Malindy Maxwell
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Malindy Maxwell, Madison, Arkansas
Age: Up in 80's
"I was born close to Como and Sardis, Mississippi. My master and
mistress was Sam Shans and Miss Cornelia Shans. I was born a slave. They
owned mama and Master Rube Sanders owned pa. Neither owner wouldn't sell
but they agreed to let ma and pa marry. They had a white preacher and
they married out in the yard and had a big table full of weddin' supper,
and the white folks et in the house. They had a big supper too. Ma said
they had a big crowd. The preacher read the ceremony. Miss Cornelia give
her a white dress and white shoes and Miss Cloe Wilburn give her a veil.
Miss Cloe was some connection of Rube Sanders.
"They had seven children. I'm the oldest--three of us living.
"After 'mancipation pa went to see about marrying ma over agen and they
told him that marriage would stand long as ever he lived.
"Mama was sold at twelve years old in Atlanta, Georgia. Ma and pa was
always field hands. Grandma got to be one of John Sanders' leading hands
to work mong the women folks. They said John Sanders was meanest man
ever lived or died. According to pa's saying, Mars Ruben was a good
sorter man. Pa said John Sanders was too mean a man to have a wife. He
was mean to Miss Sarah. They said he beat her, his wife, like he beat a
nigger woman.
"Miss Sarah say, 'Come get your rations early Saturday morning, clean up
your house, wash and iron, and we'll go to preaching tomorrow--Sunday. I
want you to all come out clean Monday morning.' They go ask Mars John
Sanders if they could go to preaching. I recken from what they said they
walked. Mars John, when they git their best clothes on, make them turn
round and go to the field and work all day long. He was just that mean.
Work all day long Sunday.
"Miss Sarah was a Primitive Baptist and that is what I am till this day.
Some folks call us Hardshell Baptist. The colored folks set in the back
of the church. The women all set on one side and the men on the other.
If they had a middle row, there was a railing dividing mens' seats from
the womens' seats on the very same benches.
"Miss Cloe, Miss Cornelia, and Miss Sarah cook up a whole lot of good
things to eat and go to camp meeting. Sometimes they would stay a week
and longer. They would take time bout letting the colored folks go long.
We had big times. My grandpa took a gingercake cutter with him and sold
gingercakes when they come out of the church. He could keep that money
his own. I don't know how he sold them. My sister has the cutter now I
expect. My girl has seen it. It was a foot long, this wide (5 inches),
and fluted all around the edges, and had a handle like a biscuit cutter.
They was about an inch thick. He made good ones and he sold all he could
ever make. Grandpa took carpet sacks to carry his gingercakes in to sell
them. I remember that mighty well. (The shape of the cutter was like
meetings. Folks got happy and shouted in them days. It would be when
somebody got religion. At some big meetings they didn't shout.
"When I was born they had a white mid-wife, Miss Martin. My mistress was
in the cabin when I was born. I was born foot foremost and had a veil on
my face and down on my body a piece. They call it a 'caul.' Sometimes I
see forms and they vanish. I can see some out of one eye now. But I've
always seen things when my sight was good. It is like when you are
dreaming at night but I see them at times that plain in day.
"I don't know how old I am but I was a good size girl when 'mancipation
come on. Miss Cornelia had my age in her Bible. They done took me from
the cabin and I was staying at the house. I slept on a trundle bed under
Miss Cornelia's bed. Her bed was a teaster--way high up, had a big stool
to step on to go up in there and she had it curtained off. I had a good
cotton bed and I slept good up under there. Her bed was corded with sea
grass rope. It didn't have no slats like beds do now.
"Colored folks slept on cotton beds and white folks--some of em at
least--picked geese and made feather beds and down pillows. They carded
and washed sheep's wool and put in their quilts. Some of them, they'd be
light and warm. Colored folks' bed had one leg. Then it was holes hewed
in the wall on the other three sides and wooden slats across it. Now
that wasn't no bad bed. Some of them was big enough for three to sleep
on good. When the children was small four could sleep easy cross ways,
and they slept that way.
"They had shelves and tables and chairs. They made chests and put things
in there and set on top of it too. White folks had fine chests to keep
their bed clothes in. Some of them was made of oak, and pine, and
cypress. They would cook walnut hulls and bark and paint them dark with
the tea.
"I recollect a right smart of the Civil War. We was close nough to hear
the roar and ramble and the big cannons shake the things in the house. I
don't know where they was fighting--a long ways off I guess.
"I saw the soldiers scouting. They come most any time. They go in and
take every drop of milk out of the churn. They took anything they could
find and went away with it. I seen the cavalry come through. I thought
they looked so pretty. Their canteens was shining in the sun. Miss
Cornelia told me to hide, the soldiers might take me on with them. I
didn't want to go. I was very well pleased there at Miss Cornelia's.
