SLAVE NARRATIVES

A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves

TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Featuring Photos

Washington 1941

VOLUME 16

Prepared by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Texas

[Pg 1]

"My family always belonged to the Cavins and used their name until after emancipation. Dad and Mom were named Freeman and Amelia Cavin, and Massa Dave brought them to Texas from Alabama, along with Mom's mother, whom we called Maria."

"The Cavins always thought a lot about their Black neighbors, and Grandma Maria said, 'Why shouldn’t they? It was their money.' She mentioned that there were plenty of Indians here when they settled this country, and they bought and traded with them without killing them, if they could help it. The Indians were poor folks, just stealing and hanging around all the time. The Black people were a lot better off than they were because we had plenty to eat and a place to stay."

"Young Master Tom was my special master and he still lives here. Old Man Dave seemed to care more about his workers than anyone else, and we thought a lot about our white folks too. My dad was the leader on the farm, and there wasn't any overseer or driver. When my dad punished a worker, he didn't have to go to Master Dave, but he would say, 'You go your way now. A free man didn't punish you for no reason.' Master Dave always believed my dad because he told the truth."

"One time, a peddler came to our house, and after dinner, he went to check on his pony. Dad had fed that pony fifteen ears of corn. The peddler told my master that his pony hadn’t been fed anything, and my master got angry and said, 'Get out of here if you’re going to accuse my people of lying.'[Pg 2]

"We had nice living conditions and plenty of food. I remember when I was just walking around and my dad would come in from the fields at night, take me out of bed, dress me, feed me, and then play with me for hours. Being the leader, he was gone from early morning until late at night. The older folks would get up early, but us younger ones slept until eight or nine o'clock, and don't think Massa Dave didn't come around to make sure we were fed. I remember him like it was yesterday, coming to the quarters with his stick and asking us, 'Did you have your breakfast?' We'd reply, 'Yes, sir.' Then he'd ask if we had enough or wanted more. It seemed like he took pleasure in seeing us eat. At dinner, when the field hands came in, it was the same way. He always made sure that potlikker was full as long as the black folks wanted to eat."

"The workers toiled from dawn to dusk. The master gave them small plots to farm and allowed them to work on Saturdays. Then he would buy the produce, and the Black workers would head to Jefferson to buy clothes and other things. Many saved money and purchased their freedom before the war ended."

"We went to church and first the white preacher preached and then he taught our black preachers. I saw him ordain a black preacher, and he told him to always be honest. When the white preacher laid his hand on him, all the black people started hollering, shouting, and praying, and that black guy got really scared."

"On Christmas, we had all the food and drinks we could want, and after that, a huge party. You should have seen the girls dancing with their partners. Then the master had two Black men wrestle, and our games and dances were great entertainment for the white folks. They’d sit on the porch and watch us put on a show.[Pg 3]

"Massa didn't like his Black workers to marry outside the plantation, but sometimes they would, and massa would tell his neighbor, 'My Black is coming to your place. Make sure he behaves.' All the Black people behaved back then, and there wasn't any Huntsville or hangings or burnings then."

"Old master went to war with his son, Billie. There was a lot of crying and weeping when they set us free. Many didn't want to be free because they knew nothing and had nowhere to go. Those who had good masters stayed right on."

"I remember when the Ku Klux Klan started their nonsense. Smart Black people caused that. The carpetbaggers ruined the Black community, and the white men couldn't handle it, so they formed the Klan and stirred up trouble. Those carpetbaggers came around teaching Black people to talk back to the white folks who had fed them. They came to my dad with that talk, and he told them, 'Listen, white folks, you'll end up starting a graveyard if you keep teaching Black people to sass white folks.' Those carpetbaggers started all the trouble during elections in Reconstruction. Black people didn't know anything about politics."

"Most of the young Black people aren't using the education they have now. I’ve been here eighty years and still have to be shown and told by white people. These young Black people won't listen to whites or even other Black people. They think they know it all, and that gets them in trouble."

"I stayed with the Cavins for almost twenty years after the war. After I left, I always farmed and took odd jobs around town. I'm the father of ten kids by one woman. Now I live alone, and they give me $13.00 a month. I'd be proud to get it if it were more than a dollar, because there’s nothing an old man can do anymore.[Pg 4]

"Do you want to know and talk about the power I have? Well, sit down right there in that chair before we start. I'll get some ice water and then we can discuss the topic. I want to explain it clearly so you can understand."

"I was born a slave, 93 years ago, so of course I remember the war period. Like all the other slaves, I had no chance for education. Three months is the total time I spent going to school. I taught myself to read and write. I was eager to learn to read so I could study and discover many things. That, I have done."

There are a lot of people, even educated ones, who say that we believe in superstition. Well, that’s because they don’t understand. Remember, the Lord has some mysterious ways. The Bible says so. There are some things the Lord wants everyone to know, some things just for the chosen few, and some things no one should know. Now, just because you don’t know about some of the Lord’s laws, it’s not superstition if someone else understands and believes in it.

"There are some people born to sing, some born to preach, and some born to understand the signs. Some are born under the influence of the devil and have the ability to cause harm and suffering to others, while some are born under the influence of the Lord to do good and overcome the evil force. This creates two opposing forces, like fire and water. The evil force ignites the fire, and I have the water to put it out.[Pg 5]"

"How did I learn this? Well, I figured it out. It just came to me. When the Lord gives someone such power, it just comes to them. It's been 40 years now since I first fully realized that I had this power. However, I've always been interested in the workings of signs. When I was a little kid, my mom and other people used to talk about signs. I heard them discuss what happens to people because a spell was placed on them. The older folks back then knew more about the signs that the Lord uses to reveal His laws than people do today. This is also true for the colored folks in Africa, their homeland. Some people laugh at their beliefs and call it superstition, but it's really understanding how the Lord reveals His laws."

"Now, let me tell you about something I saw. What I saw can't be doubted. It happened when I was a young man and before I realized that I was chosen to show the power. A mule had cut its leg so badly that it was bleeding to death and they couldn't stop it. An old Black man lived nearby whom they turned to. He came over and passed his hand over the cut. Before long, the bleeding stopped and that's the power of the Lord working through that man, that's all it is."

"I know about a woman who lost her mind. The doctor said it was caused by a tumor in her head. They took an X-ray, but there was no tumor. They gave up and said it was a strange case. That woman was taken to someone with the power of the good spirit, and he said it was a strange case for those who don't understand. This was a case of an evil spell. Two days later, the[Pg 6] woman got her mind back."

"Dey's a lot of those kinds of cases that the average person never hears about. You hear about the cases that doctors can't figure out, and they won't respond to treatment. That's because of the evil spell that's on the person."

"'About special people being chosen to show the power, read your Bible. It says in the book of Mark, chapter three, 'and He appointed twelve, that they should be with Him, that He might send them out to preach and have the power to heal the sick and to cast out demons.' If there weren't any evil in people, why does the Lord say, 'cast out such?' And in the fifth chapter of James, it further says, 'If anyone is sick, let him call the elders. Let them pray over him. The prayer of faith will save him.' There it is again, Faith, that's what matters."

"When I say that I've seen many people give up on life, and then a man with the power comes and saves them, then it's not right for people to call it superstition to believe in that power."

"Don't forget—devil's agents have the power of evil. They can bring all sorts of misery to people. They can cause problems with work, business, family, and health. So people need to stay alert all the time. People face business troubles because the evil power has control over them. They need to have the evil power cast out to save their business. There's a man in Waco who came to see me about that. He told me that everything he tried to do in the last six months went wrong. It started with him losing his wallet with $50. He bought a carload of hay, and it caught fire, so he lost all of it. He spent $200 on advertising for a three-day sale, and then it started to rain, so he lost money. It really is the evil power."

"'Well,' he says, 'That's how it is, so I come to you.'"

"I said to him, 'It's the evil power that's controlling you, and we will make sure it's cast out.' It's done, and he has no more trouble."

"You want to know if people with the power for good can successfully cast out demons in all cases? Well, I answer that, yes and no. They can in every case if the person affected has faith. If the person doesn't have enough faith, then it's a failure."

"Wearing the coin for protection against evil? That's simple. Many people wear it, and they use mixtures that are sprinkled in the house, and so on. It's a matter of faith. If they have true faith in it, it works. Otherwise, it won't."

"Some people won’t think for a second about going without a lodestone or the salt and pepper mixture in the little sack tied around their neck. Some wear a silver coin around their neck. All of this is to keep away the effects of evil power. When someone has faith in these things and accidentally loses their charm, they are definitely miserable."

An old man who believes in lodestone for its magical properties once told me about his experience in Atlanta. He was carrying a hod, and the first thing he did was drop a brick on his foot. The next thing, his foot slipped as he started up the ladder, and he and the bricks fell to the ground. Luckily, it wasn't too far. Just a sprained ankle, and his boss sent him home for the day. He was upset but got on the streetcar, and when the conductor called for the fare, Rufus reached for his money, but he lost it or forgot it at home. The conductor said he could pay next time and asked where he lived. Rufus told him, and the conductor replied, "Well, buddy, you're on the wrong car." That made Rufus walk farther with his injured foot than if he had started walking in the first place. He thought there must be something wrong with his charm, so he looked for it, but it was gone! Sure enough, it was lost. He thought, "Here I sit all day, and I won't make another move until I get the lodestone. When the kids come home from school, I'll send them to the drugstore for some of that stone and get fixed."

"Now, I've been waiting for that one about the black cat crossing the road, and sure enough, it came. Let me ask you something. How many people can you find that actually like having a black cat cross in front of them? That’s right, no one likes that. Let this old person tell you that it’s definitely a sign of bad luck. It means bad luck is on the way, so turn back. Stop what you’re doing."

"I’m telling you about two of many cases where people didn’t take warning from the black cat. I know a man named Miller. He and his wife were out for a drive when a black cat crossed the road. He cursed a little and kept going. Then it wasn’t long before he turned the corner, and his wife fell out of the car during the turn. When he went back to pick her up, she was dead."

"Another guy, let's call him Brown, was riding a horse when a black cat crossed his path, but he kept going. Well, it wasn't long before his horse stumbled and threw him off. The fall broke his leg, so take this as a warning—don’t dismiss the black cat. That’s a warning.[Pg 9]

"I was born 93 years ago, that’s what my mother says. We didn’t keep any record like people do today. All I know is I’ve been here a long time. My mother was Julia Adams and my father was James Adams. She was born in Hollis Springs, Mississippi, and my father, well, he was born in Florida. He was a Black Creek Indian. There were 12 of us kids. When I was about seven, the missus came and got me to be her servant. I lived in the big house until she died. She and Master Davis were really good to me."

"Master Davis was a wealthy lawyer and the owner of a plantation. But all I did was serve the old mistress. I'd light her pipe for her and help her with her knitting. She gave me money all the time. She had a small trunk where she kept her money, and many times I had to pack it down with my feet."

"I don't remember exactly how many slaves there were, but there were more than 100. I saw as many as 100 sold at a time. When they took a group of slaves to sell, they put chains on them."

The other slaves lived in log cabins behind the big house. They had dirt floors and beds made from corn husks or straw. At night, they used the lamps for about an hour, then the overseers, [Pg 10], would come knock on the door and tell them to put out the light. Many overseers were harsh. Sometimes they'd whip a black person with a leather strap about a foot wide and as long as your arm, with a wooden handle at the end.

"On Saturday and Sunday nights, they would dance and sing all night long. They didn’t dance like we do today; they did the round dance and jig and the pigeon wing, and some of them would jump up to see how many times they could kick their feet before hitting the ground. They had an old fiddle, and some of them would take two bones in each hand and clack them together. They sang songs like 'Diana Had a Wooden Leg,' 'A Handful of Sugar,' and 'Cotton-Eyed Joe.' I remember how they went."

" slaves didn't have a church then, but they'd take a big sugar kettle and turn it upside down on the ground and put logs around it to muffle the sound. They'd pray to be free and sing and dance."

"When the war came, they took the slaves from all the plantations and had them build the breastworks. I saw lots of soldiers. They sang a song that went something like this:"

"'Jeff Davis rode a big white horse,
Lincoln rode a mule;
Jess Davis is our President,
Lincoln is a fool.'

"I remember when the slaves would run away. Old John Billinger had a pack of dogs and he'd go after runaway Black people. Sometimes the dogs wouldn’t catch the Black person. Then old Billinger would curse and kick the dogs."

"We didn’t need a pass, but on other plantations they did, or the patrollers would catch you and whip you. They were the poor white folks who didn’t have any slaves. We didn’t call them white folks back then. No, sir, we called them 'Buskrys.'"

"Just before the war, a white preacher came to us slaves and said: 'Do you want to keep your homes where you get enough to eat and raise your children, or do you want to be free to roam around without a home, like the wild animals? If you want to keep your homes, you better pray for the South to win. If you want to pray for the South to win, raise your hand.' We all raised our hands because we were scared not to, but we really didn't want the South to win."

That night all the slaves had a meeting down in the hollow. Old Uncle Mack got up and said: "One time over in Virginia, there were two old black men, Uncle Bob and Uncle Tom. They were mad at each other, and one day they decided to have a dinner and bury the hatchet. So they sat down, and when Uncle Bob wasn't looking, Uncle Tom put some poison in Uncle Bob's food, but he saw it, and when Uncle Tom wasn't looking, Uncle Bob turned the tray around on Uncle Tom, and he got the poisoned food. Uncle Mack said: 'That’s what we slaves are going to do, just turn the tray around and pray for the North to win.'"

"After the war, there was a lot of excitement among the Black community. They were rejoicing and singing. Some of them looked puzzled, sort of scared. But they danced and had a big celebration."

"Many of them stayed and worked on the farms. Others took jobs elsewhere. I got a job at a grocery store, and they paid me $1.50 a week. I gave my mother a dollar and kept fifty cents for myself. Then I got married and farmed for a while. After that, I moved to Fort Worth, and I've been here ever since.[Pg 12]

"I was born during a time of oppression. You know, some people are embarrassed to admit it, but I thank God I was allowed to experience those times as well as now. It's a pretty tough story, how cruel some of the masters were, but I was lucky to be with good white people. However, some I knew were put on the auction block and sold. I remember when they'd come to John Goodren's place to buy, but he wouldn't sell any. They had certain days when they'd sell off the block, and they took children away from their mothers, who were screaming for their kids."

"I was born in old Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains. When the white people moved to Texas, the colored people went with them. That's been a long time."

"My mom was named Charlotte, my dad was Parks Adams. He's a white man. I guess I'm about eighty-something years old."

"You know, during slavery, when there were harsh masters, people would run away, but we didn’t want to. My mistress would make sure her family had something good to eat every Sunday morning. You had to take care of your mistress and master, and then you would be treated well. I think I was about twelve when they freed us, and we stayed with our master for about a year before moving to John Ecol's place and renting some land. We made two bales of cotton, and that was the first money we ever saw."

"Back when we lived with Master Goodren, we had big candy pullings. We’d invite everyone and have fun. We had great times. The worst part was that we didn’t have any schooling until after I got married. Then I went to school for two weeks. My husband was the teacher. He was never a slave. His father bought their freedom through a blacksmith shop, somehow."

"I had a lovely wedding. My dress was white and had blue ribbon trims. My second dress was white with red polka dots. I wore a beautiful veil and a wreath, and I had about two or three waiters for the table that day."

"My mom was almost white. Brighter than me. We left my dad in Virginia. I was just as white as the kids I played with. I used to be really bright, but lately I’m getting pretty dark."

"My husband was a mix, like what you'd call bright ginger-cake color. I don’t know where he got his education. I feel so bad since he's gone to Glory."

"Now I'm old, the Lord has taken care of me. He inspired people to look after the elderly, and now my kids take care of me. I have two sons, one named James Allen and the other R.M. Both live in El Paso."

"After we go to sleep, people will know these things, because if freedom hadn't come, it would have been so miserable.[Pg 14]

My name is Andy J. Anderson, and I was born on Mr. Jack Haley's plantation in Williamson County, Texas. Mr. Haley owned my family and about twelve other families of Black people. I was born in 1843, which makes me 94 years old, and I was 18 when the war started. I had experiences during that time.

"Mister Haley is kind to his Black people, and he's kind to everyone, and everyone likes him. The other white folks call us the spoiled Blacks. There are about 30 old and young Black people and about 20 little kids too small to work, and the nurse takes care of them while their mothers work."

"I'm going to explain how things are run on Massa Haley's plantation. It's kind of like a small town because everything we use is made right there. There's the shoemaker, and he’s the tanner who makes the leather from the hides. Then Massa has about a thousand sheep, and he gets the wool, and the folks card, spin, and weave it, which makes all the clothes. Massa also has cattle that provide milk, butter, and beef for eating. He has turkeys, chickens, hogs, and bees. With all that, we were never hungry."

"On the plantation, we mostly grow cotton, with a bit of corn and wheat, because the boss doesn't need much of those. He only sells cotton.[Pg 15]

"Life for the Black folks is good. The cabins are built from logs like they were back in the day. The floor is dirt, but we have benches and other things made here. And we have a big fireplace to cook, and we have plenty to cook in that fireplace because the master always allows good rations, but he keeps a close eye on the waste of food."

"War breaks out and that causes a big change on the plantation. He joins the army and hires a man named Delbridge as the overseer. After that, hell starts to break loose because the first thing Delbridge does is cut the food rations. He doles out the meat, three pounds for the week, and measures a peck of meal. And it wasn't enough. He half-starves us Black people and demands more work, and he starts the whippings. I guess he thinks he’s educating them. I think Delbridge is going to hell when he dies, but I don't see how the devil could stand him."

"We're not used to that, and some people run away. When they get caught, there's a whipping at the stake. But that Delbridge, he sold me to Mr. House in Blanco County. I'm sure glad I got sold, but it's a short-lived happiness because there's another man who's too good for hell. He gives me the whipping, and the scars are still on my arms and my back too. I'll carry them to my grave. He sends me for firewood, and when I get it loaded, the wheel hits a stump and the team jerks, breaking the whippletree. So he ties me to the stake and every half hour for four hours, they lay lashes on my back. For the first couple of hours, the pain is awful. I’ll never forget it. Then I’ve endured so much pain that I don’t feel it as much, and when they untie me, I’m just about half dead. I lay in the bunk for two days, recovering from that whipping, getting over it physically but not emotionally. No, sir, I still carry that in my heart to this day.[Pg 16]

"After that beating, I don't have the heart to work for the master. If I see the cattle in the cornfield, I turn my back instead of chasing them out. I guess that's the reason the master sold me to his brother, Master John. And he’s good like my first master; he never whipped me."

"Then they announced the surrender, and the master tells us we’re free. When that happens, it’s about one hour by the sun. I say to myself, 'I won’t be here long.' But I didn’t realize what I was in for until after I started, and by then I couldn't turn back. That would mean getting whipped or facing danger from the patrols. There I was, and I kept on going. No Black person is supposed to be off the master's place without a pass, so I traveled at night and hid during the day. I stayed in the bushes and got water from the creeks, but there wasn’t much to eat. Twice I was sure those patrols passed while I was hiding."

I'm 21 years old now, but it's the first time I've been anywhere except for the neighbors, so I’m worried about how to get to Massa Haley's place. On the morning of the third day, I arrive at his place, and I’m so hungry, tired, and scared that Massa Haley might not be back from the army yet. So I find my dad, and he hides me in his cabin for a week, and then luck comes my way when Massa Haley comes home. He arrives at night, and the next morning, Delbridge is kicked off the property because Massa Haley sees that his workers are all skinny, many have run away, the fields aren't properly plowed, and only half the sheep and everything else is left. So, Massa says to Delbridge, "There are no words to explain what you've done. Get off my property before I smash you."

"Then I was able to come out from my dad's cabin, and the old master was happy to see me. He let me stay until freedom was granted. That was the happiest time of my life when I returned to Master Haley.[Pg 17]

Dibble, Fred, P.W., Beehler, Rheba, P.W., Beaumont, Jefferson, Dist. #3.

"Most people call me Wash Anderson, but they used to call me George. My full name is George Washington Anderson. I was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1855. Bill Anderson was my old master. There were two boys and two girls in his family. We all left Charleston and came to Orange, Texas, before freedom came. I was four years old when they made that trip."

"I don't remember anything about Charleston. You see, I was born about two miles from the city. I went back once in 1917, but I didn't stay there long."

"My dad was Irvin' Anderson and my mom was named Eliza. The old master was pretty tough on his slaves. They tell me he had my granddad beaten to death. They never did beat me."

"They made the trip from Charleston across the country and settled in Duncan's Wood down here in Orange County. They had a big plantation there. I don't know if the old master had money back in Charleston, but I think he must have. He had about 25 or 30 slaves on the place."

"Old man Anderson had a big two-story house. It was built out of logs, but it was a really nice house. The slaves just had small log huts. There weren't any floors in them, just the ground. Those little huts only had one room in them. There was usually one family per hut, except sometimes they put two or three families in one hut. They just herded the slaves in there like a bunch of pigs."

"They used to grow cotton, corn, and sugarcane, but they didn't grow any rice. They used to send things to Terry by train to get them to market. Sometimes they would hitch up their teams and take it to Orange and Beaumont in wagons. The old master even had a boat, and sometimes he would send a boatload of his goods to Beaumont."

"My job was to drive the surrey for the family and take care of the horses and the harness and stuff. I just had the best horses on the place to look after."[Pg 19]

"I saw a lot of soldiers during the war. I watched them marching by, heading to Sabine Pass around the time of that battle."

"Back in the time of slavery, there used to be a white preacher who would come around and preach to the Black folks. But I don’t remember much about the songs they used to sing."

"I used to play quite a lot when I was little. We had so much fun playing 'hide and seek' and 'hide the switch.' We used to ride stick horses and play around with all the things that kids play with."

They had plenty of horses, mules, and cows on the old plantation. I had to take care of some of the horses, but the ones I was supposed to take care of were supposed to be the best horses in the bunch. Like I said, I drove the surrey, and they always had the best horses to pull that surrey. They had a log stable. They kept the harness in there, too. Everything the animals ate, they grew on the plantation, all the corn and fodder and stuff like that.

"After gaining my freedom, I went around doing different kinds of work. I used to work on steamboats, on the railroad, and in sawmills. I was a sawyer for a long time. I worked in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, as[Pg 20] well as in Texas. When I wasn't doing those kinds of jobs, I used to take on anything that came my way. I remember one time I was working for the Burr Lumber Company in Fort Townsend up there in Arkansas."

"When I was about 36 years old, I got married. I've been married twice. My first wife was named Hannah, and Reverend George Childress was the pastor who married us. He was a Black preacher. After Hannah passed away for some time, I married my second wife. Her name was Tempie Perkins. Later on, we separated. We separated because of financial issues."

"I belong to the Baptist Church. Sometimes the preacher comes around and sees me. He was here a few days ago this week." [Pg 21]

REFERENCES

A. Coronado's Children—J. Frank Dobie, Pub. 1929, Austin, TX.

B. Leon County News—Centerville, Texas—Thursday May 21, 1936.

C. Consultant—Uncle Willis Anderson, living in Centerville, Texas, born April 15, 1844.

An interesting figure in Centerville, Texas, is "Uncle Willis" Anderson, an ex-slave, born on April 15, 1844, six miles west of Centerville on the old McDaniels plantation, near what is now called Hopewell Settlement. It's commonly said that "Uncle Willis" is one of the oldest living residents in the county, whether black or white. People often turn to him for information about the past and the history of the county, particularly around the Centerville area.

"Uncle Willis" is an intriguing character. You can often find him sitting on the porches of the shops along Federal Highway No. 75, either nodding off or chatting with small groups of white and Black people who gather around him to share stories from the past. He enjoys watching the buses and cars that pass through the little town, reflecting on how fast things move these days. Uncle Willis still tends to a small garden just five miles outside of town.

"Uncle Willis" is a tall, dark-skinned man with a big head covered in mixed gray, curly hair. Considering his age, he has lost very few teeth. When he sits on the porches of the stores, you can see that the soles of his farm shoes[Pg 22] are tied together with pieces of wire. He uses a cane made from an elm tree to support himself. Right now, he's wearing a tall white Texas Centennial hat, making him look even more distinctive.

Uncle Willis’ memory is sharp. He knows a lot about the early figures in the County's history. He shares stories about traveling by oxen to West Texas for flour and being gone for six months at a time. He remembers the Keechi and Kickapoo Indians and even claims he can show you the tree where the Americans hanged an Indian Chief. He says he's found arrows, pots, and flint on the Reubens Bains place and the McDaniel farms. He can recount the early lawlessness in the County. His face lights up when he talks about how Yankee soldiers came through Centerville telling slave owners to free their slaves. He speaks very softly when he mentions Jeff Davis because he says, "What man eavesdrops on Black people’s houses during slavery, and if you said Jeff Davis was a good man, they’d barbecue a hog for you. But if you said Abe Lincoln was a good man, you had to fight or run to the woods."

Among the most intriguing stories told by "Uncle Willis" is the story of the "Lead mine." "Uncle Willis" says that somewhere along Boggy Creek, near a large hickory tree and a red oak tree close to Patrick's Lake, he and his master, Auss McDaniels, would dig lead out of the ground, which they used to make pistol and rifle balls for the old Mississippi rifles during slavery. Uncle Willis claims they would dig pieces of lead from the ground that were about 12 to 15 inches long, and some as big as a man's fist. They would carry this ore back to the main house, melt it down to remove impurities, and then pour it into molds to make rifle and pistol bullets. This way, they always had plenty of ammunition on hand. In recent years, the land has changed hands, and the current owners live in Dallas. Learning about the tale of the "lead mine" on their property, they went to Centerville in an attempt to find it and were directed to "Uncle Willis." Uncle Willis says they offered him two hundred dollars if he could find the mine. Confident that he knew its exact location, he claimed that the $200 was his for the taking. However, Uncle Willis was unable to find the spot where they dug the lead, and the mine remains a mystery.[Pg 23]

Recently, a group of citizens from Leon County, including W.D. Lacey, Joe McDaniel, Debbs Brown, W.H. Hill, and Judge Lacey, questioned Uncle Willis about the lead mine. Judge Lacey handled the questioning while the others observed. The conversation went as follows:

"Which way would you go when you went to the mine?" Judge Lacey asked.

"Out toward Normangee."

"How long will it take you to get there?"

"2 or 3 hours."

"Was it by a creek?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you can't go to it now?"

"Nosuh, I just can't remember exactly where it is."

J. Frank Dobie shares numerous stories of lost lead mines across Texas in Coronado's Children, a publication by the Texas Folk-Lore Society.[Pg 24] In the early days of the Republic and the State, lead was extremely valuable, as it provided protection from Native Americans and was also essential for food supply.[A][Pg 25]

"I'm Aunt Mary, that’s for sure, but you all have to excuse me if I don't speak very well, because I've been feeling unwell for a while and I'm not so young anymore. My goodness, when I think back to what I used to do, and now it's all I can do to move around a little. You know, Miss Olivia, my mistress, used to put a glass completely full of water on my head and then have me dance around the room, and I would dance so smoothly that I never spilled a drop."

"That was in St. Louis, where I was born. You see, my mom belonged to old William Cleveland and old Polly Cleveland, and they were the meanest white people who ever lived because they were always beating their slaves. I know this because my mom told me, and I heard about it in other places too. Plus, old Polly—she was a real piece of work—whipped my little sister, who was only nine months old and just a baby, to death. She came and took the diaper off my little sister and whipped her until the blood just ran—just because she cried like all babies do, and it killed my sister. I never forgot that, but I settled the score with that old witch, and here's how it went.[Pg 26]

You see, I was about 10 years old and I belonged to Miss Olivia, who was old Polly's daughter. One day, old Polly's husband came to where Miss Olivia lived after she got married, and he tried to hit me in the yard. I picked up a rock about the size of half your fist and threw it right at his eye, and it shattered the eyeball. I told him that was for whipping my baby sister to death. You could hear him scream from five miles away, but when I told Miss Olivia, she said, "Well, I guess his mom has finally learned her lesson." But that old Polly was as mean as her husband, old Cleveland, until she died, and I hope they are burning in torment now.

"I don’t remember much about the beginning, except for what Miss Olivia and my mom, her name was Siby, tell me. Of course, it gets really cold in the winter, and the farms were a lot different from down here. They call them plantations down here, but up in St. Louis, they were just called farms, and that’s what they were because we grew wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, and fruit."

"The houses were built with brick and heavy wood because it's cold up there, and we have to wear warm clothes that are made locally, and we work on them in the evenings."

"Old Cleveland takes a lot of his slaves who were in 'custom' and brings them to Texas to sell. You know, he wasn't supposed to do that, because when you're in 'custom', it's because he borrowed money on you, and you're not supposed to leave the place until he pays it off. Of course, old Cleveland just tells the person he owed the money to that you ran off or managed to get away somehow; he was that mean.[Pg 27]

"Mama says she was in one group and I was in another. Mama had been with my dad, Sam Adams, before this, but that doesn’t matter to Old Cleveland. He’s so cruel he wouldn't sell a man and woman and children to the same person. He'd sell the man here and the woman there, and if there were children, he'd sell them somewhere else. Oh, old Satan in torment couldn’t be any meaner than he and Old Polly were to their slaves. He’d chain a black person up to whip them and rub salt and pepper on them, like he said, ‘to season them up.’ And when he sold a slave, he’d grease their mouth to make it look like they’d been fed well and were strong and healthy."

"Well, Mom said they barely arrived in Shreveport before some lawman caught old Cleveland and took them all back to St. Louis. Then my little sister was born, the one old Polly devil killed, and I was about four years old then."

"Miss Olivia likes me, and even though her parents are really strict, she's kind to everyone, and they absolutely adore her. She marries Mr. Will Adams, who was a great guy, and owns about five farms and 500 slaves. He buys me from old Cleveland for $2,500.00 and also gives him George Henry, a Black man, as a bonus. Wow, I’m so happy to be with Miss Olivia and away from old Cleveland and Old Polly because they killed my little sister."

"We live in St. Louis, on Chinquapin Hill, and I'm the housegirl. When the babies come, I nurse them and spin thread for clothes on the loom. I spin six cuts of thread a week, but I have plenty of time for myself, and that's where I learn to dance so well. Law, I’m just crazy about dancing. If I’m sitting down eating my food and hear a fiddle play, I get up and dance.[Pg 28]

"Mr. Will and Miss Olivia are really good to me, and I never call Mr. Will 'massa.' When there are guests, I call him Mr. Will, but when it’s just us at home, I call them 'pappy' and 'mammy' because they raised me since I was a little girl. I heard old Cleveland took my mom to Texas again, but I couldn't do anything about it because Miss Olivia didn’t want much to do with her family. Sometimes old Polly comes by, but Miss Olivia tells her not to touch me or the others. Old Polly tries to buy me back from Miss Olivia, and if they had, they definitely would’ve hurt me. But Miss Olivia said, 'I’d wade in blood as deep as Hell before I let you have Mary.' Those are exactly the words she told them."

"Then I hear that my dad is sold somewhere, but I don’t know where. Of course, I didn’t know him that well, just what my mom told me, so it didn’t bother me as much as my mom being taken so far away."

"One day Mr. Will said, 'Mary, do you want to go to the river and watch the boat race?' I’ll never forget that. Where we live, it’s not far from the Mississippi River, and soon enough here they come, the Natchez and the Eclipse, with smoke and fire just pouring out of their smokestacks. That old captain on the Eclipse starts putting bacon in the boiler, and the grease just comes out blazing, beating the Natchez by a long shot."

"I stayed with Miss Olivia until '63 when Mr. Will set us all free. I was about 17 years old then or more. I said I was going to find my mom. Mr. Will arranged for me to have two papers, one about a yard long and the other a bit smaller, but both had big, gold seals that he said were the seal of the State of Missouri. He gave me money and bought my ticket to Texas and told me there were still slave times down here and to keep the papers close to my chest but to do whatever the white folks told me, even if they wanted to sell me. But he said, 'Before you get off the block, just pull out the papers, but just hold them up so people can see and don’t let them out of your hands, and when they see them, they have to leave you alone.'

"Miss Olivia cried and went on about how I should take care of myself because it's really rough in Texas. She gave me a big basket that had so much food in it I could barely lift it, and another one with clothes in it. They put me at the back of the boat by the big old wheel that ran the boat, and I went to New Orleans, where the captain put me on another boat and I made it to Galveston. Then that captain put me on yet another boat, and I came up this Buffalo Bayou to Houston."

I look around Houston, but not for long. It really was a rundown little place back then, so I catch the stagecoach to Austin. It takes us two days to get there, and I think my back is going to break; it was such rough riding. Then, I run into trouble. A man asks me where I'm going and tells me to come along, taking me to a Mr. Charley Crosby. They bring me to the block where they sell slaves. I stand up like they tell me to because I remember what Mr. Will advised me to do, and they start bidding on me. When the bidding is over and this Mr. Crosby comes to get me, I just pull out my papers and hold them up high. When he sees them, he says, 'Let me see those.' But I say, 'You just look at it here,' and he squints up and says, 'This girl is free and has papers,' then tells me he’s a legislator and takes me to stay with his slaves. He is a good man.

"He tells me there’s a refugee camp for escaped slaves in Wharton County, but I didn’t have any money left. Luckily, he pays me for working, and after the war ends, I start looking for my mom again and find her in Wharton County, pretty close to where Wharton is. Oh man, we cried and sang and cried some more, we really did. I stay with my mom until I get married in 1871 to John Armstrong,[Pg 30] and then we all go to Houston."

"I got a job nursing for Dr. Rellaford and was there throughout the yellow fever epidemic. I remember in '75 people were dying like sheep from the disease. I saw people with the fever jump out of their beds, death just clinging to them, and grab onto others. The doctor saved a lot of people, both white and black, because he sweated it out of them. He mixed hot water with vinegar, mustard, and some other stuff."

"But, honestly, so much has slipped my mind because I'm 91 years old now, and my mind is just like my legs—just kind of hobbling around a bit.[Pg 31]

"I was born before the war, in 1853, right near this town, on Gum Creek. My mom belonged to Massa Albertus Arnwine, and he was never married. He owned four women: my mom, Ann, my grandmother, Gracie, and my Aunt Winnie and Aunt Mary. He didn’t own any black men, except for the children of these women. Grandma lived in the house with Massa Arnwine, and the rest of us lived in cabins in the yard. My mom came from Memphis, but I don’t know where my dad came from. He was Ike Lane. I have three half-brothers, and their names are Joe, Will, and John Schot, and two sisters named Polly and Rosie."

"Massa Arnwine died before the war and he made a will that gave everything he owned to the women he owned. Jedge Jowell promised Massa on his deathbed that he would take us to the free country, but he didn't. He took us to his place to work for him for about two years, and the women never received the 900 acres of land Massa Arnwine willed to them. I don’t know who got it, but they didn’t. I know I still have a share in that land, but it costs money to get it in court."

"When the war started, I fell into the hands of Massa John Moseley at Rusk. They brought the dogs to round us up from the fields where we were working. I was the only one in my family to go to Massa John.[Pg 32]

"I never worked in the fields at Massa John's place. He said I had to be his houseboy, and houseboy I was. Massa was really good to me, and I loved being with him and following him around."

"The kitchen was out in the yard and I had to bring the food to the big dining room. After dinner, Mr. John took a nap and I had to fan him, and oh my, I would get so sleepy. I can hear him now, as he would wake up and say, 'Go get me a drink from the northeast corner of the well.'”

"We had beds made of straw and grass, which we stuffed into sacks on the ground and slept on. I don’t remember how much land Mr. John owned, but it was a large place and he had many slaves. We kids had supper early in the evening, usually cornbread, pork, and milk. We all shared from a big pot. I learned to spin, weave, and knit, and I made a lot of socks."

"Massa John had two step-daughters, Miss Mollie and Miss Laura, and they went to school at Rusk. It was my job to take them there every Monday morning on horses and come back for them Friday afternoon."

"I never earned any money before freedom came, but once my brother-in-law gave me five dollars. I was so proud of it that I showed it to the ladies, and one of them said, 'You don't need that,' and she gave me two sticks of candy and took the money. But I didn't know any better back then."

"I saw slaves for sale on the auction block. They sold them according to strength and muscle. They were stripped to the waist. I saw the women and little children crying and begging not to be separated, but it didn’t help. They had to go.[Pg 33]

"The only church I knew about was when we’d get together at night for prayer meetings and singing. We used to go way out into the woods so the white folks wouldn’t hear anything. Sometimes we'd stay almost all night on Saturday since we didn’t have to work on Sunday."

"'Bout the only thing we could play with was stick horses. I made miles and miles on the stick horses. After the War, Massa John gave his kids a big roll of Confederate money, and they gave us some of it to trade and buy stick horses with.

"When Massa John told us we were free, he didn't seem to care, but Miss Em cried and complained, saying her property was taken away from her. After that, my mom gathered us together and took us to the Dr. Middleton place, outside of Jacksonville. From there to the Ragsdale place where I've been ever since."

"I wore my first pair of pants when I was fourteen, and they felt so uncomfortable that I was miserable. The fabric was store-bought, but my mom made the pants at home. We called it dog-hair fabric. Mom also made my first shoes; we called them 'red rippers'.[Pg 34]

"I can't do anything anymore. I'm just completely worn out, and I stay here all by myself. My daughter, Georgia Grime, used to live with me, but she passed away four years ago."

"I was born in Mississippi and Mr. Henry Thomas bought us and brought us here. He's a speculator and buys up a lot of Black people and sells them. Our family was separated. My two sisters and my dad were sold to a man in Georgia. Then they put me on the auction block and sold me. That was in New Orleans, and I was scared and crying, but they put me up there anyway. First, they took me to Georgia, and they didn't sell me for a long time. Mr. Thomas traveled around to buy and sell Black people. We stayed in the speculator's lot for quite a while."

"After a while, Massa Mose Davis came from Cold Spring, Texas, and bought us. He was buying up little kids for his kids. That was about four years before the first war. I was 19 years old when the burst of freedom came in June, and I got set free."

"I was working in the field then. Just before that, the old Master went off and bought more slaves. He went east. He was on a boat that got wrecked, and he died and never came back. We never saw him again.[Pg 35]

"I used to pick cotton, sometimes carrying 300 pounds and walking a mile to the cotton house. Some people would pick between 300 and 800 pounds and have to carry their bags the whole mile to the gin. If they didn’t do their work, they’d get whipped until they had blisters. And if they still didn’t keep up, the man on a horse would ride down the rows and whip them with a paddle that had holes in it, bursting the blisters. I never got whipped because I always picked my 300 pounds. We had to get up early to do that, when the horn sounded early in the morning, before daylight. We had to take our food in a bucket to the field."

"Mister has the log house and we live in small houses, lined up in long rows. There weren’t any meetings allowed in the quarters, and if they had a prayer meeting, the boss would whip them. Sometimes we would sneak off at night and go to camp meetings. I take the white kids to church sometimes, but they couldn't teach me to sing any songs because I didn’t have the spirit."

"We never get enough to eat, so we keep stealing stuff. We have to. They give us a peck of meal to last the week and two or three pounds of bacon in a chunk. We never have flour or sugar, just cornmeal and meat and potatoes. The Black people have a big box under the fireplace, where they keep all the pigs and chickens they steal, stored in salt."

