Hopkins County, TX | Lee Pierce Slave Narrative |
Last modified: 10 MAY 2010 |
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420274 "My name am Lee Anderson pierce, borned on the fifteenth of May, in 1859, up in Marshall, and 'longin' to Marse Evans Spencer, what a surveyor. I never knowed my pappy. He died 'fore I was borned. Mammy was Winnie Spencer and Old Marse's folks fetcher her to Texas from Greenwood, what am over in Mississippi. "When I was 'bout eleven year old, Marse Spencer done got in debt so bad he had to sell me off from mammy. He sold me to a spec'lator named Buckley, and he taken me to Jefferson and drapped me down there with a man called Sutton. I had a hard time there, had to sleep on the floor on hot ashes, to keep warm, in wintertime. I nussed Marse Sutton's kids 'bout a year, den Buckley done got me 'gain and taken me to de nigger trader yard in Marshall. I was put on de block and sold jes' like a cow or horse, to Marse Henry Fowler, what taken me to Sulphur Springs. I lived with him till after surrender. "Marse Fowler worked 'bout a hundred and fifty acres of land and had sv'ral cullud families. He done overseeing hisself, but had a black man for foreman. I seed pleny niggers whopped for not doin' dey tasks. He'd whop 'em for not pickin' so many hundreds of cotton a day, buckle 'em down hawg fashion and whop 'em with a strap. Us never stopped work no day, lessen Sunday, and not then iffen grass in the field or crops sufferin'. "Most time we et bacon and cornbread and greens. Sometimes we'd git -1- Ex-slave Stories Page Two (Texas) deer meat to eat, 'cause a old man named Buck Thomasa am clost friend to Marse Flowler and a big hunter. We got our own fish when we wasn't workin'. "The first work I done was herdin' sheep. I never done much field work, but I was kep' busy with them sheep and other jobs round the place. The cullud folks had big breakdowns Saturday night and a good time then and on Christmas, but all the res' the time us jus' worked. "On Christmas we never got nothin but white shorts. Them was for biscuits and they was jus' like cake to the niggars in slavery time. Marse Flowler didn't have too much regard for he black folks. Two families of them was stolen niggers. A spec'lator done stole them in Arkansas and fotch them to Texas. "I didn't know much 'bout the war, 'cause I'm only ten year old when it starts, and the white folks didn't talk it with us cullud folks. Long 'bout the end of the war a big Yankee camp was at Jefferson right where the courthouse is now, but I wasn't 'lowed to go there and never did know nothin' 'bout it. "I stayed with Marse Fowler till the Ku Klux got to ragin'. The Yankees run it out of business. That Ku Klux buiness started from men tryin' to run the niggers back to they farms. They near all left they masters and didn't have nothin' or nowheres to go. The cullud folks was skeered of them Kluxers. They come round the house and had some kind of riggin' so's they could drink sev'ral buckets of water. "A cullud man at Jefferson, named Dick Walker, got up a cullud militia to keep the Klux off the niggers. The militia met here in the old African Methodist Church. Marse Fowler done git up a bunch of thirty men to break up that cullud militia, and he org'ized his bunch at our place. I helped saddle -2- Ex-slave Stories Page Three 187 (Texas) the horses the night they went to take the church. Ben Biggerstaff, he was one the main white leaders. They kilt sev'ral of the militia and wounded lots more. That's after the Yankees done leave. "I hired out to Col. King, a Yankee officer in Sulphur Springs, and works for him one year. I was makin' $25.00 a month. Land was sellin' for twenty-cents an acre but I wouldn't buy none. That same land is worth a fortune now. But I left and come back to Jefferson. "I never found my mammy until 1870. She was workin' in a cafe in Terrell. Judge Estes of Jefferson and some white men done been to Dallas and stopped where she was workin.' She asked 'em if they knowed Lee Pierce and the Judge said he did. When she done tell him how long it am since she seed me, he put her on the train and sent her to Jefferson. "I was here when Jay Gould tried to git them to let him put his railroad through this town and they told him they didn't need a railroad. Then they done somethin' on Red River what done take all the water out of Big Cyress and the town went down to nothin'. Cullud folks run this town 'bout them times. Paul Matthews, a cullud man, was county judge, and Bill Wisham was sheriff. "I think the younger race of our folks has more 'vantages for prosperity than what we had. Most of them am makin' good use of it. Some ain't got no priciple or ambition, but lots of them are 'spectable people. *********** |
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