Read Ebook: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves Volume II Arkansas Narratives Part 4 by United States Work Projects Administration

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"I come here to Arkansas with some refugees, and I been up and down the river ever since.

"In slavery times I had plenty to eat, such as 'twas. Had biscuits on Sunday made out of shorts.

"I lived with one man, Dr. Maloney, who was pretty cruel. I run away from him once, but he caught me fore night. Put me in a little house on bread and water for three or four days and then he sold me. Said he wouldn't have a nigger that would run away. Otherwise I been treated pretty well.

"I come to Pine Bluff in '82. Last place I farmed was at what they call the Nichol place.

"I used to vote Republican--wouldn't let us vote nothin' else. In this country they won't let niggers vote in the primary 'cause they can vote in the presidential election. I held one office--justice of the peace.

"If the younger generation don't change, the Lord goin' to put curses on em. That's just what's goin' to come of em. More you do for em the worse they is. Don't think about the future--just today."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Lawson Jamar, Edmondson, Arkansas Age: 66

"Papa had twelve children and when he died he lef' two and now I am all the big family left.

"Mama was born in Huntsville, Alabama. I was born there too. She was Liza, b'long to Tom and Unis Martin. Papa b'long to Mistress Sarah and Jack Jamar. They had to work hard. They had to do good work. They had to not slight their work. Papa's main job was to carry water to the hands. He said it kept him on the go. They had more than one water boy. They had to go to the wash hole before they went to bed and wash clean. The men had a place and the women had their place. They didn't have to get in if it was cold but they had to wash off.

"They hauled a wagon load of axes or hoes and lef' 'em in the field so they could get 'em. Then they would haul plows, hoes or axes to the shop to be fixed up. They had two or three sets. They worked from early till late. They had a cook house. They cooked at their own houses when the work wasn't pushing. When they got behind they would work in the moonlight. If they got through they all went and help some neighbor two or three nights and have a big supper sometimes. They done that on Saturday nights, go home and sleep all day Sunday.

"If they didn't have time to wash and clean the houses and the beds some older women would do that and tend to the babies. They had a hard time during the War. It was hard after the War. Papa brought me to this country to farm. He farmed till he started sawmilling for Chappman Dewy at Marked Tree. Then he swept out and was in the office to help about. He never owned nothing. He come and I farmed. He helped a little. He was so old. He talked more about the War and slavery. I always have farmed. Farmed all my life.

"I don't farm now. I got asthma and cripple with rheumatism. What my wife and children can't do ain't done now. I don't get no help but I applied for it.

"Present times is all right where a man can work. The present generation rather do on heap less and do less work. They ain't got manners and raisin' like I had. They don't know how to be polite. We tries to learn 'em how to do."

NOTE: The woman was black and so was the cripple Negro man; their house was clean, floors, bed, tables, chairs. Very good warm house. They couldn't remember the old tales the father told to tell them to me.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Nellie James, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 72

"Nellie James is my name. Yes, Mr. D. B. James was my husband, and he remembered you very kindly. They call me 'Aunt Nellie.' I was born in Starkville, Ouachita County, Mississippi the twenty-ninth of March, in 1866, just a year after the War closed. My parents were both owned by a plantation farmer in Ouachita County, Mississippi, but we came to Arkansas a good many years ago.

"My husband was principal of the colored school here at Russellville for thirty-five years, and people, both white and black, thought a great deal of him. We raised a family of six children, five boys and a girl, and they now live in different states, some of them in California. One of my sons is a doctor in Chicago and is doing well. They were all well educated. Mr. James saw to that of course.

"So far as I remember from what my parents said, the master was reasonably kind to all his slaves, and my husband said the same thing about his own master although he was quite young at the time they were freed.

"I was too young to remember much about the Ku Klux Klan, but I remember we used to be afraid of them and we children would run and hide when we heard they were coming.

"No sir, I have never voted, because we always had to pay a dollar for the privilege--and I never seemed to have the dollar to spare at election time. Mr. James voted the Republican ticket regularly though.

"All our family were Missionary Baptists. I united with the Baptist church when I thirteen years old.

"I think the young people of both races are growing wilder and wilder. The parents today are too slack in raising them--too lenient. I don't know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to do, or what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a time trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."

NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet, refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and successful family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none of the brogue that is characteristic of the colored race of the South.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Robert James 4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 66, or older Occupation: Cook

"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David Jones was her old master. That was in Mississippi--the good old country! People hate it because they don't like the name but it was a mighty good country when I was there. The white people there were better to the colored people when I was there than they are here. But there is a whole lots of places that is worse than Arkansas.

"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my brother happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought about me and wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in Chicago following up their information and got in touch with my people. Didn't find them out till the great war started. Had to go to Europe to find my relatives. My sister's people and mine too were born in Illinois, but my mother and two sisters and another brother were born in Mississippi. Their kin born in Illinois were half-brothers and so on.

Refugeeing--Ghosts

"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it must have been true.

"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story house. They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise nobody; so they just camped there for the night. After they went to bed, big balls of fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got scared and run out of the house and camped outside for the night. There wasn't no more sleeping in that house.

