Lucinda Davis: A Slave in Georgia, A Free Black Woman in Oklahoma

Lucinda Davis: A Slave in Georgia, A Free Woman in Oklahoma

I first encountered Lucinda Davis, the Oklahoma former slave to the Creek Indians, in the Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, on a very dusty shelf. The Creels, like the other members of the Five Tribes who settled Oklahoma after, treaded the infamous Trail of Tears, along which many of their number died.  Unlike their white counter parts, the Indians treated her as a member of the family. You ask who were her owners and where did they live? Some fought in the battle of Honey Springs (see Wiki), and a black family went to Canada but didn’t prosper. Lucinda asked for an explanation of the location of Dixie. A Mr. Walker was their neighbor, and she married Andrew Davis at Gibson station in Muskogee County. She had a son imprisoned at McAlester Prison in Pittsburg County.  

Facts: “First thing I remember is when I was a little girl,” she states in her WPA interview of 1937, “and I belong to old Tuskaya-hiniha. He was big man in de Upper Creek, and we have a purty good size farm, jest a little bit to de north of de wagon depot houses on de old road at Honey Springs. Dat place was about twenty-five mile south of Fort Gibson, but I don't know nothing about whar de fort is when I was a little girl. 

“Elk River was two miles north. Tuskayahiniha, “head man warrior” in Creek. Mistress was Nancy Lott, her father’s name was Lott, pretty much white. One girl was named Luwina, married a man named Walker. Luwina Mr. Walker’s little sister, Nancy. She had a boy named Istidji, meaning Little Man.”

From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. Their narratives remain a peerless resource for understanding the lives of America's four million slaves. What makes the WPA narratives so rich is that they capture the very voices of American slavery, revealing the texture of life as it was experienced and remembered. Each narrative taken alone offers a fragmentary, microcosmic representation of slave life. Read together, they offer a sweeping composite view of slavery in North America, allowing us to explore some of the most compelling themes of nineteenth-century slavery, including labor, resistance and flight, family life, relations with masters, and religious belief.

Their web site provides an opportunity to read a sample of these narratives, and to see some of the photographs taken at the time of the interviews. The entire collection of narratives can be found in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972-79). 

The narrative is also reproduced, with excellent annotation, in T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker, eds.. The Source: The American Slave, Vol. 7: 53-64. 

To get to the key source, here is Lucinda Davis speaking in her 1937 WPA interview collected during the Great Depression: Here is the interview made by the WPA:

LUCINDA DAVIS

Age (about) 89 yrs. Tulsa, Okla.

"What yo' gwine do when de meat give out? What yo' gwine do when de meat give out? Set in de corner wid my lips pooched out! Lawsy!

What yo' gwine do when de meat come in? What yo' gwine do when de meat come in? Set in de corner wid a greasy chin! Lawsy!"

Dat's about de only little nigger song I know, less'n it be de one about:

"Great big nigger, laying 'hind de log--Finger on de trigger and eye on the hawg! Click go de trigger and bang go de gun! Here come de owner and de buck nigger run!"

And I think I learn both of dem long after I been grown, 'cause I belong to a full-blood Creek Indian and I didn't know nothing but Creek talk long after de Civil War. My mistress was part white and knowed English talk, but she never did talk it because none of de people talked it. I heard it sometime, but it sound like whole lot of wild shoat in de cedar brake scared at something when I do hear it. Dat was when I was little girl in time of de War.

I don't know where I been born. Nobody never did tell me. But my mammy and pappy git me after de War and I know den whose child I is. De men at de Creek Agency help 'em git me, I reckon, maybe.

First thing I remember is when I was a little girl, and I belong to old Tuskaya-hiniha. He was big man in de Upper Creek, and we have a purty good size farm, jest a little bit to de north of de wagon depot houses on de old road at Honey Springs. Dat place was about twenty-five mile south of Fort Gibson, but I don't know nothing about whar de fort is when I was a little girl at dat time. I know de Elk River 'bout two mile north of whar we live, 'cause I been there many de time.

