SILENT STRANGERS: WEST AFRICANS IN IZARD COUNTYPart One
By Dale HanksIt seems strange to recall that people with origins along the West Coast of Africa were among the first permanent settlers in Izard County. They were brought into the White River valley in the early 1800’s as “Negro property” by Colonel Stewart, Reverend George Gill, Robert Livingston, Jacob Wolf, Jehoiada Jeffery, Uz Walker, the Finleys, Criswells, Adamses, Harrises, the Watkins brothers, and others.
What seems even stranger is that hundreds of these individuals, bought and sold for labor in Izard County, were negotiated for at auctions and private sales much as were horses, mules, and other farm animals. Teeth were checked for age. Height, weight and muscle mass were noted for strength and gaits were evaluated for possible physical disabilities. Backs were checked for whipping scars as indicators of temperament, or evidence of previous brutal masters.
Although the Izard blacks descended from West African tribes, there were many differences in their language, history and culture. Not only did they have to adjust to a new environment in a strange country, But they had to adjust to the different ways of each other.
These early Africans did the heavy lifting in Izard County building many of the first log houses, barns smoke houses, root cellars, and their own dwellings behind the “big house”. They dug wells, and looked after farm animals. They cleared land, plowed fields, and planted, chopped and picked cotton in the river bottoms. They dammed up streams and built the first grist mills, in the county. Their women and young children did housework. They cooked, carded cotton and wool, helped butcher hogs and cattle and carried water from nearby springs. Their normal workday was from sunup to sundown. Sundays were usually free.
It is fair to say that, without these black slaves, the development of Izard County would have been delayed, perhaps, by at least thirty years. The white settlers were, by and large, young men with very small children who were too young to be of any help in taming the wilderness. Jehoiada Jeffery, for example, was only twenty-six years old when he came to the area with a sizable contingent of slaves. Jacob Wolf was about thirty years of age when he settled on the North Fork.
The Izard frontier was no place for old men. It was only the adventurous young men with great energy and vision who came to tame the unbridled land. Their safety and successful settlements were possible only if the were accompanied by allied family members or friends. Failing that kind of support, many of them turned to the peculiar institution of slavery as a source of labor and mutual protection from the turbulent dangers lurking in the wilderness along White River.
Some of the first white settlers in Izard County brought black slaves with them into the area as early as 1814. A.C. Jeffery, an original historian in Izard County, says that Colonel Stewart “brought some Negro property with him” and settled on the old ridge at Mt. Olive. Reverend George Gill and Robert Livingston also accompanied Colonel Stewart from Kentucky to Izard County.
Jeffery does not say if Gill and Livingston brought slaves too, but both of them appear as slave owners in later records. Livingston settled at the mouth of Livingston Creek, which bears his name today. . He built a gristmill with the help of slave labor and became a successful miller. George Gill, a Missionary Baptist preacher for 40 years, located his new home not far from Livingston. In those days it was customary for preachers and others to use the scriptures, as justification for slavery and it was not uncommon for ministers to own slaves.
Jehoiada Jeffery, founder of Mt. Olive, brought perhaps six or eight black slaves with him to Izard County from southern Illinois. Thy helped manage the pack train of horses that carried a wide range of supplies and equipment, and drove a large herd of cattle a long with them.
Major Jacob Wolf brought a “large Negro property” from Kentucky to the mouth of the North Fork (Norfolk) where he settled about 1818. About 1820 the Walkers and Finleys came to the White River valley in Izard County from South Carolina. Both families brought a number of blacks with them.
These black people with ancestral roots along the western coast of Africa were among the most valuable possessions of many early settlers in Izard County and the owners were taxed accordingly. They paid taxes on all slaves between the ages of 10 and 60 the age range for those considered as productive assets. They were groups either “field Negroes” or “house Negroes:. By 1850, slaves accounted for about one third of the assessed wealth in Izard.
How were the slaves in Izard County treated? We have very little documented evidence, but the mint Julep and magnolia fantasies about happy, well-fed, pampered, banjo plucking darkies with watermelon- slice grins and cared for in sickness with loving hands of beautiful and noble southern white women is a myth.
