Chapter VII: Part III: Dialogue--Colloquy in Church (1)

Alice Richardson and Mollie

Declamation--Lucy Gray

Miss Alice Moore

Dialogue--Matrimony

Miss Willie Lane, M.A. Scruggs,
Mary Alexander, Mr. C.C. Riley

Dialogue--Traveler

Morton Hurtt and Scipio Jordan

Declamation--Truth in Parenthesis

Alice Moore.

Dialogue--Forty Years Ago Ales, Scruggs, and J.P. Winfrey

Declamation--The Last Footfall Lizzie Hull

Declamation--Gone with a John E. Bush, Miss Maggie Green,
Handsomer Man than Me and H.G. Clay

Declamation--Golden Side Annie Richmond

Declamation--The Union was Swan Jeffries
saved by the Colored
Volunteers

Dialogue--Relief Aid Saving Maggie Scruggs, Mary Ross,
Society Lizzie Hull, Alice Moore,
Mary Alexander, Mollie Pryor,
Annie Fairchild, Lizzie Wind,
Julia Jackson, J.E. Bush,
J.W. Jackson

Song-Dutch Band A.C. Richardson, Wm. Emery,
J.H. Haney, W.A.M. Cypers,
J.O. Alexander, J.E. Bush,
J.W. Jackson

Declamation--Number One Alice Richardson

Declamation--What to Wear, and Miss Coren Winfrey
How to Wear It

Dialogue--A Desirable J.E. Bush, J.W. Jackson,
A.C. Richmond

Dialogue-The Little Bill Marion Henderson, J.E. Bush,
Miss Willie Lane, Miss Laura A.
Morgan, Asa Richmond, Jr.

Dialogue--Country Aunt's Visit Henry Jackson, Misses Allice and
Julia Crawford, Maggie Howell,
Julia Jackson

Dialogue--Beauty and the Beast Marion Henderson, Julia Jackson,
(six Scenes) Laura Morgan, Mary Scruggs,
Mary Ross, Coren Winfrey,
Willie Lane, Lizzie Wind,
Alice Crawford, J.E. Bush,
J.P. Winfrey

Dialogue--How not to Get M.A. Scruggs and Mary Alexander
and Answer

Declamation--The Incidents of John Richmond
Travel

* * * * *

Interviewer's Comment

This program was given on one night, and the participants doubled right back the next night on another lengthy program celebrating Christmas Eve.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Julia White (Continued) 3003 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 80

"The Commissary was on the northeast corner of Third and Cumberland. They used to call it the government commissary building. It took up a whole half block. Mrs. Farmer, the white woman, was living in what you call the old Henderliter Place, the building on the northwest corner, during the War. She was a Union woman, and was the one that took us in when the Confederate soldiers were passing and wanted to take us to Texas with them.

"I was so small I didn't know much about things then. When peace was declared a preacher named Hugh Brady, a white man, came here and he had my mother and father to marry over again.

"Mrs. Stephens' father was one of the first school-teachers here for colored people. There were a lot of white people who came here from the North to teach. Peabody School used to be called the Union School. Mrs. Stephens has the first report of the school dated 1869. It gives the names of the directors and all. J.H. Benford was one of the Northern teachers. Anna Ware and Louise Coffman and Miss Henley were teachers too.

"Mrs. Stephens is the oldest colored teacher in Little Rock. The A-B-C children didn't want the old men to teach us. So they would teach 'Lottie'--she was only twelve years old then--and she would hear our lessons. Then at recess time, we would all get out and play together. She was my play mama. Her father, William Wallace Andrews, the first pastor of Wesley Chapel M.E. Church, was the head teacher and Mr. Gray was the other. They were teaching in Wesley Chapel Church. It was then on Eighth and Broadway. This was before Benford's time. It was just after peace had been declared. I don't know where Andrews come from nor how much learning he had. Most of the people then got their learning from white children. But I don't know where he got his.

"Wesley was his first church as far as I know. Before the War all the churches were in with the white people. After freedom, they drew out. Whether Wesley was his first church or not, he was Wesley's first pastor. I got a history of the church."

"They had a real Sunday-school in those days. My sister when she was a child about twelve years old said three hundred Bible verses at one time and received a book as a prize. The book was named 'A Wonderful Deliverance' and other Stories, printed by the American Tract Society, New York, 150 Nassau Street. My sister's name was Mollie Jackson."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lucy White, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 74

"I was born on Jim Banks' place close to Felton. His wife named Miss Puss. Mama and all of young master's niggers was brought from Mississippi. I reckon it was 'fore I was born. Old master name Mack Banks. I never heard mama say but they was good to my daddy. They had a great big place in Mississippi and a good big place over here.

