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(Mrs. Cora Gillam, Age 86, 1023 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas)
I have never been entirely sure of my age. I have kept it since I was married and they called me fifteen. That was in
'66 or '67. Anyhow, I'm about 86, and what difference does one year make, one way or another. I lived with master
and mistress in Greenville, Mississippi. They didn't have children and kept me in the house with them all the time.
Master was always having a bad spell and take to his bed. It always made him sick to hear that freedom was coming
closer. He just couldn't stand to hear about that. I always remember the day he died. It was the fall of Vicksburg.
When he took a spell, I had to stand by the bed and scratch his head for him, and fan him with the other hand. He
said that scratching pacified him.
No ma'am, oh no indeedy, my father was not a slave. Can't you tell by me that he was white? My brother and one
sister were free folks because their white father claimed them. Brother was in college in Cincinnati and sister was in
Oberlin college. My father was Mr. McCarroll from Ohio. He came to Mississippi to be overseer on the plantation
of the Warren family where my mother lived. My grandmother - on mother's side, was full blood Cherokee. She
came from North Carolina. In early days my mother and her brothers and sisters were stolen from their home in
North Carolina and taken to Mississippi and sold for slaves. You know the Indians could follow trails better than
other kind of folks, and she tracked her children down and stayed in the south. My mother was only part Negro; so
was her brother, my uncle Tom. He seemed all Indian. You know, the Cherokee were peaceable Indians, until you
got them mad. Then they was the fiercest fighters of any tribes.
Wait a minute, lady. I want to tell you first why I didr get educated up north like my white brother and sister. Just
about time for me to be born my papa went to see how they was getting along in school. He left my education
money with mama. He sure did want all his children educated. I never saw my father. He died that trip. After awhile
mama married a color man name Lee. He took my school money and put me in the cotton patch. It was still during
the war time when my white folks moved to Arkansas; it was Desha county where they settle. Now I want to tell
you about my uncle Tom. Like I said, he was half Indian. But the Negro part didn't show hardly any. There was
something about uncle Tom that made both white and black be afraid of him. His master was young, like him. He
was name Tom Johnson, too.
You see, the Warrens, what own my mother, and the Johnsons, were all sort of one family. Mistress Warren and
Mistress John- son were sisters, and owned everything together. The Johnsons lived in Kentucky, but came to
Arkansas to farm. Master Tom taught his slaves to read. They say uncle Tom was the best reader, white or black, for
miles. That was what got him in trouble. Slaves was not allowed to read. They didn't want them to know that
freedom was coming. No ma'am! Any time a crowd of slaves gathered, overseers and bushwhackers came and
chased them; broke up the crowd. That Indian in uncle Tom made him not scared of anybody. He had a newspaper
with latest war news and gathered a crowd of slaves to read them when peace was coming. White men say it done to
get uprising among slaves. A crowd of white gather and take uncle Tom to jail. Twenty of them say they would beat
him, each man, till they so tired they can't lay on one more lick. If he still alive, then they hang him. Wasn't that
awful? Hang a man just because he could read? They had him in jail overnight. His young master got wind of it, and
went to save his man. The Indian in uncle Tom rose. Strength big extra strength seemed to come to him. First man
what opened that door, he leaped on him and laid him out. No white men could stand against him in that Indian
fighting spirit. They was scared of him. He almost tore that jailhouse down, lady. Yes he did. His young master took
him that night, but next day the white mob was after him and had him in jail. Then listen what happened. The
Yankees took Helena, and opened up the jails. Everybody so scared they forgot all about hangings and things like
that. Then uncle Tom join the Union army; was in the 54th Regiment, U.S. volunteers (colored) and went to Little
Rock. My mama come up here. You see, so many white folks loaned their slaves to cessioners (Cecessionists) to
help build forts all over the state. Mama was needed to help cook. They was building forts to protect Little Rock.
Steele was coming. The mistress was kind; she took care of me and my sister while mama was gone.
It was while she was in Little Rock that mama married Lee. After peace they went back to Helena and stayed two
years with old mistress. She let them have the use of the farm tools and mules; she put up the cotton and seed corn
and food for us. She told us we could work on shares, half and half. You see, ma'am, when slaves got free, they
didn't have nothing but their two hands to start out with. I never heard of any master giving a slave money or land.
