Lizzie Norfleet,
ex-slave
There ain't no need for me to try to tell you how old I is cause I don't know,
and nobody don't know. When the folks with learning figures it out, one says
one thing and one says another so I just decided if they can't make their
calculation come out the same, they don't know a bit more about it than me.
While the war was going on, I was a good big girl, old enough to carry water
to the fields for twenty-five hands and to drive the mule around to run the
gin. Children was more apt in them days and they learned more. Thats why I
don't know how old I was when I drove that mule. Off-handed, I would say in
the neighborhood of twelve years, but I don't know.
I was born on the Norfleet place in Quitman County. My father, Jack Flagg, and
my mother, Sally came from Tennessee. I never had but one brother. His name
was Bob. He died when he was a baby. I had two sisters, Lou and Nellie. All of
us belonged to Mr. Ferd Norfleet, even to my grandpa and grandma. I can
remember when my grandma, Aggie, died, but I can't recall my grandpa, Bob.
All the houses, where the slaves lived, was built of logs and was long side of
each other. They was known at the quarters. We had homemade wooden beds to
sleep in. The mattresses was stuffed with hay. They wasn't bad, 'cause they
was thick enough to be soft.
We was fed on what-so-ever was raised on the place. Each family had a garden,
over by the edge of the woods. Our meal was made from the corn raised in the
field. It made good bread and we liked it. The smokehouse was always kept full
of hog meat. My father had good dogs and did a heap of hunting. We was always
well supplied with possum, coons, and rabbits. He was a good fisherman too and
would bring home the prettiest string of fish you ever seed. Everybody did
their own cooking, in their own house, over the big open log fire. Every
morning before day the overseer blowed the horn for to wake the hands up. They
had to dress, cook the breakfast and be ready for work by daybreak. They had
three different overseers that I knowed, Mr. Dickerson, Mr. Waddell, and the
last one, Mr. Polk. They was pretty nice till they got mad. Then they was
fractious. All of our clothes was made on the place.
The cloth was woven right there too, that they was made of. The dresses for
the women was beautiful, one dark stripe and one bright stripe. Folks them
days knowed how to mix pretty colors. In the summertime we didn't wear nothing
but slip on shirts. In the winter we had real heavy underclothes to keep us
warm. Our shoes was bought. They was made of thick leather and had brass tips
over the toes. That brass sure did dress them off. They don't put brass on
shoes any more and I can't see why; they lasted heaps longer and looked so
much nicer.
Master Ferd Norfleet, and his wife, Miss Elvira, had three children: One girl,
Miss Boyd, and two sons, George and Tom. They lived in Memphis and only came
now and then occasionally down to the place to see how things was going.
Master built a big house where the overseer lived and kept part of it for his
self and family whensoever they cared to come to the plantation. Mister Sam
always came down for New Years and brought a lot of young folks with him. He
would invite all the neighbors in, get the old fiddler to play for them to
dance, and call their self seeing the New Year in. The house looked mighty
pretty all glowing with lights. It was a nice house, built out of lumber, like
they use now, not no log house like the ones we lived in. The yard was filled
with pecan trees and the grass was always mowed. Master's place wasn't no
scrubby place, I tell you that, and there wasn't no poor whites living
anywhere near us, nothing but niggers. How many I don't know, but there was
sure a heap of them. The place was so big it took a many a one to work it. I
wouldn't have no idea how many acres Master owned. During cotton picking time
every body stopped work before dark, so as to get the cotton they had picked
to the gin house to be weighed. They carried it to the gin house to be
weighed. They carried it in wheel barrows. Every body had to stay till his
cotton was weighed to see if they had enough for a day's work. Sometimes the
lanterns would have to be lit to see to weigh the last of the cotton.
When the cotton was ginned, all the seed that was kept for planting was put in
the seed house and the rest of them was piled up outside. Whenever my feet got
cold I would dig a hole in the seed pile and put my feet in it. They will get
just as warm that way as putting them to the fire. Old Sterling Flagg, who
helped me drive the mule to run the gin, learned me that.
