Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Lucinda Vann - Cherokee Freedwoman

For interviews of Rochelle Allred Ward, and for Sarah Wilson, scroll down to bottom of page.


Lucinda Vann tells an unusual story of plantation life from the perspective of a house slave who was born with priveleges. The comfort accorded house slaves is in stark contrast to the lives of the field slaves described in other interviews. Interestingly, Mrs. Vann also speaks of some time that her family spent before and during the war in Mexico. There were some Cherokee slaves that were taken to Mexico, however, she makes vivid references to Seminole leaders John Horse, and Wild Cat. A few years of her life were also quite possibly spent among Seminoles during part of that time, although her memory of the death of Joseph "Rich Joe" Vann is clearly a part of Cherokee history.

Yes Sa. My names' Lucinda Vann, I've been married twice but that don't make no difference. Indians wouldn't allow their slaves to take their husband's name. Oh Lord, no. I don't know how old I is; some folks ay I'se ninety-two and some say I must be a hundred.

I'se born across the river in the plantation of old Jim Vann in Webbers Falls. I'se born right in my master and missus bed. Yes I was! You see, I'se one of them sudden cases. My mother Betsy Vann, worked in the big house for the missus. She was weavin when the case came up so quick, missus Jennie put her in her own bed and took care of her. Master Jim and Missus Jennie was good to their slaves. Yes Lord Yes. My missus name was Doublehead before she married Jim Vann. They was Cherokee Indians. They had a big big plantation down by the river and they was rich. Had sacks and sacks of money. There was five hundred slaves on that plantation and nobdy ever lacked for nothing. Everybody had fine clothes everybody had plenty to eat. Lord yes su-er. Now I'se just old forgotten woman. Sometimes I eat my bread this morning none this evening.

Seneca Chism was my father. He was a slave on the Chism plantation, but came to Vann's all the time on account of the hourses. He had charge of all Master Chism's and Master Vann's race horses. He and Master took race horses down the river, away off and they'd come back with sacks of money that them horses won in the races.

My mother died when I'se small and my father married Delia Vann. Because I'se so little, Missus Jennie took me into the Big house and raised me. Somehow or other they all took a liking to me, all through the family. I slept on a sliding bed. Didn't you never see one of them slidin' beds? Well, I'll tell you, you pull it out from the wall something like a shelf.

Marster had a little race horse called "Black Hock" She was all jet black, excepting three white feet and her stump of a tail. Black Hock was awful attached to the kitchen. She come up and put her nose on your just like this---nibble nibble, nibble. Sometimes she pull my hair. That mean't she want a biscuit with a little butter on it.

One day Missus Jennie say to Marster Jim, she says, "Mr. Vann, you come here. Do you know what I am going to do? I'm goin' give Lucy this black mare. Every dollar she make on the track, I give it to Lucy." She won me lots of money, Black Hock did, and I kept it in the Savings Bank in Tahlequah. My mother, grandmother, aunt Maria and cousin Clara, all worked in the big house. My mother was seamstress. She bossed all the other colored women and see that they sew it right. They spun the cottons and wool, weaved it and made cloth. After it was wove they dyed it all colors, blue, brown, purple, red, yellow. It look lots of clothes for all them slaves.

My grandmother Clarinda Vann, bossed the kitchen and the washing and turned the key to the big bank. That was sort of vault, where the family valuables was kept. Excepting master and mistress, couldn't nobody put things in there but her. When they wanted something put away they say, "Clarinda, come put this in the vault." She turned the key to the commissary too. That was where all the food was kept.

All the slaves lived in a log house. The married folks lived in little houses and there was big long houses for all the single men. The young, single girls lived with the old folks in another big long house.

The slaves who worked in the big house was the first class. Next came the carpenters, yard men, blacksmiths, race-horse men, steamboat men and like that. The low class work in the fields.

Marster Jim and Missus Jennie wouoldn't let his house slaves to with no common dress out. They never sent us anywhere with a cotton dress. They wanted everybody to know we was Marster Vann's slaves. He wanted people to know he was able to dress his slaves in fine clothes. We had fine satin dresses, great big combs for our hair, great big gold locket, double earrings we never wore cotton except when we worked. We had bonnets that had long silk tassels for ties. When we wanted to go anywhere we always got a horse, we never walked. Everything was fine, Lord have mercy on me, yes.

