Chapter VI: Part 6

"I was born in Arcadia, Louisiana a long, long time ago. Now my work when I was a child was farmin'. I did not stay a child long, I been grown ever since I was fourteen. My father lived till I was eleven, and I thought since I was the oldest boy I could take his place of bossin', but my mother would take me down a button hole lower whenever I got too high.

"Before my papa died we had a good livin'. We lived with his mistress's daughter, and we thought we lived in heaven. My papa made all of the shoes and raised all of the cattle from which he got the hide. We raised all the wool to make our wool clothes and made all of the clothes we wore. And food--we did not know what it was to go to a store to buy. Didn't have to do that. You see, people now living out of paper sacks. Every time they get ready to cook it's go to the store. We old timers lived out of our smokehouse.

"In there we had dried beef, cured pork, sugar from syrup, sweet potatoes, onions, Irish potatoes, plenty of dried fruit and canned fruit, peanuts, hickory nuts, walnuts; eggs in the henhouse and chickens on the yard, cows in the pen and milk and butter in the house.

"My mama even made our plow lines. She had a spinning wheel and you know how to spin?--you can make ropes for plow lines too. Just twist the cotton and have it about six inches long and put it in the loom and let it go around and around. You keep puttin' the twisted cotton in the loom and step on the peddle and no sooner than done, that was worked in a rope. Now, if you don't know what I am talking about it is useless for me to tell you.

"After papa died that left no one to work but mama and I tell you time brought about a change. A house full of little children--we lived from hand to mouth. Not enough corn to feed one mule. No syrup, no hogs, no cows. Oh! we had a hard time. I remember hearing my mama many a night ask God to help her through the struggle with her children. The more my mama prayed the harder times got with her. Wasn't no churches around so she had to sing and pray at home. The first Sunday School I remember going to was in 1892. I went to school and got as high as fifth grade, then I ran away from my mama.

"Just becaise I let old bad man overpower me I got grown and mannish. Couldn't nobody tell me a thing. I would steal, I would fight, I would lie. I remember in 1896 I went to church--that was about the fourth time I had been to church. The preacher began preachin' and I went outdoors and cut the harness off of his mule and broke one of his buggy wheels. I went down in the woods and cut a cow just for meanness. I stole a gun, and I would shoot anytime and anywhere, and nobody bothered me because they was scared to. I stole chickens, turkeys and anything.

"I got in trouble more times than a little, so the last time I got in trouble some white people got me out and I worked for them to pay my fine out. While working for them I made shoes. They taught me to do carpenter work. They taught me to paint; to paper; to cook; work in the field and do most anything. I came to my senses while working with those people and they made a man out of me. When I left there I was a first class carpenter. Those white people was the cause of me getting independent. I didn't get no book sense, but if you get with some good white people, that will be worth more than an education."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Emma Hulett Smith; Hazen, Arkansas Age: 66

"I was the first colored baby born here or very near here. There was only three houses in this town (Hazen). I think they muster been log houses.

"My folks belong to Dr. Hazen. He brought families from Tennessee. When the war broke out he took em to Texas. Then he brought em back here. When they was freed I heard my mother say they worked on for him and his boys (Alex and Jim Hazen) and they paid them. He was good to them. They had er plenty always. After the war they lived in good log houses and he give em land and lumber for the church. Same church we got cept a storm tore it down and this one built in place of it. He let em have a school. Same place it stands now. My mother (Mandy Hulett) got a Union pension till she died. She cooked at the first hotel in Hazen for John Lane. She washed and ironed till she died. We girls helped and we wash and iron all we can get now. None of us not on relief (Fannie nor Emma). I can't wash no more. My hands and arms swell up with rheumatism. I still iron all I can get.

"The present conditions seems awful unsettled; wages low, prices high and work scarce at times. Men can get work in the hay two months and bout two months work in the rice or pickin cotton, either one. Then the work has played clean out till hay time next year.

"How do they live? Some of their _wifes_ cooks for white people and they eat all they make up soon as they get paid. Only way they live."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Ervin E. Smith 811 Ringo Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 84

"I have been in this state for forty-nine years. I will be here fifty years on the fifteenth of December.

"I was born in Ebenezer Township, York County, South Carolina, on the twenty-ninth day of April, in 1854. That makes me eighty-four years old on Friday. I was born on Good Friday--on Good Friday at six o'clock in the morning.

"I am telling you what I was instructed all of my life. My father, W.D. Smith, and my mother, Haria, told me these things. My mother carried a nickname, Salina, all her life, but her real name was Haria.

"I'll tell you how they happened to keep such good records. We had a little advantage over the other people of that day. My father never got any school education, but his brothers instructed him--his half-brothers. They were white. They was good, too. I mean them brothers thought just as much of me as they did of anybody else. So my father got pretty good training. He got it from his brothers and that's how he learned to keep such good records.

