Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 3

by United States. Work Projects Administration

“My mother was born in North Carolina. Her name was Sylvia Martin before she married my father. She was a Blackshear when she died. She died in 1885. The white people went out in North Carolina and bought her, her mother, Nancy, and her father, Jordan, and brought them to Sumter County, Alabama. My mother’s mother was an Indian; her hair came down to her waist.”

Luke Blackshear (Breeder)

“My grandfather on my father’s side, Luke Blackshear, was a ‘stock’ Negro.

“Isom Blackshear, his son, was a great talker. He said Luke was six feet four inches tall and near two hundred fifty pounds in weight. He was what they called a double-jointed man. He was a mechanic,—built houses, made keys, and did all other blacksmith work and shoemaking. He did anything in iron, wood or leather. Really he was an architect as well. He could take raw cowhide and make leather out of it and then make shoes out of the leather.

“Luke was the father of fifty-six children and was known as the GIANT BREEDER. He was bought and given to his young mistress in the same way you would give a mule or colt to a child.

“Although he was a stock Negro, he was whipped and drove just like the other Negroes. All of the other Negroes were driven on the farm. He had to labor but he didn’t have to work with the other slaves on the farm unless there was no mechanical work to do. He was given better work because he was a skilled mechanic. He taught Isom blacksmithing, brickmaking and bricklaying, shoemaking, carpentry, and other things. The ordinary blacksmith has to order plow points and put than on, but Luke made the points themselves, and he taught Isom to do it. And he taught him to make mats, chairs, and other weaving work. He died sometime before the War.”

Isom Blackshear

“Isom Blackshear, Luke’s son and my father, farmed until he was eighteen years old, and was a general mechanic as mentioned when I was telling about my grandfather Luke, for sixty odd years. Up to within seven months of his death, he was making chairs and baskets and other things. He never was in bed in his life until his last sickness. That was his first and his last. Never did he have a doctor’s bill to pay or for his master to pay,—until he died. He worked on the batteries at Vicksburg during the War.

“Isom ran away three times. He was a field hand up to eighteen years. The overseer wanted to whip him. Isom would help his wife in the field because she couldn’t keep up with the others and he would help her to keep the overseer from whipping her. He’d take her beside him and row his row and hers too. He was the fastest worker on the place. The overseer told him to not do that. But Isom just kept on doing it anyway. Then the overseer asked Isom for his shirt. When they whipped you them days they didn’t whip you on your clothes because they didn’t want to wear them out. Isom said he was not going to take off his shirt because his mistress gave it to him and he wasn’t going to give it to anybody else. Then the overseer stepped ’round in front of him to stop him, because Isom had just kept on hoeing. Isom just caught the overseer’s feet in his hoe and dumped him down on the ground and went on hoeing his own row and his wife’s. He called his hoe ‘One Eyed Aggie.’

“The overseer said, ‘You think you done something smart’ and he went for his master. The overseer was named Mack Hainey. His master came out the next morning and caught Isom. Isom has often told us about it.