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

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"Bradley was the last man owned 'em. I think Beaumont sold 'em to
Bradley. That's the way I always heered 'em talk. I think they claimed
their owners was pretty good to 'em. I know I heered my father say he
never did get a whippin' from either one of 'em.

"Of course my mother wasn't a Bradley fore she married, she was a
Murphy.

"I had one brother four years older than I was. He was my half-brother
and I had a whole brother was two years older than I.

"First place I lived in Arkansas was near Blytheville. I lived there
four years. I was married and farmin' for myself.

"I went from Hardin County, Tennessee to Blytheville, Arkansas by land.
Drove a team and two cows. I think we was on the road four days. My wife
went by train. You know that was too wearisome for her to go by land.

"I had been runnin a five-horse crop in Tennessee and I carried three
boys that I used to work with me.

"The last year I was there I cleared $1660.44. I never will forget it. I
made a hundred and ten bales of cotton and left 2000 pounds of seed
cotton in the field cause I was goin' to move.

"My folks was sick all the time. Wasn't any canals in that country, and
my wife had malaria every year.

"After I got my crop finished I'd get out and log. I was raised in a
poor county and you take a man like that, he's always a good worker. I
rented the land--365 acres and I had seven families workin for me. I was
responsible for everything. I told 'em that last year that if I cleared
over a $1000, I'd give 'em ten dollars a piece. And I give it to 'em
too. You see they was under my jurisdiction.

"Next place I lived was Forrest City. They all went with me. Had to
charter a car to move 'em. It was loaded too.

"I had 55 hogs, 17 head of cattle, 13 head of mules and horses. And I
had killed 1500 pounds of hogs. You see besides my family I had
two-month-hands--worked by the month.

"I own a home in Forrest City now. I'm goin back right after Christmas.
My children had it fixed up. Had the waterworks and electric lights put
in.

"Two of my daughters married big school teachers. One handles a big
school in Augusta and the other in Forrest City. One of 'em is in the
Smith-Hughes work too.

"I've done something no other man has done. I've educated four of my
brothers and sisters after my father died and four of my wife's brothers
and sisters and one adopted boy and my own six children--fifteen in all.
A man said to me once, "Why any man that's done that much for education
ought to get a pension from the educator people."

"I never went to school six months in my life but I can read and write.
I'm not extra good in spelling--that's my hindrance, but I can figger
very well.

"We always got our children started 'fore they went to school and then I
could help 'em in school till they got to United States money.

"Another thing I always would do, I would buy these block A, B, C's.
Everyone learned their A, B, C's fore they went to school.

"I reckon I'm a self-made man in a lot of things. I learnt my own self
how to blacksmith. I worked for a man for nothin' just so I could learn
and after that for about a year I was the best plow sharpener. And then
I learned how to carpenter.

"My mother was awful good on head countin' and she learnt me when I was
a little fellow. My oldest brother use to help me. We'd sit by the fire,
so you see you might say I got a fireside education.

"When I left Forrest City I moved to England and made one crop and moved
to Baucum and made one crop and then I moved on the Sheridan Pike three
miles the other side of Dew Drop. I got the oil fever. They was sellin'
land under that headin'. Sold it to the colored folks and lots o' these
Bohemians. They sho is fine people to live by--so accommodatin'.

"Then I came here to Pine Bluff in 1921. I hauled wood for two years.
Then I put in my application at the Cotton Belt Shops. That was in 1923
and I worked there fifteen years. I retired from the shops this year and
took a half pension. I think I'll get about fifteen dollars a month.
That's my thoughts.

"I have two daughters in Camden. One teaches school and one operates a
beauty parlor.

"All six of my children finished high school and three graduated from
college.

"I think the younger generation is livin' too fast. I know one thing,
they has done--they 'bout wore out the old folks. Old folks educate 'em
and can't accumulate anything.

"They don't settle much now till they marry. Seems like the young folks
don't have much accommodation.

"I'll tell you another thing, the children aren't carryin' out things
like they use to. I think when us old folks plays out this world is
goin' to be in a bad shape.

"I belong out here to the Catholic Church--the oldest church in the
world. I use to belong to the Methodist Church, but they got along so
bad I got tired, so I went to the Catholic. I like it out
there--everthing so quiet and nice."

Name of Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Rachel Bradley. 1103 State Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 107?

