Part 12

Now you wants to know about this voting business. I voted for Genral Grant. Army men come around and registered you before voting time. It wasn't no trouble to vote them days; white and black all voted together. All you had to do was tell who you was vote for and they give you a colored ticket. All the men up had different colored tickets. Iffen you're voting for Grant, you get his color. It was easy. Yes Mam! Gol 'er mighty. They was colored men in office, plenty. Colored legislaturs, and colored circuit clerks, and colored county clerks. They sure was some big officers colored in them times. They was all my friends. This here used to be a good county, but I tell you it sure is tough now. I think it's wrong--exactly wrong that we can't vote now. The Jim Crow lay, it put us out. The Constitution of the United States, it give us the right to vote; it made us citizens, it did.

You just keeps on asking about me, lady. I ain't never been axed about myself in my _whole_ life! Now you wants to know after railroading and steamboating what. They was still work the Yankee army wanted done. The war had been gone for long time. All over every place was bodies buried. They was bringing them to Little Rock to put in Govmint graveyard. They sent me all over the state to help bring them here. Major Forsythe was my quartemaster then. After that was done, they put me to work at St. John's hospital. The work I done there liked to ruin me for life. I cleaned out the water closets. After a while I took down sick from the work--the scent, you know--but I keep on till I get so for gone I can't stay on my feets no more. A misery got me in the chest, right here, and it been with me all through life; it with me now. I filed for a pension on this ailment. I never did get it. The Govmint never took care of me like it did some soldiers. They said I was not a 'listed man; that I was a employed man, so I couldn't get no pension. But I filed, like they told me. I telled you my number, didnft I? 1,115,827, Boston Blackwell. I give my whole time to the Govmint for many years. White and black bofe always telling me I should have a pension. I stood on the battlefield just like other soldiers. My number is in Washington. Major Forsythe was the one what signed it, right in his office. I seed him write it.

Then what did I do? You always asking me that. I was low er long time. When I finally get up I went to farming right here in Pulaski county. Lordy, no, miss, I didn't buy no land. Nothing to buy with. I went share cropping with a white man, Col. Baucum. You asking me what was the shares? Worked on halvers. I done all the work and fed myself. No'um, I wasn't married yit. I took the rheumatiz in my legs, and got short winded. Then I was good for nothing but picking cotton. I kept on with that till my eyes, they got so dim I couldn't see to pick the rows clean. Heap o' times I needed medicine--heap o' times I needed lots of things I never could get. Iffen I could of had some help when I been sick, I mought not be so no account now. My daughter has taked keer of me ever since I not been able to work no more.

I never did live in no town; always been a country nigger. I always worked for white folks, nearly. Never mixed up in big crowds of colored; stayed to myself. I never been arrested in my whole life; I never got jailed for nothing. What else you want to know, Miss?

About these days, and the young folks! Well, I ain't saying about the young folks; but they--no, I wouldn't say. (He eyed a boy working with a saw.) Well, I will say, they don't believe in hard work. Iffen they can make a living easy, they will. In old days, I was young and didn't have nothing to worry about. These days you have to keep studying where you going to get enough to eat.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Tayler Person interviewed: Henry Blake Rear of 1300 Scott Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 80, or more Occupation: Farming and junk, when able

[HW: Drove a "Horsepower Gin Wagon"]

"I was born March 16, 1863, they tell me. I was born in Arkansas right down here on Tenth and Spring Streets in Little Rock. That was all woods then. We children had to go in at night. You could hear the wolves and the bears and things. We had to make a big fire at night to keep the wolves and varmints away.

"My father was a skiffman. He used to cross the Arkansas River in a ferry-boat. My father's name was Doc Blake. And my mother's name was Hannah Williams before she morried.

"My father's mother's name was Susie somethin'; I done forgot. That is too far back for me. My mother's mother was named Susie--Susie Williams.

"My father's master was named Jim Paty. My father was a slavery man. I was too. I used to drive a horsepower gin wagon in slavery time. That was at Pastoria Just this side of Pine Bluff--about three or four miles this side. Paty had two places-one about four miles from Pine Bluff and the other about four miles from England on the river.

