The Slave Narrative Collection
An OKGenWeb Special Project
Mary Lindsay
Chickasaw Freedwoman
Tulsa,
Oklahoma
My slavery days wasn't like most people tell you about,
'casue I was give
to my young Mistress and sent away to Texas when I was jest a little girl, and I didn't live on a
big plantation a very long time.
I got an old family Bible what say I was born on September 20, in 1846, but I don't know who put
de writing in it unless it was my mammy's mistress. My mammy had de book when she die.
My mammy come out to the Indian country from Mississippi two years before I was born. She was the
slaves of a Chickasaw part-breed name Sobe Love. He was the kinfolks of Mr. Benjamin Love, and Mr.
Henry Love what bring two big bunches of the Chicasaws out from Mississippi to the Choctaw country
when the Chickasaws sign up de treaty to leave Mississippi, and the whole Love family settle
'round on the Red River below Fort Washita. There whar I was born.
My mammy say de have a terrible hard time again the sickness when they first come out into that
country, because it was low and swampy and all full of cane brakes, and everybody have the small
pox and the malaria and fever all the time. Lots of the Chickasaw families nearly died off.
Old Sobe Love marry her off to a slave named William, what belong to a full-blood Chickasaw man
name Chic-a-lathe, and I was one of de children.
De children belong to the owner of the mother, and me and my brother
Frianklin, what we called
"Bruner" was born under the name of Love and then old Master Sobe brought my pappy
William, and we was all Love slaves then. My mammy had two more girls, name Hetty and Rena.
My mammy name was Mary, and I was named after her. Old Mistress' name was Lottie, and they had a
daughter name Mary. Old Master Sobe was powerful rich and he had about a hundred slaves and four
or five big pieces of that bottom land broke out for farms. He had negroes all on the places but
he didn't have no overseers, jest his self and he went around and seen that everybody behave and do
they work right.
Old Master Sobe was a mighty big man in the tribe, and so was all his kinfolks, and they went to
Fort Washita and to Boggy Depot all the time on business, and leave the Negroes to look after old
Mistress and the young daughter. She was almost grown along about that time, when I can first
remember about things.
'Cause my name was Mary, and so was my mammy's and my young Mistress, too, Old Master called me
Mary-Ka-Chubbee to show which Mary he was talking about.
Miss Mary have a black woman name Vici what wait on her all the time, and do the carding and
spinning and cooking 'round the house, and Vici belong to Miss Mary. I never did go round the Big
House, but jest stayed in the quarters with my mammy and pappy and helped in the field a little.
Then one day Miss Mary run off with a man and married him, and old Master Sobe
nearly went crazy!
The man was name Bill Merrick, and he was a poor blacksmith and didn't have two pair of britches
to his name, and no other reason. 'Cause he was a white man and she was mostly Chickasaw Indian.
Anyways, old Master Sobe wouldn't even speak to Mr. Bill, and wouldn't let him set foot on the
place. He jest reared and pitched around, and threatened to shoot him if he set eyes on him, and
Mr. Bill took Miss Mary and left out for Texas. He set up a blacksmith shop on the big road
between Bonham and Honey Grove, and lived there until he died.
Miss Mary done took Vici along with her, and pretty soon she come back home and stay a while, and
old Master Sobe, kind of soften up a little bit and give her some money to git started on, and he
give he me, too.
Dat jest nearly broke my old mammy's heart and pappy's heart, to have me took away off from them,
but they couldn't say nothing and I had to go along with Miss Mary back to Texas. When we git away
from the Big House I jest cried and cried until I couldn't hardly see, my eyes was so swole up,
but Miss Mary said she gwine to be good to me.
I ask her how come Master Sobe didn't give her some of the grown boys and she say she reckon it
because he didn't want to help her husband out none, but jest wanted to help her. If he give her a
man her husband have him working in the blacksmith shop, she reckon.
Master Bill Merrick was a hard worker, and he was more sober tha most the men in them days, and he
never tell me to do nothing. He jest let Miss Mary tell me what to do. They have a log house close
to the shop, and a little patch of a field at first, but after a while he git more land, and then
Miss Mary tell me and Vici we go to help in the field too.
