Chapter IX: Part III: Dialogue--Colloquy in Church (3)

"They carried me out to the field one evening. He never did show me nor tell me how to handle it and when I found myself, he had knocked me down. When I got up, he didn't tell me what to do, but when I picked up my things and started droppin' the seeds ag'in, he picked up a pine root and killed me off with it. When I come to, he took me up to the house and told his wife he didn't want me into the fields because I was too damned slow.

"My mars used to throw me in a buck and whip me. He would put my hands together and tie them. Then he would strip me naked. Then he would make me squat down. Then he would run a stick through behind my knees and in front of my elbows. My knees was up against my chest. My hands was tied together just in front of my shins. The stick between my arms and my knees held me in a squat. That's what they called a buck. You could [TR: sic: couldn't] stand up an' you couldn't git your feet out. You couldn't do nothin' but just squat there and take what he put on you. You couldn't move no way at all. Just try to. You jus' fall over on one side and have to stay there till you turned over by him.

"He would whip me on one side till that was sore and full of blood and then he would whip me on the other side till that was all tore up. I got a scar big as the place my old mis' hit me. She took a bull whip once--the bull whip had a piece of iron in the handle of it--and she got mad. She was so mad she took the whip and hit me over the head with the butt end of it, and the blood flew. It ran all down my back and dripped off my heels. But I wasn't dassent to stop to do nothin' about it. Old ugly thing! The devil's got her right now!! They never rubbed no salt nor nothin' in your back. They didn't need to.

"When the war come, they made him serve. He would go there and run away and come back home. One day after he had been took away and had come back, he was settin' down talkin' to old mis', and I was huddled up in the corner listenin', and I heered him tell her, 'Tain't no use to do all them things. The niggers'll soon be free.' And she said, 'I'll be dead before that happens, I hope.' And she died just one year before the slaves was freed. They was a mean couple.

"Old mars used to strip my sister naked and make her lay down, and he would lift up a fence rail and lay it down on her neck. Then he'd whip her till she was bloody. She wouldn't get away because the rail held her head down. If she squirmed and tried to git loose, the rail would choke her. Her hands was tied behind her. And there wasn't nothin' to do but jus' lay there and take it.

"I am almost a stranger here in Little Rock. My father was named Lewis Hogan and I had one sister named Tina and one named Harriet. His white folks what he lived with was Mrs. Thomas. He was a carriage driver for her. Pleas Collier bought him from her and took him to Louisiana. All the people on my mother's side was left in Georgia. My grandmother's name was Rachel. Her white folks she lived with was named Dardens. They all lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I remember the train we got on when we left Georgia. Grandma Rachel had one daughter named Siney. Siney had a son named Billie and a sister named Louise. And my grandmother was free when I first got big enough to know myself. I don't know how come she was free. That was a long time before the war. The part of Georgia we lived in was where chestnuts grow, but they wasn't no chinkapins. All my grandmother's people stayed in Atlanta, and they were living at the time I left there.

"My mother's name was Dinah Hogans and my father's name was Lewis Hogans. I don't know where they were borned. But when I knowed him, they was in Georgia. My mother's mars bought my father 'cause my mother heard that Collier was goin' to break up and go to Louisiana. My father told his mars that if he (Collier) broke up and left, he never would be no more good to him. Then my mother found out what he said to Collier, so she told her old mis' if Collier left, she never would do her no more good. You see, my mother was give to Mrs. Collier when old Darden who was Mrs. Collier's father died. So Collier bought my father. Collier kept us all till we all got free. White folks come to me sometimes about all that.

"You jus' oughter hear me answer them. I tells them about it just like I would colored folks.

"'Them your teeth in your mouth?'

"'Whose you think they is? Suttinly they're my teeth.'

"'Ain't you sorry you free?'

"'What I'm goin' to be sorry for? I ain't no fool.'

"'How old is you?'

"I tells them. Some of 'em want to argue with me and say I ain't that old. Some of 'em say, 'Well, the Lawd sure has blessed you.' Sure he's blessed me. Don't I know that?

"I've seen 'em run away from slavery. There was a white man that lived close to us who had just one slave and he couldn't keep him out the woods to save his soul. The white man was named Jim Sales and the colored boy was named--shucks, I can't remember his name. But I know Jim Sales couldn't keep that nigger out the woods nohow.

"I was freed endurin' the Civil War. We was in at dinner and my old mars had been to town. Old man Pleas Collier, our mean mars, called my daddy out and then he said, 'All you come out here.' I said to myself, 'I wonder what he's a goin' to do to my daddy,' and I slipped into the front room and listened. And he said, 'All of you come.' Then I went out too. And he unrolled the Government paper he had in his hand and read it and told us it meant that all of us was free. Didn't tell us we was free as he was. Then he said the Government's going to send you some money to live on. But the Government never did do it. I never did see nobody that got it. Did you? They didn't give me nothin' and they didn't give my father nothin'. They just sot us free and turned us loose naked.

