Read Ebook: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves Volume II Arkansas Narratives Part 1 by United States Work Projects Administration

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Aunt Adeline has been a slave and a servant in five generations of the Parks family. Her mother, Liza, with a group of five Negroes, was sold into slavery to John P.A. Parks, in Tennessee, about 1840.

"When my mother's master come to Arkansas about 1849, looking for a country residence, he bought what was known as the old Kidd place on the Old Wire Road, which was one of the Stage Coach stops. I was about one year old when we came. We had a big house and many times passengers would stay several days and wait for the next stage to come by. It was then that I earned my first money. I must have been about six or seven years old. One of Mr. Parks' daughters was about one and a half years older than I was. We had a play house back of the fireplace chimney. We didn't have many toys; maybe a doll made of a corn cob, with a dress made from scraps and a head made from a roll of scraps. We were playing church. Miss Fannie was the preacher and I was the audience. We were singing "Jesus my all to Heaven is gone." When we were half way through with our song we discovered that the passengers from the stage coach had stopped to listen. We were so frightened at our audience that we both ran. But we were coaxed to come back for a dime and sing our song over. I remember that Miss Fannie used a big leaf for a book.

"I had always been told from the time I was a small child that I was a Negro of African stock. That it was no disgrace to be a Negro and had it not been for the white folks who brought us over here from Africa as slaves, we would never have been here and would have been much better off.

"We colored folks were not allowed to be taught to read or write. It was against the law. My master's folks always treated me well. I had good clothes. Sometimes I was whipped for things I should not have done just as the white children were.

"When a young girl was married her parents would always give her a slave. I was given by my master to his daughter, Miss Elizabeth, who married Mr. Blakely. I was just five years old. She moved into a new home at Fayetteville and I was taken along but she soon sent me back home to my master telling him that I was too little and not enough help to her. So I went back to the Parks home and stayed until I was over seven years old. My master made a bill of sale for me to his daughter, in order to keep account of all settlements, so when he died and the estate settled each child would know how he stood.

"I was about 15 years old when the Civil War ended and was still living with Mrs. Blakely and helped care for her little children. Her daughter, Miss Lenora, later married H.M. Hudgens, and I then went to live with her and cared for her children. When her daughter Miss Helen married Professor Wiggins, I took care of her little daughter, and this made five generations that I have cared for.

"During the Civil War, Mr. Parks took all his slaves and all of his fine stock, horses and cattle and went South to Louisiana following the Southern army for protection. Many slave owners left the county taking with them their slaves and followed the army.

"When the war was over, Mr. Parks was still in the South and gave to each one of his slaves who did not want to come back to Arkansas so much money. My uncle George came back with Mr. Parks and was given a good mountain farm of forty acres, which he put in cultivation and one of my uncle's descendants still lives on the place. My mother did not return to Arkansas but went on to Joplin, Missouri, and for more than fifty years, neither one of us knew where the other one was until one day a man from Fayetteville went into a restaurant in Joplin and ordered his breakfast, and my mother who was in there heard him say he lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He lived just below the Hudgens home and when my mother enquired about the family he told her I was still alive and was with the family. While neither of us could read nor write we corresponded through different people. But I never saw her after I was eleven years old. Later Mr. Hudgens went to Joplin to see if she was well taken care of. She owned her own little place and when she died there was enough money for her to be buried.

"Civil War days are vivid to me. The Courthouse which was then in the middle of the Square was burned one night by a crazy Confederate soldier. The old men in the town saved him and then put him in the county jail to keep him from burning other houses. Each family was to take food to him and they furnished bedding. The morning I was to take his breakfast, he had ripped open his feather bed and crawled inside to get warm. The room was so full of feathers when I got there that his food nearly choked him. I had carried him ham, hot biscuits and a pot of coffee.

"After the War many soldiers came to my mistress, Mrs. Blakely, trying to make her free me. I told them I was free but I did not want to go anywhere, that I wanted to stay in the only home that I had ever known. In a way that placed me in a wrong attitude. I was pointed out as different. Sometimes I was threatened for not leaving but I stayed on.

