Evelina Morgan
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Evelina Morgan
1317 W. Sixteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: App. 81
[TR: Original first page moved to follow second page per
HW: Insert this page before Par. 1, P. 3]
"I was born in Wedgeboro, North Carolina, on the plantation of--let me
see what that man's name was. He was an old lawyer. I done forgot that
old white man's name. Old Tom Ash! Senator Ash--that's his name. He was
good to his slaves. He had so many niggers he didn't know them all.
"My father's name was Alphonso Dorgens and my mother's name was Lizzie
Dorgens. Both of them dead. I don't know what her name was before she
married. My pa belonged to the Dorgens' and he married my ma. That is
how she come to be a Dorgen. Old Man Ash never did buy him. He just
visited my mother. They all was in the same neighborhood. Big
plantations. Both of them had masters that owned lots of land. I don't
know how often he visited my mother after he married her. He was over
there all the time. They were right adjoining plantations.
"I was born in a frame house. I don't know nothin' about it no more than
that. It was j'ined to the kitchen. My mother had two rooms j'ined to
the kitchen. She was the old mistress' cook. She could come right out of
the kitchen and go on in her room.
"My father worked on the farm. They fed the slaves meat and bread. That
is all I remember--meat and bread and potatoes. They made lots of
potatoes. They gave 'em what they raised. You could raise stuff for
yourself if you wanted to.
"My mother took care of her children. We children was on the place there
with her. She didn't have nobody's children to take care of but us.
"I was six years old during of the War. My ma told me my age, but I
forgot it; I never did have it put down. The only way I gits a pension,
I just tells 'em I was six years old during of the War, and they figures
out the age. Sorta like that. But I know I was six years old when the
Rebels and the Yankees was fighting.
"I seed the Yankees come through. I seed that. They come in the time old
master was gone. He run off--he run away. He didn't let 'em git him. I
was a little child. They stayed there all day breaking into
things--breaking into the molasses and all like that. Old mistress
stayed upstairs hiding. The soldiers went down in the basement and
throwed things around. Old master was a senator; they wanted to git him.
They sure did cuss him: 'The ----, ----, ----, old senator,' they would
say. He took his finest horses and all the gold and silver with him
somewheres. They couldn't git 'im. They was after senators and high-ups
like that.
"The soldiers tickled me. They sung. The white people's yard was jus'
full of them playing 'Yankee Doodle' and 'Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour
Apple Tree.'
"All the white people gone! Funny how they run away like that. They had
to save their selves. I 'member they took one old boss man and hung him
up in a tree across a drain of water, jus' let his foot touch--and
somebody cut him down after 'while. Those white folks had to run away.
Patrollers
"I used to hear them all talk about the patrollers. I used to hear my
mother talking about them. My ma said my master wouldn't let the
patrollers come on his place. They could go on anybody else's place but
he never did let them come on his place. Some of the slaves were treated
very bad. But my ma said he didn't allow a patroller on the place and he
didn't allow no other white man to touch his niggers. He was a big white
man--a senator. He didn't know all his Negroes but he didn't allow
nobody to impose on them. He didn't let no patroller and nobody else
beat up his niggers.
How Freedom Came
"I don't know how freedom came. I know the Yankees came through and
they'd pat we little niggers on the head and say, 'Nigger, you are just
as free as I am.' And I would say, 'Yes'm.'
Right After Freedom
"Right after the War my mother and father moved off the place and went
on another plantation somewheres--I don't know where. They share
cropped. I don't know how long. Old mistress didn't want them to move at
all. I never will forget that.
Present Occupation and Opinions
"I used to cook out all the time when I got grown. I couldn't tell you
when I married. You got enough junk down there now. So I ain't giving
you no more. My husband's been dead about seven years. I goes to the
Methodist church on Ninth and Broadway. I ain't able to do no work now.
I gets a little pension, and the Lord takes care of me. I have a hard
time sometime.
"I ain't bothered about these young folks. They is somethin' awful. It
would be wonderful to write a book from that. They ought to git a
history of these young people. You could git a wonderful book out of
that.
"The colored folks have come a long way since freedom. And if the white
folks didn't pin 'em down they'd go further. Old Jeff Davis said when
the niggers was turned loose, 'Dive up your knives and forks with them.'
But they didn't do it.
"Some niggers was sharp and got something. And they lost it just like
they got it. Look at Bush. I know two or three big niggers got a lot and
ain't got nothin' left now. Well, I ain't got no time for no more junk.
You got enough down there. You take that and go on."
Interviewer's Comment
During the interview, a little "pickaninny" came in with his mother. His
grandmother and a forlorn little dog were also along. "Tell grandma what
you want," his mother prompted. "Is that your grandson?" I interrupted.
"No," she said, "He ain't no kin to me, but he calls me 'ma' and acts as
if I was his grandma." The little fellow hung back. He was just about
twenty-two months old, but large and mature for that age.
"Tell 'ma' what you want," his grandmother put in. Finally, he made up
his mind and stood in front of her and said, "Buh--er." His mother
explained, "I've done made him some corn bread, but he ain't got no
butter to put on it and he wants you to give him some."
Sister Morgan sat silent awhile. Then she rose deliberately and went
slowly to the ancient ice-box, opened it and took out a tin of butter
which she had evidently churned herself in some manner and carefully cut
out a small piece and wrapped it neatly and handed it to the little one.
After a few amenities, they passed out.
Even with her pitiful and meagre lot, the old lady evidently means to
share her bare necessities with others.
The manner of her calculation of her age is interesting. She was six
years old when the War was going on. She definitely remembers seeing
Sherman's army and Wheeler's cavalry after she was six. Since they were
in her neighborhood in 1864, she is undoubtedly more than eighty.
Eighty-one is a fair estimate.
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James Morgan
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Mary Jane Mattie Mooreman
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