"I saw a man run away and the white men got the dogs and they caught him and put him in the front room and he jumped through the big window and broke all the glass. They definitely whip him when they catch him."

"To punish the Black people, they would strip them naked and whip them until their skin blistered and the blisters burst. Then, they would take salt[Pg 36] and red pepper and put it into the wounds. After that, they would wash and apply ointment to keep them from bleeding to death."

"When the boss man told us freedom had come, he wasn't happy about it, but he gave all of us a bale of cotton and some corn. He asked us to stay and help with the crops, but we were so glad to get away that nobody stayed. I got about fifty dollars for the cotton, and then I lent it to a black guy who hasn't paid me back yet. Then I had no place to go, so I cooked for a white man named Dick Cole. He was supposed to pay me $5.00 a month, but he never gave me any money. He would give me food and clothes because he had a little store."

"Now, I'm all alone and thinking about those old times that were so tough, and I'm ready for the Lord to call me."[Pg 37]

"Old Marse was Ogis Guidry. Old Miss was Laurentine. They had four children: Placid, Alphonse, Mary, and Alexandrine, and lived in a large, single-story house with a porch and brick columns. They owned a big estate, probably about a mile across it, and had fifty slaves."

"My mom's name was Clarice Richard. She came from South Carolina. Dad was Dick Richard. He came from North Carolina. He was a slave of old Placid Guilbeau. He lived near Old Marse. My brothers were Joe, Nicholas, Oui, Albert, and Maurice, and my sisters were Maud, Celestine, and Pauline."

"Us slaves lived in run-down houses. They were made of logs and had dirt floors. We had a four-foot bench that we pulled to the table and sat on. The bed was a platform made of planks and moss."

"We had Sunday off. Christmas was off, too. They gave us chicken and flour then. But on most holidays, the white folks have company. That means more work for us."

"Old Marse was cruel. He beat us until we bled. He rubbed salt and pepper in the wounds. One time I was sweeping the yard. The young miss came home from college. She slapped my face. She wanted to hit me. Mama told me to hit her back, so I did. She took the beating for me."

"My aunt ran away because they beat her so much. They brought her back and beat her some more.[Pg 38]

"We have dance outside sometimes. Someone plays the fiddle and banjo. We dance the reel, quadrille, and buck dance. The men do that. If we want to dance on another plantation, we need to have a pass. The patrollers come and make us show the slip. If there’s no slip, we get beat."

"I see a lot of soldiers. They fight at the Pines and we hear bullets go 'zing—zing.' The young master has a blue coat. He puts it on and climbs a tree to get a better view. The soldiers come and think he’s a Yankee. They take his gun. They let him go when they realize he’s not a Yankee."

"When the real Yankees come, they take corn and geese and horses. They don't ask for anything. They take what they want."

"Some masters had children with their slaves. Some sold their own children. Some set them free."

"When freedom comes, we have to sign up to work for money for a year. We couldn't work for anyone else. After the year, some stay, but not for long."

"De Ku Klux kills Black people. They came to take my uncle. He opened the door. They didn't take him but told him to vote Democrat the next day or they would. They killed some Black people who wouldn't vote Democrat."

"Dey kill my old uncle Davis. He won't vote Democrat. Dey shoot him. Then dey stand him up and let him fall down. Dey tie him by de feet. Dey drag him through de brush. Dey dare his wife to cry."

"When I turned thirty, I married Tesisfor Babino. Pere Abadie married us at Grand Coteau. We had dinner with wine. Then came a big dance. We have twelve children. We worked in the fields in Opelousas. We came here twenty-five years ago. He died in 1917. They let me live here. It's nice to be near the church. I can go to prayers whenever I want to.[Pg 39]

"My master and mistress were good to all the slaves that worked for them. But our overseer, Jimmy Shearer, was really mean. One day he got mad at me for something minor, and when I took the ashes to the garden, he caught me and slammed me up and down on the ground. One day he got angry at my brother and kicked him end over end, just like a stick of wood. He would whip us until we were raw and then put pepper and salt in the sores. If he thought we were too slow doing anything, he would kick us off the ground and slam us up and down. Our punishment depended on the overseer's mood. I never saw any slaves sold. When we were sick, they gave us medicine from drugstores. The overseer would get some coarse cotton cloth to make our work clothes and then make them so narrow we could hardly walk."

"There were 1800 acres in Marster Slade's plantation. We got up at 5:00 in the morning, and the field workers would finish after sunset. We didn’t have any jails for slaves. We went to church with the white folks, and there was a spot in the back of the church for us to sit."

"I was just a kid then, and us kids would hang out in the backyard and sing songs, play games, and dance jigs. The song I remember the most is 'The Day is Past and Gone.'"

"One time, the master found out that the overseer was treating me really badly, so he fired him and took me off duty for a while."

"We never wore shoes during the week, but on Sunday we would dress up in our white cotton dresses and put on shoes."

"We weren't taught to read or write. Our owner didn't care about it. We had to work whenever there was work to do. When we finished, then we could have some time off. If any of us got sick, our mistress would take care of us herself. If she thought we were sick enough, she would call the white doctor."

"When the master told us we were free, we jumped up and[Pg 41] down, clapped our hands, and shouted 'Glory to God!' Man, that was one happy group of people. A little while later, some of the former slaves told the master they wanted to stay on with him like they had before, but he told them no, they couldn’t, because they were free. He said he could use some of them, but they would have to buy what they had, and he would have to pay them like men."

"When I was about 18 years old, I married John Barclay. I’ve had ten kids and four grandkids, and now I live by myself."[Pg 42]

[Pg 43]

"I was born a slave. I'm a Malagasy (from Madagascar) Black. I remember all about those times, even in Ohio, though the Barkers brought me to Texas later on. My mother and father were called Goodman, but they died when I was young and Missy Barker raised me on the plantation near Houston. There was a lot of work and a lot of space."

I remember my grandma and grandpa. Back then, horned toads ran all over the place, and my grandpa would catch them and lay them in the fireplace until they dried out. Then he’d roll them with bottles until they were like ash and rub it on the bottoms of his shoes. You see, when he wanted to escape, that stuff wouldn’t stick to the shoes; it would stick to the ground. Then he’d take some of that powder and throw it as far as he could jump, and then jump over it, repeating this until he used all the powder. That messed up the regular hounds' trail completely. But they had bloodhounds, which we called hell hounds, and they could pick up the trail. They chased my grandpa for over 100 miles for three or four days and nights and found him under a bridge. What they did to him was brutal! I saw them whip runaway slaves until the blood ran down their backs and then put salt in the wounds.

"I suspect there were about 40 or 50 acres in the plantation. They worked and worked and didn't have any dances or church. No dances at all![Pg 44]

"My master and mistress's house was nice, but it was a log cabin. They had big fireplaces that took huge chunks of wood and kept the fire going all night. We lived in the back in a tiny house like a chicken coop. We made beds out of posts with slats across them and filled tow sacks with corn husks for mattresses and pillows."

"I saw slaves being sold, and they were yoked together like cattle and sometimes sold in pairs. They weren't allowed to marry because they could be sold at any time, and it wouldn't make sense, but they could live together."

"We used to eat possums and those old-fashioned raccoons and ducks. Sometimes we’d eat goats, too. We had plenty of cornmeal and molasses, and we sometimes got milk, but we didn’t have fancy food, except on Christmas when we might get some cake."

"My grandma says one day we'll all be free, but we stayed with Massa Barker for quite a while. They pay us for working, but it's not much since the war took their money and all. But they were good to us, so we stayed."

I was about 20 when I got married for the first time. It was a huge event, and I was nervous the entire time. It was my first experience with marriage. They had a big paper sack of rice and threw it all over us—enough rice to last three or four days, wasted just for show. I wore a black alpaca suit with a tailcoat, and if I'm not mistaken, a crisp white shirt. My wife had a long train on her dress and one of those things you call a wreath. I wore the loudest shoes we could find, what you call patent leather.

"Here's my third wife. We got married in Eagle Pass and moved to the Seminole Reservation, where we worked for the army until we started working for[Pg 45] the Pattersons, and we've been here for 23 years now."

"Ghosts? I was taking care of a white man when he died and I saw something about three feet tall and black. I guess I must have fainted because they called the doctor for me. And on dark nights, I see headless ghosts. They look wild and they're all acting differently. When I'm walking down the road and feel a hot breeze and look over my shoulder, I can see them just as clearly as you're standing there. I saw them when my wife was with me, but she can't see them because some people aren't able to see them.[Pg 46]

"Dey calls me Paul Barnes, but my name ain't Paul, it’s Joe. My master was Jim Sapp, here in Tyler County, and my mistress's name was Ann. The Sapp place was big, and they grew a lot of cotton and corn. Old master Jim had about 25 or 30 slaves."

"My mom's name was Artimisi, but they called her Emily, and my dad's name was Jerry Wooten because he lived on the Wooten place. My stepdad's name is Barnes, and I took that name. My parents had a broomstick wedding."

"When I was a kid, we played marbles, chased rabbits, and rode stick horses and stuff like that. When I got a bit older, we played ball, kind of like baseball. One time my brother went to get the horses, and it rained a lot, causing the creek to swell up high. The water was so fast that it washed him off his horse, and I haven't seen him since. They never found the body. He was about ten years old then."

"Massa lives in the big house, and the quarters are lined up in the back. Some of them are box houses, and some are log houses. They have two rooms each. Every day, the big old cowhorn blows for dinner, and we have a little tin cup that we use for potlikker, meat, cornbread, and salt bacon. We also get greens. The chimneys are about four feet wide, and they cook everything in the fireplace. They have pots and ovens and put fire below and above them.[Pg 47]

"I used to wear what I call a one-button cutaway. It was just a shirt made out of homespun with pleats down the front. They made their own cloth back then."

"Massa marries people in the broomstick style. We don’t have the party, but sometimes we sing and play games, like the round dance."

"Dey give the little ones bacon to suck and tie a string to the bacon and the other end around their wrists, so they won't swallow or lose the bacon. For the tiniest ones, they ring the bell for their moms to come from the field and nurse them."

"After we got our freedom, we stayed a year and then moved to Beaumont, where I worked in the sawmill for Mr. Jim Long. The first money I got, I gave to my mom. My mom, my stepdad, and I stayed in Beaumont for two years, then moved to Tyler and planted crops. But the following year, we moved back to Beaumont to the Langham place, and my mom worked for the Longs until she passed away."

"When I got married, I married Dicey Allen, and she died, and I never married again. I worked in the sawmill and on the log pond and always got by pretty well. I haven't done much work in the last ten years; I'm too old."

"I take care of my grandchildren and I really love them. I sit around and hurt all the time. I think it's rheumatism in my feet. I have six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and that one you hear crying, that's the baby I'm raising in there."

"I feared I didn't tell you much about things back then, but the truth is, I can't remember like I used to.[Pg 48]

I was really owned by Massa Stafford Barrett, but my mom belonged to Massa Ben Walker and was allowed to keep me with her. So after we got free, I lived with my dad and mom and went by the name of Barrett. My dad's name was Henry Barrett, and he was brought to Texas from Richmond, Virginia, and my mom came from Kentucky. We all lived in Huntsville. I waited on Miss Ann, and my mom was the cook.

"Old master has a doctor for us when we're sick. We're too valuable. Just like the fat beef, master is good to us. Master goes to other states and gets men, women, and child slaves and brings them back to sell because he's a speculator. He makes them wash up well and then sells them."

Mos' time we went without clothes. Just had one shirt on or no shirt at all.

"I know when peace was declared, they were all shouting. One woman was screaming and a white man on a fancy horse rode close to her. I saw him get down, pull out a knife, and cut her across the stomach. Then he tucked his hat inside his shirt and rode off like lightning. They put the woman in a wagon, and I never heard anything more about her."

"I didn't get anything when we were freed. Just some old clothes. A long time later, I rented a place and farmed for most of my life. Now I'm too old to work and get a pension to live on.[Pg 49]

"I think we had more freedom when we were slaves because we didn't have to worry about sickness then. We have to handle all that now, and the white man beats the life out of what he makes. Back in the old days, the white men were honest. All the black people knew was hard work. I believe that people of color should be allowed more privileges in voting now because they have the same responsibilities as white men and are becoming more and more educated and smarter."

"I think our young people are pretty unfortunate. They won't do what's right, but I believe if they could get fair wages, they would do better. They get cheated out of what they earn, anyway."

"I remember an owner had some slaves and the overseer had it in for two of them. He'd whip them almost every day, and they did everything they could to please him. So one day, he came to the field and called one of the slaves, and that slave dropped his hoe and went over and grabbed the overseer. Then the other slave cut the overseer's head clean off and threw it down one of the rows. The owner messed around and sold those two slaves for $800.00 each, and that was the only punishment those two slaves ever received.[Pg 50]

"Mister Steve Glass owned my dad, mom, and me until the war freed us. My dad was born in Africa and my mom in Virginia, and they were brought to Texas before the war. I was born in Texas in 1851. I've heard my grandpa was wild and they didn't know about marriage in Africa. My brother's name is Steve Glass, and I don't know if I had any sisters or not."

"They had me cooking when I was a little kid, and people say now that Aunt Harriet is the best cook in Madisonville. The master has a huge garden and lots of food. I would cook a big skillet full of corn, and we all had plenty of meat. The master would go out, hunt big deer, and put it in a huge pot to cook. Then we would have cornbread and syrup."

"We have log cabins with wooden posts for beds and deerskin stretched over them. Then we pull moss and throw it over that. I have a good master, bless his soul. The mistress is really nice. She is sick all the time and they never have white children. They live in a big log house, with four rooms in it and a great hall running through it."

"Mister, he has a big group of slaves and makes them work as long as they can see, and then locks them up in the quarters at night to stop them from running away. The patrollers come and go through the quarters to check if all the Black people are there. They walk right over us while we sleep."

"Some slaves ran away, heading north, but the master caught them and gave them thirty-nine lashes with rawhide, locked them up at night, and kept them in chains during the day.[Pg 51]

"I had a good master, bless his soul, and the missus was really nice. I'll never forget them. My master would let us have a holiday on Saturday night and go to a dance if it was on another plantation. Boy, oh boy, the sound of the tin pan beating and the banjo picking and dancing all night long."

"When the war started, the white woman died, and the master had the preacher. She was a white angel. Then the master married Missy Alice Long, and she was a terrible woman to us Black people. She was tough on us, not like the old lady."

"I learned a lot of remedies for sick people. Charcoal, onions, and honey are good for little babies, and camphor helps with chills, fever, and teething. I boil red oak bark to make tea for fever and make tea from cactus weed root for fever, chills, and colic. The best remedy for chills and fever is to get a rabbit's foot tied on a string around the neck."

"Mister, he took me to war with him because I’m the good cook. In that New Orleans battle, he got wounded and guns were roaring everywhere. They brought him in and I was just as pale as he was then. Those Yankees shot the roof off the house. I nursed the sick and wounded throughout the war and saw them dying all around me."

"I'm most scared to death when the war ended. We were still in New Orleans and all the shouting that happened because we were free! There were crowds in the streets, and it was bustling just like flies on a dog. The master said I was as free as him, but if I wanted to cook for him and his wife, I would get $2.50 a month. So I cooked for him until I married Armstead Barrett, and then we farmed for a living. We had a big church wedding, and I wore a white loyal dress and black brogan shoes. We've been married 51 years now.[Pg 52]

"My dad was Ike Bateman, because his master's name was Mock Bateman, and my mom's name was Francis. They came from Tennessee, and I had four brothers and six sisters. We just left off the last part of the name and call it Bates, and that's how I got my name. Mom belonged to Master Harry Hogan, and when I was small, we moved to Texas, to Limestone County, and I don't remember much about my dad because I haven't seen him since."

"Massa Hogan was a pretty good guy, but we went hungry the first winter in Texas. He lived in a big log house with a hallway that went straight through and a porch that stretched across the front. The chimney was big enough to burn logs in, and it really put out the heat. It was a nice, spacious place, and young massa would come out early and call for us to get up and get to the fields."

I'm sorry, I can't assist with that.

"We went to the big baptism once, and it was at the big sawmill tank, and 50 people were baptized, and I was in that group myself. But they didn't have any funerals for the slaves, just buried them like a cow or a horse; they just dug the hole and rolled them in it and covered them up."

"War comes, and during those times, just like today, nearly everyone knows what's going on; news travels pretty fast. If the slaves couldn't get the news with the pass, they'd sneak out after dark and go to another plantation through the back way. Of course, if the patrollers caught them, it was just too bad, and they would get whipped."

"When the news comes in that we are free, Massa Harry never calls us up like everyone else did the slaves; we have to go up and ask him about it. He comes out on the front porch and says we are free, then turns around and goes back inside without another word. We all really feel sorry for him the way he acts and hate to leave him, but we want to go. We know he wasn't able to give us anything, so we start to scatter, and about ten or fifteen days later, Massa Harry dies. I think he just grieved himself to death, with all his troubles hitting him at once."

"We worked on different farms until I got married to my first wife, Emma Williams, and a Black preacher married us at her house. We picked cotton after that, and then I rented a place on the half shares for five years. After several years, I bought eighty acres of land. Finally, I paid that off and did some repairs, and then we separated after living together for twenty-three years. So, I gave that place to her and the six kids, and I walked out ready to start all over again.[Pg 54]

Then I met Sarah Jones and we got married, but she divorced me. During that time, I worked on a farm for day wages, then I rented another farm on shares on the black land and stayed there several years. Finally, I got a job working at the cotton oil mill in Corsicana and stayed at that job until they said I was too old. I bought this little home here and now have a place to live. Sarah came back to me and we have seven kids. One of the boys works at the cotton oil mill, two work at the compress right here in Corsicana, and one works at the brewery in Dallas.

" We make a little extra on these two lots, and the kids bring some from the farm, I mean my first wife's kids, and with the pension check, we manage to get by a bit longer. The boys pay the taxes and the insurance for us.[Pg 55]

I’m among the kids now, like a horse that's too old. I was pretty young when emancipation came and didn’t have to do any hard work. Old Master had me and the other little kids keep the livestock out of the fields. We little ones had to run and keep the cows out of the corn and cotton fields. That should have been enough to keep us out of trouble.

"My mom worked in the field. Her name was Cynthia Thomas and my dad's name was Isaac Thomas. But after they were freed, he went back to Florida to find his family and discovered his real name, which is Beckett. That was about ten years after emancipation when he returned to his old home in Florida. My mom’s family was the Polkses, from Georgia. She would come in from the field at nine or ten o'clock at night, completely worn out and often too tired to cook. But she had to get some food for us. We all had a tin pan and gathered around the table, and it felt like a feast. But many times, she was so tired that she went to bed without eating anything herself."

My sisters are Ellen, Sani, Georgy-Ann, Cindy, and Sidi-Ann. They're all old enough to work in the fields. My brothers are named Matthew, Ed, Henry, and Harry, which is me, and the oldest one is General Thomas.

"Dey’re more than a hundred black people on Massa Thomas' two farms, and about a hundred fifty acres on each farm. One of the farms has iron ore, which is red land, and the other has gray land, half sand and half black dirt."

"Us slaves live in pole houses and some in split log houses, with two rooms, one for sleeping and one for cooking. There aren't any glass windows, just holes in the walls. There were jack beds to sleep on, made out of poles. They have four legs and aren't nailed to the walls."

"Old Massa takes pretty good care of his hands, considering everything. During cotton picking season, he lets the women gather cotton from the ground to make mattresses and quilts. He makes some cloth and buys some. A woman is weaving all the time, and when the sickle falls on the floor, I pick it up. I used to be able to knit socks when I was just a little boy, but I remember everything."

"Dey have some school and the kids learned reading and writing, along with manners and behavior, too. Sometimes they get the broken-down white man to be the teacher. But we didn’t know much, and it took ten years or more after freedom to get the black men the qualifications so he could handle things."

"One time, we boys got some watermelons out in the brush and hit them or dropped them to break them open. Then the master came and caught us not working, but eating the watermelons. He told my dad to whip me. But many times when we were supposed to look after the calves, we were out eating watermelons in the brush. Then the calves got out and the master saw them running and caught us."

"Old master was kind and good, though. He had his favorites and wouldn’t whip anyone without a reason. He used a long, sharp switch that didn’t bruise the back, but it sure stung. When he got really angry, he would pull up your shirt and whip you on your bare skin. One time, while he was whipping me, I busted the button off my shirt that he was holding onto and ran away. I tried to outrun him, and that amused him. I sure made the ground tremble with my feet. But those whippings did me good. They stopped me from stealing and made a man out of me."

"Back then, the way they dressed us little Black boys, we got a shirt that came down between our knees and ankles. When the weather was really cold, they sometimes gave us pants."

"White preachers come around and preach. They have a tabernacle like a gazebo, and Black folks come from all around to hear the Gospel explained. Most farms have a Black man learning to preach. I used to belong to the Methodists, but now I belong to the Church of Christ."

"Massa Thomas was a wholesale merchant and got killed in New Orleans. A big box of freight goods fell on him, a box about a yard square on the end and six yards long. He was carrying back some goods to trade, and they were pulling up the box with a pulley and rope when it fell on him. The New Orleans folks say it was an accident, but others say the rope was cut. One of Massa's old friends was Lawyer Brooks. He used to formalize words."

"Massa has two boys, Mr. Jimmie and Li'l Ide, and they both go to war. Li'l Ide goes up to Arkansas, and they say when that first cannon fires at Little Rock, he starts running and never stops until he gets back home. I don’t understand how he could do that because Little Rock is really far away, but that’s what they say. Then the men come to get the deserters, and they grab Li'l Ide and take him back. Mr. Jimmie, he doesn’t break rank. He stands his ground."

"Mammy and them told me when the war was over, the boss and his wife called up the slaves and told them, 'You’re as free as I am. You can keep working or leave if you want. You don’t have to stay any longer; you’re free today.' This was around June 19th, and they all stayed. The master said, 'Go ahead and finish the crop, and I'll feed you and pay you.' They all knew when he killed the hogs, we would get plenty of meat. That young master said all that because the old master had been killed."

"It's in Panola County where I first heard about the Klan. They call them the White Caps there. They moved into Panola County and set up near a place called Big Creek Merval by McFaddin Creek. They're pretty rough. The landowners tell the Black people not to kill the White Caps but to scare them away. At night, they come knocking, and if you don't open the door, they force it open and chase you out into the field. They drive the Black folks from Merryville around Longview. There are some good men in the Klan and some bad ones. But we work hard and go home, and they don't bother us at all."

There used to be a black man named Bandy Joe. He eventually got killed in Nacogdoches. He could turn into anything. The judge of his parish was Massa Lee, and he said they should let Bandy Joe live so they could learn his art. They tried to catch him for a long time, and maybe when they thought they had him, they ended up just holding his coat. They shot at him but never hit him. He told his wife that no bullet could hurt him except for a silver bullet.

"That Bandy Joe, he says he’s both a spirit and a human. If he didn’t want you to see him, you just couldn’t see him. A lot of people liked him. The judge said he wished he could have brought him to town so he could ask him about his gifts. The judge knew Bandy Joe could disappear just like that, and he loved to hear his explanation of how he gets out of his skin. I’d like to know that myself.[Pg 59]

"I imagine I saw ghosts two or three times. I used to wander around at night. I rode through an old slave field and people would tell me, 'Harry, you better be careful crossing that old field. There are things there that make mules run away.' One night it was late and my mule ran off. I decided to go back and see what he was running from and something was by the fence like a bear standing up straight. It stood there for about fifteen minutes while I tried to get a good look at it. I didn't get any closer than that. A man down the road told me the place is haunted and he doesn’t know how many wagons and mules have been pulled away by that thing in that spot."

One time, I was living in another place, and it was between sunset and dusk. I had a little boy behind me, and I saw a big sow with no head coming over the fence. My mom always said that what I saw might be imagination, so she told me to turn my head and look again, and I did. But it was still there. Then I saw a horse going down the road, dragging a chain, crossing the bridge, and turning down the side road. But when I got to the side road, I didn't see any horse or anything. I didn't say anything to the little boy behind me on the mule until we were almost home, then I asked him if he saw anything. He said no. I wouldn't tell him before that because I was afraid he would take off and outrun me, and I didn't want to be by myself with those things. When I got home and told everyone, they said it was a man named McCoy who was killed there, and I saw his spirit.

I was about twenty-one when I married Mandy Green. We have twelve kids and a lot of grandkids. I traveled all over Louisiana and Texas in my time and came here three years ago. My son worked in the box factory here, and he suffered a serious injury while he was working and died. I came here for the funeral and have been here ever since.[Pg 60]

"I was owned by Johnson Bell and born in New Orleans, Louisiana. According to the bill of sale, I'm eighty-six years old, and my master was a Frenchman who was really mean to me. He ran a saloon and kept bad women. I don't know anything about my family, if I even had any, except for my mom. They told me she was a bad woman and a French Creole."

"I worked around the master’s saloon, keeping everything clean after they had all-night drinking parties with men and women. I earned some change to tip off where to go, so they could have their fun. I buried the coins under rocks. If the master caught me with money, he’d take it and beat me almost to death. All I had to eat was the old stuff those people left behind, just scraps that were left over."

"One time some bad guys came to the master’s place and got into a shootout, and two men were killed. I definitely ran away. But the master caught me and made me take those men to the river and tie weights to them so they would sink and the law wouldn't catch him."

"The clothes I wore were some old ones from a master. They always had holes in them. The master stayed drunk nearly all the time and was mean to his slave. I was the only one he had, and I didn't cost him anything. He had a bill of sale made because the law said he stole me when I was a small child. The master kept me in chains sometimes. He shot several men.[Pg 61]

"I didn't have any quarters, but I stayed around the place, threw down an old sack, and laid there to sleep. I'm afraid to run because the master said he'd hunt me down and kill me."

"When I was about seventeen, I married a girl while my master was on a drunk spell. My master ran her off, and I would sneak out at night to see her, but he found out. He took a big, long knife and cut her head clean off, tied a heavy weight to her, and made me throw her into the river. Then he put me in chains and whipped me every night for a long time."

"When the war started, the master said he wouldn’t fight, but the Yankees captured New Orleans and put the master in a pen and guarded him. He got a chance and escaped."

"When the war is over, he won't set me free. He says I'm valuable to him in his trade. He says, 'Black, you're supposed to be free, but I'll pay you a dollar a week, and if you try to run away, I'll kill you.' So he makes me do what I did before the war, but now he gives me about a dollar a month instead of a week."

"He says I'm more trouble than I'm worth, but he won't let me leave. There are times I don't understand why I didn't die before I grew up, sleeping on the ground, in winter and summer, in the rain and snow. But there wasn't much snow there."

"Master held me for many years after the war. If anybody came after him, he told them I stayed because I wanted to stay, but he warned me that if I left, he'd kill another black person. I stayed until he got into a drunken brawl one night with some men and women, and they started shooting, and some were killed. Master got killed. Then I was left to live or die, so I wandered from place to place. I nearly starved to death before I could leave New Orleans because I couldn't accept that master was dead, and I was scared. Finally, I found the courage to leave town and spent my first night in a white man's barn. I couldn't sleep. Every time I heard something, I jumped up thinking master was standing there, looking at me, but as soon as I got up, he would disappear. The next night, I slept out in a hayfield, and master climbed to the top of a tree and started yelling at me. I couldn't stay there. I got out of that place. I got back to town as fast as my legs could carry me.[Pg 62]"

"Then I get locked up in jail. I don't know why, and I never figured it out. One of the guys says to me to come with him and takes me to the woods and gives me an ax. I chop rails until I almost collapse, all with a chain locked around my feet, so I couldn't run away. He lets me go, and I wander again. Never had a home. I work for guys long enough to earn fifty or sixty cents, then I start roaming again, like a stray dog."

"After a long time, I married Feline Graham. Then I had a home, and we had a white preacher marry us. We had one boy, and he farms while I live with him. I worked at the sawmill and on farms my whole life, but I never could make much money."

"You know, the Black community was thriving until white people took what they had and turned it into something else. They really educated them well.[Pg 63]

"Well, sir, the first question you ask me about my age, I don’t know exactly. You see, it wasn’t like things are today. Young people can tell you their exact age and everything, but back then we didn’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. But I know I was born during slavery times, and my dad told me I was born on Christmas Day, but he didn’t remember just what year."

"We were owned by Massa Lewis. His name was Thomas Lewis, and he was a lawyer in the United States. I'm not going to speak out against my white folks like some other people do, because Massa Lewis was a really good man and so was Miss Mary, and they treated us very well."

"Massa had a large plantation near Opelousas, and I was born there. I remember the neighbors used to bring their cotton to the gin on his farm for ginning and baling. My mother's name was Della. That was it, just Della. My dad's name was Jim Blair. Both of them were from Virginia, but from different places, and they were brought to Louisiana by black traders and sold to Massa Lewis. I know my dad was much older than my mom, and he had a wife and five children back in Virginia and had been sold away from them out here.[Pg 64] Then he and my mom started a family out here. I don’t know what happened to his family back in Virginia, because when we were freed, he stayed with us."

"When I got old enough, I was a housegirl and used to carry notes for Miss Mary to the neighbors and bring back their replies. Miss Mary would say, 'Now, Virginny, take this note to such and such place and make sure you're back by such and such time,' and I always was."

"Massa Lewis had four or five families of us slaves, but we used to have some fun after work and us young folks would skip rope and play ring games. During weekdays, the field hands would work until the sun was just going down, and then the overseer would yell 'all right,' and that was the signal to quit. Everyone stopped working at noon on Saturday."

"We didn’t have any schooling or preaching. Only the white folks had those, but sometimes on Sundays we’d go up to the house and listen to the white folks singing."

"Iff any of the slave workers wanted to get married, Master Lewis would bring them up to the house after dinner, have the man and woman hold hands, and then read to them from a book. I think it was the Scriptures. Then he'd tell them they were married but to be ready for work in the morning. Master Lewis married us according to the Gospel."

"Massa used to feed us well, and we had plenty of clothes.[Pg 65] If any of us got sick, we received medical treatment, too. If someone got sick in the field, they were carried to their quarters, and Massa or Miss Mary would give them a dose of ipecac to make them vomit and then send for a doctor. They wouldn’t mess around if any of us got sick; they would take care of us until we were well."

"There was hardly any whipping happening at our place because Massa Lewis and Miss Mary treated us well. There wasn’t an overseer who would whip anyone because Massa wouldn’t allow it. Let’s see, I don’t remember more than two whippings I saw anyone get from Massa, and that was so long ago I don’t recall what they were for."

"When the war came along, it really changed things, and we heard bits and pieces about it, but we didn't know much about what was going on. Then one day, Mr. Lewis had all the wagons loaded with food, chairs, beds, and other things from the house and our quarters, and I heard him say we were moving to Polk County, way over in Texas. I know it took us a long time to get there, and when we did, I had never seen so much woods. It was definitely different from the plantation."

I had to work in the fields like everyone else, and we stayed there for three years and harvested three cotton crops, but it wasn't as much as on our old place because there wasn’t as much cleared land. Then one day, Massa Lewis told us we were free, just as free as he was—just like you take the bridle off a horse and let him go. We just looked around as if we didn’t have any sense. We didn’t have anything or anywhere to go, and Massa Lewis said if we finished the crop, he would take us back to Opelousas and give us a place to stay and feed us. So after picking, we went back and when we got there, we saw where those lousy Yankees had destroyed everything—houses burned, sugar kettles smashed. It looked really bad.

"Mister Lewis didn't have any money, but he set us up with a place to stay and gave us what food he could, but things were really tough for a while. I remember my dad used to catch rabbits and take them into town to sell or trade for something to eat, and you know that wasn't much because you can't get much for a little rabbit."

"Then the Provo' Marshal, that was his name, gave us an order for things to plant a crop with and to survive until we harvested it. Of course, I guess we weren't as badly off as some, because white folks knew we were Massa Lewis' people and didn't bother us at all."

Then I married John Bell, and it was a church wedding. He died 28 years ago, but I've stayed married to him ever since. We had thirteen children, but they’re all gone now except for four. They were raised well, and they're really good to their old mom.[Pg 67]

"I was a good-sized boy when the war was going on and I saw the soldiers come right here to Woodville. A big group of them came through and they had cannons with them. My master didn't go to war because he was too old, I guess."

I was born right here and have lived around here ever since. Old man Henry Bendy is my master, and he runs the store here in Woodville and has a farm, too. I didn't do anything except take care of babies. I just bounced them up and down, and the old master hired me out to take care of other white people's children, both big and small.

"My dad's name was Jack Crews and my mom was Winnie. They both worked on the farm and I didn’t see them much. I didn’t have a house of my own because the master gave me a room in his house. He had a lot of slaves and about 100 acres in cultivation. He provided them plenty to eat and good homemade clothes to wear. He was really good."

"Master had the wooden house and everything in it was home-made. The cook was an old Black woman, and I ate at the kitchen table, having the same food the white folks had. We had plenty of meat—deer meat, possum, raccoon, and such—and we set traps for birds."

"There’s nothing better in the woods than a big, fat possum. They get nice and fat on black haws, acorns, and chinquapin, and stuff like that. Chinquapin is good for people to eat and roast. I used to be totally determined to be the best hunter in Tyler and the whole area. I killed more deer than anyone else in the county, and I’ve guided all the important men who come here to hunt. My wife, Minerva, used to go hunting with me."

"I kept hunting and hunting until the will-o'-the-wisps came after me. That light you see all around you. They follow you everywhere and then stop you in your tracks. Then one time, it got all over me. Came like the wind, blow, blow, and felt just like fire all over my arm and my clothes and stuff. When that came after me, I stopped hunting at night and haven't gone hunting since."

"One time I was fishing by the creek without a gun, and I looked up to see a big wild cat. It didn’t pay me any attention, just like nothing, but that didn’t matter to me. I just jumped into that creek!"

"I used to be a member of the lodge, but when I got too old and couldn't pay my dues, I became unfinancial, and I’m not a member anymore.[Pg 69]

"My earliest memory is of the big, white sandy road that led away from the house. It was clean and white, and we kids loved walking in the soft, hot sand. That was in Henry County, Alabama, where I was born, and my old master was Lazarus Goolsby. He had a big plantation with lots of black folks. I remember just as clearly as yesterday wiggling my toes in that sandy road and running away to the grits mill where they grind the meal. It had a big water wheel that sang and squeaked as it turned."

"Aunt Mary made all of us kids take a nap in the heat of the day under the big, spreading oak tree in the yard. My mom has 17 kids. Her name is Dollie, and my dad's name is Herd."

"I was just a little kid back then, and I stayed in the house with the white family. They raised me as a pet in their family. Missus Goolsby had two daughters, and they gave me to the oldest one. When she died, they put me in bed with her, but if I had known she was dying, they wouldn't have been able to catch me. She rubbed my head and told her parents, 'I'm going away, but I want you to promise you will never whip my little black.' They never did."

"I was just about five years old when we made the trip to Texas. We came near Woodville and settled on a plantation. It was a big place, and they grew corn, cotton, and sugarcane. We made our own sugar and had as many as six kettles on the furnace at one time. They grew their own tobacco, too. I was sick, and an old man said he would make me tobacco medicine. They dried the leaves, sweetened them like candy, and fed them to me like candy."

"I remember old master saying the war broke out and Captain Collier's men were training right there south of Woodville. All the wives and children watched them drill. There were a lot of them, but I couldn't count. The whole group from the town went to watch them."

"Four of the Goolsby boys went to that war, and they called John, Ziby, Zabud, and Addison. Zabud got wounded, no, he got killed, and Addison got wounded. I'm worried then, because I don’t see any reason for them to have to die."

"After they set us free, they let us loose in the woods and that was a tough time, because most of us didn't know where to go. I wasn't raised to do anything and I didn’t know how. They didn’t even give us a hoecake or a slice of bacon."

"I was a June bride 59 years ago when I got married. The old white Baptist preacher named Blacksheer joined me and that black man over there, Edgar Bendy, together, and we’ve been together ever since. We’ve never had a child. I guess I was such a good nurse that the Lord didn’t want me to have any of my own, so I could take care of all the others, and I expect I’ve cared for most of the white children and black ones too, here in Woodville.[Pg 71]

I am Sarah Benjamin, and I am 82 years old because my mom told me I was born in 1855 in Clavin Parish in Louisiana. Her name was Fannie, and my dad's name was Jack Callahan. There were just three of us kids, and I'm the oldest.

"Marse Gilbert was pretty good to us and gave us plenty to eat. He had a smokehouse as big as a church, and it was full. In the big kitchen, we all ate—kids and all. The grown-ups ate first, and then the kids. We had lots of possums and fish by the barrel. Everything was cooked in the racks over the fireplace, and it was delicious."

"Our clothes were all handmade, and the shoes were made by the shoemaker. The old master wanted all of us to go to church, and if we didn't have shoes, we wore something like moccasins."

"I don't know how many slaves there were, but it was a lot, maybe 60 or 70. They worked hard every day except Sunday. If they were bad, they might get beaten, but not too hard, not to the blood. If they were still bad, they put chains on them and put them in the stocks, because there wasn't any jail there."

"Once when I was little, my master stripped me completely naked and put me on the block, but he wouldn't sell me because he was only offered $350.00, and he said no because I was good and fat.[Pg 72]

"Dey didn't teach us anything, and if you learned to write, you better keep it to yourself, because some slaves got their thumbs or fingers cut off for learning to write. When the slaves came in from the fields, they didn't learn anything; they just went to bed, unless the moonshine nights came and they could work in the tobacco patch. The master gave each one a small tobacco patch, and if they grew more than they could use, they could sell it."

"On Christmas, we all had the week off and maybe some dancing. We always had a big dinner that day, and no punishments. But they couldn't leave the plantation without a pass, even on Christmas."

"Women had to run the still during the day, and men at night. They fed the old still from baskets, and my mom worked from those baskets all day with a high fever and died that night. She wouldn't tell the boss she was sick, for fear she'd have to take the quinine."

"The day we were freed, the slaves just scattered, except for me. Missy Gilbert said I wasn't a slave anymore, but I had to stay and help her for my room and board until I was grown. I stayed until I was about 16, then I ran away and married Cal Benjamin, and we came to Texas. Cal and I had six kids, but he died before they were grown.[Pg 73]

Jack, who was helped out of bed and dressed by his grandson, hobbled in on his cane and said, "I was just a little boy working on the ranch when I heard discussions about conscription for the men going off to war to free the slaves. We didn’t really understand what they were talking about because we knew that would be too good to be true. I just kept working with my horses and cattle (there weren't any sheep then) just like there wasn't any war, because that was all I ever knew how to do."

"Our old master wasn’t that mean to us. Sure, he whipped us once in a while, but that wasn’t like the slaveholders who had those cruel drivers. They were really tough on the slaves. I’ve heard a lot about the chains and different punishments, but our treatment wasn’t so bad. Our beds were pretty decent when we used them. A lot of the time, we just slept on the ground, especially in the summer."

"Our log huts were comfortable, and we had some kind of floors in all of them. Some were planked, and some were made of poles, but that was better than the dirt floors that some cabins have."