"I recollect seeing the soldiers prance 'long the road. I thought they looked mighty pretty. Their caps and brass buttons and canteens shining in the sun. They rode the prettiest horses. One of 'em come in our house one day. He told Miss Puss he was goiner steal me. She say, 'Don't take her off.' He give me a bundle er bread and I run in the other room and crawled under the bed 'way back in the corner. It was dark up under there. I didn't eat the bread then but I et it after he left. It sure was good. I didn't recollect much but seeing them pass the road. I like to watch 'em. My parents was field folks. I worked in the field. I was raised to work. I keep my clothes clean. I washed 'em. I cooked and washed and ironed and done field work all. When I first recollect Marianna, Mr. Lon Tau and Mr. Free Landing (?) had stores here. Dr. Steven (Stephen?) and Dr. Nunnaly run a drug store here. There was a big road here. Folks started building houses here and there. They called the town Mary Ann fo' de longest time.

"Well, the white folks told 'am, 'You free.' My folks worked on fer about twenty years. They'd give 'em a little sompin outer dat crap. They worked all sorter ways--that's right--they sure did. They rented and share cropped together I reckon after the War ended.

"The Ku Klux never bothered us. I heard 'bout 'em other places.

"I never voted and I never do 'sepect to now. What I know 'bout votin'?

"Well, I tell you, these young folks is cautions. They don't think so but they is. Lazy, no'count, spends every cent they gits in their hands. Some works, some work hard. They drink and carouse about all night sometimes. No ma'am, I did not do no sich er way. I woulder been ashamed of myself. I would. Times what done run away wid us all now. I don't know what to look fer now but I know times changing all the time.

"I gets ten dollars and some little things to eat along. I say it do help out. I got rheumatism and big stiff j'ints (enlarged wrist and knuckles)."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden. Person interviewed: David Whiteman (c) Age: 88 Home: 104 N. Kansas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

"How de do lady. Oh yes, I was a pretty good sized boy when the war started. My old marster was sponsible Smith. My young marster was his son-in-law. I member 'bout the Yankees and the "Revels". I member when a great big troop of 'em went to war. Some of 'em was cryin' and some was laughin'. I tried to get young marster to let me go with him, but he wouldn't let me. Old marster was too old to go and his son dodged around and didn't go either. I member he caught hisself a wild mustang and tied hisself on it and rode off and they never did see him again.

"I know when they was fightin' we use to hear the balls when they was goin' over. I used to pick up many a ball.

"I wish my recollection was with me like it used to be." (At this point his wife spoke up and said "Seems like since he had the flu, his mind is kinda frazzled.")

"Yes'm, I member the Ku Klux. They used to have the colored folks dodgin' around tryin' to keep out of their way."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person Interviewed: Dolly Whiteside (c) Age: 81 Home: 103 Oregon Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.

"I reckon I did live in slavery times--look at my hair.

"I been down sick--I been right low and they didn't speck me to live.

"Well, I'll tell you. I was old enough to know when they runned us to Texas so the Yankees couldn't overtaken us. We was in Texas when freedom come, I remember I was sittin on the fence when the soldiers in them blue uniforms with gold buttons come. He said, "I come to tell you you is free". I didn't know what it was all about but everybody was sayin' "Thank God". I thought it was the judgment day and I was lookin' for God. I said to myself, I'm goin' have some buttons like that some day.

"Colonel Williams was my marster. My mother was a nurse and took care of the colored folks when they was sick. I remember when people wasn't given nothin' but blue mass, calomel, castor oil and gruel, and every body was healthier than they is now.

"I'm the only one livin' that my mother birthed in this world. I was born here, but I been travelin', I been to Memphis and around.

"No mam, I don't remember nothin' else. I done tole you all I know."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: J.W. Whitfield 3100 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 60 Occupation: Preacher

"My father's name was Luke Whitfield. He was sixty-three years old when he died in 1902. He was twenty-six years old when the Civil War ended. He was a slave. There were three other boys in the family besides him. No girls.

"His old mars' name was Bill Carraway. They lived at Nubian [HW: New Bern], North Carolina.

"My father said that his work in slavery time was blacksmithing. He had to fix the wagons and the plow too. He said that was his work during the Civil War too. He worked in the Confederate army too.

"I remember him saying how they whipped him when he ran off. The overseer got after him to whip him and he and one of his friends ran off. As they jumped over the fence to go into the woods the old mars hit my daddy with a cat-o-nine tails. You see, they took a strap of harness leather and cut it into four thongs and then they took another and cut it into five thongs, and they tied them together. When you got one blow you got nine and when you got five blows you got forty-five. As his old mars hit him, he said. 'I got him one, sir; it was a good one too, sir, and a go-boy.'[HW: ?] But it was nine.

"My father told me how they married in slavery times. They didn't count marriage like they do now. If one landowner had a girl and another wanted that girl for one of his men, they would give him her to wife. When a boy-child was born out of this marriage they would reserve him for breeding purposes if he was healthy and robust. But if he was puny and sickly they were not bothered about him. Many a time if the boy was desirable, he was put on the stump and auctioned off by the time he was thirteen years old. They called that putting him on the block. Different ones would come and bid for him and the highest bidder would get him.

"My father spoke of a pass. That was when they wanted to see the girls they would have to get a pass from the old mars. My father would speak to his mars and get a pass. If he didn't have a pass, the other mars would give him a whipping and sent him back. I told you about how they whipped them. They used to use those cat-o-nine tails on them when they didn't have a pass.