Most went back to farming on shares. For many years all they got was their food. Some white folks was so mean. I
know what they told us every time when crops would be put by. They said "Why didn't you work harder? Look.
When the seed is paid for, and all your food and everything, what food you had just squares the account." Then they
take all the cotton we raise, all the hogs, corn, everything. We was just about where we was in slave days.
When we see we never going to make anything share cropping, mother and I went picking. Yes ma'am, they paid
pretty good; got $1.50 a hundred. So we saved enough to take us to Little Rock. Went on a boat, I remember, and it
took a whole week to make the trip. Just think of that. A whole week between here and Helena. I was married by
then. Gillam was a blacksmith by trade and had a good business. But in a little while he got into politics in Little
Rock. Yes, lady. If you would look over the old records you would see where he was made the keeper of the jail. I
don't know how many times he was elected to city council. He was the only colored coroner Pulaski county ever
had. He was in the legislature, too. I used to dress up and go out to hear him make speeches. Wait a minute and I
will get my scrap book and show you all the things I cut from the papers printed about him in those days....
Even after the colored folks got put out of public office, they still kept my husband for a policeman. It was during
those days he bought this home. Sixty-seven years we been living right in this place - I guess - when did you say the
war had its wind up? It was the only house in a big forest. All my nine children was born right in this house. No
ma'am, I never have worked since I came here. My husband always made a good living. I had all I could do caring
for those nine children. When the Democrats came in power, of course all colored men were let out of office. Then
my husband went back to his blacksmith trade. He was always interested in breeding fine horses. Kept two fine
stallions; one was named "Judge Hill", the other "Pinchback". White folks from Kentucky, even, used to come here
to buy his colts. Race people in Texas took our colts as fast as they got born. Only recently we heard that stock from
our stable was among the best in Texas.
The Ku Kluxers never bothered us in the least. I think they worked mostly out in the country. We used to hear
terrible tales of how they whipped and killed both white and black, for no reason at all. Everybody was afraid of
them and scared to go out after dark. They were a strong organization, and secret. I'll tell you, lady, if the rough
element from the north had stayed out of the south the trouble of reconstruction would not happened. Yes ma'am,
that's right. You see, after great disasters like fires and earthquakes and such, always reckless criminal class people
come in its wake to rob and pillage. It was like that in the war days. It was that bad element of the north what made
the trouble. They tried to excite (incite) the colored against their white friends. The white folks was still kind to
them what had been their slaves. They would have helped them get started. I know that. I always say that if the
south could of been left to adjust itself, both white and colored would been better off.
Now about this voting business. I guess you don't find any colored folks what think they get a fair deal. I don't,
either. I don't think it is right that any tax payer should be deprived of the right to vote. Why, lady, even my children
that pay poll tax can't vote. One of my daughters is a teacher in the public school. She tells me they send out notices
that if teachers don't pay a poll tax they may lose their place. But still they can't use it and vote in the primary. My
husband always believed in using your voting privilege. He has been dead over 30 years. He had been appointed on
the Grand Jury; had bought a new suit of clothes for that. He died on the day he was to go, so we used his new suit
to bury him in. I have been getting his soldier's pension ever since. Yes ma'am, I have not had it hard like lots of
ex-slaves.
Before you go I'd like you to look at the bedspread I knit last year. My daughters was trying to learn to knit. This
craze for knitting has got everybody, it looks like. I heard them fussing about they could not cast on the stitches.