Upon arriving at the humble unpainted home of Rachel Bradley I found her
sitting in the doorway on a typical split-oak bottomed chair watching
the traffic of State Street, one of our busiest streets out of the high
rent district. It is a mixture of white and Negro stores and homes.

After asking her name to be sure I was really talking to Rachel Bradley,
I said I had been told she was a former slave. "Yes'm, I used to be a
slave." She smiled broadly displaying nearly a full set of teeth. She is
of a cheerful, happy disposition and seemed glad to answer my questions.
As to her age, she said she was "a little girl on the floor whan the
stars fell." I looked this up at the public library and found that
falling stars or showers of meteors occur in cycles of thirty-three
years. One such display was recorded in 1833 and another in 1866. So if
Rachel Bradley is really 107 years old, she was born in 1830. It is a
question in my mind whether or not she could have remembered falling
stars at the age of three, but on the other hand if she was "a little
girl on the floor" in 1866 she would be only somewhere between
seventy-five and eighty years of age.

Her master and mistress were Mitchell and Elizabeth Simmons and they had
two sons and two daughters. They lived on a plantation about twelve
miles from Farmersville, Louisiana.

Rachel was a house girl and her mother was the cook. Besides doing house
work, she was nursemaid and as she grew older did her mistress' sewing
and could also weave and knit. From the way she smiled and rolled her
eyes I could see that this was the happiest time of her life. "My white
folks was so good to me. I sat right down to the same table after they
was thru."

While a child in the home of her white folks she played with her
mistress' children. In her own words "My mistress give us a task to do
and when we got it done, we went to our playhouse in the yard."

When the war came along, her master was too old to go but his two sons
went and both lived through the war.

Questioned about the Yankees during the war she said, "I seen right
smart of the Yankees. I seen the 'Calvary' go by. They didn't bother my
white folks none."

Rachel said the ABC's for me but cannot read or write. She said her
mistress' children wanted to teach her but she would rather play so grew
up in ignorance.

After the war Rachel's white folks moved to Texas and Rachel went to
live with her mistress' married daughter Martha. For her work she was
paid six dollars a month. She was not given any money by her former
owners after being freed, but was paid for her work. Later on Rachel
went to work in the field making a crop with her brother, turning it
over to the owner of the land for groceries and other supplies and when
the cotton was weighed "de white folks taken out part of our half. I
knowed they done it but we couldn't do nothin bout it."

Rachel had four husbands and eleven children. Her second husband
abandoned her, taking the three oldest and leaving five with her. One
boy and one girl were old enough to help their mother in the field and
one stayed in the house with the babies, so she managed to make a living
working by the day for the white people.

The only clash with the Ku Klux Klan was when they came to get an army
gun her husband had bought.

Being a woman, Rachel did not know much about politics during the
Reconstruction period. She had heard the words "Democrat," "Radical" and
"Republican" and that was about all she remembered.

Concerning the younger generation Rachel said: "I don't know what goin'
come of 'em. The most of 'em is on the beat" (trying to get all they can
from others).

After moving to Arkansas, she made a living working in the field by the
day and as she grew older, washing and ironing, sewing, housecleaning
and cooking.

Her long association with white people shows in her speech which is
quite plain with only a few typical Negro expressions, such as the
following:

"She died this last gone Sattiday and I hope (help) shroud her."

"When white lady find baby, I used to go hep draw the breas'."

"Heap a people."

"Bawn."

The Welfare Department gives Rachel $8.00 a month. She pays $2.00 a
month for two rooms with no drinking water. With the help of her white
friends she manages to exist and says she is "pendin on the Lord" to
help her get along.

She sang for me in a quavering voice the following songs reminiscent of
the war:

"Homespun dresses plain I know.
And the hat palmetto too.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We cheer for the South we love so dear,
We cheer for the homespun dresses
The Southern ladies wear!"

"Who is Price a fightin'?
He is a fightin', I do know.
I think it is old Curtis.
I hear the cannons roa'"

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Elizabeth Brannon, Biscoe, Arkansas
(Packed to move somewhere else)
Age: 40 plus

"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Grandma raised me mostly. She was born
up in Virginia. Her name was Mariah Bell.