"They lived in a log cabin dobbed with dirt and their clothes were woven on a loom. They got the cotton, spun it on the spinning-wheel, wove it on the loom on rainy days. The women spun the thread and wove the cloth. For the boys from five to fifteen years old, they would make long shirts out of this cloth. The shirts had deep scallops in them. Then they would take the same cloth and dye it with indigo and make pants out of it. The boys never wore those pants in the field. No young fellow wore pants until he began to court.

"My mother was a girl that was sold in Lenoir County, near Kenston, [HW: Kinston?] North Carolina. My father met her in a place called Buford, [HW: Beaufort? Carteret Co.] North Carolina. My father was sold several times. The owner sold her to his owner and they jumped over a broomstick and were married. My daddy's mars bought my mother for him. Her name was Penny."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sarah Whitmore, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: 100

_Note_--The interviewer found this ex-slave in small quarters. The bed, the room and the Negro were filthy. A fire burned in an ironing bucket, mostly papers and trash for fuel. During the visit of the interviewer a white girl brought a tray with a measuring cup of coffee and two slices of bread with butter and fruit spread between. When asked where she got her dinner she said "The best way I can" meaning somebody might bring it to her. Her hands are too stiff and shaky to cook. Her eye sight is so bad she cannot clean her room. Two WPA county visitors, girls, bathe her at intervals.

"I was born between Jackson and Brandon. Sure I was born down in Mississippi. My mother's name they tole me was Rosie. She died when I was a baby. My father named Richard Chamber. They called him Dick. He was killed direckly after the war by a white man. He was a Rebel scout. The man named Hodge. I seed him. He shot my father. Them questions been called over to me so much I most forgot 'em. Well some jes' lack 'em. My father's master was Hal Chambers and his wife Virginia. Recken I do 'member the Ku Klux. They scared me to death. I go under the bed every time when I see them about. Then was when my father was killed. He went off with a crowd of white men. They said they was Rebel scouts. All I know I never seed him no more since that evening. They killed him across the line, not far from Mississippi. Chambers had two or three farms. I was on the village farm. I had one brother. Chambers sent him to the salt works and I never seed him no more. I was a orphant.

"Chambers make you work. I worked in the field. I come wid a crowd to Helena. I come on a boat. I been a midwife to black and white. I used to cook some. I am master hand at ironin'. I have no children as I knows of. I never born none. I help raise some. I come on a fine big steamboat wid a crowd of people. I married in Arkansas. My husband died ten or twelve years ago. I forgot which years it was. I been livin' in this bery house seben years.

"The Government give me $10 a month. I would wash dishes but I can't see 'bout gettin' 'round no more.

"Don't ax me 'bout the young niggers. They too fast fo me. If I see 'em they talkin' a passel of foolish talk. Whut I knows is times is hard wid me shows you born.

"You come back to see me. If you don't I wanter meet you all in heaben. By, by, by."

Interviewer: Watt McKinney Person interviewed: Dock Wilborn A mile or so from Marvell, Arkansas Age: 95

Dock Wilborn was born a slave near Huntsville, Alabama on January 7, 1843, the property of Dan Wilborn who with his three brothers, Elias, Sam, and Ike, moved to Arkansas and settled near Marvell in Phillips County about 1855.

According to "Uncle Dock" the four Wilborn brothers each owning more than one hundred slaves acquired a large body of wild, undeveloped land, divided this acreage between them and immediately began to erect numerous log structures for housing themselves, their Negroes, and their stock, and to deaden the timber and clear the land preparatory to placing their crops the following season. The Wilborns arrived in Arkansas in the early fall of the year and for several months they camped, living in tents until such time that they were able to complete the erection of their residences. Good, substantial, well constructed and warm cabins were built in which to house the slaves, much better buildings "Uncle Dock" says than those in which the average Negro sharecropper lives today on Southern cotton plantations. And these Negroes were given an abundance of the same wholesome food as that prepared for the master's family in the huge kettles and ovens of the one common kitchen presided over by a well-trained and competent cook and supervised by the wife of the master.

During the period of slavery the more apt and intelligent among those of the younger Negroes were singled out and given special training for those places in which their talents indicated they would be most useful in the life of the plantation. Girls were trained in housework, cooking, and in the care of children while boys were taught blacksmithing, carpentrying, and some were trained for personal servants around the home. Some were even taught to read and to write when it was thought that their later positions would require this learning.

According to "Uncle Dock" Wilborn, slaves were allowed to enjoy many pleasures and liberties thought by many in this day, especially by the descendants of these slaves, not to have been accorded them, were entirely free of any responsibility aside from the performance of their alloted labors and speaking from his own experience received kind and just treatment at the hands of their masters.

The will of the master was the law of the plantation and prompt punishment was administered for any violation of established rules and though a master was kind, he was of necessity invariably firm in the administration of his government and in the execution of his laws. Respect and obedience was steadfastly required and sternly demanded, while indolence and disrespect was neither tolerated or permitted.

