Part 19
"In 1870, we stayed on Elisha McGhee's farm. We called him Elisha but his name was Elijah. I began to remember them. The next year, we farmed for old man William Bilbo. But we didn't get along so well there because daddy wouldn't let anybody beat him out of anything that was his. That was Theoda's gran'daddy. Then we went to (Mississippi) Miss Crane's. The next year she married Theoda Bilbo's daddy and in 1874, my daddy moved up on his own place at Hurricane Creek. There he built a church and built a school, and I went to the school on our own place. He stayed there till 1880. In 1880, we moved to Holly Springs. That was right after the yellow fever epidemic. I went to school there at Shaw University. I stayed in that school a good while. It's called Rust College now. It's named after the Secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society. Rust was the greatest donor and they named the school after him. I went to the state school in my last year because they would give you a lifetime certificate when you finished there. I mean a lifetime teaching certificate for Mississippi. I finished the course and got the certificate. There is the diploma up there on the wall. J.H. Henderson was the principal and he was one of my teachers too. Henderson was a wonderful man. You know he died out here in the county hospital sometime ago. Sometime I'll tell you all about him. He was a remarkable man. He taught there behind Highgate, a Northern man. I'll tell you all about him sometime.
"I farmed with my father in the early part of my life. When I went to Holly Springs in 1881, I worked for Dr. T.J. Malone, a banker there, and a big farmer--President of the Holly Springs Bank. I worked for him mornings and evenings and slept at home of nights. I would work in vacation times too at whatever I could find to do till I got about able to teach. When I first commenced to teach, I taught in several counties--Lincoln, Simpson, Pike, Marion (the place I went to school), and Copiah. I built the school at Lawrence County. I organized the Folsom High School there. It was named after President Cleveland's wife. I taught there nine years. I married there. My wife's name was Narcissa Davis. She was a teacher and graduated from the same school I did. She lived in Calhoun County. She died in 1896, in Conway.
"I taught school at Conway in Faulkner County, and joined the ministry as a local preacher, in 1896. I moved from there to White County and taught in Searcy one term. Taught at Beebe ten years. Married again in 1898--Annie Day. I taught at Beebe and lived in White County. Then I bought me a home at Higginson, and went into the ministry solely. I left Higginson and taught and pastored seven years at Des Arc. I know practically everybody in Des Arc. I was thinking today about writing Brick Williams. He is the son of old man Williams, the one you know I think. Then I come to what is called Sixteen Section three miles from Galloway and taught there seven years and pastored. I presided too as Elder some of those years--North Little Rock District. Then I went back and pastored there and taught at West Point, Arkansas four years. Then I pastored at Prescott and was on the Magnolia District as Presiding Elder two years. Then I presided over the North Little Rock District again. Pastored St. Luke Circuit in southwest part of Arkansas below Washington. Then I built a church at Jonesboro. I pastored twenty-nine years altogether, built five churches, and have been responsible for five hundred conversions.
"I think the prospects of the country and the race are good. I don't see much dark days ahead. It is just a new era. You are doing something right now I never saw done before in my life. Even when they had the census, I didn't see any colored people taking it.
"I don't get any assistance in the form of money from the government. I have been trying to get it but I can't. Looks like they cut off a lot of them and can't reach it. Won't let me teach school. Say I am too old for WPA teaching. Superannuate me in the church, and say I'm too old to preach, and still I haven't gotten anything from my church since last January. I get some commodities from the state. I belong to the C.M.E. Church. I have lived in this community twenty-five years."
Interviewer's Comment
Hanging on the wall was the old man's diploma from the Mississippi State Normal School for colored persons. It was dated May 30, 1888, and it bore the signatures of J.R. Preston, State Superintendent; E.D. Miller, County Superintendent (both members of the Board of Directors); J.H. Henderson, Principal; Narcissa Hill and Maria Rabb, faculty members.
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: George Brown Route 4; Box 159, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84
"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times. I was born in 1854. How old does that leave me?
"No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas, born in Alabama.
"Jim Hart was my white folks. Good to me? I'd rather let that alone. Plenty to eat? I'll have to let that alone too. I used to say my old missis was 'Hell a mile.' Her name was Sarah. She was a Williams but she married Jim Hart. They had about a hundred and seventy head, little and big together.
"Me? I was a servant at the house. I didn't do any field work till after surrender.
"Some women was pretty mean and old miss was one of 'em.
"You'll get the truth now--I ain't told you half.