The big house was made of log and stone and had big mud fireplaces. They had fine furniture that Marster Vann had brought home in a steamboat from far away. And dishes, they had rows and rows of china dishes; big blue platters that would hold a whole turkey.

Everybody had plenty to eat and plenty to throw away. The commissary was full of everyting good to eat. Brown sugar, molasses, flour, corn-meal, dried beans, peas, fruits butter lard, was all kept in big wooden hogsheads; look something like a tub. There was lots of preserves. Everything was kept covered and every hogshead had a lock.

Every morning the slaves would run to the commissary and get what they wanted for that day. They could have anything they wanted. When they get it they take it back to their cabin. Clarinda Vann and my aunt Maria turned the keys to the vault and commissary. Couldn't nobody go there, less they turn the key.

We had a smoke house full of hams and bacon. Oh they was good. Lord have mercy I'll say they was. And we had corn bread and cakes baked every day. Single girls waited on the tables in the big house. There was a big dinner bell in the yard. When meal time come, someone ring that bell and all the slaves know its time to eat and stop their work.

In summer when it was hot, the slaves would sit in the shade evening's and make wooden spoons out of maple. They'd sell 'em to folks at picnics and barbecues.

Everybody had a good time on old Jim Vann's plantation. After supper the colored folks would get together and talk, and sing, and dance. Someone maybe would be playing a fiddle or a banjo. Everybody was happy. Marster never whipped no one. No fusses, no bad words, no nothin like that.

We had out time to go to bed and our time to get up in the morning. We had to get up early and comb our hair first thing. All the colored folks lined up and the overseer he tell them what they must do that day.

There was big parties and dances. In winter white folks danced in the parlor of the big house; in summer they danced on a platform under a great big brush arbor. There was seats all around for folks to watch them dance. Sometims just white folks danced; sometimes just the black folks.
There was music, fine music. The colored folks did most of the fiddlin'. Someone rattled the bones. There was a bugler and someone callled the dances. When Marster Jim and Missus Jennie went away, the slaves would have a big dance in the arbor. When the white folks danced the slaves would all sit or stand around and watch. They'd clap thier hands and holler. Everybody had a good time. Lord yes, su-er.

When they gave a party in the big house, everything was fine. Women came in satin dresses, all dressd up, big combs in their hair, lots of rings and bracelets. The cooks would bake hams, turkey cakes and pies and their'd be lots to eat and lots of whiskey for the men folks.

I'd like to go where we used to have picnics down below Webbers Falls. Everybody went---white folks, colored folks. There'd be races and people would have things what they was sellin' like moccasins and beads. They'd bring whole wagon loads of hams, chickens and cake and pie. The cooks would bring big iron pots, and cook things right there. There was great big wooden scaffolds. They put white cloths on the shelves and laid the good on it. People just go and help themselves, till they couldn't eat no mo! Everbody goin' on races gamblin', drinkin', eatin', dancin', but it as all behavior everything all right. Yes Lord, it was, havy mercy on me yes.

I remember when the steamboats went up and down the river. Yes, Lord Yes. Sometimes there was high waters that spoiled the current and the steamboast could't run. Sometimes we got to ride on one, cause we belonged to Old Jim Vann. He'd take us and enjoy us, you know. He wouldn' take us way off, but just for a ride. He tell us for we start, what we must say and what to do. He used to take us to where Hyge Park is and we'd all go fishin'. We take a big pot to fry fish in and we'd all eat till we nearly bust. Lord, Yes! Christmas lasted a whole month. After we got our presents we go way anywhere and visit colored folks on other plantation. In one month you have to get back. You know just what day you have to be back too.

Marster had a big Christmas tree, oh great big tree, put on the porch. There'd be a hole wagon-load of things come and be put on the tree. Hams cakes, pies, dresses, beads, everything. Christmas morning marster and missus come out on the porch and all the colored folks gather around. Smoeone call our names and everybody get a present. They get something they need too. Everybody laugh and was happy. Then we all have big dinner, white folks in the big house, colored folks in their cabins. Poeple all a visitin'. I go to this house, you come to my house. Everybody, white folks and colored folks, having good itme. Yes, my dear Lord yes.