"Grandmother was sold more than once. When she was small she and her
mother were sold together to different buyers. The morning she was sold
she could see her mother crying through the crowd, and the last she ever
seen her mother she was crying and waving to her. She never could forget
that. We all used to sit around her and we would all be crying with her
when she told that so many, many times. Grandmother said she was five
years old then and was sold to a doctor in Virginia. He made a house
girl of her and learned her to be a midwife.

"She told us about a time when the stars fell or a time about like it.
Her master got scared in Virginia. His niece killed herself 'cause she
thought the world was coming to on end. Mama of the baby was walking,
crying and praying. Grandmama had the baby. She said it was a terrible
morning.

"When grandmama was sold away from her own mother she took the new
master's cook for her mother. I live to see her. Her name was Charity
Walker. She was awful old. Grandmama didn't remember if her mother had
other children or not. She was the youngest.

"Grandmama was sold again. Her second master wasn't good as her doctor
master. He didn't feed them good, didn't feed the children good neither.
He told his slaves to steal. Grandmama had two children there. She was
pregnant again. Grandpa stole a shoat. She craved meat. Meat was scarce
then and the War was on. Grandpa had it cut up and put away. Grandmama
had the oldest baby in the box under her bed and the youngest child
asleep in her bed. She was frying the meat. She seen the overseer across
the field stepping that way. Grandpa left and grandmama put the skillet
of meat in the bed with the baby and threw a big roll of cotton in the
fire. The overseer come in and looked around, asked what he smelled
burning. She told him it was a sack of motes (cotton lumps). Grandpa was
Jim Bell. His master learnet him to steal and lie. He got better after
freedom.

"Grandmama never would let us have pockets in our aprons and dresses.
Said it was a temptation for us to learn to steal. She thought that was
awful and to lie too.

"Grandmama and grandpa and mama and her sister, the baby, died. Come
with soldiers from Virginia to Helena, Arkansas on a big boat. They
nursed soldiers in the hospital in the last of the War. Grandpapa died
in 1895. He had heart trouble. He was seventy-five years old then.
Grandmama died in 1913. She was awful, awful old. Grandmama said they
put her off on College and Perry streets but that wasn't the names of
the streets then. She wore a baggin dress and brogan shoes. Brass-toed
shoes and brass eyelets. She would take grease and soot and make shoe
polish for them. We all wore that dress and the shoes at times. I wore
them to Peabody School in Helena and the children made so mich fun of
their cry (squeaking) till I begged them to get me some better looking
shoes for cold rainy spells of weather. I wore the dress. It was strong
nearly as leather.

"When she was sold the last time she got a marble box and it had a small
lock and key. It was square and thick, size of four men's shoe boxes.
When she come to Arkansas she brought it filled with rice on the boat.
She kept her valuable papers in it. Our house burned and the shoes and
box both got away from me. Her oldest girl died after the surrender and
was never married. Never had children.

"On College and Perry streets the hospital was cleared away and grandpa
bought the spot. It has had two houses rot down of his own on it. It has
been graded down and a big brick house stands there now.

"She used to tell how when meat was so scarce she'd be cooking. She'd
wipe her girls' faces with the dishrag. One of them would lick her lips.
Make other children hungry for meat to see them so greasy. They hadn't
had any meat.

"Grandmama told me her doctor master bought them shoes for her, and I
think they gave her the marble box. The children teased me so much
grandmama bought me some limber sole shoes.

"Auntie was good they said and mama was mean so they said. Auntie died
after surrender. We'd tell grandmama she ought to put the skillet on
mama. She said the good Lord took care of her baby that time. Mama would
get so mad. She would whoop us for saying she ought to put the hot
skillet on her.

"Grandmama was a midwife with black and white for forty-five years in
Helena. She worked for Joe Horner, Mr. Leifer, Mrs. E.M. Allen. Mama had
seven children, and grandmama raised Will Marshal (colored). He works at
D.T. Hargraves & Sons store now in Helena. He started a delivery boy but
now he is their main repair man.

"Grandmama was a strong woman. Mama worked out at some places I told
you. Grandmama worked. Grandmama always had a pretty flower yard. She
did love pretty flowers.

