Chapter II: Part 2

"Grandma Katy had a sister named Maria and a brother named Peter. He owned all three of them. I have seen all of them. Grandma Katy was the oldest. She and Uncle Peter stayed close together. He didn't have no wife and she didn't have no husband. But Aunt Maria had a husband. She lived off from them after freedom. It was about twelve miles away. My great-aunt and great-uncle--they were Maria and Peter--that was what they were. Uncle Peter died first before I left Louisiana, but Aunt Maria and Grandma Katy died after I came to Arkansas. Grandma Katy lived four years after I came here.

"After they was free and my father had gotten large enough to work and didn't have no horse, my grandma was going 'round waiting on women--that is all she did--all the rest of the people had gotten large and left home. Papa made a crop with a hoe. He made three bales of cotton and about twelve loads of corn with that hoe. He used to tell me, 'You don't know nothin' 'bout work. You oughter see how I had to work.' After that he bought him a horse. Money was scarce then and it took something to buy the place and the horse both. They were turned loose from slavery without anything. Hardly had a surname--just Katy, Maria, and Peter.

"I knew more about the slave-time history of my mother's folks than I did about my father's but I'll tell you that some other time. My grandmother on my mother's side was born in Richmond, Virginia. She was owned by a doctor but I can't call his name. She gets her name from her husband's owners. They came from Virginia. They didn't take the name of their owners in Louisiana. They took the name of the owners in Virginia. She was a twin--her twin was a boy named June and her name was Hetty. Her master kept her brother to be a driver for him. She was sent from Virginia to Louisiana to people that were related to her Virginia people. She called her Louisiana mistress 'White Ma;' she never did call her 'missis.' The white folks and the colored folks too called her Indian because she was mixed with Choctaw. That's the Indian that has brown spots on the jaw. They're brownskin. It was an Indian from the Oklahoma reservation that said my mother belonged to the Choctaws.

"She rode from Virginia to Louisiana on a boat at the age of twelve years. She was separated from her mother and brothers and sisters and never did see them again. She was kept in the house for a nurse. She was not a midwife. She nursed the white babies. That was what she was sent to Louisiana for--to nurse the babies. The Louisiana man that owned her was named George Dorkins. But I think this white woman came from Virginia. She married this Louisiana man, then sent back to her father's house and got grandma; she got her for a nurse. She worked only a year and a half in the field before peace was declared. After she got grown and married, my grandfather--she had to stay with him and cook and keep house for him. That was during slavery time but after George Dorkins died. Dorkins went and got hisself a barrel of whiskey--one of these great big old barrels--and set it up in his house, and put a faucet in it and didn't do nothin' but drink whiskey. He said he was goin' to drink hisself to death. And he did.

"He was young enough to go to war and he said he would drink hisself to death before he would go, and he did. My grandma used to steal newspapers out of his house and take them down to the quarters and leave them there where there were one or two slaves that could read and tell how the War was goin' on. I never did learn how the slaves learned to read. But she was in the house and she could steal the papers and send them down. Later she could slip off and they would tell her the news, and then she could slip the papers back.

"Her master drank so much he couldn't walk without falling and she would have to help him out. Her mistress was really good. She never allowed the overseer to whip her. She was only whipped once in slave time while my father's mother was whipped more times than you could count.

"Her master often said, 'I'll drink myself to death before I'll go to war and be shot down like a damn target.' She said in living with them in the house, she learned to cuss from him. She said she was a cussin' soul until she became a Christian. She wasn't 'fraid of them because she was kin to them in some way. There was another woman there who was some kin to them and she looked enough like my grandma for them to be kin to each other. We talked it over several times and said we believed we were related; but none of us know for sure.

"When the slaves wanted something said they would have my grandma say it because they knew she wouldn't be whipped for it. 'White Ma' wouldn't let nobody whip her if she knew it. She cussed the overseer out that time for whipping her.

"When grandma was fourteen or fifteen years old they locked her up in the seed house once or twice for not going to church. You see they let the white folks go to the church in the morning and the colored folks in the evening, and my grandma didn't always want to go. She would be locked up in the seed bin and she would cuss the preacher out so he could hear her. She would say, 'Master, let us out.' And he would say, 'You want to go to church?' And she would say, 'No, I don't want to hear that same old sermon: "Stay out of your missis' and master's hen house. Don't steal your missis' and master's chickens. Stay out of your missis' and master's smokehouse. Don't steal your missis' and master's hams." I don't steal nothing. Don't need to tell me not to.'

"She was tellin' the truth too. She didn't steal because she didn't have to. She had plenty without stealin'! She got plenty to eat in the house. But the other slaves didn't git nothin' but fat meat and corn bread and molasses. And they got tired of that same old thing. They wanted something else sometimes. They'd go to the hen house and get chickens. They would go to the smokehouse and get hams and lard. And they would get flour and anything else they wanted and they would eat something they wanted. There wasn't no way to keep them from it.