"For land's sakes," I said, "hand me them needles." So I fussed around a little, and it all came back. What's funny
about it is, I had not knitted a stitch since I was about ten. Old mistress used to make me knit socks for the soldiers. I
remember I knit ten pair out of coarse yarn, while she was doing a couple for the officer out of fine wool and silk
mixed. I used to knit pulse warmers, and "half-handers", - I bet you don't know what they was. Yes, that's right;
gloves without any fingers, 'cepting a thumb and it didn't have any end. I could even knit on four needles when I
was little. We used to make our needles out of bones, wire, smooth, straight sticks, - anything that would slip the
yarn. Well, let me get back to this spread. In a few minutes it all came back. I began knitting washrags. Got faster
and faster. Didn't need to look at the stitches. The girls are so scared something will happen to me, they won't let me
do any work. Now I had found something I could do. When they saw how fast I work, they say: "Mother, why don't
you make something worth while? Why make so many washrags?" So I started the bedspread. I guess it took me six
months, at odd times. I got it done in time to take to Ft. Worth to the big exhibit of the National Federation of
Colored Women's Clubs. My daughter was the national president that year. If you'll believe it, this spread took first
prize. Look, here's the blue ribbon pinned on yet. What they thought was so wonderful was that I knit every stitch of
it without glasses. But that is not so funny, because I have never worn glasses in my life. I guess that is some more
of my Indian blood telling.
Sometimes I have to laugh at some of these young people. I call them young because I knew them when they were
they are already all broken down old men and women feel young inside. I feel that I have had a good
Samuel S. Taylor (November 28, 1941)
Gillam, Cora -- Additional Interview
Mrs. Cora Carroll Gillam, 1023 Arch Street
Part I
Recollections of Slavery
"I was born in Mississippi near Greenville. I never saw my father; he was white. He died before I was born. I had an
older brother. He never was a slave. My father slipped him off to Cincinnati. He went to school there and became a
barber. He came back to Little Rock after the war and started a big barber shop here. Then he went to Longview.
Texas, and started a barber shop there. But he died of fever about a year and a half after he got there. My father
intended to send me to Cincinnati too, but he died before I got here.
"My mother was a little brownskin woman with straight black hair. She was mixed with Indian.
"I was a Carroll before I married. I don't know what other name my father had. My mother did n't talk much about
him. He never owned my mother. I don't think he owned a plantation; I never heard my mother say. But he took my
brother to Cincinnati and educated him.
"I don't know my exact age, but I am up in my eighties.
"I belong to Bethel A. M. E. Church. I was here when they first started it. The first ordained minister was Elder
Carter. He made the frame church. We had Elder Jennifer after him. Elder Jennifer was the one who built the first
brick church. We tore that one down. Every preacher come wanted to do something.
Ivison was the one who tore the brick building down. We just got back in the basement while he was here.
"Before Carter we just had local preachers --- Nase Warren, old man John Payton (He joined Miles Chapel later),
and old man Joe Stone, and Old man Barnes.
"Reverend Carter was the one who built Carter's Temple in Helena. He stayed here two years and then went to Pine
Bluff. We could n't keep a pastor but two years then. Jennifer stayed four years. We had to let him go, too, then. But
we called him back and kept him four more years. Then we let him go to Chicago. I think he built that big Quinn
Chapel in Chicago. We kept him with us eight years altogether."
"My husband, Mr. Gillam (I.T. Gillam, Senior, for whom the Granite Mountain Park Site is named), was in the
Fifty-Fourth Colored Regiment. It was camping in North Little Rock. I met him while he was in the army. We were
living in North Little Rock, then. My mother found that her brother Tom (T.P. Johnson, first Negro lawyer in Little
Rock after the war and at one time a member of the State Legislature of Arkansas), was here and she came here
from Desha county and settled in North Little Rock, too. She was a widow at that time, and she married a man from
the Fifty-Fourth too. That was before 1865.
"We never lived in the barracks. We rented a house. On Sunday evenings they had dress parade in the camp, and on
some days, they had inspecion. People would go and look at them.
That's the way Mr. Gillam met me --- while we were visiting at inspection and dress parade.
"Right after freedom, he was a blacksmith until he got to holding office. First he was a constable. Then he was a
policeman. He kept the jail at one time. Then he was coroner. Then he was in the legislature. His name was I.T.
Gillam. I.T. Gillam, Junior, Principal of M.W. Gibbs School is the son of I.T. Gillam, Sr.
"My mistress was good to her people; they were hers. Her husband was an Illinois man. She used to tell him he did
n't own but one slave. Her husband was named John Warren. John Warren made his slave a driver over all the
others. That slave knew a little more than the others. When the master and mistress were going to be clear away
then they would put a white overseer in charge. But the colored man would be over them all the rest of the time. The
Negro's name was Joe Brooks. Mrs. Warren had more than a hundred slaves.
