Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

V >> Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

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My mother died when I was only a few days old and the only mother I
ever knew was Judge Hillyer's wife, Miss Jane. Her nine children were
all older than I was and when mother died Miss Jane said mother had
raised her children and she would raise hers. So she took us into her
house and we never lived at de quarters any more. I had two sisters,
Sally and Sylvia, and we had a room in de Big House and sister Sally
didn't do nothing else but look after me. I used to stand with my
thumb in my mouth and hold to Miss Jane's apron while she knitted.

When Judge Hillyer was elected he sold out his farm and gave his
slaves to his children. He owned about twelve or fourteen slaves at
this time. He gave me and my sister Sylvia to his son, Dr. Hillyer,
and my father to another one of his sons who was studying law. Father
stayed with him and took care of him until he graduated. Father
learned to be a good carpenter while he lived with George Hillyer.
George never married until after de War.

Dr. Hillyer lived on a big plantation but he practiced medicine all de
time. He didn't have much time to look after de farm but he had good
overseers and they sure didn't beat his slaves or mistreat 'em in any
way. Dr. Hillyer married a rich girl, Miss Mary Cooley, and her father
gave her fifteen slaves when she married and Judge Hillyer gave him
five so he had a purty good start from de first and he knowed how to
make money so he was a wealthy man when de Rebellion started.

My sister and I didn't know how to act when we was sent out there
among strangers. We had to live in de quarters just like de other
niggers, and we didn't especially like it. I guess I was a sort of bad
boy.

There was several more boys about my age and we didn't have any work
to do but just busy ourselves by getting into mischief. We'd ride de
calves, chase de pigs, kill de chickens, break up hens nests, and in
fact do most everything we hadn't ought to do. Finally they put us to
toting water to de field hands, minding de gaps, taking de cows to
pasture and as dat kept us purty busy we wasn't so bad after dat.

My happiest days was when I was with de old Judge and Miss Jane. I can
sit here and think of them old times and it seems like it was just
yesterday dat it all happened. He was a great hand to go to town every
day and lounge around wid his cronies. I used to go with him, and my
how they would argue. Sometimes they would get mad and shake their
canes in each other's faces. I guess they was talking politics.

Our old Master liked cats better than any man I ever saw, and he
always had five or six that followed him about de place like dogs.
When he went to eat they was always close to him and just as soon as
he finished he would always feed them. When he was gone us boys used
to throw at his cats or set de dogs on 'em. We was always careful dat
no one saw us for if he had known about it he would a-whipped us and
no mistake. I wouldn't a-blamed him either, for I like cats now. I
think they are lots of company.

He was a typical Southern gentleman, medium sized, and wore a Van Dyke
beard. He never whipped his slaves, and he didn't have a one dat
wouldn't a-died for him.

Judge Hillyer had one son, William, dat wouldn't go to college. He
made fun of his brothers for going to school so long, and said that he
would be ashamed to go and stay five or six years. After de War he
settled down and studied law in Judge Akin's office and opened a
office in Athens, Georgia, and he made de best lawyer of them all.

Us boys used to go hunting with Master William. He hunted rabbits,
quails, squirrels, and sometimes he would kill a deer. He hunted
mostly with dogs. He never used a gun but very little. Lead was so
scarce and cost so much dat he couldn't afford to waste a bullet on
rabbits or snakes. He made his own bullets. The dogs would chase a
rabbit into a hollow tree and we'd take a stick and twist him out.
Sometimes we'd have nearly all de hide twisted off him when we'd git
him out.

Old Judge Hillyer smoked a pipe with a long stem. He used to give me
ten cents a day to fill it for him. He told me I had to have $36 at
the end of the year, but I never made it. There was a store right
close to us and I'd go down there and spend my money for lemon stick
candy, ginger cakes, peanuts, and firecrackers. Old Master knowed I
wouldn't save it, and he didn't care if I did spent it for it was mine
to do with just as I pleased.

Every time a circus come to town I'd run off and they wouldn't see me
again all day. Seemed like I just couldn't help it. I wouldn't take
time to git permission to go. One time to punish me for running off he
tied me up by my thumbs, and I had to stay home while de rest went. I
didn't dare try to git loose and run off for I knowed I'd git my
jacket tanned if I did. Old Master never laid his hand on me, but I
knowed he would if I didn't do as he told me. He never told us twice
to do anything either.

