Black Women in Civil War Texas

18thVirginia

Major
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Sep 8, 2012
Black women in Texas called the Civil War the Freedom War. For both women who were enslaved and those who were free, it was an insecure time. As many of the white men were away at war, the duties of enslaved women often became more arduous than usual. In 1860, the total number of slaves in Texas was 182,566, a rapid increase from the 5,000 slaves in Texas in 1836 or even the 58,161 in 1860. As plantation owners from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi fled to Texas during the War to try and hang onto their slaves, the number of slaves increased to at least 250,000.

Even before the Civil War uprooted people from the Trans-Mississippi South, many black people who were enslaved had been born somewhere east of Texas and had walked to the state with their masters. But, during the Civil War, at least 25,000 black women who were slaves arrived in Texas. Mary Lindsay, an enslaved women in one of the counties along the Red River--Fannin County--noted that "they was whole families of them (refugees) with they children and they slaves along, an they was coming in from every place because the Yankees were getting in their part of the country."

We know something of the lives of black women in Texas who were still living in the institution of slavery from the WPA slave narratives. Texas was one of the states that documented these stories well, I've always noticed that there are far more photos of the former slaves to accompany the Texas stories. In this thread, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the lives of these black women from Texas who survived slavery and lived on into the 1930s.
 
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Mary Lindsay was born in the Indian Territory on September 20, 1845. According to Mary's account, given when she was 91, her mother was the slave of a "Chicasaw part-breed name Sobe Love" who owned over a 100 slaves. Mary Lindsay belonged to the daughter of Sobe Love, also named Mary. When Mary married a man her father didn't approve of, they left the Indian Territory and moved to Fannin County, one of the Unionist counties in North Texas along the Red River.

Mistress Mary's new husband was a Bill Merritt, a blacksmith who opened a new shop between Bonham and Honey Grove in Fannin County. Mary Love Merritt took Mary Lindsay with her to a new home in Texas.

Lindsay described what it was like to leave parents and family behind because slavery separated them.

Dat just nearly broke my ole mammy’s and pappy’s heart, to have me took away only free then, but they couldn’t any nothing and I had to go along with Miss Mary they back to womans. When we git away from the big house I ject cried and cried until I couldn’t harily see, my was so swole my but Miss Mary said she gaine to be good to me.
https://www.accessgenealogy.com/black-genealogy/slave-narrative-of-mary-lindsay.htm


Bonham_Blacksmith_and_Wood_Shop_TAUC_archives_mod-473x345.jpg


A two story blacksmith shop in Bonham in the 19th Century. http://www.redriverhistorian.com/bonham.html
 
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Mary described her tasks and life in the new home in Texas:

That sho’ was hard living then! I have to git up at three o’clock sometings so I have time to under the hosses and slop the hogs and feed the chickens and milk the cors, and then git book to the horse and git the breakfast. What was during the times when Miss Mary was having and marsing her two children, and old Vici had to stay with her all the time. Master Bill never did do some of that kind of work, but he had to be in the shop sometimes until may late in the night, and sometimes before daylight, to shoe peoples hosses and oren and fix wagons.
 
Mary described the initial stages of the Civil War from her place in Texas.

I remeber when the war come. Mostly by the people asking ‘long the big road, we hear about it. First they was a lot of wagons having form stuff into town to sell, and then party soon they were soldiers on the wagons, and they was coming out into the country to git the stuff and buying. it right at the place they find it.

When party soon they commence to be little bunches of mens in soldier clothes riding a and down the road going somewhere. They seen like they was mostly young boys like, and they jest laughing and jollying and going on like they was on a picnic.

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Confederate soldiers from Texas
 
She relates how many men from these northernmost counties were reluctant to go off to war.

