Volume 2 / Part 2 — ILLUSTRATIONS (continued 3)

"After a while dis man, he got him a place up close to Marvell where he moved to. He brought his nigger fambly with him. He built dem a good house on his farm where he kept them. He give dat woman an' dem chillun dey livin' till de chillun done grown an' de woman she dead. Then he married him a nice white woman after he moved close to Marvell. He built him a house in town where his white wife live an' she de mammy of a heap of chillun too by dis same man. So dis man, he had a white fambly an' a half nigger fambly before. De most of de chillun of dis man is livin' in this county right now.

"Yas suh, Boss, I is sure 'nough growed up with dis here county. In my young days most all de west end of this county was in de woods. There wasn't no ditches or no improvements at all. De houses an' barns was most all made of logs, but I is gwine to tell you one thing, de niggers an' de white folks, dey get erlong more better together then dan dey does at dis time. De white folks then an' de darkies, dey just had more confidence in each other seems like in dem days. I don't know how 'twas in de other states after de War, but right here in Phillips County de white folks, dey encouraged de darkies to buy 'em a home. Dey helped dem to git it. Dey sure done dat. Mr. Marve Carruth, dat was really a good white man. He helped me to get dis very place here dat I is owned for fifty years. An' then I tell you dis too, Boss, when I was coming up, de folks, dey just worked harder dan dey do these days. A good hand then naturally did just about three er four times as much work in a day as dey do now. Seems like dis young bunch awful no 'count er bustin' up and down de road day and night in de cars, er burnin' de gasoline when dey orter be studyin' 'bout makin' er livin' an' gettin' demselves er home.

"Yas suh, I riccolect all 'bout de time dat de niggers holdin' de jobs in de courthouse in Helena, but I is never took no part in that votin' business an' I allus kept out of dem arguments. I left it up to de white folks to 'tend to de 'lectin' of officers.

"De darkies what was in de courthouse dat I riccolect was: Bill Gray, he was one of de clerks; Hense Robinson, Dave Ellison, an' some more dat I don't remember. Bill Gray, he was a eddycated man, but de res', dey was just plain old ex-slave darkies an' didn't know nothing. Bill Gray, he used to be de slave of a captain on a steamboat on de ribber. He was sorter servant to he mars on de boat where he stayed all the time. The captain used to let him git some eddycation. Darkies, dey never last long in de courthouse. Dey soon git 'em out.

"I gwine tell you somepin else dat is done changed er lot since I was comin' up. Dat is, de signs what de folks used to believe in dey don't believe in no more. Yet de same signs is still here, an' I sure does believe in 'em 'cause I done seen 'em work for all dese years. De Lawd give de peoples a sign for all things. De moon an' de stars, dey is a sign for all them what can read 'em an' tells you when to plant de cotton an' de taters an' all your crops. De screech owls, dey give er warnin' dat some one gwine to die. About de best sign dat some person gwine die 'round close is for a cow to git to lowin' an' a lowin' constant in de middle of de night. Dat is a sign I hardly is ever seen fail an' I seen it work out just a few weeks ago when old Aunt Dinah died up de road. I heered dat cow a lowin' an' a lowin' an' a walkin' back an' forth down de road for 'bout four nights in a row, right past Aunt Dinah's cabin. I say to my old woman dat somepin is sure gwine to take place, an' dat some pusson gwine die soon cause dat cow, she givin' de sign just right. Dere wasn't nobody 'round sick a tall an' Aunt Dinah, she plumb well at de time. About er week from then Aunt Dinah, she took down an' start to sinkin' right off an' in less than a week she died. I knowed some pusson gwine die all right, yet an' still I didn't know who it was to be. I tell you, Boss, I is gittin' uneasy an' troubled de last day or two, 'cause I is done heered another cow a lowin' an' a lowin' in de middle of de night. She keeps a walkin' back an' forth past my house out there in de road. I is really troubled 'cause me an' de old woman both is gittin' old. We is both way up in years an' whilst both of us is in real good health, Aunt Dinah was too. Dat cow a lowin' like she do is a bad sign dat I done noticed mighty nigh allus comes true."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Jordan Davis 306 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 86

"I was a boy in the house when the war started and I heard the mistress say the abolitionists was about to take the South. Yes ma'm. That was in Natchez, Mississippi. I was about nine or ten.

"Mistress' name was Eliza A. Hart and master's name was Dave A. Hart.

"I guess they was good to me. I lived right there in the house with then. Mistress used to send me to Sunday School and she'd say 'Now, Jordan, you come right on back to the house, don't you go playin' with them nigger chillun on the streets.'

"My daddy belonged to a man named Davis way down the river in the country and after the war he came and got me. Sure did. Carried me to Davis Bend. I was a good-sized boy about twelve or fifteen. He took me to Mrs. Leas Hamer and you know I was a good-sized boy when she put me in the kitchen and taught me how to cook. Yes'm, I sure can cook. She kept me right in the house with her children. I did her cooking and cleaned up the house. I never got any money for it, or if I did I done forgot all about it. She kept me in clothes, she sure did. I didn't need any money. I stayed five or six years with her, sure did. I thought a lot of her and her children—she was so kind to me.

"Yes ma'm, I went to school one or two years in Mississippi.

"When I come here to Arkansas on the steamboat and got off right here in Pine Bluff, there was a white man standin' there named Burks. He kept lookin' at me and directly he said 'Can you cook?' I was married then and had all my household goods with me, so he got a dray and carried me out to his house. His wife kept a first-class boarding house. Just first-class white folks stayed there. After the madam found out I had a good idea 'bout cookin' she put me in the dining room and turned things over to me.

"Miss, it's been so long, I don't study 'bout that votin' business. I have never bothered 'bout no Republican or votin' business—I never cared about it. I know one thing, the white people are the only ones ever did me any good.

"Mrs. J.B. Talbot has been very good to me. My wife used to work for her and so did I. She sure has been a friend to me. Mrs. J.B. Talbot has certainly stuck to me.

"Oh I think the colored folks ought to be free but I know some of 'em had a mighty tight time of it after the war and now too.

"Ain't nothin' to this here younger generation. I see 'em goin' down the street singin' and dancin' and half naked—ain't nothin' to 'em.

"My wife's been dead five or six years and I live here alone. Yes ma'm! I don't want nobody here with me."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mary Jane Drucilla Davis 1612 W. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 73

"Oh, it was so mournful. And let me tell you what they'd do. They'd all march one behind the other and somebody would carry the baby's casket on their shoulder and sing that song. That's the first song I remember. I was three years old and now I'm seventy-three and crippled up with rheumatism.

"My mother had a garden and they went 'round that way to the graveyard and I thought they was buryin' it in the garden. That was in Georgia.

"In the old days when people died they used to sit up and pray all night, but they don't do that now.

"I was married young. I don't love to tell how old but I was fifteen and when I was seventeen I was a widow. I tried and tried to get another husband as good as my first one but I couldn't. I didn't marry then till I was thirty some.

"My parents brought me from Georgia when I was five years old and now I ain't got no blood kin in Pine Bluff.

"Do I believe in signs? Well, let me tell you what I do know. Before my house burned in 1937, I was sittin' on my porch, and my mother and sister come up to my house. They come a distance to the steps and went around the house. They was both dead but I could see 'em just as plain. And do you know in about two or three weeks my house burned. I think that vision was a sign of bad luck.

"And another time when I was havin' water put in my house, I dreamed that my sister who was dead told a friend of mine to tell me not to sign a contract and I didn't know there was a contract. And that next day a man come out for me to sign a contract and I said, 'No.' He wanted to know why and finally I told him, and he said, 'You're just like my mother.' It was two days 'fore I'd sign. The men had quit work waitin' for me to sign. But let me tell you when they put the water in and when they'd flush the pipes my tub overflowed. The ground was too low and I never could use the commode. Now don't you think that dream was a warning?

"Just before I had this spell of sickness I dreamed my baby—he's dead—come and knocked and said. 'Mama.' And I said, 'Yes, darlin', God bless your heart, you done been here three times and this time mama's comin'. I really thought I was goin' to die. I got up and looked in the glass. You know you can see death in the eyes, but I didn't see any sign of death and I haven't gone yet.

"Last Saturday I was prayin' to God not to let me get out of the heart of the people. You see, I have no kin people and I wanted people to come to my rescue. The next day was Sunday and more people come to see me and brought me more things.

"I been in the church fifty-seven years. I'm the oldest member in St. John's. I joined in May 1881.

