Lou Smith
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date Stamp: Aug 12 1937]
LOU SMITH
Age 83 yrs.
Platter, Okla.
Sho', I remembers de slavery days! I was a little gal but I can tell
you lots of things about dem days. My job was nussing de younguns. I
took keer of them from daylight to dark. I'd have to sing them to
sleep too. I'd sing:
"By-lo Baby Bunting
Daddy's gone a-hunting
To get a rabbit skin
To wrap Baby Bunting in."
Sometimes I'd sing:
"Rock-a-bye baby, in a tree top
When de wind blows your cradle'll rock.
When de bough breaks de crad'll fall
Down comes baby cradle'n all."
My father was Jackson Longacre and he was born in Mississippi. My
mother, Caroline, was born in South Carolina. Both of them was born
slaves. My father belonged to Huriah Longacre. He had a big plantation
and lots of niggers. He put up a lot of his slaves as security on a
debt and he took sick and died so they put them all on de block and
sold them. My father and his mother (my grandma) was sold together. My
old Mistress bought my grandmother and old Mistress' sister bought my
grandma's sister. These white women agreed that they would never go
off so far that the two slave women couldn't see each other. They
allus kept this promise. A Mr. Covington offered old Master $700 for
me when I was about ten years old, but he wouldn't sell me. He didn't
need to for he was rich as cream and my, how good he was to us.
Young Master married Miss Jo Arnold and old Master sent me and my
mother over to live with them. I was small when I was took out of old
man McWilliams' yard. It was his wife that bought my grandmother and
my father. My mother's folks had always belonged to his family. They
all moved to Texas and we all lived there until after the surrender.
Miss Jo wasn't a good Mistress and mother and me wasn't happy. When
young Master was there he made her treat us good but when he was gone
she made our lives a misery to us. She was what we called a
"low-brow." She never had been used to slaves and she treated us like
dogs. She said us kids didn't need to wear any clothes and one day she
told us we could jest take'em off as it cost too much to clothe us. I
was jest a little child but I knowed I oughten to go without my
clothes. We wore little enough as it was. In summer we just wore one
garment, a sort of slip without any sleeves. Well, anyway she made me
take off my clothes and I just crept off and cried. Purty soon young
Master come home.
He wanted to know what on earth I was doing without my dress on. I
told him, and my goodness, but he raised the roof. He told her if she
didn't treat us better he was going to take us back to old Master. I
never did have any more good times 'cepting when I'd get to go to
visit at old Master's. None of our family could be sold and that was
why old Master just loaned us to young Master. When old Master died,
dey put all our names in a hat and all the chilluns draw out a name.
This was done to 'vide us niggers satisfactory. Young Master drawed my
mother's name and they all agreed that I should go with her, so back
we went to Miss Jo. She wouldn't feed us niggers. She'd make me set in
a corner like a little dog. I got so hungry and howled so loud they
had to feed me. When the surrender come, I was eleven years old, and
they told us we was free. I ran off and hid in the plum orchard and I
said over'n over, "I'se free, I'se free; I ain't never going back to
Miss Jo." My mother come out and got me and in a few days my father
came and lived with us. He worked for young Master and the crops was
divided with him. Miss Jo died and we lived on there. My mother took
over the charge of the house and the chillun for young Master and we
was all purty happy after that.
They was a white man come into our settlement and bought a plantation
and some slaves. My, but he treated them bad. He owned a boy about
fifteen years old. One day he sent him on a errand. On the way home he
got off his mule and set down in the shade of a tree to rest. He fell
asleep and the mule went home. When he woke up he was scared to go
home and he stayed out in de woods for several days. Finally they
caught him and took him home and his master beat him nearly to death.
He then dug a hole and put him in it and piled corn shucks all around
him. This nearly killed him 'cause his body was cut up so with the
whip. One of the niggers slipped off and went to the jining plantation
and told about the way the boy was being treated and a bunch of white
men came over and made him take the child out and doctor his wounds.
This man lived there about ten years and he was so mean to his slaves
'til all the white men round who owned niggers finally went to him and
told him they would just give him so long to sell out and leave. They
made him sell his slaves to people there in the community, and he went
back north.
My mother told me that he owned a woman who was the mother of several
chillun and when her babies would get about a year or two of age he'd
sell them and it would break her heart. She never got to keep them.
When her fourth baby was born and was about two months old she just
studied all the time about how she would have to give it up and one
day she said, "I just decided I'm not going to let old Master sell
this baby; he just ain't going to do it." She got up and give it
something out of a bottle and purty soon it was dead. 'Course didn't
nobody tell on her or he'd of beat her nearly to death. There wasn't
many folks that was mean to their slaves.
