Chapter III: Part 7 (3)

"I member hearin' my pa say that when somebody come and hollowed: 'Yer niggers is free at last' say he just dropped his hoe and said in a queer voice: 'Thank God for that.' It made old miss and old moss so sick till they stopped eating a week. Pa said old moss and old miss looked like their stomach and guts had a law suit and their navel was called in for a witness, they was so sorry we was free.

"After I got a good big girl I was hired out for my clothes and something to eat. My dresses was made out of cotton stripes and my chemise was made out of flannelette and my under pants was made out of homespun.

"Our games was 'Honey, honey Bee,' 'Ball I can't Yall,' and a nother one of our games was 'Old Lady Hypocrit.'"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Cora Weathers 818 Chester Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 79

"I have been right on this spot for sixty-three years. I married when I was sixteen and he brought me here and put me down and I have been here ever since. No, I don't mean he deserted me; I mean he put me on this spot of ground. Of course, I have been away on a visit but I haven't been nowheres else to live.

"When I came here, there was only three houses--George Winstead lived on Chester and Eighth Street; Dave Davis lived on Ninth and Ringo; and George Gray lived on Chester and Eighth. Rena Lee lived next to where old man Paterson stays now, 906 Chester. Rena Thompson lived on Chester and Tenth. The old people that used to live here is mostly dead or moved up North.

"On Seventh and Ringo there was a little store. It was the only store this side of Main Street. There was a little old house where Coffin's Drug Store is now. The branch ran across there. Old man John Peyton had a nursery in a little log house. You couldn't see it for the trees. He kept a nursery for flowers. On the next corner, old man Sinclair lived. That is the southeast corner of Ninth and Broadway. Next to him was the Hall of the Sons of Ham.

"That was the first place I went to school. Lottie Stephens, Robert Lacy, and Gus Richmond were the teacher. Hollins was the principal. That was in the Sons of Ham's Hall.

"I was born in Dallas County, Arkansas. It must have been 'long 'bout in eighty-fifty-nine, 'cause I was sixteen years old when I come here and I been here sixty-three years.

"During the War, I was quite small. My mother brought me here after the War and I went to school for a while. Mother had a large family. So I never got to go to school but three months at a time and only got one dollar and twenty-five cents a week wages when I was working. My father drove a wagon and hoed cotton. Mother kept house. She had--lemme see--one, two, three, four--eight of us, but the youngest brother was born here.

"My mother's name was Millie Stokes. My mother's name before she was married was--I don't know what. My father's name was William Stokes. My father said he was born in Maryland. I met Richard Weathers here and married him sixty-three years ago. I had six children, three girls and three boys. Children make you smart and industrious--make you think and make you get about.

"I've heard talk of the pateroles; they used to whip the slaves that was out without passes, but none of them never bothered us. I don't remember anything myself, because I was too small. I heard of the Ku Klux too; they never bothered my people none. They scared the niggers at night. I never saw none of them. I can't remember how freedom came. First I knowed, I was free.

"People in them days didn't know as much as the young people do now. But they thought more. Young people nowadays don't think. Some of them will do pretty well, but some of them ain't goin' to do nothin'. They are gittin' worse and worser. I don't know what is goin' to become of them. They been dependin' on the white folks all along, but the white folks ain't sayin' much now. My people don't seem to want nothin'. The majority of them just want to dress and run up and down the streets and play cards and policy and drink and dance. It is nice to have a good time but there is something else to be thought of. But if one tries to do somethin', the rest tries to pull him down. The more education they get, the worse they are--that is, some of them."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Ishe Webb 1610 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 78, or more

"I was born October 14. That was in slavery time. The record is burnt up. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. My father's master was a Webb. His first name was Huel. My father was named after him. I came here in 1874, and I was a boy eleven or twelve years old then.

"My father was sold to another man for seventeen hundred dollars. My mother was sold for twenty hundred. I have heard them say that so much that I never will forget it. Webb sold my father and bought him back. My mother's folks were Calverts. The Calverts and the Webbs owned adjoining plantations.

"My grandmother on my mother's side was a Calvert too. Her first name was Joanna. I think my father's parents got beat to death in slavery. Grandfather on my mother's side was tied to a stump and whipped to death. He was double jointed and no two men could whip him. They wanted to whip him because he wouldn't work. That was what they would whip any one for. They would run off before they would work. Stay in the woods all night.

"My Grandma Calvert was buried over here in Galloway on the Rock Island road on the John Eynes plantation.

"My folks' masters were all right. But them nigger drivers were bad, just like the county farm. A man sitting in the house and putting you over a lot of men, you gwinter go up high as you want to.

