Simp Campbell
From:
Texas
SIMP CAMPBELL was born January 1860, in Harrison County, Texas, He
belonged to W.L. Sloan and stayed with him until 1883, when Simp
married and moved to Marshall. He and his wife live in Gregg
Addition, Marshall, Texas, and Simp works as porter for a loan
company.
"My name is Simpson Campbell, but everybody, white and black, calls me
Simp. I's born right here in Harrison County, on Bill Sloan's place,
nine miles northwest of Marshall. I got in on the last five years of
slavery.
"Pappy was Lewis Campbell, and he was sold by the Florida Campbells to
Marse Sloan and fotched to Texas, but he allus kep' the Campbell name.
Mammy was Mariah and the Sloans brung her out of South Carolina. She
raised a passel of chillen. Besides me there was Flint, Albert and
Clinton of the boys, and--let me count--Dinah, Clandy, Mary, Lula, Liza,
Hannah, Matilda and Millie of the girls.
"The Sloans lived in a big house, but it wasn't no shanty. They was
fixed 'bout as good as anybody in the county and driv as good hosses and
rigs as anybody. They wasn't a mean streak in the whole Sloan family.
"The slave quarters sot in rows right down in the field from the big
house. They had beds made to the wall, and all the cookin' was on the
fireplace. We raised all our meat and corn and garden truck right there
on the place and Marse Sloan brung wheat and other rations from
Shreveport. The nigger women spinned all the cloth and pappy made shoes
by hand, when they kilt a beef. The beef was dried and jetted and hung
in the smokehouse.
"Marse's place civered a thousand acres and he had over a hunderd
slaves, with a overseer, Johnson, and a nigger driver. Us niggers was
treated well but the overseer had order to whip us for fightin'. If the
nigger driver hit too many licks, the overseer sold him off the place.
"We worked from four till six and done a task after that, and sot round
and talked till nine and then had to go to bed. On Saturday night you'd
hear them fiddles and banjoes playin' and the niggers singin'. All them
music gadgets was homemade. The banjoes was made of round pieces of
wood, civered with sheepskin and strung with catgut strings.
"They wasn't no school but Marse Bill larnt some his niggers readin' and
writin' so we could use them bookin' cotton in the field and sich like.
They was a church on the Sloan place and white preachers done most the
'xhorting. Mammy allus say the cullud preachers had to preach what
they's told--obey you master and missus.
"I seed Yankee sojers and wagons comin' home from Mansfield. Marse Tom
sot us free right after surrender, but my folks stayed on with him till
he died, in 1906. I lef when I's twenty-three and marries and made a
livin' from public work in Marshall all my life. I worked as day laborer
and raised two boys and two girls and the boys is farmin' right here in
the county and doin' well.
"When I's eighteen they got up a 'mendment to the Constitution and got
out a "People's Party Ticket." It was a Democratic ticket and control by
Southerners. They told us niggers if we'd vote that ticket we'd be
rec'nized as white folks, but I didn't 'lieve a word of it. Old Man
Sloan told all his niggers that and they all voted that ticket but
two--that was Charley Tang and Simp Campbell.
"I 'lieve the young race of our people is progressin' fine. If they had
priv'lege to use they educations, they'd make more progress, but the
color line holds them back.
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