"How ole is ah? Ise about 78. Yes'm ah wuz live durin de wah. Mah ole moster wuz Mistuh Jake Dumas we lived near de Ouachita rivuh bout five miles fum El Dorado landin. Ah membush dat we washed at de spring way, way fum de house. What dat yo say? Does ah know Ca'line. Ca'line, lawsy, me yes. Ca'line Washington we use tuh call huh, she wuz one uv Mr. Dumas niggers. We washed fuh de soldiers. Had tuh carry day clo'es tuh dem aftuh dark. Me an Ca'line had tuh carry dem. We had tuh hide de horse tuh keep de soldiers fum gittin him. When we would take de horse tuh de plum orchard we would stay dah all day to dark wid "Blackie". Dat wuz de horse's name. Mah job mostly wuz tuh watch de chillun an feed mah mistress chickens.
"Ah kin recollect when dey took us an started tuh Texas an got as fur as El Dorado and found out dat us niggers wuz free. We went back an grandma's mistress's son took us home wid him fuh stretches and stretches. We lived on de ole Camden road.
"In mah days ah've done plenty uv work but ah don' do nothing now but piece quilts. Dat's whut ah've been doing fuh mah white fokes since ah been heah. Ah jes finished piecing and quiltin two uv em. De Glove[TR:?] and de Begger. Mah husban' been dead 31 years dis pas' August. No, ah counts is by dose twins ah raised. One uv em lives in dis heah place right heah. Ah aint much count now. Sometime mah laig gets so big ah jes had tuh sloop mah foot erlong."
"I was born in 1859 close to Natchez, Mississippi. Chief Sims was my grandpa. He was Indian, full blood. His wife was a Choctaw Indian. Grandpa was a small red Indian. They kept my pa hid out with stock nearly all time of the Civil War. Both my mas' parents was nearly all Indian too but they was mixed. I'm more Indian than anything else. I heard pa talk about staying in the cane brakes. Mighty few cane brakes to be found now. I come with my grandpa and grandma to Arkansas when I was five years old.
"My ma belong to Quill and Sely Whitaker. I et and slept with Hattie and Bud and Rob Whitaker. Quill Whitaker was a Union surgeon in the Civil War.
"I don't think any of my folks was ever sold. They was of a porer class and had to have a living and sorter become slaves for a living. I never heard ma say how she got in bondage. Pa stayed with John Rob bout like a slave.
"I am a farmer. I am not on the PWA. Times for me is hard. You see some has so much and others hardly can live atall.
"It is not for me to say about the young generation. I have mighty little to do with any of them.
"I have voted but not lately. I never did understand voting."
"I was born in Limestone County, Alabama. It was on a river. Where I was born they called it Elks Mouth. Our owners was Frank Martin and Liza Martin. They raised papa. Their daughter aired (heired) him. Her name was Miss (Mrs.) Betty Hansey. Papa's name was Ed Martin. I stood on a stool and churned for papa's young mistress. The churn was tall as I was. I loved milk so good and they had plenty of it—all kinds. Soon as ever I get through, they take up the butter. I'd set 'round till they got it worked up so I could get a piece of bread and fresh butter and a big cup of that fresh milk. They always fixed it for me.
"Mama was Minthy Martin. She cooked on another place. She was a nurse. Her papa belong to one person and her mother to somebody else. Mama was Minthy Bridgeforth but I don't have her owner's name. I guess she was sold. I heard her say the Bridgeforth's was good to her. Some white man whooped on her once. I never heard her say much about it. Papa's owners was good to him. They was crazy about him. I knowed papa's owners the best and I lived there heap the most. I was born a slave but I don't know who I belong to. I've studied that over myself. I used to go back to see papa's owners. They owned lots of slaves and lots of land. Papa done a lot of different things. He fed and farmed and cleaned off the yards and slopped the pigs. He done what they said do, well as I can recollect. I wasn't with mama till after freedom. Mama said her white folks was treated mighty mean during the War. Once the soldiers come and mama was so scared she took the baby and run got in the cellar. They throwed out everything they had to eat. They took off barrels of things to eat and left them on starvation. One soldier come one time and wanted mama to go to the camps. She was scared not to go, scared he'd shoot her down. She told him she'd go the next day soon as she could get up her things and tell her folks she had gone. He agreed to that. Soon as he left she and some other young women on the place put out to the cane brakes and caves. She said they nearly starved. The white folks sent them baskets of victuals several times. Mama said she had some pretty beads she wore. Somebody had made her a present of them. She loved 'em. I think she said they was red. Mama's mistress told her to hide her beads, the soldiers would take them. She hid them up in the loft of their house on a nail. One day a gang come scouting and they rummaged the whole house and place. When the soldiers left she thought about her beads and went to see and they was gone. She cried and cried about them. That was before she went to the canebrakes.
