J. W. Stinnett - Creek Freedman
(For interview with Johnson Thompson and Victoria Taylor Thompson scroll to end of Stinnet interview)
This very brief interview with J.W. Stinnett was made in the winter of 1937-38. It was never forwarded to Washington the first time of the WPA interviews being collected. Perhaps because it is seemingly incomplete. Mr. Stinnet speaks of the family till the war, but little of how he returned to Indian Territory or when, giving the reader the impression that the interview might not have been completed, or that the notes concluding the interview may have been lost.
What with raising nine grandchildren whose mammy is dead, this old head of mine has too many troubles to remember much about thems slave days, but anyways I was born in 1863, at a place in Grayson County Texas, name of Prairie Grove.
My mammy come from Virginia, where pappy come from. I don't know where he went I don't know, because he take off to the north during the war and never came back. His name was George Stinnett and mammy's name was Mary Stinnett. They belonged to a big and fat Creek Indian name of Frank Stinnett who one time lived right around Muskogee here. That was before the War I geuss, for mammy told me when the fighting begun the old master bundled up a tent with some food stuffs and moved down to Texas, taking mammy and pappy with him. They was his only slaves, and they said he treatd them good and fed them good.
That old Indian live in a tent during the summer and cook everything on the open fire, but in the winter he go into his log cabin, coming out once in a while to hunt squirrls, and rabbits for the stew. Mammy said he didn't have much of a farm, just a little patch of garden ground. After they moved to Texas my mammy said she broke the planting ground with oxen, then when pappy run off she had all the work to do in the house and in the field.
Johnson Thompson-Cherokee Freedman
Johnson Thompson was interviewed in Ft. Gibson Oklahoma. His sister Phyllis Petite was also interviewed around the same time in 1938. Both were admitted as Cherokee Freedmen
For interview of Victoria Taylor Thompson, scroll to end of Johnson Thompson interview
Just 'bout two weeks before the coming of Christmas Day in 1853, I was born on a plantation soemwheres eight miles east of Bellview, Rusk County, Texas. One year later my sister Phyllis was born on the same place and we been together pretty much of the time ever since, and I reckon dere's only one thing that could separate us slave born children.
Mammy and pappy belong to W.P. Thompson, mixed blood Cherokee Indian, but before that pappy had been owned by three different master; one was the Rich Joe Vann who lived down at Webber Falls and another was Chief Lowery of the Cherokes. I had a brother named Harry who belonged to the Vann family at Tahlequah. Dere was a sister named Patsy; she died at Wagoner, Oklahoma. My mother was bonr way back in the hills of the old Flint district of the Cherokee Nation; just about where Scraper Oklahoma is now.
My parents are both dead now--seems like fifty, maybe sixty year ago. Mammy died in Texas, and when we left Rusk County after the Civil War, pappy took us children to the graveyard. We patted her grave and kissed the ground ...telling her goodbye. Pappy is buried in the church yard on Four Mile Branch.
I don't remember much about my pappy's mother; but I remember shw eould milk fo a man named Columbus Balreade and she went to prayer meeting every Wednesday night. Sometimes us children would try to follow her, but she'd turn us around prtty quick and chase us back with: Go on back to the house or the wolves get you."
Master Thompson brought us from Texas when I was too little to remember abou it, and I din't know how long it was before we was all sold to John Harnage, "Marse John" was his pet name and he liked to be called that a way. He took us back to Texas right down near wher I was born at Bellview.
The master's house was a big log building setting east and west, with a porch on the north side of the house. The slave cabins was in a row, and we lived in one of them. It had no windows, but it had a wood floor that was kept clean with plenty of brushings, and a fireplace where mammmy'd cook the turnip greens and peas and corn--I still likes the cornbread with fingerprints baked on it like in the old days when it was cooked on a skillet over the hot wood ashes. I eat from a big pan set on the floor---there was no chairs--and I slept in a tundle bed that was pushed under the big bed in the daytime.
I spent happy days on the Harnage plantation going squirrel hunting with the master---he was always riding, while I run along and throw ricks in the trees to scare the squirrels so's Marse John could get the aim on them; pick a little cotton and put it in somebody's hamper (basket) and run races with other colored boys to see who would get to saddle the masters horse, while the master would stand laughing by the gate to see which boy won the race.
Our clothes was home-made---cotton in the summer, mostly just a long-tailed shirt and no shoes, and wood goods in the winter. Mammy was the house girl and she weaved the cloth and my Aunt Tilda dyed the cloth with indigo, leaving her hands blue looking most of the time. Mammy work late in the night, and I hear the loom making noises while I tryh to sleep in the cabin. Pappy was the shoe-maker and he used wooden pegs of maple to fashion the shoes.
The master had a bell to ring every morning at four o'clock for the folks to turn out. Sometimes the sleep was too deep and somebody would be late, but the master never punish anybody, and I never see anybody whipped and only one slave sold.
Pappy wanted to go back to his mother when the War was over the slaves was freed. He made a deal with Dave Mounts, a white man, who was moving into the Indian country to drive for him. A four mule team was hitched to the wagon and for five weeks we was on the road from Texas finally getting to grandma Brewer's at Fort Gibson. Pappy worked around the farms and fiddled for the Cherokee dances.
Den I went to a subscription school for a little while, but didn't get much learning. Lots of the slave children didn't ever learn to read or write. And we learned some things about religion from an old colored preacher named Tom Vann. He would sing for us, and I'd like to hear them old songs again!
