Iron Pots

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
References to praying in a pot, like those heard by Ruby Pickens Tartt in Sumter County, Alabama, [1] appeared in 58 slave narratives collected between 1936 and 1938 by employees of the Federal Writers’ Project. [2] Most of the memorats were recorded in Arkansas (22), North Carolina (11), Alabama (7), Tennessee (5), and Texas (5).

Nine of the individuals said they were born before 1850, which means they could have participated in prayer meetings. Another 27 were born after that date, and either heard about the practice or remembered it from Civil War and Reconstruction times. [3] Josh Horn, quoted in the post for 22 September 2019, knew about the pots even though they weren’t used on his plantation. [4] They may have been a topic of discussion when freedman met after the war.

Nearly everyone believed the pots were used to use to dampen sound waves so outsiders wouldn’t hear their voices. [5] Minnie Fulkes specified the concern was "paddy rollers" in Petersburg, Virginia. [6] Henry Green suggested the practice continued after the war when the Ku Klux Klan took over the functions of the slave patrols in Montgomery, Alabama. [7]

The memorats were remarkably consistent for an activity that occurred in a number states over several generations. Most said they were "praying" (17) or "singing and praying" (19). Those who were young during the Civil War remembered they prayed for freedom. [8] Emma Barr [9] and Charles Hinton [10] specified this occurred during the Civil War in Arkansas and North Carolina. Those born after the war tended to be among the six who mentioned "shouting."

Those born before 1850 sometimes said they were wash pots, [11] but more often individuals simply used the term "pot." Those born later were more specific. Ella Washington said they used "de great big hog pot dey uses to scald hogs." [12] John Hunter remembered they were "big old iron pots." [13]

Most said the pot was turned upside down at the door. Only one remembered it being placed in the middle of the room. [14] A few tried to reconcile the idea of singing or praying into something that was inverted. Henry Cheatam [15] and Emma Tidwell [16] said the voices went under the pot. Will Glass thought there was a hole under the pot for the head. [17]

All the interviewed African-Americans were at least two generations removed from Africa. [18]

The practice may have been introduced by individuals who came from a single cultural area, but was accepted by others because it fit their own, different, religious needs. The purpose may have been so obvious to participants that it didn’t need stating. In the resulting information vacuum, their descendants may have created their own reasons for perpetuating the ritual.

George Rawick thought the use of the pot might have been borrowed from the Yorùbá who placed pots in their shrines to the river gods. [19] His explanation is internally consistent, but does not explain why the pots ware set on their rims. It also does not accord with the demographics of slavery. The map below shows the natal counties of the people who said they had used pots in religious meetings.

The large clusters in northern North Carolina and northern Tennessee may have been a result of the activity of the Federal Writers’ Project in Raleigh and Nashville. Keeping that in mind, many of the reports were from areas settled by small farmers from Virginia who took their slaves with them, or later bought them from speculators disbursing chattel purchased in Richmond. That would make the southern neighbors of the Yorùbá, the Igbo, just as likely to have been the fountainhead. [20]

The Igbo were metal workers centuries before the Yorùbá. The earliest known Igbo religious site has been dated to the ninth century;[21] the Ife bronzes associated with the Yorùbá are believed to have been created in "the late 12th or early 13th century." [22]

Nothing is known of their origin. [23] Judging by the date, the Igbo may have been fleeing subjugation by some regional power. [24] Their priest, the Eze Nri, was associated with introducing the yam. [25]

John Jaynes suggested that early peoples had direct contact with gods who spoke directly with them, but when a severe crisis occurred that resulted in migration and new eating patterns, individuals lost their immediate contact with the supernatural. They turned to oracles who communicated with gods at specific locations. [26] The Igbo priest had direct contact with the oracle called Chukwu. [27]

The Eze Nri was responsible for restoring the purity of the land, and adjudicating conflicts. He did not believe in slavery, which corrupted the earth, and did not establish a political or military state. [28] Bassey Andah noted bells were "a primary symbol of rank and power" for important individuals. [29]

The identity of the Igbo oracle varied over time. Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa said "the Awka blacksmiths, who worked at markets and settled all over Igboland and the Niger Delta, spread the influence of the Agbala oracle." [30] Excavations at one site dated to 1491 unearthed 15 iron gongs and cast bronze bells. [31]

The Portuguese established trade on the lower Niger river in 1485. [32] Soon after, the Onitsha formed a stronger social organization that may have borrowed elements from the Yorùbá of Benin. Chiefs were surrounded by malevolent spirits because they were responsible for killing others or ordering warfare. [33] Whenever they or their representatives traveled, a herald preceded them ringing a bell to drove away the evil spirits. [34]

When English traders reached the Niger river delta in the 1690s, [35] the Igbo were taken as slaves. In the early 1700s, the Aro invaded [36] and offered an alternative oracle, Arochukwu. The Aro priests used their powers of adjudication to sell the people they condemned to the Europeans. As mentioned in the post for 8 September 2019, the Igbo were the largest group of slaves taken to the Chesapeake between 1718 and 1750.

Inverted iron pots may have been as close to bells as slaves could acquire. Instead of evil spirits, they may have been used to protect against outsiders. Less literally, the substitute bells may have been used to define a safe space. Once in place, they may have functioned in other ways for some participants.

Any cultural attributions are speculation at best: the sample of American narratives was created by "pure happenstance." [37] African facts still literally are being unearthed. We know the Igbo and Yorùbá were neighbors in Africa who exchanged cultural elements. Such overlaps may have facilitated the acceptance of practices that may have been central to one and familiar enough to another. [38] By the 1930s, individuals who shared an activity remembered it from the perspective of their unique cultural heritages, and thus what might once had been a fairly uniform African-in-America activity reflected the diversity of the African-American experience.

