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Joining the Plunkett farms
Age 96 Eight miles from Biscoe, Arkansas
"I was born twelve miles from the capital, Jackson, Mississippi, on Strickland's place. My mother was born in
Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Master Jim Battle was old man. He owned three big plantations, full of
niggers. They took me to Edgecombe County where my nother was born. Battles was rich set of white folks. They
lived at Tarbry, North Carolina and some at Rocky Mount. Joe Battle was my old master. There was Bue Battle too.
Master Joe Battle and Master Marmaduke was bosses of the whole country. They told Mars Joe not to whoop that
crazy nigger man. He undertook it. He hit him seven licks with the hoe and killed him. Killed him in Mississippi.
"Master Marmaduke fell at the hotel at Greensboro, North Carolina. He was a hard drinker and they didn't tell them
about it at the hotel. He got up in the night, fell down the steps and killed hisself. Tom Williams didn't drink. He
went to war and got shot. He professed religion when he was twelve years old and kept the faith. Had his Testament
in his pocket and blood run on it. That was when he was shot in the Civil War.
"They took that crazy nigger man to several places, found there was no law to kill a crazy man. They took him to
North Carolina where was all white folks at that place in Edgecombe County. They hung the poor orazy nigger.
They was 'fraid of uprisings the reason they took him to place all white folks lived.
"My papa and Brutten (Brittain) Williams same age. Old Mistress Frankie (Tom Williams', Sr. wife) say, 'Let 'em
be, he ain't goiner whoop Fenna, he's kin to him. He ain't goiner lay his hand on Fenna.' They whoop niggers black
as me. Fenna waited on Master Brutten Williams. Fenna was half white. He was John Williams' boy. John was
Brutten's brother. John Williams went to Mississippi and overseed for Mr. Bass. Mars Brutten got crazy. He'd shoot
at anything and call it a hawk.
"Mother was a field woman. When she got in ill health, they put her to sew. Miss Evaline Perry in Mississippi
learned her how to sew. She sewed up bolts of cloth into clothes for the niggers.
"Brutten Williams bought her from Joe Battle and he willed her to Joe Williams. She cooked and wove some in her
young life. Rich white folks didn't sell niggers unless they got mad about them. Like mother, they changed her
about. We never was cried off and put up in front of the public.
"Mars Joe Battle wasn't good. He ruled 'em all. He was Mars Marmaduks Battle's uncle. They went 'round to big
towns and had a good time. Miss Polly Henry married Mars Brutten. He moved back (from Mississippi) to North
Carolina. They had a big orchard. They give it all away soon as it ripen. He had a barrel of apple and peach brandy.
He give some of it out in cups. They said there was some double rectifying in that barrel of brandy. He died.
"Master Tom was killed in war. When he had a ferlough he give all the men on his place five dollars and every
woman a sow pig to raise from. Tole us all good-bye, said he'd never get back alive. He give me one and my mother
one too. We prized them hogs 'bove everything we ever had. He got killed. Master Tom was so good to his niggers.
He never whooped them. His wife ruled him, made him do like she wanted everything but mean to his niggers.
Her folks slashed their niggers and she tried to make him do that too. He wouldn't. They said she wore the breeches
'cause she ruled him.
"She was Mistress Helland Harris Williams. She took our big hogs away from every one of us. We raised 'em up
fine big hogs. She took them away from us. Took all the hogs Master Tom give us back. She had plenty land he left
her and cows, some hogs. She married Allen Hopkins. They had a boy. He sent him to Texas, then he left her. She
was so mean. Followed the boy to Texas. They all said she couldn't rule Allen Hopkins like she did Tom Williams.
She didn't.
"When freedom come on, mother and me both left her 'cause I seen she wouldn't do. My papa left too and he had
raised a little half white boy. 'Cause he was same age of Brutten Williams, Tom took Brutten's little nigger child and
give him to papa to raise. His name Wilks. His own black mama beat him. When freedom come on, we went to Cal
Pierce's place. They kept Wilks. He used to run off and come to us. They give him to somebody else 'way off. Tom
had a brother in Georgia. It was Tom's wife wouldn't let Wilks go on living with us.
"Old mistress just did rave about her boys mixing up with them niggers but she was better than any other white
women to Wilks and Fenna and George.
" 'Big Will' could do much as any two other niggers. When they bought him a axe, it was a great big axe. They
bought him a great big hoe. They got a new overseer. Overseer said he use a hoe and axe like everybody else. 'Big
Will' killed the overseer with his big axe. Jim Battle was gone off. His son Marmaduke Battle put him in jail. When
Jim Battle come back he said Marmaduke ought to sent for him, not put him in jail. Jim Battle sold 'Big Will'. We
never heard or seen him no more. His family stayed on the plantation and worked. 'Big Will' could split as many
more rails as anybody else on the place.
"I seen people sell babies out of the cradle. Poor white people buy babies and raise them.
"The Battles had gins and stores in North Caroling and Williams had farms, nothing but farms.
"When I was a girl I nursed the nigger women's babies and seen after the children. I nursed Tom Williams' boy.