"When I was driving that horsepower gin wagon. I was about seven or eight years old. There wasn't nothin' hard about it. Just hitch the mules to one another's tail and drive them 'round and 'round. There wasn't no lines. Just hitch them to one another's tail and tell them to git up. You'd pull a lever when you wanted them to stop. The mule wasn't hard to manage.

"We ginned two or three bales of cotton a day. We ginned all the summer. It would be June before we got that cotton all ginned. Cotton brought thirty-five or forty cents a pound then.

"I was treated nicely. My father and mother were too. Others were not treated so well. But you know how Negroes is. They would slip off and go out. If they caught them, he would put them in a log hut they had for a jail. If you wanted to be with a woman, you would have to go to your boss man and ask him and he would let you go.

"My daddy was sold for five hundred dollars--put on the block, up on a stump--they called it a block. Jim Paty sold him. I forget the name of the man he was sold to--Watts, I think it was.

"After slavery we had to get in before night too. If you didn't, Ku Klux would drive you in. They would come and visit you anyway. They had something on that they could pour a lot of water in. They would seem to be drinking the water and it would all be going in this thing. They was gittin' it to water the horses with, and when they got away from you they would stop and give it to the horses. When he got you good and scared he would drive on away. They would whip you if they would catch you out in the night time.

"My daddy had a horse they couldn't catch. It would run right away from you. My daddy trained it so that it would run away from any one who would come near it. He would take me up on that horse and we would sail away. Those Ku Klux couldn't catch him. They never did catch him. They caught many another one and whipped him. My daddy was a pretty mean man. He carried a gun and he had shot two or three men. Those were bad times. I got scared to go out with him. I hated that business. But directly it got over with. It got over with when a lot of the Ku Klux was killed up.

"In slavery time they would raise children just like you would raise colts to a mare or calves to a cow or pigs to a sow. It was just a business It was a bad thing. But it was better than the county farm. They didn't whip you if you worked. Out there at the county farm, they bust you open. They bust you up till you can't work. There's a lot of people down at the state farm at Cummins--that's where the farm is ain't it--that's raw and bloody. They wouldn't let you come down there and write no history. No Lawd! You better not try it. One half the world don't know how the other half lives. I'll tell you one thing, if those Catholics could get control there would be a good time all over this world. The Catholics are good folks.

"That gang that got after you if you let the sun go down while you were out--that's called the Pateroles. Some folks call 'em the Ku Klux. It was all the same old poor white trash. They kept up that business for about ten years after the War. They kept it up till folks began to kill up a lot of 'em. That's the only thing that stopped them. My daddy used to make his own bullets.

"I've forgot who it is that told us that we was free. Somebody come and told us we're free now. I done forgot who it was.

"Right after the War, my father farmed a while and after that he pulled a skiff. You know Jim Lawson's place. He stayed on it twenty years. He stayed at the Ferguson place about ten years. They're adjoining places. He stayed at the Churchill place. Widow Scott place, the Bojean place. That's all. Have you been down in Argenta to the Roundhouse? Churchill's place runs way down to there. It wasn't nothing but farms in Little Rock then. The river road was the only one there at that time. It would take a day to cone down from Clear Lake with the cotton. You would start 'round about midnight and you would get to Argenta at nine o'clock the next morning. The roads was always bad.

"After freedom, we worked on shares a while. Then we rented. When we worked on shares, we couldn't make nothing--Just overalls and something to eat. Half went to the other man and you would destroy your half if you weren't careful. A man that didn't know how to count would always lose. He might lose anyhow. They didn't give no itemized statement. No, you just had to take their word. They never give you no details. They just say you owe so much. No matter how good account you kept, you had to go by their account and now, Brother, I'm tellin' you the truth about this. It's been that way for a long time. You had to take the white man's work on notes and everything. Anything you wanted, you could git if you were a good hand. You could git anything you wanted as long as you worked. If you didn't make no money, that's all right; they would advance you more. But you better not leave him--you better not try to leave and get caught. They'd keep you in debt. They were sharp. Christmas come, you could take up twenty dollars in somethin' to eat and much as you wanted in whiskey. You could buy a gallon of whiskey. Anything that kept you a slave because he was always right and you were always wrong if there was difference. If there was an argument, he would get mad and there would be a shooting take place.

