Slave Narratives, Oklahoma
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Various >> Slave Narratives, Oklahoma
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My mother was the cook in the Big House. They'd give us pot likker
with bread crumbs in it. Sometimes meat, jest sometimes, very seldom.
I liked black-eyed peas and still do till now. We lived in
weatherboard house. Our parents had corded-up beds with ropes and us
chillun slept on the floor for most part or in a hole bored in a log.
Our house had one window jest big enough to stick your head out of,
and one door, and this one door faced the Big House which was your
master's house. This was so that you couldn't git out 'less somebody
seen you.
My job was picking up chips and keeping the calves and cows separate
so that the calves wouldn't suck the cows dry. Mostly, we had Saturday
afternoons off to wash. I was show boy doing [HW: during] the war, me
and my sister, 'cause we was twins. My mother couldn't be bought
'cause she done had 9 boys for one farm and neither my father, 'cause
he was the father of 'em. I was religious and didn't play much, but I
sho' did like to listen to preachings. I did used to play marbles
sometimes.
We jest wore shirts and nothing else both winter and summer. They was
a little heavier in winter and that's all. No shoes ever. I had none
till after I was set free. I guess I was almost 12 years old then.
The overseer on our place was a large tall, black man. We had plenty
poor white neighbors. They was one of our biggest troubles. They'd
allus look in our window and door all the time.
I saw slaves sold. I can see that old block now. My cousin Eliza was a
pretty girl, really good looking. Her master was her father. When the
girls in the big house had beaux coming to see 'em, they'd ask, "Who
is that pretty gal?" So they decided to git rid of her right away. The
day they sold her will allus be remembered. They stripped her to be
bid off and looked at. I wasn't allowed to stand in the crowd. I was
laying down under a fig brush. The man that bought Eliza was from New
York. The Negroes had made up nuff money to buy her off theyself, but
they wouldn't let that happen. There was a man bidding for her who was
a Swedeland. He allus bid for the good looking cullud gals and bought
'em for his own use. He ask the man from New York, "Whut you gonna do
with her when you git 'er?" The man from New York said, "None of your
damn business, but you ain't got money nuff to buy 'er." When the man
from New York had done bought her, he said, "Eliza, you are free from
now on." She left and went to New York with him. Mama and Eliza both
cried when she was being showed off, and master told 'em to shet up
before he knocked they brains out.
Iffen you didn't do nothing wrong, they whipped you now and then
anyhow. I called a boy Johnny once and he took me 'hind the garden and
poured it on me and made me call him master. It was from then on I
started to fear the white man. I come to think of him as a bear.
Sometimes fellows would be a little late making it in and they got
whipped with a cow-hide. The same man whut whipped me to make me call
him master, well, he whipped my mamma. He tied her to a tree and beat
her unmerciful and cut her tender parts. I don't know why he tied her
to that tree.
The first time you was caught trying to read or write, you was whipped
with a cow-hide, the next time with a cat-o-nine tails and the third
time they cut the first jint offen your forefinger. They was very
severe. You most allus got 30 and 9 lashes.
They carried news from one plantation by whut they call relay. Iffen
you was caught, they whipped you till you said, "Oh, pray Master!" One
day a man gitting whipped was saying "Oh pray master, Lord have
mercy!" They'd say "Keep whipping that nigger Goddamn him." He was
whipped till he said, "Oh pray Master, I gotta nuff." Then they said,
"Let him up now, 'cause he's praying to the right man."
My father was the preacher and an educated man. You know the sermon
they give him to preach?--Servant, Obey Your Master. Our favorite
baptizing hymn was On Jordan's Stormy Bank I Stand. My favorite song
is Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen.
Oh, them patrollers! They had a chief and he git'em together and iffen
they caught you without a pass and sometimes with a pass, they'd beat
you. But iffen you had a pass, they had to answer to the law. One old
master had two slaves, brothers, on his place. They was both
preachers. Mitchell was a hardshell Baptist and Andrew was a
Missionary Baptist. One day the patroller chief was rambling thoo' the
place and found some letters writ to Mitchell and Andrew. He went to
the master and said, "Did you know you had some niggers that could
read and write?" Master said, "No, but I might have, who do you
'spect?" The patroller answered, "Mitchell and Andrew." The old master
said, "I never knowed Andrew to tell me a lie 'bout nothing!"
