USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I > Part 4
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The French renewed their intrigues in the Mississippi valley. The English began investigation of the conditions for an invasion from Canada a year before war was declared against that country by Spain, in the fall of 1796. It evidently appeared to Godoy that he had yielded the American demands to no purpose, and he deter- mined to disregard the treaty, at least as long as surrender of the posts would seem to invite invasion by the frontiersmen of Ken- tucky and Tennessee, under the influence of such intrigue as the Blount conspiracy.
See Henry Adams, U. S., I, 350-51.
Another important fact to be remembered is that before the United States commissioner arrived at Natchez to survey the line yielded by Spain, Governor Carondelet had an agent working in Kentucky to secure the erection of a government in the west, in- dependent of the United States and under the protection of Spain, with the general in command of the United States army at the head of it. As Carondelet had sent $10,000 with this proposition to General Wilkinson, it is a reasonable inference that he desired to know the results before surrendering the Spanish dream of do- minion up to the Ohio, and east to the Alleghanies. Power had been instructed to tell the Kentucky people regarding the treaty
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Ellicott came to fulfill, that "it may be confidently asserted, that His Catholic Majesty will not carry the above mentioned treaty into execution." The Spanish agent did not return until late in 1797, or in January, 1798, with news that the Spanish cause was hopeless. At that time Carondelet had gone to Quito and was succeeded by Gayoso.
In his speech to the Fourth Congress, at its opening in Decem- ber, 1796, President Washington said: "The treaty with Spain required that the commissioners for running the boundary line between the territory of the United States and His Catholic Ma- jesty's provinces of East and West Florida, should meet at the Natchez, before the expiration of six months after the exchange of ratifications, which was effected at Aranjuez on the 25th day of April; and the troops of His Catholic Majesty occupying any posts within the limits of the United States were, within the same pe- riod, to be withdrawn. The commissioner of the United States, therefore, commenced his journey for the Natchez in September ; and troops were ordered to occupy the posts from which the Span- ish garrison should be withdrawn. Information has recently been received of the appointment of a commissioner on the part of His Catholic Majesty, for running the boundary line; but none of any appointment for the adjustment of the claims of our citizens whose vessels were captured by the armed vessels of Spain."
On May 24, 1796, the President had appointed Andrew Ellicott, of Philadelphia, commissioner for running the line, and Thomas Freeman, of the District of Columbia, as surveyor. Ellicott was considered to be the ablest man in the United States for this work, since the death of Thomas Hutchins. He did not leave Philadelphia until September 16, 1796, possibly because of the unprecedented low water in the Ohio river. He could not get away from Pittsburg un- til October 24, when he was accompanied by a party of woodsmen and a military escort of twenty-five men of the Second United States infantry, under Lieut. John McClary, of a New Hampshire family of Revolutionary officers. The expedition started out with four boats, one of them the special boat used by General Wilkin- son. Practically the six months had expired before Ellicott was able to start from Pittsburg. Day after day they had to stop to repair the boats, damaged by dragging them through the shoals. When he reached Cincinnati, a month later, he was told that no other boats had come down from Pittsburg since the preceding August, and the season was then so far advanced that no others could be reasonably expected. "Our success," Ellicott wrote in
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his journal, "was owing to the number of people we had with us, and whose quiet submission to unusual hardship does them .great credit." December 18 they reached the mouth of the Ohio. Lieu- tenant Taylor was then at New Madrid, where he had taken a letter from General Wayne, who wrote from Detroit, October 19, regarding the execution of the treaty. Colonel DeLassus, the commandant, wrote his reply, on the same day that Ellicott reached the mouth of the Ohio, that he was advised to permit the commissioner and his guard to go down, but the posts could not be evacuated until the season of high waters, and the troops sent to Fort Massac for that purpose should be accordingly delayed, "on account of the river being so remarkably low as to render its navigation very dangerous." It does not appear that Ellicott had any information of this. Three days later both rivers were filled with ice. The store boat, following, was caught in the ice packs, run to land at the mouth of the Wabash, and the stores un- loaded. As the party waited at the confluence of the great rivers, they were joined by Philip Nolan, who had some boats in the ice at Fort Massac, on the Illinois side below the mouth of the Ten- nessee river. He agreed to accompany Ellicott and gave him in- formation "relative to the situations, and characters, of the prin- cipal inhabitants of Natchez." Nolan was the confidential agent of General Wilkinson, but Ellicott did not know it, it appears.