Coins had curious names in them days. A dime was called a thrip.
Fourpen was about the same value as three cents or maybe a little
more. It took three of 'em to make a thrip. There was all sorts of
paper money.

Every first Tuesday slaves were brought in from Virginia and sold on
de block. De auctioneer was Cap'n Dorsey. E. M. Cobb was de slave
bringer. They would stand de slaves up on de block and talk about what
a fine looking specimen of black manhood or womanhood dey was, tell
how healthy dey was, look in their mouth and examine their teeth just
like they was a horse, and talk about de kind of work they would be
fit for and could do. Young healthy boys and girls brought the best
prices. I guess they figured dat they would grow to be valuable. I
used to stand around and watch de sales take place but it never
entered my mind to be afraid for I knowed old Judge wasn't going to
sell me. I thought I was an important member of his family.

Old Judge bought every roguish nigger in the country. He'd take him
home and give him the key to everything on de place and say to help
hisself. Soon as he got all he wanted to eat he'd quit being a rogue.
Old Judge said that was what made niggers steal--they was hungry.

They used to scare us kids by telling us dat a runaway nigger would
git us. De timber was awful heavy in de river bottoms, and dey was one
nigger dat run off from his master and lived for years in these
bottoms. He was there all during de War and come out after de
surrender. Every man in dat country owned him at some time or other.
His owner sold him to a man who was sure he could catch him--he never
did, so he sold him to another slave owner and so on till nearly
everybody had him. He changed hands about six or seven times. They
would come in droves with blood hounds and hunt for him but dey
couldn't catch him for he knowed them woods too well. He'd feed de
dogs and make friends with 'em and they wouldn't bother him. He lived
on nuts, fruit, and wild game, and niggers would slip food to him.
He'd slip into town and get whiskey and trade it to de niggers for
food.

Judge Hillyer never 'lowanced his niggers and dey could always have
anything on de place to eat. We had so much freedom dat other slave
owners in our neighborhood didn't like for us to come among their
slaves for they said we was free niggers and would make their slaves
discontented.

After I went to live with Judge Hillyer's son, Dr. Hillyer, one of my
jobs was to tote the girls books to school every morning. All the
plantation owners had a colored boy dat did that. After we had toted
de books to de school house we'd go back down de road a piece and line
up and have the "gone-bying-est" fight you ever see. We'd have regular
battles. If I got licked in de morning I'd go home and rest up and I'd
give somebody a good licking dat evening. I reckon I caught up with my
fighting for in all my working life I have always worked with gangs of
men of from one to two-hundred and I never struck a man and no man
ever struck me.

Jim Williams was a patroller, and how he did like to catch a nigger
off de farm without a permit so he could whip him. Jim thought he was
de best man in de country and could whip de best of 'em. One night
John Hardin, a big husky feller, was out late. He met Jim and knowed
he was in for it. Jim said, "John I'm gonna give you a white man's
chance. I'm gonna let you fight me and if you are de best man, well
and good."

John say, "Master Jim, I can't fight wid you. Come on and give me my
licking, and let me go on home."

But Jim wouldn't do it, and he slapped John and called him some names
and told him he is a coward to fight him. All dis made John awful mad
and he flew into him and give him the terriblest licking a man ever
toted. He went on home but knew he would git into trouble over it.

Jim talked around over the country about what he was going to do to
John but everybody told him dat he brought it all on hisself. He
never did try to git another nigger to fight with him.

Yes, I guess charms keep off bad luck. I have wore 'em but money
always was my best lucky piece. I've made lots of money but I never
made good use of it.

I was always afraid of ghosts but I never saw one. There was a
graveyard beside de road from our house to town and I always was
afraid to go by it. I'd shut my eyes and run for dear life till I was
past de grave yard. I had heard dat there was a headless man dat
stayed there on cold rainy days or foggy nights he'd hide by de fence
and throw his head at you. Once a man got hit and he fell right down
dead. I believed dat tale and you can imagine how I felt whenever I
had to go past there by myself and on foot.

