United States. Work Projects Administration

“ I never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count money.
"My mother was dark. I married when I was fifteen years old. I have four children living. They are all dark. They are about the same color but darker than I am.
"No ma'am, I don't believe one could be voodooed. I lived nearly all my life with white folks and they don't heed no foolishness like that, do they? I cooked, worked in the field, washed and ironed.
"I married three times. The first time at Raymond, Mississippi. ”

“ When I first began to work on the farm old master put me to cuttin' sprouts, then when I got big enough to make a field hand, I went to the field then. I done lots of kinds of work—worked in the field, split rails, built fences, cleared new ground and just anything old marster wanted me to do. I members one time I got a long old splinter in my foot and couldn't get it out, so my mammy bound a piece of fat meat round my foot and let it stay bout a couple days, then the splinter come out real easy like. And I was always cutting myself too when I was a chap. You know how careless chaps is. ”

“ I seen some sold in Virginia, I reckon, or Maryland—one off the boats. They kept them tied. They was so scared they might do anything, jump in the big waters. They couldn't talk but to some and he would tell white folks what he said. [They used an interpreter.] Some couldn't understand one another if they come from far apart in the foreign country. Slavery wasn't never bad on me. ”

“ But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about. Most of the time it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up at Nashville, Tennessee. ”

“ My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was named after the white folks. All the old folks is dead, but the young ones is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many of them that I forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children named after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.
"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena and came here. She run off from the Grissoms. They whipped her too much, those white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. ”

“ They break up big gatherings. Some white folks tell them to do one thing and then some others tell them to do some other way. That is the way it was. The Ku Kluxes was hot headed. Papa wasn't a bad man but he was afraid they did do so much. He was on the lookout and dodged them all the time.
"I haven't voted for a long time. I couldn't keep my taxes up.
"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house—not so good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that nobody would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between farming. I still farm. ”

“ I remember the women on the next plantation used to slip over and get somthing to eat from us. The Woodfork colored folks was always well took care of. Our white folks was good to us. During the week there was somebody to cook for us. On Sunday all of them cooked in their cabins and they [Pg 87] had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even when they was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough to eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our place. The Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for food. Our white folks treated us real good. ”

“ Some of the younger generation is better off than they used to be and some of them not. It depends a whole heap on the way they do. The colored folks tries to do like the white folks far as they's able. Everything is changing so fast. The present conditions is harder for po white folks and colored folks than it been in a long time. Nearly everything is to buy and prices out of sight. Work is so scarce. ”

“ Oh, yes'm.
"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he never hit me nary a lick.
"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever' woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing—shoes and all.
"Them Yankees sure did bad—burned up the cotton and the corn. ”

“ During the war I wasn't grown but I can remember when the Yankee soldiers come to Canton, Mississippi. We was sittin' out in the yard and the white folks was on the porch when they was bombardin' Jackson. We could hear the cannons. The white people said the Yankees was tryin' to whip the rebellion and set the niggers free. When they got done I didn't know what had happened but I remember the colored people packed up and we all went to Vicksburg. ”

“ Folk's clothes made outer more lastin' cloth than now. They last longer and didn't always be gettin' more new ones. They washed down at the spring. The little darkies get in (tubs) soon as they hang out the clothes on the ropes and bushes. The suds be warm, little darkies race to get washed. Folks raced to get through jobs then and have fun all time.
"Foe I jined the Yankees I had hoed and I had picked cotton. Moster Lambert didn't work the little darkies hard to to stunt them. See how big I am? ”

“ Wheat, corn, potatoes, and things like that. But in Louisiana and Mississippi, there was plenty of cotton. Arkansas wasn't much of a cotton state itself. It was called a 'Hoojer' state when I was a boy. That is a reference to the poor white man. He was a 'Hoojer'. He wasn't rich enough to own no slaves and they called him a 'Hoojer'.
"The owners would hire them to take care of the niggers and as overseers and pateroles. They was hired and paid a little salary jus' like the police is now. If we didn't have killing and murderin', there wouldn't be no need for the police. ”