Writers with the Federal Writers’ Project of the Work Project Administration (WPA) in 1936-1939 interviewed hundreds of former slaves in Arkansas. Most of them had worked on the larger plantations in the Delta, but a few had worked on smaller farms in the Ozarks. The overwhelming majority of several thousand interviews with ex-slaves conducted in Arkansas and other southern states talk of physical force used to keep the slaves in line. Whippings appear as a central theme in slave life. Almost without exception, all these narratives contain vivid descriptions of whipping as the main punishment. Slaves were whipped for disobedience, stubbornness, not working hard enough or good enough, as an example to other slaves and for a variety of other reasons and sometimes for no reason at all.
The most common approach to whipping forced the victim to lie down on his or her belly where they were tied to four stakes in the ground. They were stripped of their clothing and whipped with a “cat-o-tails” of rawhide leather platted around a wooden handle about ten inches long with the leather braided past the handle some four or five feet. The last foot of the whip was where all the rawhide strips were tied in a knot to “spangle” out making a tassel. As Thomas Cole, an ex-slave from Alabama, put it, “Dis tassel am call de cracker and it am what splits de hide.” Salt, turpentine, vinegar, and red pepper were ingredients used to rub into the cuts after the whipping sometimes with corncobs.
On some plantations a whipping post was installed in a prominent place in the slave quarters area. Here the victim was tied to the post, whipped on and off at intervals for maybe a half day, and kept tied for an awhile longer as a reminder to other slaves of the master’s power over them. Some owners had even more brutal methods of torture, which are not necessary to describe here, but you get the point.
There is evidence to suggest, however, that Izard County slaves were treated far better and suffered less abuse than those on larger plantations. In the first place, overcoming the dangerous wilderness along White River put master and slave in the same boat. Mutual cooperation was essential to survival for both of them. Both owner and slave were forced to defend themselves again common enemies in a harsh environment. Hostile Indians, white trash outlaws, rattlesnakes, panthers, bob cats, floods, accidents, and disease created powerful interdependent relationships between slave owners and slaves in Izard County, The resulting social interaction would have been unknown on Larger plantations where dangers were few as compared to the Izard frontier.
I don’t mean to suggest that slavery was great fun for blacks in Izard County but there is considerable anecdotal evidence to support the notion that slaves and their owners in Izard County lived in relative peace and harmony as compared with the brutal Delta Plantation society.
On a large plantation, a single owner might have 100 to 200 or more working slaves resulting in impersonal relationships between them. On the other hand, small farms in Izard County made for fewer slaves owned by a single master that fostered more personal relationships. In many, if not most, of the early settlements in Izard, slaves were considered as a part of the larger family group. They worked side by side and attended the same churches. Sometimes they shared the same house.
During the period of slavery the leading churches in Arkansas were Methodists, Baptists and Cumberland Presbyterians. Many Methodist preachers were themselves slave owners while others were abolitionists. One Methodist preacher, Jesse Haile, served in Arkansas from 1825 to 1829. Haile spoke out vigorously against slavery and his sermons were called “hail storms”. He succeeded in expelling some slave owners from the church. Other of his slave-owner members left to become Cumberland Presbyterians. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church held pro-slavery views at the time. The hail storm era came to a close in 1830 when the Methodists transferred their fiery young preacher to Illinois where his ideas were more acceptable.
All three denominations were interested in working with slaves, but the Baptists were more active in the spiritual welfare of the slave population than the others. The great majority of Baptist slaves were members of the same churches as their masters. There was little uniformity among the churches regarding services for slaves. Joint services were held in some with whites and blacks all together. Others church held separate services, but they were all members of the same church.
A.C. Jeffery says that Major Wolf, who had as many as 24 slaves at one time, had a strict rule that required all of them to get religion and join the Baptist church when they reached age thirteen. The blacks belonged to the same Church as the Wolfs, but a separate place was provided for them in the church building.
A.C.Jeffery tells us that Jacob Wolf’s sister, Mary Adams, had a slave named London. One day while Jacob was working in his blacksmith shop, London came in and somehow he and Jacob got into an argument. Jacob knocked London down with a board and London took off. Since Jacob and London were members of the same Baptist Church, the bond of church fellowship was broken.
