Mary Grayson Creek Freedwoman
Mary Grayson was interviewed in 1937 from her residence
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lived with her daughter and
son-in-law Robert and Jessie Ligons. Her narrative
has been described as one of the best narratives of
the WPA Slave narratives, because it is a "rare piece of
autobiographical writing against a vivid background in time
and place," and that it also contains "high literary merit."
These remarks are those of Benjamin A. Botkin who directed the
Federal Writers Project in 1940. Her interview was also published
in "Lay My Burden Down" published by Botkin and also in
"Bullwhip Days" published by Mellon. The narrative with other
pertinent footnotes and references can be accessed in the work, "The
WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives"
I am what colored people call a "native". That means that I didn't
come into the Indian country from soemwhere in the Old South, after
the War, like so many negroes did, but I was born here in the old
Creek Nation, and my master was a Creek Indian. That was eighty
three years ago, so I am told.
My mammy belonged to white people back in Alabama when she was
born---down in the southern part I think, for she told me that
after she was a sizeable girl her white people moved into the
eastern part of Alabama where there was a lot of Creeks.
Some of them Creeks was mixed up with the whites, and some
of the big men in the Creeks who come to talk to her master
was almost white, it looked like. "My white folks moved
around a lot when I wa a little girl,", she told
When mammy was about 10 or 12 years old some of the Creeks
begun to come out to the Territory in little bunches. They
wasn't the ones who was taken out here by the soldiers, and
contractor men---they come on ahead by themselves and most
of them had plenty of money, too. A Creek come to my mammy's
master and bought her to bring out here, but she heard she
was being sold and run off into the woods. There was an
old clay pit, dug way back into a high bank, where the
slaves had been getting clay to mix with hog hair scrapings
to making chinking for the big log houses that they built for
the master and the cabins they made for themselves. Well, my
mammy ran and hid way back in that old clay pit, and it was
way after dark before the master and the other man found
her.
The Creek man that bought her was a kind sort of a man,
mammy said, and wouldn't let the master punish her. He
took her away and was kind to her, but he decided she
was too young to breed, and he sold her to another
Creek who had several slaves already, and he brought
her out to the Territory.
The McIntosh men was the leaders in the bunch that
come out at that time, and one of the bunch named, Jim
Perryman, bought my mammy and married her to one of
his "boys" but after he waited and she didn't have a
baby he decided she was no good breeder and he sold
her to Mose Perryman.
Mose Perryman was my master and he was a cousin to
Legus Perryman, who was a big man in the Tribe. he was
a lot younger than Mose, and laughed at Mose for buying my mammy, but he got fooled, because my mammy got married to Mose's slave boy Jacob, the way the slaves was married them days, and went ahead and had ten children for Mr. Mose.
Mose Perryman owned my pappy and his older brother, Hector and one of the McIntosh men, Oona, I think his name was, owned my pappy's brother William. I can remember when I first heard about there was going to be a war. The older children would talk about it, but they didn't say it was a war all over the country. They would talk about a war going to be "back in Alabama", and I guess they had heard the Creeks talking about it that way.
When I was born we lived in the Choska bottoms and Mr.
Mose Perryman had a lot of land broke in all up and
down the Arkansas river along there. After the War,
when I had got to be a young owman, there was quite
a settlement grew up at Choska (pronounced Choce-skey)
right across the river east of where Haskell now is,
but when I was a child before the War all the whole
bottoms was marshy kind of wilderness except where farms
had been cleared out. The land was very rich, and the
Creeks who got to settle there were lucky. They
always had big crops. All west of us was high ground,
towards Gibson station and Fort Gibson, and the land
was sandy. Some of the McIntoshes lived over the way,
and my Uncle William belonged one of them.
We slaves didn't have a hart time at all before the War. I have had people who were slaves of white folks back in the old states tell me that they had to work awfully hard and their masters were cruel to them sometimes, but all the Negroes I knew who belonged to Creeks alwways had plenty of clothes and lots to eat and we all lived in good log cabins we built. We worked the farm and tended to the horses and cattle and hogs, and some of the olders women around the owner's house, but each Negro family looked after a part of the fields and worked the crops like they belonged to us.
When I first heard talk about the War the slaves
were allowed to go and see one another sometimes and often
they were sent on errands several miles with a wagon or on
a horse, but pretty soon we were all kept at home, and nobody
was allowed to come around and talk to us. But we heard what
was going on.
The McIntosh men got nearly everybody to side with
them about the War, but we Negroes got word somehow
that there were some Union people over there who would
help slaves to get away, but we chlidren didn't know
anything about what we heard our parents whispering
about, and they would stop if they heard us listening.