“ We went on big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to settle up the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.
"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee. I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina. ”

“ All my white folks mighty good to me. Co'se Jim Whitley's wife slap my jaws sometimes, but she never did take a stick to me.
"Lord honey, its been so long I just can't remember much now. I'se gittin' old and forgitful. Heap a things I remember and heap a things slips from me and is gone.
"Well honey, in slavery times, a heap of 'em didn't have good owners. When they wanted to have church services and keep old marster from hearin', they'd go out in the woods and turn the wash-pot upside down. You know that would take up all the sound. ”

“ My mother was born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big plantations, full of niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where my mother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They lived at Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old master. There was Hue Battle too. Master Joe Battle and Master Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to whoop that crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi. ”

“ She was Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. She come from Virginia. She was an old maid and she was very nice. Some very good blooded people come from Virginia. She brought my mother with her from Virginia before I was born.
"My father belonged to the Crowders and mammy belonged to Miss Lucy Ann Dillard. They wouldn't sell pappy to Miss Lucy and she wouldn't sell mammy to the Crowders, so mammy lost sight of him and never married again. She just married that time by the consent of the white folks. In them times they wasn't no such thing as a license for the colored folks. ”

“ One day I heered some niggers tellin' about er white man what done come in dar gittin' up er big lot of niggers to take to Arkansas. Dey was tellin' 'bout what a fine place it was in Arkansas, an' how rich de land is, an' dat de crops grow without working, an' dat de taters grow big as er watermelon an' you never have to plant 'em but de one time, an' all sich as dat. Well, I 'cided to come. I j'ined up with de man an' come to Phillips County in 1875. Er heap er niggers come from Georgia at de same time dat me an' Callie come. You know Callie, dats my old woman whats in de shack dar right now. ”

“ The negro race is peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations. Most any old negro can recall having had several experiences with "de spirits." Some of these apparitions were doubtless real, as the citizens during Reconstruction Days employed various methods in keeping the negro in subjection. The organizers of the Ku Klux Klan, shortly after the Civil War, recognized and capitalized on the superstitious nature of the negro. ”

“ Share Cropping
"Share cropping has been ever since I knowed anything. It was the way I started. I was working the white man's land and stock and living in his house and getting half of the cotton and corn. We had a garden and raised potatoes and greens and so on, but cotton and corn was our crop. Of course we had them little patches and raised watermelon and such like.
Food and Quarters
"We ate whatever the white man ate. My mother was the cook. She had a cook-room joined to her room [which reached clear over to the white folks' house.] ”

“ My papa's master was Steve Johnson. Papa went off to Louisiana and I never seen him since. I guess he got killed. I was born in Madison County, Tennessee. I come to Arkansas 1889. Mother was here. She come on a transient ticket. My papa come wid her to Holly Grove. They both field hands. I worked on the section—railroad section. I cut and hauled timber and farms. I never own no land, no home. I have two boys went off and a grown girl in Phillips County. I don't get no help. I works bout all I able and can get to do. ”

“ The way my father happened to bring me out here was, Burton Tyrus came out here in Richmond stump speaking and telling the people that money grew like apples on a tree in Arkansas. They got five or six boat loads of Negroes to come out here with them. Father went to share cropping on the Red River Bottom on the Chickaninny Farm. ”

“ When the soldier wagons came down to get the feed, they would take one crib and leave one. They never bothered the smokehouse. They took all the dry cattle to feed the people that were contrabands. But they left the milk cows. The quartermaster for the contrabands was Captain Mallory. The contrabands were mostly slaves that they kept in camps just below Pine Bluff for their own protection. ”