"Right after they got through reading the papers and told us we was free, my daddy took me to the field and put me to work. I'd been workin' in the house before that.

"Then they wasn't payin' nobody nothin'. They just hired people to work on halves. That was the first year. But we didn't get no half. We didn't git nothin'. Just time we got our crop laid by, the white man run us off and we didn't get nothin'. We had a fine crop too. We hadn't done nothin' to him. He just wanted all the crop for hisself and he run us off. That's all.

"Well, after that my daddy took and hired me out up here in Arkansas. He hired me out with some old poor white trash. We was livin' then in Louisiana with a old white man named Mr. Smith. I couldn't tell what part of Louisiana it was no more than it was down there close to Homer, about a mile from Homer. My mother died and my father come and got me and took me home to take care of the chillen.

"I have been married twice. I married first time down there within four miles of Homer. I was married to my first husband a number of years. His name was Wesley Wilson. We had eight children. My second husband was named Lee somepin or other. I married him on Thursday night and he left on Monday morning. I guess he must have been taking the white folks' things and had to clear out. His name was Lee Hardy. That is what his name was. I didn't figure he stayed with me long enough for me to take his name. That nigger didn't look right to me nohow. He just married me 'cause he thought I was a working woman and would give him money. He asked me for money once but I didn't give 'im none. What I'm goin' to give 'im money for? That's what I'd like to know.

"After my first husband died, I cooked and went on for them white folks. That was the only thing I could do. I was cooking before he died. I can't do no work now. I ain't worked for more than twenty years. I ain't done no work since I left Magnolia.

"I belong to the Collins Street Baptist Church--Nichols' church.

"I don't git no pension. I don't git nothin'. I been down to see if I could git it but they ain't give me nothin' yit. I'm goin' down ag'in when I can git somebody to carry me."

Interviewer's Comment

Ella Wilson insists that she is one hundred years old and that she was born sixteen years before freedom. The two statements conflict. From her appearance and manner, either might be true.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Robert Wilson 811 West Pullen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 101

"My name is Robert Wilson. I was born in Halifax County, Virginia. How old am I? Accordin' to my recollection I was twenty-three years old befo' the war started. Old master tole me how old I was. I'm a hundred and one now. Yes'm I _knows_ I am.

"Yes'm I been sold. They put us up on the auction block jest like we was a hoss. They put me up and white man ax 'Who want to buy this boy?' One man say 'ten dollars' and then they run it up to a hundred. And they buy a girl to match you and raise you up together. When you want to get married you jump over the broomstick. I used to weigh one hundred and fifty-six pounds and a half, standin' weight. I could pick four and five hundred pounds of cotton in a day.

"When the Yankees come, old master make us boys take the sack of money and hide it in the big pond. Yes'm, we drove the buggy right in the water.

"Durin' the time of the war I used to ride 'long side of the Yankees. They give me a blue coat with brass buttons and a blue cap and brass-toed boots. I used to saddle and curry the bosses. I member Company Fifth and Sixth.

"They tole us the war was to make things better. We didn't know we was free till 'bout six months after the war was over. I didn't care whether I was free or not.

"'Bout slavery--well, I thinks like this. I think they fared better then. They didn't have to worry 'bout spenses. We had plenty chicken and everything. Nowdays when you pay the rent you ain't got nothin' left to buy somethin' to eat.

"Yes'm, I been to school. I'se a preacher (showing me his certificate of ordination). I lives close to the Lord. The Lord done left me here for a purpose.

"When we used to pray we put our heads under the wash pot to keep old master from hearin' us. Old master make us put the chillun to bed fo' dark. I 'member one song he make us sing--

'Down in Mobile, down in Mobile
How I love dat pretty yellow gal,
She rock to suit me--
Down in Mobile, down in Mobile.'

"You 'member when Grant took the fort at Vicksburg? I 'member he and that general on the white hoss--yes'm, General Lee, they eat dinner together and then after dinner they go to fightin'.

"Oh lord! Don't talk about them Ku Klux.

"Cose I believes in spirits. Don't you? Well you ain't never been skeered.

"After freedom my folks refugeed from Virginia to Tennessee so I went to Memphis. We got things from the Bureau. Yes, Lord! I had everything I wanted. I wouldn't care if that time would come back now.

"'Did you ever vote?' Me? Yes'm I voted. Never had no trouble 'tall. I voted for Garfield. I 'member when Garfield was shot. I was settln' out in the yard. The moon was in the 'clipse. I'll never forget it.

"I think the colored folks should have a legal right to vote, cause if ever they come another war--now listen--them darkies ain't never goin' to France again. The nigger ain't got no country--this is white man's town.

"What I been doin' since the war? Well, I'm a good cook. When I puts on the white apron, I knows what to do. Then I preaches. The Lord done revealed things to me.