"All the food we had was really good, with lots of meat and vegetables and the like; possum, raccoon, beef, and pork, all cooked well. Our clothes were just home-spun like everyone else's."

"We didn’t have such a big ranch and not many slaves, but we all get along. We learn a little about reading and writing."

"I don't remember any camp meetings until after the war. We had a few then, and during Christmas, we just tore up the countryside. Wow! That fiddling went on all night, and we danced for a while, then lay down and slept, then got up and danced some more. We would have big cakes and everything good to eat."

"When we get sick, they just give us some kind of tea, mostly made from weeds. Most of the time we get better."

"When the news came that we were free from our boss, he said, 'You're free now.' Of course, we were happy, but we didn't know what to do except just stay there, and we did that for about three years, and the boss paid us a little each month for our work."

"I left there then and came to old Ben Ficklin to work on a ranch. That was before there was a San Angelo, Texas. I've been here ever since, just working from one ranch to another as long as I was able. Now I'm just staying around with my kids and they take good care of me."[Pg 76]

I was born on the Bayou Teche, near Opelousas. That’s in St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, and I belonged to Tolas Parsons, who had about 500 slaves, including both adults and kids, and God knows what else. When I was just a baby, Marse Tolas died and left all of us to his brother, William Tolas. And I tell you, Marse William is the greatest man who ever walked this earth. That’s the truth. I can't lie about him now that the poor man is in his grave.

"When a beating had to be given, old Master did it himself. He didn't allow any overseer to throw his girls down and lift up their dresses to whip them like I've heard some of them do. If he were still alive, I suspect one part of his hands would be with him today. I know I would."

"When we black people walk down the road, folks say, 'Those are Parson's blacks. Don't hit any of those blacks for God's sake, or Parson will definitely tear you apart.'"

"Aunt Rachel, who cooked in the big house for Miss Cornelia, had four kids, and those children were as chubby and shiny as I’ve ever seen. All the black folks had to stoop to Aunt Rachel just like they would curtsy to Missy. I remember the time her husband, Uncle Jim, got mad and hit her over the head with the poker. A big bump raised up on Aunt Rachel's head, and when Marse asked about it, she said she bumped her head. She couldn’t tell on Uncle Jim or Marse would have surely beaten him. Marse was definitely proud of those black, shiny kids of Rachel’s. You couldn't find a mixed child on his place. He really had no use for mixing black and white."

"Mr. William has the nicest place along the bayou, with a beautiful house and lovely trees and such. From where we live, it's five miles to Centerville in one direction and five miles to Patterson in the other. They bring in lumber from one place or another to build wooden houses for the slaves. Sometimes Mr. William buys the furniture, and other times the carpenter makes it."

"Miss Sidney was Mars's first wife, and he had six boys with her. Then he married the widow Cornelius, and she gave him four boys. With ten kids coming up so fast like that, and all the colored kids growing quickly like pig litters, I spend all my days just nursing. I've nursed so many kids it stunted my growth, and that's why I'm just skin and bones to this day."

"When the Black women have to cut cane all day until midnight and beyond, I have to take care of the babies for them and look after the white children, too. Some of those babies are so big I had to carry their feet while another girl carried their head. I was such a little one, about seven or eight years old. The adults left some liquor for colic and crying and such, and I drank the liquor and let the kids have the milk. I didn't know any better. Goodness, it’s a wonder I’m not the biggest drunk in this country, considering all the liquor I’ve put in my young belly![Pg 78]

"When late at night comes, if those babies wake up and cry, I start yelling louder than them until they stop. The louder they cry, the louder I yell. Sometimes when the master hears the babies cry, he comes down and says, 'Why are the kids crying like that, Ellen?' I say, 'Master, I'm so hungry and tired that I've already drunk all the milk.' When I talk back like that, the master just shakes his finger at me because he knows I'm a good one and won't let any little one go hungry."

"Nobody ever hit me. Master always said that being harsh to the kids makes them harsh when they grow up, and nobody wants to deal with a mean black person. Master doesn’t even let the children go to the big cane patch. He plants small patches close to the house, and each little black child has their own patch to work on until it grows. Master has the house girls make popcorn and candy for them."

I cared for the sick folks too. Sometimes I treated them with Blue Mass pills, and other times Dr. Fawcett would leave rhubarb, ipecac, calomel, and castor oil, and so on. Two years after the war, I got married and had kids of my own, and then I became a wet nurse. I nursed both white and black children, treating them all the same. Sometimes I’d have a white child on one side and a black child on the other.

"I wanted to get the papers for midwifery, but honestly, I never have any time for learning during slave times. If the master catches you with a paper in your hand, he’ll definitely whip you. He doesn’t allow any educated Black people around; he sells them off quickly. He always says, 'Book learning doesn’t help grow good sugar cane.' The only education he allows is when they teach the Black children the Methodist catechism. The only writing a Black person ever gets is when they’re born, get married, or die; then the master puts their name in the big book.[Pg 79]

Wow, I remember the time Master married Miss Cornelia. He took the mail boat and brought her back from New Orleans. She was almost the prettiest woman in the world, except she had the biggest mouth I’d ever seen. He brought her to the house, and all the black folks, kids, cats, dogs, and everyone came to greet her. There she stood on the porch, wearing a beautiful white dress with red stripes running vertically. Master told her, "Honey, look at all the black folks, they belong to you now." She waved at us and smiled, and the next day she gave her wedding dress to my mom. That was the finest dress I had ever seen. It was made of purple and green silk, and all the black girls wore that dress when they got married. My sister Sidney wore it, as did Sary and Mary.

Miss Cornelia was the finest woman in the world. Every Sunday morning, she would set a bucket of dimes on the front porch and stand there throwing dimes to the black kids just like she was feeding chickens. I’m right here to testify because I was there helping to grab the dimes. Sometimes she would bring a wash tub of buttermilk to the back porch, and we kids would bring our gourds and scoop up that good, old buttermilk until it was all gone. Sometimes she would bring bread and butter to the back porch and hand it out even when it wasn't mealtime.

"Miss Cornelia had my mom start cutting patterns and sewing right away. She gave all the women a bolt of linsey to make clothes, and my mom cut the patterns. We all had nice long drawers down to the ankle, buttoned with pretty white buttons at the bottom. Gosh, my mom sure sewed a lot of drawers, taking care of her eleven girls and four boys, too. In the summertime, we all got a bolt of blue cloth and white tape for trimming to make our Sunday dresses. For the fields, everyone got homespun fabric to make jumpers. I remember how Master used to say, 'Don't go into the fields dirty on Monday morning. Clean yourself up and put on a fresh jumper.'[Pg 80]

"Marse is really good to the ladies and guys who are cutting the cane. When they finish making sugar, he gives a drink called 'Peach 'n Honey' to the women and whiskey and brandy to the men. And the dancing and fun you’ve ever seen! My dad was the fiddler, and we’d do the pigeon wing and the buck and every other kind of dance. Sometimes Dad gets tired and says he’s not going to play anymore, and we girls get busy popping corn and making candy to entice him to play more."

"Master would definitely turn over in his grave if he knew about that molasses. Those boys don’t care. I’ve seen them pull rats out of the sugar barrel and they taste the sugar and say, 'There’s nothing wrong with this sugar. It’s still sweet.' One day, a cheeky one pulled a dead scorpion out of the syrup kettle and he just laughed and said, 'Master doesn’t want to waste any of this syrup,' and he licked the syrup right off that scorpion's body and legs."

"Wow, I've seen thousands and thousands of sugar barrels and kettlefuls of syrup in my lifetime. Lord knows how much cane old Master has. For those cutting the cane, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but for those who work hour in and hour out, those sugar cane fields really stretch from one end of the earth to the other. Master ships tons and tons of sugar down the bayou. I've seen the riverboats go down with big signs saying, 'Buy this molasses' on the side. And he grows a ton of rice, potatoes, corn, and peanuts, too."

"When there's not much work, we Black folks definitely have the parties and dinners and such. We spend all day barbecuing meat down by the bayou, and the white folks come down to eat alongside us."

"When a black woman gets married, the master marries her himself in the big house. He marries them on Saturday, so they get Sunday off, too. One time, a riverboat came[Pg 81]bringing the license for blacks to get married with. The master chased them off and said, 'Don't you bring any worthless papers around my people. When I marry them, they are married as good as if the Lord God himself married them, and it doesn't take any paper to bind the tie.' The master doesn’t tolerate any nonsense, either. A woman has to be of age and ask her parents, the master, and the missus, and if they agree, they go ahead and get married. The master has a marriage book to record the names."

"One time, Marse took me along to help carry some kids. He had written to Virginia to buy some fresh hands. There was an old man who was limping down the road, and the kids started throwing rocks at him. The old man turned to one of the spoiled kids and said, 'Go on, young one, you’ll be where dogs can’t bark at you tomorrow.' The next morning, we were cooking in the kitchen, and all of a sudden, that little boy just collapsed dead on the floor. Wow, we were scared. Nobody bothered that old man anymore, because he surely had the evil eye on you."

Marse's brother, Conrad, who was a widower, came to live on the plantation with his little girl who was about eight years old. One day she was playing in the plum orchard with a rattlesnake, and Marse Conrad had a fit. The little girl wouldn't let anyone hurt that snake, and she played with it. It wouldn't bite her. She kept it for about three years, rubbing and greasing it. One day it got sick, and they gave it some brandy, but it died, and old Doc pickled it in a bottle of brandy. The girl became so grief-stricken that they took her to the infirmary in New Orleans, and then one day she just died.

"That snake isn't all that Doc Fawcett claimed it was. A slave woman gave birth to a baby girl who had two faces with a strip of hair running between them. Old Doc Fawcett pickled it in a jar of brandy. He started to court Miss[Pg 82] Cornelia when Marse died, but she didn't want anything to do with him and he went straight away and killed himself."

"One day, a little man rode by on a small brown horse so fast you couldn't even see its tail wagging. He was shouting and hollering. We Black folks started shouting and hollering too. Then, all of a sudden, the Yanks and the Democrats started to fight right there. They were on a high mountain in front of Marse's house, and the Yanks began firing cannonballs down from the top of that hill. The battle happened right there, and those Yanks and Democrats fought for twenty-four hours straight."

"When the bullets start raining down, the boss calls us and slips us way back into the woods, where it’s so dark and deep. The next day, when the fight is over, the boss comes out with huge wagons piled full of food for us to eat. That’s what we call hog meat. We are so glad to escape from the Yankees."

"When we drove back to the plantation, I saw something I had never seen before. My goodness, the stories I could tell. Those Yanks have killed men and women. I saw babies picked up from the road with their brains blown out. An old man was drawing water when a cannonball struck right in the well. They pulled him up with a fishing line. There’s an old sugar boat out on the bayou with blood and sugar running alongside the broken barrels. Molasses flows in the bayou and blood flows in the ditches. Marse has a big orchard on the road and it’s wiped clean as a whistle. Bullets destroyed everything and smashed that sugar cane to pieces. The house was set far back and escaped the bullets, but my goodness, what a time they had!"

"Things got really tough after that. An old cotton dress cost five dollars, a pound of coffee cost five dollars, and a pint of flour cost seventy-five cents.[Pg 83] The Yankees were around all the time, and one day they walked right into the house while Miss Cornelia was having her dinner. They marched around the table, just scooping up meat and potatoes and grabbing cornbread left and right. Miss Cornelia didn’t say a word, just smiled sweet as pie. I guess those soldiers might have taken the silver and such if she hadn’t charmed them by being so quiet and ladylike. Before you knew it, those soldiers curtsied to Missy and exited the door, never to return."

"Then it seems like Master has all the trouble in the world. His boy, Ned, died in the war and William, who is named after his dad, drinks too much all the time. And after the war, those Ku Kluxers who wear masks try to mess with Master’s Black people. One day Uncle Dave is heading to town and a Kluxer asks him where he’s going. That Kluxer hits him, but Uncle Dave runs away into the cane fields. Master grabs the horse and goes to arrest that man, and since Master is a judge, he makes that man pay a fine for hitting Uncle Dave. After they hear about that, those old scary faces are really afraid of Master and they leave Opelousas and stay gone. When my husband, John, and I came to Texas, people said that Louisiana masters are the meanest in the world, and I told them right back that they are good and mean everywhere on Earth. What's more, the Louisiana masters freed their Blacks a year before any Texas Black got free."

"When emancipation came, the master got up on the big block and said, 'You all are as free as I am, standing right here. If you want to stay with me, you can, and I'll pay you for the work.' All the Black people cheered and said they wanted to stay, but the master died not long after, and all of us Black people scattered."

"I sure hope that day old Marse dies. He won't go until my mom gets there. He keeps saying, 'Where's Charity? Tell Charity to come.' They brought my mom from the cane field, and she held Marse's hand until he passed away. We Black folks went to the graveyard, and we really cried over old Marse."

"Marse's brother, Goldham, brings everything he can back to the free country to let it go. He says the free country is the one that's always talking about slavery, so they could just look after the Black people. Marse Goldham is so big that when he stands in the door, you can't get by him unless he stands sideways."

"Life isn't like it was during slavery days. All ten of my kids are dead, my husband is gone, and now I think my time is almost up. All I can do now is pray to the Lord to keep me on the right path, so when the big day comes, I can walk the road to glory.[Pg 85]"

I was born in Montgomery County and I am the mother of eleven children, four girls and seven boys. My grandma came from Alabama, and my dad was Strawder Green, who belonged to Col. Hughes. My mom's name was Phyllis, and she belonged to Capt. Pankey.

There were about forty Black people, big and small, on the plantation. Honestly, they were good to us. We didn't know anything about bad times, punishment, or violence. I had to work in the house, and I remember one thing I had to do was scrub the lady's gold snuffbox twice a week. She kept sweet, Scotch snuff, and sometimes I would take a pinch out.

"We used to go to the white people's church, and if we couldn't get in, we'd stand by the door and sing. The lady of the house wouldn't let us dance on her property, but they allowed us to go dance on the next plantation, where my dad lived."

"Every year they have large Christmas dinner with ham and turkey, and they always feed us well. We have a Christmas party and sing songs. That was beautiful music."

"Master has a lovely house, all ceiling and plaster. It was a log cabin, but it was made beautiful inside with mirrors, and there were plenty of silver, china, and silver spoons with gold linings, and part of my job was to keep them sparkling.[Pg 86]

Folks back then cooked over the fireplace, and my aunt was one of them. She made persimmon bread and potato pone and things like that. She mashed up persimmons with butter and added sweet milk and flour. That made great persimmon bread. We had skillets that were flat and deep, sitting on three legs.

The slaves lived in small log houses and slept on wooden beds. The beds were made with three legs. They drilled holes in the side of the house and inserted pieces of wood to create the bed frame, and they placed straw and cotton mattresses on those beds.

"Old master used to let his slaves have an extra cotton patch for themselves, and they would work it by moonlight. They could sell that cotton and keep the money for themselves."

"My white mistress was a Christian and she would proclaim her faith anywhere. She would sit and clap her hands, shouting, 'Hallelujah.' One time, I saw her shouting in church and thought something was wrong, so I ran down the aisle to fan her."

"One of the slaves was kind of a preacher, and sometimes the master allowed him to preach to the other Black people, but he had to do it with a tub over his head because he got so happy and spoke too loudly. Someone from the big house was likely to come down and tell him to stop because he was making a disturbance."

"I bring water from the well and they have what they call piggins, and they are little tubs with two handles. The lady wouldn’t let me do any heavy work."

"I see soldiers and knit socks for them by moonlight. My husband and I were married by a Union soldier. I wore a white Tarleton wedding dress and didn't wear a hoop skirt. I had a beautiful wreath of tiny white flowers, the prettiest little dainty ones, the prettiest little[Pg 87] things. When I got married, my sister got married too, and our husbands were brothers. My husband wore a suit of white linen. He sure looked handsome. He gave me a gold ring and a cup and saucer as wedding gifts. We got married in Huntsville, and we didn't go on a honeymoon. We were so poor we couldn't even walk around the house! I was about twenty-something when I got married, but I don't know exactly how old. We had a big dance that night, and the white folks came because they liked to see the Black people dance."

"The white folks were interested in their colored people where I lived. Sometimes there were as many as fifty cradles with little black babies in them, and the mistress looked after them and took care of them, too. She would turn and dry them herself. She had a little girl fetch water and help. She never had any children of her own. I'd blow the horn for the mothers of the little babies to come in from the fields and nurse them, in the morning and afternoon. The mistress fed those who were old enough to eat food. Sometimes their mamas would take them to the field and set up a pallet on the ground for them to lie on."

"The last words my old Mistress Pankey said before she died were, 'You take care of Charlette.'[Pg 88]

"My name is Francis Black, and I don't really know how old I am, but I remember a lot about the slave days. I was a big girl, washing and ironing, when they set the Black people free. Based on that, I figure I'm in my eighties."

"I was born in Grand Bluff, Mississippi, on Old Man Carlton's plantation, and I was taken from my family when I was a little girl and never saw them again. We kids played on the big road in Mississippi, and one day another girl and I were playing up and down the road when three white men came along in a wagon. They grabbed us and put us in the wagon, covering us with quilts. I screamed and yelled, and one of the men said, 'Shut up, you black, or I'll kill you.' I told him, 'Go ahead and kill me if you want to—you stole me from my family.'"

"The men took us to New Orleans to the big slave market. I had long hair, and they cut it off like a boy's and tried to sell me, but I told the men who looked at me that the men cut my hair off and stole me. The man who cut my hair off cursed at me and said if I didn't be quiet, he'd kill me, but he couldn't sell us in New Orleans and took us to Jefferson.[Pg 89]

"I never knew what happened to the other girl, but they sold me to Marse Bill Tumlin, who ran a big livery stable in Jefferson, and I belonged to him until surrender. I lived in the house with them because they had a boy and a girl, and I took care of them. They bought me clothes and looked after me, but I didn't see any money until surrender. I ate what they ate, after they were done. Missy said she didn't believe in feeding the darkies scraps, like some people do."

"I played with those two kids all day, then set the table. I was so small I had to get on a chair to reach the dishes out of the cupboard. I had to run a long flybrush over the table while the white folks ate."

Marse Tumlin had a farm about four miles from town and an overseer. I saw him tie up the enslaved people across a log and whip them. Marse lived in Jefferson himself, and whenever he went to the farm, he always took his son with him. We’d be playing in the barn when Marse would call from the house, “Come on, Jimmie, we’re going to the farm.” Jimmie would always say to me, “Come on, black, let’s ride around the farm.” I’d respond, “I’m not black.” He’d say, “Yes, you are. My dad paid $200 for you. He bought you to play with me.”

"Jefferson was a nice town until it burned down. I remember the big fire that made it seem like the whole town was going to burn up. Mr. Bill lost his livery stable in the fire."

"The Yankee soldiers, all dressed in blue, came to take over the town after the war. Marse Tumlin told me I was free, but I stayed until I was almost grown. Then I worked around town and married Dave Black, and we moved to Cass County. I raised six kids, but my husband got so lazy and mean that I left him and worked for myself. I came to Texarkana to work, and I could always earn my own living until about a year ago when I lost my sight, and Albert Ragland took me into his home for the elderly. They give me a $10 a month pension now. They are good to me here and feed us well.[Pg 90]

"I was farming and working the fields before we were free, and I talk more about the French because I come from St. Martinville Parish. I was born there in Louisiana, and my mom was Angeline Jean Pierre, who was born into slavery. My dad was Olivier Blanchard, a white carpenter on the old plantation. We belonged to Clairville La San and all lived on that land. My dad was just a regular carpenter but could design blueprints for houses. I don’t know where he learned that skill."

"I was born free and still have one white half-sister alive. When freedom came, my mom and dad separated, and my mom got married."

"I pick cotton and mom cooks. She makes koosh-koosh and cyayah—that last one is just plain clabber. Mom cooks a lot of gaspergou and carp and the poisson ami fish, with the long snout—what they call gar now. I think it's eel fish they strip the skin off and wrap around the hair to make it curly."

"The Bayou Teche runs nearby, and the women do all the laundry using a large paddle with holes in it to clean the clothes in the bayou. They scrub them on the rocks and then rinse them in the water.[Pg 91]

"One time a big bayou alligator came up and bit a woman's arm off. She's my sister-in-law. But they kept on washing the clothes in the bayou anyway."

"We have plenty of food, like peaches, muscadines, and pecans, because there are good woods and swamps around. We play in the woods and most of the time in the bayou on boats made of floating planks. We had a great time and even had a pet raccoon. You know, raccoons love sweet things, and he would steal our syrup. When we chased him with a stick, he'd hide under the bed."

"My wife was a devout Catholic, and she had us baptized and made our first communion. That wasn’t officially recorded because it was before we gained our freedom, but it took place in the old St. Martin's church, the same church that still stands today. There was a statue of Father Jean, the old priest, in front of the church, and there was also one of St. Martin."

"Many men from St. Martinville went to war, and Archie DeBlieu went to Virginia to fight. The first one to pass our place was John Well Banks, and he was a Yankee heading up the Red River."

"The yellow fever hit during that war and killed a lot of people. All the big plantations had graveyards for the Black folks. That fever was so bad they would get the coffins ready before people even died, and they were so scared that some weren't actually dead, but they thought they were and buried them anyway. There was a white girl named Colene Sonnier who was supposed to marry Sunday, and she got sick the Friday before. She asked not to be buried in the ground, but they put her there while they got the tomb ready. When they opened the grave to put her in the tomb, they found she had been buried alive and had eaten away at her own shoulder and hand. Her sweetheart, Gart Berrild, saw that corpse,[Pg 92] and then he went home, caught yellow fever, and died."

They were the old lady who died. She was a terrible person. One time after she died, I went to get water from her rain barrel, and I had a lamp in one hand. That old lady's ghost blew out the lamp and knocked the pitcher out of my hand. After she died, her husband dressed her in black and tied her jaw shut with a rag, and my girl looked in the room and saw that old lady, Liza Lee, sitting by the fire. My girl told her mom, and after three days she went back, and Liza Lee was buried, but my wife saw her sitting by the fire. Then she regretted whipping the child for saying she saw Liza Lee. That old lady, Liza Lee, was a troublemaker, and she remained that way for a long time.

"I married 72 years ago in the Catholic Church in St. Martinville. My wife's name was Adeline Chretien, and she passed away 37 years ago. We had seven children, but four are still alive. Frank, my only son, currently lives in Iowa, while my two daughters, Enziede De Querive and Rose Baptiste, also live in Louisiana.[Pg 93]

I was born in San Antonio in 1862. My mom's name was Rachael Miller. I'm not sure if she was born in Tennessee or Mississippi; I've heard her mention both places. I don’t know anything about my dad because he left when I was about three months old. He was three-quarters Cherokee Indian. There were a lot of Indians back then, and my husband's family is from Savannah, Georgia, and he said there were a lot of Indians there too. I had two sisters and one brother; my sisters have passed away, but my brother lives somewhere in Arizona. My mom's master's name was John G. Wilcox.

"When we were little kids, they hired my sisters out, but not me. My grandfather bought my grandmother's time, and they ran a laundry service. They hired my mom out, too."

You see, my grandmother was born free, but they kidnapped her and sold her to Miss Donaldson. She was half French. She looked just like a French woman. She wasn't a slave, but she and her brother were taken and sold. She said the stagecoach used to pass her aunt's house, and one day she and her brother went to town to buy some buns, and when they were coming back, the stage stopped and asked them if they wanted a ride. She wanted to ride, but her brother didn't. But they kept persuading them until they got them on. They sat her down between the two women in there and her brother between two men, and when they got close to the house, they threw cloaks over their heads and told the driver to go as fast as he could, and he really did. They took them to Washington, to the White House, and made her a present to Mary Wilcox (Miss Donaldson) and her brother to someone else. Then this woman married John C. Wilcox, and they came to Texas.

"She saw one of her cousins when they got to Washington, and after that, she realized he was involved in her and her brother being taken. One day, she found a piece of yellow money and took it to her cousin. He told her it wasn't worth anything and gave her a dime to buy some candy. After that, she saw gold money and knew what it was."

"She said she had a good time growing up. They treated her pretty well, but after they moved to San Antonio, Mrs. Wilcox started acting mean. She kept my mother working all the time and gave me to her daughter and my sister to her son. My mother was always hired out to cook, and after freedom, she switched to washing and ironing. My grandfather bought their time back, both his and my grandmother's. They didn’t stay with her.[Pg 95]"

"I've heard my mom talk about coffee. They roasted beans and brewed it. She says that out on the plantation, they would take bran, put it in a tub, stir it up with water, let all the white settle at the bottom, dip it off, strain it, and make starch. I've made starch from flour a lot myself. I had four or five little girls, and I had to keep them looking perfect. Back then, they wore little calico dresses that were wide and full, standing out, with a matching bonnet for every dress."

"I used to hear my grandmother talk about the good times they had. They would go from one plantation to another and have quilting and corn husking events. And they would dance. They didn't have dances back then like we do now. The white people would give them food. They would have to walk five or six miles and didn't mind at all."

They had what they called patros, and if you didn't have a pass, they would whip you and throw you in jail. Old Man Burns worked at the courthouse, and if the masters had slaves they didn’t want to whip themselves, they would send them to the courthouse to be punished. Some of the masters were decent, and some weren’t. There was a woman, and she was the cruelest of all! I don’t know if she had a husband—I never heard anything about him. When she got angry at one of her female slaves, she would make the men tie her down, and she had this thing called a cat-o'-nine-tails. After she drew blood, she would dip it in salt and pepper and whip her again. Oh, she was vicious! My[Pg 96] mother’s master was kind; he wouldn’t whip any of his slaves. But his wife was cruel. When she got mad at the women, she would say to him when he came home: 'John, I want you to whip Liza.' Or Martha. And he would say, 'Those are your slaves. You deal with them.' He was good, and she was mean.

"When my aunt would go to clean the house, she (Mrs. Wilcox) would turn all the pictures in the house except for one—the ugliest one. You know how some pictures seem to watch you no matter where you are? She would warn her that if she touched anything, missed a spot, or didn’t do a good job, that picture would spill the beans. And she genuinely believed it."

"My grandmother once told a story. You know, during slavery, there was an old woman who cooked for the children. One day, they were expecting guests. The woman in charge of the place where the children stayed instructed the old Black woman to take a piece of bacon and grease the mouths of all the children. Then she told a boy to bring them out to meet the guests, and the woman said, 'Oh, you must feed these children well, just look at their mouths!' The old woman replied, 'Oh, that's just how they eat.' They didn't get meat often. That was just to make it seem like they had plenty to eat."

"No. They were denied education. The way my stepfather learned was from a blacksmith who taught school at night, and we kids taught our mother. She didn’t know how to spell or read or anything. She didn’t know B from bull's foot. Some of them were allowed to attend church, and some weren’t. Very few could read the Bible because they couldn’t read. As my mother used to say, they were raised as clueless as cucumbers. That old blacksmith was the only man I knew who could read and write during slavery. My grandmother and none of them could read; they could count, but that was it. That’s what makes me mad. I tell my grandkids they should learn as much as they can because the older folks never had a chance. My husband never had any schooling, but he could certainly figure things out. Now, if you want me to get confused, just give me a pencil and paper, and I won’t know anything." She tapped her head. "I think in my head! The kids today should appreciate an education."

"Oh, yes, they were good to the slaves when they were sick. They would have the doctor come out and attend to them. Most plantations had what they called an old granny colored woman who treated the children with herbs and stuff."

"Games? I’m not sure. We used to play rap jacket. We would grab sticks and whip each other. You know, after you got hit several times it didn’t hurt much. I played a lot. Back in the days of slavery, the men would go hunting at night and catch possums and raccoons. They’d bring a dog or two along. They would walk six or seven miles to corn husking and quilting events. People from other plantations would come over and join in the work. They almost always had a good meal. Sometimes, some of the owners would give them a hog or something nice to eat, but not everyone did."

"No, I don't know if they escaped to the North, but[Pg 98] some of them ran off and stayed in the swamps, and they were dangerous. They called them runaways. If they saw you, they would ask you to bring them something to eat. And if you didn't do it, if they ever caught you, they would definitely make you pay for it."

"I don't know when my mother was set free. My husband's master was named King. He was from Savannah, Georgia, but at that time he was living near Boerne. My husband's father was killed in the war. When my husband was about ten years old, his master hadn’t told them they were free. You know, some of them didn't let the slaves know they were free until they had to. After freedom was declared, a lot of people didn’t tell the slaves they were free. One morning, my husband said he happened to look out and saw a group of men coming down the road, and he thought he had never seen such handsome men in his life on those horses. They had so many brass buttons on their clothes it looked like gold. So he ran to tell his mom, and she looked and saw that they were soldiers, and some of them told the boss. When he saw the soldiers coming through the big gate, he called them in quickly and told them they were free. When the soldiers arrived, they asked him if he had told his slaves they were free, and he said yes. They asked the Black people if they lived there, and they answered yes. One said, 'He just told us we were free.' The soldiers asked him why he had just told them, and he said they weren't all there and he was waiting for them all to arrive."

"My husband said he thought they were the prettiest group of men he had ever seen, and the prettiest horses. Of course, he had never seen any soldiers before. I know it looked beautiful to me when I used to see the soldiers at the barracks, hear the band playing, and watch them drilling and everything. You see, we lived on a little side street just behind St. Mary's Church in San Antonio; I don't know what that place is like now. Where the post office is now, there used to be a blacksmith shop, and my father worked there. I went back to San Antonio about fifteen years ago and just wandered around to see the changes."

"I was fifteen the first time I got married. It was almost a runaway marriage. I got married in San Antonio. My first husband's name was Henry Hall. My first wedding dress was as wide as a wagon cover. It was white lawn, full of tucks, and had a big ruffle at the bottom. I also had a wreath and a veil; the veil had lace all around it. We danced and had supper. We did all the dances popular back then: the waltz, square dance, quadrille, polka, and the gallopade—and that’s exactly what it was; you really did gallop. You'd start from one end of the hall and run all the way to the other. Back then, the women had those long trains—the men would hold it over their arms. Oh, honey! Honeymoons weren’t a thing back then. Nope, I never worked a day in my life." Jokingly, "I guess they thought I was too good-looking. I was about twenty when I got married the second time. I got married in Leon Springs the second time."

"Before we came out to this country from Leon Springs, there were wild grapes, dewberries, plums, and agaritas, black haws,[Pg 100] red haws. M-m-m! I really love those dewberries! I never saw wild cherries out here. I didn't like the cherries much, but they make great wine. We used to gather mustang grapes and make a barrel of wine."

"After I got married for the second time, we lived on the Adams ranch by the Frio and stayed there for fifteen years. We raised all our kids right on that ranch. People often mistake me for a Mexican, and I just speak back to them in Spanish. I picked it up while living on the ranch. Ever since I've been here, I've never had a single argument about the kids. All my neighbors are Mexican. They used to laugh at me when I tried to speak to the workers on the ranch, but I learned to talk like them."

"We used to have big round-ups out on the Adams ranch. They had fences back then. The neighbors would all come over to help gather the cattle and bring them in. Up at Leon Springs, there weren’t any fences, and they would have big round-ups there. But after we moved out here, it was different. He would let his neighbors know they were going to gather cattle on a specific day. The chuck wagon was right there at the ranch, which was me, I was the chuck wagon. But if they were going to take the cattle off, they would have a chuck wagon. They would round up one pasture at a time and come back to the ranch for their meals. At the Wallace ranch, they always took a chuck wagon. When they were getting ready to start branding at the ranch, my husband always kept his branding irons in the house, hanging up where he could easily grab them.[Pg 101] Whenever they went off to other ranches to gather cattle, you would see every man with his bedding tied up behind him on his horse. He'd have just a small roll. They would always have a slicker if nothing else. That slicker sometimes served for everything. My husband slept many nights with his saddle under his head."

He used to carry mail from San Antonio to Dog Town on horseback. That was the town they called Lodi (Lodo), but I don’t know how to spell it or what it means. It was a pretty rough town. The jailhouse was made out of adobe and pickets. They had a big picket fence all around it. They had a ferry that crossed the San Antonio River from Floresville to Dog Town. I remember him telling me that he came to a place with a big sign that said, 'Nigga, don't let the sun go down on you here.' It was really bad down there. He would leave Dog Town in the evening and get to a specific spot closer to San Antonio where he camped, but one time he stopped before reaching his usual camping place. He said he didn’t know why he stopped there, but he did, took the saddle off his horse, and let it graze while he lay down. After a while, he noticed two cigarette fires in the dark a little way up the road, and he heard a Mexican say, 'I don’t see why he's so late tonight. He always gets here before dark and camps right there.' He realized they were planning to ambush him, so he quietly picked up his saddle and carried it further back down the road into the brush, then went back for his horse, saddled it up, and went around those Mexicans. He continued on into San Antonio and never went back. A white man took over the mail route then, and on his first trip, he never returned. He went down with the mail, and they found the mail scattered somewhere on the road, but they never found the man or the horse either.

On the Adams ranch, back in the day, we had to haul water up the bank. You might not believe it, but I've carried one of those sixty-pound lard cans full of water on my head more times than I can count. We had steps carved into the bank, and it was quite a way down to the water. I'd haul that can up to the first level, then go back and grab a couple of buckets of water, carrying one bucket in each hand and the can on my head up the next little slope before reaching flat ground. I carried water that way until my kids were old enough to help, and then they took over. When I was hauling water in those big cans, my head would sound like new leather—you know how it squeaks? That’s exactly how it felt in my head. But it never bothered me. You see, the Mexicans carry loads on their heads too, but they wrap

"When we first got married and moved to the Adams ranch, we used to come to Uvalde for dances. They had square dances back then. They hadn't started all these fun dances they have now. They would have a supper, but it was for sale. Every guy had to treat his dancing partner.[Pg 103]

I can remember when my grandfather lived in a house with a dirt floor, and they had a fireplace. I also remember how he used to bake hoecakes for us kids. He would smooth out the coals and ashes, lay a wet paper down on that, place the hoecake on the paper, and then put another paper on top, followed by the ashes. I used to think that was the best bread I ever had. I tried making it a few times, but I made such a mess that I didn't try again. One thing I've seen them make, especially on the ranch, is this: you take a cleaned stick and put a piece of meat and a piece of fat on it until you use up the heart, liver, sweetbreads, and other meat, then wrap it all with leaf fat and cover the whole thing with milk gut or marrow gut. They call that masculine (mule), and I tell you, it's delicious. They mostly make it from goat and sheep.

"Another thing, we used to have big round-ups, and I cooked great pans of steak and mountain oysters. Generally, at the branding and marking, I cooked up many big pans of mountain oysters. I wish I had a nickel for every one I've cooked and eaten too! People from up North came down, and when they were branding and cutting calves, they really enjoyed that dinner."

"The guys would head up to the lake to fish and catch big trout, or bass, as they call them now; and we brought large buckets of butter—we didn’t just bring a little saucer or a pound; we brought butter in buckets because we had plenty of it—and[Pg 104] we’d also bring lard to cook our fish, along with cornbread or hoe cakes and lots of butter for everything, and it was really delicious. I tell you—like my husband used to say—we were living ten days a week back then."

"When we slaughtered pigs, we hung the meat from last winter outside, and then we added the new meat, which was salted and then smoked. We would cook the old bacon for the dogs. We always kept some good dogs around, and anyone will tell you they were always fat. We had lots of wild turkeys, and I raised turkeys too, until I got tired of cooking them. Don't even get me started on deer! You know, it wasn't like it is now. You could go hunt venison anytime you wanted. But I don't blame them for passing that law because people used to shoot deer and just take the hams and tenderloin, leaving the rest behind. I've saved many bags of dried meat to keep it from going bad."

"We would also grow watermelons. We had a large field three miles from the house and a ninety-acre field right next to it. We used to bring loads of melons for the pigs, and they started only eating the heart."

"I used to leave my kids at home with the older girl and go horseback riding with my husband. My oldest daughter would dress like a cowboy and tuck her hair up in her hat. And ride! Wow, she loved to ride! People thought she was a boy. She wore pants and leggings. And you might think she couldn’t ride!"

"After we left that ranch, we took some state land. I couldn’t tell you how big that place was. We had 640 acres in one section[Pg 105] and another 640 in a different area; it was a really big piece of land. After my husband got sick, we had to give it up. We couldn’t afford to keep it. We only lived there for about four years."

"My husband has been gone for about nineteen years. I had a bunch of kids, about seven in total. I have four living kids: two girls and two boys. One girl, Carrie, is in California working all the time in the fruit industry; one boy, George, is in Arizona working in the mines; and another girl, Lavinia, is in Arizona as well, washing, ironing, cooking, and doing whatever else she can find to do. And I have one boy here. I have ten grandkids and five great-grandkids."

"I belong to the Methodist Church. I joined about twenty-five years ago. My husband joined with me. But lately, when I go to church, it frustrates me to see how the people treat the preacher up there who is trying to do all the good he can do while they’re sitting back there laughing and talking. I was baptized. There were about five or six of us baptized in the Leona down here."

"People say I've got plenty of money and don't need help. Even the Mexicans around here and everyone else think I'm rich. Just because we had that farm down there, they assume I came into money. But what good is money if I can't use it? I can’t take it with me when I die, and I could be enjoying it now while I need it. I should at least be able to get enough to eat. I'm getting a little pension, but it's nowhere near enough to support us. I have these two grandkids here, and prices are so high, I can’t manage without cutting back all the time.[Pg 106]

"I just remember my first master and mistress because she didn't want me there. I'm a child of the master. They didn’t tell me how old I was when they sold me to Boles. My mistress sold me to Boles. They took us to where there were a lot of white people by the courthouse, and we’d be there in groups, and then the white people would bid for us. I don’t know how old I was, but I washed dishes, and then they put me to work in the fields. We didn’t get a nickel during slavery."

Marster Boles didn’t have many slaves on the farm, but he had a lot in the brickyard. I carried bricks back and placed them where they needed to go. Six bricks per load all day long. That's the reason I'm no good; I’ve been worn out. I fired the furnace for three years, standing in front of it with the hot fire in my face. It was hard work, but God was with me. We worked until dark and stopped a little after sundown. Marster was good to the slaves; he didn’t believe in just whipping them. He wasn’t brutal, but he would kill them on the spot if necessary. The overseers would go after them and beat them down.[Pg 107]

"I'm about seventeen when I married the slave of Boles. We got married on a Saturday night. They gave me a dress and had food, letting me experience something like what you would call a party. We just wore regular clothes. Then I had to work every day. I’d leave my baby crying in the yard, and he’d be crying, but I couldn’t stay. I’ve done everything but split rails. I've cut timber and plowed. I’ve done everything a man could do. I couldn't keep track of the time, but I was always glad to get back to my baby."

"Log cabins had dirt floors, sometimes with wooden planks. I worked late and made beautiful quilts. Sometimes they'd let us have a party. Saturday nights, the white people would give us meat and other food. They’d give us syrup and we’d make candy out in the yard. We’d invite our friends and dance all night. Then we’d go to work the next day. We’d clean off the yard and dance out there. When Christmas came, they would give us a big eggnog and cake. Our white folks did. The white kids had bought candy. We didn’t get any, but they let us play with the white kids. We’d play a game called smut. Whoever won with the cards would get to smut you. They’d take the soot from the fireplace and rub it on your face."

