Hal Hutson
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
HAL HUTSON
Age 90 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born at Galveston, Tennessee, October 12, 1847. There were 11
children: 7 brothers; Andrew, George, Clent, Gilbert, Frank, Mack and
Horace; and 3 girls: Rosie, Marie and Nancy. We were all Hutsons.
Together with my mother and father we worked for the same man whose
name was Mr. Barton Brown, but who we all call Master Brown, and
sometimes Mr. Brown.
Master Brown had a good weather-board house, two story, with five or
six rooms. They lived pretty well. He had eight children. We lived in
one-room log huts. There were a long string of them huts. We slept on
the floor like hogs. Girls and boys slept together--jest everybody
slept every whar. We never knew what biscuits were! We ate "seconds
and shorts" (wheat ground once) for bread. Ate rabbits, possums baked
with taters, beans, and bean soup. No chicken, fish and the like. My
favorite dish now is beans.
Master Brown owned about 36 or 40 slaves, I can't recall jest now, and
about 200 acres of ground. There was very little cotton raised in
Galveston--I mean jest some corn. Sometimes we would shuck corn all
night. He would not let us raise gardens of our own, but didn't mind
us raising corn and a few other truck vegetables to sell for a little
spending change.
I learned to read, write and figger at an early age. Master Brown's
boy and I were the same age you see (14 years old) and he would send
me to school to protect his kids, and I would have to sit up there
until school was out. So while sitting there I listened to what the
white teacher was telling the kids, and caught on how to read, write
and figger--but I never let on, 'cause if I was caught trying to read
or figger dey would whip me something terrible. After I caught on how
to figger the white kids would ask me to teach them. Master Brown
would often say: "My God O'mighty, never do for that nigger to learn
to figger."
We weren't allowed to count change. If we borrowed a fifty-cent piece,
we would have to pay back a fifty-cent piece--not five dimes or fifty
pennies or ten nickels.
We went barefooted the year round and wore long shirts split on each
side. All of us niggers called all the whites "poor white trash." The
overseer was nothing but poor white trash and the meanest man that
ever walked on earth. He never did whip me much 'cause I was kind of a
pet. I worked up to the Big House, but he sho' did whip them others.
Why, one day he was beating my mother, and I was too small to say
anything, so my big brother heard her crying and came running, picked
up a chunk and that overseer stopped a'beating her. The white boy was
holding her on the ground and he was whipping her with a long leather
whip. They said they couldn't teach her no sense and she said "I don't
wanna learn no sense." The overseer's name was Charlie Clark. One day
he whipped a man until he was bloody as a pig 'cause he went to the
mill and stayed too long.
The patroller rode all night and iffen we were caught out later than
10:00 o'clock they would beat us, but we would git each other word by
sending a man round way late at night. Always take news by night. Of
course the Ku Klux Klan didn't come 'til after the war. They was
something like the patrollers. Never heard of no trouble between the
black and whites 'cause them niggers were afraid to resist them.
My biggest job was keeping flies off'n the table up at the Big House.
When time come to go in for the day we would cut up and dance. I can't
remember any of the songs jest now, but we had some that we sung. We
danced a whole lots and jest sung "made up" songs.
Old Master would stay up to hear us come in. Of course Saturday
afternoon was a holiday. We didn't work no holidays. Master gave us
one week off for Christmas, and never worked us on Sunday, unless the
"ox was in the ditch." When the slaves got sick we had white doctors,
and we would wait on each other. Drink dock root tea, mullin tea, and
flaxweed tea, but we never wore charms.
I think it's a good thing that slavery's over. It ought to been over a
good while ago. But its going to be slavery all over again if things
don't git better. But I thank God I've been a Christian for 70 years,
and now is a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church and deacon of the
church, and a Christian 'cause the Bible teaches me to be.
That war was a awful thing. I used to pack them soldiers water on my
head, and then I worked at Fort Sill and Fort Dawson in Tennessee.
Those Yankees came by nights--got behind those rebels, and took their
hams, drove horses in the houses, killed their chickens and ate up the
rebels food, but the Yanks didn't bother us niggers.
When freedom come old Master called us all in from the fields and told
us, "All of you niggers are free as frogs now to go wherever you
choose. You are your own man now." We all continued working for him at
$5.00 a month. After the crops were gathered the niggers scattered
out. Some went North--and we would say when they went North that they
had "crossed the water."
I never married 'till after the War. Married at my mother's house
'cause my wife's mother didn't let us marry at her house, so I sent
Jack Perry after her on a hoss and we had a big dinner--and jest got
married.
I am the father of nine children, but jest three is living. One is a
dentist in Muskogge, Dr. Andrew Hutson. All of the children are pretty
well read. We never had schools for niggers until after slavery.
I think Abraham Lincoln was a great man, but I don't know much about
Jeff Davis. Booker T. Washington was a fine man.
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William Hutson
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Morris Hillyer
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