"I'll tell you 'bout this younger generation. They is goin' to destruction. They is not envelopin (developing) their education.

"Well I done tole you all I know. Guess I tole you 'bout a book, ain't I?"

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Tom Windham, 723 Missouri, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 98

"I was twenty-one years old when the war was settled. My mother and my grandmother kep' my age up and after the death of them I knowed how to handle it myself.

"My old master's name was Butler and he was pretty fair to his darkies. He give em plenty to eat and wear.

"I was born and raised in Indian Territory and emigrated from there to Atlanta, Georgia when I was about twelve or thirteen. We lived right in Atlanta. I cleaned up round the house. Yes ma'm, that's what I followed. When the Yankees come to Atlanta they just forced us into the army. After I got into the army and got used to it, it was fun--just like meat and bread. Yankees treated me good. I was sorry when it broke up. When the bugle blowed we knowed our business. Sometimes, the age I is now, I wish I was in it. Father Abraham Lincoln was our President. I knowed the war was to free the colored folks. I run away from my white folks is how come I was in the Yankee army. I was in the artillery. That deefened me a whole lot and I lost these two fingers on my left hand--that's all of my joints that got broke.

"Before the war my white folks was good to us. I had a better time than I got now.

"My father and mother was sold away from me, but old mistress couldn't rest without em and went and got em back. They stayed right there till they died. Us folks was treated well. I think we should have our liberty cause us ain't hogs or horses--us is human flesh.

"When I was with the Yankees, I done some livin'.

"I went to school two months in my life. I should a gone longer but I found where I could get next to a dollar so I quit. If I had education now it might a done me some good.

"I used to be in a brass band. I like a brass band, don't make no difference where I hear it.

"There was one song we played when I was in the army. It was:

'Rasslin Jacob, don't weep
Weepin' Mary, don't weep.
Before I'd be a slave
I'd be buried in my grave,
Go home to my father and be saved.'

The Rebels was hot after us then. Another one we used to sing was:

'My old mistress promised me
When she die, she'd set me free.'

"After the war I continued to work around the white folks and yes ma'm, I seen the Ku Klux many a time. They bothered me sometimes but they soon let me alone. They was a few Yankees about and they come together and made the Ku Klux stay in their place.

"One time after the war I went to Ohio and stayed three months but it was too cold for me. Man I worked for was named Harper and as good a man as ever broke a piece of bread.

"I come back South and learned how to farm. I been here in this country of Arkansas a long time. I hoped clean up this place (Pine Bluff) and make a town of it.

"I got a daughter and two sisters alive in Africa today--in Liberia. I went there after we was free. I liked it. Just the thoughts of bein' where Christ traveled--that's the good part of it. They furnished us transportation to go to Africa after the war and a lot of the colored folks went. I come back cause I had a lot of kin here, but I sent my daughter and two sisters there and they're alive there today."

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Subject: Apparitions

This information given by: Tom Windham Place of Residence: 723 Missouri St. Pine Bluff, Ark. Occupation: None (Age 92) [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

"Yes ma'm, I believe in spirits--you got two spirits--one bad and one good, and when you die your bad spirit here on this earth.

Now my mother comes to see me once in awhile at night. She been dead till her bones is bleached, but she comes and tells me to be a good boy. I always been obedient to old and young. She tell me to be good and she banish from me.

My grandmother been to see me once.

Old Father Abraham Lincoln, I've seen him since he been dead too. I got a gun old Father Abraham give me right out o' his own hand at Vicksburg. I'm goin' to keep it till I die too.

Yes ma'm, I know they is spirits."

Pine Bluff District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of interviewer: Martin - Barker Subject: Ex-Slave Story.

Information by: Tom Windham Place of residence: 1221 Georgia St. Age: 87 [TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]

My master was an Indian. Lewis Butler of Oklahoma. I was born and raised in Muskogee, Okla.

All of marse Butler's people were Creek Indians. They owned a large plantation and raised vegetables. They lived in tepees, had floors and were set on a lot and a wall boarded up around them. This was done so that they could hide the slaves they had stolen.

I was twelve or thirteen years old, when the Indians had a small war. They wouldn't allow us to fight. If we did, we were punished. They had a place and made us work. I went to school two months also a little at night. Cant read nor write. I am all alone now here in America. I have a daughter in Ethiopia, teaching school, also two sisters.

I served in several wars and I have been to Ethiopia. We left Monroe, La., took water, then went back by gun-boat to Galveston. The Government took us over and brought us back. After the Civil war was over the Indians let the slaves go.

I had an Indian wife and wore Indian dress and when I went to Milford, Tenn., I had to send the outfit home to Okla. I had long hair until 1931.

My Indians believed in our God. They held their meetings in a large tent. They believed in salvation and damnation, and in Heaven and Hell.