In refutation to often repeated expressions and beliefs that slaves were cruelly treated, provided with insufficient food and apparel and subjected to inhuman punishment, it is pointed out by ex-slaves themselves that they were at that time very valuable property, worth on the market no less than from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars each for a healthy, grown Negro and that it is unreasonable to suppose that these slaveowners did not properly safeguard their investments with the befitting care and attention such valuable property demanded or that these masters would by rule or action bring about any condition adversely effecting the health, efficiency or value of their slaves.

The spiritual and religious needs of the slaves received the attention of the same minister who attended the like needs of the master and his family, and services were often conducted on Sunday afternoons exclusively for them at which times the minister exhorted his congregation to live lives of righteousness and to be at all times obedient, respectful and dutiful servants in the cause of both their earthly and heavenly masters.

In the days of slavery, on occasion of the marriage of a couple in which the participants were members of slave-owning families, it was the custom for the father of each to provide the young couple with several Negroes, the number of course depending on the relative wealth or affluence of their respective families. It seems, however, that no less than six or eight grown slaves were given in most instances as well as a like number of children from two to four years of age. This provision on the part of the parents of the newly-wedded pair was for the purpose as "Uncle Dock" expressed it to give them a "start" of Negroes. The children were not considered of much value at such an age and the young master and his wife found themselves possessed with the responsibility attached to their proper care and rearing until such time as they reached the age at which they could perform some useful labor. These responsibilities were bravely accepted and such children received the best of care and attention, being it is said often kept in a room provided for than in the master's own house where their needs could be administered to under the watchful eye and supervision of their owners. The food given these young children according to informants consisted mainly of a sort of gruel composed of whole milk and bread made of whole wheat flour which was set before them in a kind of trough and from which they ate with great relish and grew rapidly.

Slaveowners, as a rule, arranged for their Negroes to have all needed pleasure and enjoyment, and in the late summer after cultivation of the crops was complete it was the custom for a number of them to give a large barbecue for their combined groups of slaves, at which huge quantities of beef and pork were served and the care-free hours given over to dancing and general merry-making. "Uncle Dock" recalls that his master, Dan Wilborn, who was a good-natured man of large stature, derived much pleasure in playing his "fiddle" and that often in the early summer evenings he would walk down to the slave quarters with his violin remarking that he would supply the music and that he wished to see his "niggers" dance, and dance they would for hours and as much to the master's own delight and amusement as to theirs.

Dock Wilborn's "pappy" Sam was in some respects disobedient, prompted mainly so it seems by his complete dislike for any form of labor and which Dan Wilborn due to their mutual affection appeared to tolerate for long periods or until such time that his patience was exhausted when he would then apply his lash to Sam a few times and often after these periodical punishments Sam would escape to the dense forests that surrounded the plantation where he would remain for days or until Wilborn would enlist the aid of Nat Turner and his hounds and chase the Negro to bay and return him to his home.

"Uncle Dock" Wilborn and his wife "Aunt Becky" are among the oldest citizens of Phillips County and have been married for sixty-seven years. Dan Wilborn performed their marriage ceremony. The only formality required in uniting them as man and wife was that each jump over a broom that had been placed on the floor between them. This old couple are the parents of four children, the eldest of whom is now sixty-three. They live alone in a small white-washed cabin only a mile or so from Marvell being supported only by a small pension they receive each month from the Social Security Board. They have a garden and a few chickens and a hog or two and are happy and content as they dip their snuff and recall those days long past during which they both contend that life was at its best, "Aunt Becky" is religious and a staunch believer, a long-time member of Mount Moriah Baptist Church while "Uncle Dock" who has never been affiliated with any religious organization is yet as he terms himself "a sinner man" and laughingly remarks that he is going to ride into Heaven on "Aunt Becky's" ticket to which comment she promptly replies that her ticket is good for only one passage and that if he hopes to get there he must arrange for one of his own.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Bell Wilks, Holly Grove, Arkansas Age: 80

"I was raised in Pulaski, Tennessee, Giles County. The post office was at one end of the town, bout half mile was the church down at the other end. Yes'm, that way Pulaski looked when I lived there. My father's master was Peter or Jerry Garn--I don't know which. They brothers? Yes'm.

"My mother's master was John Wilks and Miss Betty. Mama's name was Callie Wilks and papa's name was Freeman. Mama had seven children. She was a field hand. She said all on their place could do nearly anything. They took turns cooking. Seems like it was a week about they took milkin', doin' house work, field work, and she said sometimes they sewed.

"Father told my mother one day he was going to the Yankees. She didn't want him to go much. He went. They mustered out drilling one day. He had to squat right smart. He saw some cattle in the distance looked like army way off. He fell dead. They said it was heart disease. They brought him home and some of dem stood close to him drillin' told her that was way it happened.

"The man what owned my mother was sorter of a Yankee hisself. We all stayed till he wound up the crop. He sold his place and went to Collyoka on the L. and N. Railway. He give us two and one-half bushels corn, three bushels wheat, and some meat at the very first of freedom. When it played out we went and he give us more long as he stayed there.