"The reason she got whipped that time, the overseer wanted her to help get a tree off the fence that had been blown down by a storm. She told him that wasn't her work and she wasn't goin' to do it. Old miss was away at that time. He hit her a few licks and she told old miss when she came back. Old 'White Ma' told the overseer, 'Don't never put your hands on her no more no matter what she does. That's more than I do. I don't hit her and you got no business to do it.'

"Her husband, my grandfather, was a blacksmith, and he never did work in the field. He made wagons, plows, plowstocks, buzzard wings--they call them turning plows now. They used to make and put them on the stocks. He made anything-handles, baskets. He could fill wagon wheels. He could sharpen tools. Anything that come under the line of blacksmith, that is what he did. He used to fix wagons all the time I knowed him. In harvest time in the fall he would drive from Bienville where they were slaves to Monroe in Ouachita Parish. He kept all the plows and was sharpening and fixing anything that got broke. He said he never did get no whipping.

"His name was Tom Eldridge. They called him 'Uncle Tom'. They was the mother and father of twelve children. Six lived and six died. One boy and five girls lived. And one girl and five boys died--half and half. He died at the age of seventy-five, June 6, 1908. She died January 1920.

"I came out here in January 1907. I lived in Pine Bluff. From Louisiana I came to Pine Bluff in 1906. In 1907 I went to Kerr in Lonoke County and lived there eight years and then I came to Little Rock. I farmed at Kerr and just worked 'round town those few months in Pine Bluff. Excusing the time I was in Pine Bluff and Little Rock I farmed. I farmed in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Nannie P. Madden West Memphis, Arkansas Age: 69

"I am Martha Johnson's sister. I was born at Lake Village, Arkansas. I am 69 years old. I was born on Mr. Ike Wethingtons place. Pa was renting. Mother died in 1876 on this farm. We called it Red Leaf plantation. Father died at Martha Johnson's here in West Memphis when he was 88 years old.

"Mother was not counted a slave. Her master's Southern wife (white wife) disliked her very much but kept her till her death. Mother had three white children by her master. After freedom she married a black man and had four children by him. We are in the last set.

"We was born after slavery and all we know is from hearing our people talk. Father talked all time about slavery. He was a soldier. I couldn't tell you straight. I can give you some books on slavery:

Booker T. Washington's Own Story of His Life and Work,
64 page supplement, by Albon L. Holsey

Authentic Edition--in office of Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C., 1915, copywrighted by J.L. Nichols
Co.

The Master Mind of a Child of Slavery--Booker T. Washington,
by Frederick E. Drinker, Washington, D.C.

I have read them both. Yes, they are my own books.

"I farmed and cooked all my life."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Perry Madden, Thirteenth Street, south side, one block east of Boyle Park Road, Route 6, Care L.G. Cotton, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 79

Birth and Age

"I have been here quite a few years. This life is short. A man ought to prepare for eternity. I had an uncle who used to say that a person who went to torment stayed as long as there was a grain of sand on the sea.

"I was a little boy when slavery broke. I used to go out with my brother. He watched gaps. I did not have to do anything; I just went out with him to keep him company. I was scared of the old master. I used to call him the 'Big Bear.' He was a great big old man.

"I was about six years old when the War ended, I guess. I don't know how old I am. The insurance men put me down as seventy-three. I know I was here in slavery time, and I was just about six years old when the War ended.

Schooling

"I got my first learning in Alabama. I didn't learn anything at all in slavery times. I went to school. I would go to the house in slavery tine, and there wouldn't be nobody home, and I would go to the bed and get under it because I was scared. When I would wake up it would be way in the night and dark, and I would be in bed.

"I got my schooling way after the surrender. We would make crops. The third time we moved, dad started me to school. I had colored teachers. I was in Talladega County. I made the fifth grade before I stopped. My father died and then I had to stop and take care of my mother.

An "Aunt Caroline" Story

"I know that some people can tell things that are goin' to happen. Old man Julks lived at Pumpkin Bend. He had a colt that disappeared. He went to 'Aunt Caroline'--that's Caroline Dye. She told him just where the colt was and who had it and how he had to get it back. She described the colt and told him that was what he come to find out about before he had a chance to ask her anything. She told him that white people had it and told him where they lived and told him he would have to have a white man go and git it for him. He was working for a good man and he told him about it. He advertised for the colt and the next day, the man that stole it came and told him that a colt had been found over on his place and for him to come over and arrange to git it. But he said, 'No, I've placed that matter in the hands of my boss.' He told his boss about it, but the fellow brought the horse and give it to the boss without any argument.