I saw lots of Ku Kluxers but I wasn't afraid of them. I knowed I
hadn't done nothing and they wasn't after me. One time I met a bunch
of 'em and one of 'em said, "Who is dis feller?" Another one said,
"Oh, dat's Gabe's foolish boy, come on, don't bother him." I always
did think dat voice sounded natural but I never did say anything about
it. It sounded powerful like one of old Judge's boys. Dey rode on and
didn't bother me and I never was a bit afraid of 'em any more.

I went to school one month after de War. I never learned much but I
learned to read some where along de road dat I come over. My father
come from Athens, Georgia, and took us away with him. I learned the
carpenter's trade from him. He was so mean to me dat I run away when I
was nineteen. I went back to Rome, Georgia, and got a job with a
bridge gang and spent two years with 'em. I went then to Henderson,
Kentucky, and worked for ten years. There was hundreds of colored
people coming to de mines at Krebs and Alderson and I decided to come
along, too. I never worked in de mines but I did all sorts of
carpentering for them.

I married in Atoka, Oklahoma, thirty-three years ago. I never had no
children.

I've made lots of money but somehow it always got away from me. But me
and my wife have our little home here and we are both still able to
work a little, so I guess we are making it all right.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves

HAL HUTSON
Age 90 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.

I was born at Galveston, Tennessee, October 12, 1847. There were 11
children: 7 brothers; Andrew, George, Clent, Gilbert, Frank, Mack and
Horace; and 3 girls: Rosie, Marie and Nancy. We were all Hutsons.
Together with my mother and father we worked for the same man whose
name was Mr. Barton Brown, but who we all call Master Brown, and
sometimes Mr. Brown.

Master Brown had a good weather-board house, two story, with five or
six rooms. They lived pretty well. He had eight children. We lived in
one-room log huts. There were a long string of them huts. We slept on
the floor like hogs. Girls and boys slept together--jest everybody
slept every whar. We never knew what biscuits were! We ate "seconds
and shorts" (wheat ground once) for bread. Ate rabbits, possums baked
with taters, beans, and bean soup. No chicken, fish and the like. My
favorite dish now is beans.

Master Brown owned about 36 or 40 slaves, I can't recall jest now, and
about 200 acres of ground. There was very little cotton raised in
Galveston--I mean jest some corn. Sometimes we would shuck corn all
night. He would not let us raise gardens of our own, but didn't mind
us raising corn and a few other truck vegetables to sell for a little
spending change.

I learned to read, write and figger at an early age. Master Brown's
boy and I were the same age you see (14 years old) and he would send
me to school to protect his kids, and I would have to sit up there
until school was out. So while sitting there I listened to what the
white teacher was telling the kids, and caught on how to read, write
and figger--but I never let on, 'cause if I was caught trying to read
or figger dey would whip me something terrible. After I caught on how
to figger the white kids would ask me to teach them. Master Brown
would often say: "My God O'mighty, never do for that nigger to learn
to figger."

We weren't allowed to count change. If we borrowed a fifty-cent piece,
we would have to pay back a fifty-cent piece--not five dimes or fifty
pennies or ten nickels.

We went barefooted the year round and wore long shirts split on each
side. All of us niggers called all the whites "poor white trash." The
overseer was nothing but poor white trash and the meanest man that
ever walked on earth. He never did whip me much 'cause I was kind of a
pet. I worked up to the Big House, but he sho' did whip them others.
Why, one day he was beating my mother, and I was too small to say
anything, so my big brother heard her crying and came running, picked
up a chunk and that overseer stopped a'beating her. The white boy was
holding her on the ground and he was whipping her with a long leather
whip. They said they couldn't teach her no sense and she said "I don't
wanna learn no sense." The overseer's name was Charlie Clark. One day
he whipped a man until he was bloody as a pig 'cause he went to the
mill and stayed too long.

The patroller rode all night and iffen we were caught out later than
10:00 o'clock they would beat us, but we would git each other word by
sending a man round way late at night. Always take news by night. Of
course the Ku Klux Klan didn't come 'til after the war. They was
something like the patrollers. Never heard of no trouble between the
black and whites 'cause them niggers were afraid to resist them.

My biggest job was keeping flies off'n the table up at the Big House.
When time come to go in for the day we would cut up and dance. I can't
remember any of the songs jest now, but we had some that we sung. We
danced a whole lots and jest sung "made up" songs.

