NARRATIVE OF FORMER ENSLAVED PERSON ISAAC STIER

^{PART 9}

^CONCLUSION

^{NARRATIVE OF FORMER ENSLAVED PERSON ISAAC STIER}
^{“My name is Isaac Stier, but folks calls me Ike. I done passed into my
ninety-ninth year, an’ if I lives ‘bout ten more months I’ll be a even
hundred. I was named by my pappy’s young marster, an’ I ain’t never
told nobody all of dat name. It’s got twenty-two letters in it, an’
folks would laugh, but it’s wrote out in de fambly Bible. Dat’s how I
knows I’ll be one hundred years old if I lives till de turn of de year.
But my heart’s mos’ wore out. It can’t las’ long ‘cause I’s had
a heap of e’sposure. My ma was Ellen Stier an’ my pa was Jordan Stier.
Dey marster was prominent long time ago. I don’t ‘member much ‘bout
‘em, an’ I don’t recall how we passed from folks to folks. Mebbe us
was sole. My daddy, he was brought to dis country by a slave dealer from
Nashville, Tennessee. Dey followed dat road called de Trace; ‘twan’t
nothin’ but a Injun trail. When dey got to Natchez, de slaves was put in
de pen ‘tached to de slave market. It stood at de forks of St. Catherine
and liberty roads. Here dey was fed an’ washed an’ rubbed down lak
racehosses. Den dey was dressed up an’ put through de paces dat would show
off dey muscles. My daddy was sole as a twelve year old, but he always said
he was nigher twenty. De firs’ man what bought him was a preacher, but he
only kep’ him a short while. Den he was sole to Mr. Preacher Robinson. I
was born in Jefferson County, between Hamburg and Union Church, Mississippi.
De plantation joined de Whitney place an’ de Montgomery place, too. I
don’t rightly ‘member how many acres my marster owned, but it was a big
plantation wid eighty or ninety head o’ grown folks workin’ it. No
tellin’ how many little black folks dey was. I b'loned to Marse Jeems
Stowers. My mistus was Mis’ Sarah Stowers. She teached me how to read,
an’ she teached me how to be mannerly. On church days, I driv’ de
carriage. I was proud tO take my folks to meetin’, an’ I allus sat in de
back pew an’ heard de preachin’ de same as dey did.” {skip}

[Extracted from Bull Whip Days The Slaves Remember An Oral History, Edited
and With an Introduction by James Mellon, pages 171-173]}
^{NOTE: Isaac Stier’s narrative can be found in its entirety in the
Mississippi enslaved persons narrative interviews taken during the Work
Progress Administration or WPA period. There is a person buried in the
Natchez National Cemetery named Isaac Still. This researcher has always
believed this is Isaac Stiers. Isaac in his narrative says the Confederates
Rebels first took him into the Uncivil War and then after Vicksburg he was
arrested and made to serve in the Union Army USCT. Check his story out.

Visit the Forks-of-the-Roads at:
www.forksoftheroads.net/
and National Network to Freedom Program at: www.cr.nps.gov/ugrr}

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Copyright © 2006. Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley, Natchez, Mississippi. All Rights Reserved.

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