"I seen the cavalry come through that raised the 'white sheet.' I know
now it must have been a white flag but they called it a white sheet to
quit fighting. It was raised a short time after they passed and they
said they was the ones raised it. I don't know where it was. I reckon it
was a big white flag they rared up. It was so they would stop fighting.
"Mars Sam Shan didn't go to no war; he hid out. He said it was a useless
war, he wasn't going to get shot up for no use a tall, and he never went
a step. He hid out. I don't know where. I know Charles would take the
baskets off. Charles tended to the stock and the carriage. He drove the
wagon and carriage. He fetched water and wood. He was a black boy. Mars
Sam Shan said he wasn't goiner loose his life for nothing.
"Miss Cornelia would cook corn light bread and muffins and anything else
they had to cook. Rations got down mighty scarce before it was done wid.
They put the big round basket nearly big as a split cotton basket out on
the back portico. Charles come and disappear with it.
"Chess and Charles was colored overseers. He didn't have white
overseers. Miss Cornelia and Miss Cloe would walk the floor and cry and
I would walk between. I would cry feeling sorry for them, but I didn't
know why they cried so much. I know now it was squally times. War is
horrible.
"Mars Sam Shan come home, went down to the cabins--they was scattered
over the fields--and told them the War was over, they was free but that
they could stay. Then come some runners, white men. They was Yankee men.
I know that now. They say you must get pay or go off. We stayed that
year. Another man went to pa and said he would give him half of what he
made. He got us all up and we went to Pleasant Hill. We done tolerable
well.
"Then he tried to buy a house and five acres and got beat out of it. The
minor heirs come and took it. I never learnt in books till I went to
school. Seem like things was in a confusion after I got big nough for
that. I'd sweep and rake and cook and wash the dishes, card, spin, hoe,
scour the floors and tables. I would knit at night heap of times. We'd
sing some at night.
"Colored folks couldn't read so they couldn't sing at church lessen they
learnt the songs by hearing them at home. Colored folks would meet and
sing and pray and preach at the cabins.
"My first teacher was a white man, Mr. Babe Willroy. I went to him
several short sessions and on rainy days and cold days I couldn't work
in the field. I worked in the field all my life. Cook out in the winter,
back to the field in the spring till fall again.
"Well, I jes' had this one girl. I carried her along with me. She would
play round and then she was a heap of help. She is mighty good to me
now.
"I never seen a Ku Klux in my life. Now, I couldn't tell you about them.
"My parents' names was Lou Sanders and Anthony Sanders. Ma's mother was
a Rockmore and her husband was a Cherokee Indian. I recollect them well.
He was a free man and was fixing to buy her freedom. Her young mistress
married Mr. Joe Bues and she heired her. Mr. Joe Bues drunk her up and
they come and got her and took her off. They run her to Memphis before
his wife could write to her pa. He was Mars Rockmore.
"Grandma was put on a block and sold fore grandpa could cumerlate nough
cash to buy her for his wife. Grandma never seen her ma no more. Grandpa
followed her and Mr. Sam Shans bought her and took her to Mississippi
with a lot more he bought.
"My pa's ma b'long to John Sanders and grandpa b'long to Rube Sanders.
They was brothers. Rube Sanders bought grandpa from Enoch Bobo down in
Mississippi. The Bobo's had a heap of slaves and land. Now, he was the
one that sold gingercakes. He was a blacksmith too. Both my grandpas was
blacksmiths but my Indian grandpa could make wagons, trays, bowls,
shoes, and things out of wood too. Him being a free man made his living
that way. But he never could cumolate enough to buy grandma.
"My other grandma was blacker than I am and grandpa too. When grandpa
died he was carried back to the Bobo graveyard and buried on Enoch
Bobo's place. It was his request all his slaves be brought back and
buried on his land. I went to the burying. I recollect that but ma and
pa had to ask could we go. We all got to go--all who wanted to go. It
was a big crowd. It was John Sanders let us go mean as he was.
"Miss Cornelia had the cistern cleaned out and they packed up their
pretty china dishes and silver in a big flat sorter box. Charles took
them down a ladder to the bottom of the dark cistern and put dirt over
it all and then scattered some old rubbish round, took the ladder out.
The Yankees never much as peared to see that old open cistern. I don't
know if they buried money or not. They packed up a lot of nice things.
It wasn't touched till after the War was over.
"I been farming and cooking all my life. I worked for Major Black, Mr.
Ben Tolbert, Mr. Williams at Pleasant Hill, Mississippi. I married and
long time after come to Arkansas. They said you could raise stock
here--no fence law.
"I get $8 and commodities because I am blind. I live with my daughter
here."
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Nellie Maxwell
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Caroline Matthews