Old Master would stay up to hear us come in. Of course Saturday
afternoon was a holiday. We didn't work no holidays. Master gave us
one week off for Christmas, and never worked us on Sunday, unless the
"ox was in the ditch." When the slaves got sick we had white doctors,
and we would wait on each other. Drink dock root tea, mullin tea, and
flaxweed tea, but we never wore charms.

I think it's a good thing that slavery's over. It ought to been over a
good while ago. But its going to be slavery all over again if things
don't git better. But I thank God I've been a Christian for 70 years,
and now is a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church and deacon of the
church, and a Christian 'cause the Bible teaches me to be.

That war was a awful thing. I used to pack them soldiers water on my
head, and then I worked at Fort Sill and Fort Dawson in Tennessee.
Those Yankees came by nights--got behind those rebels, and took their
hams, drove horses in the houses, killed their chickens and ate up the
rebels food, but the Yanks didn't bother us niggers.

When freedom come old Master called us all in from the fields and told
us, "All of you niggers are free as frogs now to go wherever you
choose. You are your own man now." We all continued working for him at
$5.00 a month. After the crops were gathered the niggers scattered
out. Some went North--and we would say when they went North that they
had "crossed the water."

I never married 'till after the War. Married at my mother's house
'cause my wife's mother didn't let us marry at her house, so I sent
Jack Perry after her on a hoss and we had a big dinner--and jest got
married.

I am the father of nine children, but jest three is living. One is a
dentist in Muskogge, Dr. Andrew Hutson. All of the children are pretty
well read. We never had schools for niggers until after slavery.

I think Abraham Lincoln was a great man, but I don't know much about
Jeff Davis. Booker T. Washington was a fine man.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]

WILLIAM HUTSON
Age 98 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

When a feller gets as old as me it's a heap easier to forget things
than it is to remember, but I ain't never forgot that old plantation
where good old Doctor Allison lived back there in Georgia long before
the War that brought us slaves the freedom.

I hear the slaves talking about mean masters when I was a boy. They
wasn't talking about Master Allison though, 'cause he was a good man
and took part for the slaves when any trouble come up with the
overseer.

The Mistress' name was Louisa (the same name as the gal I was married
to later after the War), and she was just about as mean as was the old
Master good. I was the house boy when I gets old enough to understand
what the Master wants done and I does it just like he says, so I
reckon that's why we always get along together.

The Master helped to raise my mammy. When I was born he says to her
(my mammy tells me when I gets older): "Cheney", the old Master say,
"that boy is going be different from these other children. I aims to
see that he is. He's going be in the house all the time, he ain't
going work in the fields; he's going to stay right with me all the
time."

They was about twenty slaves on the plantation but I was the one old
Master called for when he wanted something special for himself. I was
the one he took with him on the trips to town, I was the one who fetch
him the cooling drink after he look about the fields and sometimes I
carry the little black bag when he goes a-doctoring folks with the
misery away off some other farm.

The Master hear about there going be an auction one day and he
figgered maybe he needed some more slaves if they was good ones, so he
took me and started out early in the morning. It wasn't very far and
we got there early before the auction started. Rockon that was the
first time I ever see any slaves sold.

They was a long platform made of heavy planks and all the slaves was
lined up on the platform, and they was stripped to the waist, men,
women, and children. One or two of the women folks was bare naked.
They wasn't young women neither, just middle age ones, but they was
built good. Some of them was well greased and that grease covered up
many a scar they'd earned for some foolishment or other.

The Master don't buy none and pretty soon we starts home. The Master
was riding horseback,--he didn't ever use no buggy 'cause he said that
was the way for folks to travel who was too feeble to sit in the
saddle--and I rode back of him on another horse, but that horse I
rides is just horse while the Master's was a real thoroughbred like
maybe you see on race tracks down in the South.

That auction kept bothering me all the way back to the plantation. I
kept seeing them little children standing on the flatform (platform),
their mammy and pappy crying hard 'cause their young'uns is being
sold. They was a lot of heartaches even they was slaves and it gets me
worried.

I asked the Master is he going to have an auction and he jest laugh. I
ain't never sold no slaves yet and I ain't going to, he says. And I
gets easier right then. I kind of hates to think about standing up on
one of them platforms, kinder sorry to leave my old mammy and the
Master, so I was easy in the heart when he talked like that.