Family and Masters

"My old master's slaves were called free niggers. He and his wife never mistreated their slaves. When any of Madden's slaves were out and the pateroles got after them, if they could make it home, that ended it. Nobody beat Madden's niggers.

"My father's name was Allen Madden and my mother's name was Amy Madden. I knew my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side. My grandfather and grandmother never were 'round me though that I can remember.

"When the old man died, the Negroes were divided out. This boy got so many and that one got so many. The old man, Mabe Madden, had two sons, John and Little Mabe. My mother and father went to John. They were in Talladega because John stayed there.

"My father's mother and father fell to Little Mabe Madden. They never did come to Alabama but I have heard my father talk about them so much. My father's father was named Harry. His last name must have been Madden.

"My grandfather on my mother's side was named Charlie Hall. He married into the Madden family. He belonged to the Halls before he married. Old man Charlie, his master, had a plantation that wasn't far from the Madden's plantation. In those days, if you met a girl and fell in love with her, you could git a pass and go to see her if you wanted to. You didn't have to be on the same plantation at all. And you could marry her and go to see her, and have children by her even though you belonged to different masters. The Maddens never did buy Hall. Grandma never would change her name to Hall. He stayed at my house after we married, stayed with me sometimes, and stayed with his other son sometimes.

"My mother was born a Madden. She was born right at Madden's place. When grandma married Hall, like it is now, she would have been called Hall. But she was born a Madden and stayed Madden and never did change to her husband's name. So my mother was born a Madden although her father's name was Hall.

"I don't know what sort of man Mabe was, and I only know what my parents said about John. They said he was a good man and I have to say what they said. He didn't let nobody impose on his niggers. Pateroles did git after them and bring them in with the hounds, but when they got in, that settled it. Madden never would allow white people to beat on his niggers.

"They tried to git my daddy out so that they could whip him, but they couldn't catch him. They shot him--the pateroles did--but he whipped them. My daddy was a coon. I mean he was a good man.

Early Life

"My brother was big enough to mind gaps. That was in slavery times. They had good fences around the field. They didn't have gates like they do now. They had gaps. The fence would zigzag, and the rails could be lifted down at one section, and that would leave a gap. If you left a gap, the stock would go into the field. When there was a gap, my brother would stay in it and keep the stock from passing. When the folks would come to dinner, he would go in and eat dinner with them just as big as anybody. When they would leave, the gap would stay down till night. It stayed down from morning till noon and from one o'clock till the men come in at night. The gap was a place in the rails like I told you where they could take down the rails to pass. It took time to lay the rails down and more time to place then back up again. They wouldn't do it. They would leave them down till they come back during the work hours and a boy that was too small to do anything else was put to mind them. My brother used to do that and I would keep him company. When I heard old master coming there, I'd be gone, yes siree. I would see him when he left the house and when he got to the gap, I would be home or at my grandfather's.

Occupational Experiences

"I have followed farming all my life. That is the sweetest life a man can lead. I have been farming all my life principally. My occupation is farming. That is it was until I lost my health. I ain't done nothin' for about four years now. I would follow public work in the fall of the year and make a crop every year. Never failed till I got disabled. I used to make all I used and all I needed to feed my stock. I even raised my own wheat before I left home in Alabama. That is a wheat country. They don't raise it out here.[HW: ?]

"I came here--lemme see, about how many years ago did I come here. I guess I have been in Arkansas about twenty-eight years since the first time I come here. I have gone in and out as I got a chance to work somewheres. I have been living in this house about three years.

"I preached for about twenty or more years. I don't know that I call myself a preacher. I am a pretty good talker sometimes. I have never pastored a church; somehow or 'nother the word come to me to go and I go and talk. I ain't no pulpit chinch. I could have taken two or three men's churches out from under them, but I didn't.

Freedom and Soldiers

"I can't remember just how my father got freed. Old folks then didn't let you stan' and listen when they talked. If you did it once, you didn't do it again. They would talk while they were together, but the children would have business outdoors. Yes siree, I never heard them say much about how they got freedom.

"I was there when the Yankees come through. That was in slave time. They marched right through old man Madden's grove. They were playing the fifes and beating the drums. And they were playing the fiddle. Yes sir, they were playing the fiddle too. It must have been a fiddle; it sounded just like one. The soldiers were all just a singin'. They didn't bother nobody at our house. If they bothered anything, nothing was told me about it. I heard my uncle say they took a horse from my old manager. I didn't see it. They took the best horse in the lot my uncle said. Pardon me, they didn't take him. A peckerwood took him and let the Yankees get him. I have heard that they bothered plenty of other places. Took the best mules, and left old broken down ones and things like that. Broke things up. I have heard that about other places, but I didn't see any of it.

