Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

V >> Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

[HW: ***] = Handwritten Note
[TR: ***] = Transcriber Note

SLAVE NARRATIVES

_A Folk History of Slavery in the United States
From Interviews with Former Slaves_

TYPEWRITTEN RECORDS PREPARED BY
THE FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
1936-1938
ASSEMBLED BY
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PROJECT
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

_Illustrated with Photographs_

WASHINGTON 1941

VOLUME XIII

OKLAHOMA NARRATIVES

Prepared by
the Federal Writers' Project of
the Works Progress Administration
for the State of Oklahoma

INFORMANTS

Adams, Isaac 1
Alexander, Alice 6

Banks, Phoebe 8
Bean, Nancy Rogers 12
Bee, Prince 14
Bonner, Lewis 17
Bridges, Francis 20
Brown, John 24

Carder, Sallie 27
Chessier, Betty Foreman 30
Colbert, Polly 33
Conrad, Jr., George 39
Cunningham, Martha 45
Curtis, William 48

Davis, Lucinda 53
Dawson, Anthony 65
Douglass, Alice 73
Dowdy, Doc Daniel 76
Draper, Joanna 81

Easter, Esther 88
Evans, Eliza 92

Farmer, Lizzie 97
Fountain, Della 102

Gardner, Nancy 108
George, Octavia 111
Grayson, Mary 115

Grinstead, Robert R. 124

Hardman, Mattie 128
Hawkins, Annie 131
Henry, Ida 134
Hillyer, Morris 138
Hutson, Hal 145
Hutson, William 148

Jackson, Isabella 152
Johnson, Nellie 155
Jordan, Josie 160

King, George G. 165
King, Martha 169
Kye, George 172

Lawson, Ben 176
Lindsay, Mary 178
Logan, Mattie 187
Love, Kiziah 192
Lucas, Daniel William 200
Luster, Bert 203

McCray, Stephen 207
McFarland, Hannah 210
Mack, Marshall 212
Manning, Allen B. 215
Maynard, Bob 223
Montgomery, Jane 227

Oliver, Amanda 230
Oliver, Salomon 233

Petite, Phyllis 236
Poe, Matilda 242
Pyles, Henry F. 245

Richardson, Chaney 257
Richardson, Red 263
Robertson, Betty 266
Robinson, Harriett 270
Rowe, Katie 275

Sheppard, Morris 285
Simms, Andrew 295
Smith, Liza 298
Smith, Lou 300
Southall, James 306

Tenneyson, Beauregard 310

Walters, William 312
Webb, Mary Frances 314
Wells, Easter 316
White, John 322
Williams, Charley 330
Wilson, Sarah 344
Woods, Tom 354

Young, Annie 359

ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing Page

Lucinda Davis 53

Anthony Dawson 65

Katie Rowe 275

Charley Williams and Granddaughter 330

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

ISAAC ADAMS
Age 87 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

I was born in Louisiana, way before the War. I think it was about ten
years before, because I can remember everything so well about the
start of the War, and I believe I was about ten years old.

My Mammy belonged to Mr. Sack P. Gee. I don't know what his real given
name was, but it maybe was Saxon. Anyways we all called him Master
Sack.

He was a kind of youngish man, and was mighty rich. I think he was
born in England. Anyway his pappy was from England, and I think he
went back before I was born.

Master Sack had a big plantation ten miles north of Arcadia,
Louisiana, and his land run ten miles along both sides. He would leave
in a buggy and be gone all day and still not get all over it.

There was all kinds of land on it, and he raised cane and oats and
wheat and lots of corn and cotton. His cotton fields was the biggest
anywheres in that part, and when chopping and picking times come he
would get negroes from other people to help out. I never was no good
at picking, but I was a terror with a hoe!

I was the only child my Mammy had. She was just a young girl, and my
Master did not own her very long. He got her from Mr. Addison
Hilliard, where my pappy belonged. I think she was going to have me
when he got her; anyways I come along pretty soon, and my mammy never
was very well afterwards. Maybe Master Sack sent her back over to my
pappy. I don't know.

Mammy was the house girl at Mr. Sack's because she wasn't very strong,
and when I was four or five years old she died. I was big enough to do
little things for Mr. Sack and his daughter, so they kept me at the
mansion, and I helped the house boys. Time I was nine or ten Mr.
Sack's daughter was getting to be a young woman--fifteen or sixteen
years old--and that was old enough to get married off in them days.
They had a lot of company just before the War, and they had whole
bunch of house negroes around all the time.

