Richard Carruthers
From:
Texas
RICHARD CARRUTHERS, 100 year old ex-slave, was born in Memphis,
Tennessee. Mr. Billy Coats bought him and his mother and brought
them to Bastrop Co., Texas. He came to Houston 20 years ago and
lives in a negro settlement known as Acres Home, about 8 miles
northeast of Houston. It is a wooded section, with a clearing here
and there for a Negro shack and plots of ground for growing
"victuals and co'n."
"I wants to tell the Gospel truf. My mammy's name was Melia Carruthers
and my papa's name was Max. My papa's papa's name was Carruthers, too.
My brothers names was Charlie and Frank and Willie and John and Tom and
Adam.
"When I was still little Mr. Billy Coats bought my mama and us and with
about 500 of his slaves we set out to come to Texas. We goes to Bastrop
County and starts to work. My old missy--her name was Missy Myra--was 99
year old and her head was bald as a egg and had wens on it as big as
eggs, too.
"In them days the boss men had good houses but the niggers had log
cabins and they burned down oftentimes. The chimney would cotch fire,
'cause it was made out of sticks and clay and moss. Many the time we
have to git up at midnight and push the chimney 'way from the house to
keep the house from burnin' up.
"The chairs was mostly chunks of cordwood put on end, or slabs, just
rough, and the beds was built like scaffoldin'. We made a sort of
mattress out of corn shucks or moss.
"My missy, she was good, but the overseer, he rough. His temper born of
the debbil, himse'f. His name was Tom Hill, but us called him 'Debbil
Hill.'
Old Debbil Hill, he used to whup me and the other niggers if we don't
jump quick enough when he holler and he stake us out like you stake out
a hide and whup till we bleed. Many the time I set down and made a
eight-plait whup, so he could whup from the heels to the back of the
head 'til he figger he get the proper ret'ibution. Sometime he take salt
and rub on the nigger so he smart and burn proper and suffer mis'ry.
They was a caliboose right on the plantation, what look like a
ice-house, and it was sho' bad to git locked up in it.
"Us got provisions 'lowanced to us every Saturday night. If you had two
in the family, they 'lowanced you one-half gallon 'lasses and 12 to 15
pounds bacon and a peck of meal. We have to take the meal and parch it
and make coffee out of it. We had our flours. One of them we called
biscuit flour and we called it 'shorts.' We had rye and wheat and buck
grain.
"If they didn't provision you 'nough, you jus' had to slip 'round and
git a chicken. That easy 'nough, but grabbin' a pig a sho' 'nough
problem. You have to cotch him by the snoot so he won't squeal, and
clomp him tight while you knife him. That ain't stealin', is it? You has
to keep right on workin' in the field, if you ain't 'lowanced 'nough,
and no nigger like to work with his belly groanin'.
"When the white preacher come he preach and pick up his Bible and claim
he gittin the text right out from the good Book and he preach: 'The Lord
say, don't you niggers steal chickens from your missus. Don't you steal
YOUR MARSTER'S hawgs.' That would be all he preach.
"Us niggers used to have a prayin' ground down in the hollow and
sometime we come out of the field, between 11 and 12 at night, scorchin'
and burnin' up with nothin' to eat, and we wants to ask the good Lawd to
have mercy. We puts grease in a snuff pan or bottle and make a lamp. We
takes a pine torch, too, and goes down in the hollow to pray. Some gits
so joyous they starts to holler loud and we has to stop up they mouth. I
see niggers git so full of the Lawd and so happy they draps unconscious.
"I kep' a eye on the niggers down in the cotton patch. Sometime they
lazy 'round and if I see the overseer comin' from the big house I sings
a song to warn 'em, so they not git whupped, and it go like this:
"'Hold up, hold up, American Spirit!
Hold up, hold up, H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!'
"We used to go huntin' and they was lots of game, bears and panthers and
coons. We have bear dawgs, fox dawg and rabbit dawg that mostly jus' go
by the name of houn' dawg. Then they have a dawg to run niggers.
"I never tried the conjure, but they would take hair and brass nails and
thimbles and needles and mix them up in a conjure bag. But I knows one
thing. They was a old gin between Wilbarger and Colorado and it was
hanted with spirits of kilt niggers. Us used to hear that old mill
hummin' when dark come and we slip up easy, but it stop, then when you
slip away it start up.
"I 'member when the stars fell. We runs and prays, 'cause we thinks it
jedgment day. It sure dumb old Debbil Hill, them stars was over his
power.
"On Sundays we put shoes on our feet and they was brass toed. They was
so hard and stiff they go 'tump, tump, tump,' when we walk. That's the
only day we got 'cept Christmas and we jus' got somethin' extry to eat.
All them women sho' knowed how to cook! I often tell my wife how glad I
was one mornin' when my missy give me a hot, butter biscuit. I goes down
and shows it to all the other boys. We didn't git them hot, butter
biscuits in them days.
"I used to dance the pigeon wing and swing my partners 'round. Was them
womenfolks knock-kneed? You sho' couldn't tell, even when you swung 'em
'round, 'cause they dresses was so long.
"I's been all 'round the mountain and up on top of it in my day. Durin'
slave time I been so cold I mos' turn white and they sot me 'fore the
fire and poultice me with sliced turnips. Come a norther and it blow
with snow and sleet and I didn't have 'nough clothes to keep me warm.
"When a nigger marry, he slick up his lowers and put on his brass-toed
shoes, then the preacher marry him out of the Bible. My pappy have a
pass to visit my mammy and if he don't have one, the paddle roller conk
him on the head. My grandma and grandpa come here in a steamboat. The
man come to Africa and say, 'Man and woman, does you want a job?' So
they gits on the boat and then he has the 'vantage.
"When I was 21 and some more, I don't know jus' how old, I was a free
man. That the day I shouted. We niggers scattered like partridges. I had
a fiddle and I'd play for the white folks wherever I went, when they has
the balls. I marries after 'while, but I don't know what year, 'cause we
never done paid no 'tention to years. My first wife died after a long
time, I think 'bout 34 year and I married another and she died this very
year. Jus' three months later I marries my housekeeper, named Luvena
Dixon, cause I allus lived a upright life and I knowed the Lawd wouldn't
like it if I went on livin' in the same house with Luvena without we was
married. She is 52 year old, and we is happy.
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