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WPA Slave Narrative Collection

Second interview with Henrietta Lee, by Grace Williams

Saturday, September 5, 1936

Henrietta Lee is a ninety-two-year-old former slave from New Orleans. She was interviewed in July by Gerald Coleman and told him the story of her life in slavery, of her service in the Buffalo Soldier regiment disguised as a man, and of being discovered and discharged. Having completed his brief, Coleman ended the interview. I transcribed his notes, noted her parting comment, “The story is jus’ gettin’ good.” Curiosity got the best of me, and I returned to finish her story. Below is a word-for-word transcription of my multiple interviews with Mrs. Lee. —Grace Williams

“I didn’t expect anyone to come back to talk to me. Got the impression Mr. Coleman wanted to be doing anything but talking to an old slave. Oh, I’m sho Mr. Coleman is a busy man. Everybody’s busy these days, driving cars, staying out until all hours. Nobody knows how to sit silent with yourself anymore. If they’re not going, they’re listening to the radio. Lots of racket these days. I miss the silence of the mountains, I’ll tell you that.

“You want to know about my life after the army, huh? This for the project? Come on, girl. I can spot a liar a mile away and blindfolded. You’re getting something out of this. Screenwriter, huh?”

Mrs. Lee laughs for a long while, so long that tears start to come down her wrinkled face.

“No, no. I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the damn perfection of it. Sixty years on, and I’m right back where I was in 1877.”

Her laughter dies off.

“Except I’m alone now.

“You know, it’s funny, I was a slave for twenty-one of my ninety-two years, just a drop of time when you think of it. But that’s still all anyone wants to talk about. As if I didn’t exist in the seventy-one years between then and now. Why do you think that is? Times are changing and they want to remember? But why do they want to remember? To do better in the future, or to remind themselves of the good ole days? It can always get worse. Every time we get a bit of progress, things get worse. One step forward, a dozen steps back.

“Between you and me, most of the stuff I told Coleman were lies. What he wonta ’ear, how he wonta ’ear it, chile. If I told what really happened to me? The beatings? The midnight visits from the master? Hell, he wouldn’t believe me. He wanted all benevolent masters and sweet-as-sugar mistresses with happy slaves smiling as we picked the cotton, so that’s what I gave him. I never picked a boll of cotton in my life. You really think the government is going to keep honest accounts of what was done to us? It’s up to us to keep our oral history passed down between the black folks. We won’t forget, and maybe someday our real story will be told.

“Nah, that’s going to be lost like so many other stories have been lost. Or changed. Because the white men are writing the history, child. They aren’t going to show themselves in anything other than a heroic light. Uh-huh. You know what I’m saying is right. You want a truth, I’ll give you a truth, Grace Williams.

“I knew a Grace once. Back in Colorado. Did I like her? At times. You like everybody all the time? Your husband? Child, you are a liar. But don’t worry, everything I’ll tell you will be the God’s honest truth. You heard of the Parker Gang? Didn’t think so. The Spooner Gang? Tsk, that damn movie. Not a word of it was true, though Gary Cooper is a pretty good likeness of him. Jed was handsome, and knew it. He could just look at a woman and she’d drop her bloomers. Not me, no. I wasn’t the one with a relationship with him. That was Garet. Margaret Parker, was her Christian name. A British lady, and a duchess. Had the prettiest voice of anyone I’ve ever known, though she tried to hide it most of the time. Weren’t a lot of British ladies in the West and even fewer British lady bandits. Yes, I said bandits. Outlaw is probably a better word. I’m getting there, don’t worry. Are you going to listen, or are you going to ask questions? That’s what I thought.

“As to Garet and Spooner, not sure when she and Jed started up, if it was before Garet’s husband died or after. But it wasn’t too long after, I know that. Jed and his gang used our ranch as a hideout when they’d done a job, the Poudre River ranch at first, then the one in the Hole, Heresy Ranch we called it, after Thomas died and Garet’s place was stolen by the colonel.

“Did I work for Margaret Parker? Hell no. We were friends. Guess it was fate, me ending up hiding in her barn in 1869. I was on the run, you see. After the army found me out for a woman, I couldn’t very well disguise myself as a man and go join somewhere else. That was done a lot in those days. But there were only a few regiments I could go to, being a Negro. I didn’t much like pretending to be a man anyways. I had freedoms women didn’t, but clothes couldn’t change the color of my skin. I liked the men I served with and they liked me. So I became a camp follower. Laundresses, we were called. It was pretty much what it sounds like, but a lot of us also serviced the men in other ways.

“It was a good living for a while. Until a cracker couldn’t get his johnson to work one night and decided it was my fault. I wasn’t a little woman, not like I am now, but he was big as a bull. Didn’t have much of a chance. He tied my hands up on the center tent pole, took his belt off, and tore my back up good. Guess it reminded him of days gone by. He didn’t have equipment problems after that. Left me a bloody mess, tied to the pole. You OK there, Mrs. Williams? This too much for you?