Graphics
The original map is from the United States Census Bureau. Abe Suleiman uploaded a copy to Wikimedia Commons on 7 February 2010.

End Notes
1. Tartt’s narratives were quoted in the post for 22 September 2019.

2. George Rawick oversaw the publication of the WPA narratives by Greenwood Publishers of Westport, Connecticut, in The American Slave in the 1970s. The Project Gutenberg website since has posted the originals. I searched each of the on-line versions for the word "pot" to arrive at the sample used in this post. The following references cite volumes of A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941.

3. Twenty-two narratives did not provide age or birth date information.

4. Josh Horn comments about the pot were not included in WPA interview, but in a essay by Tartt published by the Southwest Review in 1949. [39]

5. Only two ascribed a religious purpose: Georgiana Foster [40] and Julia Malone [41] said it was done so the Lord could hear. William Ball Williams III [42] and Wade Owens [43] said the same technique was used to protect dances.

6. Minnie Fulkes was born in Petersburg, Virginia. Volume XVII: Virginia Narratives. "Paddy rollers" was a common term for the slave patrols. The patrols were mentioned in the post for 8 September 2019.

7. Henry Green was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.
8. Praying for freedom was mentioned by eight.

9. Emma Barr was born in Madison County, Arkansas. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 1.

10. Charles Hinton was born in North Carolina. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.

11. For instance, Robert Wilson was born in 1836 in Halifax County, Virginia, [44] while Anderson Edwards was born in 1844 in Maryland. [45]

12. Ella Washington was born in 1852 in Saint Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 4.

13. John Hunter was born in 1864 in Halifax County, North Carolina. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.

14. Emma Barr.

15. Henry Cheatam was born in 1850 in Clay County, Mississippi. Volume I: Alabama Narratives.

16. Emma Tidwell. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 6.
17. Will Glass was born 1887. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 3.

18. Fannie Moore was the only one to indicate her grandmother came from Africa. Volume XI: North Carolina Narratives, Part 2.

19. George P. Rawick. From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, Press, 1972. 42. He was drawing on research by William Bascom. [46]

20. The Igbo were mentioned as the source for slaves in Virginia in the post for 8 September 2019.

21. Thurstan Shaw excavated three sites at Igbo-Ukwu. Carbon-14 dates from "wood from a copper-studded stool in the burial chamber fell in the time range from the eighth century to the early eleventh century, and three determinations from charcoal in the disposal pit belonged to the same period; another from the same source, however, fell into the late fourteenth/early fifteenth century." [47]

22. "Ile-Ife." Encyclopædia Britannica website.

23. Ogonna Chibuzo Agu. "An Examination of the Nri-Igbo Concept of CHI in the Light of Oral Traditions." PhD diss. University of London, October 1990. 8.

24. The Ghana Empire flourished to the northwest beginning around 700. [48] The Kanem became a regional power in the area of Lake Chad in the 700s. [49] Adiele "Afigbo himself is of the view that the Igbo people might have migrated from the area around the Niger-Benue trough [50] that goes from the Niger river to Lake Chad. [51]

25. M. Angulu Onwuejeogwu. An Igbo Civilization: Nri Kingdom and Hegemony. London: Ethnographica, 1981. Cited by Agu 11. Agu does not provide page references.

26. Julian Jaynes. The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990 paperback edition. His ideas were introduced in the post for 13 March 2019.

27. Agu commented on the difficulty of early religious beliefs after they have been described by individuals who were Christians or trained by Europeans. [52] He quoted Donatus Nwoga who wrote: "the Europeans came and ‘baptised’ Chukwu and turned him from an oracle into the Supreme God." [53]

28. Thurstan Shaw. "The Guinea Zone: General Situation." 461–487 in Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. Edited by M. El Fasi. Paris: UNESCO, 1988. 477. "The most important part of his function was in connection with the yam crop and the fertility of the land, and was concerned with removing ritual pollutions after taboos had been broken and in settling disputes."

29. B. W. Andah. "The Guiñean Belt: The Peoples between Mount Cameroon and the Ivory Coast." 488–529 in Fasi. 520.

30. E. J. Alagoa. "Fon and Yoruba: The Niger Delta and the Cameroon." 434–452 in Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Edited by B. A. Ogot. Paris: UNESCO, 1992. 448–449.

31. Andah. 522. His sources were D. D. Hartle, "Bronze Objects from the Ifeka Gardens Site Ezira," West African Archaeological Newsletter 4:1966, 26; and, D. D. Hartle, "Radiocarbon Dates," West African Archaeological Newsletter 9:73:1968.

32. Richard N. Henderson. The King in Every Man. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 44.

33. Henderson. 319–320.

34. Henderson. 320. The belief bells could calm or warn off evil spirits is similar to the Roman Catholic ones mentioned in the post for 9 December 2019. Like some of the beliefs mentioned in the post for 13 March 2019, the faith in the power of bells may have survived from a much older pan-Mediterranean culture.

35. Hugh Thomas. The Slave Trade. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. 363.

36. Agu. 13. "The history of the Aro people, and their growth as a State is but a recent phenomenon, having been founded at the rise of the slave trade in about 1700 A.D. as Onwuejeogwu would have it." Agu added "One core of the normadic Aro groups must have migrated from Akunakuna, an area around the Cameroon mountains."

37. Rawick. xviii. In addition to the problems with self-selection mentioned by Rawick, each state handled the Federal Writers’ Project in its own way: Arkansas collected 694 narratives, while Louisiana did not participate.