I've heard em tell of rich Joe Vann. Don't know much about him. He was a traveler, didn't stay home much. Used to go up adn down the river in his steamboat. He was a multi-millionaire and handsome. All the Vann marsters was good looking.

Joe had two wives, one was named Missus Jennie. I dunno her other name. Missus Jenni lived in a big house in Webbers Fall.s Don't know where the other one lived. Sometimes Joe bring other wife to visit Missus Jennie. He would tell em plain before hand, "Now no trouble." He didn't want em to imagine he give one more than he give the other.

The most terrible thing that ever happen was when the Lucy Walker busted and Joe got blew up. The engineer's name was Jim Vann. How did they hear about it at home? Oh the news traveled up and down the river. It was bad, oh it was bad. Everybody a hollerin' and a cryin'. After the explosion someone found an arm up in a tree on the bank of the river. They brought it home and my granmother knew it was Joe's. She done his washing and knew the cuff of his sleeve. Everybody pretty near to crazy when they bring that arm home. A doctor put it in alcohol and they kept it a long time. Different friends would come and they'd show that arm. My mother saw it but the colored chillun' couldn't. Marster and missus never allowed chillun to meddle in the big folks business. Don't know what they ever did with that arm. Lord it was terible. Yes Lord yes.

I went to the missionary Baptist church where Marster and Missus went. There was a big church. The white folks go first and after they come out, the colored folks go in. I joined the Catholic church after the war. Lots of bad things have come to me, but the good Father, high up, He take care of me.

We went down to the river for baptizings. The women dressed in whtie, if they had a white dress to wear. The preacher took his candidate into the water. Pretty soon everybody commenced a singing and a prayin'. Then the preacher put you under water three times. There was a house yonder where was dry clothes, blankets, everything. Soon as you come out of the water you go over there and change clothes. My uncle used to baptize 'em.

When anybody die, someone sit up with them day and night till they put them in the ground. Everybody cry, everybody'd pretty nearly die. Lord have mercy on us, yes.

When the war broke out, lots of Indians mustered up and went out of the territory. They taken some of their slaves with them. My marster and missus buried their money and valuables everywhere. They didn't go away, they stayed, but they tell us colored folks to go if we wanted to.

A bunch of us who was part Indian and part colored, we got our bed clothes together some hams and a lot of coffee and flour and started to Mexico. We had seven horses and a litle buffalo we'd raised from when its little. "We'd say "Come on buffalo", and it would come to us. We put all the bed clothes on its back. When night came we cut grass and put the bed clothes on top for a bed. In the morning we got up early, made a fire, and made a big pot of coffee. We didn't suffer, we had plenty to eat. Some of us had money. I had the money Black Hock had won on the track.

We got letters all the time form Indians back in the territory. They tell us what was happening and what to do. One and a half years after the war we all come back to the old plantation. There wasn't nothing left. Marster and Missus was dead.

Our marshal made us all sign up like this; who are you, where you come from, where you go to. We stayed here till everything got fixed up, then we went back to Mexico. My father was a carpenter and blacksmith as well as race-horse man and he wanted to make money. He worked in the gold mines. We made money and kept it in a sack.

After everything quiet down and everything was just right, we come back to territory second time. Had to sign up all over again and tell who we was. It's on records somewhere; old Seneca Chism and his family.

I remember Chief John Ross. He courted a girl named Sally. He was married, but that din't make no difference he courted her anyhow. Some of the old chief's names was Gopher John, John Hawk and Wild Cat. This was before the war.

After the war I married Paul Alexander, but I never took his name. Indians made us keep our master's name. I'se proud anyway of my Vann name. My husband didn't give me nothing. Lord no, he didn't. I got all my money and fine clothes from the marster and the missus.

Everything was cheap. One time we sold one hundred hogs on the foot. Two pounds of hog meat sold for a nickel. A whole half of ribs sold for twenty-five cents. Little hog, big hog, didn't make no difference.