Right after the War

"Right after the War, my father went to farming--renting land. I mean he sharecropped and done around. Thing is come way up from then when the Negroes first started. They didn't have no stock nor nothin' then. They made a crop just for the third of it. When they quit the third, they started givin' them two-fifths. That's more than a third, ain't it? Then they moved up from that, and give them half, and they are there yet. If you furnish, they give you two-thirds and take one-third. Or they give you so much per acre or give him produce in rent.

Marriage

"I was married in 1883. My wife's name was Mary Elston. Her mother died when she was an infant. Her grandmother was an Elston at first. Then she changed her name to Cunningham. But she always went in the name of Elston, and was an Elston when she married me. My wife I mean. I married on a Thursday in the Christmas week. This December I will be married fifty-five years. This is the only wife I have ever had. We had three children and all of them are dead. All our birthed children are dead. One of them was just three months old when he died. My baby girl had three children and she lived to see all of them married.

Opinions

"Our own folks is about the worst enemies we have. They will come and sweet talk you and then work against you. I had a fellow in here not long ago who came here for a dollar, and I never did hear from him again after he got it. He couldn't get another favor from me. No man can fool me more than one time. I have been beat out of lots of money and I have got hurt trying to help people.

"The young folks now is just gone astray. I tell you the truth, I wouldn't give you forty cents a dozen for these young folks. They are sassy and disrespectful. Don't respect themselves and nobody else. When they get off from home, they'll respect somebody else better 'n they will their own mothers.

"If they would do away with this stock law, they would do better everywhere. If you would say fence up your place and raise what you want, I could get along. But you have to keep somebody to watch your stock. If you don't, you'll have to pay something out. It's a bad old thing this stock law. It's detrimental to the welfare of man."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Lewis Mann 1501 Bell Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"As nigh as I can come at it, I was bout five or six time of the war. I remember when the war ceasted. I was a good-sized chap.

"Durin' the war my mother's master sent us to Texas; western Texas is whar they stopped me. We stayed there two years and then they brought us back after surrender.

"I remember when the war ceasted and remember the soldiers refugeein' through the country. I'm somewhar round eighty-one. I'm tellin' you the truf. I ain't just now come here.

"I was born right here in Arkansas. My mother's master was old B.D. Williams of Tennessee and we worked for his son Mac H. Williams here in Arkansas. They was good to my mother. Always had nurses for the colored childrun while the old folks was in the field.

"After the war I used to work in the house for my white folks--for Dr. Bob Williams way up there in the country on the river. I stayed with his brother Mac Williams might near twenty-five or thirty years. Worked around the house servin' and doin' arrands different places.

"I went to school a little bit a good piece after the war and learned to read and write.

"I've heard too much of the Ku Klux. I remember when they was Ku Kluxin' all round through here.

"Lord! I don't know how many times I ever voted. I used to vote every time they had an election. I voted before I could read. The white man showed me how to vote and asked me who I wanted to vote for. Oh Lord, I was might near grown when I learned to read.

"I been married just one time in my life and my wife's been dead thirteen years.

"I tell you, Miss, I don't know hardly what to think of things now. Everything so changeable I can't bring nothin' to remembrance to hold it.

"I didn't do nothin' when I was young but just knock around with the white folks. Oh Lord, when I was young I delighted in parties. Don't nothin' like that worry me now. Don't go to no parades or nothin'. Don't have that on my brain like I did when I was young. I goes to church all the place I does go.

"I ain't never had no accident. Don't get in the way to have no accident cause I know the age I is if I injure these bones there ain't anything more to me.

"My mother had eight childrun and just my sister and me left. I can't do a whole day's work to save my life. I own this place and my sister-in-law gives me a little somethin' to eat. I used to be on the bureau but they took me off that."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Angeline Martin, Kansas City, Missouri Visiting at 1105 Louisiana St., Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age 80

"Well, I was livin' then. I was born in Georgia. Honey, I don't know what year. I was born before the war. I was about ten when freedom come. I don't remember when it started but I remember when it ended. I think I'm in the 80's--that's the way I count it.

"My master was dead and my mistress was a widow--Miss Sarah Childs. She had a guardeen.

"When the war come, old mistress and her daughter refugeed to Mississippi. The guardeen wouldn't let me go, said I was too young.

"My parents stayed on the plantation. My white folks' house was vacant and the Yankees come and used it for headquarters. They never had put shoes on me and when the Yankees shot the chickens I'd run and get em. They didn't burn up nothin', just kill the hogs and chickens and give us plenty.

"I didn't know what the war was about. You know chillun in them days didn't have as much sense as they got now.

"After freedom, my folks stayed on the place and worked on the shares. I want to school right after the war. I went every year till we left there. We come to this country in seventy something. We come here and stopped at the Cummins place. I worked in the field till I come to town bout fifty years ago. Since then I cooked some and done laundry work.