My idea of Heaven is that it is a holy place with God. We will walk in Heaven just as on earth. As in him we believe, so shall we see.

The earth shall burn, and the old earth shall pass away and the new earth will be created. The saints will return and live on, that is the ones who go away now.

The new earth is when Jesus will cone to earth and reign. Every one has two spirits. One that God kills and the other an evil spirit. I have had communication with my dead wife twice since I been in Pine Bluff. Her spirit come to me at night, calling me, asking whar wuz baby?

That meant our daughter whut is across the water.

My first wifes name was Arla Windham. My second wife was just part Indian. I have seen spirits of friends just as they were put away. I shore believe in ghosts. Their language is different from ours. I knew my wife's voice cause she called me "Tommy".

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Alice Wise 1112 Indiana Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"I was born in South Carolina, and I sent and got my age and the man sent me my age. He said he remembered me. He said, 'You married Marcus Wise. I know you is seventy-nine 'cause I'm seventy-four and you're older'n me. Why, I got a boy fifty-three years old.

"We belonged to Daniel Draft. His wife was named Maud. And my father's people was named Wesley Caughman and his wife was Catherine Caughman.

"I can recollect hearin' the folks hollerin' when the Yankees come through and singin' this old cornfield song

'I'm a goin' away tomorrow
Hoodle do, hoodle do.'

That's all I can recollect.

"I can recollect when we moved from the white folks. My father driv' a wagon and hauled lumber to Columbia from Lexington.

"I don't know how old I was when I come here. My age got away from me, that's how come I had to write home for it, but I had three chillun when I come to this country; I know that.

"I went to school a little, but chillun in them days had to work. I was always apt about washin' and ironin' and sewin' and so if anybody was stopped from school I was stopped. I used to set pockets in pants for mama. In them days they weaved and made their own.

"They'd do better if they had a factory here now. Things wouldn't be so high.

"Oh Lord, yes, I could knit. I'd sit up some nights and knit a half a sock and spin and card.

"My mother's boys would card and spin a broach when they wasn't doin' nothin' else, but nowadays you can't get 'em to bring you a bucket of water.

"They say they is weaker and wiser, but I say they is weaker and foolisher. That's what I think. You know they ain't like the old folks was. Folks works nowadays and keeps their chillun in school till they're grown, and it don't do 'em much good-some of 'em."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Frank Wise, 1006 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 81 to 85

Birth and Parents

"I was born in Burch County, Georgia, in 1854. I came to this state in 1871; I think I was about sixteen years old then.

"My father was named Jim Wise and my mother was named Harriet Wise. My father belonged to the Wises, and my mother to the Crawfords. They didn't live on the same plantation. When they married, she was a Crawford. Her old master was named Jim Crawford. I don't know how she and my father happened to meet up. Wise and Crawford had adjoining plantations. Both of them was in Burch County. My father's father was named Jacob Wise and his mother was named Martha. I don't remember the names of their master. I don't remember the names of my mother's people.

War Memories

"I remember the year the War ended. I remember when the Yankees came on the place that day the War ended. We children was all settin' out in the yard. Some of them ran under the house when they saw the soldiers. They were shooting the chickens and everything, taking the horses, and anything else they thought they could use. They said to the old lady, 'Lemme kill them little niggers.' Old miss said, 'No, wait till you set them free.' He said, 'No, when we set them free, we ain't goin' to kill them.' They got around in the house, under the house, and in the yard. They asked the old lady, 'Where is the horses?' She said, 'I don't know.' They said, 'Go down in the woods and get them.' Somebody went down and brought back a mare and a mule and a colt. They knocked the colt in the head and shot him. They took the mare and the mule. They took all the meat out of the smokehouse. They didn't set us free, and they didn't tell us anything about freedom. Not then.

How Freedom Came

"I don't remember how we got the news of freedom. I don't remember what the slaves expected to get. I don't know what they got, if they got anything. I don't remember nothin' about that.

Schooling

"I went to school about eight days. That's all the schooling I ever got. I had a brother and sister who went to school, but I never went much. I went to school what little I did right here in Lonoke County, Arkansas. My teacher was Tom Fuller. He was a colored man. He came from down in Texas. I learned everything I know by watching people and listenin' to them.

Occupational Experiences

"The first thing I ever did was farming. I farmed all up till 1879. I worked on steamboat till 1881, and then I went out railroading. I worked at that a long time. I married in 1883. I was about twenty-seven years old then, and a few months over.

"While I was farming, I did some sharecropping, but I never got cheated out of anything.

Ku Klux

"I remember the folks had been off to see their people and the Ku Klux taken the stock while they were gone. I don't remember the Ku Klux Klan interfering with the Negroes much. I never saw them.

Voting

"I never voted till Cleveland began his campaign for President. I voted for eight presidents. Nobody ever bothered me about it.

