Julie Francis Daniels
From:
Texas
JULIA FRANCIS DANIELS, born in 1848, in Georgia, a slave of the
Denman family, who moved to Texas before the Civil War. Julia's
memory fails her when she tries to recall names and dates. She
still tries to take part in church activities and has recently
started to learn reading and writing. She lives with a daughter at
2523 Spring St. Dallas, Texas.
"They's lots I disremembers and they's lots I remembers, like the year
the war's over and the fightin' all done with, 'cause that the year I
larned to plow and that the time I got married. That's the very year
they larned me to plow. I larnt all right, 'cause I wasn't one slow to
larn anything. Afore to that time, they ain't never had no hoe in the
field for me a-tall. I jes' toted water for the ones in the field.
"I had plenty brothers and sisters, 'bout ten of 'em, but I disremembers
some they names. There was Tom and George and Marthy and Mandy, and
they's all name' Denman, 'cause my mammy and daddy was Lottie and Boyd
Denman and they come from Georgia to Cherokee County and then to Houston
County, near by to Crockett, with Old Man Denman. He was the one owned
all us till he 'vided some with Miss Lizzie when she marries Mr. Cramer.
"My daddy worked in the fields with Uncle Lot and my brothers, and my
Uncle Joe, he's driver. But Briscoe am overseer and he a white man. He
can't never whup the growed mens like he wants, 'cause they don't let
him unless he ask Old Man Denman. I seed him whup 'em, though. He make
'em take off the shirt and whup with the strap.
"Now, my mammy was cook in the Denman house and for our family and Uncle
Joe's family. She didn't have much time for anythin' but cookin' all the
time. But she's the bestes' cook. Us had fine greens and hawgs and beef.
Us et collard greens and pork till us got skittish of it and then they
quit the pork and kilt a beef. When they done that, they's jus' pourin'
water on our wheels, 'cause us liked best of anythin' the beef, and I do
to this day, only I can't never git it.
"Old Man Denman had a boy what kilt squirrels and throwed 'em in the
kitchen. The white folks et them. You ain't never seen no white folks
then would eat rabbit. I had a brother who hunted. Mostly on Sundays.
He'd leave for the swamps 'fore daybreak and we'd know when we'd hear
him callin', 'O-o-o-o-o-da-da-ske-e-e-e-t,' he had somethin'. That jus'
a make-up of he own, but we knowed they's rabbits for the pot.
"All the mens don't hunt on Sunday, 'cause Uncle Joe helt meetin' in
front he house. Us look out the door and seed Uncle Joe settin' the
benches straight and settin' he table out under the trees and sweepin'
clean the leaves and us know they's gwine be meetin'. They's the
loveliest days that ever they was. Night times, too, they'd make it
'tween 'em whether it'd be at our house or Uncle Joe's. We'd ask niggers
from other farms and I used to say, 'I likes meetin' jus' as good as I
likes a party.'
"When crops is laid by us have the most parties and dence and sing and
have play games. The reels is what I used to like but I done quit that
foolishness many a year ago. I used to cut a step or two. I remembers
one reel call the 'Devil's Dream.' It's a fast song
"'Oh, de Devil drempt a dream,
He drempt it on a Friday--
He drempt he cotch a sinner.'
"Old Man Denman am the great one for 'viding he property and when Miss
Lizzie marries with Mr. Creame Cramer, which am her dead sister's
husband, Old Man Denman give me and two my sisters to Miss Lizzie and he
gives two more my sisters to he son. Us goes with Miss Lizzie to the
Cramer place and lives in the back yard in a little room by the back
door.
"Everything fine and nice there till one day Miss Lizzie say to me,
'Julia, go down to the well and fetch me some water,' and I goes and I
seed in the road a heap of men all in gray and ridin' hosses, comin' our
way. I runs back to the house and calls Miss Lizzie. She say, 'What you
scairt for?' I tells her 'bout them men and she say they ain't gwine
hurt me none, they jus' wants some water. I goes back to the well and
heared 'em talk 'bout a fight. I goes back to the house and some of the
mens comes to the gate and says to Mr. Cramer, 'How're you, Creame?' He
say, 'I's all right in my health but I ain't so good in my mind.' They
says, 'What the matter, Creame?' He say, 'I want to be in the fight so
bad.'