"When freedom come on, the owners told them they was free. They didn't leave and then they made a way for them to stay on. They stayed on.
"I was grown when we come to this state but we lived in Tennessee a few years. Mama had had nine children by that time. All was dead, but us two girls and my brother. We come to Arkansas with our parents. We heard the land was new and rich. I wasn't married then.
"I've worked hard in the field all my life till last year or so. I still do work.
"Times is tough here I tell you. I get a little help, six dollars.
"Some of the young folks won't work, some not able to work. If anybody saving a thing I don't hear about it."
"I was born in 1844. I was twenty when peace was declared. I was born in Virginia. Yes ma'am, but I was sold, put up on a stump just like you sell hogs to the highest speculator. I was sold with my mother from a man named Joe Poindexter and bought by Tom Murphy and brought to Arkansas. My God, every Murphy round here knows me. Yes'm, my mother and me was sold. Papa wasn't sold, but he come here the second year after surrender.
"I was old enough to spin twelve cuts a day—had it to do. And I could weave cloth just like they do now.
"Had seven brothers and I'm the onliest girl.
"I can recollect when Miss Mary Poindexter died. They said I was two.
"My mistis in Arkansas was Mrs. Susan Murphy. That was out on the plantation, we didn't live in no city—my God, no!
"The way my people acts now, they looks foolish. I never heard a person curse till I come up here. I was a grown young lady nineteen years old when our master lowed us to get out and cote. You better not. The first husband I married I was nineteen goin' on twenty. My husband fought on the Southern side. His master sent him as a substitute.
"My master put good clothes on me, I'd say. 'Master. I wants a dress like so and so, and I wants a pair of shoes.' Yes ma'am, and he got em for me. I was forty-three and married to a nigger fore I knowed what twas to cry for underwear.
"I member they was a white man called Dunk Hill and he said, 'Virginia, who freed the niggers?' I said, 'God freed the niggers.' He said, 'Now, Virginia, you goin' be just as free as I am some day!'
"General Shelby's troops was comin' on this side the ribber. That's one time I was scared. Never seed so many men in my life. They wanted something to eat. Mama cooked all night. They was nine hundred and somethin'. I toted canteens all night long.
"I member when they had that Marks Mill battle. My husband was there and he sent word for me to come cause he had the measles and they had went in on him. I had to put on boots and wade mud. Young folks now ain't got no sense. I see so many folks now with such dull understanding. Marks Mill was the onliest part of the war I was in.
"General Shelby and Captain Blank, they whetted their swords together when peace was declared. Captain said, 'General, I'm not crazy and neither am I a coward. I looked up and seem like a man was comin' out the clouds, and so I'm goin' to surrender.'
"Them cavalry men—they'd say, 'Ride!' and how they'd go.
"I seen em when they was enlistin'. Said they was goin' to whip the Yankees and be back for breakfast in the morning.
"Marse Ben was goin' and Miss Susan say, 'Virginia, if you think he ain't goin' come back you ought to kiss him goodbye.' I said, 'I ain't goin' to kiss no white man.'
