I'm getting old and its easy to forget
most of the happenings of slave days. Anyway, I was too little to know much about them, for my
mammy told me I was born six years before the War. My folks was on their way to Fort Gibson, and
on the tip I was born at Boggy Depot down in southern Oklahoma.
There was a lot of us children; I got
their names somewhere here. Yes, there was George, Sarah, Emma, Stella, Sylvia, Lucinda, Rose,
Dan, Pamp, Jeff, Austin, Jessie, Isaac, and Andrew; we all lived in a one room log cabin on Master
Rogers place not far from the old military road near Chouteau. Manny was raised around the
Cherokee town of Tahlequah.
I got my name from the Rogers, but I
was loaned around to their relatives most of the time. I helped around the house for Bill
McCracken then I was with Cornelius and Carline Wright, and when I was freed my Mistress was a
Mrs. O'Neal, wife of a officer at Fort Gibson. She treated me the best of all and gave me the
first doll I ever had. It was a rag doll with charcoal eyes, and red thread worked in for the
mouth. She allowed me one hour everyday to play with it. When the War ended Mistress O'Neal waned
to take me with her to Richmond Virginia, but my people wouldn't let me go. I wanted to stay with
her, sh was so good, and she promised to come back for me, when I get older, but she never did.
All the time I was at the fort I hear
the bugles and see the soldiers marching around, but never did I see any battles. The fighting
must have been too far away.
Maters Rogers kept all our family
together, but my folks have told me about how the slaves was sold. One of my aunts was a mean,
fighting woman. She was to be sold and when the bidding stared she grabbed a hatchet, laid her
hand on a log and chopped it off. Then she throwed the bleeding hand right in her master's face.
Not long ago, I hear she is still living in the country around Nowata Oklahoma.
Sometimes when I would try to get
mean, but I always got me a whipping for it. When I was a little girl, moving around from one
family to another, I done housework, ironing, peeling potatoes, and helping the main cook. I went
barefoot most of my life, but the master would get his shoes form the Government at Fort Gibson.
I wore cotton dressed and the Mistress
wore long dressed, with different colors for Sunday clothes, but us slaves didn't know much about
Sunday in a religious way. The Master had a brother who used to preach to the Negroes on the sly.
One time he was caught and the Master whipped him something awful.
Years ago I married Joe Bean. Our
children did as babies. Twenty year ago, Joe Bean and I separate for good and all.
The good Lord knows I'm glad slavery is over. Now I can stay peaceful in
one place--that's all aim to do.