Relatives

"I am told my mother cooked for one family for forty-two years. Her maiden name was Haria Harris. She was three-fourths white. She come from the Indian tribe--old Catawba Indians. Her own daddy was a white man, but her Grand daddy on her mother's side was an Indian.

"I am told that the old fellow bought my mother when she was fifteen years old. Finally he got hold of both my father and my mother. Both of them put together didn't have half colored blood. He must have loved them a lot to work so hard to get them together. My father was half white, but his mother was a mulatto woman (Interpreter's comment--This should make him a quadroon)[TR: sentence lined out.]; and my mother's great-grandmother was a colored woman.

"I never knew much about race troubles. The best friend I ever had was an old white grandmother. I was carefully shielded from all unpleasant things.

Fort Sumter

"I was looking at the men when they were getting ready to get on the train to go to Fort Sumter. Mr. John White, Captain John White, I knew him personally. He was one of our neighbors. That was in Ebenezer that he was one of our neighbors. The soldiers going to capture Fort Sumter caught the Columbia and Augusta train going to Charleston. Looked like to me there was ten thousand of them. John White was the captain and Beauregard [HW: here Gustave Toutant Beauregard.] was the general.

"I didn't see the fighting because it was too far away. It was about eighty miles from us where they got on the train to Fort Sumter. They got on the train at Rock Hill. Rock Hill was a city--small city--real close to Ebenezer. We lived near Rock Hill. They was adjoining towns.

Patrollers and Good Masters

"The only patrollers I knew of was some that come on the place once and got hurt. My mother had a brother Hobb and the patroller tried to whip him. Hobb knocked all his front teeth out with a stick. Ches[TR:?] Wood was the name of the patroller. It was like it is now. There were certain white people who didn't allow any of their niggers to be whipped. I never seen a patroller on my place. I have heard of them in other places, but the only one to come on our place was the one Uncle Hobb beat up. He had to take it, because you couldn't put anything over on Harris' plantation. My people was rich people. They didn't allow anybody to come on their places and interfere with then--their niggers.

"I have heard my mother say that no white man ever struck her in her life. I have had uncles that were struck. Two of them, and both of them killed the men that struck them. Uncle Saul killed Edmund Smith and Uncle George killed Ed McGehee. Uncle George's full white sister (his half-sister) sent him away and saved him. They electrocuted Uncle Saul--they executed him.

"White men struck them and they wouldn't take it. They didn't do nothin' at all to Hobb Baron. He got to his boss and the white folks was 'fraid to come there after him. All of this was in slavery. My people ain't never had no trouble with anybody since freedom; white people would get mad with my uncles and try to do something to them, and they wouldn't take it.

"There were three races in the neighborhood where I was raised--niggers, Indians, and white folks. They never sent the Indians out until 1876 when I was a grown man. They sent them over there to Utah when it became a state. I had a lot of Indian friends that went along at that time.

"Bad blood was mixed up there and you couldn't do nothing to anybody and get away with it.

First Pair of Shoes

"I can remember the first pair of shoes my uncle gave me. They had a little brass on the top of the toes to keep you from kicking them out and skinning them up. That was way back yonder in the fifties.

Bible and Church in Slave Time

"White people taught their niggers what Bible they wanted them to know.

"'Who made you?'

"'God.'

"'Why did He make you?'

"'For his own glory.'

"'Why ought you to love God?'

"'Because He made me and takes care of me.'

"That was all the Bible they wanted you to learn. That, and just a few more things. I could state them all.

Education

"In 1866, everybody that was less than sixteen years old in South Carolina had to go to school. The little fellows that had been slaves had to go to school, and they got some education. You will hardly find an old man from South Carolina around my age who can't read and write. There was one hundred sixty pupils in my school. All boys. I never went to a mixed school--a school where they had boys and girls both.

"The first school I attended was in Ebenezer. I went to high school in Macklenburg. Miss Sallie Good and Miss Mattie Train, Elias Hill, and David G. Wallace--all of these were my teachers. They were all white except Elias Hill. He was the only colored teacher in that section of the country--at that time.

"When I finished high school, I went to Biddle University. Biddle was a boys' school. It was in Charlotte, North Carolina. They had a girls' school in Concord, North Carolina. Biddle is still running, but it has another name. Dr. Mattoon was president of Biddle then and Dr. Darling was president of the girls' school.

Murders

"The first murder ever I saw was Violet Harris killed Warren Fewell. It come over a family quarrel some way. They fell out over something. She was not related to him. It was done right at the fence at her gate. She cut him with a butcher knife--stuck him just once right through the heart. That is the first murder I ever saw. They were both colored. The War was just winding up. It happened in Ebenezer. I don't recall that they punished her.

