Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

V >> Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

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All the slaves was piled in together and some of the grown ones
walking, and they took us way down across the big river and kept us in
the bottoms a long time until the War was over.

We lived in a kind of a camp, but I was too little to know where they
got the grub to feed us with. Most all the Negro men was off somewhere
in the War.

Then one day they had to bust up the camp and some Federal soldiers go
with us and we all start back home. We git to a place where all the
houses is burned down and I ask what is that place. Miss Hannah say:
"Skullyville, child. That's where they had part of the War."

All the slaves was set out when we git to Fort Gibson, and the
soldiers say we all free now. They give us grub and clothes to the
Negroes at that place. It wasn't no town but a fort place and a patch
of big trees.

Miss Hannah take me to her place and I work there until I was grown. I
didn't git any money that I seen, but I got a good place to stay.

Pretty soon I married Ran Lovely and we lived in a double log house
here at Fort Gibson. Then my second husband was Henry Richardson, but
he's been dead for years, too. We had six children, but they all dead
but one.

I didn't want slavery to be over with, mostly because we had the War I
reckon. All that trouble made me the loss of my mammy and pappy, and I
was always treated good when I was a slave. When it was over I had
rather be at home like I was. None of the Cherokees ever whipped us,
and my mistress give me some mighty fine rules to live by to git along
in this world, too.

The Cherokee didn't have no jail for Negroes and no jail for
themselves either. If a man done a crime he come back to take his
punishment without being locked up.

None of the Negroes ran away when I was a child that I know of. We all
had plenty to eat. The Negroes didn't have no school and so I can't
read and write, but they did have a school after the War, I hear. But
we had a church made out of a brush arbor and we would sing good songs
in Cherokee sometimes.

I always got Sunday off to play, and at night I could go git a piece
of sugar or something to eat before I went to bed and Mistress didn't
care.

We played bread-and-butter and the boys played hide the switch. The
one found the switch got to whip the one he wanted to.

When I got sick they give me some kind of tea from weeds, and if I et
too many roasting ears and swole up they biled gourds and give me the
liquor off'n them to make me throw up.

I've been a good church-goer all my life until I git too feeble, and I
still understand and talk Cherokee language and love to hear songs and
parts of the Bible in it because it make me think about the time I was
a little girl before my mammy and pappy leave me.

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

RED RICHARDSON
Age 75 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

I was born July 21, 1862, at Grimes County, Texas. Smith Richardson
was my father's name, and Eliza Richardson my mother's. My father came
from Virginia. My mother she was born in Texas.

We lived in so many places round there I can't tell jest what, but we
lived in a log house most of the time. We slept on the flo' on pallets
on one quilt. We ate cornbread, beans, vegetables, and got to drink
plenty milk. We ate rabbits, fish, possums and such as that but we
didn't get no chicken. I don't have no fav'rite food, I don't guess.

We wore shirts, long shirts slit up the side. I didn't know what pants
was until I was 14. In Grimes County it ain't even cold these days,
and I never wore no shoes. I married in a suit made of broad cloth. It
had a tail on the coat.

Master Ben Hadley, and Mistress Minnie Hadley, they had three sons:
Josh, Henry and Charley. Didn't have no overseer. We had to call all
white folks, poor or rich, Mr. Master and Mistress. Master Hadley
owned 'bout 2,000 acres. He had a big number of slaves. They used to
wake 'em up early in the mornings by ringing a large bell. They said
they used to whip 'em, drive 'em, and sell 'em away from their
chillun,--I'd hear my old folks talk about it. Say they wasn't no such
a thing as going to jail. The master stood good for anything his
nigger done. If the master's nigger killed 'im another nigger, the old
master stood good.

They never had no schools for the Negro chillun. I can't remember the
date of the first school--its in a book someplace--but anyway I went
to one of the first schools that was established for the education of
Negro chillun.

You know Mr. Negro always was a church man, but he don't mean nothing.
I don't have no fav'rite spiritual. All of them's good ones. Whenever
they'd baptise they'd sing:

"Harp From the Tune the Domeful Sound."

Which starts like this:

"Come live in man and view this ground
where we must sho'ly lie."

I'm a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church myself, and I think all
people should be religious 'cause Jesus died for us all.

The patrollers used to run after me but I'd jump 'em. They used to
have a permit to go from one plantation to another. You had to go to
old master and say, "I want to go to such and such a place." And if
you had a permit they didn't bother you. The pateroller would stop you
and say, "Where you going? You got a permit to go to such and such a
place?" You'd say, yes suh, and show that pass. Den he wouldn't bother
you and iffen he did old master would git on 'em.