Most of the Creeks who lived in our part of the country,
between the Arkansas and the Verdigris, and some even
south of the Arkansas, belonged to the lower Creeks and sided with the South, and there was a good deal of talk about them going with the North. Some of the Negroes tried to get away and go down to them, but I don't know of any from our neghborhood that went to them.
Some Upper Creeks came up into the Choska bottoms
talking around among the folks there about siding
with the North. They were talking, they said, for
old man Gouge, who was a big man among the Upper
Creeks. His Indian name was Opoethleyahola and he
got away into Kansas with a big bunch of Creeks and
Seminoles during the War.
Before that time, I remember one night my uncle
William brought another Negro man to our cabin and
talked a long time with my pappy but pretty soon some
of the Perryman Negreos told them that Mr. Mose was coming
down and they went off into the woods to talk.
But Mr. Mose didn't come down. When pappy came
back mammy cried quite a while, and we children
could hear them arguing late at night. Then my
uncle Hector slipped over to our cabin several
times and talked to pappy and mammy began to fix
up grub, but she did't give us children but a little
bit of it, and told us to stay arond with her at the
cabin and not go playing with the other children.
The early one morning, about daylight, old Mr. Mose came
down to them cabin in his buggy, waving a shot gun and
hollering at the top of his voice. I never saw a man
so mad in all my life, before nor since!
He yelled in at mammy to "git them children together
and git up to my house before I beat you and all of
them to death." Mammy began to cry and plead that she
didn't know anything, but he acted like he was going to
shoot sure enough, so we all ran to mammy and started
for Mr. Mose's house as fast as we could trot.
We had to pass all the other Negro cabins on the
way, and we could see that they were all empty, and
it looked like everything in them had been tore up.
Straw and corn shucks all over the place, where
somebody had tore up the mattresses, and all the
pans and kettles gone off the outside walls where
they used to hang them.
At one place we saw two Negro boys loading some
iron kettles on a wagon, and a little further on was
some boys catching chickens in a yard, but we could
see all the Negroes had left in a big hurry.
I asked mammy where everybody had gone and she said,
"Up to Mr. Mose's house, where we are going. He's
calling us all in."
"Will pappy be up there too?" I asked her.
"No. Your pappy and you Uncle Hector and your
Uncle William and a lot of other menfolks won't
be here any more. They went away. That's why Mr.
Mose is so mad, so if any of you younguns say
anything about any strange men coming to our
place I'll break your necks!" Mammy was sure
scared!
We all thought sure she was going to get a big
whipping, but Mr. Mose just looked at her minute
and then told her to get back to the cabin and
bring all the clothes, and bed ticks and all kinds
of cloth we had and come back ready to travel.
"We're goin to take all you black devils to a
place where there won't no more of you run away!"
he yelled after us. So we got ready to leave as
quick as we could. I kept crying about my pappy
but mammy would say, "Don't you worry about your
pappy, he's free now. Better be worrying about us.
No telling where we all will end up!" There was
four or five Creek families and their Negroes all
got together to leave, with all their sutff packed
in buggies and waogns, and being toted by the Negroes
or carred tied on horses, jack asses, mules and milk
cattle. I reckon it was a funny looking sight, or it
would be to a person now; the way we was all loaded
down with all manner of baggage when we met at the
old ford across the Arkasnas that lead to the Creek
Agency. The agency stood on a high hill a few miles
across the river from where we lived, but we couldn't
see it from our place down in the Choska bottms. But
as soon as we got up on the upland east of the bottoms
we could look across and see the hill.
When we got to a grove at the foot of the hill near
the Agency Mr. Mose and the other masters went up to
the Agency for a while. I suppose they found out up
there what everybody was supposed to do and where
they was supposed to go, for when we started on it
wasn't long until several more families and their
slaves had joined the party and we made quite a
big crowd.
The little Negro boys had to carry a little
bundle apiece, but Mr. Mose didn't make the
little girls carry anything and let us ride
if we could find anything to ride on. My mammy
had to help lead the cows part of the time, but
a lot of the time she got to ride an old horse,
and she would put me up behind her. It nearly
scared me to death, because I had never been
on a horse before and she had to hold on to
me all the time to keep me from fallin off.
Of course I was too small to know what was going
on then, but I could tell that all the masters
and the Negroes seemed to be mighty worried and
careful all the time. Of course I know now that
the Creeks were all split up over the War, and
nobody was able to tell who would be friendly
to us or who would try to poison us or kill us,
or at least rob us. There was a lot of
bushwhacking all though that country by
little groups of men who was just out to
get all they could. They would appear like
they was the enemy of anybody then run
across, just to have an excuse to rob
them or burn up their stuff. If you
said you was with the South they
would be with the North and if
you claimed to be with the Yankees
they would be with the South, so
our party was kind of upset all
the time we was passing through the
country along the Canadian. That was
where old Gouge had been talking
against the South. I've heard my
folks say that he was a wonderful speaker, too.
