Rosa L. Pollard

I was born in Cincinatti, Ohio, in 1844. My father's name, Also Thomas and mother's name, Allion Thomas . I had one brother John , and one sister, Johanna Thomas .  My father and mother were captured in Africa and brought to this country when they was young. Father already had a wife over there but they failed to catch her and brought mother.  Maser was good to us, we always had plenty to eat, and once in awhile he give us a nickel and dime. Mistress was the best little woman I ever saw, she would see that her black folks were takened good care of and that we was warm and dry.  I'se had a great wedding, lots to eat and danced for the longest I'se begin to think I wish I'se had never married, all that big to do going on till I'se plum wore out. We had 14 children, 6 boys and 8 girls, don't members how many grandchildren I'se have, so many though I'se never count them all.  Maser built us a small two room house on his place and we worked for him 15 or 20 years on the halves, then he sold out and we came with him to Texas.  

I was born in Cincinatti, Ohio, the year 1844. Father's name, Also Thomas , mother's nase, Allien Thomas . Had one brother John and one sister Johanna Thomas . We used to have great times together until Maser sold brother and sister, they were older than me. If slavery had lasted long enough he would have sold me. Just about time I git big enough to sell the war started. I was hardly old enough to breed or raise from.  We had tolerable good quarters. There was rail or pole room covered over the top with cowhides and grass, it looked like wigwam from the out side. Our bed, why son, we did not have much beds, only straw piled down on the ground in one side of the quarters. Yes sir, it was warm in there and some times it rained in on us and we would get wet.   Yes my father and mother they were captured in Africa and brought to this country when they was young. Father he already had a wife over there, but they failed to catch her and they captured mother when she was very young and gave her to father as in them days they did'nt allow our people to marry like they do now and half of us young negroes did'nt know who our fathers was. They did not allow us to become attached to our fathers and mothers.  We done such work as cooking, hoeing corn, running spinning wheel and plowed tobacco. No sir, we did not earn any money, Maser he gave  me a nickel and dime once and a while. I'se bought me crochet thread, candy and things like that. Of course that was very little, as it was not often that Maser ever gave us anything.  We always had plenty to eat, cornbread cooked in great big iron skillet place on the open fire-place, and we had bread that we grated with our hands then. We had all kinds of meat and vegetables of all kinds that was growed in the garden on the place. No the slaves did not have a garden of their own, Maser always had large garden and gave the slaves what they wanted them to have.  In hot weather we had royal clothes, long shirt opened all the way down the front pinned together with thorns. In cold weather we had woolen clothes, no shoes, no sir, I did not know what shoes were until long after freedom. My wedding dress was white royal clothes trimmed in red. That was the first dress that I ever put on, all the rest was called shirts.  

Maser had 100 acres in his plantation, he never had but 7 grown slaves on it and 3 little slaves. He woke us up about 4 o'clock ever morning so'es we could help Mistress and the men could feed and tend to his stock. He worked us just as long every day as we could see.  Yes he gave us young slaves good whipping if we did not mind him and the ole ones too if they gets stubborn or contrary. He gave me a real good whipping one time when I sassed Mistress, that is one thing he never allowed for us to be sassy or stubborn. If we were he had a red heifer rawhide whip that he could straighten out the most stubborn negro. I was washing clothes one day for Mistress and I heard some one  coming on a horse and I looked around and a man rode up with a young negro chained around the neck leading him that way. That negro sure did look pitiful. After that man got off his horse and went to the house where Mistress was, the negre asked me if I would give him some water and could I steal him something to eat. I gave him the water and tried to get him something to eat but that white man he caught me trying to get that poor negro something to eat and made maser give me a good whipping. He sure was real mean or he would not have treated that negro that way, then had me whipped cause I was trying to get that poor negro something to eat.  Maser he was a big fat man and was a real good man. He always was good to his black folks. Never did see that man mad, always in a good huxor. Mistress was a small woman and Oh me! child, that was the best little woman I ever saw. She would see that her black folks were taken good care of and that we were always warm and dry. They never had no children and was real foolish about one another.

