FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Pine Bluff District

Name of Interviewer: Martin—Pettigrew Subject: Negro Customs Story—Information (If not enough space on this page add page)

“My mother made three crops after she wuz freed, and I wuz born when she made her third crop, so I thinks I wuz born ’round 1868. I wuz born in Bolivar County, Mississippi. My mother and father were slaves and belonged to the Harris family. Only one I ’members is my sister, she died. My brothers went off and worked on ships, and I never saw them no mo’.

“After freedom, my mother kept working for her marster and misstis, and they paid them for their work. They stayed on the same plantation until I wuz almost grown.

“At Christmas time, we had heaps to eat, cakes, homemade molasses candy that you pulled, popcorn, horse apples which wuz good, mo’ better’n any apples we get these days.

“The white folks give gifts in the big house and mammy went to the house and the white folks give her the things to put in we nigger chilluns’ stockings.

“We hung up our stockings in our house and up at the white house too. ’Fore Christmas, the white folks would tell us if we stole chickens, eggs, ducks and things, or go in the apple orchard, and wuz bad, Santa Claus would not come to us. But if we were good, he would bring gifts to us. ’Fore Christmas, the white folks would make a Santa Claus out of clothes and stuff it, put a pack on his back, and stand him up in the road. Colored chillun feared to go near him.

“I have never been arrested, never been in the jail house or calaboose. Went to school when I could.

“Traveled all over, worked on canal in South America.

“Name of boat I wuz on was the ‘Clamshell, No. 4’, with Captain Nelson, fum New York.”

This Information given by: Peter Hamilton Place of Residence: Near airport—Pine Bluff, Ark. Occupation: Age: 68

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lawrence Hampton R.F.D., Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 78

“I was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina. My parents’ names was Drucilla and Peter Hampton. She was the mother of twelve children. They both b’long to John D. Kidd and Texas Kidd. To my knowing they had no children. They was old to me being a child but I don’t reckon they be old folks. They had a plantation, some hilly and some bottom land. He had two or three hundred slaves. He was a good, good man. He was a good master. He had some white overseers and some black overseers. Grandpa Peter was one of his overseers. He was proud of his slaves. He was a proud man.

“We all had preaching clothes to wear. He had his slaves be somebody when they got out of the field. They went in washing at the fish pond, duck pond too. It was clear and sandy bottom. Wouldn’t be muddy when a lot of them got through washing (bathing). They was black but they didn’t stink sweaty. They wore starched clean ironed clothes. They cooked wheat flour and made clothes. When the War come on their clothes was ironed and clean but the wheat was scarce and the clothes got flimsy. John D. Kidd was loved by black and white. He was a good man. Grandpa George had a son sold over close to Memphis. They had twelve children last letter mama had from them. I’ve never seen any one of them.

“Grandpa Peter was a overseer. After he was made overseer he was paid. That was a honor for being good all his life. When freedom come on he had ten thousand dollars. He was pure African, black as ace of spades. He give papa and the other four boys five hundred dollars a piece to start them farms. Papa died when he was sixty-five and grandma was about a hundred. Mama was seventy-five when she died. Grandpa was eighty-five when he died. They didn’t know exactly but that was about their ages. It was a pretty big honor to be a carriage man. They had young men hostlers and blacksmiths.

“Freedom—The boys all stayed around and girls too. They bought places about. They never would charge John D. Kidd for work. They let the girls cook, milk, and set the fowls, long as the old couple lived. They never took no pay. They go in gangs and chop out his crop and big picnic dinners all they ever took from him. We all loved that old man.

“They done some whooping on the place but it was a shame. They got over it and went on dressed up soon as the task was done. Never heard much said about it. I never seen nobody whooped.

“My own folks whooped me. We was free then.

“I heard how easy to farm out in Arkansas. I come to Forrest City in 1884. I was ’bout twenty-five years old then. It was a mud hole is right. I farmed all my life. We made money.

“My color folks don’t know how to take care of their money. They can make money but don’t handle it long.

“I owns a home and twenty acres of land. I want to keep it. Me and my wife live out there. I had ten children and four of them still living. They all good children and I’m proud to own they mine.

“John D. Kidd had a lot of his wife’s brothers that come visiting. I’d find out they be up there. Here I’d go. We’d swim, fish, ride, and I’d love to be around them and hear them talk. That was the kind of good times we had when I was a boy. I missed all that when I come here. It was sich fine farming land. I couldn’t go back to stay. I been back numbers of times visiting.

“I heard of the Ku Klux but I never seen none of them. They was hot over there in South Carolina in some spots.

“I’m able by the grace of God to make my own humble living. Sometime I may like a little help but I ain’t asked foe none yet.

“I heard this here about the Ku Klux in Forrest City. I heard different ones say. They was having a revival out here at Lane Chapel and the captain of the Ku Klux come in and they followed in their white clothes and he give the colored minister a letter. He opened it and it had some money for him. They went on off on their horses. I don’t know when that was. I didn’t see it, I heard about it.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Hannah Hancock Biscoe, Arkansas? Age: Past 80

