“I’ve heard if a turkle dove, when the season first starts, comes to your house and starts moanin’, it’s a sign you is goin’ to move out and somebody else goin’ move in.

“If a squinch owl starts howlin’ ’round your house and if you turn your shoe upside down at the door, they sure will hush. Now I know that’s so.

“I used to run myself nearly to death tryin’ to get to the end of the rainbow to get the pot of gold.

“And I’ve heard the old folks say if you start any place and have to go back, you make a circle on the ground and spit in it or you’ll have bad luck.”

This information given by: Clark Hill (C)
Place of residence: 818 E. Fifteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Occupation: None
Age: 84

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Elmira Hill
1220 North Willow
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 97

“I’m one of em. Accordin’ to what they tell me, I think I’ll be ninety-eight the ninth day of February. I was born in Virginia in Kinsale County and sold from my mother and father to Arkansas.

“The Lord would have it, old man Ed Lindsey come to Virginia and brought me here to Arkansas. I was here four years before the Old War ceasted and I was twelve when I come here.

“I was right there standin’ behind my mistis’ chair when Abe Lincoln said, ‘I ’clare there shall be war!’ I was right here in Arkansas—eighteen miles from Pine Bluff when war ceasted. The Lord would have it. I had a good master and mistis. Old master said, ‘Fore old Lincoln shall free my niggers, I’ll free em myself.’ They might as well a been free, they had a garden and if they raised cotton in that garden they could sell it. The Lord bless His Holy Name! We didn’t know the difference when we got free. I stayed with my mistis till she went back to Virginia.

“Yes, honey, I was here in all the war. I was standin’ right by my mistis’ chair. I never heard old master make a oaf in his life, but when they brought the paper freein’ the slaves, he said, ‘Dad burn it.’

“I member a man called Jeff Davis. I know they sung and said, ‘We’ll hand old Jeff Davis to the sour apple tree.’

“I been here a long time. Yes, honey, I been in Arkansas so long I say I ain’t goin’ out—they got to bury me here. Arkansas dirt good enough for me. I say I been here so long I got Arkansas ’stemper (distemper).

“My old master in Virginia was Joe Hudson. My father used to ketch oysters and fish. We could look up the Patomac river and see the ships comin’ in. In Virginia I lived next to a free state and the runaways was tryin’ to get away. At Harper’s Ferry—that’s where old John Brown was carryin’ em across. My old mistis used to take the runaway folks when the dogs had bit their legs, and keep em for a week and cure em up. This time o’ year you could hear the bull whip. But I was lucky, they was good to me in Virginia and good to me in Arkansas.

“Yes, chile, I was in Alexandria, Virginia in Kinsale County when they come after me by night. I was hired out to Captain Jim Allen. I had been nursin’ for Captain Allen. He sailed on the sea. He was a good man. He was a Christian man. He never whipped me but once and that was for tellin’ a story, and I thank him for it. He landed his boat right at the landin’ on Saturday. Next day he asked me bout somethin’ and I told him a story. He said, ‘I’m gwine whip you Monday morning!’ He wouldn’t whip me on Sunday. He whipped me and I thank him for it. And to this day the Lindsey’s could trust me with anything they had.

“I was in Virginia a play-chile when the ships come down to get the gopher wood to build the war ships. Old mistis had a son and a daughter and we all played together and slep together. My white folks learned me my ABC’s.

“They come and got me and carried me to Richmond—that’s where they sold em. Sold five of us in one bunch. Sold my two brothers in New Orleans—Robert and Jesse. Never seed them no more. Never seed my mother again after I was sold.

“Yes, chile, I was here in Arkansas when the war started, so you know I been here a long time.

“I was here when they fit the last battle in Pine Bluff. They called it Marmaduke’s Battle and they fit it on Sunday morning. They took the old cotehouse for a battery and throwed up cotton bales for a breastworks. They fit that Sunday and when the Yankees started firin’ the Rebels went back to Texas or wherever they come from.

“When we heard the Yankees was comin’ we went out at night and hid the silver spoons and silver in the toilet and buried the meat. After the war was over and the Yankees had gone home and the jayhawkers had went in—then we got the silver and the meat. Yes, honey, we seed a time—we seed a time. I ain’t grumblin’—I tell em I’m havin’ a wusser time now than I ever had.

