Phyllis Petite - Cherokee Freedwoman
Phyllis Petite (also spelled Pettit) was interviewed at her home in Fort
Gibson, Oklahoma in 1937. Her brother Johnson Thompson was also interviewed by
the WPA and his narrative will be listed on a separate page.
I was born in Rusk County Texas, on a plantation about eight miles east of
Belleview. There wasn't no town where I was born, but thye had a a church.
My mammy and pappy belonged to a part Cherokee named W.P. Thompson where I was
born. He had kinfolks in the Cherokee Nation, and we all moved up here to a
place of Fourteen Mile Creek close to where Hulbert now is, way before I was big
enought to remember anything. Then, so I been told, old master Thompson sell my
pappy and mammy and one of my baby brothers and me back to one of this neighbors
in Texas name of John Harnage.
Mammy's name was Letitia Thompson and Pappy's was Riley Thompson. My little
brother was named Johnson Thompson, but I had another brother sold to Vann and
he always call hisself Harry Vann. His Cherokee master lived on the Arkasnas
river close to Webber's Falls and I never did know him until we was both grown.
My only sister was Patsy and she was borned after slavery and died at Wagoner,
Oklahoma.
I can just remember when master John Harnage took us to Texas. We went in a
covered wagon with oxen and camped out all along the way. Mammy done the cooking
in big wash kettles and pappy done the driving of the oxen. I would set in a
wagon and listen to him pop his whip and holler.
Master John took us to his plantation and it was big one, too. You could look
from the field up to the Big House and any grown body in the yard look like a
little body, it was so far away.
We Negroes lived in quarters not far from the Big House and ours was a single
log house with a stick and dirt chimney. We cooked over the hot coals in the
fireplace.
I just played around until I was about six years old I reckon, and then they put
me up at the Big House with my mammy to work. She done all the cording and
spinning and weaving, and I done a whole lot of sweeping and minding the baby.
The baby was only about six months old, I reckon. I used to stand by the cradle
and rock it all day, and when I quit I would go to sleep right by the cradle
sometimes before mammy would come and get me.
The Big House had great big rooms in front, and they was fixed up nice too. I
remember when old Mrs. Harnage tried me out sweeping up the front rooms. They
had two or three great big pictures of some old people hanging on the wall. They
was full blood Indians it look like, and I was sure scared of them pictures! I
would go here and there and every which-a-way, and anywheres I go them big
pictures always looking straight at me and watching me sweep! I kept my eyes right
on them so I could run if they moved, and old Mistress take me back to the
kitchen and say I can't sweep because I miss all the dirt.
We always have good eating, like turnip greens cooked in a kettle with hog skins
and crackling grease, and skinned corn, and rabbit or possum stew. I like big
fish tolerable well too, but I was afraid of the bones in the little ones.
That skinned corn ain't like the boiled hominy we have today. To make it you
boil some wood ashes, or have some drip lye from the hopper to put in the hot
water. Let the corn boil in the lye water until the skin drops off and the eyes
drop out and then wash that corn in fresh water about a dozen times or just keep
carrying water from the spring until you are wore out, like I did. Then you put
the corn in a crock and set it in the spring, and you got good skinned corn as
long as it last, all ready to warm up a little batch at time.
Master had a big, long log kitchen setting away from the house, and we set a big
table for the family first, and when they was gone we negroes at the house eat
at that table too, but we don't use the china dishes
The negro cook was Tilda Chisholm. She and my mammy didn't do no outwork. Aunt
Tilda sure could make them corn-dodgers. Us children would catch her eating her
dinner first out of the kettles and when we say something she say" "Go
on child, I jest tasting that dinner." In the summer we had cotton homespun
clothes, and in winter it had wool mixed in. They was dyed with copperas and
wild indigo.
My brother, Johnson Thompson, would get up behind old Master Harnage on his
horse and go with him to hunt squirrels. Johnson would go 'round on the other
side of the tree, and rock the squirrels so they would go 'round on Master's
side so's he could shoot them. Master's old mare was named, "Old
Willow" and she knowed how to stop and stand real still so he could shoot.