The overseer was the one that done the punishing. We never heared of such a
thing as jails. If a person wouldn't work or if he ran off, he would get
whipped for that, and if he did it the second time, he got whipped harder. I
can remember two, that ran off. One was a cripple woman, and one was my uncle.
They got them both back and they both got whipped. I never is seed no slave
with chains on nor is I ever seed any bought or sold. I is heared my mother
tell how she was put on the block and auctioned off to the highest bidder, but
I never seed none of that. None of us could read or write and we never had
nobody try to learn us. When Master and old Miss came down from Memphis, they
always brought us clothes and shoes. Old Master call himself giving us a
lecture. He would get us all together and tell us we must be good. He say he
is a Christian and he ain't going to be cruel to nobody nor allow no
mistreatment to none of his slaves. There wasn't no church of no kind on the
place. The old people would go to one anothers house and sing and pray. There
was an old man on the place that was a kind of a preacher. They whipped him
one day but he wouldn't deny. He said that was his victory over hell, and if
they whipped him to death, when they turned him loose, he was going on the
same way. We didn't have no Bible reading. No babtizings and no preaching. If
a slave died there wasn't no Christian burial but the box with the corpse in
it was taken to the graveyard in a wagon. All the slaves went to the grave,
and from there they went back to work. There wasn't no song, no prayer, no
nothing, over the dead. Another thing I is never heared of is, any trouble of
no kind between the whites and colored. If a slave ran off he didn't go to the
North, he only went to the woods and hid. The patrollers and night riders
didn't interfere on us place we didn't know nothing about them.
The 4th of July was the day for the big barbecues. First on one place, then on
another. Like this year, we would hold it one place and the neighbors would
all come. Next year they would hold it, and us would all go. We liked that
getting together cause it was the only way we had of passing the news, when we
meet up one to the other. At that it was mighty little we ever heared. Some
times we held dances on the place Saturday nights. For the music one man would
beat on a tin pan and two would blow quills. That was fine to dance by. We
would cut up and have a good time. No work was done Saturday after dinner,
except washing the clothes and none at all on Sunday. We could do whatever we
wanted to on that day. In the fall of the year we liked to go to the woods and
gather nuts and 'simmons. Christmas day was just like Sunday. We didn't work
and we didn't have celebration, not even for the children. On rainy days we
had corn shucking but that wasn't even for the children. On rainy days we had
corn shucking but that wasn't no party. Course we liked it 'cause we was all
together laughing, singing, and having a good time. At that the corn had to be
shucked just the same.
Slaves didn't have no weddings with a preacher and all that. Had nothing to do
but let Master know it, and he tell you can be man and wife.
The children on the place had a good time. They was carefree till they get old
enough to work. They was looked after careful and made to obey. They wasn't
allowed to be sassy and impertinent to old folks. The girls would ring up
their little games and the boys play marbles. The old folks told them ghost
stories that scared them most to death. Our house was near a graveyard. On
rainy nights I wouldn't take my eyes off that graveyard looking out for some
of them hants that walk at night. Some folks can't see them and I is one of
that kind. Even when I hears them, I can't see them. One night I was sick and
staying at my mother's house so she could take care of me. I heared something
fall in the middle of the floor. I set up straight in bed but I couldn't see
nothing. I just says to myself "If you is a spirit you ain't going to do
nothing to me and I ain't going to do nothing to you." He was passing on
wheresoever he was going to.
When the slaves got sick, a doctor from Friars Point was sent for to tend
them. The old women on the place looked after them till they was up. The old
women took care of the babies and children too. They had done learned about
different herbs and how to make tea out of them for the babies. The older
children had their worm medicine put in molasses so they wouldn't mind eating
it. Every child wore an asafetida bag round the neck to keep from ketching
diseases. For in them days they did not know nothing bout no charms or nothin'
of the kind. The asafetida bag was the only dependence.