“Yankees used to call me a ‘know nothin’ cause I wouldn’t tell where things was hid.

“Yes, chile, I’m this way—I like everbody in this world. I never was a mother, but I raised everbody else’s chillun. I ain’t nothin’ but a old mammy. White and black calls me mamma. I’ll answer at the name.

“I was married twice. My last husband and me lived together fifty years. He was a preacher. My first husband, the old rascal—he was so mean to me I had to get rid of him.

“Yes, I been here so long. I think the younger generation is goin’ the downward way. They ain’t studyin’ nothin’ but wickedness. Yes, honey, they tell me the future generation is goin’ a do this and goin’ a do that, and they ain’t done nothin’. And God don’t like it.

“My white folks comes to see me and say as long as they got bread, I got it.

“I went to school the second year after surrender. I can read but I ain’t got no glasses now. I want you to see this letter my mother sent me in 1867. My baby sister writ it. Yes, honey, I keeps it for remembrance.

“Don’t know nothin’ funny that happened ’ceptin stealin’ my old master’s company’s hoss and runnin’ a race. White chillun too. Them as couldn’t ride sideways ridin’ straddle. Better not ride Rob Roy—that was old master’s ridin’ hoss and my mistis saddle hoss. That was the hoss he was talkin’ bout ridin’ to the war when the last battle was fit in Helena. But he was too old to go to war.

“Well, goodbye, honey—if I don’t see you no more, come across the Jordan.”

#787

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Gillie Hill
813 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 45

“My grandmother told me that they had to chink up the cracks so that the light wouldn’t get out and do their washing and ironing at night. When they would hear the overseers or the paterolers coming ’round (I don’t know which it was), they would put the light out and keep still till they had passed on. Then they would go right on with the washing and ironing.

“They would have to wash and iron at night because they were working all day.

“She told me how they used to turn pots down at night so that they could pray. They had big pots then—big enough for you to get into yourself. I’ve seen some of them big old pots and got under ’em myself. You could get under one and pray if you wanted to. You wouldn’t have to prop them up to send your voice in ’em from the outside. The thing that the handle hooks into makes them tilt up on one side so that you could get down on your hands and knees and pray with your mouth close to the opening if you wanted to. Anyway, my grandma said they would turn the pots upside down and stick their heads under them to pray.

“My father could make you cry talking about the way they treated folks in slavery times. He said his old master was so mean that he made him eat off the ground with the dogs. He never felt satisfied unless’n he saw a nigger sufferin’.”

Interviewer’s Comment

Gillie Hill is the daughter of Evelyn Jones already interviewed and reported. The few statements which she hands in make an interesting supplement to her mother’s story. The mother, Evelyn Jones, remembered very few things in her interview and had to be constantly prompted and helped by her daughter and son who were present at each sitting. There was considerable difference of opinion among them over a number of things, especially the age of the mother, the daughter showing letters to prove the age of seventy, the mother saying she had been told she was sixty-eight, and the son arguing that the scattering of the ages of her nineteen children showed that she must be well over eighty.

Gillie Hill claims to be somewhat clairvoyant. She gave a brief analysis of my character, stating accurately my regular calling and a few of my personal traits even indicating roughly my bringing-up and where. She is not a professional fortune-teller, and merely ventured a few statements. My impression was that she was an unusually close and alert observer. Like her mother she is somewhat taciturn. I should have said that her mother was reserved as well as forgetful. The mother never ventured a word except in answer to a question, and used monosyllabic answers whenever possible.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Harriett Hill
Forrest City, Ark.
(Visiting at Brinkley, Ark.)
Age: 84

