Betty Robertson
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writer's Project
Ex-Slaves
BETTY ROBERTSON
Age 93 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma
I was born close to Webber's Falls, in the Canadian District of the
Cherokee Nation, in the same year that my pappy was blowed up and
killed in the big boat accident that killed my old Master.
I never did see my daddy excepting when I was a baby and I only know
what my mammy told me about him. He come from across the water when he
was a little boy, and was grown when old Master Joseph Vann bought
him, so he never did learn to talk much Cherokee. My mammy was a
Cherokee slave, and talked it good. My husband was a Cherokee born
negro, too, and when he got mad he forgit all the English he knowed.
Old Master Joe had a mighty big farm and several families of negroes,
and he was a powerful rich man. Pappy's name was Kalet Vann, and
mammy's name was Sally. My brothers was name Sone and Frank. I had one
brother and one sister sold when I was little and I don't remember the
names. My other sisters was Polly, Ruth and Liddie. I had to work in
the kitchen when I was a gal, and they was ten or twelve children
smaller than me for me to look after, too. Sometime Young Master Joe
and the other boys give me a piece of money and say I worked for it,
and I reckon I did for I have to cook five or six times a day. Some of
the Master's family was always going down to the river and back, and
every time they come in I have to fix something to eat. Old Mistress
had a good cookin' stove, but most Cherokees had only a big fireplace
and pot hooks. We had meat, bread, rice, potatoes and plenty of fish
and chicken. The spring time give us plenty of green corn and beans
too. I couldn't buy anything in slavery time, so I jest give the piece
of money to the Vann children. I got all the clothes I need from old
Mistress, and in winter I had high top shoes with brass caps on the
toe. In the summer I wear them on Sunday, too. I wore loom cloth
clothes, dyed in copperas what the old negro women and the old
Cherokee women made.
The slaves had a pretty easy time I think. Young Master Vann never
very hard on us and he never whupped us, and old Mistress was a widow
woman and a good Christian and always kind. I sure did love her. Maybe
old Master Joe Vann was harder, I don't know, but that was before my
time. Young Master never whip his slaves, but if they don't mind good
he sell them off sometimes. He sold one of my brothers and one sister
because they kept running off. They wasn't very big either, but one
day two Cherokees rode up and talked a long time, then young Master
came to the cabin and said they were sold because mammy couldn't make
them mind him. They got on the horses behind the men and went off.
Old Master Joe had a big steam boat he called the Lucy Walker, and he
run it up and down the Arkansas and the Mississippi and the Ohio
river, old Mistress say. He went clean to Louisville, Kentucky, and
back. My pappy was a kind of a boss of the negroes that run the boat,
and they all belong to old Master Joe. Some had been in a big run-away
and had been brung back, and wasn't so good, so he keep them on the
boat all the time mostly. Mistress say old Master and my pappy on the
boat somewhere close to Louisville and the boiler bust and tear the
boat up. Some niggers say my pappy kept hollering, "Run it to the
bank! Run it to the bank!" but it sunk and him and old Master died.
Old Master Joe was a big man in the Cherokees, I hear, and was good to
his negroes before I was born. My pappy run away one time, four or
five years before I was born, mammy tell me, and at that time a whole
lot of Cherokee slaves run off at once. They got over in the Creek
country and stood off the Cherokee officers that went to git them,
but pretty soon they give up and come home. Mammy say they was lots of
excitement on old Master's place and all the negroes mighty scared,
but he didn't sell my pappy off. He jest kept him and he was a good
negro after that. He had to work on the boat, though, and never got to
come home but once in a long while.
Young Master Joe let us have singing and be baptized if we want to,
but I wasn't baptized till after the War. But we couldn't learn to
read or have a book, and the Cherokee folks was afraid to tell us
about the letters and figgers because they have a law you go to jail
and a big fine if you show a slave about the letters.
When the War come they have a big battle away west of us, but I never
see any battles. Lots of soldiers around all the time though.
One day young Master come to the cabins and say we all free and can't
stay there less'n we want to go on working for him just like we'd
been, for our feed and clothes. Mammy got a wagon and we traveled
around a few days and go to Fort Gibson. When we git to Fort Gibson
they was a lot of negroes there, and they had a camp meeting and I was
baptized. It was in the Grand River close to the ford, and winter
time. Snow on the ground and the water was muddy and all full of
pieces of ice. The place was all woods, and the Cherokees and the
soldiers all come down to see the baptizing.
We settled down a little ways above Fort Gibson. Mammy had the wagon
and two oxen, and we worked a good size patch there until she died,
and then I git married to Cal Robertson to have somebody to take care
of me. Cal Robertson was eighty-nine years old when I married him
forty years ago, right on this porch. I had on my old clothes for the
wedding, and I aint had any good clothes since I was a little slave
girl. Then I had clean warm clothes and I had to keep them clean, too!
I got my allotment as a Cherokee Freedman, and so did Cal, but we
lived here at this place because we was too old to work the land
ourselves. In slavery time the Cherokee negroes do like anybody else
when they is a death--jest listen to a chapter in the Bible and all
cry. We had a good song I remember. It was "Don't Call the Roll,
Jesus, Because I'm Coming Home." The only song I remember from the
soldiers was: "Hang Jeff Davis to a Sour Apple Tree", and I remember
that because they said he used to be at Fort Gibson one time. I don't
know what he done after that.
I don't know about Robert Lee, but I know about Lee's Creek.
I been a good Christian ever since I was baptized, but I keep a little
charm here on my neck anyways, to keep me from having the nose bleed.
Its got a buckeye and a lead bullet in it. I had a silver dime on it,
too, for a long time, but I took it off and got me a box of snuff. I'm
glad the War's over and I am free to meet God like anybody else, and
my grandchildren can learn to read and write.
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