ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY IN TENNESSEE
I. SLAVERY AN EXPRESSION OF THE SOIL.
Someone has said, “The rocks determine our politics.” The rocks make the
soil, which in turn determines the agricultural products that a section
can produce with profit, and, hence, the labor system. Slavery nowhere in
the United States reflected physiographic features more distinctly than
in Tennessee. The three sections of the state have always differed very
largely in their agriculture, in their sympathy with various sections
of the country, and in their politics. In fact, there are almost three
peoples and three civilizations in Tennessee. Physiography has been the
biggest factor in the differentiation. The human response to the soil
is very clearly shown. The differences in the sections of the state on
the subject of slavery were due mainly to geography, since differences
in climate were not sufficiently marked to promote or create any special
attitude of mind toward slavery.
East Tennessee remained throughout the slavery regime mainly a section
of small farmers. It was only the river valleys of the French Broad,
the Watauga, the Holston, and the Tennessee that yielded with advantage
to agriculture. These valleys were mostly of limestone formation, and
produced a loamy soil that was very fertile.
The counties[1] in these river valleys produced considerable quantities
of wheat and corn, but very little cotton. In 1850 East Tennessee
produced one bale of cotton, ten hogsheads of tobacco, 1,813,338 bushels
of wheat, and 10,998,654 bushels of corn.[2] In 1840, the counties
containing the largest number of slaves were Knox, numbering 1934;
Hawkins, 1499; Jefferson, 1282; and McMinn, 1241. There were six
counties with slightly over one thousand each, six in the six hundred
column, and the others ranged from 150 to 450 each. In 1860 there were
four counties in East Tennessee with 2000 slaves in each. In the same
year, there were 27,560 slaves in East Tennessee.[3]
In 1856 there were only 28 farms in East Tennessee containing one
thousand acres or more. There were 164 containing from 500 to 1000 acres,
1,173 having from 100 to 500 acres, 7,117 having 50 to 100 acres, and
6,920 containing less than fifty acres. There were only 192 farms which
contained more than 500 acres. It is seen from these figures that East
Tennessee was populated essentially by small farmers who raised wheat and
corn and live stock.[4]
In 1840 there were 19,915 slaves in East Tennessee, valued at
$10,813,845.[5] In 1850 there were 22,187 valued at $11,248,809; and
in 1860 there were 27,560 slaves valued at $23,536,240.[6] There were
in 1856 only 4,784 slaveholders in East Tennessee. Of these, one held
between 200 and 300 slaves, 3 between 70 and 100, 4 between 50 and 70,
12 between 40 and 50, and only 718 owned more than ten slaves, and 1207
owned only one; 719 owned two slaves. Practically half the slaveholders
of East Tennessee owned either one or two slaves. The average price of
land per acre in East Tennessee was $4.62, slightly more than half of
what it was for middle and West Tennessee.[7] The value of the slave in
1859 ranged from $563 in Johnson County, which is in the northeastern
part of the state, in the mountains, to $953 in Blount County, which is
bordered by the Tennessee River and is traversed by some of its branches.
Middle Tennessee was more adapted to the slavery system than East
Tennessee. It contained the rich Central Basin, traversed by the
Cumberland River, and also portions of the valley of the Tennessee.
Slavery was profitable in Middle Tennessee, especially for the
cultivation of tobacco and cotton. Middle Tennessee in 1856 raised 19,621
bales of cotton and 4,511 hogsheads of tobacco. It produced 1,825,423
bushels of wheat and 21,968,114 bushels of corn.[8] The big cotton
counties were Lincoln, producing 2,558 bales; Williamson, 3,167 bales;
Maury, 4,623 bales; and Rutherford, 4,623 bales. All these counties are
in the Central Basin. The big tobacco counties were Robertson, producing
1083 hogsheads, Smith, 1050 hogsheads, and Williamson, 1179 hogsheads.
There were 74 farms in Middle Tennessee, containing more than one
thousand acres each and 299 farms having between 500 and 1000 acres each.
The counties having plantations of more than 500 acres were Wilson, with
24, Davidson, 27, Bedford, 33, Montgomery, 23, Williamson, 49, Lincoln,
50, Rutherford, 52, and Giles, 60. Most of these counties are located in
the Central Basin, and have a rich, loamy soil. The response was the big
plantation and a dense slave population.
The slave population of Middle Tennessee, increased from 106,640 in 1840,
to 131,666 in 1850 and to 148,028 by 1860. Land was very valuable in the
cotton and tobacco counties, ranging in value from $13.54 in Giles County
to $18.84 per acre in Williamson. The slave in Giles County was worth
$797 while in Williamson County he was valued at $855. Both of these
counties were rural and produced cotton. The average value of land for
this section was only $8.82 per acre while the average value of slaves
was $838. The total value of slaves in Middle Tennessee in 1860 was
$126,488,926.