"She was a Miller before she married. There were just two sisters of them. The slaves came from their parents.
When the old folks died, they divided their property between the two sisters. One married to a Warren, and the other
to a Johnson.
"My mother's brother, my uncle, took the name of Johnson. His name was Thomas P. Johnson. I don't know where
he got his training, but he was a lawyer right after the war.
"He was on the farm when the war was going on. He could read. These farm places all had lanes or roads between
them.
The slaves would come together from different farms and Uncle Tom would read them the news. Some of the slaves
told their white folks about it and seven white men who were overseers from the different plantations which the
slaves come from waylaid Uncle Tom and took him and said they were going to tie him and beat him up and then
hang him. They put him in a little shack and went in one by one and he beat them as they came in. Then he ran away
to Helena, and his folks put him in jail to save him. A few days later the Yankees took Helena, and they really saved
him. The people already had preached his funeral because they thought that he was dead, and his mother did n't find
out that he was alive till after the war.
When Tom got free, he started his law right here in Little Rock. He was mustered out here. There were many white
lawyers here and they helped him. There was another colored lawyer, who came here after him, named Gross. He
came in while the Republicans were in. W.A., Singfield, a man named Lindsay, Scipio Jones, Nelson Nichols, and
Johnny Roberts studied law under my uncle. Nichols was the father of Junetta Nichols, a teacher here in Little
Rock. Nelson Nichols, Jr., his son is a lawyer practicing in Washington and in some little place in New Jersey.
"T.P. Johnson owned the property back of where the Century Building is now. The corner belonged to the Paytons
and next to that was Tom Johnson's place. They called him Judge Johnson. (I.T. Gillam can tell you all about him.)
M.W. Gibbs cane in after peace was declared, too. Uncle Tom lived here till he died. He died here. Practiced law till
he died.
"Mrs. Warren's first name was Laura. As I said, she got her slaves from her old people. She never bought any more
slaves and she never sold any. Before the war, when they knew a slave would n't take a beating they would sell him.
But Mrs. Warren would n't do that.
"I had an Aunt on the Johnson place that was sold. She would n't allow no man to beat her; so they sold her off from
her children. We never did know what became of her. We could n't trace her. She was our Aunt Martha. They used
to carry them to New Orleans and put them on the block there and sell them.
"In the year the war was going on, we moved up in Desha County Arkansas. Our home place was a great big farm.
Houses were built on it in rows like the South End School, and Colored People lived in them. But the White People
lived in great big mansions like those in Park Hill.
"The big house was in the middle of a block more than four blocks square. A porch ran all around it. The slaves had
cisterns about every three houses. A big lake ran in front of the plantation, and the slaves fished in it. There was a
knoll that they would gather the stock on when there was an overflow.
"They had a big overflow every seven years. They had high water oftener than that. But there would n't be a big
overflow more than once in seven years.
"Deep holes were dug and sunk in the ground and little houses were built over those for toilets. Garbage was thrown
out to stock. Every farm did n't have these toilets. But our master was better to his servants than most others.
"Some white people were awful cruel to their slaves. On the place adjoining our, you could hear them all day long
whipping and begging and begging.
"Most of the slaves on our place worked in the field --- cotton and corn and so on. Had a man for each thing. One
would be over the horses, and so on. They raised everything we ate on the farm. Did n't have to buy anything. They
would buy their meat, of course. But they did n't have to buy that often, because they raised hogs, and killed and
cured their own meat. But in the summer, they would buy fresh meat if they wanted it.
"As I said, there was a man to take care of the horses; a man for the cattle stock --- to see that they were in of
evenings; one for the hogs. They fed the stock twice --- morning and evening. They had hog pens and stables for the
cows and horses. Nothing had to stand out in the open, especially in the winter time. We had field hands. All the
stock men worked in the field also --- so many hours. They had a bell for them to go to work in the morning, a bell
for them to get up by, and another one for noon, and another in the evening when they would knock off for dark.