“Took me a few weeks to heal up. The other laundresses, they took care of me. Mainly a woman named Sue. She’d lost her sister to some violence some years back, she never said what or how, but I suspect it was at the hands of a man. We didn’t get along, generally. I took too much business from her. But she looked past everything to make me better. Women do that, you know. Take care of each other when the chips are down. The good women do, anyways.

“When I was able to get around and my lashes had stopped seeping, I took my revenge. Sue, she knew what I was going to do. We never talked about it, but one morning I found a big Bowie knife hidden under my pillow. You know what a Bowie knife is? Named after Jim Bowie, hero of the Alamo. Big knife, blade about yay long. This one wasn’t much to look at. Yellow bone handle wrapped with a leather cord, to give it grip, you know. Had to change that cord out after. Soaked through with blood. Damn right I killed a white man. Slit his throat. Quite a mess. Never killed that way again. What do you think Mr. Coleman would’ve done if I’d told him that?” Laughs.

“I stole his coat and his horse and rode like hell. Blew the horse. That was before I knew how to manage one so that it could last for miles. Went on foot after that. Hid in the foothills for a few days, eating berries, drinking from rivers. The man I killed was just a private, but I figured they’d go after me for obvious reasons. You let one nigger get away with it …

“It was fall, and the nights were getting cold. Too cold for the cracker’s duster I’d stolen to be much help. I couldn’t risk a fire even if I had a soapstone to light it. One night I came across this horse ranch, big barn out back. I snuck in and slept in a stall. The horse didn’t mind overmuch. But I’ve always had a way with animals. Not like Garet and Jehu, mind you, but I held my own.

“Anyways. Told myself I’d wake up before dawn, maybe steal a chicken and be on my way. Nah … didn’t even occur to me, if you want to know the truth. Horse thieves were barely a step above niggers who killed white men. You know, I’ve never been afraid of dying. Still aren’t. It was the after that always terrified me. No, hell doesn’t worry me. I’ve repented, been washed in the blood of the Lamb. I imagine Peter’ll let me in easy enough. No, the after. When my soul has departed but my body’s still there. I’ve seen what they do to black bodies, even today. You? So you aren’t stupid. Good. Good. That mind of yours, that’s what’ll keep you alive and out of trouble. Remember that.

“Lord help me, there was something about that barn. Comforting like. The smell of hay and horse. And manure. The warmth. I was woken the next morning by a young, smock-faced boy. Or so I thought. He didn’t yell or scream or run to the house and get his boss. Garet and her husband, Thomas, as it turned out. He saw the dried blood on the front of my dress and asked me if I was hurt. He snuck me some food from the house, a little whisky, a clean dress. Then the sheriff came. The boy hid me in a haystack.

“Find me? I’m here, aren’t I? Garet did, though. She looked at the clean dress I was wearing, hers, and looked me in the eye. She had beautiful eyes, Garet. Ice blue. Dark hair. She was more handsome than pretty, had a horsey face if you want to know the truth, but there was something about her that drew you in. She knew who I was. Couldn’t have been many strange Negro women in the foothills around the Cache la Poudre. ‘Did you kill him?’ she asked. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ‘Why?’ ‘He took my dignity.’ She nodded once, and told me to come inside.

“She treated me with respect, like an equal, from the start. She didn’t order me around. It was always please and thank you and asking me for my opinion. I didn’t trust her at the beginning. Besides Sue at the end, I wasn’t used to kindness from a white woman. I thought for sure Garet would reveal herself to be like everyone else in time. But she never did.

“I loved that woman, I really did. She was like a sister to me. We fought like sisters, too. But when it came down to it, we took care of each other. We all did. Margaret, though. I sure miss that woman. Her life was cut too short, and that’s a fact.

“October 1877. That summer before was … I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. You aren’t going to believe me. No one does, and there’s no one left to back me up, neither. You’re going to go back to your writers’ project office and talk about the crazy auntie who says she was an outlaw. They’re going to write me off as a senile old woman. You see, this may really be the last chance for our story to be told. Grace tried, but the best she managed was a penny dreadful that bore little resemblance to the truth. Dorcas Connolly never said a word about it. Oh yeah. I paid attention to her over the years. That accordion-playing whore Opal never came within a mile of outlawing, but she told so many lies about her exploits that no one will believe a word from a woman who lived then if it doesn’t follow the lies they all decided on. What lies? Hell, girl, anything you see on the silver screen, for one. Anything you read, anything you hear. The story of the West is one big lie they call a myth because it sounds better. The biggest lie is that men did all the settling. Sure, women were outnumbered, but we were there. Hell, they couldn’t’ve settled the West without women, but do we get any credit? Have we ever gotten to be the hero of the story? Hell, no. And a black woman? Shit.

