|
|
Honey Creek
3 and a half miles from Massa, Arkansas
Age Born 1863
"My master was Captain Baker Jones and his pa was John Jones. Miss Mariah was Baker Jones' wife. I believe the
old man's wife was dead.
"My parents' name was Henry ("Clay") Harris and Harriett Harris. They had nine children. We lived close to the
Post (Arkansas Post). Our nearest trading post was Pine Bluff. And the old man made trips to Memphis and had
barrels sent out by ship. We lived around Hanniberry Creek. It was a pretty lake of water. Some folks called it
Hanniberry Lake. We fished and waded and washed. We got our water out of two springs further up. I used to tote
one bucket on my head and one in each hand. You never see that no more. Mama was a nurse and house woman and
field woman if she was needed. I made fires around the pots and 'tended to mama's children.
"We lived on the Jones place years after freedom. I was born after freedom. We finally left. I cried and cried to let's
go back. Only place ever seem like home to me yet. We went to the Cummings farm. They worked free labor then.
Then we went to the hills. Then we seen hard times. We knowed we was free niggers pretty soon back in them poor
hills.
"I was more educated than some white folks up in them hills. I went to school on the river. My teacher was a white
man named Mr. Van Sang.
"Mama belong to the Garretts in Mississippi. She was sold when she was about four years old she tole me. There
had been a death and old mistress bought her in. Master Garrett died. Then she give her to her daughter.
She was her young mistress then. Old mistress didn't went her to bring her but she said she might well have her as
any rest of the children. Mass never set eyes on none of her folks no more. Her father, she said, was light and part
Enjun (Indian).
"John Prior owned papa in Kentucky. He sold him, brother and his mother to a nigger trader's gang. Captain Jones
bought all three in Tennessee. He come brought them on to Arkansas. He was a field hand. He said they worked
from daylight till after dark.
"They took their slaves to close to Houston, Texas to save them. Captain Jones said he didn't want the Yankees to
scatter them and make soldiers of them. He brought them back on his place like he expected to do. Mama said they
was out there three years. She had a baby three months old and the trip was hard on her and the baby but they stood
it. I was her next baby after that. Freedom done been declared. Mama said they went in wagons and camped along
the roadside at night.
"Before they left, the Yankees come. Old Master Jones treated them so alce, give them a big dinner, and opened up
everything and offered some for them to take along that they didn't bother his stock nor meat. Then he had them (the
slaves) set out with stock and supplies to Texas.
"Mama and papa said the Jones treated then pretty well. They wouldn't allow the overseers to beat up his slaves.
"The two Jones men put two barrels of money in a big iron chest. They said it weighed two hundred pounds. Four
men took it out there in barrels and eight men lowered it. They took it to the family graveyard down past the
orchard. They leveled it up like it was a grave. Yankees didn't get Jones money! Then he sent the slaves to Texas.
"Captain Jones had a home in Tennessee and one in Arkansas. Papa said he cleared out land along the river where
there was panther, bears, and wild cats. They worked in huddles and the overseers had guns to shoot varmints. He
said their breakfast and dinner was sent to the field, them that had wives had supper with their families once a day,
on Sundays three times. The women left the fields to go fix supper and see after their cabins and children. They
hauled their water in barrels and put it under the trees. They cooked washpots full of chicken and give them a big
picnic dinner after they lay by crops and at Christmas. They had gourd banjos. Mama said they had good times.
"They had preaching one Sunday for white folks and one Sunday for black folks. They used the same preacher there
but some colored preachers would come on the place at times and preach under the trees down at the quarters. They
said the white preacher would say, 'You may get to the kitchen of heaben if you obey your master, if you don't steel,
if you tell no stories, etc.'
"Captain Jones was a good doctor. If a doctor was had you know somebody was right low. They seldom had a
doctor. Mama said her coat tail froze and her working. But they wore warn clothes next to their bodies.
"Captain Jones said, 'You all can go back on my place that want to go back and stay. You will have to learn to look
after your own selves now but I will advise you and help you best I can. You will have to work hard as us have
done b'fore. But I will pay you.' My folks was ready to 'board the wagons back to Jones' farm then. That is the way
mama tole me it was at freedom! It was a long time I kept wondering what is freedom? I took to noticing what they
said it was in slavery times and I caught on. I found out times had changed just b'fore I got into this world.
"Some things seem all right and some don't. Times seem good now but wait till dis winter. Folks will go cold and
hungry again. Some folks good and some worse than in times b'fore."
Gets a pension check.
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
