Wes Brady
From:
Texas
WES BRADY, 88, was born a slave of John Jeems, who had a farm five
miles north of Marshall. Wes has farmed in Harrison County all his
life. He now lives with friends on the Long's Camp Road, and draws
a $11.00 monthly pension.
"I was born and raised in Harrison County, and I was eighty-eight years
old this July past and has wore myself out here in this county. I was
born on Massa John Jeem's place, on the old Jefferson Road, and my
father was Peter Calloway, and he was born in Alabama and his whole
fam'ly brought to Texas by nigger traders. My mother was Harriet Ellis
and I had two brothers named George and Andrew, and four sisters, Lula
and Judy and Mary and Sallie. My old Grandpa Phil told me how he helped
run the Indians off the land.
"Grandpa Phil told me 'bout meetin' his massa. Massa Jeems had three or
four places and grandpa hadn't seed him and he went to one of the other
farms and meets a man goin' down the road. The man say, 'Who you belong
to?' Grandpa Phil say, 'Massa Jeems.' The man say, 'Is he a mean man?'
Grandpa say, 'I don't know him, but they say he's purty tight.' It was
Massa Jeems talkin' and he laughs and gives Grandpa Phil five dollars.
"We niggers lived in log houses and slep' on hay mattress with lowell
covers, and et fat pork and cornbread and 'lasses and all kinds garden
stuff. If we et flour bread, our women folks had to slip the flour
siftin's from missy's kitchen and darsn't let the white folks know it.
We wore one riggin' lowell clothes a year and I never had shoes on till
after surrender come. I run all over the place till I was a big chap in
jes' a long shirt with a string tied round the bottom for a belt. I went
with my young massa that way when he hunted in the woods, and toted
squirrels for him.
"Some white folks might want to put me back in slavery if I tells how we
was used in slavery time, but you asks me for the truth. The overseer
was 'straddle his big horse at three o'clock in the mornin', roustin'
the hands off to the field. He got them all lined up and then come back
to the house for breakfas'. The rows was a mile long and no matter how
much grass was in them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats
you nearly to death. Lots of times they weighed cotton by candlelight.
All the hands took dinner to the field in buckets and the overseer give
them fifteen minutes to git dinner. He'd start cuffin' some of them over
the head when it was time to stop eatin' and go back to work. He'd go to
the house and eat his dinner and then he'd come back and look in all the
buckets and if a piece of anything that was there when he left was et,
he'd say you was losin' time and had to be whipped. He'd drive four
stakes in the ground and tie a nigger down and beat him till he's raw.
Then he'd take a brick and grind it up in a powder and mix it with lard
and put it all over him and roll him in a sheet. It'd be two days or
more 'fore that nigger could work 'gain. I seed one nigger done that way
for stealin' a meat bone from the meathouse. That nigger got fifteen
hundred lashes. The li'l chaps would pick up egg shells and play with
them and if the overseer seed them he'd say you was stealin' eggs and
give you a beatin'. I seed long lines of slaves chained together driv by
a white man on a hoss, down the Jefferson road.
"The first work I done was drappin' corn, and then cow-pen boy and sheep
herder. All us house chaps had to shell a half bushel corn every night
for to feed the sheep. Many times I has walked through the quarters when
I was a little chap, cryin' for my mother. We mos'ly only saw her on
Sunday. Us chillen was in bed when the folks went to the field and come
back. I 'members wakin' up at night lots of times and seein' her make a
little mush on the coals in the fireplace, but she allus made sho' that
overseer was asleep 'fore she done that.
"One time the stock got in the field and the overseer 'cuses a old man
and jumps on him and breaks his neck. When he seed the old man dead, he
run off to the woods, but massa sent some nigger after him and say for
him to come back, the old man jus' got overhet and died.
"We went to church on the place and you ought to heared that preachin'.
Obey your massa and missy, don't steal chickens and eggs and meat, but
nary a word 'bout havin' a soul to save.
"We had parties Saturday nights and massa come out and showed us new
steps. He allus had a extra job for us on Sunday, but he gave us
Christmas Day and all the meat we wanted. But if you had money you'd
better hide it, 'cause he'd git it.
"The fightin' was did off from us. My father went to war to wait on Josh
Calloway. My father never come back. Massa Jeems cussed and 'bused us
niggers more'n ever, but he took sick and died and stepped off to Hell
'bout six months 'fore we got free. When we was free, they beat drums in
Marshall. I stayed on 'bout seven months and then my mother and me went
to farmin' for ourselves.
"I wore myself out right in this county and now I'm too old to work.
These folks I lives with takes good care of me and the gov'ment gives me
$11.00 a month what I is proud to git.
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Jacob Branch
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Gus Bradshaw