After the old time rich folks die, them that had their money buried, they com back and haunt the places where it is. They'd come to the door like this, "sh....." and go out quick again. I've seen em. My father he say, "Now chillun, don't get smart; you just be still and listen, rich folks tryin tell us something" They come and call you, say so much money buried, tell you where it is, say it's yours, you come and get it. If someone they didn't want to have it try to dig it up, money sink down, down deep in the ground where they couldn't get it

Rochelle Allred Ward - Cherokee Freedwoman

My mother, Lottie Beck, was belonging to old master Joe Beck when I was born about 1847, on the Beck farm in Flint District of the old Cherokee Nation. That a mighty long time ago and lots of things my old mind won't remember, but I never forgot the old Beck Mill place because I done many a cooking there and watch the mill grind up the corn and wheat for the Indian's meal and flour.

Before I tell about the mill I want to tell about paw; Jim he was anamed, and belong to Sarah Eaton, who must have stole him when he about eight or nine year old from his folks in Georgia and brought him out here, maybe to Fort Gibson near as he could tell. That make paw born about 1827 because he was a young man grown to full grown when he met my maw.

He come to the mill place for his mistress, that the way he always tell about it, and the only girl he see right off was Lottie, one of the Beck slave girls, but they was lots more on the place, only he could see no one but Lottie and fall in love with her. She feel the same way about him; she asked old Master Joe to buy Jim Eaton so's they can marry, build a cabin.

Master Joe want to know if the young slave a good worker, and when Jim Eaton say, "I is the best cane stripper and field man in the whole country," the master offer Sarah Eaton $500 for her slave boy and that done bought him. So he come to the Becks, change his name to Jim Beck and keep it ever since.

My paw always told me he was part Indian account of his mama was a Cherokee Indian girl name Downing; that make my paw some kin to Chief Downing who was a big man among the Cherokees after the Civil WAr when the Indians stop fighting amongst themselves.

Two of my sisters Sabra and Celia was both real light in color, but my brothers was all dark. They was named Milton, Louie, Same, Nelson and Dennis.

Well the old mill had done been built by some of the Becks when they first come out to this country a long time before I was born. Some of Master Joe's kin they was; all over this country was Beck families, but other folks come in here too, one of them new settlers run the old mill for awhile until he died. I hear his name when I was a young girl, seem like it was Hildebrand; different from all them Indian names anyways.

We all done move away from the mill place during the war, but bad things happen around the old place after the war and I hear about it the way folks tell it then.

When the old miller die his wife marry one of the men who work in the mill, but an Indian name Proctor (Zeke) work up a grudge for the woman's husband and fix up to kill him. When the Indian come to the mill and start a ruckus with the man, his wife mix in and get shot. Seem like she jump in front of the Indian when he try to shoot and get the bullet herself. She died; that cause lots more trouble and it was a long time before it was settled and folks stop killing each other.

After my paw come with the Becks they make him a kind of overseer. There was several families living in the little log cabins on the farm, and all these slave families look to my paw for the way to do things. The mistress say, "Whatever Jim do is alright." She trusted him and she saw he was a good worker and would do the right thing.

None of the Beck slaves was sold, but paw said he seen slaves sold off. He told us children, that was after war, "We was all good negroes, that why the Becks keep us. And we ought to be glad, because I see sorrow at the auctions, and crying, when the mother sold off from her child, or when the child is took away from her."

The mistress always get us anything we need; even after the war, and she come down to where we live around Fort Gison, and bring cloth for our dresses and help make them, and one time she said she was going to bring her old Bible down for paw to get all the children's ages, but she died before she could get back the next spring.

Some of the slaves work around and get money and pay this money to their master for freedom, so there was some freed before the close of the war. Some others try to run away after the war start, and maybe they get caught like the one man who hide in a house around the old mill. Some said he was a freedman too, but anyways some of the Confederates find him in the old house, take him off to Texas and sell him. They got a big price for him, $5000 they said, but it was Confederate money and that kind of money got worthless as a cotton patch without no hoeing.

But the patrollers didn't bother nobody with apass adn when anybody leave the Beck place it was with a pass. But lots of slaves was stole and the masters fix up to get their slaves out of the hills and take them to Fort Gibson for safety. The Confederate soldiers was there then. (1862)

The mistress was getting old and she cried terfible when all the slaves leave in the night for the fort. Everybody loaded in the ox wagons, hating to leave the mistress, but they all have to go.

We camped around the garrison palce at Fort Gibson and there was no buildings there like there is now. The soldiers was all camped there in tents. They was all 'confederate soldiers and I mean there was lots of soldiers camped in the tents.