The boats were collected as the ice went out, and the party started again February 1st. Immediately, on going down the Mis- sissippi, they were made aware of Spanish opposition. The first day out they arrived at the station of a Spanish galley. The com- mandant was very polite, but informed Ellicott it would be proper to remain at his station till next morning. Next day, reaching the Spanish post at New Madrid, they were greeted with a salute of artillery, and entertained with great courtesy, but the command- ant requested Ellicott to remain two or three days, and finally divulged that his order from Governor Carondelet, dated in the previous November, was to detain the Americans till the posts were evacuated, which could not be effected until the water should rise. Ellicott argued that the order could not apply to him, for he had nothing to do with the posts, besides, to detain him would be in violation of the treaty. The commandant yielded to the argument, that now, at least, the waters had risen, and gave his departing guests another salvo of artillery, after detaining them two days, and probably getting off an express to the lower posts. Chickasaw bluffs was reached February 8. Here the Spanish commandant
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was polite, but "somewhat embarrassed." He inquired if the `of- ficer at New Madrid had not received despatches lately from the governor-general; ordered the military escort to land on the other side of Wolf creek from the fort, and brought two armed galleys into that stream, separating Ellicott and his troops. Nolan scented danger and advised the astronomer to hide his suspicions and de- pend on him for information, "but the utmost caution will be neces- sary, both for your success and my own safety." Leaving there on the 10th, they were brought to and detained an hour on the 15th by Colonel Howard, an Irish officer in the Spanish service, com- manding two armed galleys. It was, of course, concealed from Ellicott that Howard was on his way to St. Louis to strengthen the fortifications, and that the Spaniards were preparing to guard the river by armed galleys against a British invasion they feared from Canada. They were doubtless ready to believe Ellicott him- self was a forerunner of this dreaded invasion. Their own policy was such that they would imagine treachery everywhere, and in fact, it was made known to the world, in a few weeks after this, that Senator Blount, of Tennessee, former governor and Indian agent, was implicated at this time in a conspiracy to capture Nat- chez, aided by British forces.
At Walnut Hills, the most important military station yet reached, Ellicott's boats were greeted, not with a salute, but a dis- charge of artillery aimed to bring them to, though they were mak- ing for the landing with as much expedition as possible. The com- mandant here played the game of ignorance; had never heard of such a treaty, and read the copy that Ellicott furnished him with apparent interest. Ellicott had hardly left here on the 22d, when a canoe from the fort overtook him, with a message from Governor Gayoso, at Natchez, which had been sent up by land. Gayoso wrote that he had been informed by "some gentlemen that left you at the mouth of the Ohio," that he was approaching, attended by a military guard and some woodsmen ; he was pleased at the oppor- tunity to meet him, but-"Though I do not conceive that the least difficulty will arise respecting the execution of the part of the treaty in which you are an acting person, yet as we are not pre- pared to evacuate the posts immediately for want of the vessels that I expect will arrive soon, I find it indispensable to request you to leave the troops above the mouth of Bayou Pierre, where they may be provided with all their necessaries, which you can regulate on your arrival here. By this means every unforeseen misunderstanding will be prevented between His Majesty's troops
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and those of the United States; besides, it is necessary to make some arrangements previously to the arrival of the troops, on which subject I shall have the honor of entertaining you when we meet. I embrace this opportunity to assure you of the satisfaction I feel in being appointed to act in concert with you, though your first interview is to be with the general-in-chief of this province. I have the honor to be with the highest consideration, Sir, your most humble servant, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos."