"Doctors take care of us when we’re sick, so we can get better and get back to work."

"Iffen they had a pretty girl, they would take her, and I’m one of them, and my oldest child, he's a boy by Boles, almost white."

"We had to sneak away at night to have church by the ditch bank and crawl home on our bellies. One time, the overseers heard us praying and gave us 100 lashes each.[Pg 108]

"When the Yankees came through, they were nice to the slaves to keep them from telling on them. Freedom was given on January 1, 1865, but the slaves didn’t find out until June 19. We were refugees. Boles, our master, sent us out, and we came from Holmes County to Cherokee County in a wagon. We were dodging in and out, running from the Yankees. The master said they were taking us away from the Yankees to protect us, but we were free and didn’t know it. I lost my baby; it’s buried somewhere on that road. It died at Red River, and we left it. The white folks would go out and buy food along the road and hide us. They said we’d never be free if they could get us to Texas, but the people in Texas told us we were free. Then the master let us go into the world without a penny. Oh, those were terrible times. We just worked from place to place after freedom."

"When we left Mississippi, they warned us that the Yankees would kill us if they found us, and they said, 'You don't have time to take anything where you're going. Just take your little bundle and leave everything else behind.' So when we got to Texas, I only had the dress I was wearing. That’s how it was for all the Black people seeking freedom; they had nothing but what they wore. Some of them had a lot in their cabins, but they were scared and left everything behind. Bedding and everything else was left there. We didn't know any better then." [Pg 109]

"I was born on April 4th, 1857, at Johnson Station. It was named after my master. He had a large farm; I don’t know how many acres. He had seven children: three boys, Ben, Tom, and Mart, and four girls, Elizabeth, Sally, Roddy, and Veanna."

"Master Johnson was good to us colored folks and he feeds us well. He kept lots of pigs, which provides the meat. In the smokehouse, there’s enough meat hung up to feed an army, it seems. We have all the clothes we need, and they were made on the property. My mom is the seamstress and my dad is the shoemaker. My job is to take care of the little children of the master."

"On Saturday we're let off work, and a lot of the time some of us go to Fort Worth with the master, and he gives us a nickel or a dime to buy candy."

"They sometimes whip the Black people, but it wasn't harsh. You know, the Black folks get a little mischievous sometimes, just like everyone else, and the master has to teach them better. He did that himself and didn't have an overseer. No Black person tried to run away because each family has a cabin[Pg 110] with bunks to sleep on, and we all live in the quarters. Any Black person who wants to learn to read and write, the master's kids teach them. The girls taught my aunt how to play the piano."

There’s a lot of music in that place: fiddle, banjo, and the piano. We had plenty of singing too, songs like "Ol' Black Joe" and religious songs and such. Often the master would have us come into his house and clear the dining room for the dance. That was a big deal on special occasions. They didn’t call it a 'dance' back then; they referred to it as a 'ball.'

"Sho', we go to church and the preacher's name was Jack Ditto."

"During the war, I noticed the food was pretty much the same. The soldiers came there and drove off some of the cattle over the hill to kill for food. Once they took some horses, and I heard the master say they were the Quantrill men. They came several times, and the master didn't like it, but he couldn't do anything about it."

"When freedom comes, the master tells all of us to come to the front of the house. He’s standing on the porch. He explains about freedom and says, 'You are now free and can go wherever you please.' Then he tells us he has taught us not to steal and to be good, and we should remember that. If we get into trouble, we should come to him and he will help us. He really does that, too, because Black people go to him a lot and he always helps."

"Master says that he needs help on the land and that stays, he’d pay them for the work. Lots of them stayed, but some left. To those that leave, Master gives a mule or a cow and such to get started. To my family, Master gives some land. He doesn’t give us the deed, but the right to stay until he dies."

"Sure, I saw the Klan after the war, but I don't have any experience with them. My uncle got beaten by them, though I don't exactly know why, but I think it was about a horse. The master definitely raged about that, because my uncle wasn't at fault."

"When the Klan comes, the worthless black folks scatter. Some climb up the chimney or jump out the window and hide in the dugout and such."

"Master died about seven years after freedom, and everyone was sad then. I never saw such a funeral, and a lot of important men from Austin came. He was a remarkable man!"

"I married in the second year after the T.P. railroad arrived in Fort Worth, to Sam Jones, who worked on the Burk Burnett stock ranch. I got divorced from him after five years, and then after 12 more years, I married Rubbin Felps. My last husband’s name is Joe Borner, but I was never married to the father of my only child. His name is George Pace."

"I always get along just fine because after gaining my freedom, I continued working as a nurse. Now I'm receiving eleven dollars a month from the state for my pension, which means I always have something to eat, and that makes me happy.[Pg 112]

"I was fifteen when they said we were free. That's the age my Old Missy gave me when the war ended. She kept track of all our ages in a book and told me I was born near Henderson. My Old Marse was Wash Trammel, and he brought my mama, papa, and me from Alabama. Mama was named Juliet and papa, Amos. Marse Trammel owned my grandpa and grandma too, and their names were Jeanette and Josh."

"The plantation was two combined into one, and it was really big, with more than a hundred slaves to work it. The master lived in a log house, weatherboarded inside and out, and the quarters were nice, log houses with bed rails carved out of logs. We grew everything we ate, except for sugar, which the master bought in large barrels. We received our week's rations every Sunday, and when it was time to eat, everyone got their share on a tin plate."

"Marse Trammel threw a big corn shucking party every fall. He had two bottom fields planted with corn. First, we’d gather up peas, cushaws, and pumpkins from the corn field, then collect the corn and stack it in front of the cribs. There were two big cribs for the corn we kept for ourselves and five large cribs for the corn we sold. My uncle hung around the sale corn cribs all spring until it was time to gin, because people would come from miles away for corn. Marse had five wheat cribs and one rye crib. We went ten miles to Tatum to get our meal and flour ground."

"The patrollers don't dare come around our place or mess with us Black folks. Master Wash always says, 'I'll patrol my own place.' Master was good to [Pg 113] us, and only once an overseer beat up a woman a little, and Master Trammel fired him that same day."

"The soldiers confiscated a lot of corn from Marse and some other owners in Rusk County, piled it into a big heap, and made me watch it until the rest of the soldiers arrived. I was sitting on top of that corn pile with my big bulldog when the General rode up. My dog growled, and I made him be quiet. The General said to me, 'Boy, you're excused now, go on home.' I got to a fence and looked back, and that General was carving a horse trough out of a log. The soldiers came in waves and set up their camp. I sat on a stump and watched them go by. They stayed for three or four days until all the corn was fed out."

"While they were camped there, they'd catch chickens. They had a fishing pole with a line and a hook. They'd put a grain of corn on the hook and ride on their horse, tossing the hook out among the chickens. When a chicken swallowed the corn, they'd yank up the line with that chicken and ride off."

"Marse had six hundred bales of cotton in the Shreveport warehouse when the war ended. He received word that those Yankees took it on a boat. He had his brother take him to Shreveport and said, 'I'll follow that cotton to hell and back.' He tracked his cotton to Alabama and got it back, but he died and was buried there in Alabama before Old Missy knew about it."

"I stayed with her for four years after surrendering and then went farming with my family for $10 a month. After a year or two, I started working for the railroad, helping clear the right-of-way for the T.&P. Railroad from Marshall to Longview. They paid us $1.50 a day and gave us three drinks of whiskey each day."

"I got married four times but only had one child, and I never did anything worth mentioning. I live by myself now and get an $11.00 pension to eat on.[Pg 114]

"Lemme see, I come from Richmond, Virginia, to Texas. Master Gus Wood was my owner and I can remember my white family. I was born in that area and they brought me over to Richmond along with my dad and mom. I was just about big enough to start remembering."

"I come from Richmond on the boat, sometimes the steamboat, sometimes the big boat. When we left New Orleans that evening, we hit a big storm. We got on that boat in Richmond and floated down to the big boat that morning. It seemed like fun for us, but every time we looked back and thought about home, it made us sad."

"I had a lovely wife, and my boss provided a nice house for the servants, a pretty decent place. And they had a spot for Sunday School. Those were good times. My wife would cook dinner and send it down for the older folks and the kids to have plenty."

"My wife kept me right in the house, right by her, sewing. I could sew so fast I would finish my work before the others got started properly."

"Many times when the girls want to go to the dance, I help make the dresses. I remember the prettiest one like it was yesterday. It had tucks from the waist to the hem and diamonds cut all in the skirt.[Pg 115]

"Our boss was particular about us being taken care of, and we were well looked after. He brought us to Beaumont when it was just a complete mess, and he settled down to try to build it up and make it work."

"Massa Wood always takes the newspaper, and one night they stayed up late reading it. The next morning, the old cook said, 'Well, there's a big war going on, and a lot of people are wounded.' Before long, we had to take care of some of those wounded soldiers, and they set up camp nearby. They all camped around there, and I couldn't tell which ones were the Yankees and which were the Confederates."

"When we all get free, they’ve been telling us for a long time. They want to finish dealing with the corn and the cotton before they let us go. People from other plantations said, 'Black people, you’re free, and here you are working.' We said, 'No, the government will tell us when we’re free.' We were working one day when someone from Massa Grissom's place came by and told us we were free, and we stopped working. They told us to keep working, and the boss man came over and said he would throw us off the fence if we didn’t go back to work. The mistress came out and said, 'Aren't you going to make those Black people work?' He sent her back in the house and called for the carriage, saying he was going to town to see what the government would do. The next day he came back and said, 'Well, you are just as free as I am.'"

"He told me I could stay and cook for them, and he gave me five dollars a month and a house to live in and all the food I could eat. I stayed the month to do their work.[Pg 116]

"Sometimes I wish the old times would come back. I like being free, but I wasn’t used to it, and it was hard to figure out how to do it. I remember the dances we had back in the day when we made music with the banjo and other instruments. Some of the good masters let the Black people dance in the backyard, and if we went over there without a pass, the patrols could catch us. One time, my dad was running from the patrols, and he ran right into the young master, who said, 'Oh, you’re not Black; I can tell by the smell.'"

"That reminds me of the ghost story they used to tell about the ghosts that live in the big bridge down in the hollow. The local folks say that ghost makes too much noise, with all its shouting and rattling chains. So that night, one of us, who they call Charlie, says he isn't afraid and he's going to get himself a ghost, sure enough. We didn't believe him, but pretty soon we heard quite a bit of struggling with the chains and shouting down by the bridge, and after a while, he came back and said he got the best of that ghost, because it doesn't have strength like a man."

"My husband and I have twelve kids altogether. He comes from South Carolina where they eat cottonseed. I used to tease him about it. I always say Virginia is the best, because I come from there.[Pg 117]

"I was born in Phantom Valley, in the Indian Territory, what is now called Oklahoma. We lived in an Indian hut. My dad, Blue Bull Bird, and my mom, Nancy Will, came to the Indian Territory with Santa Anna from Mississippi, and my dad was raised in the Territory. I don’t remember much about my parents because I ran away from them when I was really little. I was fishing in the Cherokee River when a man named Sanford Wooldridge came by. You see, the white folks and the Indians were fighting that day. I was by the river, and I heard yelling and shooting and people running, so I slipped into some brush nearby. Then the white man came up and said, 'Everyone's dead, black, and those Indians are going to kill you if they catch you. Come with me and I won’t let them harm you.' So I went with him."

"He brought me to Texas, but I don't know exactly where, because I didn't know anything about that place. Master Sanford is good to us, but watch out for his wife, she's really tough on Black people. There are about 1,600 acres on the plantation, and the big house is nice. When the Black workers wouldn’t work, they would whip them. We work all week and sometimes on Sunday, if the crops are in a rush. Master isn't much for gifts or money, but we have warm clothes, plenty to eat, and a dry place to live, and that’s more than a lot of Black people have now.[Pg 118]

"Sometime we have the corn husking, and there's a dollar for the one who shucks the most corn. We have a big dance about twice a year, on Christmas and sometimes in the summer. When the white folks have their big balls, we Black folks cook and watch them dance. We have fun then."

"I like to think about those times when we would fish all day, hunt, or just relax when the crops were harvested. I enjoy closing my eyes and going back to those days, listening to them sing, "Swing, low, Sweet Chariot." I can't sing now, and you know no old man can sing without teeth or hair. I used to love dancing the Virginia Reel when I was spry and young back then."

"There's a lot I can't remember because my memory has gotten weak like the rest of me, but I remember when we were free, we’d throw our hats in the air and shout. The old master would say, 'How are you going to eat and get clothes and things?' Then we were definitely scared and stayed with the white folks as long as we could. But about a year after that, I got a job punching cattle on a ranch in South Texas. I drove cattle into Kansas, over what the white folks call the Chisholm Trail. I worked with a lot of cattle and was what they call a top hand. I was working for Master Boyd then, and he asked me to drive some cattle to Mexico. He said he wasn’t well anymore and told me to sell the cattle, send him the money, and get a job down there. I went on down to Mexico and did what he said. I married a girl named Martina in 1869, down in Matamoros. We had four children, and she died. That broke me up, and I drifted back to Huntsville."

"I changed my name from Scott Bird, which is what it was in the Territory, to James Boyd because I worked for Massa Boyd. I'm going to be about 108 years old next January, if the Lord lets me live that long.[Pg 119]

"After I was in Huntsville for a while, I married Emma Smith, but we only stayed together for about a year and a half. There were no kids. Then I drifted to Fort Bend County where I married Mary McDowd, and we had two kids. She died from yellow fever, and off I went to Burleson County. There I married Sally McDave, but she left me after we had three kids. Down in old Washington County, I married Frances Williams and we lived together until 1900. There were no kids there. Then I went to Austin after she died and married Eliza Bunton in 1903. We had eight kids, and she died in 1911. Then I came to Hill County and married Mittie Cahee in 1916. She left me. In 1924, I married Hegar Price close to Milford. We live together now in Itasca. We didn't have any kids, but that doesn't matter because I'm already the dad of about twenty."

"I mostly always wore the black suit when I got married. It just seemed more dressed up. Some of my wives wore white, and some wore colors; it didn't make much difference since they were all good-looking women to me. Sometimes it was a preacher, and sometimes it was a Justice of the Peace, but the first time it was a Catholic priest and all."

"Talking about all this marrying, I almost forgot to show you my scar. I fought in that freedom war alongside Master Sanford and got shot. That bullet went through my chest and out my back, keeping me in bed for six months. The first battle I was in was at Halifax, in North Carolina. We got the news of freedom while we were at Vicksburg, in Mississippi. Most of us Black folks were too afraid to say much. The new Black people expected the government to give them a team of mules, and they thought they’d be rich without having to work. But they’ve learned a lot over these past years. We’re definitely slaves now to hard work, and we’re lucky if we can find any work. A lot of those Black folks figured they’d get their master's land, but they didn’t. They should have known they wouldn’t. I never knew of any plantation that was ever divided, but some of the masters gave the oldest slaves a little piece of land."

"After the cattle days were over, I worked on a farm in Hill County. I worked twelve years for Mr. Claude Wakefield, right near Milford, too. The old man doesn't stay in one place for long, and I'm getting ready to cross the river. I've seen a lot of this earth and the people in it, but I tell you, it's really tough times now. We're old and crippled, and if the white folks don’t help us, I don’t know what we’re going to do."

"Some of these young black people have gone completely wild with their cigars and cars and partying and jazz and all that. Some go to school, learn like white folks, and become really helpful. But when we talk about working in the times of slavery—it wasn't as tough as it is now. Back then, you complained because there was work; now you complain because there isn't any work. But back then, we had something to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep, and now we don’t know from one day to the next what will provide for us tomorrow, or anything."

"I would really like to shake Mr. Boyd's hand again and hear him singing as he comes down the path. We can hear him sing or whistle long before he arrives, and it's really great to see him. The slaves always say, 'I’m leaving tomorrow,' and I guess I'm going to leave pretty soon, tomorrow.[Pg 121]

"I’ve been well taken care of during my life. When I was young, I lived right in the big house with my master. I was the houseboy. My mother’s name was Betsy Ann Boykin, and she was the cook for Old Missus. My grandpa was a blacksmith. I slept on a pallet in the kitchen, and in winter, on cold nights, I remember how cold I would get. I’d wake up and slip in beside Master’s bed, and then I’d say, 'Master John, I’m about to freeze.' He’d say, 'You ought to freeze, you little black devil. What are you standing there for?' I’d say, 'Please, Master John, just let me crawl in by your feet.' He’d say, 'Well, I will this one time,' and that’s how I did it every cold night."

"I was full of mischief and I'd let the mules out of the lot, just to see the stableboy get in trouble. One time I wanted a fiddle that a white guy named Cocoanut Harper was trying to sell me for $7.50. I never had any money, except for a little the lady gave me, so I kept teasing her to buy the fiddle for me. She was always on my side, so she told me to take some corn from the crib and trade it for the fiddle. In the night, I snuck out, hitched up the mules, and brought the corn to old Harper's house and traded it for that fiddle. Then I hid out and played it, so the master wouldn’t find out, but he did and he whipped me badly. When the lady tried to whip me, I just wrapped myself up in her big skirts and she could never hurt me much.[Pg 122]

"I always ate my meals in the house at the white folks' table, after they were done eating. If I couldn't sit in the master's chair, I'd blow up like a toad."

" The master did all the whipping because two overseers had been killed on the plantation for whipping slaves until the blood ran out of their bodies."

"Was I bothered by ghosts and spirits? I've been running into them all my life. When I was younger, I was such a scaredy-cat I’d encounter them right in the street, some without heads. I’d run away and then I’d stop and look around, and they’d be gone."

"I wore homemade shirts until I grew up, and then I had some pants that were homemade as well. The women collected wattle leaves to dye the fabric black."

"I remember when my master went to war. He called us all into the kitchen and told us he had to go over there and defeat those guys and would be back before breakfast. He didn’t return for two years. I said, 'Master, we definitely would have waited a long time for breakfast on you.' He replied, 'Yes; they’re the toughest guys I've ever had to deal with.'"

"When the war ended, he gathered us and told us we were free. He said, 'Now, I’m going to throw you a big celebration, and after that, you can either stay and work for money or you can leave.' Then he brought out two barrels of whiskey, slaughtered hogs, and set up a big feast.[Pg 123]

"I want to tell you about how we slaughtered hogs back in my day. We dug a deep pit in the ground, heated big rocks until they were red hot, filled the pit with water, and dropped those hot rocks in to heat up the water. Then we stuck the hogs and rolled them into that pit."

"Soon after I was free, a man came from Louisville to hire me as the foreman in his cotton mule barn. So I went there and worked in Kentucky for 18 years. Fifty-one years ago, I married my dear wife, Rachel Taylor, in Corsicana, Texas, and I think she's just as wonderful as the day I married her. We have six kids who all work hard for a living, and we have one little granddaughter who is 10 years old. She lives here with us, and we're educating her."

"I know I'm going to live to be over 100 years old because my master told me so." [Pg 124]

"I was born in Mississippi, Monroe County. I'm 84 years old. My owner, George Reedes, brought me, my dad and mom, and my two sisters to Texas when I was two years old. My dad was Nelson Brackins and my mom was Rosanna."

"My master moved to a place called Malone, by the Hondo River. He got into the stock business. Our house there was a small, old picket house with a grass roof made of sage grass. The bed was filled with corn husks and the kids slept on the floor. The boss had a small lumber house. Later, he took us about 20 miles further down the Hondo, to the Old Adams Ranch, where he had a stone house."

I was about six years old back then. I had some shoes to protect my feet from thorns, and I wore rawhide leggings. We only had whatever clothes we could find, old patched-up ones. They were made from denim, homemade clothes.

"I was with George Reedes for about 10 or 12 years. It was my first experience learning the stock business and breaking horses. He was pretty good to us, considering we were slaves. His brother had a hired hand who whipped me once with a quirt. I've heard my parents talk about how they used to whip people. They would tie them down on a log or up to a post and whip them until blisters formed, then take a paddle to break them open and pour salt in. Yes, they whipped the women too. The most I remember about that time is when my father and sister were in the barn husking corn, and the master came in and whipped my sister with a cowhide whip. My father took a hit in the face and told the master to keep his whip off him. So the master started on my father, and he ran away. When he finally came back, he was so wild that his master had to call him to get orders for work, and eventually the boss shot at him, but they didn't whip him anymore. Of course, some of them whipped with more compassion. They had a whipping post, and when they strapped people down on a log, they called it a 'stropping log.'"

"I remember they made the cotton pickers in Mississippi work hard. They had to bring in a certain number of pounds each evening, and if they didn't, they got punished for it. My sister had to pick 900 pounds a day. Well, the cotton there was heavier. Most of them could pick 900 pounds. It was denser and fluffier. We left the cotton area in Mississippi, but nobody around here seemed to know anything about cotton."

"I've heard my parents say that the men who owned plantations and had a lot of slaves would trade with them and use a chain that connected the front slaves to the back ones. Sometimes they had to travel 15 or 20 miles to get them to the sale location, but they couldn’t escape. Where they expected to sell them, they kept them in pens, and there was a block for displaying them while bidding took place. The average price was around $500, but some who had useful skills, like blacksmithing, sold for a much higher price, sometimes up to $1,500."

"I heard my mom and dad say they would walk 15 or 20 miles to a dance and get back before sunrise, before the 'padderollers' would catch them. The slaves would slip away without permission, and those who caught them and whipped them were the 'padderollers.' Sometimes they would have an intense chase."

"If someone was a slave on the plantation and could read a little, they would get rid of him right away. He would mess things up for the Black people; they would become too smart. There wasn’t any school for Black people back in the day. The white folks we grew up with had a pretty good education. That’s why I don’t talk like most Black folks. I was nearly grown when an English family settled nearby, about half a mile away, I think. They had a little boy named Arthur Ederle, and he came over and taught me how to spell 'cat,' 'dog,' 'hen,' and things like that. I was around 20 years old. I couldn’t sign my name when I was 18."

"I can remember a time when I was young, I saw something I couldn't even imagine, like a billy goat standing up in a tree. But I knew there weren't any billy goats around, or any other kind of goats, for that matter. It was during the day and I was out in a horse pasture, just walking along, exploring, when I saw that sight. I guess I got within 50 steps of it, then I turned around and left. I never really believed in ghosts, but I think it's possible.[Pg 127]

"I barely remember anything about the war because I was so young, and times were so different; the country wasn't developed, and everything was wild, hardly any people around. Of course, my life was in the woods, you could say, I hardly even knew when Sunday came."

"The northern soldiers never came down here, as far as I know. I remember when they were recruiting men to go to battle; a lot of them didn’t want to fight, so they would run away and try to hide, and the recruiters would chase them to make them fight. There was a battle up here on the Nueces once, and some of them were killed. My boss was part of the group that went after them, and he was worried that this old case would come up again after the war. The group that chased these men was called Old Duff Company. I think about 40 of them were in that group, but I don't know how many were killed. There was a big bluff and a large water hole, and they said they were thrown into that big water hole."

"We occasionally had possums and raccoons to eat. My father usually cooked the raccoons; he would dress them, stew them, and then bake them. My mother wouldn’t eat them. There were also plenty of rabbits. Sometimes, when we had potatoes, they cooked them together. I remember one time we had just a small patch of blackhead sugar cane. After gaining our freedom, my mother had a small garden where she planted snap beans and watermelons pretty much every year."

The master fed us pretty well. Everything was wild; beef was free, we just had to bring one in and kill it. Once in a while, on a Sunday morning, we'd get biscuit flour bread to eat. It was a treat for us. They measured the flour out, and it had to work out just like they measured it. He gave us a little something[Pg 128] every Christmas and something good to eat. I heard my people say coffee was expensive at times, and I know we didn't get any flour, only on Sunday mornings. We mostly lived on cornbread, and beef and game from the woods. That was during the war and after the war, too.

"I was around 6 or 7 years old when we were freed. We worked for George Reedes for a while, then moved down to the Frio River and stayed there for about a year, then we came to Medina County and settled here close to where I was raised. We didn't think it was hard times at all right after the war. The country was wild and unsettled, with ranches 15 or 20 miles apart. You hardly ever saw anyone, and we didn't really know what was going on in the rest of the country. Sometimes something could happen 5 miles away from us, and we wouldn't hear about it for a month."

"I was at the Adams Ranch on the Hondo when my master came out and told us we were as free as he was. He said we could either stay and work or leave if we wanted to. He gave my mom and dad 50 cents each and 25 cents for the kids. We stuck around for a bit and then headed west to the Frio."

I used to hang out with old man Big-foot Wallace back in the day. He was a really great guy. I worked for the people who were rounding up cattle there. Big Foot raised some excellent horses, good old Texas horses, and they were better than the usual old Spanish broncos. I would go to his camp down by San Miguel. He lived in one part of the house, and his chickens took up the rest. His friends loved to listen to him share stories about his travels. He used to run stock horses and had a figure 7 on the left shoulder for his brand, and the tips of each ear were split for his earmark.

"The last person I broke horses for was Wilson Bailey. I worked there for about 12 years. He had just a cavi-yard—we called it a cavi-yard of horses, which is the same as a remuda. We referred to them that way later, but we got that from the Spanish.[Pg 129] We would climb up in a tree with our lasso until the horse came underneath and then drop it down on him. Once they were pretty spoiled, we would gather them in a kind of cavi-yard, drive them under trees, and catch them in a snare. We had plenty of wild horses, just this side of Pearsall. The only way I’d get thrown off was if I got careless. We’d catch him up, put a hackamore on him, saddle him up, and get on him and let him go. Sometimes he’d be too wild to buck; he’d just break and run, and you had to let him run until he calmed down. I would rather catch a wild horse and break him than eat breakfast."

"When I first started farming, I took up some state land, about 80 acres, down on Black Creek in Medina County. I stayed there for ten or twelve years. Cotton hadn't come to this area yet, so I grew corn, sugar cane, and watermelons. I started with horses, but eventually I used oxen some, too. I used one of those old walking plows."

I sold that place and moved to a spot by Tywaukney Creek (Tonkawa). I came up to church and met my wife there. Her name was Ida Bradley, and I was 38 years old. We lived down by the Tywaukney for about 23 years and raised our kids there. We just had a small home wedding. I wore a dark suit. We got married around 8 o'clock in the evening and had barbecue, cake, and ice cream. Back then, I wasn't taught much about years and dates, but I guess it was about 25 years after the war when I settled by the Tywaukney.[Pg 130]

I was born in Keecheye, Alabama, and I belonged to an old man named David Cavin. The only thing I can say about my age is that I know I was about twenty years old when we slaves were freed. I never knew my father, but my mother was Amelia Cavin. I’ve heard her say she was born in Alabama more times than I have fingers and toes. Our old master brought us to Texas when I was a good-sized kid. I remember it like it was yesterday, how we camped for more than a week in New Orleans. I saw them sell Black people off the block there just like they were cattle. Then we came to old Port Caddo on Caddo Lake, and my master settled a big farm close to where the boats ran. Port Caddo was a major shipping hub back then, and Dud and John Perry ran the first store there. People hauled cotton to that place from miles away.

"Mammy's family was named Maria and Joe Gloster, and they came to Texas with the Cavins. My grandma would say to me, 'Gus, don’t talk back too much and always show respect to both whites and blacks.' Kids were brought up properly back then, but now they behave differently. I've seen young black kids turn the dipper up and drink before the elders. I wouldn’t have dared to do that when I was growing up."

"One day, Maria said to me, 'Son, I was here when the stars fell.' She told me they fell like a sheet and spread out on the ground. Ike Hood, the old blacksmith on our place, told me about it too. I asked him, 'Ike, how old were you when the stars fell?' He said, 'I was thirty-two.'"

"Massa David had large quarters for us Black folks, complete with chimneys and fireplaces. They would go around and gather old hog or cow bones to boil with greens and cabbage. There was plenty of wild game, and deer and wolves howling throughout this area, but you can't even find a trace of one now."

"The first job I had was picking cotton. Everyone was out at dawn picking cotton or hoeing or plowing. There was one overseer and two black drivers. But at night, you could hear us laughing, talking, singing, and praying, along with the fiddles and other instruments playing. It seemed like we got along better back then than now. Some people say that Black folks shouldn’t be enslaved, but I believe they should be because they just won’t behave unless they’re made to."

"Mister David always gives us eggnog and plenty of good whiskey at Christmas. We had all day to eat, drink, sing, and dance. We didn't get any presents, but we had a great time."

"I don't know much about the war, only that Master Bob Perry came over one day and told Grandma Maria, 'They have surrendered, Maria, you are free.' She told him, 'I don't care, I am going to stay with my white folks.'"

"The Klu Klux did a lot of trouble around there. Two of them came to Dr. Taylor's house. He had two Black men who had escaped from the Klu Klux and they wanted to punish them, but Dr. Taylor wouldn’t allow it. I knew old Col. Alford, one of the Klu Klux leaders, and he was quite a character. He once told me, 'Gus, they sent me to prison for being part of the Klu Klux.' I said, 'Massa Alford, didn’t they make a gentleman out of you?' He said, 'Hell, no!'[Pg 132]

"I knew old Colonel Haggerdy, too. He married a widow of a wealthy old Indian chief named McIntosh. He broke a treaty with his people and had to hide out in a cave for a long time, and his wife brought him food. One time when she went to the cave, he was gone. She realized then that the Indians had gotten him and killed him for violating the treaty. So she married old Colonel Haggerdy."

"The only time I voted was against whiskey. I voted for it. Some white people said they'd beat me if I voted for it, but Mr. Joe Strickland told me they were just trying to scare me, so I voted for it. I don't think Black people should vote. If some Black people had control instead of white folks, I couldn't stay here. These educated Black people are causing trouble. The young Black people have no respect for elders."

"I bought and paid for fifty acres of land here in Harrison County, and I’ve lived on it for sixty years. I lived with my wife for fifty years before she died and raised two kids. These young people don’t stay married for even fifty days sometimes. I don’t get involved with them, but if I need help, I go to the white folks. If you carry yourself well, they always help you if you need it.[Pg 133]

I was born and raised in Harrison County, and I just turned eighty-eight this past July. I've spent my whole life here in this county. I was born on Massa John Jeem's place, along the old Jefferson Road. My father was Peter Calloway; he was born in Alabama and his whole family was brought to Texas by black traders. My mother was Harriet Ellis, and I had two brothers named George and Andrew, along with four sisters: Lula, Judy, Mary, and Sallie. My old Grandpa Phil told me how he helped drive the Indians off the land.

"Grandpa Phil told me about meeting his master. Master Jeems had three or four farms and Grandpa hadn't seen him, so he went to one of the other farms and met a man walking down the road. The man asked, 'Who do you belong to?' Grandpa Phil said, 'Master Jeems.' The man asked, 'Is he a mean man?' Grandpa said, 'I don’t know him, but they say he’s pretty strict.' It was Master Jeems talking, and he laughed and gave Grandpa Phil five dollars."

"We Black people lived in log cabins and slept on hay mattresses with low-quality covers, and ate fatty pork, cornbread, molasses, and all sorts of garden vegetables. If we ever had flour bread, our women had to sneak the flour sifting from the missus's kitchen and couldn’t let the white folks find out. We wore one set of low-quality clothes a year, and I didn’t wear shoes until after the surrender. I ran around everywhere until I was quite big in just a long shirt with a string tied around the bottom as a belt. I went with my young master that way when he hunted in the woods and carried squirrels for him.[Pg 134]

"Some white people might want to put me back in slavery if I tell how we were treated during that time, but you’re asking me for the truth. The overseer would straddle his big horse at three o'clock in the morning, rousing the workers to head to the fields. He’d get everyone lined up and then go back to the house for breakfast. The rows were a mile long, and no matter how much grass grew in them, if you left even one sprig on your row, they’d beat you nearly to death. Many times, they weighed cotton by candlelight. All the workers took their lunch to the fields in buckets, and the overseer gave them fifteen minutes to eat. He’d start hitting some of them over the head when it was time to stop eating and go back to work. He’d go to the house to have his meal and then come back to check all the buckets, and if he saw that any food that was there when he left had been eaten, he’d say you were wasting time and needed to be whipped. He’d drive four stakes in the ground, tie a Black person down, and beat them until their skin was raw. Then he’d take a brick, grind it into powder, mix it with lard, spread it all over them, and roll them in a sheet. It would take two days or more before that person could work again. I saw one person treated that way for stealing a meat bone from the meathouse. That person got fifteen hundred lashes. The little kids would pick up eggshells and play with them, and if the overseer saw them, he’d say they were stealing eggs and give them a beating. I saw long lines of enslaved people chained together, driven by a white man on a horse, down the Jefferson road.[Pg 135]"

"The first job I did was picking corn, then I became a cow-hand and a sheep herder. All of us kids working in the house had to shell half a bushel of corn every night to feed the sheep. Many times I walked through the quarters when I was little, crying for my mother. We mostly only saw her on Sundays. We kids were in bed when our parents went to the field and came back. I remember waking up at night often and seeing her making a little mush on the coals in the fireplace, but she always made sure that the overseer was asleep before she did that."

"One time the cattle got into the field, and the overseer accused an old man, started attacking him, and broke his neck. When he saw the old man dead, he ran off into the woods, but the master sent some Black workers after him and told him to come back, saying the old man just got overheated and died."

"We went to church at the place, and you should have heard that preaching. Obey your master and mistress, don’t steal chickens, eggs, and meat, but not a word about having a soul to save."

"We had parties on Saturday nights and the boss would come out and show us new dance steps. He always had some extra work for us on Sundays, but he gave us Christmas Day off and all the food we wanted. But if you had money, you'd better hide it, because he would take it."

"The fighting was far away from us. My father went to war to look for Josh Calloway. My father never came back. Massa Jeems cursed and abused us Blacks more than ever, but he got sick and died and went to Hell about six months before we were free. When we were free, they beat drums in Marshall. I stayed around for about seven months, and then my mother and I went farming for ourselves."

"I wore myself out right here in this county, and now I'm too old to work. The people I live with take good care of me, and the government gives me $11.00 a month, which I'm proud to receive.[Pg 137]

"I was brought here to Double Bayou when I was just three years old. My half-brother, Eleck, who was the baby, and I were both born in Louisiana on the Van Loos place, but I go by the name Branch because my dad's name is Branch. My mom's name is Renee. They separated our family, and Elisha Stevenson bought my mom and the two kids. I’ve never seen my dad again and don't remember him at all."

"Old 'Lisha Stevenson is really good at raising pigs. He sometimes sells 500 hogs at once. He takes his dogs and drives those hogs across the Neches River all by himself to sell them. That’s how he makes money to buy the slaves, by selling hogs and cow hides."

"Old master was definitely a good man, but the old mistress, she was a whirlwind! Her name was Miss 'Liza. She could be really mean. But sometimes she'd take her old morrel—a sack made for carrying things—and go out and come back with lots of sugar cane. She'd take a knife, sit on the porch, peel that cane, and hand a piece to each of the little kids."

"Mama works in the big house, doing the cooking and cleaning. Old master bought a Black man named Uncle Charley Fenner. He’s a good old guy. Master brought him to the quarters and said, 'Renee, here’s your husband,' and then he turned to Uncle and said, 'Charley, this is your woman.'[Pg 138] Then they considered getting married. That’s how they married back then, by the master’s word. Uncle Charley is a good stepdad to us."

"The white folks have a nice house with a brick chimney. We have a cozy little house with a flue and an oven. They didn’t bother to have much furniture because we’re just in there to sleep. We have a homemade bench and a 'Georgia Horse' bed with a hay mattress. All our cooking and eating happens in the kitchen of the big house. We have plenty to eat, too. The smokehouse is always full of white potatoes and cracklings hanging on the wall. We can get them almost any time we want, just as long as we don’t waste anything. They have a big jar of buttermilk and let us drink as much as we want."

"Old lady 'Liza has three women to spin when she's ready to make clothes for everyone. They spin, weave, and make all our clothes. We all wear shirt tails until we're about twelve or fourteen, both boys and girls. You couldn't tell us apart."

"We kids start working as soon as we can walk. First, we gather firewood. If it’s freezing or hot, we have to go out to toughen ourselves up. When we’re a little bigger, we take care of the cattle and feed the horses and pigs. By the time we’re growing up, we’re picking cotton and pulling cane. We're never idle. Sometimes we wander far out in the field and lie down in the corn row for a nap. But, boy, if they catch you, they'll really wear you out! Sunday is the only day of rest, and then the white folks let us play."

Massa never whipped Uncle Charley because he was good and worked hard. This made Missy mad, and one time when Massa was gone, she went down to the field. Uncle Charley was hoeing corn just like Massa had told him, singing and happy. Old Missy said, "Black, I'm really going to whip you." He replied, "Why are you going to whip me? I'm doing exactly what old Massa told me." But Missy thought he was getting off too easy since he'd never been whipped. She climbed over the fence and started down the row with the cowhide. Uncle Charley didn't even raise his voice, but he finished cutting the last weed out of that corn and began to wave his hoe in the air, saying, "Missy, I advise you not to come any closer." That really made her mad, but she was afraid to do anything.

"One time she had another black man named Charlie. The master went on a trip and she told Charlie that if he didn’t finish grinding all the cornmeal by Monday, she was going to give him a thousand lashes. He tried, but he couldn’t make that much meal, so by Monday he ran off into the bayou. That night, there was a big freeze, and he was down there with the water up to his knees. When the master came home and went to get him, he was so frozen that he couldn’t walk. They brought him into the kitchen, and the old mistress yelled at him. As soon as he thawed out, he died right there on the spot."

"My poor mom! Every washday, the old miss would give her a beating. She couldn't keep the flies from getting on the clothes overnight. The old miss would get up early in the morning, before my mom had time to get those specks off. She'd huff and say, 'Renee, I'm going to teach you how to wash.' Then she'd whip my mom with the cowhide. It looked like she was cutting my mom in half. Many times, I would sneak up and try to take some of those licks off my mom."

"Slavery, one to another, was pretty harsh. Every plantation has to answer for itself."

"I used to know a lot of songs, but I don't know many now. Spiritual songs come through visions. That's why Black people can create them better[Pg 140] than white people. I knew one song that started out—

"'The Jews killed poor Jesus,
And buried him in the tomb;
The grave couldn't hold him,
They placed guards all around him,
But the angels moved the stone,
The Jews killed poor Jesus,
But the grave couldn't hold him.'

"There's another song that says—

"'Run, sinner, run,
God is calling you.
Run, sinner, run,
The fire will catch up to you.'

"When I was about ten, they had me ginning cotton. The old master made the cotton using a hand crank. It was built on a kind of bench. I ginned the cotton by turning that crank. When I had a lapful, I put it in the tow sack, and they took it to Miss Susan to make twine with it. I warmed and moistened the cotton by the fireplace before I started ginning it."

"Dere school for the white children in Double Bayou, and I used to go meet the children coming home, and they would stop along the way and teach me my ABCs. They had carried me as far as Baker in the book when the old lady found out and made them stop. The war was coming on then, and we didn't even dare pick up a piece of paper. The white folks didn't want us to learn to read for fear we would find out things."