"I went to school some. I went as far as the fourth grade."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Minerva Davis, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 56

"My father was sold in Richmond, Virginia when he was eighteen years old to the nigger traders. They had nigger traders and cloth peddlers and horse traders all over the country coming by every few weeks. Papa said he traveled to Tennessee. His job was to wash their faces and hands and fix their hair—comb and cut and braid their hair and dress them to be auctioned off. They sold a lot of children from Virginia all along the way and he was put up in Tennessee and auctioned off. He was sold to the highest bidder. Bill Thomas at Brownsville, Tennessee was the one bought him. Papa was a large strong man.

"He run off and went to war. He had learned to cook and he was one-eyed and couldn't fight. All the endurin' time he cooked at the camps. Then he run off from war when he got a chance before he was mustered out and he never got a pension because of that. He said he come home pretty often and mama was expecting a baby. He thought he was needed at home worse. He was so tired of war. He didn't know it would be valuable to him in his old days. He was sorry he didn't stay till they got him mustered out. He said it was harder in the war than in slavery. They was putting up tents and moving all the time and he be scared purt nigh to death all the time. Never did know when they would be shot and killed.

"Mama said the way they bought grandma was at a well. A drove of folks come by. It was the nigger traders. She had pulled up her two or three buckets. She carried one bucket on her head and one in each hand. They said, 'Draw me up some water to drink.' She was so smart they bragged on her. They said, 'She such a smart little thing.' They went to see her owner and bought her on the spot. They took her away from her people and she never heard tell of none of them no more. She said there was a big family of them. They brought her to Brownsville, Tennessee and Johnny Williams bought her. That was my grandma.

"Mother was born there on Johnny Williams' place and she was heired by his daughter. His daughter married Bill Thomas, the one what done bought my papa. Her young mistress was named Sallie Ann Thomas. Mama got married when she was about grown. She said after she married she'd have a baby about the same time her young mistress had one. Mama had twelve children and raised eleven to be grown. Four of us are living yet. My sister was married when I was born. White folks married young and encouraged their slaves to so they have time to raise big families. Mama died when I was a year old but papa lived on with Johnny Williams where he was when she died. I lived with my married sister. I was the baby and she took me and raised me with her children.

"The Ku Klux wanted to whoop my papa. They all called him Dan. They said he was mean. His white folks protected him. They said he worked well. They wouldn't let him be whooped by them Ku Kluxes.

"Miss Sallie Ann was visiting and she had mama along to see after the children and to help the cook where she visited. They was there a right smart while from the way papa said. The pattyrollers whooped somebody on that farm while she was over there. They wasn't many slaves on her place and they was good to them. That whooping was right smart a curiosity to mama the way papa told us about it.

"When mama and papa married, Johnny Williams had a white preacher to read out of a book to them. They didn't jump over no broom he said.

"They was the biggest kind of Methodist folks and when mama was five years old Johnny Williams had all his slaves baptized into that church by his own white preacher. Papa said some of them didn't believe niggers had no soul but Johnny Williams said they did. (The Negroes must have been christened—ed.)

"Papa said folks coming through the country would tell them about freedom. Mama was working for Miss Sallie Ann and done something wrong. Miss Sallie Ann says, 'I'm a good mind to whoop you. You ain't paying 'tention to a thing you is doing the last week.' Mama says, 'Miss Sallie Ann, we is free; you ain't never got no right to whoop me no more care what I do.' When Bill come home he say, 'How come you to sass my wife? She so good to you.' Mama say, 'Master Bill, them soldiers say I'm free.' He slapped her. That the first time he laid hands on her in his life. In a few days he said, 'We going to town and see is you free. You leave the baby with Sallie Ann.' It was the courthouse. They questioned her and him both. Seemed like he couldn't understand how freedom was to be and mama didn't neither. Then papa took mama on Johnny Williams' place. He come out to Arkansas and picked cotton after freedom and then he moved his children all out here.

"Uncle Albert and grandpa take nights about going out. Uncle Albert was courting.

"They put potatoes on fire to cook when next morning they would be warm ready to eat. The fire popped out on mama. She was in a light blaze. Not a bit of water in the house. Her sisters and brothers peed (urinated) on her to put out the fire. Her stomach was burned and scarred. They was all disappointed because they thought she would be a good breeder. Miss Sallie Ann took her and cured her and when Miss Sallie Ann was going to marry, her folks didn't want to give her Minerva. She tended (contended) out and got her and Agnes both. Agnes died at about emancipation.

"I'm named for my mother. I'm her youngest child.

"I recollect my grandmother and what she told, and papa's mind went back to olden times the older he got to be. When folks would run down slavery he would say it wasn't so bad with them—him and mama. He never seen times bad as times is got to be now. Then he sure would wanted slavery back some more. He was a strong hard laboring man. He was a provider for his family till he got so no 'count.

"Times is changing up fast. Folks is worse about cutting up and carousing than they was thirty years ago to my own knowledge. I ain't old so speaking."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Rosetta Davis, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 55

"I was born in Phillips County, Arkansas. My folks' master was named Dr. Jack Spivy. Grandma belong to him. She was a field woman. I don't know if he was a good master er not. They didn't know it was freedom till three or four months. They was at work and some man come along and said he was going home, the War was over. Some of the hands asked him who win and he told them the Yankees and told them they was free fer as he knowed. They got to inquiring and found out they done been free. They made that crap I know and I don't recollect nothing else.

"I farmed at Foreman, Arkansas for Taylor Price, Steve Pierce, John Huey. I made a crap here with Will Dale. I come to Arkansas twenty-nine years ago. I come to my son. He had a cleaning and pressing shop here (Marianna). He died. I hired to the city to work on the streets. I never been in jail. I owned a house here in town till me and my wife separated. She caused me to lose it. I was married once.

"I get ten dollars a month from the gover'ment.

"The present time is queer. I guess I could git work if I was able to do it. I believe in saving some of what you make along. I saved some along and things come up so I had to spend it. I made so little.

"Education has brought about a heap of unrest somehow. Education is good fer some folks and not good fer some. Some folks git spoilt and lazy. I think it helped to do it to the people of today."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Virginia (Jennie) Davis Scott Street, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 45 or 47

"This is what my father, Isaac Johnson, always told us:

'I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mama died and left three of us children and my papa. He was a blacksmith.' I don't recollect grandpa's name now.

'A man come to buy me. I was a twin. My sisters cried and cried but I didn't cry. I wanted to ride in the surrey. I was sold and taken to Montgomery, Alabama.'

"Angeline was his oldest sister and Emmaline was his twin sister. He never seen any of his people again. He forgot their names. His old master that bought him died soon after he come back from North Carolina.

"His young master didn't even know his age. He tried to get in the army and he did get in the navy. They said he was younger than he told his age. He enlisted for three years. He was in a scrimmage with the Indians once and got wounded. He got twenty dollars then fifty dollars for his services till he died.

"He wasn't old enough to be in the Civil War. He said he remembered his mistress crying and they said Lincoln was to sign a freedom treaty. His young master told him he was free. The colored folks was having a jubilee. He had nowheres to go. He went back to the big house and sot around. They called him to eat, and he went on sleeping where he been sleeping. He had nowheres to go. He stayed there till he joined the navy. Then he come to Mississippi and married Sallie Bratcher and he went back to Alabama and taught school. He went to school at night after the Civil War till he went to the navy. He was a light-brown skin.

"Grandma, Jane Cash, was one brought from Huntingdon, Tennessee in a gang and sold at auction in Memphis, Tennessee. She said her mother, father, the baby, her brother and two sisters and herself was sold, divided out and separated. Grandma said one of her sisters had a suckling baby. She couldn't keep it from crying. They stopped and made her give it away.

"Then grandma fell in the hands of the Walls at Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was a good breeder, so she didn't have to work so hard. They wouldn't let her work when she was pregnant.

"Mrs. Walls buried her silver in the front yard. She had an old trusty colored man to dig a hole and bury it. No one ever found it. The soldiers took their meat and let the molasses run out on the ground. They ransacked her house. Mr. Walls wasn't there.

"My auntie, Eliza Williamson, was half white. She was one of her master's son's children. Her first master put her and her husband together. She lives near Conway, Arkansas now and is very old.

"Grandma was living at Menifee, Arkansas, and a man from De Valls Bluff, Arkansas come to her house. She saw a scar on his arm. He was marked by gingerbread. She asked him some questions. Epps was his name and he was older than herself. He told her about the sale in Memphis. He remembered some things she didn't. He knowd where they all went. Her sister was Mary Wright at Milan, Tennessee. Grandma was twelve years old when that sale come off. She shouted and they cried. She couldn't eat for a week.

"She said old man Walls was good to them. When my mama was a little girl she was short and fat and light color. Old man Walls would call them in his parlor, all dress up and show them to his company. He was proud of them. He'd give them big dances ever so often. In the evening they had their own preaching in white folks' church. Grandma was good with the needle. She sewed for the mistress and her own family too. She had twelve children I think they said. They said her mistress had a large family too.

