The Undocumented History and Culture of African American People in St. Helena and Tangipahoa Parishes, Louisiana

Agreement with Freedmen Contract
Courtesy of  Bernice Alexander Bennett

Tangipahoa Parish began in 1869, when it was carved from Livingston Parish, St. Helena Parish, St. Tammany Parish, and Washington Parishes, Louisiana. According to the Tangipahoa Parish Quick Facts from the U.S. Census Bureau,  Black or African American percent alone was 30.3%. Tangipahoa came from an Acolapissa word meaning “ear of corn” or “those who gather corn.”

Earlier settlers emigrated from South Carolina and Georgia in the late eighteenth century. The parish is a blend of several noted cultures: Scottish, English, Irish, and Italian.  Although there is a large African American history that blends into this parish as well, very little is written or documented about the African American people, their history or their culture. Slavery was abolished in 1863 and many newly freed slaves came from St. Helena, Washington and Livingston Parishes into Tangipahoa Parish. A large percentage of African Americans remained in the parishes where they were held as slaves, and some migrated to Tangipahoa Parishes as sharecroppers on farms or plantations.

Sharecropping became widespread during the end of slavery and after Reconstruction.  With no food, shelter, clothes, land, seed, tools and money, the former slaves had no other choice but to seek employment by signing contracts that would perhaps bond them to a new form of slavery called sharecropping.

An Agreement with Freedmen was contracted that listed former enslaved African Americans on by the Holloway Plantation in 1868 who remained or moved to the plantation seeking employment. The Holloway Plantation listed the following people who worked on their plantation and signed their mark (x) because they couldn’t read or write. The following people below were listed on the Agreement with Freedmen contracts for the Holloway Plantation.

Simone (x)  Holloway 35,  Ellen (x) Holloway 28, Sally (x) Holloway 13, Ada (x) Holloway 12, Carolina (x) Holloway, Julia (X) Holloway 16, Louise (x) Holloway 15, and Bell (x) Holloway.

The Agreement with Freedmen contracts bonded them to a new form of slavery called sharecropping or peonage.  The sharecropping system is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land. While there were some advantages to sharecropping, there were often corrupt situations where African American and other poor people of color were cheated out of their wages because they couldn’t read or write and had no one to turn to for help or justice.

The disadvantages of sharecropping quickly became apparent. The new system of credit, peonage,   Many African-American sharecroppers complained of being told that they owed for that year of crops, even though they knew that they made a good harvest. They couldn’t dispute what the landowner said was on the account books. Crop liens and loss of land became associated with sharecropping.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Today, you can’t find many people, black or white, who will talk about the history of slavery, segregation, peonage or sharecropping.  Many African Americans who were sharecroppers up until the mid-sixties can still be found in the parishes of Tangipahoa, St. Helena, Washington, and Livingston.

The harsh realities of the time and period of sharecropping unleash bitter memories that many choose to block from their memories. The days of beating, murders, rapes, and being called derogatory names is what keeps them from wanting to talk about it.

Part of me can understand not wanting to re-live the harsh life as sharecroppers or peons. However, learning about the history of the African American life in the East Florida Parishes is absolutely crucial, and so African Americans who lived in the parishes must discuss and document their past history.

There are many Ruby Bridges that can be found in the East Florida Parishes that keep their own voices silent.  The 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, also known as “Bloody Sunday”, was one of the marches that led to the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  The birth of the civil rights movement for the East Florida Parishes  took place in Washington Parish, Louisiana in a town named Bogalusa in August 1967, where African Americans marched from Bogalusa to the State Capitol in Baton, Louisiana for equal economic opportunities, equal education, desegregation of all public accommodations and facilities and other discriminatory laws.

History tells us that P.B.S. Pinch was the first African American Governor in our nation’s history. He was the son of a planter and an emancipated slave. He was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1868 and, three years later, became acting lieutenant governor when Oscar Dunn, the first elected African American lieutenant govern in American history, died.

Did the former slaves and African American sharecroppers pass their fears of living in the Macon Dixie line down to the present generations? The fear of talking about their own history and the history of their ancestors who were slaves is still prevalent today in the East Florida Parishes. No one should be afraid to talk about or discuss their family history.

A genealogist’s ultimate goal is to get more people interested in researching, documenting and preserving their family history in genealogy libraries, universities, and other repositories. Indeed, family history makes up the history of parishes or counties.

There are many historical and cultural events that have taken place in the African American communities in the East Florida Parishes that need to be recorded and documented for study.

