Slave Narratives, Oklahoma | Page 3

War was quite over. I think he had
been sick, because he looked thin and old and worried. All the negroes
picked up and worked mighty hard after he come home, too.
One day he went into Arcadia and come home and told us the War was
over and we was all free. The negroes didn't know what to make of it,
and didn't know where to go, so he told all that wanted to stay on that
they could just go on like they had been and pay him shares.
About half of his negroes stayed on, and he marked off land for them to
farm and made arrangements with them to let them use their cabins,
and let them have mules and tools. They paid him out of their shares,
and some of them finally bought the mules and some of the land. But
about half went on off and tried to do better somewheres else.
I didn't stay with him because I was jest a boy and he didn't need me at
the house anyway.
Late in the War my Pappy belonged to a man named Sander or Zander.
Might been Alexander, but the negroes called him Mr. Sander. When
pappy got free he come and asked me to go with him, and I went along
and lived with him. He had a share-cropper deal with Mr. Sander and I
helped him work his patch. That place was just a little east of Houma, a
few miles.
When my Pappy was born his parents belonged to a Mr. Adams, so he
took Adams for his last name, and I did too, because I was his son. I
don't know where Mr. Adams lived, but I don't think my Pappy was

born in Louisiana. Alabama, maybe. I think his parents come off the
boat, because he was very black--even blacker than I am.
I lived there with my Pappy until I was about eighteen and then I
married and moved around all over Louisiana from time to time. My
wife give me twelve boys and five girls, but all my children are dead
now but five. My wife died in 1920 and I come up here to Tulsa to live.
One of my daughters takes care and looks out for me now.
I seen the old Sack P. Gee place about twenty years ago, and it was all
cut up in little places and all run down. Never would have known it was
one time a big plantation ten miles long.
I seen places going to rack and ruin all around--all the places I lived at
in Louisiana--but I'm glad I wasn't there to see Master Sack's place go
down. He was a good man and done right by all his negroes.
Yes, Lord, my old feets have been in mighty nigh every parish in
Louisiana, and I seen some mighty pretty places, but I'll never forget
how that old Gee plantation looked when I was a boy.

Oklahoma Writers' Project Ex-Slaves
ALICE ALEXANDER Age 88 yrs. Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was 88 years old the 15th of March. I was born in 1849, at Jackson
Parish, Louisiana. My mother's name was Mary Marlow, and father's
Henry Marlow.
I can't remember very much 'bout slavery 'cause I was awful small, but
I can remember that my mother's master, Colonel Threff died, and my
mother, her husband, and us three chillun was handed down to Colonel
Threff's poor kin folks. Colonel Threff owned about two or three
hundred head of niggers, and all of 'em was tributed to his poor kin.
Ooh wee! he sho' had jest a lot of them too! Master Joe Threff, one of
his poor kin, took my mother, her husband, and three of us chillun from
Louisiana to the Mississippi Line.

Down there we lived in a one-room log hut, and slept on homemade
rail bed steads with cotton, and sometimes straw, mostly straw
summers and cotton winners. I worked round the house and looked
after de smaller chillun--I mean my mother's chillun. Mostly we ate
yeller meal corn bread and sorghum malasses. I ate possums when we
could get 'em, but jest couldn't stand rabbit meat. Didn't know there
was any Christmas or holidays in dem days.
I can't 'membuh nothing 'bout no churches in slavery. I was a sinner
and loved to dance. I remembuh I was on the floor one night dancing
and I had four daughters on the floor with me and my son was playing
de music--that got me! I jest stopped and said I wouldn't cut another
step and I haven't. I'm a member of the Baptist Church and been for 25
or 30 years. I jined 'cause I wanted to be good 'cause I was an awful
sinner.