"Grandpa belong to Mike Cash. He give her husband what he made on Saturday evening. I think grandpa was sold from the Walls to Mike Cash. He took the Cash name and my mother was a Cash and she married Isaac Johnson. She was raised in Arkansas. Papa was married twice. I was raised around Holly Grove, Arkansas. That is where my folks lived in the last of slavery—that is mama's folks. Papa come to Arkansas at a later time.

"I think times is queer. I work and makes the best of 'em. (Ten dollars a month house rent.) I work all the time washing and ironing. (She has washed for the same families years and years. She is a light mulatto—ed.)

"Young folks is lost respect for the truth. Not dependable. That is their very worst fault, I think.

"No-oom, I wouldn't vote no quicker 'en I'd smoke a cigarette. But I haben never smoked narry one."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Ex-Slaves Story:—Information This information given by: Winnie Davis (C) Place of residence: 304 E. Twenty-First Street Pine Bluff, Arkansas Occupation: None Age: 100

[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]

"Katie Butler was my old missis 'fore I married my husband. His name David Davis. I cooked for Jeff Davis and took care of his daughter, Winnie. I stayed with old missis, Jeff Davis' wife, till she died. She made me promise I'd stay with her. That was in Virginia."

(I have made three trips trying to get information and pictures of Winnie Davis. Her granddaughter said that a good many years ago when Winnie's mind was good, she was down town shopping and that when she gave her name, the clerk said, "Were you named after Jeff Davis' daughter?" and that Winnie replied, "She must have been named after me 'cause I cooked for Jeff Davis 'fore she was born."

Her mind is not very good at times, but the day I took her picture, I asked who she used to cook for and she said, "Jeff Davis."

She is rather deaf, nearly blind and toothless, but can get around the house quite well. The neighbors say that she has been a hard worker and of a very high-strung temperament.

The granddaughter, Mattie Sneed, says her grandmother said she was sold in Virginia when she was eight years old.)

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Leroy Day (c) Age: 80 Home: 123 N. Walnut Street, Pine Bluff, Ark.

"Good Lord yes, lady, I was here in slavery days. I remember my old marster had an overseer that whipped the people pretty rapid.

"I remember when the soldiers—the Yankees—come through, some said they was takin' things.

"Old Marster, his name was Joe Day, he was good to us. He seemed to be a Christian man and he was a Judge. They generally called him Judge Day. I never seen him whip nobody and never seen him have no dispute. I tell you if he wasn't a Christian, he looked like one.

"I was born in Georgia and I can remember the first Governor we had after freedom. His name was Governor Bullock. I heard it said the people raised a lot of sand because they said he was takin' the public money. That was when Milledgeville was the capital of Georgia.

"I used to vote after freedom. I voted Republican. I went to school a little after the war and then emigrated to Louisiana and Arkansas.

"Things has got so now everything is in politics. Some votes cause they want their friends in office and some don't take no interest.

"Some of the younger generation is prospering very well and some are goin' kinda slow. Some is goin' take another growth. The schoolin' they is gittin' is helpin' to build 'em up.

"Yes mam, I use to be strong and I have done a heap of work in my life. Cotton and corn was the business, the white man had the land and the money and we had to work to get some of that money.

"I remember when the Ku Klux was right bad in Louisiana. I never did see any—I didn't try to see 'em. I know I heard that they went to a school house and broke up a negro convention. They called for a colored man named Peck and when he come out they killed him and one white man got killed. They had a right smart little scrummage, and I know the colored people ran off and went to Kansas.

"The fust man I ever seed killed was one time a colored man's dog got in another colored man's field and ate his roasting ears, it made him so mad he shot the dog and then the man what owned the dog killed the other man. I never did know what the punishment was.

"Since I have become afflicted (I'm ruptured) I can't do no work any more. I can't remember anything else. If I had time to study I might think of something else."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Hammett Dell, Brasfield, Arkansas Age: 90 [-- -- 1937]

[TR: Some word pronunciation was marked in this interview. Letters surrounded by [] represent long vowels.]

"I was born in Tennessee, 10 miles from Murfreesboro. They call it now Releford. I was born October 12, 1847. I stayed wid old master till he died. I was bout thirty-five years old. He lernt me a good trade, brick layin'. He give me everything I needed and more. After the war he took me by the old brass lamp wid twisted wick—it was made round—and lernt me outer the Blue Back Speller and Rithmetic. The spelling book had readin' in it. Lady ain't you seed one yit? Then I lernt outer Rays Rithmetic and McGuffeys Reader. Old master say it ginst the law to teach slaves foe the war. Dat what he said, it was ginst the law to educate a nigger slave. The white folks schools was pay foe the war.

"My old master had a small farm. His wife died. He never married no more. I caint member her name. She died when I was a little bitter of a boy. They had a putty large family. There was Marion, William, Fletcher, John, Miss Nancy, Miss Claricy, Miss Betsy. I think that all. The older childern raised up the little ones. My master named Mars Pleasant White. Long as I stayed wid him I had a plenty to eat an' wear an' a dollar to spend. I had no sense to save a cent for a old day. Mars White was a good man if ever one lived. He was a good man. Four old darkies all Mars White had. They was my mama, grandma, papa, auntie. My name I would lack it better White but that is where the Dell part come in; papa b'long to the Dells and b'fo the war he talked to me bout it. He took his old master's name. They call him Louis Dell White. He didn't have no brothers but my mama had two sisters. Her name was Mary White. Them was happy days b'fo the war. The happiest days in all my life. Bout at the beginnin' of the war Mama took cole at the loom and died. We all waited on her, white folks too. She didn't lack for waitin' on. Something white folks et, we et. We had plenty good grub all time long as Mars White live.

"How'd I know bout to git in war? I heard white folks talkin' bout it. One time I heard Mars White talkin' to my folks bout takin' us away. We was happy an' doin' well an' I didn't lack the talk but I didn't know what "war" was. No mam that was two years foe they got to fightin' down at Murfreesboro. Mars White was a ruptured man. He never left our place. I never heard bout none of my folks bein' sold. Mars White aired (heired) all us. My papa left and never come back. I d[o]n[o] how he got through the lines in the army. I guess he did fight wid the Yankees.

"Papa didn't speak plain. Grandma couldn't speak plain. They lisp. They talk fast. Sound so funny. Mama and auntie speak well. Plain as I do now. They was up wid Mars White's childern more. Mars White sent his childern to pay school. It was a log house and they had a lady teacher. They had a accordion. Mars Marion's neighbor had one too. All of em could play.

"White women would plat shucks an' make foot mats, rugs and horse collars. The white women lernt the darkie women. There was no leather horse collars as ever I seed. I lernt to twist shucks and weave chair bottoms. Then I lernt how to make white oak split chair bottoms. I made all kinds baskets. We had all sizes and kinds of baskets. When they git old they turn dark. Shuck bottom chairs last longer but they kinner ruff an' not so fancy.

"Well when they started off fightin' at Murfreesboro, it was a continual roar. The tin pans in the cubbord (cupboard) rattle all time. It was distressful. The house shakin' all time. All our houses jar. The earth quivered. It sound like the judgment. Nobody felt good. Both sides foragin' one bad as the other, hungry, gittin' everything you put way to live on. That's "war". I found out all bout what it was. Lady it ain't nuthin' but hell on dis erth.

"I tole you I was ten miles from the war and how it roared and bout how the cannons shook the earth. There couldn't be a chicken nor a goose nor a year of corn to be found bout our place. It was sich hard times. It was both sides come git what you had. Whole heap of Yankees come in their blue suits and caps on horses up the lane. They was huntin' horses. They done got every horse and colt on the place cepin one old mare, mother of all the stock they had on the place. Young mistress had a furs bout her and led her up the steps and put her in the house.

"Then when they started to leave, one old Yankee set the corner of the house on fire. We all got busy then, white folks and darkies both carry in' water ter put it out. We got it out but while we doin' that, mind out, they went down the lane to the road by the duck pond we had dug out. One old soldier spied a goose settin' in the grass. She been so scared she never come to the house no more. Nobody knowed there was one on our place. He took his javelin and stuck it through her back. She started hollowin' and flutterin' till the horses, nearly all of em, started runnin' and some of em buckin'. We got the fire bout out. We couldn't help laughin' it look so funny. I been bustin' I was so mad cause they tried take old Beck. Three of em horses throwd em. They struck out cross the jimpson weeds and down through the corn patch tryin' to head off their horses. Them horses throwd em sprawlin'. That was the funniest sight I ever seed.