There were 18,524 slaveholders in Middle Tennessee in 1856; of this
number, 14,145 held less than ten slaves; only one owned more than 300
slaves; about four thousand held only one slave. There were practically
no large slaveholders in Middle Tennessee.
West Tennessee along the Mississippi River was a part of the Black Belt,
and was more suitable for the production of cotton than either of the
other two divisions of the state. There were 13,536 slaveholders in
West Tennessee in 1856.[9] West Tennessee had larger slaveholders in
proportion to the total number than either of the other divisions of
the state. In East Tennessee those who owned one slave were one-fourth
of the total number of slaveholders; in Middle Tennessee about the same
proportion prevailed; and in West Tennessee this ratio was reduced to
1:5. In East Tennessee there was only one person owning more than one
hundred slaves; in Middle Tennessee there were twenty-five; in West
Tennessee there were eighty-five.
The plantations in West Tennessee were larger and more numerous, in spite
of the fact that West Tennessee was not settled before 1820. Fayette
County had 74 plantations containing between 500 and 1000 acres each, and
15 containing more than 1000 acres each. Fayette County in 1860 contained
15,473 slaves, all of whom had been acquired since 1830.[10] Shelby had
a slave population of 16,953, which had been acquired since 1830. Some
of the most productive parts of the Black Belt in West Tennessee, such
as Lake County, were not in cultivation by 1860. The counties along the
divide between the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers were very poor, and
therefore not suitable for the production of cotton in large quantities.
Counties like Hardin, Henderson, McNairy, Chester, Decatur, Carroll,
Weakley, and Gibson were cultivated by small farmers, many of whom owned
no slaves at all, while others owned only one or two slaves. In these
counties, farmers worked their crops by themselves, or by the side of
their slaves.
The leading crops of West Tennessee were cotton, corn, wheat, and
tobacco. Cotton was the chief crop, and tobacco was raised in only
the poorer counties, like Benton, Carroll, Weakley, Gibson, Haywood,
and Lauderdale. Fayette and Shelby were the big cotton counties.
West Tennessee produced in 1856 four times as much cotton as Middle
Tennessee, and 3,144 hogsheads of tobacco against 4,511 produced by
Middle Tennessee.[11]
Taking the state as a whole, it was never more than a state of small
farmers. The plantation system as it existed in Mississippi or South
Carolina never prevailed in Tennessee. The soils of Tennessee were not
sufficiently productive to make slavery profitable on a large scale. It
was more profitable to own from one to half a dozen slaves and work with
them than to have an overseer. Of the 33,864 slaveholders in the state in
1850, 26,512 owned less than ten slaves each, and 18,198 owned less than
five each. There were only 22 persons in the state who owned more than
one hundred slaves. By 1856 this number had increased to one hundred and
six.
The distribution of the slaves over the state was determined by the
crops raised. In East Tennessee the ratio of slaves to whites was about
1 to 12; in Middle Tennessee, 1 to 3; and in West Tennessee, 3 to 5. In
no county in East Tennessee was the ratio greater than 1 to 6, while in
several counties it was 1 to 60, and in two-thirds of them it ranged from
1 to 20, to 1 to 60.[12] This, of course, was a matter of the soil. These
factors reflected themselves in social life, education, religion, and
politics. Slavery produced aristocracy and classes of society wherever
it appeared. It made for the private school in education, Whiggery in
politics, and the southern division among the Protestant churches that
split. East Tennessee in Andrew Jackson’s time was the democratic part
of the state. West Tennessee, the seat of the Black Belt, was the home
of the Whig aristocracy. When the Whigs became Democrats in the decade
between 1850 and 1860, the free farmers and small slaveholders, Democrats
of East Tennessee, became Unionists and later Republicans. This same
formula worked out over the entire state. There are Republican islands in
Democratic sections, and Democratic islands in Republican sections. East
Tennessee remained loyal to the Methodist Church, and West Tennessee went
into the Methodist Church, South. These divisions were not peculiar alone
to the three grand divisions of the state, but are found in the various
counties.
For instance, in the Presidential elections of 1844 between Clay and
Polk, Tennessee went for Clay. The big Democratic counties of today were
Whig then. Fayette’s vote was 1217 to 1060 in favor of Clay; Shelby’s,
1828 to 1607 in favor of Clay; Madison’s, 1562 to 737 in favor of Clay;
Gibson’s, 1423 to 688 in favor of Clay. These counties are now the big
Democratic counties of West Tennessee. They stood the same way in 1848 on
the election between Taylor and Cass. They voted overwhelmingly for the
Whig candidate for Governor in 1847.[13]
Present Republican counties of East Tennessee went Democratic.