"When they goes I asks Miss Lizzie what they fightin' 'bout and she say
it am 'bout money. That all I knows. Right after that Mr. Cramer goes
and we don't never see him no more. Word come back from the fightin' he
makes some the big, high mens mad and they puts chains 'round he ankles
and make him dig a stump in the hot sun. He ain't used to that and it
give him fever to the brain and he dies.
"When Mr. Cramer goes 'way, Miss Lizzie takes us all and goes back to
Old Man Denman's. The sojers used to pass and all the whoopin' and
hollerin' and carryin' on, you ain't never heered the likes! They
hollers, 'Who-o-o-o, Old Man Denman, how's your chickens?' And they
chunks and throws at 'em till they cripples 'em up and puts 'em in they
bags, for cookin'. Old Man Denman cusses at 'em somethin' powerful.
"My sister Mandy and me am down in the woods a good, fur piece from the
house and us keeps heerin' a noise. My brother comes down and finds me
and say, 'Come git your dinner.' When I gits there dinner am top the
gate post and he say they's sojers in the woods and they has been
persecutin' a old woman on a mule. She was a nigger woman. I gits so
scairt I can't eat my dinner. I ain't got no heart for victuals. My
brother say, 'Wait for pa, he comin' with the mule and he'll hide you
out.' I gits on the mule front of pa and us pass through the sojers and
they grabs at us and says, 'Gimme the gal, gimme the gal.' Pa say I
faints plumb 'way.
"Us heered guns shootin' round and 'bout all the time. Seems like they
fit every time they git a chance. Old Man Denman's boy gits kilt and two
my sisters he property and they don't know what to do, 'cause they has
to be somebody's property and they ain't no one to 'heritance 'em. They
has to go to the auction but Old Man Denman say not to fret. At the
auction the man say, 'Goin' high, goin' low, goin' mighty slow, a little
while to go. Bid 'em in, bid 'em in. The sun am high, the sun am hot, us
got to git home tonight.' An old friend of Old Man Denman's hollers out
he buys for William Blackstone. Us all come home and my sisters too and
Old Man Denman laugh big and say, 'My name allus been William Blackstone
Denman.'
"I's a woman growed when the war was to a end. I had my first baby when
I's fourteen. One day my sister call me and say, 'They's fit out, and
they's been surrenderin' and ain't gwine fight no more.' That dusk Old
Man Denman call all us niggers together and stand on he steps and make
he speech, 'Mens and womans, you is free as I am. You is free to go
where you wants but I is beggin' yous to stay by me till us git the
crops laid by.' Then he say, 'Study it over 'fore you gives me you
answer. I is always try as my duty to be fair to you.'
"The mens talks it over a-twixt theyselves and includes to stay. They
says us might as well stay there as go somewhere else, and us got no
money and no place to go.
"Then Miss Lizzie marries with Mr. Joe McMahon and I goes with her to he
house near by and he say he larn me to plow. Miss Lizzie say, 'Now,
Julia, you knows how to plow and don't make no fool of yourself and act
like you ain't never seed no plow afore.' Us make a corn crop and goes
on 'bout same as afore.
"I gits married that very year and has a little fixin' for the weddin',
bakes some cakes and I have a dress with buttons and a preacher marries
me. I ain't used to wearin' nothin' but loring (a simple one piece
garment made from sacking). Unnerwear? I ain't never wore no unnerwear
then.
"My husband rents a little piece of land and us raise a corn crop and
that's the way us do. Us raises our own victuals. I has 17 chillen
through the year and they done scatter to the four winds. Some of them
is dead. I ain't what I used to be for workin'. I jus' set 'round. I
done plenty work in my primer days.
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