Slave Narratives, Oklahoma
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Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma
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Just like yesterday--I see that little old cabin standing on a bit of
hill about a quarter-mile from the Master's brick mansion, and I see
into the cabin and there's the old home-made bed with rope cords
a-holding up the corn shuck bedding where on I use to sleep after
putting in the day at hoeing cotton or following a slow time mule team
down the corn rows 'till it got so dark the old overseer just
naturally had to call it a day.
And then I see the old baker swinging in the fireplace. That cooked up
the corn pone to go with the fat side meats the Master Doctor (didn't
I tell you the Master was a doctor?) give us for the meals of the week
day. But on a Sunday morning we always had flour bread, excepting
after the War is over and then we is lucky do we get anything.
Just like yesterday--I hear the old overseer making round of the
cabins every day at four, and I means in the morning, too, when the
night sleep is the best, and the folkses tumbling out of the door
getting ready for the fields.
All the mens dressed about the same. Just like me. Wearing the grey
jeans with the blue shirt stuck in loose around the belt, brogan shoes
that feels like brakes on the feet about the hot time of day when the
old sun's a-grinning down like he was saying: "work, niggers, work!"
And the overseer is saying the same thing, only we pays more attention
to him 'cause of the whip he shakes around when the going gets kinder
slow down the row.
Now I sees them getting ready for the slave auction. Many of 'em there
was. The Master Doctor done owned about two hundred slaves and
sometimes he sell some for to beat the bad crops.
There they'd stand on the wooden blocks, their faces greased and
shiny, their arms and bodies pretty well greased too; seemed like they
looked better and stronger that way, maybe some other reason, I dunno.
And when the auction was over lots of the slaves would try to figger
out when would the next one be and worry some afraid they'd be
standing up there waiting for the buyers to punch and slap to see is
they sound of limb and able to do the days work without loafing down
the rows.
There's the old white preacher who tried to tell the slaves about the
Lord. He had a mighty hard job sometimes, 'cause of the teaching was
hard to understand. And then--then he'd just seem to be riled with
anger and lay down the law of the Lord between cuss-words that all the
slaves could understand. So finally I guess everybody was religionized
even it was cussed into 'em right from the pulpit!
That old preacher always makes me think of haunts, 'cause every
evening when I drive up the cows for milking, there's a old, old log
cabin right on the way that I pass every night--and it's so haunted
won't nobody pass it after the darkness covers in the daylight.
I didn't always get by 'fore then, and the sounds I hear! Like they
was people inside jumping and knocking on the floor, maybe they was
dancing, I dunno. But they was a light in the big room. Wasn't the
moon a-shining through the windows either, 'cause sometimes I would
stop at the gate and say HELLO, then out go the light and the noises
would stop quick, like them haunts was a-scairt as me--and then, then
I run like the old preacher's Devil is after me with all his forks.
Then along come the War. The slaves would go around from cabin to
cabin telling each other about how mean and cruel was the master or
the overseer, and maybe some of them would make for the North. They
was the unlucky ones, 'cause lots of times they was caught.
And when the patrollers get 'em caught, they was due for a heavy
licking that would last for a long time.
The slaves didn't know how to travel. The way would be marked when
they'd start North, but somehow they'd get lost, 'cause they didn't
know one direction from another, they was so scairt.
Just like yesterday--I remember the close of the War. Nothing exciting
about it down on the plantation. Just the old overseer come around and
say:
"The Yankees has whipped the Rebels and the War is over. But the Old
Master don't want you to leave. He just wants you to stay right on
here where at is your home. That's what the Master say is best for you
to do."
That's what I do, but some of them other slaves is kinder filled up
with the idea of freedom and wants to find out is it good or bad, so
they leave and scatter round.
But I stays, and the Master Doctor he pays me ten dollars every month,
gives me board and my sleeping place just like always, and when I gets
sick there he is with the herb medicine for my ailment and I is well
again.
It's long after the War before I leaves the old place. And that's when
I gets married in 1885. That was my first licensed wife and we is
married in Holly Springs. Her name was Josephine and we has maybe
eight-ten children, I dunno.