38. Sterling Stuckey described a similar cultural convergence around Columbia, South Carolina. He believed a tale about a buzzard king who tricked his people into slavery and who, after his death, was condemned to wander the Earth as an animal referred to an Aro priest. However, he said the Yorùbá also thought it was their oral tradition. [54] His source was a version recorded by Edward C. L. Adams, a physician whose ancestors had owned slaves in Richland County. [55]

39. Ruby Pickens Tartt. "Alice." Southwest Review 34:192–195:1949. Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 103.

40. Georgiana Foster was born in 1861 in Wake County, North Carolina. Volume XI: North Carolina Narratives, Part 1.

41. Julia Malone was born in Caldwell County, Texas. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 3.

42. William Ball Williams III was born in 1839 in Greensburg. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 7.

43. Wade Owens was born in 1863 in Virginia. Volume I: Alabama Narratives.
44. Robert Wilson. Volume II: Arkansas Narratives, Part 7.
45. Anderson Edwards. Volume XVI: Texas Narratives, Part 2.

46. William Bascom. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.

47. Shaw. 480.
48. Wikipedia. "Ghana Empire."
49. Wikipedia. "Kanem-Bornu Empire."

50. Agu. 8. He was citing Adiele Afigbo. "Prolegomena to the study of the Culture History of the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria." In Igbo Language and Culture. Edited by Frederick C. Ogbalu. Ibádan: Oxford University Press, 1975. 36.

51. Wikipedia. "Benue Trough."
52. Agu. 2.

53. D. I. Nwoga. The Supreme God as Stranger in Igbo Religious Thought. Ihiazu Mbaise, Nigeria: Hawk Press, 1984. Cited by Agu. 92.

54. Sterling Stuckey. Slave Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 edition. 2–4.

55. Edward C. L. Adams. Tales of the Congaree. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1927. Biographical information from the press’s website for the 1987 edition edited by Robert G. O’Meally.

Antebellum Sumter County Religion

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Lives of Sumter County slaves were circumscribed by Alabama’s state laws. The French Code Noir already was in effect when Mobile was founded. It required slaves be baptized in the Roman Catholic church, [1] and did not allow slaves owned by different men to meet. [2]

When the British took over, they required Negroes carry passes to prove they weren’t runaways. While baptism was permitted, it no longer was encouraged. [3]

The informal prohibitions against slave mobility were codified in the Slave Code of 1833. It was illegal for "more than five male slaves, either with or without passes, to assemble together at any place off the proper plantation to which they belong." [4] Patrols were authorized to hunt for runaways, and a bounty was paid to any white who found a Black hiding in wild lands. [5]

The Alabama law was passed two years after Nat Turner’s rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. Teaching Negroes to read became illegal, [6] and no Black was allowed to preach unless "five respectable slave-holders" were present. [7]

The 1852 code made it mandatory for all able-bodied white men to participate in slave patrols at least once a week. [8] The patrols had the right to enter any plantation to look for slaves visiting without passes. [9]

The consequences of these laws were remembered by former slaves interviewed by Ruby Pickens Tartt in 1937 and 1938. Bettie Tolbert was born in Virginia and a slave on Abner Scarborough’s plantation. [10] She told Tartt:

"No’m, us didn’t go to school none no time, nor learn nothin [11]
. . .
"No’m, us never had no corn shuckins, ’cause Marse Abner was a precher and didn’t alow nothin sinful goin on." [12]

Only a few suggested their masters believed slaves should be exposed to Christianity. Amy Chapman was born in Virginia and a slave on Reuben Chapman’s plantation. [13] She told Tartt:

"Us warn’t learned to read and write, but Mr. Jerry Brown’s slaves were. [14] He owned a big plantation. Us didn’t go to no nigger church, ’cause there warn’t none. I was baptized in Jones Creek, and Dr. Edmonds, a white preacher, joined me to the Jones Baptist Church long before the war." [15]

Few plantation owners allowed slaves to congregate. As a consequence, slaves had to be discrete and practice what they called "praying easy." They all mentioned using iron wash pots to muffle the sounds. For instance, George Young, who was born on the same Chapman plantation, said:

"They didn’t learn us nothin and didn’t allow us to learn nothin. If they catch us learning to read and write, they cut us hand off. They didn’t allow us to go to church, neither. Sometimes us slip off and have a little prayer meetin by usselves in a old house with a dirt floor. They’d get happy and shout and couldn’t nobody hear ’em, ’cause they didn’t make no fuss on the dirt floor, and one stand in the door and watch. Some folks put their head in the washpot to pray, and pray easy, and somebody be watchin for the overseer." [16]

Oliver Bell was born in 1860 [17] on Trezevant DeGraffenried’s plantation, [18] "nine miles west of Livingston." [19] Before the Civil War,

"when they had the prayer meetins they shut the door so won’t let the voice out, and they turn the washpot down at the door—some say to keep it in." [20]

Angie Garrett was born in DeKalb, Mississippi, and was owned by Johnny Mooring. [21] She remembered:

"Us warn’t allowed to learn nothin; sometimes us sing and have a little prayer mettin, but twas mighty easy and quiet-like." [22]

A few people mentioned religious practices that weren’t conducted under fear of discovery. Josh Horn made the difference clear.

"Me and her [his wife Alice] didn’t neither one have no book learnin ’cause us come along in slavery time and warn’t ’lowed to have no school then. But us was all ’lowed to pray, and didn’t never have to stick us heads in the washpot and pray easy, like plenty black folks did. Marse Ike [23] was good ’bout that; twas an old house with a dirt floor in the quarters where us could go and wouldn’t disturb nobody when us got happy and shouted." [24]

Maria White didn’t mention slavery practices because she was too young to remember. She described what her mother sang after emancipation with the term "jumpy up" that suggested something about their use.