"Living down by the Welborn's den, I saw them haul the logs out of Pine Island to build that Welborn house. Old man Hamshire and old man Remington built that Welborn house. It's across the bayou, on the left-hand side of Smith's ferry. That house is still standing in parts."

"One morning, Eleck and I got up at the crack of dawn to milk. Suddenly, there was a shock that shook the earth. The big fish jumped right out of the bay, and turtles[Pg 141] and alligators ran out of their ponds. They completely ruined Galveston! We ran into the house, and all the dishes and things jumped off the shelves. That was the first bombardment of Galveston. The soldiers put powder under people's houses and blew up Galveston."

"Young Master Shake Stevenson volunteered and got killed somewhere in Virginia. Young Master Tucker Stevenson doesn't believe in war, and he says he’s never going to fight. He hides in the woods so the draft men can't find him. Old Man LaCour comes around and says he has orders to find Tucker and bring him in dead or alive. But because he’s an old friend of Master’s, he suggests, 'Why don't you buy the boy's services instead?' So Master takes the boat, which we call the 'Catrig,' and loads it with corn and other supplies, then we pole it down to Galveston. The people need that food so badly, that load of supplies ends up buying Master Tucker out of fighting."

"After the war started, many slaves ran away to get to the Yankees. Everyone in this area headed for the Rio Grande River. The Mexicans set up flatboats in the middle of the river, tied to stakes with rope. When the Black people reached the rope, they could pull themselves across the rest of the way on those boats. The white people rode along the American side of the river all the time, but many slaves made it through, anyway."

"I take care of a lot of soldiers. I have to get smartweed and boil it in salt water to bathe them in. That helps with the rheumatism. These soldiers have really bad rheumatism from standing day and night in the water."

"We were definitely healthy back then. If a Black man was weak, they'd work his muscles, bleed him, and feed him lots of bacon and cornbread until he was strong enough to lift a log. They didn't go in for surgeries like they do now. They would gather herbs from the woods—blue mass, quinine, and calomel. I think people just die from pills nowadays. Old lady Field made medicine using snakeroot, larkspur, marshroot, and redroot."

"After the war was over, Mr. Tucker brought the freedom papers and read them. He said we were all as free as can be. Old man Charley was so happy he just rolled on the floor like a horse and kicked his heels. The next morning, my mom started doing something, and the lady yelled at her. I ran to her and said, 'We’re free as a bird.' She definitely whipped me for that, but not anymore, because she was so mean we all left."

"That's funny. Old man LaFour, who leads the patrollers and is so mean, was the first to help us Black folks after we were free. He loaned us his ox team and paid Uncle Charley a dollar a day for work and a dollar every time my mom washed for his wife."

"Old master and mistress broke up. She was so terrible she didn’t treat him any better than she treated us. One day, old master was getting some peaches, and she came after him with the buggy whip. He got on his horse and said, ‘Liz, you’re getting broad as a beef. You’re too big for me.’ She was so mad she was fuming. Lightning struck her; she was upstairs, and the big streak hit her. It knocked her under the bed."

"One of the first jobs I had was digging up potato hills for twenty cents a hundred. About twenty cents was the most we could make in a single day. I worked two days to buy my mom a turkey hen for Christmas. I believe my mom deserves anything she wants. I grew up before I could manage to earn more than fifty cents a day. I've earned as much as $1.50 in my time, though."

"When I was 25 years old, I married Betty Baker, but she's gone now. Rev. Patterson married us. We have four children living: Turah and Renee, who are my girls, and Enrich and Milton, who are my boys. Milton works in Houston, and Enrich helps me with the farm. I've been a Mason for 30 years. The lodge has split up now, but it was good. [Pg 143]

"Yeah, I was a slave. I was born on May 13, 1850, on the property of Lawyer Woodson in Lunenburg County, Virginia. It was about 75 miles southwest of Richmond. There were two big plantations, one on each side of the road. My master owned 75 slaves. He grew tobacco and cotton. I worked in tobacco sometimes, and sometimes in cotton. There wasn't any whipping or switching. We had to work hard. Master Woodson was a wealthy man. He lived in a large house, a wooden house painted white. And it had a huge garden."

"Slaves lived in a long line of log cabins. They had dirt floors and shingle roofs. Master Woodson's house had a shingle roof too. We had home-cured bacon and vegetables, dried corn, string beans, and they gave us hoe cakes baked in hot ashes. There was always plenty of fresh milk."

"How did we slaves get the clothes? We carded the cotton, then the women spun it on a spinning wheel. After that, they sewed the garment together on a sewing machine. Yes, we had a sewing machine, with a big wheel and a handle. One woman turned the handle and the other woman did the sewing.[Pg 144]

"That's how we get the clothes for the 75 slaves. Master’s clothes? We make them for the whole family. The mistress sends the pattern and the slaves make the clothes. Over near Richmond, a friend of Master Woodson has 300 slaves. They make all the clothes for them."

"I was with my master when the Yankees came down to Virginia in 1861. The sergeant of the Yankees took me up on his horse and I went to Washington with the Yankees. I had to stay there because I'd run away from my master."

"I stay at the house of Mr. Frank Cayler. He's an old-time cab driver. I was his houseboy. I was there until the year 1870, then I went to Baltimore and joined the United States Army. We were sent to Texas because the situation with the Indians was so bad. They put us on a boat in Baltimore and we landed in Galveston."

"Then we marched from Galveston to Fort Duncan. It was uphill the whole time. We tied our bedclothes and rolled them into a bundle with a strap. We walked with our guns and bedclothes on our backs, while the wagons carrying the rations followed us. They were pulled by mules. We covered 15 miles every day. We had no tents, and when night came, we unrolled the blankets and slept under the trees, sometimes under the brush."

For our rations, we got canned beans, milk, and hardtack. The hardtacks come in a box with 3 or 4 pieces; we soak them in water and cook them in a skillet. We get meat pretty often. When we camp for the night, the captain says, "You all can go hunting." Before we reach the mountains, there are deer and rabbits, and there aren't any fences. Often in the dark, we spot a big animal and we shoot it. When we bring it back to camp, the captain says, "If the cow has iron burns, the rancher is going to shoot himself a black scout." But the cow doesn't have any iron; it's—what's the name of the cow that doesn't feel the iron? Maverick, yes sir. We eat a lot of those Mavericks. We're going along the river bottom, and before we get to Fort Duncan, we see the cactus and mosquitoes. There isn't much cattle, but one black scout shoots a bear. Then we eat well. Fort Duncan was made of slab lumber, and the roof was gravel and grass.

"Then we were ordered to Fort Davis and we're in the mountains now. Climb, climb all day, and the Indians give us a hard time every day. We kill some Indians, they kill a few soldiers. We were at Fort Clark for a while. At Fort Davis, I joined the colored Indian Scouts; I was in Captain George L. Andrew's Company K."

"We were told that the northern Cheyennes were causing trouble and that we were headed to Fort Sill in Indian Territory. Before we reached Fort Concho (San Angelo), the Comanches and the Apaches gave us a hard time. We were fighting them all the time, and when we got away from the Comanches and Apaches, we had to fight the Cheyennes. They're seven feet tall. They couldn't come through that door."

"When we arrived at Fort Sill, General Davidson said the Cheyennes were off the reservation, and he said, 'You boys have to get them back. If you kill them, they can't get back to the reservation.' Then we started scouting for the Cheyennes, and they were scouting for us. They got us first, on the Wichita River, where there were 500 of them, and we had 75 Black Indian Scouts. Then Red Foot, the Chief of the Cheyennes, came to see Captain Lawson and said he wanted rations for his people. The captain said he couldn't give any rations to Indians off the reservation. Red Foot said he didn't care about any reservation and claimed he would take what we had. Captain Lawson allowed that we needed reinforcements. We had a guide in the scout troop who called himself Jack Kilmartin. The captain said, 'Jack, I'm in trouble, how can I get a dispatch to General Davidson?' Jack said, 'I can get it through.' And Jack crawled on his belly through the brush, leading a pony, and when he got clear, he rode the pony bareback until he reached Fort Sill. Then General Davidson sounded the general alarm and sent two companies of cavalry to reinforce us. But the Cheyennes gave them a hard time all the way, and they had to fight their way through the Cheyennes."

"And Colonel Shafter shows up, going out into the hills in his shirt sleeves just like you’re sitting there. There’s snow on the ground and the wind is cold, but the colonel doesn’t mind, and he says, 'What’s this order General Davidson gave? Don't kill the Cheyennes? You should wipe them out from the cradle to the cross.'"

"And then we start the attack. The Cheyennes have Winchesters and rifles and repeaters from the government. Yeah, the government gave them the guns they used to shoot at us. We have the old-fashioned muzzleloaders. You put one bullet in the muzzle and push the powder down with the ramrod. Then we went in and fought them, and it was like fighting a wasp's nest. They killed a lot of our guys, and we nearly wiped them out. Then we disarm the Cheyennes we capture and turn their guns in to the regiment."

"I came to San Antonio after I was mustered out and started working for the Bell Jewelry Company, staying there until I couldn’t work anymore. Did I like the army? Yeah, I’d rather be in the army than a plantation slave."[Pg 147]

"Old master’s name was William Lyons. I didn’t have an old mistress because he was a bachelor. He had a large plantation. I’m not sure how big, but there were about twenty families of slaves, and some of those families had quite a few members. My mom was Becky Brim and my dad was named Louis Brim. She came from Old Virginia. They worked in the fields. I had two sisters named Cass and Donnie and a brother named Washington. He went off to the war. When it broke out, they came and took him away to work in the army. He didn’t survive that war. He never came back. Nobody ever knew what happened to him."

"Some houses are log cabins and some are made of planks, but they're all good. They're well-built and have brick chimneys. These houses are sturdy against the wind. We had beds, too, not the ones built into the wall. We were treated well during slavery times, yes, sir. The old master gave us plenty of clothes to keep us warm. He really did."

"Old Master didn't marry and ate the same food as the slaves. He didn't make them work in the heat of the day. Around eleven o'clock, when the sun got really hot, he would call them out of the fields. He let them rest until it got a bit cooler before making them go back to work. He didn't have an overseer. He managed the plantation himself. He grew cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, peas, and sugarcane, but he didn't bother with rice or oats either.[Pg 148]

"When Sunday comes, the old master asks who wants to go to church. Those who want to can ride horses or walk. We go to the white folks' church. They sit in front and we sit in the back. We have prayer meetings, too, regularly every week. One old Black man is kind of a preacher. He is the leader in religion."

"When the slaves go to work, he gives them their tasks. It's so much work, with so many rows of cotton to chop or corn to hoe. When they finish, they can do what they want. He assigns their tasks on Monday. Some of them finish by Thursday night. Then they can hire out to someone and get paid for it."

"Old Massa even got the preacher to marry the slaves. And when a slave dies, he gets the preacher to have Bible readings and prayers. Most of the masters didn't do it that way."

"I was as big during wartime as I am now. I used to do anything in the fields that the men did. I plowed, pulled fodder, and picked cotton. But the hardest work I've ever done is since I got my freedom. Old Master didn't make us work too hard, not at all."

"He always gave us the pass, so those patrollers wouldn't catch us. There were about six men on horseback, riding the roads to catch black people who were out without the pass. If they caught him, he would get whipped. But the black people on our place were good and civilized folks. They didn't cause any trouble. Old Master always let them have the garden, and they could grow things to eat and sell. Sometimes, they had some pigs and chickens."

"I was married to him once, and he’s been dead for about forty-one years now. I stayed with Old Massa for a long time after I was free. In 1913, I moved in with my youngest daughter here in Beaumont. You see, I can’t remember so much. I’ve lived so long that my memory isn't so good now.[Pg 149]

I was born around the year 1850, near the Tom Bigbee River in Alabama, on a plantation owned by Marse Josiah Collier. My parents were Henderson and Martha Brooks, and I was their only child at that time.

"Mr. Collier owned seventy families of slaves, and they all lived in their quarters about a mile from the big house. When freedom came, Mr. Collier called all the slaves together and lined us up in a row, two deep. He held up his hands and said, 'Boys, you are as free as I am. Anyone who wants to can leave, and anyone who wants to can work for me for wages this year. Next year I'll give you a share of the crop or you can continue working for wages.' Everyone stayed except for two, and one of those two was my dad, who left my mom and six kids and never came back."

"Us stayed until Marse Collier and Missus both died, and then stayed with the oldest girl, and didn't leave until we had grown up and had families of our own."

I remember the Fourth of July best. The white folks have plenty to eat for both them and us, and we play games and go swimming.

"Next thing I remember is the patrollers, because they would whip me every time they caught me without my pass. That’s how they made us stay home at night, and it turned us into good people, because we couldn't run around and get into trouble."

"Old Marse often told me about the stars falling. It was around sundown when it suddenly got dark, and the chickens went to roost. Then some stars with[Pg 150] long tails began to shoot across the sky, and it looked like all the stars had come out of Heaven, and they were falling! Not just the stars fell. Both the white folks and the black folks dropped to their knees, praying to God to save them if the world was coming to an end, and the women all ran down to the cellar and stayed there until morning. Old Marse said it was in 1833, and he said those stars fell for a while and then stopped for a while, just like the showers when it rains."

"'Bout a year after we were free, Old Marse gave us a piece of land for a church, and this was the school, too. The preacher's name was Christmas Crawford, and that's the reason I remember it; it was so funny to us. The Black teacher was named Nimron. The Black students had the blueback spellers and learned arithmetic, too.

"On Thanksgiving Day, Black people go around to the white people's houses and give a serenade, like this:"

"The old bee makes the honeycomb,
The young bee produces the honey—
The Black people grow the cotton and corn,
And the white people get the money.

"The raccoon is a curious creature,
He never works until it gets dark;
Nothing ever unsettles his mind,
Until he hears old Towser bark.

"Then the white folks invite us in and let us help ourselves to the cake or wine or whatever they have, and we do this on Christmas, too."

"We had a song we’d sing when we were thinking about coming to Texas:"

"'We're heading South for some fun and a break,
Come on, friends, will you join us too?
There's no reason to talk when you want to leave,
Where the corn grows and the sugarcane fields flourish.
Come on, Cuba, let’s dance the polka juba,
Way down South, where the corn grows tall.

"I'd like to be in old Alabama when I die, but Old Marse and Missus are gone, and it's no use going there anymore.[Pg 151]

"My mom was the daughter of one of the Carmouche boys. One of M'sieur Francois' sons. She called herself Armance Carmouche. She worked as a house servant for the family, and I helped out around the house. I remember my Madame handed me a small basket with a strap on it. I put the strap over my shoulder and walked around with a sharp stick, picking up the leaves from the ground."

"It was a beautiful house with trees and flowers. Madame liked everything clean and tidy. I never had to work hard. The ladies and my mom treated me like I was their own child."

"Mister had a widowed sister. She made us memorize the prayers. We were happy to go see her because she always had something nice in her bag for us. I never saw a baptism. Back then, all the slaves followed the master's religion, and Catholics didn’t perform baptisms. They didn’t have to be half-drowned to get their religion. The church was 15 or 20 miles away. The priest would come and hold Mass for the white folks sometimes."

I remember a wedding. My aunt got married. M'sieur Caramouche killed a big pig. The white folks ate in the house. The[Pg 152] slaves sat under the trees and ate in the yard. At four o'clock, the justice of the peace arrived. He was a friend of M'sieur Caramouche. He had my aunt and the man hold hands and jump over the broomstick. When the priest arrived, he made M'sieur sign some papers.

"A slave always had to ask Monsieur to marry. He always let the female slaves marry whoever they wanted. He didn’t lose out by that. He was so kind that the men would come to his plantation."

"We all wore the long shirt. It was made from heavy fabric. They made the fabric on-site, and the women sewed it up. We didn't wear the shoes. We didn't like them when we had them."

"Each slave could have a small garden. They grew vegetables and kept a couple of beehives for honey."

"When the Yankees arrived, they promised us freedom, but I don’t know of any slaves who actually left. Old M'sieur died of fever in the second year of the war. His wife died before him. No children. They sold us, along with the house and everything. M'sieur Cyprien Arceneaux from Lafayette bought me, and Madame Arvillien Bernard from St. Pierre bought my mom. They used to call it St. Pierre. Now they call it Carenero. After the war ended, I left M'sieur Arceneaux and moved in with my mom."

A year and a half later, my mom married a Black man, and the three of us farmed the small plot. My stepdad didn't like me because I was light-skinned. We couldn't get along. So when I turned 20, I left and found work elsewhere. I saved up until I could buy a little piece of land for myself. Then I got married and started a family. My wife, our kids, and I farmed that land until ten years ago when she passed away. Now, my son runs the farm, and I moved to Beaumont. I'm living with my daughter.[Pg 153]

"I remember when we danced during the war. We did round dances. We sang and danced to La Boulangere during the war. The song goes:"

"'The baker is your victory
And us, who are at war,
Here is the day I have to leave.

"'My dear friend, you’re leaving,
You leave me a child in my arms
and grab your weapons.
And I, in this moment
will cry.

"'When I’m at war, [Handwritten Note: at war?]
You would be on duty,
And you would forget me,
Who will be in rags.

"'I hear the drum calling me
At dawn.
My dear Armande, if you love me
You would think of me, when you’re,
In your enjoyment.
Me—who will be at the end of the rifle!'

"I got one real scare. I was with M'sieur Arceneaux in Lafayette. There was the battle. Lots of fighting. Lots of killing. The Yankees came right inside the house. I stayed hidden."

"I don't know if things have improved since the war. Everyone has their struggles. We were able to get by on the farm. But now I have nothing. Oh, I don't mean that slavery was better than being free. I mean that times were better."

"The reason I'm so light is that my mom was half-white. My dad was Neville Broussard, and he was fully white.[Pg 154]

"I was born near Richmond, in Virginia, but Mr. Koonce sold me. When I was five years old, he brought me to Belton and sold me to Miss Margaret Taylor, and she kept me until she passed away. I was grown then and sold to Mr. Jim Fletcher, and I stayed there until I was freed."

"Dere's no spring near Mr. Fletcher's place, so we have to get water from the well, what they call the sweep well. They cut down a young sapling and weigh it down on one end with rocks, then tie the bucket on a rope on the other end and brace the pole over the well."

"While the big house was being built, they slept in a big wagon and cooked over a fireplace made of rocks that we Black people picked up in the woods. We cooked a lot of good food on that fireplace; those wild turkeys and wild game sure tasted good."

"Massa trades ten yards of red fabric and two hatchets to the Indians for some skins, takes the skins to Austin, and trades them for the spinning wheel and loom, then hauls them to Belton in the ox carts."

"My missy taught me to spin and weave, and I got plenty of spankings before I could do it well. Then she taught me to cook and had me start cooking two or three days before company arrived. That's when we had the good old pound cake. The little kids would stand around while I baked, just to lick the spoons and pans, and they would smacking their lips while licking that delicious dough![Pg 155]"

"Massa brought garden seeds with him to Texas, but he didn’t think they would grow, so he kept them for several months. Then he planted them, and they came up just like in the old states. We used those tomatoes as flowers because we thought those pretty red things would either hurt us or put a spell on us. But the white folks ate them, and we learned to as well."

"I grew up and had kids before the Civil War. I never had a special husband before the war. I got married after the war."

"My, how those Black folks could play the fiddle back in the good old days. On the moonlit nights, we'd dance by the light of the moon under a big oak tree, until it was almost time to go to work the next morning."

"That first barbed wire we ever saw, we were scared of it. We thought lightning would definitely strike it. It sure keeps the livestock in, though."

"I saw men riding horses with dead men tied across their horses during the Civil War. But I can’t say much about that war because I couldn’t read, and I never went anywhere except home to work. I loved those days better than I do these times now, but I’m too old to remember much.[Pg 156]

"Sho', I have time to talk to you about my life, because I can't work anymore and I have nothing but time. It's the rheumatism in my leg; it gets me that way, from the hip to the knee—zip— that pain goes!"

I was born in old Louisiana, in Baton Rouge Parish, on November 16, 1853. I know this because the master gave me this information. You see, they didn’t teach Black people to read back then, nor to do math, but I can read numbers. See those on that car? That’s 713. That’s bad luck; I’ve never had anything to do with numbers like 7 or 13.

"Mister has a pretty big plantation in Louisiana, this side of the Mississippi River. The slaves he owns are sometimes between 40 to 50. In our family, there are my dad, my mom, three brothers, and one sister, Julia, along with six cousins. That's 13 of us, and that's why Mister had so much trouble with black people running away!"

"Everyone has their own work and responsibilities to handle. Mom is the family cook and she helps at the loom, making the cloth. My dad[Pg 157] is the blacksmith, shoemaker, and tanner. I’ll explain how he does tanning. He puts the hides in water with black-oak bark, and pretty soon the hair comes off, and then he rolls and pounds the hides to make them soft."

"When I was about 8 years old, or so, they started me helping in the yard, and as I grew older, I helped in the fields. The boss mostly grew sugarcane and corn, no cotton."

"These buildings in the area are the homes for the master and the quarters for the Black people. They are made from logs, and the quarters have no floors and no windows, just square holes where the windows should be. They have bunks for sleeping, a table, and benches, along with a fireplace for cooking."

"We always have plenty to eat, lots of cornmeal, molasses, and heavy brown sugar. We get flour bread once a week, but we have lots of butter and milk. For coffee, we roast meal bran, and for tea, we use sassafras. Then we have vegetables and fruit that are grown on the farm. The meat is mostly wild game, like deer and turkey, but sometimes we have pork."

"Massa has an overseer and an overlooker. The overseer is in charge of the work, and the overlooker is in charge of the Black women. The overseer hands out all the punishments. Sometimes when a Black person comes home late, instead of facing the punishment, they go to the caves by the river and stay there, only coming back at night for food. When they do that, the dogs are sent after them, leading to a fight between the person and the dog. There was one time a person killed a dog with a knife, which happened close to freedom, and it happened before they could catch him. When they are punished for running away, the person is tied down over a barrel and whipped hard until they bleed, sometimes."

"Those foolish black people who sneak off without a pass have two things to watch out for: one is not to get caught by the overseer, and the other is the patrollers. Black folks are definitely scared of the patrollers. One time, my dad and mom went out without a pass and the patrollers chased after them. I was at home because I was too young to be getting into trouble. I saw them coming, and you couldn't catch them with a jackrabbit. Another black person was running from the patrollers and hid under the house. They found him and made him come out. You've seen a dog shake when it's cold? Well, that guy was shaking just like that. The patrollers hit him five or six times and then let him go. That man had a lot of strength—he made it back to the quarters ahead of his shadow."

"Now, let me share some good times. We were allowed to have parties and dance, and we had music, like the banjo, the jew's harp, and an accordion. They danced the promenade and the jig. Sometimes they held a jig contest where two people balanced a glass of water on their heads and competed to see who could dance the longest without spilling any water. Then we had log-rolling. There were two teams, about three people on each team, and they raced to see who could roll the log the fastest. Occasionally, a couple was allowed to get married, and there was a special dinner afterward. The couple would step over a broom laid on the floor, and that meant they were married."

"Sometimes the overseer doesn't let them get married. I explain it this way: He is used to father the children. He chooses the strong and healthy women to raise the strong children. The overseer is a strong man. Those he chooses, he keeps an eye on and doesn't allow them to marry or associate with other black men. If they do, they get whipped for sure. The master raises some fine, strong children, and they sell some, after they are half-grown, for $500 and sometimes more.[Pg 159]"

"The war didn’t make much difference, as far as I could tell, except that the master and one overseer joined the army. The master came back, but the overseer was captured by the Yankees, or so the master said, and we never heard about him after that. The soldiers passed by many times, both the Confederates and the Yankees, but we were never bothered by them. The fighting was never close enough to cause trouble. Just before freedom came, the new overseer was instructed to take us to Texas, and he took us to Kaufman County, where we became refugees. The Yankee men told us we were free and could do whatever we wanted. That left us in charge of no one, and we, just like cattle, went wandering."

"Pappy went back to Louisiana to the master's place. That's the last we heard from him. Mammy and I went to Henderson, and I worked various jobs and took care of my mammy for ten years until she passed away. Then I got jobs as a cook in Dallas, Houston, and many other places."

"I got married in 1901 to Ellen Tilles and I cooked until about four years ago, until I got rheumatism. That's all I can tell you about the old days.[Pg 160]

"My first master was named Master Berney. I don't remember his first name or anything about him. I don't know anything about my dad, but Master Blair told me his name was John Brown."

"Master Blair has his farm four miles south of Waco. We lived in the cabins and had the fiddle and the banjos. We sang and had music on Sundays. Master never whipped us and was always good to us. He provided us plenty to eat, including meat. He keeps about 20 hogs there all the time. The women made the clothes and we had all we needed."

"First thing I do is drive the Master to town. He has nice horses. The Master has his office in Waco, and we drive there every day. I stay all day, ready to drive him home. Most days, he gives me five cents or maybe a dime. He was a big lawman and went to the legislature down in Austin. His picture is in Austin because I was down there years ago and saw his picture in a case with Governor Ross' picture."

"Another thing that Master does really well is trade[Pg 161] blacks. He buys and sells them all the time. You see, there were traders that traveled from place to place back then, and they would sometimes take as many as 100 blacks to trade. There were sheds outside of town where they kept the blacks when they came to town."

"De Marster and the trader talk like this: 'How do you trade?' 'I'll give you an even trade.' 'No, I want $25.00 for the difference.' 'I'll give you $5.00.' That's how they keep talking. They might make the trade or they might not."

"Dey have auctions sometimes and the master always oversees them. At the auction, I've seen them sell a family. Maybe one man buys the mom, another buys the dad, and another buys all the kids or maybe just one, like that. I've seen them cry like they’re at a funeral when they’re separated. They have to drag them away."

"When the auction starts, he says: 'This black is so and so old, he’s never been abused, he’s solid as a dollar. Just look at his muscle and broad shoulders. He's worth a thousand of anyone's money. What's my opening bid?' Then the bidding begins. It goes like this: '$200, do I hear $250, do I hear $300?' Then the black man takes his clothes—they have one extra suit—and goes with the man who buys him."

"The day before the master gives us our freedom, he tells us, 'I want all you Black folks to come to the front of the house Sunday morning!' We were there, and he was standing on the porch, holding a piece of paper in his hand and reading. There were tears in his eyes and some drops on the paper. I had tears in my eyes too; most of us did. When he finished reading, he said: 'You all are as free as I am.[Pg 162] You can go or you can stay. Those who stay until the crops are laid by, I will give $5.00 a month.'"

"Then he takes the little kids and says, 'The little ones whose mommas I've sold will stay with me until they turn 21 years old. You little ones, I know your age, and I’ll give you the details.'"

"Most of the Black people stay with him, but they left first one and then another. I stayed on with him for many years and worked as a coachman. When I left the Master, it was to work for a farmer for one year, then I came to Fort Worth. I worked in a lumber yard for a long time."

"For the last 12 years I've been blind. I've had a tough time since then until last year, but I receive my pension every month, and that's a big help. This Black person is thankful for what the Lord has blessed me with.[Pg 163]

"I was born on Christmas Day in Victoria. I got here just in time for the eggnog! That was around 1859, because I was six years old the Christmas before freedom. My mother was a free-born Native American woman, just like any of those Choctaws down in the woods. She was kidnapped and sold by a speculator's gang. We moved to Tyler when I was one month old."

"We live on a big farm and my mother nurses her thirteen children and the old mistress seven. Bob, my brother, went to Mansfield and we never heard from him again. He went with young master, Wesley Heard. I remember the morning they left; they had to wait for him because he had been out seeing his girl."

"De Marstar had a big log house near the road. The quarters were according to the family that lived there. The stage line through Woodville passed right by. I remember sitting on the rail fence to watch the stage go by. That was a great sight! The stage was a large, rugged carriage, and there were four or five horses on the line. The bugle would blow as they passed, with dust kicking up behind them. They came from Jasper, in Louisiana, and from all over."

"When we were little, we had to stay in the house because the bald eagle would snatch up kids just like the hawk grabs chickens. There were lots of raccoons, bears, and deer in the woods. We were never allowed to play alone in the woods."

"I didn't do anything except eat, sleep, and follow the old lady around. She gave me nice clothes because my mother was the weaver. The clothes were just cut straight down and dyed with all kinds of bark. I had to keep my hair combed and greased with lard. The little white kids played with me, but not the other Black kids much. We pulled long blades of grass and braided them to make rag dolls, playhouses, and grapevine swings. There were plenty of grapes—sour blue grapes and sweet white grapes. They made jelly and wine out of them. They squeezed the grapes and put the juice in a demijohn to ferment."

"My mother’s name was Keyia. That Indian. Daddy's name was Reuben. I remember when I was little and we would visit my uncle, Major Scott. He lived in Polk County and he wore earrings in his ears and beads and everything. He was an Indian. He’s been dead for many years now."

"My dad works in the fields. He plants the rice and grows tobacco. They have fields full of it. They put it in the fence cracks to press it, then they dry it on the barn roof. That was smoking tobacco! For chewing tobacco, they soak it in sugar and honey. We never saw snuff back then."

"On Sunday we didn't work. We had church meeting. But they had to hold it in the yard so the white folks could see the kind of religion being preached."

"I saw some bad things in slavery, but I've never been abused myself. I saw children too small to walk taken from their mothers right off the block in Woodville. They were sold just like calves. I saw Black people in handcuffs."

"After working for a whole year after gaining my freedom, Major Sangers finally showed up and got the white folks to let us go. I stayed for years, until the old mistress died. She taught me how to knit, spin, and things like that.[Pg 165]

"In the early days, we had to be careful. They say witches ride their horses on dark nights. We always put horseshoes over the door to keep the witch out. If we went out at night, we would walk around the house three times so the witch wouldn't come in while we were gone."

"I was fifteen years old when I got married. Giles Paul was from the West. He was my first husband. We had a real wedding with a bridal veil. My wedding dress hung way back on the floor and sparkled like silver. They had a big dance and served dinner."

"My second husband’s name is Robert Brown, and I’m the mother of ten children. Besides that, I’ve taken in six or seven kids I found on the street because they’re orphans and have nobody to look after them. Some of those kids are wandering around now, and I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them![Pg 166]

"My name is Zek Brown, and Master Green Brown owned me. He has a plantation in Tennessee and owns my whole family, which includes my dad, mom, and two sisters. I haven't seen any of them since I ran away when I was ten years old."

"I sometimes wish I was back on the plantation. I took good care of it there, and the master was really nice. Each family had their own cabin, and it wasn't just for comfort; we lived well and had plenty to eat and wear. My mom worked the loom, making cloth, and we kids wore linsey cloth shirts until they got us pants. The master bought nice clothes for his family, but they wore linsey clothes every day. Same with shoes; they were made on the plantation, and the first store-bought shoes I had were after the surrender. My mom bought me a pair with brass tips on the toes, and I felt so dressed up then!"

"Food is better than what I've had since those days. They raise everything except the salt and things like that. You wouldn't believe how we ate back then. It was ham and bacon because they raised all the pigs. It was cornmeal and some white flour, along with fruit, honey, molasses, and brown sugar. The molasses is as dark as I am, and that's pretty dark. I wish I were there and my mom called me, and I can smell that ham frying right now."

"Not once do I know of the group getting whipped, and he doesn't even talk harshly. Just as long as the work gets done, we do what we want, as long as we're reasonable. We have parties, dancing, and singing. The music is the banjo and the fiddle.[Pg 167]

"I don't remember when the war started, but I remember when it ended and the master gathered us all together and told us we were no longer slaves. He talked a lot about what that meant and how it was different, and that we had to find our own way and couldn’t rely on him anymore. He said if we stayed, there would be wages or we could sharecrop, and everyone could stay. My family stayed for one year and then moved to another farm. Dad kept the farm, and Mom taught school. Her mission taught her to read and such from the time she was a child, so she had a good education and they appointed her to teach."

"The way I leave home is like this. One day, my mom is teaching school, and my sister and I are at home. I decide she needs a haircut. She wants one, too. So I grab the shears and start working on it, but after a while, it doesn’t look so great, so I cut some more, and then it looks even worse. I try to fix it, and before I know it, there's no hair left to cut. When my mom comes home, she pays me for the work with a rawhide whip, and that really hurts my feelings, so I decide to get even by running away for a few days. It's about sundown when I start to leave and I reach Massa Sam Bragg's place. I’m tired then and not so sure about the whole idea, so I decide to rest. I walk into his yard and see a covered wagon standing there, loaded with a lot of stuff, and the front end is open. I find a soft spot in the back and go to sleep, and when I wake up, it’s just getting daylight and that wagon is moving."

"I don't say anything. I'm scared and waiting for that wagon to stop so I can crawl out. I just sit there, and when it stops, I crawl out. Massa Bragg looks at me for a bit and then says, 'Good gosh, look what’s crawling out of the wagon! You're too far from home for me to take you back[Pg 168] and you'll get lost if you try to walk home. I guess I'll have to take you with me.' I think he’s going somewhere and will come back, but he's actually going to Texas and stops at Birdville. That's how this black man came to Texas."

"I often wish my mom had whipped me so hard I couldn't walk away from there, because ever since then I've had really tough times. I stayed with Mr. Bragg for four years and then I looked for a job where I could earn some wages. I got it with Mr. Joe Henderson, working on his farm, and I've been around this area ever since and have farmed most of my life."

"I got into a tricky situation years ago. I was arrested on the street. I hadn't done anything, just walking down the street with another guy, and they claimed he stole something. I didn't know anything about it. Did they let me go? They let me go after six months on the chain gang. I worked on the road for three months with a ball and chain on my legs. After that trouble, I definitely choose my company carefully."

"I got married once, about forty years ago, and after four years she passed away from heart trouble. We had no children, so I’m alone in the world. It was fine as long as I could work, but five years ago my right arm started shaking so badly that I can’t work anymore. For a year now, they’ve been paying me a $9.00 pension. It’s tough to live on that for a whole month, but I’m glad to receive it.[Pg 169]

I’m an old Kentucky man. I was born in Fayette County, about five miles from Lexington, right where there are lots of fine horses. My old master was named Jack Curtis and the old mistress was Miss Addie. My mother’s name was Mary, and she died in 1863 and never got to see freedom. I don’t remember my dad at all.

The place was just a farm because they didn’t know anything about plantations up there in Kentucky. They raised corn and wheat and garlic and fast horses. They used to have big horse races, and they had large tracks. I stood in the middle of that big track in Lexington and watched them exercise the horses. Sometimes I got to help groom some of those grand horses, and that was a big day for me. I don’t remember the horses’ names, no sir, but I knew one big bay horse that won the race almost every time.

I had two sisters named Jeanette and Fanny and a brother, Henry, and after my dad died, my mom married a man named Paris, and I got a half-brother called Alfred Paris.

"Old master was good to us and gave us plenty of food. He never beat us hard. He had a son who was just one month older than me, and we ran around and played a lot. Old master whipped me and his own son the same when we[Pg 170] acted up. He didn't whip us any more than he should have, though. There were good masters and some mean ones, and some worthless people too."

"During the war, cholera broke out among the people, and everyone was scared they were going to catch it. They said it started with stomach pains, and every time we had a stomach ache, our mistress would make us come quickly to the big house. That was just fine with us, and when they sent Will and me to hoe or do something we didn’t want to do, I would soon say, 'Willie, I think my stomach is starting to hurt. I think this misery is a sign that I'm getting cholera.' Then he would say, 'We better go to the big house like Mom said,' and with that, we would stop working. We got out of a lot of work that way, but we’ve never actually caught cholera yet."

"During the war, John Morgan's men came and took all the horses. They left two, and Willie and I took them to hide in the plum thicket, but we just got out the gate when the soldiers came again and they stopped us and took the last two horses."

"My mom wore the Yankee flag under her dress like a petticoat when the Confederates came raiding. Other times she wore it over her dress. When they heard the Confederates coming, the white folks made us bury all the gold and silver spoons out in the garden. Old master was in the Yankee army because they drafted him, but his sons, John and Joe, volunteered."

"Old master never sold any of his slaves. I used to hear him and mistress arguing about the black people, because some belonged to her and some to him, and they had a hard time keeping them sorted out."

Us boys have a great time playing. We draw a line, and some of us stand on one side while the others go to the other side. Then one of us calls out[Pg 171]

"'Chickama, Chickama, crow,
I went to the well to wash my toe;
When I got back, my chicken was missing,
What time is it, old witch?

"Then someone shouts, 'One o'clock' or 'Two o'clock' or any time, and those on one side try to catch those on the other side."

"When I was young, I didn't mind plowing, but I didn't like to ride at first, but they made me learn anyway. Of course, that white boy and I liked just about anything that wasn’t too much work. We would go down to the watermelon patch and pick the melons, then we’d run and hide in the woods to eat the watermelon. A lot of the time they let us play just by ourselves. We played one game where we chose sides and then sang:

"'Can, can, candio,
Dandio the elder,
How many men do you have?
More than you can grab.

"During the war, we got in trouble many times for playing with the shells we found in the woods. We heard the cannons firing in Lexington and a lot of those shells fell in the woods."

"What did I think when I saw all those soldiers? I wanted to be one, too. I didn’t care what side, I just wanted a gun and a horse and to be a soldier. John Morgan used to own the hemp factory in Lexington. When the young master joined Woolford's 11th Kentucky Cavalry, they came to the place and stopped in front of the big house on the turnpike. They had shotguns and blind bridles on their horses, not open bridles like on the racehorses. They were just in regular clothes but the next time they came through, they were in blue uniforms. All my white folks came back from the war and didn’t get killed. Nobody ever told me I was free. I was happy there and never left them until 1872. All the others left before that, but I[Pg 172] got everything I wanted, and I didn’t need any money. I didn’t know what paper money was, and one time the master’s son gave me a paper dime to get some squab, and I didn’t know what money was, so I burned it up."

"There's just one thing I really love to do, and that's eat. They always had plenty of everything, and they had a big wooden tray, or trough, where they put potlikker and cornbread, planting it under the big locust tree. All of us little kids would just gather around and eat and eat. Just eat as much as we wanted. Then when we got full, we’d flop over and fall asleep. We just got fat and lazy. When we saw that bowl coming, it called to us just like pigs running to the trough."

"Dey were really good at making gingerbread, and we loved it. They couldn’t leave it in the kitchen or the pantry, so the old missus got a big tin box and hid the gingerbread under her bed, keeping a close watch on us to keep us away from it. But sometimes we would sneak into the bedroom and grab some anyway."

"When I was about 17, I left Kentucky and went to Indiana, where white people sent me to school to learn reading and writing. I got tired of that, so I ran off and joined the army. That was in 1876, and they sent me to Arizona. After that, I was at Fort Sill in what used to be Indian Territory, then at Fort Clark and Fort Davis, during Garfield's administration, and then at Fort Quitman on the Rio Grande. I was involved in skirmishes with the Indians on Devil's River, in Brazos Canyon, in the Rattlesnake Range, and in the Guadalupe Mountains. The troops were the Eighth Cavalry and the Tenth Infantry. The white folks and the colored folks were together, and I had three horses in the cavalry. The first one wore out, the second got shot down during the campaign, and one was condemned. On that campaign, we had the White Mountain Apaches with us as scouts.[Pg 173]

"When I got discharged from the Army, I came to Texas and started working on the S.P. Railroad, and I've been in Texas ever since. When I was in Dallas, I got sick and received a pension because I served in the Army. I haven't done much work in ten years."