"We got our water out of a cave. It was good cold limestone water. We had a long pole and a rope with a bucket on the end. We swing the pole round let it down then pull it back and tie it. They go to the other end and git the bucket of water. I toted bout all the water to both places what they used. One day I goin' to the cave after water. I had a habit of throwin' till I got to be prutty exact bout hittin'. I spied a hornets nest in a tree long the lane. I knowd them soldiers be long back fer sompin else, pillagin' bout. It wasn't long show nuff they come back and went up to the house.

"I got a pile of rocks in my hands. I hid down in the hazel nut bushes. When they come by gallopin' I throwd an' hit that big old hornets nest. The way they piled out on them soldiers. You could see em fightin' far as you could see em wid their blue caps. The horses runnin' and buckin'. I let out to the house to see what else they carried off.

"I tole Mars White bout how I hit that hornets nest wid the first rock I throwd. He scolded me, for he said if they had seen me they would killed me. It scared him. He said don't do no more capers like that. That old hornets nest soon come down. It was big as a water bucket. Mars White call me son boy. I tole him what terrible language they used, and bout some of the horses goin' over the lane fence. It was made outer rails piled up. Mars White sho was glad they didn't see me. He kept on sayin' son boy they would killed you right on the spot. Don't do nuthin' to em to aggravate em.

"It look lack we couldn't make a scratch on the ground nowhere the soldiers couldn't find it. We had a ash hopper settin' all time. We made our soap and lye hominy. They took all our salt. We couldn't buy none. We put the dirt in the hopper and simmered the water down to salt. We hid that. No they didn't find it. Our smoke house was logs dobbed wid mud and straw. It was good size bout as big as our cabins. It had somepin in it too. All the time I tell you.

"You ever eat dried beef? It is fine.

"I say I been to corn shuckins. They do that at night. We hurry and git through then we have a dance in front of Mars White's house. We had a good time. Mars White pass round ginger bread and hard cider. We wore a thing on our hands keep shucks from hurtin' our hands. One darkie sit up on the pile and lead the singin'. Old Dan Tucker was one song we lernt. I made some music instruments. We had music. Folks danced then more they do now. Most darkies blowed quills and Jew's harps. I took cane cut four or six made whistles then I tuned em together and knit em together in a row like a mouth harp you see.

Another way get a big long cane cut out holes long down to the joint, hold your fingers over different holes and blow. I never had a better time since freedom. I never had a doctor till since I been 80 years old neither.

"Later on I made me a bow of cedar, put one end in my mouth and pick the string wid my fingers while I hold the other end wid this hand. (Left hand. It was very peculiar shaped in the palm.) See my hand that what caused it. I have been a musician in my time. I lernt to handle the banjo, the fiddle and the mandolin. I played fer many a set, all over the country mostly back home (in Tennessee).

"We had a heap of log rollins back home in slavery times. They have big suppers spread under the trees. We sho know we have a good supper after a log rollin'.

"We most always worked at night in winter. Mama worked at the loom and weaved. Grandma and old mistress carded. They used hand cards. Auntie spun thread. I reeled the thread. I like to hear it cluck off the hanks. Papa he had to feed the stock and look after it. He'd fool round after that. He went off to the war at the first of it and never come home.

"The war broke us up and ruined us all but me. Grandma married old man soon after freedom. He whooped and beat her up till she died. He was a mean old scoundel. They said he was a nigger driver. His name was Wesley Donald. She died soon after the war. Mama was dead. Auntie married and went on off. I was 18 years old. When freedom come on Mars White says you all set free. You can leave or stay on here. I stayed there. Mars White didn't give us nuthin'. He was broke. All he had was land.

"Come a talk bout Lincoln givin' em homes. Some racketed bout what they outer git. That was after freedom. Most of em never got nuthin'. They up and left. Some kept on workin'. They got to stealin' right smart. Some the men got so lazy they woulder starved out their families and white folks too. White folks made em go to work. The darky men sorter quit work and made the women folks do the work. They do thater way now. Some worse den others bout it.

"Me and Mars White went to work. We see droves darkies just rovin' round. Said they huntin' work and homes. Some ask for victuals. Yes they give em something to eat. When they come in droves they couldn't give em much. Some of em oughter left. Some of the masters was mean. Some of em mighty good.

"Me and Mars White and his boys rigged up a high wheel that run a band to a lay (lathe). One man run the wheel wid his hands and one man at the lay (lathe) all time. We made pipes outer maple and chairs. We chiseled out table legs and bed post. We made all sort of things. Anything to sell. We sold a heap of things. We made money. If I'd had sense to keep part of it. Mars White always give me a share. We had a good livin' soon as we got over the war.

"I farmed. I was a brick layer. Mars White lernt me that. When he died I followed that trade. I worked at New Orleans, Van Buren, Jackson, Meridian. I worked at Lake Villiage with Mr. Lasley, and Mr. Ivy. They was fine brick layers. I worked for Dr. Stubbs. Mr. Scroggin never went huntin' without me but once over here on Cache River. He give me land to build my cabins. I got lumber up at the mills here. Folks come to my cabins from 23 states. J. Dall Long at St. Louis sent me a block wid my picture. I didn't know what it was. Mr. Moss told me it was a bomb like they used in the World War. I had some cards made in Memphis, some Little Rock. I sent em out by the telephone books tellin' em it was good fishin' now.

"J. Dall Long said when I go back home I send you somethin' nice. That what he sent in the mail.

"It was ugliest picture of me in a boat an' a big fish holt my britches leg pullin' me over out the boat. He had me named "Hambones" under it. I still got my block. I got nuther thing—old aunties bonnet she wore in slavery.

"I quit keepin' club house. I kept it 27 years. I rented the cabins, sold minnows and bates. They give me the land but I couldn't sell it. Old woman everybody call "Nig" cook fer me. I wanter live like Nig and go up yonder. I ainter goner be in this world long but I want to go to heben. Nig was not my wife. She was a fine cook. She cooked an' stayed at my cabins. This little chile—orphan chile—I got wid me was Nig's grandchild. When Nig died I took him. I been goin with him to pick cotton. I want er lern him to work. Egercation ain't no good much to darkies. I been tryin' to see what he could do bettern farm. They ain't nuthin'. I set down on the ground and pick some so he will pick. He is six years old. When it rain I caint pick and set on the wet ground.

Ku Klux

"The onlies sperience I had myself wid the Ku Klux was one night fo Grandma and auntie left. Somebody wrap on our cabin door. They opened it. We gat scared when we seed em. They had the horses wrapped up. They had on white long dresses and caps. Every one of em had a horse whoop (whip). They called me out. Grandma and auntie so scared they hid. They tole me to git em water. They poured it some whah it did not spill on the ground. Kept me totin' water. Then they say, "You bin a good boy?" They still drinkin'. One say, "Just from Hell pretty dry." Then they tole me to stand on my head. I turned summer sets a few times. They tickled me round wid the ends of the whoops. I had on a long shirt. They laugh when I stand on my head. Old Mars White laughed. I knowed his laugh. Then I got over my scare. They say, "Who live next down the road?" I tole em Nells Christian. They say, "What he do?" I said, "Works in the field." They all grunt, m-m-m-m. Then they say, "Show us the way." I nearly run to death cross the field to keep outer the way of the white horses. The moon shining bright as day. They say Nells come out here. He say "Holy Moses." He come out. They say "Nells what you do?" "I farms." They say "What you raise?" He say "Cotton and corn." They say "Take us to see yo cotton we jess from Hell. We ain't got no cotton there." He took em out there where it was clean. They got down and felt it. Then they say "What is dat?", feelin' the grass. Nells say "That is grass." They say, "You raise grass too?" He said, "No. It come up." They say "Let us see yo corn." He showed em the corn. They felt it. They say "What this?" Nells say, "It grass." They say, "You raise grass here?" They all grunt m-m-m-m everything Nells say. They give him one bad whoopin' an' tell him they be back soon see if he raisin' grass. They said "You raise cotton and corn but not grass on this farm." They they moan, "m-m-m-m." I herd em say his whole family and him too was out by day light wid their hoes cuttin' the grass out their crop. I was sho glad to git back to our cabin. They didn't come back to Nells no more that I herd bout. The man Nells worked for muster been one in that crowd. He lived way over yonder. No I think the Ku Klux was a good thing at that time. The darkies got sassy (saucy), trifling, lazy. They was notorious. They got mean. The men wouldn't work. Their families have to work an' let them roam round over the country. Some of em mean to their families. They woulder starved the white out and their selves too. I seed the Ku Klux heap a times but they didn't bother me no more. I herd a heap they done along after that. They say some places the Ku Klux go they make em git down an' eat at the grass wid their mouths then they whoop em. Sometimes they make em pull off their clothes and whoop em. I sho did feel for em but they knowd they had no business strollin' round, vistin'. The Ku Klux call that whoopin' helpin' em git rid of the grass. Nells moster lived at what they called Caneville over cross the field.

