Betty Simmons, a Texan in Slavery’s Last Years

In 1863, Betty Simmons was about 20 years old, and her 3-year-old son, Charlie, would soon be made to work in the field. 

In her 1938 interview with the Federal Writers’ Project, Simmons said: “[They take them young].” (These interviews were rendered by government workers in an excessively heavy dialect—in this case, for example, “Dey tek dem young”—which is converted here into standard English.) The prospect made her incredibly uneasy, but Simmons; her partner, George; and their children had few options. They were among the 182,566 people—30 percent of the Texas population—then reduced to property and held as slaves. 

Simmons was not born in Texas; an owner’s financial collapse had set her on a long journey through slavery’s widespread and deep-rooted network. 

Simmons initially lived among family in Henry County, Tennessee. Long before she was born, her father was given his freedom for saving his owner’s life, and he lived nearby in a cabin. She remembered how her Aunt Adeline helped her out of a bit of trouble, and she mentioned a sister in her interview narrative. In 1850, their apparent owner, William Leftwich Carter, counted 18 people among his property, ranging in age from 6 months to 70 years, half of them children. Though the county was known for its tobacco, Carter reported large yields of butter and fruit, plus smaller quantities of potatoes, corn, and other crops. Simmons does not mention participating in their production; she may have been too young. This first chapter of her life ended abruptly when her 82-year-old father fell while picking plums from a tree for the children. Not long after, Carter sent Simmons and her sister 40 miles away to be with his newlywed daughter.

Simmons might have been less than 10 years old at the time of the move. Mary Clementine Carter and Henry Washington Lankford married in 1854 and lived in Carroll County, Tennessee. The Carters made their practice of slavery generational; children owned the children of their parents’ slaves. Simmons said her primary task was to care for, or “nurse,” the young, a role often assigned to older children. A 20-year-old woman, a 1-year-old baby, and two girls, ages 14 and 11, possibly Simmons and her sister, were recorded as Lankford’s property. 

The practice of slavery provided owners with transferable wealth, as with other forms of property. Slaves could be rented or sold for cash, traded for land, insured, mortgaged, and seized to satisfy debts. “Wash” Lankford operated a store, but his alliance with dodgy business partners left him with large debts that precipitated his financial ruin. Lankford scrambled to hide his enslaved people while putting his plans for Simmons in motion. 

He told his wife, “[I think I better send Betty down to help brother Newt with the corn].” Simmons spent two days working on the brother’s farm, and on the third day, Newt brought her to two men who stood at his gate in a buggy. One man asked, “That the gal?” Newt answered, “Yes,” and the man responded, “That’s a small gal.” 

They told Simmons to gather her things and encouraged her to ride with them to a boardinghouse some 26 miles away, supposedly for two to three weeks of work. Once secured in the buggy, the two men revealed themselves as slave traders. Simmons began to understand the full extent of the ordeal, learned of Lankford’s ruin, and realized she had already been sold. At this moment, Simmons also heard of the “break,” or the crisis building between the North and the South. Simmons spent her first night on the road at a home owned by the father of one of the slave traders. By the mid-1850s, a well-developed network of holding yards, informal waypoints, ships, trains, roads, and trails supported the forced migration of enslaved African Americans from the Upper to the Lower South. Simmons woke up “in a stir.” The traders hurried the women to gather their bundles so they could meet the train headed to Memphis. The women took turns walking and riding in the buggy. 

Simmons noted that the men arrived separately, but she did not know how. Advertisements in newspapers like the Memphis Daily Appeal published routes, schedules, and modes, allowing slave traders to choose how to transport their human goods. In Memphis, they waited at a trading yard, also called a slave pen, for the ship called the Ohio. Records from the SlaveVoyages database show a steamship named the Ohio carried enslaved people from New Orleans to Galveston. The records do not currently confirm details of Simmons’ specific journey. 

Upon arrival in New Orleans, Simmons said, “[I was satisfied then I lost my people and ain’t never going to see them no more in this world].” She entered the trading yard. Simmons overheard the traders say that there were three such places inside the small river city. Its walls were built of planks, “fixed up” around the yard. Sandbars served as additional barriers, and the watchman acted as a final reminder of their imprisonment. At this moment of the account, Simmons told the interviewer that guards and traders whipped people on the train and in the yards. 

The town contained dozens of hotels, markets, streets, and homes where others profited from the trade in enslaved people. Those trapped in the camp understood how their ages and abilities translated into the price required to remove them from the place. They assessed one another, sharing details of their histories and the unfortunate circumstances that led them there. By this time, the Civil War, no longer a break, was well underway. Simmons said they laughed and wondered why “[they kept on filling up when they were going to be emptying out soon].” 

Colonel Frederick Forney Foscue bought Simmons at an auction and set her on her journey to Texas. They traveled the Red River to Shreveport, Louisiana, where Foscue retrieved his buggy, then headed to Grand Cane in Cherokee County, Texas. The colonel had bought more people than could ride, so, again, Simmons took turns walking and riding to the new site of her enslavement. Simmons’ narrative accurately recalled the places where they settled, moving from Cherokee County to two sites in Liberty County. Foscue had moved from Alabama to Texas in 1854 and was recorded in Cherokee by 1860. 

Foscue was a large planter and slaveholder who dedicated his time to agriculture. The conditions of slavery could be made as unbearable as desired by a master. For the 32 people he enslaved, this translated to laboring for all but two hours on Saturdays and on Sundays. They worked at night. They lived across six cabins and kept small subsistence plots, and some raised small animals. The plantation utilized overseers, who, Simmons said, were “mean” and “rough.” They returned mothers to the fields, away from their newborns, after just one month. They did not shy away from meting out punishments with whips and, in at least one instance, dogs. 

The war continued, drawing in the younger men and leaving the older men to run the plantation. Simmons valued the change in conditions. Foscue also left to serve as a recruiting officer for the Confederate Army. Though not shared in Simmons’ narrative, records reveal that the colonel was a lawyer and a member of the Texas House of Representatives during the 8th and 10th sessions and a senator in the 11th. 

When the war ended and freedom came late to the people in Texas, Simmons, George, Charlie, and their baby Mittie, though born in slavery, no longer had to live under its systemic, oppressive, and dehumanizing rule. The family remained in Liberty County for almost 40 years until George’s death prompted them to move to Beaumont. 

In the 1930s, government workers interviewed Simmons and other formerly enslaved Americans as part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. These workers recorded the personal histories of more than 600 Texans. Researchers ignored the value of these interviews for decades. Their increasing integration into state and local histories enriches the historical record and provides us with memorable and authentic reflections of Texas life.

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