"Miss Fanny went up the ladder and sot rite on the roof and watched the soldiers goin' by. Yes'm. Old master whipped me with a little peach stick cause I let Frankie—we called her Frankie—go up the ladder. I said I couldn't stop her cause she said if I told her papa, she and Becky goin' to whip me. He whipped Miss Fanny. Old miss come in and say, 'Ain't you goin' whip this nigger?' She was mean as the devil. Oh, God, yes. She so mean she didn't know what to do. But old master kep her down. You know some of these redheaded women, they just as devilish as they can be. We had some neighbors, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Daniels and old miss would be out there on the lawn quarrelin' till it was just like a fog. Us niggers would be out there listenin'.
"But I was always treated good. You know if I had been beat over the head I couldn't recollect things now. My head ain't been cracked up. Nother thing. I always been easy controlled.
"I never went to school a day. After we was freed we stayed right on the Murphy place. They paid us and we worked on the shares. That's the reason I say I done better when I was a slave."
"I was born in Washington, Virginia right at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My mother was sold when I was a babe in her arms. She was sold three times. I know one time when she had four children she was sold and one of my brothers was sold away unbeknownst to her. Her old master sold her away from her mistress. She was a cook and never was mistreated.
"I ain't never been to school. When I got big enough, my mother was a widow and I had to start out and make a living. I've always been a cook. Used to keep a boarding house, up until late years. I've washed and ironed, sewed a right smart and quilted quilts. I've done anything I could to turn an honest living. Oh I've been through it but I'm still here. I've been a widow over forty years.
"I think the folks nowdays are about run out. They are goin' too fast. When I was comin' up, I had to have some manners. My mother didn't low me to 'spute nobody."
"I was born in Arkansas in Tulip, in Dallas County I think it is, isn't it?
"Charlotte Evans was mother's name and my father's name was Lige Evans. Gran'daddy David was my mother's father, and Cheyney was my mother's mother.
"Mr. Johnnie Sumner was the name of my young master, and the old man was Mr. Judge Sumner. The old people are all dead now. Mr. Judge Sumner was Johnnie Sumner's father. Me and Mr. Johnnie suckled together. Mr. Johnnie came to Fordyce they say looking for the old slaves. I didn't know about it then. I never would know him now. That is been so long ago. I sure would like to see 'im.
"My mother ain't told me much about herself in slave times. She was a nurse. She lived in a log cabin. You know they had cabins for all of them. The colored lived in log houses. The white people had good houses. Them houses was warmer than these what they got now.
"My grandma could cut a man's frock-tail coat. These young people don't know nothin' 'bout that. Grandma was a milliner. She could make anything you used a needle to make.
"Lige Evans was the name my father took after the surrender. He wasn't named that before the surrender—in the olden times. My mother had fifteen children. She was the largest woman you ever seen. She weighed four hundred pound. She was young Master Johnnie's nurse. Mr. Johnnie said he wanted to come and see me. I heard he lives way on the other side of Argenta somewheres.
"I was my mama's seventh girl, and I got a seventh girl living. I had fifteen children. My mother's children were all born before the surrender.
"Mr. Judge Sumner and his son were both good men. They never whipped their slaves.
"They didn't feed like they do now. I et corn bread then, and I eat it now. Some people say they don't. They would give them biscuits on Sundays. They had a cook to cook for the hands. She got all their meals for them.
"They had a woman to look after the little colored children, and they had one to look after the white children. My mother was a nurse for the white children. My mother didn't have nothing to do with the colored children.
"I didn't never have no trouble with the pateroles. Sometimes they would come down the lane running the horses. When I would hear them, I would run and git under the bed. I was the scaredest soul you ever seen. I think that's about all I can remember.
"I was the mother of fifteen children. I had one set of twins, a boy and a girl. The doctor told me you never raise a boy and a girl twin. My boy is dead. All of my children are dead but two.
"I was raised on the farm. I want a few acres of ground now so bad.
"I never was married but once. My husband's name was David Sloan. I don't know exactly how long he and me were married. It was way over twenty years. My license got burnt up.
"You know I couldn't be nothin' but a Christian."
Interviewer's Comment
Peggy Sloan's memory is going. She is not certain of the number of children her mother had although she knows there were more than seven because she was the seventh.
She remembers nothing about her age, but she knows definitely that all of her mother's children were born before the War—that is before the end of the War. Since the War ended seventy-three years ago and she was the seventh child with possibly seven behind her, I feel that she could not be younger than eighty. She remembers definitely running at the approach of men she calls pateroles during "slavery time."