"That’s just a jumpy-up song, Miss, one that ain’t in the book, but it’s a cute one, and there’s a heap more of them verses but I’m busy as a cat and I can’t recollect them right now. But here’s a old-time Negro song my mammy used to sing when I was a child after surrender." [25]
. . .
"That’s a pretty one, Miss; Mammy used to get happy when they sang that one." [26]

["Dat’s jes’ a jumpy-up song, Miss, one dat ain’t in de book, but hit’s a cute one, en dey’s a heap mo’ dem verses but I’m busy as er cat and I can’t recollect ’em right now. But here’s a ole-time nigger song my mammy useter sing when I was a chile atter S’rrender.]
. . .
["Dat’s a pretty one, Miss; Mammy use ter git happy when dey sung dat one."]

White lived "’bout ten miles dis here side of Cuba Station on Mr. John Matthew’s place" [27] along a creek southwest of Livingston. Her examples of jumpy-up songs were religious ones that resembled spirituals.

End Notes
Ruby Pickens Tartt’s slave narratives from 1937 and 1938 have been republished in the following collections:

Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981.

Alan Brown and David Taylor. Gabr’l Blow Sof’. Livingston, Alabama: Livingston Press, 1997.

Key words in quotations that relate to ring shouts and other common religious practices are in boldface.

1. Wikipedia. "Code Noir." Article 2.
2. Code Noir. Article 16.

3. Clayton E. Jewett, John O. Allen, and Jon L. Wakelyn. Slavery in the South. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. 3–4.

4. Ron. "Alabama’s Slave Laws Relating to Speech and Assembly." US Slave website. 12 June 2012. None of the official Alabama links to the code were functioning when I tried them.

5. "Selections from Alabama’s Laws Governing Slaves." City University of New York. American Social History Project website.

6. James Benson Sellers. Slavery in Alabama. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1950; reprinted in 1990. 117.

7. Ron.
8. "Alabama Slave Code of 1852." Constitution Reader website. Item 990.
9. Alabama Slave Code, 1852. Item 992.

10. Abner Rasberry Scarborough was a Baptist minister who moved to Sumter County from Edgecombe County, North Carolina. [28] Tom Blake did not include him in his list of men who owned many slaves in 1860. [29]

11. Bettie Tolbert. "Lost to the Refugee Wagons." 127–139 in Brown and Owens. 137.
12. Tolbert. 138.

13. Reuben Chapman was discussed in the posts for 1 September 2019 and 15 September 2019.

14. Jeremiah H. Brown’s father was born in England, and served as a Baptist minister in Darlington, South Carolina. As mentioned in the post for 15 September 2019, Jeremiah was the largest slave holder in Sumter County in 1860. He supported Baptist institutions in Alabama and provided his slaves "with good churches and white preachers on Sunday, and saw that they had a reasonable amount of instruction and religious training." [30]

15. Amy Chapman. "The Masters Good but Overseers Mean. 128–129 in Brown and Owens. 128–129.

16. George Young. "Peter Had No Keys ’ceptin His." 120–122 in Brown and Owens. 121.
17. The 1870 Census for his father said he was ten-years-old. [31]

18. Trezevant’s immigrant ancestor, Christoph von Graffenried, founded the Swiss colony of New Bern, North Carolina, in 1709. [32] The Tuscarora took him captive, and released him only when he agreed to make no settlements without their permission. He returned to Switzerland, [33] and Trezevant’s great-grandfather moved to Virginia. [34] Trezevant’s father moved to Union County, South Carolina. [35] Trezevant, himself, was a doctor who left Sumter County for Mississippi sometime after the war. [36] Blake did not include him in his list of men who owned many slaves in 1860. [29]

19. Oliver Bell. "That Tree Was My Nurse." 134–137 in Brown and Owens. 134.
20. Bell. 134.

21. Johnny Mooring may have been the John Mooring who was living with his son, James Ashley Mooring, in northern Sumter County near Gainesville in 1860. [37] They moved there from Edgecombe County, North Carolina. [38] Their immigrant ancestor, John Mooring, was a tanner transported from England to the Virginia colony before 1652. [39] Blake did not include either in his list of men who owned many slaves in 1860. [29]

22. Angie Garrett. "Turned Lose without Nothin." 140–142 in Brown and Owens. 141.

23. Isaac Wood Horn moved to Sumter County from North Carolina and settled in Brewersville, south east of Livingston. [40] His family had been in Edgecombe County since the late 1600s. [41] Blake did not include him in his list of men who owned many slaves in 1860. [29]

24. Ruby Pickens Tartt. "Alice." Southwest Review 34:192–195:1949. Reprinted by Brown and Owens. 103. Bracketed comment added.

25. Maria White. "Jumpy-up Songs and Songs in de Book." 103–105 in Brown and Taylor. 104.

26. White. 105.

27. White. 103. Jonathan Matthews owned 152 slaves in 1860. [29] I found nothing more about him.

28. Edgecombe County was mentioned in the post for 2 February 2020.

29. Tom Blake. "Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." Ancestry website.

30. T. A. Deland and A. Davis Smith. From Northern Alabama, Historical and Biographical. Birmingham: Smith and Deland, 1888. 219.

31. Amy Caddell. "Edmund DeGraffenreid Bell." Find a Grave website. 15 September 2017.
32. The New Bern colony was discussed in the post for 19 January 2020.
33. David Reese. "Christoph DeGraffenried." Find a Grave website. 2 October 2010.
34. David Reese. "Christopher DeGraffenried." Find a Grave website. 2 October 2010.
35. David Reese. "Christopher Kit DeGraffenried." Find a Grave website. 11 August 2012.