When 10 o'clock come which was bed time the slaves would go to their
cabins and some of 'em would go stealing chickens, hogs, steal sweet
potatoes, and cook and eat 'em. Jest git in to all kind of devilment.

Old master would give 'em Sadday afternoon off, and they'd have them
Sadday night breakdowns. We played a few games such as marbles, mumble
peg, and cards--jest anything to pass off the time. Heahs one of the
games we'd play an' I sho did like it too:

She is my sweetheart as I stand,
Come and stand beside of me,
Kiss her sweet and;
Hug her near.

On Christmas they'd make egg nog, drink whiskey and kiss their girls.

Some wore charms to ward off the devil, but I don't believe in such.
I do believe in voodoo like this: People can put propositions up to
you and fool you. Don't believe in ghost. Tried to see 'em but I never
could.

Old master didn't turn my father loose and tell 'em we was free. They
didn't turn us loose 'til they got the second threat from President
Lincoln. Good old Lincoln; they wasn't nothing like 'im. Booker T.
Washington was one of the finest Negro Educators in the world, but old
Jefferson Davis was against the cullud man.

I think since slavery is all over, it has been a benefit to the cullud
man. He's got more freedom now.

Oklahoma Writer's Project
Ex-Slaves

BETTY ROBERTSON
Age 93 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma

I was born close to Webber's Falls, in the Canadian District of the
Cherokee Nation, in the same year that my pappy was blowed up and
killed in the big boat accident that killed my old Master.

I never did see my daddy excepting when I was a baby and I only know
what my mammy told me about him. He come from across the water when he
was a little boy, and was grown when old Master Joseph Vann bought
him, so he never did learn to talk much Cherokee. My mammy was a
Cherokee slave, and talked it good. My husband was a Cherokee born
negro, too, and when he got mad he forgit all the English he knowed.

Old Master Joe had a mighty big farm and several families of negroes,
and he was a powerful rich man. Pappy's name was Kalet Vann, and
mammy's name was Sally. My brothers was name Sone and Frank. I had one
brother and one sister sold when I was little and I don't remember the
names. My other sisters was Polly, Ruth and Liddie. I had to work in
the kitchen when I was a gal, and they was ten or twelve children
smaller than me for me to look after, too. Sometime Young Master Joe
and the other boys give me a piece of money and say I worked for it,
and I reckon I did for I have to cook five or six times a day. Some of
the Master's family was always going down to the river and back, and
every time they come in I have to fix something to eat. Old Mistress
had a good cookin' stove, but most Cherokees had only a big fireplace
and pot hooks. We had meat, bread, rice, potatoes and plenty of fish
and chicken. The spring time give us plenty of green corn and beans
too. I couldn't buy anything in slavery time, so I jest give the piece
of money to the Vann children. I got all the clothes I need from old
Mistress, and in winter I had high top shoes with brass caps on the
toe. In the summer I wear them on Sunday, too. I wore loom cloth
clothes, dyed in copperas what the old negro women and the old
Cherokee women made.

The slaves had a pretty easy time I think. Young Master Vann never
very hard on us and he never whupped us, and old Mistress was a widow
woman and a good Christian and always kind. I sure did love her. Maybe
old Master Joe Vann was harder, I don't know, but that was before my
time. Young Master never whip his slaves, but if they don't mind good
he sell them off sometimes. He sold one of my brothers and one sister
because they kept running off. They wasn't very big either, but one
day two Cherokees rode up and talked a long time, then young Master
came to the cabin and said they were sold because mammy couldn't make
them mind him. They got on the horses behind the men and went off.

Old Master Joe had a big steam boat he called the Lucy Walker, and he
run it up and down the Arkansas and the Mississippi and the Ohio
river, old Mistress say. He went clean to Louisville, Kentucky, and
back. My pappy was a kind of a boss of the negroes that run the boat,
and they all belong to old Master Joe. Some had been in a big run-away
and had been brung back, and wasn't so good, so he keep them on the
boat all the time mostly. Mistress say old Master and my pappy on the
boat somewhere close to Louisville and the boiler bust and tear the
boat up. Some niggers say my pappy kept hollering, "Run it to the
bank! Run it to the bank!" but it sunk and him and old Master died.

