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When I interviewed her in Columbus on August 1, 1936, Dink Walton Young, better known as "Mammy Dink," was one of the oldest ex-slaves living in Musoogee County. She was born the chattel of Major Jack Walton, the largest ante-bellum planter and slaveholder of Talbot County, a man who owned several hundred Negroes and ten thousand or more acres of land.
As a child, Mammy Dick was brought up with the Walton children, often joining and playing with them in such games as "Mollie Bright," "William Trembletoe," and "Picking Up Sticks." The boys, white and black, and slightly older than she, played "Fox" and "Paddle the Cat" together. In fact, until the white boys and girls were ten or twelve years of age, their little Negro playmates, acolytes, valet de chambres, bodyguards, and servants usually addressed them rather familiarly by their first names, or applied to them nicknames that amounted to titles of endearment. Thus, Miss Susie Walton - later Mrs. Robert Carter - was "Susie Sweet" to a host of little Negro girls of her age. Later on, of course, when the children became of age, this form of familiarity between slave and White was terminated; but thereafter there still existed a strong bond of friendship and mutual understanding between the Whites and Negroes of most plantations.
As an example of such relationship, Pat Walton, aged 18, colored and slave, "allowed" to his young master in 1861: "Marse
Rosalius, youse gwine to de war, ain't yer?" And without waiting for an answer, continued: "So is Pat. You knows you ain't got no bizness in no army 'thout somebody to wait on yer an keep yer outa devilment, Marse Rosalius. Now, doan gin me no argyment, Marse Rosalius, kaze i'se gwine 'long wid yer, and dat settles it, sah, it do, whether you laks it or you don't lak it."
This speech of Pat's to his young master, reported by Mammy Dink, was typical of a "style" many slaves adopted in talking to their owners; and many Southern Negroes of the post-bellum era continued to employ a similar style in order to "dominize" their white friends and employers.
The Waltons seem to have been kind and generous to their "people," particularly to the children. According to Mammy Dink and other Walton slaves, every time a Negro baby was born on one of his plantations, Major Walton give the mother a calico dress and a "bright, shiny" silver dollar. All Negroes were well-fed and well-clothed, and for a "drove" of about fifty or sixty little "back-yard chillens" the Waltons assumed all responsibility, except at night. A kind of compound was fenced off in order to keep them by day. When it rained they had a shelter to go under; play houses were built for them, and they also had see-saws, toys, and other things with which to amuse themselves. Here their parents "parked de younguns" every morning as they went to the fields and to other duties, and they picked them up every night after work. These children were fed about five times a day in little wooden trough-like receptacles. Their principal foods were milk, rice, pot-licker, vegetables and corn dumplings; and they stayed so fat and sleek that the Negroes called them "Marse Major's little black pigs."
The average weekly ration allowed an adult Walton slave was a peck of meal, two "dusters" of flour (about six pounds), seven pounds of flitch bacon, a "bag" of grits, from one to two quarts of molasses, a half pound of green coffee (which the slave himself parched and "beat up" or ground), from one to two cups of sugar, a "hatful" of peas, and any "nicknacks" the Major might have - as extras. Many acres were planted to vegetables for the slaves each year; and, in season, they had all the vegetables they could eat - also Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasting ears, and watermelons.
For chewing and smoking, they were furnished "stingy green" (home-grown tobacco) the year round. In truth, the planters as well as the slaves used "stingy green", there being very little, if any, "manufac" (processed tobacco) on the market.
The standard clothes of the slaves were: jeans in the winter for men and women, cottonades and osnaburgs for men in the summer, and calicos and "light goods" for the women in the summer time. About 75% of the cloth used for slaves' clothing was made at home.
If a Negro "come down sick," the family doctor was promptly called to attend to him; and if he was bad off, the Major "sot up" with him or had one of his overseers do so.
According to Mammy Dink, never in her lifetime was she whipped by any of the Waltons or their overseers. Moreover, she never knew a Negro to be whipped by a white person on any of the dozen or more Walton farms. She never saw a patrol in her life, though she has "heard tell dat Jedge Henry Willis, Marses Johnnie B. Jones, Ned Giddens, Gus O'Meal, Bob Baugh, and Jedge Henry Callier rid as patarolers" when she was a girl.
When the Yankee raiders came through in '65, Mammy Dink was badly frightened by them. She was also highly infuriated with them for "stealin' de white folks' things," burning their gins, cotton, and barns, and conducting themselves generally as bandits and perverts.
In 1875, the year of the cyclone "which kilt sebenteen folks twixt Ellesle (Ellerslie) and Talbotton," Mammy Dink was living at the Dr. M.W. Peter's place near Boughville. Later she moved (with a husband whom she married subsequent to freedom) to the Thomas R. Ashford place in Marris County near Ellerslie. There she lost her husband and, about thirty-five years ago, moved to Columbus to be near Mrs. John T. Davis, Jr., an only daughter of
Dr. Ashford and a woman to whom she long ago became very much attached.
When interviewed, Mammy Dink was at Mrs. Dawis' home "jes piddlin' 'roun," as she still takes pride in "waitin' on her white folks." Naturally, for one of her age, the shadows are lengthening. Mammy Dink has never had a child; all her kin are dead; she is 96 and has no money and no property; but she does have Mrs. Davis, a good friend and benefactress.
(Note: According to Mr. Jones, Mammy Dink died December 5, 1936, shortly after this interview and was a subject of an editorial in the December 8 edition of the Columbus News Record. T.H.L.)*
(Appendix Godwin, 3-8-37)