Her mind may be fading, but it is a long way from gone. She questioned me closely about my reason for getting statements from her. She had to be definitely satisfied before the story could be gotten.
"I was born about eight miles from Williston, South Carolina. After freedom my mother married Lee Ballinger and she had six children. He died when I was real small. My mother was named Hester McCrary. Old Master McCrary bought grandma and my mother in Virginia. One sister my mother never did run across after freedom. She was older and sold to other people. I think at freedom my mother left and I think grandma did too. My grandpa was half Indian, but I never did see him to remember what he looked like. Our young master is a doctor. He waited on my mother before she died. Grandma was blind and she lived with us. Our young master may still be living. Old mistress was named Sylvania and she sent for my mother to come wait on her when she got sick to die. I think they had pretty fair treatment there. My mother was to be a house girl and cook. I think grandma was a cook and field woman both.
"I heard them say the white folks took them to church to learn to pray, then they didn't allow them to pray for freedom. But I don't think they wanted freedom. After they was set free they died up so scand'lous. Grandma said they had to work harder. My mother brought a good price because she was real light color and sharp to learn. She had six children and we was all darker than she was a whole lots. She and grandma was both good on giving advice. Seem like they could see how things would turn out every time.
"I married a man with a roving nature. We come here. He left me, come back for me to look after before he died. I married again. I left him. He told me how I could do five washings a week and take care of us both. I didn't aim to do it. I mighter got some washings but I didn't aim to keep him.
"I get a little commodities along to help out. I'm picking berries now twenty-five cents a gallon for the first picking. Fifteen and twenty cents is the regular prices.
"I haven't got children and I don't know what they ought to do. I reckon they do the best they can.
"Times is hard on me. It takes me all the time to make a living."
[TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
I was born the 10th of May, 1860. My home was in Charleston, S.C. I was not a slave, but my parents were.
My mother was a seamstress and my father, Edward Barnewill, was butler for their white folks.
I looks the door at sundown, and me and God are all by ourselves, and I am not afraid.
I came to Sherrill when I was a schoolgirl, and married when I was 14. Lived here after I was married. Taught school before I was married.
Had seven children by my first husband. My three husbands were Ike Williams, Eli Treadvan, and Calvin Smiley.
When asked about her books standing on her shelves—namely Golden Gems, arithmetic, and the Bible, also a blue back speller—said she just loved her books.
Young folks of today don't love like they did in the olden days. Now it is hot love, minute love, free love.
When my first child was born, I begged the midwife not to cut me open to get the baby out. The midwife told me the same place it went in the same place it will come out.
When my breasts began to grow (adolescence) I didn't want those bumps on me, and tied them down with wide rags.
Cures—I uses gasoline and cedar, soak it and rub on affected places for rheumatism.
I believe that you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
Heaven is a place of rest. If we are faithful to God, you can ride death home.
Hell is below—also here on earth.
"I was born after the surrender at Oxford, Mississippi. We belong to Master Jim Smith. Mother cooked and father worked in the field. He was on a average being good. They didn't trouble my mother as I recollect hearing 'em say but they whooped them in the field. Pattyrollers chased papa in sometimes. I heard him talk about it but I couldn't tell what he said now. Mama had two before freedom, then she married and had three children. He died. She married the second time and had two more children. That made seben in all.
"She said her first marriage was pronounced (announced). My mother said their master refugeed them to Texas till the year of the surrender. They didn't know nothing 'bout freedom till a while after they got back from Texas. They stayed on that year and longer too not knowing 'bout freedom. My rickerliction is short.
"Frank Houston was a neighbor of our'n. He lived on my folks' joining plantation close to Houston, Mississippi during slavery. During or before the War come on he put his money in a barrel—hogshead. They said it was gold and silver. I don't know. It might some been paper. He rolled the barrel down to the river. It was the Tallahassee (?) River eighteen miles northeast of Oxford, Mississippi. He hid his barrel of money in the river. They hunted and hunted it and never could find it. It might sunk in the mud and quick sand. Somebody might er hauled it out and stole it. The whole neighborhood hope him hunt it. They never did find it. I seen the old man and Jim Smith heaps of times.
