Volume 2 / Part 6 — INFORMANTS (continued 5)

Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson Person interviewed: Fannie Tatum, Junction City, Arkansas Age: Born 1862

"I was born on Wilmington landing in 1862 on the Ouachita River and was carried away when I was two years old. My mother ran away and left my sister and me when we was three and five years old. I never saw her any more till I was eight and after I was eight years old I never saw her again in forty years. After my mama left me old Master Neal come here to El Dorado and had me bound to him until I was twenty-one. I stayed there till I was twenty-one. I slept by the jamb of the fireplace on a sack of straw and covered with saddle blankets. That was in the winter when snow was waist high. In summer I slept on naked floor and anywhere I laid down was my bed just like a dog.

"I wasn't allowed to eat at the table. I et on the edge of the porch with the dogs with my fingers. I worked around the house and washed until I was nine and then I started to plowing. At ten I started splitting rails. My task was two hundred rails a day. If I didn't cut them I got a beating. I did not know what a coat was. I wore two pieces, a lowel[HW:?] underskirt and a lowel[HW:?] dress, bachelor brogans and sacks and rags wrapped around my legs for stockings. That was in winter. Summer I went barefooted and wore one piece. My sun hat was a rag tied on my head.

"I did not know anything about Sunday School nor church. The children would try to teach me my ABC's but master would not let them. Never visited any colored people. If I see a colored person coming I run from them. They said they might steal me. After I got grown they let me go to a colored party and they whipped me for going. Tried to make me tell whether or not a boy come home with me but I did not tell it; one come with me though. That was the first time I got out. Of course they sent one of the boys along with me but he would not tell on me.

"I never slept in a bed until I was twenty-two years old. Never was with any colored people until I was grown. My play was with white children. My father was a white man. He was my ma's old master and they was Neals. They kept my hair cut off like a boy's all the time. I never wore a stocking until I was twenty-two and my hair did not grow out and get combed until I was twenty-two. My old master and mistress would have been mean to me but I was so smart they did not get a chance. The only thing I was treated like a dog.

"I live in Junction City but am here visiting my daughter."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Anthony Taylor 2424 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 68, or 78?

"I was born in Clark County adjoining Hot Spring County, between Malvern and Arkadelphia. Clark County was named after old man General Clark. He was worth four or five thousand acres of land.

"My father's name was Anthony McClellan. Why they called me Anthony Taylor was my stepfather was named Taylor. My mother's name was Lettie Sunnaville. My mother has been dead thirty or forty years and my father died six months before I was born. He died a natural death. Sickness. He was exposed and died of pneumonia.

"Fayette Sunnaville was my grandfather on my mother's side. That was my mother's father. Rachel Sunnaville was my mother's mother's name. I don't know the names of my father's people. They was sole[HW:?] in slavery. But it is been so far back; I don't remember nothing, and I don't know whether they would or not if they was living.

"We stayed on the old plantation for seven or eight years before we had sense enough or knowed enough to get away from there and git something for ourselves. That is how I come to raise such big potatoes. I been raising them fifty years. These are hill potatoes. You have to know how to raise potatoes to grow 'em this big. (He showed me some potatoes, sweet, weighing about seven pounds—ed.)

"I have heard my mother and my grandfather tell lots of stories about slavery. I can't remember them.

"Old man Bullocks had about eight or ten families that I knew about. Those were the families that lived right near us in the quarters. I didn't say eight or ten hands—I said eight or ten families. Them was the ones that was right near us. We was awful small after freedom but them what was with him stayed with him quite a while—stayed with the old master. He would pay them so much after freedom come.

"Lawd. I could tell you things about slavery. But I'm forgitful and I can't do it all at once. He had the whole county from Arkadelphia clean down to Princeton and Tulip—our old mars did. Lonoke was between Princeton and Tulip. Princeton was the county-seat. He must have had a large number of slaves. Those ten families I knew was just those close 'round us. Most of the farm was fur pine country land. There would be thirty or forty acres over here of cultivation and then thirty or forty acres over there of woods and so on. He had more land than anybody else but it wasn't all under cultivation.

"He's been dead now twenty or thirty years. I don't know that he was mean to his slaves. If he had been, they wouldn't have gone on after freedom. They would have moved out. You see, they didn't care for nothing but a little something to eat and a fine dress and they would have gone on to somebody else and got that.

"Wasn't no law then. He was the law. I worked all day long for ten cents a day. They would allowance you so many pounds of meat, so much meal, so much molasses. I have worked all day for ten cents and then gone out at night to get a few potatoes. I have pulled potatoes all day for a peck of meal and I was happy at that. I never did know what the price of cotton was.

"Where we was, the Ku Klux never did bother anybody. All there was, every time we went out we had to have a pass.

"My grandfather and grandmother were both whipped sometimes. I don't know the man that whipped them. I don't know whether it was the agent or the owner or who, but they were whipped. Lots of times they had work to do and didn't do it. Naturally they whipped them for it. That was what they whipped my grandparents for. Sometimes too, they would go off and wouldn't let the white folks know where they was going. Sometimes they would neglect to feed the horses or to milk the cows—something like that. That was the only reason I ever heard of for punishing them.

"I heard that if the boss man wanted to be with women that they had, the women would be scared not to be with him for fear he would whip them. And when they started whipping them for that they kept on till they got what they wanted. They would take them 'way off and have dealings with them. That is where so much of that yellow and half-white comes from.

"There was some one going through telling the people that they was free and that they was their own boss. But yet and still, there's lots of them never did leave the man they was with and lots of them left. There was lots of white people that wouldn't let a nigger tell their niggers that they was free, because they wanted to keep them blind to that for years. Kept them for three or four years anyway. Them that Bullocks liked was crazy about him. He would give them a show—so much a month and their keeps. I don't remember exactly how much it was but it was neighborhood price. He was a pretty good man. Of course, you never seen a white man that wouldn't cheat a little.

"He'd cheat you out of a little cotton. He would have the cotton carried to the gin. He would take half the corn and give us five or six shoats. After he got the cotton all picked and sold, the cotton it would all go to him for what you owed him for furnishing you. You never saw how much cotton was ginned, nor how much he got for it, nor how much it was worth nor nothing. They would just tell you you wasn't due nothing. They did that to hold you for another year. You got nothing to move on so you stay there and take what he gives you.

"Of all the crying you ever heard, one morning we'd got up and the pigs and hogs in the lot that we had fattened to go on that winter, he was catching them. After we'd done fattened them with the corn that was our share, he took 'em and sold 'em. We didn't even know we owed him anything. We thought the crops had done settled things. Nobody told us nothin'. All we children cried. The old man and the old woman didn't say nothing, because they was scared. My mother would get up and go down and milk the cows and what she'd get for the milking would maybe be a bucket of buttermilk.

"We'd have a spoonful of black molasses and corn bread and buttermilk for breakfast. We got flour bread once a week. We would work hard all the week talkin' 'bout what good biscuits we'd have Sunday morning. Sack of flour would last two or three months because we wouldn't cook flour bread only once a week—Saturday night or Sunday morning.

"We had no skillet at that time. We would rake the fireplace and push the ashes back and then you would put the cake down on the hearth or on a piece of paper or a leaf and then pull the ashes over the cake to cook it. Just like you roast a sweet potato. Then when it got done, you would rake the ashes back and wash the cake and you would eat it. Sometimes you would strike a little grit or gravel in it and break your teeth. But then I'm tellin' you the truth about it.

"When our hogs was taken that time, we didn't have nothing to go on that winter. They would compel us to stay. They would allowance us some meat and make us split rails and clear up land for it. It was a cinch if he didn't give it to you you couldn't get nothin'. Wasn't no way to get nothing. Then when crop time rolled 'round again they would take it all out of your crops. Make you split rails and wood to earn your meat and then charge it up to your crop anyhow. But you couldn't do nothin' 'bout it.

"Sometimes a barrel of molasses would set up in the smokehouse and turn to sugar. You goin' hungry and molasses wastin'. They was determined not to give you too much of it.

"I made my way by farming. After I got to be some size, I started at it. I farmed all my life. While I could work, things was pretty good. Wisht I was on a farm now. Even when I'm 'round here sick, I can git these potatoes raised with a little help from the neighbors.

"I don't belong to church. I oughter, but I don't. Then again, I figure that a man can be just as good out of it as he can in it. I've got good desires, but I never confessed to the public.

