book review

University of Georgia Press

Chapter Title: Bondwomen on Arkansas’s Cotton Frontier Migration, Labor, Family, and Resistance among an Exploited Class Chapter Author(s): KELLY HOUSTON JONES

Book Title: Arkansas Women Book Subtitle: Their Lives and Times Book Editor(s): Cherisse Jones-Branch, Gary T. Edwards Published by: University of Georgia Press. (2018) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vhtrh3.7

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide

range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and

facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

https://about.jstor.org/terms

University of Georgia Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arkansas Women

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansas's Cotton Frontier

Migration, Labor, Family, and Resistance among an Exploited Class

KELLY HOUSTON JONES

Enslaved women in Arkansas navigated the horrors and hardships of bond- age while burdened with the added strain of carving cotton acreage from the southern wilderness. This chapter discusses the migration, labor, family, and resistance that shaped the lives of bondwomen on the cotton frontier. Whites forced enslaved women from their homes and families in the east to the western margins of the Old South both in the slave trade and with the migration of white families. These women labored in the homes and fields of whites seeking to profit on the fertile frontier and from the rising cotton prices of the 18508. Slave women struggled to nurture children and relationships despite their precarious circumstances. These Arkansas women resisted slavery in a variety of ways, ranging from passive and indirect to fiercely violent. All the while, they labored under a system that blurred the boundaries of their womanhood.

Scholars have paid too little attention to the topic of bondwomen in Ar- kansas. This gap is largely due to the bias toward the older eastern South and away from the trans-Mississippi region. But general studies of enslaved women, and those focusing on points east, do not necessarily represent the experi- ence in Arkansas, on the southern periphery. Orville Taylor's Negro Slavery in Arkansas—still, after more than fifty years, the only published history of slavery in Arkansas—gives little attention to the slaves' point of view, and even less to enslaved women. General works focused on antebellum Arkansas provide glimpses of slave life, but do not wade very deeply into the lives of slave women.1

There is a compelling need to expand the story of black women and slavery in Arkansas's historiography.

A few enslaved women probably entered French colonial Arkansas in the 1720s, but it was the antebellum era that witnessed an exponential increase in

27

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

2 8 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

the institution. Women forcibly migrated to Arkansas were part of the more than 875,000 bondpeople who were removed from the seaboard South to the cotton kingdom between 1820 and 1860. Slave importation (along with some natural increase) boosted Arkansas's slave population by 136 percent between 1850 and 1860. By 1860, more than 111,000 enslaved people resided in Arkansas, owned by more than 11,000 masters. Of Arkansas slaves in 1860,54,941, or 49 per- cent, were women, a proportion similar to other southern states. Reflecting the importation of enslaved men, the state's most intensive plantation districts in southwestern Arkansas and along the Arkansas River exhibited lower propor- tions of slave women to men, dipping as low as 47 percent. The highest pro- portions of slave women to slave men occurred in northern Arkansas, reaching more than 62 percent on the Missouri border.2

These women came into Arkansas from all over the South. In interviews con- ducted by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 19308, many former slaves told of their families' origins in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Historians estimate that around 60-70 percent of this forced migration was due to the domestic slave trade. New Orleans and Memphis were the two main large-scale slave trading points for Arkansas, though slave sales took place all over the state. The waves of incoming slaves continued, bringing generations of women and their children to the southern periphery.3

Women often entered Arkansas's slave trade via the mismanagement of debts by eastern white men. This was the case for a woman known only as Peggy. In 1802, Peggy was gifted to Fanny Stovall of Granville County, North Carolina, when she married Obadiah Liggin. The couple moved twelve miles away into Virginia. Five or six years later, Obadiah sold Peggy to satisfy a debt. Unhappy with his son-in-law's sale, Fanny's father bought Peggy back. But in order to allow Fanny to receive Peggy's labor without risking her sale by Obadiah, Mr. Stovall (his full name is unknown) "verbally loaned" the enslaved woman to Fanny for her lifetime. Peggy stayed with the Liggin family, but Fanny's father had Peggy brought over to his home every Christmas, around the time he settled his accounts for the year, in order to claim ownership of her and keep her from being sold to pay Liggin's debts. The yearly visit circumvented the law, which equated five consecutive years of possession with ownership, and may have eased Peggy's fears of being sold again at the whim of Obadiah. This continued until Stovall died in 1820, leaving a will that explicitly gave Peggy to Fanny and provided that she could not be sold to pay Liggin's debts. Neverthe- less, when Obadiah died four years later, Peggy was sold at auction to satisfy the debts of the estate, sold two more times, and then taken to Arkansas by William B. Easely in 1835 °r 1836, remarkably with her four children.4 Although

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 29

Peggy left no record of her ordeal, such treatment reveals a capricious fate, at best, for enslaved women who found themselves in Arkansas.

But while the majority of the forced migration of slave women occurred in connection with the slave trade, many came to the cotton frontier with westward- traveling white families, although exactly how many is unknown. Slave women likely would have preferred to move with familiar white family groups than via individual sale or as part of a trader's wares. These family moves were initiated by men like James Hines Trulock, of a wealthy South Carolina family, who took his new Connecticut bride to southwestern Georgia in 1837, then moved on to finally settle in Jefferson County, Arkansas. All of Trulock's forty slaves made the trip except one elderly man. Bondwomen could also be moved when ab- sentee planters expanded their holdings westward, as was the case for the thirty women of seventy-eight slaves who were moved into Chicot County, Arkansas, from Mississippi when elite slaveholder Rice C. Ballard added Wagram Planta- tion to his extensive westward-growing cotton acreage sometime in the mid- 18508. And although slaveowners might not have agreed on a transfer of own- ership, slave women could be sent to the marginal South by whites for the use of migrated family members. This was the case for Amelia (or Parmelia), who was sent by a white family in Kentucky to nurse a relative in Conway County, Arkansas, in 1840.5