"I have seen a white man killed by a white man, and I have seen a colored man killed by a colored man; but I have never seen a colored man killed by a white man or a white man killed by a colored man. I have seen them after they were killed, but I never seen the killing. I have seen both races killing their own, but I have never seen them killing across the races.

"About fifty years ago, I saw a young man come in the church and kill another one. Just come in and shot him. That is been fifty years ago--back in 1881 in Ebenezer.

"Rock Hill, South Carolina, from 1876 to a while later, bore the name 'Bloody Town.' They killed a man there every Saturday night in the year--fifty-two times a year they killed a man. They had to send for the Federal troops to bring them down. They didn't just kill colored people. They killed anybody--about anything."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Frances Smith 2224 Havis Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 77

"I specs I was born in slavery times. I remember seein' the Yankees. That was in Mississippi. I'm seventy-seven--that's my age.

"Spencer Bailey was old master. Just remember the name was 'bout the biggest thing I knowed about. I seen him all right but I didn't know much about him 'cept his name.

"Mother belonged to him, yes'm.

"I tell you the truf, what little I used to remember I done forgot it. I just didn't try to keep up with it. I wasn't concerned and just didn't try to keep up with it.

"I know our folks stayed there a while. First place we went to after the War was Tennessee.

"I don't know how long I been here--I been here a time though.

"Yes'm, I went to school several terms.

"I was married in Arkansas. My folks heard about Arkansas bein' such a rich country, so they come to Arkansas.

"I farmed a long time and then I done housework.

"Deal a times I don't know what to think of this younger generation. I sits down sometimes and tries to study 'em out, but I fails.

"Well, what the old folks goin' to get out of this?"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Henrietta Evelina Smith 1714 Pine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age:

"I was born in Louisiana in East Felicie Parish near Baton Rouge on the twenty-eighth day of December. My mother's name was Delia White. Her maiden name was Delia Early. My father's name was Henry White. My mother's father was named Amos Early. My mother's mother's name was Julia. My father's father was named Tom White and his mother was named Susan.

"My father and mother both belonged to the Eason's. I don't know how they spelled it. Eason's daughter married Munday and my uncle bought this white man's place years after freedom. That is not far from Clinton--about four or five miles. It is three miles from Ethel, Louisiana.

"Amos, my grandfather, was the wagoneer on the old place. Father, he used to drive the wagon too. He'd haul cotton to Baton Rouge and things like that. He would run off and stay five or six months. I have heard them talk about how he used to come back and bring hogs and one thing and another that he had found out in the woods. He would run off because the overseer would whip him. But he was such a good working man that once or twice, the boss man turned off his overseer on account of him. There wasn't nothing against his work. He just wouldn't take a blow. Most of the times after he had been out a while the boss man would tell the hands to tell Amos that if he would come on home they wouldn't whip him for running off.

"My grandmother's mother on my father's side was named Melissa. I think that was her name. My father's mother was named Susan like I told you.

She was part Indian--better work hand never was. But she wouldn't be conquered neither. When they got ready to whip her, it would be half a day before they could take her. When they did get her, they would whip her so they would have to raise her in a sheet. The last time they whipped her, it took her nearly a year to get over it. So the white man just turned her loose and told her she was free. She went on off and we never did know what became of her.

"The Easons were farmers and they had a large plantation. I don't know just how many slaves they owned.

"My father and mother were fed like pigs. They had an old woman that did the cooking. She was broke down from work. They would give the slaves greens and the children pot-liquor. My parents were field hands. My mother was too young to carry a row when she was freed, but she worked on an older person's row. They worked from can till can't. You know what I mean, from the time they could see till the time they couldn't. Reb time was something like the penitentiary now. It never got too cold nor too hot to work. And there wasn't any pay. My parents never were given any chance to earn any money. I heard that my grandpa used to make a little something. He was a wagoneer you know. He would carry a little extra on his load and sell it. His old master never did find it out. People knew he had stole it, but they would buy it just the same.

"The old boss man came down in the quarters and told them they were free when freedom came. Right after freedom they stayed there on the old place for a year or more. My mother wasn't grown and she and my father married after that. Afterwards they had kind of a fight to get away from the old man. He was carrying them the same way he was going before the War and they had a row (quarrel), and left him. I don't know just what terms they worked on. I don't think they did themselves. They took just what they could get and didn't know just how they was paid.

"If a man made a good crop, they would run him away and make him leave his crops behind.

"My folks continued to farm all their lives. They had trouble with the night riders. They had to vote like they were told. If you voted the wrong way they would get behind you and run you off. There were some folks who would take pay for voting and then vote different, and when the night riders found it out, there would be trouble. I don't believe in taking money for voting, and I don't believe in lying.