"I married when I was seventeen. Had six children. I been livin' in Kansas City twenty-three years. Followed my boy up there. I like it up there a lot better than I do here. Oh lord, yes, there are a lot of colored people in Kansas City."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Josie Martin R.F.D., Madison, Arkansas Age: 86

"I was born up near Cotton Plant but took down near Helena to live. My parents named Sallie and Bob Martin. They had seven children. I heard mother say she was sold on a block in Mississippi when she was twelve years old. My father was a Creek Indian; he was dark. Mother was a Choctaw Indian; she was bright. Mother died when I was but a girl and left a family on my hands. I sent my baby brother and sister to school and I cooked on a boarding train. The railroad hands working on the tracks roomed and et on the train. They are all dead now and I'm 'lone in the world.

"My greatest pleasure was independence--make my money, go and spend it as I see fit. I wasn't popular with men. I never danced. I did sell herbs for diarrhea and piles and 'what ails you.' I don't sell no more. Folks too close to drug stores now. I had long straight hair nearly to my knees. It come out after a spell of typhoid fever. It never come in to do no good." (Baldheaded like a man and she shaves. She is a hermaphrodite, reason for never marrying.) "I made and saved up at one time twenty-three thousand dollars cooking and field work. I let it slip out from me in dribs.

"I used to run from the Yankees. I've seen them go in droves along the road. They found old colored couple, went out, took their hog and made them barbecue it. They drove up a stob, nailed a piece to a tree stacked their guns. They rested around till everything was ready. They et at one o'clock at night and after the feast drove on. They wasn't so good to Negroes. They was good to their own feelings. They et up all that old couple had to eat in their house and the pig they raised. I reckon their owners give them more to eat. They lived off alone and the soldiers stopped there and worked the old man and woman nearly to death.

"Our master told us about freedom. His name was Master Martin. He come here from Mississippi. I don't recollect his family.

"I get help from the Welfare. I had paralysis. I never got over my stroke. I ain't no 'count to work."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Bess Mathis, Hazen, Arkansas Age: 82

"I was born in De Sota County, Mississippi. My parents' owners was Mars Hancock. Mama was a cook and field hand. Papa milked and worked in the field. Mama had jes' one child, that me. I had six childern. I got five livin'. They knowed they free. It went round from mouth to mouth. Mama said Mars Hancock was good er slave holder as ever lived she recken. I heard her come over that er good many times. But they wanted to be free. I jes' heard em talk bout the Ku Klux. They said the Ku Klux made lot of em roamin' round go get a place to live and start workin'. They tell how they would ride at night and how scarry lookin' they was. I heard em say if Mars Hancock didn't want to give em meat they got tree a coon or possum. Cut the tree down or climb it and then come home and cook it. They had no guns. They had dogs or could get one. Game helps out lots.

"The women chewed for their children after they weaned em. They don't none of em do that way now. Women wouldn't cut the baby's finger nails. They bite em off. They said if you cut its nails off he would steal. They bite its toe nails off, too. And if they wanted the children to have long pretty hair, they would trim the ends off on the new of the moon. That would cause the hair to grow long. White folks and darkies both done them things.

"I been doin' whatever come to hand--farmin', cookin', washin', ironin'.

"I never expects to vote neither. I sure ain't voted.

"Conditions pretty bad sometimes. I don't know what cause it. You got beyond me now. I don't know what going become of the young folks, and they ain't studyin' it. They ain't kind. Got no raisin' I call it. I tried to raise em to work and behave. They work some. My son is takin' care of me now."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Caroline Matthews 812 Spruce Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times in Mississippi. Now, the only thing I remember was some soldiers come along on some mules. I remember my mother and father was sittin' on the gallery and they say, 'Look a there, them's soldiers.'

"And I remember when my parents run off. I was with 'em and I cried for 'em to tote me.

"My mother's first owner was named Armstrong. She said she was about eleven years old when he bought her. I heard her say they just changed around a lot.

"Freedom was comin' and her last owners had carried her to a state where it hadn't come yet. That's right--it was Texas.

"Her first owners was good. She said they wouldn't 'low the overseer to 'buke the women at all.

"But her last owners was cruel. She said one day old missis was out in the yard and backed up and fell into a pan of hot water and when her husband come she told him and he tried to 'buke my mother. You know if somebody tryin' to get the best of you and you can help yourself, you gwine do it. So mama throwed up her arm and old master hit it with a stick and cut it bad. So my parents run off. That was in Texas.

"She said we was a year comin' back and I know they stopped at the Dillard place and made a crop. And they lost one child on the way--that was Kittie.

"I heard mama say they got back here to Arkansas and got to the bureau and they freed 'em. I know the War wasn't over yet 'cause I know I heard mama say, 'Just listen to them guns at Vicksburg.'