"And you know how some Negroes is. Long as they could git somethin', they didn't care. You see, if the white man came out behind, he would feed you, let you have what you wanted. He'd just keep you on, help you get on your feet--that is, if you were a good hand. But if you weren't a good hand, he'd just let you have enough to keep you alive. A good hand could take care of forty or fifty acres of land and would have a large family. A good hand could git clothes, food, whiskey, whenever he wanted it. My father had nine children and took care of them. Not all of them by one wife. He was married twice. He was married to one in slavery time and to another after the War. I was a child of the first one. I got a sister still living down here in Galloway station that is mighty nigh ninety years old. No, she must be a hundred. Her name is Frances Dobbins. When you git ready to go down there, I'll tell you how to find that place jus' like I told you how to fin' this one. Galloway is only 'bout four miles from Rose City.

"I been married twice in my life. My first woman, she died. The second lady, she is still living. We dissolved friendship in 1913. Least-wise, I walked out and give her my home. I used to own a home at twenty-first and Pulaski.

"I belong to the Baptist Church at Wrightsville. I used to belong to Arch Street. Was a deacon there for about twelve years. But they had too much splittin' and goin' on and I got out. I'll tell you more sometime."

Interviewer's Comment

Henry Blake's age appears in excess of eighty. His idea of seventy-five is based on what someone told him. He is certain that he drove a "Horsepower Gin Wagon" during "slavery times", and that he was seven or eight when he drove it. Even if that were in '65, he would be at least eighty years old--seventy-three years since the War plus seven years of his life. His manner of narration would indicate that he drove earlier.

The interview was held in a dark room, and for the first time in my life I took notes without seeing the paper on which I was writing.

Interviewer: Mary D. Eudgins Person Interviewed: Miss Adeline Blakeley Age: 87 Home: 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

There is no hint of elision in the speech of Adeline Blakeley, scarcely a trace of vernacular. All of her life her associations have been with white persons. She occupies a position, rare in post-slavery days, of negro servant, confidant and friend. After the death of Mrs. Hudgins, family intimates, wives of physicians, bankers' wives and other Fayetteville dowagers continued periodically to come to see Adeline. They came not in the spirit of Lady Bountifuls condescending to a hireling, but because they wanted to chat with an old time friend.

Interviewer's note.

As told by: Adeline Blakeley

"Honey, look in the bible to get the date when I was born. We want to have it just right. Yes, here's the place, read it to me. July 10, 1850? Yes, I remember now, that's what they've always told me. I wanted to be sure, though. I was born in Hickman County, Tenn. and was about a year when they brought me to Arkansas. My mother and her people had been bought by Mr. John P. Parks when they were just children--John and Leanna and Martha. I was the first little negro in the Parks kitchen. From the first they made a pet out of me. I was little like a doll and they treated me like a plaything--spoiled me--rotten.

After Mr. Parks came to Arkansas he lived near what is now Prarie Grove, but what do you think it was called then--Hog Eye. Later on they named it Hillingsley for a man who settled there. We were two miles out on the Wire Road, the one the telegraph line came in on, Honey. Almost every conmunity had a 'Wire Road'.

It was the custom to give a girl a slave when she was married. When Miss Parks became Mrs. Blakeley she moved to Fayetteville and chose me to take with her. She said since I was only 5 she could raise me as she wanted me to be. But I must have been a lot of trouble and after she had her baby she had to send me back to her father to grow up a little. For you might say she had two babies to take care of since I was too little to take care of hers. They sent a woman in my place.

Honey, when I got back, I was awful: I had been with the negroes down in the country and said 'hit' and 'hain't' and words like that. Of course all the children in the house took it up from me. Mrs. Blakeley had to teach me to talk right. Your Aunt Nora was born while I was away. I was too little to take full charge of her, but I could sit in a chair and hold her on my lap.

