Read Ebook: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves Volume II Arkansas Narratives Part 5 by United States Work Projects Administration

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Interviewer: Mrs. Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Avalena McConico on the west of Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 40

"Grandma was a slave woman. Her name was Emma Harper. She was born in Chesterville, Mississippi. Her young master was Jim and Miss Corrie Burton. The old man was John Burton. I aimed to see them once. I seen both Miss Corrie and Mr. Jim. My grandparents was never sold. They left out after freedom. They stayed there a long time but they left.

"The first of the War was like dis: Our related folks was having a dance. The Yankees come in and was dancing. Some "fry boys" them. The next day they were all in the field and heard something. They went to the house and told the white folks there was a fire. They heard it. he about. Master told them it was war. Miss Burton was crying. They heard about in at Harrisburg where they could hear the shooting.

"They put the slaves to digging. They dug two weeks. They buried their meat and money and a whole heap of things. They never found it. A little white, Mollita, was out where they were digging. She went in the house. She said, Mama, is the devil coming? They said he was." Master had them come to him. He questioned them. They told him they got so tired of them said he he the Yankees come he'd tell them where all this was, but he was just talking. But when the Yankees did come they was so scared they never got close to a Yankee. They was scared to death. They never found the meat and money. They and cut the turkeys' heads off and the turkey fell off the rail fence, the head drop on one side and the body on the other. They milked a cow and cut both hind quarters off and leave the rest of the cow there and the cow not dead yet.

"Mr. South Strange at Chesterville, Mississippi had a pony named Zane. The Yankees hemmed him and four more men in at Malone Creek and killed the four men. Zane rared up on hind legs and went up a steep cliff and ran three miles. Mr. Strange's coat was cut off from him. It was a gray coat. Mr. Strange was a white man.

"Uncle Frank Jones was forty years old when they gathered him up out of the woods and put him in the battle lines. All the runaway black folks in the woods was hunted out and put in the Yankee lines. Uncle Frank lived in a cave up till about then. His master made him mean. He got better as he got old. His master would sell him and tell him to run away and come back to his cave. He'd feed him. He never worked and he went up for his provisions. He was sold over and over and over. His master learnt him in books and to how to cuss. He learnt him how to trick the dogs and tap trees like a coon. At the end of the trail the dogs would turn on the huntsman. Uncle Frank was active when he was old. He was hired out to race other boys sometimes. He never wore glasses. He could see well when he was old. He told me he was raised out from England, Arkansas.

"When freedom was told 'em Uncle Frank said all them in the camps hollered and danced, and marched and sung. They was so glad the War was done and so glad they been freed.

"Grandma was sold in South Carolina to Mississippi and sold again to Dr. Shelton. Now that was my father's father and mother. She said they rode and walked all the way. They came on ox wagons. She said on the way they passed some children. They was playing. A little white boy was up in a persimmon tree settin' on a limb eating persimmons. He was so pretty and clean. Grandma says, 'You think you is some pumpkin, don't you, honey child.' He says, 'Some pumpkin and some 'simmon too.' Grandma was a house girl. She got to keep her baby and brought him. He was my father. Uncle was born later. Then they was freed. Grandma lived to be ninety-five years old. Mrs. Dolphy Wooly and Mrs. Shelton was her young mistresses. They kept her till she died. They kept her well.

"Grandma told us about freedom. She was hired out to the Browns to make sausage and dry out lard. Five girls was in the field burning brush. They was white girls--Mrs. Brown's girls. They come to the house and said some Blue Coats come by and said, 'You free.' They told them back, 'That's no news, we was born free.' Grandma said that night she melted pewter and made dots on her best dress. It was shiny. She wore it home next day 'cause she was free, and she never left from about her own white folks till she died and left them.

"Times seem very good on black folks till hard cold winter and spring come, then times is mighty, mighty bad. It is so hard to keep warm fires and enough to eat. Times have been good. Black folks in the young generation need more heart training and less book learning. Times is so fast the young set is too greedy. They is wasteful too. Some is hard workers and tries to live right.

"I wash and irons and keep a woman's little chile so she can work. I owns my home."

