John White
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
Revision of story sent in 8-13-37.
JOHN WHITE
Age 121 years
Sand Springs, Okla.
Of all my Mammy's children I am the first born and the longest living.
The others all gone to join Mammy. She was named Mary White, the same
name as her Mistress, the wife of my first master, James White.
About my pappy. I never hear his name and I never see him, not even
when I was the least child around the old Master's place 'way back
there in Georgia more'n one-hundred twenty years ago!
Mammy try to make it clear to me about my daddy. She married like the
most of the slaves in them days.
He was a slave on another plantation. One day he come for to borrow
something from Master White. He sees a likely looking gal, and the way
it work out that gal was to be my Mammy. After that he got a paper
saying it was all right for him to be off his own plantation. He come
a'courting over to Master White's. After a while he talks with the
Master. Says he wants to marry the gal, Mary. The Master says it's all
right if it's all right with Mary and the other white folks. He finds
out it is and they makes ready for the wedding.
Mary says a preacher wedding is the best but Master say he can marry
them just as good. There wasn't no Bible, just an old Almanac. Master
White read something out of that. That's all and they was married. The
wedding was over!
Every night he gets a leave paper from his Master and come over to be
with his wife, Mary. The next morning he leaves her to work in the
fields. Then one night Mammy says he don't come home. The next night
is the same, and the next. From then on Mammy don't see him no
more--never find out what happen to my pappy.
When I was born Mammy named me John, John White. She tells me I was
the blackest 'white' boy she ever see. I stays with her till I was
eleven year old. The Master wrote down in the book when I was born,
April 10, 1816, and I know it's right. Mammy told me so, and Master
told me when I was eleven and he sold me to Sarah Davenport.
Mistress Sarah lived in Texas. Master White always selling and trading
to folks all over the country. I hates to leave on account of Mammy
and the good way Master White fared the slaves--they was good people.
Mammy cry but I has to go just the same. The tears are on my face a
long time after the leaving. I was hoping all the time to see Mammy
again, but that's the last time.
We travels and travels on the stage coach. Once we cross the Big River
(Mississippi) on the boat and pick up with the horses on the other
side. A new outfit and we rides some more. Seems like we going to wear
out all the horses before we gets to the place.
The Davenport plantation was way north of Linden, Texas, up in the Red
River country. That's where I stayed for thirty-eight year. There I
was drug through the hackles by the meanest master that ever lived.
The Mistress was the best white woman I ever knew but Master Presley
used his whip all the time, reason or no reason, and I got scars to
remember by!
I remembers the house. A heavy log house with a gallery clear across
the front. The kitchen was back of the house. I work in there and I
live in there. It wasn't built so good as the Master's house. The cold
winds in the winter go through the cracks between the logs like the
walls was somewheres else, and I shivers with the misery all the time.
The cooking got to be my job. The washing too. Washday come around
and I fills the tub with clothes. Puts the tub on my head and walks
half a mile to the spring where I washes the clothes. Sometimes I run
out of soap. Then I make ash soap right by the spring. I learns to be
careful about streaks in the clothes. I learns by the bull whip. One
day the Master finds a soapy streak in his shirt. Then he finds me.
The Military Road goes by the place and the Master drives me down the
road and ties me to a tree. First he tears off the old shirt and then
he throws the bull whip to me. When he is tired of beating me more
torture is a-coming. The salt water cure. It don't cure nothing but
that's what the white folks called it. "Here's at you," the Master
say, and slap the salt water into the bleeding cuts. "Here's at you!"
The blisters burst every time he slap me with the brine.
Then I was loosened to stagger back into the kitchen. The Mistress
couldn't do nothing about it 'cept to lay on the grease thick, with a
kind word to help stop the misery.
Ration time was Saturday night. Every slave get enough fat pork, corn
meal and such to last out the week. I reckon the Master figure it to
the last bite because they was no leavings over. Most likely the
shortage catch them!
Sometimes they'd borrow, sometimes I'd slip somethings from out the
kitchen. The single women folks was bad that way. I favors them with
something extra from the kitchen. Then they favors me--at night when
the overseer thinks everybody asleep in they own places!
I was always back to my kitchen bed long before the overseer give the
get-up-knock. I hear the knock, he hear me answer. Then he blow the
horn and shout the loud call, ARE YOU UP, and everybody know it was
four o'clock and pour out of the cabins ready for the chores.
Sometimes the white folks go around the slave quarters for the night.
Not on the Davenport plantation, but some others close around. The
slaves talked about it amongst themselves.
After a while they'd be a new baby. Yellow. When the child got old
enough for chore work the master would sell him (or her). No
difference was it his own flesh and blood--if the price was right!
I traffic with lots of the women, but never marries. Not even when I
was free after the War. I sees too many married troubles to mess up
with such doings!
Sometimes the master sent me alone to the grinding mill. Load in the
yellow corn, hitch in the oxen, I was ready to go. I gets me fixed up
with a pass and takes to the road.
That was the trip I like best. On the way was a still. Off in the
bresh. If the still was lonely I stop, not on the way to but on the
way back. Mighty good whiskey, too! Maybe I drinks too much, then I
was sorry.
Not that I swipe the whiskey, just sorry because I gets sick! Then I
figures a woods camp meeting will steady me up and I goes.
The preacher meet me and want to know how is my feelings. I says I is
low with the misery and he say to join up with the Lord.