"Some people believe in ghosts and some don't. What do you believe? This is what I have seen myself. Mules and horses were running 'round screaming and hollering every night. One day, I was walking along when I saw a mule big as an elephant with ears at least three feet long and eyes as big as auto lamps. He was standing right in the middle of the road looking at me and making no motion to move. I was scared to death, but I stooped down to pick up a stone. It wasn't but a second. But when I raised up, he had vanished. He didn't make a sound. He just disappeared in a second. That was in the broad open daylight. That was what had been causing all the confusion with the mules and horses.

"When I first married I used to room with an old lady named Johnson. Time we went to bed and put the light out, something would open the doors. Finally I got scared and used to tell my wife to get up and close the doors. Finally she got skittish about it. There used to be the biggest storms around there and yet you couldn't see nothin'. There wasn't no rain nor nothin'. Just sounds and noises like storms. My wife comes to visit me sometimes now.

"My mother says there wasn't any such thing as marriage in slave times. Old master jus' said, 'There's your husband, Florida.'"

Little Rock District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson Subject: HISTORY OF ELLIS JEFFERSON-- Story--Information

This Information given by: Ellis Jefferson Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas Occupation: Superanuated Minister of the M. E. Church Age: 77

He has his second eyesight and his hair is short and white. He is a black skinned, bright-eyed old man. "Uncle Jeff" said he remembered when the Civil War had ended they passed by where he lived with teams, wagons filled, and especially the artillery wagon. They were carrying them back to Washington. His mother was freed from Mrs. Nancy Marshall of Roanoke, Va. She moved and brought his mother, he and his sister, Ann, to Holly Springs, Miss. The county was named for his mistress: Marshall County, Mississippi.

In 1868 they moved to 4 miles of DeWitt and 10 miles of Arkansas Post. Later they moved to Kansas and near Wichita then back to Marshall, Texas. His sister has four sons down there. He thinks she is still living. His Mistress went back to Roanoke, Va., and his mother died at Marshall. Tom Marshall was his Master's name, but he seems to have died in the Civil War. This old Uncle Jeff lived in Alabama and has preached there and in northern Mississippi and near Helena, Arkansas. He helped cook at Helena in a hotel. He preaches some but the WPA supports him now. Uncle Jeff can't remember his dreams he said "The Bible says, young men dream dreams and old men see visions."

He had a real vision once, he was going late one afternoon to get his mules up and he heard a voice "I have a voice I want you to complete. Carry my word." He was a member of the church but he made a profession and a year later was ordained into the ministry. He believes in dreams. Says they are warnings.

Uncle Jeff says he has written some poetry but it has all been lost.

When anyone dies the sexton goes to the church and tolls the bell as many times as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery.

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Name of Interviewer: S. S. Taylor Subject: Story--Information

This information given by: Moses E. Jeffries Place of Residence: 1110 Izard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Occupation: Plasterer Age: 81

"I was born in 1856. My age was kept with the cattle. As a rule, you know, slaves were chattels. There was a fire and the Bible in which the ages were kept was lost. The man who owned me couldn't remember what month I was born in. Out of thirteen children, my mother could only remember the age of one. I had twelve brothers and sisters--Bob Lacy, William Henry, Cain Cecil, Jessie, Charles, Harvey, Johnnie, Anna, Rose, Hannah, Lucy, and Thomas. I am the only one living now. My parents were both slaves. My father has been dead about fifty-nine years and my mother about sixty or sixty-one years. She died before I married and I have been married fifty years. I have them in my Bible.

I remember when Lincoln was elected president and they said there was going to be war. I remember when they had slave market in New Orleans. I was living betweeen Pine Bluff and New Orleans and saw the slaves chained together as they were brought through my place and located somewhere on some of the big farms or plantations.

I never saw any of the fighting but I did see some of the Confederate armies when they were retreating near the end of the war. I was just about ten years old at the time and was in Marshall, Texas.

The man that owned me said to the old people that they were free, that they didn't belong to him any more, that Abraham Lincoln had set them free. Of course, I didn't know what freedom was. They brought the news to them one evening, and them niggers danced nearly all night.

I remember also seeing a runaway slave. We saw the slaves first, and the dogs came behind chasing them. They passed through our field about half an hour ahead of the hounds, but the dogs would be trailing them. The hunters didn't bother to stop and question us because they knew the hounds were on the trail. I have known slaves to run away and stay three years at a time. Master would whip them and they would run away. They wouldn't have no place to go or stay so they would come back after a while. Then they would be punished again. They wouldn't punish them much, however, because they might run off again.

MARRIAGE

If I went on a plantation and saw a girl I wanted to marry, I would ask my master to buy her for me. It wouldn't matter if she were somebody else's wife; she would become mine. The master would pay for her and bring her home and say, "John, there's your wife. That is all the marriage there would be. Yellow women used to be a novelty then. You wouldn't see one-tenth as many then as now. In some cases, however, a man would retain his wife even after she had been sold away from him and would have permission to visit her from time to time.

INHERITANCE OF SLAVES

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