Old Master's boys played with the nigger boys all the time. They'd go
swimming, fishing and hunting together. One of his boys name was
Robert but everybody called him Bud. They all would catch rabbits and
mark them and turn them loose. One day a boy come along with a rabbit
he had caught in a trap. Old Master's boy noticed that it had Bud's
mark on it and they made him turn it loose.
Old Master was his own overseer, but my daddy was the overlooker. He
was purty hard on them too, as they had to work just like they never
got tired. The women had to do housework, spinning, sewing and work in
the fields too. My mother was housewoman and she could keep herself
looking nice. My, she went around with her hair and clothes all
Jenny-Lynned-up all the time until we went to live with Miss Jo. She
took all the spirit out of poor mother and me too.
I remember she allus kept our cabin as clean and neat as a pin. When
other niggers come to visit her they would say, "My you are Buckry
Niggers (meaning we tried to live like white folks)."
I love to think of when we lived with old Master. We had a good time.
Our cabin was nice and had a chimbley in it. Mother would cook and
serve our breakfast at home every morning and dinner and supper on
Sundays. We'd have biscuit every Sunday morning for our breakfast.
That was something to look forward to.
We all went to church every Sunday. We would go to the white folks
church in the morning and to our church in the evening. Bill
McWilliams, old Master's oldest boy, didn't take much stock in church.
He owned a nigger named Bird, who preached for us. Bill said, "Bird,
you can't preach, you can't read, how on earth can you get a text out
of the Bible when you can't even read? How'n hell can a man preach
that don't know nothing?" Bird told him the Lord had called him to
preach and he'd put the things in his mouth that he ought to say. One
night Bill went to church and Bird preached the hair-raisingest
sermon you ever heard. Bill told him all right to go and preach, and
he gave Bird a horse and set him free to go anywhere he wanted to and
preach.
Old Master and old Mistress lived in grand style. Bob was the driver
of their carriage. My, but he was always slick and shiny. He'd set up
in front with his white shirt and black clothes. He looked like a
black martin (bird) with a white breast. The nurse set in the back
with the chillun. Old Master and Mistress set together in the front
seat.
Old Master and Mistress would come down to the quarters to eat
Christmas dinners sometimes and also birthday dinners. It was sho' a
big day when they done that. They'd eat first, and the niggers would
sing and dance to entertain them. Old Master would walk 'round through
the quarters talking to the ones that was sick or too old to work. He
was awful kind. I never knowed him to whip much. Once he whipped a
woman for stealing. She and mother had to spin and weave. She couldn't
or didn't work as fast as Ma and wouldn't have as much to show for her
days work. She'd steal hanks of Ma's thread so she couldn't do more
work than she did. She'd also steal old Master's tobacco. He caught up
with her and whipped her.
I never saw any niggers on the block but I remember once they had a
sale in town and I seen them pass our house in gangs, the little ones
in wagons and others walking. I've seen slaves who run away from their
masters and they'd have to work in the field with a big ball and chain
on their leg. They'd hoe out to the end of the chain and then drag it
up a piece and hoe on to the end of the row.
Times was awful hard during the War. We actually suffered for some
salt. We'd go to the smoke house where meat had been salted down for
years, dig a hole in the ground and fill it with water. After it would
stand for a while we'd dip the water up carefully and strain it and
cook our food in it. We parched corn and meal for coffee. We used
syrup for sugar. Some folks parched okra for coffee. When the War was
over you'd see men, women and chillun walk out of their cabins with a
bundle under their arms. All going by in droves, just going nowhere in
particular. My mother and father didn't join them; we stayed on at the
plantation. I run off and got married when I was twenty. Ma never did
want me to get married. My husband died five years ago. I never had no
chillun.
I reckon I'm a mite superstitious. If a man comes to your house first
on New Years you will have good luck; if a woman is your first visitor
you'll have bad luck. When I was a young woman I knowed I'd be left
alone in my old age. I seen it in my sleep. I dreamed I spit every
tooth in my head right out in my hand and something tell me I would be
a widow. That's a bad thing to dream about, losing your teeth.
Once my sister was at my house. She had a little baby and we was
setting on the porch. They was a big pine tree in front of the house,
and we seen something that looked like a big bird light in the tree.
She begun to cry and say that's a sign my baby is going to die. Sho'
nuff it just lived two weeks. Another time a big owl lit in a tree
near a house and we heard it holler. The baby died that night. It was
already sick, we's setting up with it.
I don't know where they's hants or not but I'se sho heard things I
couldn't see.
We allus has made our own medicines. We used herbs and roots. If
you'll take poke root and cut it in small pieces and string it and put
it 'round a baby's neck it will cut teeth easy. A tea made out of dog
fennel or corn shucks will cure chills and malaria. It'll make 'em
throw up. We used to take button snake root, black snake root, chips
of anvil iron and whiskey and make a tonic to cure consumption. It
would cure it too.
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James Southall
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Liza Smith
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