Slave Narratives, Oklahoma | Page 5

the
McIntosh place fix up to run away from their masters.
My father and my uncle, Jacob Perryman, was some of the fixers. Some
of the Creek Indians had already lost a few slaves who slip off to the
North, and they take what was left down into Texas so's they couldn't
get away. Some of the other Creeks was friendly to the North and was
fixing to get away up there; that's the ones my daddy and uncle was
fixing to join, for they was afraid their masters would take up and move
to Texas before they could get away.
They call the old Creek, who was leaving for the North, "Old Gouge"
(Opoethleyohola). All our family join up with him, and there was lots
of Creek Indians and slaves in the outfit when they made a break for
the North. The runaways was riding ponies stolen from their masters.

When they get into the hilly country farther north in the country that
belong to the Cherokee Indians, they make camp on a big creek and
there the Rebel Indian soldiers catch up, but they was fought back.
Then long before morning lighten the sky, the men hurry and sling the
camp kettles across the pack horses, tie the littlest children to the horses
backs and get on the move farther into the mountains. They kept
moving fast as they could, but the wagons made it mighty slow in the
brush and the lowland swamps, so just about the time they ready to ford
another creek the Indian soldiers catch up and the fighting begin all
over again.
The Creek Indians and the slaves with them try to fight off them
soldiers like they did before, but they get scattered around and
separated so's they lose the battle. Lost their horses and wagons, and
the soldiers killed lots of the Creeks and Negroes, and some of the
slaves was captured and took back to their masters.
Dead all over the hills when we get away; some of the Negroes shot
and wounded so bad the blood run down the saddle skirts, and some
fall off their horses miles from the battle ground, and lay still on the
ground. Daddy and Uncle Jacob keep our family together somehow and
head across the line into Kansas. We all get to Fort Scott where there
was a big army camp; daddy work in the blacksmith shop and Uncle
Jacob join with the Northern soldiers to fight against the South. He
come through the war and live to tell me about the fighting he been in.
He went with the soldiers down around Fort Gibson where they fight
the Indians who stayed with the South. Uncle Jacob say he killed many
a man during the war, and showed me the musket and sword he used to
fight with; said he didn't shoot the women and children--just whack
their heads off with the sword, and almost could I see the blood
dripping from the point! It made me scared at his stories.
The captain of this company want his men to be brave and not get
scared, so before the fighting start he put out a tub of white liquor (corn
whiskey) and steam them up so's they'd be mean enough to whip their
grannie! The soldiers do lots of riding and the saddle-sores get so bad

they grease their body every night with snake oil so's they could keep
going on.
Uncle Jacob said the biggest battle was at Honey Springs (1863). That
was down near Elk Creek, close by Checotah, below Rentiersville. He
said it was the most terrible fighting he seen, but the Union soldiers
whipped and went back into Fort Gibson. The Rebels was chased all
over the country and couldn't find each other for a long time, the way
he tell it.
After the war our family come back here and settle at Fort Gibson, but
it ain't like the place my mother told me about. There was big houses
and buildings of brick setting on the high land above the river when I
first see it, not like she know it when the Perrymans come here years
ago.
She heard the Indians talk about the old fort (1824), the one that rot
down long before the Civil War. And she seen it herself when she go
with the Master for trading with the stores. She said it was made by
Matthew Arbuckle and his soldiers, and she talk about Companys B, C,
D, K, and the Seventh Infantry who was there and made the Osage
Indians stop fighting the Creeks and Cherokees. She talk of it, but that
old place all gone when I first see the Fort.
Then I hear about how after the Arbuckle soldiers leave the old