Family

"There were six children in my mother's family. My father had six brothers. He made the seventh. I had nine children in all. Four of them are living now. One is here; one, in St. Louis; and two, in Chicago. My boy is in Chicago.

Opinions

"The majority of the young people are just growing up. Lots of them are not getting any raising at all."

Interviewer's Comment

Wise is between eighty-one and eighty-five years old. The data he gives conflict, some of it indicating the earlier and some of it later years.

He doesn't talk much and has to be pumped. He doesn't lose the thread of the discourse. His failure to talk on details of his early life seem to the interviewer due to unwillingness rather than lack of memory. While his age is advanced, his mind is sharp for one who has had such limited training.

He has no definite means of support, but states that he has been promised a pension in September--he means old age assistance.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lucy Withers, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 86

I was born 5-1/2 miles from Abbeville, South Carolina, in sight of Little Mountain. I do remember the Civil War. I never seen them fight. They come to about twenty or thirty miles from where I lived. They didn't bother much in the parts where I lived. All the white men folks went to war. My mama's master was Edward Roach and his wife was Miss Sarah Roach. My papa's master was Peter Radcliff and Miss Nancy Radcliff. They give me to her niece, Miss Jennie Shelitoe. When she married she wanted me. After freedom I married. In 1866 we come to a big farm close to Pine Bluff. Then we lived close to Memphis and I been living here in Brinkley a long time.

The Ku Klux put down a Governor in South Carolina right after the war. They rode everywhere night and day scaring everybody. They wouldn't let no colored people hold office. That governor was a colored man. The Ku Klux whipped both black and white folks. They run the Yankees plumb out er that country.

No sir ree I never voted and I ain't never goner vote! Women is tearing dis world up.

The ex-slaves was told that they would got things, different things. I don't know what all. I know they didn't got nothing and when freedom came they took their clothes and left. They scattered out and went to different places. It was hard to get work and there was no money cept what the Yankees give em. When they all got run off there was no money.

My husband was a Yankee soldier and he decided he wanter come to this country. We come on the train and on the boat to Pine Bluff. We farmed. I got three children but just two living. One boy lives at Fargo and the girl lives at Chicago. My husband died. Me and my sister lives here. I bought a place with my pension money. That since my husband died.

The present times is hard. I don't know nithin about these young folks. I tends to my own business. I ain't got nothing to do with the young folks. I don't know what causes the times to be so hard. Folks used to wear more clothes than they do and let colored folks have more ironing and bigger washings too. The washings bout played out. Some few folks hire cooks.

I farmed and washed and ironed and I have cooked along some here in Brinkley.

I am supported by my pension my husband left me. It ain't much but I make out with it. It is Union Soldiers Pension.

[HW: Hot Springs]

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins Person Interviewed: Anna Woods, 426 Grand Avenue

"Yes ma'am. Come on in. Is you taking lists of folks for old age pensions? Can you tell us what we going to get and when it's going to come? No? Then--Oh, I see you is writing us up. Well maybe that will help us to get attention. Cause we sure does need the pension.

To be sure I remembers slave days. My grandmother--she was give away in the trading yard. She was aflicted. What was the matter with her? Was she lame? No ma'am, she had the scrofula. So her mother was sold away from her, but she was give away. She was give away to a woman named Glover.

Mrs. Glover was a old woman when I knowed her. She was an old, old woman. She sort of studied before she'd say anything. She was a pretty good old woman though, Mrs. Glover was. She wouldn't let her colored folks be whipped. She wouldn't let me work in the field. Old Donovan wanted me to work in the field--but she wouldn't let him make me. Donovan was Mary's husband. Mary was Mrs. Glover's girl's girl. Mrs. Glover's girl was named Kate.

Mrs. Glover had a whole flock of slaves. My mother and another woman named Sallie cooked and did the washing. Fannie, she was my sister, was old Mrs. Glover's maid. Robert and Sally and Lucy--they was my brother and sisters--all of them worked in the field. They had to begin early and work late. They got them out way fore day. They worked them til dark.

I remembers that Sally and Lucy used to wear boots and roll their skirts up nearly to their waistses. Why--well you see sometimes it was muddy. Did we raise rice--No, ma'am. We mostly raised corn and cotton, like everybody else.

We lived near Natchez. No ma'am, I never see but one colored person whipped. His name was Robert. They laid him down on his stomach to whip him. Never did hear what he had done. Maybe he run off. They usually whipped them for that. No ma'am. I was right. Mrs. Glover didn't let her colored folks be whipped. Robert, you see, was Donovan's man. He didn't belong to Mrs. Glover. Her folks never got whipped.

Maybe Robert run off. I don't know. The folks did one thing special to keep them from running. They fastened a sort of yoke around they necks. From it there run up a sort of piece and there was a bell on the top of that. It was so high the folks who wore it couldn't reach the bell. But if they run it would tinkle and folks could find them. I don't quite know how it worked--I just slightly remembers.