I don't know if old Master have a white name. Lots de Upper Creek didn't have no white name. Maybe he have another Indian name, too, because Tuskaya-hiniha mean "head man warrior" in Creek, but dat what everybody call him and dat what de family call him too.

My Mistress' name was Nancy, and she was a Lott before she marry old man Tuskaya-hiniha. Her pappy name was Lott and he was purty near white. Maybe so all white. Dey have two chillun, I think, but only one stayed on de place. She was name Luwina, and her husband was dead. His name was Walker, and Luwina bring Mr. Walker's little sister, Nancy, to live at de place too.

Luwina had a little baby boy and dat de reason old Master buy me, to look after de little baby boy. He didn't have no name cause he wasn't big enough when I was with dem, but he git a name later on, I reckon. We all call him "Istidji." Dat mean "little man."

When I first remember, before de War, old Master had 'bout as many slave as I got fingers, I reckon. I can think dem off on my fingers like dis, but I can't recollect de names.

Dey call all de slaves "Istilusti." Dat mean "Black man."

Old man Tuskaya-hiniha was near 'bout blind before de War, and 'bout time of de War he go plumb blind and have to set on de long seat under de bresh shelter of de house all de time. Sometime I lead him around de yard a little, but not very much. Dat about de time all de slave begin to slip out and run off.

My own pappy was name Stephany. I think he take dat name 'cause when he little his mammy call him "Istifani." Dat mean a skeleton, and he was a skinny man. He belong to de Grayson family and I think his master name George, but I don't know. Dey big people in de Creek, and with de white folks too. My mammy name was Serena and she belong to some of de Gouge family. Dey was big people in de Upper Creek, and one de biggest men of the Gouge was name Hopoethleyoholo for his Creek name. He was a big man and went to de North in de War and died up in Kansas, I think. Dey say when he was a little boy he was called Hopoethli, which mean "good little boy", and when he git grown he make big speeches and dey stick on de "yoholo." Dat mean "loud whooper."

Dat de way de Creek made de name for young boys when I was a little girl. When de boy git old enough de big men in de town give him a name, and sometime later on when he git to going round wid de grown men dey stick on some more name. If he a good talker dey sometime stick on "yoholo", and iffen he make lots of jokes dey call him "Hadjo." If he is a good leader dey call him "Imala" and if he kind of mean dey sometime call him "fixigo."

My mammy and pappy belong to two masters, but dey live together on a place. Dat de way de Creek slaves do lots of times. Dey work patches and give de masters most all dey make, but dey have some for demselves. Dey didn't have to stay on de master's place and work like I hear de slaves of de white people and de Cherokee and Choctaw people say dey had to do.

Maybe my pappy and mammy run off and git free, or maybeso dey buy demselves out, but anyway dey move away some time and my mammy's master sell me to old man Tuskaya-hiniha when I was jest a little gal. All I have to do is stay at de house and mind de baby.

Master had a good log house and a bresh shelter out in front like all de houses had. Like a gallery, only it had de dirt for de flo' and bresh for de roof. Dey cook everything out in de yard in big pots, and dey eat out in de yard too.

Dat was sho' good stuff to eat, and it make you fat too! Roast de green corn on de ears in de ashes, and scrape off some and fry it! Grind de dry corn or pound it up and make ash cake. Den bile de greens--all kinds of greens from out in de woods--and chop up de pork and de deer meat, or de wild turkey meat; maybe all of dem, in de big pot at de same time! Fish too, and de big turtle dat lay out on de bank!

Dey always have a pot full of sofki settin right inside de house, and anybody eat when dey feel hungry. Anybody come on a visit, always give 'em some of de sofki. Ef dey don't take none de old man git mad, too!

When you make de sofki you pound up de corn real fine, den pour in de water an dreen it off to git all de little skin from off'n de grain. Den you let de grits soak and den bile it and let it stand. Sometime you put in some pounded hickory nut meats. Dat make it real good.