"My father was a blacksmith and my mother was a weaver. There was a lot of those slavery folks 'round the house, and they tell me they didn't work them till they were twenty-one, they put them in the field when they were twenty-two. If you didn't work they would beat you to death. My father killed his overseer and went on off to the War.

"The pateroles used to drive and whip them. They would catch the slaves off without a pass and whip them and then make the boss pay for them when they took them back. I never seen the pateroles but I have seen the Ku Klux and they were the same thing.

"The jayhawkers would catch you when the pateroles didn't. They would carry you to the pateroles and get pay for you, and the pateroles would turn you over to the owners. You had to have a pass. If you didn't the pateroles would catch you and wear you out, keep you till the next morning, and then send you home by the jayhawkers. They didn't call them that though, they called them bushwhackers.

"The Ku Klux came after the War. They was the same thing as the pateroles--they come out from them. I know where the Ku Klux home is over here on Eighteenth and Broadway. That is where they broke up. It ain't never been open since. (Not correct--ed.)

"I saw the Yankees come in the yard on the Webb place. That was in the time of the War. The old man got on his horse and flew. The Yankees went in the smokehouse, broke it open, got all the meat they wanted. They didn't pay you nothing in slavery time. But what meat the Yankees didn't take for themselves, they give to the niggers.

"My folks never got anything for their work that I know of. I heard my mother say that nobody got paid for their work. I don't know whether they had a chance to make anything on the side or not.

"The Yankees, when they come in the yard that morning, told my father he was free. I remember that myself. They come up riding horses and carryin' long old guns with bayonets on them, and told him. They rode all over the country from one place to another telling the niggers they were free. Master didn't get a chance to tell us because he left when he saw them comin'.

"When my mother and father were living on the plantation, they lived in an old frame building. A portion of it was log. My father stayed with the Calverts--his wife's white folks. At first old man Webb sold him to them; then he bought him back and bought my mother too. They were together when freedom came. You know they auctioned you off in slavery time. Every year, they would, they put you up on the auction block and buy and sell. That was down in Georgia. We was in Georgia when we was freed--in Atlanta. My father and mother had fourteen children altogether. My mother died the year after we came out here. That would be about 1875. I never had but three children because my wife died early. Two of them are dead.

"Right after freedom, my father plaited baskets and mats. He shucked mops, put handles on rakes and did things like that in addition to his farming. He was a blacksmith all the time too. He used to plait collars for mules. He farmed and got his harvests in season. The other things would be a help to him between times.

"My father came here because he thought that there was a better situation here than in Georgia. Of course, the living was better there because they had plenty of fruit. Then he worked on a third and fourth. He got one bale of cotton out of every three he made. The slaves left many a plantation and they would grow up in weeds. When a man would clear up the ground like this and plant it down in something, he would get all he planted on it. That was in addition to the ground that he would contract to plant. He used to plant rice, peas, potatoes, corn, and anything else he wanted too. It was all his'n so long as it was on extra ground he cleared up.

"But they said, 'Cotton grows as high as a man in Arkansas.' Then they paid a man two dollars fifty cents for picking cotton here in Arkansas while they just paid about forty cents in Georgia. So my father came here. Times was good when we come here. The old man cleared five bales of cotton for himself his first year, and he raised his own corn. He bought a pony and a cow and a breeding hog out of the first year's money. He died about thirty-five years ago.

"When I was coming along I did public work after I became a grown man. First year I made crops with him and cleared two bales for myself at twelve and a half cents a pound. The second year I hired out by the month at forty-five dollars per month and board. I had to buy my clothes of course. After seven years I went to doing work as a millwright here in Arkansas. I stayed at that eighteen months. Then I steamboated.

"We had a captain on that steamboat that never called any man by his name. We rolled cotton down the hill to the boat and loaded it on, and if you weren't a good man, that cotton got wet. I never wetted my cotton. But jus' the same, I heard what the others heard. One day after we had finished loading, I thought I'd tell him something. The men advised me not to. He was a rough man, and he carried a gun in his pocket and a gun in his shirt. I walked up to him and said, 'Captain, I don't know what your name is, but I know you's a white man. I'm a nigger, but I got a name jus' like you have. My name's Webb. If you call Webb, I'll come jus' as quick as I will for any other name and a lot more willing. If you don't want to say Webb, you can jus' say "Let's go," and you'll find me right there.' He looked at me a moment, and then he said, 'Where you from?' I said, 'I'm from Georgia, but I came on this boat from Little Hock.' He put his arm around my shoulder and said, 'Come on upstairs.' We had two or three drinks upstairs, and he said, 'You and your pardner are the only two men I have that is worth a damn.' Then he said, 'But you are right; you have a name, and you have a right to be called by it.' And from then on, he quit callin' us out of our names.