"We lived in Marengo County. The Tombigbee River divided it and Sumter County. The War didn't get down that far. It just got as far as Mobile.
"Oh yes'm, I knowed they was a war gwine on. I'd be waitin' on the table and I'd hear the white folks talkin'. I couldn't keep all I heard.
"I know I heard 'em say General Grant went up in a balloon and counted all the horses and mules they had in Vicksburg.
"I seen them gunboats gwine down the Tombigbee River. And I seen a string of cotton bales as long as from here to there floatin' down the river to Mobile. I reckon they was gettin' it away from the Yankees. You see we was a hundred and fifty miles north of Mobile.
"I wish you'd a caught me with my mind runnin' that way. I could open your eyes.
"They had a overseer named Sothern. One Sunday my mammy slipped off and went to church. Some of 'em told Sothern and he told Miss Sarah. And she had mammy called out and they had a strop 'bout as wide as any hand and had holes in it, and they started whippin' her. I was runnin' around there with my shirt tail full of bricks and I was chunkin' 'em at that overseer. He would a caught me and whipped me too but Tom Kelly--that was old miss' son-in-law--said, 'A calf loves the cow,' so he wouldn't let old miss whip me.
"I come away from Alabama in '75. I lived in Tallulah, Louisiana eight years and the rest of the time I been here in Arkansas.
"I've farmed most of the time. I owned one farm, forty-nine acres, but my boy got into trouble and I had to sell it.
"Then I've been a engineer in sawmills and at gins. I used to be a round man--I could work any place.
"Me? Vote? No, I never did believe in votin'. I couldn't see no sense in it. They was mobbin' and killin' too much for George Brown. I was a preacher--Baptist. I was a ordained preacher. I could marry 'em. Oh Lord, I ain't preached in a long time. I got so I couldn't stand on my feet.
"I been in the Church of God sixty-one years. Never been in any lawsuit or anything like that in my life. I always tried to keep out of trouble.
"I 'member one time I come nearest to gettin' drowned in the Tombigbee River. We boys was in washin' and we got to divin' and I div where it was too deep. When I come up, look like a world of water. A boy in a skiff come and broke right to me. I reckon I was unconscious, I didn't know what. But them boys wasn't unconscious.
"I think the younger generation is mighty bad. There's some exceptions but the general run is bad. I've seen the time you could go to a white man and he would help you but these young white folks, they turn from you."
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: J.N. Brown 3500 West 7th Ave. Pine Bluff, Ark. Age: 79 Occupation: Sells peanuts from wagon
"Yes'm, I was livin' in slavery times--musta been--I was born in 1858, near Natchez, Mississippi--in town.
"Old Daniel Virdin was my first master. I can halfway remember him. Oh Lord, I remember that shootin'. Used to clap my hands--called it foolishness. We kids didn't know no better.
"I was in Camden, Arkansas when we was freed. Colored folks in them days was sold and run. My father was in Camden when we got free--he was sold. My mother was sold too.
"I heared em say they had a good master and mistis. Man what bought em was named Brown. They runned us to Texas durin' the war and then come back here to Camden.
"I never went to school. I was the oldest chile my father had out a sixteen and I had to work. We had a kinda hard time. I stayed in Camden till I was eighteen and then I runned off from my folks and went to Texas. Times was so tight in Arkansas, and a cattleman come there and said they'd give me twenty-five dollars a month in Texas. I thought that would beat just something to eat. I been workin' for the white folks and just gettin' a little grub and not makin' any money.
"In Texas I worked for some good white folks. John Worth Bennet was the man who owned the ranch. I stayed there seven years and saved my money. I was just nacherly a good nigger. That was in Hopkins County, Texas.
"I've got a good memory. That's all I got to study bout is how to take care of the situation. I was livin' there in that country in 1882, fore the Spanish-American War.
"I come back here to Arkansas in 1900. My father was named Nelson Brown. He preached. My mother's name was Sally Brown.
"Long in that time we tried to vote but we didn't know 'zactly what we was doin. I think I voted once or twice, but if a man can't read or write and have to have somebody make out his ticket, he don't know what he's votin', so I just quit tryin' to vote.
"Now about this younger generation, you've asked me a question it's hard for me to answer. With all these nineteenth century niggers, the more education they got, the bigger crooks they is.