Mitchell was called first and asked could he read and write. He was
scared stiff. He said, "Naw-sir." Andrew was called and asked. He
said, "Yes-sir." He was asked iffen Mitchell could. He said, "Sho',
better'n me." The master told John Arnold, the patroller chief, not to
bother 'em. He gloried in they spunk. When the old master died, he
left all of his niggers a home apiece. We had Ku Klux Klans till the
government sent Federal officers out and put a stop to their ravaging
and sent 'em to Sing Sing.
Doing the war my father was carpenter. His young master come to him
'cause he was a preacher and asked him must he go to the front and my
father told him not to go 'cause he wouldn't make it. He went on jest
the same and when he come back my father had to tote him in the house
'cause he had one leg tore off. The Yankees come thoo', ramshacked
houses, leave poor horses and take fat ones and turn the poor ones in
the corn they left. They took everthing they could. They cussed
niggers who dodged 'em for being fools and make 'em show 'em
everything they knowed whar was.
Our old master was mighty old and him and the women folks cried when
we was freed. He told us we was free as he was.
I come to Oklahoma in 1906. I come out of that riot in 1906. Some
fellow knocked up a colored woman or something and we waded right in
and believe me we made Atlanta a fit place to live in. It is one of
the best cities in America.
I married Miss Emmaline Witt. I carried her to the preacher one of the
coldest nights I ever rid. I have three chillun and don't know how
many grandchillun. My chillun is one a nurse, one in Arizona for his
health and the other doing first one thing and another.
I think Abraham Lincoln was the greatest human being ever been on
earth 'cepting the Apostle Paul. Who any better'n a man who liberated
4,000,000 Negroes? Some said he wasn't a Christian, but he told some
friends once, "I'm going to leave you and may never see you again (and
he didn't) so I'm going to take the Divine Spirit with me and leave it
with you."
Jeff Davis was as bloody as he could be. I don't lak him a'tall. But
you know good things come from enemies. I don't even admire George
Washington. White men from the south that will help the Negro is far
and few between. Booker T. Washington was a great man. He made some
blunders and mistakes, but he was a great man. He is the father of
industrial education and you know that sho' is a great thing.
The white folks was ignorant. You know the better you prepare yourself
the better you act. Iffen they had put some sense in our heads 'stead
of sticks on our heads, we'ud been better off and more benefit to 'em.
I had something from within that made me fear God and taught me how to
pray. People say God don't hear sinners pray, but he do. Everybody
ought to be Christians so not to be lost.
I work in real estate and can do a lot of work. I don't use no
crutches and no cane and walk all the time, never hardly ride. I come
in at 1 and 2 o'clock a. m. and get up between 8 and 9 a. m. 'cept
Sundays, I get up at 7 or 8 a. m. so I can be ready to go to Sunday
School. I cook for my own self all the time too. I am a Baptist and a
member of Tabernacle Baptist Church. I am a trustee in my church too.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 19 1937]
JOANNA DRAPER
Age 83 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.
Most folks can't remember many things happened to 'em when they only
eight years old, but one of my biggest tribulations come about dat
time and I never will forget it! That was when I was took away from my
own mammy and pappy and sent off and bound out to another man, way off
two-three hundred miles away from whar I live. And dat's the last time
I ever see either one of them, or any my own kinfolks!
Whar I was born was at Hazelhurst, Mississippi. Jest a little piece
east of Hazelhurst, close to the Pearl River, and that place was a
kind of new plantation what my Master, Dr. Alexander, bought when he
moved into Mississippi from up in Virginia awhile before the War.
They said my mammy brings me down to Mississippi, and I was born jest
right after she got there. My mammy's name was Margaret, and she was
born under the Ramson's, back in Tennessee. She belonged to Dave
Ramson, and his pappy had come to Tennessee to settle on war land, and
he had knowed Dr. Alexander's people back in Virginia too. My pappy's
name was Addison, and he always belonged to Dr. Alexander. Old doctor
bought my mammy 'cause my pappy liked her. Old doctor live in
Tennessee a little while before he go on down in Mississippi.
Old doctor's wife named Dinah, and she sho' was a good woman, but I
don't remember about old doctor much. He was away all the time, it
seem like.
When I is about six year old they take me into the Big House to learn
to be a house woman, and they show me how to cook and clean up and
take care of babies. That Big House wasn't very fine, but it was
mighty big and cool, and made out of logs with a big hall, but it
didn't have no long gallery like most the houses around there had.
