Tony Piggy
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Tony Piggy
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 75
"I was born near Selma, Alabama, but I was raised in Mississippi. My
grandpa was sold from South Carolina to Moster Alexander Piggy. He
didn't talk plain but my papa didn't nother. Moster Piggy bought a gang
of black folks in South Carolina and brought em into the state of
Alabama. My papa was mighty near full-blood African, I'll tell you. Now
ma was mixed.
"I'm most too young to recollect the war. Right after the war we had
small pox. My uncle died and there was seven children had em at one
time. The bushwhackers come in and kicked us around--kicked my uncle
around. We lived at Union Town, Alabama then.
"Aunt Connie used to whip us. Mama had no time; she was a chambermaid
(housewoman). The only thing I recollect bout slavery time to tell is
Old Mistress pour out a bushell of penders (peanuts) on the grass to see
us pick em up and set out eating em. When they went to town they would
bring back things like cheese good to eat. We got some of what they had
most generally. She wasn't so good; she whoop me with a cow whip. She'd
make pull candy for us too. I got a right smart of raisin' in a way but
I growed up to be a wild young man. I been converted since then.
"Well, one day pa come to our house and told mama, 'We free, don't have
to go to the house no more, git ready, we all goin' to Mississippi.
Moster Piggy goiner go. He goner rent us twenty acres and we goner take
two cows and a mule.' We was all happy to be free and goin' off
somewhere. Moster Piggy bought land in Mississippi and put families
renters on it. Moster Piggy was rough on the grown folks but good to the
children. The work didn't let up. We railly had more clearin' and fences
to make. His place in Alabama was pore and that was new ground.
"There was all toll nine children in my family. Ma was named Matty
Piggy. Papa was named Ezra Piggy. Moster Alexander Piggy's wife named
Harriett. I knowed Ed, Charley, Bowls, Ells, and Liza. That's all I ever
knowd.
"I have done so many things. I run on a steamboat from Cairo to New
Orleans--Kate Adams and May F. Carter. They called me a Rouster--that
means a working man. I run on a boat from Newport to Memphis. Then I
farmed, done track work on the railroad, and farmed some more.
"The young generation ain't got respect for old people and they tryin'
to live without work. I ain't got no fault to find with the times if I
was bout forty years younger than I is now I could work right ahead."
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Ella Pittman
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Dolly Phillips