“ Farmin' is my talent. That whar all the darkey belong. He is made so. He can stand the sun and he needs meat to eat. That is where the meat grows.
"I got chickens and a garden. I didn't get the pigs I spoke fer. I got a fine cow. I got a house—10-1/2 acres of ground. That [Pg 234] is all I can look after. I caint get 'bout much. I rid on a wagon (to town) my mare is sick I wouldn't work her. I got a buggy. Good nough fer my ridin' I don't come to town much. I never did.
I get a Federal soldier's pension. I tell you 'bout it. White folks tole me 'bout it and hope me see 'bout gettin' it. ”

“ I know it would sho be too bad if the white folks didn't hunt good canidates. The colored race got too fur behind to be able to run our govmint. Course I mean education. When they git educated they ain't studyin' nuthin' but spendin' all they make and havin' a spreein' time. Lady, that is yo job. The young generation ain't carin' 'bout no govinment. [Pg 96]
"The present conditions—that's whut I been tellin' you 'bout. It is hard to get work heap of the time. When the white man got money he sure give the colored man and woman work to do. The white man whut live 'mong us is our best friend. ”

“ I was grown 'fore they ever got to doing well again. My folks got off to Nashville. We lived there by the hardest—eight in family. We moved to Mississippi bottoms not far from Meridian. We started picking up. We all got fat as hogs. We farmed and done well. We got to own forty acres of ground and lost two of the girls with malaria fever. Then we sold out and come to Helena. We boys, four of us, farmed, hauled wood, sawmilled, worked on the boats about till our parents died. They died close to Marion on a farm we rented. I had two boys. One got drowned. The other helps me out a heap. ”

“ My grandmammy was a great big old red woman. She had red hair too. I never heard her say nothin' 'bout nobody whippin' her and my granddaddy. They whipped all them children though. My mama just had six children.
"Mama said her master tried to keep her in slavery after freedom. My mama worked at the spinning-wheel. When she heard the folks say they was through with the War, she was at the spinning-wheel. The white folks ought a tol' them they was free but they didn't. Old Jordan carried them down in De Valla Bluff. He carried them down there—called hisself gittin' away from the Yankees. ”

“ If a man died, he often stated in his will which slaves should go to each child he had. Some men had more than a hundred slaves and they divided them up just as you would cattle. Some times there were certain slaves that certain children liked, and they were granted those slaves.
WHAT THE FREEDMEN RECEIVED
Nothing was given to my parents at freedom. None of the niggers got anything. They didn't give them anything. The slaves were hired and allowed to work the farms on shares. That is where the system of share cropping came from. I was hired for fifty dollars a year, but was paid only five. ”

“ I wasn't big enough to work till peace was declared but they had my mammy and daddy under the lash. One good thing 'bout my white folks, they give the hands three months' schoolin' every year. My mammy and daddy got three months' schoolin' in the old country. Some said that was General Washington's proclamation, but some of 'em wouldn't hear to it. When peace was declared, some of the niggers had as good education as the white man. ”

“ When the overseer was there she come out oftener. We stayed right on there after the war, till we come to Arkansas. I was betwixt eleven and twelve years old. [Pg 282]
"And we was fooled in this place. A man my mother knowed had been here two years. He come back to Tennessee and, oh Lord, you could do this and do that, so we come here.
"First year we come here we all got down sick. When we got well we had to go to work and I didn't have a chance to go to school.
"I've seen my mother wring her hands and cry and say she wished she was back in Tennessee where Lucy Ann Dillard was. ”

“ The Yankees said they was goin' to water their horses in the Mississippi River by twelve o'clock or take hell. I know my mammy and daddy wasn't skeered 'cause the Yankees taking keer of 'em and they was the ones had the cannons and gunboats too. I jus' love the Yankees fer freeing us. They run white folks outer the houses and put colored folks in 'em. Yankees had tents here. They fed the colored folks till little after 'mancipation. When the Yankees went off they been left to root hog er die. White folks been free all der lives. They got no need to be poor. ”