By Wayne Foy 

Name of interviewee: Henry Gibbs 

Age at emancipation:  13 

‘Race’: Unknown, census data designates black

Year of interview:  Undated but likely 1937  

Place of interview: West Point 

State of interview: Mississippi 

Place of enslavement: West Point, Clay County, Mississippi  

‘Occupation’: Domestic & Field   

‘Occupation’ of mother: Field worker 

‘Occupation’ of father: Semi-skilled cobbler and field hand 

Size of slaveholding unit: Small   

Name of enslaver (there may be more than one): David and Elsie Cottrell -  

Name of plantation/farm: Unknown 

Crop produced on slaveholding unit: Cotton 

Name of interviewer: Mrs Marcella Rose Joiner (Wilsford) 

Race of interviewer: White 

Is this included in Rawick’s supplement series?: Unknown 

Is there evidence of editing? Yes, transcribed by Ann Allen Geoghegan and annotated by interviewer

WPA Slave Narrative – Henry Gibbs

Henry Gibbs was born just outside the City of West Point, Mississippi. He was the son of Charles Gibbs and Mary (Millie) Cottrell and had two sisters. His family, like many enslaved families took their surname from their owners, who in Mary’s case were David & Elsie Cottrell, who had six children, four boys and two girls. Henry’s father had previously been owned by a man from South Carolina called Gibbs and therefore kept his previous owners name. According to the 1850 U.S. slave schedule, the Cottrell’s owned six enslaved men and three women, this puts them with the majority of enslavers who were ‘middling’ class and owned less than ten people and farmed corn and cotton. In his interview Henry claims to be 85 years old and although the interview isn’t dated, I have found other interviews by the same interviewer that are dated July 1937 which gives us a good indication that Henry was around thirteen at the time of emancipation in 1865.

              Henry’s mother ‘Millie’ was a field hand who came from Virginia. In his interview Henry states she was “fifteen when the stars fell”. This is a term that comes up a lot in narratives of the formerly enslaved and refers to the Leonid meteor shower that occurred on 12-13th November 1833. This allows us to get a good indication of her age which due to the lack of birth certificates at the time isn’t always possible. Henry’s father was from South Carolina and was semi-skilled, working as a plough hand and a cobbler, this would have added to his value both to the plantation and financially to his enslaver. Henry comments in his interview that his mother was bought at a speculator block because her former enslaver had gotten into debt. This wasn’t uncommon with enslavers, we can see from other narratives such as that of Jim Allen, that plantation owners would often run up debts either for running costs of their property or for their excessive drinking, and be forced to sell a skilled worker or field hand without a thought for their families. There is also evidence in Henry’s interview of people still being shipped from Africa, this is long after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. Henry married Ann Gibbs at the age of 21, he and Ann had fifteen children, although not all made it past infancy.

Henry’s interview was carried out by Mrs Marcella Rose Joiner (Wilsford). Marcella was a very prominent member of the West Point community and an active part of her local Methodist church. Her family hailed from Arkansas and later Tennessee and although not rich, they were wealthy enough according to the same slave schedule already mentioned to own a young enslaved girl. Marcella had ten siblings, one of whom was married to Albert P. Cottrell, the son of Henry’s enslaver David. In fact, Albert is mentioned in Henry’s interview.  Marcella’s father and brother fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War and her mother Evelina was described in her obituary as being a “noble woman of the Confederacy”. The Wilsford and Cottrell families are featured in a book published in 1891 called Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, each family member has a section describing their life during the Civil War and what they went on to achieve post bellum.

Marcella was a Charter Member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and remained a member until she died in 1973 aged 96. In a 2018 interview with Salon.com former President of the Seattle chapter of the UDC, Heidi Christensen said “the UDC has maintained a covert connection with the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, in many ways, the group was the de facto women’s auxiliary of the KKK at the turn of the century”.

Henry didn’t learn to read or write until after emancipation. He claims it was offered to him, but he chose not to take lessons as he was too spoilt, but he was obviously an intelligent man. He mentions several prominent former enslaved men in is his interview, such as Fredrick Douglass and Booker T Washington and went on to own and farm, land the equivalent to 230 football fields. He has a very good recollection about not only his time in slavery but the people he met, the relationships between him and his former owners and even claims to have met President Lincoln prior to emancipation. Henry was intelligent enough to not give his real thoughts and feelings about his time in slavery. This was the Jim Crow south and he was speaking to a founder member of the UDC. The police not only turned a blind eye to lynching, they openly facilitated the practice.

The relationship between Henry and Marcella although not mentioned, is clear to see. He is extremely complimentary about his former owners, remembering fondly the abundance of food they were given, the dancing of a Saturday night and the affection he was shown by Mrs Cottrell. At one point, Marcella describes how “Tears are rolling down Uncle Henry’s face as he relates these old days to me”, this is the only time in the interview she adds to the narrative. He absolves the Cottrell’s of any blame for beatings and maltreatment and claims it was the mean overseers that were brutal, not his owners. He states that he fared better as a slave than when he was freed, the only negative being the constant threat of being sold away from his family. This is despite claiming to now own nearly 230 acres of land, making a living and paying his taxes. Henry is obviously reluctant to give a true account of his time in bondage. Marcella is not only white, she is the sister of one of his former enslavers, he knows this relationship and continues to be subjugated due to his colour and former servitude.  For her part, Marcella leads the questioning to suit the narrative she wants to record, she doesn’t question Henry’s favourable answers and steers the questioning to undermine not only the negative aspects of slavery, but the positive aspects of freedom.

It’s unclear why Henry agreed to take part in the interview, maybe it was because it was a member of the wider Cottrell family that asked and he felt he had no choice, or maybe he was a lonely old man who wanted someone to talk to. Either way, as with nearly all the narratives of the formerly enslaved, their testimonies are deeply problematic. The consequences for black Americans openly speaking about their harsh treatment under their white enslavers were dire. It would likely have resulted in him and his family being targeted by the KKK, his property being vandalised or in the most extreme cases death. Henry chose to sanitise his responses, another indication of his intelligence.