And I is thankful they ain't none of my children born slaves and have
to remember all them terrible days when we was ruled by the whip--like
I remember it, just like it was yesterday.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
BERT LUSTER
Age 85 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
I'll be jest frank, I'm not for sho' when I was born, but it was in
1853. Don't know the month, but I was sho' born in 1853 in Watson
County, Tennessee. You see my father was owned by Master Luster and my
mother was owned by Masters Joe and Bill Asterns (father and son). I
can remember when Master Astern moved from Watson County, Tennessee he
brought me and my mother with him to Barnum County Seat, Texas. Master
Astern owned about twelve slaves, and dey was all Astern 'cept Miriah
Elmore's son Jim. He owned 'bout five or six hundred acres of ground,
and de slaves raised and shucked all de corn and picked all de cotton.
De whites folks lived in a big double log house and we slaves lived in
log cabins. Our white folks fed us darkies! We ate nearly ever'thing
dey ate. Dey ate turkey, chickens, ducks, geese, fish and we killed
beef, pork, rabbits and deer. Yes, and possums too. And whenever we
killed beef we tanned the hide and dere was a white man who made shoes
for de white folks and us darkies. I tell you I'm not gonna lie, dem
white folks was good to us darkies. We didn't have no mean overseer.
Master Astern and his son jest told us niggers what to do and we did
it, but 50 miles away dem niggers had a mean overseer, and dey called
him "poor white trash", "old whooser", and sometime "old red neck",
and he would sho' beat 'em turrible iffen dey didn't do jest like he
wanted 'em to.
Seem like I can hear dem "nigger hounds" barking now. You see whenever
a darky would get a permit to go off and wouldn't come back dey would
put de "nigger hounds" on his trail and run dat nigger down.
De white women wove and spin our clothes. You know dey had looms,
spins, and weavers. Us darkies would stay up all night sometime
sep'rating cotton from the seed. When dem old darkies got sleepy dey
would prop their eyes open wid straws.
Sho', we wore very fine clothes for dem days. You know dey dyed the
cloth with poke berries.
We cradled de wheat on pins, caught the grain, carried it to de mill
and had it ground. Sho', I ate biscuits and cornbread too. Keep
telling you dat we ate.
We got de very best of care when we got sick. Don't you let nobody
tell you dem white folks tried to kill out dem darkies 'cause when a
darkey took sick dey would send and git de very best doctors round dat
country. Dey would give us ice water when we got sick. You see we put
up ice in saw dust in winter and when a slave got sick dey give him
ice water, sometimes sage tea and chicken gruel. Dey wanted to keep
dem darkies fat so dey could git top price for 'em. I never saw a
slave sold, but my half brother's white folks let him work and buy
hisself.
I was about 14, and I milked the cows, packed water, seeded cotton,
churned milk up at de Big House and jest first one chore and den
another. My mother cooked up at de Big House.
Dey was a lot of talk 'bout conjure but I didn't believe in it. Course
dem darkies could do everything to one another, and have one another
scared, but dey couldn't conjure dat overseer and stop him from
beating 'em near to death. Course he didn't flog 'em till dey done
sumping.
I married my woman, Nannie Wilkerson, 58 years ago. Dat was after
slavery, and I love her, honest to God I does. Course in dem days we
didn't buy no license, we jest got permits from old Master and jumped
over a broom stick and jest got married.
I sho' did hate when de Yanks come 'cause our white folks was good to
us, and jest take us right along to church with 'em. We didn't work on
Sad'days or Christmas.
We raised gardens, truck patches and such for spending change.
I sho' caught hell after dem Yanks come. Befo' de war, you see de
patroller rode all nite but wouldn't bother a darkey iffen he wouldn't
run off. Why dem darkeys would run off I jest couldn't see.
Dose Yanks treated old master and mistress so mean. Dey took all his
hams, chickens, and drove his cattle out of the pasture, but didn't
bother us niggers honest. Dey drove old master Aster off'n his own
plantation and we all hid in de corn field.
My mother took me to Greenville, Texas, 'cause my step-pappy was one
of dem half smart niggers round dere trying to preach and de Ku Klux
Klan beat him half to death.
Dere was some white folks who would take us to church wid 'em--dis dis
[TR: sic] was aftah the war now--and one night we was all sitting up
thar and one old woman with one leg was dah and when dem Klans shot in
amongst us niggers and white folks aunt Mandy beat all of us home. Yes
suh.
My first two teachers was two white men, and dem Klans shot in de
hotel what dey lived in, but dey had school for us niggers jest de
same. After dat, dose Klans got so bad Uncle Sam sent soljers down
dere to keep peace.
After de soljers come and run de Klans out we worked hard dat fall and
made good crops. 'Bout three years later I came to Indian Territory in
search of educating my kids.