I don't know whar old Master git de cloth for de clothes, less'n he buy it. Befo' I can remember I think he had some slaves dat weave de cloth, but when I was dar he git it at de wagon depot at Honey Springs, I think. He go dar all de time to sell his corn, and he raise lots of corn, too.

Dat place was on de big road, what we called de road to Texas, but it go all de way up to de North, too. De traders stop at Honey Springs and old Master trade corn for what he want. He git some purty checkedy cloth one time, and everybody git a dress or a shirt made off'n it. I have dat dress 'till I git too big for it.

Everybody dress up fine when dey is a funeral. Dey take me along to mind de baby at two-three funerals, but I don't know who it is dat die. De Creek sho' take on when somebody die!

Long in de night you wake up and hear a gun go off, way off yonder somewhar. Den it go again, and den again, jest as fast as dey can ram de load in. Dat mean somebody dead. When somebody die de men go out in de yard and let de people know dat way. Den dey jest go back in de house and let de fire go out, and don't even tech de dead person till somebody git dar what has de right to tech de dead.

When somebody bad sick dey build a fire in de house, even in de summer, and don't let it die down till dat person git well or die. When dey die dey let de fire go out.

In de morning everybody dress up fine and go to de house whar de dead is and stand around in de yard outside de house and don't go in. Pretty soon along come somebody what got a right to tech and handle de dead and dey go in. I don't know what give dem de right, but I think dey has to go through some kind of medicine to git de right, and I know dey has to drink de red root and purge good before dey tech de body. When dey git de body ready dey come out and all go to de graveyard, mostly de family graveyard, right on de place or at some of the kinfolkses.

When dey git to de grave somebody shoots a gun at de north, den de west, den de south, and den de east. Iffen dey had four guns dey used 'em.

Den dey put de body down in de grave and put some extra clothes in with it and some food and a cup of coffee, maybe. Den dey takes strips of elm bark and lays over de body till it all covered up, and den throw in de dirt.

When de last dirt throwed on, everybody must clap dey hands and smile, but you sho hadn't better step on any of de new dirt around de grave, because it bring sickness right along wid you back to your own house. Dat what dey said, anyways.

Jest soon as de grave filled up dey built a little shelter over it wid poles like a pig pen and kiver it over wid elm bark to keep de rain from soaking down in de new dirt.

Den everybody go back to de house and de family go in and scatter some kind of medicine 'round de place and build a new fire. Sometime dey feed everybody befo' dey all leave for home.

Every time dey have a funera:l dey always a lot of de people say, "Didn't you hear de stikini squalling in de night?" "I hear dat stikini all de night!" De "stikini" is de screech owl, and he suppose to tell when anybody going to die right soon. I hear lots of Creek people say dey hear de screech owl close to de house, and sho' nuff somebody in de family die soon.

When de big battle come at our place at Honey Springs dey jest git through having de green corn "busk." De green corn was just ripened enough to eat. It must of been along in July.

Dat busk was jest a little busk. Dey wasn't enough men around to have a good one. But I seen lots of big ones. Ones whar dey had all de different kinds of "banga." Dey call all de dances some kind of banga. De chicken dance is de "Tolosabanga", and de "Istifanibanga" is de one whar dey make lak dey is skeletons and raw heads coming to git you.

De "Hadjobanga" is de crazy dance, and dat is a funny one. Dey all dance crazy and make up funny songs to go wid de dance. Everybody think up funny songs to sing and everybody whoop and laugh all de time.

But de worse one was de drunk dance. Dey jest dance ever whichaway, de men and de women together, and dey wrassle and hug and carry on awful! De good people don't dance dat one. Everybody sing about going to somebody elses house and sleeping wid dem, and shout, "We is all drunk and we don't know what we doing and we ain't doing wrong 'cause we is all drunk" and things like dat. Sometime de bad ones leave and go to de woods, too!