Several factors could combine to force women to the cotton frontier. The practice of gifting slaves to newly married daughters, the prevalence of slave- holders' debts, and westward migration could coalesce to create a perfect storm of uncertainty for enslaved women and their families. South Carolina slaves owned by William Pond fell victim to such a series of events. In 1833, Pond deeded (in trust) to a family friend a slave woman named Maria and her chil- dren Stephen, Emily, and Harriet, for the exclusive use of his wife, Mary Pond, and their children "to prevent them from being sold in one of his drinking sprees." Mary Pond died six years later, and the troubled widower, seeking a fresh start and a better income, moved hundreds of miles west to Hot Spring County, Arkansas, with his children and slaves. All of Maria's children were able to come along except Stephen, who was left in South Carolina to secure Pond's debt. But in 1844, Pond sold Maria's children Emily, Harriet, Tom, and Peter for $900 total, while keeping all of his other slaves.6

As indebted slaveholders like Pond struggled to keep their operations afloat, seeking fresh beginnings on the South's periphery, slave families like Maria's were separated and displaced. Cynthia and her children suffered this upheaval during Arkansas's territorial years. In Kentucky in 1826, Thomas Humphreys willed Cynthia (and any future children) to his daughter, Susan Mills, "to be

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

3 0 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

enjoyed by her during her lifetime, and then to descend to her lawful heirs." After four years, Susan and her husband, Ambrose Mills, moved to southeast- ern Arkansas. Three years later, Ambrose died and Susan sold Cynthia and her eleven-year-old child for $5oo.7 Arkansas was not only a destination but also a crossroads for slave women pushed to the southern periphery. Mary Overton was born in Tennessee but was moved when she was very young to Carroll County, Arkansas, by the Kennards. When she was four years old, she was gifted to the master's daughter, who married James Cox. She traveled with them to Fort Graham in Hill County, Texas.8 As whites sought to provide for the eco- nomic well-being of their growing and moving families, slaves paid the price.

Whatever the immediate causes for the move west, overland journeys from the seaboard South to the trans-Mississippi cotton frontier were considered inconvenient by whites, but must have been nearly unbearable for bondpeople. Jenny and Celia were among the women and men moved by John Mebane Al- len and his family from Alamance County, North Carolina, to Ozan Township in Hempstead County, Arkansas, in the fall of 1852. With each bridge and river and with each passing night spent in camp, Jenny and Celia would have been conscious of the greater distance being put between themselves and the families and friends they were forced to leave behind. The trek was physically uncom- fortable as well. The group usually traveled upward of fifteen miles per day and could cover as many as twenty-five miles in a day. In two weeks, the party had crossed into Tennessee.9

While they doubtless understood that the cotton frontier would mean great changes for them, some indication of the differences of their bondage in Arkan- sas would have been noticeable to the Allen slaves as soon as they crossed the Mississippi River; even counties just opposite each other could differ markedly in some respects. In those years, counties on the east side of the Mississippi boasted almost five times more acreage in improved farmland than Arkansas's counties along the west bank. Jenny and Celia may have felt uneasy with the much less developed landscape. The enslaved population also dropped by more than 75 percent across the river, further indicating to the women that they had crossed into a more isolated part of the slave South.10

The problems of rough roads and overturned wagons impeded the party's progress. The group camped by the roadside or stayed at churches or with strangers. There was usually a good bit of resting on the weekends, however. The chores of preparing food and hauling water to the night's camp would have especially burdened the weary slave women. Sometimes, due to bad weather or other inconveniences, the party settled in for the night without dinner, and often water was scarce. It is reasonable to assume that the effects of such short-

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 31

ages would have been felt more severely by the enslaved members of the party While Allen recorded discomfort and "low spirits" among the whites during the trip, the enslaved people must have felt absolute desolation. Finally the cheer- less caravan reached the Arkansas River on November 12, but they were unable to immediately cross. The next day they waited "all day in consequence of so many wagons being before us."11

After passing through southern Arkansas, Jenny, Celia, and the rest of the Allen slaves finally arrived at their new neighborhood and could begin to take stock of the latest site of their bondage on November 20, when the party camped twelve miles east of Washington in Hempstead County12 With the journey from the seaboard South to their destination on the cotton frontier complete, these women, along with the rest of the slaves in their company, would have been painfully aware of their final separation from home.

But not all slaves completely lost their connection to their former home. "Aunt Jenny" (as whites called her) kept up a correspondence with people in North Carolina, at least between 1852 and 1864. Celia and other black people are also mentioned in letters from North Carolina, but none of them seem to have sent or received their own.13 Jenny was able to "hear all the news" of births, deaths, injuries, illnesses, slave sales, and even enslaved newcomers on several different farms back east through letters that mostly came from her master's sisters. And while this channel seems to have been a major source of informa- tion, news was not only disseminated by women. For example, letters to John Allen from his uncle included notes like "Tell Jenny that Betsy had a fine boy this morning." News could be accompanied by messages from other slaves back in North Carolina, such as when "Uncle Bob" sent greetings to "Aunt Jenny" and Celia; he wanted them to know that he had experienced a religious conver- sion and was very happy. All of this information allowed Jenny to maintain and update her construction of the black neighborhood back home from hundreds of miles away14

In addition to receiving news from North Carolina, Jenny served as a con- duit for information about herself and other slaves in Hempstead County with roots in North Carolina, though this messaging passed through whites' hands. Perhaps dictating her missives to John Allen's wife, "Aunt Jenny" consistently sent letters to white people in North Carolina. This gave her the opportunity to maintain the sources of information about her loved ones back home and send her own messages of affection and news to them from distant Hempstead County, Arkansas.15

Thus, the move to the cotton frontier created a great disruption in the life of the Allen slaves, but their ties with those back east were not completely severed,

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

32 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

due largely to the favored position of Jenny. Jenny's community continued to include connections with those from whom she had been separated, albeit by delicate threads. The Allen letters indicate that "Aunt Jenny" probably made a visit back to North Carolina with John Allen and his wife in late 1860 or early 1861. Clues, such as a note to Jenny informing her of an upcoming slave mar- riage with an urging for Jenny to attend, suggest that a visit was planned near the end of i86o.16 Continued news and a visit back to her old home in North Carolina would have gone far to widen the scope of Jenny's constructed net- works of family and friends, which stretched beyond her new home in south- west Arkansas and carried on for years after her forced migration west.

