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Street H. West Memphis, Arkansas
Age 66
"I was born at Sanitobia, Mississippi. Mother died when I was a child. I was three months old, they said, when I lost
her. Father lived to be very old. My mother was Ella Geeter and my stepmother was Lucy Evans. My father's name
was Si Hubbard. My parents married after the War. I remembers Grandma Harriett Hubbard. She said she was sold.
She was a cook and she raised my papa up with white folks. Her children was sold with her. Papa was sold too at
the same time. Papa fired a steam gin. They ground corn and ginned cotton.
"I stayed with Sam Hall's family. She was good to me. I had a small bed by the fireplace. She kept me with two of
her own children. Some of the girls and boys I was raised up with live at Sanitobia now and have fine homes. When
we would be playing they would take all the toys from me. Miss Fannie would say. 'Poor Nancy ain't got no toys.'
Then they would put them on the floor and we would all play. They had a little table. We all eat at it. We had our
own plates. We all eat out of tin plates and had tin cups.
"They couldn't keep me at home when papa married. I slipped off across the pasture. There was cows and hogs in
there all the time. I wasn't afraid of them. I would get behind Miss Fannie and hide in her dress tail when they come
after me. They let me stay most of the time for about five years. Sam Hall was good to my father and Miss Fannie
about raised me after my mother died. She made me mind but she was good to me.
"Grandma lived with papa. She was part Indian. As long as papa lived he share cropped and ginned. He worked as
long as he was able to hit a lick. He died four miles east out from Sanitobia on Mr. Hayahaws place. What I told you
is what I know. He said he was sold that one time. Hubbards had plenty to eat and wear. He was a boy and they
didn't want to stunt the children. Papa was a water boy and filed the hoes for the chopping hands. He carried a file
along with them hoeing and would sharpen their hoes and fetch 'em water in their jugs. Aunt Sallie, his sister, took
keer of the children.
"Papa went to the War. He could blow his bugle and give all the war signals. He got the military training. Him and
his friend Charlie Grim used to step around and show us how they had to march to orders. His bugle had four joints.
I don't know what went with it. From what they said they didn't like the War and was so glad to get home.
"Between the big farms they had worm fences (rail fences) and gates. You had to get a pass from your master to go
visiting. The gates had big chains and locks on them. Some places was tollgates where they traveled over some
man's land to town. On them roads the man owned the place charged. He kept some boy to open and shut the gate.
They said the gates was tall.
"Some of the slaves that had hard masters run off and stay in the woods. They had nigger dogs and would run
them---catch 'em. He said one man (Negro) was hollowing down back of the worm fence close to where they was
working. They all run to him. A great long coachwhip make was wrapped 'round him, his arms and all, and
whooping him with its tail. It out gashes like a knife and the blood poured. The overseer out the snake's head off
with his big knife and they carried him home bleeding. His master didn't whoop him, said he had no business off in
the woods. He had run off. His master rubbed salt in the gashes. It nearly killed him. It burnt him so bed. That
stopped the blood. They said sut (soot) would stopped the blood but it would left black mark. The salt left white
marks on him. The salt helped kill the pison (poison). Some masters and overseers was cruel. When they was so bad
marked they didn't bring a good price. They thought they was hard to handle.
"Aunt Jane Peterson, old friend of mine, come to visit me nearly every year after she got so old. She told me things
took place in slavery times. She was in Virginia till after freedom. She had two girls and a boy with a white daddy.
She told me all about how that come. She said no chance to run off or ever get off, you had to stay and take what
come. She never got to marry till after freedom. Then she had three more black children by her husband. She said
she was the cook. Old master say. 'Jane, go to the lot and get the eggs.' She was scared to go and scared not to go.
He'd beat her out there, put her head between the slip gap where they let the hogs into the pasture from the lot down
back of the barn. She say, 'Old missis whip me. This ain't right.' He'd laugh. Said she bore three of his children in a
room in the same house his family lived in. She lived in the same house. She had a room so as she sould build fires
and cook breakfast by four o'clock sometimes, she said. She was so glad freedom come on and soon as she heard it
she took her children and was gone, she said. She had no use for him. She was scared to death of him. She learned
to pray and prayed for freedom. She died in Cold Water, Mississippi. She was so glad freedom come on before her
children come on old enough to sell.
Part white children sold for more than black children. They used them for house girls.
"I don't know Ku Klux stories enough to tell one. These old tales leave my mind. I'm 66 and all that was before my
time.
"Times is strange---hard, too. But the way I have heard they had to work and do and go I hardly ever do grumble.
I've heard so much. I got children and I do the best I can by them. That is all I can do or say."
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
