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    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country
    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country
    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country
    Ebook286 pages4 hours

    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country

    By Weymouth T. Jordan and Kenneth R. Johnson

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    Offers insights into important facets of Alabama’s ante-bellum history
     
    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country was written to give the reader insight into important facets of Alabama’s ante-bellum history. Presented in the form of case studies from the pre-Civil War period, the book deals with a city, a town, a planter’s family, rural social life, attitudes concerning race, and Alabama’s early agricultural and industrial development.
     
    Ante-bellum Alabama’s primary interest was agriculture; the chief crop was King Cotton; and most of the people were agriculturalists. Towns and cities came into existence to supply the agricultural needs of the state and to process and distribute farm commodities. Similarly, Alabama’s industrial development began with the manufacture of implements for farm use, in response to the state’s agricultural needs. Rural-agriculture influences dominated the American scene; and in this respect Alabama was typical of her region as well as of most of the United States.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity Alabama Press
    Release dateAug 26, 2014
    ISBN9780817388676
    Ante-Bellum Alabama: Town and Country

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      Ante-Bellum Alabama - Weymouth T. Jordan

      Judd

      PREFACE

      This little book relates to ante-bellum Alabama's social and economic developments. It deals with a city, a town, a planter family, rural social life, certain attitudes of white people toward Negroes, and Alabama's early crusade in behalf of agriculture and manufacturing. Its purpose is to present certain case studies with the hope that by bringing them together they will furnish an insight into some of the important facets of Alabama's late ante-bellum history. It is written for the scholar and the general reader.

      In town and country, pre-Civil War Alabama's leading interest was agriculture. Alabama's chief crop was cotton; most of her people were agriculturists; her towns and cities came into existence for the express purposes of furnishing supplies, credit and other services to farmers, in order to process and distribute farm commodities, and to manufacture articles for farm use. Rural-agricultural influences dominated the American scene; and in this respect Alabama was typical of her region as well as of most of the United States. An urbanized-industrial America was for the most part a thing of the future, although not of a too far-distant future.

      Research for this book was begun in the year 1938, and in one form or another, in addresses to various historical societies and in historical journals, some of the materials have been presented to listeners and readers since 1940. In their present form, the Chapters are the result of much additional research and writing. I have not hesitated to interpret my materials. It is my hope that the book will bring some pleasure to a wider audience than the one to which my addresses and papers were originally addressed.

      Many historians, archivists, librarians, historically-conscious Southerners, and others have aided me in gathering my materials. Persons who have been particularly helpful are the following: the entire staff of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, especially Mrs. Mary Livingston Aiken and Miss Frances Hails; staffs of other historical depositories from Washington to Texas; staffs of the Libraries of Vanderbilt University, Judson College, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Iowa State University, and Florida State University; the late Everett E. Edwards of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture; Malcolm C. McMillan of Alabama Polytechnic Institute; W. Stanley Hoole and James B. McMillan of the University of Alabama; and James A. Preu of Florida State University. Special encouragement has been rendered, as always, by my wife, Louise E. Jordan, and by three former professors, Hugh T. Lefler of the University of North Carolina, William C. Binkley of Tulane University, and the late Frank L. Owsley of the University of Alabama, all of whom, in their individual fields of activity, have no equals as far as I am concerned.

      Grants-in-aid have been received from the Social Science Research Council, the General Education Board, and the Research Council of Florida State University. I should like to thank each of these organizations for its assistance. I am also deeply grateful to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a fellowship which has freed me from my regular duties and allowed me the time needed to complete my writing.