"When mama left she went to a new sorter mill town and cooked there till 1869. She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom. I stayed wid her till 1876. I sure does remember dem dates. (laughed)

"Yes'm, I was nursin' for Dr. Rothrock when that Ku Klux scare was all bout. They coma to our house huntin' a boy. They didn't find him. I cover up my head when they come bout our house. Some folks they scared nearly to death. I bein' in a strange place don't know much bout what all I heard they done.

"I don't vote. I don't know who to vote for, let people vote know how.

"I get bout $8 and some commodities. It sure do help me out too. I tell you it sure do."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Bell Williams, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 85

"We was owned by Master Rucker. It seems I was about ten years old when the Civil War started. It seems like a dream to me now. Mother was a weaver. They said she was a fine weaver. She wove for all on the place and some special pieces of cloth for outsiders. She wove woolen cloth too. I don't know whether they paid for the extra weaving or not. People didn't look on money like they do now. They was free with one another about eating and visiting and work too when a man got behind with the work. The fields get gone in the grass. Sometimes they would be sick or it rained too much. The neighbor would send all his slaves to work till they caught up and never charge a cent. I don't hear about people doing that way now.

"My parents was named Clinton and Billy Bell. There was nine of us children.

"I never seen nobody sold. Mother was darker. Papa was light--half white. They didn't talk in front of children about things and I never did know. I've wondered.

"After freedom my folks stayed on at Master Rucker's. I got to be a midwife. I nursed and was a house girl after the war. Then the doctors got to sending for me to nurse and I got to be a midwife.

"My father was a good Bible scholar. He preached all around Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He was a Methodist. He died when he was seventy-seven years old. He had read the Bible through seventy-seven times--one time for every year old he was."

Mrs. Mildred Thompson Mrs. Carol Graham El Dorado District Federal Writers Project Union County, Arkansas

Charley Williams, Ex-slave. "Mawnin' Missy. Yo say wha Aint Fanny Whoolah live? She live right down de road dar in dat fust house. Yas'm. Dat wha she live. Yo say whut mah name? Mah name is Charley. Yas'm, Charley Williams. Did ah live in slavery time? Yas'm sho' did. Mah marster wuz Dr. Reed Williams and he live at Kew London (SE part of Union County) or ah speck ah bettuh say near New London caise he live on de Mere-Saline Road, de way de soldiers went and come. Marster died befo' de Civil Wah. Does ah membah hit? Yas'm ah say ah does. Ah wuz bo'n in 1856. Mah ole mutha died befo' de wah too. Huh name wuz Charity. Mah young marster went tuh de wah an come back. He fit at Vicksburg an his name wuz Bennie Williams. But he daid now tho. Dere was a hep uv dem white William Chillun. Dere wuz Miss Narcissi an she am a livin now at Stong. Den dere's Mr. Charley. Ah wuz named fuh him. He am a livin now too. Den dere is Mr. Race Williams. He am a livin at Strong too. Dere wuz Miss Annie, Miss Martha Jane and Miss Madie. Dey is all daid. When young marster would come by home or any uv de udder soldiers us little niggers would steal de many balls (bullets or shot) fum dey saddul bags and play wid em. Ah nevah did see so many soldiers in mah life. Hit looked tuh me like dey wuz enough uv em to reach clear cross de United States. An ah nevah saw de like uv cows as they had. Dey wuz nuff uv em to rech clar to Camden.

Is ah evah been mahried and does ah have any chillun? Yes'm. Yas'm. Ah's been mahried three times. Me an mah fust wife had seven chillun. When we had six chillun me and mah wife moved tuh Kansas. We had only been der 23 days when mah wife birthed a chile and her an de chile both died. Dat left me wid Carey Dee, Lizzie, Arthur, Richmond, Ollie and Lillie to bring back home. Ah mahried agin an me an dat wife had one chile name Robert. Me an mah third wife has three: Joe Verna, Lula Mae an Johnnie B.

Is dey hents? Ah've hearn tell uv em but nevah have seed no hants. One uv mah friens whut lived on the Hommonds place at Hillsboro could see em. His name wuz Elliott. One time me an Elliott wuz drivin along an Elliott said: "Charley, somebody got hole uv mah horse!" Sho nuff dat horse led right off inter de woods an comminced to buckin so Elliott and his hoss both saw de haint but ah couldn' see hit. Yo know some people jes caint see em.

Yas'm right up dere is wha Aint Fannie live. Yas'm. Goodday Missy."

FOLK CUSTOMS

We found Fannie Wheeler at home but not an ex-slave. She was making a bedspread of tobacco sacks.

"Yas'm chillun ah'm piecing mahsef a bedspraid from dese heah backy sacks. Yas'm dey sho does make er nice spraid. See dat'n on mah baid. Aint hit purty. Hit wuz made fum backy sacks. Don yo all think dat yaller bodah (border) set hit off purty? Ah'm aimin to bodah dis'n wid pink er blue.

What am dat up dar in dat picture frame? Why dat am plaits of har (hair). Hits uv mah kin and frien's. When we would move way off dey would cut off a plait and give hit tuh us tuh membah dem by. Mos' uv dem is daid now but ah still membahs dem and ah kin name evah plait now."