The negroes piled in there from everywheres, and I mean threw as lots of them, too. Cooking in the open, sleeping most anywhere, making shleter places out of cloth scraps and brush, digging caves along the river bank to live in. There was no way to keep the place clean for there was too many folks living all in one place, and if you walk around in the nighttime most likely you stumble over some negro rolled up in a dirty blanket and sleeping under a bush. I never was where the fighting went on, but I heard the cannon go "Bum! Bum!" and the little guns go "Bang!" in all directions. I seen the soldiers come in after the fights; they be all shot up with blood soaking through the clothes, tyring to help each other tie on a bandage--the awfulest sights I ever see.

The generals have some young obys, I guess tehyw as soldiers, herding the horses a little way south of the fort. The one day a scout come riding in and yell, "The Federals is coming!" All the soldiers run for the horses and gallop out for the mountain south from the fort. I hear that fighting, guns speaking in the hills, and the Federals was whipped. Lots of them killed and some of them captured and brought back to the fort, and some got away.

Some folks say that while the war is on the Federals take charge of the old Beck mill. Guess they stole the grain too, for to make meal, anyway they kept the soldiers in food when the other folks was starving. They captured one of the Confederate boy and made him run the mill.

Master Joe Beck died during the war by a horse kick, adn after the war everything so upsettled that folks don't know what to do. For a while we lived on Carroll Branch near Fort Gibson and I nursed around first one family and another.

Then come a time of cholera; people die all that season, and the dead--seem like they pass and pass all the time---was carried in little two wheel wagons pulled by a mule to a burying place out near the National Cemetery. Lots of soldier die and sometime after the cholera die out, their bodies was moved to the National Cemetery and the slaves was buried back in the woods to the north.

The Federals tried to catch the cholera germs. They kill beef & hung the pieces high up in the air, leave the meat for days and days, out in the open---say it catch the germs but I don't know.

Mostly in my coming up time we didn't know what doctoring was. Some of the older men and women used to dig roots and get different herbs for medicine; them medicines cure the chill fever and such.

When I married Amos Allred, a State man from Freeport, Texas, more than seventy year ago, we had to get signers before old Judge Walker at Fort Gibson could say the words. I get seven signers, all of them Cherokee Indians and who know I was a good slave woman. We divorced a long time later and I married a State man from Mississippi, Nelson Ward. There was thirteen children, but I done forget all the names: some was Amos, Susie, Jess, Will, Frank, Lotte, Cora.

Sarah Wilson - Cherokee Freedwoman


In contrast to the experiences of Lucinda Vann who was a house slave, Sarah Wilson speaks of her painful life lacking joys of childood, in the Cherokee Nation. She speaks in an articulate manner about the pains of a life full of toil and lacking in pleasures, and although she was a child and did not understand much of what she saw, her mother clearly suffered intensely and resisted losing dignity, choosing to call her child the name she had chosen for her, and refusing assistance from the Cherokee slave master, once the family was freed.

I was a Cherokee slave and and now I am a Cherokee freedwoman, and besides that I am a quarter Cherokee my own self. And this is the way it is.

I was bron in 1850 along the Arkansas River about half way between Fort Smith and old Fort Coffee and the Skullyville boat landing on the river. The farm place was on the north side of the river on the old wagon road what run from Fort Smith out to Fort Gibson, and that old road was like you couldn't hardly call a road when I first rememer seeing it. The ox teams bog down to they bellies ins oem places, and the wagon wheel mighty nigh bust on the big rocks in some places.

I remember seeing soldiers coming along that old road lots of times, and freighting wagons and wagons what we all know carry mostly whiskey, and that was breaking the law, too! Them soldiers catch the man with that whiskey they sure put him up for a long time, less'n he put some silver in they hands. That's what my Uncle Nick say. That Uncle Nick a mean Negro, and he ought to know about that.

Like I tell you, I am quarter Cherokee. My mammy was named Adeline and she belong to old master Ben Johnson. Old Master Ben bring my grandmammy out to that Sequoyah district way back when they call it Arkansas, mammy tell me, and God only know who my mammy's pa is, but mine was old Master Ben's boy, Ned Johnson.

