Slave Narratives of Peggy Sloan, Evan Warrior & Cora Weathers

Peggy Sloan | Evans Warrior | Cora Weathers

Sloan, Peggy

2450 Howard Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age About 80, or more Occupation Farming

"I was born in Arkansas in Tulip, in Dallas County I think it is, isn't it?

"Charlotte Evans was mother's name and my father's name was Lige Evans. Gran'daddy David was my mother's father, and Cheyney was my mother's mother.

"Mr. Johnnie Summer was the name of my young master, and the old man was Mr. Judge Summer. The old people are all dead now. Mr. Judge Sumner was Johnnie Sumner's father. Me and Mr. Johnnie suckled together. Mr. Johnnie came to Fordyce they say looking for the old slaves. I didn't know about it then. I never would know him now. That is been so long ago. I sure would like to see 'im.

"My mother ain't told me much about herself in slave times. She was a nurse. She lived in a log cabin. You know they had cabins for all of them. The colored lived in log houses. The white people had good houses. Them houses was warmer than these what they got now.

"My grandma could cut a man's frock-tail coat. These young people don't know nothin' 'bout that. Grandma was a milliner. She could make anything you used a needle to make.

"Lige Evans was the name my father took after the surrender. He wasn't named that before the surrender---in the olden times. My mother had fifteen children. She was the largest woman you ever seen.She weighed four hundred pound. She was young Master Johnnie's nurse. Mr. Johnnie said he wanted to come and see me. I heard he lives way on the other side of Argenta somewheres

"I was my mama's seventh girl, and I got a seventh girl living. I had fifteen children. My mother's children were all born before the surrender.

"Mr. Judge Sumner and his son were both good men. They never whipped their slaves.

"They didn't feed like they do now. I et corn bread then, and I eat it now. Some people say they don't. They would give them biscuits on Sundays. They had a cook to cook for the hands. She got all their meals for them.

"They had a woman to look after the little colored children, and they had one to look after the white children. My mother was a nurse for the white children. My mother didn't have nothing to do with the colored children.

"I didn't never have no trouble with the pateroles. Sometimes they would come down the lane running the horses. When I would hear them, I would run and git under the bed. I was the scaredest sould you ever seen. I think that's about all I can remember.

"I was the mother of fifteen children. I had one set of twins, a boy and a girl. The doctor told me you never raise a boy and a girl twin. My boy is dead. All of my children are dead but two.

"I was raised on the farm. I want a few acres of ground now so bad.

"I never was married but once. My husband's name was David Sloan. I don't know exactly how long he and me were married. It was way over twenty years. My license got burnt up.

"You know I couldn't be nothin' but a Christian."

Interviewer's Comment
Peggy Sloan's memory is going. She is not certain of the number of children her mother had although she knows there were more than seven because she was the seventh.

She remembers nothing about her age, but she knows definitely that all of her mother's children were born before the War---that is before the end of the War. Since the War ended seventy-three years ago and she was the seventh child with possibly seven behind her, I feel that she could not be younger than eighty. She remembers definitely running at the approach of men she calls pateroles during "slavery time."

Her mind may be fading, but it is a long way from gone. She questioned me closely about my reason for getting statements from her. She had to be definitely satisfied before the story could be gotten.

Warrior, Evans

609 K. 23rd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 80
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden

"I was born here in Arkansas in Dallas County. I don't know zackly what year but I was bout five when they drove us to Texas. Stayed there three years till the war ceasted.

"Old master's name was Nat Smith. He was good to me. I was big enough to plow same year the war ceasted.

"Yankees come through Texas after peace was 'clared. They'd come by and ask my mother for bread. She was the cook.

"We left Arkansas 'fore the war got busy. Everything was pretty regged after we got back. White folks was here but colored folks was seattered. My folks come back and went to their native home in Dallas County.

"Never did nothin' but farm work. Worked on the shares till I got able to rent. Paid five or six dollars a acre. Made some money.

"I heared of the Ku Klux. Some of em come through the Clemmons place and put notice on the doors. Say VACATE. All the women folks got in one house. Then the boss man come down and say there wasn't nothin' to it. Boss man didn't want em there.

"I went to school a little. Kep' me in the field all the time. Didn't get fur enuf to read and write.

"Yes'm, I voted. Voted the Republican ticket. That's what they give me to vote. I couldn't read so I'd tell em who I wanted to vote for and they'd put it down. Some of my friends was justice of the peace and constables.

"I been in Pine Bluff bout four years -- till I got disabled to work.

"I been married five times. All dead but two. Don't know how many chillun we had -- have to go back and study over it.

"Some of the younger generation is out of reason. Ain't strict on chillun now like the old folks was."

Weathers, Cora

818 Chester Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 79
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor

"I have been right on this spot for sixty-three years. I married when I was sixteen and he brought me here and put me down and I have been here ever since. No, I don't mean he deserted me; I mean he put me on this spot of ground. Of course, I have been away on a visit but I haven't been nowheres else to live.

"When I came here, there was only three houses--George Winstead lived on Chester and Eighth Street; Dave Davis lived on Ninth and Ringo; and George Cray lived on Chester and Eighth. Rena Lee lived next to where old man Paterson stays now, 906 Chester. Rena Thompson lived on Chester and Tenth. The old people that used to live here is mostly dead or moved up North.

"On Seventh and Ringo there was a little store. It was the only store this side of Main Street. There was a little old house where Coffin's Drug Store is now. The branch ran across there. Old man John Peyton had a nursery in a little log house. You couldn't see it for the trees. He kept a nursery for flowers. On the next corner, old man Sinclair lived. That is the southeast corner of Ninth and Broadway. Next to him was the Hall of the Sons of Ham.

"That was the first place I went to school. Lottie Stephens, Robert Lacy, and Gus Richmond were the teacher. Hollins was the principal. That was in the Sons of Ham's Hall.

"I was born in Dallas County, Arkansas. It must have been 'long 'bout in eighty-fifty-nine, 'cause I was sixteen years old when I come here and I been here sixty-three years.

"During the War, I was quite small. My mother brought me here after the War and I went to school for a while. Mother had a large family. So I never got to go to school but three months at a time and only got one dollar and twenty-five cents a week wages when I was working. My father drove a wagon and hoed cotton. Mother kept house. She had--lerme see--one, two, three, four--eight of us, but the youngest brother was born here.

"My mother's name was Millie Stokes. My mother's name before she was married was--I don't know what. My father's name was Williem Stokes. My father said he was born in Maryland. I met Richard Weethers here and married him sixty-three years ago. I had six children, three girls and three boys. Children make you smart and industrious--make you think and make you get about.

"I've heard talk of the pateroles; they used to whip the slaves that was out without passes, but none of them never bothered us. I don't remember anything myself, because I was too small. I heard of the Ku Klux too; they never bothered my people none. They scared the niggers at night. I never saw none of them. I can't remember how freedom came. First I knowed, I was free.

"People in them days didn't know as much as the young people do now. But they thought more. Young people nowadays don't think. Some of them will do pretty well, but some of them ain't goin' to do nothin'. They are gittin' worse and worser. I don't know what is goin' to become of them. They been dependin' on the white folks all along, but the white folks ain't sayin' much now. My people don't seem to want nothin'.

The majority of them just want to dress and run up play cards and policy and drink and dance. It is but there is something else to be thought of. But thin', the rest tries to pull him down. The more worse they are--that is, some of them."