Oklahoma Writers’ Project                                                    Ex-Slaves 310


BEAUREGARD TENNEYSON
Age 87 yrs.
West Tulsa, Okla.


	My mother and father just about stocked Jess Tenneyson’s plantation
with slaves. That’s a fact. The old folks had one big family – twenty-three
Children was the number. With the old folks that make twenty-five (there
were only five more slaves), so I reckon they done mighty well by Master Jess.
	The Master done well by them, too. Master Jess and Mistress Lula
was Christian peoples. They raised their two sons, Henry and George, the same
way.
	There was so many of us children I don’t remember all the names.
Three of the boys was named after good southern gentlemen who soldiered in the 
War. Price, Lee and Beaugard. Beaugard is me. Proud of that name just like
I’m proud of the Master’s name.
	My folks named Patrick and Harriett. Mother worked round the house
And father was the field boss. They was close by the Master all the time.
	The plantation was down in Craig County, Texas. Nine hundred acre
it was. They raise everything, but mostly corn and cotton. Big times when
come the harvest. Master fix up a cotton gin right on the place. It was an
old-fashioned press. Six horses run it with two boys tromping down the cotton
with their feets.
	In the fall time was the best of all. Come cotton picking time, all
the master from miles around send in their best pickers – and how they’d work.,
sometimes pick the whole crop in one day! The one who picked the most win a
prize. Then come noon and the big feast, and at night come the dancing.
	Something like that when the corn was ready. All the folks have the