The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “I took mine off,” I said. “They hurt my foot.”

  “Little girl, don’t you know you not suppose to lie?” he said.

  “I ain’t lying, Master,” I said.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Ticey, Master,” I said.

  “They ever beat you, Ticey?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  The Troop said, “I ain’t a master, Ticey. You can be frank with me. They ever beat you?”

  I looked back toward the house and I could see my mistress talking with the Officers on the gallery. I knowed she was too far to hear me and the Troop talking. I looked at him again. I waited for him to ask me the same question.

  “They do beat you, don’t they, Ticey?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “What they beat you with, Ticey?” he said.

  “Cat-o’-nine-tails, Master,” I said.

  “We’ll get them,” the Troop said. “Ten’ll die for every whipping you ever got.”

  “Ten houses will burn,” another Troop said.

  “Ten fields, too,” another one said.

  “One of y’all sitting there, take that bucket and go haul that water,” the first Troop said.

  “I better do it, Master,” I said. “They whip me if I don’t do my work.”

  “You rest,” he said. “Troop Lewis, on your feet.”

  Troop Lewis got up real slow; he was tired just like all the rest. He was a little fellow and I felt sorry for him because he looked like the kind everybody was always picking on. He took the bucket from me and went in the yard talking to himself. The other Troop had to holler on him to get moving.

  “What they whip you for, Ticey?” he asked me.

  “I go to sleep when I look after Young Mistress children,” I said.

  “You nothing but a child yourself,” he said. “How old is you right now?”

  “I don’t know, Master,” I said.

  “Would you say ten? leven?”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “I ain’t a master, Ticey,” he said. “I’m just a’ old ordinary Yankee soldier come down here to beat them Rebs and set y’all free. You want to be free, don’t you, Ticey?”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “And what you go’n do when you free?” he asked me.

  “Just sleep, Master,” I said.

  “Ticey, you not the only one go’n just sleep,” he said. “But stop calling me master. I’m Corporal Brown. Can you say corporal?”

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “Try,” he said.

  I started grinning.

  “Come on,” he said. “Try.”

  “I can’t say that, Master,” I said.

  “Can you say Brown?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Well, just call me Mr. Brown,” he said. “And I’m go’n call you something else ’sides Ticey. Ticey is a slave name, and I don’t like slavery. I’m go’n call you Jane,” he said. “That’s right, I’ll call you Jane. That’s my girl’s name back there in Ohio. You like for me to call you that?”

  I stood there grinning like a little fool. I rubbed my foot with my big toe and just stood there grinning. The other Troops was grinning at me, too.

  “Yes,” he said, “I think you do like that name. Well, from now on your name is Jane. Not Ticey no more. Jane. Jane Brown. Miss Jane Brown. When you get older you can change it to what else you want. But till then your name is Jane Brown.”

  I just stood there grinning, rubbing my foot with my big toe. It was the prettiest name I had ever heard.

  “And if any of them ever hit you again, you catch up with me and let me know,” he said. “I’ll come back here and I’ll burn down this place.”

  The Yankee Officers got on their horses and came out in the road and told the Troops let’s go. They got to their feet and marched on. And soon as my mistress thought they couldn’t hear she started calling my name. I just stood there and watched the soldiers go down the road. One of them looked back and waved at me—not Troop Lewis: I reckoned he was still mad at me. I grinned and waved back. After they had made the bend, I stood there and watched the dust high over the field. I was still feeling good because of my new name. Then all of a sudden my mistress was out there and she had grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “You little wench, didn’t you hear me calling you?” she said. I raised my head high and looked her straight in the face and said: “You called me Ticey. My name ain’t no Ticey no more, it’s Miss Jane Brown. And Mr. Brown say catch him and tell him if you don’t like it.”

