  “Son of Martha and Peter Hinton. Came from N.C. about 12 years ago, at close of Civil War. Mother had nine children, she belonged to Mr. Sam Hinton. “At close of war mistis called us to her, said we were free and could go. So we went away for about a year, but came back. Sorry we were free. “We saw about 2000 soldiers. Never went to school. Went to white church on plantation. White preachers said, servants, obey your marster. I was valued at $800.00. “When I was a small boy I lay at marsters feet and he would let us play with his feet. He always had shiny shoes and we niggers would keep rubbing them so they would shine more. As I grew older, I cleaned the yard, later helped pick cotton. “I am a Baptist. Have behaved myself. Have prayer meeting at my home. “During the war we had prayer meetings at the different houses “Overseer would whip neggers when out of humor. Miss Mary would always tell them not to mistreat her help. “Times were so hard during slave times, white marster took them into the bottoms and hid them, so they wouldn’t run off with the Yankee soldiers. “Talk of war got so hot, brought us out of the woods and put us in wagons and took us and de older people off to Texas. “We got up at 4AM, work all day until 9 or 10 at night. On Sunday we worked if it was necessary. “I was tough and strong. I could outrun a wild animal, barefooted and bare headed. “We would have a country dance once in awhile. Someone would play the banjo. “Miss Mary, white mistis called us all in one day and opened a large trunk. She showed us money, gold and silver, saying that we had all helped to make it for them. Thats the first money I ever saw. “Our white folks didn’t like any one wearing blue clothes. Thought they were Yankees, and that meant freedom for us niggers. Men in blue clothes came and put a rope around my marsters neck, took him all around the nigger cabins and asked where he hid them. He told them, Texas. They said, get them and free them or they would hang him. “He sent after them and everything was alright. “I though my white marster was God. He took sick and died. “I heard the other slaves saying he committed suicide because he had lost all his money. “In those times my father saw my mother, decided he wanted her for his woman. He tol his white folks and they fixed up a cabin for them to live in together. Was no ceremony. Had nigger midwives for babies. “I knows every lucky silver pieces of money. I believe in lucky pieces of silver. I is a dreamer, always been dat way. I have seen my bright days ahead of me, in dreams and visions. If I hears a woman’s voice calling me, a calling me in my sleep I is bound to move outa dat house. I dont keer wher I goes, I is got to go some whars.” Information by: Charles Hinton
Person interviewed: Charlie Hinton (c) Age: 89 Home: Old River Road—Pine Bluff, Ark. “Oh Lordy, lady, I was pickin’ cotton durin’ the war. I was here before the first gun was fired. When the war came they sent my mother and father and all the other big folks to Texas and left us undergrowth here to make a crop. “My mother’s name was Martha and my father was named Peter Hinton. Now I’m just goin’ to tell you everything—I’m not ashamed. I’ve got the marks of slavery on me. My old marster and Miss Mary, they was good to me, but the old cook woman throwed me off the porch and injured my back. I ain’t never been able to walk just right since. “Now, here’s what I remember. Our marster, we thought he was God. “They pretty near raised us with the pigs. I remember they would cook a great big oven of bread and then pour a pan full of buttermilk or clabber and we’d break off a piece of bread and get around the pan of milk jest like pigs. Yes mam, they did that. “Let’s see now, what else occurred. Old marster would have my father and Uncle Jacob and us boys to run foot races. You know—they was testin’ us, and I know I was valued to be worth five hundred dollars. “But my folks was good to me. They wouldn’t have no overseer what would be cruel. If he was cruel he would have to be gone from there. “I want to tell you when the old folks got sick they would bleed them, and when the young folks got sick they give you some blue mass and turn you loose. “I remember when old marster’s son Sam went to war and got shot in the leg. Old marster was cryin’ ‘Oh, my Sam is shot’. He got in a scrummage you know. He got well but he never could straighten out his leg. “When freedom come, I heard ’em prayin’ for the men to come back home. Miss Mary called us all up and told us our age and said, ‘You all are free and can go where you want to go, or you can stay here.’ “Oh yes, the Ku Klux use to run my daddy if they caught him out without a pass, but I remember he could outrun them—he was stout as a mule. “I been here so long and what little I’ve picked up is just a little fireside learnin’. I can read and write my name. I can remember when we thought a newspaper opened out was a bed-cover. But a long time after the war when the public school come about, I had the privilege of going to school three weeks. Yes mam, I was swift and I think I went nearly through the first reader. “I am a great lover of the Bible and I’m a member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church. “I’m glad to give you some kind of idea ’bout my age and life. I really am glad. Goodbye.”
