Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States by Work Projects Administration

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About ten years before Mr. Hudgins had built a building in Fayetteville.
They used the second floor for an Opera House. When we came back here
after the fire we took it over to run. Mr. Hudgins had that and all the
billboards in town. We saw all the shows. Several years later the twins,
Helen and Wade were born. I always went to see the shows and took them
with me. Folks watched them more than the shows. I kept them neat and
clean and they were so cute.

We saw the circuses too. I remember once Barnum and Bailey were coming
to Fort Smith. We were going down. I didn't tell anybody, but I put $45
in my purse. I made money then. Mr. Hudgins got me a cow and I sold milk
and butter and kept all I made. Why the first evening dress Helen had
and the first long pants Bud (Wade) had I bought. Well, we were going
down to Fort Smith, but Bud got sick and we couldn't go. You know, Mary,
it seemed so queer. When Helen and I went to California, we all saw the
same circus together. Yes, I've been to California with her twice.
Whenever the train would stop she would come from the pullman to the
coach where the colored persons had to ride to see about me. We went out
to visit Sister (Bess Hudgins Clayton) and Bud. While we were there,
Barnum and Bailey came to Los Angeles. It seemed so funny. There we
were--away out in California--all the children grown up and off to
themselves. There we were--all of us--seeing the show we had planned to
see way back in Arkansas, years and years before.

You know, Honey, that doll Ann has--she got it for her seventh birthday
(Elisabeth Ann Wiggans--daughter of Helen Hudgins Wiggans). It was
restrung for her, and was once before for her mother. But it's the same
doll Baby Dean (Dean Hudgins) carried out of that fire in Hot Springs in
1895. Everybody loves Ann. She makes the fifth generation I've cared
for. When Helen is going out she brings Ann down here or I go up there.
It's usually down here tho. Because since we turned the old home into
apartments I take care of them, and it's best for me to be here most of
the time.

All the people in the apartments are mighty nice to me. Often for days
at a time they bring me so much to eat that I don't have to cook for
myself. A boy going to the University has a room here and tends to the
furnace. He's a nice boy. I like him.

My life's been a full one, Honey, and an interesting one. I can't really
say which part of it is best. I can't decide whether it's a better world
now or then. I've had lots of hard work, and lots of friends, lots of
fun and I've gone lots of places. Life is interesting."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Vera Roy Bobo (Mulatto, almost white)
Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age: 62

"My parents come from Macon, Georgia. My mother was Margaret Cobb. Her
people were owned by the Cobbs. They reared her. She was a house girl
and a seamstress. She sewed for both white and black. She was light
color.

"My father was St. Roy Holmes. He was a C.M.E. preacher in Georgia and
later in Arkansas. He came on the train to Forrest City, 1885. He
crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry boat. Later he preached at
Wynne. He was light color.

"I never heard them say very much about slavery. This was their own
home.

"My husband's father was the son of a white man also--Randall Bobo. He
used to visit us from Bobo, Mississippi. The Bobo a owned that town and
were considered rich people. My husband was some darker and was born at
Indian Bay, Arkansas. He was William Bobo. I never knew him till two
months before I married him. We had a home wedding and a wedding supper
in this house."

(This may be continued)

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Liddie Boechus, (second interview)
Madison, Arkansas
Age: 73

"I was born in West Point, Mississippi. My own dear mother's owner was
Pool. His wife was Mistress Patty Pool. Old man Pool raised our set. He
was an old soldier, I think. He was old when I came to know him.

"My own papa's pa was Smith. After he came back from the Civil War he
took back his Smith name. He changed it back from Pool to Smith.

"I was a small child when my own dear mother died. My stepmother had
some children of her own, so papa hired me out by the year to nurse for
my board and clothes. My stepmother didn't care for me right. White
folks raised me.

"I married when I was fifteen years old to a man twenty years old or
more. White folks was good to me but I didn't have no sense. I lef' 'em.
I married too young. I lived wid him little over twelve years, and I had
twelve children by him. Then I married a preacher. We had two more
children. My first husband was trifling. I ploughed, hoed, split wood to
raise my babies.

"My daughter come from Louisiana to stay with me last winter when I was
sick. I got eight dollars, now I gets six dollars from the Welfare. My
daughter here now.