"I voted in Mississippi. I couldn't read. They had a big fight in the country at Midway Church where we all voted. It was out a ways from Oxford, Mississippi. I never voted in Arkansas. I pay poll tax. Never 'lowed to vote.
"I never went to school a day in my life.
"I come to Forrest City fifty-four years ago. Married here. Never had a child. Now my wife dead. I farmed all my life. I bought a farm but they never let me have it. I never got it all paid out. They took it.
"I get Welfare help. I does some work. I'm nearly past hard work now."
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
Circumstances of Interview
1. Name and address of informant—Caroline Smith, Route 1, El Dorado. (Lives with Negroes by name of Green about 1 mile from Smith's Crossing)
2. Date and time of interview—November 1, 1938, Tuesday morning, 9:30-10:30
3. Place of interview—at the home of some Negroes named Green.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—Had previously talked with Caroline.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—Mrs. Ethel Depriest, 516 East Miles Street, El Dorado.
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—a typical Negro farm house.
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry—
2. Place and date of birth—Camden, Arkansas? No date.
3. Family—one child.
4. Places lived in, with dates—Camden and El Dorado. No dates.
5. Education, with dates—
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—None
7. Special skills and interests—
8. Community and religious activities—
9. Description of informant—
10. Other points gained in interview—This slave old enough to remember Civil War.
Text of Interview (Unedited)
"I first remembers living on the plantation of Mr. Jake Dumas near El Dorado Landing. You know it's Calion now. We lived up towards Camden and it was there that my ma and pa was married and buried. I was a big girl durin' the war. My job was to card and spin. And I use to carry the children to school. When I would get to the school I would put the children off, git straddle and ride that horse home. When I would get there old mos would say Ca'line did you run him? I'd say naw sir. Then he'd say, 'Oh, Carryline put the horse in the lot and come out here. I'd say, 'Master I didn't run that horse' but didn't do no good. He sure would whip me. I'd get down and roll. I would stomp and he would do the same. I wondered how he could tell I'd run that horse. But course he could cause that horse had the thumps (heart beating rapidly).
"I remember seeing the soldiers come through during the war. They come by droves stealing horses, setting the cotton on fire and taking sumpin to eat, too.
"Yes, I does still member the songs we sung durin' the war but I've got the asthmy and ain't got much wind fur singin'.
"I've got the asthmy honey and jest caint sing no more.
"You asked 'bout my husband and chillun. I been married fo' times. My first man's name was Dick Hagler, the next Frank Bibby, the next Henry Harris and the last one was Tom Smith. That's where I get my name Ca'line Smith. I never did have but one daughter but she had sixteen chillun. She's daid now and mah granchillun is scattered.
"I got the asthmy an jes don' feel like talkin' no more. Long time ago when I was sick master always had a doctor to me now I have to hire one. And they always fed me good and clothed me but after I was free I would go round and work around to git a little sumpin to eat."
"Ca'line Smith's my name and dey calls me 'Aunt Ca'line.' I was born about de year 1855 as I was about dis high (measuring) when de War broke out. I remembers de boys marching away in their grey uniforms just as plain. We chillen would watch dem as dey went away; we could see em as we peeped through de winders and de cracks in de walls.
"I was born in Mississippi close to Columbus on de plantation of my master, John Duncan. And he was a purty strict old master, sure, but sometimes he was kind to us. When we was set free he let us all go wherever we wanted to, but didn't pay us nothin'.
"All de slaves that I remembers stayed on around in different parts of Mississippi after de War and engaged in farmin', and workin' on roads and streets, and other public work. About forty years ago I come to Pope County, Arkansas wid my parents and has lived here ever' since.
"I don't remember nothin' about de Klu Klux Klan or if our folks was ever bothered wid em.
"Yes suh, I keeps workin' every day and likes to keep up my sewin'. Plenty of it to do all de time—jest like I'm doin' today. My health is purty good ceptin' I has a sort of misery in my side.