"But I only stayed on the boat six months. It wasn't because of the captain. Them niggers was bad. They gambled all the time, and I gambled with them. But they wouldn't stop at that. They would argue and fight and cut and shoot. A man would shoot a man down, and then kick him off into the river. Then when there was roll call, nobody would know what became of him. I didn't like that. I knew that I was goin' to kill somebody if I stayed on that boat 'cause I didn't intend for nobody to kill me. So I stopped.

"After that, I went back to the man that I worked for the month for and stayed with him till I married. I took care of the stock. I was only married once. My wife died the fourteenth of October. We had three children, and I have one daughter living.

"I have voted often. I never had no trouble. I am a colored man and I ain't got nothin' but my character, but I take care of that. I let them know I am in Arkansas. I ain't been out of Arkansas but to Memphis and Vicksburg, and I took them trips on the boat I was working on. I was a good man then.

"I can't say nothing about these wild-headed young people. They ain't got no sense. Take God to handle them.

"Some parts of politics are all right and some are all wrong. It is like Grant. He was straddled the fence part of the time. I believe Roosevelt wants eight more years. Of course, he did a great deal for the people but the working man isn't getting enough money. Prices are so high and wages so low that a man keeps up to the grindstone and never gets ahead. They don't mean for a colored man to prosper by money. Senator Robinson said a nigger wasn't worth but fifty cents a day. But the nigger is coming anyhow. He is stinching hisself and doing without. The young folks ain't doing it though. These young folks doing every devilishment on earth they can. Look at that boy they caught the other day who had robbed twenty houses. This young race ain't goin' to stan' what I stood for. They goin' to school every day but they ain't learning nothin'. What will take us through this tedious journey through the world is his manners, his principle, and his behavior. Money ain't goin' to do it. You can't get by without principles, manner, and good behavior. Niggers can't do it. And white folks can't either."

Pine Bluff District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of Interviewer: Martin - Barker Subject: (Negro Lore)--Ex-Slave Story:--information

This information given by: Alfred Wells Place of residence: Occupation: Age 77 [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

I has de eye of an eagle. One in my haid, de other in my chest. Sometimes us slaves would stay out later at night than ole marster seid we could and they send the patrols out for us.

And we started a song; "Run nigger run, the petlo' catch you, run nigger run, its almost day."

My brother run off and hid in the pasture. I wuz a small boy, dey called me nigger cowboy, cause I drive de cows up at night, and took em to de paster in the mornings.

I knowed my brother runned off, but I wouldn't tell on him. He run off to join the Yankees. They never found him, although, they used the nigger dogs, who were taken out by men who were looking for runaway nigger slaves.

Ef I had my choice, I'd ruther be a slave. But we cant always have our ruthers. Them times I had good food, plenty to wear, and no more work than was good for me.

Now I is kinder miliated, when I think of what a high stepper I used to be. Having, to hang around with a sack on my back begging de government to keep me fum starving.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Douglas Wells 1419 Alabama Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 83

"I'se just a kid 'bout six or seven when the war started and 'bout ten or twelve when it ceasted.

"I'se born in Mississippi on Miss Nancy Davis' plantation. Old Jeff Davis was some relation.

"My brother Jeff jined the Yankees but I never seen none till peace was declared.

"I heered the old folks talkin' and they said they was fightin' to keep the people slaves.

"I 'member old mistress, Miss Nancy. She was old when I was a kid. She had a big, large plantation. She had a lot of hands and big quarter houses. Oh, I 'member you could go three miles this way and three miles that way. Oh, she had a big plantation. I reckon it was mighty near big as this town. I 'member they used to take the cotton and hide it in the woods. I guess it was to keep the Yankees from gettin' it.

"I lived in the quarters with my father and mother and we stayed there after the war--long time after the war. I stayed there till I got to be grown. I continued there. I 'member her house and yard. Had a big yard.

"I can read some. Learned it at Miss Nancy Davis' plantation after the war. They had a little place where they had school. I went to church some a long time ago.

"Abraham Lincoln was a white man. He fought in the time of the war, didn't he? Oh, yes, he issued freedom. The Yankees and the Rebels fought.

"After the war I worked at farm work. I ain't did no real hard work for over a year."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Wells, Edmondson, Arkansas Age: 82

"I was born down here at Edmondson, Arkansas. My owner was a captain in the Rebel War (Civil War). He run us off to Texas close to Greenville. He was keeping us from the Yankees. In fact my father had planned to go to the Yankees. My mother died on the way to Texas close to the Arkansas line. She was confined and the child died too. We went in a wagon. Uncle Tom and his wife and Uncle Granville went too. He left his wife. She lived on another white man's farm. My master was Captain R. Campbell Jones. He took us to Texas. He and my father come back in the same wagon we went to Texas in. My father (Joe Jones Wells) told Captain R. Campbell Jones if he didn't let him come back here that he would be here when he got here--beat him back. That's what he told him. Captain brought him on back with him.