"The way that Patty Rollers was. The mosters paid somebody. Always somebody round wantin' a job like that. Mars White was his own overseer. All round there was good livers. They worked long wid the slaves. Some of the slaves would race. Papa would race. He wanted to race all time. Grandma cooked for all of us. They had a stone chimney in the kitchen. Big old hearth way out in front. Made outer stone too. We all et the same victuals long as Mars White lived. Then I left."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: James Dickey, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 68 [May 31 1939]

"I don't know much to tell about my folks. My parents died when I was young. Mother died when I was twelve and father when I was seven years old. Great-grandma was an Indian squaw. My father's pa was his young master. His old master was named George Dickey. The young master was John Dickey. I reckon to start with my mother had a husband. She had twelve children but the last seven was by my pa. He was lighter than I am and paler. This red is Indian in me. I know how he looked and how she looked too. The young master never married. He had some brothers. My father lived with us and his pa was there too some. I don't know what become of John Dickey but my pa was buried at Mt. Tursey Cemetery. It was a sorter mixed burying grown (ground) but at a white church. Mother come here and was buried at Cat Island in a colored church cemetery.

"I farmed in Mississippi, then I come to Miller Lumber Company and I worked with them forty-two years. I worked at Marked Tree, then they sent me here (Marianna).

"I voted in Caruthersville, Missouri last I voted. It don't do much good to vote. I am too old to vote. I never voted in Arkansas. I voted some in Mississippi but not regular.

"Times is hard. So many white women do their own cooking and washing till it don't leave no work fer the colored folks. The lumber work is gone fer good.

"The present generation is going back'ards. For awhile it looked like they was rising—I'm speaking morally. They going back down in a hurry. Drinking and doing all kinds of devilment. The race is going back'ard now. Seems like everybody could see that when whiskey come back in.

"I got high blood pressure. I do a little work. I watch on Sunday at the mills. I don't get no help from the Gover'ment."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Benjamin Diggs 420 N. Cypress, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 79

"I was born in 1859 in North Carolina. Oh, sure, I remember when the Yankees come through. They said they done right smart of damage. I remember goin' by a place where they had burned it down. They didn't do nothin' to my white folks 'cept took the stock.

"The Lyles was my white folks. They called her Polly Lyles. Oh, they was good to us. My mother and her sister and another colored woman and we children all belonged to one set of people—Miss Polly Lyles; and my father belonged to the Diggs.

"After freedom we moved off but they was good to us just the same, and we was glad to pay 'em a visit and they was glad to have us.

"I've heard my mother say she'd ignore the idea of a cold biscuit but my father said he was glad to get one. He said he didn't get 'em but once a week.

"Oh, indeed there was a lot of difference in the way the colored folks was treated. Some of 'em was very good, just like they is now.

"Well, all those old people is dead and gone now 'cause they was old then.

"I come here to Arkansas in '88. That was when they was emigratin' the folks. I was grown and married then. I was twenty-six when I married in '85.

"I went to school a little. I can sorta scribble a little and read a little, but my eyes is failin' now. I started wearin' glasses 'fore I really needed 'em. I got to projectin' with my mother's glasses Looked like they read so good.

"Farmin' is all I know how to do. Never done anything else. I owned some land and farmed for myself.

"Sure, I used to vote—Republican. I never had any trouble. I always tried to conduct my life to avoid trouble. I believe in that policy.

"I joined the church when I was very young, very young. I go by the Golden Rule and by the Bible.

"I first lived in Pope County.

"I learned since I come here to Pine Bluff there's enough churches here to save the world, but there's some mean people here."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Katie Dillon 307 Hazel Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 82 [Dec 31 1937]

"I hope I was here in slavery days—don't I look like it? I was a good big girl after surrender.

"I was born in Rodney, Mississippi in 1855.

"I had a good old master—Doctor Williams. Didn't have no mistress. He never married till after surrender.

"We lived right in town—right on the Mississippi River where the gun boats went by. They shelled the town one day. Remember it just as well as if 'twas now. I hope it was exciting. Everybody moved out. Some run and left their stores. They run to Alcorn University, five miles from there. Some of em come back next day and some never come back till after surrender.

"The old Doctor bought my mother when she was twelve years old. When she got big enough she was the cook. Made a fine one too. I worked around the house and toted in wood and water.

"After surrender, Dr. Williams wanted my mother to give me and my brother to him and he would give her a home, but she wouldn't. I wish she had but you know I wasn't old enough to know what was best. She hired out and took us with her. I hired out too. I reckon I was paid but I never did see it. I reckon my mother collected it. I know she clothed me. I had better clothes than I got now. We stayed there till we come to Arkansas. I was married then. I married when I was seventeen. I was fast wasn't I? I got a good husband. Didn't have to work, only do my own work. Just clean up the house and garden and tend to the chickens. My husband was a picture man. Yes'm, I've lived in town all my life—born and raised up in town.

"After surrender I went to the first free school ever was in Rodney, Mississippi. I went about two sessions. I ought to've learned more'n I did but I didn't see how it would benefit me.

"In slavery days we used to go right to the table and eat after the white folks was through. We didn't eat out of no pots and pans. Whatever was on the table you et it until you got enough.

"When I was comin' up and they was goin' to have a private ball, they sent out invitations and I went, but when they had that kind where everybody could go I wouldn't a gone to one of them for nothin'.

"The way things is goin' now I don't think the end can be very far off.

"I remember when peace was declared I saw the soldiers across the street and they had their guns all stacked. I was lookin' and wonderin' what it was. You know children didn't ask questions in them days. I heard some of the older ones talkin' and I heard em say the war was over.

"I never had but two children and only one livin' now. Yes'm, I own my home and my son helps me what he can. I'm thankful I got as much as I have."

El Dorado District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS [HW: Customs] Name of Interviewer: Pernella Anderson Subject: Customs—Slavery Days [Nov 30 1936] This information given by: Alice Dixon Place of Residence: Rock Island quarters Occupation: None Age: 80 (approx)

[TR: Personal information moved from last page of interview.]

Well honey ah can't tell jes when ah wuz born. De white fokes have mah age. Ah blong tuh de Newtons. As near as ah can get at mah age ahm bout 74 now but ah wuz big nough to member the soldiers comin aroun atter surrender.

Mah mutha had ten chillun but ah can't member but two uv mah sisters and one uv mah bruthes. We staid wid de Newtons till we wuz set free and I nuss fuh de Newtons aftuh we wuz set free. De Newtons wuz awful good ter me and dey wuz good tuh mah ma too. Ah slept up in de big house wid de Newtons. Ah nevah went ter school. Ah didn' have a chance. Ah went ter church jes sometimes. We didn have churches. We jes had meetin in our house we lived in. We cooked on fire places. We cooked our bread in what we called oven bout so high. We had chickens and eggs, peas, tatoes, meat and bread but ah didn know there was no sich thing as cake an pie till ah got to be an oman. Ah can't recollect jes how ole ah wuz in slave time but ah shore can recollect dem Yankees riding dem hosses and ah ask may ma what dey was doin and she said gatherin up cotton dey made in slave time an ah kin recollect an oman a gin. Yo know we had steps made of blocks saved from trees and she wuz a goin ovah em steps er shoutin and singin "Ah am free, at last, ah am free at last, ah'm free at last, thank Gawd a Mighty ah'm free at last." She wuz so glad ter be free.

My ma in huh time would make cloth. She had a loom. Hit wuz a high thing and th thread would go ovah th top and come down jes so in what we call shickle. She'd have a bench so high. The loom was high as dis door and my ma would set on the bench and her foots wuz on somethin like a bicycle and when she put her foots on de pedal dat shickle would come open and make a blum blum an that would make a yard of cloth, an she'd mash the pedal agin and another yard of cloth. Jes so we'd make eight and ten yards of cloth in one day. An when hit wuz made we would carry hit to de white fokes. Dey would make us clo'es outn dat cloth. Ifn dey wanted colored cloth dey would dye de thread. Dey had what we called a loom dat would make, le' me see now, Card would card the cotton, and de looms would make de thread and de shickle would make de cloth, as well as ah can recollect we would make little roll uv cotton on de cards an put it on de loom and make thread. De looms was jes so long. Ever time the wheel would say o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o we had a spool uv thread. Ah don' know whar dey got the spools, made em tho ah guess. Ah jes caint tell you how hit wuz hits so much.