Washington, 1225 to 881 in favor of Polk; Sullivan, 1533 to 350 in
favor of Polk; Greene, 1701 to 1031 in favor of Polk. The same line-up
expressed itself in 1847 and in the Presidential election of 1848.[14]
There are certain counties in West Tennessee today that are quite as
overwhelmingly Republican as any in East Tennessee. These counties are in
full sympathy with the point of view of the North in politics and toward
life generally. The northern branches of the churches, together with
their schools, are found in these counties. They prefer school teachers
from the North and send their children to northern colleges. The human
response to the soil that determined their attitude toward slavery is
mainly responsible for these results. It was this force that made poor
whites out of some and slaveholders out of others.
II. THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PLANTATION.
Plantation life in Tennessee was more humane than is generally supposed.
Great care was taken in establishing the negro quarters. There were
several reasons for this, not especially peculiar to Tennessee. Health
is an indispensable factor in the life of an efficient laborer. It saved
or reduced the expense of medical attention. Sanitary quarters for the
negroes produced contentment and thus lessened the problem of government.
They prevented the spread of disease, and a consequent heavy death rate.
They diminished crime among the slaves and on the whole made a good
reputation for the master. Respect for the master was no inconsiderable
force in the proper functioning of a plantation. The slaveholders
discussed these subjects in the agricultural fairs and read papers on how
to build proper slave quarters.
In an issue of the Practical Farmer and Mechanic, published
at Somerville, Tennessee, the county seat of the most densely
slave-populated county in the state, are given the following instructions
relative to the establishment of the plantation buildings:
In the selection of his farm, he (the master) should have an
eye to health, convenience of water, and a soil with such a
substratum as to retain manures. His home should be neat but
not costly—erected on an elevated situation—with a sufficient
number of shade trees to impart health and comfort to its
inmates. His negro quarters should be placed a convenient
distance from his dwelling on a dry, airy ridge—raised two
feet from the ground—so they can be thoroughly ventilated
underneath, and placed at distances apart of at least fifty
yards to ensure health. In this construction, they should be
sufficiently spacious so as not to crowd the family intended to
occupy them—with brick chimneys and large fire-places to impart
warmth to every part of the room. More diseases and loss of
time on plantations are engendered from crowded negro cabins
than from almost any other cause. The successful planter should
therefore have an especial eye to the comfort of his negroes,
in not permitting them to be overcrowded in their sleeping
quarters.[15]
This was an ideal that was regarded as a model. There was pride among
masters as to the character and appearance of their plantations. In a
description of a plantation in Haywood County, the following elaborate
set of buildings is given: dwelling-house, kitchen, washhouse,
storehouse, office, smokehouse, servants’ houses about the dwelling of
the master, weaving, ice, and poultry houses, gin house, grist mill,
flouring mill, wheat granary, stables, corn crib, overseer’s house,
seven double negro cabins, thirty-six feet by fourteen, with large brick
chimneys, closets, and other conveniences, all of which buildings are
annually whitewashed.[16] If one family was to occupy the cabin, it was
usually about 16 feet by 20 feet in its dimensions.[17] An effort was
made to locate cabins among shade trees. If this condition was not met,
trees were planted. Comfortable housing of the slaves was one of the real
problems of slave management, and it seems that an honest effort in most
cases was made to solve it. Proper bedding with plenty of blankets was
furnished in the winter, and close attention was given to the food of
the slaves. Weekly allowances were usually made, yet some fed in common.
Five pounds of good, clean bacon, one quart of molasses, a sufficiency
of bread and coffee with sugar were usually distributed to each slave on
some designated night each week. Family rations were put together. Single
hands received their rations separately, and then united in squads and
masses. Some woman was detailed to cook their meat or make their coffee.
The bread was cooked in the bakery for the entire plantation.
Two suits of cotton for spring and summer; two suits of woolen for
winter; four pairs of shoes, and three hats made up the clothing
allowance. The slave was encouraged to be neat in his dress.
The slaves were supposed to go to work by sunrise. They rested from
one to two hours at noon and then worked until night. In summer, the
plan frequently was to work from sunrise to 8:00 o’clock a.m., then
breakfast, work until 12:00 o’clock at noon, rest two hours, and then
work until night. They always quit work at noon on Saturday to prepare
for Sunday.
