Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

V >> Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma

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Mary says a preacher wedding is the best but Master say he can marry
them just as good. There wasn't no Bible, just an old Almanac. Master
White read something out of that. That's all and they was married. The
wedding was over!

Every night he gets a leave paper from his Master and come over to be
with his wife, Mary. The next morning he leaves her to work in the
fields. Then one night Mammy says he don't come home. The next night
is the same, and the next. From then on Mammy don't see him no
more--never find out what happen to my pappy.

When I was born Mammy named me John, John White. She tells me I was
the blackest 'white' boy she ever see. I stays with her till I was
eleven year old. The Master wrote down in the book when I was born,
April 10, 1816, and I know it's right. Mammy told me so, and Master
told me when I was eleven and he sold me to Sarah Davenport.

Mistress Sarah lived in Texas. Master White always selling and trading
to folks all over the country. I hates to leave on account of Mammy
and the good way Master White fared the slaves--they was good people.
Mammy cry but I has to go just the same. The tears are on my face a
long time after the leaving. I was hoping all the time to see Mammy
again, but that's the last time.

We travels and travels on the stage coach. Once we cross the Big River
(Mississippi) on the boat and pick up with the horses on the other
side. A new outfit and we rides some more. Seems like we going to wear
out all the horses before we gets to the place.

The Davenport plantation was way north of Linden, Texas, up in the Red
River country. That's where I stayed for thirty-eight year. There I
was drug through the hackles by the meanest master that ever lived.
The Mistress was the best white woman I ever knew but Master Presley
used his whip all the time, reason or no reason, and I got scars to
remember by!

I remembers the house. A heavy log house with a gallery clear across
the front. The kitchen was back of the house. I work in there and I
live in there. It wasn't built so good as the Master's house. The cold
winds in the winter go through the cracks between the logs like the
walls was somewheres else, and I shivers with the misery all the time.

The cooking got to be my job. The washing too. Washday come around
and I fills the tub with clothes. Puts the tub on my head and walks
half a mile to the spring where I washes the clothes. Sometimes I run
out of soap. Then I make ash soap right by the spring. I learns to be
careful about streaks in the clothes. I learns by the bull whip. One
day the Master finds a soapy streak in his shirt. Then he finds me.

The Military Road goes by the place and the Master drives me down the
road and ties me to a tree. First he tears off the old shirt and then
he throws the bull whip to me. When he is tired of beating me more
torture is a-coming. The salt water cure. It don't cure nothing but
that's what the white folks called it. "Here's at you," the Master
say, and slap the salt water into the bleeding cuts. "Here's at you!"
The blisters burst every time he slap me with the brine.

Then I was loosened to stagger back into the kitchen. The Mistress
couldn't do nothing about it 'cept to lay on the grease thick, with a
kind word to help stop the misery.

Ration time was Saturday night. Every slave get enough fat pork, corn
meal and such to last out the week. I reckon the Master figure it to
the last bite because they was no leavings over. Most likely the
shortage catch them!

Sometimes they'd borrow, sometimes I'd slip somethings from out the
kitchen. The single women folks was bad that way. I favors them with
something extra from the kitchen. Then they favors me--at night when
the overseer thinks everybody asleep in they own places!

I was always back to my kitchen bed long before the overseer give the
get-up-knock. I hear the knock, he hear me answer. Then he blow the
horn and shout the loud call, ARE YOU UP, and everybody know it was
four o'clock and pour out of the cabins ready for the chores.

Sometimes the white folks go around the slave quarters for the night.
Not on the Davenport plantation, but some others close around. The
slaves talked about it amongst themselves.

After a while they'd be a new baby. Yellow. When the child got old
enough for chore work the master would sell him (or her). No
difference was it his own flesh and blood--if the price was right!

I traffic with lots of the women, but never marries. Not even when I
was free after the War. I sees too many married troubles to mess up
with such doings!

Sometimes the master sent me alone to the grinding mill. Load in the
yellow corn, hitch in the oxen, I was ready to go. I gets me fixed up
with a pass and takes to the road.

That was the trip I like best. On the way was a still. Off in the
bresh. If the still was lonely I stop, not on the way to but on the
way back. Mighty good whiskey, too! Maybe I drinks too much, then I
was sorry.

Not that I swipe the whiskey, just sorry because I gets sick! Then I
figures a woods camp meeting will steady me up and I goes.

