Friday, November 28, 2008
Abstract: Early Black Farmers on the Island
In 1882, in a northwest Mississippi town, three brothers, sons of a former slave and in fact former slaves themselves, purchased three hundred and fifty acres. This achievement, which took place nineteen years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, is tied to the fact that in that same year, this slave and his children left the Mississippi county where they had been held in bondage and traveled to a contraband camp in the Mississippi River off of Memphis, Tennessee. At the camp for refugees, the elder's desire to become a farmer met with a charge given Superintendent of Freedmen in the western district, John Eaton of New Hampshire, later chaplain of the 27th Ohio. Eaton's legacy is tainted by the claim that he coerced masses of blacks to sign labor contracts, a precedent to sharecropping, yet the case of this one particular slave and his progeny provides proof that Eaton found a way to create farming opportunities for at least some blacks. Freedman's Bureau records, pre-bureau records, and Eaton's own words further support the idea that under his leadership blacks farmed on the island before the end of the war.
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2 comments:
I am confused, was the Williams directly connected to Eaton? If so how and how can it be proven. So are u saying that in 1863 this slave is a Williams and worked on the contraband camp in Mississippi. What info do u have of the contraband camp in Mississippi.
Sorry for confusion.
No. John Eaton, an educator and religious figure, from Ohio was placed over the camps in Tennessee by General U. Grant.
The camp to which Grandfather Daniel and his children traveled (from Marshall County, MS) was in Memphis of off of Memphis anyway. (There was an earlier camp in Corinth, Ms as well but there is no reason to believe that they were at that camp at any point. Possible but not probable.)
Eaton is remembered unfortunately only for sending masses of blacks to work (under contracts) on plantations, but what I have discovered is that he found ways to create farming opportunities for blacks who were ready.
This bit of information is important for at least two reasons: (1) it is positive, and (2) it changes slightly our perception of the slave's condition granting him/her a degree of agency.
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