"I have had three hundred dollars worth of stuff stolen from me. Everything I produced is stolen from me because I have no way to protect myself. What I raise if I don't get shet of it right away, the people get shet of it for me. I had eighty head of chickens in the barn out there runnin' 'round. When I got sick and was in the bed and couldn't help myself, the chickens went. In the daytime, they would fix traps and jerk a string and pull a board down on them and then go out in the weeds and get them. I never reported nothin' to the police. I wasn't able to report nothing. I was just batching, and now and then people would come in and report them to me. They would wait till they saw somebody come in and when they saw that I was talking and wouldn't notice them, they would steal anything they wanted. The police came by here and ran them once. But that didn't do no good.

"Once somebody stole an automatic shotgun. They stole a colt one time. They stole all my clothes and pawned them to a whiskey dealer. He got sent to the pen for selling whiskey, but I didn't get my clothes. They come in the yard and steal my potatoes, collards, turnips, ochre (okra?), and so on. I lay there in the bed and see them, but I can't stop them. All I can do is to holler, 'You better go on and let them things alone.' Ever since the last war, I haven't been able to work. I am bare-feeted and naked now on account of not bein' able to support myself.

"I just come out of the hospital. I been too sick even to work in my garden. After I come home I taken a backset[TR: ?] but I am still staying here. I am just here on the mercies of the people. I don't get nothing but what the people give me. I don't get no moddities nor nothin' from the Government.

"I ain't never been able to get no help from the Government. Long time ago, I went down to the place and asked for help and they told me that since I was alone, I oughta be able to help myself. They gimme a ticket for twenty meals and told me by the time I ate them up, they might have something else they could do for me. I told them I couldn't go back and forth to git the meals. I have the ticket now. I couldn't git to the place to use it none, so I keep it for a keepsake. It is 'round here somewheres or other. I was past the pension age. I ain't been able to do no steady work since the war. I was too old for the war—the World War."

Interviewer's Comment [HW: omit]

The spelling of the name Sunnaville is phonetic. I don't recognize the name and he couldn't spell it of course.

When I called, he had potatoes that weighed at least seven pounds. They were laid out on the porch for sale. He had a small patch in his yard which he cultivated, and had gotten about ten bushels from it.

His account of slavery times is so vivid that you would consider his age nearer eighty than sixty-eight. A little questioning reveals that he has no idea of his age although he readily gives it as sixty-eight—a memorized figure.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Lula Taylor, R.F.D., east of town, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 71

"My mother was sold five times. She was sold when she was too little to remember her mother. Her mother was Charity Linnerman. They favored. She was dark and granny was light colored. My mother didn't love her mother like I loved her.

"Granny lived in a house behind the white church (?) in Helena. After freedom we kept writing till we got in tetch with her. We finally got granny with us on the Jefferies place at Clarendon.

"A man (Negro) come by and conjured my mother. She was with Miss Betty Reed (or Reid) up north of Lonoke. They was my mother's last owners. That old man made out like she stole things when he stole them his own black self. He'd make her hide out like she stole things. She had a sweetheart and him and his wife. She had to live with them. They stole her off from her last owner, Miss Betty Reed. They didn't like her sweetheart. They was going to marry. He bought all her wedding clothes. When she didn't marry him she let him have back all the weddin' clothes and he buried his sister in them. This old man was a conjurer. He give my mother a cup of some kind of herbs and made her drink it. He tole her all her love would go to Henry Deal. He liked him. He was my papa. Her love sure did leave her sweetheart and go to my papa. He bought her some nice clothes. She married in the clothes he got her. She was so glad to let go that old man and woman what conjured her 'way from her white folks to wait on them.

"Granny's head was all split open. I lived to see all that. White folks said her husband done it but she said one of her old master's struck her on the head with a shoe last.

"My papa said he'd hit boards and stood on them all day one after another working cold days.

"Master Wade Deal at freedom give papa a pair of chickens, goats, sheep, turkeys, a cow; and papa cleared ten acres of ground to pay for his first mule. He bought the mule from Master Wade Deal.

"Old Master Deal used to run us from behind him plowing. We tease him, say what he'd say to the horse or mule. He'd lock us up in the smokehouse. We'd eat dried beef and go to sleep. He was a good old man.

"Grandpa Henry Pool went to war. Papa was sold from the Pools to the Deals. Grandpa played with us. He'd put us all up on a horse we called Old Bill. He said he got so used to sleeping on his blanket on the ground in war times till he couldn't sleep on a bed. He couldn't get off asleep.

"Grandpa found a pitcher of gold money been buried in old Master Pool's stable. He give it to them. They knowed it was out there.

"Mother was with Miss Betty Reed in most of war times. Miss Betty hid their jewelry and money. She spoke of the Yankees coming and kill pretty chickens and drink up a churn of fresh milk turned ready for churning. It be in the chimney corner to keep warm. They'd take fat horses and turn their poor ones in the lot. They never could pass up a fat hog. They cleaned out the corn crib.

"All my kin folks was field hands. I ploughed all day long.

"Papa said his ole mistress Deal was out under an apple tree peeling apples to dry. A white crane flew over the tree and fluttered about over her. Next day she died. Then the old man married a younger woman.

"It is so about the pigeons at Pigeon Roost (Wattensaw, Arkansas). They weighted trees down till they actually broke limbs and swayed plenty of them. That was the richest land you ever seen in your life when it was cleared off. Folks couldn't rest for killing pigeons and wasted them all up. I was born at Pigeon Roost on Jim High's place. I seen a whole washpot full of stewed pigeon. It was fine eating. It was a shame to waste up all the pigeons and clear out the place."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Millie Taylor 1418 Texas Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times in Calhoun County, Mississippi.

"Bill Armstrong was my owner. He's been dead a long time.

"My folks stayed on there a good while.

"Pa said they was good to him but they wasn't good to my ma. I heered pa say they beat her till she died. I don't remember a thing 'bout my ma.

"I heered 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux. They kep' that in my hearin' so much that I kep' that in my remembrance.

"I know when we stayed on the place pa said was old master's. Yes'm, I sure 'members dat. I know we stayed there till pa married again.

"Bill Armstrong's wife made our clothes. I know we stayed right in the yard with some more colored folks.

"Pa worked on the shares and rented too.

"I was twenty-four when I come from Mississippi here. I was married then and had three chillun. But they all dead now. I stays here with my grandson. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for him. I reckon I'd just be knockin' around—no tellin'.

"I got another grandson lives in Marvell. I went there to visit and I got so I couldn't walk, so my grandson carried me to the doctor. And he just looked at me—he had been knowin' me so long. I said, 'Don't you know me?' And he said, 'If you'd take off your hat I think I'd know you.' And he said, 'Well, for the Lawd, if it ain't Millie Taylor!'

"I've always done farmin'. That's the way I was raised—farmin'. I just looks at these folks in town and it seems funny to me to buy ever'thing you need. Looks to me like they would rather raise it.

"Oh, Lawd, don't talk about this young race. It looks to me like they is more heathe'nish. The Bible say they would be weaker and wiser but they is just too wise for their own good. I just looks at 'em and I don't know what to think about this young race. They is a few respects you and theirselves.

"I seen things here in town I didn't think I'd ever see. Seems like the people in the country act like they recognize you more.

"I has a good remembrance. Seems like I gets to studyin' 'bout it and it just comes to me like ABC. I know pa used to talk and tell us things and if I didn't believe it, I didn't give him no cross talk. But nowadays if chillun don't believe what you say, they goin' try to show you a point.

"Yes ma'am, folks is livin' a fast life—white and colored.

"Looks like the old folks has worked long enough for the white folks till they ought to have enough to live on."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sarah Taylor, R.F.D., Madison, Arkansas Age: 70

"I was born in Releford County, Tennessee, ten miles from Murfreesboro. My parents belonged to Dr. Jimmy Manson. He was off and gone from home nearly all the time. He didn't have a Negro driver. Because he didn't they called us all Manson's free niggers. Folks didn't like it because we had so much freedom. One day a terrible thing happened broke up our happy way of living on Dr. Manson's place.