They lived in a big old two story house with 7 rooms, 3 upstairs and 4 down stairs. It had one door to the room but it never had anything but the one open shutter window - no glass. Son if you never saw one of them kind of windows with lots of beautiful shade tress all around it. No sir, the white people they said a dam negro was'nt worth that trouble and further more we was too thick headed we would never be able to learn how to read and write any way.  Yes, the white people had church here close to us and had a place fixed for the slaves to come to church, but they never had much preaching   but once a year. No sir, the slaves could not read the Bible, but Mistress would read to us every Sunday morning. We had something like they have Sunday School now, only Mistress just read the Bible and talked to us. Old Brother Jones preached on Sunday to the white folks as well as the negroes. The slaves liked him as he was always carrying on with them, teaching them to tell the truth about everything too. We use to sing them good old songs,  It was good enough for our Father's and it was good enough for me". Yes we had them good old camp meetings and everybody would shout. They generally had the meetings going on a month. They would go down on the creek and we would sing "On the Stormy Banks of Jordan", and the preacher would baptize the white folks first and then the negroes. When they finished there would always be 3 or 4 white couples who wanted to get married and the preacher would marry them. That night the white people would give them a big dance and supper and all the best negro banjo players gave them music to dance by. When it was all over the youngsters went home happy to raise another big crop of food stuff as well as babies.  We could not go from one plantation to another without a pass, if we did, them Patter Rollers would be waiting for us and what they did to the poor negro, if he tried to disobey his Maser, would be plenty. I have known one or two slaves to try and run away and go to the north, but they always caught them and brought him back. They would receive pretty stiff punishment and was very few ever tried it,  if they did, before it was through with they wished they had not, because it was hard living as well as punishment. I'se slipped off to see my sweetheart several times, but the Patter Rollers never did catch se. We use to have a place under a big old hickory tree we would talk at night, and if they had caught us we would have 39 licks with that raw-hide they carried. Our gang was small as was not many young people around us, but when we did get together we played Wolf over the River, Hide and Go Seek, etc. When we could we charmed our Maser and Mistress. We hung mistletoe over the door and if Maser or Mistress walked under it, that meant they would be good to the slaves. If we could get a rabbits foot us girls would wear it around our necks, as long as we did this Maser he would not be mean to us. If black cat crossed our path in front of us, that was bad luck. You just as well turn around and go back the way you come from, cause that black cat would sho' bring you bad luck. I saw a ghost one time soon after the war. He was a man without any head, he come to my door and begin to call me. I turned around in the bed where I could see the door and saw him just as he went away. He just kept calling me after he left, and scared, Lord! I was scared. My old man he never even saw it, but he got up and lit the lamp and looked all around and could find no sign of it. Then we went back to bed and went to sleep and soon he woke me up shaking me like everything saying, there is that ghost, but still we could not find it. We went back to sleep and the next norning we had 2 hogs in the pen and found them dead. Several days after we found our ghost--it was one of them panthers,  he hollered like a woman. That is what we heard that night and thought it was a man calling us. We called several men and killed that ghost and skinned him and made a carpet out of his hide.  Maser always gave us the best of care when we got sick. If we was just ailing he had negro mama to doctor us, but when we got real sick he had the white doctor with us. Old negro mama would take her sack and hoe to the woods and gather herbs such as cami, sassafras, bitter weeds, peach tree leaves and red oak bark and made tea and syrup to give us for fever, chills and colds. Any simple ailment for children cutting teeth she would tie camphor string around their neck and that would let them cut teeth without it hurting them. Yes, Mister, if you will take a bunch of negro wool and burn it to ashes and put that in your ear it will cure the worst spell of ear-ache. That is a simple remedy that was used during slavery time when we could not get these fine oils that we use in this fast day and age of the world. We used oil that come out of pine trees for the worst kind of cramp colic.  

That terrible war between the states took all the young boys and some of our best men that had families. No wonder the race of people is getting weak because war comes and takes out the very best men that we have both white and black and leaves the ones that are not fit for war service to raise some more soldiers, that is not right because our husbands are weak cripples and if them boys come back home they are not fit for husbands and fathers because they come home shell-shocked and  gassed and their children are weaklings. Our home county was over run with soldiers and they shot up everything, treated our women wrong, burned and tore down houses and fences. Their damage never will be overcome. Them guns popping and soldiers lying there dead and wounded is enough to sicken the best of us. Maser he was in that war and he was wounded. Had a leg broken and when he came home was the awfullest sight you ever saw. His beard was half inch long, clothes all ragged and dirty. He was wounded and blood had dried on his clothes and they were stiff. He told Mistress, "we went through hell and still we lost." He was on the side of South and I never want to see or hear of another war. Then he turned to me as I was helping Histress there in her kitchen and said, "you are free, you can go where you please, do as you please, I am not your Maser any more." I was glad in a way to hear that I was free, but still I did'nt want to be free because we never had nothing and nowhere to go. If we got sick we just died, nothing to get doctor with. You know we was worse off after freedom that we was during slavery time. I begin to ask Maser what we was going to do, he said, do as we dam pleased, he did'nt have any more to say in what we done, but I'se done realized that we was in a terrible fix. I asked him if he was not going to let us stay on there with hiz, that I wanted to work for him because that was all I knew to do. He said he could not keep me as he did not have any money to pay me with, and all his fences were tore down and his house was shot all to pieces and that it would take everything that he  could rake and scrape up to repair his place. I just kept staying on there and working for Maser as he was feeding me and got me a few clothes all along, still I was better off than lots of slaves as I had a roof over my head and he fed me, but Oh! child, I put in several days of hard work there for Maser helping him repair his fences and working his farm, and helping Mistress in the kitchen with her cooking as all his other slaves had left him when they was freed.  