“I was born in Lithonia, Georgia, at the foot of Little Rock Mountain, close to Stone Mountain, Georgia. I been sold in my life twice to my knowing. I was sold away from my dear old mammy at three years old but I can remember it. I remembers it. It lack selling a calf from the cow. Exactly, but we are human beings and ought to be better than do sich. I was too little to remember my price. I was sold to be a nurse maid. They bought me and took me on away that time. The next time they put me up in a wagon and auctioned me off. That time I didn’t sell. John George (white man) was in the war; he wanted some money to hire a substitute to take his place fightin’. So he have Jim George do the sellin’. They was brothers. They talked ’fore me some bit ’fore they took me off. They wouldn’t take me to Atlanta cause they said some of the people there said they wouldn’t give much price—the Negroes soon be set free. Some folks in Atlanta was Yankees and wouldn’t buy slaves. They ’cluded the best market to sell me off would be ten or twelve miles from home. I reckon it was to Augusta, Georgia. They couldn’t sell me and start on back home. A man come up to our wagon and say he’d split the difference. They made the trade. I sold on that spot for $1400. I was nine or ten years old. I remembers it. Course I do! I never could forget it. Now mind you, that was durin’ the war.

“Master Jake Chup owned mammy and me too. He sold me to John George. Jim George sold me to Sam Broadnax. When freedom come on that was my home. Freedom come in the spring. He got some of the slaves to stay to finish up the crops for 1/10 at Christmas. When they got through dividin’ up they said they goin’ to keep me for a bounty. I been talkin’ to Kitty—all I remembers her name Kitty. She been down there at the stream washin’. Some children come told me Kitty say come on. She hung out the clothes. I lit out over the fence and through the field with Kitty and went to Conniars. She left me at the railroad track and went on down the road by myself to Lithonia. I walked all night. I met my brother not long after Kitty left me. He was on a wagon. He knowed me and took me up with him to Mr. Jake Chup’s Jr. He was the young man. Then Chups fed me till he come back and took me to mammy. Master Chups sold her to Dr. Reygans. I hadn’t seen her since I was three years old. She knowed me. My brother knowed me soon as ever he saw me. I might a not knowed them in a gatherin’ but I hadn’t forgot them. They hear back and forth where I be but they never could get to see me. I lived with my folks till I married.

“The first man I lived with ten years. The next one I lived with fifty years and some days over. He died. They both died. The man I married was a preacher. We farmed long with his preachin’. We paid $500.00 for forty acres of this bottom land. Cleared it out. I broke myself plum down and it got mortgaged. The Planters Bank at Forrest City took it over. I ain’t had nothin’ since. I ain’t got no home. I ain’t had nothin’ since then. My husband died two years ago and I has a hard time.

“My folks was livin’ in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin’. We sure was scared of em. Mighty nigh to death. When freedom come on the niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers. Sometimes a white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be havin’ preachin’ here come the Ku Klux and run em clear out. If they hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped several. They sure had to be mighty particular what they said in the preachin’. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn’t no use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode the country every night for I don’t know how long and that all niggers talked bout.

“My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.

“My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They didn’t allow white men to take em off so a white man come and stay round shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to Memphis, then we got on a big boat. No, ma’am, we didn’t come on no freight train. We got off at White Hall Landing. They got off all long the river. We worked on wages out here. Pa wanted to go to Mississippi. We went and made eighteen bales cotton and got cheated out of all we made. We never got a cent. The man cheated us was Mr. Harris close to Trotter’s Landing.

“Mr. Anderson, the poor white man we worked for, jumped in the river and drowned his self. The turns (returns) didn’t come in for the first batch we sold at all, then when the turns come they said we done took it up—owed it all. We knowed we hadn’t took it up but couldn’t get nothin’. We come back to Arkansas.

“I been to Detroit, short time, and been way, but I comes back.

“I forgot to say this: My mammy was born in South Carolina. Marbuts owned her and sold her. My pa lived to be 114 or 115 years old. He died in Arkansas. She did too.

“Of course I don’t vote! Women ain’t got no business runnin’ the government!

“I nursed, worked in the field. When I was a slave they raised a little cotton in Georgia but mostly corn. I chopped cotton and thinned out corn.

“The present times is too fast. Somethin’ goin’ to happen. The present generation too fast. Folks racin’. Ridin’ in cars too fast. They ain’t kind no more.

“I rent a house where I can and I get $10.00 from the government. That all the support I got. I farmed in the field mighty hard and lost all we had.”

MAY 11 1938
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Hattie Hill
Route 2, Main Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85

“Yes ma’am, I was raised a house gal. Me and another cousin and I was borned in Georgia. My old master’s name was Edward Maddox. Yes ma’am.