"What didn't we do in Texas? Hooeee! I had five hundred head of sheep belonging to J. Gardner, a Texan, to herd every day--twice a day. Carry 'em off in the morning early and watch 'em and fetch 'em back b'fore dark. I was a shepherd boy is right. I liked the job till the snow cracked my feet open. No, I didn't have no shoes. Little round cactuses stuck in my feet.

"I had shoes to wear home. Captain Jones gave leather and everything needed to Uncle Granville. He was a shoemaker. He made us all shoes jus' before we was to start back. Captain Jones sent the wagon back for us. My father come back right here at Edmondson and farmed cotton and corn. Uncle Tom and Uncle Granville raised wheat out in Texas. They didn't have no overseer but they said they worked harder 'an ever they done in their lives, 'fore or since.

"My father went to war with his master. Captain Jones served 'bout three years I judge. My father went as his waiter. He got enough of war, he said.

"Captain R. Campbell Jones had a wife, Miss Anne, and no children. I seen mighty near enough war in Texas. They fit there. Yes ma'am, they did. I seen soldiers in Greenville, Texas. I seen the cavalry there. They looked so fine. Prettiest horses I ever seen.

"Freedom! Master Campbell Jones come to us and said, 'You free this morning. The war is over.' It been over then but travel was slow. 'You all can go back home, I'll take you, or you can go root hog or die.' We all got to gatherin' up our belongings to come back home. Tired of no wood neither, besides that hard work. We all share cropped with Captain R. Campbell Jones two years. I know that. We got plenty wood without going five or six miles like in Texas. After freedom folks got to changing 'bout to do better I reckon. I been farmin' right here all my life. We didn't have a lot to eat out in Texas neither. Mother was a farm woman too.

"I never seen a Ku Klux. Bad Ku Klux sound sorter like good Santa Claus. I heard 'em say it was real. I never seen neither one.

"I did own ten acres of land. I own a home now.

"My father drove a grub wagon from Memphis to Lost Swamp Bottom--near Edmondson--when they built this railroad through here.

"Father never voted. I have voted several times.

"Present times is tougher now than before it come on. Things not going like it ought somehow. We wants more pension. Us old folks needs a good living 'cause we ain't got much more time down here.

"Present generation--they are slack--I means they slack on their parents, don't see after them. They can get farm work to do. They waste their money more than they ought. Some folks purty nigh hungry. That is for a fact the way it is going.

Edmondson, Arkansas

"Master Henry Edmondson owned all the land to the Chatfield place to Lehi, Arkansas. He owned four or five thousand acres of land. It was bottoms and not cleared. They had floods then, rode around in boats sometimes. Colored folks could get land through Andy Flemming (colored man). Mr. Henry Edmondson and whole family died with the yellow fever. He had several children--Miss Emma, Henry, and Will I knowed. It is probably his father buried at far side of this town. A rattlesnake bit him. Lake Rest or Scantlin was a boat landing and that was where the nearest white folks lived to the Edmondsons. I worked for Mr. Henry Edmondson, the one died with yellow fever. He was easy to work for. Land wasn't cleared out much. He was here before the Civil War. Good many people, in fact all over there, died of yellow fever at Indian Mound. Me and my brother waited on white folks all through that yellow fever plague. Very few colored folks had it. None of 'em I heered tell of died with it. White folks died in piles. Now when the smallpox raged the colored folks had it seem like heap more and harder than white folks. Smallpox used to rage every few years. It break out and spread. That is the way so many colored folks come to own land and why it was named Edmondson. Named for Master Henry--Edmondson, Arkansas.

"Mrs. Cynthia Ann Earle wrote a diary during the Civil War. It was partly published in the Crittenden County Times--West Memphis paper--Fridays, November 27 and December 4, 1936. She tells interesting things happening. Mentions two books she is reading. She tells about a flood, etc. She tells about visiting and spending over a thousand dollars. Mrs. L.A. Stewart or Mrs. H.E. Weaver of Edmondson owns copies if they cannot be obtained at the printing office at West Memphis."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Sarah Wells 1012 W. Sixteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 84 Occupation: Field hand

"I was born in Warren County, Mississippi, on Ben Watkins' plantation. That was my master--Ben Worthington. I don't know nothin' about the year but it was before the war--the Civil War. I was born on Christmas day.

"Isaac Irby was my father. I don't know how you spell it. I can't read and write. I can tell you this. My mother's dead. She's been dead since I was twelve years old. Her name was Jane Irby. My name is Wells because I have been married. Willis was my husband's name. I have just been married once. I was married to him fifty years. He has been dead thirteen years the fifteenth of October. I don't know how old I was when I was married. But I know I am eighty-four years old now. I must have been about twenty or twenty-one when I married.

