From the WPA Slave
Narratives:
Julius Jones
I has heared my grandma and grandpa say that my family came from Arkansas.
They was brought to Tennessee by slave traders and sold to Mr. Calvin and his
wife, Miss Mildred Jones, who had three children, all boys, Elic, Tom, and
Monroe. The Joneses lived in Sumerville, Tennessee and their big plantation
where the slaves all stayed was about a mile and a half in the country. My
father, Nat Jones, and mother, Cessler Jones, had five children, Calvin and me
was the boys, Lithia, Beckie and Catherine was the girls. All of us lived in
the quarters in log cabins. My grandma Jancy looked after all the children
while the grown folks was working in the fields. There was one big room where
everybody ate dinner and supper. The breakfast was sent to the field by the
children that was big enough to carry it. I never did see my mother or father
except on Sunday. I stayed in the house they did, but they left in the morning
for the fields before I was awake, and when they got back I was asleep. They
sure did work their slaves from before day till after dark. We didn't know
nothing tall bout money cause we never seed none. The eating what they give us
sure warn't nothing to brag on. Most of the time we didn't have nothing
excusing meat and bread and the biggest part of the meat was possums, coons,
and rabbits. Course in the summer time they would give us greens and cabbage
out of the big garden what they planted just to feed us. Once my father stold
some hog meat. He made us children get under the bed to eat it so nobody could
see us if they came by the house. He always fed us under the bed when he got
hold of something he didn't want nobody to know nothing bout. There was an old
woman on the place named Charlet. She did the weaving of the cloth to make our
clothes. The cloth the pants was made out of was dyed a dark color. Everything
else we wore was just the natural color. Children didn't have nothing to wear
no how but shirts, and the women folks wore things that looked like shirts
only longer. There wasn't no difference in the cloth they used in the winter
and in the summer. There was a shoemaker on the place. He made every body
shoes but they warn't no count like shoes is now. Sometimes we didn't have no
shoes to wear.
I recollect going hunting once with my young master, and I had to cover my
feet with old carpets. The overseer's name was Bryant. He was the boss, as my
master didn't live on the place. He had two or three colored men for leaders,
which is the same as drivers. There was about two thousand acres in the place
and so many slaves in it that they hired them out to the neighbors. Bryant was
the one what did the whipping. I had an uncle named Abe Jone he whipped him
till his shirt all stuck to his back and my mother had to put grease on him to
get the shirt off. What he was getting punished for was telling the slaves
they was going to be set free. They took Abe after that to town and locked him
up in jail. We aint never heared of such a thing before as a slave being put
in a white man's jail. That man Bryant gave my mother a beating once when she
was sick. Some says that beating caused her death. I can't say that it did and
I can't say that it didn't, but I do know, she never got up out of that bed no
more till she died and they carried her out. After she died my father got an
ax and went to Mr. Bryant's house to kill him. Somebody at the house seed him
and he ran off to the woods and hid. They shot at him as he ran, and the shot
hit him in the heel but that didn't stop him and they had to get the hounds
out 'fore they could find him. Mr. Whitehead was called the negger taker. He
was the one what got the hounds and caught my father. Old Master didn't let no
whipping go on about that till he was right there to see to it that it wasn't
given too hard. That was the only trouble I ever member betwixed the colored
and whites. What happened the niggers didn't get hold of, and if they did,
they better not talk bout it. We wasn't 'lowed to leave the place 'less we had
a pass. If we slipped off, the patrollers would sure catch you. We never
worked after dinner on Saturday and sometimes they would give us the whole
day.
We didn't have no celebration on Christmas. The children would hang up their
stockings in the cabins and get candy and cake put in them. The grown folks
were given a day or two to go hunting or fishing. There wasn't no form of
amusement not even a corn shucking.
When folks got married they didn't have no wedding cause they didn't have
nothing to dress up in. The young master just married them and that's all
there was to that.
The biggest thing the niggers done was working congeralions. The funny thing
bout that was they could hoo-doo each other but they sure couldn't hoo-doo the
white folks. One young nigger cussed the old conger man on the place. The old
man reached up and cut off some of his hair, put it in a sack and throwed the
sack in the water. That boy acted mighty bigity till that hair started
floating down stream. Then he got scared most to death. He ran all day trying
to get that hair back. He most went crazy 'fore he got that spell lifted. Them
hoo-doo men could do them things, no doubt bout that. I is heared of them
putting lizards and scorpions in folks closets, and somebody in the house
would die.
I was conjured once, and only once, in my life by a man who gave me some
whisky in a black bottle. Two minutes after I swallowed that whisky, pains
went through me like a knife. I begun running fast as I could cause I knowed
right them I had been hoo-dooed. I would have died if a man hadn't told my
wife three things to mix together and give me. Fore I took it he said if you
ain't conjured this will kill you, but it will cure you if you is. I knowed I
was, so I took it and it proved I was cause right then I started getting
better and shortly I was well. If you gets conjured the only way for you to
get cured or have the spell lifted is to go to some one who knows more bout it
than the one who conjured you. Some folks wore different things in their shoes
to keep the spells off. I don't believe nothing like that could help none.
