Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson
Subject: Ex-slaves — Dreams — Herbs: Cures and Remedies
Story: —
This information given by: Tom Wylie Neal
Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas — Near Green Grove
Occupation: Farmer — Feeds cattle in the winter for a man in Hazen.
Age: 85
His father and mother belonged to Tom Neal at Calhoun, Georgia. He remembers the big battle at Atlanta Ga. He was eight years old. He saw the lights, [saw the bullets in the air at night] and heard the boom, boom of guns and cannons. They passed along with loaded wagons and in uniforms. The horses were beautiful, and he saw lots of fine saddles and bridles. His mistress' name was Mrs. Tom Neal. She had the property and married Tom Neal. She had been married before and her first husband died but her first husband's name can't be recalled. She had two children — girls — by her first husband. Her second husband just married her to protect them all he could. He didn't do anything unless the old mistress told him to do it and how to do it. Wylie Neal was raised up with the old mistress' children. He was born a slave and lived to thirteen years. "The family had some better to eat and lots more to wear, but they gave me plenty and never did mistreat me. They had a peafowl. That was good luck, to keep some of them about on the place." They had guineas, chickens and turkeys. They never had a farm bell. He never saw one till he came to Arkansas. They blew a big "Conch shell" instead. Mistress had cows and she would pour milk or pot-liquor out in a big pewter bowl on a stump and the children would come up there from the cabins and eat [till the field hands had time to cook a meal.] Wylie's mother was a field hand. They drank out of tin cans and gourds. The master mated his hands. Some times he would ask his young man or woman if they knew anybody they would like to marry that he was going to buy more help and if they knew anybody he would buy them if he could. The way they met folks they would get asked to corn shuckings and log rollings and Mrs. Neal always took some of her colored people to church to attend to the stock, tie the horses and hitch up, maybe feed and to nurse her little girls at church. The colored folks sat on the back seats over in a corner together. If they didn't behave or talked out they got a whipping or didn't go no more. "They kept the colored people scared to be bad."
The colored folks believed in hoodoo and witches. Heard them talking lots about witches. They said if they found anybody was a witch they would kill them. Witches took on other forms and went out to do meaness. They said sometimes some of them got through latch holes. They used buttons and door knobs whittled out of wood, and door latches with strings.
People married early in "Them days" — when Mistress' oldest girl married she gave her Sumanthy, Wylie's oldest sister when they come home [they would let her come.] They sent their children to school some but the colored folks didn't go because it was "pay school." Every year they had "pertracted meeting." Looked like a thousand people come and stayed two or three weeks along in August, in tents. "We had a big time then and some times we'd see a colored girl we'd ask the master to buy. They'd preach to the colored folks some days. Tell them the law. How to behave and serve the Lord." When Wylie was twelve years old the "Yanks" came and tore up the farm. "It was just like these cyclones that is around here in Arkansas, exactly like that."
His mistress left and he never saw her again. General Hood was the he thinks, but he was given to Captain Condennens to wait on him. They went to Marietta, Ga., and Kingston, Ga. "Rumors came about that we were free and everybody was drifting around. The U.S. Government gave us food then like they do now and we hunted work. Everybody nearly froze and starved. We wore old uniforms and slept anywhere we could find, an old house or piece of a house. In 1865-1869 — the Ku Klux was miserable on the colored folks. Lots of folks died out of consumption in the spring and pneumonia all winter.
"There wasn't any doctors seeing after colored folks for they had no money and they used herbs — only medicine they could get."
Only herbs he remembers he used is: chew black snake roots to settle sick stomach. Flux weed tea for disordered stomach. People eat so much "messed up food" lot of them got sick.
Wylie Neal wandered about and finally came to Chattanooga. They got old uniforms and victuals from the "Yanks" about a year.
Colonel Stocker come and got up a lot of hands and paid their way to Memphis on the train. From there they were put on the Molly Hamilton boat and went to Linden, Arkansas, on the St. Francis River. "He fared fine" there. In 1906 he came to Hazen and since then he has owned small farms at Biscoe and forty acres near Hazen. It was joining the old Joe Perry place. Dr. ---- got a mortgage on it and took it. Wylie Neal lives with his niece and she is old too so they get relief and a pension.
"He don't believe in dreams but some dreams like when you dream of the dead there's sho' goner be falling weather." He "don't dream much" he says.
He has a birthmark on his leg. It looks like a bunch of berries. He never heard what caused it. It has always been there.