Part 6
"Mama didn't live only till I was about three years old, so I don't know enough to tell you about her. Grandma raised us. She was sold twice. She said she run out of the house to pick up a star when the stars fell. They showered down and disappeared.
"The Yankees camped close to where they lived, close to West Point, Mississippi, but in the country close to an artesian well. The well was on their place. The Yankees stole grandma and kept her at their tent. They meant to take her on to wait on them and use but when they started to move old master spicioned they had her hid down there. He watched out and seen her when they was going to load her up. He went and got the head man to make them give her up. She was so glad to come home. Glad to see him cause she wanted to see him. They watched her so close she was afraid they would shoot her leaving. She lived to be 101 years old. She raised me. She used to tell how the overseer would whip her in the field. They wasn't good to her in that way.
"I have three living children and eleven dead. I married twice. My first husband is living. My second husband is dead. I married in day time in the church the last time. All else ever took place in my life was hard work. I worked in the field till I was too old to hit a tap. I live wid my children. I get $8 and commodities.
"I come to Arkansas because they said money was easy to get--growed on bushes. I had four little children to make a living for and they said it was easier.
"I think people is better than they was long time ago. Times is harder. People have to buy everything they have as high as they is, makes money scarce nearly bout a place as hen's teeth. Hens ain't got no teeth. We don't have much money I tell you. The Welfare gives me $8."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Joseph Samuel Badgett 1221 Wright Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 72
[HW: Mother was a Fighter]
"My mother had Indian in her. She would fight. She was the pet of the people. When she was out, the pateroles would whip her because she didn't have a pass. She has showed me scars that were on her even till the day that she died. She was whipped because she was out without a pass. She could have had a pass any time for the asking, but she was too proud to ask. She never wanted to do things by permission.
Birth
"I was born in 1864. I was born right here in Dallas County. Some of the most prominent people in this state came from there. I was born on Thursday, in the morning at three o'clock, May the twelfth. My mother has told me that so often, I have it memorized.
Persistence of Slave Customs
"While I was a slave and was born close to the end of the Civil War, I remember seeing many of the soldiers down here. I remember much of the treatment given to the slaves. I used to say 'master' myself in my day. We had to do that till after '69 or '70. I remember the time when I couldn't go nowhere without asking the 'white folks.' I wasn't a slave then but I couldn't go off without asking the white people. I didn't know no better.
"I have known the time in the southern part of this state when if you wanted to give an entertainment you would have to ask the white folks. Didn't know no better. For years and years, most of the niggers just stayed with the white folks. Didn't want to leave them. Just took what they give 'em and didn't ask for nothing different.
"If I had known forty years ago what I know now!
First Negro Doctor in Tulip, Arkansas
"The first Negro doctor we ever seen come from Little Rock down to Tulip, Arkansas. We were all excited. There were plenty of people who didn't have a doctor living with twenty miles of them. When I was fourteen years old, I was secretary of a conference.
Schooling
"What little I know, an old white woman taught me. I started to school under this old woman because there weren't any colored teachers. There wasn't any school at Tulip where I lived. This old lady just wanted to help. I went to her about seven years. She taught us a little every year--'specially in the summer time. She was high class--a high class Christian woman--belonged to the Presbyterian church. Her name was Mrs. Gentry Wiley.
"I went to school to Scipio Jones once. Then they opened a public school at Tulip and J.C. Smith taught there two years in the summer time. Then Lula Baily taught there one year. She didn't know no more than I did. Then Scipio came. He was there for a while. I don't remember just how long.
"After that I went to Pine Bluff. The County Judge at that time had the right to name a student from each district. I was appointed and went up there in '82 and '83 from my district. It took about eight years to finish Branch Normal at that time. I stayed there two years. I roomed with old man John Young.
"You couldn't go to school without paying unless you were sent by the Board. We lived in the country and I would go home in the winter and study in the summer. Professor J.C. Corbin was principal of the Pine Bluff Branch Normal at that time. Dr. A.H. Hill, Professor Booker, and quite a number of the people we consider distinguished were in school then. They finished, but I didn't. I had to go to my mother because she was ill. I don't claim to have no schooling at all.
"Forty Acres and a Mule"
"My mother received forty acres of land when freedom came. Her master gave it to her. She was given forty acres of land and a colt. There is no more to tell about that. It was just that way--a gift of forty acres of land and a colt from her former master.