  My mistress face got red, her eyes got wide, and for about half a minute she just stood there gaping at me. Then she gathered up her dress and started running for the house. That night when the master and the rest of them came in from the swamps she told my master I had sassed her in front of the Yankees. My master told two of the other slaves to hold me down. One took my arms, the other one took my legs. My master jecked up my dress and gived my mistress the whip and told her to teach me a lesson. Every time she hit me she asked me what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown. She hit me again: what I said my name was. I said Jane Brown.

  My mistress got tired beating me and told my master to beat me some. He told her that was enough, I was already bleeding.

  “Sell her,” my mistress said.

  “Who go’n buy her with them Yankees tramping all over the place?” my master said.

  “Take her to the swamps and kill her,” my mistress said. “Get her out of my sight.”

  “Kill her?” my master said. “Brown come back here asking ’bout her, then what? I’ll put her in the field and bring another one up here to look after them children.”

  They put me in the field when I was ten or ’leven. A year after that the Freedom come.

  Freedom

  We was in the field chopping cotton when we heard the bell ringing. We was scared to stop work—the sun was too high in the sky for us to go in yet. But the bell went on ringing and ringing; just ringing and ringing. The driver, a great big old black, round, oily-face nigger kept on looking back over his shoulders toward the house. Every time the bell rang he looked back. he told us to keep on working, he was going in to see what all the ringing was about. I watched him go up to the house, then I saw him coming back waving his arm. We swung our hoes on our shoulders and went across the field. The driver told us the master wanted us all at the house. We didn’t ask what he wanted us for, we had no idea, we just went up there. The master was standing on the gallery with a sheet of paper.

  “This all y’all?” he asked. “All them children in the quarters, too? I want everybody here who can stand up.”

  The people said this was all us.

  “All right, I got news for y’all,” the master said. “Y’all free. Proclamation papers just come to me and they say y’all free as I am. Y’all can stay and work on shares—because I can’t pay you nothing, because I ain’t got nothing myself since them Yankees went by here last time. Y’all can stay or y’all can go. If y’all stay I promise I’ll be fair as I always been with y’all.”

  Old Mistress and Young Mistress was standing in the door crying, and right behind them the house niggers crying, too. For a while after the master got through reading the Proclamation the people didn’t make a sound. Just standing there looking up at him like they was still listening to his words.

  “Well, that’s that,” he said.

  Then all a sudden somebody hollered, and everybody started singing. Just singing and dancing and clapping. Old people you didn’t think could even walk started hopping round there like game roosters. This what the people was singing:

  “We free, we free, we free

  We free, we free, we free

  We free, we free, we free

  Oh, Lordy, we free.”

  Just singing and clapping, just singing and clapping. Just talking to each other, just patting each other on the back.

  The driver he never
got in the celebration him. Everybody else singing and clapping, he just standing there looking up at the master. Then he moved closer to the gallery and said: “Master, if we free to go, where is we to go?”

  Before the master could open his mouth, I said: “Where North at? Point to it. I’ll show y’all where to go.”

  The driver said: “Shut up. You ain’t nothing but trouble. I ain’t had nothing but trouble out you since you come in that field.”

  “If I ain’t nothing but trouble, you ain’t nothing but Nothing,” I said.

  And the next thing I knowed, my mouth was numb and I was laying down there on the ground. The master looked at me down there and said: “I can’t do a thing about it. You free and don’t belong to me no more. Got to fight your own battle best you can.”

  I jumped up from there and sunk my teeth in that nigger’s hand. His hand was rough as ’cuda legs. He wrenched his hand out my mouth and numbed the side of my face. This time when I got up I grabbed that hoe I had brought out the field. An old man we all called Unc Isom stepped in front of me.

  “Hold,” he said.

  “Hold nothing,” I said. “Nigger, say your prayers. Maker, here you come.”

  “Didn’t I say hold,” Unc Isom said. “When I say hold, I mean just that: hold.”

  I eased the hoe to the ground, but I kept my eyes on the driver all the time. I touched my lips with my hand, but I couldn’t feel a thing. Not bleeding, but numb as it could be.