"I draws a pension of $7.50 a month, but I dunno who sends it.
"I belongs to de Adventist Church, and I sure believes in always tellin' de trufe and nofin' but de trufe; we better tell de trufe here, for some of dese days we all gwine where nofin' but de trufe will be accepted.
"No suh, I ain't never took any interest in politics and ain't never voted.
"Dese young'uns today is simply too much for me; I can't understand em, and I dunno which way dey headed. Some few of em seems to have sound common sense, but—well, I just refuse to talk about em."
"I was born in Arcadia, Louisiana a long, long time ago. Now my work when I was a child was farmin'. I did not stay a child long, I been grown ever since I was fourteen. My father lived till I was eleven, and I thought since I was the oldest boy I could take his place of bossin', but my mother would take me down a button hole lower whenever I got too high.
"Before my papa died we had a good livin'. We lived with his mistress's daughter, and we thought we lived in heaven. My papa made all of the shoes and raised all of the cattle from which he got the hide. We raised all the wool to make our wool clothes and made all of the clothes we wore. And food—we did not know what it was to go to a store to buy. Didn't have to do that. You see, people now living out of paper sacks. Every time they get ready to cook it's go to the store. We old timers lived out of our smokehouse.
"In there we had dried beef, cured pork, sugar from syrup, sweet potatoes, onions, Irish potatoes, plenty of dried fruit and canned fruit, peanuts, hickory nuts, walnuts; eggs in the henhouse and chickens on the yard, cows in the pen and milk and butter in the house.
"My mama even made our plow lines. She had a spinning wheel and you know how to spin?—you can make ropes for plow lines too. Just twist the cotton and have it about six inches long and put it in the loom and let it go around and around. You keep puttin' the twisted cotton in the loom and step on the peddle and no sooner than done, that was worked in a rope. Now, if you don't know what I am talking about it is useless for me to tell you.
"After papa died that left no one to work but mama and I tell you time brought about a change. A house full of little children—we lived from hand to mouth. Not enough corn to feed one mule. No syrup, no hogs, no cows. Oh! we had a hard time. I remember hearing my mama many a night ask God to help her through the struggle with her children. The more my mama prayed the harder times got with her. Wasn't no churches around so she had to sing and pray at home. The first Sunday School I remember going to was in 1892. I went to school and got as high as fifth grade, then I ran away from my mama.
"Just becaise I let old bad man overpower me I got grown and mannish. Couldn't nobody tell me a thing. I would steal, I would fight, I would lie. I remember in 1896 I went to church—that was about the fourth time I had been to church. The preacher began preachin' and I went outdoors and cut the harness off of his mule and broke one of his buggy wheels. I went down in the woods and cut a cow just for meanness. I stole a gun, and I would shoot anytime and anywhere, and nobody bothered me because they was scared to. I stole chickens, turkeys and anything.
"I got in trouble more times than a little, so the last time I got in trouble some white people got me out and I worked for them to pay my fine out. While working for them I made shoes. They taught me to do carpenter work. They taught me to paint; to paper; to cook; work in the field and do most anything. I came to my senses while working with those people and they made a man out of me. When I left there I was a first class carpenter. Those white people was the cause of me getting independent. I didn't get no book sense, but if you get with some good white people, that will be worth more than an education."
"I was the first colored baby born here or very near here. There was only three houses in this town (Hazen). I think they muster been log houses.
"My folks belong to Dr. Hazen. He brought families from Tennessee. When the war broke out he took em to Texas. Then he brought em back here. When they was freed I heard my mother say they worked on for him and his boys (Alex and Jim Hazen) and they paid them. He was good to them. They had er plenty always. After the war they lived in good log houses and he give em land and lumber for the church. Same church we got cept a storm tore it down and this one built in place of it. He let em have a school. Same place it stands now. My mother (Mandy Hulett) got a Union pension till she died. She cooked at the first hotel in Hazen for John Lane. She washed and ironed till she died. We girls helped and we wash and iron all we can get now. None of us not on relief (Fannie nor Emma). I can't wash no more. My hands and arms swell up with rheumatism. I still iron all I can get.