Dat kind of doing make de good people mad, and sometime dey have killings about it. When a man catch one his women--maybeso his wife or one of his daughters--been to de woods he catch her and beat her and cut off de rim of her ears!

People think maybeso dat ain't so, but I know it is!

I was combing somebody's hair one time--I ain't going tell who--and when I lift it up off'n her ears I nearly drap dead! Dar de rims cut right off'n 'em! But she was a married woman, and I think maybeso it happen when she was a young gal and got into it at one of dem drunk dances.

Dem Upper Creek took de marrying kind of light anyways. Iffen de younguns wanted to be man and wife and de old ones didn't care dey jest went ahead and dat was about all, 'cepting some presents maybe. But de Baptists changed dat a lot amongst de young ones.

I never forgit de day dat battle of de Civil War happen at Honey Springs! Old Master jest had de green corn all in, and us had been having a time gitting it in, too. Jest de women was all dat was left, 'cause de men slaves had all slipped off and left out. My uncle Abe done got up a bunch and gone to de North wid dem to fight, but I didn't know den whar he went. He was in dat same battle, and after de War dey called him Abe Colonel. Most all de slaves 'round dat place done gone off a long time before dat wid dey masters when dey go wid old man Gouge and a man named McDaniel.

We had a big tree in de yard, and a grape vine swing in it for de little baby "Istidji", and I was swinging him real early in de morning befo' de sun up. De house set in a little patch of woods wid de field in de back, but all out on de north side was a little open space, like a kind of prairie. I was swinging de baby, and all at once I seen somebody riding dis way 'cross dat prairie--jest coming a-kiting and a-laying flat out on his hoss. When he see de house he begin to give de war whoop, "Eya-a-a-a-he-ah!" When he git close to de house he holler to git out de way 'cause dey gwine be a big fight, and old Master start rapping wid his cane and yelling to git some grub and blankets in de wagon right now!

We jest leave everything setting right whar it is, 'cepting putting out de fire and grabbing all de pots and kettles. Some de nigger women run to git de mules and de wagon and some start gitting meat and corn out of de place whar we done hid it to keep de scouters from finding it befo' now. All de time we gitting ready to travel we hear dat boy on dat horse going on down de big Texas road hollering. "Eya-a-a-he-he-hah!"

Den jest as we starting to leave here come something across dat little prairie sho' nuff! We know dey is Indians de way dey is riding, and de way dey is all strung out. Dey had a flag, and it was all red and had a big criss-cross on it dat look lak a saw horse. De man carry it and rear back on it when de wind whip it, but it flap all 'round de horse's head and de horse pitch and rear lak he know something going happen, sho!

'Bout dat time it turn kind of dark and begin to rain a little, and we git out to de big road and de rain come down hard. It rain so hard for a little while dat we jest have to stop de wagon and set dar, and den long come more soldiers dan I ever see befo'. Dey all white men, I think, and dey have on dat brown clothes dyed wid walnut and butternut, and old Master say dey de Confederate soldiers. Dey dragging some big guns on wheels and most de men slopping 'long in de rain on foot.

Den we hear de fighting up to de north 'long about what de river is, and de guns sound lak hosses loping 'cross a plank bridge way off somewhar. De head men start hollering and some de hosses start rearing and de soldiers start trotting faster up de road. We can't git out on de road so we jest strike off through de prairie and make for a creek dat got high banks and a place on it we call Rocky Cliff.

We git in a big cave in dat cliff, and spend de whole day and dat night in dar, and listen to de battle going on. Dat place was about half-a-mile from de wagon depot at Honey Springs, and a little east of it. We can hear de guns going all day, and along in de evening here come de South side making for a getaway. Dey come riding and running by whar we is, and it don't make no difference how much de head men hollers at 'em dey can't make dat bunch slow up and stop.