As a result of the dispute between Jacob and London, both of them were summoned to appear before the Church. A church deacon presided at the “trial”. Jacob admitted that he had struck London. He said, “London gave me some of his lip, and I found it necessary to knock him down.” But Jacob grudgingly apologized for his act.
Then the “trial deacon” asked London if he was satisfied with Jacob’s apology. He said “I accepts Uncle Jake’s apology and forgives”. Thus, peace and harmony were restored, and the dignity of church was once more intact. Jacob continued in full fellowship with the congregation.
The fact that a slave (London) would dare challenge Jacob Wolf, the most powerful man in Izard County at the time, suggests a tolerant social structure that recognized blacks as not mere chattel, but worthy human beings.
Among Jehoiada Jeffery’s slaves was a black girl named Mandy. Mandy worked in the house helping Jehoiada’s wife, Mary, and slept on a trundle bed right under Mary’s bed one day when Mandy was a young teenager, they sent her in a canoe across White River for a few days to help Jehoiada’s daughter, Lucretia Harris. Then night came, Mandy, who had never spent a night away from her mistress, became fearful and homesick.
After the Harris household was fast asleep, Mandy slipped out of their house and returned to the river where her canoe was waiting. She then paddled back to the Mt. Olive side. As she was headed in the darkness back to her safe trundle bed, a large black panther began to stalk her. Mandy took off in a sprint and barely beat the panther to the door. The noise awakened Jehoiada and as he came to their door, Mandy ran over him charging into the house to escape the panther.
“He almost got me!” screamed Mandy. “He’s big and mean!”
Mandy, I’ve a mind to wear you out,” said Jehoiada. But when daylight came, he saw the largest panther he had ever seen stretched out on a long tree limb near the house. He shot the panther. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Mandy got away with that one as the panther created enough excitement to focus attention away from her.
Mandy helped her mistress, Mary Jeffery, recover the body of Mary’s grandson, Isaac Jeffery, from Pelham Creek at Mount Olive after he was murdered and robbed by Federal troops during the Civil War. Isaac was home on furlough recovering from battle wounds when the Federal soldiers occupying Batesville raided Mount Olive.
The Yankees killed two other young men and captured ten other men that January day including Ambrose Jeffery, a cousin of Isaac. Mandy and Mary waded into the freezing creek and managed to lift Isaac onto a two-wheel cart pulled by oxen. They took the body back to their house and prepared it for burial.
S. C. Turnbo reported that the Adams family had three slaves, Mose, Wash, and Bill who hunted coons regularly with two of the younger Adams boys, John and Matthew. One eventful night of coon hunting turned up a large coon that “thrashed” their dogs before climbing a large tree. Bill returned to the house to report treeing “the biggest coon you ever see’d” while the others stayed with the monster coon. At daylight, when Bill returned with Josiah , an older brother of John and Matthew, they discovered the giant coon was really a panther with a tail “as long as a fence rail”. Josiah shot the panther and they all returned triumphantly, to the house.
Since coon hunting was largely a social event, it is clear that some of the Adames’ slaves and their sons played together more or less as equals. A large panther treed in the darkness of a deep forest becomes a great social equalizer. Black and white disappears and is quickly replaced with the spirit of unity and teamwork -- all for one and one for all.
To avoid over-familiarity with slaves and to assert their perceived superiority whites in the Ozarks created patrols to keep watch over the slaves even if they were obedient. It is doubtful, however, that patrols ever amounted to anything Izard County. Communities were too small and isolated for the blacks to organize, even if they had wanted to.
Patrols were established by county courts for each township. They were comprised of a Captain and up to 10 or fewer members who served for a year. They patrolled their areas up to 12 hours per night. After 1853, the patrol system was changed with Justices of the Peace appointing members who served for only four months. Patrol time was reduced to once every two weeks or oftener if necessary. They looked for slaves away from their homes without a pass, or for Illegal assemblies of slaves. Patrols were authorized to administer up to 20 lashes for these trespasses.
Men with money could buy their way out of patrol duty. As a result, many poor whites commonly called “white trash” became patrollers and in some cases invaded slave quarters at night to whip them and intimidate them for no reason at all.