  When Unc Isom seen I wasn’t go’n hit that nigger with that hoe, he turned to the master.

  “The papers say we can go or we can stay, Master?” he asked him.

  “No, they just say y’all free, Isom,” the master said. “They don’t care what y’all do, where y’all go. I’m the one who saying y’all can stay on if y’all want. If you stay, I got to work you on shares, and you work when you want. You don’t have to work on Sundays less you want. Can go to church and stay there and sing all day if you want. You free as I am, Isom.”

  Unc Isom said, “Master, we can gather down the quarters and talk just between us?”

  The master said, “What you go’n be talking ’bout down there, Isom?”

  “Just if we ought to go or stay, Master,” Unc Isom said.

  “Sure, y’all free as I am,” the master said. “Y’all can take all the time y’all want to decide. Long as you ain’t deciding on burning down the place.”

  Unc Isom had to grin to himself. “Master, ain’t nothing like that,” he said.

  “Give the children some apples before they go,” the mistress said.

  “And the men and women cider,” the master said. “Celebrate y’all freedom.”

  “Hold,” Unc Isom said. “Apples and cider later. Now, we go in the quarters and talk.”

  Unc Isom was a kind of advisor to us there in the quarters. Some people said he had been a witch doctor sometime back. I know he knowed a lot about roots and herbs, and the people was always going to him for something to cure colic or the bots or whatever they had. That’s why they followed him when he spoke. The young people grumbled because they wanted the apples, but the old people followed him without a word. When we came up to his cabin he told everybody to kneel down and thank God for freedom. I didn’t want kneel, I didn’t know too much about the Lord then, but I knelt out of respect. When Unc Isom got through praying he stood up and looked at us again. He was an old man, black black, with long white hair. He could have been in his 80s, he could have been in his 90s—I have no idea how old he was.

  “Now, I ask the question,” he said. “What’s we to do?”

  “Slavery over, let’s get moving,” somebody said.

  “Let’s stay,” somebody else said. “See if old Master go’n act different when it’s freedom.”

  “Y’all do like y’all want,” I said. “I’m headed North.” I turned to leave, but I stopped. “Which way North?”

  “Before y’all start out here heading anywhere, what y’all go’n eat?” Unc Isom said. “Where y’all go’n sleep? Who go’n protect you from the patrollers?”

  “They got Yankees,” I said.

  “They got Yankees, they got Yankees,” Unc Isom mocked me. I could see he didn’t have a tooth in his mouth. “Yankee told you your name was Jane; soon as Old Mistress start beating on you, you can’t find Yankee.”

  “They can’t beat me no more,” I said. “Them papers say I’m free, free like everybody else.”

  “They ain’t go’n just beat you if they catch you, they kill you if they catch you now,” Unc Isom said. “Before now they didn’t kill you because you was somebody chattel. Now you ain’t owned by nobody but fate. Nobody to protect you now, little Ticey.”

  “My name is Jane, Unc Isom,” I said. “And I’m heading for Ohio. Soon as you point that way.”

  “I don’t know too much ’bout Ohio,” Unc Isom said, coming out in the road. “Where it at or where it s’pose to be, I ain’t for sure.” He turned toward the swamps, then he raised his hand and pointed. “North is that way. Sun on your right in the morning, your left in the evening. North Star point the way at night. If you stay in the swamps, the moss is on the north side of the tree root.”

  “I’m heading out,” I said. “Soon as I get me few of them apples and my other dress. Anybody else going?”

  The young people started moving out in the road, but the old people started crying and holding them back. I didn’t have a mama or a daddy to cry and hold me back. My mama was killed when I was young and I had never knowed my daddy. He belong to another plantation. I never did know his name.

  “Hold,” Unc Isom said. He raised both of his hands like he was getting ready to wave us back. “This rejoicing time, not crying time. Ain’t we done seen enough weeping? Ain’t we done seen enough separation? Hold now.”

  “You telling us to stay here?” somebody young said.