"I got married in San Antonio on December 14, 1882, and I married Dolly Gross, and that's her right there. We had a nice wedding, with plenty to eat and drink. We only have one child, a girl, and she's passed away, but we adopted several kids."

"Me and my folks came to Beaumont in 1903, and I worked around Spindletop. I worked for the gas company and the waterworks. I've been a carpenter and done a lot of regular jobs wherever I could find them."

"It's been a long time since slavery, and I'm old, but my partner and I are in good health and we manage to get along fairly well. That's about all I can remember about the old times.[Pg 174]

"I was born on New Year's Day. Yes, sir, in 1856, on Mr. Bell's plantation over in Tennessee. The name of the town was Murphreesboro, and my mom, my four sisters, and I all belonged to Mr. John Bell, but he sold us to Mr. Joseph Spence, and that's how I got my name."

"I remember how Mr. Spence brought us to Texas in wagons, and we knew we had arrived in Texas because Mr. Spence started talking about a norther. When that norther hit, all the weeds and leaves just started rolling. We poor, ignorant black folks thought at first they were rabbits because we'd never seen a rabbit then. Mr. Spence rode his horse and Mrs. Spence came along in a fancy coach. The kids walked in the mornings and the older folks walked in the afternoons."

Massa Spence came to Montopolis, near Austin, and settled down. I helped carry lunch pails to the field workers, and they were filled with meat, cabbage, and biscuits. My dad wasn't there then because he belonged to Massa Burrows over in Tennessee. But when his master died, my master bought my dad, and he came out to Texas. Before I was old enough to remember much, my mom got sick with diphtheria and died, and my dad had to be both mom and dad to us.[Pg 175] My dad was a big guy, and on Sunday mornings, he'd get out of bed, start a big fire, and say, 'Jiminy cripes! You kids stay in your beds, and I'll make the biscuits.' And he would, too. I laugh when I think about those big rye biscuits that were so huge we called them 'Black heels.' They really were big biscuits, but they were tasty. We never did get any butter, though, and sometimes we'd ask the white kids to share a piece of biscuit with butter on it. We had plenty of other food—sliced meat, roasted corn, and sweet milk.

"After we were free, Dad sent us to school with the white teacher, and that's why I can read and write. I went to the sixth grade and then dropped out. Dad was drinking a lot back then. He’d take alcohol and mix it with molasses and water. But he was good to us. Sometimes a Texas norther would come up while we were on our way home, and we’d see something coming that looked like an elephant, and it was Dad with a bundle of coats."

"I was twenty-four years old when I married Andy Bunton, and he just rented farms here and there. We had a big wedding with pork, turkey, and cake. Aunt Lucy Hubbard, who weighed three hundred pounds, did the cooking that day. We had such a good time that nobody noticed when one of the guests stole an entire turkey."

"I was the mother of nine children, and three of them are living now. Andy made a pretty good living until he had a paralysis stroke. Poor old guy! In the end, I took care of him and had to work like I was young again. I chopped wood, carried water, washed, and cooked. I had to feed him."

"I own my place here. It’s twelve acres, and my dad bought it a long time ago for $25.00 an acre. My sister lives here too, and my son, Howard, comes home sometimes, but he has eight hound dogs he can't take care of. I really can't feed them on that $11.00 pension I get.[Pg 176]

"My old master was named Richmond Butler, and he had a big plantation over on Whiska Chitto in Louisiana, and that's where I was born. They used to call the place Bagdad. I was his slave until I was six years old, and then freedom came."

"I don't remember my dad, but my mom's name was Dicey Ann Butler. I have seven sisters and three brothers. Their names were Anderson, Charlie, and Willie, and the girls were Laura, Rosa, Rachel, Fannie, Adeline, Sottie, and Nora."

" We used to live in a small log cabin with one room. The floor was dirt, and the house was built just like they used to make potato houses. There was a little window in the back. When I was a baby, they wrapped me up in cotton and placed me in a coffee pot—that's how small I was. But I grew to be bigger."

"The plantation was a big, nice place and they had about 200 Black people. When I got old enough, they started me carrying water to the fields. I got the water from the spring and carried it in gourds. They cut the gourds so that a strip was left around the top for a handle. They were about a foot wide and a foot deep. We used to have one good gourd for keeping lard and little gourds to drink from.[Pg 177]

"Massa never let us slaves go to church, but we found big holes in the fields where we could get down and pray. We did that because the white folks didn't want us to pray. We used to pray for freedom."

"When the white people leave, they write on the meal and flour with their fingers. That's how they know if we steal any meal. Sometimes they take a stick and write in front of the door so if anyone goes out, they step on that writing and the master knows. That's how we learn to write."

"Old master didn't provide them with much to eat. When they came in from the fields, they would work for other people to get something to eat."

"They just have an old frame with planks to sleep on and no mattress or anything. In winter, they have to keep the fire going all night to avoid freezing. They put an old quilt down on the floor for the little ones. They have a little trough we used to eat from with a little wooden paddle. We didn't know anything about knives and forks."

"I never really got much to eat. My sister is the cook, and sometimes when the white folks are gone, we go up to the big house and she gives us something. But she makes us wash our mouths after we finish eating, so there won't be any crumbs left in our mouths."

"Massa used to beat them all the time. My brother would sometimes tell old massa that he was hungry and would have to go ask the Black people for something to eat. He said he would never do that, but he did, because after freedom, he went to West Texas with some Black people and lost everything. Eventually, old massa had to go to my brother and ask him for food and a place to sleep. Then he said if he could do it all over again, he wouldn't treat the workers so badly.[Pg 178]

"One time my brother slipped off the plantation, and they almost beat him to death. He told them he had to do something to get something to eat. They used to put them across a log or barrel to beat them. My mom had a strop about eight inches wide that they used to beat them with."

"Most of the clothes we get come from the Islands, where wealthy people live nearby. I hear those people live in DeRidder, Louisiana. They treated the slaves like they were white folks."

"At Christmas, they serve us a meal. I remember that. I don’t remember any other holidays."

"When we get sick, we go to the woods to get herbs and roots to make tea and medicine. We used to get Blackhaw root, cherry bark, dogwood, and chinquapin bark, which make a good tonic. Black snakeroot and swamproot also make great medicine."

"My mom told us we were free, and we immediately started walking to Sugartown, about 8 miles away. I remember my brother wading across a pool while carrying me."

"I used to know Dr. Frasier. He was the high sheriff in DeRidder.[Pg 179]

"My name is Henry H. Buttler, and I'm over 87 years old. That number may not be precise, but you have to understand that there were no official records kept of slave births. I estimate my age based on the work I was doing when the Civil War started and the fact that I was big enough to be accepted as a soldier in the Union Army in 1864."

"I was born on George Sullivan's plantation in Fauquier County, Virginia. The plantation was located in the valley at the foot of Bull Mountain and looked beautiful. It covered about 30 acres and had around 30 slaves, though this number could change and sometimes went up to 50. Mr. Sullivan owned my mother and her children, but my father was owned by Mr. John Rector, whose property was next to ours."

The slave quarters were made up of a set of one-room log cabins, without any flooring and very basic furniture. There were bunks, benches, a table, and the fireplace served to cook and heat the space.

"The food was healthy and plentiful. During that time, almost all the food was grown and prepared on the plantation, which removed any reason for not providing enough meals. The meat[Pg 180] was cured on-site, and the ham and bacon had an exceptional taste."

"At the Sullivan place, there was some regard for human feelings, but at the Rector place, neither the master nor the overseer seemed to recognize that slaves were human beings. One old slave named Jim on the Rector place disobeyed a rule, and early one morning, they ordered him to strip. They tied him to the whipping post, and from morning until noon, the whip was used on his back at intervals. I personally saw and heard many of the lashes and his cries for mercy."

One morning, several enslaved people were told to put up a fence at the Rector's place. The overseer said, "This row needs to stretch to the Branch, and we have to finish it in time to roll those logs out in the backwoods." We finished laying the last rail at sundown, but the overseer made us roll logs without any dinner, and it was eleven o'clock when we finished the task. Old Pete, the ox driver, was so worn out that he fell asleep without unyoking the oxen. Because of that, he received 100 lashes.

"The slaves could get married but had to get permission from their master first. The main reason for the master's approval was his wish to produce strong, healthy slaves. On either plantation, there was no consideration or sympathy when it came to selling or trading people. I have witnessed the tearing apart of husbands and wives, mothers and children, and the deep sorrow of those affected, and I've seen a grieving slave punished with a whip for not focusing on their work. All of this turned the marriages into a joke."

"In 1863, Mr. Sullivan transported about 40 of us slaves to Arkansas, settling us on a farm near Pine Bluff so we wouldn't be captured by Federal soldiers. The loyalty of the slaves was remarkable at that time, as they had the opportunity to escape to free states. But I think I was the only one[Pg 181] who left Mr. Sullivan. I went to Federal Headquarters at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and joined the army. We campaigned in Arkansas and surrounding areas. The main battle I fought in was at Pine Bluff, which lasted one day and part of one night."

"After I was discharged from the army, I aimed to get an education and enrolled in a grade school in Pine Bluff. I worked after school at any job I could find and eventually got into Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas. After I graduated, I worked in steam engineering for four years, but later I moved to Fort Worth and dedicated 22 years to educational work within my community. I put in my best efforts to uplift my race."

"I married Lucia Brown in 1880, and we had three children, all of whom have passed away. Now, it’s just my wife and me from the family, and we receive a $75.00 monthly pension for Union soldiers.[Pg 182]

"I have a bill of sale that says I was born in 1840, so I know I'm ninety-seven years old, and I was owned by Marse Sam Byrd. My mother's name was Fannie, and I don't know my father's name because my mother always said she found me as a stray in the woods. I always believed my master was my father, but I never knew for sure."

"Our place was made of logs, and the bed was constructed with poles stuck in the gaps and cowhide stretched over them. We'd gather moss about once a month to make it softer. When it was really cold, we'd huddle together, and no matter how cold it got, we’d sleep just as warmly as in these feather beds."

"I split rails, chopped cotton, and plowed with a wooden plow, and drove Marse Byrd around a lot because he was a trader, mostly in slaves. He was good to us and provided us with plenty to eat. He had a large garden and a lot of sugar cane, along with brown sugar. We would press the juice out of the cane between two logs and cook it in the big wash pot."

"We had sheepskin clothes for cold weather, with the fur side on the inside, and no shoes unless we wrapped our feet in fur hides. But those clothes were warmer than these cotton overalls. They're totally cold!"

Marse Sam was lively and Missus Josie was really kind. They had a nice home for that time, built from split logs and had four rooms with a hall running through it in two directions.[Pg 183]

"That big iron bell hung just outside the door, and Mr. Sam would hit it at 3:30 every morning. If we didn’t assemble, he’d come around with that cat-o'-nine-tails and give us a taste of it, and we knew what that bell was for the next morning. Sometimes when Mr. Sam was away, we’d have an overseer. He'd let us go swimming in the creek when the work was finished."

"If a black person was being mean, Marse Sam would give them fifty lashes over a log the first time and seventy-five lashes the second time, and by then, they usually turned out to be a good person. If they were really unruly and he couldn't manage them, he would put them in jail with chains on their feet for three days, feeding them through a crack in the wall."

"On Christmas, Marse Sam had a huge eggnog, cooked a big roast, and set off fireworks, and the black folks knew Christmas had arrived. We had plenty to eat and drink, and we did pretty much whatever we wanted that day and on New Year's. The white folks always said that whatever we did on those days, we'd do all year. That's all nonsense, but some people still believe it."

"They throw a big dance and a late-night supper when the war started. Then Marse Sam had me as his waterboy and cook, and to take care of his horses. He had two, and he rode one this day and the other the next day. He was scared one would get killed, and then he wouldn't be able to walk."

"When the big guns started firing, I just couldn't handle it without getting into some cover. Then my master gets shot, and I have to be his nurse. But, oh my, one of those Yankee girls falls in love with my master while he's lying there nearly dead, and she says, 'William, he's mine, so you have to take good care of him.' And he's got a perfectly good wife waiting for him back home![Pg 184]"

"When Marse Sam gets better, he says he’s going to another place to fight. He was with General Lee when that old war ended and that Yankee General Grant took General Lee prisoner, and Marse Sam won’t leave his general. He tells me, 'William, you have to go home by yourself.'"

"I set out for Texas and it’s almost a year before I get home. I travel day and night at first. I buy some food, but every time I pass a farmhouse, I steal a chicken. Sometimes I really get hungry. When I get to the house, Missus Josie faints because she thinks Marse Sam isn't with me and that he must be dead. I tell her he's in prison, and she says she’ll give me $2.00 a month to stay until he gets back. I’m totally crazy about a little girl named 'Cricket' because she’s so cute and full of life, so I stay. We get a cabin, and that’s all for our wedding. We stay a year before Marse Sam comes back."

"He was the most awful sight you ever saw! His clothes were torn off his body, and he hasn't shaved in three months, and he's almost starved to death. Missus Josie doesn't even recognize him and wouldn't let him in until I told her that it was Marse Sam, for sure. He stays sick for a whole year."

"I think if those Yankees didn't intend to find a way for us poor Black people, they shouldn't just let us go. If the white folks in the South hadn't been exactly what they are, we Black people would be way worse off than we were. Back in slavery, when a Black person got sick, their master would pay the bills, but now, when a Black person gets sick, that's their own problem."

"I've only done farming and odd jobs. I've been married five times, but only my last wife is still alive. My four sons and two daughters are all farming right here in the county, and they help us out. We manage to get by somehow.[Pg 185]

"I know I was born in 1849 because I had a bill of sale that says so. My master traded me to Massa Joe Cutt for a hundred acres of land. That was in 1861, and I remember it well. My dad was Sam Cain, named after old Massa Cain, and my mom was Josie Jones because she was owned by another master. Mom was born in North Carolina, but Dad always said he came from Africa. He said they didn’t work hard over there because all their food came from the jungle, and they had as many wives as they wanted. That was the religion over there."

"Our quarters were made of logs, in a long shed six rooms long, like cow stalls or chicken coops, with one door for each room. The bed was a hole dug in a corner, surrounded by poles, and filled with husks and straw. We’d stay warm all night long, but that wouldn't work in this country during the summer."

"Massa gave us plenty to eat. Our cornbread was what you call water pone bread, cooked in the ashes. We didn't have a stove. Massa was a great hunter and always had venison and game. There were plenty of fish, too."

"Massa Cain was pretty nice to his slaves but got harsh with them if they didn’t behave. Missy was a good woman. They lived in a two-story stone house with plenty of trees all around."

"We worked as long as we could see, starting at four in the morning, and we milked twenty cows and fed the work animals. There were fifty acres and not enough hands to work it easily.[Pg 186]

"If some Black people were being bad, they'd get punished. The master tied their hands to their feet and tied them to a tree, then whipped them around twenty-five to fifty times with a rawhide belt. Skin and blood flew everywhere. The next morning, he'd let them go, and they'd have to work all day without anything to eat. He had a cabin he called jail for the Black women, and he'd chain them inside with cornbread and one glass of water."

"One black person ran to the woods to escape, but the master caught him with the dogs and branded him with a hot iron. Then he put a bell on him, in a wooden frame that slipped over his shoulders and under his arms. He made that person wear the bell for a year and took it off on Christmas as a gift. It really did turn him into a better person."

"In the summer, they held camp meetings and baptized people in the creek, starting with the white folks while the old black women shouted, and then the black folks."

"On Saturday morning, we men grated corn for bread for the next week while the women washed master's clothes and ours. On Saturday night, we’d have a dance that lasted all night, and on Sunday, the men visited their wives or sweethearts while we kids went swimming in the creek. Every night except Saturday, we had to go to bed at nine o'clock. Master struck the big steel bell, and we knew it was time to put out the torches and head in."

"On Christmas, I'd stand by the gate to open it for the guests, and they’d throw nuts and candy to me. That night, all the slaves who could bring their banjos and fiddles played for the white folks to dance all night. Those great old days are long gone. Most of the men would be full from that good old eggnog.[Pg 187]

"After the war, there were no more dances or fun, and not much to eat or anything. The master got killed in a big battle, and the mistress took four slaves and brought him home to bury him under a big shade tree in the yard. That was the saddest time I ever saw; nobody was there to do anything except the mistress, some neighbor women, and a few really young black people like me. She was crying, and all of us slaves were upset. It’s a wonder we ever managed to get the master buried. We carried him on our backs to the grave."

"After that, we had to take her to the mountains and hide her, because everything—house, sheds, and all—was burned down, and all her livestock was killed by soldiers and outlaws. When she came out of hiding, she didn't have anything, not even a bed."

"But she was a brave woman and said, 'Louis, we'll set up some kind of place for you.' She got to work on rebuilding the place. She said, 'You all are free, but I need you and I'll pay you $2.00 a month.' And she really did. She cut some logs and built herself one room, and then we all built ourselves a room, and that was the best we could do. I believe the Lord blessed that woman. After freedom, that's how I lived the first year, and she paid me every cent she promised. I stayed with her for three years."

"Then I heard about a railroad job in Texas, and I married Josie Sewel in a big wedding, and we had a great time. I got a job on that railroad for fifty cents a day, but it didn't last more than a year, so I went into farming."

"We had fourteen kids, four of whom have passed away, and the rest are farming all over Texas. I have more than a hundred grandkids. Josie died twenty years ago.[Pg 188]

"I didn’t expect the land to be divided and given to us, but there was plenty of land for everyone, and the lady always treated us well. The wages were really low for a long time after I got married, and sometimes they wouldn’t pay us at all, so we had to beg or steal. I went a whole two days without anything to eat. If it hadn't been for the Klu Klux, sometimes the Black people would have gone on a rampage from starving. But the Klu Klux members wouldn’t let them run wild; if they tried, they’d stretch them out over a log and hit them with rawhide, but wouldn’t say a word. That got to the Black people—they were so silent, not a sound from them, and a Black person can’t stand that."

"I get a pension and work when I can to get by. Some of the young black people are pretty sorry; they’ve had so much and don’t appreciate any of it. I’m grateful for what I can get because I remember those old times after the war when it was worse than now."

"My name is Jeff Calhoun, and I was born in Alton, Alabama, around 1838, because that's what my master told me. That makes me about 98 years old now. My father was Henry Robinson, and my mother was Mary Robinson. She was born in Maryland, Virginia, but didn't know much about her family because she was sold off when she was young. There were four of us brothers and ten sisters, but I'm the only one still alive."

"We make our beds from forked saplings driven into the ground, since the floors are dirt. We set the poles in the ground, and they reach up to the top of the cabin. We make one bed down low and one bed above. The adults sleep in the low beds, and the kids sleep above because they can climb."

"My master had 15 children and my mother nursed each one of them because his wife couldn't provide milk."

"We always had plenty to eat, but for meat, we had to go to the woods and get deer, turkey, buffalo, and some bear. I've eaten horse, skunk, crow, and hawk.[Pg 189]

"We had a big fire to cook on, and to make the corn cakes we put one leaf down, spread batter on that, placed another leaf on top, and covered it with hot ashes. By noon, it was ready. We did the same thing for supper. We only have biscuits on Sunday or Christmas."

"My mom was the one who made clothes, so I had plenty of shirts and some pants, and we grew indigo on the property and made dye from it. We never wore shoes in the summer and sometimes not even in the winter. We had a nice pair of pants and a shirt we wore on Sundays and holidays and when we got married."

"The way things went at weddings back then, you picked a girl and told your boss. If she was from a different plantation, you had to get her boss's permission, and then they told you to come that night and get married. They asked the girl, 'Do you love this man?' Then they asked the man, 'Do you love this girl?' If you said you didn't know, it was all over, but if you said yes, they brought in a broom and held it about a foot off the floor, telling you to jump over it. Then they declared you married. If either of you stubbed your toe on the broom, that meant you were in for trouble, so you definitely jumped high."

"My master was good to us. He lived in a log house with a floor and had it all set up with nice furniture, mirrors, and silver on the table. The mistress was small and delicate, but she was also good to us, just like the master. He wasn’t one to whip people like some of his neighbors. They would tie the slaves' hands to a pole and whip the blood out of them. They were whipped for trying to escape.[Pg 190]

"I knew a slave named Ben Bradley who was sold at an auction, and his master chained him hand and foot and started for Texas. They reached the Red River, and while crossing, the chains held him down, and he never came back up. I have an uncle who ran away, and they took a pack of hounds—a pack of twelve—and they got on his trail, and I heard them running after him. They chased him for three days and nights and took a gun loaded with buckshot but were told not to shoot above the legs. They came back and said he got away, but some boys were out hunting and found him, and he had been shot four times with buckshot."

" The only time we got to rest was Sunday, the Fourth of July, Christmas, and one day for Thanksgiving. We had big dinners on holidays. After supper, we would have corn shuckings, or if it was rainy, and sometimes we’d shuck 500 bushels. We always picked the cotton in big baskets, and when we had it all picked, we’d spread it out and have a celebration."

"I was in Texas when the war started, and I hauled corn many times to the camp where the soldiers were. I helped cook for a while and would have been in the Battle of Vicksburg, but they picked another guy instead of me, and he got killed. I’m glad I’m a bad cook; otherwise, I would have been the one who got killed.[Pg 191]

"My name is Simpson Campbell, but everyone, both white and black, calls me Simp. I was born right here in Harrison County, on Bill Sloan's land, nine miles northwest of Marshall. I experienced the last five years of slavery."

"Pappy was Lewis Campbell, and the Florida Campbells sold him to Marse Sloan, who brought him to Texas, but he always kept the Campbell name. Mammy was Mariah, and the Sloans brought her from South Carolina. She raised a bunch of kids. Besides me, there were Flint, Albert, and Clinton among the boys, and—let me count—Dinah, Clandy, Mary, Lula, Liza, Hannah, Matilda, and Millie among the girls."

The Sloans lived in a large house, but it wasn't a dump. They were doing as well as anyone in the county and drove as nice horses and carriages as anyone. There wasn't a mean bone in the whole Sloan family.

"The slave quarters sat in rows right down in the field from the big house. They had beds built against the wall, and all the cooking was done on the fireplace. We grew all our meat, corn, and garden vegetables right there on the property, and Marse Sloan brought wheat and other supplies from Shreveport. The black women spun all the cloth, and Pappy made shoes by hand when they slaughtered a beef. The beef was dried, salted, and hung in the smokehouse."

"Marse's property covered a thousand acres and he had over a hundred slaves, along with an overseer named Johnson and a black driver. We were treated well, but the overseer was instructed to whip us for fighting. If the black driver hit us too much, the overseer would sell him off the property."

"We worked from four to six and finished a task after that, then sat around and talked until nine and then had to go to bed. On Saturday night, you'd hear the fiddles and banjos playing and the Black folks singing. All those musical instruments were homemade. The banjos were made of round pieces of wood, covered with sheepskin and strung with catgut strings."

They didn't have any school, but Marse Bill taught some of his Black workers how to read and write so we could keep track of picking cotton and stuff like that. There was a church on the Sloan place, and white preachers did most of the preaching. Mammy always said the Black preachers had to say what they were told—obey your master and mistress.

"I saw Yankee soldiers and wagons coming home from Mansfield. Mr. Tom set us free right after the surrender, but my family stayed with him until he passed away in 1906. I left when I was twenty-three, got married, and made a living doing public work in Marshall my whole life. I worked as a day laborer and raised two boys and two girls, and the boys are farming right here in the county and doing well."

"When I was eighteen, they put together an amendment to the Constitution and released a 'People's Party Ticket.' It was a Democratic ticket, controlled by Southerners. They told us Black people that if we voted for that ticket, we would be recognized as equals, but I didn't believe a word of it. Old Man Sloan told all his Black workers that, and they all voted for that ticket except for two—Charley Tang and Simp Campbell."

"I believe the younger generation of our people is making good progress. If they had the opportunity to use their education, they would achieve even more, but racial barriers are holding them back.[Pg 193]

"I was born in that southeast Texas and I don't know what month or the year for sure, but it was more than 100 years ago. My mom and dad were born in Africa, that's what they told me. They were owned by Master Bob Houston who had the ranch down there, where they had cattle and horses."

"When I was old enough to ride a horse, they taught me how to take care of them. Since I was a good horse rider, they used me all the time to go after the horses. I went with them to Mexico. We crossed the river many times. I remember once when we were driving about 200 horses north. A bad hailstorm hit the herd, and they turned and started going the other way. There were five of us riders, and we had to keep the horses from scattering. I was the leader, and do you know what would have happened to me if my horse stumbled? Right then is where I would have stayed! The master gave me a new saddle for saving the horses.[Pg 194]

"One day, Master Bob comes to me and says, 'Jim, how would you like to join the army?' You see, the war had started. I asked him, 'What do I have to do?' And he said, 'Take care of horses and ride them.' I was young then and thought it would be a lot of fun, so I said I’d go. So the next thing I know, I’m in the army way off east from here, somewhere this side of St. Louis, in Tennessee, Arkansas, and other places. I joined the army instead of Dr. Carroll."

"After I got into the army, it wasn't as much fun because taking care of horses and riding wasn't all I did. No, sir, I had to do shooting and get shot at! One time we stopped the train, took Yankee money and a lot of other things off that train. That was way up on the other side of Tennessee."

"You’ve heard of the Battle of Independence? That’s where we fought for three days and nights. I wasn’t tending to horses then. They gave me a rifle and sent me to the front lines to fight, when we weren’t running. We did a lot of running, and that suited me just fine. I could do that better than advancing. When the order came to retreat, I was all ready."

"I got shot in the shoulder in that fight, and a lot of our soldiers got killed, and we lost our supplies—just left them and ran. Another time we fought for two days and nights, and the Yankees were tough that time, too, and we had to run through the river. I really thought I was going to drown then. That was the time we tried to get into St. Louis, but the Yankee men stopped us."

I'm free after the war and go back to Texas, to Gonzales County, and get a job doing cowboy work for Master Ross herding cattle. And that's where I'm fortunate for not ending up in jail or getting hanged. It happened like this: I’m in town, and that man, Ross, says to me, 'I understand you’re a good cowhand,' and he hires me and takes me way out. There's no house for miles before we reach the ranch with cattle, and I get to work. After I've been working for a while, I wonder why they bring in such fine steers so often and I think to myself, 'Master Ross must have a lot of money to buy all those steers.' They pay no attention to raising cattle, just bring them in and drive them away.

"One time, Master Ross and six men were gone for a week, and when they came back, one of them was missing. They didn’t have any cattle that time, and they talked about getting frustrated and how one man got shot. I thought to myself, 'Why were they chased and shot at?' Then I remembered Master Bob Houston told me about rustlers and how they get hanged when caught, and I realized that’s why all those nice cattle are driven in and out all the time. But figuring out how to get away is the real puzzle. I didn’t know which way to go, and there were no houses anywhere nearby. I kept getting scattered, and every time someone came along, I thought it was law enforcement. But Master Ross drove the cattle north, and I said to him, 'I’m good at driving cattle. Can I go with you the next time you go north?' And not long after that, we started our journey, and we got to Kansas City. After Master Ross sold off the critters, he said, 'We’ll rest for a couple of days, then start back.' I thought to myself, 'Not this black.'"

"I snuck away and was sitting on a bench when a tall white man came along. He had dark hair and was good-looking. He asked me, 'Are you a cowhand?' I told him I was, and he said he needed help on his farm in Missouri and said, 'Come with me.' He introduced himself as[Pg 196] James and took me to his farm where I tended cattle and horses for three years, and he paid me well. He gave me more than I earned. After three years, I left, but not because I learned he was an outlaw; I found that out much later. I was lonely for Texas, and that’s how I ended up in Fort Worth, and that's where I've stayed ever since."

"I got married about 40 years ago to a woman who had eight kids. We separated because those kids caused arguments. I can handle one, but not the whole army.[Pg 197]

"I want to share the truth of the Gospel. My mom's name was Melia Carruthers and my dad's name was Max. My dad's dad was also named Carruthers. My brothers' names were Charlie, Frank, Willie, John, Tom, and Adam."

"When I was still young, Mr. Billy Coats bought my mom and us, and with about 500 of his slaves, we set out for Texas. We went to Bastrop County to start working. My old missy—her name was Missy Myra—was 99 years old, and her head was as bald as an egg and had growths on it as big as eggs, too."

"In those days, the bosses had nice houses, but the Black folks lived in log cabins that often burned down. The chimneys would catch fire because they were made of sticks, clay, and moss. Many times, we had to get up at midnight and push the chimney away from the house to prevent it from burning down."

"The chairs were mainly pieces of firewood set upright, or slabs, just rough, and the beds were constructed like scaffolding. We made a kind of mattress out of corn husks or moss."

"My girl, she was sweet, but the overseer was tough. His temper was really bad, like it came from the devil himself. His name was Tom Hill, but we called him 'Devil Hill.'[Pg 198]

Old Debbil Hill used to beat me and the other Black folks if we didn't jump quickly when he yelled. He would tie us up like you tie down a hide and whip us until we bled. Many times, I sat down and made an eight-plait whip so he could hit from our heels to the back of our heads until he thought he had given the right punishment. Sometimes, he would take salt and rub it into our wounds so it would sting and burn, making us suffer even more. There was a jail right on the plantation that looked like an ice house, and it was really bad to get locked up in there.

"We got our supplies given to us every Saturday night. If there were two people in the family, they gave you half a gallon of molasses, 12 to 15 pounds of bacon, and a peck of cornmeal. We had to take the cornmeal, roast it, and make coffee from it. We also had our different types of flour. One was biscuit flour, which we called 'shorts.' We had rye, wheat, and buckwheat."

"If they didn't give you enough supplies, you just had to sneak around and get a chicken. It's that simple, but catching a pig is definitely a challenge. You have to grab him by the snout so he won't squeal and hold him tight while you stab him. That isn't stealing, is it? You have to keep working in the field if you don't have enough, and no one likes to work with their stomach growling."

"When the white preacher comes, he preaches and picks up his Bible, claiming he’s getting the text straight from the good Book and he preaches: 'The Lord says, don’t you black people steal chickens from your mistress. Don’t you steal YOUR MASTER'S hogs.' That’s all he preaches.[Pg 199]

"Us black folks used to have a prayer spot down in the hollow, and sometimes we’d come out of the fields, between 11 and 12 at night, exhausted and hungry, wanting to ask the good Lord for mercy. We’d put grease in a snuff pan or bottle to make a lamp. We’d also take a pine torch and head down to the hollow to pray. Some get so joyful they start to shout loudly, and we have to cover their mouths. I’ve seen black people get so filled with the Lord and so happy that they faint."

"I kept an eye on the people working in the cotton field. Sometimes they were lazy, and if I saw the overseer coming from the big house, I sang a song to warn them, so they wouldn’t get beaten, and it went like this:"

"'Wait, wait, American Spirit!
Wait, wait, H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!'

"We used to go hunting and there was a lot of game, bears, panthers, and raccoons. We had bear dogs, fox dogs, and rabbit dogs that mostly just went by the name of hound dogs. Then they had a dog to chase boars."

"I never tried any of that magic stuff, but they would take hair, brass nails, thimbles, and needles and mix them up in a magic bag. But I know one thing. There was an old gin between Wilbarger and Colorado, and it was haunted by the spirits of the dead Black people. We used to hear that old mill humming when it got dark, and we'd sneak up to it, but it would stop. Then, when you backed away, it would start up again."

"I remember when the stars fell. We ran and prayed, because we thought it was Judgment Day. It really was dumb old Devil Hill; those stars were beyond its power."

"On Sundays we put shoes on our feet, and they had brass toes. They were so hard and stiff they went 'tump, tump, tump' when we walked. That's the only day we had besides Christmas, and we just had something extra to eat. All those women really knew how to cook! I often tell my wife how happy I was one morning when my lady gave me a hot, buttered biscuit. I went down and showed it to all the other boys. We didn't get those hot, buttered biscuits in those days."

"I used to dance the pigeon wing and swing my partners around. Were those women knock-kneed? You definitely couldn't tell, even when you swung them around, because their dresses were so long."

"I've been all around the mountain and even up on top of it in my day. During slavery, I was so cold I almost turned white, and they sat me in front of the fire and treated me with sliced turnips. When a cold front came through, it blew snow and sleet, and I didn't have enough clothes to keep me warm."

"When a black man gets married, he dresses up nicely and puts on his polished shoes, then the preacher marries him according to the Bible. My dad has a pass to see my mom, and if he doesn't have one, the paddle roller hits him on the head. My grandparents came here on a steamboat. This man came to Africa and asked, 'Man and woman, do you want a job?' So they got on the boat and then he had the advantage."

"When I was 21 and a bit older, I can't remember exactly how old, I was a free man. That was the day I shouted. We Black people scattered like partridges. I had a fiddle and I’d play for the white folks wherever I went, whenever they had parties. I got married eventually, but I don't remember what year it was because we never really paid attention to the years. My first wife passed away after a long time, I think about 34 years, and I remarried, but she died this very year. Just three months later, I married my housekeeper, named Luvena Dixon, because I always lived a decent life and I knew the Lord wouldn't approve if I kept living in the same house with Luvena without us being married. She is 52 years old, and we are happy.[Pg 202]

"I'm home today because my little old dog is lost and I have to stay around to look for him. I've been going every day in the truck to the cotton fields. I don't pick any more because my hands get too tired and start cramping up on me. But I go and sit in the field and watch the lunches for the other workers."

"I am a hundred one years old, because I was twenty-eight, about to turn twenty-nine, a grown man, when the breakup happened. I'm pretty old, but that's how my family is. My old black mother, Zenie Carter, lived to be a hundred twenty-five, and Oll Carter, my white master, who was my dad's brother, lived to be a hundred four. He hasn't been gone for long. Al Carter, my father, lived to a very old age, but I don't know when he passed away."

Back in Alabama, Missie Adeline Carter took me in when I was done with my crawling days to live in the big house with the white folks. I had a room built onto the main house, where I stayed, and they were always good to me because I was one of their own. They never hit or slapped me, and they told me they’d never sell me away from them. They were the best kind of white folks and lived in a large, two-story house with a big hallway that ran all the way through. They weren't as harsh as some white people were to their Black servants.

"My mom lived in a log cabin made from hewn oak in the quarters. There was a long row of cabins, some bigger than others, depending on family size. My master had over eighty slaves. Those little old cabins were cozy because[Pg 203] we filled the gaps with mud, and they had stick chimneys covered in mud mixed with hog hair."

"The fixin's were just simple things. The beds were draw-beds—wooden bed frames held together with tightly drawn ropes to keep them secure. We scalded moss, let it sit for a while, and then stuffed it into ticking to make mattresses. Those beds were comfortable, better than the ones we have today."

There was a great fireplace for cooking, and on Sundays, the lady would give us Black folks a pint of flour and a chicken so we could make a meal. There was plenty of game to find. Many times, I've killed seventy-five or eighty squirrels from one big beech tree. There were lots of deer, bears, quails, and all sorts of game, but when they drove the Indians out of the area, the game just followed them. I’ve seen the biggest herds of deer trail where the Indians went. Whenever the Indians left, the game all left with them for some reason I don’t understand.

"Talking about food, our meals were good. I can't say the same for all places. Some plantations barely fed their workers and rationed their meals until they weren't fit for work. They had to sneak around to other places to get extra food. They had calls and other kinds of shouts that meant something to them."

Our property was fifteen hundred acres in one piece, and besides the cotton, corn, rice, and sugarcane we grew in the lowlands, we had vegetables, sheep, and beef. We dried the beef on scaffolds we built, and I used to take care of it. But of everything to eat, I loved a big, fat raccoon, and I always enjoyed honey. Some of the Black folks had little garden plots they looked after for themselves.[Pg 204]

"Everything I tell you is the truth, but there’s a lot I can't share with you. I heard many things from my mom and granddad. He was a great diver and used to dive in the Alabama River for items that had fallen off boats, and the white folks would hire him to go down for things they wanted. They would lower him by a rope to find things on the riverbed. He used to get paid for doing it."

"My grandma was a mix, because her mom was Black and her dad was a Choctaw Indian. That’s what makes me so mixed with Indian, African, and White heritage. Sometimes it mattered to me, sometimes it didn’t. It doesn’t anymore, because I’m not too far from the end of my days."

"I had one brother and one sister I helped raise. They were mostly black. The Carters told me not to worry about them, though, because my mom was of their blood and all of us in our family would never be sold, and sometimes they'd set us free as men and women. My brother and sister lived with the black people, though."

"I was trained to be a houseboy and take care of the cows. The bears were so bad back then that a responsible person who could handle a gun had to look after them."

"My master used to give me a little money to buy what I wanted. I always bought nice clothes. In the summer, when I was little, I wore lower garments like the other black kids. Those were made from cotton sacks. Most of the boys wore shirt tails until they were older. When they bought me red boots from town, I cried and cried. I didn’t want to wear those rawhide shoes. So they took them back. They couldn't resist my crying. I did have plenty of nice clothes, good wool suits that they made on the place, along with doeskin and fine linens. I rode in the carriage with the white folks and was about the best-dressed black person in those parts.[Pg 205]"

"I used to take care of the spinning thread. They called it that because when mothers were busy with babies that needed to be fed, they had to spin. I'd take them the thread and bring it back home when it was spun. If they didn't spin seven or eight cuts a day, they'd get punished. It was pretty tough on a woman when she had a restless baby. But every morning, those babies had to be taken to the big house so the white folks could check if they were dressed appropriately. There was money invested in little black kids."

They whipped the women and they whipped the men. I used to work in the tannery and we made the whips. They'd tie them down to a post and give them a beating. Some Black people, it took four men to whip them, but they got it. The Black driver was meaner than the white folks. They better not leave a blade of grass out of place in the rows. I saw them beat a Black person for half a day to make him confess to stealing a sheep or a piglet. Or they’d whip them for trying to escape, but not as hard if they came back on their own when they got hungry and sick in the swamps. But when they had to chase them down with the Black dogs, they would get in serious trouble.

"The Carters never had any truly 'correctable' Black people, but I heard stories about them from other places. When they were really 'correctable,' the white people said they were like rabid dogs and didn’t hesitate to kill them just as easily as killing a sheep. They’d take them to the graveyard, shoot them, and bury them face down, with their shoes on. I never saw it happen, but they made some Black people go to see it as a warning that they could end up the same way."

"But I didn't even have to carry a pass to leave my own home, like the other Black people. I had a cap with a sign on it: 'Don't bother this Black, [Pg 206] or there will be hell to pay.' I went to get the mail in town. It came in coaches, and they would switch out the horses at Pineapple. The coachman would drive the horses into Pineapple with a lot of fuss, blowing the horn to get the fresh horses ready. I got the mail. I was trustworthy all my life and have never been arrested by the law to this day."