"We colored people are livin' under the law, but we don't make no laws. You take a one-armed man and he can't do what a two-armed man can. The colored man in the south is a one-armed man, but of course the colored man can't get along without the white folks. But I've lived in this world long enough to know what the cause is--I know why the colored man is a one-armed man."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Lewis Brown 708 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 83
"Yes'm my name is Brown--Lewis Brown. Yes'm I lived durin' slavery times. I was born in 1854.
"I been workin' this mornin'. I been diggin' up the ground to bed up some onions. No I don't work every day. Sometimes I feel ailin'--don't feel like doin' nothin'.
"I wasn't big enough to 'member 'bout the war. All I 'member is seein' the soldiers retirin' from the war. They come by my old master's plantation. The Yankees was in front--they was the horsebackers. Then come the wagons and then the southern soldiers comin' along in droves.
"I was born in Arkansas. My mother and father belonged to Dr. Jordan. He was the biggest slaveholder in Arkansas. He was called the 'Nigger Ruler'. If the overseer couldn't make a slave behave, the old doctor went out with a gun and shot him. When the slaves on other plantations couldn't be ruled, they was sold to Dr. Jordan and he ruled 'em or killed 'em.
"I don't 'member much else 'bout my old master but I 'member my old mistress. The last crop she made before freedom, she had two plantations with overseers on 'em and on one plantation they didn't 'low no kind a slave 'cept South Carlinans. But on the other plantation the slaves come from different places.
"After the war we went to Texas and I 'member my old mistress come down there to get her old colored folks to come back to Arkansas. Lots of 'em went back with her. She called herself givin' 'em a home. I don't know what she paid--I never heard a breath of that but she hoped 'em to get back. I didn't go--I stayed in Texas and growed up and married there and then come back to Arkansas in 1882.
"Oh yes'm--the Ku Klux was plentiful after peace. They went about robbin' people.
"Some of the colored folks thought they was better off when they was slaves. They was the ones that had good masters. Some of the masters didn't 'low the overseers to 'buke the slaves and some wouldn't have overseers.
"I never did vote for no President, just for home officers. I don't know what to say 'bout not letting the colored folks vote now. They have to pay taxes and 'spenses and I think they ought to have something to say 'bout things.
"'How did you lose your arm?' It was shot off. I got into a argument with a fellow what owed me twenty-four dollars. He decided to pay me off that way. That was when I was 'bout seventy. He's dead now.
"I think the people is more wickeder now. The devil got more chances than he used to have and the people can't do right if they want to."
Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Humorous Tales of Slavery Days
"I was born in 1854 and 'co'se I wasn't big enough to work much in slavery times, but one thing I did do and that was to tote watermelons for the overseer and pile 'em on the porch.
"I 'member he said if we dropped one and broke it, we'd have to stop right there and eat the whole thing. I know I broke one on purpose so I could eat it and I 'member he made me scrape the rind and drink the juice. I know I eat till I was tired of that watermelon.
"And then there was a lake old master told us to stay out of. If he caught you in it, he'd take you by the shirt collar and your heels and throw you back in.
"I know he nearly drowned me once."
This information given by: Lewis Brown Place of residence: 808 W. Eighth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Occupation: Retired minister Age: 84
Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Child Rearing Customs of Early Days
"In them days, folks raised one another's chillun. If a child was at your house and misbehaved, you whipped him and sent him home and his mother give him another whippin'.
"And you better _not 'spute_ your parents!"
This information given by: Lewis Brown Place of residence: 802 W. Eighth. Pine Bluff. Arkansas Occupation: None, retired minister Age: 84
Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
1. Name and address of informant--Lewis Brown, 2100 Pulaski Street, Little Rock
2. Date and time of interview--
3. Place of interview--2100 Pulaski Street, Little Hock, Arkansas
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant--
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.--
Personal History of Informant
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE-December, 1938
SUBJECT-Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Lewis Brown, 2100 Pulaski Street, Little Rock.
1. Ancestry--father, Lewis Bronson; mother, Millie Bronson.
2. Place and date of birth--Born April 14, 1855 in Kemper County, Mississippi.
3. Family--Five children.
4. Places lived in, with dates--Lived in Mississippi until the eighties, then moved to Helena, Arkansas. Moved from Helena to Little Rock.
5. Education, with dates--
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates--Farming.
7. Special skills and interests--
8. Community and religious activities--Belongs to Baptist Church.
9. Description of informant--
10. Other points gained in interview--Facts concerning child life, status of colored girls, patrollers, marriage and sex relationships, churches and amusements.
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Lewis Brown, 2100 Pulaski Street, Little Rock.