  “Them who want stay, stay, he said. “Then who must go, go. But this no time for weeping. Rejoice now.”

  “We leaving put,” somebody young said. “If the old people want stay here, stay. We free, let’s move.”

  “Amen,” I said.

  “You free from what?” Unc Isom said. “Free to do what—break more hearts?”

  “Niggers hearts been broke ever since niggers been in this world,” somebody young said. “I done seen babies jecked from mama titty. That was breaking hearts, too.”

  “That couldn’t be helped,” Unc Isom said. “This can be helped.”

  “This can’t be helped,” somebody young said. “They got blood on this place, and I done stepped all in it. I done waded in it to my waist. You can mend a broken heart, you can’t wash blood off your body.”

  “Hold,” Unc Isom said, raising his hands again. “When you talking ’bout mama and papa’s heart, hold now.”

  “Mama and papa’s heart can’t be pained no more than they been pained already,” somebody young said.

  “Let’s go,” somebody else said. “All this arguing ain’t putting us no closer North.”

  “Hold,” Unc Isom said. “This wisdom I’m speaking from. Hold now.”

  “Give your wisdom to the ones staying here with you,” somebody young said. “Rest of us moving out.”

  The boy who spoke to Unc Isom like that started up the quarters toward the big house. Unc Isom let him walk a little piece, then he hollered at him to stop. The boy wouldn’t stop. Unc Isom hollered at him again. This time the boy looked back over his shoulder. Unc Isom didn’t say a thing, he just stood there pointing his finger at the boy.

  Me and some of the other people started toward the big house to get some apples, and one of the women said Unc Isom had put bad mark on the boy. Another woman said Unc Isom didn’t have power to put bad mark on you no more, he was too old now. I didn’t know how powerful Unc Isom was, so I just listened to the talking and didn’t say nothing.

  The master had put a barrel of potatoes side the barrel of apples, and he was sitting on the gallery watching the
people coming back in the yard. He asked us what we had decided in the quarters. We told him some of us was going, some of us was staying. We asked him could the ones going take anything. He wanted to tell us no, but he nodded toward the barrel and told us to take what we needed and get out. We got all the apples and potatoes we could carry, then we went back to the quarters to get our clothes. In slavery you had two dresses and a pair of shoes and a coat. A man had an extra pair of pants and an extra shirt, a pair of shoes and a coat. We tied up the apples and potatoes in our extra clothes and started out.

  Heading North

  We didn’t know a thing. We didn’t know where we was going, we didn’t know what we was go’n eat when the apples and potatoes ran out, we didn’t know where we was go’n sleep that night. If we reached the North, we didn’t know if we was go’n stay together or separate. We had never thought about nothing like that, because we had never thought we was go’n ever be free. Yes, we had heard about freedom, we had even talked about freedom, but we never thought we was go’n ever see that day. Even when we knowed the Yankees had come in the State, even when we saw them marching by the gate we still didn’t feel we was go’n ever be free. That’s why we hadn’t got ourself ready. When the word came down that we was free, we dropped everything and started out.

  It was hot. Must have been May or June. Probably June—but I’m not sure. We went across the cotton patch toward the swamps. The young men and boys started breaking down cotton stalks just to show Old Master what they thought of him and his old slavery. Somebody hollered that they better use their strength to get some corn, and we all shot out for the corn patch across the field.

  Now, when we came up to the swamps nobody wanted to take the lead. Nobody wanted to be the one blamed for getting everybody else lost. All us just standing there fumbling round, waiting for somebody else to take charge.

  Then somebody in the back said, “Move out the way.” I looked, and that was Big Laura. She was big just like her name say, and she was tough as any man I ever seen. She could plow, chop wood, cut and load much cane as any man on the place. She had two children. One in her arms, a little girl; and she was leading Ned by the hand. Don’t worry, I’ll come to Ned later. Yes, Lord, I’ll come to him later. But even with them two children she had the biggest bundle out there balanced on her head.