De Newton's nevah did whup me. She started to whup me tho one day. Ah kin recollect bout de dogs. There wuz one dog whut wuz called Dinah. But yo know dey had ten uv em. One day ole Uncle Henry Jones done somethin and run off and climbed a tree and de Newton's miss him so dey called de dogs and dey went on to de tree. Dat very tree wha he wuz and stopped. Uncle Henry had been gone all dat mornin and dem dogs track him right dere, to de spot and wouldn let him down till de Newtons come. An chile dem Newtons whip de skin off Uncle Herny's [TR: Henry's] back. Dem dogs would git yo.

Mrs. Newton nevah got outn de bed no time. Ah would lift her from one bed to de utha to make de beds and when she got ready to get dressed ah would bath her and dress huh all de times.

Ah'll tell yo nother funny joke bout Henry Johnson. He had ter clean up mos uv de time. So Mrs. Newton's dress wuz hangin in de room up on de wall and when he come out he said to ole Uncle Jerry, he said: "Jerry guess whut ah done" and Jerry said: "Whut?" And Uncle Henry said: "Ah put mah han undah ole Mistess dress." Uncle Jerry said: "Whut did she say?" Uncle Henry say: "She didn' say nothin." So Uncle Jerry cided he'd try hit. So he went draggin on in de house. Set down on de floor by ole mistess. Ater while he run his han' up under huh dress and old marster jumped up and jumped on Jerry and like to beat him ter death. Jerry went out cryin and got out and called Henry. He said: "Henry ah though yo said yo put yo hand undah ole Mistess's dress and she didn' say nothin." Uncle Henry said: "Ah did and she didn' say nuthin." Jerry said: "Ah put mah han' undah huh dress and ole marster like tuh beat me ter death." Uncle Henry said: "Yo crazy thing huh dress wuz hangin up on de wall when ah put mah han up undah hit."

We didn' eat eggs only on Sunday mornin. Me and mah sis et together in de same plate. We didn know whut knives and forkes wuz den. We et wid our fingahs.

Ah had a good ole pa too. He died a long time ago. Ah member one night he started tuh whoop mah brudder and mah pa and mah brudder had hit. So mah brudder runned off, an de marster called ole Dinah, Dinah wuz a dog yo know but Dinah was a big dog ovah the other dogs yo know and dem dogs went and got me brudder and dem Newtons sho did beat him. But twasnt long befo mah pa taken sick and died aftuh dat. An when we wuz goin ter bury mah pa lamme tell yo what happened: Two turtle doves flew roun the wagon three times, den dey flew right on top uv mah pa's coffin box an hollered three times; and yo know mah sistuh died bout three days aftuh dat. Ah didn' bleave in signs till den. Ah know mah pa always bleaved in signs cause ah know when hit would start lightnin and thunderin round dat place of ourn mah pa would always make us stop. He say twas bad luck. An ah know when evah a dove would holler at night he'd tell us jes tuh tie a knot in th' south cornuh uv de sheet and he would hush. An we would do hit an he would hush. Yo kno hits bad luck fuh dem tuh holler roun yo place.

Oh we use ter have lots o sheep, at least ole mistess did. We made all of our wool clothes from dem sheeps wool and let me tell yo somethin else, ah think ah got some sheep wool in mah trunk now ah had hit fifty years. Hits good fer sores if yo has er cut on yo han' or feet or if blood poison set up jes take a little piece of dat wool an put a piece of fire on hit and [HW: put] some [HW: on] the sore parts and chile, honey, hit will git well right now.

Chile ah had use ter ruther go ter dances than ter eat. Ah'd go ter dances an git early dare and heah dem fiddles. Uh, my! ah jus couldn make mah foots act right. We use ter dance sixteen sets. We'd be er dancing and hit would sound so good. Someone would say swing de one yo love bes but ah wouldn swing de one ah love best cause ah didn want anyone tah know him.

On Sunday mornin dats when we play. Ole marster would put a rope cross fer us ter jump and we'd line up. The rope wuz bout five feet high and chile if we didn' jump it we'd catch hit. O-o-o-o-oooo. We had ter run. He line up two at a time an he say one fuh de money, two fuh de show, three tuh make ready and fo' tuh go. An yo talk bout runnin. We had ter run. He would make us box and de one dat git whooped is de one dat would haft ter box till he got whooped and we had ter whoop three times befo' stoppin. Oh chile, ah had a time when ah miz a chile.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Luke D. Dixon DeValls Bluff, Ark. Age: 81

"My father's owner was Jim Dixon in Elmo County, Virginia. That is where I was born. I am 81 years old. Jim Dixon had several boys—Baldwin and Joe. Joe took some of the slaves, his pa give him, and went to New Mexico to shun the war. Uncle and pa went in the war as waiters. They went in at the ending up. We lived on the big road that run to the Atlantic Ocean. Not far from Richmond. Ma lived three or four miles from Pa. She lived across big creek—now they call it Farrohs Run. Ma belong to Harper Williams. Pa's folks was very good but Ma's folks was unpleasant.

"Ma lived to be 103 years old. Pa died in 1905 and was 105 years old. I used to set on Grandma's lap and she told me about how they used to catch people in Africa. They herded them up like cattle and put them in stalls and brought them on the ship and sold them. She said some they captured they left bound till they come back and sometimes they never went back to get them. They died. They had room in the stalls on the boat to set down or lie down. They put several together. Put the men to themselves and the women to themselves. When they sold Grandma and Grandpa at a fishing dock called New Port, Va., they had their feet bound down and their hands bound crossed, up on a platform. They sold Grandma's daughter to somebody in Texas. She cried and begged to let them be together. They didn't pay no 'tenshion to her. She couldn't talk but she made them know she didn't want to be parted. Six years after slavery they got together. When a boat was to come in people come and wait to buy slaves. They had several days of selling. I never seen this but that is the way it was told to me.

"The white folks had an iron clip that fastened the thumbs together and they would swing the man or woman up in a tree and whoop them. I seen that done in Virginia across from where I lived. I don't know what the folks had done. They pulled the man up with block and tackle.

"Another thing I seen done was put three or four chinquapin switches together green, twist them and dry them. They would cry like a leather whip. They whooped the slaves with them.

"Grandpa was named Sam Abraham and Phillis Abraham was his mate. They was sold twice. Once she was sold away from her husband to a speculator. Well, it was hard on the Africans to be treated like cattle. I never heard of the Nat Turner rebellion. I have heard of slaves buying their own freedom. I don't know how it was done. I have heard of folks being helped to run off. Grandma on mother's side had a brother run off from Dalton, Mississippi to the North. After the war he come to Virginia.

"When freedom was declared we left and went to Wilmington and Wilson, North Carolina. Dixon never told us we was free but at the end of the year he gave my father a gray mule he had ploughed for a long time and part of the crop. My mother jes picked us up and left her folks now. She was cooking then I recollect. Folks jes went wild when they got turned loose.

"My parents was first married under a twenty-five cents license law in Virginia. After freedom they was remarried under a new law and the license cost more but I forgot how much. They had fourteen children to my knowing. After the war you could register under any name you give yourself. My father went by the name of Right Dixon and mother Jilly Dixon.

"The Ku Klux was bad. They was a band of land owners what took the law in hand. I was a boy. I scared to be caught out. They took the place of pattyrollers before freedom.

"I never went to public school but two days in my life. I went to night school and paid Mr. J.C. Price and Mr. S.H. Vick to teach me. My father got his leg shot off and I had to work. It kept me out of meanness. Work and that woman has kept me right. I come to Arkansas, brought my wife and one child, April 5, 1889. We come from Wilson, North Carolina. Her people come from North Carolina and Moultrie, Georgia.

"I do vote. I sell eggs or a little something and keep my taxes paid up. It look like I'm the kind of folks the government would help—them that works and tries hard to have something—but seems like they don't get no help. They wouldn't help me if I was bout to starve. I vote a Republican ticket."

NOTE: On the wall in the dining room, used as a sitting room, was a framed picture of Booker T. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt sitting at a round-shaped hotel dining table ready to be served. Underneath the picture in large print was "Equality." I didn't appear to ever see the picture.

This negro is well-fixed for living at home. He is large and very black, but his wife is a light mulatto with curly, nearly-straightened hair.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Martha Ann Dixon (mulatto) DeValls Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"I am eighty-one years old. I was born close to Saratoga, North Carolina. My mother died before I can recollect and my grandmother raised me. They said my father was a white man. They said Jim Beckton. I don't recollect him. My mother was named Mariah Tyson.

