The tenant farm system in early twentieth-century North Carolina
Parker offers a brief glimpse of the tenant farm system in early twentieth-century North Carolina.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Margaret Skinner Parker, March 7, 1976. Interview H-0278. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MARGARET SKINNER PARKER:
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Well, see, the company had farms, and these colored people (like the
Pruitts and the Watkins and different ones of these families, their
children—of course they're all grown now), they
had farms. They worked farms that belonged to the company, see. And Mr.
Koontz was over them, and then after him it was Mr. Tatum, Carl Tatum.
They raised mostly cotton, you see. And so when they sold the cotton,
then from one season to another the company store, the J.N. Ledford
Store, they carried their account, see. But the OKs came from whoever
was the man in charge.
- W. WELDON HUSKE:
-
Exactly what was the arrangement between the company and the tenant
farmers?
- MARGARET SKINNER PARKER:
-
Well, we carried their accounts from one season to the next. And then
when they sold their cotton (which they sold to the
mill)…
- W. WELDON HUSKE:
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Did they have to sell it to the mill?
- MARGARET SKINNER PARKER:
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Well, I think that was the arrangement.
- W. WELDON HUSKE:
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It was mill cotton.
- MARGARET SKINNER PARKER:
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Yes, it was mill land, see. So then they paid up their bill. And I
understand years ago when Mr. Ledford was there, when they would come in
there was a long front desk there and there was a bell under there. And
when they would come in Mr. Ledford would ring that bell, which told the
clerk that these people, you know, had money—in other words,
get busy and sell. Because back then you bought, I think, your
children's clothes about maybe once or twice a year, see: you
bought everything you needed while you had it.
- W. WELDON HUSKE:
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Well, did the tenant farmers ever have much money left over? Or what was
their income?
- MARGARET SKINNER PARKER:
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Well now, I don't know what arrangements they had. Of course,
they finally did away with the farms. You know, I think they made Durham
the central cotton buying place. And then these farmers, of course a lot
of them had gotten older by then.