“So, you can see why I’m hesitant. This isn’t a short story, and I’m not going to be able to tell it all in one day. But if you’re willing to humor an old woman, to be patient when I get too tired to go on and to really listen, then I’ll tell you my story. You are? That’s fine, then. But you have to promise me one thing: don’t give this story to anyone until I’m dead. Well, that’s sweet of you to say so, but I’m ninety-two years old, best as I can tell, and I’m tired, Grace Williams. So tired. It won’t be long now, and I’m ready. Child, am I ready. Sure, I can talk a little longer today if you’ll refill my tea for me. Kitchen’s straight through to the back. Get yourself one too while you’re back there.

“Thank you. There’s nothing better than a glass of tea on a porch, is there?”

Mrs. Lee pauses for a long moment, gathering her thoughts.

“I can’t tell you about the summer of 1877 until I tell you how we got there, the course our lives took to us being outlaws. It all started a few years before, when Thomas died of consumption. January 1872, it was. Things went OK for a while. Me, Garet, and Jehu ran the ranch. We had a little Chinese cook, too, Julie. She was one of the women who found her way to us, worked for a while, then moved on. And of course Joan and Stella were there by the time Thomas died.

“We had a neighbor, rich fellow called Colonel Louis Connolly. At first, after Thomas died, the colonel was very helpful. His was a cattle ranch, we broke and sold wild horses. Garet was a hand with a horse, I can tell you that. Quiet them right down. Didn’t realize she was better at it than Thomas until he was bedridden. We weren’t any sort of competition for Connolly, in fact we kept him in horses, and he was very helpful, like I said. Well, he was just laying the groundwork to buy her out when running a ranch got to be too much for the little lady. That never happened, though. We thrived.

“About six months after Thomas died, Garet bought the three hundred and forty acres between her and Connolly’s ranch from a widow whose husband was kicked in the head by his mule. Took us up to almost seven hundred acres of prime river bottomland. Chafed Connolly something fierce. He’d put an offer in for the ranch, but the widow’s husband had made her swear not to sell to “that bastard Connolly.” The widow told Garet what the offer was, and asked her to offer for one dollar more. They could say in honesty that she paid more. The colonel found out what the selling price was and was incensed. We didn’t know that until later. It boiled down to him hating being bested by a woman, but I think a part of him admired Garet’s shrewdness. That’s why he tried to marry her at first. She was young and had a lot of spirit, Garet did, and a great wit. Men, and a fair few women, fell under her spell pretty easy, and the colonel was no different.

“He came to the ranch one night all gussied up, and I knew exactly which way the wind was blowing. Garet did, too. You should have seen how still she went when Connolly walked in the door with that bunch of wildflowers in his hand. This old man—he was a good twenty years older than Garet, but he looked thirty or more with his leathery face and silver hair. He had a nice, full head a hair, I’ll give him that. The sisters and I went into the other room while he made his offer for her hand in marriage, but you better believe we listened in. It wasn’t a bad proposal, and most women would have been flattered and jumped at the chance. Not Garet. But she told him she needed time to think about it.

“She and I stayed up all night, talking about it. Combining the ranches into one operation did make a sort of sense. Like I said, they complemented each other. But we both knew that as soon as she said yes to Connolly, she would be giving up control of the ranch. There was no telling what would have become of the rest of us, but we damn sure wouldn’t have been moved into the big house. That was what decided her, the worry about what would happen to us, and where would the women who searched us out for a safe place to stay go? No way the colonel or Dorcas would have agreed to being a halfway house to a bunch of whores and runaway wives.

“Garet didn’t want to remarry. Why would she when she had Spooner to satisfy her now and then? Garet got a taste of freedom, you see. What it was like to be her own boss, to be able to run the ranch without having to pretend like its success was all down to her husband. What woman in her right mind would give that up? Especially since she had Jehu, me, and the sisters helping her out? If things had gone differently, I think Garet would have amassed her own business empire.

“Anyways. She turned down Connolly, very politely. She knew she needed his help—he was a powerful man in the territory—if we were going to survive, and that one good word from the colonel and the banks would play.

“Garet was a nice woman. One of the best. How else to explain how she took all of us in, treated us like family? Like equals. That was the difference. The colonel didn’t see anyone as his equal, just as people to dominate and control. I guess that was Garet’s big mistake, always wanting to see the best in people. She didn’t realize how vain the colonel was, that he wouldn’t forgive her for the rejection. I expect his sister, Dorcas, riled him up about the audacity of Garet rejecting him. Garet always liked Dorcas, but I saw through her. Hell yeah, she treated me like a slave. Called me nigger to my face.

“After Garet rejected his marriage proposal, the next offer Connolly made was for the ranch and it was about half of what the ranch was worth. When Garet told Jed about Connolly’s offer he laughed and told her she could get a better take by robbing Connolly’s Denver bank.