"Grandpa was part Indian. Dr. Jimmy didn't whoop. He visited and he'd get a jug of whiskey, call his niggers and give them a little, make them feel good and get them in a humor for working. Dr. Jimmy had a nigger overseer. They was digging a ditch and making a turnpike from Dr. Manson's place to Murfreesboro. They told grandpa to drive down in the ditch with his load of rock and let the white folks drive up on the dump. They was hauling and placing rock on the dump to make a turnpike. In Tennessee it was a law if a man owned a nigger he had to whoop him or have him whooped. If he didn't he had to sell him. They told grandpa if he didn't do as they said they would whoop him, then they said they would break his back. They took the fussing to Dr. Jimmy for him to whoop grandpa. He sold him to nigger traders and they drove him to Mississippi. Mother never seen him no more. Grandma died of grief. She had nine girls and no boys. After freedom seven went North and mama, was Jane, and Aunt Betty lived on in Tennessee, and I lived some in Mississippi. That's the reason I hate Mississippi to this very day.

"The day they fit on Stone River in Tennessee, brother Hood was born. He was born during the battle. I guess they moved off of Dr. Jimmy's place at freedom, for I was born on Jack Little's place.

"The times is passing faster than I want it to and I'm doing very well. I don't never meddle in young folks' business and I don't 'low them meddling in mine. Folks is the ones making times so hard. Some making times hard for all rest of us can't help ourselves. It is sin and selfishness makes times so hard. Young folks no worse than some not so very old. It ain't young folks making times hard. It's older ones so greedy. They don't have no happiness and don't want to see old ones live nor the young ones neither."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Warren Taylor 3200 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 74

My people are all from Richmond, Virginia. I was just four years old when they come here. My father was in charge of all the machinery. He ran the gin. Didn't do anything else. My mother was a house girl. The kids learned her everything they learned in school. She knew everything. My father died when I was young. My mother lived till she was eighty. But the time she was fifty, I bought her a home and sat her down on Pulaski Street in that home. And that is why I have so little trouble.

"My ma belonged to Hoffman. He sold her to Wiley Adams. He carried her to Mississippi. She stayed there for a short time and then came to Arkansas. He settled in a little place called Tulip, Arkansas. Then freedom came and we came to Little Rock and settled at what is now Seventh and Ringo Streets; but then it was just a stage road leading to Benton, Arkadelphia, and other places. Stages passed twice a day with passengers and freight. No railroads at all then. The government kept the roads up. They had the arsenal hall where the city park is and had a regiment of soldiers there. The work on that road was kept up by the soldiers. That was under Grant's administration. I never saw but three presidents—three Democratic presidents—Cleveland, Wilson, and Roosevelt.

"My father's master was named Lee. He married my mother back in Virginia. My daddy's people when he was freed was named Taylor. He died when I was young and he never gave me any details about them.

Good Masters

"The Adamses were good to my mother. And they help her even after freedom. Charlie Adams and Mack Adams of Malvern, Arkansas. John was the sheriff and ran a store. Mack was a drummer for the Penzl Grocery. When my mother was ill, he used to bring her thirty dollars at a time. Every two months she had to go down to Malvern when she was well and carry an empty trunk and when she would come back it would be full. My mother was wet-nurse to the Adamses and they thought the world and all of her.

Marriage

"They had a good opinion of their house servants. That is how she and my father came to belong to different families. One white man would say to the other, 'I got a good boy. I'm going to let him come over to see your girl.' He would be talking about a Negro man that worked around his house and a Negro girl that worked for the other man. That would be all right. So that's the way my father went to see my mother. He was married in the way they always married in those days. You know how it was. There was no marriage at all. They just went on out and got the woman and the white man said, 'There she is. You are man and wife.'

Right After the War

"My father died before freedom. My mother lived with him until her folks moved away from his folks. Then she was separated from him and left him in Mississippi. She belonged to one white man and he to another, and that could happen any time.

"Right after freedom, she stayed with these white people, doing the house work. She had the privilege of raising things for herself. She made a garden, and raised vegetables and such like.

"My brother who had run off during slavery time and who later became a preacher in the North invited us to live in the city with him.

Vocational Experiences

"I wasn't fourteen years old when I was tending to flowers for the Cairo and Fulton Railroad. That was a railroad which later became Missouri Pacific. They beautified everything. There wasn't any bridge. They had a boat to take you into the town of Argenta then, and when the trains came through, the same boat would carry the cars across. An engine would be on the other side to finish the journey with them.

"There is one engineer living now who was active in that time, Charlie Seymour, retired, of Little Rock. He used to run the first train over the Baring Cross Bridge, and then he ran the first engine over the new bridge here. He had already been retired when they finished the new bridge, but they had him pull the first train over the new bridge because he had pulled the first one over the old bridge. They wanted to give him that honor.

"My manager in that time was Superintendent A.E. Buchanan.

"From this work, I was advanced to the office and stayed there twenty years. I served under Commissioner Thomas Essex and later under Commissioner J.A. Dean. This service included twenty years in various departments.

"After that I billed freight for the Missouri Pacific at the Baring Cross Storerooms under Mr. H.S. Turner for eight months or more. Then I was transferred, because the location was not good for my health, to De Soto, Missouri, forty-five miles this side of St. Louis. Sedentary work had proved bad for me and I needed more active work. I waited on the master mechanic there. After that I came back to Little Rock and worked for the Pacific Express Company under Mr. G.F. Johnson, superintendent. After that, I worked for the Quapaw Club[HW?] during its heyday when Johnie Boyle, Hollenberg, Acie Bragg, Will Mitchell, Mr. Cottman, Captain Shaw, and oodles of others were members. Mr. Moorehead White was secretary. After that I went to doing my own work.

"Now I am past my prime and I do the best I can with what little help I get from the government. I get eight dollars a month and commodities. Mr. Roosevelt has got guts. Mighty few men would attempt to do what he has done. He is the greatest humanitarian president the country has ever had.

"But I've got a pile of recommendations. I've got recommendations from

You can read these for yourself, and you see what they say. They can't get me work now, but it's great to know you did good work and be able to prove it.

"The same commodities they give now were given in 1870. They had what they called the Freedman's Bureau. They used to have what they called the LICK SKILLET on Spring Street from Fifth to Seventh. Leastwise, the colored people called it that. Bush and a lots of other big niggers used to go there and get free lodgings until they were able to get along alone without help. The niggers they call BIG NIGGERS now stayed in wagon yards when they first come here.

Former Morals

"There was a time when a low-down person, colored or white, couldn't stay in the community. They would give him a ticket and send him to Memphis or somewhere else.

"Reuben White built the First Baptist Church. In those days, people were Christian. White baptized one hundred fifty people twice a month. You didn't have to put a lock on your door then.

Bachelor

"I haven't been married; marriage holds a man back. A woman won't do as she is told.

Successful Negroes in Little Rock

"They had three Negro aldermen in this city: one of them was Green Thompson; but the Negroes butchered him. He was murdered as he came in from a festival. M.W. Gibbs, Land Office Man for the Government, was the only nigger here who wasn't bothered by no one—by no colored person. Dr. Smith was the leading colored dentist once, and the leading dentist of the city in his day. Almost all the white people went to him. Colored people had the barber shops. McNair had a barber shop on Main between Second and Third. His boy killed him—no good reason. His boy went to school with us; he was always stubborn and mean.

"Henry Powell was jailer here once. Sam Wilkins, a man that weighed about three hundred pounds, was the turnkey at the penitentiary. He lived in one of the finest houses in the town at that time. Nigger bands had all the music then. I have seen white organizations like the Odd Fellows and Masons follow Negro bands. Nigger orchestras played here all the big to-dos among white people. White people used to get nigger dancers to come here to dance and show them so that they could learn the late steps.

"Colored caterers had the big jobs. Henry Miller was one of them. He's going pretty strong still. You get some smart niggers 'round the Marion Hotel right now. We used to have some smart cooks. But they did too much peddling out of the back door. Dishonesty put them back. White people have taken all that work now. The nigger ruined himself in this town. They are paying white men now for what they know. They used to pay niggers for what they knowed.

Opinions

"If the government would give you a job today, niggers would be up to take you out of it tomorrow. Niggers are dirty, and these 'round here are ignorant.

"The parents don't teach the children, and the children can't amount too anything. If children are not taught to work, they will never have nothing. A bunch of these young people don't mean to work. They just lay 'round waiting for the old people to die so they can get what little the old folks accumulated and run through it. But a man never keeps what he himself doesn't earn. He can't.

