Nellie Johnson - Creek Freedwoman
At approximately 90 years of age, Mrs. Nellie Johnson was
intervied in the summer of 1937. She lived with a grandson
Tom Armstrong, but was interviewed at the home of Thomas
and Clara Watson.
I don't know how old I is, but I is a great big
half frwon gal when the time of the War come, and I can
remember how everything look at that time, and what all the
people do, too.
I'm pretty nigh to blind right now, and all I can do
is set on the little old front porch and maybe try to
keep the things picked up behind my grandchild and his wife
, because she has towrk and he is out selling wood most
of the time.
But I din't have to live in any such a house furing the time
I was young like they is, because I belonged to Old Chief
Rolley MicIntosh and my papy and mammy have a big, nice
clean log house to live in, and everything round it look better
than most renters these days.
We never did call old Master naything but the Chief or the
General for that's what everybody called him in them days,
and he never did act towards us like we was slaves, much anyways.
He was the mikko of the Kawita tow long before the WAr and
long before I was borned, and he was the chief of the Lower
Creeks, even before he got to be the chief of all the Creeks.
But just at the time of the War, the Lower Creeks stayed with him
and the Upper Creeks, at least them that lived along ot the south of
where we live all go aff after the old man Gouge, and he take most
fo the Seminole, too. I hear of old Tuskenugge, the big man
of the Seminoles, bu I never did se ehim, nor mighty few of the Seminoles.
My mother tells me old Genera ain' been livign in that Kawita
twon very many years when I was borned. He com up there from
down on the fork of hte river where the Arkansas and the
Verdigris run together a little while after all the last of the
Creeks come out to the Territory. His brother, old Chili McIntosh
live down in that fork of the rivers too, but I don't hihnk he ever
move up into that Kawita town. It was in the narrow stretch
where the Verdigreis come close to the Arkansas. They got
a pretty good sized white folks town they call Coweta, but the
old Creek town was different from that. The folks lived all
around in that stretchbetween the rivers, and my old Master
was the boss all of them.
For a long time after the Civil War, the had a court at the
new town, called Coweat court and a school house too,b ut
befroe I was born they had a mission shcool down the Kawita Creek
from where the town now is.
Earliest I can remember about my master was when he
come to the slave settlement where we live and get
out of the buggy and show a preacher all round the place.
That preacher named Mr. Loughridge, and he was the man
had the mission down on Kawita Creek before I was
born, but at that itme he had a school off at some others place.
He got down out of the buggy and talk to all us children,
and ask us how we getting along.
I didn't even know at the time tha told Chief was my master,
until my pappy tell me after he was gone. I think all the time
he was another preacher.
My papy's name was Jackson McIntosh, and my mammy was Hagar.
I think old chief bring them out to the Territory when
he come out with his brother Chili and the rest of the Creek people.
My pappy tell me that old Master's pappy was killed by the Creeks
because he signed up a treaty to bring his folks out here, and old Master
always hadted that bunch of Creeks that done that.
I think old man Gouge was one of the big men in that bunch, and he
fit in the War on teh Government side, after he done holler and go on
so about the Government making him come out here.
Old Master have lots of land took up all around that Kawita
place, and I don't know how much, but a lot more than
anybody else. He have it all fenced in with good rail fence
and all the Negreos have all the horses and mules to work it with.
They all live in good log housese they built themselves,
and have everything they need.
Old mater's land wasn't all in one big filed, but a lot of little
fields scattered all over the place. he just take up land what
already was kind of prairie and the negroes don't have to clear
up much woods.
We all lived around on them lettle farm,s and we
didn't have to be under any oversser like the Cherokee
Negroes had lots of times. We didn't have to work if they wasn't
no work to do that day.
Everybody could have a litle patch of his owne, too,a dn work it
between times, on Saturdays and sundays if he wanted to. What
he made on that patch belong to him, and the old Chief never
bothered the slaves about anything.
Every slave can fix up his own cabin any way he want
to, and pick out a good place with spring if he can find one.
Mostly, the slave houses had just one big room with a stick
and mud chimney, just like the poopr people among the
Creeks had. Then they had a brush shelter built out of four
poles with a roof made out of brush, set out to one side
of the house where they do the cooking and eating, and
sometimes the sleeping too. They set there when they is
done working, and lay around on corn shuck beds, because
they never did use the log house much only in cold and
rainy weather.
Old Chief just treat all the Negroes like they was
hired hands, and I was a big girl before I knowed
very much about belonging to him.
I was one of the yungest children in my family; only Sammy and
Millie was younger thatn I was. My big brothers
was Adam, August and Nero, and my big sisters was Flora,
Nancy and Rhoda. We could work a mighty big patch for own
own seves when we was all at home together, and put in all
the work we had to for the old Master, too, but after the
War teh big children all get married off and took up
land they own.
Old Chief lived in a big log house made double with a hall in
between, and alot of white folks was always coming there to see him
about something. he was gone off somewhere a lot of the time, too,
and je just trusted the Negroes to look after his farms and stuff.
We would just go on out in the filds and work the crops just like they
was our own, and he never come around excepting when
we had harvest time, or totell us what he watned planted.
Sometimes he would send a Negro to tell us to gather
up some chickens or turkeys or shoats he wanted to sell off
and sometimes he woulds send after loads of corn and wheat
to sell. I heard my pappy say old Chief and Mr. Chili
McIntosh was the first ones ot have any wheat in the
Territory, but I don't know about that.
Along druing the War the Negro men got pretty lazy and
shiftless but my pappy and my big brothers just go right
and work like they always did. My pappy always said we
better off to stay on the place and work good and behave
oursleves becasue old Master take care of us that way.
But on lots of other places the men slipped off.
I never did see many soldiers duringthe War, and there wasn't
any fighting close to where we live. It was kind of down in
the bottoms, not far from the Verdigreis and that Gar Creek,
and the soldiers would have bad crossings if they come by our place.
We did see some whackers riding around sometimes in little
bunches of about a dozen, but they never did bother us and
never did stop. Some of the Negro girls that I knowned of mixed
up with the poor Creeks and Seminoles, and some got
married to them after the War, abut none of my family
ever did mix up with them that I knows of.
Along towards the last of the War I never did see
old Chief come around any more, and somebody say he went down into
Texas. he never did come back that I knows of, and I think
he died down there.
One day my papy come home and tell us all that the Creek
done sign up to quit the War, and that old Master
send word that we all fere now and can take up some
land for our own sleves or just stay where we is if we want to. Pappy
stayed on that place where he was at until he died.
I got to be a big girl and went down to work for a
Creek family close to where they got that Checotah town
now. At that itme it was just all a scattered settlement of Creeks
and they call it Eufala town. After a while I marry a man
name Joe Johnson, at a little settlement they call Rentiesville.
He have his freedmen's allotment close to that place, but mine
is up on the Verdigris, and we move up there to live.
We just had one child, names Luisa, and she married Tom Armstrong.
They had three-four children but one was named Tom and it
is with him I live with now. My husband's been dead a long, long time now.
Slave Narratives
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