"My mother died. There is a woman living now that lost it (the home). Mother let Malinda live on it. Mother lived with the white folks meanwhile. She didn't need the property for herself. She kept it for us. She built a nice log house on it. Fifteen acres of it was under cultivation when it was given to her. My sister lived on it for a long time. She mortgaged it in some way I don't know how. I remember when the white people ran me down there some years back to get me to sign a title to it. I didn't have to sign the paper because the property had been deeded to Susan Badgett and HEIRS; lawyers advised me not to sign it. But I signed it for the sake of my sister.
Father and Master
"My mother's master was named Badgett--Captain John Badgett. He was a Methodist preacher. Some of the Badgetts still own property on Main Street. My mother's master's father was my daddy.
Marriage
"I was married July 12, 1889. Next year I will have been married fifty years. My wife's name was Elizabeth Owens. She was born in Batesville, Mississippi. I met her at Brinkley when she was visiting her aunt. We married in Brinkley. Very few people in this city have lived together longer than we have. July 12, 1938, will make forty-nine years. By July 1939, we will have reached our fiftieth anniversary.
Patrollers, Jayhawkers, Ku Klux, and Ku Klux Klan
"Pateroles, Jayhawkers, and the Ku Klux came before the war. The Ku Klux in slavery times were men who would catch Negroes out and keep them if they did not collect from their masters. The Pateroles would catch Negroes out and return them if they did not have a pass. They whipped them sometimes if they did not have a pass. The Jayhawkers were highway men or robbers who stole slaves among other things. At least, that is the way the people regarded them. The Jayhawkers stole and pillaged, while the Ku Klux stole those Negroes they caught out. The word 'Klan' was never included in their name.
"The Ku Klux Klan was an organization which arose after the Civil War. It was composed of men who believed in white supremacy and who regulated the morals of the neighborhood. They were not only after Jews and Negroes, but they were sworn to protect the better class of people. They took the law in their own hands.
Slave Work
"I'm not so certain about the amount of work required of slaves. My mother says she picked four hundred pounds of cotton many a day. The slaves were tasked and given certain amounts to accomplish. I don't know the exact amount nor just how it was determined.
Opinions
"It is too bad that the young Negroes don't know what the old Negroes think and what they have done. The young folks could be helped if they would take advice."
Interviewer's Comment
Badgett's distinctions between jayhawkers, Ku Klux, patrollers, and Ku Klux Klan are most interesting.
I have been slow to catch it. All my life, I have heard persons with ex-slave background refer to the activities of the Ku Klux among slaves prior to 1865. I always thought that they had the Klux Klan and the patrollers confused.
Badgett's definite and clear-cut memories, however, lead me to believe that many of the Negroes who were slaves used the word Ku Klux to denote a type of persons who stole slaves. It was evidently in use before it was applied to the Ku Klux Klan.
The words "Ku Klux" and "Ku Klux Klan" are used indiscriminately in current conversation and literature. It is also true that many persons in the present do, and in the past did, refer to the Ku Klux Klan simply as "Ku Klux."
It is a matter of record that the organization did not at first bear the name "Ku Klux Klan" throughout the South. The name "Ku Klux" seems to have grown in application as the organization changed from a moral association of the best citizens of the South and gradually came under the control of lawless persons with lawless methods--whipping and murdering. It is antecedently reasonable that the change in names accompanying a change in policy would be due to a fitness in the prior use of the name.
The recent use of the name seems mostly imitation and propaganda.
Histories, encyclopedias, and dictionaries, in general, do not record a meaning of the term Ku Klux as prior to the Reconstruction period.
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--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
2. Date and time of interview--
3. Place of interview--713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
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--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
1. Ancestry--father, Jeff Wells; mother, Tilda Bailey.
2. Place and date of birth--born in 1861 in Monticello, Arkansas.
3. Family--
4. Places lived in, with dates--reared in Monticello. Lived in Pine Bluff thirty-two years, then moved to Little Rock and has lived here thirty-two years.
5. Education, with dates--
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates--Hostler
7. Special skills and interests--
8. Community and religious activities--
9. Description of informant--
10. Other points gained in interview--
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--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
[HW: A Hostler's Story]
"I was born in Monticello. I was raised there. Then I came up to Pine Bluff and stayed there thirty-two years. Then I came up here and been here thirty-two years. That is the reason the white folks so good to me now. I been here so long, I been a hostler all my life. I am the best hostler in this State. I go down to the post office they give me money. These white folks here is good to me.
