Bearing Witness: Memories of Arkansas Slavery

Washington County

Washington County Blakely,Aunt Adeline Age: 89 101 Rock Street Fayetteville, Arkansas Interviewer: Mrs. Zillah Cross Peel [M:8: pt. 1: 11–16] [See also M:8 pt. 1: 180–93] “I was born a slave about 1848, in Hickmon County, Tennessee,” said Aunt Adeline, who lives as care taker in a house at 101 Rock Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is owned by the Blakely-Hudgens estate. Aunt Adeline has been a slave and a servant in five generations of the Parks family. Her mother, Liza, with a group of five Negroes, was sold into slavery to John P. A. Parks, in Tennessee, about 1840. “When my mother’s master came to Arkansas about 1849, looking for a country residence, he bought what was known as the old Kidd place on the Old Wire Road, which was one of the Stage Coach stops. I was about one year old when we came. We had a big house and many times passengers would stay several days and wait for the next stage to come by. It was then that I earned my first money. I must have been about six or seven years old. One of Mr. Parks’ daughters was about one and a half years older than I was.We had a play house back of the fireplace chimney. We didn’t have many toys; maybe a doll made of a corn cob, with a dress made from scraps and a head made from a roll of scraps. We were playing church. Miss Fannie was the preacher and I was the audience. We were singing “Jesus my all to Heaven is gone.” When we were half way through with our song we discovered that the passengers from the stage coach had stopped to listen. We were so frightened at our audience that we both ran. But we were coaxed to come back for a dime and sing our song over. I remember that Miss Fannie used a big leaf for a book. “I had always been told from the time I was a small child that I was a Negro of African stock. That it was no disgrace to be a Negro and had it not been for the white folks who brought us over here from Africa as slaves, we would never have been here and would have been much better off. “We colored folks were not allowed to be taught to read or write. It was against the law. My masters’s folks always treated me well. I had good clothes. 378 Lankfordtext:Lankford / Final Pages 7/14/09 10:06 AM Page 378 Sometimes I was whipped for things I should not have done just as the white children were. “When a young girl was married her parents would always give her a slave. I was given by my master to his daughter, Miss Elizabeth, who married Mr. Blakely. I was just five years old. She moved into a new home at Fayetteville and I was taken along but she soon sent me back home to my master telling him that I was too little and not enough help to her. So I went back to the Parks home and stayed until I was over seven years old. My master made a bill of sale for me to his daughter, in order to keep account of all settlements, so when he died and the estate settled each child would know how he stood. [This statement can be verified by the will made by John P. A. Parks, and filed in Probate Court in the clerk’s office in Washington County.] “I was about 15 years old when the Civil War ended and was still living with Mrs. Blakely and helped care for her little children. Her daughter, Miss Lenora, later married H. M. Hudgens, and I then went to live with her and cared for her children. When her daughter Miss Helen married Professor Wiggins, I took care of her little daughter, and this made five generations that I have cared for. “During the Civil War, Mr. Parks took all his slaves and all of his fine stock, horses and cattle and went South to Louisiana following the Southern army for protection.Many slave owners left the county taking with them their slaves and followed the army. “When the war was over, Mr. Parks was still in the South and gave to each one of his slaves who did not want to come back to Arkansas so...