Jenny's circumstances were extremely unusual, as most enslaved Arkansans would have known little if anything about the fates of their loved ones from whom they had been separated. Migration that took place with white families, outside the slave trade per se, could mean a greater degree of family cohesion, but did not guarantee stability. Jenny and Celia were not the only ones to make such journeys with slaves who were already part of their communities. West- ward movement in groups helped women to keep the important bonds of family and friendship. This would have been treasured by Emma Moore's parents, who came from Tennessee to Arkansas together, and by Molly Finley's grandmother, who was lucky enough to have been purchased along with her sons, all making the journey from Kentucky to Tennessee to Arkansas together.17

The life of a female slave in Arkansas consisted of unending toil exacerbated by white expectations that blurred the boundaries of gender. Sallie Crane said, "They would call on you to work like men and you better work too."18 But while general accounts of slave women's labor in the American South are abundant, the work experiences of enslaved women in Arkansas have received almost no attention. Negro Slavery in Arkansas does not interrogate the significance of women's labor nor its effect on slave family life. Slave women exhibited re- markable grit under the heavy workload. With clear admiration of her ances- tors' strength of mind and body, Adrianna Kerns recalled that her aunts "could handle a plow and roll logs as well as any man." Lou Fergusson recalled having to work in the fields even in the sleet.19

Bondwomen were essential members of the agricultural labor force, taking up the main work of the crop when men were assigned to other tasks, as they often were on new and large farming operations. This allowed for the crop routine to continue even when men were needed for heavier work. This was so often the case on the Wagram Plantation of Chicot County that absentee owner Rice C. Ballard's overseer wrote him for new hoes, explaining, "The women will be the main workers of the crop and these hoes are heavier than I am in the habit of giv-

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 33

ing to men."20 Slave women's attention to the crop allowed for the other work to progress. Women performed the yearly task of gathering corn while men raised a new stable at Wagram Plantation in 1857. And in 1854, when John Brown sent the men to build his new home in a nearby town, enslaved women cleaned up the fields in preparation for the new cotton crop. Women were critical at picking time as well. "Hands at new ground until diner [sic]. In evening women pick- ing," John Brown noted in November 1852. He moved the men from picking to clearing new land by December, but kept the women picking well into January 1853. In fact, at Brown s plantation, women were the last to stop picking the 1852 crop in early 1853, and the first to begin picking the next crop in August i853.21

Women's role in cotton picking was not supplementary, but central to the effort of making cotton farms pay. This was especially true when the rhythm of the crop cycle was interrupted by bad weather, other work, or unexpected de- lays. The records of Shugart's plantation list several women's daily picking totals in 1859. Men and women both averaged nearly 100 pounds of cotton harvested per day. A woman named Lucy averaged 131 pounds per day, picking more than 800 pounds in a given week.22 Records of slaves' daily cotton-picking totals over the course of thirty workdays in Chicot County further reveal the importance of women in that effort. Lithia worked twenty-nine of those thirty days, pick- ing 6,752 pounds, averaging nearly 233 pounds each day. Her haul was a higher total and average than Bill, who picked the most out of the men on the farm. He picked twenty-eight of the thirty days, bringing in 6,204 pounds—around 500 pounds less than Lithia. Bill also averaged fewer pounds per day—221.5. Because Bill probably was capable of picking more than he did, these figures indicate that Bill was often at other work besides picking, leaving more of that task to Lithia and others.23

Women worked the cotton year after year, while family milestones punctu- ated the crop routine. In 1859, the beginning of the crop cycle coincided with an addition to the Ballard slave community when Lucille's baby was born on January i. In 1857, also on the Ballard place, the demanding planting season had been a time for celebration when Martha Ann, eighteen years old, and George Turner, nineteen, were married on a Saturday. After a long week of clearing land and planting, the overseer noted, "They are all now enjoying themselves" in celebration of the union. Martha Ann and George cultivated a new beginning in their relationship as well as the cash crop. But the burden of crop work could be intensified by grief. On the same day that the first cotton boll opened on Shugart's plantation in 1839, Fanny's child died. The slaves were forced to pull fodder the next day, burying Fanny's child that rainy evening before the picking season began in earnest.24

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

3 4 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

Women also toiled outdoors at tasks associated with rural infrastructure. They might be sent to work on roads by area slaveholders, often for a couple of days at a time. John Brown s slaves spent several days building a bridge in 1853. Lucindy Allison told a WPA interviewer that her mother was required to help "grade a hill" and build a road when she was enslaved. Here again, distinctions between men's work and women's work fell away. Black women's bodies were pooled like taxes and forced into public labor to literally build the southern frontier. Of course, their labor was crucial to the maintenance of private land as well. The Ballard slaves had to manage the yearly flooding of that farm on the unruly Mississippi River. The work of women was central to the effort of juggling that task with the regular crop work. In the spring of 1857, while men continued to plow and clear land, overseer John Pelham required eight "of the stoutest women" to carry dirt to the low places for two days.25

Laboring in the fields worked against slave women's family lives. In the South as a whole, the cotton boom of the 18508 coincided with a decline in fertility and an increase in miscarriages among slave women, along with an infant mortal- ity rate twice that of whites, although it is not clear to what extent this trend affected Arkansas women. Pregnancy and childbirth could be dangerous for slave women, whose bodies were commodified by whites. In a WPA interview conducted in the 19308, io/-year-old former slave Hannah Allen recounted the story of a slave woman delivering her baby in the field. The woman had appar- ently been worked too hard in the heat, gave birth out in the open, and had to be attended to by a doctor.26