Slave Houses

"The slaves lived in log houses, dirt chimneys, plank floors. They had beds made out of wood--that's all I know. I don't know where they kept their food. They kept it in the house when they had any. The slaves didn't have to cook much. Mars Ben had a slave to cook for them. They all et breakfast together, and lunch in the fiel'.

Food and Cooking

"There was a great big shed. They'd all go up there and eat--the slaves would all go up and eat. I don't know what the grown folks had. They used to give us children milk and corn bread for breakfast. They'd give us greens, peas, and all like that for dinner. Didn't know nothin' about no lunch.

Work and Runaways; Day's Work

"My mother and father worked in the field hoeing, plowing and all like that--doing whatever they told 'em to do. They raised corn and ground meal. Some of the slaves would pick five hundred pounds of cotton in a day; some of them would pick three hundred pounds; and some of them only picked a hundred. IF YOU DIDN'T PICK TWO HUNDRED FIFTY POUNDS, THEY'D PUNISH YOU, put you in the stocks. If you'd run off, they put the nigger hounds behind you. I never run off, but my mother run off.

"She would go in the woods. I don't know where she'd go after she'd get in the woods. She would go in the woods and hide somewheres. She'd take somethin' to eat with her. I couldn't find her myself. She take somethin' to eat with her. She didn't know what flour bread was. I don't remember what she'd take--somethin' she could carry. Sometimes she would stay in the woods two months, sometimes three months. They'd pay for the nigger hounds and let them chase her back. She'd try to get away. She never took me with her when she ran away.

Buying and Selling

"My mother and her sister were bought in old Virginny. Ben Watkins was the one that bought her. He bought my father too. Then he sold my father to the Leightons. Leighton bought my father from Ben Watkins for a carriage driver. I was never bought nor sold. I was born on Ben Watkins' plantation and freed on it.

Patrollers

"I've heered them say the pateroles is out. I don't know who they was. I know they'd whip you. I was a child then. I would just know what I was told mostly.

How Freedom Came

"The Yankees told my mother she was free. They had on blue clothes. They said them was the Yankees. I don't know what they told her. I know they said she was free. That's all I know.

"Sometimes the soldiers would do right smart damage. They set a lot of houses on fire. They done right smart damage.

Jeff Davis

"I have seen Jeff Davis. I never seen Lincoln. They said it was Jeff Davis I seen. I seen him in Vicksburg. That was after the war was over.

Ku Klux Klan

"I have heered about the Ku Klux, but I don't know what it was I heered. They never bothered me.

Right after the War

"Right after the war, my mother and father hired out to work. They did most any kind of work--whatever they could get to do. Mother cooked. Father would generally do house cleaning. Mother didn't live long after the war.

Blood Poisoning

"I lost my finger because of blood poisoning. I had a scratch on my finger. Pulled a hangnail out of it. I went around a lady who had a high fever and she asked me to sponge her off and I did it. I got the finger in the water that I sponged with and it got blood poisoned. I like to have died.

Father's Death

"I was married and had three children when my father died. I don't know what he died with nor what year.

"My mother had had seven children--all girls. I had seven children. But three of mine were boys and four were girls. Ain't none of them living now.

Little Rock

"My son was living in Little Rock and he kept after me to come here and I come. After I come, he left and went to Kansas City. He died there. I used to do laundry work. I quit that. I commenced to do sellin' for different companies. I sold for Mack Brady, Crawford & Reeves, and a lot of 'em.

Opinions

"I don't know what I think about the young people. They ain't nothin' like I was when I was a gal. Things have changed since I come along. I better not say what I think."

Interviewer's Comment

The interviewee says she is eighty-four, and her story hangs together. Her husband died thirteen years ago, and they had been married fifty years when he died. She "recollects" being about twenty years old when she married. She says she was about twelve years old when her mother died, one year after the close of the Civil War. This data seems to be rather conclusive on the age of eighty-four.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sarah Williams Wells, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: Born 1866

"I jess can't tell much; my memory fails me. My white folks was John and Mary Williams but I was born two years after the surrender. Soon after the surrender they went to Lebanon, Tennessee. My folks stayed on wha I was born round in Murry County. My father was killed after the war but I was little. My mother died same year I married. I heard em say there was John and Frank. They may be living over there now. I heard em talking bout war times. They said my father was a blacksmith in the war. I come here wid four little children on a ticket to Crocketts Bluff. We was sick all that year. Made a fine crop. The man let another man have us to work. He was a colored man. His wife she was mean to us. She never come to see or do one thing when we all had fever. The babies nearly starved. Took all for doctor bills and medicine. Had $12 when all bills settled out of the whole crop. In all I had fifteen children. But two girls and one boy all that livin now. I farmed and washed and ironed all my life. My husband was born a slave. (He recently died.)