"The children are raised now without manners. When I have to go past Capitol Hill School, I have to get off the sidewalk. Ain't nothin' but these graduates teachin' now, young graduates that don't know nothin' but runnin' about. When I come along, the carpetbaggers were teaching and they knew their business. Mrs. Stephens went to Fisk and finished there. Mrs. Spight graduated from Union High School. We had all white teachers at first. Miss Sarah Henley used to teach with old ex-slaves where the Bethel A.M.E. Church is now. There wasn't no church there then—just a little shanty. I was just five years old. My mother used to take me there and leave me, but she taught me herself at home. She taught me just like I see you teach your kids.

"Boys don't do nothing but play now. They had to hustle then. They can't do nothing now. They have this departmental system now. They didn't have it then. The different temperaments ruin children. They used to review, now they don't. They change text-books so fast the old ones can't be sold."

Interviewer's Comment

Warren Taylor holds recommendations from a number of prominent people referring to his excellent character, high morals, unusual intelligence, wide information, industry, thrift, honesty, and trustworthiness. Some of the names occur in the interview. The letters and documents proving his long service and good record were brought out during the interview and given to me to read.

He has an unusual memory and penetrating insight into conditions.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sneed Teague Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 68 Occupation: Works on railroad

"My owners was Miss Betsy and Master Teague. Miss Betsy had a sister lived with them. Her name was Miss Polly. They was French folks from the old country.

"My ma had belong to the Cox before the Teagues owned her. The Teagues had three families of servants.

"I remember them—yes mam—they was very saving people. They made everything that they used. The shettle, the carding machine, the spinning wheel and all, they made em. They had a carding machine different to anybodys in the country. It worked by a foot treadle. Another thing wasn't like nobody elses in the whole country was the bed. It had four tall post. The head board a little higher than the one at the foot but instead of using slats across from the railings it was mortised together and hemp ropes wove bout a inch apart. It was strong and didn't seem to give (stretch) much.

"They raised sheep and they wove and spun wool altogether. They didn't fool with cotton. Never did, not even down to my time. That carding machine I'm telling bout turned out rolls of wool. It was right pretty. They made all kinds of wool things and sold them. The old man had three or four boys. Mr. Jim Teague run a wood and blacksmith shop. He sold plows, wagons, hoes. They made spoons, knives, and forks out of sheets of some kind of metal. Everything they used they made it and they sold mighty near every thing folks wanted. The servants stayed on after the war. My ma stayed till she died. My family had a little dispute when I was twelve years old and I left. Ma died and I never went back. I come to Forrest City and got work. I been farmin' and working on the railroad. I have done track work. I got 10 acres land and a house. I don't need on the relief. If I need it I would want it. The reason I ain't got a garden and cow is I work out and not there to see after it.

"Some times I vote. You make enemies cause they all want you to vote for them and I can't do that. I don't care nothin' bout votin'. I don't enquire no more bout politics.

"The fellow what raises things to sell is better off with prices high but if he is working for money, times is hard for him. Cause the money is hard to get and hard to keep now. The young folks morals ain't like young folks used to have. Seemed like young folks too smart to be trained in morals like they was when I was comin' up."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mary Teel Holly Grove, Ark. Age: 74

"Our Masters was Wade and Curls. Miss Fannie was Master Wade's wife. They was kin somehow. I heard Ma say they wouldn't let their boys work. We girls growd up together. They called Ma 'Cousin'.

"Ma say she come from Marshal County Tennessee to Holly Springs Mississippi. She never did see her pa. My papa's papa was a white man. My pa was Lewis Brittman. He was a carriage driver. He made and mended shoes. My Ma was a fine cook. She had nine children but jes three living now. One of the girls—Miss Fannie's girls—married bout when I did. We jes growd up lack that. I left the girls at Mt. Pleasant, Mississippi. I stayed on their place a while. I wish I had money to go back to my old home and see all 'em livin'. I never heard 'em say if they give 'em somepin. Pa lernt us to do all kinds of work. He knowd how to do nearly everything cause he was brought up by white folks. Measles broke out, then small pox and the white folks put us in a room all together at the white house so we could be seen after. We lay on the same beds. My brother would whistle. I was real little but I member it well as yesterday. Ma say stop whistlin' in that bed and Miss Fannie say let him whistle I want to hear him cause I know he better. They say it bad luck to sing in bed or look in the lookin'-glass (mirror) if you in the bed. We all got over it.

"Pa made us go clean. He made me comb and wrop my hair every night. I had prutty hair then. I had tetter and it all come out. I has to wear this old wig now. When I was young my eye-sight got bad, they said measles settled in em and to help em Ma had these holes put in em (in her ears). I been wearin' earbobs purt nigh all my life.

"The Ku Klux never bothered us. They never come nigh our house no time. Pa died and Ma married a old man. They stayed in the same place a while. When Pa died he had cattle and stock that why I don't know if he got somepin at Freedom. He had plenty.

"We lived at Holly Springs (Miss.) when they started the first colored schools. There was three lady teachers. I think a man. One of the white teachers boarded at my Ma's. On Saturday the other two eat there. I recollect Ma cooking and fixing a big dinner Saturday. No white folks let em stay with em or speak to em. They was sent from up north to teach the darky chaps. I was one went to school. They wasn't nice like my white folks then neither. They paid high board and white folks sent em to Ma so she get the money. I was 14 years old when I married. I lived wid my husband more an 50 years. We got long what I'ze tellin' you. This young set ain't got no raisin' reason they cain't stand one nother. I don't let em come in my yard. I cain't raise no children, I'm too old and they ain't got no manners and the big ones got no sense. Jes wild. They way they do. They live together a while and quit. Both them soon livin' wid somebody else. That what churches fer, to marry in. Heap of em ain't doin' it. No children don't come here tearin' up what I work and have. I don't let em come in that gate, I have to work so hard in my old days. I picked cotton. I can, by pickin' hard, make a dollar a day. I cooked ten years fore I stopped, I cain't hold up at it. I washed and ironed till the washing machines ruined that work fer all of us black folks. Silk finery and washin' machines ruint the black folks.

"Ma named Elsie Langston and Lewis Langston. They took that name somehow after the old war (Civil War), I recken it was her old master's name.

"After I was married and had children I was hard up. I went to a widow woman had a farm but no men folks. She say, 'If you live here and leave your little children in my yard and take my big boys and learn em to work, I will cook. On Saturday you wash and iron.' She took me in that way when my color wouldn't help me. I stayed there—between Memphis and Holly Springs.

"I live hard the way I live. I pick cotton when I can't go hardly. They did give me a little commodity but I lose half day work if I go up there and wait round. Don't know what they give me. I don't get a cent of the penshun."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Wade Thermon, R.F.D. (PWA Reservation), Des Arc, Arkansas Age: 67

"I was born in Boswell, Oklahoma. My mother and father was both slaves some wha in the eastern states. Soon as freedom was declared they kept going till I was born. They finally come back and farmed round Pine Bluff. My folks last time I heard from them was at Garland City. There's wha my mother died. I had three brothers and one sister, but one brother died long time ago. Oklahoma was pore farmin'. The family could do pretty good farmin' in Arkansas. I come here from Pine Bluff. I got a wife, two girls and a little grandchild. When I first come to dis county I done public work—piece work. I handled cotton and cross ties. I used to help load and unload the boats and I worked helpin' build railroads. Then I had to farm about a little fur a living. I worked on Victor Gates place six years. Then I worked on the widow Thomas place till the Government bought it. Then the last eighteen months I got work wid the PWA on the rezer/va/tion. They turned me off now and I ain't got no place to work.

"I voted the Republican ticket the last time. I don't know nothing 'bout stricted sufage. I voted in Oklahoma some and here some. No I sho don't think the women needs to vote. They won't let us vote in the Primary. No I wouldn't know who would suit in dem high offices. I reckon it is all right. We is in you might say a foreign country. What I blames 'em fur is not puttin' us in a country all to our selves and den let us run it all to our selves. It is gettin' us all mixed up here every year worse and worse.

"I don't know nuthin' 'bout the Civil War. That was before I was born. I heard my folks talk some 'bout it, been so long I forgot what they did say. My folks owned a place in Oklahoma, at least I recken they did. I never did own no home nor no land. Well, missus, cause I never could get but berry little ahead ever and it takes all I makes to live on and I ain't got nuthin' to go on now.