It is likely, however, that night patrols in Izard County were not very active or even operating, given the relatively small number of slaves and their living conditions close to their owners. The patrol system served more as a passive device to remind the slaves of their inferior social status.
On July 31 1858, the Arkansas Gazette carried a “Circular to the People of the State of Arkansas” making the following statement:
“The justification of the institution of slavery rests upon the inferiority of the Negro race, it’s unfitness to be free, its incapacity to take care of and govern itself. It is insane in us to teach the slave by our acts… The submission and loyalty of the slave must come from his conviction that his condition of servitude to a higher race is his natural condition: that such if the law, and that the law is right:”
Despite this claim of the slaves “incapacity to take care of and govern itself: some slaves had the task of looking after their masters with similar incapacitates. A.C. Jeffery recalls “Old“ Uz Finley, an early Izard settler, and an old black slave named Boson who was near Uz’s own age. It was old Uz’s custom at election time to go vote and then get drunk. Old Uz was a small man, very witty, and being a bit feisty, some times got into arguments and fights with others hanging around the polling place. Boson’s job was to go along and take care of old Uz on these occasions. Although Boson could not vote, he still could drink, so both of them always got drunk together at election time. The two of them, brothers under the skin, created considerable mirth for the rest of the community when they got drunk and circulated among the crowds of voters and politicians when elections were held.
Richard B. Harris, a large slave owner in “Harris Bottoms” which until 1873 was in Izard County before the creation of Stone County, owned 15 slaves in 1837 valued at $9450.00. By 1846, his holdings increased to 19 slaves. He paid tribute to one of his slaves in his will made in 1859. Item 10 in the will says that “It is my desire that in the division of my slaves, my old Bill be allowed to choose which one of my heirs he and his wife Sylvia belong to. I make this distinction on account of Bill’s long service and continued faithfulness.”
Polk Ripley was one of the favorite slaves owned by the Perrin family at Mt. Olive. He gained his freedom at age 21 when the Civil War ended, but he remained in Izard County and established a home and family on a wild mountain that was later to bear his name. A mountain on Route 9 three miles east of Sylamore, originally known as Summer Grape Mountain, was later called Polk Mountain to honor Polk Ripley. His fortitude in challenging and overcoming that mountain to build a home there became legendary in Izard County.
In 1932, the Melbourne Times reported that the Grape Mountain Farmer’s Association had voted to change the name of the mountain to “Sutterfield”. This was to honor C.B. Sutterfield who had homesteaded the mountain about the year 1912. This proposed name change by the “Johnny-come-latelys from Off” brought loud protests from a lot of the old-timers in Izard County
Polk Ripley’s supporters demanded that the Sutterfield people cease and desist. They never changed the name of Polk’s mountain. Indeed, the majestic mountain stands today still designated to honor Polk’s remarkable achievement.
Albert S. Jeffery, of Mt. Olive, was among many that wrote letters of protest to the newspaper. “I grew to manhood,” he said ”under the shadow of this noble landmark. I knew when Polk Ripley braved the wilds as no one else would do to carve out a home on this mountain. I knew Polk from my earliest recollection. And though he was black of skin, he was honest, industrious and faithful and his name was given to this mountain by ‘right of conquest’. “ Strangely, Albert Jeffery’s liberal social ideas, along with some other whites, were forged in Izard County under the shadow of slavery. He later moved to Texas. He was an old man in the late 1950’s when school integration surfaced as the major social issue of the day, and he was still voicing his opinions through newspapers.
In one letter to a Texas newspaper, Albert said, “I was reared in the State of Arkansas in the years immediately following the Civil War. So I was brought up under the idea of “segregation” and never thought of any way different till I began to study the teaching of Christianity.
“This practice of segregation is both un-christian and un-American. Our schools are called “public schools” and are supposed to be open to the public. And it looks to me like Negroes are as much a part of the public as anybody. The U.S. is filled with people of every race and nationality and we are all citizens. I am only 91 years old, and all of you who want to vent your spleen on me can reach me at Box 191, Bandera, Texas”.