They was lots of big trees in the yard, and most the ground was new
ground 'round that place, 'cause the old Doctor jest started to done
farming on it when I was took away, but he had some more places not so
far away, over towards the river that was old ground and made big
crops for him. I went to one of the places one time, but they wasn't
nobody on 'em but niggers and a white overseer. I don't know how many
niggers old Doctor had, but Master John Deeson say he had about a
hundred.
At old Doctor's house I didn't have to work very hard. Jest had to
help the cooks and peel the potatoes and pick the guineas and chickens
and do things like that. Sometime I had to watch the baby. He was a
little boy, and they would bring him into the kitchen for me to watch.
I had to git up way before daylight and make the fire in the kitchen
fireplace and bring in some fresh water, and go get the milk what been
down in the spring all night, and do things like that until breakfast
ready. Old Master and old Mistress come in the big hall to eat in the
summer, and I stand behind them and shoo off the flies.
Old doctor didn't have no spinning and weaving niggers 'cause he say
they don't do enough work and he buy all the cloth he use for
everybody's clothes. He can do that 'cause he had lots of money. He
was big rich, and he keep a whole lot of hard money in the house all
the time, but none of the slaves know it but me. Sometimes I would
have the baby in the Mistress' room and she would go git three or four
big wood boxes full of hard money for us to play with. I would make
fences out of the money all across the floor, to keep the baby
satisfied, and when he go to sleep I would put the money back in the
boxes. I never did know how much they is, but a whole lot.
Even after the War start old Doctor have that money, and he would
exchange money for people. Sometimes he would go out and be gone a
long time, and come back with a lot more money he got from somewhar.
Right at the first they made him a high officer in the War and he done
doctoring somewhar at a hospital most of the time. But he could go on
both sides of the War, and sometime he would come in at night and
bring old Mistress pretty little things, and I heard him tell her he
got them in the North.
One day I was fanning him and I asked him is he been to the North and
he kick out at me and tell to shut up my black mouth, and it nearly
scared me to death the way he look at me! Nearly every time he been
gone and come in and tell Mistress he been in the North he have a lot
more hard money to put away in them boxes, too!
One evening long come a man and eat supper at the house and stay all
night. He was a nice mannered man, and I like to wait on him. The next
morning I hear him ask old Doctor what is my name, and old Doctor
start in to try to sell me to that man. The man say he can't buy me
'cause old Doctor say he want a thousand dollars, and then old Doctor
say he will bind me out to him.
I run away from the house and went out to the cabin whar my mammy and
pappy was, but they tell me to go on back to the Big House 'cause
maybe I am just scared. But about that time old Doctor and the man
come and old Doctor make me go with the man. We go in his buggy a long
ways off to the South, and after he stop two or three night at peoples
houses and put me out to stay with the niggers he come to his own
house. I ask him how far it is back home and he say about a hundred
miles or more, and laugh, and ask me if I know how far that is.
I wants to know if I can go back to my mammy some time, and he say
"Sho', of course you can, some of these times. You don't belong to me,
Jo, I'se jest your boss and not your master."
He live in a big old rottendy house, but he aint farming none of the
land. Jest as soon as he git home he go off again, and sometimes he
only come in at night for a little while.
His wife's name was Kate and his name was Mr. John. I was there about
a week before I found out they name was Deeson. They had two children,
a girl about my size name Joanna like me, and a little baby boy name
Johnny. One day Mistress Kate tell me I the only nigger they got. I
been thinking maybe they had some somewhar on a plantation, but she
say they aint got no plantation and they aint been at that place very
long either.
That little girl Joanna and me kind of take up together, and she was a
mighty nice mannered little girl, too. Her mammy raised her good. Her
mammy was mighty sickly all the time, and that's the reason they bind
me to do the work.
Mr. John was in some kind of business in the War too, but I never see
him with no soldier clothes on but one time. One night he come in with
them on, but the next morning he come to breakfast in jest his plain
clothes again. Then he go off again.
I sho' had a hard row at that house. It was old and rackady, and I had
to scrub off the staircase and the floors all the time, and git the
breakfast for Mistress Kate and the two children. Then I could have my
own breakfast in the kitchen. Mistress Kate always get the supper,
though.