Then the soldiers come ’round and got a lot of the white men and took them off to the war even if they didn’t want to go. Master Bill never did want to go. ’cause he had his wife and two little children, and anyways he was gitting all the work he could do fixing wagons and shoeing hosses, with all the traffic on de road at that time. Master Bill had jest two hosses, for him and his wife to ride and to work to the busy, and he Ned one old yoke of oxen and some near Seattle. He got some kind of a paper in town and he kept it with him all the time, and when the soldiers would come to git his hosses or his cattle he would ject draw that paper on ’em and they let ‘en clone.
 
Many of the WPA narratives are less about "storytelling" than Mary Lindsay's. I'm reminded of Kate Stone in the depth of detail which she provided to the interviewers. She talked about the fear of the locals of Yankee troops.

We all git mighty scared about the Yankees, coming but I don't reckon they ever git thar 'cause I never seen none, and we was right on the big road and we would of seen them. They was a whole lot more soldiers in them brown looking jeans, round about jackets and cotton britches a faunching up and down the road on their hosses, though. The hoss soldiers would come b'iling by, going east all day and night, and then two three days later on they would al come tearing by going west! Dey acted like dey didn't know whar dey gwine, but reckon dey did.
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Texas Confederate soldiers
 
The life of a female slave in Texas was one of work, in the house, carrying water, working in the fields. But the War exacerbated the situation for black women in Civil War Texas. With white men joining the military and leaving the farm/plantation, someone had to take up the slack and that was often a black woman slave. The master often took a male slave along to the war to serve as his aide, which further diminished the laborers available. In many cases, the farmer was killed or died of disease during the War, leaving his wife and her slaves to fend as best they could.

Lindsay described her life when Mary's husband was ill.

I got to feed all the stock and milk the cows and work in the field too. Dat the first time I ever try to plow, and I nearly git killed, too! I got me a young yoke of omens I broke to pull the wagon, ’cause Vici have to use the old omens to work the field. I had to take the wagon and go ’bout ten miles west to a patch of woods Master Bill owned to git fire wood, ’cause we lived right on a flat patch of prairie, and I had to chop and haul the wood by myself. I had to git postock to burn in the kitchen fireplace and willow for Master Bill to make charcoal out of to burn in his blacksmith fire.

Well, I hitch up then young omen to the plow and they won’t follow the row, and so I go git the old omens. One of them old omens didn’t know me and took in after me, and I couldn’t hitch ’em up. And then it begins to rain again.

After the rain me quit I git the bucket and go milk the cows, and it is time to water the houses too, so I starts to the house with the milk and leading one of the houses. When I gits to the gate I drops the halter across my arm and bocks the bucket of milk on my arm too, and starts to open the gate. The wind blow the gate wide open, and it slap the hoes on the flank. That was when I nearly git killed!

Out the hoss go through the gate to the yard, and down the big road, and my arm all tangled up in the halter rope and me dragging on the ground!

The first jump knock the wind out of me and I can’t git loose, and that hoss drag me down the road on the run until he meet up with a passel of soldiers and they stop him.
Slave Narratives, LoC.​
 
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Mary Merritt's husband argued with local military authorities about joining some unit and then died of disease. Mary Lindsay described her mistress Mary leaving her children with two of her slaves and the coming back to try and run her farm, at a time when food and goods were becoming scarce.

We git along the best we can for a whole winter, but we nearly starve to death, and then the next sprig when we getting a little patch planted Mistress go into Bonham and come back and say we all free and the War over.

Lindsay described the early days of freedom, when she stayed on with her former mistress because she hadn't any place to go. But, she was disturbed at not being paid and heard about some possible family of hers living near Bonham. So, like many newly freed people, she left to find new employment and family.

So one night I jest put the new dress in a bundle and set foot right down the big road a-walking west, and don't say nothing to nobody !

It's ten miles into Bonham, and I gits in town about daylight. I keeps on being afraid, cause I can't git it out my mind I still belong to Mistress.
 
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Mary Lindsay was reunited with her brother and her mother and remained with her mother until she died. She married a man from Cedar Mills, Texas and lived there until they moved to Oklahoma, where she told her story to a WPA interviewer at age 91.