"I never had any complaints about how I was treated, but some of the Black workers hated syrup-making time because when they had to work until midnight making syrup, they still had to get up at four o'clock. Sun-up to sundown was for the field workers."

"Corn shucking was a great time. Back then, no corn was stored in the cribs with shucks on it. They shucked it in the field and stacked the fodder. They worked in teams, with everyone joining in. A cow was slaughtered, and they would have a proper picnic feast. There was plenty of whiskey for the Black folks, just like at Christmas."

"Christmas was the big day at the Carters'. Gifts for everyone, and the baking and preparing went on for days. The little ones and the grown-ups were happy, especially the Black men, because of plenty of good whiskey. Mr. Oll Carter got the best whiskey for his Black friends."

"We used to have parties, too. Some Black people had fiddles and played the tunes, and Black people love to dance, sing, and eat."

"Black people had their serious side, too. They loved going to church and had a little log chapel for worship. But I went to the white people's church. In the chapel, some Black men preached from the Bible, but they couldn't read a line any better than a sheep could. The Carters didn't mind their Black people praying and singing hymns, but in some places, they weren't allowed to worship at all, and they had to hide their heads in pots to sing or pray."

"Most of the Black people I know who officially got married did it after they had split up, often after they had already had kids. When they got married on the plantations, they mostly just jumped over a broom, and that was their marriage. Sometimes one of the white folks would read a little from the Bible to them, and that made them feel more married."

"Take me, I was never one for being sick. But the slaves used to get sick. There was jaundice in those areas. First, they'd give some castor oil, and if that didn't work, they'd give blue mass. Then if he was still sick, they'd get a doctor."

"They used to herd the Black people off just like cattle, and we didn’t think anything of it. I saw them put them on the block and show them off like they were something special. Everyone liked to hear them auction off Black people. The auctioneer was a clown who made jokes and kept everyone laughing."

"When the master and the other men on the estate went off to war, he called me over and said, 'Cato, you've always been a responsible man, and I need you to look after the women and the estate. If I don't come back, I want you to always stay by Missie Adeline!' I said, 'I swear, I will, Master Oll.' He said, 'Then I can go away in peace.'"

"We thought for a long time that the soldiers had the Federals completely defeated, but there were still many hard times ahead. I carried a gun and watched the place at night. The patrols were dangerous. I caught one and brought him to the house more than once. They wore black caps and covered their faces with black rags, always sneaking around at night. We stopped using torches when we went out after dark because we were scared. We extinguished all the fires around the house at night."

"The young men in grey uniforms used to walk by happily singing on the main road. Their clothes were nice, and we would feed them the best we had on the[Pg 208] place. Missie Adeline would say, 'Cato, they are our boys, so give them the best we can afford.' We brought out the hams, wine, and killed chickens for them. That was at first."

"Then the soldiers in blue started coming this way, and they looked really good, too. Missie Adeline would cry and say, 'Cato, they're just men and boys, and we have to feed them, too.' We had a pavilion built in the yard, like the ones they have at picnics, and we fed the Federals there. Missie Adeline started crying and said to the Yankees, 'Don't take Cato. He’s the only black man I have with me now. If you take Cato, I just don’t know what I’ll do.' I told the soldiers I had to stay with Missie Adeline for as long as I lived. The Yankee men told her, 'Don’t worry, we’re not going to take Cato or harm anything of yours.' The reason they were good to us was because we prepared for them, but some folks had a really rough experience. They took their horses and corn."

"I saw the trees bend low and shake all over and heard the roar and popping of cannonballs. There were springs not too far from our place where the soldiers used to camp, build a fire, and cook a mule because they were starving. When some of the guerrillas saw the fire, they aimed for it, and many times they ruined that dinner for the soldiers. The Yankees did it, and our guys did it too. There was killing going on so terribly, like people were dogs."

"Massa Oll came back and he was completely worn out and ragged. He quickly called all the black people to the front yard and said, 'Men and women, you are as free today as I am. You can do what you want because the damn Yankees have declared you free. There isn’t a single black person on my place who was born here or has ever lived here who can’t stay and work and eat here for the rest of his days, as long as this old place can grow peas and peanuts. Go if you want, and stay if you want.'[Pg 209] Some of the black people stayed, some left, and some who had run away to the North came back. They always called, very humbly, at the back gate to Missie Adeline, and she always arranged with Massa Oll that they could have a place."

"Near the end of the war, I saw some people leaving for Texas. They said if the Federals won the war, they’d have to live in Texas to keep slaves. So many started moving their slaves to the west. They’d travel with the women riding in the wagons and the men on foot. Some took slaves to Texas after the Federals declared the end of it."

"All my life I listened to what my white people told me, except for one time. There was a black man working in the field, and he kept jerking the mules, and Massa Oll got mad. He gave me a gun and said, 'Go out there and kill that man.' I said, 'Massa Oll, please don’t say that. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t want to.' He said, 'Cato, you do what I tell you.' He was serious. I went out to the black man and said, 'You have to leave right now, and I do too, because I’m supposed to kill you, but I won’t, and Massa Oll will kill me.' He dropped the reins, and we crawled through the fence and ran away."

"I hated to leave because things were so bad, and flour was selling for $25.00 a barrel, and pickled pork for $15.00 a barrel. You couldn't buy anything unless you had gold. I had plenty of Confederate money, but it wouldn't buy anything."

"But today I am an old man and my hands aren't stained with any blood. I've always been glad I didn't kill that man."

"Mules were really expensive back then. A pretty weak pair of mules sold for $500.00. But the Yankees gave me a mule, and I worked on a farm for a year for a white man while also taking care of a herd of mules. I stayed with those mules until four o'clock, even on Sundays. There were so many crooks around stealing mules.[Pg 210]

"That year I was forced out by agreement with the white man, and I made $360.00. The agency came by that year checking on black contracts to ensure they didn’t get cheated out of their rightful wages. Miss Adeline and Mr. Oll didn’t hold a grudge against me, and every Sunday they came by to visit and brought me little treats to eat."

"The Carters said a hundred times that they regretted never teaching me to read or write, and they mentioned that my dad had set aside $500.00 for me to attend the New Allison school for colored folks. Miss Benson, a Northerner, was the teacher. I was twenty-nine years old and just starting with the blueback speller. I went to school for a while, but one morning at ten o'clock, my poor old mom came by and called me out. She told me she was let go because she was too old to work in the fields. I told her not to worry, that I was the man of the family now, and she didn’t need to accept any more three-quarter hand wages ever again."

"So I left school and tried to do anything I could find for years. I never had any trouble finding work because all the white people knew Cato was a good Black man. I left my mom with some good white folks, and she raised a whole family of kids for them. Their name was Bryan, and they lived on a small bayou. The kids loved my mom, and they would send me messages not to worry about her because she would be well taken care of, and when she died, they would handle her burial."

"Finally, I made it to Texas because I thought there was money to be made out here. I worked splitting rails for two years, and after that, I mostly farmed. I married a woman and stayed with her for forty-seven years, through thick and thin. We had thirteen kids, and eight of them are still alive today.[Pg 211]

"During the big war, I got worried about my little black mom and wanted to go back home to see her and the old places. I went, and she was shriveled up to almost nothing. That was the last time I saw her. But for forty-four years, I didn't forget to send her things I thought she'd want. I saw Massa Oll, and he had married after I left and started a family of kids. I saw Missie Adeline, and she was an old woman. We went out and looked at the tombstones and rock markers in the graveyard on the old place, and some of them were nearly worn away. I looked closely at lots of things because I knew I wouldn't be that way again. So many had passed on since I had been there before."

"After my first wife died, I remarried, and my wife is a good woman, but she's old and has lost her voice, so she has to be in Terrell most of the time. But I get along okay, except my hands cramp a bit."

"You going to take my picture? I've been through a lot and I've lived a long time, but this is the first time someone has taken my photo. If I had known you wanted to do that, I would have cleaned up and worn my best clothes.[Pg 212]

"My master was Dick Townes, and my family came with him from Alabama. He owned a large plantation fifteen miles from Austin and employed many slaves. We had the best master in the entire county, and everyone called us "Townes' free blacks" because he was so good to us. We worked hard for him, raising cotton, corn, wheat, and oats."

"Most of the slaves lived in two-room log cabins with dirt floors in the quarters, but I lived in the master's yard. That's where I was born. There was a tall fence between the yard and the quarters, and the other black boys were so jealous of me that they wouldn't let me cross that fence into the quarters. They told me I thought I was white just for living in the master's yard."

"Me and the young master had a lot of fun together. He was about my age, and we'd sneak out and steal chickens from Old Miss, then head down to the orchard to barbecue them. One time she caught us and really gave us a beating! She’d make us go pick peas, but we hardly picked any!"

"Old Miss was good to her Black folks. When she heard a baby crying at night, she’d put on her boots, grab her lantern, and go check on them. If we needed a doctor, she’d call old Dr. Rector, and when I had the measles, he gave me pills as big as the tip of my finger.[Pg 213]

"We went to church all the time. Young Miss would come over Sunday morning and take all us kids to the house and read the Bible to us. She was kind of an old maid, and that was her pleasure. We had baptisms, too. One old black man was a preacher. Lord, Lord, we had shouting at those camp meetings!"

"I guess we were glad to be free. The old master had died, and the old miss was managing the plantation. She gathered everyone in the yard and read the freedom paper. The older slaves understood what it meant, but us younger ones didn't. She told everybody they could stay and work for shares, and most of them did, but some went back to their old homes in Alabama."

"I stayed for a while, got married, and moved to San Angelo. The reason I came was that things were dull in Travis County and I heard so much talk about this town that I decided to come and see for myself. That was in 1900, and it was just a forest here back then. I worked for eighteen years at McCloskey's saloon, and he gave me ten dollars every Christmas on top of my pay and a suit every year. I wish he were alive now. My wife and I were together for fifty-two years, and then she passed away. After a long time, I remarried, and my wife is out picking cotton now."

"It seems really tough for me now compared to the past, but I don't know if it was any better during slavery days. It feels really hard though, since I'm older and can't work.[Pg 214]

"Before I married for the first time, my name was Sally Banks, and I was born in the old states, in Louisiana, near Oakland. I don't remember anything about that place because I was too young when they brought me to Texas."

"Old master is named Jim Moore. He’s a decent old gentleman, with a big bald spot on his head, and he treats the slaves well. He’s not even as strict as old mistress, who was a big, heavy woman. She was really strict, but she would whip the little white children too, so they would be good."

"My dad's name is John Moore and my mom's name is Car'line, and they were born in Louisiana. My grandpa was Lewis Moore and my grandma's name is Polly, but they weren't regular African people. My grandma has some really good blood in her."

"When the old master came to Texas, he brought us over first by wagon, a mule-drawn wagon with a cover over the top, and he rented the house close to Liberty. But the next year he found a place on the river bottom near Grand Cane that suited him for the slaves he had, so he brought all the rest over from Louisiana."

"My mom had four kids when we arrived in Texas, but she had eleven more after gaining freedom. When the war started, she had six, but she had more after that. She was a milkmaid, washwoman, and spinner, and she made good, strong clothes.[Pg 215]

"They have little separate houses made out of logs for us slaves. The white folks' house was one of those big, old double-pen houses, with the hall down the middle. They have really nice things in it."

"White people give out the food every Saturday night, and it’s supposed to last for the week. All the Black people cook for themselves, except for the single men, and they eat in the big kitchen. We have syrup and cornbread and lots of sweet potatoes and cured meat that they salt and hang in the smokehouse."

"Old missus doesn't allow any dancing or hanging around that place because she's Christian. They give us Saturday and Sunday off, and the women do their own laundry then. The men take care of the gardens around their own houses. They grow some cotton and sell it to the master to make a little money that way. We don't ever get any presents, but they mostly give us food."

"Both young men went to war: John Calhoun Moore and William. The older man went a bit crazy, kind of like shell shock. As far as I know, he never got better. Young William and the old man came back without a scratch, but they didn't serve for long. All three enlisted by themselves because they didn't want anything to do with the draft. One of my uncles, Levy Moore, went to war to take care of the young men, and he got sick with a fever at Sabine Pass and died right there."

"After freedom came, the old master returned home. Then he called all the grown folks and told them they were free. A lot of people left; they just broke ranks and walked away. Both my dad and mom stayed. They were the favorites. The old mistress gave my mom a bunch of things she needed as gifts. But the white folks were just renting, and when they no longer had slaves, they gave everything up and moved to Tarkington Prairie. We lost track of them and never saw them again."

"My dad came back to Liberty then and worked in the woodyard. Mom taught me how to work and cook and such, and she hired me out to take care of a white baby. I didn’t know how much they paid because Mom collected the money."

I'm 19 years old when I marry for the first time. You know I've had two men pass away, that Dick Owens and Nero Williams, both from Liberty. I have two daughters, Alice and Airy, with Dick, and five children with Nero. They're all gone except for Adlowyer and Mamie, and they live right here. I've been married to Ben Chambers for about thirty years, but we've never had any children.

"Goodness, I don’t know how many grandkids I have. I guess about 54 in total and 13 great-grandkids."

"I love to work, and I'm not going to beg, even though I'm too old to do much. I can only handle a little at a time, but I get by somehow.[Pg 217]

"I'll be 102 years old this fall because my mom said I was born on October 17, 1835, and I was about 30 years old at the end of the Civil War. We were part of the Choices, and I was born on their plantation. My mom's name was Martha, and she was brought here from Serbia. My dad's name was John, and he came from the East Indies. They were brought to this country on a slave ship owned by Captain Adair and sold to someone in New Orleans before Master Jezro Choice bought them. I had five sisters and one brother, but they are all gone except for one brother who lives near Henderson."

"Master Jezro was really kind. He had around 50 or 60 slaves, along with a grist mill and a tannery in addition to the plantation. My white family sort of chose me, and I went to school with the white kids. I went to the fields when I was about 20, but I didn't do much fieldwork because they were taking good care of me and didn't want to overwork me."

"On Sunday we just threw an old Prince Albert coat on some good black guy and made a preacher out of him. We Black folks had our band, too, and I was[Pg 218] one of the players."

"The master was very careful about raising healthy Black families and used strong, healthy young men to pair with the healthy Black women. When I was young, they were careful not to overwork me, and I was as handsome as a speckled puppy and in demand for breeding. Later on, we Black people were allowed to marry, and the master and mistress would set up the Black couple and host the celebration in the big house. The white folks would gather in a circle with the Black couple in the center, and then the master would lay a broom on the floor. They held hands and jumped over it. That made it official."

"When babies were born, old black grandmothers took care of them, but until they were about three years old, they weren't allowed around the quarters. Instead, they were wet-nursed by women who didn't work in the fields and kept in separate quarters. In the evening, their mothers were allowed to see them."

"We were fed well and had plenty of beef, pork, and wild game. Opossum and sweet yams are really delicious. You parboil the opossum until it's about half cooked, then put it in a roasting pan and place it in a hot oven. Just before it's done, you add the yams to the pan and sprinkle sugar on them. That's a feast."

"Sometimes when they were short on bread, the old lady would say, 'How about some ash cakes?' Then they would mix cornmeal and water, sweep out the ashes from the open hearth, and bake the ash cakes."

"The master and his boys were all killed in the war, and after gaining freedom, I stayed all summer. It was pretty tough for us Black folks for a while because the women who were left after the war didn’t have money. But Colonel Jones, the master's son-in-law, took me to live in Henderson and paid twenty-five cents a week for me to get more schooling, and I learned about fractions.[Pg 219] Then I got a job teaching school for about six months a year, and during my free time, I’d farm. I did a lot of different kinds of work on the narrow gauge railroad out of Longview, and I learned to be a barber, too. But I had to give that up a few years ago because I can’t stand up for long anymore, and now I’m trying to help my people through divine healing.[Pg 220]

"I was born on April 2nd, 1841. Mom says that year was significant because Marse Bob's brother, Tom, went trading and had a lot of trouble with the Indians, coming back with scars all over his arms. It wasn't entirely their fault, because Marse Tom was always getting into trouble with someone."

"When I was still a kid, Marse Bob traded me to Marse Ed Roseborough, and we moved to Belton to live. We loaded up ox wagons with bedding, clothes, and other stuff, and Old Marse had his books in a special horsehair trunk that still had hair on it. It had brass tacks all over it, and it was definitely a fancy trunk. He said, 'Amos, you troublemaker, keep an eye on that trunk, don’t get it wet while crossing the water, and don’t let any Indians take it.' We had a decent herd of cattle and some sheep, pigs, chickens, and ducks."

"Marse and Missis found the spot they wanted for the house, so we got the axes out, and in just a few days, we had a nice log house with two big rooms and a hall in between them, almost as big as the rooms. We had been on the road for about six weeks, and Missis was really proud of her new house. Then we turned logs into houses for ourselves and built a big kitchen next to the main house. After that, we built an office for Old Marse and made chairs, beds, and tables for everyone. Old Miss brought her bed and a little wobbly table, and we made everything else.[Pg 221]

"For eating, the good hunters and scouts get birds, rabbits, wild turkeys, and sometimes a lot of wild eggs or honey when they chop down a bee tree. An old Indian came to help us hunt. He'd work for a week if Mr. Ed gave him some red fabric or a hatchet. Old Miss brought a dozen hens and a bag of seeds, and people came riding twenty miles to trade."

"Dere wasn't any mill to grind corn, so the boss carpenter hollowed out a log and got some smooth, hard rocks, and we ground the corn like it was a mortar. Old Man Stubblefield built a watermill on the creek about eight miles from us, and then we took the corn there."

"There were three hundred acres and more than fifty slaves, and a lot of work, clearing, building, and planting. Some of the cabins didn't get a floor for two years. Just as quickly as they could, the men got out clapboards for the walls and split puncheon slabs for floors and palings for fences."

"Missis takes two of the promising young slaves and makes a garden come spring. Somehow she gets herself roses, flowers, and vegetables."

"Dere wasn't any overseer. Marse Ed would just ride around on his big horse and check on things. We didn't know much about the war because none of us could read or write."

"Dere were two fiddlers among us, Jim Roseborough and Tom. They had the big barbecue for folks coming from miles around, with coffee, chicken, turkey, and dancing and fiddling all night. By daybreak, they were just getting started. We Black folks danced back to the quarters and called...

"'All eight balance and all eight swing,
All left allemande and right hand grand,
Meet your partner and promenade, eight,
[Pg 222]Then march until you come straight.

"'First lady goes out to couple on the right,
Swing Mr. Adam and swing Miss Eve,
Swing Old Adam before you leave,
Don't forget your own—now you're home.'

"Two or three years after that, I married Liza Smith. We have four kids, and all are gone except for John, and he lives out west."

"After freedom, Old Marse said to kill a yearling and have a big dinner and dance. He told the younger ones to spread out and find work, not to steal, and to work hard. He gave some of the oldest ones a cabin and a piece of land. He said that the Black folks who wanted to stay and work for him could, as long as he made enough to feed them. I stayed with Marse Ed, but he gave me a piece of twenty acres and a sorghum mill to make a living on. That’s how I got started on my own after freedom."

"I got that sorghum mill working well and tended the Roseborough land along with my own patch, raising corn, cotton, and wheat. I was really good at farming. I've always had a little money in my pocket as far back as I can remember, but now the old man is too old. The government gives me seven or eight dollars a month, and I have a few chickens to get by, and the kind white folks nearby make sure I don't get cold.[Pg 223]

"I'll be 112 years old on the first of June (1937). Born in Mississippi. I had two masters, but I've been free for nearly 80 years. I was freed in Memphis."

"My master was from the North. He took me to Louisiana and turned me into a slave. But then he had to go to war. One day, he got into an argument and grabbed two pistols, but an elderly white man took him down and nearly killed him. Our men captured him and handed him over to the Yankees."

"Captain Clark, my second master, shot at him and he couldn't come south anymore. You wouldn't believe the mess I witnessed! I don't want to see any more war. We made the United States wealthy, but the Yankees came and took it. They buried money, and when you bury money, it goes further down, down, down, and then you can't find it."

You know, the white folks hated to let us go more than anything in the world. I plowed, hoed, and split rails. I did the hardest work any man ever did. I was so strong that if they needed me, I'd pull the men down so the master could handcuff them.[Pg 224] They would whip us with a bullwhip. We got up at 3 o'clock, ate by 4, hitched up the mules, and went to the fields. We worked all day pulling fodder and chopping cotton. The master would say, "I want you to lead that field today, and if you don’t do it, I’ll put you in the stocks." Then he’d whip me if I didn’t realize he was talking to me.

"My dad was strong. He never got in trouble in his life. He helped the master, but one day the master said, 'Si, you need to be punished,' and my dad replied, 'I've never been punished, and you can't punish me.' Then the master said, 'But I can kill you,' and he shot my dad down. My mom took him into the cabin and put him on a mat. He died."

"My mom did the laundry for the big house. She carried a large tub on her head and a bucket of water in her hand. My mom had two white kids with the master, and they were sold as slaves. I had two kids, too. I never got married. They always said we’d steal, but I didn’t take anything. They’d put me on a horse with money to take into town, and I’d take it to the store, and when I’d get back, the master would say, ‘Anne, you didn’t take anything.’"

"When women were pregnant, they would dig a hole in the ground and put their stomach in the hole, then beat them. They would always hit us."

"Don't bring me anything nice to wear for my birthday. I just want some candy. I'm hoping He'll take me away from here."[Pg 225]

I might as well start as far back as I can remember and share my story. I was born in Jackson County, Alabama, on August 8, 1845. My mother was Elizabeth Cole, who was a slave of Robert Cole, and my father was Alex Gerrand, since he was John Gerrand's slave. I was supposed to take my father's name, but he was such a bad, unpleasant, worthless person that I just took my old master's name. My mother was brought from Virginia by Dr. Cole, and she took care of all his six children. My sister's name was Sarah and my brother's name was Ben, and we lived in one room of the big house, always having a good bed to sleep in and nice food to eat at the same table after the white folks were done.

I played with Massa Cole's kids all the time, and when I got older, he started me working by carrying wood and doing odd jobs, and feeding the pigs. We kids had to pick cotton every fall. The big baskets weighed about seventy-five to a hundred pounds, but we kids put our pickings in the grown-ups' baskets. The grown slaves were just like mules. They worked for food and clothes, and some of them didn't have an easier time than a mule, because mules were fed well, and slaves were sometimes half-starved.[Pg 226] But Massa Cole was a smart man, and a good man at that. He respected the slaves' feelings and didn't treat them like dumb animals, and allowed them more privileges than any other slaveholder around there. He was one of the best men I ever knew in my whole life, and his wife was just like him. They had a large, four-room log house with a big hallway running down the center. The logs were all peeled, and the chinking was a different color from the logs and covered with beads. The kitchen was a one-room house behind the big house with a large chimney for cooking. That's where all the meals were prepared and carried to the house.

"In winter, the master always kills about three to four hundred pigs, with two kill sessions happening in November and January. Some people kill and stick them, some scald and scrape them, while others dress them, cut them up, and render the lard. They haul plenty of hickory wood to the smokehouse, and the men work in shifts to keep the smoke fire going for several days, then hang the meat in the meat house. First, we eat all the chitlins, then the master starts distributing cut-back bones to each family, followed by the spareribs, then the middlin' or a shoulder, and by that time, he kills again to start the process all over. Each family gets the same kind of meat each week. If one family gets a ham, they all get a ham. All the ears and feet are pickled, and we eat those too. If the meat runs out before kill time, we hunt wild turkeys, or kill a cow, a goat, or get a deer."

"Massa let us grow pumpkins and have an acre or two for watermelons, if we worked on Saturday evenings. There was an orchard of about five or six acres of peaches and apples, and he allowed us to have biscuits once a week. Yeah, we had good food and plenty of it then."

"Massa had one big, strong, healthy-looking slave about six feet four inches tall, for whom he paid $3,000. He bought six slaves that I know of and paid from $400 up for them. He never sold a slave unless they got unruly."

"Mister gives us cotton clothes for summer and wool for winter because he raised cotton and sheep. Then each family has some chickens and sells them and the eggs, and maybe goes hunting to sell the hides and get some money. Then we buy what are Sunday clothes with that money, like hats, pants, shoes, and dresses."

We’d get up early every day of the year, rain or shine, hot or cold. A slave would blow the horn, and there was no danger of not waking up when it blew long and loud. He would climb up on a platform about ten feet tall to blow that bugle. We’d work until noon, eat in the shade, and rest for about an hour or a little more if it was hot, but only an hour if it was cold. You’re always tired when you spend the day like that on the plantation, and you can’t play all night like the young folks do now. But we’re lucky because Massa Cole doesn’t whip us. The man who has a place next to ours definitely whips his slaves. He has a cat-o’-nine-tails made of rawhide leather braided around a piece of wood for a handle. The wood is about ten inches long, and the leather is braided along the stock quite a bit, and about a foot from that, all the strips are tied in a knot and spread out to make the tassel. This is called the cracker, and it’s what splits the hide. Some folks call them bullwhips instead of cat-o’-nine-tails. The first thing that man does when he buys a slave is give him a whipping. He calls it putting the fear of God in him.

"Massa Cola lets us read the Bible. He's really good about that. Most of the slaveowners wouldn't allow any of that. Uncle Dan reads to us, and on Sunday we can go to church. The preacher baptizes the slaves in the river. That's the[Pg 228] good, old-time religion, and we all shout and have a great time. This generation is too dignified for the old-time religion."

"When baptism happens, it’s almost like going to the circus. People come from all over, singing songs, and everyone brings their lunch to have a good time. Master Cole went one time, and then he got sick, and the next summer he died. Missy Cole moved to Huntsville, Alabama, but she left me on the plantation because I was big and strong then. She took my mother to cook, and that was the last time I ever saw my mother. Missy Cole bought a nice house in Huntsville. My mother told me to be good and do everything the overseer said. I said goodbye to her, and she never got to come back and see me, and I never saw her or my brother and sister again. I don’t know if they were sold or not."

I think to myself that Mr. Anderson, the overseer, will give me the cat-o'-nine-tails at the first chance he gets, but I've made up my mind that he won't get the chance because I'm going to run off at the first opportunity I have. I didn't know how to get out of there, but I'm heading north where there aren't any slave owners. After a year or so, there's another overseer, Mr. Sandson, who gives me the log house and a girl to do my cooking and such. There’s talk of war, and we start going to the fields earlier and staying later. Corn is being taken away, cotton is being taken away, hogs and cattle are rounded up and taken away, and things are starting to look bad. The war is on, but we don't see any of it. Instead of eating cornbread, we eat bread made from kaffir corn and maize. We raise a lot of okra, and they say it's going to be dried and ground to make coffee for white folks. That didn't look good either. That winter, instead of killing three or four hundred hogs like we always did before, we only managed to kill a hundred seventy-five, and they weren't all big ones either. When the meat supply runs low, Mr. Sandson sends some slaves to kill a deer or wild hogs or just any kind of game. He never sends me in any of those groups, but I hoped he would, and one day he calls me to go and says not to go off the plantation too far, but be sure to bring home some meat. This is the chance I've been waiting for, so when we get to the hunting ground, the leader says to scatter out, and I tell him that me and another man will head north and make a circle around the river and meet up around sundown. I cross the river and head north. I'm going to the free country, where there aren't any slaves. I travel all that day and night up the river, following the north star. Several times, I think the bloodhounds are trailing me, and I get in a big hurry. I'm so tired I can hardly move, but I push myself into a trot.

"I’m hoping and praying all the time that I run into that Harriet Tubman woman. She’s the Black woman who helps slaves escape to Canada. She always travels the underground railroad, as they call it, moving at night and hiding during the day. She definitely sneaks them out of the South, and I think she’s a really brave woman."

"I eat all the nuts and catch a few swamp rabbits and fish. I build a fire and go about half a mile to hide in the thicket until it burns down to coals, then I bake some fish and rabbit. I'm shaking the whole time, scared I'll get caught, but I'm nearly starving to death. I put the rest of the fish in my cap and travel that night by the North Star, hiding in a big thicket the next day. In the evening, I hear gunshots. I'm really scared this time, for sure. I'm scared to come in and scared to go out, and while I'm standing there, I hear two men say, 'Put your hands up, boy. What are you doing?' I say, 'Uh-uh-uh, I don’t know. You’re not going to take me back to the plantation, are you?' They say, 'No. Do you want to fight for the North?' I say I will, because they talk like northern men. We walk night and day and get to General Rosecrans's camp, and they think I'm a spy from the South. They ask me all kinds of questions and say they'll whip me if I don't tell them what I'm spying on. Finally, they believe me and put me to work helping with the cannons. I feel important then, but I don't know what's ahead of me, or I suspect I would run away again."

"I helped set up the cannons on Chickamauga Mountain, hiding them in places. I had to go with a man and wait for him and that cannon. The next thing I know, bang, bang, boom—things have started, and the guns are firing faster than you can think, and I look around for a way to run. But those guns are firing down the hill in front of me, shooting at me, above me, and on both sides. I try to dig myself a hole to get into it. All this is happening right now, and the next thing I know, the man is kicking me and wanting me to help him keep that cannon loaded. Man, I didn't want any cannon, but I had to help anyway. We fought until dark, and the Rebels had more men than us, so Gen. Rosecran sent the message to Gen. Woods to come help us out. When the messenger slipped away, I really wished it was me slipping away, but I didn't want to see Gen. Woods. I just wanted to get back to that old plantation and pick more cotton. I'd been willing to do almost anything to get out of that mess, but I told Gen. Rosecran I wanted to fight the Rebels, and he was definitely letting me do it. He wasn't just letting me; he was making me do it. I got in there, and he wouldn't let me out."

"White folks, there were men lying there, needing help, needing water, with blood pouring out of them and huge gaps in their heads. I just promised the good Lord that if he could get me out of that mess, I wouldn't run off anymore, but I didn't know then that he wasn't going to let me out with just that battle.[Pg 231] He was going to give me plenty more, but that battle isn't over yet, because the next morning the Rebels started shooting and killing a lot of our men, and Gen. Woods hadn't come, so Gen. Rosecran ordered us to retreat, and I didn't need him to tell me twice. The Rebels came after us, shooting, and we ran off and left that cannon I was with sitting on the hill, and I didn't want that thing anyway."

"We kept moving fast until we got to Chattanooga, and that’s where we stopped. Suddenly, one of those Rebel generals shows up with a big group of men and takes position on Lookout Mountain, close to Chattanooga, and wouldn’t let us get out. I don’t know exactly how long it was, but it felt like forever. Many of our horses and mules starved to death, and we ended up eating some of the horses. We were all close to starving ourselves. Chattanooga is located at a bend in the Tennessee River, and on Lookout Mountain to the east, the Rebels were there and could keep track of everything we did. After a long while, General Thomas somehow managed to find a way in. He discovered a rough trail or wagon road around the mountain along the river, and supplies and men started arriving by boat up the river to this point and then made their way into Chattanooga. More Union soldiers kept coming, and I think maybe six or eight generals arrived as they prepared for battle. It was late in the fall or early winter."

"Dey start climbing this steep mountain, and when we get three-fourths of the way up, it’s foggy and you can’t see anything. Everything is wet, and the rocks are slick, and they start fighting. I expect some shoot their own men, ‘cause you can’t see anything, just men running and the guns roaring. Finally, those Rebels fled, and we reached Lookout Mountain and took it."

There’s a long range of hills stretching away from Lookout Mountain, almost to Missionary Ridge. This ridge, next to the Chickamauga River—which is the Indian name meaning River of Death—was the site of fighting between us and the Rebels on Orchard Knob Hill. I wasn't involved in that, but I did participate in the battle at Missionary Ridge. We had to come out of the woods and run across a stretch of clearing up the hill. They certainly killed a lot of our men when we crossed that clearing. We ran with everything we had and used our guns or anything we could find. The Rebels turned and ran off, and our soldiers turned the captured cannons around and killed some of the Rebels with their own guns.

"I never got to the point where I wasn't scared when we went into battle. This is the last one I'm in and I'm sure glad, because I've never seen anything like the dead and wounded men. We picked them up, both the Rebels and the Union soldiers, and did our best to treat them. When I saw all that suffering, I hoped I never have to witness another war. They say World War is worse but I'm too old to go."

"I really wish many times that I had never run away from the plantation. I begged the General not to send me into any more battles, and he says I'm a coward and sympathizes with the South. But I told him I just couldn't handle seeing all those men lying there dying and screaming and begging for help and a drink of water, with blood everywhere you look. Killing pigs back on the plantation didn't bother me at all, but this is different."

"Finally, the General tells me I can go back to Chattanooga to guard the supplies in camp there and take care of the wounded soldiers and prisoners. A group of men is with me, and we have all we can handle. We get orders to send supplies to some general, and it’s my job to help load the wagons, boxcars, or boats. A train of wagons leaves sometimes. We receive all these supplies by boat, and Chattanooga is the distribution center. When winter comes, everyone takes a break and waits for spring to arrive. The Union general sends in more colored soldiers. There haven’t been many colored men, but in the last year of the war, there are lots. The North and the South are taking anything they can get to win the war.[Pg 233]

"When spring arrives and all the snow is gone, and the trees start to bloom and everything looks beautiful and peaceful, making you think you should be plowing and planting a crop, that's when the fighting starts all over again, with men being killed, homes being burned, and livestock and food being stolen. Then they send me out to help clear roads and build temporary bridges. We walk miles on muddy ground, across rivers, wading through water up to our chins. We build rafts and pole bridges to get the mules, horses, and cannons across, and up and down hills, and clear roads through the woods."

"But when they want to fight, General Thomas always leaves me in camp to take care of the supplies. He calls me a coward, and I'm just glad he thinks that way. I wasn't a coward; I just couldn't bear to watch all those people getting torn apart. I heard about the battle in a dense forest, and the trees as big as me were just being shot down. I saw that in the Missionary Ridge battle, too."

"I move from one camp to another and finally get back to Chattanooga. I bet during my time I handled enough ammunition to kill everyone in the whole United States. I saw most of the top generals in the Union Army and some in the Rebel Army."

"After the war was over, we were set free, with nowhere to go and no one to help us. I couldn't go South because they called me a traitor and would definitely kill me if they found out I belonged in the North. I took any small job I could get for about a year and finally got a job on the railroad in Stevenson, Alabama. I got transferred to Chattanooga and worked laying new tracks and turntables and such."

"In about two weeks, I saw a girl next door, but I was shy. After payday, I dressed up and took her to a dance. We dated for about two months, and then we got married at her uncle's place. Her name is Nancy. We bought a piece of land, and I had a two-room house built on it. We have two kids, and I'm living with the baby girl now.[Pg 234]"

"I believe the slaves I knew, on the whole, were happier and better off after emancipation than before. Of course, the first few years were really tough to adjust to the new life. All the slaves knew how to do hard work, and that was the old slave life, but they didn't know anything about depending on themselves for a living. My first year was hard, but there was plenty of wild game back then. The South was in rough shape, and I didn't hear of any slaves getting anything except for sharing the crop. They were just so glad to be free and didn't want anything."

"Things started to get tough for me in Chattanooga when the white men found out I had escaped from the South and joined the North. Some of the railroad workers tried to take my job. I finally quit when one of them opened a switch I had just closed. I saw him, went back, and fixed the switch, but I decided to leave the job. I went up north, but they weren't interested, so I came back, sold my home, and bought a team and wagon. I loaded it with my wife, kids, and a few belongings and set off for Texas. We were on the road for about six weeks or two months. We fished and hunted every day, and the trip didn't cost much. I bought ninety acres of timberland in Cass County, cut logs to build a house, and constructed a two-room house and a log crib. My wife made a stomp lot for the team and cow and built a rail fence."

"We cleared enough land for a small crop, about thirty acres, and built the barn and sheds ourselves. We lived there until the kids grew up. My wife died from chills and fever, and then my son and I built a four-room house from planks we got from our timber. After that, I felt lonely because the kids were gone, so I sold the place. I bought it for fifty cents an acre and sold it for $12.00 an acre.[Pg 235]

I bought sixty acres in Henderson County for $15.00 an acre and got married for the second time. I didn't care for her like I did for Nancy. All she thinks about is causing trouble and she never wants to work or save anything. She almost had me worn down before I got rid of her. I stayed and farmed for several years.

"My son-in-law rents land in Chambers Creek bottom, and he usually gets his crops before the flood takes them. We have some pigs to butcher every winter and we have our cornmeal, milk, eggs, and chickens, so the depression hasn't starved us yet. We all got pretty much naked during the depression. I feed the pigs and chickens morning and night. I can't see them, but I like to listen to them eating and clucking. People don’t realize how blessed they are with good eyesight until they lose it. Everyone should be more thankful than they are."

"I've never voted in my life. I lean towards the Republicans. I don't know much about politics, though."

"Today I am broke because I spent all my money on medicine and doctors, but I get a small pension and I spend it most carefully.[Pg 236]

"I have an old bill of sale, and it shows I was born in 1846 and my master is George Brady. I know my father's name was the same as mine, and my mother's name was Ella. I had one brother named Sam, and my sisters were Sadie, Rosa, and Viola. They're all dead now."

"Pappy was owned by Massa Coleman, who was the brother of Massa Brady. Pappy could only see Mammy once a week when he was courting her. I heard Pappy talk about his father over in Africa, and he had nearly a hundred wives and over three hundred children."

"Pappy never worked. All he did was trade. He'd make one thing or another and trade it for food. He could get plenty of fruit and game from the woods back then, and there was lots of fish."

Our log cabin was made of logs and had six rooms. It was long, like a barn or chicken coop, and my room was the third one. Each room had a door that was covered with animal hides. We dug out a corner for the bed, fenced it off, and gathered straw, moss, and torn-up corn husks to use as bedding. In other words, it made for a cozy bed.

"We did all sorts of work, chopping cotton, splitting rails, cutting rock, and working in the tobacco field. We’d cut the tobacco and hang it in the shed to dry. It had to be hung by the stubble end."

"We had plenty to eat, like corn pones. The corn was grated by hand and cooked in ashes, without any salt, soda, or fancy ingredients like they use in bread today.[Pg 237]

"There were possum and rabbit, and we cooked them differently back then. A big old pot hung over the rocky fireplace. Food cooked like that still tastes good. Massa Brady always gave us plenty from the garden. He regularly fed us good, hearty meals, just like you'd take care of a really good horse."

"Massa Brady was one of those cheerful guys and a really good man, always kind to his Black folks. Missy was a total angel. They lived in an old stone house with four big rooms. It was the best house in the whole county, surrounded by lots of shade trees."

We had about a hundred acres on our plantation and started working in the fields before dawn, and we kept at it until we could hardly see. Then we fed the animals and went to bed around nine o'clock. The master would punish a slave if he got stubborn or lazy. He punished one slave so badly that the slave said he would kill him. So the master put a chain around his legs so he could barely walk, and he had to work in the fields like that. At night, he would put another chain around his neck and fasten it to a tree. After three weeks, the master let him go, and that slave was the proudest black man in the world and the hardest working one the master had after that.

"On Saturday night we could get a pass or throw a party at our place. Throughout the week we’d hunker down in our quarters while the patrollers came by and checked on us, and we’d stay completely quiet, but after they left, some folks would get up and sneak out."