But apart from the physical ramifications, their labor encroached on the time that mothers were able to devote to the care of their children. Whites clearly placed the care of their own youngsters above the needs of the children of their slaves. Molly Finley tended to her siblings while her mother worked at the wide spectrum of tasks expected of her. More rarely, the work routine of bondwomen could mean that white women would step in to care for their children. Appar- ently, the enslaved children on the Horton farm stayed in a house together with "Miss Mary," the mistress, during the day while their parents worked. Becky, a bondwoman on Bullock's plantation would come to the mistress's house at about 10 a.m. every morning to feed her baby, presumably stopping in for more feedings throughout the day.27 Thus, mothers worked as best they could to fit childcare into their time in ways allowed by their masters and farm managers. John Pelham at Wagram revealed some annoyance at this necessity in a letter to his employer during the very wet spring in March 1857: "I will make the two women with young children clear [the field] of cotton stalks and level it. ... I have had them filling up about the gates, cleaning yard[,] repairing quarter

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 35

fence etc. since they quit work on the Levee as it was rather troublesome to ferry them over the chute as often as they would have to come over."28 Mandy Tucker explained to a WPA interviewer, "I didn't know nothiri bout my mother and father cause it was night when they went to work and night when they come in." Dinah Perry recalled that her mother was gone to the fields every day by the time she woke in the morning. Harriet Payne experienced a similar scenario on the Chaney place: "We wouldn't see our mammy and daddy from early in the morning till night when their work was done." After their long workdays, slaves would return to their quarters and prepare an evening meal from their weekly rations. But, on some places, after finishing their work in the field, in the evenings women set to additional tasks assigned to them, such as washing or spinning cloth.29

But slave women did their best to prevent whites' labor demands from de- stroying their family and social life. As recorded marriages and births show, family life did go on despite the difficulties. Although two-parent family units were less common on the plantations of Arkansas than in other southern states, enslaved parents were able to keep meaningful family connections alive. Slaves in Arkansas took an active role in choosing their partners and caring for the children who resulted from their pairings. The socialization of enslaved chil- dren leaned on the institutions created by the slaves themselves. Affection existed between family members despite uncertain circumstances.30

Older women were often assigned to lighter physical tasks, like milking and churning, but also served as mentors and caregivers among the enslaved people. A common—and important—duty for older women was to watch slave chil- dren during the day. These women might be expected to feed the children so that their parents would not have to prepare a meal for them when they re- turned from work in the fields.31 Older women learned many skills that made them valuable contributors to the productivity and health of the farms on which they lived. For example, bondwomen in their later years could be an impor- tant source of medical knowledge. O. W. Green's grandmother worked under a doctor for several years, receiving training in his methods of healing. But the master would whip her to scare her from sharing these medical secrets. This woman lived in the tension between white male dominance over "scientific" medical knowledge and the power of black folk medicine and midwifery. Medical knowledge conferred power on slave women among whites and blacks, and allowed them to alleviate the suffering of others in the slave community. Figures such as the "old doctor woman," whom Mandy Tucker remembered from Cockrill's plantation, reinforced gendered divisions of labor while simul- taneously providing a challenge to white male authority.32

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

3<5 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

Slavery offered a painfully brief childhood. Like older women, girls were as- signed numerous jobs that were less physically demanding. Emma Moore re- membered sitting at the cotton gin as a small girl, periodically tapping the mule that powered the mechanism by walking laps in the gin house. Children would keep needed fires burning; run errands; sweep; gather brush, trash, and rocks from the yard; pick up chips left behind by adults chopping wood; and carry water. When they got older, enslaved youngsters took on jobs like feeding chick- ens, driving cows, nursing children, washing, milking, churning, and carrying wood. Older children also worked in the cotton fields by helping adults in pick- ing or helping to move the sacks or baskets down the rows while adults picked. When old enough, they were assigned a row to pick for themselves. While still a young girl, Adeline was given to her master's newlywed daughter as a domestic servant. But, being only five years old, Adeline lacked the knowledge, skill, and physical strength to work to the satisfaction of her new mistress, and she was sent back to her master to mature for a couple of more years. Although young children and the elderly were unable to perform the most physically demand- ing work, their tasks were important and were expected to be completed in a timely manner.33

On large plantations, certain slave women were designated for house work only. Although these women were kept out of the fields, they worked hard and much was demanded of them. Laboring in the house meant closer proximity to whites, and frequently it meant closer scrutiny. House work encompassed cooking, sewing, weaving, cleaning, washing clothes, and caring for the white children. In homes with fewer slaves, all of this fell to the one or two women who worked in the home. In North Carolina, Molly Hudgens's mother was sold to Judge Allen, a widower who brought her to Monroe County, Arkansas. Her household responsibilities would have been even greater than in a home with a mistress, though perhaps with less oversight. Her duties included sewing and caring for two other slave children, who had been brought to the Allen work- force without parents. Laura Sheltoris mother and grandmother both worked in the house. Her mother performed chores like churning and watching chil- dren, while her grandmother prepared the food for everyone on the plantation. Harriet Daniel, a planter's daughter in Dallas County, Arkansas, recalled, "We children had never been required to wash our own faces," since enslaved women and girls in domestic work were responsible for the upkeep of white bodies.34

Domestic work did not necessarily mean strictly indoor work, nor Sundays off. The advantages of house work over field work have been historically exag- gerated. Harriet McFarlin Payne recalled, "Some of the slaves were house ne- groes. They didn't go to work in the fields, they each had their own job around

