Morris, Emma

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Emma Morris, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 71


"My parents was Jane and Sam McCaslin. They come from close to Atlanta, Georgia to Hernando, Mississippi after slavery. Ma was heired and they bought pa before they left North Carolina. They bought pa out of a nigger drove after he was grown. He raised tobacco and corn. Pa helped farm and they raised hogs. He drove hogs to sell. He didn't say where they took the hogs, only they would have to stay up all night driving the hogs, and they rode horses and walked too and had shepherd dogs to keep them in a drove.

"Pa was a Böwick (B(our)ick) but I never heard him say nothing bout Master Bowick, so I don't know his other name. He said they got in a tight [TR: missing word?] and had to sell some of the slaves and he being young would bring more than one of the older men. He was real black. Ma was lighter but not very light.

"McCaslin was a low heavy set man and he rented out hacks and horses in Atlanta and pa drove, greased the harness and curried and sheared the horses. Master McCaslin brought them in town and rented them out. He didn't have a livery stable. He just furnished conveyances. I heard him tell about a good hitching post where he could more than apt rent out his rig and how he always stopped and fed the horses when eating time come. He took a feed box all the time. Master McCaslin would tell him to not drive too hard when he had to make long drives. He never would let him take a whoop.

"He had some girls I heard him say. May and Alice was their names. He didn't say much about the family. He took a basket of provision with him to eat Miss May and Miss Alice fixed up. The basket was close wove and had a lid. The old man farmed. He drove too. He drove a hack. Ma worked in the field. I heard her tell about the cockleburs. Well, she said they would stick on your dress and stick your legs and you would have to pick them off and sometimes the beggar's-lice would be thick on their clothes and they would pick them off.

"When they would clean out the fence corners (rail fence) they would leave every little wild plum tree and leave a whole lot of briers so they would have wild plums and berries. They raised cotton. Sometime during the War old Master McCaslin took all his slaves and stock way back in the bottoms. The cane was big as ma's wrist she said. They put up some cabins to live in and shelter the stock. Pa said some of em went in the army. He didn't want to go. They worked a corn crop over in there.

"They left soon as they was freed. I don't know how they found it out. They walked to way over in Alabama and pa made terms with a man, to come to Mississippi. Then they come in a wagon and walked too. She had three little children. I was [HW: born] close to Montgomery, Alabama in September but I don't know how long it was after the War. I was the first girl. There was two more boys and three more girls after me. Ma had children born in three states.

"Ma died with the typhoid fever. Then two sisters and a brother died. Pa had it all summer and he got well. Miss (Mrs.) Betty Chamlin took us children to a house and fed us away from ma and the sick girls and boy. We was on her place. She had two families then. We got water from a spring. It was a pretty spring under a big hill. We would wade where the spring run off. She moved us out of that house.

"Miss Betty was a widow. She had several boys. They worked in the field all the time. We stayed till the boys left and she sold her place. She went back to her folks. I never did see her no more. We scattered out. Pa lived about wid us till he died. I got three girls living. I got five children dead. I got one girl out here from town and one girl at Meridian and my oldest girl in Memphis. I takes it time around wid em.

"I seen the Ku Klux but they never bothered us. I seen them in Alabama, I recken it was. I was so small I jes' do remember seeing them. I was the onliest child born in Alabama. Pa made one crop. I don't know how they got along the rest of the time there. We started share cropping in Mississippi. Pa was always a good hand with stock. If they got sick they sent for him to tell them what to do. He never owned no land, no home neither.

"I farmed all my life. I used to make a little money along during the year washing and ironing. I don't get no help. I live with the girls. My girl in Memphis sends me a little change to buy my snuff and little things I have to have. She cooks for a lawyer now. She did take care of an lady. She died since I been here and she moved. I rather work in the field than do what she done when that old lady lived. She was like a baby to tend to. She had to stay in that house all the time.

"The young folks don't learn manners now like they used to. Times is better than I ever seen em. Poor folks have a hard time any time. Some folks got a lot and some ain't got nothing everywhere."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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