“I had a good master but I didn’t have such a good missis. Her name was Fannie Maddox. We belonged to the old man and he was good to his niggers. He didn’t ’low ’em to be cut and slashed about. But when he was gone that’s when old mis’ would beat on us.

“I’ve seen a many a one of the soldiers. They used to march by our place.

“I can remember one of my old missis’ neighbors. Her name was Miss Phipps. Old mis’ would send me there to borry meal. Yes ma’am, I’d go and come. She’d always send me. I met the soldiers a many a time. I’d hide behind a tree and as they’d go by I’d go ’round the tree—I was so scared.

“But thank the Lawd, we is free now.

“I heered old master pray a many a prayer that he would live to see his slaves sot free. And he died the same year they was sot free. He sent for all his hands to come and see him ’fore he died. Even the little chillun. I can remember it jus’ as well as if ’twas yesterday. Old mis’ died ’fore he did.

“Our folks stayed on the place two years. Old master told ’em he wanted ’em to take care of themselves and said, ‘I want you to get you a place of your own.’ He said, ‘I raised you honest and I want you to stay on the place as long as you live or as long as the boys treat you right.’

“I seed the patrollers all right. I ’member that old song ‘Run Nigger Run’ and a heap of ’em run too.

“Them Ku Klux was hateful too, but they never bothered my father’s house. They beat one man—Steve McLaughlin—till he couldn’t get back to the house. They beat him from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

“We had a plenty to eat in slave times. They fed us good. I never did work in the field—I was raised up a house gal.

“After freedom my father had me in the field.

“I used to cut and split a many a hundred rails in a day and didn’t mind it neither.

“I used to like to work—would work now if I was able. And I’d rather work in the field any day as work in the house. The people where I lived can tell you how I worked. I didn’t make my living by rascality. I worked like my father raised me. Oh, I haven’t forgot how my old father raised me.

“Never went to school but one day in my life. I can’t read.

“I didn’t come to Arkansas till after I was free. I been livin’ here so long I can’t tell you how many years.

“I married young and I’m the mother of six chillun.

“I think a heap of the colored folks is better off free, but a heap of ’em don’t appreciate their freedom.

“Heap of the younger generation is all right and then they’s a heap of ’em all wrong.

“I can’t remember nothin’ else ’cause I was too young then and I’m too old now.”

Oliver Hill is ninety-four years old, erect, walks briskly with the aid of a cane, only slightly hard of hearing and toothless.

He was born and lived in the state of Mississippi on the plantation of Alan Brooks where he said his father was an overseer and not a slave. Said his mother was a full-blooded Indian. (I have never talked to a Negro who did not claim to be part Indian.) He cannot read or write and made rather conflicting statements about the reason why. “White folks wouldn’t let us learn.” Later on in the conversation he said he went to school about one month when his “eyes got sore and they said he didn’t have to go no more.”

“I was nineteen years old when de wa’ begun. De white folks never tole us nothin’ ’bout what it was fo’ till after de surrender. Dey tole us then we was free. They didn’t give us nothin’.”

After the surrender most of the slaves left the plantations and were supported by the Bureau. In the case of Oliver Hill, this lasted five months and then he went back to his former master who gave him one-fifth of what he made working in the field. Alan Brooks grieved for the loss of his slaves but at no time were they under any compulsion to remain slaves. After a long time about half of them came back to work for pay.

The Ku Klux Klan was “de devil”, but about all they wanted, according to Oliver, was to “make a Democrat” of the ex-slaves. They were allowed to vote without any trouble, but “de Democrats robbed de vote. Yes’m I knowed they did.”

Concerning the present restricted suffrage, he thinks the colored people should be allowed to vote. In general, his attitude toward the white people is one of resentment. Frequent comments were:

“Dey won’t let de colored people bury in de same cemetery with de white people.”

“Dey don’t like it if a colored man speak to a white woman.”

“Dey kill a colored man and de law don’t do nothin’ ’bout it.”

“Old Man Brooks” when referring to his former master.

He lived with the Brooks family for five years after freedom, and seems to have been rather a favored one with not much to do but “ride around” and going to dances and parties at night. When Alan Brooks died he left Oliver $600 in cash, a cow and calf, horse, saddle and bridle and two hogs. He went to live with his father taking his wife whom he had married at the age of twenty-one.

