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Edmundson, Arkansas
Age 71
"My mother's owner was Master Priest Gates. He had a son in Memphis. I seen him not long ago. He is an insurance
agent. They was rosy rich looking folks. Mama was a yellow women. She had fourteen living children. Her name
was Harriett Gates. Papa named Shade Huggins. They belong to different folks. They was announced married
before the War and they didn't have to remarry.
"She said the overseers was cruel to them. They had white men overseers. She was a field hand. I heard her say she
was so tired when she come to the house she would take her baby in her arms to nurse and go to sleep on the steps
or under a tree and never wake till they would be going to the field. She would get up and go on back. They at
breakfast in the field many and many a time. Old people cooked and took care of the children. She never was sold. I
don't know if my father was. They come from Alabama to Mississippi and my mother had been brought from
Georgia to Alabama.
"She picked geese till her fingers would bleed to make feather beds for old master I reckon. They picked geese jus'
so often. The Gates had several big quarters and lots of land. They come to be poor people after the War--land poor.
Mother left Gates after the War. They didn't get nothing but good freedom as I ever heard of. My father was a
shoemaker at old age. He said he learned his trade in slavery times. He share cropped and rented after freedom.
"I heard 'em say the Ku Klux kept 'em run in home at night. So much stealing going on and it would be laid at the
hands of the colored folks if they didn't stay in place. Ku Klux made them work, said they would starve and starve
white folks too if they didn't work. They was share cropping then, yes ma'am, all of them. I know that they said they
had no stock, no land, no rations, no houses to live in, their clothes was thin. They said it was squally times in
slavery and worse after freedom. They wore the new clothes in winter. By summer they was wore thin and by next
winter they had made some more cloth to make more new clothes. They wove one winter for the next winter. When
they got to share croppin' they had to keep a fire in the fireplace all night to warm by. The clothes and beds was
rags. Corn bread and meat was all they had to eat. Maybe they had pumpkins, corn, and potatoes. They said it was
squally times.
"I got a place. I rented it out to save it. My brother rents it. I can't hardly pay tares. I'd like to get some help. I could
sew if they would let me on. I can see good. I'm going to chop cotton but it so long till then.
"I washed and ironed in Memphis till washing went out of style. Prices are so high now and cotton cheap. I'm
counting on better times.
"Times is close. Young folks is like young folks always bean. Some are smart and some lazy. None don't look
ahead. They don't think about saving. Guess they don't know how to save. Right smart spends it foolish. I'm a
widow and done worked down."
(Interviewer, Pernella Anderson), EX-SLAVES)
I was born in Farmerville, La., I don't know what year. I was about three or four years at surrender. I lived with my
mother and father. The first work I ever did was plow. I did not work very hard at no time but what ever there was
to do I went on and got through with it. All of our work was muscle work. There were no cultivators.
I stayed at home with my father and mother until I was 32 years of age. I was thirty years old when papa died and
mother lived two years longer. About a month after mother died I married. We lived in a real good house. My father
bought it after slavery time. We had good furniture that was bought from the hardware. The first stove that we used
we bought it and father bought it just after surrender. Never used a homemade broom in my life. Now Ma just
naturally liked ash cakes so she always cooked them in the fireplace. We wore all homespun clothes, and we wore
the big bill baily hats. We chaps went barefooted until I was 16 years old then I bought my first pair of shoes. They
were brass toe progans. I never been in the school house a day in my life. Can't read neither write nor figure. I went
to church. Our first preacher was name Prince Jones. The biggest games I played was ball and card. I was one of the
best dancers. We danced the old juland dance, swing your partner, promonate. Danced by fiddling. The fiddlers
could beat the fiddlers of today. Get your partners, swing them to the left and to the right, hands up four, swing
corners, right hands up four promonate all around all the way, git your partners boys. I shoot dice, drink, I got drunk
and broke up church one Sunday night. Me and sister broke up a dinner once because we got drunk. Whiskey been
in circulation a long time. There have been bad people ever since I been in the world.
-Will Hicks.
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