We all had to move along mighty slow, on
account of the ones on foot, and we wouldn't
get very far in one day, then we Negroes had
to fix up a place to camp and get wood and
cook supper for everybody. Sometimes we
would come to a place to camp that somebody
knew about and we would find it all tromped
down by horses and the spring all filled in
and ruined. I reckson old Gouge's people would
tear up things when they left or maybe some
Southern bushwhackers would do it I don't
know which.
When we got down to where the Nroth Fork runs into
the Canadian we went around the place where the
Creek town was. There was lots of Creeks down
there who was on the other side, so we passed
around that place and forded across west of there.
The ford was a bad one and it took us a long time
to get acress. Everybody got wet and a lot of the
stuff on the wagons got wet. Pretty soon we got down
into the Chickasaw country, and everybody was friendly
to us, but the Chickasaw people didn't treat their
slaves like the Creeks did. They was more strict,
like the people in Texas and other places.
The Chickasaws seemed lighter color than the
Creeks but they talked more in Indian among
themselves and to their slaves. Our masters
talked English nearly all the time except when
they were talking to Creeks who didn't talk good
English and we never did learn very good Creek.
I could always understand it and can yet, a little,
but I never did try to talk it much. Mammy and Pappy
used English to us all the time.
Mr. Mose found a place for us to stop close to Fort
Washita, and got us places to stay and work. I don't
know which direction we were from Fort Washita, but
I know we were not very far. I don't know how many
years we were down in there, but I know it was over
two for we worked on crops at two different places,
I remember. The one day Mr. Mose came and told us
that the War was over and that we would have to root
for ourselves after that. Then he just rode away
and I never saw him after that until after we had
got back up into the Choska country. Mammy heard
that the Negroes were going to get equal right
with the Creeks and that she should go to the
Creek Agency to draw for us, so we set out to
try to get back.
We started out on foot, and would go a little ways
each day, and mammy would try to get a little
something to do to get us some food. Two or
three times she got paid in money, so she had
some money when we got back. After three or
four days of walking we came across some more
Negroes who had a horse, and mammy paid them
to let us children ride and tie with their
children for a day or two. They had their
children on the horse, so two or three little
ones would get on with a larger one to guide
the horse and we would ride a while and get
off and tie the horse and start walking on
down the road. Then when the others caught
up with the horse they would ride until they
caught up with us. Pretty soon the old pople
got afraid to have us do that, so we just led
the horse and some of the little ones rode it.
We had our hardest time when we would get to a
river or big crek. If the water was swift the horse
didn't do any good, for it would shy at the
water and the little ones couldn't stay on, so
we would have to just wait until someone came
along in a wagon and maybe have to pay them with
some of our money or some of our goods we were
bringing back to haul us acress. Sometimes we had
to wait all day before anyone would come along in a
wagon.
We were coming north all this time, up through the
Seminole Nation, but when we got ot Weleetka we met a
Creek afmaily of freedmen who were going to the Agency
too, and mammy paid them tot take us along in their wagon.
When we got to th eAgency mammy met a Negro who had seen pappy and knew
where he was, so we sent word to him and he came and
found us. he had been through most of hte War in the Union Army.
When he got away into the Cherokee country some of them
called the "PINS" helped tot smuggle him on up into Missouri
and over into Kansas, but he soon found that he couldn't
get along and stay safe unless he went with the Army. He
went with them until the War was over, and was around Gibson
quite a lot. when he was there he tried to find out where
we had gone but said he neer could find out. He was in
the Battle of Honey Springs, hesaid, but never wa hurt or sick. When we
got back together we cleared a selectin of land a little east of the
Choska bottms near wehre Clarksville now is, and farmed
until I was a great big girl.
I went to school at a little shool called Blackjack school. I
think it was a kind of mission school and not one of the Creek
nation schools, because my first teacher was Miss Betty Weaver
and she was not a Creek but a Cherokee. Then we had two
white teachers, Miss King and John Kernan, and another Cherokee
was in charge. his name was Ross, and he was killed one day when his
horse fell off a bridge across the Verdigris, on the way from
Tullahassee to Gibson Station.
When I got to be ayoung woman i went to Okmulgee and
worked for some people near there for several years,
then I married Tate Grayson. We got our freedmen's
allotments on Mingo Creek, east of Tulsa and lived
there unti our children were grown and Tate died,
then I came ot live with my daughter in Tulsa.
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Email: gfsangela@aol.com