36. meet Virginia. "Dr Trezevant DeGraffenried." Find a Grave website. 22 Feb 2009. Updated by David Reese. Tartt spelled it Tresvant DeGraffenreid. [134]

37. Fran. "James A. Mooring." Find a Grave website. 18 July 2009.

38. Charles Avis. "James Ashley Mooring (abt. 1820 - 1874)." Wikitree website. 31 October 2018; last updated 19 November 2018.

39. Charles Avis. "John Mooring (bef. 1652 - aft. 1703)." Wikitree website. 14 November 2018; last updated 16 November 2018.

40. Fran. "Isaac Wood Horn." Find a Grave website. 17 July 2009. Updated by Elizabeth Hughes Hagwood. Confirmed by Robert Gordon Horn. "Descendants of William Horn." Genealogy website. Last updated 13 April 2003. 33

41. Robert Gordon Horn. 17.

Antebellum Sumter County

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Ruby Pickens Tartt did not identify the sources for her version of "Come by Here." He or she may have been one of the people born before the Civil War whom she interviewed for the Federal Writers’ Project in 1937 and 1938. [1]

Most often the people who talked with Tartt referred to their former owners by their first names, like Marse Abner. [2] Occasionally they used a last name as a place name in a way that indicated it was familiar to all: Oliver Bell said he was "born on the DeGraffenreid place." [3]

About half the last names they mentioned did not appear in Tom Blake’s list of plantation owners who reported at least forty slaves in the 1860 census. [4] That means they were possessed by men like Tartt’s mother’s ancestor, Hiram Chiles, who had smaller holdings. [5]

Some lived on plantations with middling-sized quarters. Charlie Johnson said he was "born ere on Whitefield place." [6] R. H. Whitefield claimed 51 bondsmen in 1860. [7] Laura Clark said "Mr. Garrett" was the one who brought her from North Carolina. [8] In 1860, the estate of R. W. Garrett reported 92 chattel. [9 ] She remembered his overseers as bad. [10]

The only ones who lived on a larger plantation were Amy Chapman [11] and George Young. [12] They indicated they were owned by the former governor, Reuben Chapman. [13] His overseers were remembered as particularly brutal; one raped Amy. [14]

Before the war, cotton was sent down the Tombigbee river where commission agents like Tartt, Stewart [15] handled the sale. [16] They filled much the same role as Henry Laurens had in Charleston before the American Revolution. [17]

Tartt was told other, more ruthless men also brought people to Sumter County. Adelle Lemon said her grandmother was a free-born mulatto in North Carolina who was kidnapped and sold in Alabama. [18] Carrie Pollard said her aunt likewise was born free in North Carolina, snatched, and sold in Sumter County. [19]

Some local plantation owners went east themselves to find slaves. Laura Clark said Mr. Garrett bought ten children, including herself, in North Carolina. [20] Amy Chapman remembered Reuben Chapman returned to his native Virginia to buy her mother in Petersburg and her father in Richmond. "They was drove down to Alabama like cattle." [21]

Others who told Tartt about their origins mentioned locations, but didn’t elaborate. Ank Bishop said his mother was "brought out from South Carolina in a speculator drove" and sold to Liza Larkin. [22] Oliver Bell only talked about his family born "on the DeGraffenreid place," [23] but his daughter said his mother, her grandmother, was sold from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, when she was a teenager. [24]

There also was local traffic between Sumter and neighboring counties in Mississippi. Carrie Pollard said her mulatto aunt’s husband and children were sold in DeKalb while she was midwifing a white birth. [25] Angie Garrett reversed the path: he was born in DeKalb and sold to someone with a steamboat on the Tombigbee "’cause the property was in debt." [26]

Nettie Henry and her mother were sent to Meridian, but her father was owned by someone else. She remembered:

"Then his folks just kinda went to Texas, I don’t know exactly except maybe it wasn’t so healthy for them around Livingston. They didn’t go to the War or nothing." [27]

["den his folks jus’ kinda went to Texas, I don’ know why zactly ’cep’ maybe it warn’t so healthy for ’em ’roun’ Livingston. Dey didn’ go to de War or nothin’."]

Henry gave more details about her mother:

"The Chile’s place was at Livingston, Alabama, on Alamucha Creek. That’s where I was born, but I just did get borned good when Miss Lizzie—she was Marse Chile’s girl—married John C. Higgens and moved to Meridian. Me an my mother and my two sisters, Liza and Temp, was give to Miss Lizzie." [28]

["De Chil’s place was at Livingston, Alabama, on Alamucha Creek. Dat’s where I was born, but I jus’ did get borned good when Miss Lizzie—she was Marse Chil’s girl—married Marse John C. Higgins an’ moved to Mer-ree-dian. Me an’ my mammy an’ my two sisters, Liza an’ Tempe, was give to Miss Lizzie."]

This Chiles may have been a distant cousin of Hiram’s. Hiram’s grandfather had a number of children, as well as several brothers. Elizabeth Chiles Higgens [29] had a daughter [30] who married Nathaniel Abney Chiles. At one time, his father, Henry Chiles, lived in the county north of Sumter and west of Maregno. His mother, Elizabeth Fluker, spent time in Livingston. [31]

End Notes
1. Her work for the Federal Writers’ Project was discussed in the post for 23 January 2019. Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens republished some of her slave narratives with a biographies of Tartt and some of the individuals she interviewed. Alan Brown and David Taylor also reprinted some of the interviews, along with biographical details on the individuals interviewed.

Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981.

Alan Brown and David Taylor. Gabr’l Blow Sof’. Livingston, Alabama: Livingston Press, 1997.