Some days she go off with the two children and leave me at the house
all day by myself, and I think maybe I run off, but I didn't know whar
to go.
After I been at that place two years Mr. John come home and stay. He
done some kind of trading in Jackson, Mississippi, and he would be
gone three or four days at a time, but I never did know what kind of
trading it was.
About the time he come home to stay I seen the first Ku Klux I ever
seen one night. I was going down the road in the moonlight and I heard
a hog grunting out in the bushes at the side of the road. I jest walk
right on and in a little ways I hear another hog in some more bushes.
This time I stop and listen, and they's another hog grunts across the
road, and about that time two mens dressed up in long white skirts
steps out into the road in front of me! I was so scared the goose
bumps jump up all over me 'cause I didn't know what they is! They
didn't say a word to me, but jest walked on past me and went on back
the way I had come. Then I see two more mens step out of the woods and
I run from that as fast as I can go!
I ast Miss Kate what they is and she say they Ku Klux, and I better
not go walking off down the road any more. I seen them two, three
times after that, though, but they was riding hosses them times.
I stayed at Mr. John's place two more years, and he got so grumpy and
his wife got so mean I make up my mind to run off. I bundle up my
clothes in a little bundle and hide them, and then I wait until Miss
Kate take the children and go off somewhere, and I light out on foot.
I had me a piece of that hard money what Master Dr. Alexander had give
me one time at Christmas. I had kept it all that time and nobody
knowed I had it, not even Joanna. Old Doctor told me it was fifty
dollars, and I thought I could live on it for a while.
I never had been away from that place, not even to another plantation
in all the four years I was with the Deesons, and I didn't know
which-a-way to go, so I jest started west.
I been walking about all evening it seem like, and I come to a little
town with jest a few houses. I see a nigger man and ask him whar I can
git something to eat, and I say I got fifty dollars.
"What you doing wid fifty dollars, child? Where you belong at,
anyhow?" He ask me, and I tell him I belong to Master John Deeson, but
I is running away. I explain that I jest bound out to Mr. John, but
Dr. Alexander my real master, and then that man tell me the first time
I knowed it that I aint a slave no more!
That man Deeson never did tell me, and his wife never did!
Well, dat man asked me about the fifty dollars, and then I found out
that it was jest fifty cents!
I can't begin to tell about all the hard times I had working for
something to eat and roaming around after that. I don't know why I
never did try to git back up around Hazelhurst and hunt up my pappy
and mammy, but I reckon I was jest ignorant and didn't know how to go
about it. Anyways I never did see them no more.
In about three years or a little over I met Bryce Draper on a farm in
Mississippi and we was married. His mammy had had a harder time than I
had. She had five children by a man that belong to her master, Mr.
Bryce and already named one of the boys--that my husband--Bryce after
him, and then he take her in and sell her off away from all her
children!
One was jest a little baby, and the master give it laudanum, but it
didn't die, and he sold her off and lied and said she was a young girl
and didn't have no husband, 'cause the man what bought her said he
didn't want to buy no woman and take her away from a family. That new
master name was Draper.
The last year of the War Mr. Draper die, and his wife already dead,
and he give all his farm to his two slaves and set them free. One of
them slaves was my husband's mammy.
Then right away the whites come and robbed the place of every thing
they could haul off, and run his mammy and the other niggers off! Then
she went and found her boy, that was my husband, and he live with her
until she died, jest before we is married.
We lived in Mississippi a long time, and then we hear about how they
better to the Negroes up in the North, and we go up to Kansas, but
they ain't no better there, and we come down to Indian Territory in
the Creek Nation in 1898, jest as they getting in that Spanish War.
We leased a little farm from the Creek Nation for $15 an acre, but
when they give out the allotments we had to give it up. Then we rent
100 acres from some Indians close to Wagoner, and we farm it all with
my family. We had enough to do it too!
For children we had John and Joe, and Henry, and Jim and Robert and
Will that was big enough to work, and then the girls big enough was
Mary, Nellie, Izora, Dora, and the baby. Dora married Max Colbert. His
people belonged to the Colberts that had Colbert's Crossin' on the Red
River way before the War, and he was a freedman and got allotment.
I lives with Dora now, and we is all happy, and I don't like to talk
about the days of the slavery times, 'cause they never did mean
nothing to me but misery, from the time I was eight years old.
I never will forgive that white man for not telling me I was free, and
not helping me to git back to my mammy and pappy! Lots of white people
done that.