As soon as the inheritance was gone, the scene changed. In his words, “I thought it gwine last forever.” But it didn’t and then he began to hold a succession of jobs—field hand, sorghum maker, basket weaver, gardener and railway laborer—until he was too old to work. Now he is supported by the Welfare Department and the help a daughter and granddaughter can give.

About the younger generation—“I don’t know what gwine come of ’em. The whites is as bad as the blacks.” He thinks that present conditions are caused by the sinfulness of the people.

There were no slave uprisings but sometimes when they did not work fast enough or do the task right, they were “whupped” by the overseer and given no food until it was done right.

Oliver came to Arkansas in 1910. He has had two wives and “de Lawd took both of ’em.” His second wife was “’ligious” and they “got along fine.” All in all he had a good time during his active days “and didn’t have no trouble with de white folks”. He does not believe God ever intended some of the people to be slaves.

MAY 31 1938
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Rebecca Brown Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78

“I was born October 18, 1859 in northeast Mississippi in Chickasaw County. It was close to the Fulton Road to Houston, Mississippi. My folks belong to C.B. Baldwin. After ’mancipation papa stop calling himself Jacob Baldwin and called himself Jacob Brown in his own pa’s name. Mama was named Catherine Brown. The same man owned them both. They had twelve children. They lost a child born in 1866. I had two brothers sent to Louisiana as refugees. The place they was sent to was taken by the Yankees and they was taken and the Yankees made soldiers out of them. Charlie died in 1922 in Mobile, Alabama and Lewis after the War joined the United States army. I never saw any grandparents. Mama was born in Baltimore and her mother was born there too as I understood them to say. Mama’s father was a white Choctaw Indian. He was a cooper by trade. His name was John Abbot. He sold Harriett, my grandma, and kept mama and her brother. Then he married a white woman and had a white family. Her brother died. That left her alone to wait on that white family. They cut her hair off. She hated that. She loved her long straight black hair. Then her papa, John Abbot (Abbott?), died. Her brother run off and was leaving on a ship on the Potomac River. A woman lost her trunk. They was fishing for it and found mama’s brother drowned. He had fell overboard too.

“Mama took a bucket on her arm to keep the stealers from gagging her. She knowed if she had a bucket or basket they would not bother, they would know she went out on turn (errand) and would be protected. They didn’t bother her then. She went down to the nigger trader’s yard to talk awhile but she was making her way off then. Sometimes she went down to the yard to laugh and talk with some she knowed down there. She said them stealers would kill ’em and insect (dissect) ’em. But they didn’t get her. But might as well, Jim Williams owned that nigger yard. He put her on a sailboat named Big Humphries. She was on there hard sailing, she said, twenty-four days and nights. Jim Williams stole her! On that sailboat is where she seen my papa. When they got to New Orleans a white man from Baltimore was passing. He seen my mama. He ask her about her papers. She told him she had been stole. He said without papers Jim Williams couldn’t sell her. He told Jim Williams he better not sell that woman. Jim Williams knowed she was crazy about my papa. He hired him out and ask her if she wanted to go with him. He got pay for both of them hired out. It was better for him than if he owned her. When they had two children, Jim Williams come back out to Chambers County, Alabama where he had them hired out. He ask her if he would agree to let him sell her. He was going to sell papa and the two children. She said she had seen them whooped to death in the yards because they didn’t want to be sold. She was scared to contrary him. She had nobody to take her part. So she let him sell her with papa and the two children. Jim Williams sold her and papa and the two children to Billy Gates of Mississippi. Jim Williams said, ‘Don’t never separate Henry and Hannah ’cause I don’t have the papers for Hannah.’ Then they lived in the prairies eighteen miles from Houston, where Billy Gates lived. Mama done well. She worked and they treated her nice. Eight of us was born on that place includin’ me.

“I was raised up in good living conditions and kept myself so till twelve years ago this next August this creeping neuritis (paralasis) come on. I raised my niece. I cooked, washed and ironed, and went to the field in field time.