"Times is changin' so much I don't know whut goin' to happen to the next generation. Prices is mighty high now the reason you have to spend every cent you makes fore you get paid off. Dats the reason I don't like the PWA work I done. It cuts you off without a thing to go on. I likes farm work whole heap the best."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Mrs. Dicey Thomas 2500 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 82

"I was born in Barbour County, Alabama. When I was born, the white folks kept the children's age, not that of their parents. When the Yankees came through our white folks' plantation, the white folks was hiding away things.

Father

"My father was named Ben See. See was my maiden name. Thomas comes from my marriage.

Yankees

"It was about twelve o'clock when the Yankees came through, because we had just gone to bring the bowls. They used to serve us out of these gourds and wooden spoons. Me and another little girl had gone to get some bowls and spoons and when we got back the Yankees were swarming over the place. They said, 'You are free. Go where you please.'

"My mother had a little baby. The old women would tend to this baby and we would sit and rock the cradle till mother would come. I know I wasn't very old, because I didn't do anything but sit and rock the baby. I had just gotten big enough to carry the bowls.

"When the Yankees came through they stole Ben See's horse and brought him out here in Arkansas. In those days, they used to brand horses.

Some woman out here in Arkansas recognized the horse by his brand and wrote to him about it. He came out and got the horse. We had gone by that time.

Visiting the Graves

"Ben See used to take the little darkies to the cemetery and show them where their master and missis was laying. He never would sell none of his father's slaves.

The Slave Block

"He would buy other slaves and sell them though. He used to buy little kids that couldn't walk. Maybe some big white man would come that would want to buy a nigger. He used to have servants in the yard and he would have the slaves he'd bought saved up. One of the yard servants would catch a little nigger with his head all knotty and filled with twigs. He would swinge the hair and the little nigger would yell, but he wouldn't be hurt.

"He had a block built up high just like a meat block out in the yard. He would have the yard man bring the little niggers out and put them on this block. I don't know nothing about their parents, who they were nor where they were. All I know he would have this child there what he'd done bought.

"If there would be about five or six come in, here's this nigger sitting up here. Here's a lot of folks waitin' to buy him. One would say, 'I bid so much.' Another would say, 'I bid so much.' That would go on till the biddin' got as high as it would go. Then the little nigger would go to the highest bidder if the bid suited master.

"My mother and father didn't know their age. The white folks kept the ages, and that was something they didn't allow the slaves to handle. I must have been four or five years old when my mother was in the field, because I wasn't allowed to take the baby out of the cradle but just to sit and rock it.

Arkansas

"When I come to Arkansas, stages was running from Little Rock down toward Pine Bluff. Jesse James robbed the Pine Bluff train. That about the first train came in. They cut down the trees across the train track. They had a wooden gun and they went in there and robbed that train with it. They sent him to the pen and he learned a trade making cigars.

"The Union Station was just like that hillside. It was just one street in the town. I don't know what year nor nothing about it because when I came here it was just like somebody didn't have any sense.

Plantation

"The slave quarter was a row of houses. The plantation was high land. The houses were little log houses with one room. They had fire arches. They would hang pots over the fire. They would have spiders that you call ovens. You would put coals on top of the spider and you would put them under it and you could smell that stuff cooking! The door was in the top of the spider and the coals would be on top of the door.

"You couldn't cook nothin' then without somebody knowin' it. Couldn't cook and eat in the back while folk sit in the front without them knowin' it. They used to steal from the old master and cook it and they would be burning rags or something to keep the white folks from smelling it.

The riding boss would come round about nine o'clock to see if you had gone to bed or not. If they could steal a chicken or pig and kill and cut it up, this one would take a piece and that one would take a piece and they would burn the cotton to keep down the scent. The rider would come round in June and July too when they thought the people would be hunting the watermelons.

"When the soldiers came, the niggers run and hid under the beds and the soldiers came and poked their bayonets under the bed and shouted, 'Come on out from under there. You're free!'

Destructiveness of Soldiers

"The soldiers would tear down the beehives and break up the smoke houses. They wasn't tryin' to git nothin' to eat. They was just destroying things for devilment. They pulled all the stoppers out of the molasses. They cut the smoked meat down and let it fall in the molasses.

Rations

"Every Saturday, they would give my father and his wife half a gallon of molasses, so much side meat. And then they would give half a bushel of meal I reckon. Whatever they would give they would give 'em right out of the smoke house. Sweet potatoes they would give. Sugar and coffee they'd make. There wasn't nothing 'bout buying no sugar then.

How the Day Went

"The riding boss would come round before the day broke and wake you up. You had to be in the field before sun-up—that is the man would. The woman who had a little child had a little more play than the man, because she had to care for the child before she left. She had to carry the child over to the old lady that took care of the babies. The cook that cooked up to the big house, she cooked bread and milk and sent it to the larger children for their dinner. They didn't feed the little children because their mothers had to nurse them. The mother went to the field as soon as she cared for her child. She would come back and nurse the child around about twice. She would come once in the morning about ten o'clock and once again at twelve o'clock before she ate her own lunch. She and her husband ate their dinner in the field. She would come back again about three p.m. Then you wouldn't see her any more till dark that night. Long as you could see you had to stay in the field. They didn't come home till sundown.

"Then the mother would go and get the children and bring them home. She would cook for supper and feed them. She'd have to go somewheres and get them. Maybe the children would be asleep before she would get all that done. Then she would have to wake them up and feed them.

"I remember one time my sister and me were laying near the fire asleep and my sister kicked the pot over and burned me from my knee to my foot. My old master didn't have no wife, so he had me carried up to the house and treated by the old woman who kept the house for him. She was a slave. When I got so I could hobble around a little, he would sometimes let the little niggers come up to the house and I would get these big peanuts and break them up and throw them out to them so he could have fun seeing them scramble for them.

"After the children had been fed, the mother would cook the next day's breakfast and she would cook the next day's dinner and put it in the pail so that everything would be ready when the riding boss would come around. Cause when he came, it meant move.

The Old Lady at the Big House

"The old lady at the big house took care of the gourds and bowls. The parents didn't have nothing to do with them. She fed the children that was weaned. Mother and daddy didn't have nothing to do with that at noontime because they was in the field. White folks fed them corn bread and milk. Up to the big house besides that, she didn't have anything to do except take care of things around the house, keep the white man's things clean and do his cooking.

"She never carried the gourds and bowls herself. She just fixed them. The yard man brought them down to the quarters and we would take them back. She wash them and scrape them till they was white and thin as paper. They was always clean.

"She wasn't related to me. I couldn't call her name to save my life.

Relatives

"We come from Barbour, Alabama with a trainful of people that were immigrating. We just chartered a train and came, we had so many. Of all the old people that came here in that time, my aunt is the oldest. You will find her out on Twenty-fourth Street and Pulaski. She has been my aunt ever since I can remember. She must be nearly a hundred or more.

Patrollers

"When we had the patrollers it was just like the white man would have another white man working for him. It was to see that the Negroes went to bed on time and didn't steal nothing. But my master and missis never allowed anybody to whip their slaves.

What the Slaves Expected and Got

"I don't know what the slaves was expecting to get, but my parents when they left Ben See's place had nothing but the few clothes in the house. They didn't give em nothing. They had some clothes all right, enough to cover themselves. I don't know what kind or how much because I wasn't old enough to know all into such details.

"When we left Ben See's plantation and went down into Alabama, we left there on a wagon. Daddy was driving four big steers hitched to it. There was just three of us children. The little boy my mother was schooling then, it died. It died when we went down betwixt New Falls and Montgomery, Alabama. I don't know when we left Alabama nor how long we stayed there. After he was told he was free, I know he didn't make nare another crop on Ben See's plantation.

1865-1938

"My father, when he left from where we was freed, he went to hauling logs for a sawmill, and then he farmed. He done that for years, driving these old oxen. He mostly did this logging and my mother did the farming.

"I can't tell you what kind of time it was right after the Civil War because I was too young to notice. All our lives I had plenty to eat. When we first came to Arkansas we stopped at old Mary Jones down in Riceville, and then we went down on the Gates Farm at Biscoe. Then we went from there to Atkins up in Pope County. No, he went up in the sand hills and bought him a home and then he went up into Atkins. Of course, I was a married woman by that time.