Old Master Ben come from Tennessee when he was still a young man, and he bring a whole passel of slaves, and my mammy say they all was kin to one another, all the slaves I mean. He was a white man that married a Cherokee woman, and he was a devil on this earth. I don't want to talk about him none.

White folks was mean to us like the deveil, and so I jest let them pass. When I say my borthers and sisters I mean my half brothers and sisters, you know, but maybe some of them was my whole kin anyways, I don't know. They was Lottie that was sold off to a Starr because she wouldn't have a baby, and Ed, Dave, Ben, Jim and Ned.

My name is Sarah now but it was Annie until I was eight years old. My old Mistress name was Annie and she name me that and mammy was afraid to change it until old Mistress died, then she change it. She hate old Mistress and that name, too.

Lottie's name was Annie too, but Mammy changed it in her own mind but she was afraid to say it out loud, a feared she would get a whipping. When sister was sold off Mammy tel her to call herself Annie when she was leaving but she call herself Lottie when she git over to the Starrs. And she done it too. I seen her after that, and she was called Lottie, all right.

The Negroes lived all huddled up in a bunch in little one-room log cabins with stick and mud chimneys. We lived in one, and it had beds for us children like shelves in the wall. Mammy used to help us up into them.

Grandmammy was mighty old and Mistress was old too. Grandmammy set on the Master's porch and minded the baby mostly. I think it was Young Masters's. He was married to a Cherokee girl They was several of the boys but only one girl, Nicie. The old Masters's boys were Aaron, John Ned, Cy and Nathan. They lived in a double log house made out of square hewed logs, and with a double fireplace out of rock where they warmed theirselves on one side and cooked on the other. They had a long front porch where they set most of the time in the summer, and slept on it too.

There was over a hundred acres in the Master's farm, and it was all bottom land too, and maybe you think he let them slaves off easy! Work from daylight to dark! They all hated him and the overseer too, and before slavery ended my grandmammy was dead and old Mistress was dead, and old Master was mighty feeble and Uncle Nick had run away to the North soldiers and they never got him back. He run away once before about ten years before I was born, Mammy say, but the Cherokees went over in the Creek Nation and got him back that time.

The way he made the Negroes work so hard, old Master must have been trying to get rich. When they wouldn't stand for a whipping he would sell them.

I saw him sell a old woman and her son. Must have been my aunt. She was always pestering around trying to get something for herself, and one day she was cleaning the yard he seen her pick up soemthing and put it inside her apron. He flew at her, and cussed her, and started like he was going to hit her but she just stood right up to him and never budged, and when he come close she just screamed out loud and run at him with her finger struck straight and jabbed him in the belly. He had a big soft belly too, and it hurt him. He seen she wasn't going to be afraid, and he set out to sell her. He went off on his horse to get some men to come and bid on her and her boy and all us children was mighty scared about it.

They would have hangings in Ft. Smith courthouse, and old Master would take a slave there sometimes to see the hanging and that slave would come back and tell us all scary stories about the hanging.

One time he whipped a whole bunch of the men on account of a fight in the quarters, and then he took them all to Fort Smith to see a hanging. He tied them all in the wagon, and when they had seen the hanging, he asked them if they was scared of them dead men hanging up there. They all said yes, of course but my old Uncle Nick was a bad Negro and he said, "No I ain't afeard of them nor nothing else in this world," and old Master jumped on him while he was tied an beat him with a rope and then when they got home he tied old Nick to a tree, and took his shirt off and poured the cat-o-nine tails to him until he fainted away and fell over like he was dead.

I never forget seeing all that blood all over my uncle, and if I could hate that old Indian any more I guess I would, but I hated him all I could already I reckon.

Old Master wan't the only hellion neither. Old Mistress just as bad, and she took most of her wrath out hitting us children all the time. She was afraid of the grown Negroes. Afraid of what they might do while old Master was away, but she beat us children all the time.

She would call me, "Come here Annie!" and I wouldn't know what to do. If I went when she called "Annie" my mammy would beat me for answering to that name, and if I didn't go, old Mistress would beat me for that. That made me hate both of them, and I got the devil in me, and I wouldn't come to either one. My grandmammy minded the Master's yard, and she set on the front porch all the itme, and when I was called I would run to her and she wouldn't let anybody touch me.