"When I was little, I was so sickly. I took down with the whoopin' cough and I was sick so long. But mama say to the old woman what stayed with me, 'This gal gwine be here to see many a winter 'cause she so stout in the jaws I can't give her no medicine.'

"When I commenced to remember anything, I heered 'em talkin' 'bout Grant and Colfax. Used to wear buttons with Grant and Colfax.

"But I was livin' in Abraham Lincoln's time. Chillun them days didn't know nothin'. Why, woman, I was twelve years old 'fore I knowed babies didn't come out a holler log. I used to go 'round lookin' in logs for a baby.

"I had seven sisters and three brothers and they all dead but me. Had three younger than me. They was what they called freeborn chillun.

"After freedom my parents worked for Major Ross. I know when mama fixed us up to go to Sunday-school we'd go by Major Ross for him to see us. I know we'd go so early, sometimes he'd still be in his drawers.

"I know one thing--when I was about sixteen years old things was good here. Ever'body had a good living."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Malindy Maxwell, Madison, Arkansas Age: Up in 80's

"I was born close to Como and Sardis, Mississippi. My master and mistress was Sam Shans and Miss Cornelia Shans. I was born a slave. They owned mama and Master Rube Sanders owned pa. Neither owner wouldn't sell but they agreed to let ma and pa marry. They had a white preacher and they married out in the yard and had a big table full of weddin' supper, and the white folks et in the house. They had a big supper too. Ma said they had a big crowd. The preacher read the ceremony. Miss Cornelia give her a white dress and white shoes and Miss Cloe Wilburn give her a veil. Miss Cloe was some connection of Rube Sanders.

"They had seven children. I'm the oldest--three of us living.

"After 'mancipation pa went to see about marrying ma over agen and they told him that marriage would stand long as ever he lived.

"Mama was sold at twelve years old in Atlanta, Georgia. Ma and pa was always field hands. Grandma got to be one of John Sanders' leading hands to work mong the women folks. They said John Sanders was meanest man ever lived or died. According to pa's saying, Mars Ruben was a good sorter man. Pa said John Sanders was too mean a man to have a wife. He was mean to Miss Sarah. They said he beat her, his wife, like he beat a nigger woman.

"Miss Sarah say, 'Come get your rations early Saturday morning, clean up your house, wash and iron, and we'll go to preaching tomorrow--Sunday. I want you to all come out clean Monday morning.' They go ask Mars John Sanders if they could go to preaching. I recken from what they said they walked. Mars John, when they git their best clothes on, make them turn round and go to the field and work all day long. He was just that mean. Work all day long Sunday.

"Miss Sarah was a Primitive Baptist and that is what I am till this day. Some folks call us Hardshell Baptist. The colored folks set in the back of the church. The women all set on one side and the men on the other. If they had a middle row, there was a railing dividing mens' seats from the womens' seats on the very same benches.

"Miss Cloe, Miss Cornelia, and Miss Sarah cook up a whole lot of good things to eat and go to camp meeting. Sometimes they would stay a week and longer. They would take time bout letting the colored folks go long. We had big times. My grandpa took a gingercake cutter with him and sold gingercakes when they come out of the church. He could keep that money his own. I don't know how he sold them. My sister has the cutter now I expect. My girl has seen it. It was a foot long, this wide (5 inches), and fluted all around the edges, and had a handle like a biscuit cutter. They was about an inch thick. He made good ones and he sold all he could ever make. Grandpa took carpet sacks to carry his gingercakes in to sell them. I remember that mighty well. (The shape of the cutter was like this: .) He purt nigh always got to go to all the camp meetings. Folks got happy and shouted in them days. It would be when somebody got religion. At some big meetings they didn't shout.

"When I was born they had a white mid-wife, Miss Martin. My mistress was in the cabin when I was born. I was born foot foremost and had a veil on my face and down on my body a piece. They call it a 'caul.' Sometimes I see forms and they vanish. I can see some out of one eye now. But I've always seen things when my sight was good. It is like when you are dreaming at night but I see them at times that plain in day.

"I don't know how old I am but I was a good size girl when 'mancipation come on. Miss Cornelia had my age in her Bible. They done took me from the cabin and I was staying at the house. I slept on a trundle bed under Miss Cornelia's bed. Her bed was a teaster--way high up, had a big stool to step on to go up in there and she had it curtained off. I had a good cotton bed and I slept good up under there. Her bed was corded with sea grass rope. It didn't have no slats like beds do now.

"Colored folks slept on cotton beds and white folks--some of em at least--picked geese and made feather beds and down pillows. They carded and washed sheep's wool and put in their quilts. Some of them, they'd be light and warm. Colored folks' bed had one leg. Then it was holes hewed in the wall on the other three sides and wooden slats across it. Now that wasn't no bad bed. Some of them was big enough for three to sleep on good. When the children was small four could sleep easy cross ways, and they slept that way.