"I had always been well treated by my master's folks. While we lived at the old Kidd place, there was a church a few miles from our home. My uncle George was coachman and drove my master's family in great splendor in a fine barouche to church. After the war, when he went to his own place, Mr. Parks gave him the old carriage and bought a new one for the family.

"I can remember the days of slavery as happy ones. We always had an abundance of food. Old Aunt Martha cooked and there was always plenty prepared for all the white folks as well as the colored folks. There was a long table at the end of the big kitchen for the colored folks. The vegetables were all prepared of an evening by Aunt Martha with someone to help her.

"My mother seemed to have a gift of telling fortunes. She had a brass ring about the size of a dollar with a handwoven knotted string that she used. I remember that she told many of the young people in the neighborhood many strange things. They would come to her with their premonitions.

"Yes, we were afraid of the patyroles. All colored folks were. They said that any Negroes that were caught away from their master's premises without a permit would be whipped by the patyroles. They used to sing a song:

'Run nigger run, The patyroles Will get you.'

"Yes'm, the War separated lots of families. Mr. Parks' son, John C. Parks, enlisted in Colonel W.H. Brooks' regiment at Fayetteville as third lieutenant. Mr. Jim Parks was killed at the Battle of Getysburg.

"I do remember it was my mistress, Mrs. Blakely, who kept the Masonic Building from being burned. The soldiers came to set it on fire. Mrs. Blakely knew that if it burned, our home would burn as it was just across the street. Mrs. Blakely had two small children who were very ill in upstairs rooms. She told the soldiers if they burned the Masonic Building that her house would burn and she would be unable to save her little children. They went away."

While Aunt Adeline is nearing ninety, she is still active, goes shopping and also tends to the many crepe myrtle bushes as well as many other flowers at the Hudgens place.

She attends to the renting of the apartment house, as caretaker, and is taken care of by members of the Blakely-Hudgens families.

Aunt Adeline talks "white folks language," as they say, and seldom associates with the colored people of the town.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Rose Adway 405 W. Pullen, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 76

"I was born three years 'fore surrender. That's what my people told me. Born in Mississippi. Let me see what county I come out of. Smith County--that's where I was bred and born.

"I know I seen the Yankees but I didn't know what they was. My mama and papa and all of 'em talked about the War.

"My papa was a water toter in durin' the War. No, he didn't serve the army--just on the farm.

"Mama was the cook for her missis in slavery times.

"I think my folks went off after freedom and then come back. That was after they had done been sot free. I can remember dat all right.

"I registered down here at the Welfare and I had to git my license from Mississippi and I didn't remember which courthouse I got my license, but I sent letters over there till I got it up. I got all my papers now, but I ain't never got no pension.

"My folks said their owners was all right. You know they was 'cause they come back. I remember dat all right.

"I been farmin' till I got disabled. After I married I went to farmin'. And I birthed fourteen head of chillun by dat one man! Fourteen head by dat one man! Stayed at home and took care of 'em till I got 'em up some size, too. All dead but five out of the fourteen head.

"My missis' name was Miss Catherine and her husband named Abe Carr.

"I went to school a little bit--mighty little. I could read but I never could write.

"And I'm about to go blind in my old age. I need help and I need it bad. Chillun ain't able to help me none 'cept give me a little bread and give me some medicine once in a while. But I'm thankful to the Lord I can get outdoors.

"I don't know what to think of this young race. That baby there knows more than I do now, nearly. Back there when I was born, I didn't know nothin'.

"I know they said it was bad luck to bring a hoe or a ax in the house on your shoulder. I heard the old folks tell dat--sure did.

"And I was told dat on old Christmas night the cows gets down on their knees and gives thanks to the Lord.

"I 'member one song:

'I am climbin' Jacob's ladder I am climbin' Jacob's ladder I am climbin' Jacob's ladder For the work is almost done.