No, ma'am, I was just sort of a little girl before the war. You might say I was never a slave. Cause I didn't have to work. Mrs. Glover wouldn't let me work in the field and I didn't have much work to do in the house either. Mrs. Glover was an old widow woman, but she was shore good. Miss Kate was her onliest child. Kate's daughter was named Mary.

Was I afraid of the soldiers? No ma'am. I wasn't.

Lots of them that came through were colored soldiers. I remember that they wore long tailed coats. They had brass buttons on they coats. But we had to move from Natchez.

First the soldiers run us off to Tennisaw Parish--an island there." (A check on maps in the atlas of Encyclopedia Britannica reveals a Tenses Parish, Louisiana--across the river and a few miles north of Natchez.) "We couldn't even stay there. They drove us along, and finally we wound up in Texas.

We wasn't there in Texas long when the soldiers marched in to tell us that we was free. Seems to me like it was on a Monday morning when they come in. Yes, it was a Monday. They went out to the field and told them they was free. Marched them out of the fields. They come a'shouting. I remembers one woman, she jumped up on a barrell and she shouted. She jumped off and she shouted. She jumped back on again and shouted some more. She kept that up for a long time, just jumping on a barrell and back off again.

Yes ma'am, we children played. I remembers that the grown folks used to have church--out behind an old shed. They'd shout and they'd sing. We children didn't know what it all meant. But every Monday morning we'd get up and make a play house in an old wagon bed--and we'd shout and sing too. We didn't know what it meant, or what we was supposed to be doing. We just aped our elders.

When the war was over my brother, he drove the carriage, he drove the white folks back to Natchez. But we didn't go--my family. We stopped part way to Natchez. Never did see Miss Kate or Mrs. Glover again. Never did see them again. Lots later my brother learned where we was. He came back for us and took us to Natchez. But we never did see Mrs. Glover again.

I lived on in Natchez. I worked for white folks--cooked for them. I did a lot of traveling. Even went up into Virginia. Traveled most of the time. I'd go with one family and when we'd get back, there'd be another one who wanted me to go and take care of their children.

Been in Hot Springs since 1905. Worked for Dr. ---- first. Stayed right in the house. Never did see such fine folks as Dr. ----" (prominent local surgeon) "and his wife. Then I worked for Mr. ----" (prominent realtor) "Yes, and I's worked at the Army and Navy Hospital too. Mighty nice up there. Worked in the officer's mess--finest place up there. I's worked for the officers too. Then I's worked for the Levi Hospital. Worked for lots of folks.

I's worked for lots of folks and in lots of places. But I haven't got anything now. How soon do you think they will begin paying us? I get just $10 from the county every month. $5 of that goes for my house. Folks gives me clothes, but if they'd only give me groceries too, I could get along. When do you think they will begin to pay us?"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Cal Woods; R.F.D., Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 85?

"I don't know zactly how old I is. I was good size boy when the war come on. We all belonged to a man named John Woods. We lived in South Carolina during slavery. Slavery was prutty bad itself but the bad time come after the war. The land was hilly some red and some pore and sandy. Had to plough a mule or horse. Hard to make a living. Some folks was rich, had heap of slaves and some bout one family. Small farmer have 160 acres and one family of slaves. When a man had one or two slave families he treated em better an if he had a great big acreage and fifteen or twenty families. The white folks trained the black man and woman. If he have so many they didn't learn how to do but one or two things. Mas generally they all worked in the fields in the busy seasons and sometimes the white folks have to work out there too. Sometimes they get in debt and have to sell off some slave to pay the debt.

"Things seemed heap mo plentiful. Before the war folks wore fine clothes. They go to their nearest tradin point and sell cotton. They had fine silk clothes and fine knives and forks. They would buy a whole case o cheese at one time and a barrel of molasses. Folks eat more and worked harder than they do now.

"Some folks was mean to their slaves and some slaves mean. It is lack it is now, some folks good no matter what dey color, other folks bad. Black folks never knowed there was freedom till they was fighting and going to war. Some say they was fightin to save their slaves, some say the Union broke. The slave never been free since he come to dis world, didn't know nuthin bout freedom till they tole em bout it.

"I recollect bout the Ku Klux after the war. Some folks come over the country and tell you you free and equal now. They tell you what to do an how to run the country and then if you listen to them come the Ku Klux all dressed half mile down the road. That Ku Klux sprung up after the war bout votin an offis-holdin mong the white folks. The white folks ain't then nor now havin no black man rulin over him. Them Ku Klux walked bout on high sticks and drink all the water you have from the spring. Seem lack they meddled a whole heap. Course the black folks knowed they was white men. They hung some slaves and white Yankees too if they be very mean. They beat em. Hear em hollowing and they hollow too. They shoot all directions round and up an down the road. That's how you know they comin close to yo house. If you go to any gatherins they come break it up an run you home fast as you could run and set the dogs on you. Course the dogs bite you. They say they was not goiner have equalization if they have to kill all the Yankees and niggers in the country. The masters sometime give em a home. My mother left John Woods then. The family went back. He give her an my papa twenty acres their lifetime. Where dey stayed on the old folks had a little at some places. They didn't divide up no plantations I ever heard of. They never give em no mules. If some tole em they would I know they sho didn't. Didn't give em nuthin I tell you. My mother's name was Sylvia and papa's name was Hack Woods.