I landed here 46 years ago on a farm not far from now Oklahoma City. I
got to be a prosperous farmer. My bale of cotton amongst 5,000 bales
won the blue ribbon at Guthrie, Oklahoma, and dat bale of cotton and
being a good democrat won for me a good job as a clerk on the
Agriculture Board at the State Capitol. All de white folks liked me
and still like me and called me "cotton king."
I have jest three chillun living. Walter is parcel post clerk here at
de post office downtown. Delia Jenkins, my daughter is a housewife and
Cleo Luckett, my other daughter, a common laborer.
Have been a christian 20 years. Jest got sorry for my wicked ways. I
am a member of the Church of God. My wife is a member of the Church of
Christ. I'm a good democrat and she is a good republican.
My fav'rite songs is: "Dark Was the Nite, and Cold the Ground" and
"Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray."
I'm glad slavery is over, but I don't think dem white folks was
fighting to free us niggers. God freed us. Of course, Abraham Lincoln
was a pretty fine man. Don't know much about Jeff Davis. Never seen
him. Yes, and Booker T. Washington. He was one of the Negro leaders.
The first Negro to represent the Negroes in Washington. He was a great
leader.
During slavery time never heerd of a cullud man committing 'sault on a
white woman. The white and cullud all went to church together too.
Niggers and white shouted alike.
I remember some of the little games we played now: "Fox in the wall",
"Mollie, Mollie Bride", and "Hide and go seek."
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
STEPHEN McCRAY
Age 88 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in Huntsville County, Alabama, right where the Scottsboro
boys was in jail, in 1850.
My parents was Wash and Winnie McCray. They was the mother and father
of 22 chillun. Jest five lived to be grown and the rest died at baby
age. My father's mother and father was named Mandy and Peter McCray,
and my mother's mother and father was Ruthie and Charlie McCray. They
all had the same Master, Mister McCray, all the way thoo'.
We live in log huts and when I left home grown, I left my folks living
in the same log huts. Beds was put together with ropes and called rope
beds. No springs was ever heard of by white or cullud as I knows of.
All the work I ever done was pick up chips for my grandma to cook
with. I was kept busy doing this all day.
The big boys went out and got rabbits, possums and fish. I would sho'
lak to be in old Alabama fishing, 'cause I am a fisherman. There is
sho' some pretty water in Alabama and as swift as cars run here. Water
so clear and blue you can see the fish way down, and dey wouldn't bite
to save your life.
Slaves had their own gardens. All got Friday and Sadday to work in
garden during garden time. I liked cornbread best and I'd give a
dollar to git some of the bread we had on those good old days and I
ain't joking. I went in shirt tail all the time. Never had on no pants
'til I was 15 years old. No shoes, 'cept two or three winters. Never
had a hat 'til I was a great big boy.
Marriage was performed by getting permission from Master and go where
the woman of your choice had prepared the bed, undress and flat-footed
jump a broom-stick together into the bed.
Master had a brick house for hisself and the overseer. They was the
only ones on the place. The overseer woke up the slaves all the way
from 2 o'clock till 4 o'clock of mornings. He wasn't nothing but white
trash. Nothing else in the world but that. They worked till they
couldn't see how to work. I jest couldn't jedge the size of that big
place, and there was a mess of slaves, not less'n three hundred.
I doesn't have no eggycation, edgecation, or ejecation, and about all
I can do is spell. I jest spell till I get the pronouncements.
We had church, but iffen the white folks caught you at it, you was
beat most nigh to death. We used a big pot turned down to keep our
voices down. When we went to hear white preachers, he would say, "Obey
your master and mistress." I am a hard shell-flint Baptist. I was
baptised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Our baptizing song was mostly "On
Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand" and our funeral song was "Hark From The
Tomb."
We had some slaves who would try to run off to the North but the white
folks would catch 'em with blood hounds and beat 'em to death. Them
patrollers done their work mostly at night. One night I was sleeping
on cotton and the patrollers come to our house and ask for water.
Happen we had plenty. They drunk a whole lot and got warm and told my
father to be a good nigger and they wouldn't bother him at all. They
raided till General Grant come thoo'. He sent troops out looking for
Klu Klux Klanners and killed 'em jest lak killing black birds. General
Grant was one of the men that caused us to set heah free today and
able to talk together without being killed.
I didn't and don't believe in no conjure. No sensible person do
either. We had a doctor on the place. Ever master had a doctor who
waited on his slaves, but we wore asafetida or onion 'round our necks
to keep off diseases. A dime was put 'round a teething baby's neck to
make it tooth easy, and it sho' helped too. But today all folks done
got 'bove that.
