Alice Douglass
Age 77 yrs.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I was born December 22, 1860 in Sumner county, Tennessee. My mother – I
mean Mammy, ‘cause what did we know ‘bout mother and mamma. Master and Mistress made dey chillun
call all nigger women, “Black Mammy.” Jest as I was saying my mammy was named Millie elkins and
my pappy was named Isaac Garrett. My sisters and brothers was Frank, Susie and Mollie. They us all
in Nashville, Tennessee right now. They lived in log houses. I ‘member my grandpappy and when he
died. I allus slept in the Big House in a cradle wid white babies.
We all the time wore cotton dresses and we weaved our own cloth. The boys
jest wore shirts. Some wore shoes, and I sho’ did. I kin see ‘em now as they measured my feets
to git my shoes. We had doctors to wait on us iffen we got sick and ailing. We wore asafetida to
keep all diseases offen us.
When a nigger man got ready to marry, he go and tell his master that they
was a woman on sech and sech a farm that he’d lak to have. Iffen master give his resent, then he
go and ask her master and iffen ye say yes, well, they jest jump the broomstick. Mens could jest see
their wives on Sadday nite.
They laid peoples ‘cross barrels and whupped ‘em wid bull whips till
the blood come. They’d half feed ‘em and niggers’d steal food and cook all night. The things
we was forced to do then the whites is doing of their own free will now. You gotta reap jest what
you sow ‘cause the Good Book says it.
They used to bid niggers off and then load ‘em on wagons and take ‘em
to cotton farms to work. I never see no cotton till I come heah. Peoples make big miration
Bout girls having babies at 11 years old. And you better have them
whitefolks some babies iffen you didn’t wanta be sold. Though a funny thing to me is, iffen a
nigger woman had a baby on the boat on the way to the cotton farms, they throwed it in the river.
Taking ‘em to them cotton farms is jest the reason niggers is so plentiful in the South today.
I ain’t got no education a’tall. In dem days you better not be caught
with a newspaper, else you got a beating and your back almost cut off. When niggers got free,
whitefolks killed ‘em by the carload, ‘cause they said it was a nigger uprising. I used to lay
on the flo’ with the whitefolks and hear ‘em pass. Them patrollers roved trying to ketch niggers
without passes to whup ‘em. They was sometimes called bush whackers.
We went to white folks’ church. I was a great big girl before we went
to cullud church. We’d stay out and play while they worshipped. We jest played marbles – girls,
white chillun and all.
The Yankees come tho’ and took all the meat and everything they could
find. They took horses, food and all. Mammy cooked their vittles. One come in our cabin and took a
sack of dried fruit which my mammy’s shoes on the top. I tried to make ‘em leave mammy’s shoes
too but he didn’t.
I stayed in the house with the whitefolks till I was 19. They lak to kept
me in there too long. That’s why I’m selfish as I am. Whithin three weeks after I was out of the
house, I married William Douglass. Whitefolks now don’t want you to tech ‘em, and I slept with
white chillun till I was 19. You kin cook for ‘em and put your hands in their vittles and they
don’t say nothing, but jest you tech one!
We stayed on, on the place, three for four years and it was right then
mammy gave us our pappy’s name. We moved from the place to one three or four miles from our
master’s place, and mammy cooked there a long time.
Abraham Lincoln gits to much praise. I say, shucks, give God the praise.
Lincoln come tho’ Gallitan, Tennessee and stopped at Hotel Travern with his wife. They was
dressed just lak tramps and nobody knowed it was him and his wife till he got to the White House and
writ back and told ‘em to look ‘twixt the leaves in the table where he had set and they sho’
nuff found out it was him.
I never mentions Jeff Davis. He ain’t wuff it.
Booker T. Washington was all right in his place. He come here and told
theses whitefolks jest what he thought, Course he wouldn’t have done that way down South. I
declare to God he sho’ told ‘em enough. They toted him ‘round on their hands. No Jim Crow
there then.
I jined the church ‘cause I had religion around 60 years ago. People
oughta be religious sho’; what for they wanta live in sin and die and go to the Bad Man. To git to
Heaven, you sho’ ought to work some. I want a resting place somewhar, ‘cause I ain’t got none
here. I am a member of Tabernacle Baptist Church, and I help build the first church in Oklahoma
City.
I got three boys and three girls. I don’t know none’s age. I give
‘em the best education I could.
Contributed by M. Dawson, May 2002
