Harriet Robinson
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 18 1937]
HARRIET ROBINSON
Age 95 yrs.
500 Block N. Fonshill
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
I was born September 1, 1842, in Bastrop, Texas, on Colorado River. My
pappy was named Harvey Wheeler and my mammy was named Carolina Sims.
My brothers and sisters was named Alex, Taylor, Mary, Cicero,
Tennessee, Sarah, Jeff, Ella and Nora. We lived in cedar log houses
with dirt floors and double chimneys, and doors hung on wooden hinges.
One side of our beds was bored in the walls and had one leg on the
other. Them white folks give each nigger family a blanket in winter.
I nussed 3 white chillun, Lulu, Helen Augusta, and Lola Sims. I done
this before that War that set us free. We kids use to make extra money
by toting gravel in our aprons. They'd give us dimes and silver
nickles.
Our clothes was wool and cotton mixed. We had red rustic shoes, soles
one-half inch thick. They'd go a-whick a-whack. The mens had pants wid
one seam and a right-hand pocket. Boys wore shirts.
We ate hominy, mush, grits and pone bread for the most part. Many of
them ate out of one tray with wooden spoons. All vittles for field
hands was fixed together.
Women broke in mules throwed 'em down and roped 'em. They'd do it
better'n men. While mammy made some hominy one day both my foots was
scalded and when they clipped them blisters, they jest put some cotton
round them and catched all dat yellow water and made me a yellow dress
out of it. This was 'way back yonder in slavery, before the War.
Whenever white folks had a baby born den all de old niggers had to
come thoo the room and the master would be over 'hind the bed and he'd
say, "Here's a new little mistress or master you got to work for."
You had to say, "Yessuh Master" and bow real low or the overseer would
crack you. Them was slavery days, dog days.
I remember in slavery time we had stages. Them devilish things had
jest as many wrecks as cars do today. Only thing, we jest didn't have
as many.
My mammy belonged to Master Colonel Sam Sims and his old mean wife
Julia. My pappy belonged to Master Meke Smith and his good wife
Harriett. She was sho' a good woman. I was named after her. Master Sam
and Master Meke was partners. Ever year them rich men would send so
many wagons to New Mexico for different things. It took 6 months to go
and come.
Slaves was punished by whip and starving. Decker was sho' a mean
slave-holder. He lived close to us. Master Sam didn't never whip me,
but Miss Julia whipped me every day in the mawning. During the war she
beat us so terrible. She say, "Your master's out fighting and losing
blood trying to save you from them Yankees, so you kin git your'n
here." Miss Julia would take me by my ears and butt my head against
the wall. She wanted to whip my mother, but old Master told her, naw
sir. When his father done give my mammy to Master Sam, he told him not
to beat her, and iffen he got to whar he jest had to, jest bring her
back and place her in his yard from whar he got her.
White folks didn't 'low you to read or write. Them what did know come
from Virginny. Mistress Julia used to drill her chillun in spelling
any words. At every word them chillun missed, she gived me a lick
'cross the head for it. Meanest woman I ever seen in my whole life.
This skin I got now, it ain't my first skin. That was burnt off when I
was a little child. Mistress used to have a fire made on the
fireplace and she made me scour the brass round it and my skin jest
blistered. I jest had to keep pulling it off'n me.
We didn't had no church, though my pappy was a preacher. He preached
in the quarters. Our baptizing song was "On Jordan's Stormy Bank I
stand" and "Hark From The Tomb." Now all dat was before the War. We
had all our funerals at the graveyard. Everybody, chillun and all
picked up a clod of dirt and throwed in on top the coffin to help fill
up the grave.
Taling 'bout niggers running away, didn't my step-pappy run away?
Didn't my uncle Gabe run away? The frost would jest bite they toes
most nigh off too, whiles they was gone. They put Uncle Isom (my
step-pappy) in jail and while's he was in there he killed a white
guardman. Then they put in the paper, "A nigger to kill", and our
Master seen it and bought him. He was a double-strengthed man, he was
so strong. He'd run off so help you God. They had the blood hounds
after him once and he caught the hound what was leading and beat the
rest of the dogs. The white folks run up on him before he knowed it
and made them dogs eat his ear plumb out. But don't you know he got
away anyhow. One morning I was sweeping out the hall in the big house
and somebody come a-knocking on the front door and I goes to the door.