When I was eight years old, old Mistress died, and Grandmammy told me why old Mistress picked on me so. She told me about me being half Mister Ned's blood. Then I knowed why Mister Ned would say, "Let he alone, she got big blood in her," an then laugh. Young Mister Ned was a devil, too. When his mammy died he went out and "blanket married". I mean he brung in a half white and half Indian woman and just lived with her.

The slaves would get rations every Monday morning to do them all week. The overseer would weigh and measure according to how many in the family, and if you run out you just starve till you get some more. We all know the overseer steal some of it for his own self but we can't do anything so we get it from the old Master some other way.

ONe day I was carrying water from the springa dn Ir un up on Grandmammy and Uncle Nick skinning a cow. "What you all doing?" I say and they say keep my moth shut or they kill me. They was stealing from the Master to piece out down at the quarters with. Old Master had so many cows he never did count the difference.

I guess I wasn't any worse than any the rest of the Negroes, but I was bad to tell little lies. I carry scars on my legs to this day where Old Master whip me for lying, with a rawhide quirt he'd carry all the time for his horse. When I lie to him he just jump down off'n his horse and whip me good right there.

In slavery days we all ate sweet potoes all the time. When they didn't measure out enough of the tame kind we would go out in the woods and get the wild kind. They growed along the river sand between where we lived and Wilson' Rock out west of our place.

Then we had boiled sheep and goat, mostly goat, and milk and wild greens and corn pone. I think the goat meat was the best, but I ain't had no teeth for forty years, now, and a chunk of meat hurts my stomach. So I just eats grits mostly. Besides hoeing in the field, chopping sprouting shearing sheep, carrying water, cutting firewood, picking cotton, and sewing, I was the one they picked to work Mistress little garden where she raised things from seed they got in Fort Smith. Green peas and beans and radishes and things like that. If we raised a good garden she give me a little of it, and if we had a poor one I got a little anywhow even when she didn't give it.

For clothes we had homespun cotton all the year round, but in winter we had sheep skin jacket with the wool left on the inside. Sometimes sheep skin shoes with the wool on the inside and sometimes real cow leather shoes with wood peggings for winter, but always barefooted in the summer, all the men and women, too.

Lord, I never earned a dime of money in slave days for myself but plenty for the old Matser. He woulds end us out to work the neighbor's field and he got paid for it, but we never did see the money.

I remember the first money I ever did see. It was a little while after we was free, and I found a greenback in the road at Fort Gibson and I didn't know what it was. Mammy said it was money and grabbed for it, but I was still a hell cat and I run with it. I went to the little sutler store and laid it down and pointed to a pitcher I been wanting. The man took the money and give me the pitcher, but I don't know to this day how much money it was and how much was the pitcher, but I still got that pitcher put away. It's all blue and white stripedy.

Most of the work I donte off the plantation was sewing. I learned from my Granny and I lvoed to sew. That was about the only thing I was industrious in. When I was just a little bitsy girl I found a stel needle in the yard that belong to old Mistress. My mammy took it and I cried. She put it in her dress and started for the field. I cried so old Mistress found out why and made mammy give me the needle for my own.

We had some neighbor Indians named Starr, and Mrs. Starr used me sometimes to sew. She had nine boys and one girl, and she would sew up all they clothes at once to do for a year. She would cut out the cloth for about a week, and then send the word around to all the neighbors, and old Mistress would send me because she couldn't see good to sew. They would have stacks of drawers, shirts, pants and some dresses all cut out to sew up.

I was the only Negro what would set there and sew in that bunch of women, and they always talked to me nice and when they eat I get part of it too, out in the kitchen.

One Negro girl, Eula Davis, had a mistress sent her too, one time, but she wouldn't sew. She didn't like me because she said I was too white and she played off to spite the white people. She got sent home, too.

When old Mistress die I done all the sewing for the family almost. I could sew good enough to go out before I was eight years old, and when I got to be about ten I was better than any other girl on the place for sewing.

I can stlil quilt without my glasses, and I have sewed all night long many a time while I was watching Young Master's baby after old Mistress died.

They waas over a hundred acres in the plantation, and I don't know how many slaves, but before the War ended, lots of the men had run away. Uncle Nick went to the North, and never come home and Granmammy died about that time.