"Mama minded grandmama like one of us. She was a good woman. None of us,
not even the boys, ever had pockets in our clothes. Grandmama made them
for us. She taught us not to lie and steal. She thought it was the worse
thing you could do. She was loved and respected by white and black till
she died down at Helena in 1913. They are all buried down there."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mack Brantley, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 80

"I was born in Dallas County close to Selma, Alabama. My mother's owners
was Miss Mary Ann Roscoe and her husband was Master Ephriam Roscoe. They
had a good size gin and farm. We would gather 'round and tell ha'nt
tales till we would be scared to go home in the dark. The wind would
turn the old-fashioned screw and make a noise like packing cotton. We
older children would run and make out we thought it was the spirits. We
knowed better but the little children was afraid.

"My parents was Lucindy Roscoe. My pa belong to Warren Brantley. His
name was Silica Brantley.

"I was a stole chile. Ma had a husband the master give her and had
children. My pa lived on a joining farm. She wasn't supposen to have
children by my pa. That is why I'm called Mack Brantley now. Mama died
and Green Roscoe, my older brother, took me to Howell's so they would
raise me. They was all kin. I was six months old when ma died. My sister
nursed me but Miss Mary Ann Roscoe suckled me wid Miss Minnie. When Miss
Minnie got grown and married she went to Mobile, Alabama to live. Later
Brother Silica give me to Master Henry Harrell. They sent me to school.
I never went to colored school. We went to Blunt Springs three months
every year in the summer time. When we come home one year Mr. Hankton
was gone and he never come back. He was my only teacher. The white
population didn't like him and they finally got him away.

"They was good white people. I had a pallet in the room and in the
morning I took it up and put it away in a little room. I slept in the
house till I was good and grown. I made fires for them in the winter
time. Mr. Walter died three years ago. He was their son. He had a big
store there. Miss Carrie married Charlie Hooper. He courted her five
years. I bring her a letter and she tore it up before she read it. He
kept coming. He lived in Kentucky. The last I heard they lived in
Birmingham. Miss Kitty Avery Harrell was my mistress at freedom and
after, and after boss died. I had four children when I left. If Mr.
Walter was living I'd go to him now. Mr. Hooper would cuss. Old boss
didn't cuss. I never liked Mr. Hooper's ways. Old boss was kinder. All
my sisters dead. I reckon I got two brothers. Charles Roscoe was where
boss left him. He was grown when I was a child. Jack Roscoe lives at
Forrest, Mississippi. Brother Silica Roscoe had a wife and children when
freedom come on. He left that wife and got married to another one and
went off to Mississippi. Preachers quit their slavery wives and children
and married other wives. It wasn't right. No ma'am, it wasn't right.
Awful lot of it was done. Then is when I got took to my Miss Kitty.
After freedom is right.

"I tole you I was a stole chile. I never seen my own pa but a few times.
He lived on a joining farm. Ma had a husband her master give her the
first time they had been at a big log rolling and come up for dinner.
They put the planks out and the dinner on it. They kept saying, 'Mack,
shake hands with your papa.' He was standing off to one side. It was
sorter shame. They kept on. I was little. I went over there. He shook
hands with me. I said, 'Hi, papa! Give me a nickel.' He reached in his
pocket and give me a nickel. Then they stopped teasing me. He went off
on Alabama River eighteen miles from us to Caholba, Alabama. I never
seen him much more. Ma had been dead then several years.

"Green, my brother, took me to Miss Mary Ann Roscoe when mama died. She
was my ma's owner. I stayed there till Green died. A whole lot of boys
was standing around and bet Green he couldn't tote that barrel of
molasses a certain piece. They helped it up and was to help him put it
down and give him five dollars. That was late in the ebenin'. He let the
barrel down and a ball as big as a goose egg of blood come out of his
mouth. The next day he died. Master got Dr. Blevins quick as he could
ride there. He was mad as he could be. Dr. Blevins said it weighed eight
hundred pounds. It was a hogshead of molasses. Green was much of a man.
He was a giant. Dr. Blevins said they had killed a good man. Green was
good and so strong. I never could forget it. Green was my standby.

"The Yankees burnt Boss Henry's father's fine house, his gin, his grist
mill, and fifty or sixty bales of cotton and took several fine horses.
They took him out in his shirt tail and beat him, and whooped his wife,
trying to make them tell where the money was. He told her to tell. He
had it buried in a pot in the garden. They went and dug it up. Forty
thousand dollars in gold and silver. Out they lit then. I seen that. He
lived to be eighty and she lived to be seventy-eight years old. He had
owned seven or eight or ten miles of road land at Howell Crossroads.
Road land is like highway land, it is more costly. He had Henry and
Finas married and moved off. Miss Melia was his daughter and her husband
and the overseer was there but they couldn't save the money. I waited on
Misa Melia when she got sick and died. She was fine a woman as ever I
seen. Every colored person on the place knowed where the pot was buried.
Some of them planted it. They wouldn't tell. We could hear the battles
at Selma, Alabama. It was a roar and like an earthquake.