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 37

the house, barn, orchard, milk house, and things like that." She remembered "washday," when a few women would spend the entire day scrubbing clothes, possibly drawing the water from a nearby spring. On Cockrill's plantation in Jefferson County, this chore was completed every Sunday evening. Hannah Jameson described the task as taking place well into Sunday nights, by the light of a pine torch, if need be.35

The WPA narratives reveal a rich tradition of spinning, weaving, and sewing among Arkansas's slave women. Many slaveholders used the skills of enslaved women to clothe all of their slaves. This practice saved money and was con- venient for whites. Charles Dortch's mother worked both the loom and the spinning wheel in Dallas County. Joe Bean described the weaving operation on Bean's plantation, close to Fayetteville in Washington County: "Not far from the big house was a rock building used for the looms[.] In there they made cloth and thread, and they [made] it for anybody what come there with cotton or wool." Much of the spinning for the Pattillo family was done by Solomon Pattillo's mother, Fannie. Slave women at this task might produce nine or ten yards of cloth per day.36

But as much as their labor encroached on time they would have rather spent caring for their children, slave women in some circumstances actually worked under a routine that kept them close to their little ones. On Jack Hall's planta- tion along the Arkansas River in Jefferson County, Senia Rassberry and her sister both worked in the house where their mother was a cook. At least this arrangement meant close proximity to their mother, even if she was busy. In these situations, the special bonding between mother and child could be pos- sible despite the workload. For example, as a child Eva Strayhorn ran errands and completed odd jobs around the house on the Newton farm in Clarksville, Johnson County; she remembered fondly the moments when she was able to help her mother cook. Although Ellen Briggs Thompson's mother had to work in the fields owned by the Mitchell family of Hempstead County, she was at least able to spend time with her grandmother, who worked in "the big house" cooking, making clothes, and caring for children. But enslaved domestics were expected to put the needs of the white family first. "Just like a cow would leave a calf," Mary Jane Hardridge bluntly described the requirement that her mother, a domestic worker, accompany the Scull family on trips away from the plantation. Although "she'd hate to do it," Hardridge's mother had to travel with the white family on their frequent vacations.37

For many slave women in Arkansas (and all over the South) there existed no clear distinction between house work and field work. Women in bondage were expected to do what was asked of them, no matter the type of work. Only the

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

38 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

largest plantations could afford to assign certain women strictly to domestic work. Molly Finley's mother "was a nurse and house woman and field woman if she was needed," as was Minnie Stewart's mother, who sewed for the mistress in the house, but could also be found in the field. Their work ranged from hoeing and plowing to milking, cooking, weaving, and more. Mollie Barber said of her mother, "seem lak she done 'bout ever'thing." Betty Brown explained that there was only one slave family on the Nutt farm in Greene County, Arkansas. Thus, her mother cooked, weaved, tanned leather, made moccasins, and trapped and hunted game. Some women experienced a seasonal shift from field work to house work. Sarah was moved from picking cotton to spinning for some time on Ballard's Chicot County plantation in December 1857. Similarly, the women working on John W. Brown's plantation probably welcomed being assigned to spinning in the cold months after the cotton was in and before new crops were to be planted. When the time was right, they were moved back into the fields to complete tasks like pulling cotton stalks to make room for the new plants.38

In addition to their family time and sense of womanhood, slavery also threat- ened women's health. House work might result in burns and blisters, while field work could prove more dangerous, resulting in injuries from tools or draft ani- mals or from sheer exhaustion. Bondwomen suffered from common illnesses like dropsy and colds, as well as those unique to females. An overseer on R. C. Bal- lard's place vaguely noted "some of the women complaining of the womb" in early 1858. It may be that women could capitalize some on the ignorance of male overseers about women's health, allowing them to fake particularly female ail- ments, as Paulina and Jane might have been doing to cause Ballard's overseer to frustratedly report that they were "complaining about as usual." But a woman on that plantation, whose name was never mentioned in the sources, lingered with breast cancer for months before passing away in May 1859. Whites had little pa- tience for slave women with what they perceived as unfitness, whether physical or dispositional. In one lawsuit, a slave woman named Fanny was described as "worth less than nothing" because she was "sickly and drunken." There were other dangers on the cotton frontier. In April 1858, three enslaved girls were killed on George Brodie's farm when a fire broke out in the slave quarters.39

Slave women relieved the burdens of their bondage in various ways according to their personalities, priorities, and circumstances. Their resistance was often passive or subtle, effective without involving an outright challenge to white au- thority. Like enslaved men, women commonly resisted work demands. Martha Jones, who probably cooked for Ballard's plantation and also worked in the field, may have been exaggerating an illness to get out of work until a new overseer arrived and called her bluff. He wrote to Ballard, "Sent her out and she tried to

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 39

stop the same day but failed and has done very well since." Some women refused to accept limitations on their religious lives, such as O. W. Green s grandmother, who repeatedly received punishment for taking part in "shouting." Women like Green s grandmother and Ellen Briggs Thompson s grandmother insisted on providing religious leadership for their children and grandchildren, risking brutal punishment.40

In addition to work slowdowns and covert religious practices, enslaved women practiced more direct physical resistance. Although men were more likely to run away, women could and did flee their masters. In 1833, a woman named Tenns ran away with Pleasant and Pete from Chicot County. A slave woman, presumably a captured runaway, escaped from the Pulaski County jail in 1823. In January 1839, Henry Shugart noted that "Old Polly" had run away on the sixteenth but was back on the eighteenth. The punishment for flight could be severe. Sallie Crane was forced to wear a "buck and gag" for three days as punishment for running away. This restraint position immobilized the body and kept the mouth full of a cloth or piece of wood, preventing eating, drinking, and speaking. Crane described the horror of being unable to simply clean the saliva that dripped down her body during the punishment, showing her inter- viewer the scars remaining where flies and maggots had settled into her chest. Slave women risked these tortures for the chance to reunite with loved ones. This was a strong motivation for Sophia, who ran after her sale and removal from her children in northwest Arkansas in the 18308. Although she was bru- tally whipped for it, Sophia ran to see her children, whom "she seemed much devoted to," time and again. While Sophia disappears from the record, it is probable that she never saw her children again, illustrating the hard reality that women's direct resistance was risky and unlikely to secure long-term benefits.41