Ellicott and Nolan, for the latter was important enough, through chance, to be considered as the diplomatic adviser of the party, saw that for some reason, unknown to them, they were confronted, not by the execution of an amicable treaty, but by a carefully dis- guised state of war. They decided to throw the offensive upon their Spanish friends until they could investigate the situation at Natchez, and landed the guard at Bayou Pierre. There Ellicott and Nolan visited an old friend of the astronomer's, Col. Peter Bryan Bruin, a planter, who gave them much information about the situation and agreed to go on to Natchez in one of Nolan's boats, to assist, but not to be seen with Ellicott until after the latter had met the governor. The comment by Mr. Claiborne, in his History of Mississippi, is that this appeal to a friend and an American in a time of danger, was a trick which showed Ellicott "unfit for the society of gentlemen", and that Bruin was "grossly deceived and bamboozled by the artful Quaker." This is a curious misapprehension of the situation.
The United States flag was first raised in the Natchez district, at the mouth of Bayou Pierre, by a little guard of American sol- diers, on the evening of February 22, 1797, the birthday of George Washington, and in the last fortnight of his administration as president. It had required eight years of war and diplomacy un- der his unwavering and steadfast leadership, to unfurl the flag at Detroit and Natchez.
(See Transition Period. Authorities, Amer. State Papers, Elli- cott's Journal, Gayarre's Louisiana, Adams' U. S. History, etc.)
Agency, a post-hamlet in the southeastern part of Oktibbeha county, situated on Folsom creek, about 10 miles southeast of Starkville, the county seat. Population in 1900, 30.
Agnes, a post-hamlet in the southeastern part of Perry county, 10 miles south of the Mobile, Jackson & Kansas City R. R., and 14 miles southeast of New Augusta, the county seat. Population in 1900, 23. It has several stores, a church, and a good school. The population in 1906 was estimated at 100.
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Agriculture. Agriculturally the State has several regions. The northern part, east of the Yazoo river and delta, west of the Prairie Region, and far enough south to include parts of Madison, Hinds, Scott, Newton, Kemper and Lauderdale, is known as the Yellow Loam Region, the soil being a brownish-yellow loam of varying depth, from a few inches to several feet, underlaid by loose sand on a basis of red hardpan. There are many very rich river and creek bottoms, originally timbered with oak, hickory, walnut, ash, pop- lar, elm, maple, etc., with ridges timbered with oak, hickory, dog- wood and chestnut, and some sandy ridges of pine. The soil is well adapted to the growth of cereals, vegetables and grasses as well as cotton. The bottom lands are good for a bale of cotton per acre. The eastern strip of the State, far enough south to include part of Kemper county, is known as the Prairie Region, which in war times was called the granary of the South. The soil is largely underlaid with rotten limestone, and is rich and very productive. Cotton, clover, cereals and grasses and fruits are remunerative crops. Bordering these vast areas on the south is the Central Re- gion, which produces fine crops of cotton, corn, oats and sugar cane, and seems to be the favorite home of the peach and straw- berry. Further South is the Long-Leaf Pine Region, in which the great forests yet engage the labor of many sawmills. Here the soil, though light and sandy, repays industry. (See Geology.) The well defined area known as the Delta has a rich, dark, alluvium soil, made by the overflow of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers and their tributaries. Here is the home of the gigantic cypress, and various trees native to a moist soil. Protected by dikes, the bot- tom lands in this region produce immense crops of cotton and corn, unequalled by any other region in the world. The Bluff Region, south of the Delta, is historically identical with Natchez District, and has been famous for two centuries for its delightful and healthy contour, its magnificent natural trees, and a brownish loam soil of great fertility.
The Bluff region was the home of some agriculture in the begin- ning of the eighteenth century. There also were the original plan- tations of the Territory and State. Parts of the Central and Yel- low Loam regions, and the Tombigbee region, were opened up by later treaties with the Indians. It was not until after 1835 that the middle northern part of the State began to be settled, and the Delta region was not generally available until made so by the levees after 1850.
In the French period, before the Natchez massacre, "some large
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grants of land were made near Natchez and on the Yazoo ostensi- bly for the cultivation of tobacco and indigo; but although some 'large plantations with extensive improvements' were established near the former place, it does not appear that anything beyond the spoils of the chase, or the peltries procured by traffic with the In- dian tribes, was exported from the country." When the colonists came in fifty years later, under the West Florida government, agri- culture was really begun. "Indian corn, wheat, oats, rye, rice and potatoes, cotton flax, tobacco and indigo, were almost universally cultivated, but rarely if at all for exportation." The scarcity and high price of iron, and the want of such agricultural imple- ments as are now known, were characteristic of this period. Cut nails were not yet invented, and wrought iron nails cost a dollar a pound. Tools and all implements were very high priced, owing to freights. "The voyage from New Orleans to Natchez, made by keel-boats and barges, required several weeks." A set of plough irons were of great value. Wagon wheels were made of transverse sections of logs, and wagon framework was made of cane. Flax was raised for shoe thread and such uses, and in some families linen was made. The black or naked seed variety of cotton was raised from the earliest occupancy by the English. The seeds were picked out by hand, or separated by a small roller gin. The cotton was spun and woven at home, and dyed with indigo and wild plants, to make the clothing of the colony. Rice was an important article of diet, because of the want of flour, and for the same rea- son the planters put up with bread made from Indian corn, pound- ing the grain as the Indians did, in wooden mortars.
In 1797, the staple commodity of the Natchez district was cot- ton (q. v.), "which the country produces in great abundance and of a good quality." The making of indigo (q. v.) and raising to- bacco (q. v.) were carried on with spirit some years ago; but they have both given way to the cultivation of cotton. The country produces maize, or Indian corn, equal, if not superior to any part of the United States; the time of planting it is from the beginning of March until the beginning of July. The cotton is generally planted in the latter end of February and the beginning of March. Rye has been attempted in some parts and raised with success; but wheat has not yet succeeded. Apples and cherries are scarce, but peaches, plums and figs are very abundant. The vegetables of the middle states generally succeed there. The sugar cane has been attempted in the southern part of the district, near the boun- dary ; I have not heard with what success; but from Point Coupie,
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down to the gulf of Mexico, it answers at present better than any other article; and sugar has within a few years past become the staple commodity of that part of the Mississippi. A variety of oranges, both sweet and sour, with lemons, are in great plenty on that part of the river. Many of the planters are indus- trious and enjoy life not only in plenty but affluence, and generally possess the virtue of hospitality, which never fails to impress the stranger and traveler with a favorable opinion of the country and its inhabitants. The horses are tolerably good many of them have been taken wild on the west side of the Mis- sissippi. I found the cattle in the settlement of Natchez but little inferior in size to those of the middle states. They are extremely numerous, and it is not uncommon for the wealthy planters to possess from one to two hundred head, and sometimes more. The cows yield much less and poorer milk than those of the northern states. The mutton of the country is well
tasted. . . The hogs are but little, if anything inferior to those of any part of the United States." (Ellicott's Journal.)
According to the census of 1850, there were about 3,500,000 acres of the State, about one-third its area, improved. The cash value of farms was estimated at $55,000,000. The cotton crop was 485,- 000 bales of 400 pounds; Indian corn, 22,500,000 bushels; sweet potatoes, 4,750,000 bushels; wheat, 138,000 bushels; oats, 1,500,000 bushels ; rice, 2,720,000 pounds; value of live stock, $19,400,000.