Johnny Williams. He run to me, said, 'Them killed my papa.' I took him up in my arms. Then was when the Yankee
soldiers come on the place. Sid Williams went to war. I cooked when the regular cook was weaving. Mother carded
and spun them. I had a ounce of cotton to card every night from September till March. When I'd be dancing around,
Miss Helland Harris Williams say, 'You better be studying your pewter days.' Meant for me to stop dancing.
"Mistress Polly married a Perry, then Right Hendrick. Perrys was rich folks. When Marmaduke Battle died all the
niggers cried and cried and bellowed because they thought they would be sold and get a mean master.
"They had a mean master right then--Right Hendrick. Mean a man as ever God ever wattled a gut in I reckon. That
was in Mississippi. They took us back and forth when it suited them. We went in hacks, surreys and stageccaches,
wagons, horseback, and all sorts er ways. We went on big river boats sometimes. They sold off a lot of niggers to
settle up the estate. What I want to know is how they settle up estates now.
"They parched persimmon seed and wheat during the war to make coffee. I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange
people come through, took our snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night so the robbers
couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took
everything they could find. Times was hard. That was in North Carolina.
"When Brutten Williams bought me and mama--mama was Liza Williams--Master Brutten bought her sister three or
four years after that and they took us to (Zeblin or) Sutton in Franklin County. Now they call it Wakefield Post
Office. Brutten willed us to Tom. Sid, Henry, John was Tom Williams' boys, and his girls were Pink and Tish.
"Master John and Marmaduke Battle was rich as they could be. They was Joe Battle's uncles. Jessa Ford was
Marmaduke's half-brother in Texas. He come to Mississippi to get his part of the niggers and the rest was put on a
block and sold. Master Marmaduke broke his neck when he fell downstairs. I never heard such crying before nor
since as I heard that day. Said they lost their best master. They knowed how bed they got whooped on Ozoo River.
"Master Marmaduke walked and bossed his overseers. He went to the big towns. He never did marry. My last
master was Tom Williams. He was so nice to us all. He confessed religion. He worked us hard, then hard times
come when he went to war. He knowed our tracks--foot tracks and finger tracks both.
"Somebody busted a choice watermelon, plugged it out with his fingers and eat it. Master Tom said, 'Fenna, them
your finger marks.' Then he scolded him good fashioned. Old Mistress Frankie say, 'Don't get scared, he ain't go to
whoop him, they kin. Fenna kin to him, he not goiner hurt him.'
"At the crossroads there was a hat shop. White man brought a lot of white free niggers to work in the hat shop. Way
they come free niggers. Some poor woman had no living. Nigger men steal flour or a hog, take it and give it to her.
She be hungry. Pretty soon a mulatto baby turned up. Then folks want to run her out the country. Sometimes they
did.
"Old man Stinson (Stenson?) left and went to Ohio. They wrote back to George to come after them to Ohio. Bill
Harris had a baltimore trotter. The letter lay about in the post office. They broke it open, read it, give it to his owner.
He got mad and sold George. He was Sam Harrises carriage driver. Dick and him was half-brothers. Dick learned
him about reading and writing. When the war was over George come through on the train. Sam Earris run up there,
cracked his heels together, hugged him, and give him ten dollars. He sold him when he was so mad. I don't know if
he went to Ohio to Stinson's or not.
"We stayed in the old country twenty-five or thirty years after freedom.
"When we left Miss Helland Harris Williams', Tim Terrel come by there with his leg shot off and was there till he
could get on to his folks.
"When I come here I was expecting to go to California. There was cars going different places. We got on Mr.
Boyd's car. He paid our way out here. Mr. Jones brought his car to Memphis and stopped. Mr. Boyd brought us
right here. That was in 1892. We got on the train at Raleigh, North Carolina.
"Papa bought forty acres land from the Boyd estate. Our children scattered and we sold some of it. We got twenty
acres. Some of it in woods. I had to sell my cow to bury my granddaughter what lived with me--taking care of me.
Papa tole my son to take care of me and since he died my son gone stone blind. I ain't got no chickens hardly. I go
hungry nigh all the time. I gets eight dollars for me and my blind son both. If I could get a cow. We tries to have a
garden. They ain't making nothing on my land this year. I'm having the hardest time I ever seen in my life.
I got a toothpick in my ear and it's rising. The doctor put some medicine in my ears--both of them.
"When I was in slavery I wore peg shoes. I'd be working and not time to take off my shoes and fix the tacks--beat
'em down. They made holes in bottoms of my feet; now they got to be corns and I can't walk and stand."
This is another one of those terrible cases. This old woman is on starvation. She had a cow and can't get another
one. The son is blind but feels about and did milk. The bedbugs are nearly eating her up. They scald but can't get rid
of them. They have a fairly good house to live in. But the old woman is on starvation and away back eight miles
from Biscoe. I hate to see good old Negroes want for something to eat. She acts like a small child. Pitiful, so feeble.
The second time I went out there I took her daughter who walks out there every week. We fixed her up an iron
bedstead so she can sleep better. I took her a small cake. That was her dinner. She had eaten one egg that morning.
She was a clean, kind old woman. Very much like a child. Has a rising in her head and said she was afraid her head
would kill her. She gave me a gallon of nice figs her daughter picked, so I paid her twenty-five cents for them. She
had plenty figs and no sugar.
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