The preacher meet me and want to know how is my feelings. I says I is
low with the misery and he say to join up with the Lord.

I never join because he don't talk about the Lord. Just about the
Master and Mistress. How the slaves must obey around the
plantation--how the white folks know what is good for the slaves.
Nothing about obeying the Lord and working for him.

I reckon the old preacher was worrying more about the bull whip than
he was the Bible, else he say something about the Lord! But I always
obeys the Lord--that's why I is still living!

The slaves would pray for to get out of bondage. Some of them say the
Lord told them to run away. Get to the North. Cross the Red River.
Over there would be folks to guide them to the Free State (Kansas).

The Lord never tell me to run away. I never tried it, maybe, because
mostly they was caught by patrollers and fetched back for a
flogging--and I had whippings enough already!

Before the Civil War was the fighting with Mexico. Some of the troops
on they way south passed on the Military Road. Wasn't any fighting
around Linden or Jefferson during the time.

They was lots of traveling on the Military Road. Most of the time you
could see covered wagons pulled by mules and horses, and sometimes a
crawling string of wagons with oxen on the pulling end.

From up in Arkansas come the stage coach along the road. To San
Antonio. The drivers bring news the Mexicans just about all killed off
and the white folks say Texas was going to join the Union. The
country's going to be run different they say, but I never see no
difference. Maybe, because I ain't white folks.

Wasn't many Mexicans around the old plantation. Come and go. Lots of
Indians. Cherokees and Choctaws. Living in mud huts and cabin shacks.
I never see them bother the whites, it was the other way around.

During the Civil War, when the Red River was bank high with muddy
water, the Yankee's made a target of Jefferson. That was a small town
down south of Linden.

Down the river come a flat barge with cannon fastened to the deck. The
Yankee soldiers stopped across the river from Jefferson and the
shooting started.

When the cannon went to popping the folks went arunning--hard to tell
who run the fastest, the whites or the blacks! Almost the town was
wiped out. Buildings was smashed and big trees cut through with the
cannon balls.

And all the time the Yankee drums was a-beating and the soldiers
singing:

We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree,
As we go marching on!

Before the Civil War everybody had money. The white folks, not the
negroes. Sometimes the master take me to the town stores. They was
full of money. Cigar boxes on the counter, boxes on the shelf, all
filled with money. Not the crinkley paper kind, but hard, jingley gold
and silver! Not like these scarce times!

After the War I stay on the plantation 'til a soldier man tells me of
the freedom. The master never tell us--negroes working just like
before the War.

That's when I leave the first time. Slip off, saying nothing, to
Jefferson. There I found some good white folks going to New Orleans.
First place we go is Shreveport, by wagon. They took me because I fix
up with them to do the cooking.

On to the Big River (Mississippi) and boards a river steamboat for New
Orleans. Lots of negroes going down there--to work on the canal.

The whole town was built on logs covered with dirt. Trying to raise
itself right out of the swamp. Sometimes the water get high and folks
run for the hills. When I got there almost was I ready to leave.

I like Texas the best. Back to Jefferson is where I go. Fifteen-twenty
mile below Linden. Almost the first person I see was Master Davenport.

He says, "Black rascal, you is coming with me." And I do. He tried to
keep his slaves and just laugh when I tell him about the freedom. I
worked for food and quarters 'til his meanness come cropping out
again.

That wasn't long and he threatened me with the whip and the buck and
gag. The buck and gag was maybe worse. I got to feeling that iron
stick in my mouth, fastened around my head with chains, pressing hard
on my tongue. No drinking, no eating, no talking!

So I slip off again. That night I goes through Linden. Crawling on my
hands and knees! Keeping in the dark spots, hiding from the whites,
'til I pass the last house, then my feets hurries me to Jefferson,
where I gets a ride to Arkansas.

In Russelville is where I stop. There I worked around in the yards,
cutting the grass, fancying the flower beds, and earned a little money
for clothes and eats, with some of it spent for good whiskey.

That was the reason I left Arkansas. Whiskey. The law got after me to
tell where was a man's whiskey still. I just leave so's I won't have
to tell.

But while I was making a little money in Russelville, I lose out on
some big money, account some white folks beat me to it.

I was out in the hills west of town, walking along the banks of a
little creek, when I heard a voice. Queer like. I called out who is
that talking and I hears it again.

