William Curtis
Age 93 yrs.
McAlester, Oklahoma
Page 48 – 52
“Run Nigger, run,
De Patteroll git ye!
Run Nigger, run,
He’s almost here!”
Please Mr. Patteroll,
Don’t ketch me!
Jest take dat nigger
What’s behind dat tree.”
Laway, I done heard dat song all my life and it warn’t no joke neither.
De Patrol would git ye to if he caught ye off the plantation without a pass from your Master, and
he’d whip ye too. None of us dassn’t leave without a pass.
We chillun sun lots of songs and we played marbles, mumble peg, and town
ball. In de winter we would set around de fire and listen to our Mammy and Pappy tell ghost tales
and witch tales. I don’t guess dey was sho’ nuff so, but we all thought dey was.
My Mammy was bought in Virginia by our Master, Hugh
McKeown. He owned a
big plantation in Georgia. Soon after she come to Georgia she married my pa. Old Master was good to
us. We lived for a while in the quarters behind the Big House, and my mammy was de house woman.
Somehow, in a trade, or maybe my pa was mortgaged, but anyway Old Master
let a man in Virginia have him and we never see him no more ‘till after the War. It nigh broke our
hearts when he had to leave and old Master sho’ done everthing he could to make it up to us.
The was four of us chillun. I didn’t do no work ‘till I was about
fifteen years old. Old Master bought a tavern and mammy worked as house woman and I went to work at
the stables. I drove the carriage and took keer of the team and carriage. I kept ‘em shining too.
I’d curry the horses ‘till they was slick and shiny. I’d polish the harness and the carriage.
Old Master and Mistress was quality and I wanted everybody to know it. They had three girls and
three boys and we boys played together and went swimming together. We loved each other, I tell ye.
Old Master built us a little house jest back of de tavern and mammy
raised us jest like Old Mistress did her chillun. When I didn’t have to work de boys and me would
go hunting. We’d kill possum, coon, squirrels and wide hogs. Old Master killed a wild hog and he
gave mammy her ten tiny pigs. She raised ‘em and my, at the meat we had when they was butchered.
They had lots of company at de Big House, and it was de only tavern too,
so they was lots of cooking to do. They would go to church on Sunday and they would spread their
dinners on the ground. My, but they was feasts. We’d allus git to go as I drive the carriage and
mammy looked after the food. We had our own church too, with our own preacher.
We had a spinning house where all the old women would card and spin wool
in de winter and cotton in de summer. Dey made all our clothes, what few we wore. Us boys jest wore
long tailed shirts ‘till we was 12 or 13 years old, sometimes older. I was 15 when I started
driving the family carriage and I got to put on pants then.
Our quits was made out of jeans. That cloth wore like buckskin. We’d
wear ‘em for a year before they had to be patched.
We made our own brogan shoes too. We’d kill a beef and skin it and
spread the skin out and let it dry a while. We’d put the hide in lime water to get the hair off,
then we’d oil it and work it ‘till it was soft. Next we’d take it to the bench and scrape or
‘plesh’ it with knives. It was then put in a tight cabinet and smoked with oak wood for about 24
hours. Smoking loosened the skin. We’d then take it out and rub it to soften it. It was blacked
and oiled and it was ready to be made into shoes. It took nearly a year to get a green hide made
into shoes, Twan’t no wonder we had to go barefooted.
Sometimes I’d work in the wood shop, dressing wagon spokes. We made
spokes with a plane, by hand on a bench.
I didn’t have much work to do before I was 15 except to run errands.
One of my jobs was to take corn to the mill to be ground into meal. Some one would put my sack of
corn on the mule’s back and help me up and I’d ride to the mill and have it ground and they’d
load me back on and I’d go back home.
I remember once my meal fell off and I waited and waited for somebody to
come by and help me. I got tired waiting so I toted the sack to a big log and laid it across it, I
led my mule up to the log and after working hard for a long time I managed to get it on his back. I
climbed up and hest as we started off the mule jumped and I fell off and pulled the sack off with
me. I couldn’t do nothing but wait and finally old Master came after me. He knowned something was
wrong.
Old master was good to all of his slaves but his overseers had orders to
make ‘em work. He fed ‘em good and took good keer of ‘em and never made ‘em work iffen they
was sick or even felt bad, They was two things old Master jest wouldn’t ‘bide and dat was for a
slave to be sassy or lazy. Sometimes if dey wouldn’t work or slipped off de farm dey would whip
‘em. He didn’t whip often. Colored overseers was worse to whip tan white ones, but Master allus
said, “Hadn’t you all rather have a nigger overseer than a white one? I don’t want to white
man over my niggers.” I’ve seen the overseer whip some but I never did get no whipping. He would
strip ‘em to the waist and whip ‘em with a long leather strop, about as wide as two fingers and
fastened to a handle.
When de war broke out everthing was changed. My young Masters had to go.
T. H. McKeown, the oldest was a Lieutenant and was one of the first to go. It nigh broke all of our
hearts. Pretty soon he sent for me to come and keep him company. Old Master let me go and I stayed
in his quarters. He was stationed at Atlanta and Griffin, Georgia. I’d stay with him a week or two
and I’d go home for a few days and I’d take back food and fruit. I stayed with him and waited on
him ‘till he got used to being in the army and they moved him out to fighting. I wanted to go on
with him but he wouldn’t let me, he told me to go back and take care of Old Master and Old
Mistress. They was getting old by then. Purty soon Young Master got wounded purty bad and they sent
me home. I never went back. I got a “pass” to go home. Course, after the war nothing was right
no more. Yes, we was free but we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to leave our old Master
and our old home. We stayed on and after a while my pappy came home to us. Dat was de best thing
about de war setting us free, he could come back to us.
We all lived on at the old plantation. Old Master and Old Mistress died
and young Master took charge of de farm. He couldn’t a’done nothing without us niggers, He
didn’t know how to work. He was good to us and divided the crops with us,
I never went to school much but my white folks learned me to read and
write. I could always have any of their books to read, and they had lots of ‘em.
Times changed a lot since that time. I don’t know where the world is
much better now, that it has everything or then when we didn’t have hardly nothing, but I believe
there was more religion then. We always went to church and I’ve seen ‘em baptized from the early
morning ‘till afternoon in the Chatahooche river. Folks don’t hardly know nowadays jest what to
believe they’s so many religions, but they’s only on God.
I was eighteen when I married. I had eight chillun. My wife is 86,
and she lives in St. Louis, Missouri.