James Morgan
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Morgan
819 Rice Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 65
"During the slave time, the pateroles used to go from one plantation to
the other hunting Negroes. They would catch them at the door and throw
hot ashes in their faces. You could go to another plantation and steal
or do anything you wanted if you could manage to get back to your old
master's place. But if you got caught away from your plantation, they
would get you. Sometimes a nigger didn't want to get caught and beat, so
he would throw a shovel of hot ashes in the pateroles' faces and beat it
away.
"My daddy used to tell lots of stories about slavery times. He's been
dead forty-three years and my mother has been dead forty-one
years--forty-one years this May. I was quite young and lots of the
things they told me, I remember, and some of them, I don't.
"I was born in 1873. That was eight years after the War ended. My
father's name was Aaron and my mother's name was Rosa. Both of them was
in slavery.[TR: sentence lined out.] I got a brother that was a baby in
her lap when the Yankee soldiers got after a chicken. The chicken flew
up in her lap and they never got that one. The white folks lost it, but
the Yankees didn't get it. I have heard my mother tell all sorts of
things. But they just come to me at times. The soldiers would take
chickens or anything they could get their hands on--those soldiers
would.
"My mother married the first time in slavery. Her first husband was sold
in slavery. That is the onliest brother I'm got living now out of
ten--that one that was settin' in her lap when the soldiers come
through. He's in Boydell, Arkansas now. It used to be called Morrell. It
is about one hundred twenty-one miles from here, because Dermott is one
hundred nine and Boydell is about twelve miles further on. It's in
Nashville[HW:?] County. My brother was a great big old baby in slavery
times. He was my mother's child by her first husband. All the rest of
them is dead and he is the onliest one that is living.
"I was a section foreman for the Missouri Pacific for twenty-two years.
I worked there altogether for thirty-five years, but I was section
foreman for twenty-two years. There's my card. Lots of men stayed on the
job till it wore them out. Lewis Holmes did that. It would take him two
hours to walk from here to his home--if he ever managed it at all.
"It's warm today and it will bring a lot of flies. Flies don't die in
the winter. Lots of folks think they do. They go up in cracks and little
places like that under the weatherboard there--any place where it is
warm--and there they huddle up and stay till it gets warm. Then they
come out and get something to eat and go back again when it cools off.
They live right on through the winter in their hiding places.
"Both of my parents said they always did their work whatever the task
might be. And my daddy said he never got no whipping at all. You know
they would put a task on you and if you didn't do it, you would get a
whipping. My daddy wouldn't stand to be whipped by a paterole, and he
didn't have to be whipped by nobody else, because he always did his
work.
"He was one of the ones that the pateroles couldn't catch. When the
pateroles would be trying to break in some place where he was, and the
other niggers would be standing 'round frightened to death and wonderin'
what to do, he would be gettin' up a shovelful of ashes. When the door
would be opened and they would be rushin' in, he would scatter the ashes
in their faces and rush out. If he couldn't find no ashes, he would
always have a handful of pepper with him, and he would throw that in
their faces and beat it.
"He would fool dogs that my too. My daddy never did run away. He said he
didn't have no need to run away. They treated him all right. He did his
work. He would get through with everything and sometimes he would be
home before six o'clock. My mother said that lots of times she would
pick cotton and give it to the others that couldn't keep up so that they
wouldn't be punished. She had a brother they used to whip all the time
because he didn't keep up.
"My father told me that his old master told him he was free. He stayed
with his master till he retired and sold the place. He worked on shares
with him. His old master sold the place and went to Monticello and died.
He stayed with him about fifteen or sixteen years after he was freed,
stayed on that place till the Government donated him one hundred sixty
acres and charged him only a dollar and sixty cents for it. He built a
house on it and cleared it up. That's what my daddy did. Some folks
don't believe me when I tell 'em the Government gave him a hundred and
sixty acres of land and charged him only a dollar and sixty cents for
it--a penny a acre.
"I am retired now. Been retired since 1938. The Government took over the
railroad pension and it pays me now. That is under the Security Act.
Each and every man on the railroad pays in to the Government.
"I have been married right around thirty-nine years.
"I was born in Chicot County, Arkansas.[TR: sentence lined out.] My
father was born in Georgia and brought here by his master. He come here
in a old covered ox wagon. I don't know how they happened to decide to
come here. My mother was born in South Carolina. She met my father here
in Arkansas. They sold her husband and she was brought here. After peace
was declared she met my daddy. Her first husband was sold in South
Carolina and she never did know that became of him. They put him up on
the block and sold him and she never did know which way he went. He left
her with two boys right then. She had a sister that stayed in South
Carolina. Somebody bought her there and kept her and somebody bought my
mother and brought her here. My father's master was named McDermott. My
mother's last master was named Belcher or something like that.
"I don't belong to any church. I have always lived decent and kept out
of trouble."
Interviewer's Comment
When Morgan said "there is my record", he showed me a pass for the year
1938-39 for himself and his wife between all stations on the Missouri
Pacific lines signed by L.W. Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer.
He is a good man even if he is not a Christian as to church membership.
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Olivia Morgan
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Evelina Morgan
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