"They had shelves and tables and chairs. They made chests and put things in there and set on top of it too. White folks had fine chests to keep their bed clothes in. Some of them was made of oak, and pine, and cypress. They would cook walnut hulls and bark and paint them dark with the tea.

"I recollect a right smart of the Civil War. We was close nough to hear the roar and ramble and the big cannons shake the things in the house. I don't know where they was fighting--a long ways off I guess.

"I saw the soldiers scouting. They come most any time. They go in and take every drop of milk out of the churn. They took anything they could find and went away with it. I seen the cavalry come through. I thought they looked so pretty. Their canteens was shining in the sun. Miss Cornelia told me to hide, the soldiers might take me on with them. I didn't want to go. I was very well pleased there at Miss Cornelia's.

"I seen the cavalry come through that raised the 'white sheet.' I know now it must have been a white flag but they called it a white sheet to quit fighting. It was raised a short time after they passed and they said they was the ones raised it. I don't know where it was. I reckon it was a big white flag they rared up. It was so they would stop fighting.

"Mars Sam Shan didn't go to no war; he hid out. He said it was a useless war, he wasn't going to get shot up for no use a tall, and he never went a step. He hid out. I don't know where. I know Charles would take the baskets off. Charles tended to the stock and the carriage. He drove the wagon and carriage. He fetched water and wood. He was a black boy. Mars Sam Shan said he wasn't goiner loose his life for nothing.

"Miss Cornelia would cook corn light bread and muffins and anything else they had to cook. Rations got down mighty scarce before it was done wid. They put the big round basket nearly big as a split cotton basket out on the back portico. Charles come and disappear with it.

"Chess and Charles was colored overseers. He didn't have white overseers. Miss Cornelia and Miss Cloe would walk the floor and cry and I would walk between. I would cry feeling sorry for them, but I didn't know why they cried so much. I know now it was squally times. War is horrible.

"Mars Sam Shan come home, went down to the cabins--they was scattered over the fields--and told them the War was over, they was free but that they could stay. Then come some runners, white men. They was Yankee men. I know that now. They say you must get pay or go off. We stayed that year. Another man went to pa and said he would give him half of what he made. He got us all up and we went to Pleasant Hill. We done tolerable well.

"Then he tried to buy a house and five acres and got beat out of it. The minor heirs come and took it. I never learnt in books till I went to school. Seem like things was in a confusion after I got big nough for that. I'd sweep and rake and cook and wash the dishes, card, spin, hoe, scour the floors and tables. I would knit at night heap of times. We'd sing some at night.

"Colored folks couldn't read so they couldn't sing at church lessen they learnt the songs by hearing them at home. Colored folks would meet and sing and pray and preach at the cabins.

"My first teacher was a white man, Mr. Babe Willroy. I went to him several short sessions and on rainy days and cold days I couldn't work in the field. I worked in the field all my life. Cook out in the winter, back to the field in the spring till fall again.

"Well, I jes' had this one girl. I carried her along with me. She would play round and then she was a heap of help. She is mighty good to me now.

"I never seen a Ku Klux in my life. Now, I couldn't tell you about them.

"My parents' names was Lou Sanders and Anthony Sanders. Ma's mother was a Rockmore and her husband was a Cherokee Indian. I recollect them well. He was a free man and was fixing to buy her freedom. Her young mistress married Mr. Joe Bues and she heired her. Mr. Joe Bues drunk her up and they come and got her and took her off. They run her to Memphis before his wife could write to her pa. He was Mars Rockmore.

"Grandma was put on a block and sold fore grandpa could cumerlate nough cash to buy her for his wife. Grandma never seen her ma no more. Grandpa followed her and Mr. Sam Shans bought her and took her to Mississippi with a lot more he bought.

"My pa's ma b'long to John Sanders and grandpa b'long to Rube Sanders. They was brothers. Rube Sanders bought grandpa from Enoch Bobo down in Mississippi. The Bobo's had a heap of slaves and land. Now, he was the one that sold gingercakes. He was a blacksmith too. Both my grandpas was blacksmiths but my Indian grandpa could make wagons, trays, bowls, shoes, and things out of wood too. Him being a free man made his living that way. But he never could cumolate enough to buy grandma.

"My other grandma was blacker than I am and grandpa too. When grandpa died he was carried back to the Bobo graveyard and buried on Enoch Bobo's place. It was his request all his slaves be brought back and buried on his land. I went to the burying. I recollect that but ma and pa had to ask could we go. We all got to go--all who wanted to go. It was a big crowd. It was John Sanders let us go mean as he was.

