Rachel Hankins
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Rachel Hankins
El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 88
"I was born in Alabama. My old mistress and master told me that I was
born in 1850. Get that good--1850! That makes me about 88 but I can't
member the day and month. I was a girl about twelve or fourteen years
old when the old darkies was set free. My old mistress and master did
not call us niggers; they called us darkies. I can't recollect much
about slavery and I can recollect lots too at times. My mind goes and
comes. I tell you children you all is living a white life nowdays. When
I was coming up I was sold to a family in Alabama by the name of
Columbus. They was poor people and they did not own but a few slaves and
it was a large family of them and that made us have to work hard. We
lived down in the field in a long house. We ladies and girls lived in a
log cabin together. Our cabin had a stove room made on the back and it
was made of clay and grass with a hearth made in it and we cooked on the
hearth. We got our food from old mistress's and master's house. We
raised plenty of grub such as peas, greens, potatoes. But our potatoes
wasn't like the potatoes is now. They was white and when you eat them
they would choke you, especially if they was cold. And sorghum molasses
was the only kind there was. I don't know where all these different
kinds of molasses come from.
"They issued our grub out to us to cook. They had cows and we got milk
sometimes but no butter. They had chickens and eggs but we did not. We
raised cotton, sold part and kept enough to make our clothes out of.
Raised corn. And there wasn't no grist mills then so we had a pounding
rock to pound the corn on and we pound and pound until we got the corn
fine enough to make meal, then we separated the husk from the meal and
parched the husk real brown and we used it for coffee. We used brown
sugar from sorghum molasses. We spun all our thread and wove it into
cloth with a hand loom. The reason we called that cloth home-spun is
because it was spun at home. Splitting rails and making rail fences was
all the go. Wasn't no wire fences. Nothing but rail fences. Bushing and
clearing was our winter jobs. You see how rough my hands is? Lord have
mercy! child, I have worked in my life.
"Master Columbus would call us niggers up on Sunday evening and read the
Bible to us and tell us how to do and he taught us one song to sing and
it was this 'Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning' and he'd have us to
sing it every Sunday evening and he told us that that song meant to do
good and let each other see our good. When it rained we did not have
meeting but when it was dry we always had meeting.
"I never went to school a day in my life. I learned to count money after
I was grown and married.
"My feet never saw a shoe until I was fourteen. I went barefooted in ice
and snow. They was tough. I did not feel the cold. I never had a cold
when I was young. If we had ep-p-zu-dit we used different things to make
tea out of, such as shucks, cow chips, hog hoofs, cow hoofs. Ep-p-zu-dit
then is what people call flu now.
"When war broke out I was a girl just so big. All I can recollect is
seeing the soldiers march and I recollect them having on blue and gray
jackets. Some would ride and some would walk and when they all got
lined up that was a pretty sight. They would keep step with the music.
The Southern soldiers' song was 'Look Away Down in Dixie' and the
Northern soldiers' song was 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.' So one day after
coming in from the field old master called his slaves and told us we was
free and told us we could go or stay. If we stayed he would pay us to
work. We did not have nothing to go on so we stayed and he paid us.
Every 19th of June he would let us clean off a place and fix a platform
and have dancing and eating out there in the field. The 19th of June
1865 is the day we thought we was freed but they tell me now that we was
freed in January 1865 but we did not know it until June 19, 1865. Never
got a beating the whole time I was a slave.
"I came to north Arkansas forty years ago and I been in Union County a
short while. My name is Rachel Hankins."
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Mary Jane Hardridge
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Hannah Hancock
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