Early African American noted pioneers in Tangipahoa Parish like Fred McCoy, Rev. Willard Vernon, Emma Mead Harrell, Reginald Cotton, Sr., Spelman Jones, Willie K. Gordon, Sr., Alexander Richardson, Dr. Walter Reed, and Dr. Percy Walker and many others helped shape the African American communities. However, some will agree that communities in the Town of Amite, Louisiana, like Clemmons, Hyde and Reid Quarters should be renamed. These communities are predominantly African American communities and yet they still carry the names of large plantations or planters.  In the 21^st century, African American people in these communities are still calling their communities “the quarters”. It could be a possibility that the African American’s of those communities don’t associate the word “quarters” with slave quarters.

 After approaching several African American Town Councilmen who sit on the Amite City Council asking them to consider passing a resolution to rename the community is the first step. The African American’s who live in the communities need to contact their council person and ask them to support and pass the resolution to renamed these African American communities.

            

Unpuzzling Our Family History and Our Past

Antoinette Harrell conducting research in the
St. Helena Parish, Louisiana

A genealogist is one who studies the family history, events, places and records. Often times we spend a great deal of time researching family’s vital records and documents, preserving our history, family photographs and collecting oral history. Thinking of genealogy with a twist--one may ask the question what that means? Well, the question that I often ask is, “What have we learned from the past? How are we applying what we learned? Have we strived for success, or have we regressed?”

I have talked with many people who don’t think that family history isn't important. I am the third generation from slavery. My third maternal great-grandfather Thomas Richardson was a slave born on the Benjamin and Celia Bankston plantation in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana. Thomas and his mother Carrie appraised for $1,100 dollars in 1853. Not much is known about Carrie and her son Thomas after they were sold to the Kemp Family. However, I know that after the freedom bell rung in 1863, Thomas married Amanda Breland of Livingston Parish. They had five children; Thomas, John, Sophia, Annie and Golene.

Gordon Family

Thomas, my great-great-grandfather married Emma Vining.  During their union, they gave birth to four children; Rosabell, Alma, Josephine and Alexander .  My mother shared the oral history that she   She said that he spent most of his life in East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, LA for mental illness.


 I interviewed several people that knew him.  They knew him as Mr. Moss or Uncle Moss. One thing they all pointed out during the interview was that Moss was a very intelligent and handsome man. He passed away in 1958 in Amite, Louisiana.  My mother was the only person in the family who would talk about him and the illness he suffered and share the information she knew about him.

We can learn so much from our family history if we chose to study it. The oral history passed down to me about my grandfather Thomas are very helpful to me, and I hope that others family members find this information helpful for medical information.

Thomas's descendants went on to become successful people,  many have earned college degrees and  hold the occupations as engineers, lawyers, doctors, educators, entrepreneurs, ministers, dentists, entertainers, television talk show hosts, authors, law enforcement officials and other careers. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if these people who have become successful in their careers ever think about their ancestors and were forced into slavery and who shoulders they stand on.

I wonder if they ever think about paying tribute to those who endured the long, hot days in the cotton fields working for the slave masters, being sold on the auction block and never to see their dear loved ones again. What was life like for Carrie and her child Thomas? Did Carrie have other children? If so, where are they and who are they? Perhaps I am looking at her offspring every day, not realizing that I am actually seeing a relative.

Why we've chosen to forget our history is a puzzling mystery! What impact would it have on the youth if we told them about their history? Why aren't we telling them about slavery and Jim Crow? Perhaps we think that we're saving them from something without realizing that we’re hurting them by keeping the truth from them.

Some people are ashamed of their history and avoid the topic of slavery and its widespread effects. I wanted to know about my ancestors, where they came from, if they were free people of color, or if they were slaves. If they were slaves, who owned them? What kind of plantation did they live on?

What happened to them after the freedom bell rung? What did they do and where did they go? I may never have all the answers, but at least I can pay tribute to them for all that they endured for me. We’re are talking about people who had little or no formal education, but nonetheless purchased land and build their own homes with no mortgages. They fed themselves from the food they grew and kept themselves warm with the wood from the land they owned. They understood what freedom meant. Today, we define ourselves by material things, we have lost sight of the things that should be most

important to us, and we pass those same senseless values down to the next generations.

What ever happened to the respect for the community and ourselves? The elders in the community would come together to solve problems; they would share food with one another, help take care of those who were ill and certainly took in children who needed homes and families. I often wonder if this was just a dream. At times, I even wish I lived in a world were we took care of our community.  It is the past that shapes the present, and the present that shapes the future? Where is our future headed if we don’t take responsibility for it?

We can learn valuable lessons by studying our own family history. I am grateful for the lessons I learned while researching my family history.  I found land ownership, home ownership, business owners, family members who were debt-free, and family members who cared about each other. Now I can pass these lessons down to my grandchildren.