We were told that Sallie Sims was an old negress and went to see her she was not an ex-slave either but she told us an interesting little story about

HAINTS and BODY MARKS

"No'm, ah'm purty ole but ah wuz bo'n aftuh surrender. Is ah evah seen a hant? Now ah nevah did but once and mah ma said dat wuz a hant. Ah wuz out in de woods waukin (walking) an ah saw sumpin dat looked lak a squirrel start up a tree and de fudder up hit got the bigger hit got an hit wuz big as a bear when hit got to de top and ma said dat hit was a haint. Dat is de only time ah evah seed one.

Now mah granchillun can all see hants and mah little great gran' chile too. An evah one uv dem wuz bo'n wid a veil ovah dey face. Now when a chile is bo'n wid a veil ovah his face--if de veil is lifted up de sho can see hants and see evah thing but if'n de veil is pulled down stid up bein lifted up de won't see em. After de veil is pulled down an taken off, wrap hit up in a tissue paper and put hit in de trunk and let hit stay dar till hit disappear and de chile won't nevah see hants. Mah grandaughter what lives up north in Missouri come down heah to visit mah son's fambly an me ah an brang huh li'l boy wid huh. Dat chile is bout seben years ole an dat chile could see hants all in de house an he wouldn' go tuh baid till his gran'pappy come home an went tuh baid wid him."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Charlie Williams Brassfield; Ark. Age: 73

"I was born four miles from Holly Springs, Mississippi. My parents was named Patsy and Tom Williams. They had twenty children. Nat Williams and Miss Carrie Williams owned them both. They had four children.

"At freedom he was nice as could be--wanted em to stay on with him and they did. He didn't whip em. They liked that in him. His wife was dead and he come out to Arkansas with us. He died at Lonoke--Mr. Tom Williams at Lonoke.

"I farmed nearly all my life. I worked on a steamboat on White River five or six years--_The Ralph_.

"I never saw a Ku Klux. Mr. Williams kept us well protected.

"My mother's mother couldn't talk plain. My mother talked tolerably plain. She was a 'Molly Glaspy' woman. My father had a loud heavy voice; you could hear him a long ways off.

"I have no home. I am a widower. I have no land. I get a small check and commodities.

"I vote. I haven't voted in a long time. I'm not educated to know how that would serve us best."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Columbus Williams Temporary: 2422 Howard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Permanent: Box 12, Route 2, Ouachita County, Stevens, Arkansas Age: 98

"I was born in Union County, Arkansas, in 1841, in Mount Holly.

"My mother was named Clora Tookes. My father's name is Jordan Tookes. Bishop Tookes is supposed to be a distant relative of ours. I don't know my mother and father's folks. My mother and father were both born in Georgia. They had eight children. All of them are dead now but me. I am the only one left.

"Old Ben Heard was my master. He come from Mississippi, and brought my mother and father with him. They were in Mississippi as well as in Georgia, but they were born in Georgia. Ben Heard was a right mean man. They was all mean 'long about then. Heard whipped his slaves a lot. Sometimes he would say they wouldn't obey. Sometimes he would say they sassed him. Sometimes he would say they wouldn't work. He would tie them and stake them out and whip them with a leather whip of some kind. He would put five hundred licks on them before he would quit. He would buy the whip he whipped them with out of the store. After he whipped them, they would put their rags on and go on about their business. There wouldn't be no such thing as medical attention. What did he care. He would whip the women the same as he would the men.

"Strip 'em to their waist and let their rags hang down from their hips and tie them down and lash them till the blood ran all down over their clothes. Yes sir, he'd whip the women the same as he would the men.

"Some of the slaves ran away, but they would catch them and bring them back, you know. Put the dogs after them. The dogs would just run them up and bay them just like a coon or 'possum. Sometimes the white people would make the dogs bite them. You see, when the dogs would run up on them, they would sometimes fight them, till the white people got there and then the white folks would make the dogs bite them and make them quit fighting the dogs.

"One man run off and stayed twelve months once. He come back then, and they didn't do nothin' to him. 'Fraid he'd run off again, I guess.

"We didn't have no church nor nothing. No Sunday-schools, no nothin'. Worked from Monday morning till Saturday night. On Sunday we didn't do nothin' but set right down there on that big plantation. Couldn't go nowhere. Wouldn't let us go nowhere without a pass. They had the paterollers out all the time. If they caught you out without a pass, they would give you twenty-five licks. If you outrun them and got home, on your master's plantation, you saved yourself the whipping.

"The black people never had no amusement. They would have an old fiddle--something like that. That was all the music I ever seen. Sometimes they would ring up and play 'round in the yard. I don't remember the games. Sing some kind of old reel song. I don't hardly remember the words of any of them songs.

"Wouldn't allow none of them to have no books nor read nor nothin'. Nothin' like that. They had corn huskin's in Mississippi and Georgia, but not in Arkansas. Didn't have no quiltin's. Women might quilt some at night. Didn't have nothin' to make no quilts out of.