Various plans were used to stimulate the slaves to work. One of the
most effective was “task week.” The negroes varied among themselves
considerably as to the rapidity with which they could perform their
labor. It was this very fact that constituted the basis of the “task”
system. According to this system, a slave could work for himself or play
when he had finished his assigned task. Some masters permitted the slaves
to cultivate a few acres for themselves.
Prompt attention in case of sickness was a vastly important matter among
slaves. Masters, mistresses, and overseers usually knew a great many home
remedies which, if given in time, would suffice for a large number of
complaints. A good amount of red pepper was used in the vegetables. This
was supposed to stimulate the system, prevent sore throat, and render the
system less liable to chills and fevers.
Good plantation management contained a number of additional interesting
features. A weekly dance was an event to be looked forward to. For the
master and mistress to chaperon these occasions made a strong impression
on the slaves. Family prayers in which the slaves participated had a
bracing effect on the negro’s character. It was wise to have an employed
preacher for the slaves. Religion appealed to the negro’s character, and
it was a psychological factor in his control.
One of the most interesting features of plantation life was the raising
of poultry by the old slaves who were incapacitated for hard work. An
old negro man, giving most zealous attention to his brood, his negro
assistants careful to please him in every detail, and the “happy
family,” consisting of everything from a bob white and turkey gobbler
to a mockingbird, made one of the most beautiful pictures of plantation
life.[18]
The duties of the master was a subject that was kept before the community
even if economic interests were not sufficient to control such matters.
J. P. Williams, in a prize essay on plantations and their management,
urged that the master should give his personal attention to his negroes.
He thought that such supervision would not only pay in financial returns
but would largely solve the problem of discontent and insubordination
frequently due to mistreatment of slaves by an overseer.[19]
The master’s relation to the overseer was an important factor in the
management of the plantation. It was a good policy to pay any overseer
well. This gave the master the right to demand his entire time, and
usually ended in efficiency and satisfactory relations of overseer to
both master and slaves.
“An employer,” said Jas. C. Lusby, in a paper read before the
Agricultural and Mechanical Society of Fayette County, September 2, 1855,
“should never ask a negro any questions whatever about the business of
the plantation, or the condition of the crops; nor say anything in the
presence of the negroes about the overseer, for they are always ready to
catch any word that may be dropped, and use it if possible to cause a
disturbance between the master and the overseer.”[20] It seems that there
was a common practice among masters to have one or two trusties among the
negroes to act as spies upon the overseer. “Negroes,” said Lusby, “in
two-thirds of the cases, are the cause of employers and overseers falling
out.”[21] The successful planter was one who gave sufficient time and
thought to the management of his farm to enable him to be his own judge
as to the character and efficiency of his overseer.
The overseer was the most important factor in the management of the
large plantation. His indifference toward the interests of either master
or slaves broke down the system, because there was perfect unity of
interests inherent in the system, and the successful overseer recognized
this ideal. It was the business of the overseer to be present at the
beginning of every important work, not merely because he was paid to do
so, but because the negroes always took advantage of his absence. It was
his business to ring a bell or blow a horn in the morning for breakfast,
because it was unsafe to entrust this duty to a negro driver for the
reason that it was almost impossible to find a negro sufficiently regular
in his habits to be reliable. If the breakfast hour was a failure, the
entire day’s work was seriously damaged.
The overseer had to see that the negroes were up by four o’clock in the
winter and about half past three in the spring and summer. This gave
time to prepare victuals, arrange clothes and shoes, to see that horses
and mules were properly fed, that crib doors were shut, that fires were
built for the children, and that everybody was ready to go to work by
daylight.[22]
The overseer accompanied the slaves to the field and saw that the day’s
work was properly begun. He could then return to his house for breakfast.
Following breakfast, he was free to make a general inspection of the
plantation. He inspected the cabins to see that they were neatly kept,
that the clothes of the negroes were washed, that the negro nurses
were properly looking after the children, that the common bakery,
boot-and-shoe shop, carpenters, mechanics, and tailors were efficiently
functioning.
He inspected fences, ditches, gates, and stock occasionally. He visited
the cabins two or three times a week at night to see that the negroes
were at home and that no strange negroes were on the premises. The nature
of the negro was to gad about, and to keep improper hours. It was the
duty of the overseer to prevent this. He had to look after the farming
implements, and, after the crops were harvested, to gather up the tools
of the plantation and have them repaired and properly housed during the
winter.
The overseer had constantly to plan work two or three weeks in advance
to have the greatest success. He had to keep in close touch with the
master, especially concerning work after the crops were finished. “I
consider it to be the duty of the overseer,” said Lusby, “to do anything
that the employer wishes him to do, right or wrong.”