Interviewer: Mrs. Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Ike McCoy, Biscoe, Arkansas Age: 65

"My parents named Harriett and Isaac McCoy. Far as I knew they was natives of North Kaline . He was a farmer. He raised corn and cabbage, a little corn and wheat. He had tasks at night in winter I heard him say. She muster just done anything. She knit for us here in the last few years. She died several years ago. Now my oldest sister was born in slavery. I was next but I came way after slavery.

"In war time McCoys hid their horses in the woods. The Yankees found them and took all the best ones and left their . Old boss man McCoy hid in the closet and locked himself up. The Yankees found him, broke in on him and took him out and they nearly killed him beating him so bad. He told all of 'em on the place he was going off. They wore him out. He didn't live long after that.

"Things got lax. I heard her say one man sold all his slaves. The War broke out. They run away and went back to him. She'd see 'em pass going back home. They been sold and wouldn't stay. Folks got to running off to war. They thought it look like a frolic. I heard some of them say they wish they hadn't gone off to war 'fore it was done. Niggers didn't know that war no freedom was 'ceptin' the Yankees come tell them something and then they couldn't understand how it all be. Black folks was mighty ignant then. They is now for that matter. They look to white folks for right kind of doings.

"Ma said every now and then see somebody going back to that man tried to get rid of them. They traveled by night and beg along from black folks. In daytime they would stay in the woods so the pettyrollers wouldn't run up on them. The pettyrollers would whoop 'em if they catch 'em.

"Ma told about one day the Yankees come and made the white women came help the nigger women cook up a big dinner. Ma was scared so bad she couldn't see nothing she wanted. She said there was no talking. They was too scared to say a word. They sot the table and never a one of them told 'em it was ready.

"She said biscuits so scarce after the War they took 'em 'round in their pockets to nibble on they taste so good.

"I was eighteen years old when pa and ma took the notion to come out here. All of us come but one sister had married, and pa and one brother had a little difference. Pa had children ma didn't have. They went together way after slavery. We got transportation to Memphis by train and took a steamboat to Pillowmount. That close to Forrest City. Later on I come to Biscoe. They finally come too.

"I been pretty independent all my life till I getting so feeble. I work a sight now. I'm making boards to kiver my house out at the lot now. I goiner get somebody to kiver it soon as I get my boards made.

"We don't get no PWA aid 'ceptin' for two orphant babies we got. They are my wife's sister's little boys.

"Well sir-ree, folks could do if the young ones would. Young folks don't have no consideration for the old wore-out parents. They dance and drink it bodaciously out on Saturday ebening and about till Sunday night. I may be wrong but I sees it thater way. Whan we get old we get helpless. I'm getting feebler every year. I see that. Times goiner be hard ag'in this winter and next spring. Money is scarce now for summer time and craps laid by. I feels that my own self now. Every winter times get tough."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Richard H. McDaniel, Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 73

"I was born in Newton County, Mississippi the first year of the surrender. I don't think my mother was sold and I know my father was never sold. Jim McDaniel raised my father and one sister after his mother died. One sister was married when she died. I heard him say when he got mad he would quit work. He said old master wouldn't let the mistress whoop him and she wouldn't let him whoop my father. My father was a black man but my mother was light. Her father was a white man and her mother part Indian and white mixed, so what am I? My mother was owned by people named Wash. Dick Wash was her young master. My parents' names was Willis and Elsie McDaniel. When it was freedom I heard them say Moster McDaniel told them they was free. He was broke. If they could do better go on, he didn't blame them, he couldn't promise them much now. They moved off on another man's place to share crop. They had to work as hard and didn't have no more than they had in slavery. That is what they told me. They could move around and visit around without asking. They said it didn't lighten the work none but it lightened the rations right smart. Moster McDaniel nor my father neither one went to war.

"From the way I always heard it, the Ku Klux was the law like night watchman. When I was a boy there was a lot of stealing and bushwhacking. Folks meet you out and kill you, rob you, whoop you. A few of the black men wouldn't work and wanted to steal. That Ku Klux was the law watching around. Folks was scared of em. I did see them. I would run hide.