'Every round goes higher and higher Every round goes higher and higher Every round goes higher and higher For my work is almost done.

'Sister, now don't you get worried Sister, now don't you get worried Sister, now don't you get worried For the work is almost done.'

My mother used to sing dat when she was spinnin' and cardin'. They'd spin and dye the thread with some kind of indigo. Oh, I 'member dat all right."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Liddie Aiken, Wheatley, Arkansas Age: 62

"My mother was born in southwest Georgia close to the Alabama line. Her mother come from Virginia. She was sold with her mother and two little brothers. Her mother had been sold and come in a wagon to southwest Georgia. They was all field hands. They cleaned out new ground. They was afraid of hoop-snakes. She said they look like a hoop rolling and whatever they stuck a horn or their tail in it died. They killed trees.

"Mama said she druther plough than chop. She was a big woman and they let her plough right along by her two little brothers, Henry and Will Keller. Will et so many sweet potatoes they called him 'Tater Keller.' After he got grown we come out here. Folks called him 'Tate Keller.' Henry died. I recollect Uncle Tate.

"I was born close to Mobile, Alabama. Mama was named Sarah Keller. Grandma was called Mariah. Banks Tillman sold her the first time. Bill Keller bought them all the last time. His wife was named Ada Keller. They had a great big family but I forgot what they said about them. Mack clem up in a persimmon tree one day and the old man hollered at him, 'Get out of that tree 'fore you fall.' 'Bout then the boy turned 'loose and fell. It knocked the breath out him. It didn't kill him. Three or four of Miss Ada's children died with congestive chills. Mama said the reason they had them chills they played down at the gin pond all the time. It was shady and a pretty place and they was allowed to play in the pond. Three or four of them died nearly in a heap.

"One of the boys had a pet billy-goat. It got up on top mama's house one time. It would bleat and look down at them. They was afraid it would jump down on them if they went out. It chewed up things Aunt Beanie washed. She had them put out on bushes and might had a line too. They fattened it and killed it. Mama said Mr. Bill Keller never had nothing too good to divide with his niggers. I reckon by that they got some of the goat.

"They lived like we live now. Every family done his own cooking. I don't know how many families lived on the place.

"I know about the Yankees. They come by and every one of the men and boys went with them but Uncle Cal. He was cripple and they advised him not to start. Didn't none of the women go. Mama said she never seen but one ever come back. She thought they got killed or went on some place else.

"Mr. Keller died and Miss Ada went back to her folks. They left everything in our care that they didn't move. She took all her house things. They sold or took all their stock. They left us a few cows and pigs. I don't know how long they stayed after the old man died. His children was young; he might not been so old.

"I recollect grandma. She smoked a pipe nearly all the time. My papa was a livery stable man. He was a fine man with stock. He was a little black man. Mama was too big. Grandma was taller but she was slick black. He lived at Mobile, Alabama. I was the onliest child mama had. Uncle 'Tate Keller' took grandma and mama to Mobile. He never went to the War. He was a good carpenter and he worked out when he didn't have a lot to do in the field. He was off at work when all the black men and boys left Mr. Bill. He never went back after they left till freedom.

"They didn't know when freedom took place. They was all scattering for two years about to get work and something to eat. Tate come and got them. They went off in a wagon that Tate made for his master, Bill Keller. We come to Tupelo, Mississippi from Mobile when I was a little bit of a girl. Then we made one crop and come to Helena. Uncle Tate died there and mama died at Crocketts Bluff. My papa died back in Mobile, Alabama. He was breaking a young horse and got throwed up side a tree. He didn't live long then.

"I got three boys now and I had seben--all boys. They farms and do public work. Tom is in Memphis. Pete is in Helena and I live wid Macon between here and Cotton Plant. We farm. I done everything could be thought of on a farm. I ploughed some less than five year ago. I liked to plough. My boy ploughs all he can now and we do the chopping. We all pick cotton and get in the corn. We work day laborers now.

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