Slave women could also become violent toward masters and overseers. In Cross County, Mandy Buford's sister was fiercely defended by their mother, who threatened to chop the riding boss "in pieces" if he tried to execute his plan to lay the pregnant woman in the hole he had prepared for her face-down whipping. While this particular story might be larger than life, bondwomen's physical protectiveness of female relatives, especially those carrying children, is not hard to believe. Neither are the violent thoughts of resistance and medita- tions on revenge that would have swirled in many of their minds. Some women carried out these musings, like the unnamed St. Francis County woman who crept up behind her master, James Calvert, in 1849. Turning a tool of daily do- mestic work into a deadly weapon, she struck Calvert with a mallet intended for "beating hominy." Women resisted an inherently violent system both in the heat of the moment and in plotted attacks.42

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

4 0 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

In addition to outright retaliation, women were also moved by complex motives that called for a combination of strategies. The story of Martha, a middle-aged domestic servant on R. C. Ballard's plantation, although hard to follow in the sources, demonstrates an ability to play whites against each other. Martha was reportedly "stolen" from Chicot County and turned up in Memphis with a couple of white men. After being apprehended in circumstances that are not altogether clear in Ballard's cryptic correspondence on the matter, she was taken to New Orleans to be sold. Martha had alerted whites when another slave in New Orleans, Anthony, ran away (perhaps to Natchez) when he was about to be sold to Helena, only to suspiciously disappear herself soon after. Martha had reported to whites that her previous "captors" were in the area before her last disappearance, and she was presumed to be somewhere in Texas with the same white man who had "kidnapped" her before. Although she was willing to inform on another slave in order to gain the trust of the whites who held her in New Orleans, there was clearly a level of cooperation between Martha and whoever kept spiriting her off.43

Enslaved women played whites off each other within households as well. Discord in the Rose household of Chicot County was directly related to Mary, William Rose's domestic servant, taking advantage of his northern-born wife, Nancy. Nancy eventually filed for divorce, claiming, in addition to other insults, that William encouraged the slaves to disobey her, making life at the plantation unbearable. It seems that Mary had been in charge of the Rose household, a small plantation keeping around twenty slaves, since William had moved there in 1839. By the time Nancy arrived in 1841, Mary had been running the Rose home how she pleased for long enough to resent intrusion. Mary easily bene- fited from Nancy's inexperience in slaveholding and had noticed William's scorn for his new wife. Mary routinely ignored Nancy's orders, knowing that William would not enforce them. A witness claimed that Nancy showed bruises on her arm inflicted not by her husband (which surely would have gone further to strengthen Nancy's case) but by Mary. Mary had instilled such fear in Nancy that the mistress sometimes refused to eat Mary's cooking, in case the food was poisoned. Supposedly referring to his wife as a "lazy trifling white woman" (as opposed to a hardworking black woman like Mary), William would have encouraged any already existing disdain for Nancy in Mary. Mary was able to successfully place herself in charge of the Rose household and defend her posi- tion by establishing supremacy over the new mistress of the house.44

Women who were enslaved worked to secure their freedom using whites' own systems, though not always successfully. Mourning, a Hempstead County bondwoman, risked much in the hope of freeing her child, who had been fa-

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 41

thered by a white man she worked for. Before his death, store owner James H. Dunn of Hempstead County acknowledged his paternity of Mourning's daugh- ter Eliza (presumably conceived while she was hired out to him). Before he died, Dunn made it clear that he wanted to purchase their daughter and manumit her. After Dunn's death, Mourning gave her owner, James Moss, $300 that Dunn had entrusted to her to go toward the purchase of Eliza. The money was Mourn- ing's only hope for Eliza's freedom since Dunn's passing, but it was stripped from her because Dunn's heirs claimed the money as part of Dunn's estate. Although it is unclear whether Mourning was able to regain the money and use it to ensure her daughter's freedom, she saw how attempts to follow the rules set by whites did not guarantee success.45

A rather well-known and successful freedom suit is the case of Daniel v. Guy. Probably in the late 18308, Abby Guy, born to a mulatto woman named Polly who died before the journey, came to Arkansas from Alabama with William Daniel and his brother. Sometime after they arrived in southern Arkansas, Abby, who might have had a white father and was described as having a very light complexion and straight hair, began to live separately from the Daniels. Abby and her children, Elizabeth Daniel, Mary Daniel, John Guy, and Malissa Arnold, lived as free whites beginning in 1844, farming in Bayou Bartholomew in Ashley County, Arkansas. Abby made her own contracts, paid her own debts, and hired men to do work on her farm, such as hauling cotton and moving fences. She was able to board her oldest daughter and pay for her schooling. For some period of time, she lived as the wife of a white man with the last name of Guy, though they were not married, and he passed some land to her when he died. Abby and her children also socialized and attended church as whites with whites. But William Daniel began claiming Abby as a slave after about 1856, causing her to sue for the freedom of herself and her children.46

Abby struggled to prove her whiteness to a group of people who adhered to the "one-drop rule"—the notion that any bit of black "blood" defined an indi- vidual as nonwhite. This was crucial because blackness assumed enslavement. After lengthy discussions in the courtroom about hair, skin color, and nose shape, at one point Abby and her children were asked to remove their shoes and socks and show their feet to the jury, in order that a doctor's theories of blackness and foot shape could be tested. In addition to revealing notions of race, this case demonstrates the importance of migration. Abby Guy was able to establish her own household, relationship, and social life as a free person, and raise her children as free people, because her community had never known her as a slave. Her looks made this possible, to be sure, but both Abby's slave mother—the main indicator of enslaved status—and William's father, James