--A.S. Jeffery
In 1920, Polk Ripley was still in Izard County at age 77. He had a young wife, Lena, who at 30, was less than half Polk’s age. A daughter, Rexy, age 26, and a son Sam, age 16 were living with Polk and Lena at the time.
Another mountain and a town north of Calico Rock also were named for a black slave. Although the mountain, still known as “Little Joe Mountain: and the town, “Old Joe”, are now a part of Baxter County, they received their identities when a part of Izard County before 1873 when Baxter was created from Izard. One version of the story says that a black slave called Little Joe went up the mountain to feed cows one afternoon, He was caught in a violent storm on the mountain and killed. So to honor his memory, people in the area named the mountain after him. Later, postal officials wanted to name the post office there Little Joe. After some negotiations, they settled on the name, “Old Joe” and that is how the town got its name.
Elizabeth Stone of Calico Rock wrote an article for the Izard County Historian about 1980 in which she noted that little Joe belonged to her grandfather, Robert Lackey. Little Joe is buried in Galatia Cemetery near Old Joe, now in Baxter County.
Although Izard County cemeteries were commonly segregated, there are some unusual instances where black slaves are buried in family cemeteries along with their owners. One example of this is the Billingsley Cemetery about a mile southeast of Violet Hill. Along with several members of the Billingsley and Criswell families are the graves of two slave, Amanda M. Watkins and James D. Watkins. Amanda was buried there in 1848 when slavery was at its peak in the County. James Watkins was buried there shortly after the Civil War. James and wife Amanda worked and lived on the Watkins place at Wild Haws.
Three Watkins brothers at Wild Haws (now LaCrosse), William F., James Davis and Dr. Owen T., were major slave owners before the Civil War. A great many of their slaves took the Watkins name for their own and many of them remained in Izard County after the Civil War.
The Watkins brothers grew to be very wealthy and directed their slaves in building a huge Colonial style brick mansion in the 1850s, the likes of which have never been seen in Izard County before or since. The slaves built a kiln to cure bricks for construction of the house and outbuildings. They built large barns, apple houses, ice houses, and other storage houses of brick. Some of the slave quarters were brick, and the cistern wall was lined with brick. Doors were hand carved solid wood without a single nail. Cypress beams were used that measured 14 inches square and 60 feet long. Rain gutters made from cypress were carved and installed to fit the roof line.
Helen Lindley’s research shows that the Watkins brothers made a contract among themselves to pool their property in order to have sufficient resources to undertake large ventures. However, slave property was handled quite differently from other property in the contract. Five slaves owned by Dr, Watkins wife’s estate were exempt from the contract. These five remained the property of Dr. Watkins: Margaret, Lucy, Balam, Sam, and Rachel. Helen Lindley also found that the brothers agreed that any Negroes or land that came into the possession of any party to the contract through the estate of a wife was not part of the agreement. The brothers also agreed that the employment of such Negroes (they did not call them slaves) in the Watkins company that was formed would not entitle the owner to any pay for their work. Any natural increase in the number of slaves during the course of the contractual period accrued to the individual owners and not to the Company. Thus, slave property was effectively removed from other provisions in the Watkins contract. and never considered a company property.
The Watkins brothers’ contract clearly shows that, although the blacks were “legal property”, they were still human beings and were to be treated quite differently from other chattel. I suspect each of the brothers and their wives, were strongly attached to their own groups of slaves and considered them part of their extended family,
In addition to the original settlers like the Wolf, Jefferys Adamses, et al, later families in Izard County with slaves were the Hunts, Stephenses, Criswell, Bones, Culps, Harrises, Sams, Montgomerys, Waggoners, and others. By 1850 additional settlers either bringing slaves to Izard County or buying them after they arrived, included the slave Aikenses, Billingsleys, Bishops, Deckers., Lancasters, Luters, Martins, Settles, Shedds, Tubbs, Wakens, Lemens, Dunnaways and the Edmundsons.
