Sarah Douglas
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Sarah Douglas
Route 2, Box 19-A, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 82?
[TR: The Library of Congress photo archive notes "'Tom' written in
pencil above 'Sam' in title."]
"I was born in Alabama. I don't know when though. I did not find out
when I was born because old miss never told me. My ma died when I was
real small and my old miss raised me. I had a hard time of my life. I
slept on the floor just like a cat--anywhere I laid down I slept. In
winter I slept on rags. If I got sick old miss would give me plenty of
medicine because she wanted me to stay well in order to work. My old
master was name John Buffett and old misses name was Eddie Buffett. She
would fix my bread and licker in a tin lid and shove it to me on the
floor. I never ate at the table until I was twelve and that was after
freedom.
"To whip me she put my head between the two fence rails and she taken
the cow hide whip and beat me until I couldn't sit down for a week.
Sometimes she tied our hands around a tree and tie our neck to the tree
with our face to the tree and they would get behind us with that cow
hide whip with a piece of lead tied to the end and lord have mercy!
child, I shouted when I wasn't happy. All I could say was, 'Oh pray,
mistress, pray.' That was our way to say Lord have mercy. The last
whipping old miss give me she tied me to a tree and oh my Lord! old miss
whipped me that day. That was the worse whipping I ever got in my life.
I cried and bucked and hollered until I couldn't. I give up for dead and
she wouldn't stop. I stop crying and said to her, 'Old miss, if I were
you and you were me I wouldn't beat you this way.' That struck old
miss's heart and she let me go and she did not have the heart to beat me
any more.
"I did every kind of work when I was a little slave; split rails,
sprouted, ditched, plowed, chopped, and picked and planted.
"I remember young master going to war and I remember hearing the first
gun shoot but I did not see it. I saw the smoke though.
"I never went to school a day in my life. The white folks said we did
not need to learn, if we needed to learn anything they could learn us
with that cow hide whip.
"We went to the white folks' church, so we sit in the back on the floor.
They allowed us to join their church whenever one got ready to join or
felt that the Lord had forgiven them of their sins. We told our
determination; this is what we said: 'I feel that the Lord have forgiven
me for my sins. I have prayed and I feel that I am a better girl. I
belong to master so and so and I am so old.' The white preacher would
then ask our miss and master what they thought about it and if they
could see any change. They would get up and say: 'I notice she don't
steal and I notice she don't lie as much and I notice she works better.'
Then they let us join. We served our mistress and master in slavery-time
and not God.
"I recollect miss died just after the War. Old miss was very strict on
us and after she died we was so glad we had a big dance in miss's
kitchen and old miss came back and slapped one of the slaves and left
the print of her hand on her face. That white hand never did go away and
that place was forever haunted after that.
"Now I don't know how to tell you to get after my age but I was twelve
years old two years after surrender."
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Sarah Douglas
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Silas Dothrum
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