"They had a woman to nurse the children while the mothers were in the field. If the mothers were nursing the baby,
they allowed them to come back to the nursery every hour to nurse them. The woman who took care of them was an
old woman who was too old to go into the field. She was 'Aunt Kizzie." I don't know what her real name was. She
was a tall brownskin woman. She had children, too, --- grand children. But she would treat them all alike. You
could n't say she made any difference.
"In the field the slaves wore jeans. They would make the cloth and dye it red, brown or blue. For summer they had
cotton pants made out of cotton cloth. They made the cloth and the clothes. They called the pants jeans.
"The youngest age they worked in the field was twelve. Then they would just give them tasks --- mostly carrying
water.
"The grown people were in the field early in the morning. It was about six, I reckon. It was early. The master would
give them time to eat their breakfast. They had an hour for dinner, and they would stop about dark unless there was
something the matter urgent. If it was late in the season and they were afraid the rain or something would catch
them, then they would have to work later sometimes. If it were hot in the hot part of summer, they would allow the
slaves to stop during the hot part of the day and rest. They worked in the early and late part of the day then.
"In the field, they wore jeans. They made their cloth and their clothes. They would dye the cloth red, blue, or brown.
Summer, they wore cotton pants made out of cotton cloth. They called the pants jeans.
"My work was to answer the door bell and wait on my mistress and go round with her wherever she went. I had to
sleep in the house with her. Sometimes at night I would have to go down to the quarters for her, and I would run
every step of the way. The old master had been buried in the garden (He died at Vicksburg), and folks said he was a
'hant'. I never did see nothing, but I was scared I would. When I would get back, Mistress would say, 'You did n't
take so long to go.' And I would say to her 'I was scared I would see 'Master'. She and I were the only two persons
in the house.
"A colored man called the yard man lived right near the house. Whenever there was a noise at night, he would have
to get up and see what it was that made it. He would get up any time she called. Round about then there was a lot of
soldiers --- Rebs and Yanks both --- who would steal meat and stock, and you would have to watch out for them.
She was a mighty brave woman though. She was n't scared. She would just talk up to any of them. Henry the yard
man had nothing to do but keep the yard round the house clean and see after the fowls and so on.
"Some of the men on the farm were mechanics. They had a man that could fix the horses' shoes when they needed
it. They had a carpenter to fist the houses, and build things. They did n't have nobody to teach them. They just
picked up the knowledge, I guess. You know some people can. They had women to sew and spin. Old Miss would
cut out men's clothes, and on rainy days, the women would sew them. And these clothes were issued out as they
were needed. There were old ladies who could knit stockings, sock, wristbands, sweaters, and anything. There were
men who could mend shoes.
"There used to be trade boats going down the river, and the slaves that were smart enough used to raise vegetables
and chickens. Everyone of the slave houses in the quarters had a plot of ground attached to it. My mother used to
raise vegetables and chickens and sell them to the trading boats. Then there were peddlars that would come round
with different things, and they would take eggs and chickens and things in trade. My mother raised hogs in her lot,
too. Some of them raised their own milk cows as well as their hogs. It was about an acre, I guess. I'm not sure. They
would knock off early on Saturdays and give them time to work for themselves. All farmers did n't do that, just
them that had hearts and thought you was human.
"There was one man down there so mean to the people that they were scared all the time. None of the slaves ever
tried any uprising. Only sometimes they would take up for themselves when they were being beaten. Then they
would run away, too. If the overseer ran a man away, some of the masters would take it out of the overseer's wages.
"I never heard of anyone stealing any slaves off of our plantation. During the war a lot of our men (when they were
fixing the fort) who were sent to work on the forts, never did come back till after the war was over. Then they used
to pick out the best men and send them to these forts. People used to say that they sent them there to keep them from
getting free.
"They did n't only take the best looking men, they took the best looking women, too. They took my mother and kept
her at the Arkansas Post. When the Yankees took it, all the other slaves went on somewhere else. My mother came
back here to me. She said that she would n't have come back herself if it had n't been that we children were there.
They didn't let the children go to the forts with the mothers and fathers.
"They gave good care to the mothers when they were having children. They had some old ladies that stayed on the
place to care for them. They did n't call a doctor unless it was something very serious. They had doctors but used
them when it was serious. They had an old lady that did n't do anything but tend to that. But if they had fever or
anything, they would call the doctor.