In 1850, the Criswells owned the largest number of slaves with 29, followed by the Wolf family with 27, and the Harrises with 23. Thomas Black had19 slaves and the Watkinses at LaCrosse owned 12. George Morton had 10 slaves and the Jeffereys at Mt. Olive owned 7. The slave schedule for Izard County at that time showed the following owners and the number of slaves owned
OWNER NUMBER OF SLAVES
John Adams 5
W. B. Walker 2
Nathan Billingsley 1
Edward Hough 1
Davis Criswell 7
George Morton 1
Somers Decker 5
Jacob Wolf 15
Robert Livingston 1
Alexander Dillard 2
Elizabeth Wolf 9
Thomas Edmondson 2
Moses Bishop 1
Azariah Turner 4
Noah Shedd 1
Jonathan Johnson 1
Mary Jeffrey 5
Henry B. Harris 6
Richard B. Harris 11
Thomas Riggs 9
Richard Decker 1
Malinda Tubbs 1
Mary Adams 10
Alex Aiken 1
Miles Jeffery 2
William Criswell 9
Calvin Luther 2
John Kemp 1
S. H. Criswell 6
R.C. Hutchinson 1
A.W. Harris 5
Margarett Criswell 6
Henry Hawkins 1
John Shell 3
John Lancaster 4
A. T. Watkins 12
James Criswell 1
H.H. Harris 1
William Wolf 3
Thomas Black 19
John Gray 4
S. H. Golden 2
Josiah Settles 1
Total 1971860, the Baileys, Cooks, Hancocks, and Hartfields added to the list of slave owners. The Jefferys had increased their slave holdings to 15, and Jehoiada J. Sams, son of Lavina Jeffery had bought 2 slaves.
Thomas Black, owner of the largest number of slaves in 1870 at Lacrosse, was an acquaintance of President Andrew Johnson. Both of them, while young men, had previously served in the Tennessee Legislature. Johnson represented Green County and Black represented Bedford County. In 1869, Black used his connections with President Johnson to appeal for relief in Izard County from robberies and general pillage committed by the Arkansas Militia under the command of Colonel Dale.
Jehoiada J. Sams recalled that two blacks were members of the notorious Cochran gang of bushwhackers that terrorized Izard County during the Civil War. Sams was part of a vigilante group in Izard County that captured and killed Cochran and his men. Writing in the late 1880s, Sams said (after killing Cochran), “We took two of Cochran’s men to show us the stock they had in carrell on the other side of the river. There was 63 head of cattle and 17 head of horses and mules. The two men were shot off their horses at the carrell, and we drove the stock back across White River and sent word to the owners to come and get it. Some that we knew we took back on the road and delivered to the owners, One was on Bob Wolf’s mule and one was old Dick Hutcherson’s old bob-tailed sorrel horse, the only horse he had.
“We then hunted up and killed two Negroes that we knew were in Cochrane’s gang. Wat McCubans and ‘Gumbo’ Charley. Charley’s crime was in revealing where Mrs. Tinner’s bread corn was hidden in a cave and in taking the old woman’s yoke of oxen. As we went back home the widowed women and children we met would ask if Cochran was dead and when we told them he was they rejoiced at it and said, ‘we will have peace one more time on earth,’ This was the end of the war here.”
The earliest valuation found of a slave in the White River valley area is in a letter written in 1815 to the Missouri Fur Company in St. Louis by John C. Luttig, a fur trader at Polk Bayou (now Batesville) Luttig bought a 16 year old girl for $300 saying that she was a great bargain owing to the scarcity of money in the region. Artisans brought twice as much as field hands, and women of prime work age generally brought about three-fourths as much as men. After reaching 50 years of age, a slave’s value dropped by about 50%. Slavery was a most peculiar institution. Although we normally thought of slave owners as being white, some free blacks themselves who formerly were slaves, owned black slaves. And some American Indians owned black slaves.
James L. Morgan has outlined the emancipation of Daniel, a mulatto man owned by Morgan Magness down White River in Independence County. Magness sold Daniel to Peter Tidwell. After Peter’s death, his son, Bedford, set Daniel free. Daniel took the surname of Earls and returned to Independence County. Daniel eventually owned a ferry across White River and 350 acres of rich bottom land near Oil Trough. Becoming prosperous, Daniel later purchased two black children from the estate of Roland Tidwell for close to $900. Likely they were Daniel’s children. As a free Negro, Daniel could not vote. However, his home served as the voting place for Oil Trough Township in 1837.
