William Hutson
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]
WILLIAM HUTSON
Age 98 yrs.
Tulsa, Okla.
When a feller gets as old as me it's a heap easier to forget things
than it is to remember, but I ain't never forgot that old plantation
where good old Doctor Allison lived back there in Georgia long before
the War that brought us slaves the freedom.
I hear the slaves talking about mean masters when I was a boy. They
wasn't talking about Master Allison though, 'cause he was a good man
and took part for the slaves when any trouble come up with the
overseer.
The Mistress' name was Louisa (the same name as the gal I was married
to later after the War), and she was just about as mean as was the old
Master good. I was the house boy when I gets old enough to understand
what the Master wants done and I does it just like he says, so I
reckon that's why we always get along together.
The Master helped to raise my mammy. When I was born he says to her
(my mammy tells me when I gets older): "Cheney", the old Master say,
"that boy is going be different from these other children. I aims to
see that he is. He's going be in the house all the time, he ain't
going work in the fields; he's going to stay right with me all the
time."
They was about twenty slaves on the plantation but I was the one old
Master called for when he wanted something special for himself. I was
the one he took with him on the trips to town, I was the one who fetch
him the cooling drink after he look about the fields and sometimes I
carry the little black bag when he goes a-doctoring folks with the
misery away off some other farm.
The Master hear about there going be an auction one day and he
figgered maybe he needed some more slaves if they was good ones, so he
took me and started out early in the morning. It wasn't very far and
we got there early before the auction started. Rockon that was the
first time I ever see any slaves sold.
They was a long platform made of heavy planks and all the slaves was
lined up on the platform, and they was stripped to the waist, men,
women, and children. One or two of the women folks was bare naked.
They wasn't young women neither, just middle age ones, but they was
built good. Some of them was well greased and that grease covered up
many a scar they'd earned for some foolishment or other.
The Master don't buy none and pretty soon we starts home. The Master
was riding horseback,--he didn't ever use no buggy 'cause he said that
was the way for folks to travel who was too feeble to sit in the
saddle--and I rode back of him on another horse, but that horse I
rides is just horse while the Master's was a real thoroughbred like
maybe you see on race tracks down in the South.
That auction kept bothering me all the way back to the plantation. I
kept seeing them little children standing on the flatform (platform),
their mammy and pappy crying hard 'cause their young'uns is being
sold. They was a lot of heartaches even they was slaves and it gets me
worried.
I asked the Master is he going to have an auction and he jest laugh. I
ain't never sold no slaves yet and I ain't going to, he says. And I
gets easier right then. I kind of hates to think about standing up on
one of them platforms, kinder sorry to leave my old mammy and the
Master, so I was easy in the heart when he talked like that.
The plantation house was a big frame and the yard was shaded with
trees all around. The Master's children--four boys and two
girls--would play in the yard with me just like I was one of the
family. And we'd go hunting and fishing. There was a creek not far
away and they was good fishing in the stream and squirrels in the
trees. Mighty lot of fun to catch them fishes but more fun when they
is all fried brown and ready for to eat with a piece of hot pone.
Ain't no fish ever taste that good since!
One thing I sort of ponders about. The old Master don't let us have no
religion meetings and reading and writing is something I learn after
the War. Some of the slaves talk about meeting 'round the country and
wants to have preaching on the plantation. Master says NO. No preacher
around here to tell about the Bible and religion will be just a
puzzlement, the Master say, and we let it go at that. I reckon that
was the only thing he was set against.
That and the Yankees. The Master went to the War and stayed 'til it
was most over. He was a mighty sick man when he come back to the old
place, but I was there waiting for him just like always. All the time
he was away I take care around the house. That's what he say for me to
do when he rides away to fight the Yankees. Lot's of talk about the
War but the slaves goes right on working just the same, raising cotton
and tobacco.
The slaves talk a heap about Lincoln and some trys to run away to the
North. Don't hear much about Jeff Davis, mostly Lincoln. He give us
slaves the freedom but we was better off as we was.
The day of freedom come around just [HW: like] any other day, except
the Master say for me to bring up the horses, we is going to town.
That's when he hears about the slaves being free. We gets to the town
and the Master goes into the store. It's pretty early but the streets
was filled with folks talking and I wonder what makes the Master in
such a hurry when he comes out of the store.
He gets on his horse and tells me to follow fast. When we gets back to
the plantation he sounds the horn calling the slaves. They come in
from the fields and meet 'round back of the kitchen building that
stood separate from the Master's house. They all keeps quiet while the
Master talks: "You-all is free now, and all the rest of the slaves is
free too. Nobody owns you now and nobody going to own you anymore!"
That was good news, I reckon, but nobody know what to do about it.
The crops was mostly in and the Master wants the folks to stay 'til
the crop is finished. They talk about it the rest of that day. They
wasn't no celebration 'round the place, but they wasn't no work after
the Master tells us we is free. Nobody leave the place though. Not
'til in the fall when the work is through. Then some of us go into the
town and gets work 'cause everybody knows the Allison slaves was the
right kind of folks to have around.
That was the first money I earn and then I have to learn how to spend
it. That was the hardest part 'cause the prices was high and the wages
was low.
Then I moves on and meets the gal that maybe I been looking for,
Louisa Baker, and right away she takes to me and we is married. Ain't
been no other woman but her and she's waiting for me wherever the dead
waits for the living.
I reckon she won't have so long to wait now, even if I is feeling
pretty spry and got good use of the feets and hands. Ninety-eight
years brings a heap of wear and some of these days the old body'll
need a long time rest and then I'll join her for all the time.
I is ready for the New Day a-coming!
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Isabella Jackson
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Hal Hutson
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