The Slave Narrative Collection
An OKGenWeb Special Project
Cornelius Neely Nave
Cherokee Freedman
Age 70 yrs
Fort Gibson,
Oklahoma
I was born after the War, about 1868, and what I know 'bout slave times is what my pappa told me,
and maybe that not be very much. Two year old when my mamma die so I remember nothing of her, and
most of my sisters and brothers dead too. Pappa named Charley Nave; mamma's name was Mary Vann
before she marry and her papa was Talaka Vann, one of Joe Vann's slave down around Webber's Falls.
My father was born in Tahlequah just about where the colored church stands on Depot Hill. His
master Daniel Nave, was Cherokee. In the master's yard was the slave cabin, one room long, dirt
floor, no windows. I think I hear 'em say mamma was born on Bull Creek; that somewhere up near
Kansas, maybe near Coffeyville.
Vinita was the closest town to where I was born; when I get older seem like they call it
"the junction" on account the rails cross there, but I never ride on the trains just
stay at home.
I remember that home after the war brought my pappa back home. He went to the war for three yers
wid the Union soldiers. But about the home--it was a double-room log house with a cooling-off
space between the rooms, all covered with a roof, but no porch, and the beds was made of planks,
the table of pine boards, and there was never enough boxes for the chairs so the littlest children
eat out of a tin pan off the floor.
That house was on the place my papa said he bough from Billly Jones in 1895. The land was timbered
and the oldest children clear the land, or start to do the work while Pappa go back to Tahlequah
to get my sick mamma and the rest of the family. Because mamma was sick then he brought her sister
Sucky Pea and her husband, Charley Pea, to help around wid him.
We lived there a long time, and I was old enough to remember setting in the yard watching the
river (Grand River) go by, and the Indians go by. All Indians lived around there, the real colored
settlement was four mile from us, and I wasn't scared of them Indians for pappa always told me his
master Henry Nave, was his own father; that make me part Indian and the reason my hair is long,
straight and black like a horse mane.
Some of the Indian families was Joe Dirt Eater, Six Killer (some of the Six Killers live a few
miles SE of Afton at this time, 1938), Chewey Noi, and Gus Buffington. One of the Six Killer women
was mighty good to us and we called her "mammy", that a long time after my mammy die
though.
Pappa got the soldier fever from being in the War; no, I don't mean like the chills and fever, but
just a fever to be in the army, I guess for he joined the regular U.S. Army after a while, serving
five years in the 10th Cavalry at Fort Sill during the same time John Adair of Tahelquah and John
Gallagher of Muskogee was in the army.
Coming out of the army for the last time, Pappa took all the family and moved to Fort Scott,
Kansas, but I guess he feel more at home wid the Indians for pretty soon we all move back, this
time to a farm near Fort Gibson.
I never would hear much about the war that my father was in, but I know he fought for the North.
He didn't tell us children much about the War, except he said one time that he was in the Battle
of Honey Springs in 1863 down near Elk Creek south of Fort Gibson. That sure was a tough time for
the soldiers, for father said they fought and fought before the "Seesesh" soldiers
finally took off to the south and the northern troops went back to Fort Gibson. Seem like it take
a powerful lot of fighting to rid the country of them Rebs.
Another time his officer give him a message; he was on his way to deliver it when the enemy spy
him and cry out to s top, but father said he kept on going until he was shot in the leg. Then he
hide in the bushes along the creek and got away. He got that message to the captain just the same.
When father was young he would go hunting the fox with his master, and fishing in the streams for
the big fish. Sometimes they fish in the Illinois river, sometimes in the Grand, but they always
fish the same way. They make pens out in the shallow water with poles every little ways from the
river banks. They'd cut brush saplings, walk out into the stream ahead of the pen and chase the
fish down to the riffle where they'd pick em up. Once they catch a cattish most as big as a man;
that fish had eggs big as hen eggs, and he made a feast for twenty-five Indians on the fishing
party.
Florence Smith was my first wife and Ida Vann the second. All my children was from the first
marriage: Thomas, Dora, Charley, Marie, Opal, William, Arthur, Margaret, Thadral and Hubbard. The
last one was named for Hubbard Ross; he was related to Chief John Ross and was some kin to Daniel
Nave, my father's master.