“You better believe she filed that away. We weren’t totally broke, but money was tight. She’d spent most of her savings on the widow’s ranch, and had kept more horses back to breed than usual, so our sales were pretty low, and nearly all of that went to pay off a loan Thomas had taken out two years before. Garet was confident that we would pull in a good herd the next spring, and when the bankers saw the numbers for a full year with Garet in charge, they’d see her as a good bet.

“Jehu started back driving freight to bring in some money and Spooner left—he hated the cold and couldn’t abide the Colorado winters. Jed helped out a little before he left, but it’d been a while since their last job and he wasn’t flush. Garet didn’t want his charity anyways. Said taking his money now, when it wasn’t for trading horses, or for putting up the gang between jobs, made her feel like a whore taking money from a john.

“We made it through the winter. It was all down to Jehu’s driving and Stella and Joan’s canning skills. We rounded up another herd of horses that next June, ’73 it was. Spent the summer breaking them. My God, Garet was a hand. She broke two horses a day, sometimes three. Broke her arm when one threw her. Doctor put a cast on, and as soon as he’d driven away, she was back up on that horse.

“There were nights where Garet fell asleep at the dinner table. We all worked hard, don’t get me wrong. I tended all the livestock and helped with the horses. The sisters planted the garden and took care of the house. Jehu helped Garet with the horses, but he’d be gone hauling some. That little bit of steady income helped. But Garet nearly killed herself.

“Despite the hardships, and the fear that hung over everything we did, I count that as one of the best summers of my life. We were happy. We had high hopes, let me tell you. It was the best herd we’d ever had. We pulled ten of the best mares for breeding aside, that gave us twenty-five broodmares all told, and had our stud mount them. We wanted to eventually get to where we were a breeding farm, not just rounding up mustangs. We were counting on the money from selling those horses to get us through the next winter, and to leave us some to put aside, as well.

“I’m fine. Haven’t you ever seen an old woman cry before? Haven’t thought about this all in a long time. I couldn’t, you see. It was too perfect, that summer. Thinking about how hopeful we were, well, it just breaks my heart. No. No, that’s not right. It makes me angry. Still. Sixty years later. We weren’t hurting anyone. Just women minding their own business, being a family, running our business, contributing to the settling of the West, by God, just as much as the men did. But they couldn’t stand it that we didn’t need them.

“He was called Colonel Connolly, but the highest rank he held in the Mexican War was lieutenant. He called himself colonel when he commanded a territory militia during the war. He took to the title, and had a good relationship with the army because of his past service. Provided them with livestock and such for their forts. When he asked one of his army cronies to requisition Garet’s herd of horses, they agreed.

“They took our horses, every last one, as well as our hay, feed, wagons, goats, and chickens. They took our fucking chickens, said it was all in service of the army, that they were stretched thin in the northern forts because so much of the supplies were being routed south for the campaign against the Comanche. Must not have been in too dire straits since they didn’t take anything from anyone else. They gave us pennies on the dollar for our property and said that we would probably see the money in the spring, seeing as how bureaucracy took time. We knew we would never see that money.

“We didn’t expect the colonel to stand up for us, but the other smaller ranchers we did. Turned out, they didn’t like that a ranch run by a bunch of women was more successful than they were. No help to be found there, though the wives had the grace to look abashed at their husbands’ behavior.

“Margaret went to the banks to ask for money to tide us over, but Connolly got to them so no one would loan Garet money. Not sure many of them would have lent to a woman anyways. More than one of them suggested she should return to her natural place, in the home. When she got back from Denver, a letter from Connolly was waiting with a final offer on the ranch, the lowest price yet.

“I didn’t know Garet had that kind of rage in her. Did she take the offer? Hell yeah, she took it. She didn’t have a choice. We had no money and no horses. The only thing of value we had was the land. If she was going to lose her dream, she was going to take every cent she could from the bastard that stole it. He delivered the money and five horses. Nags, they were. We rode off with nothing but the clothes on our backs and what we could shove in saddlebags and tie onto the back of the extra horse.

“Lots of people will tell you the first daylight bank robbery in Colorado was Butch Cassidy in Telluride in ’89, but that’s a lie. It was Margaret Parker robbing the Bank of the Rockies on November 19, 1873. Even then, her first job, men were trying to write her out of history. In the end they succeeded, too. Despite Garet’s best efforts.

“You come back tomorrow, Grace Williams, and I’ll tell you about Grace Trumbull. Kidnapping her was the beginning of the end of us. We didn’t know it at the time, of course. She was there for the summer of ’77. She was supposed to be our witness, to tell the story of the last days of the Parker Gang. Like I said, she tried, but she failed. Guess it falls on me now. Soon enough, it’ll fall on you.”