When I married Maser built us a small two room house on his place for us so we could stay on and work for him on the halves. We stayed on with him 15 or 20 years, then he sold out back there and came to Texas and we came with him and stayed one or two years here, then we left.  I'se had a great wedding, married in the church by preacher, and we had lots to eat and danced for the longest. I'se begin to think I wish I'se had never married, all that to do until I'se plum wore out and Maser he gave me $5.00 for a wedding present, child! that was all he ever gave me and I had earned that several times and over.   We had 14 children, 6 boys and 8 girls all our own. They are all farming here in Texas. Child! I'se got so many grandchildren I'se done lost count of them a long time ago, and I'se have some great-grandchildren but I don't know exactly how many.  No sir, I did not think about them dividing Maser's land but they could have given us a better deal than they did. They could have given us a job, but no sir, they turned us loose just like a bunch of wild  cattle, no jobs, no money, nothing to eat or wear. I think back sometime that we got the worst end of freedom. When we was slaves Maser he fed and clothed us and seen that we had good care taken of us when we got sick. No sir, Maser he did not give us anything and if we looked like we wanted anything we [got] a kick and cussing. One good thing we did not have to stay on with Maser as servants unless we wanted to except in one way, we was forced to stay as we had no place to go or anything to do, looked like we had to stay or starve to death. We done just exactly what we could get to do and that was'nt nuch. I'se had to beg for eats. In them days the negro could not get out and get jobs like they can now. If we went to another white man and asked him for a job he asked us "are'nt you livin with so an so?" We say yes sir, then he would say to us, you will have to go to him with your trouble he is your boss, and that was exactly what we had to do.  We most generally farred, and if we worked by the day it was farm work. Our wages was so small we could not hardly live. We never got more than 15 to 40 cents a day. We just had to take what they would give us and be glad to get that. Sometime we would go and work hard and we would not get anything for that work, they just would'nt pay us if we had got just half what we worked for we would have been lots better off than we is now. That is the reason these here white people don't do any better than they do, them kind of people will not be prosperous.  

Yes sir, them Klu Klux Klan they was everywhere them days and all the negroes was scared of them white ghost, but I guess it was for the best. Them Klu Klux Klan they would make a negro do lots of things that he would'nt have done if it had not been for them. We would not leave our Maser if he did'nt want us to, them Klu Klux they would not let us. They kept the negro in hot water a long time after freedom and made the negro behave himself. If one was caught prowling around too much, them KKK they would get hold of that negro and give him a good whipping, tarring and feathering. The KKK would not let the negro vote al all, the negro was afriad to vote for a long time after freedom. Yes sir, I'se got some white kin people that hold office here in Texas.  Yes I believes the negro ought to be allowed more privileges here in Texas. They have to shoulder the same load that the white people had. They have to pay taxes and all that kind of business, and we can't help choose our office holders. I'se believe that is the reason we got the rotten deal like we do. They will not let us have anything but what we have to pay a terrible tax on.  Why son, I have done a little of everything to make a honest living. I'se helped farm, cut cord wood, I'se pulled a cross-cut saw lots of times to get bread. I chopped cotton from sun to sun and then I'se never would be able to even get me one Sunday dress. It would take it all to get some bread and syrup. No money to get any clothes or pay doctor bills, but thanks to the Lord I'se getting a  small pension from the government now and that helps me out some. I'se washes and does little jobs like that now to get by on and then I'se do not have very much. It takes nearly all I get of my pension to get medicine to help me along until the end, as I am sick all time. If times were better we could get by on our pension. Things we buy are too high and our pension checks don't go anywhere, that is the reason they gave us a pension, they knew they would get it back and we would have to spend it.  These here terrible young people they are done gone to the dogs. They are not any account, they will not work or tell the truth. I tell you white folks, I do not know what is going to become of them. Of course I'se knows times are hard, but that is not excuse for them doing like they do. I'se believes and hopes that if times ever get good again that they will do lots better than they are doing now. They are brighter and brighter in some ways, they can read and hold good jobs when they want to and I don't thinks that is any reason for them doing like they are doing now. They are doing worse than we was forced to do in slavery time. They are living together when they is not married, not half of them know who their father is because their mother is staying with two or three men all at the same time. All I'se can say is, I'se hopes the Lord will forgive them for their meanness. They do not even respect the white people now days at all. You know son, they are sorry.