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

4 2 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

Daniel, who had owned Abby and her mother, had died years before the move to Arkansas. In order to prove Abby's slave origins, the attorneys for Daniel called witnesses who had known Abby and Daniel in Alabama. This testimony turned out to be much more important than that describing her whiteness. Abby won her case, but she and her children were forced to work as slaves for some time during the legal proceedings. Here, the cotton frontier provided just enough chaos for a woman to slip unnoticed from slavery to freedom for a while. Her light skin and persistence eventually secured that freedom legally for herself and her children.47

Bondwomen of Arkansas negotiated the hardships of slavery on the South's periphery the best they could. Uprooted from points east, countless enslaved women were marched to the trans-Mississippi cotton frontier as traders' wares or with migrating whites. There, bondwomen toiled under the lashes of whites, who commodified and masculinized them in their quest to profit from fresh cotton land. Slave women cleared the forests of the Old South, carving out wide patches of earth in which they seeded King Cotton and harvested the cash crop year after year in a routine that intertwined with their family and social lives. Women worked hard to navigate their enslavement in ways that allowed them to cultivate relationships and mother their children, sometimes risking all in at- tempts to protect or reunite with those they loved. Slave women were each born with unique personalities and goals, and they pushed against their oppression in myriad ways, ranging from quiet and cautious to downright violent in their resistance to the burdens of their bondage. Their misfortunes and successes are a crucial part of the story of early Arkansas women.

NOTES

1. Orville Taylor, Negro Slavery in Arkansas (1958; repr., Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000); Donald P. McNeilly, The Old South Frontier: Cotton Plantations and the Formation of Arkansas Society, 1819-1861 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000); S. Charles Bolton, Arkansas, 1800-1860: Remote and Restless (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998).

2. See Ira Berlin, "Migration Generations," in his Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2003), 161-244; Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 43; Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Population of the United States in 1860, Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1864), 12-13, 503-4.

3. Deyle, Carry Me Back, 44; George E. Lankford, ed., Bearing Witness: Memories of Arkansas Slavery (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003), 23-24; Edward E. Baptist, "'Stoi' and Fetched Here': Enslaved Migration, Ex-Slave Narratives, and Vernacular History," in New Studies in the History of American Slavery, ed. Edward E. Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp (Athens: Univer- sity of Georgia Press, 2006), 243-44, 252~545 Brief in the Case of Elijah Brown, box 60, Disallowed

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 43

Claims of U.S. Colored Troops, 1864-1893, 54th USCT, Records of the Pay and Bounty Division, Records of the Accounting Officers of the Department of the Treasury, RG 217, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter N A R A ) . For additional examples of places of origin, see Lankford, Bearing Witness, 36, 66,104, 126, 134, 45, 53, 104. See also Michael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989); Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999).

4. Whitneld v. Browder, 13 Ark. 143-150 (1852). 5. Sarah Brooke Malloy, "The Health of Our Family: The Correspondence of Amanda Beards-

ley Trulock, 1837-1868," MA thesis, University of Arkansas, 2005,1-2, 22; Bounty Claim for Lewis Pettis, Disallowed Claims of U.S. Colored Troops, 1864-1893, 54th USCT, Records of the Pay and Bounty Division, Records of the Accounting Officers of the Department of the Treasury, RG 217, N A R A ; Wagram Plantation journal, ser. 5, box 30, folder 457, Rice C. Ballard Papers, Southern His- torical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (hereafter Ballard Papers); James M [illegible] to Col. R. C. Ballard, subser. 1.3, box 7, folder 108, ibid.; Menifee's Administrators v. Meni- fee et al., 8 Ark. 9 (1847).

6. Pond v. Obaugh, 16 Ark. 95 (1855). 7. Maulding et al. v. Scott et al., 13 Ark. 88-95 (1852). 8. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 53. 9. John Allen journal, 9-11, John Mebane Allen Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Univer-

sity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (hereafter Allen Papers). 10. Together, Chicot, Crittenden, Desha, Phillips, and Mississippi counties, Arkansas, had 82,706

acres in improved farmland and 9,410 slaves in 1850. That same year, Tipton, Shelby, and Lauderdale counties, Tennessee, and De Soto, Tunica, Coahoma, Bolivar, and Washington counties, Missis- sippi, together had 397,672 acres in improved farmland and 42,195 slaves. Alamance County, North Carolina, had 98,260 improved farm acres and was home to 3,196 slaves in 1850. U.S. Census, 1850, Productions of Agriculture, Slave Population. In 1860, Chicot, Crittenden, Desha, Phillips, and Mississippi counties, Arkansas, together had 229,905 acres in improved farmland and 24,018 slaves. Shelby and Lauderdale counties, Tennessee, and De Soto, Tunica, Coahoma, and Bolivar coun- ties, Mississippi, had a total of 501,589 acres in improved farmland and 51,440 slaves in 1860. Data for Washington County, Mississippi, are missing from the 1860 Census enumeration. Alamance County, North Carolina, had 110,655 acres of improved farmland and was home to 3,445 slaves in 1860. U.S. Census, 1860, Productions of Agriculture, Slave Population.

11. Allen journal, 9-11,14-16. 12. Ibid., 17. 13. See transcripts of letters to John Mebane Allen, 1852-1864, Allen Papers. About one-third

of the letters to Allen from North Carolina in that period include some greeting or note to "Aunt Jenny," mostly those from Fannie Thompson and Mary Jane Allen. John Allen did own slaves in 1850; see U.S. Census, 1850, Slave Population, Alamance County, N.C.

14. Mary Jane Allen to brother and sister, January 18,1853; John Scott to nephew, September 24, 1852; Lizzie K. Allen to brother and sister, August i, 1858; M. J. Allen to brother, December 14,1859; Mary Jane Allen to Aunt Jenney [sic], June 21,1856, all in Allen Papers.