"I recollect how things was. My grandmother was Miss Nancy Tyson's cook. She had one son named Mr. Seth Tyson. He run her farm. They et in the dining room, we et in the kitchen. Clothes and something to eat was scarce. I worked at whatever I was told to do. Grandma told me things to do and Miss Nancy told me what to do. I went to the field when I was pretty little. Once my uncle left the mule standing out in the field and went off to do something else. It come up a hard shower. I crawled under the mule. If I had been still it would been all right but my hair stood up and tickled the mule's stomach. The mule jumped and the plough hit me in my hip here at the side. It is a wonder I didn't get killed.

"After the Civil War was times like now. Money scarce and prices high, and you had to start all over new. Pigs was hard to start, mules and horses was mighty scarce. Seed was scarce. Everything had to be started from the stump. Something to eat was mighty plain and scarce and one or two dresses a year had to do. Folks didn't study about going so much.

"I had to rake up leaves and fetch em to the barn to make beds for the little pigs in cold weather. The rake was made out of wood. It had hickory wood teeth and about a foot long. It was heavy. I put my leaves in a basket bout so high [three or four feet high]. I couldn't tote it—I drug it. I had to get leaves in to do a long time and wait till the snow got off before I could get more. It seem like it snowed a lot. The pigs rooted the leaves all about in day and back up in the corners at night. It was ditched all around. It didn't get very muddy. Rattle snakes was bad in the mountains. I used to tote water—one bucketful on my head and one bucketful in each hand. We used wooden buckets. It was lot of fun to hunt guinea nests and turkey nests. When other little children come visiting that is what we would do. We didn't set around and listen at the grown folks. We toted up rocks and then they made rock rows [terraces] and rock fences about the yard and garden. They looked so pretty. Some of them would be white, some gray, sometimes it would be mixed. They walled wells with rocks too. All we done or knowed was work. When we got tired there was places to set and rest. The men made plough stocks and hoe handles and worked at the blacksmith shop in snowy weather. I used to pick up literd [HW: lightwood] knots and pile them in piles along the road so they could take them to the house to burn. They made a good light and kindling wood.

"They didn't whoop Grandma but she whooped me a plenty.

"After the war some white folks would tell Grandma one thing and some others tell her something else. She kept me and cooked right on. I didn't know what freedom was. Seemed like most of them I knowed didn't know what to do. Most of the slaves left the white folks where I was raised. It took a long time to ever get fixed. Some of them died, some went to the cities, some up North, some come to new country. I married and come to Fredonia, Arkansas in 1889. I had been married since I was a young girl. But as I was saying the slaves was still hunting a better place and more freedom. The young folks is still hunting a better place and more freedom. Grandma learnt me to set down and be content. We have done better out here than we could done in North Carolina but I don't believe in so much rambling.

"We come on the passenger train and paid our own way to Arkansas. It was a wild and sickly country and has changed. Not like living in the same country. I try to live like the white folks and Grandma raised me. I do like they done. I think is the reason we have saved and have good a living as we got. We do on as little as we can and save a little for the rainy day."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Railroad Dockery 1103 Short 13th, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"Railroad Dockery, that's my name. I belonged to John Dockery and we lived at Lamertine, Arkansas where I was born. My mother's name was Martha and I am one of quadruplets, three girls and one boy, that's me. Red River, Ouachita, Mississippi and Railroad were our names. (Mrs. Mary Browning, who is now ninety-eight years of age, told me that her father, John Dockery, was the president of the Mississippi, Red River, Ouachita Railroad, the first one to be surveyed in Arkansas, and that when the directors heard of the quadruplets' birth, they wanted to name them after the railroad, which was done—ed.)

"Yes ma'm, Red River and Ouachita died when they were tots and Mississippi and Railroad were raised. Now that's what my mother said. Mississippi died five or six years ago and I'm the onliest one left.

"I remember mighty little about the war. I never thought anything about the war. All I did then was a crowd of us little chaps would go to the woods and tote in the wood every day for the cook woman. That's what I followed. Never did nothing else but play till after the war.

"After surrender I went with my father and mother to work for General Tom Dockery. He was John Dockery's brother. I was big enough to plow then. I followed the plow all the time. My father and mother were paid for their work. We stayed there about five years and then moved to Falcon, Arkansas. Father died there.

"In the time of the war I heard the folks talkin' about freedom, and I heard my father talk about the Ku Klux but that was all I knowed, just what he said about it.

"I remember the presidents and I voted for some of them but oh Lord, I haven't voted in several years.

"I got along after freedom just as well as I ever did. I never had no trouble—never been in no trouble.

"About the world now—it looks like to me these days things are pretty tight. I could hardly tell you what I think of the younger generation. I think one thing—if the old heads would die all at once they would be out, because it's all you can do to keep em straight now.

"I went to school only three months in my life. I learned to read and write very well. I don't need glasses and I read principally the Bible. To my mind it is the best book in the world. Biggest part of the preachers now won't preach unless they are paid three-fourths more than they are worth.

"The biggest part of my work was farming. I never did delight in cooking. Now I can do any kind of housework, but don't put me to cooking.

"I just can't sing to do no good. Never could sing. Seems like when I try to sing something gets tangled in my throat.

"Oh Lord, I remember one old song they used to sing

"I don't remember anything else but now if Mississippi was here, she could tell you lots of things."

Interviewer: Irene Robertson Subject: Ex-slave Information given by: Callie Donalson, Biscoe, Arkansas

Story

I wasn't born in slavery but I was born in the white folks kitchen. Bob Walker was ma mother's Master and James Austin ma father's Master. They said he wasn't good to none of dem, he was mighty tight. Now ma mothers white folks was sho good to her. When de war was all over me family jined and worked fer people not berry far from ma mother's masters. There was two brothers and a sister older than me. She thought her white folks do better by her than anybody so she went back to em during her pregnancy and thats how come I was born in der kitchen a white mid-wife tended on er. I never will forget her. She was named Mrs. Coffee. There wasn't many doctors in the whole country then. I was born in Haywood county Tennessee in 1866. No'm I tell you when you first come I wasn't born in slavery. My white mistress named me, the young mistress, she named me Callie. Bob Walkers girl married Ben Geeter. I was right in Ben Geeters kitchen when Miss Sallie named me. They seemed proud of the little black babies.

Ma mother was a field hand and she washed and ironed. She was a good spinner. She carded and wove and spun all. She knitted too. She knitted mostly by nite. All the stockings and gloves had to be knit. She sewed and I learned from her. We had to sew with our fingers.

When I was a little girl I just set around, brought in wood. Yes maam we did play and I had some dolls, I was proud of my dolls, just rag dolls. We use to drive the calves up. If they didn't come up they sent the dog fur de cows. One of dem wore a bell. They had shepherd dogs, long haired, gentle dogs, to fetch the cows when they didn't come.

Ma folks farmed in Tennessee till I married and den we farmed. Agents jess kept comin after us to get us to come to this rich country. They say: hogs jess walking round with knife and forks stickin in der backs beggin somebody to eat em over in Arkansas.

No'm I aint seed none lack dat, I seed em down in the swamps what you could saw a good size saplin down wid der backbones. I says I mean I seed plenty raysor back hogs, and long noses and long straight ears. I show have since I come here. The land was so poor in Tennessee and this was uncleared land so we come to a new country. It show is rich land. They use guano back in Tennessee now or they couldn't raise nuthin. Abe Miller an old slave owner what we worked wid come out here. He was broke and he paid our way. We come on the Josie Harry boat. Der was several families sides us come wid him. He done fine out here—we got off the boat at Augusta and I worked up there in Woodruff county till ma husbands brother's wife died and he had a farm his own. We raised his boys and our family till dey was ob age. I left em. They went in big business here in Biscoe and lost de farm and everything. Ma husband died I lives with ma girl. I got one boy married lives in Chicago, and a girl up there too. No'm dey aint rich. Dem his children come home wid ma daughters on a visit—Little Yankees ain't got no manners.

I voted one time in ma life, in 1933, for Hoover. I don't know nothing about voting. I can read. I reads ma Bible. Ma young mistress learnt me to read. I never got to go to school much. Whut my young mistress learnt me was ma A B C's and how to call words. Yes maam I can write ma name but I forgot how to write, been so long since I wrote a letter.

All the songs I ever sung was "In Dixie" "Little Brown Jug" an mostly religious songs, Lawd I forgot em now. I never knowd about no slave uprisings—white folks alway good to us. We misses em now. Times not lack dey use to be.

Dese young generations don't take no interest in nothin no mo. Its kinder kritical. No use trying to tell em nuthin. Dey's getting an education I don't know whut thell do with it. If dey had somebody to manage fur them seem like they kaint kandle no business without getting broke. They work hard and make some seems lack they jes kaint keep nuthin. No'om I don't think they are so bad.

