Slave Narratives, Oklahoma | Page 4

We had a overseer back on Colonel Threff's plantation and my mother
said he was the meanest man on earth. He'd jest go out in de fields and
beat dem niggers, and my mother told me one day he come out in de
field beating her sister and she jumped on him and nearly beat him half
to death and old Master come up jest in time to see it all and fired dat
overseer. Said he didn't want no man working fer him dat a woman
could whip.
After de war set us free my pappy moved us away and I stayed round
down there till I got to be a grown woman and married. You know I
had a pretty fine wedding 'cause my pappy had worked hard and
commenced to be prosperous. He had cattle, hogs, chickens and all
those things like that.
A college of dem niggers got together and packed up to leave Louisiana.
Me and my husband went with them. We had covered wagons, and let
me tell you I walked nearly all the way from Louisiana to Oklahoma.
We left in March but didn't git here till May. We came in search of
education. I got a pretty fair education down there but didn't take care
of it. We come to Oklahoma looking for de same thing then that darkies
go North looking fer now. But we got dissapointed. What little I
learned I quit taking care of it and seeing after it and lost it all.

I love to fish. I've worked hard in my days. Washed and ironed for 30
years, and paid for dis home that way. Yes sir, dis is my home. My
mother died right here in dis house. She was 111 yeahs old. She is been
dead 'bout 20 yeahs.
I have three daughters here married, Sussie Pruitt, Bertie Shannon, and
Irene Freeman. Irene lost her husband, and he's dead now.

Oklahoma Writers' Project Ex-Slaves
10-19-1938 1,428 words
PHOEBE BANKS Age 78 Muskogee, Oklahoma.
In 1860, there was a little Creek Indian town of Sodom on the north
bank of the Arkansas River, in a section the Indians called Chocka
Bottoms, where Mose Perryman had a big farm or ranch for a long time
before the Civil War. That same year, on October 17, I was born on the
Perryman place, which was northwest of where I live now in Muskogee;
only in them days Fort Gibson and Okmulgee was the biggest towns
around and Muskogee hadn't shaped up yet.
My mother belonged to Mose Perryman when I was born; he was one
of the best known Creeks in the whole nation, and one of his younger
brothers, Legus Perryman, was made the big chief of the Creeks (1887)
a long time after the slaves was freed. Mother's name was Eldee; my
father's name was William McIntosh, because he belonged to a Creek
Indian family by that name. Everybody say the McIntoshes was leaders
in the Creek doings away back there in Alabama long before they come
out here.
With me, there was twelve children in our family; Daniel, Stroy, Scott,
Segal, Neil, Joe, Phillip, Mollie, Harriett, Sally and Queenie.
The Perryman slave cabins was all alike--just two-room log cabins,
with a fireplace where mother do the cooking for us children at night
after she get through working in the Master's house.

Mother was the house girl--cooking, waiting on the table, cleaning the
house, spinning the yarn, knitting some of the winter clothes, taking
care of the mistress girl, washing the clothes--yes, she was always busy
and worked mighty hard all the time, while them Indians wouldn't
hardly do nothing for themselves.
On the McIntosh plantation, my daddy said there was a big number of
slaves and lots of slave children. The slave men work in the fields,
chopping cotton, raising corn, cutting rails for the fences, building log
cabins and fireplaces. One time when father was cutting down a tree it
fell on him and after that he was only strong enough to rub down the
horses and do light work around the yard. He got to be a good horse
trainer and long time after slavery he helped to train horses for the Free
Fairs around the country, and I suppose the first money he ever earned
was made that way.
Lots of the slave owners didn't want their slaves to learn reading and
writing, but the Perrymans didn't care; they even helped the younger
slaves with that stuff. Mother said her master didn't care much what the
slaves do; he was so lazy he didn't care for nothing.
They tell me about the war times, and that's all I remember of it. Before
the War is over some of the Perryman slaves and some from