“Master Billy Gates’ daughter married Cyrus Brisco Baldwin. He was a lawyer. He give mama, papa and one child to them. Master Billy Gates’ daughter died and left Miss Bessie. Mr. C.B. Baldwin married again. He went to war in the ‘Six Day Crowd.’ Miss Bessie Baldwin married Bill Buchannan at Okolona, Mississippi. Mama went and cooked for her. They belong to her. She was good as she could be to her and papa both. One time the overseer was going to whip them both. Miss Bessie said, ‘Tell Mr. Carrydine to come and let us talk it over.’ They did and she said, ‘Give Mr. Carrydine his breakfast and let him go.’ They never got no whippings.

“Mama was white as any white woman and papa was my color (light mulatto). After freedom they lived as long as they lived at Houston and Okolona, Mississippi. She said she left Maryland in 1839.

“Some blue dressed Yankees come to our shack and told mama to bake him some bread. I held to her dress. She baked them some. They put it in their nap sacks. That was my first experience seeing the Yankees.

“They come back and come back on and on. One time they come back hunting the silverware. They didn’t find it. It was in the old seep well. The slaves wasn’t going to tell them where it was. We washed out of the seep well and used the cistern water to drink. It was good silver. They put it in sacks, several of them, to make it strong. Uncle Giles drapped it down in there. He was old colored man we all called Uncle Giles. He was no kin to me. He was good as could be. I loved him. Me and his girl played together all the time. Her name was Roxana. We built frog houses in the sand and put cool sand on our stomachs. We would lie under big trees and watch and listen to the birds.

“When Mr. Billy Gates died they give Henry, my youngest brother, to his son, John Gates. Henry, a big strong fellow, could raise a bale of cotton over his head.

“One time the Yankees come took the meat and twenty-five cows and the best mules. They left some old plugs. They had two mares in fold. Uncle Giles told them one mare had buck-eye poison and the other distemper. They left them in their stalls. We had to tote all that stuff they give out back when they was gone. All they didn’t take off they handed out to the slaves. There was some single men didn’t carry their provisions back to the smokehouse. Everybody else did. They kept on till they swept us all out of victuals. The slaves had shacks up on the hill. There was six or eight pretty houses all met. Mr. Gates’ house was one of them.

“Freedom—Capt. Gehu come and sent for all the slaves to come to Mr. John Gates. We all met there. He said it was free times now. We lived on and raised peas, corn, pumpkins, potatoes. The Yankees come and took off some of it. That was the year of the surrender. Mama moved off the hill in a man’s home what moved to town to look after the house for them. It was across the road from Master John Gates’ house. We worked for the Gates a long, long time after that. We worked for the Baldwins and around till the old heads all dead. I come to Clarendon, Arkansas, eleven o’clock, eleventh of May 1890. I have no children. I raised my sister’s baby. She died. I live wid her now. She’s got grandchildren. I get ten dollars from the Welfare a month. I buy what I needs to eat with it. I helps out a sight. I had a baby girl. It died an infant.

“The place they refugeed Charlie and Lewis was to Opelousas, Louisiana. It was about the first part of the country the Yankees took.

“Ku Klux—They never bothered us but in 1876 I seen them pass. My nephew was a little boy. He said when they passed there was Jack Slaughter on his horse. He knew the big horse. They went on. The colored men had left their wives and children at home and went up to Red Bud Church (colored). We seen five pass but others joined on. They had bad times. A colored man killed a Ku Klux named Tom Middlebrook. One man got his foot cut off wid a ax. Some called them ‘white caps.’ I was scared of whatever they called theirselves.

“The younger set of folks seems more restless than they used to be. I noticed that since the last war (World War). They ain’t never got settled. The women is bad as the men now it seems. Times is better than I ever had them in my life.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Tanny Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 56? No record of age

“‘Uncle Solomon’ we all called him but he wasn’t no kin to us, he was the funniest old man I ever heard tell of. He was a slave. He belong to Sorrel Crockell I heard him say. He didn’t go to no war.

“When the War ended he was a fisherman in Arkansas. He used to tie his own self to a tree keep the fish from pulling him in the river. He caught big fish in the early times. He’d come to our house when I was nothing but a child and bring ’nough fish for all our supper. Ma would cook ’em. Pa would help him scale ’em. We’d love to see him come. He lived thater way from house to house.

