Marie E Hervey
From:
More Arkansas
#737
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Marie E. Hervey
1520 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 62
"I have heard my father and mother talk over the War so many times. They
would talk about how the white people would do the colored and how the
Yankees would come in and tear up everything and take anything they
could get their hands on. They would tell how the colored people would
soon be free. My mama's white folks went out and hid when the Yankees
were coming through.
"My father's white people were named Taylor's--old Job Taylor's folks.
They lived in Tennessee.
"My mother said they had a block to put the colored people and their
children on and they would tell them to tell people what they could do
when the people asked them. It would just be a lot of lies. And some of
them wouldn't do it. One or two of the colored folks they would sell and
they would carry the others back. When they got them back they would
lock them up and they would have the overseers beat them, and bruise
them, and knock them 'round and say, 'Yes, you can't talk, huh? You
can't tell people what you can do?' But they got a beating for lying,
and they would uh got one if they hadn't lied, most likely.
"They used to take pregnant women and dig a hole in the ground and put
their stomachs in it and whip them. They tried to do my grandma that
way, but my grandpa got an ax and told them that if they did he would
kill them.
"They never could do anything with him.
"My mother's people were the Hess's. They were pretty good to her. It
was them that tried to whip my grandma though.
"You had to call everybody 'Mis'' and 'Mars' in those days. All the old
people did it right after slavery. They did it in my time. But we
children wouldn't. They sent me and my sister up to the house once to
get some meal. We said we weren't goin' to call them no 'Mars' and
'Mis'.' Two or three times we would get up to the house, and then we
would turn 'round and go back. We couldn't make up our minds how to get
what we was sent after without sayin' 'Mars' and 'Mis'.' Finally old man
Nick noticed us and said, 'What do you children want?' And we said,
'Grandma says she wants some meal.' When we got back, grandma wanted to
know why we took so long to go and come. We told her all about it.
"People back home still have those old ways. If they meet them on the
street, you got to get off and let them by. An old lady just here a few
years ago wouldn't get off the sidewalk and they went to her house and
beat her up that night. That is in Brownsville, Tennessee in Hayeard
[HW: Haywood] County. That's an old rebel place.
"White people were pretty good to the old colored folks right after the
War. The white folks were good to my grandfather. The Taylors were. They
would give him a hog or something every Christmas. All the old slaves
used to go to the big house every Christmas and they would give them a
present.
"My husband ran off from his white people. They was in Helena. That's
where he taken the boat. He and a man and two women crossed the river on
a plank. He pulled off his coat and got a plank and carried them across
to the other side. He was goin' to meet the soldiers. He had been told
that they were to come through there on the boat at four o'clock that
afternoon. The rebels had him and the others taking them some place to
keep them from fallin' into the hands of the Yankees, and they all ran
off and hid. They laid in water in the swamp all that night. Their
bosses were looking for them everywhere and the dogs bayed through the
forest, but they didn't find them. And they met some white folks that
told them the boat would come through there at four o'clock and the
white folks said, 'When it comes through, you run and get on it, and
when you do, you'll be free. You'll know when it's comin' by its blowin'
the whistle. You'll be safe then, 'cause they are Yankees.'
"And he caught it. He had to cross the river to get over into Helena to
the place where the boat would make its landin'. After that he got with
the Yankees and went to a whole lot of places. When he was mustered out,
they brought him back to Little Rock. The people were Burl Ishman and
two women who had their children with them. I forget the names of the
women. They followed my husband up when he ran off. My husband's first
name was Aaron.
"My husband had a place on his back I'll remember long as I live. It was
as long as your forearm. They had beat him and made it. He said they
used to beat niggers and then put salt and pepper into their wounds. I
used to tell daddy that 'You'll have to forget that if you want to go to
heaven.' I would be in the house working and daddy would be telling some
white person how they 'bused the slaves, and sometimes he would be
tellin' some colored person 'bout slavery.
"They sold him from his mother. They sold his mother and two children
and kept him. He went into the house crying and old mis' gave him some
biscuits and butter. You see, they didn't give them biscuits then. That
was the same as givin' him candy. She said, 'Old mis' goin' to give you
some good biscuits and some butter.' He never did hear from his mother
until after freedom. Some thought about him and wrote him a letter for
her. There was a man here who was from North Carolina and my husband got
to talking with him and he was going back and he knew my husband's
mother and his brother and he said he would write to my husband if my
husband would write him a letter and give it to him to give to his
mother. He did it and his mother sent him an answer. He would have gone
to see her but he didn't have money enough then. The bank broke and he
lost what little he had saved. He corresponded with her till he died.
But he never did get to see her any more.
"Nothin' slips up on me. I have a guide. I am warned of everything.
Nothin' happens to me that I don't know it before. Follow your first
mind. Conscience it is. It's a great thing to have a conscience.
"I was born in Tennessee. I have been in Arkansas about forty-six years.
I used to cook but I didn't do it long. I never have worked out much
only just my work in the house. My husband has been dead four years this
last April. He was a good man. We were married forty years the eleventh
of December and he died on the eighth of April."
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