His children was just all over the place! He had two houses full of them! I only
remember Bell, Ida, Maley, Mary and Will, but they was plenty more I don't
remember.
That old horn blowed 'way before daylight, and all the field negroes had to be
out in the row by the time of sun up. House negroes got up too, because old
Master always up to see everybody get out to work.
Old Master Harnage bought and old slaves most all the time, and some of the new
negroes always acted up and needed a licking. The worst ones got beat up good,
too! They didn't have no jail to put slaves in because when the Masters got done
licking them they didn't need no jail.
My husband was George Petite. He tell me his mammy was sold away from him when
he was a little boy. He looked down a long lane after her just as long as he
could see her, and cried after her. He went down to the big road and set down by
his mammy's barefooted tracks in the sand, and set there until it got dark, and
then he come on back to the quarters.
I just saw one slave try to get away right in hand. They caught him with
bloodhounds and brung him back in. The hounds had nearly tore him up, and he was
sick a long time. I don't remember his name, but he wasn't one of the old
regular negroes.
In Texas we had a church where we could go. I think it was a white church and
they just let the negroes have it when they got a preacher sometimes. My mammy
took me sometimes, and she loved to sing them slavation songs.
We used to carry news from one plantation to the other I reckon, 'cause momma
would tell about things going on some other plantation and I know she never been
there.
Christmas morning we always got some brown sugar candy or some molasses to pull,
and we children was up bright and early to get that 'lasses pull, I tell you!
And in the winter we played skeeting on the ice when the water froze over. No, I
don't mean skating. That's when you got iron skates, and we didn't have them
things. We just get a running start and jump on the ice and skeet as far as we
could go, and then you run some more.
I nearly busted my head open, and brother Johnson said: "Try it again,
" but after that I was scared to skeet any more.
Mammy say we was down in Texas to get away from the War, but I didn't see any
war and any soldiers. But one day old Master stay after he eat breakfast and
when us negroes come in to eat he say" After today I ain't your master any
more. You all as free as I am." We just stand and look and don't know what
to say about it.
After a while pappy got a wagon and some oxen to drive for a whtie man wHo was
coming to the Cherokee Nation because he had folks here. His name was Dave
Mounts and he had a boy named John.
We come with them and stopped at Fort Gibson where my own grandmammy was cooking
for the soldiers at the garrison. Her name was Phyllis Brewer and I was named
after her. She had a good Cherokee master. My mammy was born on his place.
We stayed with her about a week and then we moved out on Four Mile Creek to
live. She died on Fourteen-Mile Creek aobut a year later
When we first went to Four Mile Creek, I seen negro women chopping wood and
asked them who they work for and I found out they didn't know they was free yet.
After a while my pappy and mammy both died, and I was took care of by my aunt
Elsie Vann. she took my brother Johnson, too, but I don't know who took Harry
Vann.
I was married to George Petite, and I had on a white underdress and black high
top shoes, and a large cream colored hat, and on top of all I had a blue wool
dress with tassles all around the bottom of it. That dress was for me to eat the
terrible supper in. That what we called the wedding supper because we eat too
much of it. Just danced all night too! I was at Mandy Foster's house in Fort
Gibson and the preacher was Reverend Barrows. I had that dress a long time, but
it's gone now. I still got the little sun bonnet I wore to church in Texas.
We had six children, but all are dead but George, Tish an Annie now.
Yes, they tell me Abraham Lincoln set me free, and I love to look at his picture
on the wall in the school house at Four Mile branch where they have church. My
grand mamy kind of help start that church, and I think everybody ought to belong
to some church.
I want to say again my Master Harnage was Indian, but he was a good man and
mighty good to us slaves, and you can see I am more than six feet high and they
way I weighs over a hundred and sixty, even if my hair is snow white.