We was way down across the Red river in Texas at that time, close to Shawneetown of the Choctaw Nation, but just across the river on the other side in Texas bottoms. Old Master took us there in covered wagons when the Yankee soldiers got too close by in the first part of the War. He hired the slaves out to Texas people because he didn't make any crops down there, and we all lived in kind of camps. That's how some of the men and my uncle Nick got to slip off to the north that way.

Before freedom we didn't have no church, but slipped around to the other cabins and had a little singing sometimes. Couldn't have anybody show us the letters either, and you better not let them catch you pick up a book even to look at the pictures, for it was against a Cherokee law to have a Negro read and write or to teach a Negro.

Some Negroes believed in buckeyes and charms, but I never did. Old Master had some good boys, named Aaron, John, Ned, Cy and Nat, and they told me the charms was no good. Their sisters Nicie told me too, and said when I was sick just come and tell her.

They didn't tell us anything about Christmas and New Year though, and all we done was work.

When the War ended we was still in Texas, and when old Master got a letter from Fort Smith telling him the slaves was free he coulnd't read, and Young Miss read it to him. He went wild and jumped on her and beat the devil out of her. Said she was lying to him. It near about killed him to let us loose, but he cooled down after a while and said he would help all get back home if we wanted to come.

Mammy told him she could bear her own expenses. I remember I dind't know what "expenses" was, and I thought it was something I was going to have to help carry all the way back.

It was a long time after he knew we was free before he told us. He tried to keep us, I reckon, but had to let us go. He died pretty soon after he told us, and some said his heart just broke and some said some Negroes poisoned hiim. I didn't know which.

Anyways we had to straggle back the the best way we couldn't and me and mammy just got along one way and another till we got to a ferry over the Red River and into Arkansas. Then we got some rides and walked some until we got to Fort Smith. They was a lot of Negro camps there and we stayed awhile and then started out to Fort Gibson becasue we heared they was giving rations out there. Mammy knew we was Cherokee anyway, I guess.

That trip was hell on earth. Nobody let us ride and it took us nearly two weeks to walk all that ways, and we nearl starved all the time. We was sking and bones and feet all bloody when we got to the Fort.

We come here to Four Mile Branch to where the Negroes was all setting down, and pretty soon Mammy died.

I married Oliver Wilson on January second, 1878. He used to belong to Mr. DeWwwitt Wilson of Tahlequah, and I think the old people used to live down at Wilson Rock because my husband used to know all about that place and the place where I was borned. Old Mister DeWitt Wilson give me a pear tree the next year after I was married, and it is still out in my yard and bears every year.

I was married in a white and black checkedy calico apron that I washed for Mr. Tim Walker's mother Lizzie all day for, over close to Ft. Gibson, and I was a sure a happy woman when I married that day. Him and me both got our land on our Chherokee freedman blood and I have lived to bury my husband and see two great granchildren so far.

I bless God about Abraham Lincoln. I remember my mammy sold pictures of him in Ft. Smith for a Jew. If he give me my freedom I know he in Heaven now.

I heard a lot about Jefferson Davis in my life. During the War we hear the Negroes singing the soldier song about hang Jeff Davis to a apple tree, and old Master tell about the time we know Jeff Davis. Old Master say Jeff Davis was just a draagoon soldier out of Ft. Gibson when he bring his family out here from Tennessee, and while they was on the road from Fort Smith to where they settled, young Jeff Davis and some more dragoon soldiers ride up and talked to him a long time. He say my grandmammy had a bundle on her head, and Jeff Davis say, "Where are you going Aunty?" and she was tired and mad and she said, I don't know, to Hell I reckon," and all the white soldiers laughed at her and made her that much madder.

I joined the Four Mile Branch churh in 1879 and Sam Solomon was a Creek Negro and the first preacher I ever heard preach. Everybody ought to be in the church and ready for that better home on the other side.

All the old slaves I know are dead excepting two, and I will be going pretty soon I reckon, but I'm glad I lived to see the day tthe Negroes get the right treatment if they work good and behave themselves right. They don't have to have no pass to walk abroad no more, and they can all read and write now, but its a tarnation shame some of them go and read the wrong kind of things anyways.

Back to Slave Narratives
Back to Main Page