"The very first work I did was to nurse babies. After that when I got a little bigger they carried me to the field--choppin' cotton. Then I went to picking cotton. Next thing--pullin' fodder. Then they took me from that and put me to plowin', clearin' land, splittin' rails. I believe that is about all I did. You worked from the time you could see till the time you couldn't see. You worked from before sunrise till after dark. When that horn blows, you better git out of that house, 'cause the overseer is comin' down the line, and he ain't comin' with nothin' in his hand.

"They weighed the rations out to the slaves. They would give you so many pounds of meat to each working person in the family. The children didn't count; they didn't git none. That would have to last till next Sunday. They would give them three pounds of meat to each workin' person, I think. They would give 'em a little meal too. That is all they'd give 'em. The slaves had to cook for theirselves after they come home from the field. They didn't get no flour nor no sugar nor no coffee, nothin' like that.

"They would give the babies a little milk and corn bread or a little molasses and bread when they didn't have the milk. Some old person who didn't have to go to the field would give them somethin' to eat so that they would be out of the way when the folks come out of the field.

"The slaves lived in old log houses--one room, one door, _one window_, one everything. There were _plenty windows_ though. There were windows all [HW: ?] around the house. They had cracks that let in more air than the windows would. They had plank floors. Didn't have no furniture. The bed would have two legs and would have a hole bored in the side of the house where the side rail would run through and the two legs would be out from the wall. Didn't have no springs and they made out with anything they could git for a mattress. Master wouldn't furnish them nothin' of that kind.

"The jayhawkers were white folks. They didn't bother we all much. That was after the surrender. They go 'round here and there and git after white folks what they thought had some money and jerk them 'round. They were jus' common men and soldiers.

"I was not in the army in the War. I was right down here in Union County then. I don't know just when they freed me but it was after the War was over. The old white man call us up to the house and told us now we was free as he was; that if we wanted to stay with him it was all right, if we didn't and wanted to go away anywheres, we could have the privilege to do it.

"Marriage wasn't like now. You would court a woman and jus' go on and marry. No license, no nothing. Sometimes you would take up with a woman and go on with her. Didn't have no ceremony at all. I have heard of them stepping over a broom but I never saw it. Far as I saw there was no ceremony at all.

"When the slaves were freed they expected to get forty acres and a mule. I never did hear of anybody gettin' it.

"Right after the War, I worked on a farm with Ben Heard. I stayed with him about three years, then I moved off with some other white folks. I worked on shares. First I worked for half and he furnished a team. Then I worked on third and fourth and furnished my own team. I gave the owner a third of the corn and a fourth of the cotton and kept the rest. I kept that up several years. They cheated us out of our part. If they furnished anything, they would sure git it back. Had everything so high you know. I have farmed all my life. Farmed till I got so old I couldn't. I never did own my own farm. I just continued to rent.

"I never had any trouble about voting. I voted whenever I wanted to. I reckon it was about three years after the War when I began to vote.

"I never went to school. One of the white boys slipped and learned me a little about readin' in slave time. Right after freedom come, I was a grown man; so I had to work. I married about four or five years after the War. I was just married once. My wife is not living now. She's gone. She's been dead for about twelve years.

"I belong to the A.M.E. Church and my membership is in the New Home Church out in the country in Ouachita County."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank Williams County Hospital, ward eleven, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 100, or more

"I'm a hundred years old. I know I'm a hundred. I know from where they told me. I don't know when I was born.

"I been took down and whipped many a time because I didn't do my work good. They took my pants down and whipped me just the same as if I'd been a dog. Sometimes they would whip the people from Saturday night till Monday morning.

"I run off with the Yankees. I was young then. I was in the Civil War. I don't know how long I stayed in the army. I ain't never been back home since. I wish I was. I wouldn't be in this condition if I was back home.

"Mississippi was my home. I come up here with the Yankees and I ain't never been back since. Laconia, Mississippi was the place I used to be down there. I been wanting to go home, but I couldn't git off. I want to git you to write there for me. I belong to the Baptist church. Write to the elders of the church. I belong to the Mission Baptist Church on the other side of Rock Creek here.

"They just lived in log houses in slave time.

"I want to go back home. They made me leave Laconia.

"Pateroles!! Oh, my God!!! I know 'nough 'bout them. Child, I've heard 'em holler, 'Run, nigger, run! The pateroles will catch you.'

"The jayhawkers would catch people and whip them.

"I would be back home yet if they hadn't made me come away.

"They didn't have no church in slavery time. They jus' had to hide around and worship God any way they could.

"I used to live in Laconia. I ain't been back there since the war. I want to go back to my folks."

Interviewer's Comment

Frank Williams is like a man suffering from amnesia. He is the first old man that I have interviewed whose memory is so far gone. He remembers practically nothing. He can't tell you where he was born. He can't tell you where he lived before he came to Little Rock. Only when his associates mention some of the things he formerly told them can he remember that little of his past that he does state in any remote approach to detail.

There is a strong emotional set which relates to his slave time experiences. The emotion surges up in his mind at any mention of slave time matters. But only the emotion remains. The details are gone forever. Names, times, places, happenings are gone forever. He does not even recall the name of his father, the name of his mother, or the name of any of his relatives or masters, or old-time friends. No single definite thing rises above the horizon of his mind and defines itself clearly to him.

