Susan Merritt
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"I couldn't tell how old I is, but does you think I'd ever forgit them slave days? I 'lieve I's 'bout 87 or more, 'cause I's a good size gal spinnin all the thread for the white folks when they lets us loose after surrender.
"I's born right down in Rusk County, not a long way from Henderson, and Massa Andrew Watt am my owner. My pappy, Bob Rollins, he come from North Carolina and belonged to Dave Blakely and mammy come from Mississippi. Mammy have eleven of us chillen but four dies when they babies, but Albert, Hob, John, Emma, Anna, Lula and me lives to be growed and married.
"Massa Watt lived in a big log house what sot on a hill so you could see it 'round for miles, and us lived over in the field in little log huts, all huddled along together. They have home-made beds nailed to the wall and baling sack mattresses, and us call them bunks. Us never had no money but plenty clothes and grub and wear the same clothes all the year 'round. Massa Watt made our shoes for winter hisself and he made furniture and saddles and harness and run a grist mill and a whiskey still there on the place. That man had ev'ything.
"The hands was woke with the big bell and when massa pulls that bell rope the niggers falls out them bunks like rain fallin'. They was in that field 'fore day and stay till dusk dark. They work slap up till Saturday night and then washes their clothes, and sometimes they gits through and has time for the party and plays ring plays. I 'member part the words to one play and that, 'Rolling river, roll on, the old cow die in cold water ... now we's got to drink bad water 'cause old cow die in cold water,' but I can't 'member more'n that. It's too long ago.
"When the hands come in from the field at dusk dark, they has to tote water from the spring and cook and eat and be in bed when that old bell rings at nine o'clock. 'Bout dusk they calls the chillen and gives 'em a piece of corn pone 'bout size my hand and a tin cup milk and puts them to bed, but the growed folks et fat pork and greens and beans and sich like and have plenty milk. Ev'ry Sunday massa give 'em some flour and butter and a chicken. Lots of niggers caught a good cowhiding for slippin' 'round and stealin' a chicken 'fore Sunday.
"Massa Watt didn't have no overseer, but he have a nigger driver what am jus' as bad. He carry a long whip 'round the neck and I's seed him tie niggers to a tree and cowhide 'em till the blood run down onto the ground. Sometimes the women gits slothful and not able to do their part but they makes 'em do it anyway. They digs a hole, 'bout body deep, and makes them women lie face down in it and beats 'em nearly to death. That nigger driver beat the chillen for not keepin' their cotton row up with the lead man. Sometimes he made niggers drag long chains while they works in the field and some of 'em run off, but they oughtn't to have done it, 'cause they chase 'em with hounds and nearly kilt 'em.
"Lots of times Massa Watt give us a pass to go over to George Petro's place or Dick Gregg's place. Massa Petro run a slave market and he have big, high scaffold with steps where he sells slaves. They was stripped off to the waist to show their strengt'.
"Our white folks have a church and a place for us in the back. Sometimes at night us gather 'round the fireplace and pray and sing and cry, but us daren't 'low our white folks know it. Thank the Lawd us can worship where us wants nowadays. I 'member one song we allus sing:
"'I heard the voice of Jesus callin'
Come unto me and live
Lie, lie down, weepin' one
Res' they head on my breast.
"'I come to Jesus as I was
Weary and lone and tired and sad,
I finds in him a restin' place,
And he has made me glad.'
"Us have two white doctors call Dr. Dan and Dr. Gill Shaw, what wait on us when we real sick. Us wore asafoetida bags 'round the neck and it kep' off sickness.
"I stay mos' the time in the big house and massa good but missy am the devil. I couldn't tell you how I treated. Lots of times she tie me to a stob in the yard and cowhide me till she give out, then she go and rest and come back and beat me some more. You see, I's massa nigger and she have her own niggers what come on her side and she never did like me. She stomp and beat me nearly to death and they have to grease my back where she cowhide me and I's sick with fever for a week. If I have a dollar for ev'ry cowhidin' I git, I'd never have to work no more.
"Young missy Betty like me and try larn me readin' and writin' and she slip to my room and have me doin' right good. I larn the alphabet. But one day Missy Jane cotch her schoolin' me and she say, 'Niggers don't need to know anything,' and she lams me over the head with the butt of a cowhide whip. That white woman so rough, one day us makin' soap and some little chickens gits in the fire 'round the pot and she say I let 'em do it and make me walk barefoot through that bed of coals sev'ral times.
"I hears 'bout freedom in September and they's pickin' cotton and a white man rides up to massa's house on a big, white hoss and the houseboy tell massa a man want see him and he hollers, 'Light, stranger.' It a gov'ment man and he have the big book and a bunch papers and say why ain't massa turn the niggers loose. Massa say he tryin' git the crop out and he tell massa have the slaves in. Uncle Steven blows the cow horn what they use to call to eat and all the niggers come runnin', 'cause that horn mean, 'Come to the big house, quick.' That man reads the paper tellin' us we's free, but massa make us work sev'ral months after that. He say we git 20 acres land and a mule but we didn't git it.
"Lots of niggers was kilt after freedom, 'cause the slaves in Harrison County turn loose right at freedom and them in Rusk County wasn't. But they hears 'bout it and runs away to freedom in Harrison County and they owners have 'em bushwhacked, that shot down. You could see lots of niggers hangin' to trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom, 'cause they catch 'em swimmin' 'cross Sabine River and shoot 'em. They sho' am goin' be lots of soul cry 'gainst 'em in Judgment!"