"What you writing down? Yes, that's what I said. These white folks like me and they good to me. They give me anything I want. You want a drink? That's the best bonded whiskey money can buy. They gives it to me. Well, if you don't want it now, come in when you do.
"I lost my wife right there in that corner. I was married just once. Lived with her forty-three years. She died here five months ago. Josie Bailey! The white folks thought the world and all of her. That is another reason they give me so much. She was one of the best women I ever seen.
"I gits ten dollars a month. The check comes right up to the house. I used to work with all them money men. Used to handle all them horses at the post office. They ought to give me sixty-five dollars but they don't. But I gits along. God is likely to lemme live ten years longer. I worked at the post office twenty-two years and don't git but ten dollars a month. They ought to gimme more.
"My father's name was Jeff Wells. My mother's name was Tilda Bailey. She was married twice. I took her master's name. Jeff Wells was my father's name. Governor Bailey ought to give me somethin'. I got the same name he has. I know him.
"My father's master was Stanley--Jeff Stanley. That was in slavery time. That was my slave time people. I was just a little bit of a boy. I am glad you are gittin' that to help the colored people out. Are they goin' to give the old slaves a pension? What they want to ask all these questions for then? Well, I guess there's somethin' else besides money that's worth while.
"My father's master was a good man. He was good to him. Yes Baby! Jeff Wells, that my father's name. I was a little baby settin' in the basket 'round in the yard and they would put the cotton all 'round me. They carried me out where they worked and put me in the basket. I couldn't pick no cotton because I was too young. When they got through they would put me in that big old wagon and carry me home. There wasn't no trucks then. Jeff Wells (that was my father), when they got through pickin' the cotton, he would say, 'Put them children in the wagon; pick 'em up and put 'em in the wagon.' I was a little bitty old boy. I couldn't pick no cotton then. But I used to pick it after the surrender.
"I remember what they said when they freed my father. They said, 'You're free. You children are free. Go on back there and work and let your children work. Don't work them children too long. You'll git pay for your work.' That was in the Monticello courthouse yard. They said, 'You're free! Free!'
"My mistress said to me when I got back home, 'You're free. Go on out in the orchard and git yoself some peaches.' They had a yard full of peaches. Baby did I git me some peaches. I pulled a bushel of 'em.
Ku Klux Klan
"The Ku Klux run my father out of the fields once. And the white people went and got them 'bout it. They said, 'Times is hard, and we can't have these people losin' time out of the fields. You let these people work.' A week after that, they didn't do no mo. The Ku Klux didn't. Somebody laid them out. I used to go out to the fields and they would ask me, 'Jeff Bailey, what you do in' out here?' I was a little boy and you jus' ought to seen me gittin' 'way frum there. Whooo-eeee!
"I used to pick cotton back yonder in Monticello. I can't pick no cotton now. Naw Lawd! I'm too old. I can't do that kind of work now. I need help. Carl Bailey knows me. He'll help me. I'm a hostler. I handle horses. I used to pick cotton forty years ago. My mother washed clothes right after the War to git us children some thin' to eat. Sometimes somebody would give us somethin' to help us out.
"Tilda Bailey, that was my mother. She and my father belonged to different masters. Bailey was her master's name. She always called herself Bailey and I call myself Bailey. If I die, I'll be Bailey. My insurance is in the name of Bailey. My father and mother had about eight children. They raised all their children in Monticello. You ever been to Monticello? I had a good time in Monticello. I was a baby when peace was declared. Just toddling 'round.
"My father drank too much. I used to tell him about it. I used to say to him, 'I wouldn't drink so much whiskey.' But he drank it right on. He drank hisself to death.
"I believe Roosevelt's goin' to be President again. I believe he's goin' to run for a third term. He's goin' to be dictator. He's goin' to be king. He's goin' to be a good dictator. We don't want no more Republic. The people are too hard on the poor people. President Roosevelt lets everybody git somethin'. I hope he'll git it. I hope he'll be dictator. I hope he'll be king. Yuh git hold uh some money with him.
"You couldn't ever have a chance if Cook got to be governor. I believe Carl Bailey's goin' to be a good governor. I believe he'll do better. They put Miz Carraway back; I believe she'll do good too."