"After a child was born, my mistress never put a mother to work within a month. They said that some of the owners
would put them right out as soon as the child was born, but I never saw that. They did n't do it on our farm.
"They were all married on our place. You know when they got ready to marry, they had to ask the Miss and Master.
Then they would give them a little party. The plantation preacher married them. Some of these people say that they
used to jump over the broom. But they did n't do that on our place. They were married by the preacher.
"They had preachers on our farm. They had meetings at night at the houses. The white folks on our place let them
have meetings and shout if they wanted to. But the rest of them would n't let the slaves shout and make too much
noise. They did n't like them to stay up too late because that would interfere with their work. When you went from
one farm to another one, you had to get permission. If you did n't then the pateroles would catch you and whip you.
Your master and mistress could n't help you if you did n't have permission. Your master would have to give you a
pass. I don't know where the pateroles got their pay. But I reckon the bosses paid them. Some of the farmers were so
mean that they would n't allow preachers to come through and preach to the slaves, but our folks did. The preachers
would tell them to obey their masters, of course.
Issued food was meal, flour, cured meat, and all like that. Now and then coffee. (They did n't give them coffee
much. The old people used to make it out of parched meal.) Every Saturday the slaves would come up to the
smokehouse window and be issued their part. Some of them would eat it all up in a day or so and then they would
have to steal. There used to be hogs in the woods, and the people would take them. But if they would take a
neighbor's hogs and got caught, they would get punished.
"Old Miss would ask me questions when I would go to the quarters and come back. She would say, 'What was they
eating?'
"And I would say, 'They was jus' eatin' that stuff what you give 'em.'
"She would say, 'Was n't they eating fresh meat?'
"And I would say, 'No ma'am.'
"And I used to hear 'em say to her, 'No use to ask her nothin', cause she wont tell you nothin."
"There was a woman called Aunt Judy that they said was a regular tattle tale, but she never did let me hear her tell
anything. Our people on our plantation had no cause to steal because they were allowed to raise what they wanted.
But some of them were too lazy --- just like some people are too lazy today to do anything for themselves.
"They got water by digging wells and cisterns, they would call them --- and they drank that water. They would n't
allow it to be used for washing things. They got water for washing out of the lake. In the summer time, the people
just washed out of the lake. In the winter time, they used cistern water. The cisterns were of cement, and they were
filled in the winter through troughs. At a certain time, they would take the troughs down so that the wiggle tails
would n't get in. Most of them drank out of the wells because the water was cooler.
"To get the wells, they would dig down till they came to water, and then they would wall up the hole. They would
cover both the wells and the cisterns.
"The white people had a big ice house, and they would put up ice in the winter --- cut it out of the big lake, and put
it up for the summer. The white people would use it just for themselves, but they would allow the colored to use it
when they were sick.
Some of the slaves' houses were weather-boarded. Some of them was weather boarded and some was built of
straight planks placed upright. No log cabins on our place. They say that they had some, but they all tore them
down. They had plenty of them on other farms. Every slave house on our plantation had a plank floor. I don't think
any of them had over two rooms. Some had just one, if they did n't have any family. They made cupboards, and
women that was smart would make covers for them. They would make home-made tables and everything. Beds
were home-made, too. But they were beds that could be moved. I never saw none built in a corner or nailed to the
walls. I have seen them in different other plantations that looked like they were nailed to the walls. Some of the
slaves that had children had little trundle beds they would pull out at night and shove back under the big beds in the
morning.
"The colored folks had parties as well as the white folks. On our place, the slaves had a regular band: fiddler, banjo
player, tamborine player. They played any kind of song. They would play for the dances. The folks would give
quiltings and after they got through, they would eat. They served heavily. Lord: the people would make cakes and
wine and most any kind of eating --- pies, potato and pumpkin. They could always fix up a nice dinner because they
raised stuff on their farms. In those days, people made what they called float --- they used eggs and milk. It was a
kind of boiled custard. In winter, they would beat up eggs and milk and snow together and call it ice cream.