Old Master Joe was a big man in the Cherokees, I hear, and was good to
his negroes before I was born. My pappy run away one time, four or
five years before I was born, mammy tell me, and at that time a whole
lot of Cherokee slaves run off at once. They got over in the Creek
country and stood off the Cherokee officers that went to git them,
but pretty soon they give up and come home. Mammy say they was lots of
excitement on old Master's place and all the negroes mighty scared,
but he didn't sell my pappy off. He jest kept him and he was a good
negro after that. He had to work on the boat, though, and never got to
come home but once in a long while.

Young Master Joe let us have singing and be baptized if we want to,
but I wasn't baptized till after the War. But we couldn't learn to
read or have a book, and the Cherokee folks was afraid to tell us
about the letters and figgers because they have a law you go to jail
and a big fine if you show a slave about the letters.

When the War come they have a big battle away west of us, but I never
see any battles. Lots of soldiers around all the time though.

One day young Master come to the cabins and say we all free and can't
stay there less'n we want to go on working for him just like we'd
been, for our feed and clothes. Mammy got a wagon and we traveled
around a few days and go to Fort Gibson. When we git to Fort Gibson
they was a lot of negroes there, and they had a camp meeting and I was
baptized. It was in the Grand River close to the ford, and winter
time. Snow on the ground and the water was muddy and all full of
pieces of ice. The place was all woods, and the Cherokees and the
soldiers all come down to see the baptizing.

We settled down a little ways above Fort Gibson. Mammy had the wagon
and two oxen, and we worked a good size patch there until she died,
and then I git married to Cal Robertson to have somebody to take care
of me. Cal Robertson was eighty-nine years old when I married him
forty years ago, right on this porch. I had on my old clothes for the
wedding, and I aint had any good clothes since I was a little slave
girl. Then I had clean warm clothes and I had to keep them clean, too!

I got my allotment as a Cherokee Freedman, and so did Cal, but we
lived here at this place because we was too old to work the land
ourselves. In slavery time the Cherokee negroes do like anybody else
when they is a death--jest listen to a chapter in the Bible and all
cry. We had a good song I remember. It was "Don't Call the Roll,
Jesus, Because I'm Coming Home." The only song I remember from the
soldiers was: "Hang Jeff Davis to a Sour Apple Tree", and I remember
that because they said he used to be at Fort Gibson one time. I don't
know what he done after that.

I don't know about Robert Lee, but I know about Lee's Creek.

I been a good Christian ever since I was baptized, but I keep a little
charm here on my neck anyways, to keep me from having the nose bleed.
Its got a buckeye and a lead bullet in it. I had a silver dime on it,
too, for a long time, but I took it off and got me a box of snuff. I'm
glad the War's over and I am free to meet God like anybody else, and
my grandchildren can learn to read and write.

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 18 1937]

HARRIET ROBINSON
Age 95 yrs.
500 Block N. Fonshill
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

I was born September 1, 1842, in Bastrop, Texas, on Colorado River. My
pappy was named Harvey Wheeler and my mammy was named Carolina Sims.
My brothers and sisters was named Alex, Taylor, Mary, Cicero,
Tennessee, Sarah, Jeff, Ella and Nora. We lived in cedar log houses
with dirt floors and double chimneys, and doors hung on wooden hinges.
One side of our beds was bored in the walls and had one leg on the
other. Them white folks give each nigger family a blanket in winter.

I nussed 3 white chillun, Lulu, Helen Augusta, and Lola Sims. I done
this before that War that set us free. We kids use to make extra money
by toting gravel in our aprons. They'd give us dimes and silver
nickles.

Our clothes was wool and cotton mixed. We had red rustic shoes, soles
one-half inch thick. They'd go a-whick a-whack. The mens had pants wid
one seam and a right-hand pocket. Boys wore shirts.

We ate hominy, mush, grits and pone bread for the most part. Many of
them ate out of one tray with wooden spoons. All vittles for field
hands was fixed together.

Women broke in mules throwed 'em down and roped 'em. They'd do it
better'n men. While mammy made some hominy one day both my foots was
scalded and when they clipped them blisters, they jest put some cotton
round them and catched all dat yellow water and made me a yellow dress
out of it. This was 'way back yonder in slavery, before the War.

Whenever white folks had a baby born den all de old niggers had to
come thoo the room and the master would be over 'hind the bed and he'd
say, "Here's a new little mistress or master you got to work for."
You had to say, "Yessuh Master" and bow real low or the overseer would
crack you. Them was slavery days, dog days.

I remember in slavery time we had stages. Them devilish things had
jest as many wrecks as cars do today. Only thing, we jest didn't have
as many.