"I went to one white teacher a few days--Miss Perkins. I never got to go
enough to learn. I took up reading and writing from my children. I write
mighty poor I tell you.

"I used to be a midwife and got ten dollars a case. They won't pay off
now. I do a little of that work, but I don't get nothing for it. They
have a doctor or won't pay.

"My husband was a good man. He was a preacher. I'm a Baptist.

"I don't know what to think about young folks. Every feller is for his
own self. Times is hard with old folks. I had a stroke they said. This
new generation ain't got no strength. I think it is because they set
around so much. What would a heap of them do? A long day's work in the
field would kill some of them. It would! Some folks don't work 'nough to
be healthy. I don't know, but though, I really believes education and
automobiles is the whole cause."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Maggie (Bunny) Bond, Madison, Arkansas
Age: Well up in 80's

"I was born at Magnolia, North Carolina. Lou Nash named me Maggie after
my mistress. That was her name. They had a rabbit they called Bunny. It
died. They started calling me Bunny. Our old mistress was a Mallory from
Virginia. She was the old head of all these at Forrest City. (A big
family of people are descendants at Forrest City.)

School During the War

"Mrs. Eddy Williams said to my mother, 'Let her go to school and play
with the children.' I was young. I don't know how old I was. I was
washed, my hair combed, and clean dresses put on me. I went to school
four or five days. I set by different ones. They used slates. It was a
log schoolhouse. It had a platform the teacher sat on. They preached in
it on Sunday. Where Mt. Vernon Cemetery now stands. The teacher was Mrs.
McCallis. She rode horseback from out of the bottoms. The families of
children that come there were: Mallorys, Izards, Nashs, Dawsons,
Kittrells, and Pruitts.

"There was a big oak tree in front. The boys played on one side, the
girls on the other. Cake and pie was a fortune then. If the children had
any they would give me part of it. Times was so hard then people had
plain victuals every day at school.

"The children tried to learn me at recess under the tree. They used
McGuffey's and Blue Back books. One day I said out loud, 'I want to go
home.' The children all laughed. One day I went to sleep and the teacher
sent me out doors to play. Mrs. McCallis said, 'Bunny, you mus'n't talk
out loud in school.' I was nodding one day. The teacher woke me up. She
wrapped her long switch across the table. She sent me to play. The house
set up on high blocks. I got under it and found some doodle holes. Mrs.
McCallis come to the door and said, 'Bunny, don't call so loud. You must
keep quiet.' I would say: 'Doodle, doodle, your house on fire. Come get
some bread and butter.' They would come up.

"After the War I had a white lady teacher from the North. I went a
little bit to colored school but I didn't care about books. I learned to
sew for my dolls. The children would give me a doll all along.

"The happiest year of my whole life was the first year of my married
life. I hardly had a change of clothes. I had lots of friends. I went to
the field with Scott. I pressed cotton with two horses, one going around
and the other coming. Scott could go upstairs in the gin and look over
at us. We had two young cows. They had to be three years old then before
they were any service. I fed hogs. I couldn't cook but I learned. I had
been a house girl and nurse.

"I was nursing for Mrs. Pierce at Goodwin. I wanted to go home. She
didn't want me to leave. I wouldn't tell her why. She said, 'I speck you
going to get married.' She gave me a nice white silk dress. Mrs.
Drennand made it. My owner, Miss Leila Nash, lend me one of her
chemisette, a corset cover, and a dress had ruffles around the bottom.
It was wide. She never married. I borrowed my veil from a colored woman
that had used it. Mr. Rollwage (dead now but was a lawyer at Forrest
City) gave Scott a tie and white vest and lend him his watch and chain
to be married in. They was friends. Miss Leila made my cake. She wanted
my gold band ring to go in it. I wouldn't let her have it for that. Not
my ring! She put a dime in it. Miss Maggie Barrow and Mrs. Maggie
Hatcher made two baskets full of maple biscuits for my wedding. They was
the best cake. Made in big layers and cut and iced. Two laundry baskets
full to the brim."

She showed us a white cedar three-gallon churn, brass hoops hold the
staves in place, fifty-seven years old and a castor with seven cruits
patented December 27, 1859. It was a silver castor and was fixed to ring
for the meal.

She showed us the place under a cedar tree where there are four unmarked
graves--Mr. and Mrs. McMurray and their son and daughter and one niece.
The graves are being ploughed over now.