"I never heard of slaves buying themselves where we was. I guess they did that in some places. The carpenters and
blacksmiths practiced their trade for pay, and could have done so if they had wanted to. They did n't because they
never had any trouble on our place. You would hardly find more than one or two owners who were kind to slaves
like our people were. The one closest to our farm was awful cruel.
"There were no police except the pateroles. I imagine that they were just what police is now. I have seen some
run-away slaves. They came to our place one night to get something to eat. They would stay out till the owners
would send and tell them come on back and they would n't whip them.
"I never knew of any that run away and never come back. I have heard people say that some ran away and went to
the free states. But I never knew of their doing that until the war started. Some of my people on the Johnson place
were the first Negroes to settle in Minneapolis. They were the Youngs --- Jack Young and Lovey, my Uncle Tom's
brother and my mother's sister. Bill Gales was the first Negro to go up to Cincinnati after the war. Gales took his
regular father's name while Johnson took his master's name.
"My mistress buried her silver and stuff when the soldiers were coming through. Yankee scouts would come
through and go all through the house looking for things. Once they ransacked everything in the house. Old Master
had n't got back then. Old Miss said they were hunting money. Only thing they taken from us was to go in the
smoke house and take meat, and they took chickens too. The white people told us the yankees would capture us and
cut our ears off. . . . The first time I saw Yankee soldiers I was in the field. I looked up and saw them and I got
scared and ran to the house. They thought I was running to tell the folks, and when I got there they were there. I was
scared to death. The next time, the scouts come, it turned out that one of them and my old master had been school
mates. Old Master sent out and got melons and cut them and served them. The first time the captain wanted to take
me away to serve his wife, but I did n't want to go. I have heard my mistress say that the Reb soldiers took more
things than the Yankees.
"The first I heard about freedom was from the white people themselves. I was in the house and I heard them talking
about it.
They let the slaves know about it and made propositions with them about working on shares. All I knowed worked
on shares. I never heard of none of them being given anything. They were all working, using the white people's
things.
"The colored people were turned loose with nothing at the end of the war, and there was n't nothing to do but for
them to work on shares. They would work all the year and get nothing out of it but something to eat. At the end of
the year, the white folks would say to them, 'You'll do better next year.' But the next year it would be same thing
over again.
"My husband built this house a long time ago, --- about 75 years. All my children were born on this corner except
two. When we bought out here, this was the edge of town. This section of the grave yard was used only for colored
people. Now they don't allow them to be buried in it. When Mr. Gillam was member of the city council, he wanted
to buy a lot over here in the grave yard. Now I am glad he did n't because they would n't allow us to bury nobody
there now.
"There are a lot of colored folks buried there and white folks on top of them. They did n't move the colored because
there was n't nobody to pay for moving. They just buried the white on top of them. Judge Gibbs buried a son there.
But he had him taken up before he died and moved the body. Old Man Warren and Miss Cragin and a family of
Flannagins, Mr. and Mrs. Block and Mrs. Branch were buried there since I have been living here, but none of them
was taken up. Mrs. Brandon was buried there but when her husband sold the lot he had her taken up. But them is the
only two that have been taken up --- Judge Gibbs' son and Mrs. Brandon. All this was the colored section of the
graveyard, and the white folks had them buried here, and any white folks that are buried there are buried on colored
folks.
"I had a pretty tight spell some time back, but since then I have been able to keep up. I knitted a spread last year,
and Annie put it on exhibition. I got a blue ribbon on it. I aint never wore no glasses. When my daughter Mrs. Peake
was trying to learn to knit, I showed her how. Henry Peake is her husband's name. He is in Kansas City. His
daughter, Ruby Mae, is teaching in St. Louis."
The interviewee gave the sound of short "O" to "a" in "master". It was interesting to note how this old lady started
with very proper English and the use of the word "Negro." But as the story progressed and she became interested,
she reverted quite often to very colloquial English --- (an effort has been made to record it) and occasionally to the
term "Nigger." She would most certainly object however to the latter term being quoted and would probably delete
most of the colloquial expressions if they were read back to her.
Bernice Bowden, interviewer Clara Higgins, interviewee 611 Missouri Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age 68"
