From the WPA Slave
Narratives:
Cyrus Bellus, age 73
"I was born in Mississippi in 1865 in Jefferson County. It was on the tenth of
March. My father's name was Cyrus Bellus, the same as mine. My mother's name
was Matilda Bellus.
"My father's master was David Hunt. My father and mother both belonged to him.
They had the same master. I don't know the names of my grandfather and mother.
I think they were Jordans. No, I know my grandmother's name was Annie Hall,
and my grandfather's name was Stephen Hall. Those were my mother's
grandparents. My father's father was named John Major and his mother was named
Dinah Major. They belonged to the Hunts. I don't know why the names was
different. I guess he wasn't their first master.
"I have heard my folks talk about how they were traded off and how they used
to have to work. Their master wouldn't allow them to whip his hands. No, it
was the mistress that wouldn't allow them to be whipped. They had hot words
about that sometimes.
"The slaves had to weave cotton and knit sox. Sometimes they would work all
night, weaving cloth, and spinning thread. The spinning would be done first.
They would make cloth for all the hands on the place.
"They used to have tanning vats to make shoes with too. Old master didn't know
what it was to buy shoes. Had a man there to make them. "My father and mother
were both field hands. They didn't weave or spin. My grandmother on my
mother's side did that. They were supposed to pick---the man, four hundred
pounds of cotton, and the woman three hundred. And that was gittin' some
cotton. If they didn't come up to the task, they was took out and give a
whipping. The overseer would do the thrashing. The old mistress and master
wouldn't agree on that whipping.
"The slaves were allowed to get out and have their fun and play and 'musement
for so many hours. Outside of those hours, they had to be found in their
house. They had to use fiddles. They had dancing just like the boys do now.
They had knockin' and rasalin' and all such like now.
"So far as serving God was concerned, they had to take a kettle and turn it
down bottom upward and then old master couldn't hear the singing and prayin'.
I don't know just how they turned the kettle to keep the noise fron goin' out.
But I heard my father and mother say they did it. The kettle would be on the
inside of the cabin, not on the outside.
"The slaves lived in log houses instead of ones like now with
weather---boarding. The two ends duffed in. They always had them so they would
hold a nice family. Never had any partitions to make rooms. It was just a
straight long house with one window and one door.
"Provisions were weighed out to them. They were allowed four pounds of meat
and a peck of meal for each working person. They only provided for the working
folks. If I had eight in a family, I would just get the same amount. There was
no provisions for children.
"But all the children on the place were given something from the big house.
The working folks ate their breakfast before daylight in the log cabin where
they lived. They ate their supper at home too. They was allowed to get back
home by seven or eight o'clock. The slaves on my place never ate together. I
don't know anything about that kind of feeding.
"They had mirses, old folks that weren't able to work any longer. All the
children would go to the same place to be cared for and the old people would
look after them. They wasn't able to work, you know. They fed the children
during the day. "My father and mother and grandmother said the overseer told
them that they were free. I guess that was in 1865, the same year I was born.
The overseer told them that they didn't have any owner now. They was free
folks. The boss man told them too---had them to come up to the big house and
told them they had to look out for themselves now because they were free as he
was.
"Right after emancipation, my folks were freed. The boss man told them they
could work by the day or sharecrop or they could work by groups. A group of
folks could go together and work and the boss man would pay them so much a
day. I believe they worked for him a good while---about seven or eight years
at least. They was in one of the groups.
"My own earliest recollections was of picking cotton in one of those
squads---the groups I was telling you about. After that, the people got to
renting land and renting stock for themselves. They sharecropped then. It
seems to me that everybody was satisfied. I don't remember any one saying that
he was cheated or beat out of anything.
"We had a public school to open in Jefferson County, Mississippi. We called it
Dobbins Bridge. There was a bridge about a mile long built across the creek.
We had two colored women for teachers. Their names was Mary Howard and Hester
Harris. They only used two teachers in that school. I attended there three
years to those same two women. "We had a large family and I quit to help take
care of it.
"I don't think there was much disturbance from the Ku Klux on that plantation.
The colored folks didn't take much part in politics.
"I stopped school and went to work for good at about fifteen years. I worked
at the field on that same plantation I told you about. I worked there for just
about tan years. Then I farmed at the same place on shares. I stayed there
till I was 'bout twenty-six years old.
Then I moved to wilderness Place in the Cotton Belt in Mississippi. I farmed
there for two years.
"I farmed around Greenville, Mississippi for a while. Then I left Greenville
and came to Arkansas. I came straight to Little Rock. The first thing I did I
wont into the lumber grading. I wasn't trained to it, but I went into it at
the request of the men who employed me. I stayed in that eight years. I
learned the lumber grading and checking. Checking is seeing the size and width
and length and kind of lumber and seeing how much of it there is in a car
without taking it out, you know.
"I married about 1932. My wife is dead. We never had any children.
"I haven't worked any now in five years. I have been to the hospital in the
east end. I get old age assistance---eight dollars and commodities."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Transcribed by Ann Allen Geoghegan
Mississippi
Narratives
Prepared by
The Federal Writer’s Project of
The Works Progress Administration
For the State of Mississippi
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"If you teach them where they come from, they won't need as much help finding where they are going!" Cordelia Carothers " Aunt Dee" Geoghegan (1894-1987)
Project Manager: Ann
Allen Geoghegan State Coordinator Assistant State Coordinators and
Transcriptionists: Ann Allen Geoghegan, Debbie Leftwich, and Rose Diamond and Linda Durr Rudd Banner designed by: Melissa McCoy-Bell Unknown worker photograph provided by L. Stephen Bell Photography, and family photo albums of Karen Schweikle, Lucy Gray and Jens Burkhart. Copyright © 2005-2008 by MSGenWeb Project. All rights reserved. |
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