Old Mistress died when I was a baby, so I don't remember anything
about her, but Young Mistress was a winder! She would ride horseback
nearly all the time, and I had to go along with her when I got big
enough. She never did go around the quarters, so I don't know nothing
much about the negroes Mr. Sack had for the fields. They all looked
pretty clean and healthy, though, when they would come up to the Big
House. He fed them all good and they all liked him.

He had so much different kinds of land that they could raise anything
they wanted, and he had more mules and horses and cattle than anybody
around there. Some of the boys worked with his fillies all the time,
and he went off to New Orleans ever once in a while with his race
horses. He took his daughter but they never took me.

Some of his land was in pasture but most of it was all open fields,
with just miles and miles of cotton rows. There was a pretty good
strip along one side he called the "old" fields. That's what they
called the land that was wore out and turned back. It was all growed
up in young trees, and that's where he kept his horses most of the
time.

The first I knowed about the War coming on was when Mr. Sack had a
whole bunch of whitefolks at the Big House at a function. They didn't
talk about anything else all evening and then the next time they come
nearly all their menfolks wasn't there--just the womenfolks. It wasn't
very long till Mr. Sack went off to Houma with some other men, and
pretty soon we knew he was in the War. I don't remember ever seeing
him come home. I don't think he did until it was nearly all over.

Next thing we knowed they was Confederate soldiers riding by pretty
nearly every day in big droves. Sometimes they would come and buy corn
and wheat and hogs, but they never did take any anyhow, like the
Yankees done later on. They would pay with billets, Young Missy called
them, and she didn't send them to git them cashed but saved them a
long time, and then she got them cashed, but you couldn't buy anything
with the money she got for them.

That Confederate money she got wasn't no good. I was in Arcadia with
her at a store, and she had to pay seventy-five cents for a can of
sardines for me to eat with some bread I had, and before the War you
could get a can like that for two cents. Things was even higher then
than later on, but that's the only time I saw her buy anything.

When the Yankees got down in that country the most of the big men paid
for all the corn and meat and things they got, but some of the little
bunches of them would ride up and take hogs and things like that and
just ride off. They wasn't anybody at our place but the womenfolks and
the negroes. Some of Mr. Sack's women kinfolks stayed there with Young
Mistress.

Along at the last the negroes on our place didn't put in much
stuff--jest what they would need, and could hide from the Yankees,
because they would get it all took away from them if the Yankees found
out they had plenty of corn and oats.

The Yankees was mighty nice about their manners, though. They camped
all around our place for a while. There was three camps of them close
by at one time, but they never did come and use any of our houses or
cabins. There was lots of poor whites and Cajuns that lived down below
us, between us and the Gulf, and the Yankees just moved into their
houses and cabins and used them to camp in.

The negroes at our place and all of them around there didn't try to
get away or leave when the Yankees come in. They wasn't no place to
go, anyway, so they all stayed on. But they didn't do very much work.
Just enough to take care of themselves and their whitefolks.

Master Sack come home before the War was quite over. I think he had
been sick, because he looked thin and old and worried. All the negroes
picked up and worked mighty hard after he come home, too.

One day he went into Arcadia and come home and told us the War was
over and we was all free. The negroes didn't know what to make of it,
and didn't know where to go, so he told all that wanted to stay on
that they could just go on like they had been and pay him shares.

About half of his negroes stayed on, and he marked off land for them
to farm and made arrangements with them to let them use their cabins,
and let them have mules and tools. They paid him out of their shares,
and some of them finally bought the mules and some of the land. But
about half went on off and tried to do better somewheres else.

I didn't stay with him because I was jest a boy and he didn't need me
at the house anyway.

Late in the War my Pappy belonged to a man named Sander or Zander.
Might been Alexander, but the negroes called him Mr. Sander. When
pappy got free he come and asked me to go with him, and I went along
and lived with him. He had a share-cropper deal with Mr. Sander and I
helped him work his patch. That place was just a little east of Houma,
a few miles.