2. Bettie Tolbert. "Lost to the Refugee Wagons." 127–139 in Brown and Owens. 137.
3. Oliver Bell. "That Tree Was My Nurse." 134–137 in Brown and Owens. 134.

4. Tom Blake. "Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." Ancestry website.

5. Hiram Chiles was discussed in the posts for 23 January 2019 and 1 September 2019.

6. Charlie Johnson. "Reckon You Might Say I’s Just Faithful." 130–132 in Brown and Owens. 130.

7. R. H. Whitefield claimed 51 slaves in 1860 according to Blake. [4]
8. Laura Clark. "Children in Every Graveyard." 123–126 in Brown and Owens. 123.
9. The estate of R. W. Garrett reported 92 slaves in 1860 according to Blake. [4]
10. Clark. 123.

11. Amy Chapman. "The Masters Good but Overseers Mean. 128–129 in Brown and Owens. 128.

12. George Young. "Peter Had No Keys ’ceptin His." 120–122 in Brown and Owens. 120.
13. Reuben Chapman was mentioned in the post for 1 September 2019.
14. Ruby Pickens Tartt. "Amy Chapman’s Funeral." 79–83 in Brown and Owens. 80.

15. John Paul Campbell. The Southern Business Directory and General Commercial Advertiser. Charleston: Press of Walker and James, 1854. Advertisement for Tartt, Stewart, and Company, 37. Tartt’s husband’s father, Thomas Morrison Tartt, worked in his uncle’s commission house in Mobile before the war. [32]

16. Wikipedia. "Cotton Factor."
17. Henry Laurens was discussed in the post for 13 January 2019.

18. Adelle Lemon. "My Grandmammy Fancied Her Butler." 139–140 in Brown and Owens. 139.

19. Carrie Pollard. "A Husband Couldn’t Be Bought." 132–133 in Brown and Owens. 132.
20. Clark. 123.
21. Amy Chapman. 128.
22. Ank Bishop. "Gabriel Blow Soft! Gabriel Blow Loud!" 126–128 in Brown and Owens. 126.
23. Bell. 134.
24. Daughter of Oliver Bell, Bernice Johnson. Quoted in Brown and Taylor. 8.
25. Pollard. 132.
26. Angie Garrett. "Turned Lose without Nothin." 140–142 in Brown and Owens. 140–141.
27. Netty Henry. "Meridian, Mississippi." 55–59 in Brown and Taylor. 55.
28. Henry. 55.
29. Mary Taylor. "Elizabeth Chiles Higgins." Find a Grave. 31 May 2017.
30. Mary Taylor. "Annie Elizabeth Higgins Chiles." Find a Grave. 20 April 2016.

31. "Nathaniel Abney Chiles, 1853 - Circa 1924." My Heritage website. This website agglomerates information and seems less reliable than most. The birth dates given for Nathaniel’s parents were before there was settlement in the areas where it indicated they were born.

32. T. A. Deland and A. Davis Smith. "Thomas Morrison Tartt." From Northern Alabama, Historical and Biographical. Birmingham: Smith and Deland, 1888. 233.

Alabama’s Slaves

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
The origins of Alabama’s slaves are more obscure than those of owners, like the ones mentioned in the post for 1 September 2019. The French founded Mobile in 1702, [1] and imported their first shipload in 1721. [2] Gwendolyn Midlo Hall found the Compagnie des Indes exported Bambara through its station in the Sénégal river. [3]

The British held Mobile as part of West Florida from 1763 until 1780, when the Spanish captured Florida Occidental. [4] During the time the Spanish held New Orleans, they imported slaves from Sénégal-Gambia and the Nigerian coast. [5] When the British held the city, slaves were brought from the parts of Senegambia it controlled. [6]

During, and immediately after, the American Revolution, British supporters were forced out of South Carolina and Georgia. While some, like the fathers of Thomas Spalding and Alexander William Wylley, went to East Florida, [7] others went west and settled north of Mobile in what now is Washington County. [8]

Congress banned the import of African slaves when it organized the Mississippi Territory in 1798. It then included northern Alabama. [9] Mobile wasn’t acquired until the War of 1812 when it was seized by United States forces. [10]

Slaves either were brought by their owners or were purchased from traders. Since it generally was agreed no owner parted with a good slave, the state outlawed "the importation of slaves for sale or hire" in 1826. [11]

Attitudes began changing in the 1830s when cotton acreage and profits increased. In 1842, the state changed course and used the internal trade to raise money by selling licenses to traders. [12] By then, Richmond, Virginia, had emerged as the wholesale hub. [13] Speculators, who purchased slaves in large lots, either took them by ship to Mobile or drove them south like cattle. Montgomery replaced Mobile as the largest retail slave market in Alabama. [14]

Interviewers for the Works Progress Administration between 1936 and 1938 asked individuals born into slavery where they had been born. [15] Most, 72 of the 129, were from Alabama or the contiguous sections of Georgia (13) and Mississippi. (9) Of the 13 who were born in Virginia, six said they were sold to speculators. Two of the four from North Carolina had been sold to traders, as were three of the four from South Carolina.

Origins of Slaves Interviewed by the Alabama WPA
Yellow - Ruby Pickens Tartt’s Sumter County
Red - Counties where former slaves were born
Blue - Counties where parents of former slaves were born
Purple - Counties where former slaves or their parents were born; Richmond is enlarged

Only one person, Esther King Casey, mentioned a parent or grandparent who was from Africa. [16] However, nine said one of their parents was from Virginia and three mentioned South Carolina.

