This submission is one in a series of "undercover" assignments by CHRONOS historians posing as interviewers for the Federal Writer's Project during the Great Depression.
June 18, 1938
A. Richards
Hot Springs, Arkansas
After three interviews with former slaves here in Arkansas, one thread seems pretty consistent. When the Civil War ended, their lives didn't get much easier. Today's interviewee was only a small child when the troops came through and told the slaves that they were free.
"Yes ma'am," she began, after we had been introduced and exchanged the usual pleasantries. "I remembers the days of slavery. I was turned five years old when the war started rushing. No ma'am, I didn't see much of the Yankees. They didn't come thru but twice.
"Was I afraid ? No ma'am. I was too busy to be scared. I was too busy looking at the buttons they wore. Until they went in Master's smoke house. Then I quit looking and started hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.
"My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold to a man named Woodfork and brought to Nashville. The Woodfork colored folks was always treated good. Master used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he bought one in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't believe in separating families. He didn't believe in dividing mother from her baby.
"But they did take them away from their babies someplaces. I remember my grandmother telling about it. The wagon would drive down into the field and pick up a woman. Then somebody would meet her at the gate and she would nurse her baby for the last time. Then she'd have to go on. Leastwise, if they hadn't sold her baby, too.
"It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about.
"Most of the time it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border , on the Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the overseers was good to us.
"But it wasn't that way on all the plantations. On the next one they was mean. Why you could hear the sound of the strap for two blocks. No there wasn't any blocks. But you could hear it that far. The "niggah drivah" would stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some they whipped so hard they had to carry them in.
"Just once did anybody on the Woodfork place get whipped that way. We never knew quite what happened. But my grandmother thought that the colored man what took down the ages of the children so they'd know when to send them to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else couldn't have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said, 'I bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And the overseer didn't dare do so any more.
"But they was good to us, just the same. We had plenty to wear and lots to eat and good cabins to live in. All of them wasn't that way though.
"I remember the women on the next plantation used to slip over and get somethin' to eat from us. The Woodfork colored folks was always well took care of. Our white folks was good to us. Durin' the week there was somebody to cook for us. On Sunday all of 'em cooked in their cabins and they had plenty. The women on the next plantation, even when they was getting ready to have babies didn't seem to get enough to eat. They used to slip off at night and come over to our place. The Woodfork people never had to go nowhere for food. Our white folks treated us real good.
"Didn't make much difference when the war started rushing. We didn't see any fighting. I told you the Yankees come thru twice-----let me go back a spell.
"We had lots of barrels of Louisiana molasses. We could eat all we wanted. When the barrels was empty, we children was let scrape them. Lawsey, I used to get inside the barrel and scrape and scrape and scrape until there wasn't any sweetness left.
"We was allowed to do all sorts of other things too. Like there was lots of pecans down in the swamps. The boys, and girls too for that matter, was allowed to pick them and sell them to the river boats what come along. The men was let cut cord wood and sell it to the boats. Flat boats they was. There was regular stores on them. You could buy gloves and hats and lot of things. They would burn the wood on the boat and carry the nuts up North to sell. But me, I liked the sugar barrel best.
"When the Yankees come thru, I wasn't scared. I was too busy looking at the bright buttons on their coats. I edged closer and closer. All they did was laugh. But I kept looking at them, until they went into the smoke house. Then I turned loose and hollered. I hollered because I thought they was going to take all Master's syrup. I didn't want that to happen. No ma'am they didn't take nothing. Neither time they came.
"After the war was over they took us down the river to The Bend. It was near Vicksburg----an all day's ride. There they put us on a plantation and took care of us. It was the most beautifulest place I ever see. All the cabins was whitewashed good. The trees was big and the whole place was just lovely. It was old man Jeff Davis' s place.
"They fed us good, gave us lots to eat. They sent up north, the Yankees did, and got a young white lady to come down and teach us. I didn't learn nothing. They had our school near what was the grave yard. I didn't learn cause I was too busy looking around at the tombstones. They was beautiful. They looked just like folks to me. Looks like I ought have learned. They was mighty good to send somebody down to learn us that way. I ought have learned. It looks ungrateful, but I didn't."My mother died on that place. It was a mighty nice place. Later on we come to Arkansas. We farmed. Looked like it was all we knowed how to do. We worked at lots of places. One time we worked for a man named Thomas H. Allen. He was at Rob Roy on the Arkansas near Pine Bluff. Then we worked for a man named Kimbroo. He had a big plantation in Jefferson County. For forty years we worked first one place, then another.
"After that I went out to Oklahoma. I went as a cook. Then I got the idea of following the resort towns about. In the summer I'd go to Eureka, in the winter I'd come down to Hot Springs. That was the way to make the best money. Folks what had money moved about like that. I done cooking at other resorts too. I cooked at the hotel at Winslow. I done that several summers.
"Cooking at the hotel at Winslow was nice. There was lots of fine ladies what wanted to take me home with them when they went home. But I told them, 'No thank you Hot Springs is my home, I'm going there this winter.'"I 's getting sort of old now. My feet ain't so sure as they used to be. But I can get about! I can get around to cook and I can still see to thread a needle. My daughter has a good home for me.
"People in Hot Springs is good people. They seem sort of friendly. Folks in Eureka did too, even more so. But maybe it was 'cause I was younger then and got to see more of them. But the Lord has blessed me with a good daughter. I got nothing to complain about, I don't hold grudges against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is doing."
Learn more about the Slave Narratives Project:
- Library of Congress. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project. 1936-1938.
- PBS. Slavery and the Making of America.
- Library of Congress. Slave Narrative: Fanny Johnson.
Photo Credits:
- Library of Congress. Eighty-two year old ex-slave.
- Library of Congress. Family of Slaves. 1861.
- Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg. Jefferson Davis Plantation - Brierfield.
- Library of Congress. William Wrigley.
- Library of Congress. Doublemint Gum Poster.
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