Dicey Thomas
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Mrs. Dicey Thomas
2500 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 82
"I was born in Barbour County, Alabama. When I was born, the white folks
kept the children's age, not that of their parents. When the Yankees
came through our white folks' plantation, the white folks was hiding
away things.
Father
"My father was named Ben See. See was my maiden name. Thomas comes from
my marriage.
Yankees
"It was about twelve o'clock when the Yankees came through, because we
had just gone to bring the bowls. They used to serve us out of these
gourds and wooden spoons. Me and another little girl had gone to get
some bowls and spoons and when we got back the Yankees were swarming
over the place. They said, 'You are free. Go where you please.'
"My mother had a little baby. The old women would tend to this baby and
we would sit and rock the cradle till mother would come. I know I wasn't
very old, because I didn't do anything but sit and rock the baby. I had
just gotten big enough to carry the bowls.
"When the Yankees came through they stole Ben See's horse and brought
him out here in Arkansas. In those days, they used to brand horses.
Some woman out here in Arkansas recognized the horse by his brand and
wrote to him about it. He came out and got the horse. We had gone by
that time.
Visiting the Graves
"Ben See used to take the little darkies to the cemetery and show them
where their master and missis was laying. He never would sell none of
his father's slaves.
The Slave Block
"He would buy other slaves and sell them though. He used to buy little
kids that couldn't walk. Maybe some big white man would come that would
want to buy a nigger. He used to have servants in the yard and he would
have the slaves he'd bought saved up. One of the yard servants would
catch a little nigger with his head all knotty and filled with twigs. He
would swinge the hair and the little nigger would yell, but he wouldn't
be hurt.
"He had a block built up high just like a meat block out in the yard.
He would have the yard man bring the little niggers out and put them on
this block. I don't know nothing about their parents, who they were nor
where they were. All I know he would have this child there what he'd
done bought.
"If there would be about five or six come in, here's this nigger sitting
up here. Here's a lot of folks waitin' to buy him. One would say, 'I bid
so much.' Another would say, 'I bid so much.' That would go on till the
biddin' got as high as it would go. Then the little nigger would go to
the highest bidder if the bid suited master.
"My mother and father didn't know their age. The white folks kept the
ages, and that was something they didn't allow the slaves to handle. I
must have been four or five years old when my mother was in the field,
because I wasn't allowed to take the baby out of the cradle but just to
sit and rock it.
Arkansas
"When I come to Arkansas, stages was running from Little Rock down
toward Pine Bluff. Jesse James robbed the Pine Bluff train. That about
the first train came in. They cut down the trees across the train track.
They had a wooden gun and they went in there and robbed that train with
it. They sent him to the pen and he learned a trade making cigars.
"The Union Station was just like that hillside. It was just one street
in the town. I don't know what year nor nothing about it because when I
came here it was just like somebody didn't have any sense.
Plantation
"The slave quarter was a row of houses. The plantation was high land.
The houses were little log houses with one room. They had fire arches.
They would hang pots over the fire. They would have spiders that you
call ovens. You would put coals on top of the spider and you would put
them under it and you could smell that stuff cooking! The door was in
the top of the spider and the coals would be on top of the door.
"You couldn't cook nothin' then without somebody knowin' it. Couldn't
cook and eat in the back while folk sit in the front without them
knowin' it. They used to steal from the old master and cook it and they
would be burning rags or something to keep the white folks from smelling
it.
The riding boss would come round about nine o'clock to see if you had
gone to bed or not. If they could steal a chicken or pig and kill and
cut it up, this one would take a piece and that one would take a piece
and they would burn the cotton to keep down the scent. The rider would
come round in June and July too when they thought the people would be
hunting the watermelons.
"When the soldiers came, the niggers run and hid under the beds and the
soldiers came and poked their bayonets under the bed and shouted, 'Come
on out from under there. You're free!'
Destructiveness of Soldiers
"The soldiers would tear down the beehives and break up the smoke
houses. They wasn't tryin' to git nothin' to eat. They was just
destroying things for devilment. They pulled all the stoppers out of the
molasses. They cut the smoked meat down and let it fall in the molasses.
Rations
"Every Saturday, they would give my father and his wife half a gallon of
molasses, so much side meat. And then they would give half a bushel of
meal I reckon. Whatever they would give they would give 'em right out of
the smoke house. Sweet potatoes they would give. Sugar and coffee they'd
make. There wasn't nothing 'bout buying no sugar then.
How the Day Went
"The riding boss would come round before the day broke and wake you up.
You had to be in the field before sun-up--that is the man would. The
woman who had a little child had a little more play than the man,
because she had to care for the child before she left. She had to carry
the child over to the old lady that took care of the babies. The cook
that cooked up to the big house, she cooked bread and milk and sent it
to the larger children for their dinner. They didn't feed the little
children because their mothers had to nurse them. The mother went to the
field as soon as she cared for her child. She would come back and nurse
the child around about twice. She would come once in the morning about
ten o'clock and once again at twelve o'clock before she ate her own
lunch. She and her husband ate their dinner in the field. She would come
back again about three p.m. Then you wouldn't see her any more till dark
that night. Long as you could see you had to stay in the field. They
didn't come home till sundown.