"The present conditions seems awful unsettled; wages low, prices high and work scarce at times. Men can get work in the hay two months and bout two months work in the rice or pickin cotton, either one. Then the work has played clean out till hay time next year.
"How do they live? Some of their wifes cooks for white people and they eat all they make up soon as they get paid. Only way they live."
"I have been in this state for forty-nine years. I will be here fifty years on the fifteenth of December.
"I was born in Ebenezer Township, York County, South Carolina, on the twenty-ninth day of April, in 1854. That makes me eighty-four years old on Friday. I was born on Good Friday—on Good Friday at six o'clock in the morning.
"I am telling you what I was instructed all of my life. My father, W.D. Smith, and my mother, Haria, told me these things. My mother carried a nickname, Salina, all her life, but her real name was Haria.
"I'll tell you how they happened to keep such good records. We had a little advantage over the other people of that day. My father never got any school education, but his brothers instructed him—his half-brothers. They were white. They was good, too. I mean them brothers thought just as much of me as they did of anybody else. So my father got pretty good training. He got it from his brothers and that's how he learned to keep such good records.
Relatives
"I am told my mother cooked for one family for forty-two years. Her maiden name was Haria Harris. She was three-fourths white. She come from the Indian tribe—old Catawba Indians. Her own daddy was a white man, but her Grand daddy on her mother's side was an Indian.
"I am told that the old fellow bought my mother when she was fifteen years old. Finally he got hold of both my father and my mother. Both of them put together didn't have half colored blood. He must have loved them a lot to work so hard to get them together. My father was half white, but his mother was a mulatto woman (Interpreter's comment—This should make him a quadroon)[TR: sentence lined out.]; and my mother's great-grandmother was a colored woman.
"I never knew much about race troubles. The best friend I ever had was an old white grandmother. I was carefully shielded from all unpleasant things.
Fort Sumter
"I was looking at the men when they were getting ready to get on the train to go to Fort Sumter. Mr. John White, Captain John White, I knew him personally. He was one of our neighbors. That was in Ebenezer that he was one of our neighbors. The soldiers going to capture Fort Sumter caught the Columbia and Augusta train going to Charleston. Looked like to me there was ten thousand of them. John White was the captain and Beauregard[HW: here Gustave Toutant Beauregard.] was the general.
"I didn't see the fighting because it was too far away. It was about eighty miles from us where they got on the train to Fort Sumter. They got on the train at Rock Hill. Rock Hill was a city—small city—real close to Ebenezer. We lived near Rock Hill. They was adjoining towns.
Patrollers and Good Masters
"The only patrollers I knew of was some that come on the place once and got hurt. My mother had a brother Hobb and the patroller tried to whip him. Hobb knocked all his front teeth out with a stick. Ches[TR:?] Wood was the name of the patroller. It was like it is now. There were certain white people who didn't allow any of their niggers to be whipped. I never seen a patroller on my place. I have heard of them in other places, but the only one to come on our place was the one Uncle Hobb beat up. He had to take it, because you couldn't put anything over on Harris' plantation. My people was rich people. They didn't allow anybody to come on their places and interfere with then—their niggers.
"I have heard my mother say that no white man ever struck her in her life. I have had uncles that were struck. Two of them, and both of them killed the men that struck them. Uncle Saul killed Edmund Smith and Uncle George killed Ed McGehee. Uncle George's full white sister (his half-sister) sent him away and saved him. They electrocuted Uncle Saul—they executed him.
"White men struck them and they wouldn't take it. They didn't do nothin' at all to Hobb Baron. He got to his boss and the white folks was 'fraid to come there after him. All of this was in slavery. My people ain't never had no trouble with anybody since freedom; white people would get mad with my uncles and try to do something to them, and they wouldn't take it.
"There were three races in the neighborhood where I was raised—niggers, Indians, and white folks. They never sent the Indians out until 1876 when I was a grown man. They sent them over there to Utah when it became a state. I had a lot of Indian friends that went along at that time.
"Bad blood was mixed up there and you couldn't do nothing to anybody and get away with it.