After while here come de Yankees, right after 'em, and dey goes on into Honey Springs and pretty soon we see de blaze whar dey is burning de wagon depot and de houses.

De next morning we goes back to de house and find de soldiers ain't hurt nothing much. De hogs is whar dey is in de pen and de chickens come cackling 'round too. Dem soldiers going so fast dey didn't have no time to stop and take nothing, I reckon.

Den long come lots of de Yankee soldiers going back to de North, and dey looks purty wore out, but dey is laughing and joshing and going on.

Old Master pack up de wagon wid everything he can carry den, and we strike out down de big road to git out de way of any more war, is dey going be any.

Dat old Texas road jest crowded wid wagons! Everybody doing de same thing we is, and de rains done made de road so muddy and de soldiers done tromp up de mud so bad dat de wagons git stuck all de time.

De people all moving along in bunches, and every little while one bunch of wagons come up wid another bunch all stuck in de mud, and dey put all de hosses and mules on together and pull em out, and den dey go on together awhile.

At night dey camp, and de women and what few niggers dey is have to git de supper in de big pots, and de men so tired dey eat everything up from de women and de niggers, purty nigh.

After while we come to de Canadian town. Dat whar old man Gouge been and took a whole lot de folks up north wid him, and de South soldiers got in dar ahead of us and took up all de houses to sleep in.

Dey was some of de white soldiers camped dar, and dey was singing at de camp. I couldn't understand what dey sing, and I asked a Creek man what dey say and he tell me dey sing, "I wish I was in Dixie, look away--look away."

I ask him whar dat is, and he laugh and talk to de soldiers and dey all laugh, and make me mad.

De next morning we leave dat town and git to de big river. De rain make de river rise, and I never see so much water! Jest look out dar and dar all dat water!

Dey got some boats we put de stuff on, and float de wagons and swim de mules and finally git across, but it look lak we gwine all drown.

Most de folks say dey going to Boggy Depot and around Fort Washita, but old Master strike off by hisself and go way down in de bottom somewhar to live.

I don't know whar it was, but dey been some kind of fighting all around dar, 'cause we camp in houses and cabins all de time and nobody live in any of 'em.

Look like de people all git away quick, 'cause all de stuff was in de houses, but you better scout up around de house before you go up to it. Liable to be some scouters already in it!

Dem Indian soldiers jest quit de army and lots went scouting in little bunches and took everything dey find. Iffen somebody try to stop dem dey git killed.

Sometime we find graves in de yard whar somebody jest been buried fresh, and one house had some dead people in it when old Mistress poke her head in it. We git away from dar, and no mistake!

By and by we find a little cabin and stop and stay all de time. I was de only slave by dat time. All de others done slip out and run off. We stay dar two year I reckon, 'cause we make two little crop of corn. For meat a man name Mr. Walker wid us jest went out in de woods and shoot de wild hogs. De woods was full of dem wild hogs, and lots of fish in de holes whar he could sicken 'em wid buck root and catch 'em wid his hands, all we wanted.

I don't know when de War quit off, and when I git free, but I stayed wid old man Tuskaya-hiniha long time after I was free, I reckon. I was jest a little girl, and he didn't know whar to send me to, anyways.

One day three men rid up and talk to de old man awhile in English talk. Den he called me and tell me to go wid dem to find my own family. He jest laugh and slap my behind and set me up on de hoss in front of one de men and dey take me off and leave my good checkedy dress at de house!

Before long we git to dat Canadian river again, and de men tie me on de hoss so I can't fall off. Dar was all dat water, and dey ain't no boat, and dey ain't no bridge, and we jest swim de hosses. I knowed sho' I was going to be gone dat time, but we git across.

when we come to de Creek Agency dar is my pappy and my mammy to claim me, and I live wid dem in de Verdigris bottom above Fort Gibson till I was grown and dey is both dead. Den I marries Anderson Davis at Gibson Station, and we git our allotments on de Verdigris east of Tulsa--kind of south too, close to de Broken Arrow town.