"My mother and father didn't get any schooling. That was allowed after slavery, but it wasn't allowed in slavery time. They learned a little from other people. They would slip and learn to read.

"My great-grandmother was considered pretty when she was young. She had glossy black hair and was a little short. She was brownskin and had big legs. Her master would take her out behind the field and do what he wanted. When she got free, she gave both of her children away. She had two children by him--a boy named Eli and a girl named Anna. She didn't want them 'round her because they reminded her of him."

Interviewer's Comment

The subject did not wish to state her age. It is probably around sixty-five. Her mother was married shortly after freedom. And eight years is probably a liberal allowance for the distance of her birth from emancipation.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person Interviewed: Henry Smith 702 Virginia, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79 Occupation: Odd jobs

"Yes mam, I was here in slavery times. I was born in Tennessee on a plantation near Jackson. I was eight years old when peace was declared. All I member is when they beat the folks pit near to death.

"My old master was Tom Smith. Mean? Cose he was mean. Old mistress was sorta good to us but old master was the devil. Used to make the men hold the women while they whipped em. Make em wear old brogan shoes with buckles across the instep. Had the men and women out fore day plowin'. I member they had my mother out many a day so dark they had to feel where the traces was to hitch up the mules.

"My mother worked in the field and I stayed in front and helped her up when she got behind.

"I member when the Yankees had thousands and thousands of bales of cotton in the streets right here in Pine Bluff and take a knife and cut it open and put a match to it, and burn peoples houses and the gin houses and everything. Take the hosses and mules and run em off.

"Old master and mistress carried us to Texas till peace was declared. I member one morning the mail come and old master had a long paper and he called all us colored folks up and told us we was free. He told us we could go or stay. They all wanted to stay so he brought em all back here to Arkansas. He give each one three acres of ground and all they could make on it. That's the nicest thing he ever done, but he didn't do that but one year. After that the land fell back to him. Then they worked on the halves.

"When the colored folks went to buy stock and rent land from the whites, it cost five and six dollars a acre. They sho could make some money that way, too.

"I was big enough to do right smart behind a plow. I could do a heap. We got along pretty well.

"I got married when I was bout eighteen and made a home for myself. Me and my wife had twenty-two children. White folks helped us a lot. My wife's dead and all my children dead 'cept four.

"I been here in Pine Bluff twenty-two years. I been here a good while--that ain't no joke. Used to make three dollars a day mowin' grass. Bought this place with the money. Can't make that now. They won't give you nothin' for your work.

"Oh yes'm, I voted and wouldn't know what I was votin' till 'twas too late.

"Never went to school much. Learned to read a little bit. They kep' me in the field. Yes ma'm, I've worked but I've never had a doctor to me in my life.

"Ain't much to this younger generation. The old race can get along a lot better with the white folks than the young race can.

"I'm the head deacon of the Morning Star Church. Read the Bible right smart. I tell you one thing--I like all of it."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: J.L. Smith 1215 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 76

"I was born in 1862 in the month of September on the fifteenth. I was born at a place they call Indian Bay on White River down here in Arkansas. My mother was named Emmaline Smith and she was born in Tennessee. I don't know really now what county or what part of the state. My father's name was John Smith. He was born in North Carolina. I don't know nothing about what my grandfather's name and grandmother's names were. I never saw them. None of my folks are old aged as I am. My father was sixty years old when he died and my mother was only younger than that.

Experience of Father

"I heard my father say that he helped get out juniper timber in North Carolina. The white man me and my sister worked with after my father died was the man my father worked with in the juniper swamp. His name was Alfred Perry White. As long as he lived, we could do work for him. We didn't live on his place but we worked for him by the day. He is dead now--died way back yonder in the seventies. There was the Brooks and Baxter trouble in 1874, and my father died in seventy-five. White lived a little while longer.

"My father was married twice before he married my mother. He had two sets of children. I don't know how many of them there were. He had four children by my mother. He had only four children as far as I can remember.

"I don't know how my father and my mother met up. They lived in the same plantation and in the same house. They were owned by the same man when freedom came. I don't know how they got together. I have often wondered about that. One from Tennessee and the other from North Carolina, but they got together. I guess that they must have been born in different places and brought together through being bought and sold.

"My mother was a Murrill. My father was a Cartwright. My father's brother Lewis was a man who didn't take nothing much from anybody, and he 'specially didn't like to take a whipping. When Lewis' master wanted to whip him, he would call his mother--the master's mother--and have her whip him, because he figured Uncle Lewis wouldn't hit a woman.

