Phyllis Petite
From:
Oklahoma
Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
PHYLLIS PETITE
Age 83 yrs.
Fort Gibson, Okla.
I was born in Rusk County, Texas, on a plantation about eight miles
east of Belleview. There wasn't no town where I was born, but they had
a church.
My mammy and pappy belonged to a part Cherokee named W. P. Thompson
when I was born. He had kinfolks in the Cherokee Nation, and we all
moved up here to a place on Fourteen-Mile Creek close to where Hulbert
now is, 'way before I was big enough to remember anything. Then, so I
been told, old master Thompson sell my pappy and mammy and one of my
baby brothers and me back to one of his neighbors in Texas name of
John Harnage.
Mammy's name was Letitia Thompson and pappy's was Riley Thompson. My
little brother was named Johnson Thompson, but I had another brother
sold to a Vann and he always call hisself Harry Vann. His Cherokee
master lived on the Arkansas river close to Webber's Falls and I never
did know him until we was both grown. My only sister was Patsy and she
was borned after slavery and died at Wagoner, Oklahoma.
I can just remember when Master John Harnage took us to Texas. We went
in a covered wagon with oxen and camped out all along the way. Mammy
done the cooking in big wash kettles and pappy done the driving of the
oxen. I would set in a wagon and listen to him pop his whip and
holler.
Master John took us to his plantation and it was a big one, too. You
could look from the field up to the Big House and any grown body in
the yard look like a little body, it was so far away.
We negroes lived in quarters not far from the Big House and ours was a
single log house with a stick and dirt chimney. We cooked over the hot
coals in the fireplace.
I just played around until I was about six years old I reckon, and
then they put me up at the Big House with my mammy to work. She done
all the cording and spinning and weaving, and I done a whole lot of
sweeping and minding the baby. The baby was only about six months old
I reckon. I used to stand by the cradle and rock it all day, and when
I quit I would go to sleep right by the cradle sometimes before mammy
would come and get me.
The Big House had great big rooms in front, and they was fixed up
nice, too. I remember when old Mistress Harnage tried me out sweeping
up the front rooms. They had two or three great big pictures of some
old people hanging on the wall. They was full blood Indians it look
like, and I was sure scared of them pictures! I would go here and
there and every which-a-way, and anywheres I go them big pictures
always looking straight at me and watching me sweep! I kept my eyes
right on them so I could run if they moved, and old Mistress take me
back to the kitchen and say I can't sweep because I miss all the dirt.
We always have good eating, like turnip greens cooked in a kettle with
hog skins and crackling grease, and skinned corn, and rabbit or possum
stew. I liked big fish tolerable well too, but I was afraid of the
bones in the little ones.
That skinned corn aint like the boiled hominy we have today. To make
it you boil some wood ashes, or have some drip lye from the hopper to
put in the hot water. Let the corn boil in the lye water until the
skin drops off and the eyes drop out and then wash that corn in fresh
water about a dozen times, or just keep carrying water from the spring
until you are wore out, like I did. Then you put the corn in a crock
and set it in the spring, and you got good skinned corn as long as it
last, all ready to warm up a little batch at a time.
Master had a big, long log kitchen setting away from the house, and we
set a big table for the family first, and when they was gone we
negroes at the house eat at that table too, but we don't use the china
dishes.
The negro cook was Tilda Chisholm. She and my mammy didn't do no
out-work. Aunt Tilda sure could make them corn-dodgers. Us children
would catch her eating her dinner first out of the kettles and when we
say something she say: "Go on child, I jest tasting that dinner."
In the summer we had cotton homespun clothes, and in winter it had
wool mixed in. They was dyed with copperas and wild indigo.
My brother, Johnson Thompson, would get up behind old Master Harnage
on his horse and go with him to hunt squirrels so they would go 'round
on Master's side so's he could shoot them. Master's old mare was named
"Old Willow", and she knowed when to stop and stand real still so he
could shoot.
His children was just all over the place! He had two houses full of
them! I only remember Bell, Ida, Maley, Mary and Will, but they was
plenty more I don't remember.
That old horn blowed 'way before daylight, and all the field negroes
had to be out in the row by the time of sun up. House negroes got up
too, because old Master always up to see everybody get out to work.
Old Master Harnage bought and sold slaves most all the time, and some
of the new negroes always acted up and needed a licking. The worst
ones got beat up good, too! They didn't have no jail to put slaves in
because when the Masters got done licking them they didn't need no
jail.
My husband was George Petite. He tell me his mammy was sold away from
him when he was a little boy. He looked down a long lane after her
just as long as he could see her, and cried after her. He went down to
the big road and set down by his mammy's barefooted tracks in the sand
and set there until it got dark, and then he come on back to the
quarters.
I just saw one slave try to get away right in hand. They caught him
with bloodhounds and brung him back in. The hounds had nearly tore him
up, and he was sick a long time. I don't remember his name, but he
wasn't one of the old regular negroes.
In Texas we had a church where we could go. I think it was a white
church and they just let the negroes have it when they got a preacher
sometimes. My mammy took me sometimes, and she loved to sing them
salvation songs.
We used to carry news from one plantation to the other I reckon,
'cause mammy would tell about things going on some other plantation
and I know she never been there.
Christmas morning we always got some brown sugar candy or some
molasses to pull, and we children was up bright and early to get that
'lasses pull, I tell you! And in the winter we played skeeting on the
ice when the water froze over. No, I don't mean skating. That's when
you got iron skates, and we didn't have them things. We just get a
running start and jump on the ice and skeet as far as we could go, and
then run some more.
I nearly busted my head open, and brother Johnson said: "Try it
again," but after that I was scared to skeet any more.
Mammy say we was down in Texas to get away from the War, but I didn't
see any war and any soldiers. But one day old Master stay after he eat
breakfast and when us negroes come in to eat he say: "After today I
ain't your master any more. You all as free as I am." We just stand
and look and don't know what to say about it.
After while pappy got a wagon and some oxen to drive for a white man
who was coming to the Cherokee Nation because he had folks here. His
name was Dave Mounts and he had a boy named John.
We come with them and stopped at Fort Gibson where my own grand mammy
was cooking for the soldiers at the garrison. Her name was Phyllis
Brewer and I was named after her. She had a good Cherokee master. My
mammy was born on his place.
We stayed with her about a week and then we moved out on Four Mile
Creek to live. She died on Fourteen-Mile Creek about a year later.
When we first went to Four Mile Creek I seen negro women chopping wood
and asked them who they work for and I found out they didn't know they
was free yet.
After a while my pappy and mammy both died, and I was took care of by
my aunt Elsie Vann. She took my brother Johnson too, but I don't know
who took Harry Vann.
I was married to George Petite, and I had on a white underdress and
black high-top shoes, and a large cream colored hat, and on top of all
I had a blue wool dress with tassels all around the bottom of it. That
dress was for me to eat the terrible supper in. That what we called
the wedding supper because we eat too much of it. Just danced all
night, too! I was at Mandy Foster's house in Fort Gibson, and the
preacher was Reverend Barrows, I had that dress a long time, but its
gone now. I still got the little sun bonnet I wore to church in Texas.
We had six children, but all are dead but George, Tish, and Annie
now.
Yes, they tell me Abraham Lincoln set me free, and I love to look at
his picture on the wall in the school house at Four Mile branch where
they have church. My grand mammy kind of help start that church, and I
think everybody ought to belong to some church.
I want to say again my Master Harnage was Indian, but he was a good
man and mighty good to us slaves, and you can see I am more than six
feet high, and they say I weighs over a hundred and sixty, even if my
hair is snow white.
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Matilda Poe
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Salomon Oliver