"Mrs. Murray's son gave her five hundred dollars. She hid it. After she
died no one knew where to find it."

Scott Bond bought the place. Bunny was fixing the hearth (she showed us
the very spot) brick and found a brick. Dora threw it out. The can could
never be found and soon Dora went home near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Dora
was a Negro servant in the Bond home. It seems the money was in the old
can that Bunny found but thought it was just a prop for the brick.

Maggie (Bunny) Bond has given two of her white friends coffins. One was
to a man and two years ago one was to a woman, Mrs. Evans' daughter. She
wanted to do something, the nicest thing she could do for them, for they
had been good to her. People who raised them and had owned them. They
gratefully accepted her present. In her life she has given beautiful and
expensive wedding preaents to her white friends who raised her and owned
her. She told us about giving one and someone else said she gave two.
Theo Bond's wife said this about the second one.

The Yankees passed along in front of the Scott Bond home from Hunter,
Arkansas to Madison, Arkansas. It was an old military road. The Yankees
burnt up Mt. Vernon, Arkansas. Madison was a big town but it overflowed
so bad. There were pretty homes at Madison. Levies were not known, so
the courthouse was moved to Forrest City. Yankees camped at Madison. A
lot of them died there. A cemetery was made in sight of the Scott Bond
yard. The markings were white and black letters and the pailings were
white with black pointed tips. They were moved to the north. Madison
grew to be large because it was on a river.

Interviewer's Comment

Maggie (Bunny) Bond is eight-ninth white.

Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy
Person interviewed: Caroline Bonds
Russellville, Arkansas
Age: 70

"What's all dis info'mation you askin' about goin' to be for? Will it
help us along any or make times any better? All right, then. My name's
Caroline Bonds. I don't know jist exactly when I was born, but I think
it was on de twentieth of March about--about--yes, in 1866, in Anderson
County, North Carolina.

"So you was a 'Tarheel' too? Bless my soul!

"My old master was named Hubbard, and dat was my name at first. My
parents belonged to Marse Hubbard and worked on his big plantation till
dey was freed.

"I was too little to remember much about what happened after de War. My
folks moved to Arkansas County, in Arkansas, soon after de War and lived
down dere a long time.

"I joined de Missionary Baptis' Church when I was fifteen and has
belonged to it ever' since.

"No sir, I never got in de habit of votin' and never did vote, never
thought it was necessary."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Rev. Frank T. Boone
1410 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 80

[HW: Free Colonies]

"I was born in Nansemond County, Virginia on my father's place near the
center of the County. I was born free. We were members of the colonies.
You know there were what is known as Free Colonies. They were Negroes
that had always been free. The first landing of the Negroes in America,
they claimed, formed a colony. The Negro men who came over, it is said,
could buy their freedom and a number of them did.

"But I didn't become free that way. My ancestors were a white man and an
Indian woman. He was my great-grandfather. None of my family have been
slaves as far back as I know.

"There was one set of white people in Virginia called Quakers. Their
rule was to free all slaves at the age of twenty-one. So we got some
free Negroes under that rule. My mother who was a Negro woman was freed
under this rule. My father was always free.

"My grandmother on my father's side owned slaves. The law was that
colored people could own slaves but they were not allowed to buy them. I
don't know how many slaves my grandmother owned. I didn't know they were
slaves until the War was over. I saw the colored people living in the
little houses on the place but I didn't know they was slaves.

"One morning my grandmother went down to the quarters and when she came
back she said to my aunt, 'Well, the slaves left last night.' And that
was the first I knew of their being slaves.

"My father's name was Frank Boone. I was named for him. My mother's name
was Phoebe Chalk. I don't know who her mother and father were. She said
that her mother died when she was a child. She was raised by Quaker
people. I presume that her mother belonged to these Quaker people.

"On our place no grown person was ever whipped. They was just like one
family. They called grandmother's house the big house. They farmed. They
didn't raise cotton though. They raised corn, peas, wheat, potatoes, and
all things for the table. Hogs, cows, and all such like was raised. I
never saw a pound of meat or a peck of flour or a bucket of lard or
anything like that bought. We rendered our own lard, pickled our own
fish, smoked our own meat and cured it, ground our own sausage, ground
our own flour and meal from our own wheat and corn we raised on our
place, spun and wove our own cloth. The first suit of clothes I ever
wore, my mother spun the cotton and wool, wove the cloth and made the
clothes. It was a mixed steel gray suit. She dyed the thread so as to
get the pattern. One loom carried the black thread through and the other
carried the white thread to weave the cloth into the mixed pattern.

