Annie Young
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
ANNIE YOUNG
Age 86
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born in 1851, makes me 86 years old. I was born in Middle
Tennessee, Summers County. My mother was put on a block and sold from
me when I was a child. I don't remember my father real good. Sister
Martha, Sister Sallie, nor Sister Jane wasn't sold. But my brother
John was. My mother's name is Rachel Donnahue. We lived in a log hut.
The white folks lived in a frame white building sitting in a big grove
yard. Old master owned a big farm.
We ate molasses, bread and butter and milk in wooden bowls and
crumbled our bread up in it. Old master had big smokehouses of meat.
Dey ate chickens, possums and coons, and my old auntie would barbecue
rabbits for de white folks. We ate ash cakes too.
I washed dishes, swept de yard, and kept de yard clean wid weed brush
brooms. I never earned no money. All de slaves had gardens, and
chickens too. My auntie, dey let her have chickens of her own and she
raised chickens, and had a chicken house and garden down in de woods.
I remember in time of de War dey'd send me down in de woods to pick up
chips and git wood. All de men had gone to de army. One morning and
t'was cold dey sent me down in de woods and my hands got frostbitten.
All de skin come off and dey had to tie my hands up in roasted
turnips. Sallie she had gloves, and didn't get frostbitten. After my
old master died, Master Donnahue was his name, his old son-in-law come
to take over de plantation. He was mean, but my sister whipped him.
We had no nigger driver or overseer. We raised wheat, corn and
vegetables, not much cotton, jest enough to spun de clothes out of.
At night when we'd go to our cabins we'd pick cotton from de seeds to
make our clothes. Boys and girls alike wore dem long shirts slit up de
side nearly to your necks. They'd have cornshuckings sometimes all
night long. You see I didn't have no mother, no father, nobody to lead
me, teach me or tell me, and so jest lived with anybody was good
enough to let me stay and done what they did. They'd have log
rollings, with all de whiskey dey could drink.
I remember going to church, de Methodist Church dey call it. We used
to sing dis song and I sho did like it too:
"I went down in de valley to pray,
Studying dat good old way."
I been a Christian long before most of dese young niggers was born. My
other favorites are:
"Must Jesus bear This Cross Alone."
and
"The Consecrated Cross I'll Bear 'til
Death Shall Set Me Free,
Yea, There's a Crown for Everyone,
And There's a Crown for Me."
Yes Lawd, there sho is.
One day a nigger killed one of his master's shoats and he catch him
and when he'd ask him, "What's that you got there?" The nigger said,
"a possum." De master said, "Let me see." He looked and seen it was a
shoat. De nigger said, "Master it may be a shoat now, but it sho was a
possum while ago when I put 'im in dis sack."
Dey didn't whip our folks much, but one day I saw a overseer on
another place. He staked a man down with two forked sticks 'cross his
wrist nailed in de ground and beat him half to death with a hand saw
'til it drawed blisters. Den he mopped his back wid vinegar, salt and
pepper. Sometimes dey'd drop dat hot rosin from pine knots on dose
blisters.
When de Yanks come, business took place. I remember white folks was
running and hiding, gitting everything dey could from de Yanks. Dey
hid dey jewelry and fine dishes and such. Dose Yanks had on big boots.
Dey'd drive up, feed dey hosses from old Master's corn, catch dey
chickens, and tell old Master's cook to cook 'em, and they'd shoot
down old Master's hogs and skin 'em.
De Yanks used to make my nephew drunk, and have him sing (dis is kind
of bad):
"I'll be God O'Mighty
God Dammed if I don't
Kill a nigger,
Oh Whooey boys! Oh Whooey!
Oh Whooey boys! Oh Whooey!"
I don't remember never seeing no funerals. Jest took 'em off and
buried 'em. I remember dat old Master's son-in-law dat my sister
whipped, he called hisself a doctor and he killed Aunt Clo. Give her
some medicine but he didn't know what he was doing and killed her.
I married William Young and we had a pretty good wedding. Married in
Crittington County Arkansas. When I left Tennessee and went to
Arkansas I followed some hands. You know after de War dey immigrated
niggers from one place to another. I owned a good farm in Arkansas. I
came out here some 42 years ago.
I have three daughters. Mattie Brockins runs a rooming house in Kansas
City. Jessie Cotton, lives right up de street here. Osie Olla Anderson
is working out in North town.
Well I think Abraham Lincoln is more than a type a man than Moses. I
believe he is a square man, believe in union that every man has a
right to be a free man regardless to color. He was a republican man.
Don't know much 'bout Jeff Davis but I think Booker T. Washington was
a pretty good man. He's a right good man I guess, but he is dead ain't
he?
I can remember once my auntie's old Master tried to have her and she
run off out in de woods, and when he put those blood hounds or nigger
hounds on her trail he catched her and hit her in de head wid
something like de stick de police carry, and he knocked a hole in her
head and she bled like a hog, and he made her have him. She told her
mistress, and mistress told her to go ahead and be wid him 'cause he's
gonna kill you. And he had dem two women and she had some chillun
nearly white, and master and dey all worked in de fields side by side.
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