When my Pappy was born his parents belonged to a Mr. Adams, so he took
Adams for his last name, and I did too, because I was his son. I don't
know where Mr. Adams lived, but I don't think my Pappy was born in
Louisiana. Alabama, maybe. I think his parents come off the boat,
because he was very black--even blacker than I am.

I lived there with my Pappy until I was about eighteen and then I
married and moved around all over Louisiana from time to time. My wife
give me twelve boys and five girls, but all my children are dead now
but five. My wife died in 1920 and I come up here to Tulsa to live.
One of my daughters takes care and looks out for me now.

I seen the old Sack P. Gee place about twenty years ago, and it was
all cut up in little places and all run down. Never would have known
it was one time a big plantation ten miles long.

I seen places going to rack and ruin all around--all the places I
lived at in Louisiana--but I'm glad I wasn't there to see Master
Sack's place go down. He was a good man and done right by all his
negroes.

Yes, Lord, my old feets have been in mighty nigh every parish in
Louisiana, and I seen some mighty pretty places, but I'll never forget
how that old Gee plantation looked when I was a boy.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

ALICE ALEXANDER
Age 88 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.

I was 88 years old the 15th of March. I was born in 1849, at Jackson
Parish, Louisiana. My mother's name was Mary Marlow, and father's
Henry Marlow.

I can't remember very much 'bout slavery 'cause I was awful small, but
I can remember that my mother's master, Colonel Threff died, and my
mother, her husband, and us three chillun was handed down to Colonel
Threff's poor kin folks. Colonel Threff owned about two or three
hundred head of niggers, and all of 'em was tributed to his poor kin.
Ooh wee! he sho' had jest a lot of them too! Master Joe Threff, one of
his poor kin, took my mother, her husband, and three of us chillun
from Louisiana to the Mississippi Line.

Down there we lived in a one-room log hut, and slept on homemade rail
bed steads with cotton, and sometimes straw, mostly straw summers and
cotton winners. I worked round the house and looked after de smaller
chillun--I mean my mother's chillun. Mostly we ate yeller meal corn
bread and sorghum malasses. I ate possums when we could get 'em, but
jest couldn't stand rabbit meat. Didn't know there was any Christmas
or holidays in dem days.

I can't 'membuh nothing 'bout no churches in slavery. I was a sinner
and loved to dance. I remembuh I was on the floor one night dancing
and I had four daughters on the floor with me and my son was playing
de music--that got me! I jest stopped and said I wouldn't cut another
step and I haven't. I'm a member of the Baptist Church and been for 25
or 30 years. I jined 'cause I wanted to be good 'cause I was an awful
sinner.

We had a overseer back on Colonel Threff's plantation and my mother
said he was the meanest man on earth. He'd jest go out in de fields
and beat dem niggers, and my mother told me one day he come out in de
field beating her sister and she jumped on him and nearly beat him
half to death and old Master come up jest in time to see it all and
fired dat overseer. Said he didn't want no man working fer him dat a
woman could whip.

After de war set us free my pappy moved us away and I stayed round
down there till I got to be a grown woman and married. You know I had
a pretty fine wedding 'cause my pappy had worked hard and commenced to
be prosperous. He had cattle, hogs, chickens and all those things like
that.

A college of dem niggers got together and packed up to leave
Louisiana. Me and my husband went with them. We had covered wagons,
and let me tell you I walked nearly all the way from Louisiana to
Oklahoma. We left in March but didn't git here till May. We came in
search of education. I got a pretty fair education down there but
didn't take care of it. We come to Oklahoma looking for de same thing
then that darkies go North looking fer now. But we got dissapointed.
What little I learned I quit taking care of it and seeing after it and
lost it all.

I love to fish. I've worked hard in my days. Washed and ironed for 30
years, and paid for dis home that way. Yes sir, dis is my home. My
mother died right here in dis house. She was 111 yeahs old. She is
been dead 'bout 20 yeahs.

I have three daughters here married, Sussie Pruitt, Bertie Shannon,
and Irene Freeman. Irene lost her husband, and he's dead now.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

10-19-1938
1,428 words

PHOEBE BANKS
Age 78
Muskogee, Oklahoma.

In 1860, there was a little Creek Indian town of Sodom on the north
bank of the Arkansas River, in a section the Indians called Chocka
Bottoms, where Mose Perryman had a big farm or ranch for a long time
before the Civil War. That same year, on October 17, I was born on the
Perryman place, which was northwest of where I live now in Muskogee;
only in them days Fort Gibson and Okmulgee was the biggest towns
around and Muskogee hadn't shaped up yet.

