Oakwood Cemetery
Slavery In Walker County
Being a Slave in Walker County was much the same as being a slave anywhere, working sun up to sun down and beyond. Many of these enslaved people endured brutality in the form of a whip or otherforms of degradation and mistreatment. I want to emphasize this by the words used in the secession convention along withtwo former slave narratives expressing their personal lives.
Here is some of the language used in the Secession Convention “A declaration of theCauses which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union.” ; “We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity: that the African race had no agency in their establishment: that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in the condition only could their existence in the country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”[1]
Here are some of the words used by former slaves that resided in Walker County. [“Our old Master’s name was John Mann but they called him Capt. Mann. Old missus name was Sarah. I’d say old master treated us slaves bad andthere was one thing I couldn’t understand, because he was religious and every Sunday morning everybody had to get ready and go for prayer. I never couldunderstand his religion because sometimes he get up off his knees and before we got out the house he cussed us out.”] Later in the same paper [“There was about 40Slaves on the place, but I never saw slaves bought or sold and I was neversold, but I have seen them beat- O lord yes. I have seen them make a man put his head through the crack of the railfence and then they beat him till he was bloody. They gave some of them 300 or 400 licks.”](Carey Davenport)[2]
Another former slave Henry Probaslo wrote [“in the days I was a boy even the plows weremade on the place. The blacksmith does the iron work and the wood work was done by pappy, and the plows was mostly wood. Just the point and the shear are iron. My grandpa made the moldboards out of wood. No sir there wasn’t any steel moldboardsthen. I would watch grandpa take the hard wood block and with the ax and the draw shave and the plane and ruler. He would cut and fit the moldboard to the plow. The moldboard lasts about one year.”][3]
Slaves endured long hours in the hot sun making sure the whole farm or plantation was working correctly. On many locations this was done under the threat of whip orother forms of abuse. Many of theseslaves are buried here without even a marker until recent times. I would like to honor these men and women whowere instrumental in the building of Texas.
Juneteenth, the Celebration of the Ending of Slavery in Texas
"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor." This were the words spoken by Major General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863. General Robert E. Lee surrenders on April 9, 1865 marking the official end to the Civil War. The approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas had to wait two years, six months and 18 days to be freed. The Union Army was still tied up with the Confederates and did not have a strong presence in Texas. Not until Lee's surrender were they able to be diverted to Texas led by General Granger. Oakwood Cemetery maintains a large, African American burial section on its grounds. Many of the individuals resting here were or were more than likely slaves. Joshua Houston is also interred on these grounds, servant to Sam and Margaret Houston. When remembering those who suffered hardship and servitude under the heavy burden of slavery. Consider a stop at Oakwood Cemetery to celebrate the emancipation of the slaves of Texas.
The North was reluctant to use blacks as combat soldiers and did not do so until the emancipation proclamation on January 1, 1863. The North did use free blacks and ex slaves as laborers, much the same as the South. The union had approximately 185,000 troops who served with the United States Colored troops. Although the commanding officers were white the large majority of the troops were black. During the Civil War the job of many slaves changed. This was done mostly by force to aid another Confederate soldier. Although the confederate’s would refer to them as body servants and regarded them as laborers and not soldiers. However, they were still instrumental in Confederate Camps. Some estimate the number of body servants in the confederate Army at 65,000 and 13,000 of these saw combat.
Black Union Soldiers
