Elijah Cox

The following story is told by Elijah Cox of San Angelo, Texas, whose parents were slaves in Mississippi. During slavery days my father and mother were slaves in old Mississippi near the little town of Hernanda. Their master's name was Cox , and it was from him they took their name: my father was Jim Cox and my mother was Kizzie Cox .

Life for the slaves was pretty hard. On the plantation where my parents were slaves, there was an overseer who was cruel to the slaves. Besides having to do the regular farm work they had to split rails and make boards to shingle the houses. The overseer was to see that they worked and to whip them if they didn't work. If they picked up a newspaper they were whipped for that too. The owners didn't want the slaves to learn to read because they were afraid they would get too smart. And if they picked up a gun they were whipped for that. When slaves were to be sold, the owner would grease their mouths with fat bacon so the new owner would think they had been well fed, then they were placed on the auction block and bid off. This was an unpleasant time for the families of the ones who were being auctioned off. My parents were treated so cruelly they ran away from their master. They escaped with their children through the woods about twenty miles below Memphis, Tennessee. They crossed over to Quebec, in Canada, just across from Detroit. Then they went into the free state of Michigan where they could live in peace. They lived in that state until their death, which was in 1876, about the time of General Custer's Massacre. Elijah Cox (Uncle Cox ) was free-born in Michigan in 1843 and consequently was not a slave. Association with the ex-slaves, however, after he came to Fort Concho in 1871, furnished him with a broad knowledge of slavery days and he wished to contribute the following song which he learned at Fort Concho, having heard the ex-slaves sing it many times, as it was one of their favorite songs

I am thinking today 'bout the times passed away,
When they tied me up in bondage long ago.
In old Virginia state, is where we separate.
And it fills my heart with misery and woe.
They took away my boy who was his mother's joy.
A baby from the cradle him we raised.
Then they put us far apart and it broke the old man's heart,

In those agonizing, cruel slavery days.
Though they'll never come again let us give our praise to Him.
Who looks down where the little children play.
Every night and morn' we'll pray for them that's gone.
In those agonizing cruel slavery days.
My memory will steal o'er the old cabin floor and at night when all is dark.
We hear the watch dog bark and listen to the murmurs of the wind.
It seemed to say to me, you people must be free.

For the happy 'times are comin' Lord we pray.
Forget now and forgive has always been my guide.
For that's what the Golden Scripture says.
But my memory will turn 'round back to when I was tied down and for them we'll weep and mourn.
For our souls were not our own,In those agonizing cruel slavery days.
I'm very old and feeble now my hair is turning gray.
I have traveled o'er the roughest kinds of roads.
Through all the toils and sorrows I have reached the end at last.
Now I'm resting by the way-side with my load.