More than likely the ancestors of the Virginia slaves had been Igbo. Between 1718 and 1726, 60% of the captives taken to Port York "came from the Bight of Biafra (the Ibo area)." [17] From 1826 to 1750, more than 40% of the slaves shipped to the Chesapeake came from the Bight of Biafra east of the Niger River mouth. After that, more came from Senegambia. [18]

Graphics
The original map is from the United States Census Bureau. Abe Suleiman uploaded a copy to Wikimedia Commons on 7 February 2010.

End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "History of Mobile, Alabama."

2. James Benson Sellers. Slavery in Alabama. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1950; reprinted in 1990. 4.

3. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Africans in Colonial Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. 41, 43–44.

4. Wikipedia.
5. Hall, Louisiana. 284.

6. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. 93–94.

7. For more on their fathers, see the post for 2 June 2019.
8. Sellers. 16.
9. Sellers. 15.
10. Wikipedia.

11. Sellers 174. Hall quoted the French Minister of Maritime who, in 1708, wrote: "the inhabitants of America in general, French as well as English, do not part with their blacks unless they know them to be bad and vicious." [19]

12. Sellers. 177.

13. Kimberly Merkel Chen and Hannah W. Collins. "The Slave Trade as a Commercial Enterprise in Richmond, Virginia." National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Multiple Property Documentation Form. 25 July 2006; updated 9 April 2007. Section E.

14. Sellers. 154.

15. George Rawick. A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume 1, Alabama Narratives. Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project. Washington: Library of Congress, 1941. Ruby Pickens Tartt, mentioned in the post for 23 January 2019, was one of the interviewers.

16. David Elred Holt included his memories of Louis, whose ancestors had been born in Guinea. It was taken from his unpublished Old Plantation Days. Holt was "a native of Buffalo Plantation, near Natchez, Mississippi."

17. Elizabeth Donnan. Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade in America, IV, The Border Colonies and the Southern Colonies. Washington, D. C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1933. Cited by Allan Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. 321. Ibo is a simplified pronunciation of Igbo.

18. Hall, Ethnicities. 137. She analyzed the shipping manifests in The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database. [20]

19. Hall, Louisiana. 57, 182.

20. David Eltis, David Richardson, Stephen D. Behrendt, and Herbert S. Klein. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Alabama Cotton

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
When arable land grew scarce in Georgia and South Carolina men looked beyond the Appalachians, but were inhibited by conflicting state, federal, and international land claims. After Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from France in 1803, he proposed building a postal road to connect Georgia with New Orleans. Work began in 1810, and the route was redesigned by the army in 1822. [1]

In the first four months, while it still was being built, 3,726 moved west over it. [2] Lydia Parrish reported one traveler on the Federal Road remembered "he was never out of sight of a long line of immigrants" when he was traveling east. [3]

The first lands settled in Alabama were the familiar red clays in the northern part of the state around Huntsville in Madison County. Many of the earliest settlers came south from Tennessee. [4] They soon were joined by families and single men from east of the mountains. [5]

Ruby Pickens Tartt’s father’s family was typical of this wave of settlers. [6] William Henry Pickens was a Huguenot who moved from France to Ireland to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. [7] His grandson Joseph, moved from Pennsylvania to the Ninety-six district in South Carolina. [8] Tartt’s great-grandfather, Joseph William Pickens, relocated to Madison County. [9]

The Black Belt opened in 1816 [10] after the Choctaw ceded lands in the Treaty of Fort Stephens. [11] Cotton was grown for the first time around Montgomery in 1818, although the acreage was limited until 1825. [12] Wilcox County, mentioned in the post on the Oak Grove Church, [13] reported its first crop in 1820. [14]

Speculators became involved as soon as lands were opened because they had resources to buy large tracts to resell. The elimination of the National Bank in 1811 and the use of paper currency to finance the War of 1812 encouraged them. [15] A group who had migrated to Georgia after the Revolution became particularly active in the Black Belt. A class division developed with wealthy men owning better land, and poorer men relegated to the red clays. [16]

The western most part of the Black Belt containing Sumter County was still in Choctaw hands when Andrew Jackson was elected in 1828. The state immediately asserted ownership, and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 reified their actions. The Choctaw were forced to vacate by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. [17] Cotton was grown in the county that summer, [18] even before the Choctaw left in the winter. [19]

The Tombigbee river marked the eastern border of the county. It not only provided a way to move goods to and from Mobile, but the most desirable soils were the first and second bottoms along the rivers, code 4 on the map below. They were like the bend in the Alabama river mentioned in the post for 10 February 2019.

The next best land abutted the bottoms and smaller streams. It mostly was "undulating to rolling uplands." The acreage, marked 2 on the map, had fertile soils good for general crops. That was where Tartt’s mother’s family moved after the Choctaw were removed. [20]

Hiram Chiles came from Caroline County in Virginia to settle around Livingston. [21] Reuben Chapman was born in the same county a few years later, [22] and moved to Madison County in 1824 where he practiced law. He entered politics in 1832, and spent most of his time in Huntsville, supported by his Sumter County plantation [23] located "five miles north of Livingston." [24]

"Rolling, rough and broken uplands," code 1, divided the river drainages. The other areas, code 3, were "gently undulating to gently sloping uplands."