"Go to the white oak tree and you will find Ninety Thousand Dollars!"
That's what I hear. I look around, nobody in sight, but I see the
tree. A big white oak tree standing taller than all the rest 'round
about.

Under the tree was a grave. An old grave. I scratch around but finds
no money and thinks of getting some help.

I done some work for a white man in town and told him about the voice.
He promised to go with me, but the next day he took two white mens and
dug around the tree. Then he says they was nothing to find.

To this day I know better. I know wherever they's a ghost, money is
around someplace! That's what the ghost comes back for.

Somebody dies and leaves buried money. The ghost watches over it 'til
it sees somebody it likes. Then ghost shows himself--lets know he's
around. Sometimes the ghost tells where is the money buried, like that
time at Russelville.

That ain't the only ghost I've seen or heard. I see one around the
yard where I is living now. A woman. Some of these times she'll tell
me where the buried money is.

Maybe the ghost woman thinks I is too old to dig. But I been a-digging
all these long years. For a bite to eat and a sleep-under cover.

I reckon pretty soon she's going to tell where to dig. When she does,
then old Uncle John won't have to dig for the eats no more!

[Illustration: Charley Williams and Granddaughter]

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

CHARLEY WILLIAMS
Age 94 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.

Iffen I could see better out'n my old eyes, and I had me something to
work with and de feebleness in my back and head would let me 'lone, I
would have me plenty to eat in de kitchen all de time, and plenty
tobaccy in my pipe, too, bless God!

And dey wouldn't be no rain trickling through de holes in de roof, and
no planks all fell out'n de flo' on de gallery neither, 'cause dis one
old nigger knows everything about making all he need to git along! Old
Master done showed him how to git along in dis world, jest as long as
he live on a plantation, but living in de town is a different way of
living, and all you got to have is a silver dime to lay down for
everything you want, and I don't git de dime very often.

But I aint give up! Nothing like dat! On de days when I don't feel so
feeble and trembly I jest keep patching 'round de place. I got to keep
patching so as to keep it whar it will hold de winter out, in case I
git to see another winter.

Iffen I don't, it don't grieve me none, 'cause I wants to see old
Master again anyways. I reckon maybe I'll jest go up an ask him what
he want me to do, and he'll tell me, and iffen I don't know how he'll
show me how, and I'll try to do it to please him. And when I git it
done I wants to hear him grumble like he used to and say, "Charley,
you ain't got no sense but you is a good boy. Dis here ain't very good
but it'll do, I reckon. Git yourself a little piece o' dat brown
sugar, but don't let no niggers see you eating it--if you do I'll whup
your black behind!"

Dat ain't de way it going be in Heaven, I reckon, but I can't set here
on dis old rottendy gallery and think of no way I better like to have
it!

I was a great big hulking buck of a boy when de War come along and
bust up everything, and I can 'member back when everybody was living
peaceful and happy, and nobody never had no notion about no war.

I was borned on the 'leventh of January, in 1843, and was old enough
to vote when I got my freedom, but I didn't take no stock in all dat
politics and goings on at dat time, and I didn't vote till a long time
after old Master passed away, but I was big enough before de War to
remember everything pretty plain.

Old Master name was John Williams, and old Mistress name was Miss
Betty, and she was a Campbell before she married. Young Missy was
named Betty after her mommy, and Young Master was named Frank, but I
don't know who after. Our overseer was Mr. Simmons, and he was mighty
smart and had a lot of patience, but he wouldn't take no talk nor
foolishness. He didn't whup nobody very often, but he only had to whup
'em jest one time! He never did whup a nigger at de time the nigger
done something, but he would wait till evening and have old Master
come and watch him do it. He never whupped very hard 'cept when he had
told a nigger about something and promised a whupping next time and
the nigger done it again. Then that nigger got what he had been
hearing 'bout!

De plantation was about as big as any. I think it had about three
hundred acres, and it was about two miles northwest of Monroe,
Louisiana. Then he had another one not so big, two--three miles south
of the big one, kind of down in the woodsy part along the White river
bottoms. He had another overseer on that place and a big passel of
niggers, but I never did go down to that one. That was where he raised
most of his corn and shoats, and lots of sorghum cane.