I knowed old man Jim McHenry at dat Broken Arrow town. He done some preaching and was a good old man, I think.

I knowed when dey started dat Wealaka school across de river from de Broken Arrow town. Dey name it for de Wilaki town, but dat town was way down in de Upper Creek country close to whar I lived when I was a girl.

I had lots of children, but only two is alive now. My boy Anderson got in a mess and went to dat McAlester prison, but he got to be a trusty and dey let him marry a good woman dat got lots of property dar, and dey living all right now.

When my old man die I come to live here wid Josephine, but I'se blind and can't see nothing and all de noises pesters me a lot in de town. And de children is all so ill mannered, too. Dey jest holler at you all de time! Dey don't mind you neither!

When I could see and had my own younguns I could jest set in de corner and tell 'em what to do, and iffen dey didn't do it right I could whack 'em on de head, 'cause dey was raised de old Creek way, and dey know de old folks know de best!

    

       At the end, we find Lucinda standing in Tulsa, seventy miles east of Chandler, home of the crypt he shares with his father-in-law, Chandler richest man, a banker who made his money grafting land from the Indians east of Chandler in the Kickapoo and other reservations. 

From the footnotes section of the printed interview:

1. Mrs. Lucinda Davis was interviewed by Slave Narrative Project field worker Robert Vinson Lackey in Tulsa probably sometime in summer 1937. From his now nonexistent notes, Lackey prepared a preliminary draft of the Lucinda Davis narrative as the typescript "Interview with Lucinda Davis, Ex-Slave, Age (about) 89 Yrs. Lives with Daughter, 710 N. Lansing, Tulsa, Okla." in the OHS Slave Narratives. 

Project personnel lightly edited the preliminary draft into standard project format as the typescript "Lucinda Davis, Age  89 Yrs., Tulsa, Okla.," which was forwarded to Washington on 13 August 1937 and is published here. Federal Writers' Project folklore editor Benjamin A. Botkin appraised the narrative as having "full detail on persons, places, and customs treated" and observed that it was conveyed in "remarkably fine colloquial style with literary effectiveness." 

Botkin, born on February 7, 1901, in East Boston, Massachusetts, to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants was one of the most famous folklorists in the United States . He attended the English High School of Boston and then studied at Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1920 with a B.A. in English. He earned his M.A. in English at Columbia University a year later in 1921, and his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1931, where he studied under Louise Pound--another famous folklorist, and kin to the poet Ezra Pound.

Botkin taught at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1920s and married Gertrude Fritz in 1925. He edited the annual Folk-Say from 1929 to 1932 and a little magazine, Space, from 1934 to 1935. Contributors to Folk-Say included Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Henry Roth, J. Frank Dobie, Louise Pound, Alexander Haggerty Krappe, Stanley Vestal, Alain Locke, Sterling Brown, Paul Horgan, and Mari Sandoz. He became national folklore editor and chairman of the Federal Writers' Project in 1938, a post he held until 1941. Along with Charles Seeger, he organized a massive research and recording campaign centered on American music. From 1942 to 1945, Botkin headed the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress where he focused attention on the emerging aspects of folklore in modern life. During that time, he also served as president of the American Folklore Society.

At a panel of the 1939 Writers' Congress, which also included Aunt Molly Jackson, Earl Robinson, and Alan Lomax, Botkin spoke of what writers had to gain from folklore: "He gains a point of view. The satisfying completeness and integrity of folk art derives from its nature as a direct response of the artist to a group and group experience with which he identifies himself and for which he speaks." Botkin called on writers to utilize folklore in order to "make the inarticulate articulate and above all, to let the people speak in their own voice and tell their own story."