"I don't know how large our place was. Maybe it was about a hundred
acres. Every one that married out of the family had a home. They called
it a free Negro colony. Nothing but Negroes in it.

"My father volunteered and went to the army in 1862. He served with the
Yankees. You know Negroes didn't fight in the Confederate armies. They
was in the armies, but they were servants. My father enrolled as a
soldier. I think it was in Company F. I don't know the regiment or the
division. He was a sergeant last time I saw him. I remember that well, I
remember the stripes on his arm. He was mustered out in Galveston,
Texas, in 1865.

"The house I was born in was a log house, sealed inside. The cracks were
chinked with dirt and mud, and it was weather boarded on the outside.
You couldn't tell it was a log house. It had two rooms. In them times
you didn't cook in the house you lived in. You had a kitchen built off
from the house you lived in just like you have servant quarters now. You
went across the yard to do your cooking. The smokehouse was off by
itself. Milk was off by itself too. The dairy house was where you kept
the flour and sugar and preserves and fruit and pickles and all those
kind of things. No food was kept in the house. The milk house had
shelves all up in it and when you milked the cows the pans and bowls and
crocks were put up on the shelves. Where it was possible the milk house
was built on a branch or spring where you could get plenty of cold
water. You didn't milk in the milk house. You milked in the cow pen
right out in the weather. Then you carried it down to the milk house and
strained it. It was poured out in vessels. When the cream rose it was
skimmed off to churn for butter.

"Feed for the stock was kept in the corn crib. We would call it a barn
now. That barn was for corn and oft'times we had overhead a place where
we kept fodder. Bins were kept in the barn for wheat and peas.

Slaves on Other Places

"I seen the slaves outside the colonies. I was little and didn't pay any
attention to them. Slaves would run away. They had a class of white
people known as patrollers. They would catch the slaves and whip them. I
never saw that done. I heard them talking about it. I was only a child
and never got a chance to see the slaves on the places of other people,
but just heard the folks talking about them.

Within the Yankee Lines

"When the War broke out, the free colored people became fearful. There
was a great deal of stuff taken away from them by the Confederate
soldiers. They moved into the Yankee lines for protection. My family
moved also. They lost live stock and feed. They lost only one horse and
then they came back home. I can see that old horse right now. He was a
sorrel horse, with a spot in his forehead, and his name was John. My
father was inside the Yankee lines when he volunteered for the service.
I don't know how much he got or anything about it except that I know the
Yankees were holding Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton Roads, and all that
country.

Expectations of the Slaves

"I could hear my mother and uncle talk about what the slaves expected. I
know they was expecting to get something. They weren't supposed to be
turned out like wild animals like they were. I think it was forty acres
and a mule. I am not sure but I know they expected something to be
settled on them.

What They Got

"If any of them got anything in Virginia, I don't know anything about
it. They might have been some slaves that did get something--just like
they was here in Arkansas.

"Old Man Wilfong, when he freed Andy Wilfong in Bradley County,
Arkansas, gave Andy plenty. He did get forty acres of land. That is
right down here out from Warren. Wilfong owned that land and a heap more
when he died. He hasn't been dead more than six or seven years. I
pastored him in 1904 and 1905. There were others who expected to get
something, but I don't know any others that got it. Land was cheap then.
Andy bought land at twenty-five and fifty cents an acre, and sold the
timber off of it at the rate of one thousand dollars for each forty
acres. He bought hundreds of acres. He owned a section and a section and
one-half of land when he was my member. He had seven boys and two girls
and he gave them all forty acres apiece when they married. Then he sold
the timber off of four forties. Whenever a boy or girl was married he'd
give him a house. He'd tell him to go out and pick himself out a place.

"He sold one hundred and sixty acres of timber for four thousand
dollars, but if he had kept it for two years longer, he would have got
ten thousand dollars for it. The Bradley Lumber Company went in there
and cut the timber all through.

