Robert Farmer
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person Interviewed: Robert Farmer
1612 Battery Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 84
[HW: Tale of a "Nigger Ruler"]
"I was born in North Carolina. I can't tell when. Our names are in the
Bible, and it was burnt up. My old master died and my young master was
to go to the war, the Civil War, in the next draft. I remember that they
said, 'If them others had shot right, I wouldn't have had to go.'
"He talked like they were standing up on a table or something shooting
at the Yankees. Of course it wasn't that way. But he said that they
didn't shoot right and that he would have to do it for them. They all
came back, and none of them had shot right. One sick (he died after he
got home); the other two come back all right.
"When my old master died, the son that drawed me stayed home for a
little while. When he left he said about me, 'Don't let anybody whip him
while I am gone. If they do, I'll bury them when I come back.' He was a
good man and a good master.
Brutal Beating
"There were some that weren't so good. One of his brothers was a real
bad man. They called him a nigger ruler. He used to go from place to
place and handle niggers. He carried his cowhide with him when he went.
My master said, 'A man is a damn fool to have a valuable slave and
butcher him up.' He said, 'If they need a whipping, whip them, but don't
beat them so they can't work.' He never whipped his slaves. No man ever
hit me a lick but my father. No man. I ain't got no scar on me nowhere.
"My young master was named Wiley Grave Sharpe. He drawed me when my old
master, Teed Sharpe, Sr., died. He's been dead a long time. Teed Sharpe,
Jr., Gibb Sharpe, and Sam Sharpe were brothers to Wiley Grave Sharpe.
Teed Sharpe, Jr. was the brutal one. He was the nigger ruler that did
the beating up and the killing of Negroes.
"He beat my brother Peter once till Peter dropped dead. Wiley Graves who
drawed me said, 'My brother shouldn't have done that.' But my brother
didn't belong to Wiley and he couldn't do nothing about it. That was
Teed, Jr.'s name. He got big money and was called a nigger ruler. Teed
had said he was going to make Peter do as much work as my sister did.
She was a young girl--but grown and stout and strong. In the olden time,
you could see women stout and strong like that. They don't grow that way
now. Peter couldn't keep up with her. He wasn't old enough nor strong
enough then. He would be later, but he hadn't reached his growth and my
sister had. Every time that Peter would fall behind my sister, Teed
would take him out and buckle him down to a log with a leather strap and
stand 'way back and then he would lay that long cowhide down, up and
down his back. He would split it open with every stroke and the blood
would run down. The last time he turned Peter loose, Peter went to my
sister and asked her for a rag. She thought he just wanted to wipe the
blood out of his face and eyes, but when she gave it to him, he fell
down dead across the potato ridges.
Family
"Mary Farmer was my mother. William Farmer was my father. I never knowed
any of my father's 'lations except one sister. She would come to see us
sometimes.
"My father's master was Isaac Farmer. My mother didn't 'long to him. She
'longed to the Sharpes. Just what her master's name was I don't
recollect. She lived five miles from my father. He went to see her every
Thursday night. That was his regular night to go. He would go Saturday
night; if he went any other time and the pateroles could catch him, they
would whip him just the same as though he belonged to them. But they
never did whip my father because they never could catch him. He was one
of those who ran.
"My father and mother had ten children. I don't know whether any of them
is living now or not besides myself.
How Freedom Came
"Freedom was a singsong every which way when I knowed anything. My
father's master, Isaac Farmer, had a big farm and a whole world of land.
He told the slaves all of them were free. He told his brother's slaves,
'After you have made this crop, bring your wives and children here
because I am able to take care of them.' He had a smokehouse full of
meat and other things. He told my father that after this crop is
gathered, to fetch his wife and children to him (Isaac Farmer), because
Sharpe might not be able to feed and shelter and take care of them all.
So my father brought us to Isaac Farmer's farm.
"I never did anything but devilment the whole second year of freedom. I
was large enough to take water in the field but I didn't have to do
that. There were so many of them there that one could do what he
pleased. The next year I worked because they had thinned out. The first
year come during the surrender. They cared for Sharpe's crop. The next
year they took Isaac Farmer's invitation and stayed with him. The third
year many of them went other places, but my father and my mother and
brothers and sisters stayed with Isaac Farmer for awhile.
"As time went on, I farmed with success myself.
