Robert Toatley
From:
South Carolina
=Project #1655=
=W.W. Dixon=
=Winnsboro, S.C.=
=ROBERT TOATLEY=
=EX-SLAVE 82 YEARS OLD.=
Robert Toatley lives with his daughter, his son, his son's wife, and
their six children, near White Oak, seven miles north of Winnsboro, S.C.
Robert owns the four-room frame house and farm containing 235 acres. He
has been prosperous up from slavery, until the boll weevil made its
appearance on his farm and the depression came on the country at large,
in 1929. He has been compelled to mortgage his home but is now coming
forward again, having reduced the mortgage to a negligible balance,
which he expects to liquidate with the present 1937 crop of cotton.
Robert is one of the full blooded Negroes of pure African descent. His
face, in repose, possesses a kind of majesty that one would expect in
beholding a chief of an African tribe.
"I was born on de 'Lizabeth Mobley place. Us always called it 'Cedar
Shades'. Dere was a half mile of cedars on both sides of de road leading
to de fine house dat our white folks lived in. My birthday was May 15,
1855. My mistress was a daughter of Dr. John Glover. My master married
her when her was twelve years old. Her first child, Sam, got to be a
doctor, and they sho' did look lak brother and sister. When her oldest
child, Sam, come back from college, he fetched a classmate, Jim
Carlisle, wid him. I played marbles wid them. Dat boy, Jim, made his
mark, got 'ligion, and went to de top of a college in Spartanburg. Marse
Sam study to be a doctor. He start to practice and then he marry Miss
Lizzie Rice down in Barnwell. Mistress give me to them and I went wid
them and stayed 'til freedom.
"My childhood was a happy one, a playin' and a rompin' wid de white
chillun. My master was rich. Slaves lived in quarters, 300 yards from de
big house. A street run through the quarters, homes on each side. Beds
was homemade. Mattresses made of wheat straw. Bed covers was quilts and
counter-panes, all made by slave women.
"My mammy's pappy was a slave brick-mason, b'longin' to a white family
named Partillo, from Warrington, Virginia. He couldn't be bought 'less
you bought his wife and three chillun wid him.
"Never had any money; didn't know what it was. Mammy was a house woman,
and I got just what de white chillun got to eat, only a little bit
later, in de kitchen. Dere was fifty or sixty other little niggers on de
place. Want to know how they was fed? Well, it was lak dis: You've seen
pig troughs, side by side, in a big lot? After all de grown niggers eat
and git out de way, scraps and everything eatable was put in them
troughs; sometimes buttermilk poured on de mess and sometimes potlicker.
Then de cook blowed a cow horn. Quick as lightnin' a passle of fifty or
sixty little niggers run out de plum bushes, from under de sheds and
houses, and from everywhere. Each one take his place, and souse his
hands in de mixture and eat just lak you see pigs shovin' 'round slop
troughs. I see dat sight many times in my dreams, old as I is,
eighty-two years last Saturday.
"'Twas not 'til de year of '66 dat we got 'liable info'mation and felt
free to go where us pleased to go. Most of de niggers left but mammy
stayed on and cooked for Dr. Sam and de white folks.
"Bad white folks comed and got bad niggers started. Soon things got
wrong and de devil took a hand in de mess. Out of it come to de top, de
carpetbag, de scalawags and then de Ku Klux. Night rider come by and
drap something at your door and say: 'I'll just leave you something for
dinner'. Then ride off in a gallop. When you open de sack, what you
reckon in dere? Liable to be one thing, liable to be another. One time
it was six nigger heads dat was left at de door. Was it at my house
door? Oh, no! It was at de door of a nigger too active in politics. Old
Congressman Wallace sent Yankee troops, three miles long, down here. Lot
of white folks was put in jail.
"I married Emma Greer in 1879; she been dead two years. Us lived husband
and wife 56 years, bless God. Us raised ten chillun; all is doin' well.
One is in Winnsboro, one in Chester, one in Rock Hill, one in Charlotte,
one in Chesterfield, one in New York and two wid me on de farm near
White Oak, which I own. I has 28 grandchillun. All us Presbyterians. Can
read but can't write. Our slaves was told if ever they learned to write
they'd lose de hand or arm they wrote wid.
"What 'bout whuppin's? Plenty of it. De biggest whuppin' I ever heard
tell of was when they had a trial of several slave men for sellin'
liquor at da spring, durin' preachin', on Sunday. De trial come off at
de church 'bout a month later. They was convicted, and de order of de
court was: Edmund to receive 100 lashes; Sam and Andy each 125 lashes
and Frank and Abram 75 lashes. All to be given on deir bare backs and
rumps, well laid on wid strap. If de courts would sentence like dat dese
days dere'd be more 'tention to de law.
"You ask me 'bout Mr. Lincoln. I knowed two men who split rails side by
side wid him. They was Mr. McBride Smith and Mr. David Pink. Poor white
people 'round in slavery time had a hard tine, and dese was two of them.
"My white folks, de Mobleys, made us work on Sunday sometime, wid de
fodder, and when de plowin' git behind. They mighty neighborly to rich
neighbors but didn't have much time for poor buckra. I tell you poor
white men have poor chance to rise, make sump'n and be sump'n, befo' de
old war. Some of dese same poor buckra done had a chance since then and
they way up in 'G' now. They mighty nigh run de county and town of
Winnsboro, plum mighty nigh it, I tell you. It makes me sad, on de other
side, to see quality folks befo' de war, a wanderin' 'round in rags and
tatters and deir chillun beggin' bread.
"Well, I mus' be goin', but befo' I goes I want to tell you I 'members
your ma, Miss Sallie Woodward. Your grandpa was de closest neighbor and
fust cousin to Dr. Sam. Deir chillun used to visit. Your ma come down
and spen' de day one time. She was 'bout ten dat day and she and de
chillun make me rig up some harness for de billy goat and hitch him to a
toy wagon. I can just see dat goat runnin' away, them little chillun
fallin' out backside de wagon and your ma laughin' and a cryin' 'bout de
same time. I picks her up out de weeds and briars."
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Mary Veals
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Delia Thompson