"I married the second year I came to Arkansas, about sixty-two or sixty-three years ago. I have lived in Little Rock about thirty-two or thirty-three years. When I first came here, I came right up here on Seventeenth and State streets.

Voting

"I never voted. For twenty years the old white lady I stayed with looked after my taxes. None of my friends ever voted. I ain't got nothing but some children and they ain't never been crazy enough to go to anybody's polls.

Family

"I have two brothers dead and a sister. My mother is dead. I am not sure whether or not my father is dead. The Ku Klux scared him out of Atkins, and he went up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I ain't never heard of him since. I don't know whether he is dead or not.

"I have raised five children of my own.

Ku Klux Klan

"These Ku Klux, they had not long ago used to go and whip folks that wasn't doing right. That was mongst the white people and the colored. Comer that used to have this furniture store on Main Street, he used to be the head of it, they say.

"I used to work for an old white man who told me how they done. They would walk along the street with their disguises hidden under their arms. Then when they got to the meeting place, they would put their disguises on and go out and do their devilment. Then when they were through, they would take the disguise off again and go on back about their business, Old man Wolf, he used to tell me about it.

Occupation

"I nursed for every prominent doctor in Little Rock,—Dr. Judd, Dr. Flynch, Dr. Flynn, Dr. Fly, Dr. Morgan Smith, and a number of others."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Mandy Thomas, 13th and Pearl Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78 Occupation: Laundress

"I know my sister told me I was five when my mama was freed. I was born down below El Dorado. Andrew Jaggers was my mother's old master.

"I just remember the soldiers goin' past. I think they was Yankees. They never stopped as I knows of.

"I've seed my young missis whip my mother.

"My papa belonged to the Agees. After I got up good sized, they told me 'bout my papa. He went with his white folks to Texas and we never did see him after we got up good size. So mama took a drove of us and went to work for some more white folks.

"I was good and grown when I married and I been workin' hard ever since. I was out pickin' huckleberries tryin' to get some money to buy baby clothes when my first girl was born. Yes ma'am."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Omelia Thomas 519 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: About 70 Occupation: Making cotton and corn

"I was born in Louisiana—in Vidalia. My mother's name was Emma Grant. My father's name was George Grant. My mother's name before she married was Emma Woodbridge. I don't know the names of my grand folks. I heard my mother say that my grandmother was named Matilda Woodbridge. I never got to see her. That is what I heard my mother say.

"I don't know the names of my mother's master, and I don't know the names of my father's white folks.

"My father was George Grant. He served in the War. I think they said that he was with them when Vicksburg surrendered. My father has said that he was really named George LaGrande. But after he enlisted in the War, he went by the name of George Grant. There was one of the officers by that name, and he took it too. He was shot in the hip during the War. When he died, he still was having trouble with that wound. He was on the Union side. He was fighting for our freedom. He wasn't no Reb. He'd tell us a many a day, 'I am part of the cause that you are free.' I don't know where he was when he enlisted. He said he was sold out from Louisville—him and his brother.

"I never did hear him say that he was whipped or treated bad when he was a slave. I've heard him tell how he had to stand up on dead people to shoot when he was in the War.

"My brother started twice to get my father's pension, but he never was able to do anything about it. They made away with the papers somehow and we never did get nothin'. My father married a second time before he died. When he died, my stepmother tried to get the pension. They writ back and asked her if he had any kin, and she answered them and said no. She hid the papers and wouldn't let us have 'em—took and locked 'em up somewheres where we couldn't find 'em. She was so mean that if she couldn't get no pension, she didn't want nobody else to get none.

"I don't know just when I was born, nor how old I am. When I come to remember anything, I was free. But I don't know how old I am, nor when it was.

"I heard my father speak of pateroles. Just said that they'd ketch you. He used to scare us by telling us that the pateroles would ketch us. We thought that was something dreadful.

"I never heard nothin' about jayhawkers. I heard something about Ku Klux but I don't know what it was.

"My father married my mother just after the War.

"I been married twice. My first husband got killed on the levee. And the second is down in the country somewheres. We are separated.

"I don't get no help from the Welfare, wish I did. I ain't had no money to get to the doctor with my eyes."

Interviewer's Comments

The old lady sat with her eyes nearly closed while I questioned her and listened to her story. Those eyes ran and looked as though they needed attention badly. The interview was conducted entirely on the porch as that of Annie Parks. Traffic interrupted; friends interrupted; and a daughter interrupted from time to time. But this daughter, while a little suspicious, was in no degree hostile. The two of them referred me to J.T. Tims, who, they said, knew a lot about slavery. His story is given along with this one.

I got the impression that the old lady was born before the War, but I accepted her statement and put her down as born since the War and guessed her age as near seventy. She was evidently quite reserved about some details. Her father's marriage to her mother after the War would not necessarily mean that he was not married to her slave fashion before the War. She didn't care so much about giving any story, but she was polite and obliging after she had satisfied herself as to my identity and work.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Omelia Thomas 1014 W. Fifth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 63

"I was born in Marianna, Lee County, in Arkansas. I wasn't born right in the town but out a piece from the town in the old Bouden place, in 1875. My father kept a record of all births and deaths in his Bible. He never forgot whenever a new baby would come to get down his glasses and pen and ink and Bible. My daddy learned to read and write after the emancipation.

"My father's name was Frank Johnson and my mother's name was Henrietta Johnson. I don't know the given names of my father's and mother's parents. I do know my mother's mother's name. Lucinda, and my father's mother was named Stephens. I don't know their given names. My mother's master was a Trotter.

"My father was a free man. He hired his own time. He told me that his father hired his own time and he would go off and work. He made washpots. He would go off and work and bring back money and things. His mother was free too. When war was declared, he volunteered to go. He was with the Yankees. My father worked just like my grandfather did. Whenever he had a job to do. He never had a lick from anybody, carried his gun strapped down on his side all the time and never went without it.

"After the War, he worked on a steamboat. They used to kick the roustabouts about and run them around but they never laid the weight of their hands on him.

"They wouldn't allow him to go to school in slavery time. After the War, he got a Blue Back Speller and would make a bowl of fire and at night he would study—sometimes until daybreak. Then he found an old man that would help him and he studied under him for a while. He never went to any regular school, but he went to night school a little. Most of what he got, he got himself.

"He was born in Louisville, Kentucky. I don't know how he happened to meet my mother. During the time after the War, he went to running on the boat from New Orleans to Friar Point, Mississippi. Then he would come over to Helena. In going 'round, he met my mother near Marianna and married her.

"Mother never had much to say, and the other girls would have a big time talking. He noticed that she was sewing with ravelings and he said, 'Lady, next time I come I'll bring you a spool of thread if you don't mind.' He brought the thread and she didn't mind, and from then on, they went to courting. Finally they married. They married very shortly after the War.

"My mother was a motherless girl. My daddy said he looked at her struggling along. All the other girls were trying to have a good time. But she would be settin' down trying to make a quilt or something else useful, and he said to a friend of his, 'That woman would make a good wife; I am going to marry her.' And he did.

"She used to spin her fine and coarse sewing thread and yarn to make socks and stockings with. Her stockings and socks for the babies and papa would always be yarn. She could do pretty work. She had a large family. She had seventeen children and she kept them all in things she made herself. She raised ten of them. She would make the thread and yarn and the socks and stockings for all of these. I have known the time when she used to make coats and pants for my father and brothers. She would make them by hand because they didn't have any machines then. Of course, she made all the underwear. She put up preserves and jellies for us to eat in the winter. She used to put up kraut and stuff by the barrel. I have seen some happy days when I was with my daddy and mother. He raised pigs and hogs and chickens and cows. He raised all kinds of peas and vegetables. He raised those things chiefly for the home, and he made cotton for money. He would save about eight or ten bales and put them under his shed for stockings and clothes and everything. He would have another cotton selling in March.

"When my father was in the army, he would sometimes be out in the weather, he told us, and he and the other soldiers would wrap up in their blankets and sleep right in the snow itself.

"I farmed all my life until 1897. I farmed all my life till then. I was at home. I married in 1895. My first husband and I made three crops and then he stopped and went to public work. After that I never farmed any more but went to cooking and doing laundry work. I came from Clarendon here in 1901.