“I was born in Chesterfield County, South Carolina. My mother’s name was Chloa. We lived on Hardy Sellers plantation. She was the white folks cook. I et in the white folks kitchen sometimes and sometimes wid the other children at maw’s house. Show my daddy was livin. But he lived on another man’s farms. His master’s name was Billy Hancock and his name was Dave. Der was a big family of us but dey all dead now but three of us. Ize got two sisters and a brother still livin, I reckon. I ain’t seed them in a long time. Mrs. Sellers had several children but they were all married when I come along and she was a widow. Joe Pete was her son and he lived close, about a mile across the field, but it was farther around the road. Billy Hancock married Mrs. Sellers daughter. My mistress didn’t do much. Miss Becky Hancock wove cloth for people. You could get the warp ready and then run in the woof. She made checked dresses and mingledy looking cloth. They colored the cloth brown and purple mostly. Mrs. Sellers get a bolt of cloth and have it all made up into dresses for the children. Sometimes all our family would have a dress alike. Yesm, we did like dot. Granny made de dresses on her fingers. She was too old to go to de field an she tote water from the big spring and sometimes she water de hands when dey be hoeing. She would cut and dry apples and peaches. Nobody knowed how to can. They dried de beef. It show was good. It was jess fine. No maam, Granny didn’t have no patterns. She jess made our dresses lack come in her haid. We didn’t get many dresses and we was proud of em and washed and ironed and took care of em.

“I recollects hearing de men talking about going off to war and em going. No jess de white men left from Mrs. Sellers place. De children didn’t set around and hear all that was said. They sent us off to play in the play houses. We swept a clean place and marked it off and had our dolls down there. We put in anything we could get, mostly broken dishes. Yes maam, I had rag dolls and several of them. No wars real close but I could hear the guns sometimes.

“Mrs. Sellers had two large carriage horses. The colored boys took them down in the bottoms and took off a lot of the meat and groceries and hid them ’fo the Yankees come along. They didn’t nebber fin them things. Mrs. Sellers was awful good and the men jess looked after her and took care of her. Me or maw stayed at the house with her all the time, day and night. When anybody got sick she sent somebody to wait on them and went to see what they needed and sometimes she had ’em brought up to the house and give ’em the medicine herself. She didn’t have no foman. Uncle Sam and uncle John was the oldest and uncle Henry. They was the men on the farm and they went right on with the work. Folks had bigger families than they do now. They show did work, but de field work don’t last all de time. They cleared land and fixed up the rail fences in the winter. A rail fence was on each side of a long lane that led down to the pasture. The creek run through the pasture. It was show a pretty grove. Had corn shuckings when it was cold. We played base down there. We always had meat and plenty milk, collards and potatoes. Old missus would drip a barrel of ashes and make corn hominy in the wash pot nearly every week and we made all the soap we ever did see. If you banked the sweet potatoes they wouldn’t rot and that’s where the seed come from in the spring. In the garden there was an end left to go to seed. That is the way people had any seed. Times show have changed. I can’t tell what to think. They ain’t no more like than if they was another kind of folks. So much different. I jess look and live. I think they ought to listen to what you say. Say anything to them they say ‘Kaint run my business.’ I don’t know if they spected anything from freedom. Seemed like they thought they wouldn’t have to work if dey was free and dey wouldn’t have no boss. Missus let a lot of her land grow up in pine trees. Said she had no money to pay people to work for her. Some of de families staid on. My maw and paw went on a farm on share not far from Mrs. Sellers. When she was going to have company or she got sick she sent for my maw. My maw washed and ironed for her till they moved plum off. They said somebody told them it was freedom. When dey picked up and moved off de missus show didn’t give em nothing. They didn’t vote. They didn’t know how. I heard a lot about the Ku Klux Klan but I wasn’t scared. I never did see none.

“De younger generation jess lives today and don’t know what he’ll do tomorrow or where he’ll be. I ain’t never voted and I don’t know if my boys do or not.

“I never heard of uprisings. De paddyroll was to see after dot and Mrs. Sellers didn’t have none. Uncle Sam and uncle John made em mind.

“Sing—I say dey did sing. Sing about the cooking and about the milking and sing in de field.

“I never did see nobody sold. But I heard them talk about selling em. They took em off to sell em. That was the worst part about slavery. The families was broke up. I never lived nowhere ’cept in South Carolina and Prairie County (Arkansas). My folks come here and they kept writing for me to come, and I come on the train. Mrs. Sellers son, Joe Sellers, killed himself, shot himself, one Sunday evening. Didn’t know how come he done it. I was too little to know what they expected from the war. The colored folks didn’t have nothing to do with it ’cept they expected to get freed. A heap of people went to the cities, some of them died. After freedom things got pretty scarce to eat and there was no money. I worked as a house girl, tended to the children, brushed the flies off the table and the baby when it slept and swept the house and the yard too. After I come here (to Arkansas) I married and I worked on the farms. We share cropped. I raised my children, had chickens, geese, a cow and hogs. When the cotton was sold we got some of it. Yes maam, I show had rether be out there if I could jess work. We lived on Mr. Dick Small’s place till he sold out. We come to town a year and went back and made enough in one year to buy dis place. It cost $300. Jess my two sons and me. The others were married. My husband died on the farm. I come in town and done one or two washings a week. Yes maam I walked here and back. That kept me in a little money. It was about two miles. I washed for Mr. L. Hall and part of the time for Mrs. Kate Hazen. I guess they treated us right about the crop settlement. We thought they did. We knowed how much was made and how much we got. The cheatin come at the stores where the trading was done.

“I lives with my son and his wife. Sometimes I do my cooking and sometimes I eat in there. I get $8.00 from the RFC and prunes, rice, and a little dried milk. I buys my meal and sugar and lard and little groceries with the money. It don’t buy what I used to have on the farm.

“I don’t remember much about the war. I was so little. I heard them talk a lot about it and the way they killed folks. I thought it was awful. My hardest time is since I got old and can’t work.”