Chaney Richardson - Cherokee Freedwoman
I was born in the old Caney settlement southeast of
Tahlequah on the banks of Caney Creek. Off to the
north we could see the big old ridge of Sugar Mountain
when the sun shine on him first thing in the morning
when we all getting up.
I didn' know nothing else but some kind of war until
I was grown woman, because when I first can remember
my old Master, Charley Rogers, we always on the lookout
for somebody or other he was lined up against in the big
feud.
My master and all the rest of the folks was Cherokees, and
they'd been killing each other off in the feud ever since
long before I was borned, and jes because old Master have a
big farm adn thre-four families of Negroes them other
Cherokees keep on pestering his stuff all the time. Us
children was always afeared to go any place less'n some of the
grown folks was along.
We didn't know what we was a -feared of, but we heared
the Master and Misress keep talking about another "Party
killing" and we stuck close to the place.
Old Misress name was Nancy Rogers, but I was a orphan after I was
a big girl, adn I called her "Aunt" and "Momma" like I did
when I was little. You see my own mammy was the house
woman and I was raised in the house, and I heard the little
children call old Mistress "mamma" and so I did too. She
never did make me stop.
My pappy and mammy and us children lived in a one-room log
cabin close to the creek bank and jest a little piece from
old Master's house.
My pappy's name was Joe Tucker and my mammy's name was Ruth
Tucker. They belonged ot a man named Tucker before I
was born and he sold them to Master Charley Rogers and he just let
them og on by the same name if they wanted to, because
last names didn't mean nothing to a slave anyways. The folks
jest called my pappy "Charley Rogers' boy Joe."
I already had two sisters, mary and Mandy, when I was
born, and purty soon I had a baby brother, Louis. Mammy worked
at the Big House and took me along every day. When I was
a little bigger i would help hold the hank when she done the spinning and
old Mistree done a lot of the weaving and some knitting. She
jest set by the window and knit most all of the time.
When we weave the cloth we had a big loom out on the
gallery, and Miss Nancy tell us how to do it.
Mammy eat at our own cabin, and we had lots of game meat and
fish the boys get in teh Caney Creek. Mammy bring down deer meat
and wild turkey sometimes, that the Indian boys git on Sugar Mountain
Then we had corn bread, dried bean bread and green stuff out in Master's
patch. Mammy make the bean bread when we git short of corn meal and
nobody going to to the mill right away. She take and bile the beans and mash them
up in some meal and that make it go a long ways.
The slaves didn't have no garden cause they work in the old
Master's garden and make enough for everybody to have some anyway.
When I was about 10 years old that feud got so bad the Indians
was always talking about getting their horsesa nd cattle killed and
their slaves harmed. I was too little to know how bad it was
until one morning my own mammy went off somewhere down the road
to git some sutff to dye cloth and she didn't come back.
Lots of the young Indian bucks on both sides of the feud
would ride around the woods at night,a nd old master got powerful
uneasy about my mammy and had all the neighbors and slaves out looking
for her, but nobody find her.
It was about a week later that wo Indan men rid up and
ast old master wasn't his gal Ruth gone. He says yes, and they take
one of the slaves along with a wagon to show where they seen her.
The find her in some bushes where she'd been getting
bark to set thedyes, and she been dead all the time.
Somebody done hit her in the head with a club and shot her through and
through with a bullet, too. She was so swole up they couldn't lift
her up and jest had to make a deep hole right along side of her
and roll her in it she was so bad mortified.
Old Master nearly to crazy he was so mad and the young Cherokee men
ride the woods every night for about a month, but they
never catch who done it.
I think old Master sell the children or give them out to somebody then,
because I never see my sisters and brother for a long time
after the Civil War, and for me, I have to go live with
a new mistress that was a Cherokee neighbor. Her name was Hannah Ross
and she raised me until I was grown.
I was her home girl, and she and me done a lot of spinning and
weaving too. I helped the cook and carried water and milked.
I carried the water in a home made pegging set on my head.
Them peggins was kind of buckets made outof staves set
around a bottom and didn't have no handle.
I can remember weaving with Miss Hannah Ross. She would weave
a strip of white and one of yellow and one of brown to make it
pretty. She had a reel that would pop every time it got to
a half skein so she would know to stop and fill it up again.
We used copperas and some kind of bark she bought at the store
to dye with. It was cotton clothes winter, and summer
for the slaves, too. I'll tell you.
When the Civil War come along we seen lots of white soldiers in
them brown butternut suits all over the place, and about
all the Indian men was in it too. Old master Charley Rogers
boy Charles went along too. Then pretty soon--it seems like about
a year---a lot of the Cherokee men come back home and say they not
going abck to the War wit that Genearl Cooper and some of them
go off to the Federal side because the captain go to the
Federal side too.
Somebody come along and tell me my own pappy have to go into the
war and I think they say he on eht Cooper side, and then after
while Miss Hannah tell me he git kilt over in Arkansas.
I was so grieved all the time I don't remember much what went on,
but I know pretty soon my Cheorkee folks had all the stuff they had
et up by the colsiders and they was jest a few wagons and mules
left.
All the slaves was piled intogether and some of the grown ones
walking, and they took us way down across the big river
and kept us in the bottoms a long time until the War
was over.
We lived in a kind of a camp, but i was too little to know where they got
the grub to feed us with. Most all the Negro men was off
somewhere in the War.
Then one day they had to bus up the campa nd some Federal soldiers go with us
and we all start back home. We git to a place where all the houses
is burned down and I ask what is that place. Miss
hannah say, "Skullyville, child. That's where they had part of
the War."
All the slaves was set out when we git to Fort Gibson, adn the soldiers
say we all free now. They give us grub and clothes to the Negroes at
that place. It wasn't no town but a fort place and
a patch of big trees.
Miss Hannah take me to her place and I work there until
I was grown. I didn't get no money that I seen, but I got a good
place to stay.
Pretty soon I married Ran Lovely and we lived in a double log house
here at Fort Gibson. Tehn my second husband was Henry Richardson,
but he's been dead for years, too. We had six children,
but they all dead but one.
I didn't want slavery to be over with, mostly because we
had the War, I reckon. All that trouble made me the loss
of my mamy and pappy, and I was always treated good when I was a slave.
When it was over, i had rather be at home like I was. none
of the Cherokees ever whipped us, and my mistress give me some
mighty fine rules to live by to get along in this
world, too.
The Cherokes didn't have no hail for Negroes and no jail for
themselves either. If a man done a crime, eh come back to
take his punishment without being locked up.
None of the Negroes ran away when I was a child that I
know of. We all had plenty to eat. The Negreos didn't have no
school and so I can't read and write, but they did have
a school after the War, I hear. But we had a church made
our out a brush arbor and we would sing good songs in Cherokee sometimes.
I always got Sunday off to play and at night I could go git a piece
of sugar or something to eat before I went to bed and Mistress
didn't care.
We played "bread and butter" and the boys played "hide the switch."
The one found the switch gott ow hp the one he wanted to.
When I got sick they give me some kind of tea from weeds, and if
I et too many roasting ears and swole up they biled gourds and give
me the liquor off'n them to make me throw up.
I've been a good church-goer all my life until I get too feeble, and
I still understand and talk Cherokee language and love to hear songs and parts
of the Bible in it because it make me think about the time I was
a little girl before my mammy and pappy leave me.
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