Botkin was harassed and subject to surveillance for many years by the F.B.I. A recent study by Professor Susan G. Davis documents extensive surveillance of Botkin over more than a decade. Botkin died on July 30, 1975, in his home in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

2. 13 December 1940, "Appraisal Sheets, A-Y" file, box A905, LC Slave Narratives (hereafter cited as LC Slave Narratives Appraisal Sheets). The Lucinda Davis narrative is one of the few from the Oklahoma Slave Narrative Project to have been published in Oklahoma. Robert Vinson Lackey passed a copy of the interview text together with a photograph of Davis to journalist Ruth Sheldon, who edited the narrative for publication in the Tulsa Tribune. where it appeared on 18 August 1937 under the title "Tulsa Negro Woman Who Was Slave to Creek Indian Family Relates Some of Experiences." For more on Lucinda’s family see Margaret Marie David, who died in 1991 in Christian County, Kentucky https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90691378/margaret-marie-banks. Her Find-a-Grave obituary reads: Kentucky New Era, Tuesday, May 12, 1992

Margaret Marie Davis Banks, 54, of 714 Bradshaw St., died Friday at Blachfield Army Community Hospital, Fort Campbell.

Services will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday at First Street Baptist Church, with the Revs. C.E. Timberlake and R.L. Jackson officiating and burial in Cave Spring Cemetery.

Visitation was scheduled to be in progress at Gamble Funeral Home, with family visitation from 6 to 8 tonight.

A native of Christian County she was born July 23, 1937, daughter of Pervis C. and Mary Pane Davis, Hopkinsville. She was a member of Gainesville Little Zion Baptist Church where she served the Usher Board. In addition, she as a member of Veteran of Foreign Wars Women's Auxiliary and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her husband, John R. Banks Sr., died in 1990.

Survivors, in addition to her parents, include five sons, Terry Lee Harney, Chesapeake, Va., Ricky Perry Cordele, Ga., and the Rev. John R. Banks Jr., Carl J. Banks and Lartavious Banks, all of Hopkinsville; five daughter, Thyra Nell Banks, Diana M. Banks, Doris E. Ringo and Alfreda C. Waddell, all of Hopkinsville and Stephanie J. Scott, Augusta, Ga.; three brother, Pervis Davis Jr., Hopkinsville, James Davis, Honduras, and Freddie Davis, Fort Knox, seven sisters, Clara F. Gray, Barbara Johnson, Joyce Davis, Sallie Winston and Lucille Reeves, all of Hopkinsville, and Margarette Baker and Mary Bradshaw, both of Hopkinsville, Tenn.; and 29 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

3. Confirming Mrs. Lucinda Davis's remembrances of bondage among the Creeks are her and her family's records of enrollment as members of the Creek Nation by the Dawes Commission on 28 March 1902. U.S., Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, Dawes Commission, Creek Freedmen Cards, no. 825 (Anderson, Lucinda, Hayman, Serena, Adam, Josephine, Belle, Minnie, Rebecca, Linnie, Anderson Jr., and Henry Davis; Willie McIntosh; David Nero), microcopy M1186, reel 67, National Archives and Records Administration, Fort Worth, Texas (cited hereafter as Creek Freedmen Census Cards).

3.  The preliminary draft at this point adds the words "seem like it."

4. By the middle of the nineteenth century, "Upper Creeks" denoted those living on the Canadian River in present-day Oklahoma, although the term is much older, referring in the eighteenth century to the Creeks living on the Alabama River and its tributaries, the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, in present-day Alabama. Angie Debo, The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians, 123; [and Still the Waters Run, p. 4]; J. Leitch Wright, Jr., Creeks and Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People.

5. For Creek vocabulary, see R. M. Loughridge and David M. Hodge, English and Muskogee Dictionary, Collected from Various Sources and Revised.

6. For background on Creek chief Opothleyohola (Old Gouge), see the narrative of Phoebe Banks, above.

7.  For an Oklahoma freedwoman's recollections of this exodus to Kansas in the autumn of 1861, see the narrative of Phoebe Banks, above.

8. For background on Creek foodways and sofky (sofki) in particular, see Muriel H. Wright, "American Indian Corn Dishes," 155-59, 163-65.