“One time he made me mad. I never had no more use for him. We’d give him tomatoes and onions. He told us to go bring him thater watermelon out of the garden. He cut and eat it before us. Never give us a bite. He was saying, ‘You goiner get your back and belly beat black and blue.’ I didn’t know what he was saying. Grandma found the watermelon was gone. I owned up to it. Ma got switches and whooped us. I was singing what he was saying. Grandma tole me what he meant. From that on we had no more of his good fish.”

Interviewer’s Comment

Large, medium black.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Elizabeth Hines
1117 W. Fourteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 70

“I was born January 10, 1868, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I came here. I can’t read or write. My brother-in-law told me that I was born three years after the War on January tenth.

“My mother’s name was Sara Cloady. My father’s name was Square Cloady. I don’t remember the names of any of my grand people. Yes I do; my father’s mother was named Bertha because I called my daughter after her. She must have been in the Square family because that was his name.

“I had four brothers and sisters. Three of them I don’t know anything about. I have never seen them. My sister, Rachael Fortune, suckled me on her breast. That is her married name. Before she was married her name was Rachael Bennett. Her father and mine was not the same. We was just half-sisters. We have the same mother though. My father was half Indian and hers was pure-blooded Indian. They are all mean folks. People say I am mean too, but I am not mean—unless they lie on me or something. My mother died when I was three years old. Children three years old didn’t have as much sense then as they do now. I didn’t know my mother was laid out until I got to be a woman. I didn’t have sense enough to know she was dead. My sister was crying and we asked her what she was crying about.

“I don’t know the name of my mother’s old master. Yes I do, my mother’s old master was named Laycock. He had a great big farm. He was building a gas house so that he could have a light all night and work niggers day and night, but peace came before he could get it finished and use it. God took a hand in that thing. I have seen the gas house myself. I used to tote water home from there in a bucket. It was cool as ice-water. The gas house was as big ’round as that market there (about a half block).

“My father served in the army three years and died at the age of one hundred ten years about twenty years ago as near as I can remember. That is the reason I left home because he died. He served in the War three years. He was with the Yankees. Plenty of these old white folks will know him by the name of Square Cloady. The name of his company was Company E. I don’t know the name of his regiment. He got his pension as long as he lived. His last pension came just before he died. I turned it back to the courthouse because it is bad to fool with Uncle Sam. They wrote for my name but when I told them I was married they wouldn’t send me anything. I didn’t know to tell them that my husband was dead.

“I was married when I was about twenty-seven and my husband died more than three years before my father did. My father lived to see me the mother of my last child; my husband didn’t. When my husband was dying, I couldn’t see my toes. I was pregnant. My husband died in the year of the great tornado. The time all the churches were blown down. I think it was about 1915. (Storm time in Louisiana.)

“I don’t know what my mother did in slavery. I don’t think she did anything but cook. She was fine in children and they buys women like that you know. My sister was a water toter. My father raised cotton and corn and hogs and turkeys. His trade was farming before the War. I don’t know how he happened to get in the army but he was in it three years. cf. p.3

House, Furniture and Food

“Laycock’s farm was out in the country about four miles from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Some of the slaves lived in log houses and some in big old boxed houses. Most of them had two rooms. They had nothing but four post beds and chairs like this I am settin’ down in (a little cane chair). I reckon it is cane—looks like it is. They had homemade chairs before the War, boxes, and benches. The boards were often bought. But nothing else.

“They et greens and pickled pork. My father got tired of that and he would raise hogs. Pickled pork and corn bread!

“My father never told me what his master was to him, whether he was good or mean. He got free early because he was in the army. He didn’t run away. The soldiers came and got him and carried him off and trained him. cf. p.2 I just know what my father told me because I wasn’t born. He served his full time and then he was discharged. He got an honorable discharge. He had a wound in the leg where he was shot.

“I got along all right supporting myself by planting cotton until last year when the doctor stopped me.

“I took care of my father and the Lord is taking care of me. I am weak and still have that giddy head but not as bad as I used to have it.”

Opinions

“Some of the young people do very well but some of them ain’t got no manners and don’t care what they do. I am scared for them. The Man above ain’t scared and he is going to cut them down.”