What can we make of the most peculiar circumstances surrounding Daniel Earls and his miraculous rise from slavery to prosperity? After Daniel’s death in 1849, Morgan Magness and Alfred Arnold a descendant of Peter Tidwell, administered his estate. Clearly, there was something about the mulatto, Daniel that led to his favored treatment. Was Daniel actually the son of Morgan Magness of Peter Tidwell?
Arkansas and Texas were the leading importers of slaves during the decade 1850-1860. In 1880, fifteen years after the end of the Civil War, 193 Blacks still lived in Izard County along with 27 mulattos. Twenty-five of these mulattos were born after 1850 and some after 1860. This strongly suggests that their fathers were white Izard County men. Living under a social order of severe deprivation, there is little doubt that some slave women granted sexual favors to their owners, family sons, and overseers as their only means of gaining personal preferment. Even if a slave woman’s moral scruples were against sexual relations with her white master, she was vulnerable s mere chattel. Legally, there was no such thing as the rape of a slave woman by a white man.
Some Arkansas owners freed their slaves for a variety of reasons. Chiefly, these were a genuine antipathy toward slavery, gratitude for their services, and affection for those who were mistresses or children of the owner.
In 1850 there were 608 free blacks in Arkansas. None of them lived in Izard County, but many of them were close by. The greatest single concentration of free blacks in the state was just up White River in Marion County on the North Fork of White River. There were 80 free blacks living there, which formed a sort of agricultural community. Many blacks and mulattos took the names of their masters upon gaining their freedom after the Civil War. For example, in 1880 there were 54 blacks and mulattos in Izard County named Watkins, 18 named Hunt, and 15 black Harrises.
In his will of 1859, Richard B. Harris not only gave one of his slaves, “old Bill”, favored treatment, but he was concerned about all his slaves. In item V of his will he stated that “It is my will and desire that at the time of a final distribution of my estate that my Executor summon all my heirs together and let them divide the slaves and personal property if they choose, but if they do not elect to divide this way, that they select three good citizens to divide the slaves for them, and that my Executor sell all the personal property other than the slaves and divide the proceeds thereof.”
Clearly, Richard Harris did not intend for his slaves to be sold, but that they remain as “members” of the extended Harris family.
Sometimes black female house servants and the white “Missus” often developed intense loyalty to each other. A.C. Jeffery tells us about Peter F. Adams’s daughter who married Uza Walker. Mr. Walker died leaving his bride a young good-looking widow who caught the fancy of Dr. Edward St. Leger Hough. Dr. Hough who practiced medicine at Norfork was known as a “ladies man.” Soon he and the new widow engaged in a “thrilling correspondence” that was carried on with the help of one of Mrs. Walker’s confidants, a female slave. The slave woman carried notes and letters back and forth between Dr. Hough, who was probably a married man, and the widow.
Peter F. Adams suspected something was going on between his daughter and Dr. Hough. Intruding into his daughter’s and Dr. Hough’s business, Adams beat up on his daughter and her black servant to get information about a secret date Dr. Hough had arranged with the young widow. Adams later ambushed Dr. Hough and shot him dead. A Grand Jury investigated the case. Although everyone knew what had happened, no one was ever charged in Dr. Hough’s murder.
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SOURCES Independence County Chronicle: articles by Jane Fagg, James L. Morgan.
Izard County Historian: articles by Curtislene Lawson, Helen Lindley, Elizabeth Stone, Mertie A. Harris..
Government Records: Federal Writers’ Project, Works Progress Administration; Freedmen’s Bureau; Civilian Conservation Corps; US Census Bureau, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1920. Izard County Wills.
Newspapers: Melbourne Times, Arkansas Gazette, Bandera (Texas) Banner.
Books: History of Izard County, A.C. Jeffery; and from writings by S.C. Turnbo, and Jehoiada J. Sams.
Personal Conversations: with Bobby Cothrine, Lillie Mae Daughty Watkins, Batesville, Arkansas.
On to Part two© 2002 by Dale Hanks all rights reserved. This information may be used by libraries and genealogical societies, however, commercial use of this information is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information. This page is not associated with USGenweb or Rootsweb and the information on these pages is not to be used or copied by them.