Mrs. Blakeley taught her children at home. Her teaching was almost all they had before they entered the University. When I was little I wanted to learn, learn all I could, but there was a law against teaching a slave to read and write. One woman--she was from the North did it anyway. But when folks can read and write its going to be found out. It was made pretty hard for that woman.

After the war they tried to get me to learn, but I tossed my head and wouldn't let them teach me. I was about 15 and thought I was grown and wouldn't need to know any more. Mary, it sounds funny, but if I had a million dollars I would give it gladly to be able to read and write letters to my friends.

I remember well when the war started. Mr. Blakeley, he was a cabinet maker and not very well, was not considered strong enough to go. But if the war had kept up much longer they would have called him. Mr. Parks didn't believe in seceding. He held out as long as it was safe to do so. If you didn't go with the popular side they called you 'abolitionist' or maybe 'Submissionist'. But when Arkansas did go over he was loyal. He had two sons and a son-in-law in the Confederate army. One fought at Richmond and one was killed at Gettysburg.

The little Blakeley boy had always liked to play with the American flag. He'd march with it and carry it out on the porch and hang it up. But after the trouble began to brew his mother told him he would have to stay in the house when he played with the flag. Even then somebody saw him and scolded him and said 'Either burn it or wash it.' The child thought they meant it and he tried to wash it. Dyes weren't so good in those days and it ran terribly. It was the awfulest thing you ever saw.

Fayetteville suffered all thru the war. You see we were not very far from the dividing line and both armies were about here a lot. The Federals were in charge most of the time. They had a Post here, set up breast works and fortified the square. The court house was in the middle of it then. It was funny that there wasn't more real fighting about here. There were several battles but they were more like skirmishes--just a few men killed each time. They were terrible just the same. At first they buried the Union soldiers where the Confederate Cemetery is now. The Southerners were placed just anywhere. Later on they moved the Northern caskets over to where the Federal Cemetery is now and they took up the Southern men when they knew where to find them and placed them over on the hill where they are today.

Once an officer came into our home and liked a table he saw, so he took it. Mrs. Blakeley followed his horse as far as she could pleading with him to give it back because her husband had made it. The next day a neighbor returned it. He hod found it in the road and recognized it. The man who stole it had been killed and dropped it as he fell.

Just before the Battle of Prairie Grove the Federal men came thru. Some officers stopped and wanted us to cook for them. Paid us well, too. One man took little Nora on his lap and almost cried. He said she reminded him of his own little girl he'd maybe never see again. He gave her a cute little ivory handled pen knife. He asked Mrs. Blakeley if he couldn't leave his pistols with her until he came back thru Fayetteville. She told him it was asking too much, what would happen to her and her family if they found those weapons in her possession? But he argued that it was only for a few days. She hid them under a tub in the basement and after waiting a year gave them to her brother when he came through. The Yankees met the Southerners at Prairie Grove. The shots sounded just like popcorn from here in Fayetteville. We always thought the man got killed there.

The soldiers camped all around everywhere. Lots of them were in tents and some of the officers were in houses. They didn't burn the college--where Miss Sawyer had taught, you know. The officers used it for their living quarters. They built barracks for the men of upright logs. See that building across the street. It's been lots of things, a livery stable, veterinary barn, apartment house. But it was one of the oldest buildings in Arkansas. They've kept on remodeling it. The Yankees made a commissary out of it. Later on they moved the food up on the square and used it for a hospital. I can remember lots of times seeing the feet of dead men sticking out of the windows.

Your Aunt Nora's mother saved that building from being burned. How did it happen? Well you see both sides were firing buildings--the Confederates to keep the Yankees from getting them, and the other way about. But the Southerners did most of the burning. Mrs. Blakeley's little boy was sick with fever. She and a friend went up, because they feared burnings. They sat there almost all night. Parties of men would come along and they would plead with them. One sat in one doorway and the other in the building next. Mrs. Blakely was a Southerner, the other woman a Northerner. Between them they kept the buildings from being burned: saved their own homes thereby and possibly the life of the little sick boy.