I never join because he don't talk about the Lord. Just about the
Master and Mistress. How the slaves must obey around the
plantation--how the white folks know what is good for the slaves.
Nothing about obeying the Lord and working for him.
I reckon the old preacher was worrying more about the bull whip than
he was the Bible, else he say something about the Lord! But I always
obeys the Lord--that's why I is still living!
The slaves would pray for to get out of bondage. Some of them say the
Lord told them to run away. Get to the North. Cross the Red River.
Over there would be folks to guide them to the Free State (Kansas).
The Lord never tell me to run away. I never tried it, maybe, because
mostly they was caught by patrollers and fetched back for a
flogging--and I had whippings enough already!
Before the Civil War was the fighting with Mexico. Some of the troops
on they way south passed on the Military Road. Wasn't any fighting
around Linden or Jefferson during the time.
They was lots of traveling on the Military Road. Most of the time you
could see covered wagons pulled by mules and horses, and sometimes a
crawling string of wagons with oxen on the pulling end.
From up in Arkansas come the stage coach along the road. To San
Antonio. The drivers bring news the Mexicans just about all killed off
and the white folks say Texas was going to join the Union. The
country's going to be run different they say, but I never see no
difference. Maybe, because I ain't white folks.
Wasn't many Mexicans around the old plantation. Come and go. Lots of
Indians. Cherokees and Choctaws. Living in mud huts and cabin shacks.
I never see them bother the whites, it was the other way around.
During the Civil War, when the Red River was bank high with muddy
water, the Yankee's made a target of Jefferson. That was a small town
down south of Linden.
Down the river come a flat barge with cannon fastened to the deck. The
Yankee soldiers stopped across the river from Jefferson and the
shooting started.
When the cannon went to popping the folks went arunning--hard to tell
who run the fastest, the whites or the blacks! Almost the town was
wiped out. Buildings was smashed and big trees cut through with the
cannon balls.
And all the time the Yankee drums was a-beating and the soldiers
singing:
We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree,
As we go marching on!
Before the Civil War everybody had money. The white folks, not the
negroes. Sometimes the master take me to the town stores. They was
full of money. Cigar boxes on the counter, boxes on the shelf, all
filled with money. Not the crinkley paper kind, but hard, jingley gold
and silver! Not like these scarce times!
After the War I stay on the plantation 'til a soldier man tells me of
the freedom. The master never tell us--negroes working just like
before the War.
That's when I leave the first time. Slip off, saying nothing, to
Jefferson. There I found some good white folks going to New Orleans.
First place we go is Shreveport, by wagon. They took me because I fix
up with them to do the cooking.
On to the Big River (Mississippi) and boards a river steamboat for New
Orleans. Lots of negroes going down there--to work on the canal.
The whole town was built on logs covered with dirt. Trying to raise
itself right out of the swamp. Sometimes the water get high and folks
run for the hills. When I got there almost was I ready to leave.
I like Texas the best. Back to Jefferson is where I go. Fifteen-twenty
mile below Linden. Almost the first person I see was Master Davenport.
He says, "Black rascal, you is coming with me." And I do. He tried to
keep his slaves and just laugh when I tell him about the freedom. I
worked for food and quarters 'til his meanness come cropping out
again.
That wasn't long and he threatened me with the whip and the buck and
gag. The buck and gag was maybe worse. I got to feeling that iron
stick in my mouth, fastened around my head with chains, pressing hard
on my tongue. No drinking, no eating, no talking!
So I slip off again. That night I goes through Linden. Crawling on my
hands and knees! Keeping in the dark spots, hiding from the whites,
'til I pass the last house, then my feets hurries me to Jefferson,
where I gets a ride to Arkansas.
In Russelville is where I stop. There I worked around in the yards,
cutting the grass, fancying the flower beds, and earned a little money
for clothes and eats, with some of it spent for good whiskey.
That was the reason I left Arkansas. Whiskey. The law got after me to
tell where was a man's whiskey still. I just leave so's I won't have
to tell.
But while I was making a little money in Russelville, I lose out on
some big money, account some white folks beat me to it.
I was out in the hills west of town, walking along the banks of a
little creek, when I heard a voice. Queer like. I called out who is
that talking and I hears it again.
"Go to the white oak tree and you will find Ninety Thousand Dollars!"
That's what I hear. I look around, nobody in sight, but I see the
tree. A big white oak tree standing taller than all the rest 'round
about.
Under the tree was a grave. An old grave. I scratch around but finds
no money and thinks of getting some help.
I done some work for a white man in town and told him about the voice.
He promised to go with me, but the next day he took two white mens and
dug around the tree. Then he says they was nothing to find.
To this day I know better. I know wherever they's a ghost, money is
around someplace! That's what the ghost comes back for.
Somebody dies and leaves buried money. The ghost watches over it 'til
it sees somebody it likes. Then ghost shows himself--lets know he's
around. Sometimes the ghost tells where is the money buried, like that
time at Russelville.
That ain't the only ghost I've seen or heard. I see one around the
yard where I is living now. A woman. Some of these times she'll tell
me where the buried money is.
Maybe the ghost woman thinks I is too old to dig. But I been a-digging
all these long years. For a bite to eat and a sleep-under cover.
I reckon pretty soon she's going to tell where to dig. When she does,
then old Uncle John won't have to dig for the eats no more!
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