"Then the mother would go and get the children and bring them home. She
would cook for supper and feed them. She'd have to go somewheres and get
them. Maybe the children would be asleep before she would get all that
done. Then she would have to wake them up and feed them.
"I remember one time my sister and me were laying near the fire asleep
and my sister kicked the pot over and burned me from my knee to my foot.
My old master didn't have no wife, so he had me carried up to the house
and treated by the old woman who kept the house for him. She was a
slave. When I got so I could hobble around a little, he would sometimes
let the little niggers come up to the house and I would get these big
peanuts and break them up and throw them out to them so he could have
fun seeing them scramble for them.
"After the children had been fed, the mother would cook the next day's
breakfast and she would cook the next day's dinner and put it in the
pail so that everything would be ready when the riding boss would come
around. Cause when he came, it meant move.
The Old Lady at the Big House
"The old lady at the big house took care of the gourds and bowls. The
parents didn't have nothing to do with them. She fed the children that
was weaned. Mother and daddy didn't have nothing to do with that at
noontime because they was in the field. White folks fed them corn bread
and milk. Up to the big house besides that, she didn't have anything to
do except take care of things around the house, keep the white man's
things clean and do his cooking.
"She never carried the gourds and bowls herself. She just fixed them.
The yard man brought them down to the quarters and we would take them
back. She wash them and scrape them till they was white and thin as
paper. They was always clean.
"She wasn't related to me. I couldn't call her name to save my life.
Relatives
"We come from Barbour, Alabama with a trainful of people that were
immigrating. We just chartered a train and came, we had so many. Of all
the old people that came here in that time, my aunt is the oldest. You
will find her out on Twenty-fourth Street and Pulaski. She has been my
aunt ever since I can remember. She must be nearly a hundred or more.
Patrollers
"When we had the patrollers it was just like the white man would have
another white man working for him. It was to see that the Negroes went
to bed on time and didn't steal nothing. But my master and missis never
allowed anybody to whip their slaves.
What the Slaves Expected and Got
"I don't know what the slaves was expecting to get, but my parents when
they left Ben See's place had nothing but the few clothes in the house.
They didn't give em nothing. They had some clothes all right, enough to
cover themselves. I don't know what kind or how much because I wasn't
old enough to know all into such details.
"When we left Ben See's plantation and went down into Alabama, we left
there on a wagon. Daddy was driving four big steers hitched to it. There
was just three of us children. The little boy my mother was schooling
then, it died. It died when we went down betwixt New Falls and
Montgomery, Alabama. I don't know when we left Alabama nor how long we
stayed there. After he was told he was free, I know he didn't make nare
another crop on Ben See's plantation.
1865-1938
"My father, when he left from where we was freed, he went to hauling
logs for a sawmill, and then he farmed. He done that for years, driving
these old oxen. He mostly did this logging and my mother did the
farming.
"I can't tell you what kind of time it was right after the Civil War
because I was too young to notice. All our lives I had plenty to eat.
When we first came to Arkansas we stopped at old Mary Jones down in
Riceville, and then we went down on the Gates Farm at Biscoe. Then we
went from there to Atkins up in Pope County. No, he went up in the sand
hills and bought him a home and then he went up into Atkins. Of course,
I was a married woman by that time.
"I married the second year I came to Arkansas, about sixty-two or
sixty-three years ago. I have lived in Little Rock about thirty-two or
thirty-three years. When I first came here, I came right up here on
Seventeenth and State streets.
Voting
"I never voted. For twenty years the old white lady I stayed with looked
after my taxes. None of my friends ever voted. I ain't got nothing but
some children and they ain't never been crazy enough to go to anybody's
polls.
Family
"I have two brothers dead and a sister. My mother is dead. I am not sure
whether or not my father is dead. The Ku Klux scared him out of Atkins,
and he went up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I ain't never heard of him since.
I don't know whether he is dead or not.
"I have raised five children of my own.
Ku Klux Klan
"These Ku Klux, they had not long ago used to go and whip folks that
wasn't doing right. That was mongst the white people and the colored.
Comer that used to have this furniture store on Main Street, he used to
be the head of it, they say.
"I used to work for an old white man who told me how they done. They
would walk along the street with their disguises hidden under their
arms. Then when they got to the meeting place, they would put their
disguises on and go out and do their devilment. Then when they were
through, they would take the disguise off again and go on back about
their business, Old man Wolf, he used to tell me about it.
Occupation
"I nursed for every prominent doctor in Little Rock,--Dr. Judd, Dr.
Flynch, Dr. Flynn, Dr. Fly, Dr. Morgan Smith, and a number of others."
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Mandy Thomas
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Wade Thermon
