I return today in this series, to the voices, of those who were enslaved.
Again, the resilience, resistance and perseverance of those who survived, when by most measures they should have died, is a huge tribute to the human spirit.
In these stories, one sees the importance of identity, or self-definition in the lives of African-Americans and their descendants. Our history, geneology was shrouded in lies, thefts, secrets, stories and crimes against humanity. We are still unraveling these mysteries, and as we do so we continue healing.
This old ex-slave is a strange appearing black Redskin with an intense expression, piercing eyes, and long white hair the texture of cotton. A research worker discovered him sitting on the porch of a comfortable San Antonio house at 323 North Olive Street, chatting away like a youngster to his wife. He is ninety-seven and his wife, Lizzie, is eighty-six. During the Civil War they slaved on adjoining ranches in Columbus, Texas. But thereby hangs a tale which can best be told in the old man's own words:
"I never knew my age until after de Civil War when I was set free for de second time. Then my marster gets out a great big book and it showed dat I was twenty-five years old. It shows more too: It shows I was twelve when I was bought and $800 was paid for me. Dat $800 was stolen money, cose I was kidnapped. Dis is about how it come:
"My mother was owned by John Williams of Petersburg, Virginia. I come born to her on a plantation, and den my father went about getting me free. He was a full blooded Indian, and had done some big favor for a big man high up in de courts, and by and bye Mr. Williams comes to my mother and says I am a 'free boy'. I never knowd what was mixed up in it, but Mr. Williams used to laugh and call me 'free boy, Jim'. I never had to do much work for nobody but my mother.
"Then, one day, along comes a Friday. Friday is my unlucky star and it is my lucky star day, too. I was playin' around de house, Mr. Williams comes up and says:
"'Delia, will you let Jim walk down the street with me?'
"'All right, moster,' says my mother. 'And, Jim, you be a good boy.
"Dat was de last time I ever heard my mother speak, or ever see her. We walks down where de houses grows close together, and pretty soon we comes to de slave market. I ain't ever seed one before and didn't knowd what it was. Mr. Williams says to me to get up on de block. It was about so high --(three feet). I gets up like I was told. As soon as I stood straight I got a funny feelin'. I knows somehow what was happenin'. But I just stood there. In a few minutes they told me to get down and turned me over to a man named John Pinchback.
"Pinchback was my new master. He had St. Vitus dance. It seems he likes to make niggers suffer to make up for his own squirmin' and twistin'. He was the biggest devil on earth.
"We starts to leave right away for Texas. My master lives there on a ranch in Columbus. It was a part plantation and part wild country, and it was owned by two men, Pinchback and Wright. I was put to work when we got there without eating. I was told to carry de water for de stock.
"Dat night I makes up my mind to run away. But de next day they drives me and some other new slaves over to look at the dogs. The dogs lived in a fine house with a fence around it. Den they chooses me to train de dogs with. I was told I had to play the part of a runnin' away slave. Before I start they tells me to run any direction I want and after I had run five miles to climb up in a tree. I didn't know what it meant, but one of the nigger drivers tells me kind of nice to climb up as high in de tree as I could if I didn't want my body to be tore off my legs. So I runs a good five miles and climbs up in a tree where the branches was gettin' small.
"I sits there a long time. Den I sees the dogs comin'. They had their heads down not lookin' where they was runnin'. When they gets under my tree they stops and runs around. Den they looks up and sees me and starts to bark. After dat I never got thinkin' of runnin' away, and I don't believe no slave ever escaped from Texas in spite of all de stories de niggers tells.
"Time goes on and de war comes along. Half of it must have been over before I knows about it. Everythin' goes on just like it did. No change come in our life at all. Sometimes slaves die and get put in a box. De driver would go and tell Pinchback and he would come out and tell someone to dig a hole. He'd say: 'De rest of you niggers get out on de field and go to work.' It didn't make no difference if it was a mother or what dat died. De chillen had to go out and work and not even see where the hole was dug.
"But more slaves was gettin' born dan dies--old Pinchback would see to dat himself. He breeds de niggers as quick as he can, like cattle, cause dat means money for him. He chooses de wife for every man on the place. No one had no say as to who he was goin' to get for a wife. All de weddin' ceremony we had was with Pinchback's finger pointin' out who was whos' wife. If a woman wern't a good breeder she had to do work with de men, but Pinchback tried to get rid of women who didn't have chillen. He would sell her and tell de man who baught her dat she was all right to own.
"But de nigger husbands wern't the only ones dat keeps up havin' chillen. De mosters and the drivers takes all de nigger girls day want. One slave had four chillen right after the other with a white moster. Their chillen was brown, but one of 'em was white as you is. But dey was all slaves just de same, and de niggers dat had chillen with de white men didn't get treated no better. She got no more away from work dan de rest of 'em.
"One day I sees Lizzie (his second wife shown in the photograph)[Editor's note: We have not located the photograph referred to here.] workin' in de field when she was a girl. She was owned by Pinchback's brother. But dat William Pinchback was a kind master. Well, I likes her and she likes me. But nobody could marry any one dat didn't belong to de same moster. It was many years before Fate fixes things so we comes together and marries. But my first wife was a good woman too. Her name was Mary Hardy. I never had no chillen by her. She dies of pneumonia two years after I marries her.
"After a while de end of de war came. We didn't know nothin' about it. They was about 125 niggers workin' out in the field when old Pinchback come limpin' along. All he says to us was:
"'You niggers come on in. Don't do nothin', but be around, and in the mornin all of you comes to de big house.'
"Well we gets talkin' and figurin' and we decides dat maybe we was free. It was on a Friday again, and I tells 'en the war was sure over and we was goin' to get freed. Saturday mornin' comes and we all stands around waitin'. Den out comes Pinchback carrin' a great big book. He tells us:
"'All you niggers is free--just as damn free as I am.'
"Den he opens his book and gives us all a name. I had my own name dat was give to me by my father. He tells us all about ourself--where we come from and how old we was. After he got dun with this he says he will pay any of us niggers forty cents a day to work for him. He says that those niggers who don't want to stay can get out by sundown. About half the niggers stays on and about half of 'en starts scattering in different directions. I stayed on for some over a year and got my forty cents like he promises.
"No great change come about in de way we went on. We had de same houses, only we all got credit from de store and baught our own food. We got shoes and what clothes we wanted, too. Some of us got whipped just de same but nobody got nailed to a tree by his ears. De white men in de habit of havin' Negro girls still goes on havin' them. I don't know how much dey paid 'em for it, but they got treated better. But after de war folks, white and black folks, looks down on white men and black women who had children together. Before we was free nobody thought nothin' about it.
"It wasn't long before old Pinchback dies himself. And what do you think? When he was buried de lightnin' came and split de grave and de coffin wide open.
Published in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Westport, Connecticut: The Greenwood Press, Inc.,1979, Supplement Series 2, v.5, p. 1577-1583..