Lusby advocated that an overseer should be a model of personal
appearance. He should keep himself close-shaven, wear good clothes, “hold
his head up equal to his employer, ride a good, sprightly horse, and have
one of the hands to attend to him, and saddle him in the morning.”[23] An
overseer was rated by the slaves very largely according to the manner in
which he conducted himself. His personal conduct was a determining factor
in the degree of control that he was able to exercise. This factor either
made or undid all his efforts.
An overseer who was a success in the employment of a master was usually
able to buy land and negroes for himself in a few years. In an address
given at an agricultural fair in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1855, an account
is given of a planter in Haywood County, who had had only four overseers
from 1838 to 1855. One of these in six years, with a large family,
accumulated nineteen hundred dollars which he invested in lands and
negroes in Texas, and was soon doing well. Another accumulated in seven
years more than two thousand dollars, and was ready to go to Arkansas
and invest his capital in lands and negroes. The other two had similar
success.[24]
The slaves in Tennessee undoubtedly were, on the whole, humanely treated.
Rev. Arthur Howard says in his history of the Episcopal Church in
Tennessee that “it is impossible to deny that the negroes of the South
were happier, and better cared for, physically and morally, under the
system of slavery existing in the South, than they have been at any
time since they obtained their freedom and were suddenly, without any
training, endowed with the right of citizenship.”[25]
Rev. J. N. Pendleton, of the Baptist Church, said:
I take great pleasure in testifying that slavery in Kentucky
and Tennessee, and I was not acquainted with it elsewhere, was
of the mild type. When I went North, nothing surprised me more
than to see laborers at work in the rain and snow. In such
weather, slaves in Kentucky and Tennessee would have been under
shelter.[26]
III. WAS SLAVERY PROFITABLE IN TENNESSEE?
There is a great deal of evidence that slavery was profitable, and some
that it was not. Slavery increased very rapidly in the first two decades
of the history of the state. From 1790 to 1800 there was an increase
of 297.54 per cent, and from 1800 to 1810 an increase of 229.31 per
cent.[27] Slave population increased only 79.06 per cent in the next
decade, and only 244.19 per cent from 1820 to 1860. This decrease in
percentage from 1820 to 1860 is in face of the fact that West Tennessee,
the Black Belt part of the state, was settled and populated during this
period. This evidently means that slavery was not making much progress in
East and Middle Tennessee.
Slaves increased in value very rapidly in Tennessee from 1790 to about
1836. They were worth only $100 each in 1790, but by 1836 they were
valued at $584.[28] They decreased in value to $413.72 by 1846. They
reached the 1836 mark again in 1854, and by 1860 were valued, for
purposes of taxation, at $900.[29] This valuation was largely controlled
by the price of cotton. The average price of cotton for the decade ending
1830 was 13.3 cents per pound; for the decade ending 1840, 12.4 cents;
for the decade ending 1850, 8.2 cents; and for the five years ending
1855, 9.6 cents.[30] The values and prices of Tennessee slaves and cotton
only roughly corresponded to those of the United States at the same time.
In 1792, the average value of a slave in the United States was $300, and
in 1835 it was $900, and $600 in 1844.[31] Upland cotton was worth 17½
cents per pound in New York City in 1835 and 7½ cents in 1844. It was
generally held that a difference of one cent a pound in the price of
cotton made a difference of $100 in the price of slaves, but this could
not apply to the above prices.
Slavery was undoubtedly very profitable in Middle and West Tennessee.
