Jones, Friday

Source:

 African American National Biography

Jones, Friday

(1810–10 Aug. 1887),

slave narrative author, was born in Wake County, North Carolina, to Barney and Cherry, two slaves of the High family. Jones's 1883 slave narrative lists his first owner as “Olser Hye,” asserts that his father was “a desperate wicked man” and an alcoholic who died about 1820, and tells of how his “poor dear mother” who taught him to pray was “traded for a tract of land and sent to Alabama.” (1). Jones and three of his eleven siblings were raised in the large High household; he says little about his childhood other than noting that “I had hard struggling to get bread and clothes” and “after I was ten years old I knew nothing about going to church.” (6). When his master's daughter Emily High married planter Tignall Jones on 25 January 1825, Friday Jones seems to have been given to the new couple.

In about 1830, Friday Jones met his future wife Milly (sometimes Milley), a slave on a neighboring farm. However, when he approached his master about the possibility of marrying, Tignall Jones was resistant. Through subterfuge, Friday Jones was able to convince his wife's master, Dr. Benjamin Rogers, to allow the pair to go “together, like goose and gander—no wedding”; the marriage would last throughout the couple's lifetime. (7). Jones reported that the couple later had eleven children and “raised all but two.” Tignall Jones tried to separate the couple on several occasions, but seems to have tolerated their marriage for a time because of Friday Jones's value. Jones was hired out in the late 1830s and early 1840s to the state of North Carolina and to the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad; he also seems to have worked for a succession of temporary masters as well as on his owner's large farms. Jones seems to have grown increasingly resistant, and finally Tignall Jones jailed him while attempting to sell him off.

Through circumstances that the narrative is hazy about, Calvin Rogers (sometimes Rodgers), a wealthy planter in Wake County and “the agent of my master” seems to have taken control of Jones in the early 1850s, and Jones reported hiring himself, his wife, and his elder children out in Raleigh. (5). Financial troubles forced Rogers to sell Jones's family, but Jones persuaded him to sell them to John O'Neil of Raleigh. O'Neil had promised to keep them for life, but quickly sold Milley Jones and one of their children. Jones was able to persuade Joshua James, a wealthy farmer and Baptist minister, to purchase them, but Jones increasingly had troubles finding viable places for himself and his large family. His narrative relates, for example, the story of how his eldest daughter—whose name may have been Lily—was purchased by a trader in 1853, “imprisoned in a corn crib,” whipped, sold again, and “abused.” (12). Still, Jones was able to relate in his 1883 narrative that “she professed religion” and “is now living in Raleigh, a sound and healthy woman.” (15).

Jones himself was repeatedly threatened with whipping; Rogers even asserted at one point that he would shoot him; Jones, though, survived. While Jones seems to have struggled with alcohol during his early years, he attended a series of revivals beginning in 1853, “professed religion” in 1854, and was baptized in November of 1855. Most of his short narrative credits God for allowing him to live and to salvage his family in the midst of slavery.

Jones's narrative says little about the Civil War or Reconstruction. After the end of the war, he stayed in Raleigh, and was living with his wife and three youngest daughters (Mary, Cherry, and Katy) in 1870. His occupation was given as “watchman” in the Federal Census of Raleigh, and the family was listed with $500 in real estate and another $300 in personal property. (p. 291). Jones and his wife were still listed together—along with youngest daughter Katy—in the 1880 Census of Raleigh. Friday Jones's occupation was listed as “laborer,” and both his wife and daughter were listed as “washer” women. (p. 311A). Friday Jones's obituary suggests that he was “quite prominent among his race as a politician,” that he “was at one time watchman at the capitol” in Raleigh, and that he “had been both a democrat and a republican, and died a democrat.” It is thus likely that his place as a watchman was a minor patronage appointment, and that, as the Democrats moved into power in North Carolina, Jones shifted parties. His obituary noted that he was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by William Ruffin Cox, a Confederate General, three-term Democratic congressman from Raleigh, and Democratic Party boss of Wake County.

Jones's introduction to the House was likely one of the highlights of a three- or four-year period in the 1880s when he lived in Washington, D.C.—where, according to his obituary, he hoped to get a position as a janitor in the Federal buildings. Certainly the publication of his brief narrative Day of Bondage: Autobiography of Friday Jones, Being a Brief Narrative of His Trials and Tribulations in Slavery in 1883 was a similar highlight, although his choice of publishers (the Washington-based jobber the Commercial Publishing Company), makes it likely that Jones's narrative (like several postbellum slave narratives) was essentially self-published and designed for economic gain as well as historical remembrance. It was recovered and reissued in 1999. Jones died in Raleigh.

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