Nancy Rogers Bean
Ex Slave
Age
about 82
Hulbert, Okla.
Interviewed 10-19-1938
Page 12-13
I’m getting old and it’s easy to forget most of the happenings of
salve days; anyway I was to little to know much about them, for my mammy told me I was born bout six
years before the War. My folks was on their way to Fort Gibson, and on the trip I was born at Boggy
Depot, down in southern Oklahoma
There were a lot of us children; I got their names somewheres 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 Choteau. Mammy was raised around the Cherokee town of Tahlequah.
I got my name from the Roger’, 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 the 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 every day to play
with it. When the War ended Mistress O’Neal wanted to take me with her to Richmond, Virginia, but
my people wouldn’t let me go. I wanted to stay with her, she 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 to far away.
Master 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 women. She was to be sold and
when the bidding started she grabbed a hatchet, laid her hand on a log and chopped it off. Then she
throwed the bleeding hand right in the master’s face. Not long ago I hear she is still living in
the country around Nowata, Oklahoma.
Sometimes I would try to get mean, but always I 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 from the government at Fort Gibson.
I wore cotton dresses, and the Mistress wore long dresses, with different
colors for Sunday Clothes, but us slaves didn’t know much about Sunday in the 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 died as babies. Twenty years
ago Joe Bean and I separated 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 I aim to do.