F. A. Michaux in travelling from Nashville to Knoxville in 1802 says:
“Between Nashville and Fort Blount (above Nashville on the Cumberland
River about sixty miles) the plantations, although isolated in the woods
always, are nevertheless, upon the road, within two or three miles of
each other. The inhabitants live in comfortable log houses; the major
part keep negroes, and appear to live happy and in abundance.”[32] He
says West Tennessee (Cumberland), now Middle Tennessee, produced a
very fine grade of cotton and that manufacture was encouraged by the
legislature.[33] “Emigrants to Tennessee,” he continues, “by at least the
third year have gone over to the cotton crop.” He says that a man and
his wife could, aside from raising sufficient Indian corn for sustenance
“cultivate four acres (of cotton) with the greatest ease.” This would
yield a net produce of two hundred and twelve dollars. “This light
sketch,” he says, “demonstrates with what facility a poor family may
acquire speedily, in West Tennessee, a certain degree of independence,
particularly after having been settled five or six years, as they procure
the means of purchasing one or two negroes, and of annually increasing
this number.”[34]
Lilly Buttrick, travelling in Tennessee from 1812 to 1819, speaks of
stopping with an Indian slave owner by the name of Talbot, who lived on
the bank of the Tennessee. “This man,” he says, “was said to be very
rich, in land, cattle, and negro slaves, and also to have large sums of
money in the bank.”[35]
The culture of cotton was profitable from the very beginning of the
state down to 1860. As early as July, 1797, Mr. Miller of the firm of
Miller and Whitney, proposed to his partner that they send an agent to
Knoxville, “where we were informed that cotton was valuable,” and to
Nashville and the Cumberland settlements to gather information concerning
the culture of cotton in those parts and the mode of cleaning it.[36]
As soon as the people of these frontier settlements learned that the
cotton gin was a success, they held public meetings and petitioned the
legislature of Tennessee to buy the patent rights of Miller and Whitney
to the saw-gin within the limits of Tennessee. Andrew Jackson presided at
some of these meetings.[37] In accordance with the wishes of the people,
the legislature purchased the patent rights for the gin within the
limits of Tennessee in 1803, and the state began to encourage the growth
of cotton. “Cotton production in this state,” says Hammond, “with the
exception of a few years in the 40’s, continued to increase at a uniform
rate until the outbreak of the Civil War.”[38]
A. D. Murphrey, a North Carolinian, travelling through West Tennessee
in 1822, and writing to his friend, Thomas Ruffin, left the following
account of the soil and the profits in farming in West Tennessee: “Since
I wrote you last I have been through nearly one-half of the Chickashaw
Purchase, and if I was disappointed as to old Tennessee, I was still
more as to the Purchase; but my disappointment was of another kind. I
have never seen such a beautiful country before, nor one where industry
can be so well rewarded. It is very much like Mecklenburg and Cararrus
were, I expect, a hundred years ago, in their appearance; but there is
a fertility in its poorest soil that I have seen nowhere else. Except
the swamp, there is really no poor land, if we are to judge from its
production; for on the poorest ridges that I have seen, six and eight
barrels of corn, or 1000 pounds of cotton is the ordinary crop. What
is there called good land brings upon an average 10 barrels of corn or
1300 pounds of cotton to the acre; and one hand will tend more land than
two in any part of North Carolina west of Raleigh. I have just left the
house of a Mr. Morgan on Sandy River, who is now working his second crop
and works four hands. He has prepared 80 acres of this ground since
Xmas, 1821 (this was July, 1822), and his crop of corn, without severe
disaster, will be 1000 barrels.... The soil is rich, black land, varying
in depth from four to ten inches; then comes a good clay—not a stone or
pebble to be seen.”[39]
The Nashville Banner in 1833, in a discussion on the prosperity of
Tennessee, boasted that “the profits alone” on the crop of cotton, in the
present year, “will pay the whole aggregate debt of Tennessee and leave a
large balance in favor of the country.”[40]
In the reports made to the Comptroller, and inventories given in the
proceedings of the county and district fairs, there are numerous
examples of individuals who, with a few slaves, purchased lands, cleared
and stocked them, and made big money in farming. The following is a
detailed account of what a Middle Tennessee planter did, who in 1838 had
twenty-two negroes, only fifteen of whom were field hands: “He cleared
nine hundred acres of land ... made all his improvements, consisting of a
dwelling house, kitchen, washhouse, storehouse, office, smokehouse, the
necessary negro houses for servants’ houses about his dwelling, weaving,
ice and poultry houses, a gin house forty by sixty feet, a building forty
feet square with driving power attached,” from which was propelled the
following machinery: a flouring mill which ground and bolted from seventy
to eighty bushels of wheat per day, a corn mill which ground from ninety
to one hundred bushels of corn per day, a knife that cut food for his
stock, a corn sheller, a wheat thresher, with a 300-bushel capacity per
day for wheat and 200 bushels for rye, a saw mill that cut from one to
two thousand feet of lumber per day; “barns, stables, cribs, overseer’s
home, negro cabins, and outhouses.”[41] This planter furnished the
flour for his family and negroes and sold a surplus to cotton planters
sufficient to pay the cost of his machinery and the salary of his
overseer. He raised all the live stock that the plantation needed, and
sold immense quantities of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and swine.
His capital increased at the rate of 169 per cent per annum, yet “he
never made a speculation of any kind whatever during all this time of
prosperity, to buy and sell again. He lived generously, while some of
his friends charged him with extravagance in many things. His farming
interest did it all, under its own progression, and is entitled as a
pursuit or business, after the support of himself and family, which
under the peculiar visitations of Providence, added necessarily to his
expenses, to all the credit.”[42]
This planter was active in politics, and acted as administrator of
the estates of several of his friends. He managed his plantation so
successfully that he never gave cause for a change of overseers, nor
did he have any trouble with his slaves. He was a type of the Middle
Tennessee planters.