"I farmed up till 1929. Then I been doing jobs. I worked on relief till they turned me off, said I was too old to work but they won't give me the pension. I been trying to figure out what I am to do. Lady, could you tell me? Work at jobs when I can get them.

"I allus been voting till late years. If they let some folks vote in the first lection, they would be putting in somebody got no business in the gover'ment. All the fault I see in white folks running the gover'ment is we colored folks ain't got work we can do all the time to live on. I thought all the white folks had jobs what wanted jobs. The conditions is hard for old men like me. I pay for a house every month. It is a cold house.

"This present generation is living a fast life. What all don't they do?"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Waters McIntosh 1900 Howard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 76

"I was born July 4, 1862 at 2:08 in the morning at Lynchburg, Sumter County, South Carolina.

Parents

"My mother was named Lucy Sanders. My father was named Sumter Durant. Our owner was Dr. J.M. Sanders, the son of Mr. Bartlett Sanders. Sumter Durant was a white man. My mother was fourteen years old when I was born I was her second child. Durant was in the Confederate army and was killed during the War in the same year I was born, and before my birth.

Sold

"When I was a year old, my mother was sold for 00 in gold, and I was sold for 0 in gold to William Carter who lived about five miles south of Cartersville. The payment was made in fine gold. I was sold because my folk realized that freedom was coming and they wanted to obtain the cash value of their slaves.

Name

"My name is spelled 'Waters' but it is pronounced 'Waiters.' When I was born, I was thought to be a very likely child and it was proposed that I should be a waiter. Therefore I was called Waters . They did not spell it w-a-i-t-e-r-s, but they pronounced it that way.

How Freedom Came

"My mother said that they had been waiting a long time to hear what had become of the War, perhaps one or two weeks. One day when they were in the field moulding corn, going round the corn hoeing it and putting a little hill around it, the conk sounded at about eleven o'clock, and they knew that the long expected time had come. They dropped their hoes and went to the big house. They went around to the back where the master always met the servants and he said to them, 'You are all free, free as I am. You can go or come as you please. I want you to stay. If you will stay, I will give you half the crop.' That was the beginning of the share cropping system.

"My mother came at once to the quarters, and when she found me she pulled the end out of a corn sack, stuck holes on the sides, put a cord through the top, pulled out the end, put it on me, put on the only dress she had, and made it back to the old home .

What the Slaves Expected

"When the slaves were freed, they got what they expected. They were glad to get it and get away with it, and that was what mother and them did.

Slave Time Preaching

"One time when an old white man come along who wanted to preach, the white people gave him a chance to preach to the niggers. The substance of his sermon was this:

"'Now when you servants are working for your masters, you must be honest. When you go to the mill, don't carry along an extra sack and put some of the meal or the flour in for yourself. And when you women are cooking in the big house, don't make a big pocket under your dress and put a sack of coffee and a sack of sugar and other things you want in it."

"They took him out and hanged him for corrupting the morals of the slaves.

Conditions After the War

"Immediately after the War, there was a great scarcity of food. Neither Negroes nor white folk had anything to eat. The few white people who did have something wouldn't let it be known. My grandmother who was sixty-five years old and one of the old and respected inhabitants of that time went out to find something for us to eat. A white woman named Mrs. Burton gave her a sack of meal and told her not to tell anybody where she got it.

"My grandmother brought the meal home and cooked it in a large skillet in a big cake. When it got done, she cut it into slices in the way you would cut up a pie and divided it among us. That all we had to eat.

House

"The white people in those days built their houses back from the front. In South Carolina, there were lots of farms that had four to twelve thousand acres. From what mother told me, Master Bill's place set back from the road. Then there was a great square place they called the yard. A fence divided the house and the yard adjoining it from that part of the grounds which held the barn. The yard in front and back of the house held a grove.

The square around the house and the Negro quarters were all enclosed so that the little slaves could not get out while parents were at work. The Negroes assembled on the porch when the gong called them in the morning. The boss gave orders from the porch. There was an open space between the quarters and the court . There was a gate between the court and the big house.

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