Person interviewed: Ben Hite 1515 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 74 “Well, I didn’t zactly live in slavery times. I was born in 1864, the 4th of July. They said it was on the William Moore place four miles from Chattanooga but I was in Georgia when I commenced to remember—in Fort Valley—just a little town. “I been in Arkansas sixty-five years the first day of January. Come to the old Post of Arkansas in 1873. I been right here on this spot forty-three years. Made a many a bale of cotton on the Barrow place. “Went to school three weeks right down here in ‘Linkum’ County. I could read a little but couldn’t write any much. “I been married to this wife forty years. My fust wife dead. “I lived in ‘Linkum’ County eight years and been in Jefferson County ever since. “Three years ago I was struck by a car and I been blind two years. I can just ’zern’ the light. When I was able to be about I used to vision what it would be like to be blind and now I know. “Yes’m, I just come here on the eve of the breakin’ up. I seed the Yankees in Georgia after freedom. They called em Bluejackets. “All my life I have farmed—farmed.”
Person Interviewed: Betty Hodge Hazen, Ark. Age: 63 “Uncle Billy Hill used to visit us. He was Noah’s uncle. He was a slave and one thing I remembers hearing him tell was this: He was the hostler for his old master. The colored folks was having a jubilee. He wanted to go. He stole one of the carriage horses out—rode it. It started snowing. He said he went out to see bout the horse and it seemed be doin’ all right. After a while here come somebody and told him that horse he rode was dead. He didn’t believe it, but went out there and it was sho dead. He said he took that horse by the tail and started runnin’ up the road. They drug that horse home and put him in the stable where he belong at. It was snowing so hard and fast they couldn’t see their hands ’fo em he said. It snowed so much it covered up where they drug the horse and their tracks. He said the snow saved his life. They found the horse dead and never thought bout him having him out at the jubilee. He said none of em ever told a word bout it but for long time he was scared to death fear the old master find out bout it. “Grandma Frances was born in West Virginia. She was papa’s mama. She purt nigh raised us. Mama and papa went to the field to work. She cooked and done the housework. She had a good deal of Indian blood in her. I heard em say. She had high cheeks and the softest, prettiest hair. She told about the stars falling. “Grandma Frances and our family come to Arkansas ’reckly after the Civil War. They come with Mr. John and Miss Olivia Cooper. Miss Olivia was his wife, but Miss Presh was a old maid. Folks used to think it was sort of bad if a woman didn’t marry. Thought she have no chances. It sort of be something like a disgrace if a woman was a old maid. Don’t seem that-a-way no more. I never heard much about Miss Presh but I heard mama tell this: Grandma Mary Lea come on a visit to see mama and she brought her some sweet potatoes in a bag. Had nothing else and wanted to bring her something. Miss Olivia picked out the biggest ones and took em. Said she was mean. Said she had a plenty of everything. Just left mama the smallest ones. She said Miss Olivia was stingy. Mama was the house girl and nurse and they had a cook. Mama was a girl then she belong to the Coopers, but mama belong to somebody else. She hadn’t married then. “One day Miss Olivia called her and she didn’t get there soon as Miss Olivia wanted her to. Miss Olivia say, ‘You getting mean, Lucy. You like your ma.’ She said, ‘I just like you if I’m mean.’ But Miss Olivia didn’t understand it. She ask the cook and the cook told her she was talking to her. She told Mr. John Cooper to whoop em but he didn’t. He kind of laughed and ask the cook what Lucy said to Miss Olivia. Miss Olivia told him “Mama was Lucy Lea till she married Will Holloway, my papa. Then she married Isarel Thomas the preacher here at Hazen. He come from Tennessee with old Dr. Hazen (white man). Mama’s mama was Mary Lea; she lived out here at Green Grove. I don’t know where she was born, but she was owned by the Lea’s round Des Arc. She come and stay a month or two with us on a visit. “Old folks was great hands to talk bout olden times. I forgot bout all they told. “In old times folks had more principal, now they steal and fight and loud as they can be. Folks used to be quiet, now they be as loud as they can all the time. They dance and carouse all night long—fuss and fight! Some of our young folks got to change. The times have changed so much and still changing so fast I don’t know what goin’ to be the end. I study bout it a lot.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson |
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