My mammy belonged to Master Colonel Sam Sims and his old mean wife
Julia. My pappy belonged to Master Meke Smith and his good wife
Harriett. She was sho' a good woman. I was named after her. Master Sam
and Master Meke was partners. Ever year them rich men would send so
many wagons to New Mexico for different things. It took 6 months to go
and come.

Slaves was punished by whip and starving. Decker was sho' a mean
slave-holder. He lived close to us. Master Sam didn't never whip me,
but Miss Julia whipped me every day in the mawning. During the war she
beat us so terrible. She say, "Your master's out fighting and losing
blood trying to save you from them Yankees, so you kin git your'n
here." Miss Julia would take me by my ears and butt my head against
the wall. She wanted to whip my mother, but old Master told her, naw
sir. When his father done give my mammy to Master Sam, he told him not
to beat her, and iffen he got to whar he jest had to, jest bring her
back and place her in his yard from whar he got her.

White folks didn't 'low you to read or write. Them what did know come
from Virginny. Mistress Julia used to drill her chillun in spelling
any words. At every word them chillun missed, she gived me a lick
'cross the head for it. Meanest woman I ever seen in my whole life.

This skin I got now, it ain't my first skin. That was burnt off when I
was a little child. Mistress used to have a fire made on the
fireplace and she made me scour the brass round it and my skin jest
blistered. I jest had to keep pulling it off'n me.

We didn't had no church, though my pappy was a preacher. He preached
in the quarters. Our baptizing song was "On Jordan's Stormy Bank I
stand" and "Hark From The Tomb." Now all dat was before the War. We
had all our funerals at the graveyard. Everybody, chillun and all
picked up a clod of dirt and throwed in on top the coffin to help fill
up the grave.

Taling 'bout niggers running away, didn't my step-pappy run away?
Didn't my uncle Gabe run away? The frost would jest bite they toes
most nigh off too, whiles they was gone. They put Uncle Isom (my
step-pappy) in jail and while's he was in there he killed a white
guardman. Then they put in the paper, "A nigger to kill", and our
Master seen it and bought him. He was a double-strengthed man, he was
so strong. He'd run off so help you God. They had the blood hounds
after him once and he caught the hound what was leading and beat the
rest of the dogs. The white folks run up on him before he knowed it
and made them dogs eat his ear plumb out. But don't you know he got
away anyhow. One morning I was sweeping out the hall in the big house
and somebody come a-knocking on the front door and I goes to the door.
There was Uncle Isom wid rags all on his head. He said, "Tell ole
master heah I am." I goes to Master's door and says, "Master Colonel
Sam, Uncle Isom said heah he am." He say, "Go 'round to the kitchen
and tell black mammy to give you breakfast." When he was thoo' eating
they give him 300 lashes and, bless my soul, he run off again.

When we went to a party the nigger fiddlers would play a chune dat
went lak this:

I fooled Ole Mastah 7 years
Fooled the overseer three;
Hand me down my banjo
And I'll tickle your bel-lee.

We had the same doctors the white folks had and we wore asafetida and
garlic and onions to keep from taking all them ailments.

I 'member the battle being fit. The white folks buried all the jewelry
and silver and all the gold in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Orange,
Texas. Master made all us niggers come together and git ready to leave
'cause the Yankees was coming. We took a steamer. Now this was in
slavery time, sho' 'nuff slavery. Then we got on a steamship and
pulled out to Galveston. Then he told the captain to feed we niggers.
We was on the bay, not the ocean. We left Galveston and went on trains
for Houston.

One, my sister Liza, was mulatto and Master Colonel Sims' son had 3
chillun by her. We never seen her no more after her last child was
born. I found out though that she was in Canada.

After the War, Master Colonel Sims went to git the mail and so he call
Daniel Ivory, the overseer, and say to him, "Go round to all the
quarters and tell all the niggers to come up, I got a paper to read to
'em. They're free now, so you kin git you another job, 'cause I ain't
got no more niggers which is my own." Niggers come up from the cabins
nappy-headed, jest lak they gwine to the field. Master Colonel Sims
say, "Caroline (that's my mammy), you is free as me. Pa said bring you
back and I'se gwina do jest that. So you go on and work and I'll pay
you and your three oldest chillun $10.00 a month a head and $4.00 fer
Harriet," that's me, and then he turned to the rest and say "Now all
you'uns will receive $10.00 a head till the crops is laid by." Don't
you know before he got half way thoo', over half them niggers was
gone.