This planter was Mark C. Cockrill. He was famous for the grade of wool
that he grew. He exhibited a wool at the World’s Fair in London that for
its texture, quality, and fineness excelled the wool from Saxony, from
which the best English broadcloths have been made. He returned with the
premium, certificates, and medals to be still further rewarded by the
legislature of his own state with a gold medal for his enterprise and the
prosperity he had brought to the wool-growers of the state.[43]
There were equally famous public-spirited cotton planters of West
Tennessee, Pope, Holmes, Poynor, and Bond, planters of Fayette County and
Shelby County, at this same World’s Fair, who changed the classification
and commercial character of American cottons. They were able to place
Tennessee cotton next to the Georgia Sea Island, giving it the highest
grade of upland cotton. This meant considerable wealth to Tennessee.
Both Pope and Holmes received medals at the fair. These planters, in
coöperation with David Park, a cotton factor of Memphis, distributed
among several factories of the East a large amount of Tennessee cotton
to be experimented with, in order to test its superior grade. This
gave Tennessee cotton a great reputation, and made Memphis a joint
distributing-point for the sale of cotton. Cotton began to come up the
Mississippi to Memphis to be distributed over the entire world. This was
the beginning of the movement that has finally made Memphis the greatest
inland cotton market in the world.
Comparing these cotton planters with the Middle Tennessee planter
referred to above, James C. Coggesball, the author of this paper, says,
“I must certainly be permitted to speak as to the circumstances of
several whose success surpasses his in a four-fold extent.” “And just
here,” he says, “permit me to add as my opinion that there is not to
be found a location in the United States where a farming community,
taking them as a body, is as independent and intelligent as they are in
the western district. The public days at the county seats exhibit but
few scenes of impropriety emanating from them, while the sheriff’s and
constable’s advertisements seldom have reference to their estates.”[44]
The planters of Tennessee realized that slavery was profitable, and were
jealous of all forces that threatened its existence. They knew that
the cotton system depended on slave labor. The slaveholding sections
of the state were the strong supporters of colonization societies, not
in the sense of anti-slavery, but as a protection to slavery. “The
existence of colored freedom in the midst of a slave population,” said
their petitions, “has a tendency to impair the value and utility of that
description.” It will cause “those who might have considered bondage as
one of the decrees of Fate, or provisions of superior power, imposed upon
their sable race, where all were placed in a like condition ... to view
with jealousy and discontent the elevation of some of their own family
to a grade so far above their reach.”[45] This memorial suggested the
expediency of abolishing colored freedom, which was actually attempted in
the later fifties.
“The farmer should remember,” said Coggesball, “that he has not merely
farmers’ duties to attend to, but that, as a slaveholder, and as a member
of society, he has personal and political rights to watch over and
protect. Will he look at the assembled combinations that are against him;
at the encroachments upon his homestead, who are advancing with torch
in hand and fanatic cry of freedom, even at the price of extermination
of the white race of slaveholders? And see that they are headed by the
pulpit, composed of its three thousand clergy, with the anti-Christ
motive of a Judas Iscariot marked upon their physiognomy, and instigated
by the price of thirty shekels of silver, from England’s commercial
schemers, swearing in their fanatical zeal that the Bible itself is not
the Word of God, they recognize in the establishment and the sustaining
of this relation, and reading their homilies on the other side of Mason
and Dixon’s line, to the mob collections from the purlieus of their
cities, who, like themselves aspire to the distinction given to the
Beecher family, by some way, who lately discovered that in this world
there were three distinct classes of people, to-wit: the saint, the
sinner, and the Beecher family.”
As the pressure became more intense, the planters became more intolerant
of any discussion on the slavery question. The conclusion of Coggesball’s
discussion gives the frame of mind that most of the slaveholders had
acquired by 1860. “For myself,” he said, “my relation to slavery is one
that I allow no man, even my neighbor, who is a non-slaveholder, to
counsel me respecting. So sinister and heartless has the northern public
become, they but elucidate the fact that there is no tyranny like that
of the full-blooded fanatic. I have no missionary ground in my heart for
them to reach; my duty is a responsible one. God and my country recognize
it, and I care not what others think of me respecting it. I believe that
slavery is a blessing to the slave in the largest extent, produced by the
wisdom of God, and retained as such by his overruling providence, and
that the Christian slaveholder is the true friend of the black man.”[46]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Knox, Bledsoe, Bradley, Granger, Greene, Hawkins, McMinn, Monroe,
Roane, and Hamilton were counties noted for their production of corn and
wheat.