"Wilfong's master's name was Andrew Wilfong, same as Andy's. His master
came from Georgia, but he was living in Arkansas when freedom came.
Later on Andy bought the farm his master was living on when freedom
came. His master was then dead.

Right After the War

"My mother came back home and we went on farming just like we did
before, raising stuff to eat. You know I can't remember much that they
did before the War but I can remember what they did during the War and
after the War,--when they came back home. My folks still own the old
place but I have been away from there sixty-one years. A whole
generation has been raised up and died since I left.

"I came out with one of my cousins and went to Georgia (Du Pont)
following turpentine work. It was turpentine farming. You could cut a
hole in the tree known as the box. It will hold a quart. Rosin runs out
of that tree into the box. Once a week, they go by and chip a tree to
keep the rosin running. Then the dippers dip the rosin out and put it in
barrels. Them barrels is hauled to the still. Then it is distilled just
like whiskey would be. The evaporation of it makes turpentine; the rosin
is barreled and shipped to make glass. The turpentine is barreled and
sold. I have dipped thousands of gallons of turpentine.

"I came to South Carolina in 1880 and married. I stayed there seven
years and came to Arkansas in 1888. I came right to North Little Rock
and then moved out into the country around Lonoke County,--on a farm. I
farmed there for five years. Then I went to pastoring. I started
pastoring one year before I quit making cotton. I entered the ministry
in 1892 and continued in the active service until November 1937. I put
in forty-five years in the active ministry.

Schooling

"I first went to school at a little log school in Suffolk, Virginia.
From there I went to Hampton, Virginia. I got my theological training in
Shorter College under Dr. T.H. Jackson.

Ku Klux

"I never had any experience with the Ku Klux Klan. I seen white men
riding horses and my mother said they was Ku Kluxes, but they never
bothered us as I remember. They had two sets of white folks like that.
The patrollers were before and during the War and the Ku Klux Klan came
after the War. I can't remember how the Ku Klux I saw were dressed. The
patrollers I remember. They would just be three or four white men riding
in bunches.

Nat Turner Rebellion

"I have heard the 'Nat Turner Rebellion' spoken of, but I don't know
what was said. I think the old people called it the 'Nat Turner War.'

Reconstruction Days

"Lawyer Whipper was one of the best criminal lawyers in the state. He
was a Negro. The Republican party had the state then and the Negroes
were strong. Robert Small was a noted politician and was elected to go
to Congress twice. The last time he ran, he was elected but had a hard
fight. The election was so close it was contested but Small won out. He
was the last nigger congressman. I heard that there were one or two
more, but I don't remember them.

"When I first went to South Carolina, them niggers was bad. They
organized. They used to have an association known as the Union Laborers,
I think. The organization was like the fraternal order. I don't know's
they ever had any trouble but they were always in readiness to protect
themselves if any conflict arose. It was a secret order carried on just
like any other fraternal order. They had distress calls. Every member
has an old horn which he blew in time of trouble. I think that sane kind
of organization or something like it was active here when I came. The
Eagles (a big family of white people in Lonoke County) had a fight with
members of it once and some of the Eagles were killed a year or two
before I came to this state.

Voting and Political Activities

"I voted in South Carolina, but I wasn't old enough to vote in Georgia.
However, I stumped Taliaferro County for Garfield when I was in Georgia.
I lived in a little town by the name of McCray. The town I was in, they
had never had more than fifteen or twenty Republican votes polled. But I
polled between two hundred and three hundred votes. I was one of the
regular speakers. The tickets were in my care too. You see, they had
tickets in them days and not the long ballots. They didn't have long
ballots like they have now. The tickets were sent to me and I took care
of them until the election. In the campaign I was regularly employed
through the Republican Campaign Committee Managers.

"According to preparation and conditions there were less corruption then
than there is now. In them days, they had to learn the tricks. But now
they know them. Now you find the man and he already knows what to do.

Songs

"Back in that period, nearly all the songs the Negro sang considerably
were the spirituals: 'I'm Going Down to Jordan,' 'Roll Jordan Roll.'"

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: J.F. Boone
1502 Izard, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 66

[HW: A Union Veteran]

"My father's name was Arthur Boone and my mother's name was Eliza Boone,
I am goin' to tell you about my father. Now be sure you put down there
that this is Arthur Boone's son. I am J.F. Boone, and I am goin' to tell
you about my father, Arthur Boone.

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