Them Klu Klux Klans come and ask for water with the false stomachs and
make lak they was drinking three bucketsful. They done some terrible
things, but God seen it all and marked it down.

We didn't had no law, we had "bureau." Why, in them days iffen
somebody stole anything from you, they had to pay you and not the
Law. Now they done turned that round and you don't git nothing.

One day whiles master was gone hunting, Mistress Julia told her
brother to give Miss Harriett (me) a free whipping. She was a nigger
killer. Master Colonel Sam come home and he said, "You infernal sons
o' bitches don't you know there is 300 Yankees camped out here and
iffen they knowed you'd whipped this nigger the way you done done,
they'd kill all us. Iffen they find it out, I'll kill all you all."
Old rich devils, I'm here, but they is gone.

God choosed Abraham Lincoln to free us. It took one of them to free us
so's they couldn't say nothing.

Doing one 'lection they sung:

Clark et the watermelon
J. D. Giddings et the vine!
Clark gone to Congress
An' J. D. Giddings left behind.

They hung Jeff Davis up a sour apple tree. They say he was a
president, but he wasn't, he was a big senator man.

Booker T. Washington was all right in his way, I guess, but Bruce and
Fred Douglass, or big mens jest sold us back to the white folks.

I married Haywood Telford and had 13 head of chillun by him. My oldest
daughter is the mammy of 14. All my chillun but four done gone to
heaven before me.

I jined the church in Chapel Hill, Texas. I am born of the Spirit of
God sho' nuff. I played with him seven years and would go right on
dancing at Christmas time. Now I got religion. Everybody oughta live
right, though you won't have no friends iffen you do.

Our overseer was a poor man. Had us up before day and lak-a-that. He
was paid to be the head of punishment. I jest didn't like to think of
them old slavery days, dogs' days.

[Illustration: Katie Rowe]

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[HW: (photo)]
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]

KATIE ROWE
Age 88 yrs.
Tulsa, Oklahoma

I can set on de gallery, whar de sunlight shine bright, and sew a
powerful fine seam when my grandchillun wants a special purty dress
for de school doings, but I ain't worth much for nothing else I
reckon.

These same old eyes seen powerful lot of tribulations in my time, and
when I shets 'em now I can see lots of l'il chillun jest lak my
grandchillun, toting hoes bigger dan dey is, and dey pore little black
hands and legs bleeding whar dey scratched by de brambledy weeds, and
whar dey got whuppings 'cause dey didn't git out all de work de
overseer set out for 'em.

I was one of dem little slave gals my own self, and I never seen
nothing but work and tribulations till I was a grown up woman, jest
about.

De niggers had hard traveling on de plantation whar I was born and
raised, 'cause old Master live in town and jest had de overseer on de
place, but iffen he had lived out dar hisself I speck it been as bad,
'cause he was a hard driver his own self.

He git biling mad when de Yankees have dat big battle at Pea Ridge and
scatter de 'Federates all down through our country all bleeding and
tied up and hungry, and he jest mount on his hoss and ride out to de
plantation whar we all hoeing corn.

He ride up and tell old man Saunders--dat de overseer--to bunch us all
up round de lead row man--dat my own uncle Sandy--and den he tell us
de law!

"You niggers been seeing de 'Federate soldiers coming by here looking
purty raggedy and hurt and wore out," he say, "but dat no sign dey
licked!

"Dem Yankees ain't gwine git dis fur, but iffen dey do you all ain't
gwine git free by 'em, 'cause I gwine free you befo' dat. When dey git
here dey going find you already free, 'cause I gwine line you up on de
bank of Bois d' Arc Creek and free you wid my shotgun! Anybody miss
jest one lick wid de hoe, or one step in de line, or one clap of dat
bell, or one toot of de horn, and he gwine be free and talking to de
debil long befo' he ever see a pair of blue britches!"

Dat de way he talk to us, and dat de way he act wid us all de time.

We live in de log quarters on de plantation, not far from Washington,
Arkansas, close to Bois d' Arc Creek, in de edge of de Little River
bottom.

Old Master's name was Dr. Isaac Jones, and he live in de town, whar he
keep four, five house niggers, but he have about 200 on de plantation,
big and little, and old man Saunders oversee 'em at de time of de War.
Old Mistress name was Betty, and she had a daughter name Betty about
grown, and then they was three boys, Tom, Bryan, and Bob, but they was
too young to go to de War. I never did see 'em but once or twice 'til
after de War.

Old Master didn't go to de War, 'cause he was a doctor and de onliest
one left in Washington, and purty soon he was dead anyhow.

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