In 1893 me and ma husband worked on our own place till we come down here we sold it and went on his brothers place. I owns ma house thats all. Ma daughters help me and we get a little provisions and clothes along from the relief. If I could work I wouldn't ax nobody for no help. I jess past working much.

I jess don't know what is going to become of the present generation. The conditions are better than they use to be, heap better. They have no education and don't have to work as hard as we use to. They seems so restless and don't take no interest in nothin. They are all right. It is jess the times an the Bible full filling fast as it can.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Charles Green Dortch 804 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 81

[HW: Father a Pet]

"I was born June 18, 1857. The reason I don't show my age is because I got Scotch-Irish, Indian, and Negro mixed up in me. I was born in Princeton—that is, near Princeton—in Dallas County. Princeton is near Fordyce. I was born on Hays' farm. Hays was my second master—Archie Hays. Dortch was my first master. He brought my parents from Richmond, Virginia, and he settled right in Princeton.

"My father's name was Reuben Rainey Dortch. He was an octoroon I guess. He looked more like a Cuban than a Negro. He had beautiful wavy hair, naturally wavy. He was tall, way over six feet, closer to seven. His father was Dortch. Some say Rainey. But he must have been a Dortch; he called himself Dortch, and we go in the name of Dortch. Rainey was a white man employed on Dortch's plantation. Rainey's name was Wilson Rainey. My name has always been Dortch.

"My mother was named Martha Dortch. I am trying to think what her maiden name was. My sister can tell you all the details of it. She is five years older than I am. She can tell you all the old man's folks and my mother's too more easily than I can.

"My father had, as nearly as I can remember—lemme see—Cordelia, Adrianna, Mary, Jennie, Emma, and Dortch. Emma and Dortch were children by a first wife. Cordelia was his stepdaughter. My brothers were Alec and Gabe. There is probably some I have overlooked.

"The Indian blood in me came through my mother's father. He was a full-blooded red Indian. I can't think of his name now. Her mother was a dark woman.

"My father was a carpenter, chair maker, and a farmer too. All the work he did after peace was declared was carpentry and chair and basket making. He made coffins too just after peace was declared. They didn't have no undertakers then. He made the bottoms to chairs too. He could put a roof on a house beautifully and better than any one I know. Nobody could beat him putting shingles on a house.

"My mother was reared to work in the house. She was cook, housekeeper. She was a weaver too. She worked the loom and the spinning wheel. She gardened a little. But her work was mostly in the house as cook and weaver. She never went out in the field as a hand. My father didn't either.

Kind Masters

"My father seemed to have been more of a pet than a slave. He was a kind of boss more than anything else. He had his way. Nobody was allowed to mistreat him in any way. My mother was the same way. I don't think she was ever mistreated in any way by the white folks—not that I ever saw.

Attitude of Slaves Toward Father

"There wasn't any unfriendliness of the other slaves toward my father. My oldest sister can tell you with clearness, but I don't think he ever had any trouble with the other slaves any more than he had with the white folks. He was well liked, and then too he was able to take care of himself. Then again, he had a good master. Hays was a good man. We made a trip down there just a short while ago. We hadn't been there since the Civil War. They made it so pleasant for us! We all set down to the same table and ate together. Frank was down there. He was my young master.

Thirty Acres—not Forty

"They gave us thirty acres of land when we came out of slavery. They didn't give it to us right then, but they did later. I am going down there again sometime. My young master is the postmaster down there now. He thinks the world and all of me and my oldest sister.

"I don't mind telling people anything about myself. I was born in June. They ain't nothing slipping up on me. I understand when to talk. There are two of us, Adrianna Kern—that's her married name. She and I are the ones Mr. Frank gave the thirty acres to. I have a younger sister.

Slave Work

"I don't know how much cotton a slave was expected to pick in a day. The least I ever heard of was one hundred fifty pounds. Some would pick as high as three and four hundred pounds.

"My father was not a field hand. He was what they called the first man 'round there. He was a regular leader on the plantation—boss of the tool room. He was next to the master of them, you might say. He was a kind of boss.

"I never heard of his working for other men besides his master. I believe he drove the stage for a time from Arkadelphia to Camden or Princeton. I don't know just how that come about. My sister though has a more exact remembrance than I have, and she can probably tell you the details of it.

Boyhood Experiences

"My father used to take me to the mill with him when I was a kid. That was in slavery time. He went in a wagon and took me with him.

"The biggest thing I did was to play with the other kids. They had me do such work as pick berries, hunt up the stock, drive the sheep home from the pasture. And as near as I can remember it seems like they had me more picking berries or gathering peaches or something like that.

Food, Houses, Clothes

"Corn bread, buttermilk and bacon and all such as that and game—that was the principal food. The people on our place were fed pretty well. We lived off of ash cakes and biscuits.

"The slaves lived in old log houses. I can almost see them now. Let's see—they usually had just one window. The slaves slept on pallets mostly and wore long cotton shirts.

Patrollers

"I have heard a great deal of talk about the pateroles—how they tied ropes across the road and trapped them. Sometimes they would be knocked off their horses and crippled up so that they had to be carried off from there. Of course, that was sometimes. They was always halting the slaves and questioning them and whipping them if they didn't have passes.

How Freedom Came

"The way I understand it there came a rumor all at once that the Negroes were free. It seems that they throwed up their hands. They had a great fight at Pine Bluff and Helena and De Valls Bluff. Then came peace. The rumor came from Helena. Meade and Thomas winded the thing up some way. Sherman made his march somewhere. The colored soldiers and the white soldiers came pouring in from Little Rock. They come in a rush and said, 'Tell them niggers they're free.' They run into the masters' and notified them they were going to take all the Negroes to Little Rock. It wasn't no time afterwards before here come the teams and the wagons to take us to Little Rock.

"When they brought us here, they put us in soldiers' camps in a row of houses up just west of where the Arch street graveyard is now. They put us all there in the soldiers' buildings. They called them camps. They seemed to be getting us ready for freedom. It wasn't long before they had us in school and in church. The Freedmen's Bureau visited us and gave us rations just like the Government has been doing these last years. They gave us food and clothes and books and put us in school. That was all done right here in Little Rock.

Schooling

"My first teacher was Miss Sarah Henley. I could show you the home she used to live in. It's right up the street. It's on Third Street between Izard and State right in the middle of the block—next to the building on the corner of Izard on the south side of Third Street. There is a brick building there on the corner and her house is a very pretty one right next to it. She was a white woman and was my first teacher. She taught me, as near as I can remember, one session. My next teacher was Mrs. Hunt. She was from Ohio. My first teacher was from Ohio too. Mrs. Hunt taught me about two sessions. Lemme see, Mrs. Clapp came after her. She was from Pennsylvania. Mrs. Clapp taught me one session. I am trying to think of that other teacher. We went over to Union School then. Charlotte Andrews taught us there for a while. That was her maiden name. Her married name is Stephens. She was the first colored teacher in the city. Mrs. Hubbard teached us a while, too. Mrs. Scull taught us right here on Gaines and Seventh Streets where this church is now. They moved us a long time ago down to the Mess House at the Rock Island for a while but we didn't stay there long. We came back to the Methodist church—the one on Eighth and Broadway, not the Bethel Church on Ninth and Broadway. There was a colored church on Eighth and Broadway then. They kept sweeping us 'round because the schools were all crowded. Woods, a colored man, was one of the teachers at Capitol Hill Public School. We were there when it first opened. That was the last school I went to. I finished eight grades. Me and Scipio Jones went to school together and were in the same class. I left him in school and went to work to take care of my folks.

Occupational Experiences

"Right after the Civil War, I went to school. I did no work except to sell papers and black boots on the corner of Main and Markham on Sunday. After I stopped school I went to work as assistant porter in the railroad office at the Union Station for the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, Southern Railway and Cairo and Fulton. That was one road or system. I stayed with them from 1873 till 1882 in the office as office porter. From that I went train porter out of the office in 1882. I stayed as train porter till 1892. Then right back from 1892 I went in the general superintendent's private car. Then from there I went to the shop here in North Little Rock—the Missouri Pacific Shops—as a straw boss of the storeroom gang. That was in 1893. I stayed in the shop until 1894. Then I was transferred back on this side as coach cleaner. That was in 1895. I stayed as coach cleaner till 1913. From that I went to the State Capitol and stayed there as janitor of the Supreme Court for three years. In 1917, I went back to the coach cleaning department. That was during the war. I stayed there till 1922. I come out on the strike and have been out ever since. Since then I have done house cleaning all over the city. That brings me up to about two years ago. Now I pick up something here and something there. I have been knocking around sick most of the time and supported by the Relief and the Welfare principally.