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2215 W. Twentieth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 77 or more
"On the fourth of August, my birthday, and directly after the colored people ware sat free, all the white people gave
a great big dinner to the slaves. All the white people at my home came together and gave a big dinner to us. It was
that way all over the United States. My mother told me I was four years old at that big dinner. They went to a great
big book and throwed it open and found my birthday in it. I never will forget that. You can figure from that exactly
how old I am. (Seventy-seven or seventy-eight--ed.)
"My mother's name was Elizabeth Tuggle and my father's name was Albert Tuggle. My mother was the mother of
sixteen children. They were some of them born in freedom and some born in slavery. They are all dead but three.
My mother was married twice.
"Old Tom Owens was my mother's master. I just do remember him. My father's master was named Tom Tuggle. My
mother and my father got together by going different places and meeting. They went together till freedom and
weren't married except in the way they married in slavery. During slavery times, old master gave you to some one
and that was all of it. My father asked my mother's old master if he could go with my mother and old man Owens
said yes. Then father went to her cabin to see her. When freedom came, he taken her to his place and married her
accordin' to the law.
"Aunt Mariny Tuggle was my father's mother. I don't know anything about his father. She has been deed! She died
when I was young. I can remember her well, though.
"I can remember my mother's mother. Her name was Eliza Whitelow. Her husband was named Jack Whitelow.
They was my grandfather and my grandmother on my mother's side. They old people. I can remember seeing them.
"I never saw my grandfather on my father's side. That was way back in slavery time. I used to hear them say he was
a guinea man. He was short. My own father was small too. But my father's father was short as I am. I am about four
and a half feet tall. (I stopped here and measured her, and she was exactly four feet six inches tall--ed.) I never heard
nobody say where he came from. My father's sisters were part Indian. Their hair was longer than that ruler you got
in your hand there. It came down on their shoulders. They was a shade brighter than I am.
"My father's mother was small too. His sisters were not whole sisters; their daddy was Indian.
"My father and his father and mother were all farmers. My mother and her mother were farmers too. All my people
were long-lived. Grandpa, grandma, and all of them. I reckon there about a hundred children scattered back there in
Tennessee. Brother's children and sister's children. I believe my folks would take care of me if they knew about my
condition. These folks here are mean. Them folks would take care of me if I were home.
"The slaves lived in old log houses; just one room, one door, one window, one everything. They had any kind of
furniture they could git.
Some of them had old homemade beds and some of them one thing and another. You know the white folks wasn't
goin' to give them no furniture.
"They had plenty of meat and bread and milk to eat. Coarse food--the commonest kind of food they could get 'hold
of! When I knowed anything, I was in the big house eating the bes' with the white folks. Some of them could live
well then. My Mama gave me to the Owenses--her old mistress. I was raised on a pellet in the house. I was in the
house from the time I was large enough to be taken from my mother. I didn't never do any work till I was married.
Old mistress wouldn't let me work. Just keep by her and hand her a drink of water, and on like that. She's dead
now--dead, dead, dead! They didn't leave but two children. They was 'round in the country somewheres when I left
there.
"After I married I went to her husband's first wife's child. She had about nine or ten boys and one girl. I raised part
of them. But most of them was great big children--big enough for me to throw a glass of milk at their heads. I would
fight. Sometimes they used to hear them hollering and come out, and I would be throwing a glass at one and
jumping across the table at the other. But when them boys grew up, they loved me just the same as anybody.
Nobody in town could touch me, right or wrong.
"My mother's masters used to tie her down before the dairy door and have two men beat her. She has told me that
they used to beat her till the blood ran down on the bricks. Some white people in slavery times was good to the
niggers. But those were mean. That's the reason I ain't got no use for white folks. I'm glad I was not old in that time.
I sure would have killed anybody that treated me that way.
I don't know that my father's people beat him up. I think his people were kinder and sorter humored him because he
was so small.
"They tell me some of them would have a big supper and then they would hug and kiss each other and jump over
the broomstick and they were supposed to be married.
"They used to go out and dance and carry on for amusement, and they would go to church too. It was just about like
it is now. Dancing and going to church is about all they do now, isn't it? They got a gambling game down there on
the corner. They used to do some of that too I guess.
"I have heard my mother say many times that a woman would be put up on the block and sold and bring good
money because she was known to be a good and fast breeder.
"I've heard of the pateroles and Ku Klux. I thought they said the Ku Klux was robbers. I think the Ku Klux came
after the War. But there was some during the War that would come 'round and ask questions. 'Where's yo' old
master?' 'Where's his money hid?' 'Where's his silverware?' And on like that. Than they would take all the money
and silver and anything also loose that could be carried away. And some of them used to steal the niggers
theirselves 'specially if they were little childrens. They was scared to leave the little children run 'round because of
that.
"I don't know. I better keep my 'pinions to myself. You just have to go on and be thankful and look to the Lord.
"I haven't done a day's work for seven years. I haven't been able. I have a son, but he has a family of his own to
support and can't do nothin' for me. I have another son but he is now out of work himself. He can't get anything to
do. I just have to git along on what little I can turn up myself, and what little I get from my friends.
"My husband died about seven years ago. I have lost two boys inside of seven years. After they died, I went right on
down. I ain't been no good since. The youngest one, Mose, got killed on a Sunday night. I felt it on Saturday night
and screamed so that people had to come 'round me and hold me and comfort me. Then on Sunday night Mose got
shot and I want crazy. He was my baby boy and he and his brother were my only support. My other boy got sick
and died at the hospital. When the man stepped on the porch to tell me he was dead, I know it when I heard him stop
up before he could say a word. I can't git to see his wife now. She was the sweetest women ever was. She was sure
good to my son. She treated him like he was a baby. She was devoted to him and his last request to her was to see to
me. I don't know just where she is now, but she's in the city somewheres. She would help me I know if I could get to
her.
"My husband was a preacher. He pastored the St. John Baptist Church for fifteen years. We lived here over thirty
years before he died. I left a good home in Brownsville, Tennessee. That's where we were married. I have been
married twice. I lived with my first husband, George Shaver, a year.
I married him about 1876. I was single for two years. After that I married Rev. Hays. I lived with Rev. Mays about
twenty-one years in Brownsville, Tennessee. We bought a house and lot there. We were gettin' along fine when we
decided to come here. He was a shoemaker then. He made shoes after he came here, too. I ran a restaurant in
Brownsville. I guess we lived together more than fifty years in all. He died seven years age.
"I rent these two rooms in this little shack. They won't give me no help at the Welfare."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