There wasn't no big to do when freedom came. We knowed it by the change in the
work. 'Stead of working for nothing, we was told we was going to get
two-thirds of the crop. Outside of that, we didn't know no difference. Old
Master didn't even come down to the place. We never seed no Yankee soldiers
but the rebel soldiers camped in Master's home. The Ku Klux Klan and the Night
Riders never came to interrupt the Norfleet Place. Heared of them, but never
seed them. We only made one crop on that place after freedom. We moved on Mrs.
Page's place. Dr. Peace wanted to get us on his place, 'cause he had knowed
all my family, on account of being the Doctor for the Norfleets. He makes some
sort of satisfacton arrangement with Mrs. Page and moves us all on to his
place. I lived there till I was grown and married. My children was all born
there. Years later my husband bought a forty acre block on the Irvin place.
After we moved up there, we found in place of buying, we was paying ten
dollars an acre, and they couldn't sell, cause there was too many heirs. My
husband then bought this little home on the Reinhart place. I has been living
in it ever since.
I married Jim Norfleet some years after the war. We didn't have no big
wedding. We got the license from the CourtHouse at Friars Point. Nat Black,
the preacher, married us at Berry Moore's house, where prayer meeting was
held. After the meeting we stayed and was married. I had six children, three
boys, Henry, Tom, and Richard, and three girls, Nellie, Jettie and Charity.
Nellie and Richard are dead. Henry lives here in the house with me; Tom across
the road; Jettie at Lyon, and Charity at Shufordsville. All of them farms by
the day. How many grandchildren I got I couldn't begin to tell. These little
ones playing around is my great grandchildren. I has got a heap of them too. I
keeps some of them in the day time while their Mas is picking cotton. I ain't
never been married but the one time. I never met my husband till after
surrender, when he came to the Peace place, where we got attached. He fought
in the war on the North side. When he died, twelve years ago, he left me this
house in the clear. The government pays me a pension of forty dollars a month.
I was getting fifty but they done cut it to forty.
The report came out after the war that every family was going to get forty
acres and a mule to start them out. Ain't never seed nobody what received
nothing. All I seed is transferring from plantation to plantation. You wasn't
made to stay nowhere so they all moved about.
There was a lot of talk after the war about Abraham Lincoln. Lord, thats been
so far back I can't recollect much about it, 'cept he worked for freedom. The
colored was all under bondage and they was afraid to speak till after freedom.
For that cause, very little was said. If we heared a cannon go off, we speak
low about it, just kinda whisper it, under our hands, one to the other. There
wasn't much said about Jefferson Davis. According to the Bible, he was wrong.
The Lord said "The World was made sufficient for all to have a living. He
never intended bondage for nobody. That's why he made the world big enough for
everybody to have a home. Booker T. Washington's occupation was right. He
taught slavery was no good. I don't know nothing about that reconstruction.
The men folks might know 'cause I is heared them say they voted, but I don't
know if they did or not. There was a colored man, by the name of Brown, that
held a big public office at Friars Point. If I don't mistake he was the High
Sheriff. That caused a big riot. They made him leave out of there, and he
ain't never been heared of in this part of the country since.
Long after the War, schools was started for the colored. Lots of them went and
learned to read and write. Nearly all of this younger generation is got some
education, but with that, they ain't brought up like I come. The world done
changed. The young ones brings their own self up now. The women don't tend to
their children no more. Not none of them.
Ever since I was a young woman I has been a church member. I belongs to the
Liberty Baptist Church. I don't go to services very often now, 'cause I is
getting old and don't get about much. Everybody is better off if they have a
good religion to depend on, so when they go away from here they will be ready
to find that better place.
Interviewer: Unknown
Transcribed by Debbie Leftwich
Mississippi Narratives
Prepared by
The Federal Writer’s Project of
The Works Progress Administration
For the State of Mississippi
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