The Panic of 1837 lead to an economic depression that lasted from 1839 to 1844. [25] Land ownership must have been consolidated as the poor lost their lands or left. The white population fell from 13,901 in 1840 to 7,369 in 1850, while the number of slaves increased from 6,036 to 14,881. [26]

Exacerbating farmers’ problems was the cotton worm, which first appeared in 1846 and became a menace between 1849 and 1855. [27] The moths could go through three generations in a single season. [28] The females began laying their eggs on plants in the black lands, then moved outward. [29] The earliest moths destroyed foliage, but the later ones, which coincided with the flowering of the cotton plants, decimated crops. [30]

The moths flew north from Brazil when conditions were right, [31] and there was little cotton growers could do. [32] Those with money may have purchased new seed varieties that had been bred to resist a soil fungus common in Mississippi. [33] By the 1830s, a seed industry had developed in the South that advertized its products in local newspapers and specialist publications like the American Cotton Planter. [34]

Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode suggested these hybrids solved another problem confronting growers, the fact they could grow more than they could pick. The selections had bolls that were easier to remove on stems that often were taller. As a result the productivity of laborers, slave and free, quadrupled. [35]

The white population in Sumter County fell again before the Civil War to 5,919 whites in 1860 while the number of slaves rose to 18,116. [36] The largest owner, Jeremiah Brown, moved from Darlington, South Carolina, in 1834 with at least 60 slaves. [37] He settled in Sumterville, between Emelle and Boyd, where he grew corn, oats, and cotton on 4,600 of his 8,966 acres [38] with 540 slaves in 1860. [39]

The men with the next largest numbers of chattel in the 1860 census were John E. Brown [40] with 180 and William Jones with 176. [41] Chapman reported 106 in the county. Chiles and Pickens had too few to be listed among the patroons. [42]

Maps
1. Flondin. "Alabama Counties Map." Wikipedia Commons. 13 December 2006.

2. G. A. Swenson, et alia. "Sketch map showing topographic divisions of Sumter County." Soil Survey of Sumter County, Alabama. Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, May 1941. 3. The Livingston soil was classed as Cahaba Fine Sandy Loam and described as an "excellent agricultural soil" on page 25.

End Notes
1. Kevin Harrell. "Federal Road in Alabama." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 22 December 2010; last updated 7 July 2014.

2. Harrell.

3. Lydia Parrish. Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands. New York: Creative Age Press, 1942. Reprint edition, Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1992. 94.

4. J. Mills Thornton. "Broad River Group." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 26 March 2007; last updated, 29 August 2016.

5. Wikipedia. "Alabama Fever."
6. Tartt was introduced in the post for 23 January 2019.
7. "William Henry Pickens." Wikitree website. 10 March 2011.
8. "Joseph Pickens." Ancestry website.
9. Liz Nelan. "Joseph William Pickens + Salina Brazelton." Nelan/Pickens website.
10. Thornton.

11. Greg O’Brien. "Choctaws in Alabama." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 18 June 2007; last updated 23 January 2017.

12. John Henry Comstock. Report Upon Cotton Insects. Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, 1879. 380.

13. Oak Grove was discussed in the post for 10 February 2019.
14. Comstock. 380.
15. Wikipedia. "Panic of 1819."

16. Thomas Chase Hagood. "Territorial Period and Early Statehood." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 23 May 2008; last updated, 13 February 2017.

17. Greg O’Brien. "Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830)." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 2 April 2013; last updated 28 May 2014.

18. Comstock. 381.
19. O’Brien, Treaty.
20. The post for 23 January 2019 had more on Chiles.
21. Hiram Chiles was born in Caroline County, Virginia in 1794. [43]
22. Reuben Chapman was born in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1799. [44]

23. John Mayfield. "Reuben Chapman (1847-49)." Encyclopedia of Alabama website. 13 May 2008; last updated 30 September 2014.

24. Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens. Toting the Lead Row. University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981. 157.

25. Wikipedia. "Panic of 1837."
26. Willis Brewer. Alabama. Montgomery: Barrett and Brown, 1872. 626.
27. Comstock. 51.
28. Comstock. 442.
29. Comstock. 429.
30. Comstock. 442.
31. "Alabama argillacea." Bayer Crop Science website.

32. The pest was controlled in the 1870s when the USDA began recommending "the use of Paris green or other arsenical compounds" in the 1870s. [45]

33. The Rot first appeared in Mississippi in 1811. [46] The Phymatotrichopsis omnivora (Duggar) Hennebert fungus lives in the soil where it can survive for years. [47]

34. Paul W. Rhode. "Biological Innovation without IPRs: Cotton Breeding in the Antebellum American South." Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, annual conference, July 2012.

35. Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode. "‘Wait a Cotton Pickin’ Minute!’ A New View of Slave Productivity." University of California, Davis, website. April 2007.

36. Brewer. 626.

37. T. A. Deland and A. Davis Smith. Northern Alabama, Historical and Biographical. Birmingham: Smith and Deland, 1888. 219. Brown owned "more than sixty field hands and a very large tract of land" when he graduated from South Carolina College in 1823.

38. James Benson Sellers. Slavery in Alabama. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1950. 34.

39. Sellers. 33. He was identified as Jeremiah H. Brown in official publications. The census taker make have abbreviated his first name. Tom Blake listed him as Jerrett Brown. [48]

40. John E. Brown’s name appeared in documents from the period, but none gave any information about him.

41. The entry read: "JONES, Wm. Jr., J. J. Wendham agent for." This suggests he was an absentee owner. [49]

42. Tom Blake. "Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." Ancestry website.

43. "Hiram Chiles." Ancestry website.

44. "Chapman, Reuben, (1799 - 1882)." Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress website.

45. W. D. Hunter. The Cotton Worm or Cotton Caterpillar. (Alabama argillacea Hubn.) Washington: United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology, 18 May 1912. 2.

46. J. F. H. Claiborne. Mississippi, as a Province, Territory, and State. Jackson: Power and Barksdale, 1880. 41.

47. S. R. Uppalapati, C. A. Young, S. M. Marek, and K. S. Mysore. "Phymatotrichum (Cotton) Root Rot Caused by Phymatotrichopsis omnivora: Retrospects and Prospects." Molecular Plant Pathology 11:325–334:2010. Abstract.

48. Blake.
49. Blake.