Rebecca Brown Hill
From:
More Arkansas
MAY 31 1938
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Rebecca Brown Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78
"I was born October 18, 1859 in northeast Mississippi in Chickasaw
County. It was close to the Fulton Road to Houston, Mississippi. My
folks belong to C. B. Baldwin. After 'mancipation papa stop calling
himself Jacob Baldwin and called himself Jacob Brown in his own pa's
name. Mama was named Catherine Brown. The same man owned them both. They
had twelve children. They lost a child born in 1866. I had two brothers
sent to Louisiana as refugees. The place they was sent to was taken by
the Yankees and they was taken and the Yankees made soldiers out of
them. Charlie died in 1922 in Mobile, Alabama and Lewis after the War
joined the United States army. I never saw any grandparents. Mama was
born in Baltimore and her mother was born there too as I understood them
to say. Mama's father was a white Choctaw Indian. He was a cooper by
trade. His name was John Abbot. He sold Harriett, my grandma, and kept
mama and her brother. Then he married a white woman and had a white
family. Her brother died. That left her alone to wait on that white
family. They cut her hair off. She hated that. She loved her long
straight black hair. Then her papa, John Abbot (Abbott?), died. Her
brother run off and was leaving on a ship on the Potomac River. A woman
lost her trunk. They was fishing for it and found mama's brother
drowned. He had fell overboard too.
"Mama took a bucket on her arm to keep the stealers from gagging her.
She knowed if she had a bucket or basket they would not bother, they
would know she went out on turn (errand) and would be protected. They
didn't bother her then. She went down to the nigger trader's yard to
talk awhile but she was making her way off then. Sometimes she went down
to the yard to laugh and talk with some she knowed down there. She said
them stealers would kill 'em and insect (dissect) 'em. But they didn't
get her. But might as well, Jim Williams owned that nigger yard. He put
her on a sailboat named Big Humphries. She was on there hard sailing,
she said, twenty-four days and nights. Jim Williams stole her! On that
sailboat is where she seen my papa. When they got to New Orleans a white
man from Baltimore was passing. He seen my mama. He ask her about her
papers. She told him she had been stole. He said without papers Jim
Williams couldn't sell her. He told Jim Williams he better not sell that
woman. Jim Williams knowed she was crazy about my papa. He hired him out
and ask her if she wanted to go with him. He got pay for both of them
hired out. It was better for him than if he owned her. When they had two
children, Jim Williams come back out to Chambers County, Alabama where
he had them hired out. He ask her if he would agree to let him sell her.
He was going to sell papa and the two children. She said she had seen
them whooped to death in the yards because they didn't want to be sold.
She was scared to contrary him. She had nobody to take her part. So she
let him sell her with papa and the two children. Jim Williams sold her
and papa and the two children to Billy Gates of Mississippi. Jim
Williams said, 'Don't never separate Henry and Hannah 'cause I don't
have the papers for Hannah.' Then they lived in the prairies eighteen
miles from Houston, where Billy Gates lived. Mama done well. She worked
and they treated her nice. Eight of us was born on that place includin'
me.
"I was raised up in good living conditions and kept myself so till
twelve years ago this next August this creeping neuritis (paralasis)
come on. I raised my niece. I cooked, washed and ironed, and went to the
field in field time.
"Master Billy Gates' daughter married Cyrus Brisco Baldwin. He was a
lawyer. He give mama, papa and one child to them. Master Billy Gates'
daughter died and left Miss Bessie. Mr. C. B. Baldwin married again. He
went to war in the 'Six Day Crowd.' Miss Bessie Baldwin married Bill
Buchannan at Okolona, Mississippi. Mama went and cooked for her. They
belong to her. She was good as she could be to her and papa both. One
time the overseer was going to whip them both. Miss Bessie said, 'Tell
Mr. Carrydine to come and let us talk it over.' They did and she said,
'Give Mr. Carrydine his breakfast and let him go.' They never got no
whippings.
"Mama was white as any white woman and papa was my color (light
mulatto). After freedom they lived as long as they lived at Houston and
Okolona, Mississippi. She said she left Maryland in 1839.
"Some blue dressed Yankees come to our shack and told mama to bake him
some bread. I held to her dress. She baked them some. They put it in
their nap sacks. That was my first experience seeing the Yankees.
"They come back and come back on and on. One time they come back hunting
the silverware. They didn't find it. It was in the old seep well. The
slaves wasn't going to tell them where it was. We washed out of the seep
well and used the cistern water to drink. It was good silver. They put
it in sacks, several of them, to make it strong. Uncle Giles drapped it
down in there. He was old colored man we all called Uncle Giles. He was
no kin to me. He was good as could be. I loved him. Me and his girl
played together all the time. Her name was Roxana. We built frog houses
in the sand and put cool sand on our stomachs. We would lie under big
trees and watch and listen to the birds.
"When Mr. Billy Gates died they give Henry, my youngest brother, to his
son, John Gates. Henry, a big strong fellow, could raise a bale of
cotton over his head.
"One time the Yankees come took the meat and twenty-five cows and the
best mules. They left some old plugs. They had two mares in fold. Uncle
Giles told them one mare had buck-eye poison and the other distemper.
They left them in their stalls. We had to tote all that stuff they give
out back when they was gone. All they didn't take off they handed out to
the slaves. There was some single men didn't carry their provisions back
to the smokehouse. Everybody else did. They kept on till they swept us
all out of victuals. The slaves had shacks up on the hill. There was six
or eight pretty houses all met. Mr. Gates' house was one of them.
"Freedom--Capt. Gehu come and sent for all the slaves to come to Mr.
John Gates. We all met there. He said it was free times now. We lived on
and raised peas, corn, pumpkins, potatoes. The Yankees come and took off
some of it. That was the year of the surrender. Mama moved off the hill
in a man's home what moved to town to look after the house for them. It
was across the road from Master John Gates' house. We worked for the
Gates a long, long time after that. We worked for the Baldwins and
around till the old heads all dead. I come to Clarendon, Arkansas,
eleven o'clock, eleventh of May 1890. I have no children. I raised my
sister's baby. She died. I live wid her now. She's got grandchildren. I
get ten dollars from the Welfare a month. I buy what I needs to eat with
it. I helps out a sight. I had a baby girl. It died an infant.
"The place they refugeed Charlie and Lewis was to Opelousas, Louisiana.
It was about the first part of the country the Yankees took.
"Ku Klux--They never bothered us but in 1876 I seen them pass. My nephew
was a little boy. He said when they passed there was Jack Slaughter on
his horse. He knew the big horse. They went on. The colored men had left
their wives and children at home and went up to Red Bud Church
(colored). We seen five pass but others joined on. They had bad times. A
colored man killed a Ku Klux named Tom Middlebrook. One man got his foot
cut off wid a ax. Some called them 'white caps.' I was scared of
whatever they called theirselves.
"The younger set of folks seems more restless than they used to be. I
noticed that since the last war (World War). They ain't never got
settled. The women is bad as the men now it seems. Times is better than
I ever had them in my life."
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Tanny Hill
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Oliver Hill
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