There was Uncle Isom wid rags all on his head. He said, "Tell ole
master heah I am." I goes to Master's door and says, "Master Colonel
Sam, Uncle Isom said heah he am." He say, "Go 'round to the kitchen
and tell black mammy to give you breakfast." When he was thoo' eating
they give him 300 lashes and, bless my soul, he run off again.
When we went to a party the nigger fiddlers would play a chune dat
went lak this:
I fooled Ole Mastah 7 years
Fooled the overseer three;
Hand me down my banjo
And I'll tickle your bel-lee.
We had the same doctors the white folks had and we wore asafetida and
garlic and onions to keep from taking all them ailments.
I 'member the battle being fit. The white folks buried all the jewelry
and silver and all the gold in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Orange,
Texas. Master made all us niggers come together and git ready to leave
'cause the Yankees was coming. We took a steamer. Now this was in
slavery time, sho' 'nuff slavery. Then we got on a steamship and
pulled out to Galveston. Then he told the captain to feed we niggers.
We was on the bay, not the ocean. We left Galveston and went on trains
for Houston.
One, my sister Liza, was mulatto and Master Colonel Sims' son had 3
chillun by her. We never seen her no more after her last child was
born. I found out though that she was in Canada.
After the War, Master Colonel Sims went to git the mail and so he call
Daniel Ivory, the overseer, and say to him, "Go round to all the
quarters and tell all the niggers to come up, I got a paper to read to
'em. They're free now, so you kin git you another job, 'cause I ain't
got no more niggers which is my own." Niggers come up from the cabins
nappy-headed, jest lak they gwine to the field. Master Colonel Sims
say, "Caroline (that's my mammy), you is free as me. Pa said bring you
back and I'se gwina do jest that. So you go on and work and I'll pay
you and your three oldest chillun $10.00 a month a head and $4.00 fer
Harriet," that's me, and then he turned to the rest and say "Now all
you'uns will receive $10.00 a head till the crops is laid by." Don't
you know before he got half way thoo', over half them niggers was
gone.
Them Klu Klux Klans come and ask for water with the false stomachs and
make lak they was drinking three bucketsful. They done some terrible
things, but God seen it all and marked it down.
We didn't had no law, we had "bureau." Why, in them days iffen
somebody stole anything from you, they had to pay you and not the
Law. Now they done turned that round and you don't git nothing.
One day whiles master was gone hunting, Mistress Julia told her
brother to give Miss Harriett (me) a free whipping. She was a nigger
killer. Master Colonel Sam come home and he said, "You infernal sons
o' bitches don't you know there is 300 Yankees camped out here and
iffen they knowed you'd whipped this nigger the way you done done,
they'd kill all us. Iffen they find it out, I'll kill all you all."
Old rich devils, I'm here, but they is gone.
God choosed Abraham Lincoln to free us. It took one of them to free us
so's they couldn't say nothing.
Doing one 'lection they sung:
Clark et the watermelon
J. D. Giddings et the vine!
Clark gone to Congress
An' J. D. Giddings left behind.
They hung Jeff Davis up a sour apple tree. They say he was a
president, but he wasn't, he was a big senator man.
Booker T. Washington was all right in his way, I guess, but Bruce and
Fred Douglass, or big mens jest sold us back to the white folks.
I married Haywood Telford and had 13 head of chillun by him. My oldest
daughter is the mammy of 14. All my chillun but four done gone to
heaven before me.
I jined the church in Chapel Hill, Texas. I am born of the Spirit of
God sho' nuff. I played with him seven years and would go right on
dancing at Christmas time. Now I got religion. Everybody oughta live
right, though you won't have no friends iffen you do.
Our overseer was a poor man. Had us up before day and lak-a-that. He
was paid to be the head of punishment. I jest didn't like to think of
them old slavery days, dogs' days.
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Betty Robertson
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