That sho' was hard living then! I have to git up at three o'clock sometimes so I have time to
water the hosses and slop the hogs and feed the chickens and milk the cows, and then git back to
the house and git the breakfast. That was during the times when Miss Mary was having and nursing
her two children, and old Vici had to stay with her all the time. Master Bill never did none of
that kind of work, but he had to be in the shop sometimes, until way late in the night, and
sometimes before daylight, to shoe people's hosses and oxen and fix wagons.
He never did tell me to do that work, but he never done it his own self,
and I had to do it if
anybody do it.
He was the slowest one white man I ever did see. He jest move round like de dead lice fallin off'n
him all the time, and every time he go to say anything he talk so slow that when he way one word
you could walk from here to way over there before he say de next word. He don't look sick, and he
was powerful strong in his arms, but he acts like he don't feel good jest the same.
I remember when the War come. Mostly by the people passing 'long the big road, we heard about it.
First they was a lot of wagons hauling farm stuff into town to sell, and then purty soon they was
soldiers on the wagons, and they was coming out into the country to git the stuff and buying it
right at the place they find it.
Then purty soon they commence to be little bunches of mens in soldier clothes riding up and down
the road going somewhar. They seem like they was mostly young boys like, and they jest laughing
and jollying and goin on like they was on a picnic.
Then the soldiers come round and got a lot of the white
men and took them off to the War even
iffen they didn't want to go. Maste Bill never did want to go, cause he had his wife and two
little children, and anyways he was gitting all the work he could do fixing wagons and shoeing
hosses, with all the traffic on de road at that time. Master Bill had jest two hosses, for him and
his wife to ride and to work to the buggy, and he had one old yoke of oxen and some more cattle.
He got some kind of paper in town and he kept it with him all the time and when the soldiers would
come to git his hosses or his cattle he would jest draw that paper on em and they let em' alone.
By and by the people got so thick on the big road that they was somebody in sight all the time.
They jest keep a dust kicked up all day and all night cepting when it rain, and they git all
bogged down and be strung all up and down the road camping. They kept Master Bill in the shop all
the time, fixing the things they bust trying to git the wagons out'n the mud. They was whole
families of them with they children and they slaves along, and they was coming in from every place
because the Yankees was gitting in their part of the country, they say.
We all git mighty scared about the Yankees, coming but I don't reckon they ever git thar 'cause I
never seen none, and we was right on the big road and we would of seen them. They was a whole lot
more soldiers in them brown looking jeans, round about jackets and cotton britches a faunching up
and down the road on their hosses, though. The hoss soldiers would come b'iling by, going east all
day and night, and then two three days later on they would al come tearing by going west! Dey
acted like dey didn't know whar dey gwine, but reckon dey did.
Den Master Bill git sick. I reckon he more wore out and worried than anything else, but he go down
with de fever one day and it raining so hard Mistree and me and Vici can't neither one go nowhere to git no help.
We puts peach tree poultices on his head and wash him of all the
time, until it quit raining so
Mistress can go out on de road, and then a doctor man come from one of the bunches of soldiers
ands see Master Bill. He say he going be all right and jest keep him quiet, and go on.
Mistress have to tend de children and Vici have to take care of Master Bill and look after the
house, and dat leave me all by myself wid all the rest of everything around the place.
I got to fee all the stock and milk the cows and work in the field too. Dat the first time I ever
try to plow, and I nearly git killed too! I got me a young yoke of oxens I broke to pull the
wagon, cause Vici have to use the old oxens to work the field. I had to take the wagon and go
about ten miles west to a patch of woods Master Bill owned to git fire wood, cause we lived right
on a flat patch of prairie, and I had to chop and haul the wood by myself, I had to git postoak to
burn in the kitchen fireplace and willow for Master Bill to make charcoal out of to burn in his
blacksmith fire.
Well I hitch up them young oxen to the plow and they won't follow the row, and so I go git the old
oxens. One of them old oxens didn't know me and took in after me, and I couldn't hitch em up. And
then it begins to rain again.
After the rain was quit I get the bucket and go milk the cows, and it is time to water the hosses
too, so I starts to the house with the milk and leading one of the hosses. When I gits to the gate
I drops the halter across my arm and hooks the bucket of milk on my arm too, and stats to open the
gate. The wind blow the gate wide open, and it slap the hoss of the flank. That was when I nearly
got killed!
Out the hoss go through the gate to the yard, and down the big road, and my arm all tangled up in
the halter rope and me dragging on the ground!
The first jump knock the wind out of me and I can't git loose, and the hoss drag me down the road
on the run until he meet up with a passel of soldiers and they stop him.