"The present generation ain't got no religion. They dances and cuts up a heap. They don't care nothing bout settlin down. When they marry now, that man say he got the law on her. She belongs to him. He thinks he can make her do like he wants her all the time and they don't get along. Now that's what I hear round. I sho got married and we got along good till he died. We treated one another best we knowed how. The times is what the folks making it. Time ain't no different, is like the folks make. This depression is whut the folks is making. Some so scared they won't get it all. They leave mighty little for the rest to get. They ain't nothin matter with nothin but the greedy people want it all to split through wid. I don't know what going to come of it all. Nothin I tell you bout it ain't no good. Young folks done smarter than I is. They don't listen to nobody."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Wesley, Helena, Arkansas Age: ?

"I was full grown when the Civil War come on. I was a slave till 'mancipation. I was born close to Lexington, Kentucky. My master in Kentucky was Master Griter. He was 'fraid er freedom. Father belong to Averys in Tennessee. He was a farm hand. They wouldn't sell him. I was sold to Master Boone close to Moscow. I was sold on a scaffold high as that door (twelve feet). I seen a lot of children sold on that scaffold. I fell in the hands of George Coggrith. We come to Helena in wagons. We crossed the river out from Memphis to Hopefield. I lived at Wittsburg, Arkansas during the war. They smuggled us about from the Yankees and took us to Texas. Before the war come on we had to fight the Indians back. They tried to sell us in Texas. George Coggrith's wife died. Mother was the cook for all the hands and the white folks too. She raised two boys and three girls for him. She went on raising his children during the war and after the war. During the war we hid out and raised cotton and corn. We hid in the woods. The Yankees couldn't make much out in the woods and canebrakes. We stayed in Texas about a year. Four years after freedom we didn't know we was free. We was on his farm up at Wittsburg. That is near Madison, Arkansas. Mother wouldn't let the children get far off from our house. She was afraid the Indians would steal the children. They stole children or I heard they did. The wild animals and snakes was one thing we had to look out for. Grown folks and children all kept around home unless you had business and went on a trip.

"My wife died three years ago. I stay with a grandchild. I got a boy but I don't know where he is now.

"I had a acre and a home. I got in debt and they took my place.

"I voted. The last time for President Wilson. We got a good President now. I voted both kinds of tickets some. I think they called me a Democrat. I quit voting. I'm too old.

"I farmed in my young days. I oil milled. I saw milled. I still black smithing (in Helena now). I make one or two dollars a week. Work is hard to git. Times is tight. I don't get help 'ceptin' some friend bring us some work. I stay up here all time nearly.

"I don't know about the young generation.

"Well, we had a gin. During of the war it got burnt and lots of bales of cotton went 'long with it.

"The Ku Klux come about and drink water. They wanted folks to stay at home and work. That what they said. We done that. We didn't know we was free nohow. We wasn't scared."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Robert Wesley, Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 74

"I was born in Shelby County, Alabama. My parents was Mary and Thomas Wesley. Their master was Mary and John Watts.

"John Watts tried to keep me. I stayed round him all time and rode up behind him on his horse. He was a soldier.

"Both my parents was sold but I don't know how it was done. There was thirteen children in our family. The white folks had a picnic and took colored long to do round. Some heard bout freedom and went home tellin' bout it. We stayed on and worked.

"The Ku Klux sure did run some of em. Seem like they didn't know what freedom meant. Some of em run off and kept goin'. Never did get back. I don't know a thing bout the Ku Klux. I heard em say they got whoopin's for doin' too much visitin'. I was a baby so I don't know.

"I do not vote. I voted for McKinley in Mississippi.

"I been farmin' all my life. I got one hog and a garden, three little grand babies. My daughter died and their papa went off and left em. Course I took em--had to. I pay $1 house rent. I get $12 from the PWA.

"The times is mighty fast. I recken the young folks do fair. There has been big changes since I come on."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Maggie Wesmoland, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 85

"I was born in Arkansas in slavery time beyond Des Arc. My parents was sold in Mississippi. They was brought to Arkansas. I never seed my father after the closing of the war. He had been refugeed to Texas and come back here, then he went on back to Mississippi. Mama had seventeen children. She had six by my stepfather. When my stepfather was mustered out at De Valls Bluff he come to Miss (Mrs.) Holland's and got mama and took her on wid him. I was give to Miss Holland's daughter. She married a Cargo. The Hollands raised me and my sister. I never seen mama after she left. My mother was Jane Holland and my father was Smith Woodson. They lived on different places here in Arkansas. I had a hard time. I was awfully abused by the old man that married Miss Betty. She was my young mistress. He was poor and hated Negroes. He said they didn't have no feeling. He drunk all the time. He never had been used to Negroes and he didn't like em. He was a middle age man but Miss Betty Holland was in her teens.