"I come to Arkansas so my little boys would have a home. I had a little home an sold it to come out here. Agents come round showin pictures how big the cotton grow. They say it grow like trees out here. The children climb the stalks an set on the limb lack birds to pick it. They show pictures like that. Cotton basket way down under it on the ground. See droves of wild hogs coming up, look big as mules. Men ridin em. No I didn't know they said it was so fine. We come in freight cars wid our furniture and everything we brought. We had our provision in baskets and big buckets. It lasted till we passed Atlanta. We nearly starved the rest of the way. When we did stop you never hear such a hollein. We come two days and nights hard as we could come. We stayed up and eat, cooked meat an eggs on the stove in the store till daybreak. Then they showed us wha to go to our places the next day. I been here ever since.

"I hab voted. I done quit lettin votin bother me up. All I see it do is give one fellow out of two or three a job both of them maybe ought to have. The meanest man often gets lected. It the money they all after not the work in it. I heard em say what all they do and when they got lected they forgot to do all they say they would do.

"I never knowed bout no slave uprisins. Thed had to uprose wid rocks an red clods. The black man couldn't shoot. He had no guns. They had so much work they didn't know how to have a uprisin. The better you be to your master the better he treat you. The white preachers teach that in the church."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Maggie Woods, Brassfield, Ark. Deaner Farm. Age: 70

"My parents was Fannie and Alfred Douglas. They had three children, then he died and my mother married a man name Thompson. My parents belong to the Douglasses at Summerville, Tennessee. They had six children in their family.

"I was born the second year of the surrender that make me seventy years old. My folks was all field hands. They was all pure African stock. All black folks like me. Grandma Liney Douglass said she was sold and Grandpa was sold too. My own parents never was sold. The Douglass men-folks whooped the slaves but they was good masters outside of that.

"They would steal off and have preachin' at night. Had preachin' nearly all night sometimes. They'd hurry and get in home fore the day be breakin'. From the way they talked they done more prayin' than preachin'.

"Whenever they be sick they would send to the Douglasses to know what to do. They would take them up to their house and doctor them or come down to the quarters and wait on whoever be sick. They had some white doctors about but not near enough. They trained black women to be midwives.

"I think my folks had enough to eat and clothes too I recken. They eat meat to give them strength to work. My old stepdaddy always make us eat piece of meat if we eat garden stuff. He say the meat have strength in it. Cornbread, meat, peas and potatoes used to be the biggest part of folks livin' in olden days. They had plenty milk.

"Children when I come on didn't have no use for money. We eat molasses. Had a little candy once in a while. That be the best thing Santa Claus would bring me. We get ginger cakes in our new stockings too. Santa Claus been comin' ever since I been in the world. Seem like Christmas never would come round agin. It don't seem near so long now.

"I was too young to know about freedom. We was livin' on Douglas farm when George Flenol (white) come and brought us to Indian Bay. We worked on Dick Mayo's place. I don't know what they expected from freedom but I'm pretty sure they never got nothing.

"When the black folks come free then the Ku Klux took it up and made 'em work and stay at home. I heard that some folks wanted to stay in the road all the time. The Ku Klux nearly scared me to death to see pass by. They never did bother us.

"I don't vote. Don't know nothing about it. I don't like the way that is fixed for us to live now. We pay house rent and works as day laborers. It makes the work too heavy at some times and no work to do nearly all the time. It is making times hard. Cotton and corn choppin' time and cotton pickin' time is all the times a woman like me can work. I raised a shoat. I got no room for garden and chickens.

"I got one girl, she way from here, she sent me $2.00 for my Christmas.

"The young generation is weaker in body than us old folks has been. They ain't been raised to hard work and they don't hold out.

"That is salve I'm making. What do it smell like? It smell like chitlings. In that sack is the inside of the chitlings (hog manure). I boil it down and strain it, then boll it down, put camphor gum and fresh lard in it, boil it down low and pour it up. It is a green salve. It is fine for piles, rub your back for lumbago, and swab out your throat for sore throat. It is a good salve. I had a sore throat and a black woman told me how to make it. It cures the sore throat right now.

"I live on what I am able to work and make. I never have got no help from the government."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Sam Word, 1122 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"I'm a sure enough Arkansas man, born in Arkansas County near De Witt. Born February 14, 1859, and belonged to Bill Word. I know Marmaduke come down through Arkansas County and pressed Bill Word's son Tom into the service.