My mother belonged to Mose Perryman when I was born; he was one of the
best known Creeks in the whole nation, and one of his younger
brothers, Legus Perryman, was made the big chief of the Creeks (1887)
a long time after the slaves was freed. Mother's name was Eldee; my
father's name was William McIntosh, because he belonged to a Creek
Indian family by that name. Everybody say the McIntoshes was leaders
in the Creek doings away back there in Alabama long before they come
out here.

With me, there was twelve children in our family; Daniel, Stroy,
Scott, Segal, Neil, Joe, Phillip, Mollie, Harriett, Sally and Queenie.

The Perryman slave cabins was all alike--just two-room log cabins,
with a fireplace where mother do the cooking for us children at night
after she get through working in the Master's house.

Mother was the house girl--cooking, waiting on the table, cleaning the
house, spinning the yarn, knitting some of the winter clothes, taking
care of the mistress girl, washing the clothes--yes, she was always
busy and worked mighty hard all the time, while them Indians wouldn't
hardly do nothing for themselves.

On the McIntosh plantation, my daddy said there was a big number of
slaves and lots of slave children. The slave men work in the fields,
chopping cotton, raising corn, cutting rails for the fences, building
log cabins and fireplaces. One time when father was cutting down a
tree it fell on him and after that he was only strong enough to rub
down the horses and do light work around the yard. He got to be a good
horse trainer and long time after slavery he helped to train horses
for the Free Fairs around the country, and I suppose the first money
he ever earned was made that way.

Lots of the slave owners didn't want their slaves to learn reading and
writing, but the Perrymans didn't care; they even helped the younger
slaves with that stuff. Mother said her master didn't care much what
the slaves do; he was so lazy he didn't care for nothing.

They tell me about the war times, and that's all I remember of it.
Before the War is over some of the Perryman slaves and some from the
McIntosh place fix up to run away from their masters.

My father and my uncle, Jacob Perryman, was some of the fixers. Some
of the Creek Indians had already lost a few slaves who slip off to the
North, and they take what was left down into Texas so's they couldn't
get away. Some of the other Creeks was friendly to the North and was
fixing to get away up there; that's the ones my daddy and uncle was
fixing to join, for they was afraid their masters would take up and
move to Texas before they could get away.

They call the old Creek, who was leaving for the North, "Old Gouge"
(Opoethleyohola). All our family join up with him, and there was lots
of Creek Indians and slaves in the outfit when they made a break for
the North. The runaways was riding ponies stolen from their masters.

When they get into the hilly country farther north in the country that
belong to the Cherokee Indians, they make camp on a big creek and
there the Rebel Indian soldiers catch up, but they was fought back.

Then long before morning lighten the sky, the men hurry and sling the
camp kettles across the pack horses, tie the littlest children to the
horses backs and get on the move farther into the mountains. They kept
moving fast as they could, but the wagons made it mighty slow in the
brush and the lowland swamps, so just about the time they ready to
ford another creek the Indian soldiers catch up and the fighting begin
all over again.

The Creek Indians and the slaves with them try to fight off them
soldiers like they did before, but they get scattered around and
separated so's they lose the battle. Lost their horses and wagons, and
the soldiers killed lots of the Creeks and Negroes, and some of the
slaves was captured and took back to their masters.

Dead all over the hills when we get away; some of the Negroes shot and
wounded so bad the blood run down the saddle skirts, and some fall off
their horses miles from the battle ground, and lay still on the
ground. Daddy and Uncle Jacob keep our family together somehow and
head across the line into Kansas. We all get to Fort Scott where there
was a big army camp; daddy work in the blacksmith shop and Uncle Jacob
join with the Northern soldiers to fight against the South. He come
through the war and live to tell me about the fighting he been in.

He went with the soldiers down around Fort Gibson where they fight the
Indians who stayed with the South. Uncle Jacob say he killed many a
man during the war, and showed me the musket and sword he used to
fight with; said he didn't shoot the women and children--just whack
their heads off with the sword, and almost could I see the blood
dripping from the point! It made me scared at his stories.