Spirits don't show their self now like they used to. There was a time you
couldn't stay in certain houses they bothered you so. My grandmother sent me
to the crib one night for to get some corn. When I got nearly there I could
hear fiddling and dancing going on. The crib was the place dances had been
held. Mr. Canons' place was next to ours. He had so many slaves and nothing
much to feed them on. They all went hungry. Every evening if you passed his
graveyard you could hear babies crying, you sure could hear it, and I aint the
only one what could prove it. You know that boy Julious that drives the dray
around town? I raised that boy and he sure has turned out to be a good man.
His mother died when he was little and I took him to care for. One day I gave
him a sound whipping 'bout something he done wrong. That same night when I
went out in the yard, I seed his mother just hovering over his little wagon. I
seed her just as plain as if she had never died.
We didn't have no colored churches on the place. We went to the white folks
Baptist Church. All that preachers teaching to us was, when you serve your
master, you is serving God. They didn't allow us to hold no services of our
own. We did hold them anyway. We would turn all the pots over so we wouldn't
be heared. When pots is turned over in a house they catch all the echo and not
a sound can be heard outside. Old Miss taught us Bible every Sunday. I never
tended a real service where they had singing and praying and moaners' bench
all such as that till I was grown. We didn't have no teachers to learn us to
read and write but I sure did learn to read the Bible, how I don't know, but I
could read it today or some parts of it, if it wasn't my eyes is too bad for
me to see with. I never seed the like of the poor white folks that lived
around us. They was sure bad off. When they moved, they put their belongings
in little wagons and had dogs to pull them. That sure was a sight seeing dogs
pulling wagons, but they didn't have no other way to get from place to place.
When the war came on, I must have been about fourteen years old. All the men
on the place run off and joined the northern army. I was not old enough to
join, so they left me behind with the work to do. We couldn't get much news
'bout what was going on. I didn't know what the white folks heared cause they
didn't let no information out. The war had been going on for two years before
I seed any real action. I was ploughing in the field when I got the word to
take all the mules and hide them in the swamp that the Yankees were coming.
After I got them all securely hid out, I walks down to the big road to see the
soldiers pass. When they came along, they stopped and made me go to the swamps
and bring them every last one of them mules. That was in the year 1863, at
that time the southern folks had the Yankees whipped, and they would have won
that war if it hadn't been for a great man by the name of Abraham Lincoln.
That man held a council right then. He 'greed to take all the colored people.
Said if they fought on his side he would set them all free. When them niggers
heard that free part, they all joined the army. I fought with them for two
years and five months. I wasn't turned loose till 1866 we was mustared out in
Baton Rouge, La. and discharged in Memphis, Tenn. We was offered land, but I
didn't accept none. Mr. Lincoln was sure a wonderful man. He did what God put
him here to do, took boundage off the colored people and set them free. Mr.
Lee sure didn't leave no such record behind him. They tells me before he died
he had a mule and a nigger brought before him and he told the folks to protect
the mule and to keep the nigger down. They says there is always some one can
take another's place, but they aint none showed up yet, to take the place of
Booker T. Washington. He was a teacher and educator. There aint no such man as
that now. The ones that have come along since are just out for the money in
it. The people now aint Christians as they should be cause if they were you
wouldn't hear about all these here wars whats going on right now. Soon after
the war I joined the church I got religion while I was in one of those war
hospitals. A voice came to me then saying, "you is dying." The Lord spoke and
said to me "does you believe". I answered "I does". The first meeting I
'tended after that was in a bush arbor. When the call came for moaners, I went
to the bench and when I said "amen", I couldn't rise from that seat. To this
good day I has kept up with that good Baptist religion. After I left the army
in Memphis I came on down to Mississippi and got work on a farm near Dublin.
Later I moved to Coahoma County. It wasn't no trouble finding work to do, and
I was treated as nice as if I hadn't fought in the yankee army. The K.K.K. was
going round for awhile scaring the folks, but after Gov. Alcorn got in office,
he put a stop to all such as that. The niggers was all allowed to vote. There
was colored sheriffs, clerks, and magistrates. In 1868 I married Minnie
Horward. We was living then out here on the Sledge place. We had two girls,
Lizzie and Mannie. They is both living and farming here near me. My second
wife was named Charlet and I had two girls by her, Maggie and Ella. They is
both dead. My third wife was named Emma, my fourth Catherine, my fifth Carrie,
and this one you see here is Lula. The best one of all them women was Charlet.
She was a better one than the one I got now, though this one does very well.
Three of them is dead that I knows of; and I 'speck they is all dead by now 'cept
this one. I has only one grandchild. He is living with his ma. I don't take
much stock in this young generation. They don't have right bringing up. My
wife reads me out of the paper 'bout them going against their parents and
sometimes killing them. Such as that is enough to make you quit reading the
paper. I owns my little home here and I gets a war pension from the government
of seventy-five dollars a month. I aint got nothing to complain of 'cept the
sinners, what you can't get to the house of God. I has peace in my heart cause
I know when the Lord calls again, I will be ready to answer Him same as I did
years ago "I do believe."
Interviewer: Unknown
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
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