises of God.'

"My mama did housework in slave time. I don't know what my father did. In them days you done some working from plantation to plantation. Them folks is all gone in now near about. Guess mine will be the next time.

Early Childhood

"First thing I remember is staying at the house. We et at the white folks' house. We would go there in the evening before sundown and git our supper. One time Jim Underwood made me mad. Mama said something he didn't like. And he tied her thumbs together and tied them to a limb. Her feet could touch the ground--they weren't off the ground. He said she could stay there till she thought better of it.

"Before the surrender I didn't do nothing in the line of work 'cept 'tend to my mother's children. I didn't do no work at all 'cept that. My white folks were good to me. All my folks 'cept me are gone. My grandmas and uncles and things all settin' up yonder. All my children what is dead, they're up yonder. I ain't got but three living, and they're on their way. Minnie and Mamie and Annie, that is all I got. Mamie's the youngest and she's got grandchildren.

How Freedom Came

"The way we learned that freedom had come, my uncle come to the fence and told my mama we were free and I went with her. Sure he'd been to the War. He come back with his budget. Don't you know what a budget is? You ain't never been to war, have you? Well, you oughter know what a budget is. That's a knapsack. It had a pocket on each side and a water can on each shoulder. He come home with his budget on his back, and he come to the fence and told mama we was free and I heered him.

Right After Freedom

"Right after freedom my mama and them stayed with the same people they had been with. The rest of the people scattered wherever they wanted to But my uncle come there and got mama. They moved back to the Taylors then where my grandma was. Wouldn't care if I had some of that good old spring water now where my grandma lived!

"None of my people were ever bothered by the pateroles or the Ku Klux.

"We come to Arkansas because we had kinfolks down here. Just picked up and come on. I been here a long time. I don't know how long, I don't keep up with nothing like that. When my husband was living I just followed him. He said that this was a good place and we could make a good living. So I just come on. When he died, those gravediggers dug his grave deep enough to put another man on top of him. But that don't hurt him none. He's settin' in the kingdom. He was a deacon in the church and his word went. The whole plantation would listen to him and do what he said. Everybody respected him because he was right. I was just married once and no man can take his place. He was the first one and the best one and the last one. He was heaven bound and he went on there. I don't know just how long I was married. It is in the Bible. It is in there in big letters. I can't get that right now. It's so big and heavy. But it's in there. I think we left it in Detroit when I was there, and it ain't come back here yet. But I know we lived together a long time.

"I remember the old slave-time songs but I can't think of them just now. 'Come to Jesus' is one of them. 'Where shall I be when the first trumpet sounds?', that's another one. Another one is: 'If I could, I surely would; Set on the rock where Moses stood--first verse or stanza. All of my sins been taken away, taken away--chorus. Mary wept and Martha moaned, Mary's gone to a world unknown--second verse or stanza. All of my sins are taken away, taken away--chorus."