The plantation house was a big frame and the yard was shaded with
trees all around. The Master's children--four boys and two
girls--would play in the yard with me just like I was one of the
family. And we'd go hunting and fishing. There was a creek not far
away and they was good fishing in the stream and squirrels in the
trees. Mighty lot of fun to catch them fishes but more fun when they
is all fried brown and ready for to eat with a piece of hot pone.
Ain't no fish ever taste that good since!

One thing I sort of ponders about. The old Master don't let us have no
religion meetings and reading and writing is something I learn after
the War. Some of the slaves talk about meeting 'round the country and
wants to have preaching on the plantation. Master says NO. No preacher
around here to tell about the Bible and religion will be just a
puzzlement, the Master say, and we let it go at that. I reckon that
was the only thing he was set against.

That and the Yankees. The Master went to the War and stayed 'til it
was most over. He was a mighty sick man when he come back to the old
place, but I was there waiting for him just like always. All the time
he was away I take care around the house. That's what he say for me to
do when he rides away to fight the Yankees. Lot's of talk about the
War but the slaves goes right on working just the same, raising cotton
and tobacco.

The slaves talk a heap about Lincoln and some trys to run away to the
North. Don't hear much about Jeff Davis, mostly Lincoln. He give us
slaves the freedom but we was better off as we was.

The day of freedom come around just [HW: like] any other day, except
the Master say for me to bring up the horses, we is going to town.
That's when he hears about the slaves being free. We gets to the town
and the Master goes into the store. It's pretty early but the streets
was filled with folks talking and I wonder what makes the Master in
such a hurry when he comes out of the store.

He gets on his horse and tells me to follow fast. When we gets back to
the plantation he sounds the horn calling the slaves. They come in
from the fields and meet 'round back of the kitchen building that
stood separate from the Master's house. They all keeps quiet while the
Master talks: "You-all is free now, and all the rest of the slaves is
free too. Nobody owns you now and nobody going to own you anymore!"
That was good news, I reckon, but nobody know what to do about it.

The crops was mostly in and the Master wants the folks to stay 'til
the crop is finished. They talk about it the rest of that day. They
wasn't no celebration 'round the place, but they wasn't no work after
the Master tells us we is free. Nobody leave the place though. Not
'til in the fall when the work is through. Then some of us go into the
town and gets work 'cause everybody knows the Allison slaves was the
right kind of folks to have around.

That was the first money I earn and then I have to learn how to spend
it. That was the hardest part 'cause the prices was high and the wages
was low.

Then I moves on and meets the gal that maybe I been looking for,
Louisa Baker, and right away she takes to me and we is married. Ain't
been no other woman but her and she's waiting for me wherever the dead
waits for the living.

I reckon she won't have so long to wait now, even if I is feeling
pretty spry and got good use of the feets and hands. Ninety-eight
years brings a heap of wear and some of these days the old body'll
need a long time rest and then I'll join her for all the time.

I is ready for the New Day a-coming!

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]

MRS. ISABELLA JACKSON
Age 79 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

"Boom ... Boom! Boom ... Boom!" That's the way the old weaver go all
day long when my sister, Margaret, is making cloth for the slaves down
on old Doc Joe Jackson's plantation in Louisiana.

That was near the little place of Bunker, and its my birthplace, and I
guess where all Mammy's children were born because she was never sold
but once and nobody but the old Doc ever did own her after she come to
his place.

He always say couldn't nobody get work out of Mammy but him. I guess
that's just his foolery 'cause if she ain't no good the Old Doc most
likely sell her to some of them white folks in Texas.

That's what they done to them mean, no account slaves--just send them
to Texas. Them folks sure knew how for to handle 'em!

But I was talking about my sister, Margaret. I can still see her
weaving the cloth--Boom!... Boom!--and she hear that all the day and
get mighty tired. Sometimes she drop her head and go to sleep. The
Mistress get her then sure. Rap her on the head with almost anything
handy, but she hit pretty easy, just trying to scare her that's all.

The old Master though, he ain't so easy as that. The whippings was
done by the master and the overseer just tell the old Doc about the
troubles, like the old Doc say:

"You just watch the slaves and see they works and works hard, but
don't lay on with the whip, because I is the only one who knows how to
do it right!"

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