|
|
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age 78
"I was born October 18, 1859 in northeast Mississippi in Chickasaw County. It was close to the Fulton Road to
Houston, Mississippi. My folks belong to C. B. Baldwin. After 'mancipation papa stop calling himself Jacob
Baldwin and called himself Jacob Brown in his own pa's name. Mama was named Catherine Brown. The same man
owned them both. They had twelve children. They lost a child born in 1866. I had two brothers sent to Louisiana as
refugees. The place they was sent to was taken by the Yankees and they was taken and the Yankees made soldiers
out of them. Charlie died in 1922 in Mobile, Alabama and Lewis after the War joined the United States army. I
never saw any grandparents. Mama was born in Baltimore and her mother was born there too as I understood them
to say. Mama's father was a white Choctaw Indian. He was a cooper by trade. His name was John Abbot. He sold
Harriett, my grandma, and kept mama and her brother. Than he married a white woman and had a white family. Her
brother died. That left her alone to wait on that white family. They cut her hair off. She hated that. She loved her
long straight black hair. Then her papa, John Abbot (Abbott?), died. Her brother run off and was leaving on a ship
on the Potomac River. I woman lost her trunk. They was fishing for it and found mama's brother droamed. He had
fell overboard too.
"Mema took a bucket on her arm to keep the stealers from gagging her. She knowed if she had a bucket or basket
they would not bother, they would know she went out on turn (errand) and would be protected. They didn't bother
her than. She went down to the nigger trader's yard to talk awhile but she was making her way off then. Sometimes
she went down to the yard to laugh and talk with some she knowed down there. She said them stealers would kill
'em and insect (dissect) 'em. But they didn't get her. But might as well, Jim Williams owned that nigger yard. He put
her on a sailboat named Big Humphries. She was on there hard sailing, she said, twenty-four days and nights. Jim
Williams stole her! On that sailboat is where she seen my papa. When they got to New Orleans a white man from
Baltimore was passing. He seen my mama. He ask her about her papers. She told him she had been stole. He said
without papers Jim Williams couldn't sell her. He told Jim Williams he better not sell that woman. Jim Williams
knowed she was crazy about my papa. He hired him out and ask her if she rented to go with him. He got pay for
both of them hired out. It was better for him than if he owned her. When they had two children, Jim Williams come
back out to Chambers County, Alabama where he had them hired out. He ask her if he would agree to let him sell
her. He was going to sell papa and the two children. She said she had seen them whooped to death in the yards
because they didn't want to be sold. She was scared to contrary him. She had nobody to take her part. So she let him
sell her with papa and the two children. Jim Williams sold her and papa and the two children to Billy Gates of
Mississippi. Jim Williams said, 'Don't never separate Henry and Hannah 'cause I don't have the papers for Hannah.'
Then they lived in the prairies eighteen miles from Houston, where Billy Gates lived. Mama done well. She worked
and they treated her nice. Eight of us was born on that place includin' me.
"I was raised up in good living conditions and kept myself so till twelve years ago this next August this creeping
neuritis (paralasis) come on. I raised my niece. I cooked, washed and ironed, and went to the field in field time.
"Master Billy Gates' daughter married Cyrus Brisco Baldwin. He was a lawyer. He give mama, papa and one child
to them. Master Billy Gates' daughter died and left Miss Bessie. Mr. C. B. Baldwin married again. He went to war in
the 'Six Day Crowd.' Miss Bessie Baldwin married Bill Buchannan at Okolona, Mississippi. Mama went and cooked
for her. They belong to her. She was good as she could be to her and papa both. One time the overseer was going to
whip them both. Miss Bessie said, 'Tell Mr. Carrydine to come and let us talk it over.' They did and she said, 'Give
Mr. Carrydine his breakfast and let him go.' They never got no whippings.
"Mama was white as any white woman and papa was my color (light mulatto). After freedom they lived as long as
they lived at Houston and Okolona, Mississippi. She said she left Maryland in 1839.
"Some blue dressed Yankees come to our shack and told mama to bake him some bread. I held to her dress. She
baked them some. They put it in their nap sacks. That was my first experience seeing the Yankees.
"They come back and come back on end on. One time they come back hunting the silverware. They didn't find it. It
was in the old seep well. The slaves wasn't going to tell them where it was. We washed out of the seep well and
used the cistern water to drink. It was good silver. They put it in sacks, several of them, to make it strong. Uncle
Giles drapped it down in there. He was old colored man we all called Uncle Giles. He was no kin to me. He was
good as could be. I loved him. Me and his girl played together all the time. Her name was Roxana. We built frog
houses in the sand and put cool sand on our stomachs. We would lie under big trees and watch and listen to the
birds.
"When Mr. Billy Gates died they give Henry, my youngest brother, to his son, John Gates. Henry, a big strong
fellow, could raise a bale of cotton over his head.
"One time the Yankees come took the meat and twenty-five cows and the best miles. They left some old plugs. They
had two mares in fold. Uncle Giles told them one mare had buck-eye poison and the other distemper. They left them
in their stalls. We had to tote all that stuff they give out back when they was gone. All they didn't take off they
handed out to the slaves. There was some single men didn't carry their provisions back to the smokehouse.
Everybody else did. They kept on till they swept us all out of victuals. The slaves had shacks up on the hill. There
was six or eight pretty houses all met. Mr. Gates' house was one of them.
"Freedom--Capt. Gehu come and sent for all the slaves to come to Mr. John Gates. We all met there. He said it was
free times now. We lived on and raised peas, corn, pumpkins, potatoes. The Yankees come and took off some of it.
That was the year of the surrender. Mama moved off the hill in a man's home what moved to town to look after the
house for them. It was across the road from Master John Gates' house. We worked for the Gates a long, long time
after that. We worked for the Baldwins and around till the old heads all dead. I come to Clarendon, Arkansas,
eleven o'clock, eleventh of May 1890. I have no children. I raised my sister's baby. She died. I live wid her now.
She's got grandchildren. I get ten dollars from the Welfare a month. I buy what I needs to eat with it. I helps out a
sight. I had a baby girl. It died an infant.
"The place they refugeed Charlie and Lewis was to Opelousas, Louisiana. It was about the first part of the country
the Yankees took.
"Ku Klux--They never bothered us but in 1876 I seen them pass. My nephew was a little boy. He said when they
passed there was Jack Slaughter on his horse. He knew the big horse. They went on. The colored men had left their
wives and children at home and went up to Red Bud Church (colored). We seen five pass but others joined on. They
had bad times. A colored man killed a Ku Klux named Tom Middlebrook. One man got his foot cut off wid a ax.
Some called them 'white caps.' I was scared of whatever they called theirselves.
"The younger set of folks seems more restless than they used to be. I noticed that since the last war (World War).
They ain't never got settled. The women is bad as the men now it seams. Times is better than I ever had them in my
life."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