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
MRS. ESTHER EASTER
Age 85 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.
I was born near Memphis, Tenn., on the old Ben Moore plantation, but I
don't know anything about the Old South because Master Ben moves us
all up into Missouri (about 14-miles east of Westport, now Kansas
City), long before they started fighting about slavery.
Mary Collier was my mother's name before she was a Moore. About my
father, I dunno. Mammy was sickly most of the time when I was a baby,
and she was so thin and poorly when they move to Missouri the white
folks afraid she going die on the way.
But she fool 'em, and she live two-three year after that. That's what
good Old Master Ben tells me when I gets older.
I stay with Master Ben's married daughter, Mary, till the coming of
the War. Times was good before the War, and I wasn't suffering none
from slavery, except once in a while the Mistress would fan me with
the stick--bet I needed it, too.
When the War come along Master he say to leave Mistress Mary and get
ready to go to Texas. Jim Moore, one of the meanest men I ever see,
was the son of Master Ben; he's going take us there.
Demon Jim, that's what I call him when he ain't round the place, but
when he's home it was always Master Jim 'cause he was reckless with
the whip. He was a Rebel officer fighting round the country and didn't
take us slaves to Texas right away. So I stayed on at his place not
far from Master Ben's plantation.
Master Jim's wife was a demon, just like her husband. Used the whip
all the time, and every time Master Jim come home he whip me 'cause
the Mistress say I been mean.
One time I tell him, you better put me in your pocket (sell me),
Master Jim, else I'se going run away'. He don't pay no mind, and I
don't try to run away 'cause of the whips.
I done see one whipping and that enough. They wasn't no fooling about
it. A runaway slave from the Jenkin's plantation was brought back, and
there was a public whipping, so's the slaves could see what happens
when they tries to get away.
The runaway was chained to the whipping post, and I was full of misery
when I see the lash cutting deep into that boy's skin. He swell up
like a dead horse, but he gets over it, only he was never no count for
work no more.
While Master Jim is out fighting the Yanks, the Mistress is fiddling
round with a neighbor man, Mister Headsmith. I is young then, but I
knows enough that Master Jim's going be mighty mad when he hears about
it.
The Mistress didn't know I knows her secret, and I'm fixing to even up
for some of them whippings she put off on me. That's why I tell Master
Jim next time he come home.
See that crack in the wall? Master Jim say yes, and I say, it's just
like the open door when the eyes are close to the wall. He peek and
see into the bedroom.
That's how I find out about the Mistress and Mister Headsmith, I tells
him, and I see he's getting mad.
What you mean? And Master Jim grabs me hard by the arm like I was
trying to get away.
I see them in the bed.
That's all I say. The Demon's got him and Master Jim tears out of the
room looking for the Mistress.
Then I hears loud talking and pretty soon the Mistress is screaming
and calling for help, and if old Master Ben hadn't drop in just then
and stop the fight, why, I guess she be beat almost to death, that how
mad the Master was.
Then Master Ben gets mad 'cause his boy Jim ain't got us down in Texas
yet. Then we stay up all the night packing for the trip. Master Jim
takes us, but the Mistress stay at home, and I wonder if Master Jim
beat her again when he gets back.
We rides the wagons all the way, how many days, I dunno. The country
was wild most of the way, and I know now that we come through the same
country where I lives now, only it was to the east. (The trip was
evidently made over the "Texas Road.") And we keeps on riding and
comes to the big river that's all brown and red looking, (Red River)
and the next thing I was sold to Mrs. Vaughn at Bonham, Texas, and
there I stays till after the slaves is free.
The new Mistress was a widow, no children round the place, and she
treat me mighty good. She was good white folks--like old Master Ben,
powerful good.
When the word get to us that the slaves is free, the Mistress says I
is free to go anywheres I want. And I tell her this talk about being
free sounds like foolishment to me--anyway, where can I go? She just
pat me on the shoulder and say I better stay right there with her, and
that's what I do for a long time. Then I hears about how the white
folks down at Dallas pays big money for house girls and there I goes.
That's all I ever do after that--work at the houses till I gets too
old to hobble on these tired old feets and legs, then I just sits
down.
Just sits down and wishes for old Master Ben to come and get me, and
take care of this old woman like he use to do when she is just a
little black child on the plantation in Missouri!
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