Extra Comment
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Samuel S. Taylor
ADDRESS--Little Rock, Arkansas
DATE--December, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slave
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT--Jeff Bailey, 713 W. Ninth Street, Little Rock.
Jeff Bailey talked like a man of ninety instead of a man of seventy-six or seven. It was hard to get him to stick to any kind of a story. He had two or three things on his mind and he repeated those things over and over again--Governor Bailey, Hostler, Post Office. He had to be pried loose from them. And he always returned the next sentence.
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins. Person Interviewed: James Baker Aged: 81 Home: With daughter who owns home at 941 Wade St.
The outskirts of eastern Hot Springs resemble a vast checkerboard--patterned in Black and White. Within two blocks of a house made of log-faced siding--painted a spotless white and provided with blue shutters will be a shack which appears to have been made from the discard of a dozen generations of houses.
Some of the yards are thick with rusting cans, old tires and miscelaneous rubbish. Some of them are so gutted by gully wash that any attempt at beautification would be worse than useless. Some are swept--farm fashion--free from surface dust and twigs. Some attempt--others achieve grass and flowers. Vegetable gardens are far less frequent then they should be, considering space left bare.
The interviewer frankly lost her way several times. One improper direction took her fully half a mile beyond her destination. From a hilltop she could look down on less elevated hills and into narrow valleys. The impression was that of a cheaply painted back-drop designed for a "stock" presentation of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch."
Moving along streets, alleys and paths backward "toward town" the interviewer reached another hill. Almost a quarter of a mile away she spied an old colored man sunning himself on the front porch of a well kept cottage. Somthing about his white hair and erectly-slumped bearing screamed "Ex-slave" even at that distance. A negro youth was passing.
"I beg your pardon, can you tell me where to find Wade Street and James Baker?" "Ya--ya--ya--s ma'am. Dat--dat--dat's de house over da--da--da--da--r. He--he--he lives at his daughter's" "Could that be he on the porch?" "Ya--ya--yas ma'am. Dat--dat--dat's right."
"Yes, ma'am I'm James Baker. Yes ma'am I remembers about the war. You want to talk to me about it. Let me get you a chair. You'd rather sit right there on the step? All right ma'am.
I was born in Hot Spring county, below Melvern it was. I was borned on the farm of a man named Hammonds. But I was pretty little when he sold me to some folks named Fenton. Wasn't with them so very long. You know how it goes--back in them days. When a girl or a boy would marry, why they'd givem them as many black folks as they could spare. I was give to one of the daughters when she married. She was Mrs. Samuel Gentry.
I wasn't so very big before the war. So I didn't have to work in the fields. Just sort of played around. Can't remember very much about what happened then. We never did see no fighting about. They was men what passed through. They was soldiers. They come backwards and forewards. I was about as big as that boy you see there"--pointing to a lad about 8 years old--"some of them they was dressed in blue--sort of blue. We was told that they was Federals. Then some of them was in grey--them was the Southerners.
No, we wasn't scared of them--either of them. They didn't never bother none of us. Didn't have anything to be scared of not at all. It wasn't really Malvern we was at--that was sort of before Malvern come to be. Malvern didn't grow up until after the railroad come through. The town was across the river, sort of this side. It was called Rockport. Ma'am--you know about Rockport"--a delighted chuckle. "Yes, ma'am, don't many folks now-a-days know about Rockport. Yes ma'am the river is pretty shoaly right there. Pretty shoaly. Yes ma'am there was lots of doings around Rockport. Yes ma'am. Dat's right. Before Garland county was made, Rockport was the capitol O--I mean de county seat of Hot Spring County. Hot Springs was in that county at that time. There was big doings in town when they held court. Real big doings.
No, ma'am I didn't do nothing much when the war was over. No, I didn't go to be with my daddy. I moved over to live with a man I called Uncle Billy--Uncle Billy Bryant he was. He had all his family with him. I stayed with him and did what he told me to--'til I grew up. He was always good to me--treated me like his own children.
Uncle Billy lived at Rockport. I liked living with him. I remember the court house burned down--or blowed down--seems like to me it burned down. Uncle Billy got the job of cleaning bricks. I helped him. That was when they moved over to Malvern--the court house I mean. No--no they didn't. Not then, that was later--they didn't build the railroad until later. They built it back--sort of simple like--built it down by Judge Kieth's.