The captain of this company want his men to be brave and not get
scared, so before the fighting start he put out a tub of white liquor
(corn whiskey) and steam them up so's they'd be mean enough to whip
their grannie! The soldiers do lots of riding and the saddle-sores get
so bad they grease their body every night with snake oil so's they
could keep going on.

Uncle Jacob said the biggest battle was at Honey Springs (1863). That
was down near Elk Creek, close by Checotah, below Rentiersville. He
said it was the most terrible fighting he seen, but the Union soldiers
whipped and went back into Fort Gibson. The Rebels was chased all over
the country and couldn't find each other for a long time, the way he
tell it.

After the war our family come back here and settle at Fort Gibson, but
it ain't like the place my mother told me about. There was big houses
and buildings of brick setting on the high land above the river when I
first see it, not like she know it when the Perrymans come here years
ago.

She heard the Indians talk about the old fort (1824), the one that rot
down long before the Civil War. And she seen it herself when she go
with the Master for trading with the stores. She said it was made by
Matthew Arbuckle and his soldiers, and she talk about Companys B, C,
D, K, and the Seventh Infantry who was there and made the Osage
Indians stop fighting the Creeks and Cherokees. She talk of it, but
that old place all gone when I first see the Fort.

Then I hear about how after the Arbuckle soldiers leave the old log
fort, the Cherokee Indians take over the land and start up the town of
Keetoowah. The folks who move in there make the place so wild and
rascally the Cherokees give up trying to make a good town and it
kinder blow away.

My husband was Tom Banks, but the boy I got ain't my own son, but I
found him on my doorstep when he's about three weeks old and raise him
like he is my own blood. He went to school at the manual training
school at Tullahassee and the education he got get him a teacher job
at Taft (Okla), where he is now.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

10-19-38
520 Words

NANCY ROGERS BEAN
Age about 82
Hulbert, Okla.

I'm getting old and it's easy to forget most of the happenings of
slave days; anyway I was too little to know much about them, for my
mammy told me I was born about six years before the War. My folks was
on their way to Fort Gibson, and on the trip I was born at Boggy
Depot, down in southern Oklahoma.

There was a lot of us children; I got their names somewheres here.
Yes, there was George, Sarah, Emma, Stella, Sylvia, Lucinda, Rose,
Dan, Pamp, Jeff, Austin, Jessie, Isaac and Andrew; we all lived in a
one-room log cabin on Master Rogers' place not far from the old
military road near Choteau. Mammy was raised around the Cherokee town
of Tahlequah.

I got my name from the Rogers', but I was loaned around to their
relatives most of the time. I helped around the house for Bill
McCracken, then I was with Cornelius and Carline Wright, and when I
was freed my Mistress was a Mrs. O'Neal, wife of a officer at Fort
Gibson. She treated me the best of all and gave me the first doll I
ever had. It was a rag doll with charcoal eyes and red thread worked
in for the mouth. She allowed me one hour every day to play with it.
When the War ended Mistress O'Neal wanted to take me with her to
Richmond, Virginia, but my people wouldn't let me go. I wanted to stay
with her, she was so good, and she promised to come back for me when I
get older, but she never did.

All the time I was at the fort I hear the bugles and see the soldiers
marching around, but never did I see any battles. The fighting must
have been too far away.

Master Rogers kept all our family together, but my folks have told me
about how the slaves was sold. One of my aunts was a mean, fighting
woman. She was to be sold and when the bidding started she grabbed a
hatchet, laid her hand on a log and chopped it off. Then she throwed
the bleeding hand right in her master's face. Not long ago I hear she
is still living in the country around Nowata, Oklahoma.

Sometimes I would try to get mean, but always I got me a whipping for
it. When I was a little girl, moving around from one family to
another, I done housework, ironing, peeling potatoes and helping the
main cook. I went barefoot most of my life, but the master would get
his shoes from the Government at Fort Gibson.

I wore cotton dresses, and the Mistress wore long dresses, with
different colors for Sunday clothes, but us slaves didn't know much
about Sunday in a religious way. The Master had a brother who used to
preach to the Negroes on the sly. One time he was caught and the
Master whipped him something awful.

Years ago I married Joe Bean. Our children died as babies. Twenty year
ago Joe Bean and I separated for good and all.

The good Lord knows I'm glad slavery is over. Now I can stay peaceful
in one place--that's all I aim to do.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24