      Weymouth T. Jordan

      Tallahassee, Florida

      July, 1957

      I

      METROPOLIS BY THE SEA

      Among the many factors affecting the rise of Mobile to a position of importance as an agricultural market place in the pre-Civil War period, the most significant were port facilities, accessible and navigable rivers, cotton production, and the population of the region in which it was located¹. For these reasons perhaps more than any others The city of Mobile has [had] the longest continuous existence of any settlement on the Gulf coast.² In an era when water was the chief means of transportation in the South the port attracted wide attention. Alabama, its significant hinterland, possessed more navigable river miles than any other state in the nation. And most of the rivers converged on Mobile. The city's economic significance and prosperity also resulted from a booming and increasing production of cotton in Alabama and adjoining states, for it was the place where most of Alabama's cotton was sold before 1861. Moreover, then as now, farmers and planters needed extensive supplies in order to conduct their operations, and in Mobile they found their supplies in large quantities, usually obtainable on credit. In these as well as other respects Mobile served their needs. However, the city's population grew slowly before 1820; but from that date to 1860 the number of inhabitants increased from about 1,500 to nearly 30,000. At the outbreak of the Civil War it was the only city in Alabama containing as many as 10,000 people. Other important towns in 1860 were Montgomery, 8,843; Tuscaloosa, 3,989; Huntsville, 3,634; and Selma, 3,177; but Mobile, with 29,259 people, overshadowed all other urban areas. Alabama's population of 964,201 looked to Mobile as its metropolis by the sea.³

      Mobile's rise to a place of economic eminence extended over many years. Established as a French outpost in 1702 at a place known as Twenty-seven Mile Bluff, the settlement is said to have attained in its first year a population of 139, consisting of 9 officers, 24 sailors, 2 couriers, 14 workmen, 64 Canadians, and 26 soldiers.⁴ It was moved to its present site in 1711 and the next year became the seat of government of the Louisiana Province. That important position was maintained until 1720. Before the middle of the eighteenth century Mobile was in this and other ways superseded by New Orleans as the most important locality in the Gulf area. The future Alabama metropolis remained the chief trading center of the Muskogee Indians of its region, however, and its population increased to a respectable 300 or slightly more during this period.⁵ While under British control, from 1763 to 1783, Mobile was laid out in town plan. It annually shipped skins and furs valued at 12 to £15,000 to London,⁶ and a report was submitted to the Crown, in 1772, predicting that the Alabama River valley in Process of time must Indubitably become a fine Settlement not Inferior by itself to any Province now known.⁷ Such a development might indeed have taken place shortly if the American Revolution had not come, for West Florida was, after all, the first British colony within the present boundaries of the United States west of the line of the Appalachian Mountains and possessed many attractions for settlers.

      In 1785, during the period of Spanish rule, Mobile had 746 inhabitants, and three years later it claimed nearly 1,500.⁸ A traveler in the area in 1791 predicted even greater growth, prophesying from its Locality [it] must ‘ere long surpass Pensacola, in Population, Trade and Buildings. He added that the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Tombigbee and Mobile River valleys were being settled "by Corn, Hemph and Tobacco-Makers, who will have a nearer and better Navigation to Mobille [sic] than to Pensacola-add to this the Peltry-Trade, which will trebly exceed that of Tensocala [sic], . . . being nearer to the Hunting-Grounds from whence they may have Water-Carriage, except at one or two places, where a slight portage will be necessary.⁹ However, these predictions did not immediately materialize, for Mobile was later described as being in 1804 a city of West Florida, formerly of considerable splendor, but now in a state of decline."¹⁰

      West Florida, after its many trials and vicissitudes, finally became United States territory during the administration of President James Madison. Events, as far as Mobile was concerned, immediately speeded up considerably and noticeably: the town, consisting of less than 300 people, came into American hands in 1813;¹¹ West Florida petitioned the United States Congress to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Mississippi, which had been created in 1798; that request was granted; and the Mississippi Territorial Legislature, in January, 1814, incorporated the so-called President and Commissioners of the Town of Mobile.¹² At about the same time there arrived in the Mobile area an enterprising gentleman named T. L. Hallett. Besides merchandize for an extensive business he brought along several frames of houses with workmen ready to erect them. Hallett first went to Blakely, a nearby town on the east bank of the Tensas River, but so extravagant were the views of the lot owners, that he was induced to come to Mobile, where he settled, and became a very influential, active, and enterprising merchant. Hallett is credited with having given prepondence to Mobile over Blakely and should probably be considered as the town's outstanding citizen during its early formative years under United States control. In 1846, according to one traveler's description of Blakely, Its beautiful hills, crowned by gigantic live oaks, refreshed by perennial springs of delicious water, are left to the enjoyment of the solitary keeper of a public house, who can solace himself with the occasional visits of the traveler.¹³ On the other hand, in Mobile the assessed value of real estate amounted to $198,000 as early as

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