Our plantation was up on higher ground, and it was more open country,
but still they was lots of woods all around and lots of the
plantations had been whacked right out of de new ground and was full
of stumps. Master's place was more open, though, and all in the fields
was good plowing.

The big road runned right along past our plantation, and it come from
Shreveport and run into Monroe. There wasn't any town at Monroe in
them days, jest a little cross roads place with a general store and a
big hide house. I think there was about two big hide houses, and you
could smell that place a mile before you got into it. Old Master had a
part in de store, I think.

De hide houses was jest long sheds, all open along de sides and
kivered over wid cypress clapboards.

Down below de hide houses and de store was jest a little settlement of
one or two houses, but they was a school for white boys. Somebody said
there was a place where they had been an old fort, but I never did see
it.

Everything boughten we got come from Shreveport, and was brung in by
the stage and the freighters, and that was only a little coffee or
gunpowder, or some needles for the sewing, or some strap iron for the
blacksmith, or something like dat. We made and raised everything else
we needed right on the place.

I never did even see any quinine till after I was free. My mammy
knowed jest what root to go out and pull up to knock de chills right
out'n me. And de bellyache and de running off de same way, too.

Our plantation was a lot different from some I seen other places, like
way east of there, around Vicksburg. Some of them was fixed up fancier
but dey didn't have no more comforts than we had.

Old Master come out into that country when he was a young man, and
they didn't have even so much then as they had when I was a boy. I
think he come from Alabama or Tennessee, and way back his people had
come from Virginia, or maybe North Carolina, 'cause he knowed all
about tobacco on the place. Cotton and tobacco was de long crops on
his big place, and of course lots of horses and cattle and mules.

De big house was made out'n square hewed logs, and chinked wid little
rocks and daubed wid white clay, and kivered wid cypress clapboards. I
remember one time we put on a new roof, and de niggers hauled up de
cypress logs and sawed dem and frowed out de clapboards by hand.

De house had two setting rooms on one side and a big kitchen room on
de other, wid a wide passage in between, and den about was de sleeping
rooms. They wasn't no stairways 'cepting on de outside. Steps run up
to de sleeping rooms on one side from de passageway and on de other
side from clean outside de house. Jest one big chimbley was all he
had, and it was on de kitchen end, and we done all de cooking in a
fireplace dat was purty nigh as wide as de whole room.

In de sleeping rooms day wasn't no fires 'cepting in brazers made out
of clay, and we toted up charcoal to burn in 'em when it was cold
mornings in de winter. Dey kept warm wide de bed clothes and de
knitten clothes dey had.

Master never did make a big gallery on de house, but our white folks
would set out in de yard under de big trees in de shade. They was long
benches made out'n hewed logs and all padded wid gray moss and corn
shuck padding, and dey set pretty soft. All de furniture in de house
was home-made, too. De beds had square posts as big around as my shank
and de frame was mortised into 'em, and holes bored in de frame and
home-made rope laced in to make it springy. Den a great big mattress
full of goose feathers and two--three comforts as thick as my foot wid
carded wool inside! Dey didn't need no fireplaces!

De quarters was a little piece from de big house, and dey run along
both sides of de road dat go to de fields. All one-room log cabins,
but dey was good and warm, and every one had a little open shed at de
side whar we sleep in de summer to keep cool.

They was two or three wells at de quarters for water, and some good
springs in de branch at de back of de fields. You could ketch a fish
now and den in dat branch, but Young Master used to do his fishing in
White River, and take a nigger or two along to do de work at his camp.

It wasn't very fancy at de Big House, but it was mighty pretty jest de
same, wid de gray moss hanging from de big trees, and de cool green
grass all over de yard, and I can shet my old eyes and see it jest
like it was before de War come along and bust it up.

I can see old Master setting out under a big tree smoking one of his
long cheroots his tobacco nigger made by hand, and fanning hisself wid
his big wide hat another nigger platted out'n young inside corn shucks
for him, and I can hear him holler at a big bunch of white geeses
what's gitting in his flower beds and see 'em string off behind de old
gander towards de big road.

When de day begin to crack de whole plantation break out wid all kinds
of noises, and you could tell what going on by de kind of noise you
hear.

Come de daybreak you hear de guinea fowls start potracking down at de
edge of de woods lot, and den de roosters all start up 'round de barn
and de ducks finally wake up and jine in. You can smell de sow belly
frying down at the cabins in de "row", to go wid de hoecake and de
buttermilk.