"No, mama didn't have as hard a time as I had. She was Miss Holland's cook and wash woman. Miss Betty told her old husband, 'Papa don't beat his Negroes. He is good to his Negroes.' He worked overseers in the field. Nothing Miss Betty ever told him done a bit of good. He didn't have no feeling. I had to go in a trot all the time. I was scared to death of him--he beat me so. I'm scarred up all over now where he lashed me. He would strip me start naked and tie my hands crossed and whoop me till the blood ooze out and drip on the ground when I walked. The flies blowed me time and again. Miss Betty catch him gone, would grease my places and put turpentine on them to kill the places blowed. He kept a bundle of hickory switches at the house all the time. Miss Betty was good to me. She would cry and beg him to be good to me.

"One time the cow kicked over my milk. I was scared not to take some milk to the house, so I went to the spring and put some water in the milk. He was snooping round (spying) somewhere and seen me. He beat me nearly to death. I never did know what suit him and what wouldn't. Didn't nothing please him. He was a poor man, never been used to nothin' and took spite on me everything happened. They didn't have no children while I was there but he did have a boy before he died. He died fore I left Dardanelle. When Miss Betty Holland married Mr. Cargo she lived close to Dardanelle. That is where he was so mean to me. He lived in the deer and bear hunting country.

"He went to town to buy them some things for Christmas good while after freedom--a couple or three years. Two men come there deer hunting every year. One time he had beat me before them and on their way home they went to the Freemens bureau and told how he beat me and what he done it for--biggetness. He was a biggity acting and braggy talking old man. When he got to town they asked him if he wasn't hiding a little Negro girl, ask if he sent me to school. He come home. I slept on a bed made down at the foot of their bed. That night he told his wife what all he said and what all they ask him. He said he would kill whoever come there bothering about me. He been telling that about. He told Miss Betty they would fix me up and let me go stay a week at my sister's Christmas. He went back to town, bought me the first shoes I had had since they took me. They was brogan shoes. They put a pair of his sock on me. Miss Betty made the calico dress for me and made a body out of some of his pants legs and quilted the skirt part, bound it at the bottom with red flannel. She made my things nice--put my underskirt in a little frame and quilted it so it would be warm. Christmas day was a bright warm day. In the morning when Miss Betty dressed me up I was so proud. He started me off and told me how to go.

"I got to the big creek. I got down in the ditch--couldn't get across. I was running up and down it looking for a place to cross. A big old mill was upon the hill. I could see it. I seen three men coming, a white man with a gun and two Negro men on horses or mules. I heard one say, 'Yonder she is.' Another said, 'It don't look like her.' One said, 'Call her.' One said, 'Margaret.' I answered. They come to me and said, 'Go to the mill and cross on a foot log.' I went up there and crossed and got upon a stump behind my brother-in-law on his horse. I didn't know him. The white man was the man he was share croppin' with. They all lived in a big yard like close together. I hadn't seen my sister before in about four years. Mr. Cargo told me if I wasn't back at his house New Years day he would come after me on his horse and run me every step of the way home. It was nearly twenty-five miles. He said he would give me the worst whooping I ever got in my life. I was going back, scared not to be back. Had no other place to live.

"When New Year day come the white man locked me up in a room in his house and I stayed in there two days. They brought me plenty to eat. I slept in there with their children. Mr. Cargo never come after me till March. He didn't see me when he come. It started in raining and cold and the roads was bad. When he come in March I seen him. I knowed him. I lay down and covered up in leaves. They was deep. I had been in the woods getting sweet-gum when I seen him. He scared me. He never seen me. This white man bound me to his wife's friend for a year to keep Mr. Cargo from getting me back. The woman at the house and Mr. Cargo had war nearly about me. I missed my whoopings. I never got none that whole year. It was Mrs. Brown, twenty miles from Dardanelle, they bound me over to. I never got no more than the common run of Negro children but they wasn't mean to me.

"When I was at Cargo's, he wouldn't buy me shoes. Miss Betty would have but in them days the man was head of his house. Miss Betty made me moccasins to wear out in the snow--made them out of old rags and pieces of his pants. I had risings on my feet and my feet frostbite till they was solid sores. He would take his knife and stob my risings to see the matter pop way out. The ice cut my feet. He cut my foot on the side with a cowhide nearly to the bone. Miss Betty catch him outer sight would doctor my feet. Seem like she was scared of him. He wasn't none too good to her.