"Miss Cornelia had the cistern cleaned out and they packed up their pretty china dishes and silver in a big flat sorter box. Charles took them down a ladder to the bottom of the dark cistern and put dirt over it all and then scattered some old rubbish round, took the ladder out. The Yankees never much as peared to see that old open cistern. I don't know if they buried money or not. They packed up a lot of nice things. It wasn't touched till after the War was over.

"I been farming and cooking all my life. I worked for Major Black, Mr. Ben Tolbert, Mr. Williams at Pleasant Hill, Mississippi. I married and long time after come to Arkansas. They said you could raise stock here--no fence law.

"I get $8 and commodities because I am blind. I live with my daughter here."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Nellie Maxwell, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 63

"Mama was Harriett Baldwin. She was born in Virginia. Her owners was Mistress Mollie Fisher and Master Coon Fisher. It was so cold one winter that they burned up their furniture keeping a fire. Said seemed like they would freeze in spite of what all they could do.

"Grandpa was sold away from grandma and three children. He didn't want to be sold nary bit. When they would be talking about selling him he go hide under the house. They go on off. He'd come out. When he was sold he went under there. He come out and went on off when they found him and told him he was sold to this man. Grandma said he was obedient. They never hit him. He was her best husband. They never sold grandma and she couldn't 'count for him being let go. Grandma had another husband after freedom and two more children. They left there in a crowd and all come to Arkansas. Grandma was a cook for the field hands. She had charge of ringing a big dinner-bell hung up in a tree. She was black as charcoal. Mama and grandma said Master Coon and old Mistress Mollie was good to them. That the reason grandpa would go under the house. He didn't want to be sold. He never was seen no more by them.

"Grandma said sometimes the meals was carried to the fields and they fed the children out of troughs. They took all the children to the spring set them in a row. They had a tubful of water and they washed them dried them and put on their clean clothes. They used homemade lye soap and greased them with tallow and mutton suet. That made them shine. They kept them greased so their knees and knuckles would ruff up and bleed.

"Grandma and mama stopped at Fourche Dam. They was so glad to be free and go about. Then it scared them to hear talk of being sold. It divided them and some owners was mean.

"In my time if I done wrong most any grown person whoop me. Then mama find it out, she give me another one. I got a double whooping.

"Times is powerful bad to raise up a family. Drinking and gambling, and it takes too much to feed a family now. Times is so much harder that way then when I was growing."

Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller Person interviewed: Ann May, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 82

"I was born at Cabin Creek (Lamar now, but I still call it Cabin Creek. I can't call it anything else). I was sold with my mother when I was a little girl and lived with our white folks until after the war and was freed. We lived on a farm. My father belong to another family, a neighbor of ours. We all lived with the white folks. My mother took care of all of them. They was always as good as they could be to us and after the war we stayed on with the white folks who owned my father and worked on the farm for him. His master gave us half of everything we made until we could get started our selves, then our white folks told my father to homestead a place near him, and he did. We lived there until after father died. We paid taxes and lived just like the white folks. We did what the white folks told us to do and never lost a thing by doing it. After I married my husband worked at the mill for your father and made a living for me and I worked for the white folks. Now I am too old to cook but I have a few washin's for the white folks and am getting my old age pension that helps me a lot.

"I don't know what I think about the young generation. I aim at my stopping place.

"The songs we sang were

'Come ye that love the Lord and let your Joys be known'
'When You and I Were Young, Maggie'
'Juanita'
'Just Before the Battle, Mother'
'Darling Nellie Gray'
'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia'
'Old Black Joe'

Of course we sang 'Dixie.' We had to sing that, it was the leading song."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Joe Mayes, Madison, Arkansas Age: ?

"I was born a slave two years. I never will forget man come and told mother she was free. She cooked. She never worked in the field till after freedom. In a few days another man come and made them leave. They couldn't hold them in Kentucky. The owners give her provisions, meat, lasses, etc. They give her her clothes. She had four children and I was her youngest. The two oldest was girls. Father was dead. I don't remember him. Mother finally made arrangements to go to Will Bennett's place.

"Another thing I remember: Frank Hayes sold mother to Isaac Tremble after she was free. She didn't know she was free. Neither did Isaac Tremble. I don't know whether Frank Mayes was honest or not. The part I remember was that us boys stood on the block and never was parted from her. We had to leave our sisters. One was sold to Miss Margaret Moxley, the other to Miss Almyra Winder. (He said "Miss" but they may have been widows. He didn't seem to know--ed.) Father belong to a Master Mills. All our family got together after we found out we had been freed.

"The Ku Klux: I went to the well little after dark. It was a good piece from our house. I looked up and saw a man with a robe and cap on. It scared me nearly to death. I nearly fell out. I had heard about the 'booger man' and learned better then. But there he was. I had heard a lot about Ku Klux.