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815 Arch Street, Little Book, Arkansas
Age About 45
"My grandmother told me that they had to chink up the cracks so that the light wouldn't get out and do their washing
and ironing at night. When they would hear the overseers or the paterolers coming 'round (I don't know which it
was), they would put the light out and keep still till they had passed on. Then they would go right on with the
washing and ironing.
"They would have to wash and iron at night because they were working all day.
"She told me how they used to turn pots down at night so that they could pray. They had big pots than--big enough
for you to get into yourself. I've seen some of them big old pots and got under 'em myself. You could get under one
and pray if you wanted to. You wouldn't have to prop them up to send your voice in 'em from the outside. The thing
that the handle hooks into makes them tilt up on one side so that you could get down on your hands and knees and
pray with your mouth close to the opening if you wanted to. Anyway, my grandma said they would turn the pots
upside down and stick their heads under them to pray.
"My father could make you cry talking about the way they treated folks in slavery times. He said his old master was
so mean that he made him eat off the ground with the dogs. He never felt satisfied unless'n he saw a nigger
sufferin'."
Gillie Hill is the daughter of Evelyn Jones already interviewed and reported. The few statements which she hands in
make an interesting supplement to her mother's story. The mother. Evelyn Jones, remembered very few things in her
interview and had to be constantly prompted and helped by her daughter and son who were present at each sitting.
There was considerable difference of opinion among them over a member of things, especially the age of the
mother, the daughter showing letters to prove the age of seventy, the mother saying she had been told she was
sixty-eight, and the som argning that the scattering of the ages of her nineteen children showed that she must be well
over eighty.
Gillie Hill claims to be somewhat clairvoyant. She gave a brief analysis of my character, stating accurately my
regular calling and a few of my personal traits even indicating roughly my bringing-up and where. She is not a
professional fortune-teller, and merely ventured a few statements. My impression was that she was an unusually
close and alert observer. Like her mother she is somewhat taciturn. I should have said that her mother was reserved
as wall as forgetful. The mother never ventured a word except in answer to a question, and used monosyllabic
answers whenever possible.
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed Harriett Hill
Age 84 Forrest City, Ark.
(Visiting at Brinkley, Ark.)
"I was born in Lithonia, Georgia, at the foot of Little Rock Mountain, close to Stone Mountain, Georgia. I been sold
in my life twice to my knowing. I was sold away from my dear old mammy at three years old but I can remember it.
I remembers it! It lack selling a calf from the cow. Exactly, but we are human beings and ought to be better than do
sich. I was too little to remember my price. I was sold to be a nurse maid. They bought me and took me on away
that time. The next time they put me up in a wagon and auctioned me off. That time I didn't sell. John George (white
man) was in the war; he wanted some money to hire a substitute to take his place fightin'. So he have Jim George do
the sellin'. They was brothers. They talked 'fore me some bit 'fore they took me off. They wouldn't take me to
Atlanta cause they said some of the people there said they wouldn't give much price - the Negroes soon be set free.
Some folks in Atlanta was Yankees and wouldn't buy slaves. They 'cluded the best market to sell me off would be
ten or twelve miles from home. I reckon it was to Augusta, Georgia. They couldn't sell me and start on back home.
A man come up to our wagon and say he'd split the difference. They made the trade. I sold on that spot for $1400. I
was nine or ten years old. I remembers it. Course I do! I never could forget it. Now mind you, that was durin' the
war.
"Master Jake Chup owned mammy and me too. He sold me to John George. Jim George sold me to Sam Broadnax.
When freedom come on that was my home. Freedom come in the spring. He got some of the slaves to stay to finish
up the crops for 1/10 at Christmas. When they got through dividin' up they said they goin' to keep me for a bounty. I
been talkin' to Kitty - all I remembers her name Kitty. She been down there at the stream washin'. Some children
come told me Kitty say come on. She hung out the clothes. I lit out over the fence and through the field with Kitty
and went to Conniars. She left me at the railroad track and went on down the road by myself to Lithonia. I walked
all night. I met my brother not long after Kitty left me. He was on a wagon. He knowed me and took me up with
him to Mr. Jake Chup's Jr. He was the young man. Then Chups fed me till he come back and took me to mammy.
Master Chups sold her to Dr. Reygans. I hadn't seen her since I was three years old. She knowed me. My brother
knowed me soon as ever he saw me. I might a not knowed them in a gatherin' but I hadn't forgot them. They hear
back and forth where I be but they never could get to see me. I lived with my folks till I married.
"The first man I lived with ten years. The next one I lived with fifty years and some days over. He died. They both
died. The man I married was a preacher. We farmed long with his preachin'. We paid $500.00 for forty acres of this
bottom land. Cleared it out. I broke myself plum down and it got mortgaged. The Planters Bank at Forrest City took
it over. I ain't had nothin' since. I ain't got no home. I ain't had nothin' since then. My husband died two years ago
and I has a hard time.
"My folks was livin' in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin'. We sure was scared of em. Mighty nigh to
death. When freedom come on the niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers. Sometimes a
white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be havin' preachin' here come the Ku Klux and run em
clear out. If they hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped several. They sure had to be
mighty particular what they said in the preachin'. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn't no
use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode the country every night for I don't know
how long and that all niggers talked bout.
"My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.
"My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They didn't allow white men to take em off so a
white man come and stay round shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to Memphis, then
we got on a big boat. No, ma'am, we didn't come on no freight train. We got off at White Hall Landing. They got off
all long the river. We worked on wages out here. Pa wanted to go to Mississippi. We went and made eighteen bales
cotton and got cheated out of all we made. We never got a cent. The man cheated us was Mr. Harris close to
Trotter's Landing.
"Mr. Anderson, the poor white man we worked for, jumped in the river and drowned his self. The turns (returns)
didn't come in for the first batch we sold at all, then when the turns come they said we done took it up - owed it all.
We knowed we hadn't took it up but couldn't get nothin'. We come back to Arkansas.
"I been to Detroit, short time, and been way, but I comes back.
"I forgot to say this: My mammy was born in South Carolina. Marbuts owned her and sold her. My pa lived to be
114 or 115 years old. He died in Arkansas. She did too.
"Of course I don't vote! Women ain't got no business runnin' the government!
"I nursed, worked in the field. When I was a slave they raised a little cotton in Georgia but mostly corn. I chopped
cotton and thinned out corn.
"The present times is too fast. Somethin' goin' to happen. The present generation too fast. Folks racin'. Ridin' in cars
too fast. They ain't kind no more.
"I rent a house where I can and I get $10.00 from the government. That all the support I got. I farmed in the field
mighty hard and lost all we had."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