"I 'member one song they used to sing called the 'Bonnie Blue Flag.'

'Jeff Davis is our President
And Lincoln is a fool;
Jeff Davis rides a fine white horse
While Lincoln rides a mule.'

'Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights,
Hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a Single Star!'"

(The above verse was sung to the tune of "The Bonnie Blue Flag." From the Library of Southern Literature I find the following notation about the original song and its author, Harry McCarthy: "Like Dixie, this famous song originated in the theater and first became popular in New Orleans. The tune was borrowed from 'The Irish Jaunting Car', a popular Hibernian air. Harry McCarthy was an Irishman who enlisted in the Confederate army from Arkansas. The song was written in 1861. It was published by A.E. Blackmar who declared General Ben Butler 'made it very profitable by fining every man, woman, or child who sang, whistled or played it on any instrument twenty-five dollars.' Blackmar was arrested, his music destroyed, and a fine of five hundred dollars imposed upon him.")

"I stayed in Arkansas County till 1866. I was about seven years old and we moved here to Jefferson County. Then my mother married again and we went to Conway County and lived a few years, and then I come back to Jefferson County, so I've lived in Jefferson County sixty-eight years.

"In Conway County when I was a small boy livin' on the Milton Powell place, I 'member they sent me out in the field to get some peaches about a half mile from the slave quarters. It was about three o'clock, late summer, and I saw something in the tree--a black lookin' concern. Seem like it got bigger the closer I got, and then just disappeared all of a sudden and I didn't see it go. I know I went back without any peaches.

"And another thing I can tell you. In the spring of the year we was hoein' and when they quit at night they'd leave the hoes in the field, stickin' down in the ground. And next morning they wouldn't be where you left 'em. You'd have to look for 'em and they'd be lyin' on top of the ground and crossed just like sticks.

"I'll tell you what I do know. When we was livin' in Conway County old man Powell had about ten colored families he had emigrated from Jefferson County. Our folks was the only colored people in that neighborhood. And he had a white man that was a tenant on the place and he died. Now my mother and his wife used to visit one another. In them days the white folks wasn't like they are now. And so mother went there to sit up with his wife. And while she was sittin' up the house was full of people--white and colored. They begin to hear a noise about the coffin. So they begin to investigate the worse it got and moved around the room and it lasted till he was took out of the house. Now I've heard white and colored say that was true. They never did see it but they heard it.

"I don't think there is any ghosts now but they was in the past generation.

"I know many times me and my stepfather would be pickin' cotton and my dog would be up at the far end of the row and just before dark he'd start barkin' and come towards us a barkin' and we never could see anything. He'd do that every day. It was a dog named Natch--an English bull terrier. He was give to me a puppy. He was a sure enough bulldog and he could whip any dog I ever saw. He was an imported dog.

"I remember a house up in Conway County made out of logs--a two-story one just this side of Cadron Creek on the Military Road. Then they called it the Wire Road because the telegraph wire run along it. The house was vacant after the people that owned it had died, and people comin' along late at night would stop to spend the night, and in the middle of the night they'd have to get out. Now I've heard that with my own ears. There was a spring not far from the house. It had been a fine house and was a beautiful place to stop. But in the night they'd hear chairs rattlin' and fall down. It's my belief they had spooks in them old days.

"Now I'll tell you another incident. This was in slave times. My mother was a great hand for nice quilts. There was a white lady had died and they were goin' to have a sale. Now this is true stuff. They had the sale and mother went and bought two quilts. And let me tell you, we couldn't sleep under 'em. What happened? Well, they'd pinch your toes till you couldn't stand it. I was just a boy and I was sleepin' with my mother when it happened. Now that's straight stuff. What do I think was the cause? Well, I think that white lady didn't want no nigger to have them quilts. I don't know what mother did with 'em, but that white lady just wouldn't let her have 'em.

"Now I'm puttin' the oil out of the can--I mean that what I say is true. People now will say they ain't nothin' to that story. At that time the races wasn't 'malgamated. But people are different now--ain't like they was seventy-five years ago.

"Visions? Well, now I'm glad you asked me that. I'll take pleasure in tellin' you. Two years before I moved to this place I had a vision and I think I saw every colored person that was ever born in America, I believe. I was on the east side of my house and this multitude of people was about four feet from me and they was as thick as sardines in a box and they was from little tots up. Some had on derby hats and some was bareheaded. I talked with one woman--a brown skinned woman. They was sitting on seats just like circus seats just as far as my eyes could behold. Looked like they reached clear up in the sky. That was when I fust went blind. You've read about how John saw the multitude a hundred forty and four thousand and I think that was about one-fourth of what I saw. They was happy and talkin' and nothin' but colored people--no white people.