For a discussion of hospitality among the Creek people, see John R. Swanton, "Social Organization and Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy," in Forty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1924-1925, 447-50.

9. For background on Creek funerary practices, see Frank G. Speck, "The Creek Indians of Taskigi Town," American Anthropological Association Memoirs, 2, part 2 (1907): 118-19; John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States, 724-25; John R. Swanton, "Social 

Organization," 388-98; Mrs. Irwin A. Watson, "Creek Indian Burial Customs Today," Chronicles of Oklahoma 28 (Spring 1950): 95-102.

10. The Creek people believed the screech owl to be an unfavorable spirit that either caused or announced death. John R. Swanton, "Religious Beliefs and Medical Practices of the Creek Indians," in Forty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1924-1925, 496, 549.

[Editor’s Note: For more, see reports of the quelling of this “uprising” by Major General and Creek Queller Roy Hoffman, Associate President of the Union Nation Bank, buried in Chandler OK’s Oak Park Cemetery, with much solemnity and the usual political puffery. He made his fortune by marrying Conklin, the wealthiest man in Chandler, who made his money from gouging  Indian lands belonging to the Creek and Kickapoo. He also has the largest mausoleum in Chandler’s Oak Park Cemetery, the principal burying ground of the city. 

The Crypt of MG Hoffman and Banker Conklin

Major General of the American Legion, Roy Hoffman, 

1869-1953

Hoffmanhttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65444920/roy-hoffman:

12. For descriptions of Creek dances, including the green corn busk, the skeleton dance, and the drunken dance, see Speck, "Creek Indians," 134-44; John R. Swanton,

ed., "The Green Corn Dance," Chronicles of Oklahoma 10 (June 1932): 170-95; Swanton, "Religious Beliefs," 546-614.

13. For discussions of punishments for adultery among the Creek people, including cropping of hair, noses, and ears, see Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States,

732.

14. The Battle of Honey Springs took place on 17 July 1863. For background on this Civil War fight, see the narrative of Phoebe Banks, above and any good history of Oklahoma.

15. For information about the exodus of Creeks loyal to the United States under chief Opothleyohola (Old Gouge) in autumn 1861, see the narrative of Phoebe Banks, above.

16 At this point the preliminary draft of the narrative reads, "Jest layin out on his horse! 'Eyah-a-a-a-he-he-he-ah!'" Like dat!"

17. The use of natural materials to stupefy, or "sicken," fish in pools of water was a widespread practice among the southeastern Indians, including the Creeks. The "buck

root" mentioned here may refer to the root of the buckeye, which the Creeks are known to have used for this purpose. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, 431-44.

18. A roughly contemporary Tulsa city directory shows Lucinda Davis residing with Josephine Pressley at 808 North Lansing Avenue. Pole's Tulsa (Tulsa County, Okla.) City

Directory, 1934, 169, 398, 600.

SOURCES

The American Slave, Vol. 7: 53-64. The narrative is also reproduced, with excellent annotation, in T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker, eds., The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, pp. 107-17. Read it on  archive.org. See also  T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker, eds., The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 107-17.

MG Roy Hoffman, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65444920/roy-hoffman.

Debo, Angie. The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians  and The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic. After a long struggle, both books are now available from the University of Oklahoma Press. 

        Debo’s family homesteaded in Oklahoma when she was 9. After graduating from the University of Chicago, she spent the rest of her life writing the history of Oklahoma from the viewpoint of Indian tribes including the Creeks, the Cherokee, and the Apaches. Her books include And Still the Waters Run as well as Geronimo. In Oklahoma, the Indians received received their land under individual tenure and became citizens of Oklahoma when it was admitted to the Union in 1907. Read the whole eye-opening book at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.58737/page/n13/mode/2up?q=

Finis

By Wayne Pounds, 

Born in Oklahoma

Forty years teaching universities in Japan

Still an Oklahoman