The old folks talked very little of freedom and the chillun knew
nothing at all of it, and that they heard they was daresome to mention
it.
Bushwhacker, nothing but poor white trash, come thoo' and killed all
the little nigger chillun they could lay hands on. I was hid under the
house with a big rag on my mouf many a time. Them Klu Klux after
slavery sho' got enough from them soldiers to last 'em.
I was married to Kan Pry in 1884. Two chillun was born. The girl is
living and the boy might be, but I don't know. My daughter works out
in service.
I wish Lincoln was here now. He done more for the black face than any
one in that seat. Old Jeff Davis kept slavery up till General Grant
met him at the battle. Lincoln sho' snowed him under. General Grant
put fire under him jest lak I'm fixing to do my pipe. Booker T.
Washington was jest all right.
Every time I think of slavery and if it done the race any good, I
think of the story of the coon and dog who met. The coon said to the
dog "Why is it you're so fat and I am so poor, and we is both
animals?" The dog said: "I lay round Master's house and let him kick
me and he gives me a piece of bread right on." Said the coon to the
dog: "Better then that I stay poor." Them's my sentiment. I'm lak the
coon, I don't believe in 'buse.
I used to be the most wicked man in the world but a voice converted me
by saying, "Friend, friend, why is you better to everybody else than
you is to your self? You are sending your soul to hell." And from that
day I lived like a Christian. People here don't live right and I don't
lak to 'tend church. I base my Christian life on: "Believe in me,
trust my work and you shall be saved, for I am God and beside me there
is no other."
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
HANNAH McFARLAND
Age 85 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, February 29, 1853. My father
was name James Gainey and my mother was name Katie Gainey. There was
three chillun born to my folks doing slavery. My father was a free
man, but my mother was de slave of the Sampsons, some Jews. My father
was de richest Negro in South Carolina doing this time. He bought all
three of we chillun for $1,000 apiece, but dem Jews jest wouldn't sell
mamma. Dey was mighty sweet to her. She come home ever night and
stayed with us. Doing the day a Virginian nigger woman stayed with us
and she sho' was mean to we chillun. She used to beat us sumpin'
terrible. You know Virginia people is mean to cullud people. My father
bought her from some white folks too.
We lived in town and in a good house.
It was a good deal of confusion doing de War. I waited on the Yankees.
Dey captured mamma's white people's house. Dey tried to git mamma to
tell dem jest whut de white folks done done to her and all she could
say was dey was good to her. Shucks, dey wouldn't sell her. She jest
told them she had a free husband.
My father was a blockader. He run rafts from one place to another and
sho' made a lot of money. He was drowned while doing this while I was
a good size child.
Dem patrollers tied you to a whipping post iffen dey caught you out
after 10 o'clock. They 'tempted to do my mother that way, but my papa
sho' stopped dat. I can't say I lak white people even now, 'cause dey
done done so much agin us.
I was free, but I couldn't go to school, 'cause we didn't had none. I
been in Oklahoma over 40 years. Have done some traveling and could go
some whar else, but I jest stays here 'cause I ain't got no desire to
travel.
All we ever wore to keep off diseases was asafetida, nothing else.
I done heard more 'bout conjure in Oklahoma than I ever heerd in South
Carolina. All dat stuff is in Louisiana. I didn't heah nothing 'bout
the Klu Klux Klan till I come to Oklahoma neither. More devilment in
Oklahoma than any place I know. South got more religion too. I jest as
soon be back with the Rebels.
Bushwhackers whipped you iffen you stayed out late, and sho' nuff if
dey didn't lak you.
I felt sorry for Jeff Davis when the Yankees drilled him through the
streets. I saw it all. I said, "Mama, Mama, look, dey got old Jeff
Davis." She said, "Be quiet, dey'll lynch you." She didn't know no
better! She was a old slave nigger. I showed the Yankees where the
white folks hid their silver and money and jewelry, and Mamma sho'
whipped me about it too. She was no fool 'bout slavery. Slavery sho'
didn't he'p us none to my belief.
I didn't care much 'bout Lincoln. It was nice of him to free us, but
'course he didn't want to.
The overseer was sho' nothing but poor white trash, the kind who
didn't lak niggers and dey still don't, old devils. Don't let 'em fool
you, dey don't lak a nigger a'tall.