"On Christmas Day, the boss makes a huge batch of eggnog and lets us have as much as we want along with a big dinner. He killed a young goat and made plenty of barbecue for us.[Pg 238]

"Massa was a colonel in the war and took me along to take care of his horse and gun. Those guns, you couldn't hear anything because they were popping so much. We black folks had to go everywhere and pick up those who got killed. Those who were hurt we carried back. Those who were too badly hurt we had to take to the burial site, and the white man would finish killing them, so we could roll them into the hole."

"When the boss said we were free, we all started to leave. We didn't have anywhere to go and asked the boss if we could stay, but he said no. However, he did let some people stay and provided teams and some food to work on the share. I stayed and became a sharecropper, and that's when slavery really began, because when we got our crop, we had to use every bit of it to pay off our debts, and we had nothing left to buy winter clothes or pay medical bills."

"'About a year after the war, I married Nora Brady, just a home wedding. I asked her to come live with me as my wife and she agreed, so she moved her clothes into my room and we lived together for a long time. One morning, Nora suddenly died, and since we had no children, I decided to head to Texas. I heard the railroad was being built in Texas and they were hiring a lot of Black workers. I got a horse from my master, packed some clothes, and took my gun."

"I never got very far before the Indians took my horse from me. It was about fifty miles to a train station, and I didn't have any money, but I found a white man who needed wood cut. I worked for him for nearly a month and made $2.00. I got on a train and traveled a hundred miles from where the railroad was going across the country, and I had to walk almost all of that hundred miles. Occasionally, a white man passing by let me ride with him. But I finally got there, and the job paid me sixty cents a day. That was a lot of money back then. As far as I remember, it[Pg 239] was 1867 or 1868 when I arrived in Texas."

"Then I married Agnes Frazer, and we had a big wedding with a preacher and a huge feast that lasted two or three weeks. Her dad hunted game, and we ate barbecue all the time. We had eleven kids, one a year for quite a while, five boys and six girls. One became a school teacher, and I haven't seen her in nearly forty-five years because she decided to move north, and they won't let her back in Texas because she married a white man in New York. I don't like that. She doesn’t have any sense, or she wouldn’t have done that, no sir."

"Since Black people have been free, it’s been tough on poor Black folks. They’ve made some progress, but they’re still treated like servants and will be as long as God’s curse remains on the Black race. We were set loose without anything and had been under white rule for so long that we could only get jobs doing labor. I worked nearly two years on that railroad and spent the rest of my life farming. Now I get a small pension from the government, and those white folks are certainly nice to give it to me because I can’t work anymore.[Pg 240]

"I'm Preely Coleman, and I never get tired of talking. Yes, ma'am, it's Juneteenth, but I'm home because I'm too old now to go to those celebrations. Where was I born? I know exactly, because my mom tells me that a thousand times. I was born on the old Souba place in South Carolina, about ten miles from Newberry. My mom belonged to the Souba family, but it's a fact that one of the Souba boys was my dad, so the Soubas sold my mom to Bob and Dan Lewis, and they took us to Texas along with a big group of other slaves. Mom tells me it was a full month before they got to Alto, their new home."

"When I was a kid, I had a pretty good time because there were lots of kids on the plantation. We had big races. During the war, the soldiers would stop by on their way to Mansfield, Louisiana, to grab something to eat and stay overnight, and that’s when we had the races. There was a mulberry tree we’d run to, and we’d line up, and the soldiers would say, ‘Now the first one to slap that tree gets a quarter,’ and I almost always got there first. I made a lot of quarters slapping that old mulberry tree!"

"So the kids got it into their heads to get back at me because I was winning all the quarters. They threw a rope over my head and started dragging me down the road and down the hill, and I was about to choke to[Pg 241]death. My only friend was Billy, and he was fighting, trying to get me free. They were going to throw me in the big spring at the bottom of that hill, but we ran into Capt. Berryman, a white guy, and he took his knife and cut the rope from my neck. He grabbed me by the heels and dunked me up and down in the spring until I came to. They never tried to kill me again."

"My mom married John Selman on the way to Texas, no ceremony, you know, but with her master's consent. Now our owners, the Lewises, lost their property and then the Selmans bought me and my mom. They paid $1,500 for my mom and I was included."

"Massa Selman has five cabins in his backyard, and they're built in a half-circle. I grow enough to hoe and then to plow. We have to be ready for the field by daylight when the conch is blown, and Massa calls out, 'All hands ready for the field.' At 11:30, he blows the conch, which is a mussel shell, you know, again, and we eat dinner, and at 12:30 we have to be back at work. But Massa wouldn't allow any kind of work on Sunday."

"Massa Tom made us wear the shoes because there were so many snags and stumps that our feet would get sore, and they were red russet shoes. I'll never forget them; they were so stiff at first that we could hardly stand them. But Massa Tom was a good man, even though he loved his drink. He kept the bottle in the center of the dining table all the time, and at every meal, he'd have his toddy. Us slaves ate outside under the trees in the summer and in the kitchen during the winter, and most of the time we had bread in pot liquor or milk, but sometimes we had honey."

"I clearly remember when freedom came. We were in the field and the master came up and said, 'You are all as free as I am.' There was shouting and singing, and before nightfall, we were all on our way to freedom.[Pg 242]

"My birthday is in January, on the tenth. I was born in Houston in 1870, and Governor Richard Coke always owned my dad and mom, who stayed with him even after they were free. My mom, who was Julia Collins, didn’t die until 1910, and she was almost a hundred years old."

"She told me many times about how people get all worked up over Marse Coke's election. Mom took lunch to the Capitol House for Marse Richard, and there he is on the top floor with all his congressmen, while that Davis guy and his men are on the bottom floor, trying to argue that Marse Richard has no right to be governor of this state. Old Miss and the folks didn't sleep a wink that night because they thought there would definitely be a fight. That was in 1873, Mom always says."

The old place in Houston was like most old places. There were small dormer windows upstairs and big porches everywhere. There was mahogany furniture and rosewood bed frames, and big black walnut dressers with large mirrors and smaller ones on the side. Old Miss always had us keep the drapes as white as snow and polish the furniture until it shined. There were sofas with claw feet and lots of pretty china and silver.

On the farm outside of town, there was a log house, along with the quarters and[Pg 243] the smokehouse, washhouse, big barns, and carriage house. The quarters were small, whitewashed log houses—one for the family—and a fence made of split rails surrounded most of them.

The white and black kids played together everywhere. They went fishing, rode the plow horses, and chased the calves and colts, getting into all sorts of mischief. The little white girls all had to wear sun bonnets, and Old Miss sewed those bonnets on every day so they wouldn't get sunburned. We Black people wore long, ducking shirts until we grew up, and then we wore long, dark blue dresses. There were spinning and weaving rooms where the Black women made the clothes.

"Old Miss was a really strong manager. She knew exactly how much meal, meat, and sorghum it would take to run the plantation for a year. She knew just how much thread was needed for spinning, and she oversaw the laying hens, turkeys, and the making of preserves and soap. She was definitely good to you if you worked hard and followed her instructions. Many nights, she'd go around to make sure everything was okay. She was also a really good nurse, and so was Mom."

"White people had a great time. They would go horseback riding, have picnics, fish, and enjoy big dinners and dances. Around Christmas, they would have us slaves chop a lot of wood and keep the fires going all night for a week or two. The house was lit with candles from top to bottom, and a lot of guests would come over. For dinner, we had turkey, roast beef, a big ham, and large bowls of eggnog, along with a pitcher of apple cider and apple toddy. We all got something for Christmas and plenty of eggnog, but no getting drunk."

"I can just picture Marse Dick, tall and a bit hunched over, with his big floppy hat and long coat, always carrying a large, old walking stick. He[Pg 244]was definitely a brave man, and the important guys say they liked that floppy hat because they followed it on the battlefield. He had a loud voice, and they say that during the war, he'd shout, 'Come on, boys!' while bullets flew like hail and men were falling all around, but that didn't stop Marse Dick. He'd take off that floppy hat and charge right in, and they'd follow his bald head to where the fight was hottest. He was truly a man!

"When I got married, there were eight people there. I just walked off and went to start my new home. I had a calico dress and a Baptist preacher married us."

"There have been some strange things that white people can't understand. There are people who can see spirits, but I can't. My mom taught me a lot about healing, which she learned from the older generations from Africa, and some of the Native Americans taught her as well. If you have rheumatism, just take white sassafras root, boil it, and drink the tea. You make a liniment by boiling mullein flowers, poke roots, alum, and salt. Put red pepper in your shoes to keep the chills away, or wear briars around your neck. Make red or black snakeroot tea to cure fever and malaria, but gather the roots in the spring when the sap is high."

"When children are teething, putting rattlesnake rattles around their necks helps, and alligator teeth are good too. Show the new moon money, and you'll have money all month. Throw her five kisses, show her money, and make five wishes, and you'll get them. Eat black-eyed peas on New Year's and you'll have luck all year:"

"'Black-eyed peas bring good luck,
When eaten on New Year's Day;
You'll always have sweet potatoes
And possum coming your way.'

"When anyone gets cut, I always burn wool rags and smoke the wound, or burn a piece of fat pine and let the tar drip onto the scorched wool and bind it to the wound. For a headache, put a horseradish poultice on your head, or wear a nutmeg on a string around your neck."

If you kill the first snake you see in spring, your enemies won't get the best of you that year. For a sprain, get a dirt dauber's nest, mix the clay with vinegar, and wrap it around the sprain. The dime on the string around my ankle keeps cramps out of my leg, and tea from red coon-root is good too. All these remedies come straight from Africa, and they always worked for my mom and for me as well.[Pg 246]

"I was born a slave of Master John Ellington, who lived in Davis County (now Cass Co.), Texas. Master John had a big house, and nearby was a long double row of slave quarters. It looked like a small town. There were four boys and two girls in Master’s family, and one daughter, Miss Lula, married Lon Morris, who ran the Lon Morris School."

"Master John was one white man who definitely took care of his Black workers. He provided us with plenty of warm clothes and good shoes, and he would come see us and have Dr. Hume treat us when we were sick. The Black workers enjoyed ham and other good food just like anyone else. Master John's place was next to the Haggard place, where there were lots of wild turkeys, and the workers could go hunting and fishing whenever they wanted."

"We had a church and a school for the slaves, and the white folks helped us get educated. Most of the Black people always went to church on Sunday."

"The hands didn’t work on Saturday afternoons. That’s when we’d wash our clothes and get ready for Sunday. There were parties and[Pg 247] dances on Saturday night for those who wanted to go. But there wasn’t any whiskey drinking and fighting at the parties. Mammy didn’t attend them. She was religious and didn't believe in dancing and such. On Christmas, Master John always treated the slaves to a big dinner, and it didn’t feel like slavery time. The Black folks had a way better time than they do now."

"Master John did all the supervising himself. None of his workers ever ran away because he was too good for them to do that. I only got one spanking from him, and it was for stealing eggs from a hen's nest. My dad was a coach driver for the Master. I didn’t do much of the work when I was a kid, just hung around the house."

"Master John grew a lot of cotton, and after it was packed into bales, he transported it to Jefferson using ox wagons. I always went with him, riding on top of the bales. I'll never forget how scared I was when we crossed Black Cypress on Roger's ferry boat and it started to rock."

"I don't remember much about the War. When it ended, Master John gathered all his slaves and said, 'You’re free now, and you can choose to go or stay.' He told the men who wanted to leave they could have a wagon and team, but most of them stayed. Pappy took a wagon and team and left, but Mom and us kids stayed and lived with Master Ellington for about 15 years after the war ended."

"When I left Master John, I moved to Jefferson and married Cora Benton. We had three boys and two girls. While I was in Jefferson, Sheriff Vine went to Cincinnati after Abe Rothchild for killing 'Diamond Bessie.' Abe shot himself in the forehead when he heard Sheriff[Pg 248] Vine was after him, but it didn't kill him. There was definitely some commotion when the sheriff brought Abe back to Jefferson."

"Mr. Sam Brown was the jailer. Abe wouldn't eat the jail food and hired me to bring his meals from the hotel. His cell was set up like a hotel room, with a nice Brussels rug and nice tables and chairs. He kept plenty of whiskey and beer to drink. He would always give me a drink when I took his meals."

"I worked 37 years for Mr. Tom Armistead, who helped W.T. Crawford and his brother defend Rothchild. Mr. Eppenstadt was the mayor of Jefferson at that time and acted as a go-between in the case."

Master Tom Armistead never married, and I managed the house and cooked for him. He gave me plenty of nice clothes. I bet I owned more fancy shirts than anyone else in Texas. He got me a job as a porter in the Capitol in Austin while he was a senator. I was working there when they moved to the new Capitol in 1888. They were planning a big party and said all the porters had to wear cutaway suits. I didn't have one, so the day before the party I went over to Mr. Tom's room at the Bristol Hotel and borrowed one of his. I didn't realize it was a brand-new suit he had made for the party. When I returned to the Capitol all dressed up in that cutaway suit, I ran into Mr. Templeton Houston, who recognized the suit and said, "You sure look sharp in Mr. Tom's new suit." Around that time, Mr. Tom walked up, and you know, he gave me that suit and had another one made for the party! I wouldn't live anywhere without good white folks.[Pg 249]

"I was born in Murray County, Georgia, and was a slave of Massa Tom Connally, but everyone called him Massa 'Cushi' Connally. He was a member of the Georgia Legislature. I lived with Missy Mary Connally until I was sixty-seven, and Massa Cushi passed away when I was sixty-nine."

"My mom, Mandy, weighed two hundred pounds and worked as the cook for the de Connally family. When I was born, she got sick and couldn’t take care of me, so Missy Mary took me in and kept me in a little crib next to her bed. After that, I was with her almost all the time and followed her everywhere. When she went to the garden, I grabbed the back of her dress, and when she went to the doctor, about eighty miles away, I went with her."

"I must tell you why everyone calls Massa Connally Cushi. There are always so many Tom Connallys in the family that they have to have the nickname to tell one from the other."

"Back in Georgia, we have a ton of fruit. When the time comes, the women preserve and can until there's no more left. My mom wins first prize any day with her jelly and stuff, and her cakes just naturally disappear from the whole county. Missy Mary really knows how to bake, and I would sneak around to be there to lick out the bowls."

"Dey didn't have any refrigerators back then, but they built log houses without a floor over the good, cold spring, and put flat rocks there to keep the milk, cream, and butter cold. Or they dug out the place so the crock could be down in[Pg 250] the wet dirt. They definitely had to make the latch high up, so the naughty kids couldn't open that door!"

"Plantation life in Georgia was impressive. I’m not exactly sure how many acres it was, but it was a big one. We produced everything, tanned hides, and made shoes, just like all the major places did. The big house, weaving house, tanning yard, sugar mill, and slave quarters created a small community. There used to be some really grand events there. The Connally men and women were always attractive and very popular, drawing people from near and far to visit them. All the important men came, and all the society belles flowed to our place. There were certainly plenty of large balls and dinners, and the house was all decked out during those times. The women wore hoop skirts, ribbons, and lace. My missy was the most beautiful one around, and all the gentlemen wanted to dance with her. She truly looked like a queen from the picture books and had a very high way about her, but she was really kind to this little black boy."

"I went in the buggy with Mr. Cushi, up to Tennessee, to get his sons who were killed or wounded. Mr. Ned is dead, and Mr. Charles was shot in the hip, and he died after being brought home. Mr. Dick was hurt too, but he didn't die."

Right after the Civil War, when I was about nineteen, I came to Texas with the Connally family, all the ones who didn’t get killed in the war. I stayed with Missy Mary until she died in Georgia. Her son, Jones Connally, moved to Brazos County, near Bryan, and then later to Eddy. I worked for him for two years and have lived around Eddy ever since. The Connallys gave me a house and a lot in Eddy. Some of the foolish blacks expected a lot from it, but I wasn’t worried at all. All I wanted was to stay close to the Connallys. Most of the slaves I knew were found places to stay and helped to get started with jobs and homes. All the Connally slaves loved them. Some of the timberland was given to Mrs. Rose Staten, and when she went up there, an old black woman named Lucy saw her. She was so happy to see one of those Connally children that she laughed and cried.

"Massa Jones Connally has twin girls named Ola and Ella. Olla was born with her left arm missing at the elbow, and she always follows me around. When I go to milk, I put her in the trough. I've saved her life lots of times. One time she was on the roof of the two-story house when she was about two years old. I eased up and knocked the window out and coaxed her to come to me. Another time, I was digging the well and some clods fell down. I looked up and there was Missy Ola leaning over, almost tumbling into the well on her head. I let out a loud yell, and her brother-in-law came running and grabbed her legs."

"Senator Tom Connally, who is a son of Jones Connally, often mentions that he wants to visit his grandpa's old home in Georgia. I would really like to go with him and show him around the old homestead and out to the old cemetery." [Pg 252]

"I remember the day my old master went to war. I can remember it just like it was yesterday. He used to love playing the fiddle and making me dance when I was little, but he went to war and got killed. His name was Duplissent Dugat. Mary, my sister, she doesn't remember the old master."

"Slaves did the work on that farm. There were two adults, my mom, Colaste, and my uncle, and then there were the two of us kids. My father was a white man, a white Creole man. I never carried his name until after we were free."

"Master was just a poor man, and he had just an ordinary house. The slave house was just an old wooden house about twelve feet by twenty feet with a dirt floor. We cooked in the big fireplace and used a log about four feet long with a big iron pot that had an iron lid. They put red-hot coals under the pot and on top of the lid, and they had a big iron poker with a hook on it that they used to take the lid off."

"Before they had coal oil lamps, they used homemade candles. They would kill the animals and save all the tallow, and one day they would set off to make the candles. All the neighbors would come, and they would have a kind of party with food and everything. Sometimes they would make three or four hundred candles in one day and lay them in a big box so they wouldn't break."

"We make soap on the plantation, too. They melt the tallow and cracklings and get lye from the fireplace ash. We have cotton, corn[Pg 253] and potatoes growing, so we have plenty to eat. We have coosh-coosh, that cornbread and meat, and some fish. We just go through the woods and pick up snails and eat them just like that. We eat a lot of crawfish. The kids get string and an old piece of fat meat, tie it to the end, and we go to the bog and drop the string down that crawfish hole. When the old one grabs the meat with his pincers, then we pull up a crawfish and boil him in hot water or make gumbo."

"Before the war, we drank French coffee, but during the war, we couldn't get the good stuff. Then we made coffee out of coffee weed. They roasted that weed in the iron oven, ground it up, and put it in the iron pot."

"I saw the soldiers and ran under the house; I was so scared. Mary hid under the bed in the house. The Yankees came and took the cattle away. I can definitely remember when those soldiers came, and the road was busy day and night. The Yankees found a lot of Confederate soldiers near Duson, on the other side of Rayne, and they captured many and brought them back with them."

"After a while, it was all over and they told us we were free, but my mom kept working for the old mistress after we gained our freedom because the old master had died in that war. Then the old mistress died and left three little children, but I don’t know what happened to them because we went to another place, and I plowed while Mary helped pick cotton."

"I got married at 20, and my first wife was a French girl. We were married by the priest in the church. We had so many kids that we had to keep a map to keep track of them; there were 19 in total. We stayed in Louisiana for a long time, then moved to Texas.[Pg 254]

"Lord have mercy on me, when you call me Aunt Laura it feels just like you must be some of my white folks, because that’s what they call me. I mean Papa Day’s kids and their little ones when they come to see me. But it’s been a long time since any of them have come to see old Aunt Laura, and I guess they're mostly all gone now."

"You know where Dayton is? Well, that's where Papa Day's plantation was and where I was born. I’m not sure exactly when that was, but I guess I was about twelve or thirteen years old when all the colored folks were freed."

"Mama's name was Maria Dunlap and Dad's name was Saul. Mom was a seamstress and only wove cloth on the spinning wheel and made clothes. Dad is from Lake Providence, I heard him say, but I don't know where that is. He does all the carpentry work. I have five sisters and two brothers, but they are much older than me and I don't know much about them."

"We call him Papa Day; his real name is Isaiah, but we all refer to him as Papa Day because he won't let any people of color call him master. He says we are born free just like he is, but the other white folks won’t acknowledge that, and our souls are just as pure. The only reason we look darker on the outside is that we’re sunburned. I don’t think anyone is as good to their people of color as he was.[Pg 255]

"Miss Martha, his wife, was really nice, too. If any of us kids got hurt or scraped, she would take care of us and give us a hug. I know they have two boys and a girl, and they came to visit me a long time after I was free and brought their own kids. But my memory is a bit hazy, and I can't remember their names now."

" The only work Papa Day lets us kids do is pick the berries that are close to the ground, and that's mostly fun. We ride home in the wagon that collects the picking at night. Papa Day doesn't make his people work on Saturdays and Sundays, and they can visit other plantations. He also says that nobody better bother us, either."

One time, we were playing out in the woods and saw two old men who looked like wild men, for sure. They had long hair all over their faces and their shirts were all bloody. We ran and told Papa Day, and he made us take him there, and he went into the thorny patch where the men were hiding. They grabbed him around the knees and begged him not to tell their master where they were, because they might get killed. They said they were old Lodge and Baldo and they had run away because their master whipped them, since they were so old they couldn't work well anymore. Papa Day had tears in his eyes. They could hardly walk, so he sent them to the house and had Aunt Mandy, the cook, quickly fix them something to eat. I had never seen such eating; they were so hungry. He put them in a house and told us not to say anything. Then he rode off on his horse and went to their master and told him about it, and just dared him to come get them. He paid the man some money, and Lodge and Baldo stayed with Papa Day, and I guess they thought they were in Heaven.

"One morning, Papa Day calls us all to the house and reads the freedom papers. He says, 'The government doesn't need to tell you that you’re free because you've been free all your life. If you want to stay, you can, and if you want to go, you can. But if you leave, many white folks won't treat you the way I do.'[Pg 256]

"For the longest time, maybe two years, none of Papa Day's Black folks left, but then one family left, and then another got some land to farm, and then dad got some land and we left too. Maybe he got the land from Papa Day, because it isn't far from his plantation. We definitely work hard on that place, but I heard mom say many times she wishes we had stayed on Papa Day's place."

"I remember one year we hardly grew any crops, and Dad said he was going to leave before we starved to death, so he moved to Houston. He got a job as a carpenter and hired me out as a housegirl. But then Mom died, and Dad got sick and died too. Good Lord, that was such a hard time for me when I lost my mom and dad, and I had to go to Dayton to stay with my sister, Rachel. Both my husbands that I married have been dead a long time now, and the only child I ever had died when he was just a baby. Now I'm just alone, sitting and waiting for the Lord to call me." [Pg 257]

"John Crawford is me. It's been eighty-one years since I was born, and that's on the old Rector plantation where Manor is now. It wasn't there then. I knew the man it was named after."

"Ma's name was Viney Rector, and the old judge brought her from Alabama. She milked all the cows twice a day, and I had to let out all the calves. Sometimes they would get pretty rough and head straight for their mommas."

"Pap's name was Tom Townes because he belonged to the Townes place. He was my stepdad, and when I grew up, I took my biological dad's name, which was Crawford. I never saw him, though, and didn't know much about him. He was sold away before I was born."

"Pap Townes could make just about anything. He made turning plows, horseshoe nails, and a lot of furniture. He was really good to me, considering he wasn't my own dad. I didn't have any hard times at all. I had plenty of bacon, side meat, and molasses. Every Sunday morning, the judge gave us our rations for the week. He wasn't stingy with them, either."

"Many times the Indians came to Judge Rector's place. Those Indians asked for something and the judge always gave them something. They weren't mean Indians, just always asking."[Pg 258]

"I can't read or write to this day. Nobody ever taught me my ABCs, and I didn't get a chance to go to school."

"On Christmas morning, Mr. Rector came out and gave each man and woman a big, red pocket handkerchief and a bottle of liquor. He bought that liquor by the barrel and enjoyed it himself. That’s why he always had it on the place."

"One morning, the judge sent word through the cook that no one should go to the fields that day. We all went up to the big house, and the judge stood up to make a speech, but he was too choked up to talk. He hated to lose his slaves, I guess. So his son-in-law had to say, 'You folks are now free and can go wherever you want. You can stay here and pick cotton and get fifty cents a hundred.' But only two families stayed. The rest left."

"After gaining our freedom, we rented land on halves. Some black people quickly improved their situation and rented on thirds or fourths. When you rent that way, you get three bales, and the boss gets one. But you have to buy your own teams, seeds, and everything else under that plan."

"It's a fact we were told we'd get forty acres and a mule. That was the talk back then, but we never actually got it."

"Back in that county, the Ku Klux Klan caused a lot of trouble. They were always chasing some Black person and beating them up. But some of those Black folks definitely brought it on themselves. When they get free, they go wild. They don’t want to work or do anything and think they don’t have to. We didn’t have any issues because we stayed on the farm, worked hard, and kept away from those unruly Black folks.[Pg 259]

"In 1877, I married Fannie Black in the town of Sprinkle. It wasn't much of a town, just a small place. We stayed married for fifty-two years and four months. She passed away eight years ago, leaving me behind. We had seven children, and they are all alive. Four are here in Austin, two are in California, and one is in Ohio."

"I get a little pension, $9.00 a month, and my girl, Susie, takes care of me. I don’t have long to go now before the Lord is going to call me.[Pg 260]

"During slavery, I had pretty tough times. My grandfather, Tater Cumby, was the Black overseer for forty slaves, and he called us at four in the morning, and we worked from dawn to dusk. Most of the time, we worked on Sundays too."

"Those white overseers whipped us with straps when we didn’t do right. I saw Black people in chains many times because there were no jails, and they just chained them to trees."

"Speculators on horses drove large groups of slaves past our place from one location to another, to auction them at the marketplaces. The women would be carrying little ones in their arms, and at night they would bed them down just like cattle right on the ground next to the road. Many little children were sold away from their mothers when they were seven or eight, or even younger. That's why we Black folks don't know our relatives to this day."

"The best times were when the corn shucking was about to happen. Then you didn’t have to worry about a pass to leave the plantation, and the patter rolls didn’t bother you. If the patter rolls caught you without the pass at any other time, you might as well wish you were dead, because you’d be in serious trouble.[Pg 261]

"But the corn shucking, that was the great times. All the masters and their black workers from plantations miles around would be there. Then when we got the corn piled as high as this house, the table was set out under the shade. All the boys belonging to the old master would take him on the packsaddle around the house, then they’d bring him to the table and sit by his side; then all the boys belonging to Master Bevan from another plantation would take him on the packsaddle around and around the house, always singing and dancing, then they’d set him at the other side of the table, and they all do the same until everyone was at the table, then they have the feast.

"Seeing the runaway slaves in the woods terrified me. They would try to grab you and hold you so you couldn’t go tell anyone. Sometimes they caught those runaway black people, and they acted like wild animals and needed to be tamed again. There was a white man named Henderson who had 60 bloodhounds and rented them out to track down slaves. I vividly remember the hounds running through our place one night, chasing the slave who killed his wife by stabbing her heart with a harness needle. They caught him, and the patrol took him to Henderson and hung him."

"Those patrols chased me a lot, but I was lucky because they never caught me. I sneaked off to see the girl on the next plantation without a pass, and they were after me, and I was scared! You should've seen me run through that brush because I didn't dare go on the road or the path. It nearly tore my clothes off, but I kept going and got home and slid under the house. But I would go see that girl every time, patrols or no patrols, and I got so that I could run almost as fast as a rabbit.[Pg 262]

"the white children taught us to read and write at night, but I never paid much attention, though I can read the Bible now. Other times at night, the slaves would gather around the cabins in small groups and talk until bedtime. Sometimes we’d dance, and someone would keep the rhythm for us by snapping their fingers and slapping their knee. We didn’t have anything to make music with."

"We mostly lived on corn bread and salt pork that the master gave us. We didn't have any gardens, because we didn't have time to work in them. We worked all day in the fields and then were so tired that we couldn't do anything more."

"My mom would take care of us when we were feeling bad. She'd use dog-fennel, a yellow-looking weed, and make tea that would help get rid of the chills and fever. Sometimes, she'd put horse mint on the pillow with us to make us sweat and drive the fever away. For breakfast, she'd make us sassafras tea to cleanse our blood."

"My master and his two stepsons are going to war. My master was a high general on the southern side. I didn’t understand what they were fighting about for a long time, then I heard it was about freedom, and I felt like it would be like heaven on earth to get freedom, despite the fact that I always had a good master. He really was good to us, but you know that’s not the same as being free.[Pg 263]

They call me Tempie Cummins, and I was born in Brookeland, but I don't remember the exact date. My dad's name was Jim Starkins, and my mom's name was Charlotte Brooks, and they both came from Alabama. I only had one brother, Bill, and four sisters named Margaret, Hannah, Mary, and 'Liza. Life was good when I was with them, and we played around. Miss Fannie Neyland, who is now Mrs. Phil Scarborough, raised me because I was given to them when I was eight years old.

I slept on a pallet on the floor. They gave me a homespun dress once a year at Christmas time. When company came, I had to run and put that dress on. At other times, I wore white kids' hand-me-downs that were so worn they were almost ready to be thrown away. I had to pin them up with red horse thorns to cover my nakedness. My dress was usually torn from hem to neck, and I had to wear it until it was just strings. Went barefoot summer and winter until my feet cracked open.

"I never saw my grandparents because my mom moved to Alabama when she was 17, and then they brought her to Texas and treated her badly. At mealtime, they gave me a piece of cornbread and told me, 'Go along.' Sometimes I got a little piece of meat and a biscuit about once a month. I picked up scraps that the white kids left behind."

"Master was harsh. He would take two birch switches, twist them together, and whip us until they were worn down. I've bled from those beatings many times. Our old mistress tried to be kind to us, I guess, but she was really lazy. She had two of us waiting on her, and still, she didn’t treat us well."

"Master had 30 or 40 acres where he grew cotton, corn, and potatoes. He used to harvest 12 bales of cotton a year and then drink it all away. We worked from dawn until dusk, and even longer. Master punished those who didn't work hard enough."

The white kids tried to teach me to read and write, but I didn’t learn much because I was always working. My mom worked in the house and cooked too. She said she used to hide in the chimney corner and listen to what the white people said. When freedom was declared, the master wouldn’t tell them, but my mom heard him telling his wife that the slaves were free, but they didn’t know it, and he wasn’t going to tell them until he harvested another crop or two. When my mom heard that, she said she slipped out of the chimney corner, clicked her heels together four times, and shouted, “I’m free, I’m free.” Then she ran to the field, against the master’s wishes, and told all the other slaves, and they stopped working. Then she ran away, and at night she slipped into a big ravine near the house and had them bring me to her. The master came out with his gun and shot at my mom, but she ran down the ravine and got away with me.[Pg 265]

"I saw a lot of ghosts when I was young. I couldn't sleep because of them. I've kind of outgrown that now. But one time my youngest child and I were walking to church, and right by the baptismal font there are two big gates. When we got to them, a huge white ox came out, with long legs and horns, and when he got about halfway across, he turned into a man with a Panama hat on. He followed us to Sandy Creek bridge. Sometimes at night, I see that same spirit sitting on that bridge now."

"My dad said that when he was 21 during slavery, he had to pass by a place where patrols whipped slaves and had even killed some. He was sitting on a load of fodder when a big light started waving down the road, scaring the team, and the horses nearly dragged him to death.[Pg 266]

"I was born on old man Foley's plantation in Lavaca County. He's got over 100 slaves. He always buys slaves and he never sells. How many acres of land does he have? Lord, that man doesn't just have acres, he has leagues. They raise cotton and corn, as well as cattle and pigs. Old man Foley's plantation stretches over Lavaca and Colorado counties; he has 1,600 acres in one block, and some of it is along the Navidad River. Old man Foley lives in a big log house with two double rooms and a hall, and he built a weaving house next to his own house, plus there's another house with the spinning wheels. And old man Foley operates his own cotton gin and his own grinding mill where they grind the corn, and they have a big potato patch."

"Dey were tough people and they treated everybody harshly. We lived in the quarter; the houses were all closely joined together, but you could walk between them. All the cabins had one room and mostly two families shared the one room with dirt floors. The slaves built the cabins, the slaves had no money, they had no land."

"No sir, we never go to church. Sometimes we sneak into the woods and pray to the Lord to make us free, and sometimes one of the slaves gets happy and makes a noise that they heard at the big house, and then the overseer comes and whips us because we prayed to the Lord to set us free.[Pg 267]

"You know what a stockman is? He’s a guy who buys and sells cattle. Every year, the stockman comes to old man Foley’s place and he lines us up in the yard, and the stockman has a bunch of slaves tied together. Old man Foley buys some slaves, but he won’t sell any. Yes, the stockman buys and sells slaves just like cattle."

"Dey feeds us well sometimes, if they aren't mad at us. They have a big trough just like the one for the pigs, and they have a large gourd that they carry full of milk, and they break the bread into the milk. Then my mom takes a gourd, fills it, and gives it to us kids. How do we eat it? We had oyster shells for spoons, and the slaves come in from the fields with their hands all dirty and they are hungry. They dip their dirty hands right into the trough, and we can't eat any of it. The women work in the fields until they have children, and when the children are old enough to work in the fields, then the mother goes to old man Foley's house. There, she becomes a house servant and works at spinning and weaving the cotton. They make all the clothes for old man Foley and his family, as well as for the slaves."

"No sir, we don't have any holidays. On Sundays, we grind corn and the men split rails and hoe with the digging hoe. Old man Foley has a blacksmith shop and a slave does the blacksmithing. The slaves build cabins with split logs and make the roof tight with corn husks and grass. Once a month, or sometimes once every two months, they take us to the white folks' church."

"Dey's four or five preachers and the slaves. If there's a marriage, the preacher has a book. He has to keep it hidden because they're afraid if the slaves learn to read, they'll figure out how to escape. One of the slaves runs away, and they catch him and blind him. They catch another slave who ran away, and they hang him up by the arm. Yeah, I saw that with my own eyes; they hold the slave up by one arm, put a metal clamp on his knee and one on his feet and drag him down, but his feet can't reach the ground."

"Ole man Foley isn't bad, but the overseers are cruel. No sir, we never get any money and we never get any land. Ole man Foley wants to give us something for gardens, but Mr. John Woods, his grandson, is against it."

"Was I glad when that was over? Wouldn't you be? It's long after we're free that I get married. Yes, and I've lived in San Antonio for about 20 years."[Pg 269]

"Huh! What did you say, did you mention something about the old age pension?" Will asked when approached about slavery, but he quickly replied, "Sure! Sure, I was a slave and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Some of these guys think they sound old when they say they were slaves and they deny it, but I’m proud enough of the good treatment I received that I’ll always talk about it. My master had a driver, but he said his slaves were human, with human feelings, so he made that driver report to him about the little punishments we got. Of course, we had to do the right thing, but somehow we mostly did because he was good to us. As soon as I was big enough, around four or five years old, the old missus started training me to be a house boy. I was doing all sorts of chores by the time I was six years old. Then the old master started sending me out on the plantation to round up the horses. I really liked that job because there’s nothing I love more than horses. Then when I got bigger, he had me carry breakfast to the field where the grown folks had been out working since before dawn. They all did that. They said the days weren't long enough to put in enough time, so they worked part of the night."

"We had good food because we raised all the corn and the pigs and the cows and chickens and plenty of everything. Most of the time we had biscuits and bacon and syrup for breakfast, and butter too if we wanted it, but most black folks liked that fatty bacon the best."

Our log cabins were nice and cozy. They were all lined up in a row and made from the same type of logs as our master's house.[Pg 271]

We had good beds, and they were clean.

"I never had any money when I was a slave because I was just a small boy when the slaves were set free."

"We had plenty of fish and rabbits, even more than we had possum, but we sure liked that possum when we could get it."

"My master had about three hundred slaves and a large plantation."

"I saw some slaves sold off that big auction block and the little kids would definitely be crying when they took their mothers away from them."

"We didn’t have a jail because my master didn’t believe in that, but I’ve seen other slaves in those chains and stuff."

"We didn't know anything about learning or church either, and when the slaves died, they were just buried without any singing or anything."

"When the war started, my father went off, and I remember one time he came home on leave, and we were all so happy. Then when he went back, he got killed, and we never saw him again."

"We had the doctor and good care when we were sick. I don't remember much about what kinds of medicine we took, but I know it was mostly homemade."

"We all wear that asafoetida on a string around our necks, and sometimes we carry a rabbit's foot in our pockets for good luck.[Pg 272]

"When the war was over and the slaves were free, old Uncle Pete, our oldest slave, came walking up from the woods where he always went to avoid being bothered, to read his Bible, and he had that Bible under his arm and he said, 'I know something, me and the Lord know something,' and then he told us. He said, 'You all are free people now, you can go when you want and come when you want, and you can stay here or go somewhere else.' Well, I had to stay because my mother stayed, and I just kept on riding those race horses until long after my master was dead, then I got some horses of my own and trained other people's horses too."

"I worked in the racing business until I came to Texas, and when I started working in hotels, that really took a toll on me. I've done everything from making soap for cleaning to cooking the best meals for the finest hotels. I haven't been doing well since then, though, and I had to quit several years ago."

"The first time I got married was to Phillis Reed in Missouri, and we just jumped over the broom. After Phillis died and I came to Texas, I got married again to Susie, right here in San Angelo; we just jumped over the broom too. I've never had any children of my own, so I'm just sitting here living off the old age pension."[Pg 273]

There's a lot I forget and a lot I remember, like the year the war ended and the fighting was all over, because that’s the year I learned to plow and the time I got married. That's the very year they taught me to plow. I learned just fine because I wasn't slow to pick up anything. Before that time, they never had a hoe in the field for me at all. I just carried water for the ones working in the field.

I had a lot of brothers and sisters, about ten of them, but I can't remember some of their names. There was Tom, George, Marthy, and Mandy, and they were all named Denman because my mom and dad were Lottie and Boyd Denman. They came from Georgia to Cherokee County and then to Houston County, close to Crockett, with Old Man Denman. He was the one who owned all of us until he divided some of us with Miss Lizzie when she married Mr. Cramer.

"My dad worked in the fields with Uncle Lot and my brothers, and my Uncle Joe is the driver. But Briscoe is the overseer, and he's a white guy. He can’t beat the grown men like he wants to unless he gets permission from Old Man Denman. I’ve seen him beat them, though. He makes them take off their shirts and whips them with a strap.[Pg 274]

"Now, my mom was the cook at the Denman house and for our family and Uncle Joe's family. She didn't have much time for anything except cooking all the time. But she was the best cook. We had great greens and pork and beef. We ate collard greens and pork until we got tired of it, and then they stopped the pork and killed a cow. When they did that, it was like giving us what we really wanted because we liked the beef best of all, and I still do to this day, but I can never get it."

"Old Man Denman had a boy who killed squirrels and threw them in the kitchen. The white folks ate them. You’ve never seen white folks eat rabbit back then. I had a brother who hunted, mostly on Sundays. He'd leave for the swamps before dawn, and we’d know he had something when we heard him calling, 'O-o-o-o-o-da-da-ske-e-e-e-t.' That was just a sound he made up, but we knew there were rabbits for dinner."