"I never had any experiences with the Yankees. My mother used to tell how they took all the old master's stuff—mules and sugar—and then throwed it out and rode their horses through it when they didn't want it for theirselves.

"I married a second time. I have been single now for the last three years. My husband died on the twentieth of August three years ago. I ain't got no business here at all. I ought to be at my home living well. But I work for what I get and I'm proud of it.

"A working woman has many things to contend with. That girl downstairs keeps a gang of men coming and going, and sometimes some of them sometimes try to come up here. Sunday night when I come home from church, one was standing in the dark by my door waiting for me. I had this stick in my hand and I ordered him down. He saw I meant business; so he went on down. Some of them are determined.

"There's no hope for tomorrow so far as these young folks are concerned. And the majority of the old people are almost worse than the young ones. Used to be that all the old people were mothers and fathers but now they are all going together. Everything is in a critical condition. There is not much truth in the land. All human affection is gone. There is mighty little respect. The way some people carry on is pitiful."

Interviewer's Comment

The men who bother Omelia Thomas probably take her for a young woman. She hasn't a gray hair in her head, and her skin is smooth and must be well kept. She looks at least twenty-five years younger than she is, and but for the accident of her presence at another interview, I would never have dreamed that she had a story to tell.

I went to see her in the quarters where she lives—over the garage in the back yard of the white people she works for. When I got halfway up the stairs, she shouted, "You can't come up here." I paused in perplexity for a moment, and she stuck her head out the door and looked. Then she said, "Oh, I beg pardon; I thought you were one of those men that visit downstairs." I had noticed the young lady below as I entered. She is evidently a hot number, and as troublesome as a sore thumb to the good old lady above her.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Tanner Thomas 1213 Louisiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"I was born down here at Rob Roy on the river on the Emory place. My mother's name was Dinah Thomas and my father's name was Greene Thomas. He taken sick and died in the War on the North side. That's what my mother told me. I was born under Mars Jordan Emory's administration.

"I 'member somebody brought me here to Pine Bluff to Lawyer Bell's house. I stayed two or three months, then Mars Jordan sent for me and carried me back out to Rob Roy and I stayed with my mother. She had done married again but I stayed with her all the time till I got grown and I married.

"I come here in 1892 and I been here ever since—forty-six years. Oh, whole lots of these white folks know me.

"I worked at the Standard Lumber Company and Bluff City Lumber Company and Dilley's Foundry. Then I went to the oil mill. I was the order man. I was the best lumber grader on the place.

"Course I knows lots of white folks and they knows me too, I done a heap of work 'round here in different places in forty-six years.

"I went to school a little but I didn't learn nothin'.

"My mother said they come and pressed my daddy in the War. 'Course I don't know nothin' 'bout that but my mother told me.

"Now, what is this you're gettin' up? Well, I was born in slavery times. You know I was when my daddy was in the War.

"Oh Lord yes, I voted. I voted Republican. I didn't know whether it would do any good or not but I just voted 'cause I had a chance. My name's been in Washington for years 'cause I voted, you know.

"My way is dark to the younger generation now. I don't have much dealin' with them. They are more wiser. Education has done spread all over the country.

"God intended for every man in the world to have a living and to live for each other but too many of 'em livin' for themselves. But everything goin' to work out right after awhile. God's goin' to change this thing up after awhile. You can't rush him. He can handle these people. After he gets through, with this generation, I think he's goin' to make a generation that will serve him."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Wester Thomas, Marianna, Arkansas Age: 79

"I was born in Sumpter County (Mississippi?). My mother was sold to Dr. and Miss Kate Hadley. My mother's name was Lettie Williams and she married Wesley Thomas. My name is Wester Thomas. I'm seventy-nine years old. Mistress Kate raised me. Dr. Hadley had more than a hundred slaves.

"I can tell you about freedom. Two men in uniforms come and told master. He had the farm bell rung. They told them the Civil War was over. They was free. The niggers went back to their quarters. Some moved later. My folks never left. Dr. Hadley died. Mistress Kate took all that wanted to go to Louisiana then. We cleared up land down there. Later I farmed."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Annie Thompson, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 55?

"I was raised by my father's sister and my grandmother. Later on I come to my daddy here and my stepmother had other children. I soon married. I've had a hard time.

"My grandparents was Harriett Edwards and William Snow. Grandmother said they were nice to her. She was Master Edwards' house girl. She cooked and was a spinner. When I was a girl she had her spinning-wheel and she taught me to spin and knit. She spun thread for caps, mittens, stockings, socks, suspenders, and coats. We knit all those things when I was a girl. Grandmother said the white folks never whooped her. Grandmother was her old master's own girl and she nursed with one of his white wife's children. She was real light.

"My father's mother was a squaw. I don't know her name. She was sold from grandpa and he went to Master Snow. He never seen her any more. He took another wife and jumped over the broom on the Snow place. He thought some of his owners was terrible. He had been whooped till he couldn't wear clothes. He said they stuck so bad.

"My own father whipped me once till my clothes stuck to my back. I told you I had seen a pretty hard time in my own life. I was born in Starkville, Mississippi.

"Since I was a girl there has been many changes. I was married by Rev. Bell December 14, 1902. My husband is living and still my husband. I can see big changes taking place all the time. I was married at De Valls Bluff."

Interviewer's Comment

This woman could give me some comparative views on the present generation but she didn't. It is one of the Saturday gathering halls. She depends on it somewhat for a living and didn't say a word either pro or con for the present generation.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Ellen Briggs Thompson 3704 W. Twelfth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 83

Birth and Relatives

"I was born in October 1844, in Nashville, Arkansas. I don't remember the exact day. I have went through thick and thin. I was a small girl when my mother died. I got the rheumatism so bad I can't hardly walk. It hurts me now. My oldest brother, Henry Briggs, was five years older than me, and my youngest brother, Isaac Briggs, was five years younger than me. I was born October, but he was born at Christmas Eve just after surrender. My oldest brother died last year. My youngest brother is in Galveston, Texas. If he is living, he is there. My name was Briggs before I married. I was just studying about my sister-in-law when you come up. If I could get the money, I would go to see her. She was my oldest brother's wife. Her name was Frances Briggs after she married. She lives in Emmet, Arkansas, where he married her. I just had two brothers, no sisters.

"My husband's name was Henry Thompson. He has been dead about twelve or thirteen years. I have had so much sickness I can't remember exactly. I married him a long time ago. I got it put down in the Bible. I married yonder in Emmet, Arkansas. I ain't got the Bible nor nothing. My brother had it and he is dead.

"My father's name was Daniel Briggs. He died in Hot Springs. We were small children when he and my mother was separated. He was in one place and we were in another. He tried to get us children when he died, but we was little and couldn't get to him. My mother was dead then.

"My mother's name was Susanna Briggs. Her father's name was Isaac Metz. The children left him in South Carolina. The white folks sold them away from him. My mother just had three children: me, and my two brothers. I don't know how many my grandfather had. There were four sisters that I know besides my mother and two boys: Aunt Melissa, and Aunt Jane, and Aunt Annie, and Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Albert Mitchell, and Uncle Ben. My grandmother's name was Betsy. I never got to see her but they told me about her.

Good Masters

"I have heard them say that their white folks didn't whip them. My master was a good man. My young master, when it come to the surrender, slipped back home and told them they was going to be free as ever he was. His name was Joe Mitchell. I never seed my white folks whip anybody in my life. They just never whipped anybody. They never whipped me. I have seen the white folks next to us whip their Negroes and I asked grandma about it. She said that those were their Negroes and she would explain what they was being whipped for. They was on another farm. I don't remember what they was being whipped for.

"My young master told the slaves when he notified them they was free that if they didn't want to stay with him, he would give them enough to go on till they could make it, you know, to keep them from starving. He was a good man.

"The old man, Joe's father, was named Thomas Mitchell. He died before I was born. I never seed him, just knowed his name. Joe's mother was named Isabel Mitchell. I came to be named Briggs because her husband's name was Briggs. He belonged to a Briggs. I don't know what his name was else. They didn't belong to the same master. They used to let them marry. They would fix great big tables. Sometimes they would marry in the house; that was in the winter. Then sometimes they would marry outdoors. Then they would set a long table for all their associates to eat just like you would fix a table for your friends. Looked like they would be so glad to see their boys and girls marry. They would have regular preacher and marry just like they do now.