I'm a Methodist. People ought to praise God 'cause he done done so
much for dese sinners. Dey was heap more religious in my early days. I
jined church in 1863. I jined the Holiness so I could git baptized and
the Methodist wouldn't baptize you. After my baptism, I went back to
the Methodist Church. You know my pastor, Reverend Miller, is the
first Methodist preacher I ever knowed that was baptized, and that
baptizes everybody.
I was married in Akin, South Carolina to Andrew Pew. We had 12
chillun. Jest one boy is my only living child today.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
MARSHALL MACK
Age 83 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born September 10, 1854. I am the second child of five. My
mother was named Sylvestus Mack and my father Booker Huddleston. I do
not remember my mother's master, 'cause he died before I was born. My
Mistress was named Nancy Mack. She was the mother of six children,
four boys and two girls. Three of dem boys went to the War and one
packed and went off somewhar and nobody heard from him doing of the
whole War. But soon as the War was over he come home and he never told
whar he had been.
I never saw but one grown person flogged during slavery and dat was my
mother. The younger son of my mistress whipped her one morning in de
kitchen. His name was Jack. De slaves on Mistress' place was treated
so good, all de people round and 'bout called us "Mack's Free
Niggers." Dis was 14 miles northwest of Liberty, county seat of
Bedford County, Virginia.
One day while de War was going on, my Mistress got a letter from her
son Jim wid jest one line. Dat was "Mother: Jack's brains spattered on
my gun this morning." That was all he written.
Jack Huddleston owned my father, who was his half-brother, and he was
the meanest man I ever seen. He flogged my father with tobacco sticks
and my mother after these floggings (which I never seen) had to pick
splinters out of his back. My father had to slip off a night to come
and visit us. He lived a mile and a half from our house on the south
side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it sho' is a rocky country. He'd
oversleep hisself and git up running. We would stand in our door and
hear him running over them rocks til he got home. He was trying to git
dere before his master called him.
It was a law among the slave-holders that if you left your master's
place, you had to have a pass, for if the patroller caught you without
one, he would give you 9 and 30 lashes and carry you to your master,
and if he was mean, you got the same again!
On the 3-foot fireplace my mother and father cooked ash cakes and my
father having to run to work, had to wash his cakes off in a spring
betwixt our house and his. My mother was the cook in the Big House.
All the time we would see "nigger traders" coming through the country.
I have seen men and women cuffed to 60-foot chains being took to
Lynchburg, Va., to the block to be sold. Now I am talking 'bout what I
know, for it would not mean one thing for me to lie. I ain't jest
heard dis. My uncle John was a carpenter and always took Mistress'
chillun to school in a two-horse surrey. On sech trips, the chillun
learned my uncle to read and write. Dey slipped and done this, for it
was a law among slave-holders that a slave not be caught wid a book.
One morning when I was on my way to de mill with a sack of corn, I had
to go down de main pike. I saw sech a fog 'til I rid close enough to
see what was gwine on. I heard someone say "close up." I was told
since dat it was Hood's Raid. They took every slave that could carry a
gun. It was at dis time, Negroes went into de service. Lee was
whipping Grant two battles to one 'til them raids, and den Grant
whipped Lee two battles to one, 'cause he had Negroes in the Union
Army. Dey took Negroes and all de white people's food. Dey killed
chickens and picked dem on horseback. I never will forgit that time
long as I live.
Ever day I had to get the mail for three families. I carried it around
in a bag and each family took his'n out. I guess I was one of the
first Negro mailmen.
We had church on the place and had right good meetings. Everybody went
and took part in the service. We had to have passes to go off the
place to the meetings.
The children wore just one garment from this time of year (spring)
till the frost fell. Mistress' daughters made dese. We sure kept
healthy and fat.
I will be 83 years of age September 10, 1937 and am enjoying my second
eyesight. I could not see a thing hardly for some few years, but now I
can read sometimes without glasses. I keep my lawn in first class
shape and work all the time. I think this is 'cause I never was
treated bad during slavery.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
ALLEN V. MANNING
Age 87
Tulsa, Okla.
I always been somewhar in the South, mostly in Texas when I was a
young man, and of course us Negroes never got much of a show in court
matters, but I reckon if I had of had the chance to set on a jury I
would of made a mighty poor out at it.
No sir, I jest can't set in judgement on nobody, 'cause I learned when
I was jest a little boy that good people and bad people--makes no
difference which--jest keep on living and doing like they been taught,
and I jest can't seem to blame them none for what they do iffen they
been taught that way.
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