15. Mary Jane Allen to brother and sister, August 13, 1857; M. J. Allen to brother, June 8, 1858, both in Allen Papers.

16. M. J. Allen to brother, November 28,1860, Allen Papers. 17. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 15, 24.

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

4 4 K E L L Y H O U S T O N J O N E S

18. Ibid., 269, 86, 71, 72,102,136; Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women,

Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present (1985; repr., New York: Vintage, 1986) 17.

19. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 140.

20. H. L. Berry to Col. Ballard, April 4,1857, subser. 1.3, folder 256, Ballard Papers.

21. Jno. B. Pelham to Col. Ballard, October 16,1857, subser. 1.3, folder 260, Ballard Papers; John

Brown diary, January 4, 9,11-14,16, 21, and 23,1854; October 13 and November 6,1852 (quotation);

January 14 and 25, August 30,1853, microfilm, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.

22. Shugart plantation journal, microfilm, n.p., University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.

23. Maggie Walker Benton diary, 1861, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock.

24. H. L. Berry to Col. Ballard, January 8, 1859, subser. 1.3, folder 322, Ballard Papers; Jno. B.

Pelham to Col. Ballard, February 28,1857, ibid., folder 253; Brown diary, February 12,1853; Shugart

plantation journal, August 2 and 3,1839.

25. Brown diary, July 31,1852, August 4 and 10,1853; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 71; Jno. B. Pelham

to Col. Ballard, February 22,1857, subser. 1.3, folder 253, Ballard Papers; Jno. B. Pelham to Col. Bal-

lard, March 4,1857, ibid., folder 254.

26. Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 19, 35; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 353.

27. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 107, 23, 245, 368,15, 210, 214, 30,124, 376, 50; Margaret Jones Bol-

sterli, A Remembrance of Eden: Harriet Bailey Bullock Daniel's Memories of a Frontier Plantation in

Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993), 61-62.

28. Jno. B. Pelham to Col. Ballard, March 4,1857, subser. 1.3, folder 254, Ballard Papers.

29. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 210, 214, 30,185, 376, 24, 317-18,164,165.

30. Carl H. Moneyhon, "The Slave Family in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58 (Spring

1999): 35-44; Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 13.

31. Brown diary, February 7 and 22,1854; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 371, 4,102, 305, 244, 124,

216, 376, 50.

32. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 48, 214; Sharla M. Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power

on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 4-5,111-15.

33. Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America, 2nd ed. (Bloom-

ington: Indiana University Press, 2011), xxi-xxii, 71-106; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 122,164, 197,

370-71, 4,102, 305, 244,124, 216,13,15, 23,104,136, 379.

34. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 22, 86, 95,108,185, 359, 362, 259, 289, 246-47,124; Bolsterli, Re-

membrance of Eden, 49.

35. Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 27; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 366, 30, 215,165.

36. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 185, 95, 104, 107, 381; Madelyn Shaw, "Slave Cloth and Cloth-

ing Slaves: Craftsmanship, Commerce, and Industry," Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts

34 (2013), www.mesdajournal.org/20i2/slave-cloth-clothing-slaves-craftsmanship-commerce

-industry.

37. Lankford, Bearing Witness, 211, 223,170,196.

38. Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 22; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 23, 166-67, 2°> 260,

128-29; Jno. B. Pelham to Col. Ballard, December 5, 1857, subser. 1.3, folder 264, Ballard Papers;

Brown diary, February 5-7 and 26, March i, 1853.

39. H. L. Berry to Col. Ballard, December 17, 1857, subser. 1.3, folder 265, Ballard Papers;

H. L. Berry to Col. Ballard, January 18, 1858, ibid., folder 268; H. L. Berry to Col. Ballard, June i,

1859, ibid., folder 308; Porter v. Clements, 3 Ark. 367 (1841); H. C. Buckner to Col. R. C. Ballard

February 4,1860, subser. 1.3, folder 324, Ballard Papers; Arkansas Gazette, April 10,1858.

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bondwomen on Arkansass Cotton Frontier 45

40. Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 21; Jno. B. Pelham to Col. Ballard, February 28,1857,

subser. 1.3, folder 253, Ballard Papers; Kelly Houston Jones, "'A Rough, Saucy Set of Hands to Man-

age': Slave Resistance in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 71 (Spring 2012): 12.

41. Arkansas Gazette, September 18, 1833, October 14, 1823; Shugart plantation journal, Janu-

ary 16-18,1839; Lankford, Bearing Witness, 136; Jones, "Rough, Saucy Set of Hands," 6-7.

42. Jones, "Rough, Saucy Set of Hands," 15-16,19.

43. Peete and Raglan to Mr. Ballard, [April 1858], subser. 1.3, box 18, folder 277; W. Cox and Co.

to Col. R. C. Ballard, May 6,1858, ibid., folder 278; C. M. Rutherford to Coin. Ballard, May 16, July 5

and 6,1858, ibid., folder 283, all Ballard Papers.

44. Rose v. Rose, 9 Ark. 508, 3, n, 16, 43-45, 48, 56, 63, 69 (1849), Arkansas Supreme Court Briefs

and Records, ser. i, box 48, folder 3148, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Bowen School of Law

and Pulaski County Law Library; U.S. Census, 1850, Slave Population, Chicot County, Ark.

45. Moss v. Sandefur, 15 Ark. 381-88 (1854).

46. Daniel v. Guy, 19 Ark. 121-38 (1857) and 23 Ark. 50 (1861). Abby Guy's case is explored in

more detail in Robert S. Shafer, "White Persons Held to Racial Slavery in Antebellum Arkansas,"

Arkansas Historical Quarterly 44 (Summer 1985): 134-43.

47. Daniel v. Guy (1857,1861).

This content downloaded from 147.97.128.194 on Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:26:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms