USA > Alabama > The formative period in Alabama, 1815-1828 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
The monetary situation of the country was such as to favor the spirit of speculation that set in. There had been a gen- eral suspension of specie payments during the War and the currency of the country had fallen into great disorder. Many of the bank notes that circulated were of uncertain value and much inconvenience was caused by .their use. Largely in order to remedy this state of affairs, the second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816. It was to go into op- eration early in 1817, and a resolution was passed that the Government would receive only specie-paying paper after February 20th. In order to effect resumption, the banks of issue had to cut down their circulation, but the object was ac- complished. and by February specie payment had been re- stored."
The reduction in the number of notes in circulation which accompanied the resumption of specie payments would nat- urally have tended to retard speculation; but the temptation
1 Atlas of American Agriculture, cotton section, 20.
" Dewey, Financial History of the United States, 151.
·
51
THE PUBLIC LANDS
of the western cotton lands was too great to be denied, and means were found to overcome the difficulty. In the first place, the management of the new bank of the United States was reckless, and its notes were turned loose largely in the South" to be invested by the speculators. But more impor- tant than this, about seventy local banks were founded in Ten- nessee and Kentucky in 1818.+ These institutions had troubl- ed careers, but their notes remained good long enough to make the first payment on Government lands.
Yet another resource was open to many of those who wish- ed to purchase land in Alabama. The five million dollars in scrip which had been issued to the Yazoo claimants was re- deemable only in payments for lands in the Georgia cession :" and since no new Indian concessions had been obtained within Mississippi, the first chance afforded the Yazoo men for re- deeming their scrip was at the Alabama sales of 1817 and 1818. The greater part of it was turned in at this time to make the first payments on purchases, and it added much to the frenzy of speculation.
Land sales during this period were made under the act of 1800, as extended and amended in 1803 and 1804.6 It was provided that the public domain should be surveyed by mark- ing it off into townships six miles square, and the townships subdivided into thirty-six square miles or sections. A quarter- section. or one hundred and sixty acres, was the smallest tract which could be sold.
Having been surveyed, the land was advertised for sale at public auctions which were held at the offices established in the various land districts. Tracts were sold to the highest bidder, and those remaining unsold might be entered private- ly at the minimum price of two dollars an acre. In either case. one-fourth of the purchase money had to be paid at the time of the sale, and the remaining three-fourths in annual installments of one-fourth each.
The surveys in the Creek cession were begun in 1816. and speculators at once began making investigations. A. P. Hayne made a tour of the lands to be put upon the market and wrote to Andrew Jackson giving a favorable account of
3 Ibid., 153.
+ Annals of Congress. 16 Cong., 2 Sess., 233.
" Statutes at Large, III. 116-117.
" Treat. The National Land System, 111-112, 120-121.
" Jackson Papers. Thos. Freeman to Andrew Jackson, April 12, 1816.
52
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
the rich river and prairie tracts.^ Jackson wrote to a friend in Washington to inquire as to the price of the Yazoo scrip and found that it had risen from forty to sixty-eight dollars." Companies were formed for participation at the auctions, and Hayne wrote that "speculation in land is superior to Law or Physic."1º
The first sale took place at Milledgeville, Georgia, in Au- gust, 1817, and comprised a tract lying along the headwaters of the Alabama River in the neighborhood of the present city of Montgomery.11 Only the best river bottom tracts were dis- posed of at this time, and these were taken up by speculators from various places. The men who had moved into the re- gion were generally too poor to make their way to the place of sale, and they had little hope of being able to compete with the wealthier purchasers.12 Sales during this year amounted to nearly $800,000, and the new tracts in the same region which were offered in 1818 brought the sales of that year up to nearly a million dollars.13 Almost nothing but river bot- tom lands were sold at Milledgevile during these two years,14 and there were few actual settlers among the purchasers ..
The most coveted bit of land that was disposed of at this time lay within a wide bend of the Alabama River and upon a bluff which formed the opposite bank. The soil in the bend was of the best quality, and the bluff afforded an excellent site for a town. Members of the Bibb family were anxious to purchase here, and so was A. P. Hayne, who wrote to Jackson concerning the matter.15 A land company, of which William Wyatt Bibb was a member, secured the tracts, and the town of Montgomery was founded upon the bluff in 1819.16
Though these sales were the most extensive that had taken place up to that time, they were small in comparison with those which were held in Huntsville in 1818. All the lands lying west of Madison County, on both sides of the Tennessee River, were offered for sale in that year,17 and the amount
8 Ibid., A. P. Hayne to Andrew Jackson, Nov. 27, 1816.
9 Ibid., D. Parker to Andrew Jackson. Jan. 6, 1817.
10 Jackson Papers. A. P. Hayne to Andrew Jackson. Nov. 27, 1816.
11 L. O. Record of Proclamations, May 24, 1817.
12 Jackson Papers, A. P. Hayne to Andrew Jackson, Aug. 5, 1817. 13 American State Papers. Lands, V, 384-385.
14 Tract Book of Montgomery County, Office of the Secretary of State, Montgomery, Ala.
15 Jackson Papers. A. P. Hayne to Andrew Jackson, Aug. 5, 1817.
16 Meek MS., Early Settlement of Alabama, 1815-1819.
17 L. O., Record of Proclamations, Nov. 1, 1817 and March 31, 1818.
,
53
THE PUBLIC LANDS
sold reached a value of seven million dollars. Out of the sum of about one and a half million which was paid down upon' the purchases, over a million was in Yazoo scrip, or "Missis- sippi stock," as it was called.
A speculating company, composed of men from Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, and Madison County was formed. Prom- inent Tennesseeans bid against this combine and prices were run up to figures ranging between fifty and a hundred dollars an acre. Average cotton land sold at prices between twenty and thirty dollars. 19 .
The excitement caused by the sales was nation-wide. Men came from every part of the country to participate in them. A company was formed in Charleston, South Carolina, for the purpose of buying acreage in Alabama, and Stephen Elliott was sent out to make the purchases."" Much swindling went on during the sales. A company of speculators would combine, and, by a show of force, intimidate their competitors and bid off large tracts of desirable land at low prices. They would then sell out at a considerable gain to those who had not been able to compete with them. It is stated on good authority that one such association of swindlers cleared $1,980 each on a transaction of this kind.21 The situation became so notori- ous that the Government authorized its agents to bid against the combinations when they thought it advisable.22
No such extent of fine lands was ever again offered for sale in Alabama during a single year, but in 1819 large areas along the Alabama River below Montgomery County were put upon the market. The land office for this district had · now been moved from Milledgeville to Cahawba, and the sales here amounted to nearly three million dollars during the year.
By the time the credit system of sales was abolished in 1820, Alabama had, in all, amassed a land debt of eleven million dollars, or more than half the total for the entire Country.23 And in the meantime the price of cotton had gone down to eighteen cents; the country was in the throes of commercial depression ; and the prospect of paying for the lands which
18 American State Papers. Lands, V, 384-385.
19 Jackson Papers, Jno. Coffee to Andrew Jackson, Feb. 12, 1818.
20 Record of Deeds, Dallas County. D, 305.
21 Niles' Register, XVI. 192; St. Stephens Halcyon, Oct. 11, 1819; Alabama Republican, May 1, 1818.
22 American State Papers, Lands, V, 378-380, 513.
23 Ibid., 645.
54
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
1
had been bought at abnormal prices became almost hopeless.
Such a state of affairs prompted Congress to discontinue the policy of credit sales. In 1820 it was provided that half quarter-sections might be sold, that the minimum price should be $1.25 an acre, and that all payments should be in cash. The system of public auctions followed by private entry was con- tinued.2+
But something had to be done for those who had already fallen into debt beyond hope of recovery, and this problem was attacked in 1821. It was provided that land which had been purchased but not completely paid for might be relin- quished and the sum paid on it applied on the balance due for lands which were retained. In addition to this, the balance due on lands retained was to be reduced by thirty-seven and a half per cent. and an extension of credit to be granted .= " Large numbers took advantage of this act, and within a year the land debt of Alabama was reduced by half. Those who did not take advantage of it were later given a further chance to do so, and by 1825 the debt had been decreased to about three and a half million dollars.2"
Yet the consequences of the speculation of 1818 and 1819 were not so easily overcome. The men who relinquished their land under the act of 1821 did not consider that they were giv- ing up their right to it. They continued to live upon and cul- tivate it, and expected to be able to buy it back some day un- der favorable arrangements which they looked to Congress to make. Thus the community was injured by the presence of a large number of farmers who were mere tenants by com- mon consent. The unsettled condition of such men was dis- turbing to the whole system of rural economy. By 1828 about three and a quarter million out of the twenty-four mil- lion acres of public lands in Alabama were sold, and nearly half as much had been relinquished." The extent of the evil can be imagined.
In the natural course of events, the relinquished lands would be put on the market again at auction sale, and here the re- linquisher would have to compete with all comers for fields that he had owned and cleared and still cultivated. The spir- it of the community was in sympathy with the relinquisher.
2+ Statutes at Large, III, 566.
25 Ibid .. III, 612-614.
26 American Stat. Papers, IV, 795.
27 American State Papers, Lands, V, 513, 800.
55
THE PUBLIC LANDS
It would hardly have been considered honorable to bid against him for lands which were looked on as his by natural right. However, there were many sharpers who made it a business to prey upon those who had made improvements upon lands to which they did not have title. It was their practice to go to the interested party and threaten to bid against him unless he should make terms. An agreement was generally reached, and the settler had to pay the sharper about as much as he paid the Government for his lands.28
The same situation was faced by others than the relin- quishers. The more desirable areas in the State, accessible to river communication, were the first to be surveyed and sold. Later on, the more inaccessible areas were put on the market. Where men of small means had come into Alabama and settled upon desirable lands in the river regions, they were frequently unable to hold them when they were put up for sale at auction. It became necessary for these people to move out into the back country and start all over again, but the auctioneer in time came to them in their newer homes. Here, however, the situation was different. The speculative period was over after 1819 and lands would no longer bring
abnormally high prices. The back country tracts, being rel- atively inaccessible, would not command prices much above the statutory minimum, even though they were fertile, nor would a man's neighbor bid against him for lands which he had improved. Consequently, the settler in the hill dis- tricts would normally have been able to buy his improved land at a price close to $1.25 an acre had not the sharper at- tacked him in the same manner in which he attacked the re- linquisher.2" Land offices were established in Tuscaloosa and Conecuh Counties in 1820. and men who had not yet been call- ed upon to prove their titles began to fear that they would lose their homes in the competition of the sales. There is on rec- ord the case of a preacher in Conecuh County who was forced by swindlers to pay $37.50 an acre for the privilege of buying his lands without competition, but the fraud became known to the Government, the sale was canceled, and the preacher was able to buy in his land at the minimum price.3" Public auctions were more than once suspended because of the op- eration of swindlers.
28 Southern Advocate, May 19. 1826.
29 Smith, Pickens County, 42-44: Cuhawha Press, Oct. 29, 1821.
30 Riley, Conecuh County, 96.
.
56
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
.
In order to obviate such difficulties, it was strongly advo- cated in Alabama that the unsold lands be divided into classes and that each class be given a price according to its grade. Actual settlers.were to be allowed to enter their lands at the fixed prices and thus be assured in the tenure of their fields and their homes. This was especially urged in regard to the relinquished lands, and Alabama's representatives in Wash- ington worked for the adoption of the plan by Congress, but nothing came of their efforts.31 There was adopted, instead, an act which permitted those who had relinquished or forfeit- ed lands to repurchase them at a reduction of thirty-seven and a half per cent. on the original price."= This did not meet the situation, and the auction continued to stare the settlers in the face.
31 Alabama Legislature, House Journal, 1825, 96-97; American State Papers, Lands, IV, 529; Ibid., V, 380-382; Southern Advocate, April 28. June 23, Sept. 29, Oct. 6, 1826.
32 Statutes at Large, IV, 158-159.
CHAPTER VII.
AGRICULTURE
By 1820 Alabama had attracted a population of over 125,- 000, black and white, and of these the slaves made up thirty- one per cent. This was about the same proportion which had existed between the races in 1816 when Alabama was still a part of Mississippi Territory and contained but two widely- separated settlements. By 1830 the population had swelled beyond 300.000 and the per cent. of slaves had gradually risen from thirty-one to thirty-eight.1 So that during this period of rapid immigration and the planting of the cotton kingdom in the lower South, there were about two white men coming in for every slave that entered. If the whites averaged five to the family and the slaves ten to the master, but one family in four could have been of the slave-holding class.
Whereas, during this early period, the population was in- clined to spread over the face of the country, there was a striking segregation of the slave population into certain dis- tricts. In 1830 there was but one county in the State (Madi- son) with over 16,000 population, and but seven of the most barren had less than 4,000. The counties which attracted the heaviest population were those of the Tennessee Valley and those of the region of clay ridges which skirts the hilly district of the northeastern part of the State.
On the other hand, the slave population was very largely confined to the counties of the Tennessee Valley and to those lying along the navigable portions of the Alabama and Tom- bigbee Rivers. The river bottom lands were the most highly prized by the cotton planters because of their great fertility, but these were of limited extent, and recourse had to be had to the ridge lands lying along the courses of the rivers. It is notable that the prairie region, or Black Belt, which came lat- er to be so highly esteemed for cotton culture, was avoided by
1 In addition to the U. S. Census of 1820 and 1830. we have that tak- en by the Mississippi Territory in 1816 ( Am. State Papers, Misc., II,408) ; the census of Alabama Territory taken in 1818 ( Walker Papers) ; and those taken by the State of Alabama in 1824 ( Huntsville Democrat, Nov. 22, 1824), and 1827 ( Huntsville Democrat, Dec. 14, 1827).
58
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
the planters before 1830 because they had not learned how to master the difficulties of the sticky soil." In selecting his site, the planter had to consider communications as well as fertili- ty of soil; and continuity of fieldis also counted for something. All these factors combined to make the river valleys the slave sections of the State before 1830.
How soon cotton culture came to be an established industry in Alabama cannot be stated with accuracy. The staple is said to have been produced to some extent as early as 1772,3 and by 1807 it had come largely to supplant indigo in the agriculture of the Tombigbee region.+ It is fairly clear that the Georgians who came to Madison County in 1809 came for the purpose of planting cotton, and it is stated that the crop of that country in 1816 amounteri to ten thousand bales. Certainly by the time of the great immigration in 1817 and 1818 the, economic pros- pects of Alabama must have been clear to practically all who entered. Yet, Darby, in his Emigrant's Guide of 1818, states that extensive vineyards would be planted upon the dry slopes of the Alabama if ever anywhere in the United States, and that the olive would find a congenial soil upon the banks of the Alabama, Cahawba, Coosa, and Tallapoosa Rivers." That this view was seriously entertained at that time is proven by the attempt of the ill-fated colony of Napoleonic refugees to bring forth the grapes and olives of southern France on the banks of the Tombigbee in 1817. It was probably their failure which precluded further earnest attempts along that line, but when cotton prospects were gloomy, there were not want- ing those who would urge experiments with other crops. Grapes, sugar cane, and small grain were all suggested at dif- ferent times.` and limited experiments were made with each. But Alabama was to have but two predominant systems of ag- riculture : that of the planter who raised cotton, with corn as his subsidiary crop; and that of the small farmer who raised corn with cotton subsidiary.
2 This view is based partly on charts made from the tract books of Clarke, Montgomery. Dallas, and Perry Counties.
3 Pickett. History of Alabama, 325.
+ Ibid., 503.
5 Wyman, Geographical Sketch of Alabama in Alabama Historical Society, Transactions, III. 126.
6 Darby, Emigrant's Guide, 33.
: See Pickett's History of Alabama, Chap. XLV.
& Southern Advocate, July 1, 1825; Alabama Journal, Sept. 15, 1826; Mobile Register, Dec. 1. 1:27, Jan. 8, 1828. April 15, 1828, May 17, 1828.
Oct. 8, 1828; Southern Agriculturist ( from the Alabama Journal), I, 379.
59
AGRICULTURE
When the planter with money to invest and slaves to work decided to come out to Alabama, he often made a tour of in- vestigation, or at least wrote to friends in the new country asking for advice as to conditions. He could not afford to take unnecessary chances. He needed to know where good lands were located and what were the chances of buying at a fair price. The first Madison County lands to be disposed of were offered for sale at the Nashville land office, and the first lands sold along the upper Alabama were auctioned at Milledgeville, Georgia. Land offices were later established at Huntsville and Cahawba, in addition to the one which had been put in operation at St. Stephens at an early date, so that all but the very first sales in these districts were made within the State. Yet, it is unreasonable to suppose that many men with a planter's capital at stake would have sold out their old homes and moved westward without first having purchased their land.
Having arrived upon his new estate, it did not take the planter long to establish himself. With plenty of labor, the ground was soon cleared, or the first crop might be planted after the trees had merely been deadened by girdling. A house for the master's family was built of logs, and the routine of plantation life was resumed as well as the crude conditions permitted."
The log house, so typical of a frontier community, was not. an ephemeral thing. It remained the standard of domestic architecture in the more isolated sections and was sometimes adhered to from inertia or sentimental reasons by men who could easily have afforded more modern quarters. It was not long, however, before the average planter replaced his log structure with one of boards. The typical Southern "man- sion house," with its generous veranda and stately white col- umns, arose throughout the cotton region. Hodgson, on enter- ing the Montgomery district in 1820, was impressed by the fine appearance of the plantations,"" and Saxe-Weimar, traversing the same ground six years later, not only speaks in general terms, but comments upon the handsome dwellings.11
In general appearance, the homes of the Southwestern planters resembled those of the Virginia colonists. They
9 See Phillips, Negro Slavery, Chap. X, for an account of the west- ward movement of the cotton planter.
10 Hodgson. Letters from North America, I, 39.
11 Saxe-Weimar. I, 30-31.
60
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN ALABAMA
were white, two-storied buildings of classical proportions, with broad verandas and gigantic columns. But a different spirit showed itself in plan and execution. Instead of a well- knit structure with architectural finish, there was a rambling house with a suggestion of unnecessary space. The differ- ence, it would seem, was due primarily to the shaping influ- ence of the log cabin. The simple cabin, consisting of two rooms joined by a wide passage-way, having only a floor be- low and a roof above, accustomed the pioneer to architecture embodying generous open-air passages. The planter started his new career in such a house, but sometimes amplified it in- to a dwelling of from four to eight rooms, keeping to the same materials and method of construction throughout. Finally, when he came to put up his frame house, he followed the old lines of internal arrangement. Crossing the veranda with its tall columns, one entered a spacious hallway which served no particular purpose, but merely carried out the idea of the open passage between the rooms of the log cabin. The spa- cious rooms which flanked the hall on either side were almost invariably square and regular in design, just as they must have been had they been built of logs. And the plan upstairs was the same as below.12
But the plantation was much more than a house and lands; being, if it chose to be, largely independent of the outside world for its daily supplies, it was a community in itself. Grouped about the "mansion" were the barns, the smoke-house where pork was cured, the cotton gin and press, and the quarters for the slaves. Places were frequently advertised for sale in the early newspapers, and from these advertisements we get an interesting description of the equipment of a plantation in houses, barns, cattle, mules, swine, and slaves. 13.
12 This is the writer's interpretation of the facts, but the general idea is completely borne out by the following passage from Stuart's Three Years in North America. 11. 160: "The planters' houses in the southern states are very different in their mode of construction from those in the north. The common form of the planters' houses, and indeed of all hous- es that you meet with on the roadside in this country, is two square pens, with an open space between them. connected by a roof above and a floor below, so as to form a parallelogram of nearly triple the length of its depth. In the open space the family take their meals during the fine weather. The kitchen and the places for slaves are all separate build- ings, as are the stable, cow-houses, etc. About ten buildings of this de- scription make up the establishment of an ordinary planter, with half a dozen slaves."
12 Alabama Republican, Nov. 14, 1923; Chamba Press, Dec. 20, 182%. Jan. 7, 1826; St. Stephens Halcyon, May 1. 1820.
.... . ...
61
AGRICULTURE
Slaves were rated, according to their fitness, full, three- quarters, half, and quarter hands, and given tasks according- ly. Adding these fractions, a planter determined how many "full hands," or equivalents, made up his working force. A census of Madison County for 1819 gives nearly twelve acres of cleared land for every full hand, 1' and other evidences make it clear that each hand rated at full work was expected to cul- tivate five or six acres of cotton and an equal area in corn.15
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.