Hilgard discussed the soils of the State exhaustively in his great report of 1860, also described the almost universal custom of rob- bing the soil. He said that when he suggested to planters to haul to their fields some near-by marl, or apply the manures carelessly wasted, they "would turn up their noses in contempt of such old- fashioned commonplace advice, and perhaps remark that whenever their cultivated land gave out there was plenty more to be had; and as for manuring, it was too troublesome and would never pay ;" yet he would not attribute such sentiments to the majority of the planters, or even to a large part of them. Still the sentiment, and the policy of robbing the soil, regardless of the fate of the fol- lowing generations, was prevalent. He said: "Even the present generation is rife with complaints about the exhaustion of the soils-in a region which, thirty years ago, had but just received the first scratch of the plowshare. In some parts of the State, the deserted homesteads and fields of broom-sedge, lone groves of peach and China trees by the roadside, amid a young growth of forest trees, might well remind the traveller of the descriptions
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given of the aspect of Europe after the Thirty- Years' war. Even now, the rich prairies, the garden spots of Mississippi, are giving out under the operation of the same pernicious system; lands which, six years ago, could have been bought at $30 per acre, are now offered at $6. The capital of the agriculturist is the fer- tility of the soil, of which he ought to use the interest, but with- out seriously diminishing the principal." Of rotation of crops, he said: "In the South the one great object is, or has been, to raise the one staple, cotton. Of late years, the disadvantage of import- ing all our provisions from other States having become too mani- fest, corn has been planted more plentifully. Field peas, oats, sweet potatoes and some wheat, completed the list of crops. There was no rotation attempted except between cotton and corn. Cot- ton as a crop, when nothing but the lint is actually exported, is one of the least exhausing crops known." The great remedy for soil exhaustion, said Dr. Hilgard, was to restore the seed and stalks to the soil. "We cannot afford to feed cotton-seed to our cattle, unless we keep them at home, and manure the cotton fields. We cannot afford to sell our cotton-seed to the oil-manufacturer, un- less we take back at least the oil cake, and if possible the hull also. Yet it was a common practice with planters in the Mississippi bot- tom to dump the seed in the bayous." A later authority, after the establishment of oil mills, says: "A ton of cotton-seed meal is considered as valuable as at least three tons of the seed for fer- tilizing. If farmers simply have the oil pressed out of their seed, the establishment of oil mills will increase their profits; but if they part with the meal, and do not apply it as a fertilizer, the mills will do a great harm rather than a benefit."
"While it is a matter of the last importance that we should avail ourselves to the fullest extent, of such stable manure as a sound policy will enable us to obtain as a collateral product, the doctrine of cattle raising for the sake of the manure is based upon a fallacy ; and a consistent adherence to it will slowly, but inevitably lead to bankruptcy of any agricultural community," was another observa- tion of Hilgard's.
In an address before the Agricultural and Mechanical associa- tion of Carroll and Choctaw counties in the fall of 1870, Col. L. Q. C. Lamar said the emancipation of the slaves had revolutionized Southern farming. It had converted what before was capital into a never-failing and clamorous claimant for profits. The planter must therefore capitalize his own manhood and intelligence. This he could do in three principal ways: by diversification and rota-
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tion of crops, by the use of labor-saving machinery, and by the higher cultivation of a few acres. By diversifying crops a most appalling waste of values would be prevented.
Governor Alcorn made an investigation of six counties in 1870, and found that comparing 1870 with 1860, there was a decrease in cotton production of 63 per cent, a similar reduction in corn and swine, and 70 per cent in the value of lands. But the basis of wealth remained, and the restoration to be effected was "mainly in the establishment of order and the elevation of labor." In the same counties the amount of wages paid out for the crop of 1869 was $1,355,203, from which he estimated the annual wages of the State at eleven or twelve millions.
By the census of 1860, Mississippi was shown to be the thirteenth State in the value of lands, and the eighth in per capita wealth. In 1870, she was the eighteenth State in population and forty-sixth in per capita wealth, one of the territories being the only political division reporting a lower per capita wealth. The main factor in the change was the transfer of the negro population, which exceeds the white, from the category of property to that of persons counted in estimating the per capita wealth.
In 1870 the census put the cash value of farms at $81,716,000; of implements and machinery, $4,450,000 ; number of acres improved, 4,200,000. The cotton crop was 565,000 bales; Indian corn, 15,- 637,000 bushels; sweet potatoes, 1,743,432 bushels; oats, 414,000 bushels ; rice, 374,627 pounds ; value of live stock, $29,940,000; value of all farm products, $73,000,000. From that first "after the war" estimate agriculture has grown to its present dimensions, as shown by the census of 1900.
But these possibilities were for a long time obscured by the at- tractiveness of cotton as a cash crop. One of the Indiana experi- menters in 1875 wrote: "You could not induce a negro to raise grass. The idea of raising grass would be to him simply ridiculous. He has been all his life trained to exterminate it, and nineteen- twentieths of the whites never raised it." This man, after experi- menting two years, declared that there was no reason why clover should not be grown, if it were given a fair trial. But some of the theories of newcomers were modified by experience.
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