"I stayed in North Carolina a long time. I had a wife and children in
North Carolina. Later on, I went to Louisiana and stayed there one year
and made one crop. Then I came here with my wife and children. I don't
know how long I been here. We came up here when the high water was. That
was the biggest high water they had. I worked on the levee and farmed.
The first year we came here, we farmed. I lived out in the country then.
Occupation
"While I was able to work, I stayed on the farm. I had forty acres. But
after my children left me and my wife died, I thought it would be better
to sell out and pay my debts. Pay your honest debts and everything will
be lovely. Now I manages to pay my rent by taking care of this yard and
I get help from the government. I can't read and I can't write.
"I went down yonder to get help from the county. At last they taken me
on and I got groceries three times. After that I couldn't get nothin' no
more. They said my papers were made out incorrectly. I asked the worker
to make it out correctly because I couldn't read and write. She said she
wasn't supposed to do that but she would do it. She made it out for me.
A short time later, the postman brought me a letter. I handed it to a
lady to read for me, and she said, 'This is your old age check.' You
don't know how much help that thing's been to me.
Ku Klux
"The Ku Klux never bothered me and they never bothered any of my people.
Opinions
"The young people pass by me and I don't know nothing about 'em. I know
they are quite indifferent from what I was. When I come old enough to
want a wife, I knowed what sort of wife I wanted. God blessed me and I
happened to run up on the kind of woman I wanted. I made an engagement
with her, and I didn't have a dollar. I was engaged to marry for three
years before I married. I knowed it wouldn't do for me to marry her the
way she was raised and I didn't have nothing. It looked curious for me
to want that woman. I wanted her, and I had sense. I had sense enough to
know how I must carry myself to get her. Now it looks like a young man
wants all the women and ain't satisfied with nary one.
"My youngest son had a fine wife and was satisfied. He took up with what
I call a whiskey head. He's been swapping horses ever since. That is the
baby boy of mine. You know good and well a man couldn't get along that
way.
"These young men will keep this one over here for a few days, and then
that one over there for a few days. It shows like he wants them all.
Voting
"I have voted. I don't now. Since I lost out, I ain't voted.
Slave Houses
"You might say slave houses was nothing. Log houses, made out of logs
and chinked up with sticks and mud in the cracks. Chimneys made with
sticks and mud. Two rooms in our house. No windows, just cracks. All
furniture was homemade. Take a two by four and bore a hole in it and put
a cross piece in it and you had a bed.
"They made stools for chairs and made tables too. Food was kept in the
smokehouse. For rations, they would give so much meat, so much molasses,
and so much meal. No sugar and no coffee. They used to make tea out of
sage, and out of sassafras, and that was the coffee.
Marriages
"I been married twice. The first time was out in North Carolina. The
last time was in this city. I didn't stay with that last woman but four
days. It took me just that long to find out who and who. She didn't want
me; she wanted my money, and she thought I had more of it than I did.
She got all I had though. I had just fifty dollars and she got that. I
am going to get me a good woman, though, as soon as I can get divorced.
Memories of Work on Plantation
"My mother used to milk and I used to rope the calves and hold them so
that they couldn't get to the cow. I had to keep the horses in the
canebrake so they could eat. That was to keep the soldiers from getting
a fine black horse the master had.
Soldiers
"But they got him just the same. The Yankees used to come in blue
uniforms and come right on in without asking anything. They would take
your horse and ask nothing. They would go into the smokehouse and take
out shoulders, hams, and side meat, and they would take all the wine and
brandy that was there.
Dances After Freedom
"Two sisters stayed in North Carolina in a two-room house in Wilson
County. There was a big drove of us and we all went to town in the
evening to get whiskey. There was one man who had a wife with us, but
all the rest were single. We cut the pigeon wing, waltzed, and
quadrilled. We danced all night until we burned up all the wood. Then we
went down into the swamp and brought back each one as long a log as he
could carry. We chopped this up and piled it in the room. Then we went
on 'cross the swamp to another plantation and danced there.
"When we got through dancing, I looked at my feet and the bottom of them
was plumb naked. I had just bought new boots, and had danced the bottoms
clean out of them.
"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church. I stay with Dr. Cope and
clean up the back yard for my rent."
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Mrs Lou Fergusson
Previous:
Mattie Fannen
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