"I have six children altogether. Two of them are dead. There are three girls and one boy living. The oldest is fifty-seven; the next, fifty; and the youngest, forty-eight. The youngest is in the hospital for nervous and mental diseases. She has been there ever since 1927. The oldest had an arm and four ribs broken in an auto accident last January on the sixteenth of the month. She didn't get a penny to pay for her trouble. I remember the man did give her fifteen cents once. The truck struck her at the alley there and knocked her clean across the street. She is fifty-seven years old and bones don't knit fast on people that old. She ain't able to do no work yet. All of my daughters are out of work. I don't know where the boy is. He is somewheres up North.

Slave Houses

"I have seen some old log houses that they said the slaves used to live in. I was too young to notice before freedom. I have seen different specimens of houses that they lived in. One log house had a plank house builded on to the end of it. The log end was the one lived in during slavery times and the plank end was built since. That gal there of mine was born in the log end. There were round log houses and sawed log houses. The sawed log houses was built out of logs that had been squared after the tree had been cut down, and the round log houses was built out of logs left just like they was when they was trees. There's been quite an improvement in the houses since I was a kid.

Food

"I have heard my father and mother talking among themselves and their friends, but they never did tell me nothing about slave times. They never did sit down and talk to me about it. When they'd sit down and start talkin', it would always be, 'Now you children run on out and play while we old folks sit here and talk.' But from time to time, I would be sitting on the floor playing by myself and they would be talking 'mongst themselves and I would hear them say this or that. But I never heered them say what they et in slave times.

Work

"My father worked in the juniper swamp in North Carolina, like I told you. I think I heard my mother say she cooked. Most I ever heard them say was when they would get with some one else and each would talk about his master.

Cruelties

"I heard my mother say that her mistress used to take a fork and stick it in her head--jog it up and down against her head. I don't know how hard she punched her. My mother was very gray--all her hair was gray and she wasn't old enough for that. I reckon that was why.

How Freedom Came

"I don't remember how freedom came. They were refugeed--I call it that--my father and mother were. My sister was born in Texas, and they were back in Arkansas again when I was born. I was born and raised right here in Arkansas. They were running from one place to the other to keep the Yankees from freeing the slaves. I never even heard them say where they were freed. I don't know whether it was here or in Texas.

Right After the War

"I have no knowledge of what they did right after the War. The first thing I remember was that they were picking cotton in Pine Bluff or near there. It was a smoky log house I had to stay in while they were out in the field and the smoke used to hurt my eyes awful.

Ku Klux and Patrollers

"I don't remember nothing about the Ku Klux. I heard old folks say they used to have passes to keep the pateroles from bothering them. I remember that they said the pateroles would whip them if they would catch them out without a pass. When I first heard of the Ku Klux Klan, I thought that it was some kind of beast the folks was talking about. I didn't hear nothing special they did.

Occupational Experiences

"When I got old enough, I worked a farm--picked cotton, hoed, plowed, pulled corn--all such things. That is about all I ever did--farming. Farming was always my regular occupation. I never did anything else--not for no regular thing.

Marriage

"I married in 1879. My father and mother married each other too after freedom. I remember that. It was when the government was making all those that had been slaves marry. I have been married just the one time. My wife died in April 1927.

Present Condition

"I am not able to do anything now. I don't even tote a chair across the room, or spade up the ground for a garden, or hoe up the weeds in it. I am ruptured and the doctor says it is the funniest rupture he ever seen. He says that there's a rupture and fat hanging down in the rupture. They have to keep me packed with ice all the time. The least little thing brings it down. I can't hold myself nor nothing. Have to wear something under my clothes.

"I don't get a pension."

Interviewer's Comment

Smith is sensitive about his first name--doesn't like to give it--and about his condition. He doesn't like to mention it or to have it referred to.

He has an excellent memory for some things and a rather poor one for some others. He got angry when his granddaughter supplied data about his wife which he apparently could not recall.

His physical condition is deplorable and his circumstances extremely straitened.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: John H. Smith 2602 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"I reckon I was here, I member seein' the smoke from the guns look like a cloud.

"I was born in Missouri in 1856. I member _way_ back. Yes'm. I'm old--I'm _old_.

"I member seein' the soldiers--Yankees--eight or ten in a squad and they asked me did I want to ride with em? Old mistress say, 'That's my boy!' I member way back when they used to put the folks upon a block and sell em. I member one night we was in the cabin and the Ku Klux come up on horses. And I member when they was hollerin' peace was declared.

"Mama told me I was born in 1856. Mama had all our ages in that big Bible.

"We stayed in St. Louis six years then we went to Chrystal City. Missouri and I went to the glass factory and went to work.

"Did I vote? Me? Yes'm, I voted many a time--Republican. I'm still a Republican--always will be I reckon. I haven't voted for a long time but I think everybody ought to have the liberty to vote.

"I like to live in the North better cause the white folks treats you better. They treats me all right here cause I don't do nothin'.

"I member my white folks was good to me.