The first time I married was to Clara Nevens, and I wored checked owol pants, and a blue striped cotton shirt. Dere come six children; Charley, Alec, Laura, Harry Richard and Jeffy, who waS named after Jefferson Davis. The second time I married a cousin, Rela Brewer.
Jefferson Davis was a great man, but I think Roosevelt is greater than Davis or Abraham Lincoln.
Victoria Taylor Thompson
Victoria Taylor Thompson was interviewed in the winter of 1938. She is a niece to Johnson Thompson and also to Phyllis Petite.
My mother, Judy Taylor, named for her mistress, told me that I was born about three year before the war; that make me about 80 year old, so they say down at the Indian Agency where my name is on the Cherokee rolls since all the land was give to the Indian families a long time a go.
Father kept the naem of "Doc" Hayes and my brother Coose was Hayes too, but mother, Jude, Patsy, Bonaparte (Boney, we always called him) Lewis, and me was always Taylors. Daddy was bought by the Taylors (Cherokee Indians; dey made a trade for him with some hilly land, but he kept the name of Hayes even den.
Like my mother, I was born on the Taylor place. Dey lived in Flint Distric around the Caney settlement on Caney Creek. Lots of the Arkansas Cherokees settled around 'dere long times before the Cherokees come here from the east, my mother said.
The farm wasn't very big, we was the only slaves on the place and it was just a little ways from a hill everybody called Sugar Mountain because it was covered with maple sugar trees, and an old Indian lived on the hillside making maple sugar candy to sell and trade.
Master Taylor's house had three big rooms and a room for the loom, all made of logs, with a long front porch high off the ground. The spring house set to the ast, in the corner like. Spring water boiled up all the time and the water run down the branch which we crossed on a log bridge.
On the north side of the front porch, under a window in the mistress room, was the grave of her little boy who was found drowned in the spring. The mistress set a heap of store by dat child; said she wanted him buried right where she could always see his grave. She was mighty good.
So was the master good, too. None of us was ever beat or whipped like I hear bout other slaves. Dey fix up a log cabin for us close by the big house. The yard fenced high with five or six rails, and dere was an apple orchard that set off the place with its blooming in the spring days.
Mother worked in the fields and in the house. She would hoe and plow, mild and do the cooking. She was a good cook and made the best corn bread I ever eat. Cook it in a skillet in the fireplace---I likes a piece of it right now! Grub dese days don't taste the same. Sometime after the war, she cook for the prisoner in the jail at Tahlequah.
Dat was the first jail I ever saw; they had hangings there. Always on a Friday, but I never see one, but it scare me and I run and hide.
Well, mother leave us children in the cabin while she gets breakfast for the master. We'd be nearly starved beore she get back to tend us. And we sleep on the floor, but the big house had wood beds with high boards on the head and foot.
Mother took me with her to weaving room, and the mistress learn me how to weave in the strips and colors so's I could make up one hundred kind of colors and shades. She ask me the color and I never miss telling her. Dat's one thing my sister Patsy can't learn when she was a little girl. I try the knitting, but I drop the stitches and lay it down.
Some of the things mother made was cloth socks and fringe for the hunting shirt that daddy always wore. The mistress made long tail shirt for the boys; we wore cotton all the year, and the first shoes I ever see was brass toed brogans.
For sickness daddy give us tea and herbs. He was a herb doctor, and dat's how come he have the name "Doc". He made us wear charms, made out of shiny buttons and Indian rock beads. Dey cured lots of things and the misery too.
I hear mother tell about the slaves running away from mean masters, and how she help hide them at night from the dogs that come trailing. them. The high fence keep out the dogs from the yard, and soon's they leave the runoofs would break for the river, (Illinois River) cross over and get away from the dogs.
The master had a mill run by oxen, the same oxen used in the fields. Dey stepped on the pedals and turn the rollerd, dat how it was done.
Dere was another mill in the hills run by a white man name of Uncle Mosie. One day he stole me to live in a cabin with him. He branded a circle on my cheek, but in two days I got away and run back to the Taylros where I was safe.
When the war broke out my daddy wnet on the sdie of the South with Master Taylor. Dey was gone a long time and when they come back he told of fighting the Federals north of Ft. Gibson and how the Federals drove dem off like dogs. He said most of the time the soldiers starved and suffered, some of them freezing to death.
After the war I was stole again. I was hired to Judge Wolfe, and his wife Mary took good care of me and I helped her around the big two-story house. She didn't like my father, and kept him off the place. One day an Indian John Prichett told me my daddy wanted to see me down by the old barn to follow him. He grabbed me when we got back of the barn and took me away to his place where my daddy was waiting for me. We worked for dat Indian to pay him for getting me away from Judge Wolfe. Dat was aroudn Fort Gibson.
Dat's wehre I married William Thompson, an uncle of Johnson Tompson, who was aborn a lsave an dlives now on Four Mile Branch. Dere was severn boys where dey is I don't know, except for my boy George Lewis Thompson, who lives in this four room house he builds for us, and stays unmarried so's he can take care of his old mammy.
I been belonging to church ever since there was a colored church, and I thinks everybody should obey the Master. He died, and I wants to go where Jesus lives. Like the poor Indian I saw one time waiting to be hung. Der he was sitting on his own coffin box, singing over and over the words I just said "I wants to go where Jesus lives!"
Dere's one thing I wants to do before I go. My time is short and I wants to go back to the Taylor place, to my old mistress; place, and just see the ground where she use to walk---dat's what I most want, but time is short.
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