And always after every sentence he utters, there rises the old refrain: "I want to go back home. I wouldn't be in this condition if I was back home. I live in Laconia. They made me come away." And that is the substance of the story he remembers.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Gus Williams, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 80

"Was you lookin' for me t'oder day? Sure, my name's Williams--Gus Williams--not Wilson. Dey gits me mixed up wid dat young guy, Wilson.

"Yes, I remembers you--sure--talks to yo' brother sometimes.

"I was born in Chatham County, Georgia--Savannah is de county seat. My marster's name was Jim Williams. Never seen my daddy cause de Yankees carried him away durin' de War, took him away to de North. Old marster was good to his slaves, I was told, but don't ricollect anything about em. Of course I was too young. Was born on Christmas day, 1857--but I don't see anything specially interestin' in bein' a Christmas present; never got me nothin', and never will.

"Was workin' on WPA--this big Tech. buildin'--but got laid off t'other day.

"My mamma brought us to Arkansas in 1885, but we stopped and lived for several years in Tennessee. Worked for twelve years out of Memphis on the old Anchor Line steamboats on de Mississippi, runnin' from St. Louis to N'Orleans. Plenty work in dem days.

"No, I ain't voted in a long time; can't afford to vote because I never have the dollar. No dollar--no vote. Depression done fixed my votin'.

"Jest me and my wife, but it takes pluggin' away to get along. We belongs to the C.M.E. Church since 1915. I was janitor at the West Ward School for seven years, and sure liked dat job.

"Don't ask me anything about dese boys and gals livin' today. Much difference in dem and de young folks livin' in my time as between me and you. No dependence to be put in em. My _estimony_ is dat de black servants today workin' for de whites learns things from dem white girls dat dey never knowed before, and den goes home and does things dey never done before.

"Don't ricollect many of de old-time songs, but one was somep'n like--"Am I Born to Die?" And--oh, yes,--lots of times we sung 'Amazin' Grace, how sweet de soun' dat saves a _race_ like me.'

"No suh, I ain't got no education--never had a chance to git one."

NOTE: The underscored words are actual quotations. "Estimony" for "opinion" was a characteristic in Gus' vocabulary; "race" for the original "wretch" in the song may have been a general error in some local congregations.

Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson Person interviewed: Henrietta Williams B. Avenue, El Dorado, Arkansas Age: About 82

"I am about 82 years old. I was born in Georgia down in the cotton patch. I did not know much about slavery, for I was raised in the white folks' house, and my old mistress called me her little nigger, and she didn't allow me to be whipped and drove around. I remember my old master whipped me one time and old mistress fussed with him so much he never did whip me any more.

"I never had to get out and do any real hard work until I was nearly grown. My mother did not have but one child. My father was sold from my mother when I was about two years old and he was carried to Texas and I did not see him any more until I was 35 years old. So my mother married again when she was set free. I didn't stay with my mother very much. She stayed off in a little log house with a dirt floor, and she cooked on the fireplace with a skillet and lid, and the house had one window with a shutter. She had to cut logs and roll them like a man and split rails and plow. I would sometimes ask old mistress to let me go out where my mother was working to see her plow and when I got to be a big girl about nine years she began learning me how to plow.

"I often told the niggers the white folks raised me. The niggers tell me, 'Yes, the white folks raise you but the niggers is going to kill you.'

"After freedom my mistress and master moved to Louisiana. They farmed. They owned a big plantation. I did the housework.

"The biggest snow I remember was the big centennial snow. Oh, that's been years ago. The snow was so deep you couldn't get out of the house. The boys had to take the shovel and the hoe and keep the snow raked away from around the door.

"There was a big old oak tree that stood in the corner of the yard. People say that tree was a hundred years old. We could not get no wood, so master had the boys to cut the big old oak tree for wood.

"Rabbits had a scant time. The boys would go out and track six or eight rabbits at a time. We had rabbits of all descriptions. We had rabbits for breakfast, rabbits for dinner, rabbits for supper time. We had fried rabbits, baked rabbits, stewed rabbits, boiled rabbits. Had rabbits, rabbits, rabbits the whole six or eight weeks the snow stayed on the ground.

"I remember when I was about twelve years old a woman had two small children. She went away from home and for fear that the children would get hurt on the outside she put them in the house and locked the door. In some way they got a match and struck it and the house caught fire. All the neighbors were a long ways off and by the time they reched the house it had fallen in. Finally the mother came and looked for her children and asked the neighbors did they save them. They said no, they did not know they were in the house. In fact they were too late anyway. So the fire was still hot and they had to wait for the ashes to cool and when the ashes got cool they went looking for the children and found the burned buttons that were on their little clothes, so they began raking around in the ashes and at last found each of their little hearts that had not burned, but the little hearts were still jumping and the man who found the hearts picked them up in his hand and stood speechless. He became so nervous he could not move. Their little hearts just quivered. They let their hearts lay out for a couple of days and when they buried their hearts they was still jumpin'. That was a sad time. From that day to this day I never lock no one up in the house."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Henry Andrew (Tip) Williams Biscoe, Arkansas Age: Born in 1854, 86