"He told his wife the Freemens Bureau said turn that Negro girl loose. She didn't want me to leave her. He despised nasty Negroes he said. One of them fellows what come for me had been to Cargo's and seen me. He was the Negro man come to show Patsy's husband and his share cropper where I was at. He whooped me twice before them deer hunters. They visited him every spring and fall hunting deer but they reported him to the Freemens Bureau. They knowed he was showing off. He overtook me on a horse one day four or five years after I left there. I was on my way from school. I was grown. He wanted me to come back live with them. Said Miss Betty wanted to see me so bad. I was so scared I lied to him and said yes to all he said. He wanted to come get me a certain day. I lied about where I lived. He went to the wrong place to get me I heard. I was afraid to meet him on the road. He died at Dardanelle before I come way from there.

"After I got grown I hired out cooking at $1.25 a week and then $1.50 a week. When I was a girl I ploughed some. I worked in the field a mighty little but I have done a mountain of washing and ironing in my life. I can't tell you to save my life what a hard time I had when I was growing up. My daughter is a blessing to me. She is so good to me.

"I never knowed nor seen the Ku Klux. The Bushwhackers was awful after the war. They went about stealing and they wouldn't work.

"Conditions is far better for young folks now than when I come on. They can get chances I couldn't get they could do. My daughter is tied down here with me. She could do washings and ironings if she could get them and do it here at home. I think she got one give over to her for awhile. The regular wash woman is sick. It is hard for me to get a living since I been sick. I get commodities. But the diet I am on it is hard to get it. The money is the trouble. I had two strokes and I been sick with high blood pressure three years. We own our house. Times is all right if I was able to work and enjoy things. I don't get the Old Age Pension. I reckon because my daughter's husband has a job--I reckon that is it. I can't hardly buy milk, that is the main thing. The doctor told me to eat plenty milk.

"I never voted."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Calvin West, Widener, Arkansas Age: 68

"Mother belong to Parson Renfro. He had a son named Jim Renfro. She was a cook and farm hand too. I never heard her speak much of her owners. Pa's owner was Dr. West and Miss Jensie West. He had a son Orz West and his daughter was Miss Lillie West. I never was around their owners. Some was dead before I come on. My pa was a cripple man. His leg was drawn around with rheumatism. During slavery he would load up a small cart wid cider and ginger cakes and go sell it out. He sold ginger cakes two for a nickel and I never heard how he sold the cider. I heard him tell close speriences he had with the patrollers. Some of the landowners didn't want him trespassing on their places. He got a part of the money he sold out for. I judge from what he said his owner got part for the wagon and horse. He sold some at stores before freedom. He farmed too. His name was Phillip West and mother's name was Lear West. He was a crack hand at making ginger cakes. He sold wagon loads in town on Saturday till he died. I was a boy nearly grown. They had ten children in all. I was born in Tate County, Mississippi.

"Mr. Miller had land here. I didn't work for him but he wanted me to come here and work his land. He give us tickets. He said this was new land and we could do better. We work a lot and make big crops and don't hardly get a living out of it. We come on the train here.

"We come in 1920. The way we got down here now it is bad. We make big crops and don't get much for it. We have no place to raise things to help out and pay big prices for everything. I work. But times is hard. That is the very reason it is hard. We got no place to raise nothing. (Hard road and ditch in front and cotton field all around it except a few feet of padded dirt and a wood pile.) Times is good and if a fellow could ever get a little ahead I believe he could stay ahead. Since my wife been sick we jes' can make it.

"We never called for no help. She cooked and I worked. She signed up but it will be a long time, they said, till they could get to her."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mary Mays West, Widener, Arkansas Age: 65

"My parents' names was Josie Vesey and Henry Mays. They had ten children and five lived to be full grown. I was born in Tate County, Mississippi. Mother died in childbirth when she was twenty-eight years old. I'm the mother of twelve and got five living. I been cooking out for white people since I was nine years old. I am a good cook they all tell me and I tries to be clean with my cooking.

"Mother died before I can remember much about her. My father said he had to work before day and all day and till after night in the spring and fall of the year. They ploughed with oxen and mules and horses all. He said how they would rest the teams and feed and still they would go on doing something else. They tromped cotton at night by torchlight. Tromped it in the wagons to get off to the gin early next morning.

"In the winter they built fences and houses and got up wood and cleared new ground. They made pots of lye hominy and lye soap the same day. They had a ashhopper set all time. In the summer is when they ditched if they had any of that to do. Farming has been pretty much the same since I was a child. I have worked in the field all my life. I cook in the morning and go to the field all evening.

"We just had a hard time this winter. I had a stroke in October and had to quit cooking. (Her eye is closed on her left side--ed.) I love farm life. The flood last year got us behind too. We could do fine if I had my health."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sylvester Wethington Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 77