A Mississippi Slave Narrative Summary — Gus Clark

Gus Clark was interviewed in Howison, Miss. which is about 25 miles northwest of Biloxi and not far from where I live. He was born in Richmond and was 84 years old when interviewed which means he was 12 when “Dey had done surrendered den, an’ my old marster doan have no mo’ power over us.”

The timeline of the narrative is a little confusing which is not unusual. First, he says “My mammy’s name was Judy, an’ my pappy was Bob. Clark was de Boss’s name. I doan ‘member my mammy, but pappy was workin’ on de railroad afte’ freedom an’ got killed.” I think he means he is not sure how his mother died because he goes on to talk about his father and himself.

“A man come to Richmond an’ carried me an’ pappy an a lot of us ter Loos’anna ter work in de sugar cane. I was little but he said I could be a water boy. It sho’ was a rough place.”

His father must have died in Louisiana. He describes slavery times with a mixture of horror and claiming slavery was not too bad. Some of what he said about slavery was what his father told him. For example, on Saturday they had free time and some people made money. “Boss paid ’em a dollar a cord. Dey save dat money, fer dey doan have to pay it out fer nothin’. Big Boss didn’ fail to feed us good an’ give us our work clo’es.” Gus said some bought their own freedom with the money they saved.

He also described men being “whupped ’til de blood come, ’til dey back split all to pieces.”

At the east trailhead of the Tuxachanie Trail in southern Mississippi there is a partially excavated turpentine manufacturing site. “I’se lived here forty-five years, an’ chipped turpentine mos’ all my life since I was free.” The east end of the Tuxachanie Trail is Howison, Mississippi. I didn’t know it then, but I was where Mr. Clark lived, worked, and presumably died. I am going back.