"Freedom--I was a little boy. I cried to go with the bigger children.
They had to tote water. One day I heard somebody crying over 'cross a
ditch and fence covered with vines and small trees. I heard, 'Do pray
master.' I run hid under the house. I was snoring when they found me. I
heard somebody say, 'Slave day is over.' That is all I ever knowed about
freedom. The way I knowed, a Yankee. We was in the road piling up sand
and a lot of blue coats on horses was coming. We got out of the road and
went to tell our white folks. They said, 'Get out of their way, they are
Yankees.'

"When I left Alabama I went to Mississippi. I worked my way on a
steamboat. I had been trained to do whatever I was commanded. The man,
my boss, said, 'Mack, get the rope behind the boiler and tie it to the
stob and 'dead man'. I tied it to the stob and I was looking for a dead
man. He showed me what it was. Then I tied it. I went to Vicksburg then.
I had got mixed up with a woman and run off.

"I been married once in my life. I had eighteen children. Nine lived. I
got a boy here and a girl in Pine Bluff. My son's wife is mean to me. I
don't want to stay here. If I can get my pension started, I want to live
with my daughter.

"I used to vote Republican. They claimed it made times better for my
race. I found out better. I don't vote now. Wilson was good as Mr.
Roosevelt, I think. I voted about eight years ago, I reckon. I didn't
vote for Mr. Roosevelt.

"I wish I was young and had the chance this generation has got. Times is
better every way for a good man unless he is unable to work like I am
now. (This old man tends his garden, a large nice one--ed.) My son
supports me now."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Ellen Brass
1427 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 82

[HW: White Folks want Niggers]

"I was born in Alabama in Green County. I was about four years old when
I came from there; so I don't know much about it. I growed up in
Catahoula, Louisiana. My mother's name was Caroline Butler and my
father's name was Lee Butler. One of my father's brothers was named Sam
Butler. I used to be a Butler myself, but I married. My father and
mother were both slaves. They never did any slave work.

Father Free Raised

"My father was free raised. The white folks raised him. I don't know how
he became free. All that I know is that he was raised right in the house
with the white folks and was free. His mother and father were both
slaves. I was quite small at the time and didn't know much. They bought
us like cattle and carried us from place to place.

Slave Houses

"The slaves lived in log cabins with one room. I don't know what kind of
house the white folks lived in. They, the colored folks, ate corn bread,
wheat bread (they raised wheat in those times), pickled pork. They made
the flour right on the plantation. George Harris, a white man, was the
one who brought me out of Louisiana into this State. We traveled in
wagons in those days. George Harris owned us in Louisiana.

Slave Sales

"We were sold from George Harris to Ben Hickinbottom. They bought us
then like cattle. I don't know whether it was a auction sale or a
private sale. I am telling it as near as I know it, and I am telling the
truth. Hickinbottom brought us to Catahoula Parish in Louisiana. Did I
say Harris brought us? Well, Hickinbottom brought us to Louisiana. I
don't know why they went from one place to the other like that. The
soldiers were bad about freeing the slaves. From Catahoula Parish,
Hickinbottom carried us to Alexandria, Louisiana, and in Alexandria, we
was set free.

How Freedom Came

"According to my remembrance the Yankees come around and told the people
they was free. I was in Alexandria, Louisiana. They told the colored
folks they was free and to go and take what they wanted from the white
folks. They had us all out in the yard dancing and playing. They sang
the song:

'They hung Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree
While we all go marching on.'

It wasn't the white folks on the plantation that told us we was free. It
was the soldiers their selves that came around and told us. We called
'em Yankees.

Right After the War

"Right after the War, my folks farmed--raised cotton and corn. My mother
had died before I left Alabama. They claimed I was four years old when
my mother died in Alabama. My father died after freedom.

Occupation

"My first occupation was farming--you know, field work. Sometimes I used
to work around the white people too--clean house and like that.

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