The next thing I knowed I was laying on the back kitchen gallery, and some soldiers was pouring
water on me with a bucket. My arm was broke and I was stove up so bad that I have to lay down for
a whole week, and Mistress and Vici have to do all the work.
Jest as I getting able to walk round here come some soldiers and say they come to git Master Bill
for the War. He still in the bed sick, and so they leave a parole paper for him to stay until he
git well, and then he got to go into Bonham and go with the soldiers to blacksmith for them that
got the cannons, the man said.
Mistress take on and cry and hold onto the man's coat and beg, but it don't do no good. She say
they don't belong to Texas but they belong in the Chickasaw Nation, but he say that don't do no
good, cause they living in Texas now.
Master Bill jest stew and fret so, one night he fever git way up and he go off into a kind of a
sleep and about morning he died.
My broke arm begin to swell up and hurt me, and I git sick with it
again, and Mistress git another
doctor to come look at it.
He say I got bad blood from it how come I git so sick, and he git out his knife out'n his satchel
and bleed me in the other arm. The next day he come back and bleed me again two times, and the
next day one more time, and then I git so sick I puke and he qit bleeding me.
While I still sick Mistress pick up and go off to the Territory to her pappy and leave the
children thar for Vici and me to look after. After while she come home for a day or two and go off
again somewhere else. Then the next time she come home she say they been having big battles in the
Territory and her pappy moved all his stuff down on the river, and she home to stay now.
We git along the best we can for a whole winter, but we nearly starve to death, and then the next
sprig when we getting a little patch planted Mistress go into Bonham and come back and say we all
free and the War over.
She say "You and Vici jest as free as I am, and a lot
freer I reckon, and they say I got to
pay you if your work for me, but I ain't got no money to pay you. If you stay on with me and help
me I will feed and home you and I can weave you some good dresses if you card and spin the cotton
and wool." Well I stayed on, cause I didn't have no place to go, and I carded and spinned the
cotton and wool, and she make me just one dress. Vici didn't do nothing but jest wait on the
children and Mistress.
Mistress go off again about a week, and when she come back I see she got some money but she din't
give us any of it.
After a while I asked her ain't she got some money for me, and she say no, ain't she giving me a
good home? Den I starts to feeling like I ain't treated right.
Every evening I git done with the work and go out in the back yard and jest stand and look off to
the west towards Bonham, and wish I was at that place or some other place.
Den along come a negro boy and say he working for a family in Bonham, an he git a dollar every
week. He say Mistress got some kinfolks in Bonham and some of Master Sobe Love's negroes living
close to there.
So one night I jest put the new dress in a bundle and set foot right down the big road a-walking
west, and don't say nothing to nobody !
It's ten miles into Bonham, and I gits in town about daylight. I keeps on being afraid, cause I
can't git it out my mind I still belong to Mistress.
Purty soon some negroes tell me a negro name Bruner Love living down west of Greenville, and I
know that my brother Franklin, cause we all call him Bruner. I don't remember how all I gits down
to Greenville, I know I walks most the way, and I finds Bruner. Him and his wife working on a
farm, and he say my sister Hetty and my sister Rena what was little is living with my mammy way
back up on the Red River. My pappy done died in time of the War and I didn't know it.
Bruner take me in a wagon and we went to my mammy and I lived with her until she died and Hetty
married. Then I married a boy name Henry Lindsay. His people was from Georgia, and he lived with
them way west at Cedar Mills, Texas. That was right close to Gordonville, on the Red River.
We live at Cedar Mills until three of my children was born and then we come to the Creek Nation in
1887. The last one was born here.
My oldest is named Georgia on account of her pappy. He was born in Georgia and that was in 1838,
so his whitefolks a got a book that say. My next child was Henry. We called him William Henry,
after my pappy and his pappy. Then come Donie, and after we come here we had Madison, my youngest
boy.
I lives with Henry here on this little place we go tin Tulsa. When we first come here we got some
land for $15 an acre from the Creek Nation, but our papers said we can only stay as long as it is
the Creek Nation. Then in 1901 comes the allotments, and we found out our land belong to a Creek
Indian, and we have to pay him to let us stay on it. After while he makes us move off and we lose
out all around.
But my daughter Donie git a little lot, and we trade it for this place about thirty year ago, when
this town was a little place.