"I went to school after the war whar I was born. C.N. Douglas, the son of Napoleon Douglas, was my teacher. First teacher we had was Miss Mary Strotter. I know she couldn't learn us anything so they got C.N. Douglas. He brought that paddle with the little holes and he learned us something. I know my sister was next to me and she couldn't get her spelling and I'd work my mouf so she could see. C.N. Douglas caught me at it and he whipped me that day. I never worked my mouf again.

"I was the best speller in the school. I won a gold pen and ink stand and George Washington picture.

"Before the war I member the overseer would say, 'If you don't have that done tonight, I'll whip you tomorrow.' They had one man was pretty bad and I know they give him a thimble and a barrel and told him he had to fill up that barrel, but he couldn't do it you know and so they whipped him.

"Mama used to whip me. She called me the 'Devil's Egg Bag' for a long time. I used to take a darning needle and punch the eyes out of guineas or chickens just to see em run around. She broke me of that. I know now she never whip me enough, but she made a man of me. I got a good name now. Always been a good worker. Done my work good and that's what they want to know. Yes ma'm, I'm _old_."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Persons interviewed: Maggie Snow and Charlie Snow R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas Ages: 69 and 75

"My parents' names was Mary and Henderson Kurkendall. They had seven children. Mama died when I was three years old. Papa was a Yankee soldier.

"They belong to the same white folks, Moster Jake and Peggy Kurkendall. They had a big farm.

"My papa told me that one morning they woke up and looked out over the field. The Yankees had pitched their camps far as you could see on Moster Jake's farm. They come up to his house. Moster Jake had a big house and a big family. The Yankees come up there and throwed out all they had and told the slaves to take it. No, they didn't; they was scared to take it and it belong to them. They didn't want it all wasted like they was doing. Papa said they rode their horses up to the house. They took all the soldiers on the place to the camp. They was scared not to go.

"Papa left mama at the old home place and Moster Jake let them work all they could. Papa stayed in the war till after the battle at Vicksburg. Then he come home. They stayed awhile at Moster Jake's and worked. He got his knee hurt and his health ruined. He never was no count after he got back home. Mama could pick six hundred pounds of cotton a day he said. They worked from daybreak till pitch dark in them days.

"Little Jake Kurkendall is living now Enoch or Harrison Station, Mississippi. He is older than I am. He got a family. But he is all the son old Moster Jake had that I know living now.

"Papa said the Yankees made all the slaves fight they could run across. Some kept hid in the woods. Seem like from way he told bout it they wanted freedom but they didn't want to go to war.

"When we heard bout Arkansas being so rich and a new country, we wanted to come. Some white and some colored come. We come to Aubrey, Arkansas. We got six living, five dead children. I been here fourteen years (at Brinkley). I hired out to cook in Mississippi but I wash and iron and work in the field till I bout wore out. My husband in a terrible condition. He picked some cotton. He got rheumatism in his legs.

"We own a little home bout a mile from town and a pig. I wish I could get a cow. I ain't got the money to buy one. Jess can't get one no way. We had a fine garden. Two of us get $10 and commodities. Times so far this year been good. When it gets cold times may be hard. Times better this year than last or it been for a long time.

"I didn't know I could vote. Guess my husband done my part of the voting."

"I am seventy-three years old. There was two boys and two girls of us. My aunts and uncles raised me. My mother died when I was little and fore that my papa went to the army and never come home. They said he got killed or died--they didn't know. My parents belong to Berry Bruce. He had a family I heard em say. He lived at Louisville, Mississippi.

"I recollect the Ku Klux. I heard em talk a whole lot about em. One time they rode round our house and through the hall of our house. Yes ma'am, it scared us so bad it most paralyzed us all. They went on. We didn't know what they wanted. We never did find out.

"I don't vote. I never voted in my life. I don't recken I ever will. I have been a hard worker all my life. I farmed. I loaded and unloaded on a steamboat with my family farmin' in the country. The boat I run on went from Memphis to New Orleans.

"My family farmed at Batesville in the country out from there. For a long time I made staves with the Sweeds. They was good workers. We would make 1,000, then load the barge and send or take them to Vicksburg. I got my board and $1 a day.

"The present conditions for the cotton farmer has been better this year than last. When it gets cold and no work, makes it hard on old men. I got no job in view for the winter.

"I would like to have a cow if I could raise the money to get one. I been tryin' to figure out how to get us a cow to help out. I can't make it.

"I suffer all the time. I can't sit still, I can't sleep I suffer so wid rheumatism. Nobody knows how I do suffer. My general health is fine.