"There wasn't no breeders on our place. But I have heard of people who did keep a woman just for that purpose. They never whipped her nor nothing. They just let her have children. As soon as she had one, they would take it away from her so that she could have another one right away.

Jayhawkers

"When my young master was gone to the War and the jayhawkers would come around, my young master's mother would take all the colored women and children and lock them up and she would take a big heavy gun and go out to meet them. The Jayhawkers were white people who would steal corn and horses and even slaves if they could get them. But colored folks was sharp. They would do things to break their horses' legs and they would run and hide. My uncle was a young boy. He saw the Jayhawkers coming once. And he ran and pressed himself under the crib. The space was so small he nearly broke his ribs. His mistress had to get him out and take him to the house.

"My grandmother used to take me with her after dark when she'd go out to pray. She wouldn't go anywhere without me. One time when she was out praying, I touched her and said to her that I heard something in the corn crib. She cut her prayer off right now and went and told it to her old mistress, and to the young master, who was in the house just then telling the Negroes they were all going to be free. The Jayhawkers spied us and they got out and went on their way. My young master crawled out and went back to the Confederate army. He had to crawl out because he wanted to keep anybody from seeing him and capturing him.

Soldiers

"I never seed but one or two soldiers. That was after the surrender. I suppose they were Union soldiers. They had on their blue jackets. There never was any fighting in Nashville, while I was living there.

"About all that I knew about the War was that the men went off to fight. None of the colored men went—just the white men. The colored men stayed back and worked in the field. Isabel Mitchell and her boys were bosses. What they said goed.

Slave Houses

"The slaves lived in old log houses. Some of them were plank houses. Some of the slaves chinked 'em up with dirt. They had these big wooden windows in the houses. Sometimes they would be two, sometimes they would be three windows—one to each room. There would be two or three or four rooms to the house. That would be according to the family. My mother had three girls besides her own children. She had a four-room house. Her house was built right in the white folks' yard. My grandmother didn't work in the field. She tended to the children. She worked in the big house. My mother was boss of the whole thing. She would go and work in the field but grandmother would see after the children. She wouldn't let me go from her to the gate without her. I just had to follow her everywhere she went.

"Grandmother besides taking care of us used to make clothes. She cooked for the white folks. But she sure had to see after us children. I seed after myself. I was all the girl-child there and I just did what I wanted to.

"The country was kind of wild in those days. The deer used to come loping down and we would be scared and run and hide. Some people would set the dogs on them and some people would kill them no matter who they belonged.

You see, some people had them as pets.

Amusements

"I never seed nothing in the way of amusements except people going to church and going to parties and all such as that. They believed in going to church. They would have parties at night. The white folks didn't care what they had. They would help prepare for it. They would let 'em have anything they wanted to have and let 'em go to church whenever they wanted to go.

And if they took a notion they would have a supper. When they would have a party they would do just like they do now. They would have dancing. I never seed any playing cards. When they danced, somebody would play the fiddle for them. When they had a supper, they would usually sell the things. Then the white folks would come and buy from them. There would be nice looking things on the table.

Church

"They had meetings at Center Point, and at Arkadelphia. And they would let us go to them or anywhere else we wanted. We had to have passes, of course. They had colored preachers. Sometimes the slaves would go to the white people's church. They wouldn't go often, just every once in awhile. White ladies would get after the colored to come and go with them sometimes. Sometimes, too, when they would have a dinner or something, they would take Aunt Sue or mother to cook for them. They wouldn't let nobody meddle with them or bother them—none of the other white folks. And they would let them fix a table for their own friends that they would want to have along.

Personal Occupations

"I used to work in the field or in the house or anything I could get to do. I would even go out and saw these big rails when my husband would have a job and couldn't get a chance to do it. It has been a good while since I have been able to do any good work. My husband has been dead fifteen years and I had to quit work long before he died.

Right after the War

"Right after the War my folks worked in the field, washed, cooked, or anything they could do. They left the old place and came down about Washington, Arkansas. I don't know just how long they stayed in Washington. From Washington, my mother went to Prescott and settled there at a little place they called Sweet Home, just outside of Prescott. That is where my daughter was born and that is where my mother died. I came here about nine years ago.

Present Support

I came here to stay with my daughter. But now she doesn't have any help herself. She has three small children and she's their only support now. She's not working either. She just come in from the Urban League looking for a job. They say that they don't have a thing and that the people don't want any women now. They just want these young girls because they make them work cheaper. We have both applied for help from the Welfare but neither of us has gotten anything yet."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Hattie Thompson, Widener, Arkansas Age: 72

"I was born the second year after the surrender. I was born close to Arlington, Tennessee. My parents was Mariah Thermon and Johnson Mayo. They had eight children. They belong to different owners. I heard mama say in slavery time she'd clean her house good Saturday and clean up her children and start cooking dinner fore pa come. They looked forward to pa coming. Now that was at our own house.

"Mama was heired. She was the house woman and cook for her young mistress, Miss Sallie Thermon. She married Mr. John Thermon. She was Miss Sallie Royster till she married. I heard her say she raised Miss Sallie's children with her own. She was a wet nurse. I know Miss Sallie was good to her. I don't think she was sold but her mother was sold. She would spin and weave and the larger children did too. They made bed spreads in colors and solid white. They called the colored ones coverlets. They was pretty. Mama helped quilt. She was a good hand at that. They made awful close stitches and backstitched every now and then to make it hold. They would wax the thread to keep it from rolling up and tangling.

"Thread was in balls. They rolled it from skeins to balls. They rolled it from shuck broches to the balls. Put shucks around the spindle to slip it off easy. I have seen big balls this big (2 ft. in diameter) down on the floor and mama, knitting off of it right on. When the feet wore out on socks and stockings, they would unravel them, save the good thread, and reknit the foot or toe or heel.

"When I was a child, patching and darning was stylish. Soon as the washing was brung in the clothes had to be sorted out and every snag place patched nice. Folks had better made clothes and had to take care of em. Clothes don't last no time now. White folks had fine clothes but they didn't have nigh as many as white folks do now.

"Mama was a pretty good hand at doing mighty nigh what she took a notion to do about the house. She never was no count in the field—jess couldn't hold out it seem like. She worked in the field lots. Pa was a shoemaker. He made all our shoes and had his tools, lasts, etc. He learned his trade in slavery. He farmed.

"It has been so long ago I tell you I don't recollect things straight. I don't know how they found out about freedom but they left I think. They got all they could take, their clothes and a little to eat. They started share cropping. They was out from Holly Springs when I come to knowledge. Mama was a nice hand at cooking and hand sewing. She said Miss Sallie learnt her. She never could read.

"I come to Arkansas fifty year ago this spring with one little girl—all the little girl I ever had. I never had no boys. I come here to get work. I always got work. It was a new country and it was being cleared out. In the spring we could get wild polk greens to cook. You can't get none now.

"Times is sider'bly changed since then. Hogs run wild. Plenty game here then. Something to eat was not hard to get then as it is now. We raise a hog in a pen nearly every year but it takes plenty to feed it that way.

"My husband have rheumatism and we get $12 and commodities. He works in the field and I wash and iron when I can get some to do. That is scarce. He works all he can."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Mamie Thompson Brinkley, Ark. Age: 68

"I come here with my parents in 1887. Nothing much here in Brinkley then but woods and three stores. My mother was a mix-breed. She was mixed with Cherokee Indian and Negro. My father come from Virginia. He was black—so black he shined. My mother was born in Cairo, Illinois. My mother and father both died here in Brinkley. This town started from a big saw mill."

"Understand, all I knows was told to me by my parents. Grandma's master was Master Redman. He kept Aunt Emma and my mother. They never was sold. My mother was put on the block but her mistress come took her down. Master Redman had her in the field working. The overseer was a white man. He tried to take her down and carry on with her. She led him to the house. He wanted her whooped cause she had whooped him sort of. He was mad cause he couldn't overpower her. Master Redman got her in the kitchen to whoop her with a cow hide; she told him she would kill him; she got a stick. He let her out and they come to buy her—a Negro trader. Old Mistress—his wife—went out and led her down from there in the house and told Master Redman if he sold Mattie she would quit him—she meant leave him. Mistress Redman kept her with her and made a house girl out of her. She tended to the children and cleaned the house. Aunt Emma milked and churned.