"I was born in 1855, April 14, in Kemper County, Mississippi, close to Meridian. I drove gin wagons in the time of the war in a horse-power gin. I carried matches and candles down to weigh cotton with in slavery times.
"They had to pick cotton till dark. They had to tote their weight hundred pounds, two pounds, whatever it was down to the weighing place and they had to weigh it. Whatever you lacked of having your weight, you would get a lick for. On down till they called us out for the war, that was the way it was. They were goin' to give my brother fifty lashes but they come and took him to the army, and they didn't git to whip him.
"My father was Lewis Bronson. He come from South Carolina. My mother was stole. The speculators stole her and they brought her to Kemper County, Mississippi, and sold her. My mother's name was Millie. My father's owner was Elijah McCoy. Old Elijah McCoy was the owner, but they didn't take his name. They went back to the old standard mark after the surrender. They went back to the people where they come from, and they changed their names--they changed off of them old names. McCoys was my masters, but my father went back to the name of the people way back over in there in South Carolina, where he come from. I don't know nothin' bout them. He was the father of nine children. He had two wives. One of them he had nine by, and the other one he had none by. So he went back to the one he had the nine children by.
Early Life
"I was ten years old when war was ended. I had to carry matches and candles to the cotton pickers. It would be too dark for them to weigh up. They couldn't see. They had tasks and they would be picking till late to git their tasks done. Matches and candles come from the big house, and I had to bring it down to them. That was two years before the war.
"I wasn't big enough to do nothing else, only drive to the gin. I drove horse-power to the gin.--drove mules to the gin. I would drive the cows out to the pasture too. The milk women would milk them. Lawd, I could not do no milking. I was too small. The milk women would milk them and I would drive the cows one way and the calves another so that they couldn't mix. And at night I would go git them and they would milk them again. The milk women milked them. What would I know bout milkin.
"I never did any playin', 'cept plain marbles and goin' in swimmin'.
Schooling
"The white girls and boys learned us our A-B-C's after the war. They had a free school in Kemper County there. My children I learnt them myself or had it done. You couldn't hardly ever find one in Kemper Country that could spell and go on. They didn't have no time for that. Some few of them learned their A-B-C's before the war. But that is all. They learned what they learned after the war in the free government schools mostly. They would not do nothin' to you if they caught you learnin' in slave time. Sometimes the white children would teach you your A-B-C's.
Status of Colored Girls
"They had mighty mean ways in that country. They would catch young colored girls and whip them and make them do what they wanted. There wasn't but one mean one on our place. He was ordered to go to war and he didn't; so they pressed him. He was the one that promised my brother a whipping. He left like this morning and come back a week from today dead. The rest of them was pretty good. The mean one was Elijah.
Master's Sons
"Old man McCoy had four sons; Elijah, that was the mean one, Redder, Nelson, Clay.
Patrollers
"Sometimes the pateroles would do the devil with you if they caught you out without a pass. You could go anywhere you pleased if you had a pass. But if you didn't have a pass, they'd give you the devil.
Marriage and Sex Relationships
"You could have one wife over here and another one over there if you wanted to. My daddy had two women. And he quit the one that didn't have no children. People weren't no more 'n dogs them days,--weren't as much as dogs.
Mother and Father's Work
"In slavery time, my father worked at the field. Plowed and hoed and made cotton and corn--what else was he goin' to do. My mother was a cook.
Sustenance
"My master fed us and clothed us and give us something to eat. Some of them was hell a mile. Some of them was all kinds of ways. Our people was good. One of them was mean.
Father's Brother
"My father's brother belonged to Elijah. I had an auntie over in there too. I don't know what become of them all. They were all in Kemper county, Mississippi.
Churches
"The white people had churches in slavery times just like they have now. The white people would have service one a month. But like these street cars. White people would be at the front and colored would fill up back. They'll quit that after a while. Sometimes they would have church in the morning for the white folks and church in the evening for the colored. They would baptize you just like they would anybody else.
"I'll tell you what was done in slave time. They'd sing and pray. The white folks would take you to the creek and baptize you like anybody else.
"Sometimes the slaves would be off and have prayer meetings of their own--nothing but colored people there. They soon got out uh that.
"Sometimes they would turn a tub or pot down. That would be when they were making a lot of fuss and didn't want to bother nobody. The white people wouldn't be against the meeting. But they wouldn't want to be disturbed. If you wanted to sing at night and didn't want nobody to hear it, you could just take an old wash pot and turn it down--leave a little space for the air, and nobody could hear it.
Amusement