[2] Comptroller’s Report for 1850, p. 44.
[3] Census of 1850, Population I, p. 63.
[4] Comptroller’s Report for 1856, p. 44.
[5] Comptroller’s Report for 1857-8, p. 165.
[6] Comptroller’s Report for 1859-60, p. 22.
[7] Comptroller’s Report for 1859, p. 30.
[8] Comptroller’s Report for 1856, p. 44.
[9] Comptroller’s Report for 1856, p. 44.
[10] Tenth Census, I, Population, p. 63.
[11] Comptroller’s Report for 1856, p. 44.
[12] Martin, A. E., Tennessee Historical Magazine, I, No. 4, p. 279.
[13] Whig Almanac for 1844.
[14] Whig Almanac for 1848.
[15] The Practical Farmer and Mechanic, October 6, 1857.
[16] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 431.
[17] De Bow’s Review, XVII, 423.
[18] The following is a description of “a master in Haywood County,
who, having the Shanghai mania, raised one year over eight hundred of
them, under the careful attention and supervision of an old man, who
had numbered his three score years, and was very infirm, but who, after
proper preparation in the several coops and houses, with suitable places
as depositories for their food, took great pleasure in his charge, and,
with the negroes assisting him, it was pleasing to see the delight
he manifested in the care of his brood, and with what pride he would
discourse on their good qualities to his respective visitors. Upwards of
one hundred pair were given away, and from the sales of others at five
dollars the pair, the old negro’s labor contributed to the income of the
farm more than two hundred dollars. To suppress the romantic suggestions
that his rural pursuits in his retirement might lead to, he would exhibit
his ‘happy family’ uncaged to his visitors, when he pointed to the fowl,
the duck, the turkey, the pea-fowl, the pigeon, the partridge, the dove,
the jaybird, the squirrel, the rabbit, the red bird, the woodpecker, the
humming and mocking bird, as they occupied their respective places in
the forest before his dwelling, and frequently several of them might be
seen eating together, feeling instinctively conscious, from habit long
indulged, that they had a protector over them, that prevented their being
wantonly destroyed.”
Comptroller’s Report 1855-6, p. 432.
[19] “He should see,” said Williams, “that their cabins are kept clean
and free from all kinds of filth, and that their hours of retiring should
be regular and at an early period of the night. Their food should be
nourishing and well cooked, with plenty of vegetables in heat of summer.
“He should have his negroes comfortably clad, winter and summer, and see
that their persons as well as their clothing are kept clean and nice, and
that they are not driven out in unsuitable weather (which is too often
the case by over-bearing overseers), if he expects them to enjoy health
or live to an age to be profitable to their masters. He should attend to
their morals and instruct them himself, or employ others to do so, as
regards their duties and obligations to their master and their Creator—so
they may thoroughly understand the full nature of vice and crime, and
their consequent punishment here and hereafter. These instructions will
make them better servants by teaching them their true and relative
positions, and prevent cases of insubordination which so often arise from
ignorance and neglect. Let their treatment be mild and humane, at the
same time stern and uncompromising in the punishment of offenses.”—The
Practical Farmer and Mechanic, October 6, 1857.
[20] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 525.
[21] Ibid., p. 526.
[22] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 527.
[23] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 527.
[24] Ibid., p. 431.
[25] Howard, Rev. Arthur, History of the Church in the Diocese of
Tennessee, p. 177.
[26] Pendleton, J. N., Reminiscences of a Long Life, p. 127.
[27] Statistical Abstract of U. S., 1906, p. 32.
[28] Comptroller’s Report for 1857-8, p. 165.
[29] Comptroller’s Report for 1859-60, p. 22.
[30] Stirling, James, Letters from the Slave States, p. 305.
[31] Political Science Quarterly, XX, p. 267.
[32] Thwaites, III, 257.
[33] Ibid., 277.
[34] Ibid., 278.
[35] Thwaites, VIII, 73.
[36] American Historical Review, October, 1897 (Letter of Phineas Miller
to Eli Whitney, July 21, 1797).
[37] Aurora and General Advertiser, September 3, 1802.
[38] Hammond, M. B., The Cotton Industry, p. 70.
[39] Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, I, p. 245.
[40] Nashville Banner, November 16, 1833.
[41] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 432.
[42] Ibid., p. 433.
[43] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 434.
[44] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 435.
[45] Memorial from the Colonization Society of Tennessee, 1832 (State
Archives).
[46] Comptroller’s Report for 1855-6, p. 439.