Jordon Smith

Text

I's borned in Georgia, next to the line of North Car'lina, on Widow Hick's place. My papa died 'fore I's borned but my mammy was called Aggie. My ole missus died and us fell to her nephew, Ab Smith. My granma and granpa was full-blooded Africans and I couldn't unnerstand their talk.

My missus was borned on the Chattahoochee River and she had 2,000 acres of land in cul'vation, a thousand on each side the river, and owned 500 slaves and 250 head of work mules. She was the richest woman in the whole county.

Us slaves lived in a double row log cabins facin' her house and our beds was made of rough plank and mattresses of hay and lynn bark and shucks, make on a machine. I's spinned many a piece of cloth and wove many a brooch of thread.

Missus didn't 'low her niggers to work till they's 21, and the chillen played marbles and run round and kick their heels. The first work I done was hoeing and us worked long as we could see a stalk of cotton or hill of corn. Missus used to call us at Christmas and give the old folks a dollar and the rest a dinner. When she died me and my mother went to Ab Smith at the dividement of the property. Master Ab put us to work on a big farm he bought and it was Hell 'mong the yearlin's if you crost him or missus either. It was double trouble and a cowhidin' whatever you do. She had a place in the kitchen where she tied their hands up to the wall and cowhided them and sometimes cut they back 'most to pieces. She made all go to church and let the women wear some her old, fine dresses to hide the stripes where she'd beat them. Mammy say that to keep the folks at church from knowin' how mean she was to her niggers.

Master Ab had a driver and if you didn't do what that driver say, master say to him, 'Boy, come here and take this nigger down, a hunerd licks this time.' Sometimes us run off and go to a dance without a pass and 'bout time they's kickin' they heels and getting sot for the big time, in come a patterroller and say, 'Havin' a big time, ain't you? Got a pass?' If you didn't, they'd git four or five men to take you out and when they got through you'd sho' go home.

Master Ab had hunerds acres wheat and made the women stack hay in the field. Sometimes they got sick and wanted to go to the house, but he made them lay down on a straw-pile in the field. Lots of chillen was borned on a straw-pile in the field. After the chile was borned he sent them to the house. I seed that with my own eyes.

They was a trader yard in Virginia and one in New Orleans and sometimes a thousand slaves was waitin' to be sold. When the traders knowed men was comin' to buy, they made the slaves all clean up and greased they mouths with meat skins to look like they's feedin' them plenty meat. They lined the women up on one side and the men on the other. A buyer would walk up and down 'tween the two rows and grab a woman and try to throw her down and feel of her to see how she's put up. If she's purty strong, he'd say, 'Is she a good breeder?' If a gal was 18 or 19 and put up good she was worth 'bout $1,500. Then the buyer'd pick out a strong, young nigger boy 'bout the same age and buy him. When he got them home he'd say to them, 'I want you two to stay together. I want young niggers.'

If a nigger ever run off the place and come back, master'd say, 'If you'll be a good nigger, I'll not whip you this time.' But you couldn't 'lieve that. A nigger run off and stayed in the woods six month. When he come back he's hairy as a cow, 'cause he lived in a cave and come out at night and pilfer round. They put the dogs on him but couldn't cotch him. Fin'ly he come home and master say he won't whip him and Tom was crazy 'nough to 'lieve it. Master say to the cook, 'Fix Tom a big dinner,' and while Tom's eatin', master stand in the door with a whip and say, 'Tom, I's change my mind; you have no business runnin' off and I's gwine take you out jus' like you come into the world.

Master gits a bottle whiskey and a box cigars and have Tom tied up out in the yard. He takes a chair and say to the driver, 'Boy, take him down, 250 licks this time.' Then he'd count the licks. When they's 150 licks it didn't look like they is any place left to hit, but master say, 'Finish him up.' Then he and the driver sot down, smoke cigars and drink whiskey, and master tell Tom how he must mind he master. Then he lock Tom up in a log house and master tell all the niggers if they give him anything to eat he'll skin 'em alive. The old folks slips Tom bread and meat. When he gits out, he's gone to the woods 'gain. They's plenty niggers what stayed in the woods till surrender.

I heared some slaves say they white folks was good to 'em, but it was a tight fight where us was. I's thought over the case a thousand times and figured it was 'cause all men ain't made alike. Some are bad and some are good. It's like that now. Some folks you works for got no heart and some treat you white. I guess it allus will be that way.

They was more ghosts and hants them days than now. It look like when I's comin' up they was common as pig tracks. They come in different forms and shapes, sometimes like a dog or cat or goat or like a man. I didn't 'lieve in 'em till I seed one. A fellow I knowed could see 'em every time he went out. One time us walkin' 'long a country lane and he say, 'Jordon, look over my right shoulder.' I looked and see a man walkin' without a head. I broke and run plumb off from the man I's with. He wasn't scart of 'em.

I's refugeed from Georgia to Anderson County 'fore the war. I see Abe Lincoln onct when he come through, but didn't none of know who he was. I heared the president wanted 'em to work the young niggers till they was twenty-one but to free the growed slaves. They say he give 'em thirty days to 'siderate it. The white folks said they'd wade blood saddle deep 'fore they'd let us loose. I don't blame 'em in a way, 'cause they paid for us. In 'nother way it was right to free us. We was brought here and no person is sposed to be made a brute.

After surrender, Massa Ab call us and say we could go. Mammy stayed but I left with my uncles and aunts and went to Shreveport where the Yanks was. I didn't hear from my mammy for the nex' twenty years.

In Ku Klux times they come to our house and I stood tremblin', but they didn't bother us. I heared 'em say lots of niggers was took down in Sabine bottom and Kluxed, just 'cause they wanted to git rid of 'em. I think it was desperados what done that, 'stead of the Ku Klux. That was did in Panola County, in the Bad Lands. Bill Bateman and Hulon Gresham and Sidney Farney was desperados and would kill a nigger jus' to git rid of him. Course, lots of folks was riled up at the Kluxers and blamed 'em for everything.

I's voted here in Marshall. Every nation has a flag but the cullud race. The flag is what protects 'em. We wasn't invited here, but was brought here, and don't have no place else to go. We was brought under this government and it's right we be led and told what to do. The cullud folks has been here more'n a hunerd years and has help make the United States what it is. The only thing that'll help the cause is separation of the races. I'll not be here when it comes, but it's bound to, 'cause the Bible say that some day all the races of people will be separated. Since 1865 till now the cullud race have done nothing but go to destruction. There was a time a man could control his wife and family, but you can't do that now.

After surrender I went to Shreveport and steamboated from there to New Orleans, then to Vicksburg. Old hands was paid $15.00 a trip. I come here in 1872 and railroaded 30 years, on the section gang and in the shops. Since then I farmed and I's had three wives and nineteen chillen and they are scattered all over the state. Since I's too old to farm I work at odd jobs and git a $10.00 a month pension.