Den purty soon de wind rise a little, and you can hear a old bell
donging way on some plantation a mile or two off, and den more bells
at other places and maybe a horn, and purty soon younder go old
Master's old ram horn wid a long toot and den some short toots, and
here come de overseer down de row of cabins, hollering right and left,
and picking de ham out'n his teeth wid a long shiny goose quill pick.

Bells and horns! Bells for dis and horns for dat! All we knowed was go
and come by de bells and horns!

Old ram horn blow to send us all to de field. We all line up, about
seventy-five field niggers, and go by de tool shed and git our hoes,
or maybe go hitch up de mules to de plows and lay de plows out on de
side so de overseer can see iffen de points is shart. Any plow gits
broke or de point gits bungled up on de rocks it goes to de blacksmith
nigger, den we all git on down in de field.

Den de anvil start dangling in de blacksmith shop: "Tank! Deling-ding!
Tank! Deling-ding!", and dat ole bull tongue gitting straightened out!

Course you can't hear de shoemaker awling and pegging, and de card
spinners, and de old mammy sewing by hand, but maybe you can hear de
old loom going "frump, frump", and you know it all right iffen your
clothes do be wearing out, 'cause you gwine git new britches purty
soon!

We had about a hundred niggers on dat place, young and old, and about
twenty on de little place down below. We could make about every kind
of thing but coffee and gunpowder dat our whitefolks and us needed.

When we needs a hat we gits inside cornshucks and weave one out, and
makes horse collars de same way. Jest tie two little soft shucks
together and begin plaiting.

All de cloth 'cepting de Mistress' Sunday dresses come from de sheep
to de carders and de spinners and de weaver, den we dye it wid
"butternut" and hickory bark and indigo and other things and set it
wid copperas. Leather tanned on de place made de shoes, and I never
see a store boughten wagon wheel 'cepting among de stages and de
freighters along de big road.

We made purty, long back-combs out'n cow horn, and knitting needles
out'n second hickory. Split a young hickory and put in a big wedge to
prize it open, then cut it down and let it season, and you got good
bent grain for wagon hames and chair rockers and such.

It was jest like dat until I was grown, and den one day come a
neighbor man and say we in de War.

Little while young Master Frank ride over to Vicksburg and jine de
Sesesh army, but old Master jest go on lak nothing happen, and we all
don't hear nothing more until long come some Sesesh soldiers and take
most old Master's hosses and all his wagons.

I bin working on de tobacco, and when I come back to de barns
everything was gone. I would go into de woods and git good hickory and
burn it till it was all coals and put it out wid water to make hickory
charcoal for curing de tobacco. I had me some charcoal in de fire
trenches under de curing houses, all full of new tobacco, and overseer
come and say bundle all de tobacco up and he going take it to
Shreveport and sell it befo' de soldiers take it too.

After de hosses all gone and most de cattle and de cotton and de
tobacco gone too, here come de Yankees and spread out all over de
whole country. Dey had a big camp down below our plantation.

One evening a big bunch of Yankee officers come up to de Big House and
old Master set out de brandy in de yard and dey act purty nice. Next
day de whole bunch leave on out of dat part.

When de hosses and stuff all go old Master sold all de slaves but
about four, but he kept my pappy and mammy and my brother Jimmie and
my sister Betty. She was named after old Mistress. Pappy's name was
Charley and mammy's was Sally. De niggers he kept didn't have much
work without any hosses and wagons, but de blacksmith started in
fixing up more wagons and he kept them hid in de woods till they was
all fixed.

Den along come some more Yankees, and dey tore everything we had up,
and old Master was afeared to shoot at them on account his womenfolks,
so he tried to sneak the fambly out but they kotched him and brung him
back to de plantation.

We niggers didn't know dat he was gone until we seen de Yankees
bringing dem back. De Yankees had done took charge of everything and
was camping in de big yard, and us was all down at de quarters scared
to death, but dey was jest letting us alone.

It was night when de white folks tried to go away, and still night
when de Yankees brung dem back, and a house nigger come down to de
quarters wid three--four mens in blue clothes and told us to come up
to de Big House.

De Yankees didn't seem to be mad wid old Master, but jest laughed and
talked wid him, but he didn't take de jokes any too good.

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