"This President has sure been merciful to the poor and aged. Surely he will be greatly rewarded hereafter."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Robert Solomon, Des Arc, Arkansas Age: 73

My father was African. He was born in Atlanta. My mother was a Cherokee Indian. Her name was Alice Gamage. I was born in 1864. I don't know where I was born--think it was in the Territory--my father stole my mother one night. He couldn't understand them and he was afraid of her people. He went back to Savannah after so long a time and they was in Florida when I first seen any of her people. When I got up any size I asked my father all about him and my mother marrying. He said he knowed her 'bout two year 'fore they married. They sorter courted by signs--my mother learned me her language and it was natural fur me to speak my father's tongue. I talked for them. She was bout fifteen when she run away. I don't know if a preacher ever did marry em or not. My father said she was just so pretty he couldn't help lovin' her. He kept makin' signs and she made signs. I liked my Gramma Gamage. She couldn't understand much. We all went to the Indian Territory from Florida and Georgia. That's how I come out here.

I don't remember the Ku Klux. I remember hearing ma and gramma talk 'bout the way they tried to get way from 'em. My father was a farmer till freedom. He farmed around here and at Pine Bluff. He died at West Point. My mother and step-mother both died at Pine Bluff. They took my mother to her nation in Oklahoma. She was sick a good while and they took her to wait on her. Then come and took her after she died. There show is a fambly. My father had twenty-two in his fambly. My mother had five boys and three girls and me. My stepmother had fourteen more children. That's some fambly aint it? All my brothers and sisters died when I was little and they was little. My father's other children jess somewhar down round Pine Bluff. I guess I'd know em but I aint seed none of them in I don't know how long.

The first work I ever done was sawmilling at Pine Bluff. Then I went down in Louziana, still sawmilling--I followed dat trade five or six years. Den I got to railroading. I was puttin down cross ties and layin' steel. I got to be straw boss at dat. I worked at dat fifteen years. I worked doing that in six different states. That was show fine livin'--we carried our train right along to live in. I married and went to farming. Then I come to work at this oil mill here (in Des Arc). The reason I quit. I didn't quit till it went down and moved off. I aint had nothin' much to do since. I been carryin' water and wood fur Mrs. Norfleet twenty years and they cooks fur me now. My wife died 'bout a year ago. She been dead a year last January. She was sick a long time 'fore she died. Well the relief gives me a little to eat, some clothes and I gets $5.00 a month and I takes it and buys my groceries and I takes it up to Mrs. Norfleet's. They says come there and eat. They show is good to me 'cept I aint able to carry the wood up the steps much no more. It hurt me when I worked at the oil mill. I helped them 'bout the house all the time.

What I do wid my money I made? I educated my girls. Yes maam I show is got children. One my girls teaches school in St. Louis and de other at Hot Springs. They both went to college at Pine Bluff. I sent em. No'm dey don't help me. They is by my second wife and my first wife live with my son, down close to Star City. Dey farm. It's down in Lincoln County. They let me live in this house. It belongs to him. I went to the bank fo' it closed and got my money whut I had left. I been livin' on it but it give out.

The conditions are all right. They kin make a right smart but everything is so high it don't buy much. Some of 'em say they ain't goiner do the hardest work, hot or cold and liftin' for no dollar a day. Don't nobody work hard as I used to. There's goiner be another war and a lot of them killed--'cause people ain't doin right. Some don't treat the others right. No'm they never did. They used to threaten em and take 'em out in cars and beat 'em up, just for disputin' their word or not paying 'em and de lack. The white man has cheated a heap because we was ignorant and black. They gamble on the cotton and take might' near all of it for the cheap grub they let out to make de crop on. Conditions are better but a heap of the young black and white too deblish lazy to work. Some of dem get killed out goin' on at their meanness.

I heard of uprisings since the war but I never was 'bout none of them.

I votes the Republican ticket. The last I voted was for Hoover. Sure they have tried to change my way of voting but I ain't goiner change. I ain't heard nothin' 'bout no restrictions 'bout votin'. If a woman wanter vote it's all right. My girs and my boy votes right along. They are all Republicans.

The most money I ever has at one time was $600.00. I did save it. I spent it on my girls' clothes and education. They did go to college at Pine Bluff but they went to the Catholic High School first down at Pine Bluff. No'm they don't help me. They say it's all dey can do to get along. They never have told me how much they make.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: James Spikes 2101 Bell Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 91

"Good morning. Yes'm I remember the Civil War. I was a soldier. I was between sixteen and seventeen when I enlisted in the war.

"'Why did you enlist?'

"I didn't know no better. I thought I would be took care of. They told us the war was sposed to set the darkies free. My old master didn't want me to go--cose not. But they was very good to me. I regard them just the same as myself.

"I enlisted in the 55th regiment of colored soldiers. Then I went off with the Yankees. I was with them when they had the battle at Corinth, Mississippi.

"I was with them when the Yankees taken Corinth and whupped. The rebels tried to take it back and the Yankees whupped 'em again. The regiment I was with whupped 'em away from several places and kept 'em runnin'.