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Cedar Mills would have been in the county west of Fannin, Grayson, along the Red River. On the map above, you can see it at the very northwestern edge of Grayson County, just below the Oklahoma line. Some may remember Grayson County as the place where Quantrill and the James family wintered in Texas.
 
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Although most black women living in Texas during the Civil War were enslaved, the Census records indicate that 174 free black women lived in 40 Texas counties in 1860. Free blacks were supposed to remain in Texas only with permission of the state legislature. Fanny McFarland was one free women who chose to remain in Texas even after the Legislature denied her petition to remain.

McFarland had come to Texas in 1827 with her owner, William McFarland. She'd been freed in 1835, but her 4 children were still enslaved. During the Texas revolution, McFarland fled to Houston where, like many free black women in Texas, she worked as a laundress and began to buy property. In 1840, she petitioned the Texas Congress to allow her to remain the state as a free woman of color. This is from her petition, which had 70 supporters:

"She would further represent that she has four children held as slaves in the Republic so that all her hopes and prospects in this life lie here. And your petition would beg leave to urge upon your Honors the hardship of being obliged in her old age to leave her children, to sacrifice her hard earned property, to be obliged to part from friends of years standing, to be obliged to leave her only home and be turned loose upon the wide world…We the undersigned citizens of Houston and the Republic of Texas would respectfully second the petition of Fanny McFarland, a free woman of Colour, to remain as a citizen of this Republic. And hereby recommend her as a good and useful citizen."
http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/campfire-stories/african-americans

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Washing Day - LoC​
 
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Fanny McFarland's petition to remain in Texas was denied by the Legislature, but she remained in Houston until her death in 1866, continuing to purchase real estate even during the Civil War.

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Mary Madison was one of the few whose petition to remain in Texas was approved by the Texas Legislature. Born in Virginia, she arrived in Galveston in about 1840. Her petition was signed by 82 Galveston citizens and noted "age, and the length of time she has resided in the State, during which time she has demeaned herself with becoming propriety."

Her petition:

The undersigned citizens of the City of Galveston...would respectfully represent to your Honorable body that Mary Madison, a free woman of color, aged about forty-two years, has resided in said city for the last eight or ten years, and during the whole of that time has conducted herself with the strictest propriety and has always demeaned herself, as a good and orderly citizen...She is an honest, sober and industrious woman, and by her labor and care she has accumulated a little property, which she is desirous of enjoying where she has made it: -- that said Mary besides her many good qualities, is a very valuable citizen, in a variety of ways; especially in the capacity of a nurse in cases of sickness; and many citizens and strangers who have been afflicted with disease, have experienced her kindness, her attention and watchfulness, when such qualities are really needed. They would further represent that...in view of her good conduct, her excellent behaviors and her general usefulness, she be allowed her time to remain...in the place where she has so long resided, rather than compel her, at her period of life, to seek a home in another land, and among strangers.

Source: Memorial N. 251, File 64, Letter “M,” Archives Div ision, Texas State Library, Austin, as reprinted in Ruthe Winegarten, Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trials and Triumph, p. 3.
 
It had to be a kind of job resume, literally selling yourself all over again. You just know all our states ( I'm not picking on Texas ) had some pretty dicey characters looking for anonymity somewhere for a reason, post war. White folks, however, already just fine, passport being skin tone. Cannot imagine being Mary- a lovely, good,citizen with much to contribute to society having to ask, please, would society recognize her worth? :eek: ' Eek, emoticon because we do not appear to have ' ' bleacchh '.
 
I thought I'd throw in a little tale to explain the experiences of some Texas women... both black and white, only a couple of counties from the area you read about... this takes place in 1864, and a good deal center's on the family of Britt Johnson, a slave, and his interracial family. So we'll deal with white settlers as well as enslaved men, women, and children...
http://www.forttours.com/pages/elmcreekraid.asp
 
Interesting story, Nathanb1. Thanks for bringing it to us.

One can understand the reluctance of some men on the frontier in Texas who didn't feel that they should leave Texas to go and fight elsewhere.
 
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