title="Page 11" id="pgepubid00023"/> Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: William Gant
Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 101

“I was one hundred and one years old last Saturday (1938). I was born in Bedford County, middle Tennessee. My parents’ names was Judy and Abraham Gant. They had the same master. They had three boys and two girls. Our owners was Jim Gant and Elizabeth Gant. Ma had seven children, four gals and three boys. We called her Miss Betsy. Jim Gant owned seven hundred acres of good land in one body and some more land summers else. My young masters and mistresses was: Malindy, Jennie, Betsy, Mary, Jim, John, Andy. They had twenty-five or thirty slaves I knowed. He was pretty good to his slaves. He didn’t whoop much. Give ’em three or four licks. He fed ’em all well. We had warm clothes in winter.

“I never seen nobody sold. My brothers and sisters was divided out. Miss Betsy was my young mistress. I could go to see all my folks. I never seen no hard times in my life. I had to work or be called lazy. I loved to work. I been in the field when the sun come up and got part my ploughing done. Go back to the house and eat and feed my mule, rest around in the shade. Folks didn’t used to dread work so bad like they do now. I lay down and rest in the heat of the day. They had big shade trees for us niggers to rest under, eat under, spring water to drink. I’d plough till smack dark I couldn’t see to get to the barn. We had lighted knots to feed by. The feed be in the troughs and water in the big trough in the lot ready. My supper would be hot too. It would be all I could eat too. Yes, I’d be tired but I could sleep till next morning.

“We had big todoos along over the country. White and black could go sometimes. Picnics and preachings mostly what I went to. Sometimes it was to a house covering, a corn shucking, a corn shelling, or log rolling. We went on hunts at night some.

“Sassy (saucy) Negroes got the most licks. I never was sassy. I never got but a mighty few licks from nobody. We was slaves and that is about all to say.

“I learned to fiddle after the fiddler on the place. Uncle Jim was the fiddler. Andy Jackson, a white boy, raised him. He learned him to read and write in slavery. After slavery I went to learn from a Negro man at night. I learned a little bit. My master wouldn’t cared if we had learned to read and write but the white folks had tuition school. Some had a teacher hired to teach a few of them about. I could learned if I’d had or been ’round somebody knowed something. He read to us some. He read places in his Bible. Anything we have and ask him. We didn’t have books and papers. I loved to play my fiddle, call figures, and tell every one what to do. I didn’t take stock in reading and writing after the War.

“My parents had the name of being a good set of Negroes. She was raised by folks named Morrow and pa by folks named Strahorn. When ma was a little gal the Morrows brought her to Tennessee. My parents both raised in South Carolina by the Morrows and Strahorns. I was twenty years old in the War.

“They had a big battle seven or eight miles from our homes. It started at daylight Sunday morning and lasted till Monday evening. I think it was Bragg and Buel. The North whooped. It was a roar and shake and we could hear the big guns plain. It was in Hardin County close to Savannah, Tennessee. It was times to be scared. We was all distressed.

“My master died, left her a widow.

“We farmed, made thirty or forty acres of wheat, seventy-five acres of oats, some rye. I pulled fodder all day and take it down at night while the dew would keep it in the bundle. Haul it up. We was divided out when the War was on.

“Somebody killed Master Jim Gant. He was murdered in his own house. They never did know who done it. They had two boys at home. One went visiting. They knocked her and the boy senseless. It was at night. They was all knocked in the head.

“Will Strahorn owned my wife. He was tolerable good to his Negroes. Edmond Gant was a black preacher in slavery. He married us. He married us in white folks’ yard. They come out and looked at us marry. I had to ask my master and had to go ask for her then. Our children was to be Strahorn by name. Will would own them ’cause my wife belong to him. My first wife had five girls and three boys. My wife died. I left both my two last wives. I never had no more children but them eight.

“Freedom—my young master come riding up behind us. We was going in dragging our ploughs. He told us it was freedom. The Yankees took everything. We went to Murray County to get my horse. I went off the next day. The Yankees stayed in Lawrence County. The Yankees burnt Tom Greenfield out. Tom and Jim had joining farms. They took everything he had. Took his darkies all but two girls. He left. Jim was good and they never went ’bout him. Jim stayed at home. I went over there. He put me on his brother’s place.

“I come to Arkansas by train. I come to Jackson, Tennessee, then to Forrest City, brought my famlee. My baby child is grown and married.

“The Ku Klux never bothered me. It was a mighty little I ever seen of them.

“I never have had a hard time. I have worked hard. I been ploughing, hoeing, cradling grain, picking cotton all my life. I love to plough and cradle grain. I love to work.

“There is a big difference now and the way I was raised up. They used to be whooped and made mind. They learned how to work. Now the times run away from the people. They used to buy what they couldn’t raise in barrels. Now they buy it in little dabs. I ain’t used to it. White folks do as they pleases and the darkies do as they can. Everybody greedy as he can be it seem like to me. Laziness coming on more and more every year as they grow up. I ain’t got a lazy bone in me. I’m serving and praising my Lord every day, getting ready to go over in the next world.”

JAN 14 1938
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mike Genes
Holly Grove, Ark.
Age: 72

“I heard folks talk is all I know bout slavery. I was born in Arkansas. My mother was Sara Jane Whitley. My father was ____ Genes. My mother came here from Tennessee wid Henderson Sanders. I was raised on the Duncan place. My mother raised us a heap like old times. I got fire tongs now she had. She made ash cakes and we had plenty milk. I got her old pot hooks too. She cooked cracklin’ bread in the winter and black walnut bread the same way. We made palings and boards for the houses and barns. Jes gradually we gittin’ away from all that. Times is changing so fast.

“I heard ’em say in slavery they got ’em up fore day and they worked all day. Some didn’t have much clothes. I can remember three men twisting plow lines. They made plow lines.

“I vote if I have a chance, but I really don’t care bout it. I don’t know how to keep up to vote like it ought to be.

“This young generation may change but if they don’t they air a knock out. They do jes anyway and everyway. They don’t save and cain’t save it look like, way we got things now. Folks don’t raise nothin’ and have to buy so much livin’ is hard. Folks all doin fine long as the cotton is to pick. This is two reconstructions I been through. Folks got used to work after that other one and I guess they have to get used to work this time till it get better. I don’t know what causes this