"When we was in Fort Pickens I 'member they had a poll parrot--some of the officers had trained it to say 'Corporal of the guard, Jim Spikes, post No. 1." Sometimes I would draw my gun like I was going to shoot and the poll parrot would say, 'Jim, don't you shoot me!' They got plenty a sense.

"The war was funny and it wasn't funny. Well, it was funny for the side that won when we had scrummishes (skirmish). I never was captured but I hoped capture a lot.

"I stayed in the war till I was mustered out in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was a good big fellow then. Oh Lord yes, I knowed most anything.

"After that I went to Memphis and then I come to Arkansas and went to farming with some white fellows named French. The river overflowed and we lost 'bout all the cotton.

"The government gives me a pension now cause I was a soldier. Yes'm it comes in right nice--it does that."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Kittie Stanford 309 Missouri Street; Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 104

"Yes'm, I used to be a slave. My mother belonged to Mrs. Lindsey. One day when I was ten years old, my old mistress take me over to her daughter and say 'I brought you a little nigger gal to rock de cradle.' I'se one hundred and four years old now. Miss Etta done writ it down in the book for me.

"One time a lady from up North ask me did I ever get whipped. Honey, I ain't goin' tell you no lie. The overseer whipped us. Old mistress used to send me to her mother to keep the Judge from whippin' me. Old Judge say 'Nigger need whippin' whether he do anything or not.'

"Some of the hands run away. Old Henry run away and hide in the swamp and say he goin' stay till he bones turn white. But he come back when he get hongry and then he run away again.

"When the war come some of the slaves steal the Judge's hosses and run away to Pine Bluff and he didn't never find 'em. The Judge think the Yankees goin' get everything he got so we all left Arkansas and went to Texas. We in Texas when freedom come. We come back to Arkansas and I stay with my white folks awhile but I didn't get no pay so I got a job cookin' for a colored woman.

"I been married fo' times. I left my las' husband. I didn't leave him cause he beat me. I lef' him cause he want too many.

"No'm I never seen no Ku Klux. I heard 'bout 'em but I never seen none that I knows of. When I used to get a pass to go to 'nother plantation I always come back fo' dark.

"This younger generation is beyond my onderstanding. They is gettin' weaker and wiser.

"I been ready to die for the last thirty years. 'Mary (her granddaughter with whom she lives), show the lady my shroud.' I keeps it wropped up in blue cloth. They tells me at the store to do that to keep it from turning yellow. 'Show her that las' quilt I made.' Yes'm I made this all by myself. I threads my own needle, too, and cuts out the pieces. I has worked hard all my life.

"Now the Welfare gives me my check. My granddaughter good to me. I goes to church on the first and third Sundays.

"Lady, I glad you come to see me and God bless you. Goo' bye!"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Tom Stanhouse R.F.D. Brinkley, Ark. Age: 74

"I was born close to Greenville, South Carolina. I lived down close to Spartanburg. My mother was named Luvenia Stanhouse and Henry Stanhouse. They had nine children. Grandma belong to Hopkins but married into the Stanhouse family. Grandpa's name was Tom. They set him free. I guess because he was old. He lived about mong his children.

"When they was set free old man Adam Stanhouse was good to em. He treated em nice but they never got nothing but their clothes. They moved on another place and started working sharecropper.

"Before freedom old man Adam Stanhouse would give my pa a pass or his pocket knife to show to go to see my ma. She lived at Dr. Harrison's farm five miles apart. They all knowed Adam Stanhouse's knife. I don't know how they would know it. He never let his Negroes be whooped unless he said so. Owners didn't 'low the Ku Klux whoop hands on their place.

"Adam Stanhouse brought my pa from Virginia with him. Some of them men thought might near much of his slaves as they did their children. Or I heard em say they seem to. My pa married my ma when she was thirteen years old. They had nine children.

"I heard ma say Dr. Harrison practiced medicine. His wife was named Miss Lizzie. They had two boys and three girls.

"Ma was a house girl. Pa was a field hand. One time traders come round and ma's owner wanted to sell her and his wife objected. She wasn't sold that time. I don't know if she was sold or not.

"I don't know no more about that war than I do about the German war (World War). I was a little boy when it was all over. I left South Carolina in 1888. Ma was a part Red Indian and pa was a half Black Creek Indian. I had two children before I left South Carolina. I was married back there. I paid my own way and come to Fargo. I was trying to better my condition. In 1896 I come to Brinkley. Before that I lived at Dark Corner eight years. In 1920 ma and pa come to me and died with me. I paid $25.00 for my second class ticket to Fargo--in 1888.

"Since 1864 to 1937 I farmed, sawmilled, threshed, run a grist mill, run a cotton gin and worked about em. I farmed eight or nine years across the bayou here.